The Stranger's Long Neck by Gerry McGovern

Author:Gerry McGovern
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
ISBN: 9781408134290
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

JOHAN FROM LITHUANIA

Never underestimate the ability of some people to ignore the blatantly obvious and instead spot and fervently defend the utterly obscure. Web management should be first and foremost about establishing general rules, and then and only then, dealing with the exceptions. If you manage based on exceptions you will drive yourself to despair and your Web site to ruin.

“You can’t delete that!”

“Why not?”

“Johan needs it.”

“Johan who?”

“Johan from Lithuania.”

“Who?”

“Johan from Lithuania who’s married to Isabelle from Italy and who’s just broken both his legs. He needs that content. We have to keep that page up for Johan.”

There is something in us that is attracted to the unusual. I suppose we become bored with the ordinary. Maybe we assume that the frequently asked question was answered well enough already. But the infrequently asked question, ah, now that’s a challenge. And shouldn’t our purpose be to answer all questions, to not leave Johan out in the cold?

The Web is littered with good intentions. There is a webpage that answers—or at least attempts to answer—every question that was ever asked, and many that weren’t. And this is the crux of the matter. How do you manage all this stuff? How do you make sure it works, that it helps people solve tasks? How do you keep it up to date?

There is an even greater problem. Every time you add, you add complexity. Adding the answer to one question can make it harder for someone to find the answer to another. As the volume of content increases so too does the complexity, and the magic search engine will not always sort it out. Let’s say your Web site has answers for questions A, B, C, D, and E. Question A gets 80% of the demand. Question E has a somewhat similar title to Question A, but has a very different answer. So 20% of the people who want an answer to Question A end up on the page for Question E. They get the wrong answer and they leave very frustrated.

Did you hear about the death of the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)? If you remember the Web from the early days, then you might remember that the FAQ was everywhere. It’s largely extinct now, and I think I know why.

The FAQ was diligent, upright, honest, and hard working (if somewhat balding). One night it was walking home from work. It was late, as usual. It was dark and it was raining, and the FAQ had to pass through an unsavory part of town. Suddenly, it was grabbed from behind, dragged down an alley and beaten to death by a bunch of good-for-nothing infrequently asked questions. That’s what happened to the Frequently Asked Question.

As the causes of dissatisfaction at Microsoft Excel were investigated it became clear that some content was just getting in the way.

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