Blog
03.15
Live from SXSW Interactive: Are You Trying to Seduce Me, Internet?
Just before Jared Spool began his fantastic presention of treasures from Amazon.com, I bought Erica a turkey sandwich and a Snickers. Erica is a vegetarian and the Snickers would not have been friendly to her blood sugar. It was quite the failure on my part. However, we were able to (messily) transfer her turkey to my sandwich and my cheese to her sandwich.
I'm in a misfire of a panel right now with managerial types who are supposed to be discussing how to make their teams happy, but it seems to be boiling down to posturing in front of other management types. If only they'd been in an earlier panel with us where the presenters discussed the eschewing of all this type of corporate "ownership of souls" in favor of an embrace of actual team trust (which is fundamentally lacking in the business environment), then I could have stayed on 2nd and had another crepe.
All that to say it gives me some time to reflect on the better panels of today. The theme has been sexy interactions. Stephen Anderson gave a wonderful presentation titled "The Art and Science of Seductive Interaction," in which he got our minds thinking about how to tease human curiosity and ignite love of rewards as a factor when planning interaction on the Web. You in the design field may be aware of Anderson's upcoming deck of cards designed to inspire this line of thinking. This paired well with Spool's presentation, which showcased Amazon's techniques for engaging its users and set realistic expectations of the rewards and dangers of emulation.
Erica had requested protein. I delivered protein, but it still wasn't what she wanted. I had served up the wrong content through a faulty interaction. Through an even more clumsy interaction, we eventually arrived at sandwiches that satisfied the both of us while the Snickers languished.
Content quality has been a theme at this year's SXSW Interactive. As with the sandwich, users will eventually get to the content they desire if they are hungry for it. But if the path to that content is clumsy, messy and unrewarding, they won't come back to your deli.
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