How to Outrun The Crap Avalanche

As a father, it is my parental duty to escort my children to countless birthday parties. Birthday party etiquette states that all party-goers must leave the party with a bag full of cheap plastic toys.

Against my better judgment, my children enjoy the occasional trip to McDonald’s, Burger King or Chuck E Cheese (usually while on a road trip, or when their mother is out of town). These dining establishments also guarantee that your children return home with at least one—usually summer-blockbuster-themed—cheap plastic toy.  Apparently, it’s part of the draw.

Every holiday and birthday, my children accumulate even more (usually not quite as cheap) toys.  While batteries are not likely to be included, many of these toys come with thousands of tiny pieces.

At the moment that a child first encounters any of the aforementioned toys, it is a priceless object, worthy of the child’s absolute attention and adoration. What may look like nothing more than a three cent choking hazard to a parent, is as precious as the Holy Grail to a child.  At least for the next 15 minutes or so… The ongoing accumulation of all of these toys adds up. Even the most fastidious among us—those of us with our color coordinated wicker and plastic storage bins—cannot keep up.  Eventually, we are overrun with the avalanche of crap.

Corporate websites and intranets suffer from a very similar problem.  As time goes on, a myriad of stakeholders add more essential content and features to each page.  Content and features that users certainly cannot live without.  Yet, we humans have a way of filtering out the noise, and returning to only what we find value and familiarity in: our favorite toys.

I observe the toys that my children tend to gravitate to most regularly.  Kids grow up, and some toys are all but forgotten.  Toys that were once priceless sit idle and forgotten in the bottom of a crowded toy chest.  These are the toys that, when my children aren’t looking, end up in the box to be donated to Good Will.

To ensure the optimal user experience on your website or corporate intranet, it is important to understand how to outrun the crap avalanche.  The following steps will help make sure things stay neat and tidy:

1. Use analytics to monitor the content and features your users find most valuable.
2. Avoid confusing users with superfluous content; get rid of it.  Only what’s essential and valuable should be present.
3. Offer helpful and friendly error pages and redirects for the few people who may have come looking for what was removed.
4. …and always remember.  If everything is important – nothing is important.  Prioritize and visually highlight the essential content that users must see.

We can’t avoid the need to temporarily deal with the occasional cheap plastic toy.  We can take steps to make sure that they don’t end up getting in the way of the good stuff.

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