Last year, it seemed that everywhere I looked, people in and around internet business were talking, writing, preaching, and debating about search engine optimization or SEO. That party isn’t over by a long shot, but there’s another kid in town that deserves mention.
A lot of what I’m reading these days is about “user experience” or UX. In software development, particularly web and mobile applications, UX is booming. UX encompasses a combination of things including human behavior from all sorts of angles including visual, auditory, textual, mental, and emotional aspects. Marketers are realizing that SEO might get a potential user to their site, but good UX will keep them coming back.
I recently visited Madison, Wisconsin to reconnect with two of my best friends from my first two years at a small college. For a brief, but very memorable time, the three of us played college basketball together. We loved basketball. We entered the program with high hopes. But overall, the experience was not good.
So we left. We left because our experience was not anywhere near our expectations. Honestly, it was pretty bad. UX experts probably would have predicted our departure from the team far in advance of the actual decisions.
I transferred to a big university and not wanting to give up my love of athletics, I began an internship and later a part-time job working in Sports Information. Sports Information departments are sort of like what P.R. departments are to companies. Sports Information manages the repository for game statistics and other athletic department-related information. They also manage all press interactions including publication production, press conferences, and media access. I’d have to say that this was one of the best work-related experiences of my life and I have very good memories of the job and the people I worked with.
Our reunion in the Madison area was fabulous. Of course, while there, we had to check out the farmer’s market.
Madison, Wisconsin is an active and diverse city and among its many positive attributes, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this town purportedly hosts the largest farmer’s market in the United States. Their website could use some updating, but the eye-opening Saturday morning ritual won’t disappoint. The outdoor version of the farmer’s market experience is located at Capital Square which surrounds the Wisconsin State Capital Building.
We went early. Well, we went sort of early. Not 6 am-early, when they open, but early enough. Some in our group needed fresh donuts with colored sprinkles. Done. Others in our posse needed large cups of organic coffee. I was one of them.
There is an unbelievably large number of vendors, approximately 300, who bring in their locally produced foodstuffs every week and truth be told, there were so many vendors, we never made it all the way around the square. These sellers encircle the inner perimeter of the square and it’s interesting to see that the crowd always walks in a counter-clockwise direction.
I wonder why this is so. My natural preference would be to go clockwise. Then again, I might have a negative beta.
I don’t know why, but after decades, there is an expectation that the direction will always be counter-clockwise. It started somewhere and now it’s the rule. You’ll be hard-pressed to make any progress going against the flow and if you do, expect more than one person to give you the stink-eye. Yes, going against the human herd there is not a good user experience. Now, if there was an incentive to get the herd to change directions, I’d be interested in how to control and predict the outcome of that experiment.
The non-farm production vendors are located around the outer perimeter of the square. There were no directional rules on the outside on that particular day, but the street wasn’t very crowded. Throw in a parade, protest, or a race and that the counter-clockwise rule expands all the way to the sidewalks across the streets. These additional vendors increase the value of the experience by adding another set of product choices, music, and uh, other entertaining diversions.
When the coffee kicks in, bathrooms are located in the beautiful capital building and now that I think about it, I think they might be bordering on the luxury sort: marble, marble, and more marble. There was not a portable toilet in sight. Even the stalls are made of marble. I wanted to take a picture of the restrooms, but then I thought better of it. The other patrons might not have appreciated that.
I was only one of a few hundred photography enthusiasts that day. You can never get enough pictures of brightly colored, yet edible fungi, you know.
Visually, the Madison Farmer’s Market is a feast. I didn’t eat anything while I was there. When we were done, we stopped for lunch around the corner.
I really don’t need to drone on about my farmer’s market experience any further. You get the point. It was an excellent user experience. I will return again and again.
[Postscript: I intentionally put a lot of full-sized 800px-length photos in this blog post, so I can see how fast/slow this page loads on various devices. Please bear with me while I experiment. KD]
