www.neaq.org -- and the power of meaningful URLs
it was one of life's more random moments. A group of us attending the Museum Computer Network annual meeting in Boston were out for a post-session drink. We were in a loud, crowded bar making small talk at the top of our lungs, when the woman beside us turned towards the group. "Are you Texans she said?" ... or at least that's what I heard.
Actually she said 'Are you Techies?' an opening gambit good enough to engage some of the group in conversation. What was on her mind was surprising as her success with that pick-up line. She wasn't from Boston, and had been on-line looking for information about the New England Aquarium. She was frustrated ... she'd tried www.newenlandaquaruim.com [a reasonable guess]. Nothing. OK what about newenglandaquarium.ORG [since we often forget about the parallel universe of the NFP]. NOTHING.
I missed the part about how she actually discovered the right url to type, but couldn't mistake her disbelief at WWW. N E A Q .ORG. Now, her exasperation might have been exacerbated by whatever she had in that tall glass, but the fact that she remembered this experience, and cared to recount it to strangers whom she didn't even know worked in museums was revealing.
For all our talk of openness, we hide ... in acronyms ... in tradition ... in inward-looking policy. That URL was a great example of not considering the perspective of exactly the person we profess to care about. Usability starts in the navigation bar.
when i first posted (and i haven't moved comments from the old blog platform) Bruce Wyman and I had the following exchange:
j. trant co-founder Museums and the Web | partner archives & museum informatics www.archimuse.com
Comments
Ah, how quickly people lose historical perspective. Back in 1995, when domain names were new to people, after a round of user testing (n=~10), people had a really hard time typing www.newenglandaquarium.org without inserting spaces. People just weren't yet used to URLs. And, it was universally agreed, at the time, that the name was simply too long and that the aquarium should be using something short. NEAq had been used for years by the aquarium's members and visitors as a fairly common acronym, frequently appearing in publications and advertising. So, at the time, the decision didn't seem to be unfounded and domain names weren't a dime a dozen to register and maintain.
Posted by: Bruce Wyman | November 10, 2005 04:58 PM
... which reminds me of one of my biggest problems with the philosophy of "user centered design" and the reliance on user testing. Users ' needs, wants and abilities are temporally based. They evolve. If we design for current abilities aren't we precluding possibilities that will seem banal in a reasonably short time?
jt
Posted by: j trant | November 10, 2005 09:29 PM
yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, she's totally right now, and if I were still doing stuff there, I would have purchased the alternate domain names years ago and had them redirect.
Heh, I just checked - newenglandaqaurium.org does redirect to neaq.org.
So, I'm a little less sympathetic for our drunken friend. I'm curious how she fared with a search engine.
But, if you're going to bust on NEAq, you need to also give crap to the met, moma, sfmoma, etc ... almost any museum which rarely use their full name as their url.
Posted by: Bruce Wyman | November 10, 2005 09:59 PM