It’s always interesting to me when I hear about people in completely foreign lines of work that share similar professional challenges to those of us in the digital marketing industry. Over the weekend, I was confronted with two very interesting stories that seemed aligned with some of the issues we face when developing and rolling out web sites intended to achieve business goals on behalf of Flightpath clients.
While stuck in traffic on Friday, I heard a story on NPR about the Airtrain that connects JFK airport to the NYC subway system. As reported by WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein, five years after its inception, the AirTrain draws 5 million passengers a year despite confusing signage and insufficient passenger information. Listening to the story, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to challenges we face in creating simple, usable, user-friendly web sites. This is a fascinating story for anyone who creates web sites or is considering commissioning creation of one.
Next, the weekly Public Editor column in Sunday’s New York Times titled ‘How Did This Happen?’ chronicled a comedy of errors (seven, in fact) that made their way into Times reporting rushed into print around the death of Walter Cronkite. The newspaper printed wrong dates, incorrect information about Cronkite’s work, and more.
Apparently, many of rules and processes the Times employs to check facts and approve stories fell by the wayside as they rushed to meet deadlines. Anyone that’s ever been involved in web site quality assurance will likely understand the cascade of events chronicled in this thought-provoking story and remember checks and balances they’ve implemented in order to circumvent similar problems.
Author Clark Hoyt explains that ‘seemingly little mistakes, when they come in such big clusters, undermine the authority of a newspaper.’ The same holds true for a web site.
