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No.12 Entertainment (Part 1) (December 16, 2001)
As the Internet develops into a conventional form of media, the number of websites geared toward entertaining users, in such a way as entertainment programs do on television, has increased. This year, in particular, entertainment sites are springing up everywhere with the impact of the Japanese government's Internet exposition (Impaku).
In an effort to underscore entertainment, these sites overemphasize highly artistic design and the latest technology, and many of them put usability on the back burner.
However, a good many sites actually end up failing in their original purpose of entertaining users as a result of being too focused on art and technology.
 The danger of ignoring usability
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Have you ever experienced the following types of problems when you used a website?
- You couldn't figure out what you could do on the site
- It took too long for the page to download and you became irritated
- An error message appeared and you couldn't see the video, and on and on...
If you ignore how users use a site, the impression made by your site may likely result in one like described above. Under these circumstances, you can't expect that the user will be entertained. Rather, your site will only be hard to use and leave your users feeling annoyed.
When putting together an entertainment site, it is essential that you consider and implement the design from the user's point of view.
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Is usability the only important factor?
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The trend is to refrain from using innovative design ideas and out-of-the-ordinary technology when creating a site that gives top priority to usability.
That said, emphasizing the artistic quality of a site and utilizing specialized technology imparts an impression of innovation to the user, so the use of these elements in an entertainment site cannot be completely abandoned.
In order to create a site that will truly entertain users, a website should incorporate a highly artistic design and use the latest technology, and at the same time maintain a high level of usability. A website that fulfills these conditions can be called a real entertainment site.
In the next column, we will discuss how to tackle the difficult challenges faced in trying to fulfill the conditions to make a real entertainment site.
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