Whose Living Room is it Anyway?

I had the displeasure of meeting the world's rudest realtor yesterday. This woman--I call her Ginger because that was her name--was showing prospective tenants the townhouse I'm moving out of. This bitch--I'll call her a bitch because she was one--barged in and had the gaul to say, "Why don't you leave and I'll let myself out." She proceeded to criticize everything about the place while saying it was the same as the last place she saw. She headed upstairs without asking permission and was generally rude and impatient. (Bear in mind, this was the agent who makes money only if she finds a tenant. The prospective tenants must have been mortified). I never thought I'd hear myself udder the words, but I actually said, "This is my house and I'm going to have to ask you to leave."



What does this have to do with computers? It was once common for TV show hosts to thank the audience for inviting them into the viewers' living rooms. For many years, TV shows acted like guests in your house. Web sites generally act like they own the living room and invite you into the other side of the looking glass.



Web designers would be wise to understand that site visitors consider themselves guests. The expectations for guests and hosts are quite different. As a host, it is rude to leave your guest alone and disoriented in the foyer, which is precisely what most web sites do. As guests, visitors don't want to explore. They'd rather be given the house tour, or at least a convenient map. Although web commerce is obviously healthy, it won't meet the needs of my 65-year-old mother until it looks and acts like QVC. She isn't about to search a web site for a gift, but she'll be glad to buy the things the nice lady she invited into her living room recommends.



TV will never succeed as an interactive medium if the viewers perceive themselves to be inert observers. The web will reach beyond the technically savvy when designers figure out which side of the CRT the living room exists on and design their sites accordingly.



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Has any web site met your expectations for interactivity, or do you just treat it like a configurable newspaper/TV?