Facts of Life-VC Star

Fact of Life #1-- We don't read pages. We scan them.

According to Steve Krug, author of Don't Make Me Think, readers on the internet do not take a lot of time reading most of the information on the websites. The reason why most of the time we scan the information rather than reading everything is because 1- we're usually in a hurry, 2- we know we don't need to read everything and 3- we're good at it.

If VC Star created a microsite for a younger demographic they definitely need to take this information and use it as their advantage. On their regular website, it is very cluttered and there are tons of information on one screen. Most readers, especially those who are younger are only interested in reading things that are relevant to what they want. VC Star can have less words on their new website and possibly more pictures so it draws more attention to the reader. That way the scanning process can be done by looking at the pictures and clicking on the link that follows to what they really want to read.

Fact of life #2--We don't make optimal choices. We sastisfice.

While using the web, most users scan the page and rather scanning to choose the best option, they use the first reasonable option. Because web browsers have the "back" button it is easy to just click on the first thing you see that will help you and if it doesn't you can always just go back to the previous page.

Because VC Star's main website is so cluttered, while scanning the page it makes things more difficult to pick an option because there are so many different options to choose. The VC Star might have a lot of good information, but that's not what readers are looking for exactly. They don't make optimal choices so if there's a lot of information they could always use the back button or just go to a different website that they believe will have the same information but not as wordy. Having links on their website that look more appealing will aslo be a good tactic because if it catches the readers eye, and it looks somewhat of a reasonable option they will click on it.

Fact of life #3-- We don't figure out how things work. We muddle through

Even though technologically savvy people are on the internet all the time, they still might not be using the websites correctly. Designers have made websites and the functions of those sites for particular reasons but most of the time users don't even take those functions into consideration. Users do this because 1- it's not important to us and 2- if we find something that works, we stick to it.

The problem with VC Star's website right now is the fact that they have so many different functions and links on their page and their users could really care less about it. Younger demographics do not take the time to learn how things work because they don't care. They are the ones who are on the internet majority of the time so they have a lot of practice in finding shorter ways of doing what they want. Because most users only "muddle through" websites when there is too much content they will just pass by it. Also- once they find something that works, they stick to it. By making VC Star's microsite easy to use and properly made for the younger demographics where they don't have to search for what they look for they'll be more likely to come back.