Re: Thoughts about Web 2.0

Mark Green <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.web.chi-web
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On Jun 26, 2007, at 2:20 PM, Hal Shubin wrote:

> 2. Most popular.
> What do you think about having "Most popular <whatever>"  
> categories? It's a nice way to see what the crowd likes. But, it's  
> makes the popular things be more popular (hmmm, like junior high  
> school somehow). Maybe it'd be better to draw from a large or  
> rotating pool of popular things so that more kids (er, links) get  
> to be popular.

I think "Most popular" has its place. We're doing a mortgage site  
with lots of educational material. I'd like an automatic "most  
popular" list on the home page to give a real indication of what  
users are looking for. Hopefully the automation would reflect the  
cyclical nature of the industry (new purchase, refinance, new  
purchase) and exclude marketing requests for surfaced links.

I suspect that users will only be slightly more inclined to click one  
of the popular links (and perpetuate its popularity). They are  
usually seeking rather than browsing and will dismiss the "most  
popular" list if it doesn't answer their needs. If it works, it's a  
helpful guide rather than a table at the front of the bookstore.

-Mark-

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