Usability, Likability, Utility + Speed = Success

I was recently on a panel covering seed investments for start-ups at the Israel Web Tour. While my fellow panelists and I talked about the importance of massive traction and distribution when making investment decisions,  we didn't elaborate much on what causes traction or affects distribution despite the fact we most often make investment decisions on start-ups prior to massive traction or distribution.

[Image courtesy of: Website Optimization LLC, 2008]

While there's no such thing as a guaranteed formula for success on the web, Shackel's Acceptability Paradigm offers the following elements: usability, likability, utility, and speed (as measured in response time). Fonding teams that are unable to translate their technical prowess into a site which is extremely easy to use, offers solid value to the end users, charms them in a unique way and do all of this reasonably fast, are likely to hit a wall when it comes to trying to improve their traffic numbers or seek distribution.

While there are many sites that get one or more of those attributes right, Google is one of the few sites, that consistently outperforms across all of them:

• Nobody can debate the usefulness of search on the web. Technology is best when it's directed to solve specific problems users have or make it more convenient for them to do something they normally do in a different way. Utility is one of the most important aspects of a website. If it takes many slides to explain what value a site is expected to bring to users, half the battle is lost.
• Simplicity and advanced technology do not need to be mutually exclusive. At Google we always strived to make the site instantly usable, reduce the features to an absolute minimum and keep the clean, uncluttered look of the site at all costs which became one of its hallmarks.
• Likability is probably the most subjective success factor among the four I outlined above. Google's original "I'm Feeling Lucky" button next to its Search as well as its popular holiday logos were arguably among the cute design elements that gave it a more "human interface" and charmed its users, becoming an integral part of the brand in the process.
• Speed is one of the most important determinants of "perceived quality" of a site. Having a response time of a second or less gives users a sense of "immediate feedback" while a response time that lingers into several seconds persistently risks turning off users.

It's hard to say that even getting all four of these factors just right would guarantee success for a web site. But keeping a watchful eye and continuously improving on them should make a big difference.