This week I’ve been thinking a lot about the 7 C’s (7 design elements) of an e-commerce website, specifically context and content and their “not necessarily fully-realized” potential. Before I get to that though, let’s define context and content. Content is everything you add to your site. It is the ’stuff’ that viewers see: text, pictures, sound, or video are some examples. Complimentary to that is context, which is how your website is designed and functions.
What you need to realize about context and content is that whether you are aware of it or not, they are telling a story. In combination with your site’s context, the content tells the user a story about your company, your brand, your product, and most importantly what you think, know, or ‘think you know’ about your users. This has powerful implications.
The human mind wants narrative. We automatically look for it because it helps us make sense of the world and remember important lessons. Further to this, we fill in gaps in stories with devices like stereotypes to save time and help us feel that the story is complete.
What does this mean for your website? Well, if your website is going to tell a story whether you want it to or not, it would be a good idea to consciously write that story yourself. The use of narrative can take both a macro and micro form on the web. On a macro-level, websites as a whole can tell a story that pull the user through the site in a logical process predetermined by the site designer. On a micro-level individual narratives may exist on a single page. A good example of this in e-commerce is the testimonial that tells a customer’s first hand experience with the product being sold.
Another example of how narrative can consciously tell a story in e-commerce is ‘Catablogging”. Catablogging is just what it sounds like, a hybrid of blogging and e-commerce. On his blog all about catablogging, Brian Clark defines the term as “a blog that is designed to mix content and commerce in a very deliberate fashion. It’s looking to attract people who are interested in buying things, but who are also interested in immersing themselves in the lifestyle surrounding the products”. He then goes on to outline the steps in designing and building your own catablog. It is a great resource with many additional links.
A final note for this week about narrative and commerce, I’ll leave you with an insight by Hugh McLeod: “If people like buying your product, it’s because its story helps fill in the narrative gaps in their own lives”.
Shouldn’t our e-commerce sites fill that gap as well?
