The UX of Squidoo

I have been reading (and really enjoying) Seth Godin’s book, Small is the new Big.  His blog is chock-full of these little insightful nuggets of wisdom.  He produces them at a crazy fast rate.  In his book, he talked about Squidoo, which I have heard of but never checked out.

I made my first Squidoo Lens on UX Design.  A lens is a specialized page on a certain subject. You can have ads on the page, where the money generated is shared with you personally or with a charity.  I chose NPR.

Setting one up took about 20 minutes or so.  The UX is really interesting.  Generally speaking, it’s very good looking and well designed.  There were moments, however, when I thought tiny little touches would improve it.  For example: I kept clicking buttons and then stared at the screen wondering if something actually had happened.  Then a few seconds later, the screen would update.  It’s so easy to just change the body to include the CSS {cursor: wait} to give a clear indication that something is happening.  Better yet would be a modal displaying progress.  A little feedback is all I am saying.

There were other small examples, like reordering sections.  Netflix has clearly nailed this interaction, but Squidoo messes a few minor points and it just makes the interaction a little clumsy.

Overall, I am impressed with the model and the execution.  Apparently, there are a bunch of people using it, but it hasn’t reached that tipping point where it goes mainstream.  It’s possible that fewer features might even help.  The UI was a little daunting and there was a huge amount of time between the first step and the last.  I wonder what the drop-off curve looks like.  Probably a cliff.

Think of the thing you are most passionate about.  Try creating a lens and see what you think.  I don’t think I am going to create many lenses, but I am glad I made this one.