Todd, You are of course right. To design a site with no regard for how people might find it... in other words to not pay attention to optimization is just irresponsible. The problem for me is more about the culture that I work (AOL) than a realistic argument regarding SEO. Until 18 months ago we were not a true open web environment and very little attention was paid to search engines. Now, it is like finding free money. At the moment many design decisions are trumped by search potential for expanding our user base (which remarkably, is rapidly expanding). So I am always looking to fortify my defense of the user experience.
Mark On Jan 3, 2008, at 4:28 PM, Todd Roberts wrote: > To pose a tangential question, if you have a design optimized for > the user > but nobody comes across it, is the design successful? Assuming that > SEO and > user optimization won't lead to identical designs, is there a > tradeoff that > can be made between a design's findability (SEO) and its user > optimization? > The overall effects would be measurable using whatever success > measures the > business is interested in - conversions, stickiness, etc. > ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
