I wish I had the quote, but I was reading a guide that Matthew Dicks put out about storytelling a long time ago. One of the things he talked about was not over-indexing on the details. It went something like this (I’m absolutely gonna botch it, but here is to trying):
As you’re telling a story, it takes the reader a lot of brain power to try to picture your world as you remember it:
“I was outside on a smeltering 95 degrees day. The humidity was off the charts because it recently had downpoured for hours. Needless to say I was sweating through my t-shirt. I was in downtown Duluth – a small, 4-square-block city – standing on the green. The green was tiered with brick walls and there were kids playing soccer.”
That’s too much. You’re making the reader remember every detail about your story, but the details don’t move the story forward.
This is better:
“You know those days where you walk outside and immediately your shirt is drenched with sweat? Needless to say, my morning didn’t start out comfortably.”
When your writing is like the latter, you’re collaborating with the reader. Yes, all the small details of your story may not come through, but you’re allowing the reader to put themselves in your shoes within the confines of their own experience. While they may not paint the SAME picture as you want them to experience, It feels more real to them. The experience ends up being a collaboration between the writer and the reader, and each reader’s experience is their own.
How do you do that digitally?
I think in our world of optimizing the user experience, we leave absolutely zero gaps. Every menu is in the same place. We optimize for the Z-pattern our eyes are used to. We use the standard “three lines” to denote the menu on a mobile device.
Whenever a website breaks any of these rules, it stands out. It makes you think. Back in the day, websites made with Flash immersed you into their world and you had to figure out how this company built their own little world on the web.
So, when do you break the pattern and leave a gap?
You have to know your customer well. I’m a huge proponent of personality-led marketing. How does your personality mesh with your potential customers?
Right now, for me, that’s in my site’s entire architecture:
- The main menu is called Inventory and requires a click to get into
- There are clickable bricks that you can explode that play silly animations
- There are cheat codes that you can type in that also play animations
None of these are common practices — and a lot waste clicks. However, I know that my audience is looking for a few things: Price, examples, process, and my team.
ALL four of those are linked in the main hero section as a “choose your own adventure” and are accessible within a few seconds. The rest? It allows the visitor to immerse themselves in “fun”.
I trade clicks for smiles. We’ll see how it works.
Side note: the Matt Fraction Hawkeye series did an amazing job with this as well.