The Luxury Web Concept

About a month and a half ago, Dave Shea proposed the idea of a luxury web campaign. Jeffrey Zeldman and a few others turned down the idea with reasoned arguments for why it would not work.

Today, Dave Shea tells us that “it’s time to quit watching what happens, and start doing.” Inspired by Tim Bray, who proposed some great ideas on how to get people to switch, Dave says that even though his luxury web idea may have been the wrong approach, it’s time to start doing something. Well, I feel that his luxury web idea just might be the right approach, and so to his latest entry, I replied:

Actually, from the start, I really liked the Luxury Web idea. I think that it’s very appealing to a wide range of people, because who doesn’t want the best of the best, especially when it’s free?

As far as I know, WaSP’s Browser Upgrade Campaign is the only campaign, of that sort, that is well-known. If I want to direct users to a site about upgrading their browsers, I can send them to the previously mentioned WaSP campaign, or to one of the browser (Mozilla, Opera, etc.) homepages.

None of these will appeal to the average web user. The WaSP site is too technical, and, although the design and layout is nice and simple, it is far from “luxurious.” Mozilla’s new design is nice and inviting, but I still feel that the content can be too technical and overwhelming for the average web user. It is difficult for us to see this because we are web designers and developers that are on the net daily and know its ins-and-outs. I would bet that if you told a friend of yours, that’s an average user, to check out one of those websites that are supposed to influence you to switch browsers, they would feel confused, overwhelmed, and, in the end, like they do not care about switching to one of these “confusing” web browsers. To be honest, I imagine that a lot of people wouldn’t even know exactly what a web browser is.

“Dumbed-down content, that even Auntie Gertrude could understand, would be great.”

This brings me back to your “luxury” idea. I think that a small site, maybe only 3 – 5 pages, with a classy (luxurious) design and dumbed-down content, that even Auntie Gertrude could understand, would be great. All content should also be as concise and to-the-point as possible. Why people should switch should be explained and also PROVED. Images of websites in IE6 and then in Mozilla and Opera would be great, especially if the websites are well-known and ones that people have likely been to before.

Then it should say somewhere, “Switching is only a download away!” A lot of people probably feel that, “oh boy, switching ‘web browsers’ is probably a complicated process.” But it’s not, and we need to tell them that, using cool, in-your-face images. Below this header will be a very cleanly laid-out list of the alternate, standards compliant web browsers. But we won’t actually say that they “comply with standards, and therefore webpages look like they’re supposed to.” That is far from convincing for the average user. Instead, we will tell them “this browser is so great that xx% of webpages will look even better when you use it!” (or something like that).

Each browser listing should have the browser logo (people love images), the name of the browser, a BRIEF description of why they would want to choose that particular one, a screenshot of a page in the browser (so they can see the interface), and a link that goes DIRECTLY to the download.

Oh yea… I also liked Tim Bray’s idea of mentioning big-name companies that have made the browser switch. I imagine that it would do a great job of convincing average users.

“We need to take this site and turn it into a commercial advertisement that appeals to the masses.”

I feel that a “luxurious” site, if designed correctly, could make quite an impact and become very well-known. Heck, even CNN.com might do a write-up on it; they didn’t hesitate having an article on the “weapons of mass destruction error page” that made its rounds on the net. We need to take this site and turn it into a commercial advertisement that appeals to the masses.

This is just me thinking out loud. To conclude, I’ll leave you with what I feel will be the key points in a successful browser-switching campaign:

• stay away from everything “tech,” including design and content terminology
• cool, hip, classy design
• dumbed-down content that almost everyone will understand
• we need to be advertisers and make browser-switching seem like the hot-new thing, using in-your-face graphics and blurbs that tell how other big-companies are switching