As someone who didn't even have a Yahoo! email account prior to writing this blog, when it came time to explore the world of Yahoo! Avatars, I felt a little overwhelmed and perplexed as to where to begin. Yahoo! does a good job of providing categories as a guide to help users find the features they need to help customize their Avatars, with divisiions such as appearance, apparel, extras, and backgrounds.
I think these categories are a good start, but Yahoo! could probably develop the Avatars even further with categories like music, movies, and books. The more customization options that are provided, the more the users will have to opportunity to paint an individualistic canvas, like many college students do on their facebooks and myspaces. If Yahoo! wanted to target more college-aged users with this feature, I think they could benefit from keeping up on the trends and pop culture that our age group is concerned with. Many of the Avatar outfits were trendy, but some were either outdated, too mature, or too juvenile. Also, I think the career-themed accessories were a bit excessive and unnecessary for the college kid target audience. I do, however, like the causes/isesues feature as well as the branded one; those are smart ways to find out what the user is interested in and what brands he/she affiliates themselves with. Adding the music, movies, and books features would also help with this.
One other area I thought could use improvement was the backgrounds section. There were so many of them to choose from, probably hundreds I'm sure, and there were no categories dividing them up. A busy college student will probably not want to take the time to go through all of these to find one that suites them. Anything convenient and time-saving would be beneficial in making the Avatars more student friendly.
With so much on the internet to compete with for young adults' attention, Yahoo! should focus on doing whatever it can to set these Avatars apart as something unique and fun, an alternative to the addiction of logging into facebook or myspace.
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2 comments:
Great suggestions! Especially about dividing some sections into categories. It's so true that there's no time, esp for college students, to go through all options...I know I found myself just finally picking one after going through a few pages.
Overall it was fun and creative.
one more thing...do you think if they were allowed, this would be a successful addition to Myspace/Facebook applications?
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