RSS Usability
I have been using MeasureMap over on my MSU Sports Blog for about 2 months now. It is a great app and will only get better as it moves out of alpha and into beta and final release. One of the newest features they have added is the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds of various stats for your site. Jeff wrote today about the process that they went through when deciding how to offer these feeds.
It is a conversation that we have had many times in the office as well and one that many people will be having as RSS is pushed more and more into the mainstream, especially with the inclusion of RSS capabilities in IE7 and possibly Office 12.
This isn’t really about what to call them. I can go either way on that argument, so let’s just stay away from it. The issue at hand is how to link to your feeds. Most bloggers will place an orange icon somewhere on their page, and just link it directly to the raw XML file of the feed.
While this is fine for those of us who are more technically inclined, when my mom clicks on this link, she thinks her browser just messed up. What seems like a more appropriate solution for the average web user would be to link the little orange icon to a page that explains what RSS is, maybe offers some options for viewing the feed, and the link to the actual feed itself.
This was the solution we decided on for activeculture.info. It offers the option of RSS for those who know what it is and what to do with it as well as giving those who don’t a chance to “opt-out” without having raw XML forced down their throat. As RSS,or Feeds, if you prefer that terminology, slowly bleed out into the mainstream, I think approach is going to be the most successful approach to offering feeds to site visitors.
