Travis Vocino

Now I’ll rant a little about usability. If you’re offering a solution to my problem (as all products, services or applications should be, obviously), you have to be open to the possibility that I’ll be tailoring my experience to what best suits me. After all, I’m the only with the problem to be solved.

Now, for what seems like a decade, I’ve been staring at a large green box when logged in to my LinkedIn profile telling me that my profile is incomplete. Why? Because I haven’t filled out my education fields.

In all other aspects of LinkedIn, I am an avid participant. I answer questions in the Answers forums and I’m considered a LinkedIn Expert in the fields of Blogging, Web Development and Non-profit Management. I usually invite my new contacts to connect with me when possible. I try to connect with most internet acquaintances whom I find interesting. The list goes on and on. The bottom line is, I definitely put in my work on using LinkedIn.

However in spite of all that, their system still annoys me with a constant reminder that I’m only utilizing 85% of the awesome-power that LinkedIn could potentially provide to me.

Listen, don’t tell me what I need to do. Instead, offer me solutions that could potentially help me. These should be passive and, more importantly, dismissible. I’m not a new internet user. I haven’t just forgotten to finish my profile. Strangely, I don’t consider myself a complete idiot. Yet, I don’t see any possible way to dismiss these “Complete your profile” messages.

It’s not LinkedIn’s job to review my profile/resume in order to see if I’m qualified for something. That’s the job for another user who is equal to me and therefore a 100% complete profile is what I deem it to be. It’s what works for me and my situation. It’s however much information is needed for your web application to solve my particular problem.

Remember, your users dictate what works for them. The best tools are the ones that adapt to the job at hand, not the ones that are stuck in one track.

As an example of an application that currently demonstrates that, I look to Yojimbo. While it’s amazing at what it does (organizing data), it gives the user the freedom to tailor the application to their specific needs. Personally, I use it to catalog receipts for tax purposes. Imagine what a hassle it would be if Yojimbo constantly told me my database was only 85% complete because I didn’t have any passwords stored in it (Yojimbo has a password organizing function, too).

It would be annoying. Just like it is on LinkedIn.