Us Weekly’s Celebrity Fantasy League is Making My Ears Bleed and is Killing Baby Unicorns

Posted by Gregory Ng | Filed under ★★★ If It Works, Great

They say that if there’s a good enough idea, people will find a way to see it. They also say that if you make everything visual on the page yell at the same volume, your ears will bleed and a baby unicorn will die. Ok I made that up.

Take a look at this page from Us Weekly.

Celebrity Fantasy League is one of the most brilliant ideas I have ever heard of coming out of a magazine I only seem to read in the doctor’s office waiting room. Basically, you sign up, you choose 25 celebrities, and you score points based on how many times they appear in the magazine.

It’s brilliant for Us Magazine because with your participation, they can get an idea of what types of celebrities their readership is interested in. It’s brilliant because you sign up for  free in exchange for your information (you need to be contacted when you win right?) you get to participate. It’s brilliant brilliant brilliant.

The problem is I bet the majority of people won’t know all of that. It isn’t because they can’t read. It isn’t because they don’t like Kelly Osbourne and understanding how she got thin. It’s because the design of this sign up page does a lousy job in visual hierarchy.

I took the liberty of marking it up with one big red target. This is not because there is only one big issue. It is because I was too lazy to fill in all of the individual items with red targets.

Ok, drive to a local preschool and dress half the class in pink outfits and half the class in blue outfits. Now give them each matching pink and blue megaphones. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, make sure you choose kids that want to speak but can’t form real words yet. Now tell them all to scream at the top of their lungs into the megaphones. That sound you are imagining is how my brain feels after looking at this page.

Now quickly, pick out the one kid out of the screaming class who is screaming “login”. Yup, that’s what’s wrong with this page.

Brilliant idea. Brilliant. It will never overcome the popularity of fantasy football, but it could keep people interested.

Here’s what Us Magazine should do to fix this: Despite the overkill of blue and pink and shades of blue and shades of pink, the real issue lies in the placement of the login section. The visual elements creates an eyepath from top to bottom in the main left column. And even though its not the most ideal in explaining how the program works, by the end of it you do not know where to look. By moving the login section out of the sidebar and below the 3 steps, I think a lift in response can be achieved.

Tagged : Us Magazine

Comments (View Comments) | March 4th, 2010