Channel4.com prototype: Guggenheim versus the "disinterested container".

To help us rethink Channel4.com we assembled a diverse group of clever people at the end of 2007 and tried, in a day, to come up with "the answer" to the level of page designs and user journeys. It was hard; I think some people thought it couldn't be done. But in the end we had four of five answers to the question as to what Channel4.com should be and how it should work.

The new proposition we are working to: "The authoritative source of information and content related to Channel 4 television programmes". Like all good propositions, kind of obvious.

This was one of several strands of work which have resulted in our having built a prototype / demo of the new service. We've user tested it and so on (note to self: we should make it public shouldn't we?) and now we've asked the original group to come back and review it for us.

A couple of interesting things arise. First: if you tell someone they're an expert reviewer, they're hardly likely to say "great job; faultless; I've nothing to add". Second: one-way feedback is incredibly frustrating because you (I anyway) want to talk to the feedbacker. We should have done interviews, not invited a discussion on Basecamp.

Anyway. The most interesting part of the feedback we've had is the difference of opinion in the role of the product (which I call the "vessel" or "container") in relation to the content. Steve accuses us (rightly as it happens) of creating a nice looking but basically "disinterested" container for the content and the guys from OstModern agree, citing the Guggenheim museum in Manhattan as an example of a content-container that's so much more than a container. On the other side of the debate, C4's own Matt Locke is more of a white-cube fan as, decidedly, is Andy from Isotoma. Funnily enough I was piqued to read a little more about the Guggenheim and found that by many it's not rated as an exhibition space because the building does too much. Read all about it here (under History, paragraph 4). Having said that, I myself have visited the museum because of the building and so the argument goes around.

So .. one to think more about. Let the content do the talking or does the "vessel" need a life of its own?