Goby.com: An Inspiration Engine
What is it?
Goby let’s you “create your own adventure” using their “inspiration engine”. Give it a category of activity, place, and time, and it’ll return a matching list of things to go out and do. In their words, “Goby is an inspiration engine all about exploring things to do with your free time, from this weekend’s adventure to your next week off…”
How can it help my website?
Goby’s creators clearly spent a lot of time thinking about how they were going to get people to understand the concept. The solution the came up with–the three-step process at the top of the page–works well at making it easy to start using the site without having to understand anything. Also note how they don’t require users to sign up to start using the site. This is great way to nurture a low bounce rate.
The oddly-shaped “book” immediately below the “what would you like to do” boxes, tries to show you some of the great content that the site has, but the text is a bit small and the section, overall, is difficult to understand. Perhaps it would be better to use a carousel to show a few key images of events and activities that Goby has suggested to past users.
How do I implement it?
Whatever you want your users to do on your site, make it simple and at the forefront of the site’s design. Clear explanations and calls to action help.
Watch this video for a walk-through and analysis of Goby.com
