[via Wired.com]
It begins with interactivity, Nielsen said.
"That seems to be the common denominator," said Nielsen, who for the study observed American and Australian teenagers using dozens of websites across a variety of genres. They want to be "doing something as opposed to just sitting and reading, which tends to be more boring and something they say they do enough of already in school."
Nielsen explained that the best interactive elements include message boards, polls, quizzes, the ability to ask questions of experts, and tools that let teens construct their own web pages.
Another element teens find attractive is the use of photographs and images that relieve text of the burden of communicating ideas, but that don't weigh down a page. And while adults don't like cluttered web pages or too much writing either, he added, they are significantly more tolerant of a heavier text-to-images ratio.
Teens are also much less willing than adults to stick around websites with useful content but poor presentation, Nielsen said.
"We saw that a lot in the study," he said. "After one or two pages, (teens) are ready to make their judgment. Adults aren't going to spend two hours, but they have more patience if they feel, 'I need this for my job or for my vacation.'"
ielsen pointed to several sites as examples of what teenagers like.
One was
SparkNotes, which offers study guides on subjects from math to chemistry to SAT preparation. He explained that the teens in his study enjoyed the site's combination of useful information, uncluttered appearance and interactivity; its interface also made it easy for teens to find what they needed to complete school assignments.
Another example was Apple Computer's site, due to a clean presentation -- an appropriate amount of images and text presented on a white background -- and the ease with which teens were able to research future purchases.
"One of the things teens do (online) is a variant of e-commerce," Nielsen said. "I say variant because they might want to buy (a) product in a physical channel, but they do the research online. So it's important for companies that sell to teens that they have good descriptions."
Not all the sites teens like are trying to sell them things. Nielsen said sites like
CSUMentor and
TeensHealth both rated highly among the study's subjects because they smartly mixed information and presentation and didn't ask teens to work too hard.
"It just looks like it's not going to be very hard work to play on this website, and that's what pulls teens in," said Nielsen of CSUMentor. "It's not hard work. They maybe are kind of a little bit on the lazy side."
Other sites the study identified as teen-friendly include:
Community:
createblog.com,
MySpace.com,
TeenChat.comEntertainment:
RollingStone.com,
CartoonNetwork.comGames:
Real.com,
GameFAQs.com,
PlanetDreamcastContent:
Lyrics.com,
Ontario Consultants on Religious ToleranceShopping:
LaCie.com,
Wet SealSports:
MLB.com,
race-deZert.com
To Susanna Stern, an assistant professor at the University of San Diego who works regularly with teens, one of the most important factors in attracting teens to a website is making them feel respected.
"If you take teens seriously," Stern said, "they'll take you seriously."
Also important, she said, is enabling teens to explore their identity by providing them with an environment in which they can experiment with ideas of style, the way they talk, the way they dress and the way they think about the sensitive issues in their lives -- all anonymously.
But Stern said teens' need to be understood often leads them to worry less about privacy than do adults.
"It often surprises me how much teens are willing to self-disclose," said Stern, and "how much they are seeking ... validation or connection in this online setting."
And that means, she explained, that teens frequently look the other way when commercial sites ask for personal information, responding to the kinds of requests that drive many adults away.
"Young people are willing to overlook corporate intentions, or maybe not be aware of corporate intentions that ask for private information," she said. "My impression is that (it's because) they're so eager to be taken seriously."
The upshot, she said, is that teens appear not to worry that marketers are trying to take advantage of them.
"They're very savvy about advertising," she said, "but my sense is that they just don't care."
