Welcome to Monday and yet another word-of-the-week. This week’s word is …
WOW!
If you’re reading this in an email or RSS reader, thanks for subscribing. However, I’d appreciate it if you’d click this link that will take you to the actual web site. I want to tell you a quick story that might make more sense if you’re looking at the web page.
Our small group meets each Wednesday. Last week I was humbled when a friend pulled out a printed copy of one of my ebooks and proceeded to embarrass me with some very kind words about how helpful the writing was.
The other folks reacted with a “WOW!” At first I thought they were impressed by the ebook, but then I realized that the “WOW!” indicated surprise.
“Where did you find that?” “That’s really cool.” “I didn’t know that stuff was there.”
“WOW!”
These folks check out my site a few times each month. They usually read my semi-regular newsletter. And they’d never noticed most of the stuff in the sidebar or on the other pages.
They’d never noticed the ebooks or the list of other interesting sites they could visit. They didn’t see the icons at the bottom that let them help me out by sharing with friends in other networks. The skipped over the “Like” buttons that would help spread the word to their friends. None of them had paid any attention to the subscription form.
You’ve been to the site–did you miss those items? Well, now you know.
We talked about it a bit, and they said they usually looked only at the main content.
That shouldn’t surprise me. Web design is both an art and a science, and much of it is aimed at combating a reader’s tendency to skim content and skip over much of the detail on a page.
Our conversation got me thinking—how much important, useful stuff do I skim and skip over as I move through my day? How often do I miss amazing opportunities simply because I’m not paying attention? How many interesting people cross my path unnoticed?
Missing stuff on a web page—not such a big deal. But I want to do better this week at really seeing the incredible array of resources and experiences God sends my way each day.
Perhaps we can all be a little better at not looking back at things we missed and exclaiming, “WOW!”
How about you? Is there someplace in your life where you find yourself looking back and wondering how you missed something that should have been ovbious?