Random Sample Pattern

Audience / Scenario

The people who visit/use the site:

• want the site to feel fresh and up-to-date
• want to have parts of the site they might have not seen before highlighted

The people who own the site:

• want to give the impression that content is constantly chaging, even if it isn't, so that visitors are more likely to return at a later date
• need to increase traffic to a specific area of the site but aren't sure what the specific desires of the visitor are
• don't want to repeatedly update a page to show a different sample - you want the site to do it for you.

When and where?

You should use this pattern when:

• a regularly visited page would become stale if nothing was changed on it
• you want to highlight parts of your site that people might not have seen before

You should avoid using this pattern if:

• The location is part of a [goal funnel] – otherwise visitors may exit the funnel and not achieve the goal

You should incoporate this pattern in any of the following locations:

• site home page
• anywhere that would benefit from some "always fresh" content

Solution

Create a content pool (in the case of a wiki this can be either a space or a section of the heirarchy within a space) and randomly include either a whole page or an excerpt from a page within that pool.

The frequency will usually be every page refresh, however you can cache the selected item for a number of hours to reduce load on the server (recommended).

If you cache for 24 hours, it will appear as if someone is manually updating the sample and be less intrusive to visitors who visit that page several times in the same visit to your site.

The sample can optionally be linked to the content it relates to and this is an ideal way to drive traffic to a section within your site.

Remember that because it's random, it's possible for the same sample to be shown more than once in succession. The larger the content pool the smaller the chance of the same sample being repeated.

Why?

Visitors to your site are more likely to return if they feel it's always changing - ie. there is something new for them to see. If there's nothing new for them to see, there is less incentive for them to come back.

In many cases, your visitors will browse the same areas within your site on return visits and showing a random sample of content is a great way to lead them to new areas in order to increase awareness of other activities, products, etc., that your organisation is involved with.

Example

Refresh this page to see random silly stuff below: