- Created On: December 7, 2011
- Author: Design Studio
Call:01284 706842
Imagine you’re a visitor to a website – it could be for a number of reasons; sales, research, information, support or something else.
No matter which of these you fit into, there are no guarantees that the website will be designed to hit your demographic. It must be obvious to visitors, where the information they’re after is located. This is a form of UX. This may seem stupidly obvious, however it’s important to ‘Turn idiots into geniuses’ – understand not everyone is as intelligent as you and they may not have the patience to find what they need.
This is really quite simple, as it must be! An over complex webpage is a confusion – you must provide the visitor an obvious route through the sales funnel. Ask yourself; how do I make decisions? Most people would answer by weighing the pros and cons of a situation, then making a decision based on this logic. Other (weaker) people will be led by their emotions and will be easier to sell to. In psychology this is known as Fundamental Attribution Error – to believe that other people’s behaviour is due to their personality, ‘They are late because he is a disorganised person’ and if you were late you might say ‘I’m late because the directions were unhelpful’.
If you can understand how to exploit this mentality in the design of a website, you’re sure to make a successful site.
There are loads design techniques that can be applied to login and signup forms, some conventional and others that think outside the box. Applying some innovative techniques should make your forms easier and more efficient for your users to interact with.
An example: Members website with large social user base
As with the majority of member’s sites the application requires user data to generate the most relevant content to the visitor. The user will have to input this data for the site to work.
Take Facebook for example, there is loads of information about its users; age, hobbies, email, location, sleep patterns, favourite movies etc. To sign up for a Facebook account you’ll only be asked to supply the most basic of information. It’s quick and your account will be running in seconds, it’s only once the account is created that you‘ll be asked to add more data to your profile. Now you’re signed-up it doesn’t matter that there are hundreds of fields of data they want- It’s not going to scare you off. Imagine if Facebook’s signup form contained all these input fields on one page. They would most likely not be quite the success they are now.
An example: An Ecommerce Checkout
The reality of ecommerce is that at least 59% of visitors will abandon their cart – why?
So many web designers make simple mistakes that will distract the visitor from converting into a sale. It would be easy to tell you our secrets for conversion; however that’s only for our customers!
Ok…I’ll give you one conversion tip! It’s a simple and obvious one; most online shops have standard 3 column layouts containing of a list of categories/departments, the content in the middle and some banners on the right leading the visitor to promotions and other sales incentives. The mistake that is often made is that the designer focuses on providing information and incentive to make the visitor ‘add to cart’ but when in the cart and checkout process this three column layout of sales promotion is no-longer acting as an ‘add to cart’ incentive, it’s distracting. The visitor should feel they have made the right decision. The easiest method to convey this is by not saying anything at all and allowing the customer to complete the purchase on their own. Lose all the banners stick to a simple one column layout with only the prize in view- the ‘checkout now’ button.
Make it easy and obvious, don’t ask unnecessary questions, and ensure that using your website is an overall pleasant experience .