A recent survey confirms that websites that are not user-friendly negatively affect business. A few key points from the survey:

• 75% of those questioned would not return to websites that took longer than four seconds to load.
• One third of those questioned abandon sites that take time to load, are hard to navigate or take too long to handle the checkout process.
• The four-second threshold is half of what is was before, suggesting that people are getting more impatient with websites.
• The experience shoppers have on a retail site colours their entire view of the company behind it.
• About 30% of those responding said they formed a “negative perception” of a company with a badly put-together site or would tell their family and friends about their experiences.

What does that mean for website designers and business owners?

1. Heavy graphics and animation can have a negative impact
   Even if your design looks great, if it uses many graphics and animation, people may leave your site before they see the whole picture; you will have lost potential customers. To avoid this, make sure your site is light on graphics (use text links rather than graphic “buttons”, for example) and that your hosting provider is reliable.
2. Simple and user-friendly websites keep their visitors
   By making things easy for your visitors, you have a much better chance to effectively communicate your message. Make sure your navigation structure (”menu”) is simple and that each step of a transaction is clear; that way, your visitors are less likely to quit before accomplishing their task.
3. Your website really does have an impact on your business
   People consider that websites are a reflection of the companies behind it; if they have a negative experience, that will affect their attitude regarding the company and they will tell their friends!

If this survey proves anything, it’s that a usability evaluation can save your company from repelling potential clients!

For more information:
BBC News “Websites face four-second cut-off”

Many e-commerce websites recognize previous customers and greet them with a personalized “Hello, [Customer Name]!”. It’s a nice touch, giving the customer a feeling of validation: “They know who I am”.

Sometimes, however, this recognition is only skin deep; as soon as you want to add an item to your shopping cart or view your account information, a login is required. Such measures are necessary for security reasons, of course, but if they are not presented clearly, they can confuse visitors and cancel the positive perception they had of seeing their name appear on the page in the first place. “Why don’t you recognize me anymore? You just said hello to me!”

For example, Chapters.ca greets clients directly on the home page:

However, when the “Wish List” link is clicked, all of a sudden they don’t know who you are anymore:

This irritant is easily fixed: use the personalized information in the message and explain why you are asking the customer to log in, even if the site already “knows” it’s the same person. Something like this would be better: “Hello [Customer Name], for security reasons, please enter your password to access your personal Wishlist”. There is no need for an intermediate page whose only purpose is to announce that you will need to sign in after you click “continue”.

Clients shouldn’t have to worry about technology

Not everyone knows that the feature that recognizes you as a returning customer (a “cookie”, information stored in your browser) is not the same as what controls your other customer information such as account details, order history and payment information (which is on the Chapters.ca server). If it is not possible to make the transition transparent, it should at least be explained clearly.

Personalizing a website certainly has its advantages, but it comes with strings attached. Each new feature creates expectations that, if not met consistently, will leave visitors with a negative impression. When thinking of adding something new to your site, think about what your visitors would expect to happen next. If you can’t respond accordingly, maybe it’s better to not include the new feature at all; it may end up hurting your business instead of helping it.

During a recent trip to the Czech Republic, I purchased a cell phone card and attempted to register it on T-Mobile’s website. I was puzzled by the way the form was designed and it took me a few tries to make it to Step 2 in the registration process. Can you figure out why? Take a look:

My confusion was due to the following reasons:

• The next action link is located outside of the visual area of the form field (the gray box), so I didn’t notice it at first; I hit “Enter” instead, which gave me an error message
• Once I noticed the action link, I hesitated because the link label (”Continue in Registration”) is too vague
• I am used to see a button, rather than a text link, right next to a box I have to fill out. I don’t know if my information will be saved when I click the text link.

In my “What can we learn from this?” tradition, here are three tips taken from this example that you can use to improve your forms:

1. Group items that go together

In this example, a grey box was used around the form field; that makes sense, since there are other elements in the page that are not part of the form and so it helps the user to focus on it. However, the next action link should have been included in that space, because it is also part of the form.

2. Respect users expectations

Even though the way we are using forms is evolving with new web technologies, people are still used to things working a certain way. For example, most users expect a button or button-like graphic next to a form field they have to fill out rather than a text link. User-conscious sites such as Backpack and Smugmug still adhere to that principle:

3. Use specific words for action items

The word “registration” was mentioned four times in the T-Mobile page, all within a few lines of each other. Rather than using generic words that can confuse the user, try verbs that indicate what the next logical step is, such as “Save”, “Publish” or “Send”. Garrett of yourtotalsite.com says it best: Button labels should communicate what happens when they are pressed and use language that users understand.