Psychologists believe that emotions play an immense role in our reaction to a situation in an environment. Emotions bring about physiological and cognitive changes in the body when reacting to a stimulus. That is, it is developed though a physiological arousal and expressed through behavioral expression.
As usability analysts, we all know that users go through several emotional states while interacting with an interface. Soon after emotions develop internally, they are expressed externally in the form of expression and movement.
Some interactions are weak while some others are strong. Let’s look at interaction patterns of websites across a particular domain. It would be ideal to compare the interaction through similar domains as we do a comparative analysis, lest I try and favor one over the other!
Getting Ready
So what do we want to target here? Let’s take websites that are commonly visited today; websites where users can post/ read articles online. The sites that we will look at are:
http://www.boxesandarrows.com
http://www.digg.com
http://ezinearticles.com
http://www.buzzle.com
In this article, I will concentrate only on the registration process that allows a user to become a member on the website. Essentially, soon after the first impressions are made, the user would move on to register.
Targeting the Good
The next step would be to look at these sites and go through each registration process. Boxes and arrows provides an exceptionally good interaction pattern which immediately establishes that this site values the time the user puts in. Let’s look at what the site provides- a clutter-free homepage that will allow the user to immediately find the cue for him to move on to register; the interaction pattern is engaging and provides pleasant surprises along the way which keeps the user captivated.
Click on the image above to see the entire page.
Targeting the Bad
Going through the same process at another site like digg.com, the experience would be less engaging for a user. Let’s see why! Now this one step process would take the user much more time due to the errors encountered. How is a user supposed to know if the username has been taken? When users register, this plays on there mind all the time. Doesn’t that happen to you as well? Don’t you always wonder, “Hmmm… I wonder if this username has been taken. Let me create a vague one that is likely to be spared.” Applications have conditioned humans to think this way. Here, the site forces the user to check for the availability. Goodness, that’s a lot of effort there.
Click on the image above to see the entire page.
Targeting the Ugly
Coming across another site ezinearticles.com, the interaction would definitely give a user a mild attack. Firstly it would take a user ages to register after feeling exasperated with the huge amount of clutter on the homepage. Secondly, the registration process is no easy way to move forward. Here is the process with the response that followed- the error message was placed on the following page. Now, how is the user going to recover from the error made? “Press the back button!” Ah ah, that’s the worst thing to suggest. It’s like forcing the user to step into a lion’s den!
Click on the image above to see the entire page.
Another website that needs to be shot is buzzle.com. The interaction is somewhat annoying. Okay, let me rephrase that to extremely annoying. It not only provides a poor cue to register but also provides this cue in a location that seems so far fetched, that the user would almost cringe and give up! Alas, when the user does begin to register (if he is forced to), the user is prone to commit errors that makes it tough to recover. “Don’t give me this message, dimwit. Give me a solution”, I heard someone scream.
Click on the image above to see the entire page.
Fire!
Deciding which one of them to fire isn’t quite the toughie here! Before we fire, we need to quickly analyze why we want to get rid of the ugly, cantankerous ones.
Some of the reasons why the good remains the good, in fact the best is discussed below.
Good marketing. It is always important that sites ensure that people know what they are doing and most importantly, why they are doing it. When a user enters a site, he would expect to know what the site is promoting. Every user knows where he wants to go but the site should ensure that he is in the right place. None of the sites reviewed provide focus.
Good scent of information. When users enter a site, there should always be a strong cue to move ahead. Let’s say that a user wants to register. The scent of information must be distinct and upfront to allow the user to make an instant decision, without thinking too much.
A short form. A user would never want to be troubled by a long and tedious looking form that would take up time; the shorter, the better. When sites ask for unnecessary information, that’s when the frustration begins to build. Such sites should keep in mind that time is never eternal, nor is patience. Keeping in mind the goal of a user would help in reducing unnecessary questions.
A clutter-free page. “Let’s throw in everything that we may need!” We say the same in reality as well. And what is the end result? More Baggage. And we regret it, when we have to carry it ourselves. We wouldn’t want our users to go through the same, do we? It is important to provide just the form on the page. Most sites throw in anything and everything. The user wants to see what he wants to see. Sometimes, just that little breather matters.
No gates open for error messages. Allow the user to feel safe while navigating or even while filling in a form. Error messages should not occur and even if they do, these messages should be placed near the location that caused the error. The sites reviewed had error messages in godforsaken places. The user would take ages to recover from it. Some of them display the message on the next page after the user submits the application. This goes against our principles of efficiency and effectiveness in design.
Positive feedback. Provide feedback with ever step taken. This is followed only in one of the many sites. Kudos to boxes and arrows for this. The feedback given with every step is meaningful and engaging.
Times when the user says, “Yay, I love this!” We hardly find instances where usability reaches that phase when the user feels stimulated. Worth a mention is boxes and arrows where the site enlivens the registration process on their site. Most people draw back on hearing the word “register”. Why? Because they expect the process to take up a lot of their time. But boxes and arrows break this myth. In fact, the process is so enlivening that most users would do it for fun!
Trust makes the heart grow fonder. While navigating, users go through positive and negative affects, seen in their current emotional state. ‘Positive Affect’ is an emotional state where the user goes through pleasant emotions like joy, happiness, excitement and delight. On the other hand, a user would go through a ‘Negative Affect’ when faced with discomfort, frustration, annoyances and uneasiness. The aim here should be to increase the positive affect to ensure that there is always a sense of positivity flowing through the interface design.
Now that we have discussed what is essential and necessary, let’s move on to discard the ones that we hate. Shall we? Fire!
And we move on…
Music please!
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26th April, 2007 at 4:51 am
Hey Afi! Great article. I was just wondering about the Check Availability example used for digg.com. Isn’t it better that you can check availability of username immediately rather than fill a form and then be told that the username is taken?
I would think that this may be faster and less painful. Let me know what you think.
26th April, 2007 at 5:13 am
Thanks for the comment Arch.
Why does the user need to check for the availability? The interface needs to aid the user to achieve this without having to take that extra step. Have a look at Boxes and Arrows. Just that simple “tick mark” while the user is filling up the form says so much.
To summarize this:
1. It makes a user feel safe which will allow him to proceed with ease.
2. This acts as a pleasant surprise as users are conditioned the other way (checking for the availability).
As I said earlier, feedback at every step is a critical cue for a user to proceed.
30th April, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Thanks for the feedback.
I’ve sent your thoughts to our developers and we’ll work on making our sign up form more user friendly. I agree that we’ve got work to do.