Make it a combo today?
When you first decide to go through the drive-thru at your local fast food restaurant, what is it that motivates you? No doubt a number of things; TV or billboard advertising, past experiences eating there, or the dire need to eat something before you pass out. Maybe this particular spot is all there is close by. Either way, when you roll up to that plastic sign, and yell over the muffled speaker, the choice is yours. No one forced you to go there. And other than the usual promotional signs that are in front of you advertising the new mushroom-melt — very little “selling” is needed. Ronald’s already got you.
In a lot of ways websites are like fast-food drive-thrus. Visiting a website doesn’t take long and it should be equally fast to get what you want from it. Whether it’s information, downloads, or to sign up and become a member - you are at a site for a reason. Maybe you just want that Transformer that comes with the kids meal.
On the other hand, when you watch a television spot, or when you see a print ad - it’s mostly an unwelcome intrusion. Your mind was elsewhere, and now an advertiser is trying to vie for you attention. Don’t think of a website the same way.
When you visit a site, nine times out of ten, you’ve already been sold. You’ve clicked on a link, googled the name, or even entered the URL in the browser bar (do people still do that?). You’ve visited it because you wanted to. So why is it that some websites are still trying to sell you when you’re already there? Why are they trying to force you to view the site the way they want you to and not the way you want to?
One of the appeals of using the web is interactivity. Visiting a site when you want to visit it. Keeping your browser window the size you want it to be. Setting the body font to a size that is comfortable for you. In short, viewing content on your terms, not somebody else’s.
The following are some things to keep in mind when designing for the web to ensure your visitor’s stay is as comfortable, and customizable as possible:
Don’t misuse Flash
It happens a lot. People abuse Flash by getting it to do things it wasn’t meant for. Like creating ridiculously underwhelming intros that are meant to get the viewer interested in the site. The viewers are already there! There’s no need to sell them. All that intro is doing is stopping them from accessing the content they visited the site for in the first place.
Imagine the teenage employee of McDonald’s standing in front of your car before you can get to the intercom, saying (voice-cracking and all) “Welcome to McDonald’s, Here you’ll find Big Mac’s and other hamburgers. By the way if you want to skip this, just let me know.” Same goes with splash pages. There’s no need to create a barrier between the user and your content.
Another way Flash can be abused is by using it for navigation. If the site isn’t built in Flash, then the nav shouldn’t be. It’s inaccessible. It doesn’t allow people to use the contextual menu (ie: right-click and open the page in a new tab or window) and most of the time, it’s just plain annoying. Picture every time you looked at an item on the fast-food menu and it twirled.
Coming soon
Few things are as frustrating as trying to access something on a website only to find: “Still under construction. Coming soon”. If there is no content on a page, then don’t allow the user to waste precious time visiting it.
It doesn’t impress anyone to see that a page was initially conceived with the idea of content being in place. Rarely are we interested enough to keep checking back. No one likes ordering a food item and being told it ran out, but check back soon. There may be more eventually.
Taking away the control
It was stated at the outset that what separates the web from other media, is that users control it. So anything we do to try and strip them of that control is not going to make for an enjoyable experience. That means that even though we think our site looks really cool full-screen, and with no URL bar visible (hey, we don’t want them distracted by thinking about other sites they might want to visit) - it’s really intrusive to force upon them.
Kind of like if your sitting in your car placing an order and a big piece of chrome comes out of the side of the restaurant and closes in on your car so that the Wendy’s across the street isn’t visible. Just face it, people are there out of choice, and ultimately it’s up to them whether or not they want to stay.
This brings to mind the idea of pop-up windows. Generally it’s offensive to have a new window or tab open up in your browser unless you, the user, decided to open it. Sure, as creators of the site, we don’t want people leaving our site prematurely. But really if it’s made clear that the link is external, then they can be the ones to decide whether or not to see it in a new window.
Click here to read more. Click where? Oh right, here!
We see these kinds of contextual instructions, and for the most part, they’re a bad practice. It’s almost always better to visually identify what is a link, and make sure that what is identified is real, descriptive content. For example, “click here for more information” is silly and redundant. Why not link “More information”. The kid at the drive-thru intercom never says “Look here for more food choices”.
By keeping in mind that the websites we create are solely for the users that visit them, and not for ourselves, we can be sure that they’ll keep coming back for more online, tender, juicy goodness.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:05 am
I agree with your comments as a whole but wanted to rebute the ‘open in new window links’.
Any link that refernces an external site should open in a new window.
I mean if i was a Macdonald’s and was looking at the hamburgers, and a picture of a chicken burger caught my interest, I woudln’t want all the Burger choices to be replaced with the chicken, rather I would want them both open and in view so that I had access to all the choices.
One might say that it is easy for someone to right click and ’select open in new window’, this is only easy if you know that the option exists, and not all web users know this, so for the interest of keeping people at your site, and open to alll the choices, I vote for external links to open in new window.
Thanks for your time,
Ricky The Ferris
June 7th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
That is a hotly debated issue. However I think that if designers stopped making pop-up links, then people would stop assuming that external links will open in a new window.
Although there’s merit to what you say, you can’t have it both ways. I say give the user back control and stop making decisions about their browser environment for them.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Great comparison, especially ‘coming soon’ and the mis-use of Flash. The only point I slightly disagree with is the ‘click here’ line. Depending on the target audience, some users (though it may be surpising to us) aren’t internet savvy at all and need very clear, simple direction. Even if it’s something as mundane as ‘click on the text for..”