Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Archive for the ‘User Experience’ Category

You have to consider every detail of your design and content to keep the visitors on your site.

I have been working on site architecture for two sites which had become a bit too spread out. As I cleaned up, I began to observe my navigational elements, and how could I clean up files. On top of that, I was dealing with quite a bit of spam, which lead me to look at legitimate comments. With all of these elements, I began to see my design in a new light. I also studied other sites, and their solutions to the questions I was considering.
    I also like to delve into my analytics to find ways to improve the site. I find ideas for content. I discover what is working, and where I am faiing. On one site, I had been improving visitor retention on site. The number of pages that were being viewed on average was increasing. Interaction appeared to be improving too. I noticed that there were still people leaving the site rather quickly. This could be for a number of reasons, such as the site being the wrong provider for the information needed. I began to look at my site carefully. I loaded the landing page into the browser, and then different pages and posts. I stared at how the pages loaded, and then I looked at each detail above the fold. This is what will be seen by these visistors which make them think about staying or lleaving the site. Much of this happens faster than you may realize; five seconds is fairly much the average. Looking at this part of the site, I began to ask questions to ensure that I was not loosing visitors who may find what they need on the site.
    Is the site purpose clear? Blogs can have names which may be misleading. From “Jared’s Blog” to “My Life in Rose” (both made-up),  we have creative to simple names which say nothing to what the purpose of the site may be. This can work for you if you effectively brand the name, so visitors may know in advance that Jared is the writer to go to when finding the latest tech news, and that if you love roses in the garden, you will want to read about one person’s adventures of growing and using roses. This takes work, so you may want to be clear from the start. If you want to use a title like Jared’s Blog, then add a subtitle which helps quickly define the site.
   Have I given a clear path for the different users of the site? Have you paid attention to people in line to buy movie tickets? There are certain people who know which film that they want, and their goal is to move through the line fast to purchase those tickets. Others are trying to decide between two or three films, and the start time may be the determining factor. Others have no idea what they are going to see, but they may have a set of concerns which will narrow the list. The box office has to serve all of these users well to keep the line moving.  Although you have one over arching purpose to your site, you have users coming to the site with different goals. Can the person who has a goal find it quickly to move through? Can the person who wants to explore find a way to do this? Moreover, this has to happen above the fold. However, if you cram everything into this real estate, have you confused the user? You may have to encourage them to scroll down to find their path, but the option to do so has to be stated or hinted at in the first view of the user.
    Does my language inspire the desired action? I am not speaking of your call to action statement (“go this page to get your free ebook”), but the content seen by the visitor when the page has loaded. I have used the passive voice or a vague reference when writing content, because I may like the sound of it or I feel that it represents my intentions accurately. This is not a good practice when you have a few seconds to convert a visitor to a reader or a customer. Every sentence above the fold has to sway the visitor that this is the site meeting your purpose, so you have to craft your message carefully.
    Does everything fall apart when the user scrolls down below the fold? Once you have them scrolling, does the remainder of the page encourage the visitor to continue on to explore or comment or whatever you need them to do? Here you have to find balance. Packing content into the space can confuse the user, but maybe you need that content. Planning the layout of images and words helps, and where to use bold and title tags, can be what the visitor needs to move through the site. Elelments in the sidebar can also influence the user path. If I list recent comments, a visitor may opt to comment themselves, or explore the post where the comment was left. Having a tag cloud does not encourage commenting, but does encourage exploration. If I use both, which one should  I place first in the sidebar? What do I want the visitor to do? Each element has to have a reason on the page, and that reason should meet a site goal. Consider each piece of real estate valuable, so do not waste it.
   Lastly, what is your landing page? On certain websites, I have a different template for pages and posts, because I know that the reason for the visit is different.  A post becomes a landing page even if you do not intend for it to be. Visitors do not move cleanly through our site as we desire. This forces me to meet different needs, but guide them to my ultimate goals. “Use my service” can be my intent, which is easy to do on the home page, but not the obvious message on a post. Still, I want to sneak that idea into the visitor’s mind.
    Look at your site. Take it apart piece by piece. Cut out what does not work; adjust what does to be better. Ask yourself the questions in this post to begin your journey.

In your store, you may train your employees to upsell or suggestive sell, missing no chance for a sale, but does this happen through your website?

Since I used to train staff to make the most of every sale, I guess that I pay attention to the mechanics of employee interactions with me when going to a store. A way to keep my hand in the game I imagine. I noticed that at one shop, the five foot rule has come back (greet all customers within a five foot radius). At another, the simple can I help you find something was being reinforced. The last place to catch me is at the checkout. Clerks might ask “did you find everything alright?” to “is there anything else that you need?”. Try answering no to that first question, and you may find someone attempting to direct you to the product that you may have missed. There is more to the checkout than this last sale though. I stopped going to a store for sometime, because the clerks at the checkout where so unfriendly that I had a negative impression of the store. (Yesterday at a sandwich shop the two clerks behind the counter were so busy talking to the owner that I was being ignored; I blame the owner for that situation). The checkout becomes vital if you want a customer to come back.
    I had two online checkout experiences this past week which made me consider how we handle this process. In the first, I was making a larger purchase, where I experienced a problem with my card not being accepted. I could have been quite mad at the website, but I knew what was happening from a past incident. My bank halts online transactions which are over $100. For the transaction to be approved, I have to contact the fraud department. The message from the website did not reflect that fact. The message was nice enough : “the processing of this card has failed” , which is better than having a statement saying your card was declined, but I think it would have been better if the message somehow stated the situation clearly. I know that when this happens in a store, there will be a message on the machine stating that the customer has to call a certain number to have the transaction process. At this point of the checkout, you have to be careful of what message you deliver, but the more information you can provide, the better for the customer.
    The other checkout experience involved search. I needed new test equipment for my business. I have a standard supplier, and I was prepared to go to that store; however, I wanted to see what other models were available, so I conducted a search. There in the search results was a section containing the name of the store and model number of the piece of equipment that I was seeking. The first price was $60 lower than the cost at my supplier, so I clicked the link, where I was brought to a page describing the equipment, along with a noticeable checkout button.The unit had everything that I wanted, so I hit that checkout button, which brought me to a page, where I could confirm uantity, shipping, and personal information to complete the sale (like name and how I was paying). That page and another for card information led me to the thank you for your purchase page. Confirmation emails were sent with an invoice and tracking number. Great, right? At one point there was a button which asked “continue shopping?”, but I had obtained my goal, so why would I click?  What would have been better? Well, a section with “other people who bought this item also purchased” would have been a start. My only problem with those also purchased items is that they are below the fold. Why not have them in a sidebar? How about mentioning other on sale items in related categories in the sidebar? Suggestive selling does not work unless you offer the customer something that he might want. How about showing off a more expensive model? You could say “for $30 more, you could buy this tester that has these twenty additional features”. That line may have made me curious before going onto the final steps.
    The point is know your checkout process, and  implement you sales techniques from the physical store into you website. The real estate above the fold is precious. Protect it. Use it wisely. “Above the fold” means what the client will see when logging onto your site on their screen. If they have to scroll down to see your sales pitch, you may have lost the opportunity. Go through your own checkout process to see how well you are selling.

The look of your website could effect user involvement, but so can the sound of your website. Consider when the website will be used to make decisions about design.

When I began my first website, I did not consider ease of use, nor did I think much about when people might be looking at my site. I wanted to get information up on the site; I wanted the information to be impressive; and I wanted the information to lead to a conversion. I kept working on improvements which I thought would help to this end. When I began a second site, I became more concerned with how to make the site a success through posting frequency and other factors. With both of these sites, I did not pay much attention to the user, or when they would be viewing the site, and how that could effect their interaction with the site.
Read the rest of this entry »

I witnessed a spectacular bit of customer service this past weekend, which made me appreciate the concept of following up as a customer service tool.

I wanted to share this story, because it impressed me. Firstly, I am a data junkie. I have learned to love reports, but I know that I can be flooded with information which is useless. Sometimes finding that nugget of information and its importance can be hard. For example, I have an ad running on one website, and the click through rate is not all that great, but I noticed that searches for my name and phrasing in the ad has increased since the ad has been running. There may or may not be a correlation; more data is needed. And there is my problem ladies and gentlemen: more data. This causes me to search out ways of obtaining more data.
Read the rest of this entry »

What if you need a slightly different header or sidebar in your posts from your pages?

I have been going through various reports to see how I could improve one of my sites. My goal is to improve user experience, and related to that goal is to improve navigation in the hopes that users will explore more pages. I like the idea of using css to change different parts of a website, but you may want to keep the basic look of your pages the same for branding purposes, and you may want only one element to be different. Creating a unique php file for your header, sidebar, footer, or post may be what you need.
    Here is a scenario: you have Google AdSense on your site, but you do not want every visitor to see it. A visitor who comes to your site through search is more likely to click on the ad, so you only want them to see it. Also, visitors hardly ever click on ads on your pages, but they do click on them when they are reading a post, so let’s elimanate them from the pages. You did find that ads in the header work best, so you want to keep it in the header. You also want the pages and the posts to maintain the same feeling.
    Here is the problem: WordPress uses the same php file (header.php) to create the header for a page or a post.
    The solution:
Step1: create a new header.php file
You will need a copy of the exisiting header.php file. You can either transfer from your site to your computer, or you can copy it from the editor box under Appearance>Editor from your WordPress dashboard. You will need a text editor, like Notepad++.
    Leave the exisitng header.php file for the pages. We will use this one for the posts. If you already have your Google AdSense code in the place that you want, you will only have to save this file as header1.php. To limit who sees these ads, you could use a plugin, but there is a wonderful function that will help (why add a plugin, when all you need is a bit of javascript). The site Scratch99 will explain this from a search engine code (the site has a good deal of information for you), so follow the instructions there (he goes over different methods). If you do not have the code in place, you could experiment to see where it works best, then add the javascript from the previously mentioned site. Make sure to save your changes.
Step 2: upload your changes
Use your FTP client to upload the header1.php file into your theme’s folder.
Step 3: edit the existing header.php
If you have the AdSense code here, the ads will be seen by visitors on the pages, so you can remove it, then save your changes by updating the file.
Step 4: update your single post file (usually single.php)
This file contains the elements which are displayed when a visitor is looking at a post. You will find the command <?php get_header(); ?>; this pulls up the header.php. What you want is the header1.php file, so you will need the following command   <?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/header1.php’); ?> to replace the old command. This brings up your new header file. Save your work.

That is it. Now a visitor looking at an individual post will see the ad, but no one else. How else may you use this? You could have different headers,sidebars, or footers for the various categories, or maybe you want the sidebar to contain certain information when a visitor is on a page from when they are on a post, such as a blogroll. There is a function in your WordPress admin panel that lets you choose which php file will determine the look of a post or page, so you could create new page.php and single.php files for different aspects of your site. Hope this gives you ideas.

How different is your site from the next guy’s site? Have you considered a new format for your blog?

I was discussing the state of real estate portals recently, when it was pointed out that we are reaching a “plateau of similarity”. Not long after reading this phrase in an email, I receive another email informing me that another site is adopting the features of two other popular sites. The move makes sense. You copy what works for others. Refine the element to make it work better for you. Then others copy your imitation; hopefully some will refine the element with a clever innovation to take it a step further. Eventually, we obtain a distilled feature that works at its optimum level.
Read the rest of this entry »

A user interface is more than the buttons and menu bars on your website. There are all types of navigational elements, but the words that you deploy can have a greater impact.

We are careless in our use of language. We take a word that we feel best suits our intentions, even though it might not suit our meaning. Sometimes we are not aware that words imply meanings to others that may be contrary to our intent. Sometimes we reveal our thoughts when we did not intend. Our users though will pick up on the cues that words transmit, so we should consider which words will prompt the actions that we desire.

    You are selling widgets to the public, so you have a page entitled “widgets” or “products”. Standard fare for a website, and a user coming to your site obviously is looking for this item. What if they are looking for items under $20? Does the word “products” help them? Let’s be more specific: what if the customer is looking for a bargain, because they need to save money? Will they find what they want under “products”? They will, but the implication is that they will have to hunt for this item. They may not want to go through that task. What if you have an option “cheap products”? Cheap does imply low cost, but it does have the implication of low quality too. “Sale Items” may work; “under $20″ may be better.

    This problem surfaces on a website more often than you may imagine. The visitor is going to be on our site for a short time span before deciding to stay or leave, so we need to choose the words carefully that will call them to stay. After they have decided to stay, we have to prompt them to take specific actions. There are various techniques in the design process of a site which assist in this effort, but we are not always so creative when it comes to words. Users want to feel comfortable, so we rely on phrases that we see on many other sites. If they want to know about the author , they will scan for an “About” page. If they do not see a page with that label, they may scan for the “Contact” page, since author information is sometimes placed in that location.

    Having consistent lables to other websites can be good for creating a user interface; however, we can take the expected in a slightly different direction to pique the interest of our visitors. Did you notice how I set up the posts on the landing page of this blog? I have an excerpt, then there is the means to click through to read the remainder of the post. Typically the phrase used is “continue reading this post”. To draw attention to the fact that the user should click, designers may increase the size of the font of this phrase, or they may highlight in a box or by a color element. I chose to alter the senetence to “Intrigued? Well read on”. The excerpt is meant to intrigue them, so I am asking were you intrigued? I then ask them to take an action. The basic concept of continue reading is expressed, but not in those words. The phrase does catch a user’s attention, because it is not quite what was expected, but it fits the parameters, so it helps to force a decision. This phrase may not be a big deal, but there are moments like this all over your blog. You could place a header over a tag cloud that states “tag cloud”, or you could invite them to take an action: “explore through tags”.

    Subtle differences from the norm help the user to think, and I feel that may be better for your site. Take the tag cloud example. These are becoming common on sites, and most users understand their function, so they glance over that section without a thought to interact with the site in that way. By having the heading stopping the user’s attention on what has been written, you may have created the opportunity to cause an action that benefits your site. Consider other features, like breadcrumbs. Those are the lines that show the visitor where they are on the site (home>category>subcategory>post). Intuitively the user understands that he can click on part of the breadcrumb to be taken to a page that contains other related posts in a category, or he could go back to the home page. What if you prefaced your breadcrumbs with a phrase like “You are Here”. We imply that this is a map. We have caught their attention, and they may actually click the category or subcategory button to orientate themselves in the site.

    Does this method work all of the time? Each change of word or phrase will effect the visitor, but they may decide not to take the action. Most of our visitors will never read an “About” page, unless they want to know the author better. I titled my “About” page on one site “About the ever curious Frank”, which caused the hits on that page to rise. I have been trying an experiment for a while now, where I replaced the navigation bar that had page titles to one that had icons. Initially, I did see a spike in traffic to other pages, because I think users were curious. I am letting the icons stand, to discover if they will continue to draw visitors in after the novelty has worn off. Personally, I like the clean look of the icons.

   Words carry a weight that we do not always stop to consider, but we may want to think of the possibilities if we want users to interact with the site more. 

When you consider innovative websites, you may realize that they take the forms of existing media or functions, which make them easier to use.

Read the rest of this entry »

Two restaurants opened up near my home, and they may provide insight into how you should see your website.

You never will know what a customer will want until engage them. You may think that with a website that you may not be speaking directly (as in face to face). This would be a poor choice to follow. Whether they speak to you or not, website visitors are engaging you. I thought about these two restaurants recently opened, and about my experiences with them. It occurred to me that they are good examples of might be going through the thoughts of our site’s visitors.
Read the rest of this entry »