DON’T ask people to register unless it’s absolutely necessary!

I recently read an article on Webcredible – it was about optimising user registration and, of course, enhancing the user experience.  The article went something like this…

“Do you ever get annoyed at having to make yet another password for one more website? Too many websites still force users to register without good reason, or provide an ineffective registration process. You can avoid frustrating users on your website by thinking about the following points:

1. Ask users to login or register only when necessary. Those parts of a website that aren’t personalised should be equally accessible by registered and non-registered users. Only ask people to login or register when it’s required to complete an action, not earlier.
2. Make registration optional where possible. Customers shouldn’t have to ‘create an account’ in order to buy products from an online shop. If a site needs to remember simple previously entered information, this can also be done by using a cookie, which of course requires no effort from the end user.
3. Prominently explain the benefits of registration. Users will be happier to register if they know that they’re getting something useful, rather than if registration is seen as a barrier between them and their task.
4. Avoid lengthy registration forms. Another source of frustration comes from questions in registration forms that look irrelevant to the task in hand. Remove such questions and explain the rest e.g. “We need your phone number to notify you in case your flight times change.”
5. Consider progressive registration. This means asking only the bare essentials in the beginning (e.g. an email address and a password), and enabling users to update and complete their full profile at a later stage.”

Reading this – I concurred with every one of the 5 points.  However, I didn’t feel their warning on the perils of asking people to registere was strong enough!

Having worked on a number of ecommerce sites over the years –  when we monitor where users are ‘dropping out’ of the process – the majority of drop out is around the registration process.

In my opinion – Amazon operate a ‘seamless’ and totally user friendly way of getting users to buy.  It’s simply a case of inserting your email address whether you are a returning customer or a new customer.  Same process – tiny switch of a radio button and that’s it.

It’s only when I go to buy – (psychologically commit to interacting with the site) that I then have to hand over more details.  And, from a consumer psychology perspective, when I’m in buying mode and have committed to the purchase – we are more than happy to share more details – as we recognise that we need to make the purchase and receive the goods.  For that, we will give our address details, our card details, our date of birth – all sorts.  We are much more open to sharing information.

But where we are asked to share details before we’ve even seen the value of the proposition and have committed to buy – as soon as we are asked to share details – the conversation in our head goes something along the lines of ;

” What? Why do they want my email address, date of birth, name etc?  I’m only researching at this point! I don’t want to get email after email spamming me with their sales pitch.  Oh enough of this – I’m off!

If we look at point 2 in Webcredible’s feature – there are still lots of site where it is compulsory to ‘create an account’ – before you can access any information which is required for your decision making process.

I did some research recently in the company credit report arena – and approximately 80% of the sites I reviewed didn’t provide me with basic information such as the price of their reports. Incredulous! And when I called a couple of them to ascertain how much their reports actually retailed for – as I couldn’t find that information on the site – I was advised that it was best I registered and then I would be able to see the information I wanted!  Crazy!  Perhaps they hadn’t bothered to register on their own site and so weren’t too sure themselves!

Plus – the amount of sites asking for an email address – without a ‘why we need this’ link explaining their email policy – is incredibly high!  C’mon – it’s pretty simple to do – and an excellent way of being transparent with your customers and nurturing the all important trust factor.

I always remember, in a previous consulting role, being lectured by my CEO:  “Make it as easy as possible for the customer to buy”.  Online – it’s imperative that our information pathways and signposts and processes are not prohibitive – but welcome the customer on board – which makes engaging with us, or buying from us – a simple and positive experience.

Progressive registration is indeed the way to go. Taking only the bare minimum and then progressively extracting more when the customer is in sharing mode.  From a consumer psychology perspective – once a customer is engaged and in buying mode – they are more than comfortable to share heaps of information.  And if it’s really necessary for your customers to create an account – as that’s where they need to return to access the thing they’ve consumed from you – then fine, but do this as part of the purchasing process – post commitment – NOT before they’re even sure about purchasing from you.  Done too soon – it will most certainly kill the commitment!

“It’s the crazy messed up world of E-commerce videos” from the fab GetElastic – hit the nail right on the head – this amusing video gets the message across – oh so well… Have a giggle!

Enjoy…

For more marketing news, views, tips and advice – why not subscribe to my blog or follow me on twitter .

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

At business school studying for my masters in business and marketing some (eeek) 12 years ago!  IOne of my favourite subjects was consumer psychology (not only was the professor teaching the subject highly amusing and super smart) – but I could clearly connect it with effective marketing.  Understanding buying behaviour (of course all offline back then) – has stayed close to my heart over the years – and has proved very useful in my many of my consultancy projects.

Buyer behaviour has become even more interesting with the online arena – and hence my interest in usability – and understanding how people interact with websites.

I’ve had many a discussion online and off with usability experts and read a number of texts – (Steve Krug’s Don’t make me think’ is a great starting point – as is Donald Norman’s – The Design of Everyday Things) – but like most things in life – you only start really learning once the L plates are off and you are out there doing it for yourself.

Most texts and experts agree on the following elements being necessary in most good site planning:

Site ID

This is your logo / or brand name – always keep it in the same place on the page throughout the site.  The Site ID should be a link back to the home page.   Remember, people may come into your site from a link – and end up deep within the content.  So it’s important that your ID is prominent so they know that they’ve landed where they thought they were heading.

Page Name:

If you have a tab called say, How it Works, then make sure the relevant page has a Header which, you got it, says How it Works.  Basic for usability – but you’d be amazed at how many sites break this simple convention.  Think of it as an index in a book – when you see the How it Works item in the index, p14 – you head to Page 14 and there it is, the chapter has a header How it Works.  The same basic principle needs to apply online.

Navigation

Keep navigation as conventional and simple as possible.  There are two key ways people will navigate around your site.  First is to ‘Browse’ using the navigation available to them.  Be that a horizontal across the top of the page tabbed navigation – or left hand side panel navigation – people should be able to clearly see the primary tab – and then if necessary when they click on that primary tab – for example, Books – then the secondard navigation may break that down further to say, Fiction, Childrens, Religious, Best Seller etc.   It’s recommended to try and keep the navigation to no deeper than 2 levels – but some complex sites do require more.

The other way a person will search is by using a ‘search box’.  Many sites include a search box on the home page and indeed on other pages through the site – and on deep sites – this is a really useful resource.  Just be sure that the search box isn’t over complicated – all you need is a the word search, a box which the person can populate with their query and the word go – so that it’s clear that you have to click go to get your results.  Of course, if you have a site where the offering is about searching for a domain name or a company name etc – then you may want to differentiate the name of the ‘site search’ box to say ‘site search’ and be sure not to house the two search boxes to close to one another.  You don’t want to confuse the user with too many similar search boxes on the same page.

Where are we?

Be sure to show the person where they are in the site.  For example, if on the How it Works page – then make that tab highlighted in some way – so the people know where they are.  Breadcrumbs are also more commonly used now – a path of links showing the journey the person has taken through your site to get to where they are now – if they want to jump back 3 places – then instead of clicking the back button 3 times – they can simply click the relevant link in that path – and they’re back to where they wanted to get to.

Tag line

I’ve written a post on this already – so see here for more on this important messaging.

Hierarchy of content within a page

I use the newspaper analogy all the time when writing content for the web.  You need a good descriptive headline, an intro para which summarises the content – and then the detail.

Home Page

Does the home page break with the above convention?  Well, in my opinion, in someways, yes it does.  The home page has a different agenda from the rest of the site – as it’s the ‘front page news’.  Going back to the newspaper analogy – take a look at the front page of a newspaper.  It’s dominated by a lead headline – and enough content on the lead story that may lead you to another page.  And then other snippets to pull you into the newspaper eg: contd. pg 7…, see inside story… etc.  The home page can break the ‘navigation’ convention if necessary – as it should be enticing people into the sections of the site they are interested in.

See the post Usability: Good old fashioned eyes and ears – for more and whilst yes, there are accepted conventions, and best practice usability guides galore – there’s nothinig better than testing what you create with people… trust me, it’s a most illumination experience.

For more marketing news, views, tips and advice why not subscribe to www.carvillcreative.co.uk/blog

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

When involved in a marketing project with a client, it’s inevitable that when we review their communication vehicles – we consider their online presence. And so, I’ve worked on revamping dated websites through to creating ones from scratch on projects where sites didn’t exist or when launching new services.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly not a jack of all trades – and I don’t physically create the websites, but from my experience – having an experienced marketer involved with the development of a key marketing communication platform is valuable if not, fundamental.

After all – the website is part of the marketing mix – and so of course, marketers should be involved in how it performs.

When a site is being created, I collaborate with designers, business owners, senior management, seo experts and technicians – and if I’m not writing the content – then also content writers.

So that’s a fair few people involved in a website project. Each usually, with their own ideas and experiences ready to share views on what they think the site needs to do.

From a marketing perspective – I focus on ensuring key messages and call to actions are in all the right places – that the user knows what you sell and how to buy it.

Of course, writing for the web, is different to writing for offline promotion – and the writer needs to consider how users react with screens when writing. For example, users tend to scan text looking for relevant ‘jump outs / links’ rather than read it. Run some searches on Google and you’ll find that there is a lot of research to help web planners and marketers (people like me) understand where the key points of engagement are on a web site.

However, whilst there are some fabulous resources out there helping you to understand what best practice is when building a website (and it’s quite complex, as you have to marry: good design, seo, clear content, writing for the web, call to actions, and usability) – there’s nothing quite as illuminating as ‘testing’ the site for yourself!

Call it what you will – usability testing, site testing, user testing – the key is that you learn from users BEFORE you build/launch the final site.

I’ve worked on a significant number of websites over the past few years – and I’ve only undertaken usability testing ONCE, and just recently.

What an eye opener – why had I not done this before? I knew the merits, so why not…

Well, to answer that question – I think I thought it would be far too ‘high maintenance’ to conduct. I’d have to get a usability expert in, hire a lab, or hire in my own high end technical equipment – all far too time consuming and costly.

But usability testing doesn’t have to be this complex…

…after all – what I do as a marketing consultant is to dig around and uncover key issues, prioritise, plan, achieve objectives and fill the voids.

So perhaps I was well equipped to manage a consultative session, observing and questioning users reacting with web designs.

And that’s exactly what I did. I drafted in 3 experienced web users – but made sure they knew nothing about the particular web project I was working on. I put PDF designs up on screens – sat the user in front of the computer with mouse in hand – and watched and mapped out their actions on the offline pages I had – so building a picture of their actions – and scribbling notes when necessary. When I needed to ask or answer questions, I did – but for the most part, I just observed their activity. Each session took approx an hour – and so in just the short space of 3 hours – I had learned, so, so much about how users were interacting with the proposed site.

Needless to say, a couple of hours later, I sat with the project manager and developers and designers – and debriefed. There were some really obvious areas we’d all missed – regardless of how ‘brilliant’ at web design and planning we all thought we were. There was just so much to learn from the users.

Of course, when translating such findings into actions – you have to be cautious. I remember reading an article which stated that each user interacts uniquely with a site – and from my few observations, I would concur with this – however, there are ‘general patterns’ – and so whilst you have to ignore much of what is observed – you will pick up on the big gaping holes – or the subtle refinements that cost nothing to implement but change the user experience significantly.

From what we learned in these few hours of 3 users reviewing 10 pages, we made a few key changes to the home page, and the products page – tweaked the checkout and that was pretty much it.

Again, there’s lots of advice online relating to undertaking usability testing – I did read up with the mighty ‘Don’t Make Me Think’ (Steve Krug) – and it’s a most useful resource indeed.

But I didn’t play it by the rules – it wasn’t a purist ‘usability test’ - I didn’t record anyone and I didn’t have a team watching live video behind a two way mirror. It was simple – and yet still very effective.

We really did uncover a few vital things – some we had a vague idea about, but others that came as a complete surprise.

With a little effort – you can get a lot of feedback to help you develop your website – before you commit to sign off on design and content and code it up.

It’s a much cheaper exercise doing your testing this way – than putting the site live and confusing/turning off your users.

So my advice is test your designs with people that matter – your users – even though I’ve worked on a fair number of website planning projects – and feel I’ve got experience of what works and what doesn’t – there’s no better way to understand how it actually performs in the real world – than to test it with ‘real users’.

For more information, or for marketing news, views, tips and advice – contact me or subscribe to my blog .

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

]]> http://www.carvillcreative.co.uk/blog/usability-testing-%e2%80%93-no-lab-just-good-old-fashioned-eyes-and-ears/feed/ 7