Engaging User Experiences (Pt. 1)

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to give a talk at a local marketing-focused lunch group. My topic was 'Engaging User Experiences' - what they are, and a few ideas on how to make them. It went over pretty well, so I thought I'd note some of the main points here.

Creating engaging user experiences is all about grabbing the user's attention and then keeping their interest. These are the common first steps to making a sale. Whether it's the sale of a product or the sale of an idea, they are still important.

Some basics:

Attention

• Avoid long page load times. Users will leave if the wait exceeds 8-10 seconds.
• Test, test, test and test some more with your target user group. This is the easiest way to find common annoyances and turn-offs.
• Eye tracking studies show that users will ignore anything that looks like a banner, whether it actually is or not ("Banner Blindness"). Keep this in mind when designing graphics.
  

Interest

• Provide users with "information scent", i.e. where should they click to get the information they are looking for. For instance, titling a link "Click here for more information!" provides very little information scent to the user. Something more specific, like "Click here for pricing details" will draw more clicks to the link and create a higher likelihood of customer satisfaction (or conversion) for that page content.
• Use appropriate levels of complexity. That is, simplify the user's experience at initial use (landing page) and then add and adapt at deeper engagement levels.
• Provide a user-driven experience. The easiest way to keep a user's interest is to let them decide what they want to see and when instead of inundating them with potentially useless or off-putting information.

In the next post, I'll discuss Rich Media as a solution to creating a new and fresh engaging user experience o the web.