I’d hope by this point anyone reading this blog understands that my passion for customer experience is a holistic one. I don’t believe one aspect or theory or channel is the “right” way. I believe it takes a measured, consistent examination of what is working and what isn’t across all channels to really deliver a superior experience that leads to better results.
But there’s one channel that gets a lot of attention: online. It’s not unusual for me to work on projects that are almost exclusively about user experience. Companies provide goods, services, communities, feedback and more via the Interwebz. And yet, even when this is the main (or exclusive) channel to connect with customers, they ignore what is really happening.
Here is a partial list of the offenses I’ve encountered recently:
- If you’d like users to BUY from your site, then please make it easy to do so. The shopping cart shouldn’t be hidden, buried, or otherwise hard to get to. (This is often true when you are trying to get BACK to the cart. It’s vanished!)
- Users will have questions about your products, your company, or your return policy for shipments to Guam. Some questions cannot be predicted, so make it easy for customers to find a way to contact someone directly.
- Your blog or your white papers should not lead users to a foreign land of new windows with various URL’s.
- If your form is smart enough to ask for my zip code first, then it should be smart enough to figure out my state. Ditto for asking for my time zone listed as “Chicago” and then requesting my country.
- I like cool doodads as much as the next gal, but using them for cool’s sake is just silly. It’s easier to type in the year of birth rather than scroll through a drop down of the last century. It’s nicer to refine a number with a keypad than a slider. Think of the USE first, then the design.
- If it’s a mobile site, then test it on different mobile devices. Figure out what happens when the user is punching a code on a tiny screen while bouncing around on a train.
That felt good. Now it’s your turn to vent: What are your pet peeves with user experience?
