Get out of your visitors’ way
If you design web pages or write for the web, you need to stop getting in your site visitors’ way, Pamela Wilson explains in a smart post at Copyblogger.
She recommends that you:
- Write with a visual hierarchy to allow your readers to scan your copy
- Use plain, obvious terms, like “about” in the navigation, instead of something clever but obscure
- Use white space and page layouts to effectively communicate your message
In other words, you should eliminate friction from your pages. Friction describes the psychological resistance the elements on a page may generate in your visitors. Friction can distract your visitors from the goal you have for the page.
How to start overcoming friction
Before you can cut friction and take Wilson’s advice to “work with human nature and not against it,” you’ll need to answer two questions:
- What is your page’s goal? Is your goal to maximize the number of blog posts each visitor reads? To drive comments? Build your email lists? Sell a product?
- Who are your visitors? Where are they coming from? What motivates them? What do what want from your site?
Answering these questions can help you drive the design and copy decisions Wilson identifies and thereby friction.
I’ll be speaking in April about how to curb friction on online donation pages.