Website Design Guideline #6: Encouraging the Next Step with Effective Task Completion

ARTICLE SNIPPET - User Task Depth is a Critical Step that a Website Owner Must Succeed In—If a User Can't Accomplish a Simple Task on Your Website, the Frustrated User Will Give Up and the Sale is Lost.

A user commonly will want to complete just five or six tasks on a website and those tasks account for 80 percent of online activity. Browsing and searching are common to all types of websites, but other tasks—finding an article, signing up for a email newsletter, buying a product, checking on an order, changing a profile, submitting information... whatever—are different for the various website archetypes.

Mequoda researchers have found that users often will complete a task in an unanticipated way. And when that happens, it's good. It means that the global architecture of the site provides multiple paths to the finish line.

Creating user-friendly websites begins by following the 14 Mequoda Website Design Guidelines for successful website design. By reviewing a site's score for each of the 14 items, along with the overall average score, the areas of the site that operate well, and those that need work, become evident.

In this chapter of Website Design for Publishers and Authors, we take a close look at Guideline #6: Encouraging the Next Step with Effective Task Completion.

• To succeed in user task depth, a website should encourage clearly defined "next steps."
• Users should be able to manage their offline and online accounts in a single online location.
• Links to free information should be well organized and clear.
• One click on a highly visible link or shortcut should take the user directly to the location where the next steps can be accomplished.
• Don't disguise or hide pricing information.

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