Stop annoying your users; here’s what to do instead
Lying about having chat support. Automatic pop-ups. And other deadly UX-sins.
The web is starting to look pretty neat. Long gone are the days when websites looked like this, and instead we have arrived in a sleek, simplistic future. However, while old sins have been left in the past, new ones have emerged.
In this article, I will share seven, modern deadly UX-sins, and what you can do instead. I define “deadly UX-sin” as design that is so annoying that it made me stop using a service in the past. In an ever more competitive field, these types of changes can make or break a website.
1. Chatbots ≠ “chat with us!”
Whenever I need to contact customer support, I always look for the chat option. As a true millennial, I much prefer typing than calling a hotline. Chat is also better than contact-forms. Research indicates that the average response time to a customer email is 12 hours.
The chat option has a few downsides, though. First, you will inevitably meet a chatbot. Or, as the Nielsen-Norman Group would describe them, “the poor relative of the intelligent assistant”. If you have a simple, standard question (i.e. “at what time does your shop close?”) they work well. However, once a user deviates from asking simple questions, the chatbots struggle.
Therefore, if you have a more unique question, a chatbot is often of little use. In this is the case, chatbot-interactions quickly becomes a game of getting through to a human in the fewest steps possible.
This “chatbot-hurdle” is already bad design, as a well-designed AI should give their users the flexibility of a manual bypass. However, bad turns to horrible if this happens:
After spending a lot of time convincing the chat-bot to put you through to the human… there is no human! Instead, the chatbot just sends the chat log to a person in customer service.
This is impressively bad UX, as it successfully combines the hurdles of a chatbot with the late response time of a contact-form. Instead, just be upfront about using a chatbot (users likes this type of transparency).
- Don’t: Don’t disguise your email form as chatbot, it just amplifies bad user experience.
- Do: Be honest about using forms, (with the downsides that have), or employ someone to do your live chat support.
2. Aggressively pointing out incorrect form input
Speaking of forms. Let’s say you just filled in your personal information for some online shopping, and suddenly this appears:
“THERE IS AN ERROR WITH YOUR INPUT”.
It is obviously important to inform the user of incorrect input. However, there is no need to be aggressive. Sure, maybe I did use a comma instead of a dot in my email address. I admit it. But there is no need to yell at me in big, red, caps letters.
It is obviously perfectly fine to use the colour red, as it is the customary “error colour”. And it is helpful to highlight the input-area where the error occurred. This makes your form more usable.
But if you want to go from just usable to a great user experience, tone it down a bit. How about: “There seems to be a typo in your email address, could you double-check it?” And not using caps-lock? And using a lighter shade of red instead of a glowing #ff0000?
There’s no need to give me a heart-attack just because I forgot to enter my zip-code.
- Don’t: Be aggressive about incorrect input (or at all, really).
- Do: Highlight incorrect input in a salient, but friendly way.
3. Still using automatic pop-ups in 2021
Recently I went on google to look for a dinner recipe. After a bit of searching I found a link that looked promising. I entered the page, started to scroll, and literally within two seconds:
“SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER!!!!”
Ugh. I just want one pasta recipe. I don’t need a daily email from pastahipster.com. I just want my recipe and then be gone.
I do understand that you want recurring traffic, as that is a great way to create revenue online. However, bothering me with pop-ups is not going to motivate me to return. In fact, it just makes me more determined to leave and not return.
It is perfectly fine to have a salient form where users can sign up for newsletters. I do actually sign up for that on websites that I like. But I am yet to subscribe to anything that is forced up in my face.
- Don’t: Use automatic pop-ups to push newsletters up in people’s faces.
- Do: Provide a salient form for signing up for newsletters on your page itself.
4. Badly designed cookie consent pop-ups
While we are on the topic of pop-ups, there is a specific one that people hate: GDPR/cookie-popups.
It is important, legally and morally, to ask users for their consent before storing their information. But it is rendered somewhat useless when the user is usually only presented with one, large CTA-button which says “accept cookies”. In addition to that, some websites will prompt you every single time you visit their site. Even though you still don’t really have a choice.
There are some exceptions though. For instance, Issuu.com’s cookie pop-up is not very aesthetically appealing, but it does give the user a real choice.
Look, I get it. I really don’t want users at any of my websites to opt out of cookies. The quantitative insights it gives me is very important to improve user experience. But we still have to give people a proper option.
- Don’t: “Ask” your users about cookie consent, but only give them one option.
- Do: Ask users for consent before storing cookies, giving them the option to opt out.
5. Irrelevant in-browser notifications
In-browser notifications are not inherently bad. As long as they are natural to the service, they can be helpful for users to stay updated. What I don’t get, however, is when a news-website, a tech blog or a how-to website wants to send me notifications.
Sure, I see what the website gains. They can spam me with notifications to drive higher view rates and ad revenue. But what am I gaining as a user? You have to be extremely interested in a particular blog to want constant notifications, sent directly in your browser.
I’m looking at you, ladbible.
This also applies to smartphone apps. This can be fixed this by providing the user with clear, customizable notification-settings. However, most apps will hide away these settings. And I have never even seen them for in-browser notifications.
- Don’t: Beg people to enable notifications to drive up your click-rate through spam.
- Do: Use notifications if it is natural to the service you offer, but give users clear, customizable notification-settings.
6. Skipping basic accessibility
Accessibility used to be an extra feature for websites with a particular set of users. That’s not the case anymore. Now it is a very basic requirement for good user experience. If your design is not accessible it is simply not very well designed. Sorry not sorry. Here is some basic advice:
First of all, include an alt-text in your images. This is not just for people using screen-readers, but for whenever your images fail to load. A user could be on a slow internet connection, and will appreciate knowing what failed to load.
Second, make sure the text in your design has enough contrast. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to read. Not just for people with reduced vision, but for everyone. Nobody likes to squint when reading. There are many online contrast-calculators, like this one hosted by WebAIM.
Third, write proper, semantic HTML. I have definitely committed the sin in the past of making everything a div. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Separate your content into nav, main, section, article and so on. This makes it easier for screen-readers to pick out the essential parts of a website. If you need some inspiration, check out “7 Alternatives to the <div> HTML Tag” by Zac Heisey.
Don’t: Skip on accessibility. Bad accessibility is just bad design.
Do: Make sure your designs have basic accessibility by including alt-text, high-contrast colours and semantic HTML.
7. Multiple navigation-bars
Less is more. Especially in UX. This is also the case for navigation-bars. This means that a lot of previously long, messy menus have now been reduced to short, concise menus.
However, to compensate, some designers “cheat” by stacking multiple navigation-bars on top of each other. Reducing a 15-item menu to a 5-item menu is usually great! But it is not very helpful if there are 3 navigation-bars.
Here is an example from Husqvarna:
I am sympathetic to how annoying last-minute changes can be. You know, when your design is finished and looking great… but then a high-ranking, non-UX executive adds last-minute functionality. And you can be sure that it does not fit into the old design.
However, the solution is not to just “add everything”. Instead, you have to “kill your darlings” and find a way to integrate these functions into your original design. Or reject the changes.
- Don’t: Add more and more navigation-bars on top of each other. It’s confusing!
- Do: Design simple menus with few items, even if that means that you have to “kill your darlings”.
The web is a neat place, but there’s still room for improvement. Let’s stop annoying our users, and make 2021 a brilliant year for user experience by leaving these sins in the past.
References:
- Arholm, L. B. (2020, June 16). 4 principles for designing automation with great user experience. Retrieved January 20, 2021, from https://uxdesign.cc/4-principles-for-designing-automation-with-great-user-experience-c425878c4f64
- Budiu, R. (2018). The User Experience of Chatbots. Retrieved January 20, 2021, from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/chatbots/
- MacDonald, S. (2021, January 04). 5 Ways to Reduce Customer Service Response Times. Retrieved January 20, 2021, from https://www.superoffice.com/blog/response-times/
