Why users uninstall my app? Why users spend relatively lesser time on my website? Some days Google Analytics show my product is doing good, and on another day people are leaving your website in-between for no reason.
These questions bothered me in the board meetings, and I had no clue of what is wrong with the products that we have developed. It is a beautiful product which represents our brand colors, and we had put all the health care services our organization was offering. What was missing? Why there was a vast difference in the number of users visits and the number of appointments they book on our website?
After studying User Experience and Interface Design, I came to know that our product was not speaking the customer’s language. All we used were technical and medical terms which make no sense to a user who is not from a medical background. Maybe they were not sure what they are looking at, or perhaps they don’t want to provide too much information to make an appointment. Why does anyone want to buy a spectacle before eye examination? I invented a new term for the product we developed back in 2014-15, “Fancy Blunder.”
Different users have a different level of patience. Some people are more suspicious, and impatient and some are more patient, trusting, and optimistic.
You have to tell your boss that it is a Terrible Idea
Sometimes a little mistake can make your calm user frustrated. Like one mistake we did by designing a long scrolling online form to make an appointment. Wait, this is not the only mistake that we did. We included everyone’s suggestion for our online form as one of a senior board member in a random meeting suggested that we should ask more friendly and personal questions to lower patient’s tension, and he proposed to put a field “What is your Dog’s name (if any).”
Seriously? I mean seriously? What on earth do you want to do with my dog’s name?
Few Things that raise Frustration
Hire one more person to chat with your online user. I have no data to support this statement, but I am sure you also been through such experience. I never waited for more than 30-40 seconds until some human replied to my question. Sometime after 5-10 seconds I click on another tab and go for something else or minimize the browser and carry on with my task on hand. Suddenly in the evening somehow I came across the same window and got one reply ‘My name is Asha. How may I help you today?’
All that glitters is not gold. Note that while people love to appreciate the appearance of the sites – almost no one leave a site just because it doesn’t look great. One of my favorite sites is www.kenrockwell.com. All you will find on this site, old style prominent hyperlinks (no fancy CSS buttons), pure black running text on a white background and stock camera images, no columns, no business promotions, no-nonsense. This site is known for trusted camera reviews and recommendations. Everyone around the world with little interest in photography knows about this site.
Don’t make me put another space, figure out yourself. Just because you don’t want to write a couple of lines of code don’t increase your user’s cognitive load. If a user want to buy a product from your site, don’t teach her how to format the data. Write code. What type of payment card is this, VISA, Master or AMEX? Write code. If the email address is fine? Point out exactly what is wrong with the email address, write some code. “There is some important information missing in the form.” If that information is so important how does the user missed it?
Is this price included tax? I was looking for iPad Pro on Amazon. The price tag was scary. I added it to my cart, and it took almost two weeks me to make up the mind and click on the ‘Checkout’ button. Hell, 13% TAX? The delivery date is showing for next week. What? I am a Prime Member, and this is not one of the Prime Product? Wait a sec; someone wrote that Apple announced a new iPad and this version is available at a lower price in store. Really? I end up buying it from the Apple Store. Next day Amazon lowers the cost, they lost their customer.
Be careful where your app notifications take your user. One of my most frustrating experience came from notifications. Not the way they appear, but actually where they take me. For example, I use to follow the NDTV News application very closely. They always put trustworthy content on their pages. Whenever I tap on some exciting news in the notification panel for NDTV App, it took me to their home page, and I always wonder where the story is. I wrote in feedback within their app and Appstore review; they never replied nor improved. After a couple of months struggle I finally uninstalled the app.
