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Tag: Website Usability

  • Stop Overwhelming Your Online Customers With Information Overload. Hook Them In With This Approach Instead. | Entrepreneur

    Stop Overwhelming Your Online Customers With Information Overload. Hook Them In With This Approach Instead. | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Users spend an average of 5.59 seconds looking at a website’s written content. I don’t know about you, but it seems like there is hardly enough time to gain users’ interest, let alone relay the information you want to share — and the information they want to find.

    However, following best practices, there is no reason to bombard users with an avalanche of information when they land on your homepage. While there may be a lot of great information about your business, putting it in their faces when they arrive can have the inverse effect, making users feel overwhelmed and pushing them to leave the site.

    So, what is the alternative? Thoughtfully crafted messages and content aligned with the customer journey and revealed through a slow, strategic drip known as progressive disclosure.

    Related: Your Online Customer Experience Is More Than a Buzzword — It’s the Backbone of Your Business. Here’s How to Optimize It.

    But what is progressive disclosure?

    Progressive disclosure is about strategically revealing the information a user wants or needs at the precise moment the customer wants or needs it (rather than throwing it at them upfront). This is essentially a strategic approach to planning and releasing content throughout the customer journey to maximize engagement and move a customer through the conversion funnel.

    Here’s an example: If you have a product-heavy website, the navigation should direct the user through a seamless navigation. If the navigation is designed strategically to align with the customer journey, then each click is a point on the path of progressive disclosure. As users move around the site, they will slowly but surely learn more about the products and services and find the information they need. This is precisely why websites use a thoughtful navigation system based on logic and integrated into the information architecture that outlines the content and where it should be placed within the site.

    Why is progressive disclosure powerful?

    The simple answer is that this process is customer-centric. It focuses on what customers want to accomplish rather than what you, the business owner, want to share.

    In addition, progressive disclosure accomplishes the following:

    • Reduces friction: Information overload leads to confusion and decision paralysis. By presenting information relevant to the user’s immediate needs, you remove unnecessary hurdles and guide them seamlessly toward their goals.
    • Boosts engagement: Curiosity thrives when there is something more to discover. As users uncover new features and functionalities, their interest remains piqued, encouraging further exploration and deeper product engagement.
    • Builds trust: When users feel they’re being led, not overwhelmed, trust flourishes. Progressive disclosure shows respect for their time and attention, fostering a positive relationship between them and your product.

    Related: 7 Ecommerce Customer Experience Strategies for Effective Branding in 2024

    Want to rework your website so it’s aligned with your customers?

    If you want to rework your website or consider how your content is aligned with your customers, here are a few considerations that will help ensure you are applying progressive disclosure principles:

    • Map the customer journey. Understand the different stages users go through, from awareness to consideration, purchase and beyond. Identify their needs and pain points at each stage.
    • Prioritize information. Categorize features and information based on their importance and relevance to each stage of the journey. Highlight core functionalities initially and unveil advanced features later.
    • Use microlearning. Chunk information into digestible pieces, delivered through tutorials, tooltips, and interactive prompts. This makes learning effortless and avoids cognitive overload.
    • Leverage visual cues. Employ clear design elements like hierarchy, icons, and animation to guide users’ attention and highlight key information.
    • Gather feedback. Continuously analyze user behaviors on your site and collect feedback to understand what resonates. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and implement valuable changes.
    • Use multiple touchpoints to communicate. While this strategy can be applied to a website, it applies to all digital communication channels. Most who visit your website either have a specific reason or are fact-finding. So consider using other digital channels, such as SMS and digital cards, to communicate more important (or urgent) messages in real-time.

    Applying progressive disclosure isn’t just about withholding information; it’s about crafting a captivating narrative that unfolds as the user interacts with your brand. Applying this approach can foster trust, increase engagement, and ultimately create satisfied customers.

    Remember, we’re not just selling products or services; we’re guiding users on a journey, and every step along the way matters. By unveiling the right information at the right time, we transform their experience from overwhelming to empowering, paving the way for sustainable success.

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    Louis Lombardi

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  • 4 Resources To Make Your Website More Accessible

    4 Resources To Make Your Website More Accessible

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    If you made a list of goals for your website, I bet three things would be near the top:

    1. Get more value out of your customers.
    2. Find new customers.
    3. Increase your website’s conversion rate, whether you want more leads or more sales.

    Each of these goals requires a functional, easy-to-use website. Yet a staggering 97% of the internet today is inaccessible to people with disabilities — meaning there are accessibility issues that can make it hard for some visitors to navigate a website or engage with its content.

    That’s a big problem — and it’s not just a matter of what’s fair or legally required. (Although the U.S. Department of Justice has repeatedly maintained that accessibility laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) apply to websites and physical locations.)

    It’s also a matter of what makes sense for your business.

    In the United States, one in four adults lives with some type of disability, from visual impairments that require them to navigate websites using assistive technology, such as screen readers, to hearing impairments that make it hard to follow videos without captions. Globally, people with disabilities — and their friends and family — control more than $13 trillion in disposable income.

    That’s a lot of potential customers who could be left behind if you don’t take steps to make your website accessible to everyone.

    Now for the good news: Every accessibility issue is fixable if you have the right tools and know what to watch for. Here are some of my favorite accessibility resources to help you:

    1. Use alt text correctly

    The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is known for publishing the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), but it has also created additional resources to help businesses better navigate digital accessibility.

    One of the most useful is the alt Decision tree, which describes how to use the alt attribute of the element in various situations. With the decision tree, you can make faster, more informed decisions on whether your image needs alt text — and, if so, what information to include.

    Alt text is a written description of an image that screen readers can read aloud — or convert to Braille — for people with visual impairments, sensory processing disorders or learning disorders.

    Done right, alt text can help paint a fuller picture of your products and services for people who use screen readers to navigate websites. Unfortunately, many businesses forget to provide alt text. Or they write something so generic — for example, an image of a restaurant menu that simply says “menu” — that it may as well not be there.

    Note: As a general rule, I always recommend writing alt text like you’re describing an image to your friend over the phone. What are the key details they need to know in order to understand the image?

    Related: How to Make Your Social Media Channels More Accessible to Everyone

    2. Check your website’s accessibility

    When it comes to digital accessibility, one of the biggest challenges is the dynamic nature of most websites. Just think about how often your website changes, whether it’s new product photos or updated website copy.

    Each update is a chance to introduce new accessibility issues to your website accidentally, so it’s important to monitor your website constantly. Unfortunately, most businesses lack the time or internal resources to test the accessibility of every new design and line of code. That’s where an automated solution like AudioEye’s Website Accessibility Checker — which runs more than 400 tests to check your content against accessible coding standards like WCAG, then generates a detailed report of accessibility issues on your site — comes into play.

    Related: How Website Accessibility Affects Your Brand’s Reputation and Success

    3. Add automated captions to your videos

    People are watching more video content than ever, but you could be leaving a large part of your audience behind if you don’t add captions to your videos.

    There are plenty of tools that can help you save time by automatically generating captions. However, it’s important to note that voice recognition technology is not perfect. Errors do occur, which can confuse or frustrate people who rely on captions.

    For that reason, I always recommend proofing automatically generated captions with human eyes and ears.

    Closed captioning is a great example of the overlap between “good” and “accessible” design. When you add captions, you aren’t just helping people with hearing impairments or cognitive disabilities — you’re helping anyone who chooses to watch the video with the sound off. For example, someone might be watching your video in a public space or while multitasking.

    Adding captions can ensure a positive experience no matter how people consume your content.

    Related: How Accessibility Teams and Executives Can Work Together for Disability Inclusion

    4. Check your color contrast

    The colors on your website might seem like a purely aesthetic decision, but they have a significant impact on how usable your website is for people with color vision deficiency (also known as color blindness) and other visual impairments.

    Low contrast between foreground and background elements (think white text on a gray button) can make it harder for people to navigate your site, engage with your content and ultimately take the actions — whether it’s filling out a contact form or making a purchase — that matter to your business.

    AudioEye’s Color Contrast Checker makes it easy to determine if your colors meet WCAG’s requirements on contrast ratio. To conform with Success Criterion (SC) 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum), you should aim to have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between the foreground and background color.

    Related: Launching a Business Website? Here’s What You Need to Know About Accessibility

    Take the first step toward a more accessible website

    For most businesses, there are two hurdles that can slow down accessibility efforts.

    The first hurdle is awareness. Many business leaders are unaware of digital accessibility or that it could present a problem for their online business, both in terms of user experience and legal risk. However, the rise in digital accessibility-related lawsuits is bringing more attention to the importance of accessibility.

    The second hurdle is a common misconception about the cost and difficulty of digital accessibility. Some organizations believe that making a website accessible would cost too much, or require building a new website from scratch. The truth is that there are plenty of things you can do to improve your website’s accessibility without touching a line of code.

    To help you get started with your business’s overall accessibility strategy, the W3C and the UK’s Business Disability Forum have created self-assessment tools that can help organizations understand their current level of accessibility and implement measures to improve their accessibility policies, processes, and outcomes.

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    Alisa Smith

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