User Engagement Design

‘User Engagement Design’ is the ability in Design to engage and occupy users on your website. The users should be able to discover and grasp the website and its

features as he browses along. Every time he stops by your website, he should

find something significant and should want to come back and explore more.

As the Business owner of your website, you undoubtedly want to augment ‘Unique Visits’ to your website (and thanks to SEO, SEM and other marketing efforts, users do end up reaching your website). The key now is in retaining them and engaging them so that they go back delighted and return awaiting.

The aim of a designer should be to progress users of the website in the following order (Ref – ‘Designing for the Social Web – Josh Porter’)

Some tips that can help in better User Experience Design of your Website:

1. List down User’s ‘Intent and Primary action’ on any landing page. Also create a list of tasks aligned with his Primary action on that page. Present access points into these related tasks.
   Eg. When user is browsing through ‘Services’ section of your website, pictures of the work that you have done and client feedback on those services may appeal to him. Provide access points to these.

2. Understand features / functionalities that your user would require for the ‘Primary task’ completion on any page and provide Action buttons for that task. (highlighted, if you can).
   Eg. I have come across a few job portals that do not have ‘Apply’ button on the ‘Job Search Results Page’. Website forces the user to read job details and then Apply!!

3. User may have abandoned your website while he was in middle of a task (eg Creating Profile). Remember the task where your users left your website. Prompt him on Emails that he has an incomplete task. Also, when he returns on your website, display the incomplete task first.

4. Keep innovating and providing something new for your Returning users and give them the ‘cheese’ to keep coming back. Remember to notify them on Email about the au courant features that you have introduced.

5. No points for this – Provide a graphically amiable page for your target audience. (Does not mean a razzle-dazzle page!!)

6. Provide an experience to the user that delights him and he wants to delve deeper.

How does good ‘User Engagement Design’ help:

1. Good ‘User Engagement Design’ results in higher number of page visits and extension in time spent on your online product. (which also means higher Alexa rating J)

2. It increases the ‘Repeat User’ visits to your website.

3. It also increases loyalty, integrity (adherence) to your brand and website.

4. Users complete more tasks than they would have otherwise completed.

5. Users talk about it and help in viral-ity of the product. There is hence, ‘Social Marketing’ of your website.

Lets look at a good example of ‘User Engagement Design’ on Linkedin -

I run my own company and barely have time to browse through websites. I would at no time anticipate and go to Linkedin to check the number of people waiting to associate (connect) with me. Hence, when Linkedin sent me the ‘Connection Request’ in my mailbox, it helped.

I may not recognize the invitee by his name OR I may not even know him. Linkedin realized this and on opening the mail message, LinkedIn told me how I could be associated to him (of course

based on what he chose when sending the invitation to me).

They now prompt me with an action button of ‘Accept’ which is a smart hook to get traffic to the website.

They also understand that I may want to read if there is any personalized message for me and thus the action of ‘View Invitation from..’ has been provided.

When I accept the invitation, Linkedin shows me other pending invitations. I may have seen these in my mailbox but may not have had the time to accept them then. Later, I may have forgotten about them. Hence, great idea to show them here. Also, since I have accepted one invitation, I may have time to spare and accept more. Hence, super idea to show them now.

On the same page, Linkedin also shows me (based on some back end algo logic) people I may know. Now Linked has pulled me into some action and enticed me to discover and browse further. Notice how they keep the page simple and do not show me anything more

When I get awed by the fact that I know someone in the suggested list and send him an invitation, it throws a list of more people that I may know. Well, now they have got me completely immersed in finding old / new contacts.

Wow, I enjoyed the Experience since all the actions I was meant to do on that page were clearly defined and I was not distracted with any other information.

What benefits did Linkedin derive from this Task Flow:

• It helped in increase my Network on Linkedin and hence assured that I go back to Linkedin whenever I need any assistance from anyone in my Network.

• They increased their metrics of ‘Average people in each Network’.

• They also increased their metrics of ‘Invitations Sent’ by every individual and ‘Invitations Sent’ that month

• On a subtle level, they increased the invitee’s motivation to send more invites.