Web Design to Discourage or Encourage User Behavior

Earlier today I read an interesting post on Erik Askin’s website, discussing the ways in which designers can discourage user behavior by developing designs that annoy the user or make usability difficult. The post uses the example of a cigarette carton and shows how by designing the carton away from its usable rectangle shape it might actually discourage users from smoking in general by making their lives more difficult. The post is looking at the design for the package of a consumer product, but the post got me thinking about how designing for or against user behavior can help or hinder design for the web.

Now, I’m not a web designer, and I’m by no means an expert on the subject, but I am a marketer, and because of that, I have experience using behavioral models to try and influence users to take action on a website.  As Joshua Porter says in a recent blog post, “One of the guiding principles of interaction design is to support existing behavior. This means to figure out what is already happening, what activities, tasks and interactions people are already doing and to build support for them into software.”

Humans are logical creatures and they make logical connections and decisions when they’re on a website that lead to action, just like in any other aspect of their lives. If the website a user arrives at discourages certain behaviors by say, having poor usability, then most users are going to logically decide against interacting with the website or taking the actions that the organization would like them to take on the site.

For a website design to be effective it needs to meet the needs of your audience and if it doesn’t, then it discourages them from returning or interacting with it in the first place. These needs are often several fundamental expectations that a user expects to find when they arrive on a website including being able to browse and navigate efficiently, to find the website in the first place, to interact and access information easily and to return without difficulty.

The way that a user interacts with your website will be motivated by different triggers and influencers that they come across on your website. According to a recent paper by BJ Fogg, a Stanford Researcher, understanding your target audience’s triggers and incorporating them into your web design is important if you’re trying to target specific user behavior, like filling out a form for instance. If you want a user to take an action, they need to feel motivated and encouraged to do so and this can be influenced by design.  A website designer can help this process by focusing on usability and behavior models to help influence your users to take the action you’d like them to take. Is it simple for your users to find your content and fill in forms? Is it easy for them to find your contact information and submit queries? According to Fogg, “The implication for designers is clear: Increasing motivation is not always the solution. Often increasing ability (making behavior simpler) is the path for increasing behavior performance.”

People are lazy, and they want you to make their lives easy. By ensuring that you have a web design that supports their behaviors and motivates them to take action you can increase your conversion rates on the actions you want them to take. Having what Fogg refers to as, “poorly timed triggers” (pop-ups for example) don’t generally influence users to take action and often discourage them from continuing to explore your website because it’s not providing something that meets their wants or needs, or makes it easy for them to interact with your website.

So, the big question is, have you designed your website to help or hinder your users’ behavior? If you’re not sure if your website is make it easy for your users to take action then it probably isn’t optimized for conversion rates or usability, which can have negative effects on your overall website ROI.

Image by Zawezome on Flickr.

Posted by Amberlie Denny at November 24, 2010 8:00 AM

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