Trust and faith in design

It's a cliche to make fun of older generations and their discomfort with technology, but that stereotypical technophobia is really just an extreme version of something all of us probably feel at some point or another: a lack of trust and faith in the system we are using.

What does this button do?
I remember having someone ask me, "What do I do to submit the form? Do I press the submit button?" The answer, to most of us, is "yes, duh." But what if the question is less clear? Navigational terms don't match what you thought you'd find. Something you thought was a free trial asks for your credit card and doesn't explain why. A link that seemed obvious takes you to a completely unexpected page or site. In each case, the design is playing fast and loose with the user's trust and faith, and as a result, is probably failing the user's needs.

Anticipate the next step
Good design anticipates what the user will want. On your homepage, offer links to the things your visitors most likely will want. Look at the search terms people use to find things on your site, and make sure your navigational terms match them. Whenever you ask a user for information, explain why you want it and how it will be used.

Explain yourself
One place that I frequently see abused is the "contact us" page -- many sites will ask for name, address, phone number, email, sometimes even fax number and company, and in worst-case scenarios, they'll even tack on some "survey" type questions -- even if all you wanted to do was maybe email them to ask about the release date of an upcoming product. In that scenario, literally the only piece of information the company actually needs is your email address. So why ask for the moon? Is it because your designer just used a "contact us" template and didn't really think about what that means for the user? Is it because you are adding me to a database you are going to sell to third parties? And even if all you do ask for is my email address, will you start sending me unwanted email newsletters without asking? Tell the user up front, and let them make the informed decision. (Even better, in this scenario, you could save the user and yourself time by having just clearly listed the product release date on your site in the first place.)

Expect questions, and provide answers
One thing I try to do when starting any project is just write down a list of questions I think a user/visitor may have, based on the type of site/product and the customer base. I try not to get overly specific but the questions should not just be the broad ones either -- for example, on a shoe site, I wouldn't write out questions about a particular pair of shoes, but I might write out questions about broader types of shoes, or questions that might apply to any individual pair of shoes.

Prioritize and group logically
From there, I try to group the questions logically, and see if they align to particular terms. If possible, prioritize the questions as well, and make it easier to find the answers to those more essential questions. This is also where some statistical data can come in handy -- search terms used, frequency of visits to particular areas of a site, volume of support emails/calls about particular topics. Maybe half the visitors to your site are just trying to find your address, and already know all about your product/service. You could have a beautiful, highly usable presentation of your product line, but if that address is hard to find, you are failing half your audience from the start.

I've found that structuring a website around this is a good way to meet user's needs, and a lot of this work can inform other decisions down the line, and make it easier to work in changes/new ideas -- just follow a mini-version of these steps (asking questions, grouping them, working out logical answers) and see if your architecture already accommodates these changes or if you need to restructure.

By anticipating everything the user will want, and providing easy answers to key questions and presenting them at logical points, you build that trust and faith. You're more likely to have a happy customer, and you reduce anxiety.