April 12, 2010 - Safe landing.

Once a potential customer has clicked on to your website,
your landing page must keep things clear and captivating.

BY LIZ PHILLIPS & JAMES BREEZE, OBJECTIVE DIGITAL

In a competitive banking environment, encouraging customers to sign up for your products is an essential albeit challenging task. After working so hard to get customers to click through to your site, it’s an injustice to let them slip away. On the surface it might seem that all online forms were created equal. However, the reality is, they’re not and you can do plenty to ease the burden that customers often feel in establishing a relationship with you.

We conducted an expert usability review of the process of searching and applying for an online high interest savings account. Secondly, we conducted usability tests (with the assistance of Tobii Eye Tracking hardware and software) with 10 individuals.
These individuals include six males and four females, ranging in age from 25 to 55 years whom have online banking experience. All participants were city-based professionals.

During the test, all participants worked through from a product aggregator page (infochoice.com.au) to the account offer landing page then to product sign up. Four online savings accounts were reviewed – UBank USaver, ING DIRECT Savings Maximiser, RaboPlus Premium Saver and BankWest Telenet Saver.

Before we dive into the online form process, let’s take a quick look at what happened when participants arrived at the landing page. For the ING DIRECT Savings Maximiser account, participants were taken directly to the product page within the main site. While this is advantageous for orientation to the site, the page visually overloaded the participants.

The Savings Maximiser webpage is incredibly busy and many elements vie for attention. In the heatmap image you can see attention is evenly scattered across the whole page. The call to action link – the point of it all somewhat – is hidden in the body of the text, requiring more effort and longer time for users to proceed to the next step. Even the main login button in the top right hand corner drew attention away from the intended spot.

Once a customer has arrived on the landing page, they should be able to decide to apply, without being overloaded and there should be a clear call to action. UBank USaver was successful at achieving this with its landing page.

In the image to left, attention is more focused and facilitated a faster track to begin applying.

The BankWest page was also simpler. The participants’ clearly progressed down the page to the relevant information in an orderly fashion.

Having oriented themselves to the page, participants also found the key bullet points valuable. Interestingly, the interest rate figure within the body of the page was more popular than the rate in the top banner. Banner blindness is somewhat encouraged as the call to action button is further down the page (in contrast to the position of interest rate and button on the UBank USaver page).

When planning a landing page, consider what key information is essential to make a decision to apply. Everything else undermines the clarity of that information.

If you have managed to communicate to your customers the crux of your offer and clearly pointed out how to proceed, is that enough to convert the business? Sadly no, you can’t relax just yet.

Well designed form fields can be the difference between agony and ecstasy. Few people love filling out forms, so you’ll stand out from the pack if it is pleasurable to complete.

Across our review and usability tests the resounding theme is K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid). It’s a time honoured principle but one that’s more relevant than ever when it comes to usability.

Ease with speed
All participants commented that they preferred sites that they felt they were able complete quickly. The perception of speed, rather than absolute time taken, is key to satisfaction. So what affects speed?

LABEL ALIGNMENT  In terms of labelling best practice, labelling a field top aligned as shown in the next image, will streamline the process even further. The small sacrifice in increased vertical space of the form is well worth it.

SUCCINCT QUESTIONS  Whenever appropriate, participants preferred questions that required a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Compare the two instances below for the postal address section. Two extremely different treatments and participants loved the option on the right.

UNNECESSARY QUESTIONS  If your questions don’t have a direct bearing on the form applications or legal requirements, it is best to avoid them. Participants in some instances made up answers to get through the process. Clogging up the process with additional requests increases the risk of customers dropping out, never to return.

OR ILLOGICAL QUESTIONS  Some questions didn’t always make perfect sense to participants. If your reason for a question is a legitimate one but not entirely obvious to customers, briefly explain its purpose.

Show me the way

PROGRESS OR THE FEELING OF PROGRESS  Participants wanted to keep going non-stop once they started filling out the forms. It was important to feel like the process was not going to be overwhelming. Progress bars helped people see where they were in the process at all times. Naturally, the fewer steps they saw, the more positive they were in attempting the task. In addition, the feeling of achieving a milestone quickly was appreciated.

SMART FIELDS  Participants loved when fields were populated ahead of them. It lightened the workload and made them feel more positive towards the bank. Participants enjoyed selecting their title and it populated the gender field. In some but not all sites when the BSB number was entered, the bank title appeared. Simple features such as this combine to create a positive experience. If it can be done, do it.

With the inputting of numeral digits (for example phone numbers), participants had a natural tendency to include spaces in the input field. It was a case in point that common and natural behaviours were not taken into account when the form was designed.

Technology should be utilised to accommodate human data entry rather than show an error message. None of the sites we reviewed did this.

Tell me how it is

GOOD COMMUNICATION  During the application process the customer is doing most of the ‘talking’. Minor information is feedback to the customer as to how they are going and more often than not in the process you’ll only ‘hear’ from the bank when you’ve made an error. One participant spoke about the desire to have each field ticked once it is filled correctly. The constant level of positive reinforcement would mean they’d not worry about going over old ground and would always be moving forward.

Inline validation is the next best thing and many participants loved it. An instant error message was unanimously agreed as the ideal style of messaging. Attending to the issue then and there meant the process was streamlined.

HELP IS HERE BUT HIDDEN  Customers crave the ability to contact the bank even though they might not need it. We have already mentioned the need for a Contact Us function and Help is regarded in the same way. Ready, easy access to help (as close to the relevant field as possible) has major appeal. It is also best practice.

WHERE DO YOU WANT ME TO GO NEXT?  It is useful to know that the visual presentation of actions should match their importance. Reset, Cancel, Go Back [secondary actions] are not as important as Save, Continue, Submit [primary actions]. Therefore there should be a clear visual difference between the options presented. It is also important to align the primary action with the input field for a clear path to completion. The extra clarity of this action will avoid mistakes and speed up the application process.

This brief review of some of the elements of form application serves to highlight where customers can become snagged on certain parts of the process. It goes without saying that your goal is to get customers from start to finish, but to allow them to do so in the shortest amount of time requires some thought and consideration. Your information needs may not always be transparent to the customer, for very valid reasons; however their needs require your attention. Balancing both sets of needs will result in a win-win.

This article was posted in the Online Banking Review on April 12th 2010.

James Breeze and Liz Phillips are usability specialists with consultancy Objective Digital.