Dropbox is a platform which helps users sync files online and across computers. When I installed the software on my new PC, I was impressed by the simplicity and elegance of their software onboarding experience.

Many applications offer a choice immediately after setup — learn more or get started now.  As someone who gets so excited about a new clothes that I’ve been known to wear them on the way out of the mall, you can imagine the likelihood that someone like me would opt for the “training” path if it delayed digging in and trying the software myself.

With Dropbox, however, users are plopped right into a simple “Getting Started” tour.  You can opt out at that point, but the screen is concise, visual, and easy to understand.  Besides, you immediately see that only 3 steps remain.

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

So I clicked through the short tour – and to my hard-headed surprise, I learned a few things about the software I’d been using for a couple of years.

Why would a software company bother with persuading users to partake in training?

It’s clear most users’ experiences with software would be enhanced if they took the time to participate in a short, easy-to-understand tutorial early — but does it really matter to the software company?

It should. When users understand how a software works, they are more satisfied (increasing positive word of mouth).  They more likely to use the software (increasing loyalty).  They probably trust more than even in the quality of your training materials (perhaps they’ll consider your paid training options?)  And they are definitely less likely to call you for support (reducing service costs).  So software companies have a financial stake in helping users understand how to use their products, even if the users are reluctant to dive into training.

For an example of elegant onboarding applied to a website, see Whitney Hess’ post about the onboarding experience at shine.com.

Have you come across a good software onboarding experience, or on the flip side, a bad one?  Please share your thoughts in the comments; I’d love to hear them.

See also:

1. Notes from The ROI of UX: Proving the Value of User Experience Design
2. In the Press: Why You Need a Career Curator
3. The ROI of UX: Proving the Value of User Experience Design

You’ve probably heard of Ning, the online platform that allows users to quickly create their own social networks.

Today, I stumbled across a screen capture that I took a few months ago when I opened a welcome email from a Ning community.  An automated welcome message for my newly approved membership was no surprise, but the standout feature was a simple list of the top four activities I might like to do as a new user — ranging from adding content to making an announcement on Twitter.  Each activity was paired with a link directly to that action.

I even think the subject line was smart — leading with “your” immediately connotes that the message relates to something relevant and personal to the user.  And the text-only email was easy to read in my email client, Gmail, which doesn’t display images by default.

Click to Enlarge

Designing email campaigns, we often tend toward the most graphic, elaborate and eye-catching presentations possible.  Simple examples like this likely have click-through rates to prove their place in the digital marketer’s toolkits.

The only thing I might do differently would be to provide a primary call-to-action with additional, secondary options — rather than positioning them all at the same level.  What do you think about this email?  Do you have examples of how simplicity trumps elaborate in email marketing?

PS.  Free, ad-sponsored networks are no longer supported on Ning, so the Austin Usability Professionals Association can now be reached at http://www.austinupa.org/ or better yet on Facebook.

See also:

1. The ROI of UX: Proving the Value of User Experience Design
2. Austin UPA: A Panel Discussion on User Research Technologies
3. Docked Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

In the July 5 issue of Fortune magazine, Vickie Elmer touched on the seemingly endless barrage of information today’s conscientious professionals are faced with on a daily basis.  I got the chance to talk with Vickie while she was working on the article and was excited to see that I’d been mentioned in the final piece.

A self-admitted information junkie, I have a voracious appetite for news, especially as it relates to my field – user experience design.  As Vickie and I chatted about my chock-full Google Reader account, my frequent check-ins on Twitter and the personal filing system I’ve created using Google Documents, I realized just how many sources of information I attempt to keep up with.

Click to Expand

Click to Expand

Though it’s not online yet, her article serves as a reminder that selectivity is key.  It also provides a useful set of go-to sources for curated career content. I’ll update this article as soon as it becomes available, so that you can check it out yourself.

Are you overwhelmed by all of the information that’s out there today?  Please share your strategies for staying both sane and up-to-date in the comments.

See also:

1. “Make it Bright Red!” and other ways to guarantee users won’t notice it
2. Shopping Cart Abandonment: Virtual and Physical
3. An Elegant Software Onboarding Experience

This week, I was working on an interactive widget. Our team was deeply familiar with the subject matter and attempting to simplify complex information with a bit of interaction. The design made sense to us, but I worried that users wouldn’t find our widget to be obvious. A few informal usability tests with friends around the office quickly revealed that users unfamiliar with the subject matter found our widget confusing.

The design was factually accurate, complete, and aesthetically pleasing.  So what gives?

Why users overlook the seemingly obvious

The cognitive psychology behind this phenomenon is illustrated in the classic Invisible Gorilla study, which rounded the ‘net about 10 years ago.  It was illustrated again in the follow-up, entitled Monkey Business.

A July 13, 2010 piece published by the Christian Sciene Monitor entitled Invisible Gorilla test returns, showing that we’re still not paying attention discusses the outcome of this study.

“These confounding findings from cognitive psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris detailed in a 1999 study revealed how people can focus so hard on something that they become blind to the unexpected, even when staring right at it. When one develops “inattentional blindness,” as this effect is called, it becomes easy to miss details when one is not looking out for them.

“‘Although people do still try to rationalize why they missed the gorilla, it’s hard to explain such a failure of awareness without confronting the possibility that we are aware of far less of our world than we think,’ Simons told LiveScience.”

The Invisible Gorilla study is not the only one that has proved this phenomenon. A 2005 book called Animals in Translation discusses a flight simulation experiment that NASA conducted which revealed that trained pilots (who were familiar with landing) were more likely to overlook distractions on the runway than untrained pilots, who may have been more observative because they didn’t know what to expect on a typical landing.

What does inattentional blindness mean for design?

Usability practitioners testify that web browsers rank near the height of inattentiveness – scanning, scrolling and clicking about like ADD patients who’ve forgotten our Ritalin.

As designers, we cannot forget how detached some users will be. Simplicity and self-evidence are difficult to achieve, but they’re standards for which we must strive. When in doubt, five-second tests can help us identify what users take away from our designs.

Another possibility is that for experiences which require absolute focus, it might make sense to break from convention – thus reducing familiarity and increasing user attentiveness. Of course, breaking from convention poses its own risks which must be weighed against its advantages.

Most importantly, if you’re ever looking to convince a content-loving stakeholder of WHY you must continue streamlining and simplifying, look no further than the classic Invisible Gorilla video on YouTube.

If you found this post, please post a comment. Also, you might want to check out What Makes Them Click, a blog which applies psychology to how people think, work, and relate.

_______________

ADDED ON JULY 18, 2010: After posting this topic on Saturday, July 17 – I heard from Dan Simons, one of the researchers behind the Invisible Gorilla study featured above.  Daniel Simons is a Professor at the University of Illinois who earned his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Cornell University. Dan wrote:

In case you’re interested, Chris Chabris and I have a new book out called “The Invisible Gorilla” that goes into a lot of depth about the reasons for these failures of awareness and their practical implications (we discuss the same studies mentioned by Temple Grandin in her book, but with more focus on how they relate toperception, attention, and awareness).  You can read more about thebook at www.theinvisiblegorilla.com.

See also:

1. The ROI of UX: Proving the Value of User Experience Design
2. Notes from The ROI of UX: Proving the Value of User Experience Design
3. Design Pattern Libraries

Last week, I had the privilege of presenting to the Austin Usability Professionals Association (UPA) about what we as user experience practitioners can do to prove our value and increase our client’s appreciation of our unique expertise.   These notes summarize the talk I delivered at that meeting.

“Each time I visit a conference I hear the same problems faced by UX professionals.  Not the never ending search for a perfect interface, the perfect user flow, or a usability test that passes without incident.  Most commonly it is ‘If I could only get the budget, my CEO just doesn’t listen to me in meetings, they seem to switch off and just don’t understand my point of view’.  In the majority of cases this is probably your problem, not theirs.”

- Alastair Simpson, former sales manager turned user experience professional

What does “Proving the ROI of UX” mean?

The title of the presentation comes in 2 parts.

What is ROI?

As we all know, returns are what you get back.   Investments are what you put in.  So ROI is the measurement of what you get back minus what you put in, often used to compare one potential investment to another.

What is UX?

An article on UXmatters entitled The Five Core Competencies of UX Design specifies a handful of skills that many UXDs offer.  On inspection, I found the list to be quite incomplete.

Recently asked to describe what a user experience designer does in less than 7 words.  I could only narrow it down to 16: A UX Designer designs or enhances products, services and environments based on a holistic consideration of the user’s perspective.

Pulling it all together, the tactics described in my presentation are intended to help you prove the ROI of UX.  To me, that means:

Proving to our clients and potential clients that designing their products or services with a holistic consideration of the user’s perspective will reap larger returns than other potential business investments.

5 Ways to Prove the Value of UXD

My goal is provide a simple set of tactics that you can start using tomorrow to prove the value of user experience design to your clients or stakeholders.

1. Understand your target. Just as you do when designing an experience, you must take a critical look at the different type of people to whom you are trying to prove.
   • Triage the people within your organization and react accordingly.  Identify:
     • Decision makers, key influences, and those who hold the purse strings. These are the people whose opinions matter most.
     • Likely advocates of UX (research team, perhaps?).  Build strategic alliances with them; Word of mouth promotion increases your credibility.
     • Detractors.  Not everyone will understand the value of UX at first, but it’s important to recognize whether (or NOT) aperson’s opinion is integral to your overall success.  Don’t waste time or emotion trying to prove yourself or your role to someone whose opinion doesn’t really matter in the end.
   • Put yourself in their shoes.  Ask yourself a few key questions about those who you are trying to convert.  What does their boss harp on the most?  What metrics are they responsible for?  What is their academic background?  What is their career history?
   • Focus on changing beliefs.  At ProductCamp Austin, Sharon Drew suggested that the only way to change behavior – say, incite an investment decision – is to change the underlying beliefs which drive the status quo.  Do your clients or stakeholders believe the same things you do regarding user experience?  What would it take to alter their beliefs?
   • Watch the lingo – both theirs and yours.
     • Talk their talk.  What is your client’s big buzzword: Organizational efficiency?  Market penetration?  Brand recognition?  Reduced abandonment?  Observe the language they speak so that you can phrase things in their terms.
     • Beware the geek speak.  Trying to prove that you’re the smartest person in the room never pays off, and you probably don’t need business decision-makers to understand every detail of the technical implementation.  When you allow yourself to indulge in geek speak, you run the risk of losing your client’s attention (recognize that familiar glossy-eyed look?) or far worse – making them feel defensive.
2. Have a variety of tools & know how to use ‘em.
   • Don’t become a one-trick pony. Asked in a past gig to research the use of Twitter, I dove in head first. Soon, I realized that our company needed an account – so we set one up and started tweeting.  Soon, I was recommending Twitter to everyone.  But it wasn’t long before I sensed them — the rolling eyes, that is.  I’d become “the Twitter girl”.  Twitter had become my go-to tool.  Something I was always expected to advocate.  I was (gasp!) a one-trick social media pony.  So, my advice to you is to keep your toolbox diverse. Be sure to consider your complete set of tools each time you diagnose a UX problem or opportunity, and you’ll retain your credibility.
   • Develop expertise in the quick and dirty, because clients will only invest in safeguards in accordance with the level of the risk they perceive.  As you know, there’s a relationship between risk and reward.  Look at the recent financial collapse or the Gulf oil spill – both are the result of risky behavior.  The thing is, has those companies succeeded with their cut corners, they would have been rewarded by lower costs and increased profits.  The lower the perceived risks, the less a business will want to invest in removing those risks.  Therein lies the natural conflict; As practitioners, we are often caught up the science of our field.  We learn the formal methodology and insist on statistical significance.  But often, our client’s budgets cannot tolerate our taste for precision.  Therefore, I believe we have a responsibility to study low fidelity approaches alongside the more elaborate.  If you can glean useful information from low-investment research, your client is much more likely to offer an adequate budget the next time.
   • Know how to sell your steps. Describing her approach to pitching new business, well-known UX designer Whitney Hess explained, “I win clients over with my process.” (source)  Each step, artifact, or phase you recommend comes between your client and his desired outcome: the project’s completion.   You must be able to describe the purpose of each step, succinctly and meaningfully.  And you’ve gotta have the adaptability to drop certain steps when you can’t build a case for them.
   • Match research methodology to desired outcome. In my case, I’ve often dealt with clients who want to use usability testing to test the aesthetics of a concept.  I felt very empowered when I came across a new way to assess desirability so that I was no longer just saying, “that’s wrong.”
   • Case in point: I once interviewed a candidate with a background at an agency whose clients often refused to invest in usability testing.  Because his colleagues on the account side hadn’t seen a lot of usability testing, they weren’t well equipped to tout its value.  So, he & some other UX colleagues created a proposal for a mobile usability lab.  Cost was covered by the first client – after that, the services actually brought RETURNS.
3. Map UX artifacts to business goals.
   • Key assumptions:
     • Hard & fast business goals have been documented. If necessary, go multiple rounds to document the goals of the business or organization.  This is truly a stitch that will, in time, save nine.  Solid goals are integral to the success of a project (and its measurement).
     • Clients see UX artifacts.  Integrate the client in your pre-deliverable deliverables as often as possible.  Share every artifact you produce.  Diagrams, narratives, sketches, wireframes: these are all tools for reaching alignment, but their power is limited to their sphere of exposure.  The more you share these artifacts, the broader the alignment.  Some may argue that “this particular client just doesn’t get wireframes” but I challenge you to change that by being a good teacher and communicator.
   • Examples include:
     • Mental modeling/content strategy.  Use a spreadsheet or mindmap to brainstorm content strategy, in the following order: Business Goals -> Users -> Desired Behaviors -> User Objections -> Content Component.  You’ll create a persuasive user experience which is basically a strategic argument against the user’s possible objections.
     • Multiple facets for usability.  Paul Sherman of ShermanUX in Austin recommends reporting on usability severity, impact to brand equity, and impact to revenue or (other key performance metric).  (source)
     • Map wireframes and other UX visualizations back to business goals.  Consider whether annotations and color-coding might be useful layers to show top-level stakeholders how business goals are being met within the user experience you’re planning.
4. Drop the superiority complex.
   • Frak ‘em? Speaking of Paul Sherman of ShermanUX, he once wrote:
     

     “…most of us stumbled onto this field and found it a fantastic lens through which to project our ethical expression onto the world. UX is a place to be a force for good. How awesome is that? Answer: quite awesome indeed. So why *wouldn’t* everyone see our opinions as correct?

     “But there’s the rub. Our moral certitude gets in our way. In other words: UX’ers belief in our own rightness is quasi-religious. Hey, if that’s the case then there’s no need to persuade others of our rightness; we *know* we’re right. And if they don’t believe us, frak ‘em.” (source)

   • Frakkin’ ‘em, however tempting, just doesn’t fly. As cliche as it may sound, differing vantage points provide creative tension that make the work better.
   • There is often no one “right” way. What that seems “right” from the user experience perspective might require huge technological investments.  It might mean cutting a stream of low-quality leads against which sales staff has been hired.  There are business decisions and implications that reach far beyond our limited view of the world.
   • Like coaches offering guidance, reminders, and encouragement from the sidelines, most of us aren’t the ones actually playing the game.  The final business decisions are not ours to make – the belong to our clients.  Instead, our job is done when we have issued recommendations, disclosed risks or taught best practices.   In fact, our performance is sometimes better measured by the degree to which we’ve informed and communicated with our clients than it is by the experiences we plan.
   • Besides, who wants to work for a client that blindly trusts advice? No respectable client would listen to every recommendation tossed his or her way.  You want to work for people who question things; Without them, your brain would turn to mush!
   • Challenge yourself to replace superlatives like “right” and “best” with more substantial and less biased rationale to support your recommendations.
5. Run a strong defense. Keep each of things things in mind to retain the credibility and differentiation you’ve been working so hard to attain.
   • Your key differentiation is your ability to predict problems with impartiality.  Offering creative solutions is important, but the second that you cross over into overselling your solutions, you lose your credibility as the unbiased identifier of risk.
   • Tread carefully on other’s roles.  Beware of offering non-user-centered critique of creative work.  If your voice becomes just another in the crowd, you don’t stand a chance of being heard — after all, you’re not the client.  Protect your place at the table by staying user-centered — and if you MUST share your personal opinion, do so with a disclaimer.  ”This is just my personal opinion, but…”
   • Never let your team take a UX/usability risk without warning. Risks are related to reward, so don’t let your risk-averse nature overpower potential opportunities.  At the same time, there’s no need to keep it all in.  Make it your mission to anticipate potential problems and communicate them to stakeholders so that there are no surprises come testing.  Sometimes, one warning isn’t enough.  Be sure you’re heard.
   • Cite examples; reference internally acquired knowledge where possible.  Where not possible, reference published works.  It might feel geeky at first, but it’s important for your teams and especially your executives to know that your heuristic analyses are informed by more than just instinct.
   • Always remind your teams that real data resolves disputes.  Be equipped to advise on how to get that data.  Become the gateway to real data for your organization.

Recommended Reading

During my research, I found the following sources very valuable – maybe you will too?

• How UX can get the budget they want on Clunky
• Selling what we do on Johnny Holland
• Selling usability on UserFocus
• Selling UX on UXmatters
• The Five Core Competencies of UX Design on UXmatters

Did you attend the presentation?  Whether or not you were there, I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Please leave a comment.

See also:

1. The ROI of UX: Proving the Value of User Experience Design
2. Notes from Austin UPA: A Panel Discussion on User Research Technologies
3. Why Users Don’t Get Your Design: Inattentional Blindness

I’m really excited about next week’s Austin Usability Professional’s Association (UPA) meeting, and I’d love it if you would attend.  I’ll be presenting on one of my favorite topics: the value of UXD.

Exhausted by clients who expect to see comps in Week 1? Frustrated by stakeholders who can find budget for anything but user research?

Whether in-house, agency-side or independent, UX consultants everywhere face challenges when securing budget and gaining respect as trusted advisors. In this session, we’ll discuss what to do and what not to do to prove your value to clients and earn their appreciation.

The event will be on Tuesday, July 7 6 from 7-9pm at Texas CoWorking- Upstairs from BD Riley’s at 204 E. 6th Street in Austin, TX.

RSVP on the Austin UPA site.

CORRECTION: Thanks Tori, the correct date is July 6, not 7!

See also:

1. Notes from The ROI of UX: Proving the Value of User Experience Design
2. Austin UPA: A Panel Discussion on User Research Technologies
3. Why Users Don’t Get Your Design: Inattentional Blindness

A few months ago, a friend in the skin care industry turned me on to Sephora.  I popped into a store one day around my birthday, and a sales consultant pointed out that I’d get a set of free lip glosses by joining their loyalty program.

It was 2 weeks ago today that I stopped by for the second time, and left with a handful of new products to try.  This evening, I received an automated email from Sephora that exemplified many CRM best practices.

For starters, I loved that their system was smart enough to match my in-store purchases with my loyalty account.  Secondly, I loved that they pulled all the data – including the very familiar product shots – into the email.  Engaged by the personalized content, I decided to review a product – huge score for Sephora!

But it didn’t end there.  Having submitted my review, I was met with a thank you screen.  But not a basic dead-end thank you screen.

The page included shop CTAs as well as a postscript, prompting me to answer a question about the product reviewed, if I had “a sec”.

So I did.  In fact, I answered two.  They made it very easy to do, and during the process I found myself more engaged in thinking about skincare and beauty products than I have been in a while.  I also became aware of the fact that I can turn to Sephora.com for user-generated Q&A, which might be a reason to return in the future as a shopper.

They emailed me a few hours later to tell me that my reviews had been posted, and I didn’t click through that email.  But I’m still very impressed by the way that Sephora paired the customer data they already had with some well-time drivers.

Why Drive Ratings & Reviews with Email Marketing?

Sephora’s model for re-engaging recent customers offers many benefits, including:

• Creating a more engaged customer (me!).
• Increasing the likelihood that I’ll return to Sephora.com.
• Opening a door for another shopping experience when users visit the site.
• Adding user-generated content (UGC) to their site, which creates a more complete and search-optimized web experience for other users.

CRM Best Practice Takeaways

Here are some tactics that I learned from Sephora’s well-designed post-purchase experience.

• Design a timely, automated post-sales experience to re-engage the customer by collecting their feedback.
• Ensure that your systems can match sales transactions back to particular individuals, and develop a content pipeline that leverages the sales data.
• Embed personalized content in emails; familiar images capture the user’s attention.
• Leverage the human characteristic of wanting to help others by asking for help in the form of reviews, and reminding users of the value it provides to others.
• Stick to your brand voice.
• Always consider the next step — how can you keep the user engaged?
• Once a user is engaged in providing content or feedback, provide them an easy way to continue doing so.
• Reuse the customer feedback that you collect to bring value to future prospects.

Have you been successful with a campaign like this one?  What do you think about it?

See also:

1. Transparency with User Reviews
2. Product Camp Austin: From Product Management To Social Product Management
3. Showing More Colors in the Product Gallery

My name is Erin. E-R-I-N.

I used Visio for the first time in 2005 and continued using it on an almost daily basis for around 4 straight years thereafter.

I’ve collected Visio stencils out the wazoo, and can produce a Visio drawing so slick you’d have sworn it was built in Photoshop.

But earlier this year, as I interviewed candidates for a growing UX team, I realized that I couldn’t deny the wide variety of tools with which practitioners were dabbling — Fireworks, InDesign, Axure, Balsamiq, iRise, Illustrator — you name it.  Would my die-hard commitment to a semi-antiquated tool make me less marketable than the next guy?

Freedom and broadened horizons were both top considerations in my decision to move from permanent employment to consulting, and I realized that my technological toolbox had to be a part of that — no matter how steep the learning curve seemed. The first new tool I tried was Axure RP.

Axure RP for Rapid Prototyping

The need for rapid prototyping originated with the project’s specifics; We were planning a social, dynamic web experience with a large group of stakeholders from across the organization.  History has taught me that detailed annotations explaining all the possible states would not be easy for the business to understand, if they even read them at all. Interactive wires were the way to go.

We were considering Axure, iRise, Photoshare, and Balsamiq.  Having reviewed each of their features, I thought the easiest way to decide would be by trying each of them.

I started and ended my trials with Axure. Just a couple of hours after having downloaded it, I was surprised to find myself fairly well along in an interactive prototype, full of unexpected functionality that would have taken days to wire up and annotate in Visio.

I spent around a week polishing a prototype that made it much easier to communicate dynamic interactions to a diverse stakeholder audience, at which point I’d probably reached the edges of the tool’s functionality.

Pros and Cons of Axure RP

Off the top of my head, these are a few considerations to keep in mind if you’re considering Axure RP.

Expect more entries from me in the future detailing my trysts with other technologies — the next of which will be Omigraffle.

Have you tried Axure RP? What’d you think about it?

See also:

1. Hover and Click: Usability in Rollover Interactions
2. Setting User Expectations for Video Using Thumbnails

The first recliner was fashioned from a slatted wooden patio chair. Sounds comfy, right? Four years later, the inventors patented a padded model and renamed their company “La-Z-Boy”.  (source)

New technologies [...] start by imitating older technologies before they evolve to their true forms.

Maybe due to the limited foresight of our wee human minds, this process occurs most any time a new technology is designed which serves a function similar to that of something that already exists.

Click through to see captions of each invention.

So what does this mean that we’re doomed to several bad releases before we start getting to the good ones?   Not so fast. A carefully planned process can help new designs evolve pre-release, if a few key things are remembered.

First drafts aren’t optional

OR critique begets optimization

Your first design has about the same odds as a high school relationship for standing the test of time. So don’t waste time trying to make it pixel-perfect. Carefully consider whether the best tool for the first round design isn’t a big fat Sharpie or dry erase marker. Force yourself to sketch ideas as quickly and wildly as possible – after all, you have nothing to lose.

Then after a good night’s rest, sit back and take a look at each creation. Show them to your colleagues or better yet, to people who would ultimately use the end product. Understand where and why each design fails them. (See more about rapid prototyping with customers.)

Or,  you could just skip this step.  And send your first draft out into the market?

Poor (early) designs are not failures

OR turn that frown upside down

In order to make it to “beta”, we humans have to experience “alpha”, understand its shortcomings and only then pick up the Sharpie again.

Unfortunately, putting unpolished, first-draft work out for critique calls for what we Texans like to call juevos.  But it shouldn’t be thought of as optional.  As ironic as it is, fear of failure causes failure in design.

So today, I conclude with a manifesto. Say it with me: “I know that my first draft is only the beginning, and I will design rapidly and with great abandon because putting a stake in the ground is the best way to get the critiques flowing – from myself, my colleagues, my clients and hopefully potential users of the design.“

See also:

1. Getting the most from developers
2. Product Camp Austin: From Product Management To Social Product Management
3. The Value of User Research

Many content sites depend on user engagement metrics to drive advertising revenue. Times.com recently introduced an innovative design pattern which increases the prominence of the next step, likely to keep users engaged as they reach the end an article.  Put the video below in full screen mode, and focus on the lower right hand corner near the scroll bar – or view this article on the New York Times website to see it in action.

See also:

1. Setting User Expectations for Video Using Thumbnails
2. “Make it Bright Red!” and other ways to guarantee users won’t notice it
3. User Testing Fallacies