UIE.com: Getting Confidence from Lincoln
Clear content begets confidence
I just can't get this Jared Spool article out of my mind. It gave me
one of those "ah-ha" learning moments. Usability folks often get carried
away with the number of clicks and the architecture of sites. But as Spool's study demonstrates, even the most horribly designed and constructed site can achieve wonderful results - just so long as the visitors feel confident that they will achieve their tasks.
Spool's study suggests there are a few tricks to inspiring confidence, such as having content-specific keywords associated with information links and ensuring that content gets more and more specific as people navigate deeper into the site.
Why '"ah-ha"? Because I know of numerous sites that would send us "experts" screaming out into the street, but nevertheless perform extremely well with real users. And when I go back and look at these sites now, I can see that they deliver that one magic element - they inspire confidence, from the homepage all the way through to the order page.
