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People engage more with an interface once they know how to use it. Conversely, people bounce away from interfaces that just look horribly convoluted. You want to design for learnability so that people stick around. The goal is to help them learn your interface fast so they can keep using it. This way you get more repeat users and the site has a lower bounce rate.
Interaction design should be learnable, or at least shouldn’t require the designer to teach people how to use the interface. This doesn’t work for complex software like Photoshop but a website is not complex software. For example, everyone knows Amazon’s website. It’s full of thousands of categories and millions of products. With that much content you’d expect it to be a mess.
Yet browsing and searching Amazon really isn’t too hard. Why?
Amazon's website with thousands of categories and millions of products
Twitter's tooltip hints to help people understand elements in the UI
Dropbox interface has not much changes since they launched to achieve consistency
Once a user learns the Dropbox interface they never need to re-learn it. That’s the goal of consistency.
When someone returns to Dropbox for a 2nd time they’ll already be familiar with it. Once people have been using it for a while they’ll get familiar with the UI and expect it to behave a certain way. You can find this same technique on blogs & content sites too, it’s just less pronounced. For example WebDesigner Depot launched a redesign and changed all their hover events to use a moving animation effect.
WebDesigner Depot's story featured with moving animation effect
MailChimp's registration page automatically crosses off certain requirements when you hit the password
Photojojo eCommerce product page layout
Checkout page features small plus/minus icons
It’s a very common feature in ecommerce shops and users just inherently know how to use it. The more common an interface feature is, the greater the likelihood that people will just intuitively understand.
Same goes for blog layouts. Aim for a strong navigation at the top with blog categories, clearly visible headlines, a top-of-page featured image, then the body of the article.
Blog layout with strong navigation at the top
Google's SERPS page remains the same and has not much changes
Key to intuitive design is to make use of what people already know, or create something new that is easy to learn. By using these concepts consistently, you meet your visitors’ expectations. This way, you help them reach their goals more quickly. As human beings, we like patterns and recognition, which is why we are better at handling familiar situations rather than unfamiliar ones.
If you use new concepts in your design, make sure to use them consistently and give people a hand during the initial learning phase. For example, you can offer additional information, or instructions the first time they use your site or product. Keep it simple and visual to help people remember new concepts.