Today, in this scroll happy world, I thought I’d take a second to address the trend of single page design (long form sales pages), why they work, and how to push yourself to avoid creating “micro-commitments” that separate your user and your product.
Micro Commitments
A micro-commitment is any small action that a user takes on a website or app. These micro-commitments typically move the user farther down the sales funnel. Here are a few example micro-commitments: clicks, form inputs, short reading (instructions), load-time waiting, scrolling, and any other interactions that are quick and subtle.
Keep in mind that a larger commitment of time and effort from the user is typically a conversion goal, like purchasing a product or filling out a form.
Why Do Long Form Sales Pages Work?
Enter long form web design. These long, scrolly pages aren’t just pretty, they actually make a ton of sense when we tactically think about web design. Consider how a user normally arrives at a home page, has to identify with a link/page, click that link, wait for a page load, then refocus their vision on the new page. With less pages, we are able to eliminate dozens of commitments that stand between the user and your conversion.
Realize that as a web designer or developer you are creating these interactions. Only you are in control of these commitments and there is no way for the user to avoid them (in most cases). Do your part and make it easier for them to connect with your product.
1. Less Micro-Commitments - It’s pretty clear, less pages in a website or app connects the user to valuable content faster and more efficiently, most of the time.
2. Intuitive Content Flow - Long form web design also causes the designer to structure information in a way that is intuitive to the users. Since the main interaction is scrolling, we can sequentially delivering content to the user. That gives the designer enormous control over the user’s experience, and it will vary much less from user to user.
3. Split Testing - Rolling off #2 - you can split-test these different architectures to find out what content flow works best. Once you identify the right sequence of content, you can drive traffic and predict results.
Be Anti-Micro Commitment
So to wrap this up – be anti micro-commitment driven with your design. Your products will ultimately be better if you don’t create obstacles between your user and the product. If you’re a UX developer for software, you need to consider how you can keep valuable information available at all times, on every screen, without being too busy.
With ember, angular, node, and all the other frontend frameworks for single-page apps, we’re going to see a lot more fluidity with information and users. In the next 10 years I think hardware will also contribute to this accessibility of information, allowing users to see more information at once and make decisions faster.
Woah, dude.