7 Sins of Landing Page Design – What Do I Do Next?

In Part One of this series we explored the issues found related to unclear call to actions on your landing page. This week we will explore the next step which would be: “Too Many Choices – What do I do Next?”.

Too many choices on a landing page can cause paralysis. When the user can’t find the right link to get to their desired goal the most common result is the user hitting back button on their browser and moving on to a competitors website.

An example of this would be this screenshot to the left of a catalog that has around 146 click-able links on its’ landing page. Right now I’m thinking, What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go? Well as I mentioned earlier most people’s first thought is to hit the back button and go to another website. To the right of that is another image of someone else’s website in which they have simplified the choices on their landing page by using one image to summarize many different products for each area of their catalog. 

REDEMPTIONS

Don’t present detail too early in the process
Guide your users thru a large selection of choices thru a series of quicker simpler selections so that the user can narrow things down to a manageable number of choices or decisions.

Group choices into a smaller number of higher level of categories
Creating a hierarchy of selections with a main category and then even add in secondary and third level categories so they the user can drill down and get closer to what they are looking for quicker, faster, and easier.

Use visual shortcuts to reduce reading
As in the above sample if at all possible utilize visual image shortcuts to use one image to represent an entire category of products and/or services. This helps the user get to their desired goal quicker and with more ease.

Tune in next week as we will be discussing the sin of requesting too much information. See you next week.