One of the most important statistics in the world of marketing is the fact that a present-day internet user has a shorter attention span than a goldfish. That being said, you need to understand how to make them engage with your brand and your website without distracting them from your main objective, making a purchase, subscribing or further exploring your domain. Making your audience phase through pages and pages can be quite lucrative for your overall rank, yet, it really doesn’t do much to boost the overall user experience, especially if your loading time isn’t that impressive. Fortunately, with micro-interactions, you can do just that. Here are a few tips and suggestions.
1. Highly intuitive
The first massive advantage of the improved customer user experience through micro-interactions lies in the fact that they are incredibly easy to use. Think about the ‘like’ feature on Facebook. This universal symbol is more than a clear indicator of what the actual function does, yet, this is not your only option for micro-transaction implementation. In a lot of cases, the micro-interaction has a confirm button, which allows you to reverse the action before others are able to see it. Without this finality, your audience might be more content with playing around with your website, seeing as how they are confident that their interactions stay private until they deem otherwise.
More importantly, you need to understand that it is not a job of a micro-interaction to change the way your audience’s brain works, it’s only there to capitalize on this symbolism and association patterns. As we said, thumb up and heart were always positive symbols while the ‘x’ symbol, a broken heart, a minus or a thumb down always indicated something negative. Emoticons can also be quite efficient, seeing as how they have a simple graphic way of displaying approval and disapproval. Overall, you should study these behavioral patterns if you’re to connect with your audience.
2. Sense of control
As soon as they enter your website, your audience is in your domain, which is what robs them of some of their control. Sure, they’re there by their own will and they can shuffle through your offers, however, in order to make them really feel welcome, you have to show them that they are the ones whose actions matter the most. Any form of interactions can get you a part of the way but according to the guys from the digital agency from Melbourne, you can make all of these micro-interactions into a breadcrumb trail towards your CTA (call-to-action) button. After all, it’s much easier to make your audience interact with the most important element of your page if you’ve already persuaded them to do so several times over in the previous two minutes.
3. No need for the loading screen
The greatest advantage of micro-interactions is that they don’t require you to reload the page. Think about the Instagram ‘like’ button which immediately shows a red heart symbol (as opposed to the empty heart icon) when you click on it. Sure, interacting with your website in a different way would also be a probability, yet a loading screen can be a potential deterrent. By relying on micro-interactions, your pushing the biggest obstacle out of the way.
4. Keeping your users entertained
Depending on the content of your landing page or your platform, you might have a hard time keeping your users entertained. This is where micro-interactions come in, seeing as how they give your audience something to do every step of the way. By evoking emotions or using interesting animations, you can take this one step further.
5. Avoids unnecessary confusion
While this may not seem like that great of a deal, avoiding unnecessary confusion definitely improves your user experience. For starters, whether or not you’ve clicked a certain button shouldn’t be a concern with micro-interactions. On the other hand, if they’re poorly integrated or non-responsive, this could turn into an even greater problem.
Fortunately, most micro-interactions respond instantaneously, leaving your audience without a shred of doubt in their mind on whether or not the website received your order. Delayed reactions are even worse, especially when clicking twice on the same button has the potential to undo your first action. Overall, micro-interactions can be much more efficient at avoiding unnecessary confusion.
6. More reliable feedback
Due to the fact that micro-interactions make people more eager to interact with your website, you also get a more reliable feedback and an easier access to all sorts of user-related information. Most people automatically assume that we’re talking about the way in which your audience responds to your content but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Sure, micro-interactions are great, however, each intractable element you add to your page requires some additional resources. In this way, you get to see first-hand, which of these buttons are audience-favorites and which, they could easily live without. In other words, you’re using micro-transactions in order to alter your own micro-transaction strategy.
7. More efficient instructions
Finally, learning of the example is probably the most efficient didactic method, yet, a lot of people are still quite reluctant to do so. Fortunately, with the help of micro-interactions, your users can get an emulation of using your app or platform in a safe, learning-friendly environment. Sometimes, simply highlighting or flashing a button that your audience should click next can help make this learning process more seamless. Moreover, this can help gamify the entire experience of using the app, which is definitely a trend that goes ever in your favor.
In conclusion
The best thing is the fact that these seven aspects aren’t the only ways in which micro-interactions stand to improve the overall user experience. Sure, no matter how ingenious, these features don’t have the power to make or break your brand, yet, they do act as powerful enhancers. In other words, they can make all your efforts better and more relatable, which is what your web design efforts and your digital marketing campaign are supposed to be all about.
