Writing About a Process on Your Website

When people read your website, you're not there. This is hardly new information, but it has some implications. One is that things have to be extraordinarily clear.

Things have to be more clear on a website, in fact, than they do on paper.Given an instruction manual, some people will throw it away and experiment, but the others will sit down and read it. They'll expect to search around a bit for the information they need. They'll pay attention to the table of contents, compare the pictures and the text, and struggle through the hard parts.

People facing a complex process online react differently. They look first, to see if they can grab the information in some obvious place. If not, they begin randomly clicking things and scrolling. Then they give up.

No, of course you don't do this. But randomly chosen people in tests of web sites almost always do exactly what I've described. So your visitors may be doing so as well.

This means that a process needs to be explained very clearly, and in an eye-catching way.














At Shopmobbing.com, we went with cute graphics, large numbers, and arrows.This might seem like overkill, but it really isn't. Add very clear text, and you have a fighting chance.











At Joblingo.com, we again used graphics to catch the eye, numbers to show the process, and simple text. Arrows wouldn't have hurt, frankly, but this client wanted to maintain a simple, professional look.










Onsharp used a bright graphic, and bright headings to emphasize the steps of their internal process. Like the previous example, this layout takes advantage of the natural tendency (among English-speaking people) to read from left to right and top to bottom. Setting the steps out in this order helps make it clear. Each short paragraph then links to a page with more complete information. Putting all the information on one page would have separated the headings enough to lose the step-by-step visual impression. Note also that the graphic contains a call to action -- visitors who are ready to make a decision can simplify the process by getting in contact immediately.

Make no mistake -- if your words don't explain the process clearly, no amount of graphic help will fix the problem. Given clear, compelling text, though, laying the process out in an attention-grabbing way that guides visitors through the process can do the trick.

Labels: web content, web design