To create user interfaces that really capture the attention of users it is important that you pay attention to details.
One of the details that maybe doesn’t seem worth spending time on but definitely is worth rolling up your sleeves and digging into is micro-interactions. Micro-interactions are the little actions that happen before, during, and after a user engages with a website or mobile app and should be a part of your website or mobile app development process.
Micro-interactions help the user feel rewarded for taking an action.
Micro-interactions help guide users when they are using your interface by offering noticeable responses to behaviors confirming that the system has received their input. To summarize a micro-interaction, when a user takes an action, the interface responds in a pleasing way that engages the user.
Use micro-interactions to improve user engagement
Well thought out micro-interactions improve user engagement on websites, mobile apps and other products.
Take the time to consider the experience a person has with your website or mobile app, what do they see, feel and think while utilizing your user interface? Is it a joy to use? Are they excited? Do they want to tell their friends about it?
Often nuances such as micro-interactions are overlooked in the rush to get your website or mobile app live. But if you think about it, the user interfaces that you really enjoy using and that you tell your friends about are the ones where somebody took the time to sweat the small stuff.
Have you ever been on a mobile app or web site and thought to yourself “Wow! That is cool” when you were surprised by an unexpected detail? These are the kind of things that make an interface a joy to use and keep users coming back.
If you are not familiar with micro-interactions, here are a few basic examples that you might be familiar with:
Usability
Usability is one of the key factors of great interface design. Great usability often includes micro-interactions. Micro-interactions encourage engagement and help users understand how an interface works.
These small details may seem insignificant, but from a user experience standpoint, they genuinely make a huge difference between an interface that is just ok and an interface that is exceptional. These micro-interactions help the user feel rewarded for taking an action and can help teach them how to use the interface in a pleasant way.
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One of the most exciting opportunities for entrepreneurs right now is the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things (IoT) is currently growing at an accelerated rate creating incredible options for savvy businesses and business people.
With rapid expansion into American homes, we now find that most consumers have at least an interest in purchasing and using smart home devices. In a recent study conducted by Magid, it was found that currently, 51% of U.S. consumers are interested in purchasing and using smart home devices. 20% of those surveyed indicated that they were very interested.
The response was so favorable, in fact, that only 15% of those surveyed indicated that they were not interested at all and 29% expressed feeling neutral about using smart devices.
24% of consumers say they would like to purchase a Nest thermostat
Smart devices appear to have fully entered the mainstream as it is hard to actually find consumers that are not aware of smart devices. A full 84% of online consumers have now heard of smart devices. Examples of these devices include smart speakers such as the Amazon Alexa device and Google Home. When it comes to smart speakers themselves, familiarity is even higher, with 94% of people familiar with Amazon Alexa and Echo devices.
Currently, almost one-third of Americans own and use a smart device regularly. This is exciting news for businesses that have already entered the IoT market. For example, 24% of consumers say they would like to purchase a Nest thermostat and 26% say they would like to buy an Amazon Echo.
There are still a few consumers that are not interested in smart devices and their reasons for not being interested varied. Some felt the devices would be more expensive and others were concerned about privacy. But regardless of these concerns, the sale of smart devices is growing rapidly.
One of the reasons why sales are growing so rapidly is that owners of device tend to be very happy with their purchases. For example, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant each have a user satisfaction rating of 85% and Siri follows closely behind at 78%. With consumers this happy with their devices it is no surprise that sales are growing rapidly. Word of mouth is bound to fuel sales with satisfaction numbers this high.
When it comes to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, the majority of those that responded indicated that they were very satisfied with their devices (52%). Very satisfied consumers tend to share their experiences with friends and family members.
It probably doesn’t surprise you that virtual assistants are used to perform a wide variety of tasks. The most common is finding information on the internet (51%) but they are also commonly used to listen to music or check the weather.
If you have an entrepreneurial spirit or are looking for a way to kickstart your business, look and see if you can leverage the incredible opportunities that now exist within the Internet of Things. Who knows, you might be the person that comes up with the next Nest thermostat or Amazon Alexa.
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The way that people see and use the internet is rapidly being changed by the growth of voice search.
This has in a large part happened due to improvements in speech recognition software. Due to this, we no longer interact with the internet solely through the keyboards on our computer or mobile devices.
These days, we are talking to our devices and listening as they respond.
These days, we are talking to our devices and listening as they respond. This is creating a monumental shift in how we interact with the internet.
Have you accounted for this on your web site? Does your company’s information cater to query based searching? Or is your web site still catering to people keying searches into Google by hand?
Most web sites that have taken the time to optimize for search engines have done so based on how people used to search.
When a person wanted to find something, they would open a browser, go to Google (or other search engine, but Google is the most relevant) type in a phrase based on what they are looking for, such as “restaurants near me” or “Crocs in wide sizes”. Google would then return results based on their complex and ever changing algorithm. This algorithm would rank the answers according to what it views as being the most relevant and then send them back to you as a list. I am sure you have done this thousands of times.
Based on this pattern of searching, businesses would create content that they hoped would help them rank high according to Google’s algorithm.
This all worked really well when you were reading the results on a desktop or laptop computer, but it’s not so great if you are asking Siri or a smart speaker, such as Alexa, a question.
The Google Years
If you used to search the internet using Lycos, Excite or Alta Vista, you know how much Google simplified search. Based on the quality of its results, people started Google more and more until it completely dominated the market. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave you much more relevant results than previous search engines did, eliminating the need to scroll through page after page looking for the right result.
Their algorithm has been updated many times to deliver better, more relevant results. Now days, you generally can find what you are looking for in the top few results and if not there, they are almost always on the first page or two.
An entire industry was born to help businesses benefit from search engine. Companies all over the world hire Search Engine Optimization companies in an effort to help them place as high as possible on Google when it returns search results.
This pretty much sums up our search experience until recent times.
The Dawn of Voice
Voice search capabilities are rapidly changing this. When you search by voice, there is no list of results to look at. Alexa and Google Home deliver one result to you in an audible way. Because of this, it is essential to be in the top position.
While the internet of yesterday (and today) was based on textual interaction, the internet of tomorrow will be driven by an oral and aural interaction. Spoken word will replace the written word, which will dramatically change how we need to present our information online.
Rather than searches being base on a search phrase like “cat hammock” you would say something like “Siri, find me a hammock for my cat”. If you are a retailer of cat hammocks you will now need to adapt your website for this new style of searching, focusing on how to deliver results based on these changes.
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