For the ascertained success of a task, it is imperative to have a flow in it. When there is a flow in the task, we love to do it without any disruption of boredom or anxiety. In the same way, web design with a flow keeps viewers engaged with it. To have a flow in a website, it should not be designed in a repetitive, overly taxing or confusing manner.
How to design a website with flow? A good simple site is one that is capable enough to hold the attention and interest of users. Here, the purpose is not to create a simple site but to create a site that is painless to use, despite of the fact how complex it is made. The solution here is to design a site with ‘flow’ to make the complex, painless. Site with fluidity, intuitiveness and flow, inspires and invites new users, persuade existing users to stick to the site and address your site to others. This gives your site vast awareness, increased number of users, and thereby increased activities. Flow induces more profound sense of engagement between you and your target audience.
Here are the four rules that help you build flow on your site:
Set Clear Goals
To add flow in your site, the first step you need to do is to set a clear goal. This would let traffic come to your site if they find a purpose on it. A site with the goals helps users to convince that they are on the appropriate site. Also a site having realistic examples helps the audience to understand product differentiation and inspire them to achieve those in the real world.
Provide Immediate Feedback
A site providing necessary direction to the users eliminates all confusion for him, making him believe that he would achieve what he is looking for. With the help of an application, Wufoo, people can build forms and gather information. It provides the users an immediate feedback on their creation. By this, it wipes out the anxiety of the users letting them know what their end-products are like. Users can get their feedback with another application also, a file-based image upload tool called Fickr’s. It facilitates the users to see the progress of each image and know if it contains any error. Users can easily watch the progress bar and see that photos are being uploaded without error.
Maximize efficiency
When users experience flow in any site, they like to work on it converting it into a responsive one.
For instance,
- Google Reader – its numerous features make it fast and effortless.
- Endless Scroll – never lets the users disrupt their flow of reading an article by clicking a link to the next page.
- Email Feature – when clicked, allows the users to send their story to their friend without dislocating them on the site.
Allow for discovery
If a user gets opportunity to discover content or features on the site, it creates interest for them. With no ubiquity of boredom in it, users find themselves engaged with the site. The ‘Most Popular’ column – email, blog, comment and search stories, grab the attention of every user. Similarly, ‘Ebay’ gives users an opportunity to try out. For example, when a user looks for an item on Ebay, the messages underneath the article ‘Watch this’ attracts much attention of the users. Such discoveries allow users to keep connected to your site.
Flow is a mental state achieved differently by different individuals. Software engineers feel flow while writing code and gamers feel it while playing their favorite games, in the same way, viewers should feel the flow while visiting a site.
