When designing distribution processes, one of the key goals is to minimize the number of times an item is touched between receiving and shipping. Every time that you handle a product it adds cost and a possibility of a quality incident. Removing touches becomes a key goal.
The same is often not true of web interfaces. I can’t tell you the number of great services I’ve tried that fail the “touch test.” Usually it’s an unnecessary log-in. Do you really need my credentials to let me read that article? Do I really need to log-in just to post a comment? I get why websites/companies do it, but every touch you require a user to make it an opportunity to lose them.
On to some that I see doing it right: Every time Facebook redesigns it causes backlash. But every redesign does seem to have the goal of reducing touches. Put more high value content onto the first screen to reduce clicks. Everytime Google redesigns it’s to minimize the number of offerings and better integrate to drive down touches. You don’t even have to click search any more to actually search!
So why am I on this topic? E-commerce. Shopping sites are the worst at giving you everything you need at your fingertips. It’s almost as if they believe making their sites complex and maze-like will drive consumers to put more into their carts.
The Long-Tail Principle is that as the cost (or friction) per search drops people become more inclined to consume more niche products. I would like to posit that the same is true for # of interactions. Click throughs should no longer be a measure of website popularity. It should become a measure of website inefficiency. The higher your clicks per user (benchmarked by industry) the worse your website is performing. If you aren’t trending your clicks per revenue or clicks per order, you’re looking at the wrong marketing metrics.