Putting users in the driving seat

A while ago the ultimate in making your users feel in control of the site was a welcome message on sign in. It’s spiralled from those days to sites where the complete look, format and even what it does is controlled by the user. You can conceivably have as many different user pages as there are users, you could have elements users can choose if they display them or not – the possibiliites are nearly endless. Thinking of your users less like dumb test cases and more like real people with real wants and giving them the ability and respect to make their own decisions, has been proven time and time again to benefit sites.

Designing for a site that is to get the maximum user preferences is not an easy task. At the thin end of allowing them to change minor things but keeping the overall design doesn’t pose too many design issues, it’s when you get to a point where nothing is set on the design that the fun begins. They could change the format, the colour; it’s a designers nightmare you’d think. The truth is that if done right it is something you can gain from. Giving users control takes a little shift in thought process from you playing parent to what they can and can’t do on the site and really is a triumph (when it works well) of good user interface design.

The benefits of offering user’s more control are numerous, from increased traffic through to dedication of your user base. A big thing is the consider that for anything you add don’t opt for third party options – the idea is to keep users on your site not send them to another site. Anything you add should be done in your site and to bolster the activity on your site. It’s a balancing act over offering things for people to do on your site and not just doing it for the sake. Users will see through something just put on ‘because it’s cool’. Respect the intelligence of your users and provide them with useful tools.

So, what can you do to give users back control on a site. I’ve got some simple suggestions that you can put on your site to give users a go ‘at the wheel’ for their journey around your site. These are just a few of the things you can do, it’s really about knowing what function your site does and fitting the technique to that.

• User pages

  If you have users you probably have a preferences page as part of this. Allowing users to have a ‘home’ on your site is a great way to give them a bit of control. Letting them link to yoursite.com/username can easily give that sense of belonging. How far you take this is a careful balance. The standards are the allow them to upload an image for their avatar (usually you’d use this in the site like against posting or any interaction they do on the site) and put some basic personal details like a site link. The dangerous waters are opening up theme control for this profile such as css editing or uploading a picture. When I say danger you just have to look at myspace to see what the worst end of this can be. However, Twitter shows that just simple colour, text and background changes can actually be a good thing – it’s all about balance and what you want for your site. Facebook takes a more standard approach by not allowing theme control so design consistency is maintained but there is still an element of personalisation.

• Content choices

  You can go as far as allowing users to move about elements on a page or decide what functionality they want on the site, when giving them control of the content. Content control is a tricky one, it’s often a case of this not being used or it being used in the sense of changing colours for status of activity on the site. Home pages such as google or other portals often allow you to add or take away elements – Facebook with the apps now allow you to do this also. This is one of the most dependent on the functionality of your site as to whether you use it or not. A site with one functionality or a closely linked set of functions. really wouldn’t require this.

• Switching themes

  On this site I allow users to choose a theme (flavour) if they want and giving users a say in how the core site is viewed follows on from user pages. Style switchers are pretty easy to do – word press actually has one as a plugin – so it’s a simple thing you can do that gives the user a bit more control over how they view a site. A common approach is to do this as an increase in accessibility by allowing a larger text or reversed contrast version of the site. Opening this up to themes across the site is the next stage on from personalised user profiles.

• Personalised messaging

  Most user based sites have messages be they error or information based ones. By using the personalised approach to these, you can make more of a connection with your user. Don’t just say welcome, say welcome username. Error messages are an often over looked part of sites and by adding the personal touch to them you can connect more with your users. You have their username in your system so use it.

• Bring in your mates

  A lot of these techniques are of course aimed at both making your site more ‘sticky’ (sticky means getting users to literally stick to using it) and having an easy method of inviting or notifying their friends of your site, really is a great way to expand your user base. It could be a simple form or a complex contact management system – the decision really should come down to what is needed and not what just looks fancy. I’d always suggest having a beta period on a site (just maybe not agree with whacking those beta labels all over it) and invites during beta are a bit like someone having a cool thing others want – do it right and the demand for invites with reverberate about the web and your site will be known about before it’s even launched properly. Great examples of this recently are Pownce and Skitch. The snowball effect of letting your users promote your site through buttons / links and invites is clear to see as a benefit.

• Top of the pops

  Allowing some way for users to see their history of what they have done on the site or what is going on, can really be a useful tool and make people use an stay on your site longer. Of course you can easily do this as you are probably logging already what they are doing – it depends on the functionality of the site. Offering a feed of this information for users to put on their blog or site also provides them with the opportunity to self promote your site.

• DIY toys

  Some sites open up their API’s and others just provide feeds that you can show on your blog or that people can develop widgets for word press with. Really this part is up to you how far you go. Offering a range of ways to access, submit and interact with your site, puts the user back in control – you are allowing them to make their own choice.

These are just a few of the ways you can give users more control over your site. The big successes of the modern web are those sites that carefully balance having a purpose with letting users have control over what they do. The nanny type sites are long gone, more and more you see even the basics of a profile page, feeds, even a range of user tools on any site that has a user base. Some of these things you can do on a non sign up site like most blogs. Just because users aren’t signed up does not mean you can’t allow them to have a bit more control or offer them tools – even RSS feeds can be thought of as a tool in the sense of users choosing to visit a site or use the feed. It’s all up to you to decide what is useful and apply it to your site. One great thing is to actually ask your users – who else knows more how what they want?