How to persuade others through great usability!

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who is in the office suite next to me. I was suggesting to her that to connect with her customers she should create a blog and start sharing valuable and relevant information with them about her business niche (she has a brilliant niche).

One of the ways I told her she could get the word out on her blog was by sharing it with all the folks that came to her booth at the many trade shows she does each year. Her immediate response – “how should I best do that?”

To me this is a perfect example of usability. If she can efficiently collect email addresses and give them a simple handout that effectively communicates the benefits of going to her blog she will build a loyal audience base that will greatly increase her annual revenue streams.

Most people would approach this suggestion by handing out a flier with tons of other info on and the URL to the blog buried somewhere in flier. Not an effective approach to usability.

Usability (to me) means persuading others. By implementing some key fundamentals, usability becomes highly effective and efficient.

Whether your implementing usability in web design, presentations, fund raising or anything requiring action you have to effectively lead someone from point A to point B, and land them at the place where they are eager to follow your call to action.

Without core fundamentals and a standardized framework (process) to implement usability, you will not be very persuasive.

Let’s look at the core fundamentals of usability that I work with.

1. Keep it simple – people don’t like to think so keep it simple stupid (kiss).
2. Keep it focused – if you want people to get from point A to point B, DO NOT distract them with anything else till they have finished your call to action.
3. Create in your audience an eager want – how do you do this? Simple! See things from your audiences perspective and answer the question what is it THEY want? If you answer this and blend it with your proposition you will become very persuasive.
4. Ask for it – you won’t get anyone to take action if you don’t ask. In addition to asking, make sure your call to action is clear and in no way ambiguous. (Let’s put this into practice right now – for more tips like this sign up here to automatically receive my future blog posts by email)

These four points will ensure that the person has only two options -  yes! or not at this time (to me a delayed yes).

Remember, great usability includes these core fundamentals. It does not matter what your doing -  If you need to persuade someone you must have great usability.

Let’s have a look at an article on web interface usability from a site that I love to read (smashing magazine). Keep an eye on their examples and how through good usability the user is lead from the proposition to the call to action. Click here for the article.

Now go and persuade the world through greater usability!

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Thanks for stopping by! ~ Devin Day