4M

Ha! I knew that would get your attention. What do you mean, Marisa? Everybody knows Google has the cleanest, most usable site on the planet! Well, that’s true. But that usability does not extend to the emails they send.

I run Adwords campaigns for several of my clients. One of the features of Adwords is, you can set up periodic reporting so you can see how your campaign is performing and what it’s costing you, etc. Great. But when they send the email telling you, Marisa, your latest report is hot off the presses, they drop the ball. Here’s how:

Check out this screenshot. It shows how the email appears in my inbox. Only a few sentences appear above the fold in my preview window. What’s wrong with this picture??

I’ll tell you what: the first link doesn’t take you where you want to go. Am I the only one who expects the first link in this email to take me to my report? I’m not reading the text, it’s canned text. I’m scanning for the action item - the link. The first place my eye goes is the first link … which takes me to some stupid FAQ page that I didn’t want. I have made this mistake nearly every single time. I don’t have time to learn how to use this email. I want the first link to take me where I want to go. All the rest can go at the bottom. Are you an idiot? Click on the FAQ. Got issues? Click on the help. Wanna change your settings? Click here. Etc.

The moral of the story is:

Make it easy for me. Stop making me think. This goes for every email you send out to your customers, and every page you create for them. First, find out what they want. Ask them, or observe them. Make sure you get it right. Then, give them what they want and get the hell out of their way so they can accomplish their goals and go on about the business of living.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 20th, 2006 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Usability, Googliciousness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.