Contingency Design

the new buzzword?

[rogerd]

There's an interesting article in the September issue of New Architect [newarchitectmag.com] about using "contingency design" to increase revenue of e-commerce web sites. (The September issue wasn't online as of this posting.) Contingency design is, in essence, making sure that when your customers do something wrong, they are presented with something that is as positive and useful as possible. They had some great side-by-side screenshots:

1) A "404 Not Found" generic page vs. a nicely formatted "Our apologies" page with additional search and navigation options

2) A "couldn't find what you searched for" page (bluelight.com) vs. one that presents some near matches (walmart.com)

3) A page that merely identifies the form item the customer forgot to fill in (ticketmaster.com) vs. one that actually re-displays the form, identifying the missing fields clearly at the top of the page and also flagging the actual boxes (victoriassecret.com). (I had to do some, er, primary research on that one... ;))

Additional suggestions included identifying common misspellings and building them into searches, being BRIEF and CLEAR if the customer needs to do something, avoiding back and forth error pages (which doesn't let the customer correct the error while seeing the explanation of what is wrong), not breaking the Back button, highlighting problems/errors using color, icons, etc.

I could really identify with some of these issues - I was completing a form of some kind the other day and kept flipping back to the form after submitting it. After three tries, I found tiny print that identified a missing form field. I'm sure some might have given up.

A lot of this is common sense, but it seems like a good concept to build into the design of every site. I certainly encounter plenty of sites that don't embody this philosophy. At the simplest level, a friendly 404 page is quick and very helpful. From there, one can determine how much effort should be applied in enhancing the search function, for example, or improving form handling.

Overall, I'd say contingency design is a useful addition to the web designer's site creation checklist. (A nice buzzword, too, for web designers trying to differentiate their service!)

[IanTurner]

Nice piece rogerd - It all comes under usability issues. Any experienced coder learns that given any situation the user will do something unexpected and usually stupid!

This contingency design concept appears to be trying to counter the unexpected actions of the user and present them with new positive options.

[rogerd]

...with new positive options

I think you've identified the key point, Ian. For example, I've always used custom error pages, but usually they were of the "Oops!" (or "Ack!") variety. This isn't the most positive message to send a first-time visitor who happened to click on a dead link someplace. I'm going to review those pages on the sites I'm still involved in, and see if I can't redesign them to avoid implying, "you screwed up somehow". I'm going to deliberately mess up some forms, too, just to see what the visitor does.