Positive Reinforcement for Users

All well designed websites have some form of error notification, letting the users know something that they have done is incorrect, but how many websites give users a pat on the back for doing something right? Not too many.

Positive reinforcement increases the confidence of users and eliminates doubt that something might go wrong, essentially making the process smooth and fast. There is nothing worse than submitting an order online and waiting a few too many seconds for it to process, then wondering if it actually went through. Should you press refresh? Did the website break just after they took my money but just before they acknowledged my order? By simply having a loading message and bar during this time will eliminate all worry on the users part. This is a form of positive reinforcement, patting the user on the back and saying "it's ok, we're still here".

Another way to reinforce the user is doing the right thing is whilst they are entering their details in a form. Simple ticks next to each correctly entered field will increase their confidence as well as decrease their anxiety over entering the wrong data.

We just recently started uploading images to our Dribbble site and one user commented on a form we are designing. They had mentioned that perhaps we should remove all asterisks from the required fields and only indicate those which are optional. If we applied the theory of positive reinforcement while the user fills out the form this would be a good option. However if we have a form where all fields are required and the asterisks are not shown, once the user fills out details they deem important and get errors upon completion, they will more than likely become frustrated and close the form, resulting in a sale lost.

We design many e-commerce websites here at Wiliam so we need to aim at turning every user into a customer. By making the process easy, fast and positive we can ensure the best user flows on all our sites.