The second article in our UX design fails series showcases our top 5 UX Design Fails in the Consistency and standards category. To arrive at this list, our team of UX Designers and Researchers went through our favorite UX design fails using UXBooost’s Heuristic Evaluation Checklist describing the fail and providing our solutions.

1) McGraw Hill - educational content provider

Location: Product page

Description: Two different looking buttons, "Students: Purchase Options" and "Explore Options", on the same page trigger the same action.

Solution: Make sure that the visualization of buttons that trigger the same function are consistent across the website i.e. all buttons that direct the user to "Purchase Options" should be standardized.

2) McGraw Hill - educational content provider

Location: Product page

Description: Purchasing offers are unclear - the same button "rent now" appears for three similar products, each with different costs. This leaves the user confused and unclear as to the differences.

Solution: Minimize decision fatigue by making sure that differences in offers and pricing are clear. Redesign the buttons, so different buttons that trigger different actions have different appearances.

3) Cityrow - rowing fitness app

Location: Registration

Description: During the onboarding process, the first thing users are asked is to select from a list of options. They are then automatically advanced to the next page which is a selection of goals. Upon the selection of a goal (see screenshot), however, the user isn’t automatically advanced to the next page - users have to press the “next” button in the top right corner instead. This is inconsistent and can create confusion.

Solution: Make sure that the user’s interaction with the system is consistent - either automatically advance after the goal is selected or use the "next" button consistently throughout the onboarding process.

4) Ovolo Hotels - boutique hotels

Location: Booking page

Description: Transition to hotel's website - the page layout changes (see below) when user transitions from the main website to the hotel's website (booking engine) which can be confusing.

Solution: It's necessary to create a transition that is as smooth as possible in order to give the user the feeling there's only one booking flow.

5) McGraw Hill - educational content provider

Location: Product page

Description: The button “sample chapter” brings people out of the main funnel. Most companies like Amazon or online academic journal libraries like JSTOR allow users to view the book sample directly in-page which is the standard users expect.

Solution: Provide the sample chapter on the same page to meet user expectations and ultimately increase website conversions.

Conclusion

We all know the age-old UX adage: keeping it simple = increased likelihood of users converting.

Within the realm of consistency and standards, we need to create simple rules for how to navigate our website in order to ensure good UX e.g. always click "Next" to continue through the registration process or click "Explore Options" anywhere on the site to be taken to the Purchase Options page.

We should think of all internet users as licenced drivers and our website as part of the global highway of websites. In order for users to be able to traverse our site to achieve the conversion goal, we have to employ the same standards users would expect to find across similar websites. The website needs to be consistent in function and layout throughout.

If you liked this, read our first article in the series: UX design fails: aesthetic and minimalist design