Your website sucks because I can't ... click ... the thing I wanna click
September 2022
Of all the emotions your website can provoke, curiosity is the one you should aspire to most.
Curiosity leads me to stay, rather than bounce. Leads me to explore, and learn more, and if you can generate enough, it will lead me to buy (or book a call, or create an account).
I feel curious, so I move my mouse to your navigation - which unveils a delightful dropdown menu!
Now I’m curious about the options it presents, so I move my mouse toward one of them. I am - congratulate yourself here - curious enough to click.
But when the dropdown menu suddenly disappears, curiosity gives way to rage. Instant rage.
It goes without saying that rage is one of the last emotions you want to provoke. Even if I don’t abandon your site (and I probably will), I will not soon forget how you made me feel.
Here’s how to fix it
Honestly? Fixing “dropdown that disappears before you can click a link” is a technical problem you should pass to your developer.
But how do you discover that this is an issue with your site in the first place?
Just do user testing.
Once every 2-3 months, pay a few humans to complete a few relevant tasks on your site, and watch them do it. Pay attention to their struggles, take notes, and make improvements accordingly.
Do this forever and ever. If you manage to run 10 user tests without discovering a single “OMG 🤦♂️ this is so obvious” issue, you have my permission to stop - but I doubt it’ll happen.