New Year, new ideas! I’d like to post an idea a day to improve my own product thinking. Let me know what you think!
My first post is about reducing the number of screens for users to go through. I always look for ways to simplify things to make things easier.
For example, let’s look at the autosave feature. The first screen only has a toggle to enable autosave and nothing else. Will users cry the company got rid of the screen? I doubt it.
The next screen prompts the user to enter an amount to autosave. It would be natural that users that set a specific amount to be autosaved would want autosave to be enabled, but it doesn’t need to be a separate step. By setting an amount and proceeding to the next screen, users could enable autosave without requiring a separate screen.
I would also prefer some suggested amounts so I don’t have to type the amount myself, but not too many. Three options would be enough. I would probably place them as first choice above the manual entry to direct users towards preselected options first, similar to how terminals at restaurants suggest tip options first with a manual option located deeper in the menu. These options would need to make sense for most users. For the minority of users that don’t like them, there can be a manual option
The review screen shows information that is repeated on the confirm screen. In other words, the screen after the review screen doesn’t add any new information, but it does force users to re-read the old information simply because it is presented. I’m not sure what would be the best way to rearrange this to reduce the amount of work for the user, but the current view doesn’t seem ideal. These are useful with very long forms where input is collected over a large number of pages and confirmed on one page.
