The first interaction
Ok, today, Sunday evening I’d like to talk about such essential thing, as first interaction with user. I am not going to focus on landing page, talking about conversion, metrics and other basic things. I want to speak about this in terms of our product and compare it with existed products, that have the same mechanics of interaction.
First interaction with user on your website is quite similar to dating with a girl in a club. Mechanism is the same- you find the most attractive one, and you goal is to please her and get her number. First of all, you need to attract an attention on yourself- from this action, she should understand, that you are a good person, maybe one of the best among this place. If she is canceling you, you must probably work on your first emergence- she don’t like you, she don’t feel confident with you. However, let’s focus on positive variant. In club, you won’t have an attempt to discuss your favorite movie or life plans- better to ask her quality simple questions, as less as it possible. Throughout this first conversation, she should want to continue interaction with you and as a signal of that- provide you with her number or account.
The key factors of your success are:
- Quality of the questions, that she would like to answer.
- The amount of those questions. She should be bored with it.
Following those steps, you definitely will get her number ;)
Firstly, a brief introduction into our product. We are currently working on service that can help you to choose the most appropriate specialty among all universities in Russia. There are several necessary parameters that we need to provide an enrollee with a result, such as:
- City you want to study in
- Exams you are planning to pass
- Your favorite profiles (ex. Technical, Science, Art etc.)
- Tags of specialty (ex. Algorithm, Music, Informatics, Programming etc.)
Sorry, that our website does not have localization. It is mostly for Russian enrollee’s, so there is no point to make English version yet.
Here you can see the first screen of our website. You need to select the city you mostly want to study in
Next, you need to select additional cities; you would like to study in. Probably it is ranged awfully, will work on it. However, there is no way of missing this step.
The next screen allows you to choose the exams, you are going to pass this summer. Without it the system won’t work.
The last option- it is profiles. Actually, I did not mention tags selection. During negotiations, we decided to avoid it. However, it is still necessary to implement on a website. We now currently working on it and this post is somehow the result of a brainstorming.
So, before I come to an overview if similar services, I would like to share with you actual metrics of that screen:
The BR from the first screen is 16%.
40% of user leaves the site, before reaching the final path
That is what we should improve. 40% is quite big number.
What is bad:
- Additional cities screen. It is a strong dilemma about it. One the one hand, for people in regions it is very essential step, some of them sending documents to 3 or more cities. However, on the other- it is an extra step for those, who are not going to choose any other cities.
- We need to add tags choose methods. One of the main problem is that there is plenty of this tags, and there is no way to give a user a chance to choose them all
Therefore, the first service I want to analyses it is Medium
Medium
That is quite standart screen. Everything is clear- I had a chance to see what this service is about, now I understand, why should I sign in
After logging in, moving to the next step.
You can choose at least 3 of popular tags
This is really cool thing. Starting entering the name of the tag, system provides you with the information about similar tags- so even if there is no exctly your tag, you can choose one from offered. Moreover you are not askinf about any additional information, everuthing is look simple and doesn’t take much time to pass through it.
After all, Medium suggest you to follow writers. Quite good mechanics, we even thought of doing the same about universities.
Notice, how Medium suggest you to add tags during your interaction with website. It is simple linear dependence— more you use website- more personal it becomes .
Quora
Now let’s focus on Quora. Basicly desgn team came across with strong issue in organising their tags. I can’t say, that thier descision is the most simple one, but you should defenetly take into account thier approach of solving this task
After signing in, you asked to choose severeal tags from a list. As soon as you choose on of it, system suggest you to select more and more
Just look here. As I have chosen at the first step everything, that connected with startups, engineering and business, system suggests me more concreate tags in those profiles. It is particullary an infinite process, but everytime you can stop working on your field. Therefore, it is evident, that all tags are structured and somehow connected between each other.
In comparasing with Medium, Quora doesn’t allow you to choose tags during usage of the website.
Next, let’s focus on Pinterest. In fact, it is similar to quora in terms of working with tags, however, it is still have its own good points.
Here, I’ d like you to notice the background image. Simple and quilite description of the service
Here you need to choose 5 tags, in order to construct your feed. Again we see here an “infinite’ feed of tags, you can stop every time you want.
Also essential screen, I didn’t discuss in Medium or Quora. Screen, that shows you the progress process, before showing your personal feed.
Foursquare
Speaking about tags-based services, I couldn’t miss foursquare
It seems that foursquare is working with the highest amount of tags among all described products. Actually, it parse every user’s reviews, find the unique word, and suggest you to choose restaurant.
By clicking “show more”, you can see a new bunch of tags
You can always change the preferences during using the product. It should be mentioned, that the initial goal is differs from previous products. In foursquare you do not need to work on your feed, actually it is part of every time’s searching. The main goal is to find an ideal place, according to your preferences.
Such mechanics is more similar to our project. In addition, I should mention the simplicity of the chose.
Youtube
I don’t remember the time I firstly registered on youtube, so I decided to look how it works now.
Unfortunately, service does not have any ability of making your personal feed at the beginning step. YouTube have more complex way of suggesting you videos, depending on your previous watched videos.
Whether it is good or bad it is better known in Youtube team, I think.
I also thought of Pocket service, trying to understand, how their recommendations works.
Unfortunately, there is no way of telling service what you want to read. So, maybe product team want to focus on some other abilities of application.
Surfingbird
Now, I wantto overview several russian application, and I’m going to start with surfingbird
Ok, it is 90% as Pinterest have. Just static amount of tags. Then in settings, you can change your interests with the initial screen.
Toster
Toster it is Russian q&a service, whose target audience is IT specialists.
As stackoverflow you’re allowed to surf through site without registration. But as soon as you want to ask a question, you need to develop a personal feed.
You need to subscribe for at least 10 tags. What is good- this feed is dynamically restructured during your subscribing process. Tags appeared randomly, but such UI action gives you a feeling of such infinite tag feed as Quora and Forsquare have.
Later you can change your preferences only in setting menu
The Questions
It is also Russian Q&A service, but the quiestions are answered by expert, who are founded by moderators
Nothing new. But quite simple, and useful. There is no any infinte feed. Just about 20 topics you need to subscribe for.
Later on you can subscribe on additional tags
Summary
The best summary for such overview would be the redesign of our service, so soonly I would add several screens, that will describe what we came to