We don't like to wait or in other words, we don't like slow experiences.
It is not guaranteed that you will able to sell your product based on the fast experience only like superhuman and fast checkout do but fast experience will have a competitive edge and slow experience might force your user to switch.
In this post, I will not be going into technical aspects like how to make your website faster but we will look at different options where you can optimize.
Not only technical optimization but user journey and design choice play an important role when it comes to creating a fast experience.
Keyboard shortcuts
If your primary user base uses a laptop/pc and the primary action is writing then build keyboard shortcuts because taking action from the keyboard is much faster than switching to mouse and move the pointer.
Educating user about keyboard shortcuts is equally important. Once user gets habituate, speed will improve significantly.
Examples
- Superhuman: Once you are logged in, you can access almost everything using keyboard shortcuts.
- Notion: Once you start writing, you don't need a mouse. You can do everything using keyboard shortcuts and in-built commands like slash(/).
Startup and response time
Startup time is the time to start your application or load your website but if we look from the user perspective then it is time to show relevant information and enable the user to perform an action.
On the other hand response time is the time to react to user's action.
Optimizing startup and response time depends on the tech stack and platform you use but common things to look for are image optimization, retrieve and show necessary information first, avoid unnecessary animations, and use caching.
Examples
- Almost everything from startup to search to send mail happens under 100 ms in superhuman email.
- Google loads and shows result under 1 second.
Make shortcuts for mobile
Stories and short videos are the best examples where users can go though media quickly with full control.
If your primary user base uses a mobile then build shortcuts based on different touch behavior like a long press, left/right swipe, single tap, double tap, tap on left/right half.
Examples
- Story on social media: tap on left/right half to go backward/forward, hold finger to see the story for a long time, and many more.
- Youtube: double tap to forward/backward video, swipe down to minimize video.
Natural language processing(NLP)
Understand what users want to say. You can use NLP where text input is involved and you want to provide suggestion or perform an action.
Examples
- Google search
- Gmail: Auto suggestions while writing a mail, reply suggestions.
Less is more
Present fewer choices to the user and minimize decision time. Presenting fewer choices doesn't mean avoid taking necessary information but design a user journey to take chunks of information at relevant stages.
If possible make default choices and then provide an option to change them later.
Examples
- Notion homepage shows sign up input field only and take other information like name, password in next step.
- Google doc and Notion save changes and previous versions automatically.
Thank you for reading so far.
It is not guaranteed that you will able to sell your product based on the fast experience only like superhuman and fast checkout do but fast experience will have a competitive edge and slow experience might force your user to switch.
In this post, I will not be going into technical aspects like how to make your website faster but we will look at different options where you can optimize.
Not only technical optimization but user journey and design choice play an important role when it comes to creating a fast experience.
Keyboard shortcuts
If your primary user base uses a laptop/pc and the primary action is writing then build keyboard shortcuts because taking action from the keyboard is much faster than switching to mouse and move the pointer.
Educating user about keyboard shortcuts is equally important. Once user gets habituate, speed will improve significantly.
Examples
- Superhuman: Once you are logged in, you can access almost everything using keyboard shortcuts.
- Notion: Once you start writing, you don't need a mouse. You can do everything using keyboard shortcuts and in-built commands like slash(/).
Startup and response time
Startup time is the time to start your application or load your website but if we look from the user perspective then it is time to show relevant information and enable the user to perform an action.
On the other hand response time is the time to react to user's action.
Optimizing startup and response time depends on the tech stack and platform you use but common things to look for are image optimization, retrieve and show necessary information first, avoid unnecessary animations, and use caching.
Examples
- Almost everything from startup to search to send mail happens under 100 ms in superhuman email.
- Google loads and shows result under 1 second.
Make shortcuts for mobile
Stories and short videos are the best examples where users can go though media quickly with full control.
If your primary user base uses a mobile then build shortcuts based on different touch behavior like a long press, left/right swipe, single tap, double tap, tap on left/right half.
Examples
- Story on social media: tap on left/right half to go backward/forward, hold finger to see the story for a long time, and many more.
- Youtube: double tap to forward/backward video, swipe down to minimize video.
Natural language processing(NLP)
Understand what users want to say. You can use NLP where text input is involved and you want to provide suggestion or perform an action.
Examples
- Google search
- Gmail: Auto suggestions while writing a mail, reply suggestions.
Less is more
Present fewer choices to the user and minimize decision time. Presenting fewer choices doesn't mean avoid taking necessary information but design a user journey to take chunks of information at relevant stages.
If possible make default choices and then provide an option to change them later.
Examples
- Notion homepage shows sign up input field only and take other information like name, password in next step.
- Google doc and Notion save changes and previous versions automatically.
Thank you for reading so far.