Clear instructions

Make sure that instructions, guidance, and error messages are

• clear
• easy to understand
• avoid unnecessarily technical language

My Account

Here is the sign up journey for one Local Offer. First we need to create an account.

On the menu bar we can see "My Account" and "My Shortlist".

I assume that I need to create an account, so I follow that link to this page:

I don't bother to read the "Why register?" because, it's the Local Offer, and it's bound to be OK. If I had read it I would have realised that this is the sign up for the organisations who are on the directory.

Anyhow, I'm now here:

This isn't great as a user experience. If I accidently close the window I'm going to have to start all over again.

Here's the email I got:

I don't know about you, but I'm used to sign up systems that simply email me a link to the sign in page.

This user experience could be much easier, even if it's not for actual users of the Local Offer.

My Shortlist

This is for users to save pages from the directory. When I add something to My Shortlist, I can then go and see the list:

I can email or print my shortlist, show more details or clear it.

That's all quite clear. But what I am not told is that when I close the website, My Shortlist will be cleared. It is not saved. It will not be there the next time I go to the Local Offer.

I understand that people may not want to sign up for the Local Offer and keep a list of what they are interested in for the Local Authority to see. But we could give them the option, and at least warn them that their My Shortlist will be cleared if they close the page.

📝 Have a look at some of the instructions and experiences that users will have when using your Local Offer. Do they work well? Are they really clear? Be brave and share some examples in the discussion.