Designing Web Interfaces

Chapter 9. Static Invitations

By providing cues for interaction directly on the page we can statically indicate to the user the expected interface behavior. Static Invitations provide cues directly on the page. There are two broad patterns of Static Invitations:

Call to Action Invitation

Invite users to primary task or tasks.

Tour Invitation

Invite users to explore new features.

Call to Action Invitation

Both Yahoo! Answers and Discover card provide a simple 1-2-3 step explanation of their site (Figure 9-1). These clear steps provide a Call to Action Invitation. For Yahoo! the individual calls to action are ask, answer, or discover.

Figure 9-1. Yahoo! Answers and Discover Card use a clear 1-2-3 set of call to action invitations

Call to Action Invitations are generally provided as static instructions on the page. But visually they can be provided in many different ways (Figure 9-2).

Figure 9-2. Textual invitation, interactive ratings, and Call to Action buttons are different ways to create Call to Action Invitations

Considerations

There are some issues to keep in mind when using a Call to Action Invitation.

Visual noise

The problem of course with a Call to Action Invitation is that it competes with ...