I just responded to an online “call-to-action” on my iPhone. When I got to the linked landing page, for the life of me, I couldn’t find what it sent me there to do! I was going to leave them good feedback too. I gave it a good 30 second try, got annoyed with the site in general and left it altogether.
This was a good reminder for me and everyone else who designs websites and other media that include a “Call-to-Action.” When we set up a scenario that leads our user to “click that button” or “follow that link” to leave feedback, a rating or contact our customer to make a purchase, we better have tested it thoroughly. It’s our job to be absolutely sure that when our cooperative user, is nice enough to act on our call-to-action, that it’s easy for them to follow through on the other side of that link! Otherwise, what’s the point of a “Call-to’Action”?
I hope no website designer would expect all of our wonderful online customers to read our minds or adopt an arrogant, “prima donna” position that “User’s should be familiar with the web by now and know how to locate things themselves and understand standard web practices.” That is a sentence from a lazy website designer, who really doesn’t care about the clients online sales.
If a visitor follows your call to action and it doesn’t quickly make complete sense to them or for any reason they can’t complete it, that’s an example of bad marketing, design and a waste of the client’s time and money.