In this edition of Web Enlightenment we'll be talking about killing the reset button and why that is important.

This newsletter focuses on giving you practical, interesting insights into how to successfully use technology as a tool to improve the way you do business. Bridging the gap between knowledge and understanding that all entrepreneurs have will help you make money online.

Please hit reply and tell me about your favorite usable web site. I answer every email sent to me.

All the best,

Kill the Reset Button

I love the web - and I love buying stuff online and communicating with people that way. It makes me incredibly sad when folks ignore decent usability and just the other day I ran into a personal problem I hadn't had in a while - it reminded me of how important usability it.

I was at a website and filling out an inquiry form - and on the bottom of the form the buttons were setup like this:

(in case you don't see the buttons above, the "reset" button" is to the right of the "submit" button, the opposite of the way it usually is)

And so without really looking carefully I clicked the button on the lower right and presto - I erased all the information I just entered. God that made me mad. As a result I did not fill out the form again, I sent my inquiry to another company I had found back in my initial search for what I wanted at Google.

That probably wasn't too fair of me - I mean all that happened was that some developer inverted two buttons and that's not a huge mistake is it? Wrong, it is a huge mistake, and just the same way I was unfair your customers are unfair when they visit your website - one single simple mistake is all it takes for them to abandon a shopping cart, not fill out a form, and go back to Google and send their business to your competition.

One thing that is particularly interesting about "reset" buttons on forms is their history - there was a time when they were needed but today developers just use them without even thinking about why they are there. Basically they do it that way because it is the way it has always been done - it can be hard to think of a few decades of web existence as "always" but developers are hardly immune from that common business error.

Think about it for a second - the majority of forms have a "reset" button that clears all the data - when was the last time you used one? When was the last time you thought the info you typed in above was so screwed up it would be easier to just start over with a blank form?

If your answer is "never" - you are not alone, not alone at all.

So as an Internet Entrepreneur what do you do about all of this? I'd suggest you have a "kill the reset button" conversation with your development team. The way to begin is for you to go through all of the places on your site where customers might take action - contact forms, directions pages, newsletter signup's, shopping carts, any spot where they might submit or collect information that can lead to a sale for you.

Really think through each interface:

• Is it simple to use?
• Does it ask for information that you never use (like a fax number)?
• Does it feel relatively easy to you?
• What would you think if you were seeing it for the first time?

These questions almost always lead to a good to do list and ways to improve all of these forms.

And if you are feeling like you want to follow my advice and become a bit more Web Enlightened (that is what this Web Enlightenment newsletter is all about after all) go right ahead and kill every reset button on your site immediately. Dispose of them like the ancient thing that they are and never look back - it'll be fun, I promise.

Last Edition - Errors and Comments

In the last edition of this newsletter I provided a link to Sundeep Kapur's site Email Yogi. I made a typo and the link didn't work - sorry about that. Here is the correct link.

I also got some interesting feedback to my last issue and thought I would share it here:

Hey Ross, I am always very excited to read your articles in your newsletter, but sometimes when I get to the end I get frustrated. You go into great detail about your subject, but I feel like you are missing solid advice on where to go from here at the end. I would love to see a bulleted list of 3 action steps relating to your subject at the end of your articles. For example, at the end of this one it might have been nice to see;

1. Do you send out your own email newsletter? This is the perfect way to keep in touch with your clients on a regular basis. Encourage them to respond to your emails.
2. Considered creating a facebook and twitter presence, and tweet about what is going on with your business. For example, L.L.Bean PR has a twitter account and tweets about store openings and adventure classes going on. Martha Stewart fits entire recipes into one 140 character tweet.
3. Have you thought about creating an app for the iPhone? Hire a professional to create some neat app that people will find useful and remind them of your business.

Just my two cents, but it would make your emails vastly more user friendly!

Jenny

These are all good tips from Jenny (she is a web professional) and I take this advice to heart - but as I said to her I would always encourage folks to simply hit reply anytime they have a question, I answer every email sent to me.

If you do go ahead and setup a LinkedIn profile don't forget that you can find me right here:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/theinterneteducator

Go ahead and add me to your network if you'd like, I always accept invitations from folks who subscribe to this newsletter.