Designing For The First Launch

Daniel Jalkut (by way of Brent Simmons) is right:

… I’ll invetiably start talking about the first-launch experience and how it relates to sales. I call it the “run away screaming” factor.

When building the automated signup thingee for our Big New Product, the original spec handed to me had, oh, 15 steps; and each laden with jargon and inane decisions.

Presently it’s 5, and I’m trying really hard to eliminate a step.

In our case, it’s an online store. Removing steps was really easy, eg:

• Does it make any sense to even ask users for an Excel spreadsheet of their products at signup?
• Will users want to buy a domain name right then and there?
• Do users care about email options? (put another way, is it safe to assume users have email?)

The answers, FWIW, are “not in the least”, “probably not”, and “no (or yes)”. So right there, 3 steps were removed.

(Currently every time I see an installer package, I consider running away screaming, as it conjures up memories of Windows “setup wizards” and 15 pages of “blah blah blah next”.)