I’ve been testing several designs lately and have come upon a realization…
We are very impatient people.
The users I have tested have a very low tolerance for “hoops” they have to jump through to accomplish a task. Even if the design they work with uses a wizard metaphor to guide them through a task, they have no patience for extraneous data entry fields and content. Even an extra bullet turns them off.
This could be a symptom of the ADD-driven times that we live in, or it could be a reflection of the increased awareness and sensitivity to good application design… whatever the cause, patience is at a new low when I compare users I test today with similar users from a few years back.
Users I surveyed are particularly sensitive to rekeying data that they (assume) the site/system “should know.” A real trend I have seen is the perceived intelligence of the site they are using, even though the web forms they are interacting with are only as “smart” as the designer or developer who created them.
Finally, the point of this post: keep it simple. Design systems that users can quickly accomplish discrete tasks and gain a quick sense of accomplishment, as opposed to “guiding” them through a lengthy process. The quicker interactions can be made, the lower “abandon rate” you will have.