UX Design Action Funnel
Stephen Wendel once made a creation action funnel to explain more clearly to other designers how to ensure the user will perform an action with minimum struggles and avoid losing the user. This funnel shows some topics to explain the process of decision-making of a user while he thinks if it is worth performing an offered action, these topics are cue, evaluation, ability, timing, and execution.
Where cue refers to an element that aware the user of the existence or enforces the existence of something that could influence an action, for example, on social media apps that throw push notifications to notify you that somebody messaged or to make you aware about the existence of newly content released or an event that happened, giving this idea by showing a simple dot next to the app icon.
After the cue user thinks if the action is valuable. This is the “Evaluation” topic. Which refers to thoughts the user makes after the suggestion, calculating if there is any reason to act. In the social media context, the reason is to keep a user informed making the user think. For example “I really should open Discord? I think so, let’s see what my friend messaged me.” but that changes with context, since in other applications the reason can be less important. So the designer has to make clear the “reason” or “reward” the user will get after acting.
After the user decides that performing the designer’s desired action is now reasonable or has a good reward. Now the user verifies if can act, if it’s possible, if have enough time, and if it’s easy enough. For example, in an E-Commerce app, after the user already decided that wants to buy a product, he or she must think about how they will buy it. If it demands much time or the user must fill out a huge form, the chances of giving up are significantly higher.
Now, let’s say that the user already decided that must act, can perform, and is performing. This time, the objective of the designer is to make the user engaged on keep doing the action, by showing reasons to the user to persist in performing. Being able to be made in a lot of ways such as showing the user’s progress, gamifying the process, and also removing the obstacles of acting.
After the cue, evaluation, ability, and timing comes the execution. This happens when the action is fully performed, similar to when the user fills out the registration form on a website or opens a social media app to check activities, events, or messages.
In conclusion, knowing all the phases of Stephen Wendel’s create action funnel: Cue, showing that the user can act on something, evaluation making the user think that there is a reasonable reason for acting, ability referring if the user can fully act, timing that ensure user be motivated or engaged to keep performing and execution when the user finish the action. This means that storing this content in your “Designer arsenal” must be very useful since understanding how to influence users' actions is very useful.