What are Incentives?
Incentives make the world go round! An incentive is a thing that motivates and encourages one to do something. They are essential in a well designed site. Today we’re browsing Every Kid in a Park, a government website with incentives baked in! At first glance you probably would not know that Every Kid in a Park was a government website because it is so aesthetically pleasing! Let’s look at how Every Kid in a Park uses incentives as well as other good design traits.
Incentive: something that motivates someone to do something. You're gonna need these on your site: Click To Tweet
Home Page
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Incentive: Visit national landmarks for free.
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Aesthetics: simple flat design with minor details like the trail that tie neatly into an outdoorsy adventure theme. The trail is a clever way of guiding user’s attention down the page.
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Social proof: Photos of peers having fun back up the incentive.
User experience: Getting the Pass
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Diary entry let’s fourth graders know what they are in for. The first person voice helps fourth graders visualize that they are already on their adventure!
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Simplifying choices: instead of listing a directory of thousands of parks, this is condensed to 3 simple options.
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Confirmation: Great copy writing. “I can’t wait to use my pass to see more!” puts the power in fourth graders. They can decide where to explore rather than having an authority tell them that they should
B. J. Fogg’s Behavior Model
Strong incentive motivates fourth graders to get their free pass. The Designers kept the B. J. Fogg’s Behavior Model in Mind.
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Motivation: the potential reward of visiting a national landmark for free and bragging to your entire class about it
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Ability: with incentive in place, an action is even more likely to occur if the level of difficulty accommodates people’s ability.
Nice job USDS and 18F. Thank you for beautifying government sites that literally improve lives. Expect to see more major site improvements with US web design standards. If you want to serve your country with your macbook and graphic tablets, go to USDS site and apply for a tour of duty!