Workflows Gone Wild

The emergence of the Internet has enabled many traditional processes to evolve into web-based workflows that promise consumers quick and easy access. With the good intentions of designers and corporations, and acceptance by consumers, there still seems to be so many workflow applications that cause errors and fall short on this initial consumer promise.

Today we look at a scenario where this "workflows gone wild" seems to hold true. Let's take a look at a real, and recent, scenario where I was trying to price a new Toyota RAV4 (pretty nice redesign BTW). All I wanted to do is check out the newly redesigned '07 RAV SUV and see how much it would cost for the least expensive configuration that had body-colored door handles. It would be even better if I could stay with a manual transmission, get some power options and some cold A/C for the warm Canadian climate (read: really cold).

As you can see in the screenshot above, I didn't get past Step 1 in this process before running into an issue.

As you can see in the screenshot below, there are a few things that just don't work:

• While I think I'm on Step 1, the Step 2 label is highlighted?!? I've got no idea why this is, except to draw my attention away from making my first selection. Result - decreased trust, increased frustration.

• After making my selection and being near the bottom of the page, we would expect to find a button or hyperlinked text marked "Next". No such luck. Result - decreased confidence.
  

• Only after looking around clueless for a minute or two, and after feeling as though I'm the biggest idiot on the planet, did I realize I had to go back to the top nav to select the next step of the process. Result - task failure, exit site before gathering info and/or purchasing.
  

So what went wrong? I came to price the car, and instead I've left the site in utter disgust. I left this site because the expected effort and frustration I would need to endure to continue in this process outweighs the perceived benefit yield of receiving this info. Put simply, continuing through this process past Step 1 seemed liked too much of a hassle for me to endure today.

Folks a Toyota, listen up:

1. The new RAV4 looks really nice and now seems less likely to break under the strain of my snowboard + gear + cooler + 12-year old son + his gear.
   
2. Please, please, please invest some time in formative tests to understand the mental model of your target audience and how we expect to maneuver through your process.
   
3. If you can't get management to approve some simple usability tests, then please, please, please just take a look at the top 10 online auto sites to see how they design this "build" process and learn from their successes.
   

Too bad though. It really does look like a nice SUV.