There is no doubt that many WordPress plug-ins and front-end UI frameworks, like Angular, save massive amounts of design and development time by providing pre-designed and developed interactions. The baseline unedited versions are often robust and provide good solutions for general user needs.
We call these unedited versions “out-of-the-box,” meaning, when you first plug it into your app or site, it is ready to go with a specific design and technical functionality. However, sometimes elements of an out-of-the-box solution may not provide ideal specs for certain key interactions.
A key interaction is an interaction that is repeated often or is a primary step in completing a multi-step process. Some examples are picking dates in a task application, or a billing input form for a shopping cart. Making sure those interactions have minimal clicks and clear guidance is critical to worker productivity or creating repeat shoppers.
When the out-of-the-box solution isn’t ideal for a key interaction, it is important to determine the negative impact of not editing the interaction compared to considering a couple of options to smooth out the interaction.
Sometimes shaving a couple of seconds off an interaction can save a company from losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in productivity or sales over the course of a year. ROI from a little extra design or development on key interactions usually pays for itself in a matter of weeks or months. Here’s how:
