Anticipatory design involves making decisions on behalf of the user to simplify their experience. Using data, we can make assumptions about user needs and remove redundant choices from the user journey by limiting their options. This helps to counteract decision fatigue and improves the overall user experience.
The goal of anticipatory design is to:
eliminate as many steps as possible and find ways to use data, prior behaviors and business logic to have things happen automatically, or as close to automatic as we can get. – Aaron Shapiro
Marli Mesibov's talk at CSForum was about using anticipatory design to be the Alfred to your consumer's Batman. Alfred makes Bruce Wayne into a hero by anticipating his every need (in a way that isn't creepy because Batman trusts him).
According to Marli, the best practices of anticipatory design are:
Different audiences will want different amounts of context, personalisation and control from your website/service.
Some ways you can use anticipatory design in your website are:
Ask yourself:
We're becoming more and more reliant on the digital world for the everyday management of our lives. We don't want cluttered and difficult experiences. We want simplicity. That's why anticipatory design is so important. Anticipatory design makes experiences like opening a bank account, paying a bill or booking a hotel room seamless and effortless – it works exactly as you expect.
There's so much that goes into making a great website; don't forget the importance of content strategy and growth-driven design.
So go forth and make simple, easy processes for your users - they'll thank you for it.