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A client of ours wants us to highlight the new features of our redesign for his website. We think that we shouldn't explain too much, since it's a content-based website that hasn't had any drastic new features. It's pretty straightforward and our research has shown that the users know and understand the product pretty well. (Again it's content-based).

His idea to introduce this is by showing an overlay on top of the website, on first visit. The overlay has a carousel, showing all new features (5 of them).

How do I talk my client out of it? Or what is the best alternative tot tackle this problem on Desktop / Mobile ? Our idea was to use a one-pager as a last resort. (like https://www.youtube.com/new )

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Have you tried asking your client if a non-modal callout is an option? For example a bar at the top of the screen that says something like "Welcome to the new and improved ___! [Learn More]"

Another option is to put the carousel in the normal layout flow of the homepage with a dismiss button that collapses it. The client may find something that looks very similar to their idea more acceptable, and the combination of normal navigational flow and a dismiss button gives an acceptable user experience.

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  • We already have a bunch of systems in place for displaying notifications, messages, discount offers,... We don't want to add even more screenwide bars on top of the stack.
    – KjelleVe
    Oct 3, 2017 at 8:56
  • @KjelleVr have you considered merging those bars? Messages+notifications= personal communications, can combine text with badges. Discounts + added features = site-wide news, can be a caroussel.
    – PixelSnader
    Oct 3, 2017 at 20:41
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Carousal is not at all a good idea. People scroll on a carousel only if it directly involves their interests or if it's showcasing really attractive images. For example new deals, new stories, amazing offers.

Let me put it this way.

Let's say you have a clothing website. A carousel about sales over the website will be used more or the carousel showing how easy is the new checkout procedure.

Many users will miss out on your new features because some will never scroll the carousel or would have scrolled down by the time carousel is switching itself. Even if you stick with that idea by putting in more efficient infographics. I will still say it will still not budge in the required results.

How to do it then?

1. Improvise on user's action.

Actually, this is more like, a user is already halfway across his journey and then you understand what he is trying to achieve and if you have new feature related to it that's the time you show it to him.

For example, you are on a book selling website. You want to buy a new book with different taste. The website has added a new feature to allow users read 10 pages of any book before making up their mind. Whenever a user visits the individual page of a book, a guiding pop up comes on their screen telling about the new feature. Hence helping you on your journey rather than pushing all the 10 features together. You can always add "Learn more" button with every guideline popup.

That's how one by one you reveal your features along user journeys.

2. Add short length videos.

You can make videos which last about 30sec for each feature. It might take time but if your new features are major ones then this is how you can achieve effective results. Only one more thing regarding this

Where to place these videos?

Play it clear. Keep thumbnails if possible over buttons. Place them just near the headings of the sections and if you are using buttons then go for good UX writing like "Engage better with content in 30 sec" and then a play button can do the trick.

EDIT

An immediate solution.

You can also add bottom frames to let your users know that you have made some changes to the website. Just add the button of "Learn more" to that frame, when user will navigate through the frame on that page, it won't really matter if you show the features in a carousel or static information because only interested users will click on it.

Use proper UX writing so that user engages with the bottom frame. enter image description here

enter image description here

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  • These are great solutions, but not all feasible to deliver in such a short amount of time. This was a last-minute kind of thing that they wanted to add. Basically they are getting cold-feet about whether the redesign will attract more customers. Here at the office we want to avoid a carousel at all costs, but we're running out of arguments not to do it.
    – KjelleVe
    Oct 3, 2017 at 8:59
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    @KjelleVe, check out the edit part of the answer, hope it's more useful.
    – Anupam Pareek
    Oct 3, 2017 at 14:46
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    @KjelleVe The caroussel will drive away visitors. Popups like this, like cookie walls, like newsletter-signups 1 second after page load... those all prevent the user from using the page.
    – PixelSnader
    Oct 3, 2017 at 20:38

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