Tap takes you to next screen VS Tap enables "Continue" button

Question

I'm designing a flow that contains screens where the user has to select an option among the available ones. For now we will not allow to select more than one, but maybe in the future it will be possible only in some of the flow screens.

I'm not sure if, when user taps on the option we should:

A) Take them to the next screen automatically

B) Include a "Continue" button that user must tap to advance in the flow

What do you think? Is there any good literature on this (couldn't find any) Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I just ran into the same dilema 2 weeks ago while designing a rating feature.

The main issue with approach A is that if users make a mistake, can they go back to the previous answer? If the not, then it's a big margin for error.

Allowing users to review their answers before moving forward is always a good idea. Also, it's not intuitive that by tapping an option that the screen will change to the next answer. A 'Continue' CTA, on the other hand, matches users' expectations and in general it's a good UX.

I would recommend approach B.

Answer 2

You stated that in the future there will be some steps with a multiple choice option. In this case you will need the «continue» button anyway.

But there is another reason to use the continue button. An interaction should always only trigger an expected action. In this case the user might not expect to trigger a continue action when selecting the answer. If a user is not quite sure about about an answer she would have to go a step back.

But I see other issues as well. your implementation of the «back to last question» on the second question would rather communicat to go back in a hierarchy like a level up in a menu or something like this. If the user should have the possibility to go back to the last question (which is just a series of questions on the same hierarchy level) you probably should use a back button left of the continue button.

If you have some questions with single choice and some with multiple choice, make sure this is communicated to the user. A well known pattern is radio buttons vs. checkboxes. I'm not saying you have tu use these but make it clear to the user.

An another point. Maybe you should consider to give the user a hint of how many questions in the questionnaire will be. I do not mean be an exact number but maybe with some kind of progress indicator. rachy