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In this case these buttons both go to a portal where the user must login. I feel like there's a bad "UX smell" (or anti-pattern) having two side-by-side buttons go to the same location, but I can also see that we're providing more information to the user.

The two buttons in question

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  • so after login you continue on to a unique area for each button?
    – user5482
    Oct 27, 2015 at 18:18
  • No, you just go to the same general landing page.
    – Eric Johnson
    Oct 27, 2015 at 19:57
  • Why not have one button called "Policies" or "My Policies" or something to that effect? Or depending on your flow, go directly to the landing page, skipping the buttons entirely?
    – riddle_me_this
    Oct 27, 2015 at 20:19
  • It can be a pretty good UX depending on how you tackle the landing page design. Can you at least call out the section that user clicked on? So if user clicked "Change Beneficiaries", she will see that section called out over the "Enroll/Make Changes" section.
    – Jung Lee
    Oct 27, 2015 at 22:57

4 Answers 4

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It's not a big deal that the user must goto the same portal to login. However, it is an annoyance if after the user logs in, the system promptly forgets they want to change beneficiaries and dump them to a non-specific landing page. Why do you ask the user to make a choice when their choice doesn't matter?

So, if it's possible to redirect users upon login to the specific area they initially clicked on, then it make sense to have the 2 buttons.

If that's not possible, consider making that a single button and update the description to be descriptive about what the user can do in the portal.

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  • Is it possible, that with people's information scavenging strategy that they use on the web, that it would be easier for them to scan two separate buttons rather than a single button with more description?
    – Eric Johnson
    Oct 28, 2015 at 18:46
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    @EricJohnson Depends on how much is placed in the description and how it's organized. You don't want a wall of text. Having a Title, then 2-3 items in a bullet list followed by your button is the standard approach when handling this. I would avoid having multiple buttons unless there's truly very different use cases and there's too many item to be summarized concisely.
    – nightning
    Oct 28, 2015 at 19:26
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I would expect the Change Beneficiaries button to go not to the same landing page as the Enroll/Make Changes button, but to a sub-level page - presumably setting or changing beneficiaries would be a sub-section of enrolling or making changes.

If you drop the user who just wants to change that one element onto a page that does not let them directly make that change, you may frustrate them because they have to dig further to find what they want. That, or you have SO many settings on the Enroll/Make Changes page that you would want to either send them to an anchor on that page for the section they want... or more likely you should re-think how your information is structured and chunked!

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yes there is a problem with two buttons side by side going to the same location. 1. I would agree one button with info as to whats inside - doing this would only have the user find what they thought they were getting on the first button click

  1. Consider the two buttons but make sure if tis the same landing page that the specific destination is carried with the click. Like cookies--- so coding would sound something like if this button log in if successful go to unique landing page.

  2. Two btns - one destination and that user may need both from time to time you loose credibility there are smarter more effective ways to handle it.

Good luck - hope that helped.

m

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There are two thoughts here:

  1. I do agree that if the user clicks on an action "change beneficiaries" then their expectation would be to land on that specific page post authentication. Generic page will be a very confusing page to land on. Your are essentially misleading the user and forcing them to look for desired page / information (which is bad UX). Many applications capture the page a user wishes to access and if the user is not authenticated, the application forces them through the authentication process. Post authentication, the application redirects the user to the page which was originally requested.

  2. You may have different target audiences coming to the section of the page and a single CTA button "Portal Sign In" just does not cut it, because a big portion of your audience won't be able to connect the dots and understand the "stuff" they need to do is within "your portal". Your goal here is to capture two or multiple most common actions people do and ensure no matter what their agenda is, they will know where to click / go.

Caveat: you may still miss a small group of visitors who still need to go to "the portal" to do different activities, you need to make sure they have a clear CTA as well to get into the portal.

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