There is a notion within the UX community that if you eliminate "clicks" or steps that users need to take within your application that it will inherently result in a better user experience. I don't fully subscribe to this idea; there are plenty of applications that take this too far and actually create a worse user experience by trying to hide too much from the users in order to push them through a process faster. That said, I will concede that if you are willing to go through the exercise of attempting to eliminate "clicks" then you are more likely to end up with a better user experience simply because you are focusing on the users in a way that you previously weren't.
I once ran a company-wide workshop where we challenged this idea. Could employees pick a process, any process, and make it into a one "click" application without sacrificing the user experience?
On the surface the prospect was daunting. I knew fully well that the vast majority of tasks could never become "one click" applications. But could they go from being 20 clicks down to 15? Or even from 7 clicks down to 4? Imagine the time (and cost) savings by being able to not only make it easier for users to utilize their services, but also eliminate steps and code that needs to be supported. The total savings would be massive!
At the end of the workshop, to highlight that this isn't just some farfetched idea, I presented them with a real world example of one of their own applications. The hook? I showed them how to take a 9 "click" process and make it into a zero "click" process!
The 9 "click" process
The following is an example of the company's current user experience when a customer wants to renew their vehicle registration.
On the surface, that seems like a pretty standard user experience. The problem? Every time a user has to "click" is an opportunity for them to "not click" and either navigate somewhere else (like a competitor's site) or end up in a confusing process that requires that they contact support. Either way, not good.
Eliminating "clicks"
So how do you eliminate "clicks"? Ideally you pick off the low hanging fruit and for me there were a couple of clear places to start:
By relying on the users to search for their services in Google they're giving them lots of opportunities to find competing services and never get to their site in the first place. Not good. Instead they should send an email reminder to those who previously paid that includes a link which takes them directly to their site. No Google means no chance of inadvertently interacting with competing applications.
If they know that users are searching for vehicle renewals, why drop them on their home page and make them click "Vehicles"? Instead you could take them directly to the Vehicle page.
Those two changes alone take it from a 9 "click" process down to a 6 "click" process...
But we can keep going...
...If we know who the users are (we're sending them emails) then we also know what vehicles they're going to be searching for. So we can likely eliminate the search page and take them directly from their email to the page listing the vehicles they need to renew.
... If we know that they must renew the vehicles assigned to them then we could eliminate the search results page and take them directly from their email to the shopping cart. They could always remove vehicles form the cart that they don't want to pay for.
... We can introduce all sorts of time savings by utilizing something like PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay so they don't need to manually enter their payment information.
But there is one particular feature that we can add that eliminates all clicks in the best way possible for everyone...
Getting to Zero "clicks"
That magical feature? Autopay.
Imagine that this year as a user is going through the process of renewing their vehicle they're presented with the option to signup for autopay. That would mean that next year (and all subsequent years) they don't have to do anything! They'll receive an email letting them know which vehicles will be renewed and will be given the option to cancel the renewal if they'd like. If everything looks good then there's nothing they need to do.
Not only is this the best user experience for the users, it's the best outcome for the company as well.
The users no longer have to worry about renewing their vehicles too late or paying a penalty.
They feel that the company truly understands their needs by providing them with a time saving feature.
The company no longer has to worry about losing customers to competing services; autopay keeps them "locked" into their services moving forward.
This is clearly a case where eliminating "clicks" is a win-win for all parties involved and is a strong case for why this thought process should be exercised as often as possible.