accessibility and the scent of information

Multiple platforms should be considered in the initial planning process to address the needs of regular users and those that will be navigating your site with the help of assistive technologies.  Instead of trying to make one design satisfy everyone, you may see more effective results having separate designs for people with disabilities.  After all, people with disabilities share lots of commonalities and experiences, so they too need personas.  These personas have totally different information design needs than sighted people.  They think differently about how to access information and scenarios must be designed in such a way that the persuasive momentum remains intact even with screen readers.

For sighted people, lots of visual cues are used to build and sustain persuasive momentum online.  On the other hand, how do you tell that the woman on the Victoria’s Secret banner is the same woman on the landing page?  And that the offer being presented on that same landing page is a repeat of what was shown on the previous screen?  

This is where good persuasion architecture shines.  The underlying factors of persuasion architecture involve scent and search.  Scent can be used in audible situations.  Just think about a time when you were in another room or not looking directly at the TV and heard a news snippet that said "next up, Bob tells how two dogs flew a kite."  This "lead" starts the process, get's you to stop what you're doing, and engage in the program.

The same auditory cues can be used to build scent through trigger words that move the user forward to the next piece of content.  For example, AskMen.com does a great job of paginating long articles and providing scented links that give clues to what's on the other side of a click.