I cycled to work each day for almost five years. Even though I was at 2 different companies during that time, the route was identical, just a few blocks shorter on that last year. Some mornings, depending on what time I was rolling through, it was just me and the green lights, everyone stays in their lane and the ride is pleasant. I could practically window shop as I glided down Valencia, feeling cool on two wheels.

Other mornings, I was a bug on everyone’s windshield and felt like I was weaving and dodging and avoiding every pothole and UPS truck and Muni bus like a deft hip hop dancer.

Mornings when I would find myself at the beginning of a biking pack where I am in lead and timing the lights just right to catch them all green without having to break my pace, I would congratulate myself on being a good leader. Knowing when to coast, when to pedal hard, and when to stop -just-in-time-braking (at the last second hard!) enough to keep my pole position. I could be confident because I’d been riding this same route for so long, I knew the timing of the lights, I knew the streets and the patterns of stop and go. 

It’s somewhat similar in studying an online consumer purchase checkout flow. Whether you’re shopping online for tickets to an event, a vacation, a lawnmower or a book; deciding what you want to buy and checking out, ordering and paying online, that’s what I mean by a “consumer purchase checkout flow.” The web pages, the form fields, the stuff you have to click through to get what you want is what I study if it is a digital experience that exists between the brand I work for, your intention to buy and your hand on your wallet. 

Comparing Internet Traffic purchase flow and city streets as a cyclist where running a red light is critical is oversimplifying it. You’re playing with your life if you run that light in the city on a bicycle. But red lights in the purchase flow mean you’re killing the deal. The customer wants to finish a transaction with you and you’re giving him nothing but red lights. Yellow lights are tiresome but as a shopper, (and cyclist) you’ll generally comply. Need that CVV code. Used to be folks would worry about not allowing a web site to store their credit card info, but look at how we one click buy now, how much trust we put in our online suppliers of “essentials.” 

I trust you as much as I need you.