Connect the Dots
Sometimes as you work you will see the connection points between parts of the product experience, and sometimes they will not appear for a long time. The design process is always one of discovery. When we design a product for the Web, discovery is an important part of how we determine what the product actually is. When you reach the end of a flow—the edge of the product—imagine a dot, a connection point. Now it’s time to discover another dot, and so on. There are no ends, only new opportunities to explore. Once you have connected a series of dots, you have a flow without an end. You can design an experience to connect the end point of one key as to another.
When you’ve identified which dots to connect, you need to guide the person across that connection point. It’s up to the designer to help the user to understand, “What am I going to get out of this?” Why should the user continue on?
There has to be a reason for that person to continue with the experience. Whether it’s informative, useful, or just plain fun, the ongoing path you create makes it more likely that the user will stay with you on the journey through your product.