One of my favorite UX quotes comes from Chikezie Ejiasi, Head of Studio and Design Systems at Google.
He wrote: “Life is conversational. Web design should be the same way. On the web, you’re talking to someone you’ve probably never met—so it’s important to be clear and precise. Thus, well-structured navigation and content organization goes hand in hand with having a good conversation.”
You put tons of time into creating your product, experimenting with acquisition channels, and honing your messaging.
Yet here I am, about to tell you that consumers are often swayed by such subtle nudges as the order in which you present your products, or the “serial position effect.”
“What is beautiful is good,” the saying goes.
This saying stems from a belief that attractiveness correlates to other good qualities. In a phrase, attractiveness is a Halo Effect.
Of course you can see that on the surface, the logic in that saying is flawed. What’s beautiful has nothing to do with what is good. But we still associate perception and individual traits, making our judgement often inaccurate.
Sites that don’t work, don’t convert.
That’s why optimizers conduct quality assurance on sites, landing pages, test treatments, email campaigns, you name it—to make sure they work the way they’re supposed to.
While it’s common knowledge that quality assurance is something you should do, not enough optimizers complete it properly. If they did, there wouldn’t be so many sites that just plain don’t work.
User flow is the path a user follows through your website interface to complete a task—make a reservation, purchase a product, subscribe to something. It’s also called a user journey.
And it has a massive impact on conversions.
To maximize your conversions, you have to get the user flow right on your site. Do it by building a user flow that matches user’s needs.
Your users will make mistakes. It’s inevitable. That’s what error messages are for—but so many companies fail to follow best practices, and they’re pissing off potential customers in the process.
So, how can we better design error messages to improve the user experience and increase conversions?
User experience is a nebulous term. What defines a “good” UX from a “bad” UX, and what do the gradations look like between the two poles?
If you’ve ignored the design and content of your “thank you” page, you’re neglecting:
These are some of the highest value segments of an online audience, yet what most sites decide to show them is an afterthought.
There’s a popular user experience quote: “A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.” While clever, that statement is far from true.
User interfaces shouldn’t be complicated, but you can’t expect a new user to understand a new interface without any direction. Similarly, you can’t expect an existing user to understand an updated interface or a new feature without any help.
A good user experience equals more money. But how do we measure user experience? How do we know if it’s getting better or worse?