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>> If you plan or design websites, then you know how important it is
that the website be easy to use.
Can they find the information they're looking for?
Can they find the button they need to press?
We call this the can-do factor, but can do is not all there is.
What about will do?
They can find the button, but will they press it?
They can find the information, but will they act on it?
And then there's still do.
Will they come back?
Will they be loyal?
If you follow a user center design process, you'll design a website
that answers the can-do question, but if you want to go further and answer the will-do
and the still-do questions, then you're going to have to dig a little deeper and apply some
of the new principles and research around persuasion, emotion, and trust.
I'm going to share with you seven principles that will make your websites more engaging,
that will take you from can do to will do and still do.
Number one, if people have too many choices, they won't choose at all.
One of my favorite studies in this area is by Sheena Eingart, and Dr. Eingart set up tables
in grocery stores with jars of jam.
And some of the tables had six jars of jam on them,
and sometimes the tables would have 24 jars of jam.
And she was interested in finding out if the number of choices
that people had affected their decision and their purchasing process.
What she found was that the tables that had six jars of jam on them,
40 percent of the people coming by would stop and taste the jam.
On the tables that had 24 jars of jam on them, more people would stop.
Sixty percent instead of 40 percent would stop and taste the jam, but there's a surprise
when you look at how many people actually purchased.
When the tables had six jars of jam, 30 percent of the people actually purchased a jar of jam.
When the tables had 24 jars of jam, even though more people stopped, only three percent
of those who stopped actually purchased.
And what we know is that people will tell us they want lots of choices.
If you ask people how many choices do you want at the website, they'll tell you, oh,
show me everything, but we now know that they may want a lot of choices,
but if you give them too many choices, they'll freeze and not make a decision at all.
Principle two is that of social validation.
What we know is that when people are uncertain, they'll look to others to decide what to do.
This is why ratings and reviews and testimonials at websites are
so powerful, especially if people are unsure.
And the more information that you can have in the ratings and reviews, the more powerful
and the more influential the rating and review is.
Research even shows that ratings and reviews from other people
that I consider my peers are the most influential.
They're more influential than, than reviews or testimonials from experts
or recommendations from the website itself.
A third principle is the principle of scarcity.
So if something is unavailable or not very available,
if it's scarce, it's seen to be more valuable.
So on a website when it says only four more days to order your plane tickets,
or only three items left, those are signals to our brain that we better hurry
up because we're going to miss out.
And actually our unconscious brains are very sensitive
to messages that have to do with losing.
Fear of loss is a trigger that will cause us to take action.
Four. Our conscious minds are very sensitive to food, sex, or danger.
Those will definitely get our attention.
It's not always appropriate to use images of food, sex, or danger on a website.
So you might not be able to make use of that, but if your website that you're working
on does lend itself to any of those images or messages,
that will be a very powerful trigger for action.
Five, the power of faces.
There's actually a special part of the brain called the [inaudible] facial area,
and this is a part of the brain that only processes human faces.
Our brains are predisposed to pay attention to faces.
If you have pictures of people at your website, you want to make sure they're looking right
at the camera because research shows that people focus on the eyes.
Six, stories.
There's research that shows that the brain processes information best in story form.
And seven is commitment.
Start by asking people for very small commitments.
Those small commitments can grow over time,
and then they become more and more loyal to your site.
And that makes seven.
If you'd like to download and print a copy of this drawing,
please go to www dot human factors dot com slash pet, P-E-T, poster dot asp.
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