Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use • Hacker News Board

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#111

Post by woah » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:04 PM UTC

ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #105

If I may offer a little critique: I'm on the really-hates-the-footer camp. It's off-putting. See the thing about the footer is that you already broke rule #2, you're trying to close the sale(it's not a gift, I know you're trying to get me to sign up to your newsletter) So putting it out like that is just obnoxious, and no one likes an obnoxious salesman. You should have just put the offer at the very bottom, once I r…

I agree on hating the footer, but I have no opinion on your criticism of the content, because I didn't even read it because I was straining to focus on the actual site through the tiny slot provided.

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#112

Post by woah » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:08 PM UTC

nwh wrote: post #61

3amOpsGuy wrote: post #51

Undo's, yes! Power users aren't tripped up with an annoying confirmation. Novice users can revert. This seems a much better paradigm. Are there any cases where this doesn't make for good UX?

Lots of actions are destructive and can't work with an "undo" quite so well as in that example. I would prefer to see a confirm diglogue for deleting an account, changing a password, that sort of thing. I would tend to avoid it anyway, as an undo button isn't something users are going to be looking out for in a web context.

What about this- clicking "delete account" loads a screen where the account is removed from the frontend, along with an undo button. When the user leaves the page, the account is really deleted. Can you see any problems with this?

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#113

Post by unclebucknasty » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:10 PM UTC

ivankirigin wrote: post #88

Dear HN, just because someone makes a blog post about good UI elements, doesn't mean you need to shit on details big or small about the specific site (e.g. the big footer). For most people, this is a great way to understand the possibilities for different UIs to test. Instead of just copying others, you can think more abstractly about the UI ideas.

What's particularly interesting about the big footer as a UI problem here is that it underscores the trickiness of balancing good UI with converting. For instance, people came to hate popup windows, and they became anathema to a good UI. However, the reason they were used is because they succeeded in getting the user's attention.

Likewise, in this article, the giant footer takes up half my tablet's page, yet the author does this because it contains his call to action.

It is completely fair to point out the irony of an article about good UI design residing on a site with questionable UI design. And while many of the points made were common sense or already known to me, I did learn and/or refresh a bit and so personally appreciated the article.

Still, it would be good to get more insight about the far trickier question: how to engage and compel users to your call to action without having to resort to offending them with popups, giant footers, etc.

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#114

Post by woah » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:10 PM UTC

Noxchi wrote: post #93

jalfresi wrote: post #85

I personally reject the notion that "...A Good User Interface has high conversion rates and is easy to use". I don't agree that it is a requirement that a good UI has high conversion rates. In fact I would argue that software can have a good UI and poor conversion rates. A good UI is responsible to the user only; it's not called a USER interface for nothing.

If a user experience designer designed a club, there would be plenty of space, bright lighting, comfortable furniture, the bathrooms would be clean, plenty of bartenders and the menu would be in 18 point sans serif font. Meanwhile, everyone would be at club Coyote Ugly pouring beer on each other.

Game designers for clubs, UX designers for the DMV :)

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#115

Post by sillysaurus » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:11 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #92

ivankirigin wrote: post #88

Dear HN, just because someone makes a blog post about good UI elements, doesn't mean you need to shit on details big or small about the specific site (e.g. the big footer). For most people, this is a great way to understand the possibilities for different UIs to test. Instead of just copying others, you can think more abstractly about the UI ideas.

It's not just people's desire to shit on something in order to feel superior (although that's likely quite a bit of it). It's the fact that if you have a website dedicated to good user interface, and you want to be known as an authority on good user interfaces, and the site on which you intend to launch or grow this authority has a completely FUBARed user interface... I think it's fair to point that out. Orange text…

Have you seen his conversion statistics?

Good ideas often seem bad. You can't know until you've tried it and measured it. At least he's trying it.

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#116

Post by cfqycwz » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:14 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #92

ivankirigin wrote: post #88

Dear HN, just because someone makes a blog post about good UI elements, doesn't mean you need to shit on details big or small about the specific site (e.g. the big footer). For most people, this is a great way to understand the possibilities for different UIs to test. Instead of just copying others, you can think more abstractly about the UI ideas.

It's not just people's desire to shit on something in order to feel superior (although that's likely quite a bit of it). It's the fact that if you have a website dedicated to good user interface, and you want to be known as an authority on good user interfaces, and the site on which you intend to launch or grow this authority has a completely FUBARed user interface... I think it's fair to point that out. Orange text…

It's possible there's no immediately apparent close button because the lack of one forces you to read through the copy to figure out how to close the box, which is probably better for conversion rates. I know I wouldn't have even known there was an option to subscribe otherwise, because I would've headed reflexively straight for a close button in the upper right.

Whether that's ultimately a good UI choice I can't really say. Is not being able to find a close button quickly enough so alienating an experience that it would cause many users to turn away or never come back?

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#117

Post by rexreed » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:23 PM UTC

ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #105

If I may offer a little critique: I'm on the really-hates-the-footer camp. It's off-putting. See the thing about the footer is that you already broke rule #2, you're trying to close the sale(it's not a gift, I know you're trying to get me to sign up to your newsletter) So putting it out like that is just obnoxious, and no one likes an obnoxious salesman. You should have just put the offer at the very bottom, once I r…

I usually have my NoScript turned on, and it was a very pleasant read because I didn't even realize there was a footer there until I turned on scripts. In my opinion, the experience was better with the scripts off, even if the font wasn't as cool. I got the value from the article without the scripts on and footer missing.

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#118

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:26 PM UTC

cfqycwz wrote: post #116

pc86 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just people's desire to shit on something in order to feel superior (although that's likely quite a bit of it). It's the fact that if you have a website dedicated to good user interface, and you want to be known as an authority on good user interfaces, and the site on which you intend to launch or grow this authority has a completely FUBARed user interface... I think it's fair to point that out. Orange text…

It's possible there's no immediately apparent close button because the lack of one forces you to read through the copy to figure out how to close the box, which is probably better for conversion rates. I know I wouldn't have even known there was an option to subscribe otherwise, because I would've headed reflexively straight for a close button in the upper right. Whether that's ultimately a good UI choice I can't rea…

[deleted]

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#119

Post by jwdunne » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:35 PM UTC

I love this guide and I love how it's presented. The ideas look easier to use and definitely look nicer.

I would, however, be weary of implementing these ideas for the purposes of improving conversion because there aren't any numbers with each improvement. How does this author know for sure these ideas improve conversion? If they have been split-tested, this article provides a very good starting point of ideas for your own tests.

I'm not urging against trying these ideas though, definitely not, but please do test these for yourself. There are loads of factors which may make these ideas less ideal, such as your market, your product or service, your branding; the factors are potentially unlimited. Use a good A/B testing tool and measure impact on your conversions when implementing these!

Re: Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

#120

Post by latortuga » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 7:37 PM UTC

paranoiacblack wrote: post #110

latortuga wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really surprising to see a comment like this, so wrong on something and yet upvoted. Crucially, your view is entirely anecdotal - a much better argument would be "Testimonials are a bad way to sell things because X" where X is a reason that is valid and tested. Unfortunately, X for you is either highly personal or based on a faulty understanding of persuasion because social proof is incredibly powerful as a pers…

You're getting pretty uppity about testimonials here. Regardless of them being effective persuasive techniques, they're still just persuasive techniques and I imagine a lot of people dislike persuasion getting in the way of content. I happen to agree with the OP that testimonials tend to make me believe that the product lacks enough substance to be useful by itself. In any matter, it's a personal preference and no am…

You've completely rehashed the OP. My point is that it doesn't matter what one individually believes on the subject of testimonials and the effectiveness thereof - they are indisputably effective for selling. Presenting anecdotal evidence that there exist people that dislike them does not change that and is worse than saying nothing because you give people the impression that testimonials are somehow negative.

We're on an internet message board talking about conversion optimization. Statistics don't care about personal preferences; your competitors will laugh at them straight to the bank.