81–90 of 93 posts
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The former is a simpler more immediate action that is easier to induce.
The second is more imperative. As I say, I don't have data on this, but it would be interesting to study.
This is a fantastic article, and the first time I've ever come across anything addressing these issues. The only thing I don't entirely agree with is: 1) Wrong: "first Falling Bear gets run over " 2) Right: "first Falling Bear gets run over" I think they're just different. In the first case, I expect a link to to a photo of Falling Bear as he's getting run over. In the second case, I expect a link to a page on Fallin…
This blogger has mentioned before that he sees no reason to A/B test because he thinks an experienced designer knows better anyway. So I can totally see him recommending something that performs worse in an A/B test like this.
This is a fantastic article, and the first time I've ever come across anything addressing these issues. The only thing I don't entirely agree with is: 1) Wrong: "first Falling Bear gets run over " 2) Right: "first Falling Bear gets run over" I think they're just different. In the first case, I expect a link to to a photo of Falling Bear as he's getting run over. In the second case, I expect a link to a page on Fallin…
From Aristotle to OOP, there's a long history of over-reliance on nouns to describe the world around us. Unfortunately a full and nuanced description requires an explanation of both object and action.
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How do we change these behaviors if we don't lead users to it as an industry? Do you want to make the web a better place or just raise your conversion rate? I don't know if there is a "right" answer.
I think its pretty arbitrary to claim that "changing these behaviors" would "make the web a better place". I think if people think and react in a certain way, there is nothing wrong with that, and web design should evolve around how people act as opposed to the other way around. Then again I don't work in either any sort of UX or web development, so maybe I should keep my mouth shut here :)
I don't however see how changing these behaviors would make the web a worse place.
Bad advice, in my experience. Anecdotally, I did a website recently for a carpet cleaner. Standard wordpress job with his services and things. At the top of the home page, he wanted a link to a form for redeeming living social coupons, which, not wanting to say "Click Here for", I just made as "Reedem Living Social Coupon". It turned out after a couple weeks that many of his users were not clicking "Reedem Living Soc…
You want your call-to-action verb to match the verb in the user's mind when they visit the site, or they may not recognize it as the action they wanted and skip over it.
I'd guess that people think of coupons as something you "use" more than "redeem", so maybe that'd be a better verb.
But – since it can be tricky to get inside your users' heads like that, I prefer to phrase links like this as a question, like "Have a Living Social coupon?" That way there's much less potential for a mental-model mismatch.
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I think its pretty arbitrary to claim that "changing these behaviors" would "make the web a better place". I think if people think and react in a certain way, there is nothing wrong with that, and web design should evolve around how people act as opposed to the other way around. Then again I don't work in either any sort of UX or web development, so maybe I should keep my mouth shut here :)
Yes it is arbitrary, but it's a claim many people have made in this discussion previously. I'm just reiterating it here. I don't however see how changing these behaviors would make the web a worse place.
And I agree, I don't see how changing the behaviors would make the world a worse place, but I think if you want to make a case for having the entire industry lead users to certain behavior patterns, an argument should be made for why this is actually improving the web, beyond one person's aesthetic preferences.
If you want to say "click here" is unnecessary and you'd do better by providing a more specific call to action, fine. But don't try to tell me you are using some kind of sophisticated psychology to divine the text of links. Maybe if you had provided a study that used CAT scans or something that show that but honestly that probably just be silly and pedantic.