Ecommerce optimisation tips part 6: Using psychology to design for persuasion
This is the final of a series of six posts where I’ve been uncovering fundamental UX principles for designing great ecommerce user experiences.
TIP: Ecommerce blogsRead our other blogs on ecommerce.A couple of posts ago, we discussed the importance of designing for trust: Ecommerce optimisation tips part 4: 10 guidelines to consider when designing for trust
This week we look at the psychology behind persuasion.
Neuro web design
In my last post I identified factors that can encourage people to buy online. In this post I’m going to expand on this further and look in more detail at the psychological principles that we can use when we design for persuasion.
The catalyst for this article was a particularly thought provoking ‘Psych files’ podcast of an interview with Dr Susan Weinschenk about her book ‘Neuro web design’.
The interview identified some interesting principles of psychology that are relevant to designing for persuasion.
If designing the user experience means that we make it as easy and enjoyable as possible to do things, then designing for persuasion represents a layer above this where we encourage people to do the things that we want them to do.
This area has raised an interesting ethical question, most recently for me at the Information Architecture Institute summit where this very point was raised. If we have the skills to influence the way that people do things then what happens when they are not used for the greater good?
Lou Rosenfeld gave an example more recently where he has been asked by a client to deliberately tweak an IA to make it harder to find certain information that if found would cost his client money. This is the first case of deliberate ‘anti-usability’ that I had heard and I would love to hear of any similar examples that you may have.
Designing for persuasion
User experience professionals are increasingly using design patterns to help to make use of tried and tested conventions that are already in use.
These design patterns tell us how to represent common elements such as search results pages, pagination, login etc. and essentially save us time within the design process.
Design patterns are great as they enhance usability and encourage consistency but what determines which of these patterns we decide to use is based on our understanding of the overall purpose of the website.
Image source: http://ui-patterns.com/collection/fat-footer/image/366#focusAs UX professionals we have a unique view in that we understand both the motivations of our clients as well as those of their users. It is this understanding that gives us the knowledge of what a site or product needs to do and our awareness of artefacts such as design patterns gives us the tools to determine how users will interact with a site.
The concept of designing for persuasion puts a different spin on UX design as it is no longer just a case of ‘Could they do what they wanted?’ but instead ‘Could they do what I wanted them to do?’.
In effect we must make our designs usable, useful and persuasive.
So what principles should we use to influence and persuade our users?
Some examples from cognitive psychology
In the podcast Weinschenk talks about our three brains, the old, the mid and the new.
The old brain or reptilian brain is concerned with survival. Weinschenk summarises its priorities as ‘Can I eat it, will it kill me or can I have sex with it’. I like to think of it as the ‘nightclub brain’.
The Mid brain is concerned with the processing of emotions and the new with conscious, rational and logical thinking.
Weinschenk argues that to be successful we need to appeal to each of these areas of the brain. I can see how certain websites appeal very strongly to the reptilian brain but which principles can we bring into play on a more practical level?
The principle of social validation
I touched on this principle on the last blog but some further reading has uncovered Dr Robert B. Cialdini as a pioneer in the field of the psychology of persuasion.
Social validation essentially boils down to how bad we are at making decisions. When faced with decisions we often turn to other people to guide us.
A common representation of this online is the use of reviews and comments that can help us to decide what to buy. We use this advice both to reinforce what we have already decided as well as to tell us what to do.
The source of the comment is also important, as consideration should be given to the weight of opinion sourced from experts and non-experts.
Image source: Amazon.co.ukIt always amazes me how much faith people put in the opinions of non-experts but in an online world as long as someone has an experience of something that we are interested in we will listen to them.
The fear of loss
We are programmed to keep hold of what we have. It makes sense from a survival perspective if we have spent precious energy getting something that we should make sure that we don’t lose it to someone else.
The model we often see online is that of the upsell. If you buy this camera you are going to need this case, this battery, this card and quite possibly this flash and longer lens. The theory being that you start with the low price of the camera which draws the user in but they end up spending more through adding accessories.
It’s the same principle that leads retailers to try and flog you a paving slab of chocolate when you go in for your paper for a pound. Retailers are masters of the point of sale upsell where they make use of your position in a queue by offering you a cheap snack which adds 50p to the average basket size, job done.
Weinschenk argues that we should start by showing the bundle of products which allows the customer to imagine owning all of these things. It is the fear of loss that will lead to them taking away fewer objects than they would have added had they started with just the camera and no accessories.
Image source: http://accessories.us.dell.comThe question in my mind was whether the larger bundle price would put people off but Weinschenk suggests that the addition of a message that you can customise the bundle negates any concern of the higher price.
The paradox of choice
The web should be the perfect supermarket. You have limitless access to every product that you can imagine. The choice is endless.
The subject of choice is interesting. On the one hand it seems like the perfect scenario for the consumer but work by Dr Barry Schwartz has identified that as people, we don’t cope particularly well with choice.
So why does an abundance of choice cause so many problems for us?
Choice causes paralysis
When faced with too many choices we often end up unable to make a choice because there are simply too many factors to consider. It may seem logical that the more choice you have the more likely it is that there is something that is perfect for you. The opposite seems to be the case.
Even when we make a choice we can end up less satisfied with that choice because we can be subsumed in the choices that you could have made instead! It is this regrets that essentially chip away at the pleasure you gain from the choice you made.
This can be described as the opportunity cost of the choice you made. The opportunity cost is the cost of not taking an alternative course of action. The more choices you have the higher the opportunity cost of the choice you make.
Escalation of expectations
The escalation of expectation explains a situation where you have so much choice that you reassure yourself that there must be the perfect choice for you out there.
The more options that are available the higher your expectations become as again you seek the optimum product for you.
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreiz/1190592277/The reality is that we may never make the perfect choice as our high expectations can never practically be met. The effect is two fold as we are both disappointed with our choice as it doesn’t meet our expectations, and we blame ourselves for not making a better choice from all of the options that we were given.
Schwartz concludes that choice makes us miserable because it can make it harder to select something and when we finally do make a choice we regret out choice because it doesn’t meet our expectations!
So how can we design around these problems?
Prior to writing this I had always been an advocate of conveying volume to users to communicate the vast product range that an online store be able to offer. We design it into search results to convey quality and range. We pull it into product listings to show product volume and ultimately choice but is this backfiring for our users?
There must be a manageable amount of objects or search results that users are willing to process and by offering tools such as faceted search we can allow users to filter options which effectively makes reduces the choice on offer.
So if we offer people a manageable amount of bundled products, allow them to filter them and include reviews and recommendations have we cracked it?
Of course it is not this simple but an understanding of these principles is critical to starting to design interfaces that are both useable and persuasive for our clients and their customers.
This ends this series of posts on tips for optimising ecommerce. Get in touch to discuss any point raised within these posts or to chat about how you should use these tips to optimise your own sites.
About the author
James is a Principal User Experience consultant at cxpartners. He’s got over 10 years of experience working with brands like MTV, Orange and Expedia. He loves photography and is very proud of his garden shed. Email James, or call +44 (0)117 946 3930
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It sometimes seems like a lot to think about; we have to design for ease of use and now we have to design for persuasion too! One of the things I tell clients to focus on, is look at one particular web page and ask yourself, “What is the action I want them most to take on THIS page, and then make sure you’ve made that action easy to find and take (usability part) and also that you’ve used at least one of the principles in the book to make the user want to take the action (persuasive part), on an unconscious as well as conscious level.
Thanks, James, for the insightful comments to some of the principles in my book.
Thats really good practical advice, thanks Susan.
I think its vital that these principles are both usable and accessible in their own right, so as designers we can make the best use of them within the constraints of billable work.
I always used to be introduced to clients as the guy who looked after the users but in fact I was the one responsible for making their pages sell as well. So yes, persuasion is another thing to consider but I think that its something we’ve been doing for a while without giving it a label.
I’m glad to have done some of your principles justice and look forward to reading your book in more detail, possibly at the next Bristol UX book club.
Great stuff. Bridging the divide among the practical and theoretical will always be an issue. But, you’ve given me something to think about here, a number of things really.
You mentioned the old, mid, and new brains, but only covered mid and old. Is the new concerned with breaking new ground, and able to be engaged through webpages and content that takes the viewer/consumer to a new place within their mind?
Hey Chris,
Glad you found this useful.
The term “new” refers capabilities that the brain has developed in modern times to cope with modern life as opposed to the old or reptilian brain which equipped us with the skills for basic survival.
The new brain is concerned with conscious, logical and rational thinking. I guess the point is that we make design decisions based on logical, rational and conscious thought. We discuss these decisions with our peers and they apply their own “new brain” processing to agree or to disagree.
This can miss the point somewhat as a design may make rational sense but users may perceive it in a totally different way or in ways that reflect decisions made within their unsconcious.
This reminds me of numerous usability sessions where the client can’t understand why the user missed something that was so obvious to us and when questioned they couldn’t explain their actions. Maybe we were too caught up in designing for “rational” use and not “actual” use.
To bring us back to this point of academic vs practical I think I wont be asking myself “Which part of the brain am I designing for” when i’m creating my next set of wireframes. However, an understanding of this academic background can help to explain why people do what they do and this is wonderful knowledge to have in your back pocket.
I think this is an area where Apple succeed. Instead of offering you hundreds of choices a la Amazon / eBuyer etc, they only actively push their own branded stuff in their store (even though they do sell other brands). You know that if you buy the Apple version of whatever, you will pay a premium, but it will be good and you won’t have to spend hours / days deliberating over which one to buy!
PS The nightclub brain – I guess you’ve been hanging out in the wrong type of clubs!
Extensive and well explained. A valuable article. Thanks for the serie.