In order for you brand or product to be successful, you need to appeal to your target group. There are countless appeals you can use: fun, friendship, relaxation, luxury, beauty, or sex, to name only a few. As long as it’s reasonably linked to your brand, anything can be used to draw attention to your website. With clever use of appeals, you can draw your customers in and take charge of their will. I admit this sounds a little scary, but really it is rather helpful for everyone designing for the Web.

Appeal to your target audience

Appeals can obviously be anything on your website that appeals to your target audience. With anything I mean really anything, from text, pictures, charts, testimonials, all the way to something simple as contact information. Elements that evoke any kind of feelings within your user, are potentially appealing. Most of the times you will want to make sure these feelings are positive. However, you can also use less positive appeals like disgust or pity to provoke your website visitors.

With appeals you can draw attention. This is one of the most important things when people first visit your site. You want to give them a reason to stay. Then, appeals can evoke emotions, awake desires, and even influence people’s actions.

Beauty brands appeal to us through emotions

Let’s have a closer look at how beauty brands use appeals to get to us. Major parts of their marketing are actually based on emotions. For example, the slogan of L’Oréal Paris is ‘Because you’re worth it’. Is there a better argument for purchasing a product? I don’t think so. This slogan does not only give us a good feeling because we treat ourselves, it also boosts our self confidence, because we are worth it. That’s fabulous. Another brand, Dove, used the perfect line ‘Real women have curves’ as slogan for one of their campaigns. In times of idealized body images of way too skinny models, Dove finally allows women to look normal again, to be happy with themselves. These brands sell much more than just their products.

For a better understanding of how beauty brands use emotions to seduce us, I took a close look at a selection of their websites.

L’Oréal Paris

As a classic and sophisticated beauty brand, L’Oréal Paris went for a simple, but elegant website with the picture of a beautiful woman in focus. In this case it is the perfectly styled Beyoncé. Her radiance and the intense look on her face literally draw me as website visitor into the page. L’Oréal Paris uses appeals like exclusivity, beauty, perfection, fame, popularity, attractiveness, elegance, and exquisiteness.

Dove

Then there is Dove. Real women have curves, remember? Dove is all about making their site visitors feel comfortable. I can almost feel the softness of their products on my skin by looking at the light and fresh design of their site. I’m joking, of course, but in some way their site really does make me feel good. I find appeals like comfort, harmony, balance, freshness, sympathy, and quality.

Nivea

I bet, we all know Nivea and we know it as a traditional and high qualitative brand. These emotions, I believe, are perfectly mirrored in the clean layout and color scheme of their site. I also detect appeals like harmony, trust, interpersonal relationships, beauty, and balance in their images. These are all emotions that Nivea wants us to feel, emotions they use to sell us their products.

Clinique

Next, I had a look at the website of Clinique. Clinique is a high quality and trusted beauty brand with a clean website that represents just that. The simplicity of the website reflects the pure and fragrance free composition of their products. I see appeals, like coolness, power, balance, purity, freshness and natural beauty.

Olay

Another popular beauty brand is Olay. Olay focuses on quality and uniqueness. The way they present the products on their site gives me a sense of superiority. They use appeals, such as exclusiveness, luxury, passion, and perfection to make people want their products.

Garnier

Garnier surprises with a very colorful and energetic website. The intense green and the quickly changing images convey a young and dynamic feeling. Garnier emphasizes appeals like youth, power, self confidence, freshness, nature, and beauty.

Axe

Axe, a brand that focuses more on their male customers than on the female, tries just as much to appeal to emotions than all the other beauty brands. I detect familiar appeals like coolness, attractiveness, resistlessness, freshness, and sex, but also different, maybe more male appeals like strength, fun, and play.

Untenable Assertion or True Perceptions?

I made a bunch of assumptions like Dove wants to make us feel comfortable, while with L’Oréal Paris we feel sophisticated. I identified appeals like beauty, passion, coolness, and many more. And I blamed the different brands to seduce us with these appeals so we would desire their products. I wonder, however, if I’m right with these assumptions and to be honest, I’m quite curious if you recognize any of them? To see whether I’m anywhere close to the truth and to check with your perception, I set up a test case with the different beauty brands. Please take a minute to participate in this quick Usabilla test, and you will shortly find the results here on our blog. I can’t wait.

Related posts on our blog

• How metaphors can improve your user experience
• Not Just Pretty: Balancing Emotion and Function
• The paradox of technology and 5 ways to avoid it
• How the leading Dutch news network was improved with user feedback
• The Usability ABC – part 7

In web design, getting the usability right used to be major goal. Now that most designers seem to master this goal, usability has become like a commodity: As basic requirement for a functional website, we find its presence throughout the Web. This shift of attention has created space in the field of web design and visual design has regained its central position. However, visual design in its new definition embraces more than just looking pretty. Don Norman split it into three levels; visceral design, behavioral design, and reflective design. Together the three can reveal the full power of visual design and guide you to a successful website.

The power of visual design. What is that?

The appearance of a design only makes up for one level of visual design, the visceral design. The other two levels describe how something works (behavioral design), and what the long term impact of a design is (reflective design). Combining these three levels, you can do anything with your design that you want:

• Make your design visual – Grab your user’s attention and influence their perception.
• Make your design effective – Lead your user’s attention and make sure they find what they are looking for.
• Make your design pleasurable – Allow your users to appreciate your website and have fun
• Make your design memorable – Build a relationship with your user, allow them to identify with you, and make sure they keep you in good memory.

Laying the foundation of your design

A good visual design does not fall from the sky. Before getting started with the different levels of visual design, there is some groundwork to do. You should have a solid foundation of knowledge about your internal design goals, the context of use, and of course your prospective users.

Start with drawing a clear picture of your internal design goals. Which image would you like to communicate? What are your values? Your visions? You need to have a good grasp of how you want people to see you, and how you can convey this image most effectively. A certain amount of predictability makes it easier for you to build a relationship with your users.

Second, define the context use. It will help you to know about the situations and circumstances in which your users visit your website. Which emotions might be involved? Which role do you and your users play? Being aware of the context of use will make it easier for you to reach out to your users.

Final preparation: Get to know your users. They are the ones who will purchase and use your product. So make sure you know what they want, how they are going to use your product, what matters to them, and what doesn’t. Without knowing your users, it is quite tricky to design something that’s easy for them to use and pleasurable at the same time.

Find the right balance

After figuring out what you want and doing your research about your users and the context of use, it’s time to find the right balance within your visual design. You can try to find a designer who is really good on all three different levels, but those are rare as unicorns. Your best bet is to get a team together with multiple designers with different strengths. It also helps to include designers in the user research and product development. This way, they are involved in the whole process, and they can include requirements in their creative process from the very beginning.

Here are some examples of websites that I believe have found a perfect balance between emotion and function. First of all, there is Adidas, a popular sports brand. With a brand like this, you can easily focus on emotions and offer a colorful, dynamic, fun, and memorable design.

Now if you offer funeral services on your site, you would want to be a little more sympathetic and use a very clear and usable design. Of course it should also be aesthetic, but mourning website visitors will most likely have their priority on discreet support and quickly finding what they are looking for.

Another example is a luxurious car brand, such as Porsche. You would want a clear website that is very easy to use to reflect the quality of your product. At the same time you want to evoke a bunch of emotions, like beauty, elegance, security, and so on. You also want visitors to identify with the brand build up a lasting relationship with you.

Of course, there are also some negative examples, where the right balance between emotion and function has not exactly been found. Jakob Nielsen is one of the most popular figures in the field of usability. However, his website really only focuses on usability and leaves aside all emotional aspects. A little emotion, I believe, wouldn’t do any harm.

Then there is Amazon. Sure, there is no doubt that this website works like hell and every single element has been tested for conversion before being placed for good. However, pretty is different, don’t you think?

Last but not least, there are websites like the webdesignerdepot. For sure this website looks nice and it is memorable because of this unique appearance. But most of what you see and especially of what catches your attention is not meant to help you use the site. You actually need to scroll down the page to find any sort of navigation.

Conclusion

When you design your own website, make sure you find the right balance between the different levels of visual design. This balance will depend on the specific context of your website. You don’t need to counterbalance the three at all costs. But you do need to beware of your own self image, who your users are, and the context in which these users visit your website. Then balance visceral, behavioral, and reflective design against each other to make them work for you.

Related posts on our blog

• The paradox of technology and 5 ways to avoid it
• How the leading Dutch news network was improved with user feedback
• 5 Quick wins for your website’s user experience
• The power of colors on the Web
• How user scenarios help to improve your UX

Does our life become easier with every new invention on the market? I don’t think so. New technology presents us with great possibilities and limitations at the same time. Let’s have a look at this quote:

• The same technology that simplifies life by providing more functions in each device also complicates life by making the device harder to learn, harder to use. This is the paradox of technology.

— Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (1988)

What Norman said about technology in 1988 is still valid today. Our economy, educational system and our social interactions have changed dramatically with available technologies. In order to stay competitive, products become more and more ingenious, their features adding up. The idea is to make our lives easier. But does it work?

New technology is a paradox: It is both liberating and confining at the same time. I will have a look at various aspects of this paradox and show you five ways to avoid them and still offer popular and innovative products.

The paradox of technology

In order to keep pace with the fast technological progress, we need to keep it rolling. We need to be open minded and flexible to get involved with all the new stuff in the first place. We need to use it a lot in order to learn it, and we need to filter features and put those that we can’t implement in our work process on our growing mental ‘ignore-list’. If we manage to do all that, if we can make a sufficient selection and focus on what is important, we can profit extraordinarily from increasing complexity. If we can’t, we get distracted, confused, and eventually pay with a decreased of efficiency.

New technologies enable us to access enormous loads of information. The Web, as an insatiable platform, offers information about pretty much anything. However, due to limited control of what people make available online, we constantly rely on our own judgement to select what’s relevant. This selection requires a certain degree of media literacy. If we don’t know how to efficiently approach the Web with all its content, the logical consequence is an information overload that we will most likely fail to handle.

We also get lazy using all these gadgets. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I very much appreciate my smart phone and all the things that come with it. But every now and then, I get scared of how addicted I actually am and even worse, how dependent. I’m not sure if I can still manage to get things done if it wasn’t for all the to-do lists and reminders my phone keeps track of. I literary feel stripped down if I don’t have my phone with me and I almost panic if for some reason I can’t access my emails. I feel that using my phone as much as I do makes me stop using my brains.

The boundless and easy communication through social media also has its down side.
We tend to forget how great and valuable it is to talk to someone in person. When we communicate through different mediated channels, the messages we send will never be as rich and clear as those we send face to face. Besides, being connected with everyone at any time makes it difficult to live in the here and now and we loose focus of the people we really care about. We spend so much time in virtual worlds, not because we like it there so much, but because we have pushed to the back of our minds how great the real world is.

5 ways to avoid the paradox of technology

The keyword here is: focus. Focus on your users. Focus on your main functions. Focus on what really matters. More is not always better. Let me show you how to avoid the paradox of technology and still offer popular and innovative products.

1. Know who you design for

Know the people you design for. Never start programming or designing before you have defined the functions and features that your users really need. If you don’t know your users, you will never be able to minimize or even eliminate the paradox they see in technology. Create personas and get to know your users. Find out what they want and how they will use your product. Come up with use cases, create prototypes and test your ideas.

2. Don’t distract your users

Keep it simple. These three words can make all the difference. After you know what functions your users need, it is your task to combine them in a usable way. Make sure users find and recognize all functions. Omit features, that don’t increase the overall quality of your product but might lead to distraction or confusion. Don’t be scared or too proud to let ideas go. Even good ideas might just not work. By leaving some features out, others become more salient and possibly more intuitive. Ask users to prioritize and categorize features to be certain you make the right selection.

3. Keep information to the point

Only offer information your users really need. People come to your site with a goal in mind. Your job is it to make them reach their goal as quickly as possible. This includes anything from making your site easy to find in search engines, to a clear presentation of your content. Know what your users look for and then offer it to them the way they expect to find it. And keep in mind that their they are anything but simple.

4. Support your users, don’t make them superfluous

This might have some overlaps with what I wrote earlier, but I think it’s important enough to give it an own paragraph. No matter what you offer, be it a service, a tool, or a tangible product, make sure it’s relevant. With relevant I don’t mean extremely important or extremely innovative. I mean that you should offer something your users can actually use for something useful. Try to support your users in something they do or even do it for them, but don’t try to do something they can really do themselves. To some extent, you can look at this as the responsibility of a designer to support us with what we do, without making us superfluous.

5. Focus on the user experience

With the wide range of new technologies, our lives seem to become increasingly impersonal. We communicate, but seldom face to face. We interact, but not with each other. We consume, but we don’t pause to appreciate. As a designer, you have the chance to make products that are user friendly and therefore easy to use. But you can also make products fun and personal. You can create a user experience that makes us enjoy to learn new things and face new technologies. With a great user experience, you can convince anyone of your product, regardless how many features you had to leave out in the process.

I believe that new technology is a paradox. It offers us great possibilities and at the same time, it confines us in what we do and how we do it. Through a focused product design and the way we select and offer information, we can minimize and even eliminate this paradox for our clients.

Leave a comment below, or join the discussion over at Hacker News.

Related posts on our blog

• Not Just Pretty: Balancing Emotion and Function
• How the leading Dutch news network was improved with user feedback
• Transparent Usability
• 5 Quick wins for your website’s user experience
• The power of colors on the Web

Cultural characteristics, such as norms or values, influence product design. Most people can give an example of cultural influences when it comes to tangible products. For instance, toilet seats are designed differently in the US and Thailand. Online, these cultural differences might be less explicit, but this does not mean they don’t exist. Just as with other products, the way we interact with a website is in large part defined through our culture.

In order to ensure that web sites are globally accessible and equally appealing to different cultures around the world, user experience designers need to be aware of how culture affects the way we think, communicate, and consume information. I’ll explain how culture affects us in terms of visual design, navigation design, and information design.

Cultural UX differences - Worldwide Internet Usage

Visual design: metaphors and color preferences

Visual design is the graphic treatment of interface elements. It is the ‘look’ in ‘look-and-feel’ (Garett, 2000).

As in the real world, the digital world uses colors and metaphors to enhance user experience. Metaphors help users associate familiar ideas and concepts with less familiar ones, while colors have the power to influence the way we perceive something.

On the web, designers use color for various purposes—to draw attention to certain elements on a page, to make a page more visually attractive, to create a desired mood, or to make text easier to read.

However, research in the cognitive sciences has demonstrated that both metaphors and colors are culture specific. A good example are the different meanings associated with the color green in the Islam and Irish cultures.

While in Islam green has always been a sacred color and is used in a number of Islamic flags, in the Irish culture green has had various associations and meanings throughout history. The shamrock for example, was a symbol of rebellion against the English in the 19th century. The three-leafed clover has also been associated with Saint Patrick who is said to have used it to explain the holy trinity.

The official flag of Islam, the shamrock (Ireland’s most recognized national symbol), and the Irish flag (the color green symbolizes Irish republicanism)

Visual representations mean different things in different cultures. By being aware of these differences designers can communicate more effectively with their target audience.

Navigation design: culture and navigation elements

A clear and intuitive navigation helps users find what they are looking for as efficiently as possible. Various studies on how navigation elements are being used among different cultures show that these vary according to the communication style of the culture.

For example, a study conducted by Dormann & Chisalita (2002) which uses Hofstede’s masculinity cultural dimension to categorize web sites from different cultures, found that countries with a higher masculinity index (masculine countries) had fewer links per page than countries with a lower masculinity index (feminine countries).

Another study, comparing high context and low context styles of communication, found that Japanese web sites preferred to use images instead of text to represent links while Scandinavian web sites opted for plain text.

Culture influences how we access our memory, process information, and navigate through a website. UX designers need to be aware of these cultural differences to offer a navigation design that meets the specific interaction requirements of their target group.

Information design: culture and the organization of content

Ying Dong and Kun-Pyo Lee (2008) compared how East-Asian (holistic thinkers) and Westerners (analytic thinkers) perceive a website. The eye-tracking maps that resulted from the study showed that people from these different cultures browse web pages differently. While Chinese and Koreans scan the entire page to get an overall picture, Americans focus on information groups.

Chinese eye-tracking map. Green denotes the start of eye movements and red the end. Ying Dong and Kun-Pyo Lee (2008)

Korean eye-tracking map. Green denotes the start of eye movements and red the end. Ying Dong and Kun-Pyo Lee (2008)

American eye-tracking map. Green denotes the start of eye movements and red the end. Ying Dong and Kun-Pyo Lee (2008)

Based on their findings, Dong and Lee propose that when designing web pages for holistic thinkers (such as Chinese and Koreans), UX designers should pay attention to the harmony between the foreground and background as well as the relationship between the different content areas.

Sohu.com, a popular portal in China

When designing for analytical thinkers (such as Americans), Dong and Lee suggest to emphasize on independent content areas.

Yahoo.com, a popular American portal

How content is organized on a web page affects the ease with which users are able to consume and digest the information presented to them. By focusing on the target audience’s specific cognitive style, designers can enhance the perception and usage of a web page.

Cross-cultural challenge

There is no question that cultural differences pose a challenge to global web design. By understanding and paying attention to cultural preferences from the outset, user experience designers are better equipped to cater to an international audience. From a business perspective, developers are able to determine whether or not in some cases a localized design might be a better solution.

As the list for further reading beneath suggests, the information I covered on this topic is just the tip of the iceberg. I would really like your opinion on this cross cultural challenge. Did you ever have to adapt a design for another culture? Can you recall misunderstandings that were easily explained by cultural differences afterwards? Please let me know!

Further reading

Cultural theorists:

• Nisbett and Norenzayan (2002) Culture and Cognition.
• Riding & Rayner (1998) Cognitive styles and learning strategies: Understanding style differences in learning and behaviour.
• Hofstede, Geert (1997) Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind: Intercultural Cooperation and its Importance for Survival.
• Trompenaars, Fons, and Charles H. Turner (1998) Riding the Waves of
  Culture.

Web cross-cultural studies:

• Ackerman, S. K. (2002), Mapping User Interface Design to Culture Dimensions. Paper presented at International Workshop on Internationalization of Products and Systems (Powerpoint presentation)
• Callahan, Ewa, Cultural Similarities and Differences in the Design of University Websites.
• Dormann & Chisalita (2002), Cultural values in web site design.
• Schmid-Isler, S. (2000). The language of digital genres-a semiotic investigation of style and iconology on the World Wide Web.
• Würtz, Elizabeth, A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Websites from High-Context Cultures and Low-Context Cultures.
• Ying Dong and Kun-Pyo Lee (2008). A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study of Users’ Perceptions of a Webpage: With a Focus on the Cognitive Styles of Chinese, Koreans and Americans.

This post was written by Anneke Schapelhouman, our new online communications expert. Say hi to Anneke on Twitter, or leave a comment.

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If you like to read about UX, you probably have at least one book that was written or published by Lou Rosenfeld. Aside from being a publisher, Lou is stil going strong as an independent information architecture consultant. We thought it would be interesting to hear his thoughts on the development of UX as a field, and see what he is up to in general.

As a publisher of UX books and numerous UX-community related initiatives, you must have a good grasp of the UX community. What do you think are the most notable changes in this community and why? And can you predict how the community will evolve in the upcoming year?

The remarkable lesson for me regarding the UX community has little to do with where it’s going or where it’s been. It has everything to do with where it is now.

Gadflies like me are visible in UX-related publications, on related discussion lists, and at UX events. (In fact, I’ll publicly confess right here and now to being a conference slut.) But the vast majority of UX people—the “dark matter” of the community—aren’t even lurkers. They’re people who go about quietly doing their work—quite expertly in many cases—without being engaged in what many of us consider to be the UX community. In fact, I’d best that most of them don’t associate themselves with UX, or even know the term.

I imagine that Usabilla’s goal, like mine as Rosenfeld Media‘s publisher, is to reach that “dark matter” and make a case to them to engage more in the community. It may be a fool’s errand, but it’s worth the effort, as we’ll all be better off for it.

As an information architect, you work with messy information problems with big companies. Do you still touch base with UX designers in small companies and startups?

Sure, but mostly in contexts other than consulting—like at the UX happy hour I help organize here in Brooklyn. Or while gathering around the UX Bookmobile that Rosenfeld Media brings to many conferences.

What challenges and chances do you see in the rapid evolution of the information ecosystem (think API’s, Big Data, etc).

Two words: service design. APIs can help catalyze more unified information ecosystems, but they’re only a piece of the puzzle. You still need at least minimal design to imagine new possibilities and tie all these channels together in a meaningful, engaging way. I think service design may offer guidance to those of us who are trying to design the infrastructure needed for vibrant, successful information ecosystems.

Do you have any cool books up your sleeve?

Oh, gosh. Now that Search Analytics for Your Site is finally done, I’m finished with writing for the foreseeable future. But Rosenfeld Media has, at this moment, 14 cool books in the pipeline (and more new book signings on the way). Our next two titles, John Ferrara’s Playful Design and Rachel Hinman’s The Mobile Frontier, are looking fantastic. Not that I’m biased or anything.

How do you balance your work as an information architect and a publisher?

Oh, that’s easy: I work about 80 hours per week (much more on publishing than consulting). The good news is that I love my work, so I really don’t mind. The bad news is that I love my kids even more, meaning I’m constantly missing out on getting a decent night’s sleep. But you only go around once…

You must know a lot of interesting people. Who should we follow on Twitter?

That’s really not a fair question. I’m following 1,492 people. Many of them are, indeed, really interesting. Some who immediately come to mind—mostly because of tweets from the past 24 hours or so—are @aaroni268, @becbury, @james3neal, and @danachis.

Thanks for the great questions!

More about Lou

Lou Rosenfeld is an independent information architecture consultant for Fortune 500 corporations and other large organizations, and founder of Rosenfeld Media, a publishing house focused on user experience books. He has been instrumental in helping establish the fields of information architecture and user experience, and in articulating the role and value of librarianship within those fields. Lou is co-author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (O’Reilly; 3rd edition 2006) and Search Analytics for Your Site (Rosenfeld Media, 2011), co-founder of the Information Architecture Institute, and a former columnist for Internet World, CIO, and Web Review. He blogs regularly and tweets @louisrosenfeld even more so.

Related posts on our blog

• Not Just Pretty: Balancing Emotion and Function
• The paradox of technology and 5 ways to avoid it
• How the leading Dutch news network was improved with user feedback
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• The Usability ABC – first definitions

It’s time to get some user feedback on these big retail sites we all use during the holiday season. Every year more people buy goods online. More than $18.7 billion has been spent online during November, representing a 15 percent increase over the same period in 2010. With the holiday shopping season upon us, we decided to test eight big online retailers in the lead up to Black Friday. Online retailers need to provide a pleasurable online customer experience by embracing the importance of usability and a good User Experience (UX). This gives us an opportunity to look at the similarities and differences of a large number of retail sites that all offer the same kind of service.

User feedback on the page of Victoria's Secret

We made a nice and shiny report out of our findings (PDF, 3.1 MB). Please read it, share it with who you think might be interested, and let us know what you think.

We chose big retailers that we are all familiar with: Abercrombie & Fitch, Amazon, BestBuy, Etsy, Modcloth, ToysRus, Victoria’s Secret, and Zappos. We asked 480 people to voice their opinion on the homepages and product pages of these retailers, and asked them to carry out small tasks.

Highlights of the report

Retail sites mix usability and persuasion

The priority of online retailers is to sell goods and services to people. A site that is fast, clear, enticing, well designed, sticky, and easy to navigate tends to sell well. But, an online retail site that incorporates different, clever persuasive techniques can sell even more. This often results in a balancing act where the user is presented with a site that is fast and easy to use, but easier to get lost on than one might think.

Differences between different retail sectors

Retail sites that sell soft goods—like clothing and lingerie—often have a beautiful site that is easy on the eyes. However, they often address users in a way that is confusing to them. They see an image of a panda during Christmas time, or a male torso with the word “Fierce” next to it, and don’t know what to make of it.

Remote user feedback on the page of Abercrombie & Fitch

Sites that sell hard goods like Amazon and BestBuy use transparent language and promote their products in a clear way. However, these retailers often have sites that are completely crammed with products, banners, offers, text links, testimonials, and other elements—all of which also lack visual hierarchy. A retailing site should be easy on the eyes to be usable. A little serendipity can be great, but making a site near impossible to navigate is terrible.

Remote user feedback on the page of BestBuy

Distracting advertising

Advertising is often loud and hinders the shopping experience on the pages we tested. Despite practices like targeted advertising, it often distracts from the other elements while being relevant only a small percentage of the time. This is even more pronounced with the holidays upon us. Retail sites see this as an excuse to litter the site with many, even louder advertisements. Etsy shows that there are many more elegant ways of setting a festive mood. Their advertising is used sparingly and is easily recognizable as such, and they have items among the other products that remind one of the holiday season in an original way, like old fashioned candy canes.

Retail sites are perceived as credible and trustworthy

All of the sites we tested put a lot of effort in coming across as credible and trustworthy. This is really important on a site where people spend their money. Testimonials, easily available contact options, a good design, and review mechanisms are all in place. Nowadays, we think that people already trust sites in this category, and every big retail site is a trusted brand in and of itself.

Sex Always Sells—or Does It?

While the use of sexy models on the site of Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch serves a purpose, it also distracts a lot of users. The so called vampire effect is very real: revealing too much skin defeats the purpose and can lead to people forgetting what the site is about. The use of too many sexy images sucks attention away from brand recognition and prevents people from actually buying something.

Download the full report

Remember, the full report is available for download (PDF, 3.1 MB).

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NU.nl, the biggest news network in the Netherlands, redesigned it’s website this year. The main objective of the redesign was to improve the overall user experience and retaining the clear presentation of content, which the website is known for. One specific goal was to direct more visitors from the homepage to the content that the news network offers on different topics. Annemarie Boon, usability specialist at Sanoma Media, used Usabilla in the process to achieve this goal. Thank you Annemarie, for being so kind to share your findings with us.

NU.nl presents an enormous amount of information. The website has categories on different topics, like NUsport.nl for sport news
and NUzakelijk.nl for business news. Web statistics showed that a relatively small group of people found the content categories through the sidebar menu. Here is a screenshot with the old menu:

The old design of NU.nl, without clear links to the content categories

Interviews and prototypes

In the first prototype, Sanoma Media replaced the sidebar menu with a tabbed horizontal navigation on top of the page. A navigation with tabs is a powerful design pattern and is appropriate for the main navigation of a website. By using this pattern, the design indicates that the content categories featured in the tabs are just as important as the homepage.

The first prototype of the new NU.nl, with tabs on top of the page

Annemarie Boon told us: “The new design has a better grid. The navigation falls in the ‘F’ scanning pattern and is closer to the relevant content.”

For interviews about the first prototype, Annemarie and her crew recruited regular visitors of the website. The new navigation received positive feedback, but the exact placement was still giving problems. Annemarie: “We think the reason for this is that people get used to banners. During the interviews we noticed that people did not always recognize the tabs as such—the surrounding banners were either too busy, too high in contrast, or both.”

To solve this problem, a second prototype was designed. Now the tabs were placed below the banner:

Second prototype: tabs below the banner

Remotely testing the prototypes

The team of Sanoma Media had enough material for quantitative testing by now. Annemarie: “The qualitative data we got from the interviews did not tell us enough about which version would score best and why. We decided to use Usabilla to further refine the design based on quantitative data. We randomly showed the original design and the two prototypes to the test participants and asked them where they would click to read more financial news. We measured how many participants clicked on areas that would bring them to the content category ‘NUzakelijk’ ['zakelijk' means business, JB], and how long it took them to fulfill the task.”

Results for the question: "Where would you click to read more financial news?". From left to right: the original design, the first prototype, and the improved second prototype

When testing the first prototype, more participants clicked on a link that would take them to the correct content category. However, it took them longer to decide where to click than with the original version. The second prototype did not have this problem and outperformed the original—participants registered more successful clicks that would take them to the correct category, and had faster reaction times overall.

This confirmed Annemarie’s expectations: “The positioning of the banner and the tabs made the first prototype confusing. The outcome of this test made the choice for the second prototype easy. This design is finalized and live on the current website. Web analytics show that more people find their way to the extensions, mostly through the added tab navigation”.

NU.nl quickly implemented a great improvement to their website. For the new design, an initial prototype was tested, revised, and tested again. Both qualitative interviews were combined with quantitative findings with Usabilla to ensure a user centered final result. Does this reflect your design process, or would you like to follow similar steps for your next redesign or iteration? Or do you prefer another route? In any case, please share your findings in the comments or through Twitter. We love real world examples like this one and welcome more of these with open arms.

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Do you want to know how you can improve the UX of your Facebook page? Customizing your Facebook page is a challenge because a big part of the design is already there. The limited insights that Facebook offers into your page statistics provide little evidence on which to base your design decisions. That’s why we conducted a remote usability test of the Facebook pages of eight of the world’s most popular brands. Based on the results, we offer eight tips that can help improve the conversion of your Facebook page and get you more ‘Likes’.

We set up a series of different tests including eight Facebook pages of globally recognized brands. 500 participants in total gave us feedback on the following three questions:

• Which elements strike your attention the most?
• Which elements on this page makes you like this brand? Please explain with a note
• Where would you like to go from here?

You can participate in one of the tests here. On to the examples!

1. Show the personal side of your brand or company

The best Facebook pages immediately give users the feeling that they are getting a peek behind the curtain or a look behind the scenes, and make them feel like they belong to the family of the brand. This requires a different design strategy than the design strategy used for the original website of the brand.

A perfect example of this can be found on the Coca-Cola page. They highlight information about the page creators, Dusty and Michael. Supposedly, these two are such big fans that they created the Coca-Cola page themselves. Although the page is the property of Coca-Cola, you get the impression that it is a separate fan site.

Dusty and Michael, the page creators

Another very good example is Sony. They recruit people who want to be in their next commercial:

Sony was able to get some of their visitors to think about their brand in a creative way with this contest. Aside from a creative way to capture peoples attention, there must be a Benjamin Franklin Effect at work as well.

Do you want your own Facebook page to become more personal? Think about ways to add a sense of community to your design and its contents.

2. Use humor to break the ice

Brands—especially the bigger ones—often seem distant. A great way to weaken this perceived distance is to use humor. Humor creates a sense of honesty and trust. The way Red Bull points to their ‘Like’ button is a great example, as you can see below:

Like our page. Hint, hint.

How do we know?

When confronted with the task: “Which elements on this page makes you like this brand? Please explain with a note”, our participants reacted very favorably to Red Bull’s humor. A selection of notes:

• This is the best ‘Like’ image I’ve ever seen
• I like what they’ve done with the arrows
• This has a sense of humor, which is always good. Shows the brand is likeable and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
• Extremely attracting graphic
• I’ve never seen this before on Facebook. It makes Red Bull come across as a fun, non-stuffy website.
• I just thought it was cute. Made me smile.
• I like the artiness and cheekiness.
• Neat way to direct attention to the ‘Like’ button

3. Visually emphasize the ‘Like’ button

Obviously, you want to be ‘Liked’, so draw the attention of your visitors to the ‘Like’ button! As the pages in our test show, this does not have to be subtle at all—big arrows can do the trick perfectly. BMW takes a softer approach by greying out their content, so the ‘Like’ button becomes more of an ‘On’ switch.

BMW, Amazon, Red Bull and Coca-Cola all put emphasis on their 'like' buttons

How do we know?

Our participants were four times as likely to click on the ‘Like’ button when confronted with the task: “Where would you like to go from here?” on the pages with visual emphasis on the like button (BMW, Amazon, Red Bull and Coca-Cola).

Participants were attracted to the arrows and found the 'Like' button more often on the Red Bull Facebook page

4. Give people an incentive to ‘Like’ you

You can point arrows at the ‘Like’ button, but what about actually telling people what they get out of it? Although people slowly get used to the idea that ‘Liking’ a page also means they get updates in their newsfeed, it can’t hurt to say it again. Amazon does a good job at this:

Amazon tells what happens when you click the 'Like' button

You can also go further and promise access to premium content or the ability to participate in Facebook-only giveaways to the people who ‘Like’ you, as another example.

5. Offer prizes, contests, and causes

Facebook is a great medium for putting up contests and giveaways. We already mentioned the contest Sony promoted that gives people a chance to be in one of their commercials. Contests and giveaways are more effective on Facebook than they are on a normal webpage because the sense of community is greater, and there are interaction mechanisms already built into the platform. This makes it easier and less intimidating to react.

Another good example is the interview with Noel Gallagher on the Adidas page. He gives away signed shoes that he designed himself. They announce it on Facebook and they take questions from their followers to ask to Gallagher.

Adidas creating buzz with an interview and contest

Another example: Heinz has devoted their page to the cause of supporting the United States Army.

"Our turn to serve"

Of course, not everyone might agree with the sentiment they display here, but definitely makes Heinz more than just a ketchup brand.

How do we know?

A selection of notes on Adidas’ contest:

• Chance to win!
• I’m an Oasis fan
• I’m a huge Oasis fan, so anything that Noel Gallagher endorses, I’m all for!
• I like Noel, so I like that he is on this page
• I like Noel Gallagher and his endorsement makes me feel warmer towards the brand

A selection of notes on Heinz’ cause:

• It’s great that they want to support the vets.
• I buy this product a lot, and I like the fact that they help others
• I like the fact that Heinz supports the USO
• Shows the brand is willing to give a little back.

6. Interactive games

Facebook is a platform where people spend their free time, and that’s why a lot of people play games on Facebook. Granted, designing one can be time consuming, but it can also be really beneficial as people connect the joy of playing a game they love with your brand.

Monopoly is all the rage over at McDonald's

How do we know?

McDonald’s notes:

• I like Monopoly and have played the games
• I’m a sucker for the Monopoly prizes
• Associations with a game I enjoy amongst other things is always something cool.
• The Monopoly game is always a fun reason to eat McDonald’s.
• Everyone loves McDonald’s Monopoly

The Game also scored high on the attention task:

Heatmap for the task: "Which elements strike your attention the most?" on McDonald's Facebook page

7. Customize your menu items

Your presence on Facebook is not limited to your welcome page. Aside from the default sections in the menu such as ‘Info’ and ‘Questions’, you can also add custom pages with custom icons. You can design these icons to stand out which encourages people to click on them and explore your Facebook page further.

How do we know?

On the task, “Which elements strike your attention the most?” and “Where would you like to go from here?” people did not click on the menus at all if it did not include custom items. Pages that have custom items in their menu do get a fair number of clicks here.

More clicks on the custom menu items on the Heinz page

8. Focus on actual products!

The brands that are shown here all pimp their iconic products in a big way: Coca-Cola and Heinz proudly display their bottle, and Red Bull shows the can for example. If you sell something that’s tangible, well designed and part of people’s lives, displaying it will generate instant rapport.

How do we know?

Our participants reacted very strongly to the product images, as you can see below on the heat maps.

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UX University is a platform that aims to bridge the gap between the academic and the real world. We are proud to be part of this initiative and even more proud that the last edition was in our office in Amsterdam. Our good friend Hidde wrote a blogpost on the UX University website that we kindly republish here.

Maurits at the third UX University event

In the third edition of UX University, which will be the first in a new series of lectures, we invited Maurits Kaptein. Kaptein is a PhD candidate at Eindhoven University of Technology/Stanford University and researcher in the field of persuasion.

Focus on improving influence strategies, not end products

Kaptein is interested in persuasion: the field of research that is concerned with factors that influence people in what they do. When applied to businesses, the question we are trying to answer remains: ‘why do people buy the things they buy’? Some might answer this question in terms of the end product, and state that the quality of the end product influences whether a consumer buys. From this a strategy like ‘improve the end product’ could follow. Kaptein started from a different perspective: in his research he formulated factors not concerning the end product, but rather ways to influence the decision process of a consumer.

The different strategies to influence the buying process of a person formulated by Kaptein¹, are as follows:

• Social proof (E.g. ‘all these people have used our products for ages’)
• Liking (E.g. ‘410 people liked our product’)
• Authority (E.g. ‘this book has won three different literary awards’)
• Commitment (E.g. ‘you have recently looked at these products’)
• Scarcity (E.g. ‘this hotel only has only 1 double room left’)
• Reciprocity (E.g. ‘download the first song of this CD for free’)

Different responses from individuals and groups of individuals

One of the things Kaptein became interested in, is how the effect compared when applying these strategies to individuals or groups. He found that particular individuals did indeed respond differently to the various strategies than the whole group of individuals together. Some strategies that work well on average when applied to a group, can have negative impacts on certain individuals.

Persuasion profiles: targeting specific individuals

Apart from the individual-group differences, there were also differences between individuals. One person might not respond to the social proof strategy at all, but then turn out to be very sensitive to the scarcity strategy, whilst another person could be sensitive to the liking strategy, but not to the reciprocity strategy. In an e-commerce website, one could take these differences into account. It would therefore be sensible to keep profiles of visitors, and apply separate persuasion strategies to each of these ‘persuasion profiles’.

In further research was found that applying multiple strategies rather than just one does not improve the influence on the consumer’s decision. There seemed to be such a thing as a ‘best strategy’: the one that shows the weakest decline over time. Kapitein recommends to always try and select this ‘best strategy’.

Conclusion

Rather than improving end products, we should focus on influencing the decision process that leads a person to buy the end product. The six strategies mentioned earlier can be employed for this purpose, and work best when they are the ‘best strategy’ for a particular person. This best strategy can be found by establishing persuasion profiles. Persuasion profiles can be improved over time, by measuring changes in how your users respond to different strategies and continuously adapting to these changes.

Further research and concerns

There is still more research necessary to answer questions concerning issues such as context (can we transfer a strategy from e-commerce to politics, how much of a persuasion profile should we disclose to the user), privacy (the current research complies to privacy legislation, is that enough?) and autonomy (does persuasion profiling threaten our decision making?).

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It’s Tuesday and I’m back with more definitions for our Usability ABC. This week, I’d like to start with the following terms regarding usability testing: Usability lab, user, task, user case, and think-aloud protocol. As always I appreciate feedback and input to extend our list of usability related terms.

Usability lab

A usability lab is a laboratory set up for usability testing. Usually, a usability lab consists of a test and an observation room. The two rooms are either divided through a one-way mirror, or cameras are installed, so people in the observation room can follow the test. The test room is at least equipped with a microphone and a camera that record how the test person interacts with a system. Usability labs can also be equipped with more advanced material such as an eye-tracker.

User

A user is a person who interacts with a product or system. The user can also be called end user because he or she eventually purchases, consumes, and uses a product or system.

Task

A task describes the means-ends process users engage in when using a system. Users have a goal which they try to reach by performing a certain task. A task can stand alone or be combined in a series with other tasks. Task oriented user testing includes tasks that are expected to be identical with real world tasks. Users are asked to perform a task, which gives insights into how well a system is designed to meet the requirements users have so they can reach their goals.

Use case

A use case describes a very specific interaction between user and system. It usually includes one or more tasks that a user engages in to reach a certain goal. With use cases, common tasks are identified and functionality, usability, and the UX of a system can be tested.

Think-aloud protocol

Think-aloud protocol is a research technique that is mainly used for user testing. Test participants are asked to verbalize their thoughts, actions and feelings while interacting with a test interface. This way, test moderators for example get detailed information about what participants expect, why they perform certain actions, or what bothers them.

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