Have a better look at these discoveries on the Lovely Discoveries List #13 on Usabilla Discover. Request an invite if you are interested in building a library of design elements with rating and sharing options.

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Here are some tricks that I discovered to help you make your users feel safe and as a consequence comfortable enough to spend their money on your site.

Reasonable prices

Make sure to offer prices that your customers are willing to pay. People will not make a purchase if they think they are paying too much. We all love last minute offers and any else that makes us feel like we saved some money, right? There are several things you can do to convince people you are offering them a bargain. Let’s take a look at three of them.

Special offers

Discovered by gerben

People just love special offers. Limited discounts, either in time or in quantity, are an easy way to influence our buying decisions. Easytobook.com is a great example of how to make people feel confident about a quick decision. They offer a considerable discount for three nights in a hotel, which is rated outstanding. Only two of these deals are left but since cancellation is free, there is no risk attached to buying on the spur of the moment.

Long-term offers

Discovered by dona

Long-term offers are a great way to tie customers for a longer period of time. Look at this example on the website of AWeber Communications. With their three months plan I save about $ 3 per month compared with the monthly subscription. Of course I pay $ 30 more if I subscribe for three months, but still it feels like saving money.

Offer choices

Discovered by paul

We love to make own decisions. Or at least we love it to think that. A nice example for this are different pricing plans. Zendesk offers four different plans. The big price difference between the Enterprise version and the Plus version makes us perceive the difference between the Regular and the Plus rather small. Now looking at the different features included in the Regular and in the Plus plan, the $ 49 feels absolutely justified.

Proof of quality

Of course, whenever we buy something, we like to know that we don’t spend our money on rubbish. Since we cannot pick things up from a website, and take them into our hands to feel their quality, we depend on different ways to make a judgement. Here are three things you can do to help your customers trust the quality of your products.

Ratings & Testimonials

Discovered by hjhibma

The most obvious thing to do is placing ratings and testimonials next to your products. Other people, who have already bought the product have more experiences with, which makes us trust their judgement. HTC offers a very visual and appealing rating summary next to each of their smartphones. Seeing the seemingly objective 4.5 star rating makes me trust in the quality of this phone.

Customization

Discovered by usabilla

Another great way to convince people of the quality of your products is the option to customize them. NikeID lets people customize the entire shoe, getting the impression they are actually creating it themselves. This involvement and the feeling of having designed our product ourselves helps us to trust its quality.

Bring your product to life

Discovered by usabilla

An effective way to bring a product to live on the Web is by bringing it as close to the customer as possible. HTC offers a fun and intuitive way of selecting your most important features. Based on these features, they give you a selection of all suitable phones. This way, customers can quickly see which devices suit their needs.

Terms of guarantee

If I go to a store to buy something, I know I can come back at any time and either return my purchase, claim damages, or simply ask questions. On the Web, this can be way more complicated, which discourages a lot of people to buy online. Let’s take a look at a couple of things you can do to show your customers they can trust you.

Customer support

Discovered by usabilla

Like people can go back to a store to ask questions, make sure you offer good customer service on your site. People who buy your products will most likely have questions, complaints, or even suggestions at some point. Knowing that in case they do need customer support, it’s available increases their willingness to make a purchase online. Alianz insurances offers customer support 24/7, which is even better than it would be possible in any physical office.

Trial versions

Discovered by hjhibma

Let people try your product before they buy it. Especially for software it is common to offer a trial version on the Web. This way you grant your customers access to your product, before you charge them. People are more likely to make a decision if they know it’s not ultimate. Projecturf offers a 14-day trial, giving their customers the chance to decide for themselves if it’s worth the money.

Money back guarantee

Discovered by usabilla

Also a great way to make people feel safe with a buying decision is a money back guarantee. For example, Diet Direct offers a 110% satisfaction guarantee, which means they will refund 110% of the purchase price in case the customer is not satisfied with the product after 60 days. This stuff has to work if they even risk to pay me extra in case it doesn’t, right?

Information

A lot of people feel uncomfortable to give away personal information on the Web. There are too many stories circulating, warning about possible dangers. However, you need people to at least fill in their email address for setting up an account, you need their physical address in order to make deliveries, and you even need their bank details to allow a purchase. So you better make them feel safe on your site and encourage them to trust you with their information.

Protect information

Discovered by hara

Whenever customers need to fill in their personal information on your site, you can make sure that it’s really a person filling out your form. The fact that you actively try to prevent data theft tells you customers that you probably try your best to keep their data safe as well. I think Techsmith does a nice job here. They ask their customers if they are a robot, which instantly explains the purpose of filling in the funny words.

Trustworthy payment options

Discovered by usabilla

If you want people to spend money on your site, make sure you offer trustworthy payment options. Recognition can be a great trust factor. Especially big brands, such as MasterCard and Visa are associated with a trustworthy source. Alianz offers three well-known payment options on their site. Personally, I wouldn’t hesitate spending my money on their site.

Inform about Payment options

Discovered by usabilla

Last but not least, you should offer sufficient information about payment options. Ideally, you make this information accessible before people even need it. Imagine you want to buy something in a web store, but you can’t find any information about the payment options. You have to go through the entire purchase process to find out that they don’t accept your prefered payment option. I like it how Gstar offers a whole section on Payment, which can be easily accessed from any page.

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A mentor of mine is fond of giving the advice “Do what you love to do in the service of those who love what you do.” Whenever I hear UX professionals complain that they are continually having to promote the value of what they do, I wonder if they are serving the right people. If people in your organization are not seeing the value you add, maybe you haven’t positioned yourself where you can add the most value.

In this article I’ll explain how my role has evolved from that of a usability expert to that of a user experience (UX) architect. In making that transition, I have increased my impact on product strategy and I have established a higher perceived value in the organizations I work for. Essentially, I will discuss how my emphasis and contribution has shifted from just making the product usable, to defining a product that is useful, saleable, and buildable.

The evolution of a UX architect

Like many other UX professionals, I got into UX through usability testing. And like many people in usability testing “in the day,” my involvement with a product usually came late, literally days before a scheduled launch or even after a product or web site was already in the market. My major challenges back then involved problems with UI design that could not get adequately fixed because of time constraints or because the problem had been baked too deeply into the technical architecture of the product. I went through so much pig lipstick in those days that I was on Miss Piggy’s speed dialer.

Then I landed a job with a different company and made the formal transition into UX. This let me move further upstream in the development process. My early UX experience involved working in the design phase, producing detailed Visio wireframes based on a product manager’s Product Requirements Document and then delivering those wireframes to be coded into a working user interface by the developers.

As ideal as that sounds, I started encountering new difficulties. In particular, there was one product manager, “Dave,” that the design and development folks did not want to work with. For one thing, he would look over the shoulders of the QA testers and start complaining that the product wasn’t what he had envisioned when he wrote the requirements. Eventually, he started sitting with developers during coding so that he could shape the product to his expectations.

All of this was going on in a company with an expectation that products were to be built to requirements and the wireframe was the functional specification for how the UI should look and operate. The situation was made particularly painful because Dave was often right and his meddling resulted in noticeable improvements. Doh!

While everyone else was wondering how to get rid of Dave, I was wondering how we were managing to not please him. This was his product, these were his requirements, he was right there in easy reach, and he was certainly not shy with his opinions. How, then, were we missing a target that big?

With the help of another UX designer who had recently introduced me to Axure, a quick prototyping tool, we started to change the design culture.
Instead of acting like building architects producing detailed blueprints, we started acting more like police sketch artists ala “His nose was big,” “Like this?” “No, longer, and not as wide.”

In our new model, the design phase became highly interactive and iterative. We would quickly put up prototypes and ask, “What if it looked like this and acted this way?” Wow, did that get some good conversations going! And because our wireframe tool generated what at least acted like working prototypes, we could do usability testing to get real user feedback and test competing design ideas. By the time we started coding the product, Dave knew exactly what he was going to get and either loved it or had accepted the compromises he knew we would have to impose.

UX Documents as requirements — not just design artifacts

In my current team, we have taken this model of a highly interactive and iterative design phase to an even higher level—letting the UX design artifacts replace the requirements documents altogether. Part of our push has been the need to accommodate our development methodology of SCRUM. SCRUM is an Agile development process which emphasizes minimum design documents and which values “learn as you go” as opposed to “If we think long and hard enough ahead of time, we will anticipate everything and will build the optimal solution.”

Our primary UX design documents that we use to define requirements are Scenarios and Wireframes. Essentially, our scenarios are two-act plays. We label Act I “Problem” and Act II “Solution.” The Problem section can be as short as one sentence or as long as several paragraphs, depending on the complexity of the requirements scope. Problem sections can reflect the shortcomings of an existing process, functionality that is missing from a current offering, or can capture complaints we have received about our current product’s performance.

What is important is that they establish the context in which the required function will add value for the customer. It is often an early warning if we have difficulty positioning a requested feature within the context of a customer problem it would solve or alleviate.

The Solution section is a narrative that describes an alternative experience to the one described in the Problem section—one brought to a happy ending by the product feature to be built. It is not a detailed specification, but rather a loose contract between the product manager and the developers about how the solution will look and act—in the context of an authentic user situation.

We often supplement the narrative text with low-fidelity wireframes. We use Balsamiq Mockups because it renders a hand-drawn look which reminds everyone that this is essentially a conceptual piece. For example, a rough drawing of a calendar date selector tells the stakeholders there will be an easy way for the user to enter a date; it tells the developer to insert the appropriate date selector widget from our approved widget library.

These low-fidelity mockups have the advantage of being quicker to produce than prototypes, but they are not as useful for usability testing. And that illustrates another shift from my role as usability tester to UX designer. The focus at the front end of the project is less about “Would this be usable?” and more about “Would this be useful?”

For example, in the early stages of setting requirements for a new report, I am more interested in capturing what information a user would need to see in that report and how the user would want to manipulate the data, e.g, learning which attributes users would want to filter by. It is later in the development phase that I shift my emphasis more to how intuitive and usable are the widgets and the UI in letting the user run, schedule, and manipulate the report.

Starting the good fights

The combination of the narrative of the scenario and the rendering of the wireframe gives us an artifact that we can put in front of users and stakeholders and ask “Would this have value, is this what you want?” We can also put it in front of developers and ask “Can we build this and for how much?”

And that’s when the “good fights” begin. My experience has been that stakeholders and developers can think they are in agreement over traditional requirements and specs when they really aren’t. The combination of a scenario and one or two supporting wireframes, however, surfaces any disagreements quickly and in concrete terms that can be resolved. These new artifacts become a Lingua Franca, i.e.,“…a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.” (1)

The following is a screenshot from our wiki page where we post our scenarios, and it shows an illustrative example of a scenario and wireframe. Stakeholders have access to these pages and can “follow” them to be notified any time we update them as well as comment directly on them.

Conclusion

My journey in user experience has led me from being involved at the end of the development cycle and asking “Is this usable?” to being at the very front end of the process helping to define requirements around “Is this useful to a customer?” “Could we sell it if we had it?” and “Can we affordably build it?” One of the biggest differences this has made is on the impact that UX has on the business: We are major players in setting strategy that influences product profitability.

The engineering manager who hired me into my current UX position defined engineering productivity as “revenue divided by the number of engineers.” And he continually warned us against getting overly involved in development projects that could not show a positive impact on revenue.

So by all means, keep your usability “chops,” but use them in a supporting role as you pursue the real prize, namely, defining products customers will want to use, the business can sell, and engineering can build economically.

References

(1) Viacheslav A.C., The problem of the Caucasian Sprachbund in Pieter Muysken, ed., From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics, 2008, p. 31. ISBN 90-272-3100-1

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Have a better look at these discoveries on the Lovely Discoveries List #12 on Usabilla Discover. Request an invite if you are interested in building a library of design elements with rating and sharing options.

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In the following, I’m going to discuss how the look & feel of a website affects the way we perceive it and what we feel just by looking at it. Visual aspects like layout, typography, images, or colors can make your website appealing, authentic, credible, entertaining, and much more.

If you are creative, don’t be afraid to show it

Important for any webdesign is that it matches the purpose of the site, or the nature of the product it tries to sell. While I can think of many occasions, where I’d prefer a clean and unobtrusive website, sometimes a crazy and out-of-the ordinary design is just what makes your brand stand out. Creative companies, such as creative agencies are in the perfect position to add some extravagance to their site.

Discovered by mva

Racket is an award winning art and design studio. Their website is very special and offers many eye-catchers. Despite the unusual design, the site is very authentic, which makes it trustworthy.

Discovered by nielsvantilborg

Webdesign be.com is a web design agency with a very unique design. The big, friendly-looking octopus on their landing page is nothing you would expect on a website, right? Still, the first impression I got was not at all confusion or strangeness, rather it made me smile and I was startled by their creativity. I just have to trust people who come up with a multitasking octopus on their site and then have the skills to make it look that beautiful.

Discovered by usabilla

The design studio corvus have a plain beautiful website. They also mention that they have award-winning websites in their portfolio, but only by looking at their own design, I don’t even need that quote. The colors, the shapes, the simplicity of the layout, everything about their design just draws me in and makes me want to have a website just like that.

Making an official impression

Of course, there are websites that are better off with a serious and trustworthy design. A clean layout, clear structure, and fresh, cool colors indicate trust and quality. Many corporate companies, but also banks and insurance firms choose for an official look of their site. And they do so with reason. At least I expect services that concern my health or my money to be serious and down-to-earth.

Discovered by usabilla

Despite the enormous amount of information on the website of the wealth manager Barclays, their design looks very clean and structured. Everything about this website looks trustworthy and appealing; the logo, the colors, the way they structure and present their content, the buttons that prove conformity with W3C, and so on.

Discovered by dehaancreative

Peugeot, not a bank, but also a company that comes into the picture when we are about to spend quite some money on a new car. They seem to have adapted the exact same characteristics for their website as the Barclay website. The colors and the clean design actually help me trust Peugeot as brand.

Discovered by kovah

Also design agencies use the impact of a cool color scheme for their advantage. Quazar websdesign have a beautiful website with lots of innovative extras and animations. Yet, the design feels very calming and trustworthy.

Specific topics require a specific design

if you have a website that specializes on one specific topic, don’t hesitate to focus your design on that topic. Most important for the look & feel of your website is that it is appropriate. For example by focusing your design on your central product, your audience, or even an event temporary in nature, you meet your users expectations and gain credibility.

Discovered by tomasandjones

The Sketchbook Project use a very nice, vintage style for their design. The scratched and blurry look perfectly matches my idea of a sketchbook. I think they did a great job drawing me in and making me trust them to be authentic.

Discovered by usabilla

Gnosh is a great simple site, which is all about gourmet dips. The design is very eye-catching and inviting. The images just look delicious and there is definitely something artistic to the overall impression. This combination of delicious and creative just has to result in the most gourmet dips I’ve ever tried.

Discovered by ted

The Festival Mundo website is another example of how to match the design to the purpose of your site. Many different colors, the wild shapes, and a girl flying around in space are not the usual design elements you find on a website. Still, for this specific purpose, it works great and conveys a very vivid atmosphere of the festival.

Why not add some fun

A website can also be fun. Sure, you should be careful when offering funeral services or anything similarly delicate, but if the context allows it, feel free to add some humor to your site. For example funny visuals can really break the ice and help you to bond with your users. After all, we all love it to get entertained, right?

Discovered by mva

Foodspotting is a very handy app to help you find yummie dishes in your area. It’s all about food, as you might be able to guess by looking at their beautiful footer design. The colors and the way it smoothly integrates with the rest of the site really makes me like them. I trust that their app would lead me to excellent places to eat.

Discovered by paul

The online portfolio site carbonmade has a very unique design. If you haven’t seen it before, take a minute and click around some of the pages. I love the funny and personal way how they present their product.

Discovered by usabilla

Last but not least, there is Heineken. Surely you are familiar with the humor they use to advertise their products. On their website, they show lots of images from commercials to create the same kind of laid-back and playful atmosphere and remind people of Heineken’s entertaining nature.

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In this article, I will briefly introduce the concept behind Sinus Milieus and then guide you through 5 steps towards effective emotional marketing. If you are in a position where you need to reach people, I really recommend you to read on.

Sinus Milieus: Bring your target group to life

Distribution of Sinus Milieus in the US by their social status and basic values.

Once you know someone’s values and attitudes towards life, you will be able to come up with the emotions that you need to invoke to get through to them. Sinus Milieus offer a great way to get familiar with your target group and find out what moves potential customers. They refer to target groups of like-minded people in a society, identifying human beings in a specific environment with very specific characteristics.

The concept has been developed by the Sinus Institute Heidelberg, Germany, and is based on very thorough scientific research. The institute has been concerned with the everyday lives of people, sociocultural change, the condition of society, and the application of Sinus research in connection with trends, target groups and brands for more than 30 years. So far the concept has been adapted to 18 countries worldwide.

Besides national Sinus Milieus, Sinus Meta Milieus describe target groups across country borders. For a growing global industry, this helps to identify and understand international consumers.

Step 1: Define your target group

As a marketer, you are most likely familiar with this first step. Before getting started on any marketing effort, it is essential to know your target. There are different ways to define your target group, most of them based on basic market research. Sinus Milieus, as introduced above, are one way to position your target group within a given framework. Depending on their social status and their basic values, your target group can be assigned to one or more of the defined Sinus Milieus.

Step 2: What makes your target group tick?

After you know the social status and basic values of your target group, Sinus Milieus help you to actually get to know the people. Every milieu is characterized based on thorough user research, which turns your target group into real people. In the US, Sinus Milieus can be grouped together into three categories; the ‘high social status’ milieus, the mainstream milieus, and the social underclass. Let’s have a brief look at all three of them.

‘High Social Status’ milieus

Sinus Milieus in the US with high social status.

Sovereigns.The Sovereigns have a high social status and they have both traditional and modern values. They are successful and at the same time aware of the responsibilities that come with their success. They reach for leadership and appreciate this secluded position.
Liberal Progressives. The Liberal Progressives can have either a high or middle social status, and their values are almost exclusively modern in a sense of consumer hedonism and post materialism. They are fundamentally liberal, sophisticated, and well-educated with a broad intellectual interest. Furthermore, they strive for self-determination and believe that they can shape their own lives.
Adaptive Achievers. The Adaptive Achievers can also be found in the high and middle social status, while they have modern values in a sense of a virtual society. They are flexible top performers with a high focus on efficiency. They are interested in global affairs and experts of the new media and information technologies. Besides, they like to experiment and push boundaries of what is accepted.

Mainstream milieus

Sinus Milieus in the US with average social status.

Old Guard. The Old Guards include all social statuses with traditional values. They love solid structures and order in their lives. They stick to what they know and what has proven to work, and would rather not come into contact with anything new or unfamiliar.
Modern Middle America. Modern Middle Americans either have a middle or low social status and modern values in a sense of consumer hedonism and post materialism. They are the modern mainstream with the ambition to establish themselves at a higher professional and social level. In order to live a secure and harmonious life, they don’t mind adapting to others.
Mavericks. The Mavericks form the ambitious young core of society. They can either have a middle or a low social status, and their values are modern reaching from consumer hedonism and post materialism to a virtual society. They see life with a pragmatic point of view, and they are flexible and prepared for challenges. They are willing to make compromises for success and security.

Social underclass

Sinus Milieus in the US with low social status

Materialists. The Materialists represent the lower class of society that is searching for orientation and social inclusion. They feel rejected by society and anxious about their future. They try to keep up with the consumer behavior of the middle class to compensate their social inferiority. As reaction to the social exclusion and their small chance of social advancement, they withdraw into their own, separate social environment.
Disenfranchised. The Disenfranchised are the modern lower class of society with mostly modern values in a sense of consumer hedonism and post materialism. With their fun and experience-driven performance, they challenge the conventions and expectations that are imposed upon them by society. They live in the here and now and refuse to take life too seriously.

Step 3: What appeals to your customers?

Based on the different Sinus Milieus, you can learn what makes your target group tick. What do they think and feel? What are their core values? And what is their attitude towards central aspects of life? Now it’s time to be creative. With the information you have, try to define concepts that appeal to your target group.

There is no universal guide to the right emotional concept, and of course, you should not lose sight of your product. The context of your marketing campaign influences the suitability of the emotions you use. To help you get started, here are a couple of concepts that I came up with for the different Sinus Milieus.

Sovereigns: exclusivity, luxury, quality, leadership, solitude, contentment, reliability
Liberal Progressives: expertise, success, equality, fairness, personal fulfilment, higher education.
Adaptive Achievers: success, performance, achievement, ambition, spontaneity, technology, the media
Old Guards: routines, familiarity, security, reliability, honesty, accuracy
Modern Middle American: possibilities, chances, ambition, social advancement, security, harmony
Mavericks: independence, innovation, challenge, change, quality, security
Materialists: a sense of belonging, security, self-confidence, conformity, popularity, trends
Disfranchised: fun, extravagance, provocation, individualism, otherness

Step 4: Implement your findings

Once you have a set of concepts that you believe appeal to your target group, go ahead and implement them in your marketing campaign. This can be an ad, a website, a workshop, or anything on your usual marketing schedule. For inspiration, you can always look at the wording and design of other marketing efforts that target the same people.

In order to reach your target group, it must be on the top of your mind the whole time. You have to make your campaign appeal to the right people in order to get their attention, their interest, awaken their desire, and motivate them to take action. Only then, you can effectively communicate your message.

Step 5: Test your campaign

Despite the best user research and theoretical base, there is still a fair chance of getting it wrong. To avoid this and the ultimate failure of your marketing campaign, make sure you test your concept.

You can, for example, invite prospective customers to user tests and ask them in person what they think of your concept. A less expensive alternative is to invite your customers to remote user tests. There are arguments for and against both methods and you can just choose the one that best suits your project.

You should also do several rounds of testing and start as early as possible. As soon as you have defined appealing concepts that you are planning on using in your campaign, you should do the first round of testing. If you find out that you have chosen the wrong concepts, after you have already implemented them, you will face not only angry colleagues, but also great costs and possible a big time delay.

Conclusion

Most of the times, effective marketing is very emotional. Successful campaigns work with concepts that appeal to their target group. With five simple steps, your next campaign can be a success, too. Start with defining your target group. With the help of Sinus Milieus, you can turn a general target group into real people and understand what makes them tick. This insight will help you to come up with appealing concepts and to create an emotional campaign that reaches and moves just the right people. With repetitive user testing, you can make sure you’ve got it right before spending both time and money on a concept that might not work.

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Have a better look at these discoveries on the Lovely Discoveries List #11 on Usabilla Discover. Request an invite if you are interested in building a library of design elements with rating and sharing options.

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Quotes like the one above can make a big difference when it comes to how trustworthy users perceive your website. The text shows that the people behind pulpfingers.com are not only truly interested in what their users have to say, also their tone of voice is very human and authentic.

That web credibility is important for any business is not a secret. We find plenty of sources for that, not only on our own blog, but also on the site of Stanford Web Credibility Research, or in other articles on the topic, like published recently on UX Booth.

Let’s not get into the why again. Instead, let’s have a look at how you can boost your web credibility through personality. I created a list of discoveries that show how you can build trust, simply by pointing out that you are a real organization with real people, who are easy to contact.

1. Show that your organization is real

I don’t know about you, but I still like it to go to a store, rather than buy stuff online. I love it to walk around and get distracted by thousand of products, before I find what I’m looking for. I want to take things into my hand before I buy them, as if I could feel their quality with my hands, or in a matter of fact the lack of the same. I also look at the store itself to help me with my buying decision; if the store is messy and not organized very well, I prefer to go somewhere else. At the end, it all comes down to a matter of trust. The multi-level experience that I have in an offline store helps me decide whether or not it is a trustworthy buying environment.

On the Web, all of this becomes much more difficult. Sure, it’s easier to buy something by just a few mouse clicks and for example product comparison can even be more convenient online. Still, your clients are missing out on a lot of the experience they might appreciate about a real store. This is why it is important to show that you are a real organization. Let your visitors feel that you are not made up and that in case they really want to complain about something, they could come by and do so. Here are three examples how you can help your users to experience your organization.

Be authentic

Discovered by usabilla.

A very important aspect about your credibility is your authenticity. There are plenty of little companies and one-man businesses who believe they are taken more seriously if they pretend to be more of a big corporation. If you are alone, why not just say so and therefore be yourself. By pretending to be bigger than you really are, you only get yourself into trouble and lose your credibility. The interaction designer Jarad Johnson boldly claims who he is, which really makes me trust him. One guy with that much self confidence, he’s got to be a genius.

Offer a physical address

Discovered by usabilla.

Offer a physical address on your site, if possible. Don’t worry, chances are little that anyone will actually come by, but at least you offer your users the possibility to do so. For people like me, this is very important. At least then I can take a look at google street view and get a vague impression of who I’m dealing with. Also knowing that I could send a letter for whatever reason makes me a happy client. I could send you a postcard because I really like you, or if I don’t like you, I could send you a threatening note. Not that I would ever do that, but just knowing that I could makes me trust you. I love it how they phrase it on oliverrussel.com: “Need some physical contact?” Sounds like they are already expecting a postcard from me, doesn’t it?

Show what your place looks like

Discovered by nilsvantilborg.

Also a great way to give your users some realy store experience is to give them an impression of how your place looks like. By proving to your users that your organization really exists, they will be more willing to trust that you. For example, I love it how ‘t Raadhuis van Goudriaan put their restaurant as eye catcher on the front page. Sure, this image is perfectly photoshopped, but who says you are not allowed to cheat a little bit? If it is only half as romantic in real, I’d still love to go there for a nice dinner.

2. Be open about who you are

Being in a store not only gives me an impression of the physical place, but also of the people who work there. I can ask any question I want and if the salespeople are likable I can even chat with them a little. Usually it only takes me a couple of minutes to figure out if I can trust someone, which greatly helps to judge their expertise and credibility.

Again, online this is more tricky. Salespeople with expertise are just as important and if I buy stuff online doesn’t mean I have less questions or need less information to make a decision. By showing that your organization is run by real people and that these people are authentic and trustworthy, you can make your users feel more comfortable on your site. Here are some examples of how to show that your team is real and trustworthy.

Introduce your team as real people

Discovered by jules.

By showing a picture of your team you can proof that you and your team are real people. Match the setup of the picture to your company. For example, you can let your team be more casual if you are a creative agency. However, especially for bigger companies or corporations, an out of the ordinary team picture can be very likable. Pictures tell us a lot about people. If you can’t decide how to present your team, just let everyone choose for themselves. They probably know best how they want others to see them. FancyRhino does a great job, I think. They present themselves as very likable and harmonic group of individuals.

Point out your expertise

Discovered by usabilla.

Also, you can point out your expertise in order to make people trust you. On the Web, it is very important to keep in mind that your users can only see what you show them. There is no body language that gives away if you feel confident, and there is no facial expression to tell how certain you are about what you say. Give away enough information about what you do and what you are good at to make people believe you. On pursuityourself.com, I think they make perfect use of the context of their site to position themselves as experts whom I can trust.

3. Make it easy to contact you

Obviously, the World Wide Web is worldwide. No matter what we are looking for, we can easily end up somewhere on the other side of the globe. While chances, that someone will actually stop by to say “Hi” are quite small, people still want to reach out to you. They want to ask questions and tell you their opinion. Promote your contact information somewhere very easy to find. Here are some examples of how you can invite people to get in touch.

Show who is behind your support

Discovered by patashe.

Not only offer support, but actually show who’s on the other end of the line. Speaking for myself, I prefer to get into touch with people I already know. Consider pictures of your support team a first introduction. Targetprocess give me a great impression of who I’d be contacting. It even seems like they give me the choice not only between different channels of communication, but also between their support people.

Offer easy to use contact options

Discovered by mva.

We are all different and that’s why we all prefer different means of communication. While some of us love to talk on the phone, others prefer chat, or even email as it gives them more time to think through their questions. Ideally, you consider all of these preferences and offer multiple ways to contact you. For example, pulpfingers offer different contact options, such as a contact form, email address, or social media buttons. Besides, their tone of voice is very personal and inviting.

Discovered by usabilla.

Of course I have to mention Balsamiq here as well. Their whole marketing strategy is really down to earth and very personal. I wouldn’t feel any hesitation to get in touch in case I needed to. They also offer very different channels to contact them and also personal contact details for every member of their team.

Discovered by frederic.

If you want to contact Jarad Johnson. Why not send him a postcard. His contact form pulls up from the bottom of the page once you click on Send me a message, I promise I’ll response and it is designed like an antique postcard. Also he offers many other ways to get in touch with him.

Be active on social media

Discovered by mva.

Being on social media has almost become a must have for any company. As social media is all about interacting with others and sharing stuff, it’s not a surprise that people use these channels to contact you. Not being active on social media can disappoint your users if that’s the way they have chosen to get in contact. At the same time, it works the other way around. For example on facebook and twitter, people are very communicative, which forms a perfect base to get them involved in a conversation. NDTV nicely integrate social media buttons on their site. They don’t use standard buttons, but a beautiful and very personal design, which I think is very authentic and trustworthy.

Discovered by claudio.

Also issuu give their Twitter button a personal twist. The handwritten correction changing ME into US gives me the impression that they really put some thought into this. This little detail really invites me to follow them as it gives me the impression that they are active on twitter.

Discovered by usabilla.

Last but not least, TechChrunch has a nice way to promote their social media buttons and contact options with the quote CRUNCH WITH US. This creates an instant feeling of being part of the Tech Crunch community and invites me to get in contact with them.

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In 2004 and in 2005, Neville Stanton wrote two books with 200 methods and tools for Human Factors. In 2010, Chauncey Wilson added another 100 specific for user-centred design (UCD). In addition to books like these, people started to collect methods online. I found a lot of them, some better than others. However, it seems that no one really uses these collections, or even knows about them.

With the rapid development of the UCD field (in which digital tools like Usabilla have been developed) added up to these three books, we currently might have about 400 methods to our disposal. However, many practitioners told me that they use about four to six methods, tools and/or techniques in their UCD projects (which I all refer to as methods in this article). They tailor them to match the needs of various projects that they’re involved in. However, some practitioners said that they don’t always feel confident with the way they used a method. Especially when the method was adjusted so much that it didn’t even look like the original thing.

A gap?

Why is this interesting? First of all, the method that is used to conduct user research influences the type of outcomes the research yields. Second, prescribing methods may lead to a situation where a team does not apply the right method, which can easily lead to bad design decisions. In addition, using an appropriate method inappropriately could be a death sentence for your project as well.

Most methods are developed in academics, where the most used route for dissemination is via conferences and papers. Academics read or hear from other academics and might teach that to their students, who eventually go to practice. This process can take about five years, by which the landscape of the field has already entirely changed. So, it certainly wouldn’t hurt us if we, practitioners, take a look at them ourselves, but why aren’t we? I studied this and I found out that many methods hardly reach practice because:

1. There is an increased pressure on the development activities in projects, leaving little to no time to search for and select an appropriate (new) method;
2. Some practitioners think that they’re doing just fine with the six they already use;
3. Many methods disappear in papers, articles, theses and personal websites. You either have to stumble upon them or already know their names;
4. The information about methods is either too extensive or only gives a short introduction;
5. Content is often text-only and lacks a practitioner-oriented approach by not including guidelines for optimization and execution;
6. Most (online) collections were created within a project. When the project ended (or funding, for that matter), the information froze. The website and its content got outdated.

My cry

There is a huge potential benefit to know about a broader set of methods. This is especially the case when you want to know more specific things like how attracted users are to your product in comparison to the ones of your competitors. In this example, cultural probes could be an interesting way to go, but an AttrakDiff questionnaire might give much faster and accurate results. However, you’ll never use that method because you haven’t heard of it (or have you?)

I believe that the current lack of dissemination hinders the development of better products and therefore the development of the field. So why don’t you figure out which other methods you could use in your next project? For starters, take a little time to check out these nine practical collections to find a method that suits your project. Some of these online collections provide selection possibilities that you can already use in your search for a better method:

• Usability Planner A more sophisticated algorithm that takes into account resources and project phases when calculating the best methods for you;
• UsabilityNet Methods Table uses checkboxes for limited time/resources, direct user access and skills/expertise for selecting between 35 methods;
• The Methods Lab provides an overview of input (budget, time, staffing and expertise) and output for each of the 16 methods;
• UCD-Methods wiki and a selection poster (nice printout for on your wall!) with a very detailed categorization of 42 methods.

I encourage you to use multiple sources in your search, as the level of selection and detail varies a lot among the current online collections. In the meantime, I will try to make selecting one of the 400 methods a little easier for you. I started a company that makes it possible to filter all methods based on your knowledge about a situation, like What product are you creating? and What do you want to achieve? Check out the development of the project at www.ucdtoolbox.com and join our LinkedIN discussion group to discuss how we could help you in finding a better method.

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Have a better look at these discoveries on the Lovely Discoveries List #10 on Usabilla Discover. Request an invite if you are interested in building a library of design elements with rating and sharing options.

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