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STAGES OF COMMITMENT

It has been shown that once people make a small commitment of their own free will they are far more willing to make a bigger subsequent commitment.  This is even more true when that commitment was made in the presence of other people.

A web site should build steps of commitment from it's visitors.  These should start small and build into bigger commitments.  For example, the first commitment could be that of visitor responding to a poll or selecting preferences in a dropdown menu.  The next comittment could be the submission of their email address.  This could then be followed by them signing up for an account and then submitting some content either on a message board or uploading an image.  The final commitment could then be a subscription or purchase or an item.  Each step builds up the level of commitment through their own free will.

HEATMAPS 

A heatmap is a representation of a web page that identifies where a viewer's attention is being directed to.   They are created either by monitoring the viewer's movements using a computer mouse or by using an eyeball tracking device to follow what their eyes are focused upon.

Experiments have shown that people direct more of their attention to text than they do to images and they tend to read a web page in an "F" shaped pattern.  As a result the conclusion has been made that text is more important than images and that text content should be laid out in an "F" shape.  There a few issues with these conclusions.

The first issue is the belief that people pay more attention to text than images.  It is no doubt true that people spend more time looking at text than at images.  But I do not believe it is true that people take more account of text than images.  The reason is that we are animals that evolved over millions of years to process images of the world around us.  As a result of this evolution our brains are capable of processing images at fantastically fast speeds.  It is said a painting is worth a thousand words.  This is probably true because we can absorb the content in a painting in milliseconds.  Words on the other hand are symbols.  We have not evolved to process symbols as quickly as images.  As a result it takes our brains a little longer to process all of the symbols in a passage of text and this extra time is reflected in the heatmap experiments.  In both cases however, whether it be images or text, it takes much much longer for us to form an interpretation of what we see or read.

The second issue with heatmaps is the assumption that we read in an "F" pattern.  This is probably true if we are English readers since we have been taught to read text in books in a left to right direction.  The same may not be true of people who read other languages in a right to left or top down direction.  Their experience of web site text layouts may be the opposite of ours.

JUSTIFICATIONS

When we purchase an item we are presented with numerous features and facts about the item including the price, their dimensions, the color, the model number, the materials they are made from and a whole variety of other characteristics and features.  None of these are the reason why we purchase these goods.

People purchase things because they emotionally desire the items not because they logically need them.  The things they purchase exist within the culture to which they belong and raise their comfort levels.  This is what drives a person's desire.  The benefits a product offers are the benefits of desire not the benefits from logical reasoning.  For example, millions buy suntan lotion to prevent the rays of the sun from damaging their skin.  If protecting their skin was their primary desire they would sit in the shade, not in the full blaze of the sun.  But they belong to the culture of the beach so they purchase suntan lotion when logically they have no need for it.

All of the features and characteristics of the product are justifications for purchasing it.  They are the reasons a person would give if they had to explain to another person why they made the purchase.  They are in effect, excuses for the purchase.  They hide the truth behind the purchase.

When displaying a product to sell on a web site you should display it in two ways.  The first is directed towards meeting the visitor's true desires.  The second is a list of justifications for making the purchase. 

STATEMENT OF CONFIDENCE

People are less likely to doubt you if you behave in a confident manner.

The claims and statements made on a web page should be made with confidence.  They should express that you believe in what you say.  If you include too many further statements to support your claims then people will instinctively question your confidence.  Showing people genuine evidence for your beliefs does justify your confidence.

For example, "I have no doubt I am the best motorist in the world."  I sound confident in my ability.  I am not questioning it.  I then say "I believe I am the best because I have studied driving from an early age and I have never had an accident."  I am now reducing my level of confidence in my driving ability by attempting to justify my claim.  I then say "View the 2009 Formula 1 Grand Prix in Spain to see me drive."  This is not a justification, it is real evidence of my driving ability.   The viewer is free to come to their own judgement.

Confidence makes people believe in you.  A web site should express confidence in itself with confident, but believable, statements.  How much stronger is the web page title "We Sell The Best Range Widgets On The Web" than "We Sell A Wide Range Of Widgets".

CULTURAL SIGNALS

People participate in the cultures which they believe they belong to.  Teenagers participate in their music and fashion cultures, capitalist traders participate in the Wall Street culture, environmentalists participate in the cultures offered by GreenPeace and organic farming, sun worshippers participate in the sun tanning beach culture .  There are an endless number of examples.

Once someone has convinced themselves that they belong to the environment a culture offers them, they are willing to buy into it with both their money and their time.

A web site should offer a culture that people can belong to and participate in.  Far too many web sites offer a culture that nobody believes they belong to.  These sites are designed to represent the web site owner's culture, not the visitor's culture. 

When designing a web site think about which cultural elements you want to include on it.  These are signals that identify which culture the site is participating in.  Visitors will recognize those symbols.  These signals could be the use of certain phrases, images and context. 

USABILITY 

Historical web site usage issues are largely being eradicated by the implementation of W3C recommendations to web site design.  However take into account that most web pages are still being accessed using using Microsoft Explorer.  If the web page does not look reasonable or does not function in IE then the site is handicapping itself for 60% to 70% of web site traffic. 

View your browser statistics in your web traffic reports to be aware of which browsers and screen resolutions your visitors are using.  Test your site out using these browser and screen resolutions to find out what your visitors are experiencing.

The most important question regarding usability is "Do your visitors recognize the content?".  Do they recognize the terms you use in links?  Do they recognize where the menu is?  If they struggle to recognize these elements then no amount of fancy web design is going to persuade them to use these elements.

There is a strong belief in web design that content should be easy to access.  However, ease of access can suggest the content may be of little value.  Most content on the internet is easy to access and at the same time most of it is of considered to be of little real value.  Content of high value is held behind barriers.  That barrier may be an account login, submitting an email address, a subscription or single payment.  As with markets, it is the laws of demand and supply that dictates the value of the content, not how easy it is to access.  The best example of this is the downloading of music from peer to peer networks.  Not only has this devalued all recorded music but neither has it made the least popular music any more popular than it was before.

INVERSION  

Inversion is a technique that has been used throughout history to disguise the unpopular into something that is popular.  Think of it as displaying the negative image of a photograph  rather than the original.

For example, would you like a mouse running around in your bedroom?  I mean a real mouse with fur, four feet and a tail.  Probably not.  If you have ever visited the Back To The Future show at the Universal Studios theme park in Florida you will see the dramatic effect that artificially created mice can have on a thousand women as they scream for their life.  But Walt Disney have made a fortune by inverting the characteristics of a mouse.  By making a mouse talk like a human, by removing his mouse like behavior of foraging for food, breeding and hidding in nooks and crannies, they created a character in Mickey Mouse that has appealed to generations of children. 

Similarly before Star Wars was released most science fiction movies were serious affairs based upon the impact of space technology and alien cultures on our lives in movies such as 2001.  But Star Wars inverted this image in many ways by creating a Robin Hood story in a space movie.  The cultures of medieval Europe and Asia were incorporated into the use of space technology.  A Star Trooper is really a medieval foot soldier armed with a laser gun instead of a crossbow.  ET is the negative image of the traditional human devouring aliens of the 1950's.

If your web site is based around a subject that is rather boring and unappealing then take the items and the culture it represents and try inverting its characteristics to see what you find. 

FRIEND IDENTIFICATION

People are attracted to places where their friends and family reside.  This is what has given social networking such explosive growth.  Friends can be people, celebrities, animals, beliefs, values and most importantly, inanimate objects.

Use symbols and images that you believe your visitor's will recognize as friends.  These images can be as common place as an image of a tree or a computer mouse.  People will recognize them as friends and will be more willing to spend time where their friends are shown to exist.

The opposite may also be true by showing symbols and images of enemies.  When we see an enemy we tend to be transfixed upon them to ensure we know where they are. 

SIGNS OF AUTHORITY

In the behavior section it was explained that people abdicate their responsibility for making their own decisions to authority and authority figures.  This behavior can be taken advantage of when presenting web content.

Using symbols of authority such as logos of respected associations and organizations can raise people's acceptance of the rest of the claims made on a web page.  This also applies to including links through to authoritative articles on a subject.  The web page borrows authority from other sources.

CONTRAST

If you look at this image provided by NASA you will see how contrast can trick us into believing one thing is very different to something else when in reality they are much the same.

A = B Contrast Image

Contrast does not have to be an image.  It often occurs with temperature changes when we believe the air is now colder or hotter than it was before when in fact it is the same.  We think it is different because it we have just come from another environment that was hotter or colder.

With a web site you can provide contrast with other web sites providing similar content.  You may have noticed that many well designed corporate web sites look much the same these days with the use of faded colors, rounded corners and similar fonts and menu layouts.  Though in isolation they look impressive there is little contrast between them and all of the other similar efficiently designed sites.  There is nothing to clearly identify them as having a separate identity.  Web site content should provide a clearly distinguishable contrast between it and all of it's competitors otherwise it will not be recognized as a separate service.