Persuasive Design

I’ve written plenty of blogs about website/web page conversion, the importance of website conversion, what to do and what not to do.

My blogs have either been high level, or have looked at a single factor around website conversion, such as shopping cart abandonment.

Trying to cover the entire topic of ‘website conversion’ would take two-ring binders and then some.

One topic I haven’t written much about is the concept of persuasive design, in itself  a broad topic covering user emotions and psychology, experiential design, visual design, content and testing.

It is one of the more interesting aspects of website conversion because it is one of those areas, where despite what you think you know, there is just so much more to be learnt. Often through responding to testing and analytics.

For some time, experts have attempted – often successfully – to apply science to persuasive design. For instance, an equation I hold roughly true:

Conversion = Incentive + Motivation +  Value – (Anxiety + Friction)

Understanding and analysing how this science is applied can be a little hard if it is not your everyday job.

This blog analysing booking.com is not a bad read.

I don’t necessary agree that booking.com is the greatest example of how a website should convert users at all stages and the design could certainly be more streamlined; instead, it is a reflection of how these hotel booking websites constantly add to themselves as they copy their competitors on a nearly daily basis.

This said, booking.com it does tick some big boxes and it has a good level of content; content builds trust.

If you do read the blog, have a read of the comments as well. Some interesting observations and thoughts there to.