Do you have a conversion driver?

It surprises me that I still spend alot of time preaching to today's web-based companies how to align the company so the website is successful and profitable. At this point, I would say the vast majority of companies are still trying to find ways to move quickly to get their website to convert each day, but yet they are caught up in decision by committee.

Guess what? That almost never works. (can you think of a time when decision by committee was a swift path to great website decisions?)

Try this! Assign one person to be in charge of the decisions that drive the website. This person is the tie-breaker and the leader in ranking the companies project pipeline for the website. This person should be held accountable for how their decisions increase (or decrease!) the website's daily conversion. But the ability to move swiftly through iterative changes to the website by your new "conversion driver" will pay off. It just works!

RUDE TIP: Cancel your Cancel buttons.

Can we just admit for a moment that we still think Cancel buttons at the bottom of a form on a page are a good idea? It's just something we're "supposed to do," right?

But look at these statistics: .10% ( a fraction of 1 percent!) of users ever use this button you are giving them, so ultimately it is just a distraction for the user from the holy grail that is the "Submit" button.

Think about it: when was the last time you were filling out a form online, made a mistake, and used the cancel button to "clear" your errors. That's right you haven't! If we are really stressed over the errors we've made we'll just use the standard Browser back button or Refresh.

Don't be RUDE: never use a Cancel button! (If you really must, try a simple Cancel link, centered.)

Pretty? Please!

Your site's visual presentation has a much greater impact than just making your site "pretty." It helps to organize information for your users, provides an emotional impact, and directs your audience to the important elements they’ll use to achieve their goals.

Rude! Be very very wary of those that accidentally use the term "pretty" in place of "usability"..they are NOT on the side of usability. Probably just faking it....but how they will pay dearly!

Indeed it is usability that, when carefully executed, is solely responsible for the bottom line effectiveness of a website, and thus it's impact on the bottom line of the company.

Backdoor redesigns: YES!

One of the most dreaded buzz words in any company today is still "Site Redesign". As I have written before, most companies are still so fragmented that the thought of embarking on a site redesign is practically an expletive. Seriously! Its just assume that the project will be take longer than planned, go over budget, and be fraught with internal arguments.

Want to get serious about making a change on your website - today??!!? Do a backdoor redesign. A backdoor redesign is where you start organically (hopefully in order of largest potential impact), do some testing with some newly designed pages and find out what your new design and usability enhancements do to your conversion numbers.

Learn from your mistakes, learn from your success and show some progress all the way.
This will allow you get started sooner rather than later, and should help eliminate some useless internal "friction" that is so often associated with the Site Redesign.

It works!

Icon Abuse

one of the most glaring examples of how allowing a Technology Department drive the user interface can HURT your user experience is "icon abuse".

It's so easy to match a functionality with an icon - it's fun, even. If it's a "Save" task icon that's needed we all know the best thing to do is to choose a cute little diskette icon. yes, we get it, it's clever...blah blah blah. "see? a little diskette! see how cute that is?"

But what happens when icons run amuck? Given that a website is filled with such such tasks, my how easy it is to assign a little icon to each and every one!

But don't be rude. The best way to use icons is to use them sparingly so they "pop" more on the page and allow them to be "special" to the end user and allow them find them more easily.

ask yourself these questions:

- Is it possible to leave some of the tasks (gasp!) without an icon?
- Shouldn't the task itself as a hyperlink be enough to tell the user the point, rather than shoving an icon down it's throat?

BTW, here's a great example of a page that uses icons sparingly: http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

Try it next time!

more on how to allow icons to help, not hurt, your interface coming soon!

Underestimate Usability, and die!

It's true that usability has a spotty reputation. It seems so "fluffy", but yet it's so important to your website's success.

Good usability is a proper execution of marketing, design and technology. If you blow one of these 3, you have bad usability. You can count on it.

Most companies these days seem to have a fairly decent sense that they need "good usability," but yet so many are afraid to commit to executing toward it on a daily basis. Chicken or the egg, blah blah blah.

Usability is simply a matter of making your site/product - whatever it is - the best that it can be. than means you have to make it user friendly, slick, clean, easy to use, error-free, impactful.

You're absolutely not getting the best out of your website - revenue, activity, whatever the case may be - unless you are focused on Usability.

Bad Design can kill a good concept.

Problem: Have you ever came up with a great concept, maybe even sketched it out, only to have the version that comes back from Design to be WORSE than the original concept? It can and does happen.

Solution: "Three strikes, you're out!" Give the design team feedback, point out specific disconnects from the original plan. Most great work really does require several iterations - designers aren't mind-readers, nor do they typically think in terms of gaining conversions or achieving shrewd usability. If they don't have that type of experience, they just may need alot of feedback. (more on this)

But a word of advice: if the Design team isn't able to deliver an amazing page or site within 3 tries, they probably won't ever be up to snuff. Put them on your B (or C) list, and set your sights on finding someone who is a better fit to help drive your site conversions and usability.

Horizontal nav on Apple.com

love it! mark my words: we're about to see alot more of this.

Horizontal scrolling doesn’t often get this sort of prime time play since, as Jakob Nielsen puts it, users hate horizontal scrolling and “always” comment negatively when they encounter it. But since Jakob Nielsen's approach is increasingly becoming outdated, I certainly welcome this new concept.


While horizontal scrolling is unacceptable on the entire page level - this is a really smart example of how to do it on the micro level -- in this case the product module for all of iTunes instantly recognizable line of key prodcuts:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/