What Makes Buyers Click?

Websites can be powerful magnets for attracting buyers and growing revenue – or giant sinkholes for money and lost business opportunities.

OPINIONS DON’T CLICK

Everyone in business has a stake in productive “clicks.” From marketing, to sales, pre-sales, engineering, customer service. Everyone. But not just clicks. Meaningful clicks. Website clicks that generate new leads, sales, relationships, donations, etc. However …

Everyone has an opinion on what makes a great website that produces high-volume profitable clicks.

A different opinion that is.

Content. Design. Ease of use. Audio, video, anything that looks pretty. But are there underlying hidden factors that motivate people to click and buy products online? Or to register for webinars – or do anything that opens the door between you and the person on the other side of the click to trust you enough to start a relationship? And is there any new scientific evidence and research that can help you create or fine-tune your current website to make it click?
“Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click?,” is a new book by Susan M. Weinschenk, Ph.D. that digs into the motivation, decision-making and neuroscience of website design.

“While you’re reading Neuro Web Design, you’ll probably find yourself thinking “I already knew that…” a lot. But when you’re finished, you’ll discover that your ability to create effective websites has mysteriously improved. A brilliant idea for a book, and very nicely done.”

- Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Dr. Weinschenk reveals the latest research and information on the unconscious reasons people “click” or “don’t click” with websites in her new book. She took the time to talk about ‘What Makes Them Click?,” with us in an interview for Expert Access.

INTERVIEW

Steve Kayser (S): Why did you write “Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click?”

Dr. Weinschenk: (Dr. W): I am a psychologist by training (Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology), and my 30 year career has been applying psychology to the design of technology (equipment, software, websites, etc), to make the technology fit the way people think and work. But the newest and most exciting research that I started reading about from the last 5 years or so has to do with the psychology of unconscious mental processes. I had always studied CONSCIOUS processing, for example, how do we remember, or what we remember, how we organize information, basically, how we think about things. When I started reading about UNCONSCIOUS processing I was fascinated.

The new research is showing that most of information is processed below the surface of conscious thought, and that most decision-making is unconscious. I began to wonder what this would mean for behavior online. If most of our thought processing, information processing, and decision-making is happening unconsciously, then how should we be designing websites if we want to engage people and persaude them to take a certain action? I was also interested in explaining to people why it is that they find some websites engaging and others not.

S: What’s the biggest surprise you came across when writing your book?

Dr. W: There were many surprises, but the one that is probably the most significant for me is how much we are affected by triggers around us and we don’t even realize that we are being affected. I love John Bargh’s research where he asked people to unscramble sentences where the words had been moved around. Some of the people got sentences with words like “energetic” and “young.” Others got sentences with words like, “retired” and “Florida.” Then he had people walk down the hall to find the experimenter. People who had been unscrambling sentences with the retired and florida words in them actually walked slower! But when he asked them if they thought they were walking slower, or if the words had influenced him they were very puzzled.

We are very influenced by certain triggers and factors and we are totally unaware that we are. When confronted with our actions we will then “make up” reasons why we do what we do, and we are totally convinced that is why we did them, but we actually have no idea.

S: What’s been the biggest resistance you’ve encountered to your approach?

PURPOSEFUL PERSUASION VS PURPOSEFUL PREVARICATIONS

Dr. W: Most audiences I’ve been speaking to are very interested, and not resistant. But some people are concerned that I am suggesting that you put certain words, or images on your website in order to “manipulate” people. That it is kind of evil to take steps to persuade people to take certain actions. My response is usually that of course I hope that people will make moral and ethical decisions when they are designing websites. But anything you put up on a website is going to influence people, so I’d rather you do that purposefully, instead of throwing up your hands and saying, “We might do something evil, so let’s not design anything”.

S: How can you apply the principles of persuasion to design websites that encourage users to click?

D. W: Well, I guess you have to read the book to find out! Basically you need to understand that people are making decisions unconsciously, and you have to figure out how to “talk to” the unconscious parts of the brain.

Pictures are very powerful, especially pictures of people, customer reviews and ratings are very important, but we look to what others are doing to act as a shortcut to decide what would be good for us to do.

Stories are very powerful because they activate empathy centers in our brain. These are just some examples.

S: Websites are now becoming less static and more dynamic because of social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter etc.) and social media – How do you think the social media/social networking websites might be leveraged better to “make them click?

Dr. W: Basically, people are “social animals.” Our biology is such that we are “programmed” to pay attention to what other people are doing. And we always are looking for ways to interact and be social. I have a chapter on this in the book. People will always look for ways to use technology to be more social. So if you can use social media to

a) Allow people to communicate with each other, and

b) Let people see what other people are doing and thinking,

you will automatically be more persuasive.

TRI-BRAINAL TRIBUNAL

S: What’s the most important message you want to get across with “What Makes Them Click?”

Dr. W: If I had to pick one message to get across, it would be the topic I talk about in the first chapter of the book: We don’t really have one brain, we have 3 different brains.

The “new” brain is the one we are most used to thinking about because it’s where our conscious thoughts are, but most processing and decision-making goes on in the “mid” or “emotional” brain and the “old” brain. The mid brain processes feelings and …  the old brain is constantly scanning the environment and asking, “Can I eat it? Can I have sex with it? Will it kill me?” If you are going to design a website that is engaging and persuasive, then you have to talk to all 3 brains.

S: Thanks Dr. Weinschenk.

Dr. W: You’re welcome.

For additional information on “Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click?” view the five minute overview presentation below.

Dr. Weinschenk is also the Chief of UX Strategy at Americas at Human Factors International and can be contacted via email at weinschenk@gmail.com or catch up with her on Twitter at Http://www.twitter.com/thebrainlady

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