Summary

E-merchants are no longer simply willing to make their browsing experience pleasant and intuitive, but also to maximise its efficiency. To increase the performance of a website’s interface, science gives us 8 criteria on which to act.

How to stimulate user behavior to increase conversion?

To engage and convert customers, several messages need to be passed. Some of these messages can be carried by the interface itself, thanks to what is called persuasive design. This practice helps designers apply psychology to design more effective, more fun, and more engaging interactions.

In an article outlining guidelines for persuasive interfaces, Némery & Brangier (2014) highlight eight criteria that impact persuasion. These criteria are credibility, privacy, personalization, attractiveness, solicitation, priming, commitment, and ascendancy. These criteria, summarised in the table hereunder, are developed in this article.

Credibility

Building trust is a huge challenge for e-merchants. Many online visitors are still reluctant to trust e-commerce sites. Consumers will not buy from an online store if they do not feel safe and secure.

Credibility is based on several criteria such as the company’s reputation, reliability, expertise, and legitimacy.

For example, to gain the trust of users, companies post their customer references on their websites. The notoriety of customers helps gain credibility.

Privacy

Privacy ensures that the personal information collected is protected. Customers are concerned about how companies collect and use their personal information. To cultivate user trust, companies must make data privacy a central part of their strategy.

For example, to reassure online visitors and encourage the act of purchasing, companies display reassuring information about data protection on their websites. The information can also be accompanied by standardized icons.

Personalization

Personalization is a growing marketing trend. This practice aims to adapt the experience, messages, and interface of a website to the preferences and characteristics of your users.

For example, to improve the experience of online customers, Dotaki offers a personalization solution to adapt to the personality of each visitor.

One of Dotaki’s personalization axes is the density of information. Indeed, Dotaki allows you to deliver different product pages, with varying levels of information, depending on the personality of your online visitors.

Attractivity

Attractivity is the use of visual elements to capture the user’s attention and maintain their interest. Persuasive design helps in motivating users to take specific actions.

Attractivity generates positive emotions. Those emotions are triggered by the user in response to sensory stimuli – in this case visual.

For example, designs are used to create a visual identity and a unique experience that evokes positive emotions.

Source : www.axure.com

Solicitation

Solicitation aims at attracting and inciting the user to take an action. The interface shows recommendations and suggestions that the user might be interested in.

For example, solicitation can be represented by several advertisements featuring attractive offers that attract the attention of online visitors.

Source: www.awwwards.com

Priming

Priming is based on the science of the mind. The practice of priming is to design an interface that will guide the client, unconsciously, to a certain action. Users are caught up in a process that gradually draws them in. It’s about subtly influencing the behavior of your site’s visitors in order to guide them to the desired action.

In this example, for emotional visitors, we replace the wording “see my cart” with a more impactful wording “order”. This reinforces – in a subtle way – the purchase intention of emotional visitors.

Commitment

Engagement means that the interface progressively involves the user through a process. Successful completion of these actions is followed by incentives and rewards, which leads to intensive and regular user engagement.

Gamification is a good example of engagement. Indeed, it encourages the continuous use of a product thanks to the visualization of completed tasks and those that remain to be done. Users feel a sense of accomplishment after each step.

Ascendency

Ascendency is the most advanced phase of technological persuasion. It refers to the emotional attachment of users to a product. The product gives pleasure to its user and relieves them of any negative feelings.

Ascendency is often mentioned in the field of video games. With their realistic designs, games easily capture the user’s attention.

However, it should be noted that the pleasure can give place to excess, which can lead to addiction.

These criteria complement the traditional usability criteria that focus on improving the user experience.

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