Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

by florian95 • 13 years ago

555 146 13 years ago

eddieroger• 13 years ago

It's funny how these trends change. Once upon a time, a one column layout would have been boring, and we all ran to frames to give us columns. I guess I'm just old-timer enough now to start seeing the changes.

eksith2• 13 years ago

Multiple columns still make sense for certain types of content. There's a reason news papers still use them centuries later.

Single column only works on a single page/article/concept being shared. Beyond that, it gets a bit silly to get from point a to b, but there are times when multiple columns still work.

Maybe when I'm done with reading, I like to check out related links on the side. I'd rather not scroll all the way to the bottom to do that. Or if I run an ad, I want to make sure the placement (though still outside the main body of the article to not be distracting) is still at prime real-estate.

Do X for a better Y is always tricky business. It's sometimes not as simple as one column.

kipple• 13 years ago

Funny to think about. Like in the 80s/90s when digital graphic design got big and everything was stuffed full of heavy textures and raucous splashes of colors. Then we got a grip and started scaling back to minimal. Same thing happening with web design?

Probably indicative of a larger trend too, as the web continues to intrude into all walks of life, we'll see a scaling back on all sorts of levels. Things like the Slow Web movement emerging (whatever happened to them?)

pbhjpbhj• 13 years ago

That's probably why it says "try" one column.

Boring is good in some contexts. In this case conversion rate optimisation. No distractions allowing you to focus on the call to action.

k__2• 13 years ago

2, 4, 7, 9 and 12 have nothing to do with UI. They are just marketing methods...

acoyfellow6• 13 years ago

This is a fair point, but marketing and a good UI have many things in common. The UI is how you interact with a product, and the marketing is how you communicate with your ideal viewer.

Those numbers are marketing methods, that use the UI as a medium for communication.

Without the UI, this marketing method would be useless and have no value.

edit: I think that the blending of the marketing mind with the designer/developer mind is actually yielding awesome results. The author of the site has really come into a groove when combining successful marketing methods with bleeding edge UI techniques. This is a valuable idea and I'm excited to see if the author can keep producing this level of content.

k__2• 13 years ago

Right but the UI tips can be used in many applications, the marketing tips just apply to specific cases, like when talking to a potential customer.

ape4• 13 years ago

Seems alot like advertising instead of real nice UI. Recommending instead of showing equal choices is pretty bogus - how do they know me?

macspoofing• 13 years ago

how to they know me?

They know you're human. More than that, odds are you are an average human.

acoyfellow6• 13 years ago

It's not saying use some kind of development trick to ID your user. I believe the purpose of this tip is to make a stronger emotional connection with the users.

By using a recommendation as opposed to just a list of choices, that lends itself to a more "personalized experience" -- even if that list is exactly the same

aw3c2• 13 years ago

But how is that not psychological trickery?

PavlovsCat6• 13 years ago

the purpose of this tip is to make a stronger emotional connection with the users

Actually, the idea is to "make them" make an emotional connection with product.

This is as nice as the Japanese using robot pets to keep the elderly company. This is not an emotional connection, this is playing tricks on fools to sell them shit they don't need.

Whatever happened to the idea that maybe, just maybe, some people land on your page for whatever reasons, and not because they have any use for what you're selling? That you're not entitled to every single last one of them? If they see 5 products, and don't really want any of them, what's the problem with that? Why nudge and prod and leer ever which way?

mhd• 13 years ago

Well, it puts "high conversion rate" before "easy to use" in the very first sentence, so I kinda guessed that if there's a choice to be made between "good for the product" and "good for the user", the former path would be taken. And I would say that that choice has to be made quite often in UIs...

(Never mind that generically talking about "UI" when it's just about online page layot -- and not even the entirety of that -- is a bit misleading and/or exaggerated.)

ronaldx• 13 years ago

The part where they offer alternative choices is for you.

The part where they suggest a choice is for people who don't want to make a decision is useful for many others particularly including potential customers.

The fact that they recommend offering both options here makes it good UI. Far better to do that than only offering one option.

oinksoft2• 13 years ago

Meanwhile a distracting footer covers >25% of the page, and clicking the intuitive "down arrow"-looking thing does nothing, nor is there an obvious close button. You close it with that über-readable burnt-orange-on-charcoal link "Ok, enough already. Hide the footer." Either they assume the user scans for "Ok," when wanting to close something, or that they skim sentences from the inside-out. If you do close it and click it again, which usually means "reopen", you instead get scrolled down to the bottom of the page.

Do you trust any advice they have about user interfaces?

comatose_kid• 13 years ago

Don't be so hard - I think their page looks really nice and the suggestions make sense. I'll be using them when we update our landing page.

bgnm2000• 13 years ago

Totally agree with this, although they didn't invent the tips they're giving out, so there is still some value to the content.

Fpckalk• 13 years ago

I can certainly see some valid points. It's a bit unfair to judge fair points on the (poor) design choices the website made.

oinksoft2• 13 years ago

If your domain name is goodui.org and you lead with "A Good User Interface ... is easy to use." you'd better be damned serious about user interfaces. That's my take.

acoyfellow6• 13 years ago

I agree on the footer, but I'd go ahead and assume it's 100% intentional.

If I had to guess, it's to entice people to scroll down. I don't think it's done perfectly, but I do think the execution of this idea is better on http://goodui.org/howtoabtest.html

The fact that there is something there, and it's kind of hidden (at least on my screen) then there is this natural curiosity built up..

It's important to have good content to draw people downwards, but when you combine good content with small psychological tricks-- it might just pay off. The guy has 17K email subscribers and that is a lot of people who do trust him

bencoder• 13 years ago

Agreed, horrible interface - I didn't work out how to hide the banner. And the banner combined with the large font and big separation on the page made my reading feel really restricted - couldn't read it easily.

joeblau2• 13 years ago

The footer isn't so bad on a rMBP, but that's still not a very good excuse for why it's so big on lower resolution machines. I did find the information on the page quite helpful.

kcorbitt• 13 years ago

This is a trend I've noticed on a lot of sites that is unavoidable but still makes life harder for some. Now that everyone has high-resolution displays web elements tend to be built at larger sizes to get the same effective size on the newer screens. However, for people like me that spend half their time on a 1366x768 laptop, the elements just look huge and little meaningful content fits on the page. This is true of sites from The Verge to the new Google+ layout to even the text size on Medium.

jerf• 13 years ago

NoScript wins again. I didn't even know there was a problem until I went back and deliberately turned on scripting for the domain.

(I mention this just because in the periodic NoScript debates that show up here, I think people don't believe me when I say for every site it hurts, there's another site it silently improves.)

jasimp• 13 years ago

I agree completely, people always tell me that NoScript is too much of a hassle to use. But then two sentences later they'll complain about how ads cover content and distracting UI elements make it hard to navigate. I'd say 75% of the time I'm much happier with the NoScript version of websites.

elliottcarlson• 13 years ago

And for me on my desktop the footer was so un-noticeable that I had to go back to the page to even see what it was that you had an issue with.

panacea• 13 years ago

^ The x percent (of people still browsing the web on massive monitors) represent! (really? come on... surely not everyone's watching on laptops and tablets and phones at home?)

kenkam• 13 years ago

Not when their second advice is ... give a gift? What's that got to do with UI?

Edit: It's a good idea, great marketing idea, in fact. But when you're advertising ideas to improve UI, I will be quicker to judge...

hawkw• 13 years ago

Yeah, this is marketing/ad advice, not UI advice.

stephengillie• 13 years ago

Their mobile experience is crummy. Words stacked up on one side, footer covers either part of the first page or part of the second.

throwaway1979• 13 years ago

I have to agree ... the footer is pretty stupid. I didn't even see a way to close it until I read your comment.

symr• 13 years ago

I agree. Footer is annoying

ochs• 13 years ago

I couldn't even see the "close" link because my font was too big and there was nothing that indicated that something was hidden.

rschmitty• 13 years ago

The footer is completely broken on the iPad

As I scroll, it keeps reappearing right in the middle of the content, then flashes away after 2 seconds

When I got to the end, it was nigh impossible to actually get the footer to show (or whatever the sign up box was) I finally got to enter my name but then going to [Next] on iPad just made the whole thing disappear and I couldnt get it back.

I like their ideas, really dislike their execution, that was a frustrating experience.

h2s• 13 years ago

Ugh. It felt extremely weird to read an entire article with that thing obscuring such a huge part of the bottom of the page. The best description of the feeling that I can think of is that it kind of felt like I was reading it by shoulder-surfing somebody else's browsing session on the train.

That, and the general focus of the content itself, put across a message of conversion-centric design rather than human-centric design. Ignoring the way a person feels while interacting your design just to increase signup conversions. Not nice.

Ziomislaw• 13 years ago

oooh! so _thats_ how you hide it :)

I actually didn't see the footer at all, shows how my brain learned to keep me sane.

pbreit2• 13 years ago

And completely broken on iPhone.

Jare• 13 years ago

Good advice (heavier on presentation and marketing than true UI), but that footer bar is godawful and terribly intrusive IMHO.

gamegoblin• 13 years ago

Agreed on the footer. All I did was look for a way to close it. In general, I hate any part of a page that scrolls with me unless it is a tiny tiny header or tiny tiny sidebar.

Also, it may just be my machine, but it seems like a lot of these characters need some antialiasing.

ddebernardy• 13 years ago

His blog isn't much better: It blatantly ignores several of his own tips.

workbench• 13 years ago

More marketing than UI

kailuowang• 13 years ago

Awesome page, it itself can be deemed as a good example of good UI design as I can learn the majority of the lessons by quickly scroll down and read just just the titles and pictures.

PavlovsCat6• 13 years ago

Testimonials are one of the things that make me skip things right away. I would explain why, but I'm afraid that would at best be used to find ways to circumvent that, and deprive me of one of the litmus tests for mediocrity and needyness.

Speaking of needy: Calls to action I accept from activists, but that's it. Just describe the service or product, name the price, instead of treating me like a moron who needs to pulled along the funnel. Keep your gifts, too. Well, all of that depends on your target audience I guess - I surely am not in it, phew.

nhebb• 13 years ago

It's a list of things to try out in order to improve conversions. Individual items on the list may not appeal to you (or me, either), but that misses the point of the article.

PavlovsCat6• 13 years ago

My point is that this only works on people who should be educated to the point that it no longer works on them. Fuck "increasing conversions".

Argorak• 13 years ago

This is a very cultural thing. In germany, no one uses testimonials, they are often seen as either fake or bragging and a sign that you don't want to talk about your product.

pbreit2• 13 years ago

Based on much experienced I can confidently say that testimonials are one of the most powerful promotional devices you can use. Perhaps the ones you are seeing have not been done properly. Even just displaying logos of some marquee customers is extremely powerful.

latortuga2• 13 years ago

It's really surprising to see a comment like this, so wrong on something and yet upvoted. Crucially, your view is entirely anecdotal - a much better argument would be "Testimonials are a bad way to sell things because X" where X is a reason that is valid and tested.

Unfortunately, X for you is either highly personal or based on a faulty understanding of persuasion because social proof is incredibly powerful as a persuasive technique - research, testing, and daily commerce bear it out. It is tried and tested and used by marketers and businesses everywhere. The reason? Social proof works. Knowing that someone that you lend credibility to thinks that this thing is good/useful/etc helps you make a decision about it, whether you think it does or not. Content tends to inherit the value that is near it (e.g. important people, powerful companies, athletes, etc). A patio11 quote is in order here: "content which bears social proof will, in A/B tests, often ROFLstomp absolutely equivalent content lacking social proof."[0] Dr. Robert Cialdini's Influence has an entire chapter on social proof.

[0] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/05/31/can-i-get-your-email/

paranoiacblack2• 13 years ago

You're getting pretty uppity about testimonials here. Regardless of them being effective persuasive techniques, they're still just persuasive techniques and I imagine a lot of people dislike persuasion getting in the way of content. I happen to agree with the OP that testimonials tend to make me believe that the product lacks enough substance to be useful by itself. In any matter, it's a personal preference and no amount research changes that.

boothead• 13 years ago

This is a great list of resources!

I'd be very interested to see how well it converted, as it would seem that the main idea is to get people to sign up to Jakub's email list (which I have done on the strength of the material).

Jakub, would you be willing to share your conversion numbers from the influx of HN traffic based on this page? Maybe send it out in the newsletter I just signed up for :-)

edit why the downvote?

amac• 13 years ago

I'm one of those who has signed up. I guess I'm probably one of the many developers who are also really bad at copy out there also. (As you can see at usehuman.com)

wavefunction3• 13 years ago

I checked out your site. One quick suggestion is your list under "Reasons Companies Choose Prospect For Hiring"

If you're going to break up a list into two columns, the numbered items should travel vertically before continuing in the second column, it's the natural reading style for people in the West.

ie. (*edit HN is collapsing what should be vertical numbers on separate lines into one line)

1 2 3

(column 2)

4 5 6

kcbanner• 13 years ago

Heh, "Try Giving a Gift instead of closing a sale right away". I start to read this sentence and a giant email signup footer pops up, covering it.

ThomPete• 13 years ago

The advice is the gift

adamlj• 13 years ago

I would say that this has more to do with making a good Landing Page than User Interfaces in general. All good and solid advices thou.

revskill• 13 years ago

One interesting thing here: The less balanced design structure is, the more focus the reader gets to read all content. :)

speeder• 13 years ago

I loved this site, it has a so fucking huge footer that irritated me as I could not even see the images completely that I closed the tab in rage.

RyanMcGreal• 13 years ago

As I scrolled down, reading each point, I began to notice something happening to the number of each item in the periphery of my vision. It took until point 5 before I figured out what it was: the circle around the number is dark grey until it gets to around the top quarter of the screen (on my screen, at least) at which point it becomes light grey.

I'm still trying to decide if this is a good idea. Now that I have inferred it is functioning as a kind of visited-link visual effect, I can leave the page, return later, and quickly pick up where I left off.

Then again, none of the points are long to read. Worse, I've left the page after finishing reading point 7 and have no real interest in returning now, let alone after enough time has passed that I've forgotten where I left off (in which case I would likely also have forgotten what I had already read).

In other words, I'm inclined to think that this is mainly a needless visual distraction that actually disrupted me from reading the piece and has ever-so-slightly nudged me toward the decision not to bother returning to it.

That would seem to fall under the category of Bad UI.

goldbeck• 13 years ago

They actually provide an easy way to get back to the next point to read, even if you've left and returned. Pretty cool!

jmsbrwr• 13 years ago

I thought I was just going crazy when I noticed something happening, but couldn't tell what it was.

ctdonath• 13 years ago

The concept of "Good UI" covers way more than "a few quick pointers for selling a product".

Kinda like going to a page called "goodcuisine.com" and finding it's a dozen suggestions about cooking and topping hamburgers, with half the points dwelling mostly on arranging utensils, and a big persistent chunk of the page devoted to disposable plates.

Great domain name, squandered.

ebbv• 13 years ago

Some of these are good ideas others are pure opinion and don't necessarily make sense in all contexts.

wikwocket• 13 years ago

But all may be worth testing to see how they perform with your particular market/audience. The whole idea of A/B testing is to not rely on intuition or tradition, but on tested approaches.

sethbannon• 13 years ago

I like this, but what is the point of the "Looks like you have 16 unread ideas" part? A user is only going to see that when I first land on the page, and hence it's always going to read 16. When is a user ever going to scroll back up to the top to check the count after having scrolled part way down the page?

cloverich• 13 years ago

Its meant to be a list of ideas thats occasionally updated (hence the mailing list). If you go back to the page, it will instantly tell you if its been updated or not (assuming you kept the cookie).

3amOpsGuy2• 13 years ago

Undo's, yes!

Power users aren't tripped up with an annoying confirmation. Novice users can revert. This seems a much better paradigm.

Are there any cases where this doesn't make for good UX?

nwh• 13 years ago

Lots of actions are destructive and can't work with an "undo" quite so well as in that example. I would prefer to see a confirm diglogue for deleting an account, changing a password, that sort of thing. I would tend to avoid it anyway, as an undo button isn't something users are going to be looking out for in a web context.

gbl08ma• 13 years ago

Not to mention, that for many of these destructive actions adding a undo function often incurs in higher storage costs.

For example, in the case of deleting information, the easiest way to provide an undo function is to never really delete anything and just flag as deleted (something that doesn't free up storage, and if implemented without the users' knowledge, is abusive in terms of data privacy and ownership).

As for users not expecting the existence of an undo button in a web context, well, Gmail for instance has an "undo" link for lots of actions (archiving, moving to trash, etc.). I'm sure other web services provide similar things too.

woah3• 13 years ago

What about this- clicking "delete account" loads a screen where the account is removed from the frontend, along with an undo button. When the user leaves the page, the account is really deleted. Can you see any problems with this?

mcintyre19942• 13 years ago

I still think a confirmation with "Don't ask again" is a much better solutions.

Power users see it once, understand what'll happen and turn it off, no annoying confirmation after they've identified as a power user.

Novice users would, I think, feel better about a confirmation than an undo - if you need an undo you've made a mistake and that's not a good feeling, if you see a confirmation the service is looking out for you.

gmac• 13 years ago

I think both theory and data are against you here.

e.g. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163835.aspx

giulianob• 13 years ago

Any empirical evidence to show any of these things are actually good? Some "seem" to be common sense (e.g. less form fields to lower sign up friction) but a lot of the other things appear to be what one UX designer thinks it's a good idea rather than anything that might actually help you.

borlak2• 13 years ago

Your target audience is going to heavily influence most of these.

At a previous company our target audience was older women. We A-B tested every single element on our landing page, and I can tell you, using the advice on this site would be a complete disaster.

hkyeti• 13 years ago

Any examples? Would be interesting for many of us here

kareemm• 13 years ago

It seems like these are more ideas to try than hard and fast recommendations. Think of it as 16 ideas to try that may improve conversion, rather than 16 things to do that will improve conversion.

bencollier49• 13 years ago

When the enormous advertisement appeared, I laughed, and assumed that the page was making a point about bad UI.

seivan• 13 years ago

Another list of subjective suggestions. Meanwhile rendering it took a while.

cldr• 13 years ago

W.r.t idea 15, I don't see how numbering things suggests continuity. The one on the left looks just as false-bottomy as the righthand one to me. Unless you have something sticking halfway on the page, or an arrow that points down or something, numbering doesn't solve this.

jezclaremurugan• 13 years ago

Try Fewer Form Fields instead of asking for too many.

Asks for Full Name to subscribe.

gvkv• 13 years ago

The suggestions themselves are decent but I have a hard time taking UI recommendations from someone who insists on using low contrast text: http://www.linowski.ca/. I can barely read his copy. Why and how anyone thinks that usability isn't made worse by using medium grey on white or light grey backgrounds is baffling to me.

It's been a while but the next time I hire a design firm, my first test will be to see if they use low contrast text.

EDIT: I just found this http://contrastrebellion.com/.

wavefunction3• 13 years ago

There are a few good ideas in here, but a lot of questionable ones.

For example:

Turn your content into marked lists rather than have a gap?

The list format is only really useful for indicating additional content if you're providing some sort of marking like 1/16, 2/16, etc. to indicate position relative to "the end." The whole thing about the visual gap is just as true with the gap between list items and other content formats.

gojomo• 13 years ago

Maybe people habitually search for a stronger end-of-list indicator, once a list starts, \ like a larger gap or return to un-numbered wider-columned text... so simply using a list helps immunize against short breaks causing problems.

Also, perhaps you could decorate the bullets/numbers in some sort of boundary-escaping way that always helps hint there's a next item. (For example, using a diamond background where the top point always reaches to be alongside the previous item's body text.)

Of course, these theories/ideas would need testing.

wavefunction3• 13 years ago

Those are interesting suggestions. Cheers

keithpeter• 13 years ago

I found this an interesting read (I happen to use noscript and so saw a long scrolling page with no jumping footer).

However, as the 'call to action' at the bottom of the page suggests more content to come, I have to wonder if the address of this page (http://goodui.org/) will remain the same or if the new content will replace this content. There appears to be no easily discoverable 'permalink'. Is this a noscript artefact?

bwy• 13 years ago

Agree that the footer is annoying. The page also seems to break #15.

jalfresi• 13 years ago

I personally reject the notion that "...A Good User Interface has high conversion rates and is easy to use". I don't agree that it is a requirement that a good UI has high conversion rates. In fact I would argue that software can have a good UI and poor conversion rates. A good UI is responsible to the user only; it's not called a USER interface for nothing.

Noxchi• 13 years ago

If a user experience designer designed a club, there would be plenty of space, bright lighting, comfortable furniture, the bathrooms would be clean, plenty of bartenders and the menu would be in 18 point sans serif font. Meanwhile, everyone would be at club Coyote Ugly pouring beer on each other.

woah3• 13 years ago

Game designers for clubs, UX designers for the DMV :)

ivankirigin• 13 years ago

Dear HN, just because someone makes a blog post about good UI elements, doesn't mean you need to shit on details big or small about the specific site (e.g. the big footer).

For most people, this is a great way to understand the possibilities for different UIs to test. Instead of just copying others, you can think more abstractly about the UI ideas.

pc862• 13 years ago

It's not just people's desire to shit on something in order to feel superior (although that's likely quite a bit of it).

It's the fact that if you have a website dedicated to good user interface, and you want to be known as an authority on good user interfaces, and the site on which you intend to launch or grow this authority has a completely FUBARed user interface... I think it's fair to point that out.

Orange text on dark background? Whatever, it's perfectly readable unless you have poor eyesight. Footer taking up a full third of the page with no quickly discernable way to close it? Definite problem and cause for concern regarding your purported authority on that very issue.

ulisesrmzroche7• 13 years ago

I agree with everything you said, but would like to add that apart from having very poor contrast, which does affect readability, orange text on a dark background is also quite tacky. Halloween colors.

sillysaurus• 13 years ago

Have you seen his conversion statistics?

Good ideas often seem bad. You can't know until you've tried it and measured it. At least he's trying it.

cfqycwz• 13 years ago

It's possible there's no immediately apparent close button because the lack of one forces you to read through the copy to figure out how to close the box, which is probably better for conversion rates. I know I wouldn't have even known there was an option to subscribe otherwise, because I would've headed reflexively straight for a close button in the upper right.

Whether that's ultimately a good UI choice I can't really say. Is not being able to find a close button quickly enough so alienating an experience that it would cause many users to turn away or never come back?

bloodorange• 13 years ago

I read the page at 1920x1200 and I didn't even notice the footer until I started reading the comments in this thread. Once I saw it, it did feel odd though.

Only after this did I realise that one must pay attention to smaller screens too while thinking of UI design. (I am just a developer and almost never did any UI design I must admit - but it was an observation that seemed interesting to me).

TeMPOraL• 13 years ago

You are free to chose a different topic in this thread to contribute to if you don't feel like discussing the big footer. You can talk about more than one topic per submission; that's why HN is a tree, not a linear board.

Also, to "shit on details big or small" is, in other words, to provide (somewhat constructive) feedback, which helps both the site author (if he/she reads it) and us here learn and grow. This is the whole point of HN.

kapilkale• 13 years ago

Thank you. I really wish the #1 comment here were something debating the merits of the article rather than questioning the author's ability to implement his own advice.

kmfrk• 13 years ago

On one hand this is true; on the other, this is a result of the horizontal (flat) treatment of comments that make pedantic comments appear the same as deeper ones.

The one upvote button just means that people agree, not that they think it's an important, insightful comment, and that's why we see those comments float to the top.

As the OP, in this case and others, I wouldn't too much into those comments, because I too know how skull-numbingly hairsplitting and pedantic comments here can be - or seem.

bpatrianakos• 13 years ago

Or seem? That's very polite (and smart) of you to say. I'll be the dumb one that comes out and says they are pedantic. Period. We have some great ones and a lot of "I'm smarter than this guy, look at me, [commence pedantry]" comments. If they appear pedantic they are.

unclebucknasty• 13 years ago

What's particularly interesting about the big footer as a UI problem here is that it underscores the trickiness of balancing good UI with converting. For instance, people came to hate popup windows, and they became anathema to a good UI. However, the reason they were used is because they succeeded in getting the user's attention.

Likewise, in this article, the giant footer takes up half my tablet's page, yet the author does this because it contains his call to action.

It is completely fair to point out the irony of an article about good UI design residing on a site with questionable UI design. And while many of the points made were common sense or already known to me, I did learn and/or refresh a bit and so personally appreciated the article.

Still, it would be good to get more insight about the far trickier question: how to engage and compel users to your call to action without having to resort to offending them with popups, giant footers, etc.

ulisesrmzroche7• 13 years ago

Just to not do anything that offends them. If that means no popups, or giant trailing footers, then that means no popups or giant trailing footers under no circumstance whatsoever.

The call to action has to be non-intrusive. And that's probably going to depend on the type of call to action, though I think that if he had left the footer as it was intended to do (the offer comes after the article is done, once you read the whole thing and you're sold, as is the traditional approach that you know, sells) it would have worked much better.

It's hard to read through a slot, and who wants to do that?

So a marketing page needs to be easy to read and give the call to action at the end.

dreamdu5t• 13 years ago

Ugh that condensed font is horrible!

SCAQTony• 13 years ago

I was very impressed - I would have added no reversed-out type, or white type on a black background, if the text exceeds more than 12-words

gesman• 13 years ago

Now i have to go through all my sites and remove all funny cat videos!!!!

asciimo• 13 years ago

Here's a screenshot of the newsletter form occluding content in Android. https://www.dropbox.com/sc/jln36yrne8jzhbr/X_r8tldSXn Do you have to submit it to dismiss it? :)

ulisesrmzroche7• 13 years ago

See, this is a great find, and adds to the case against the sticky footer. It's almost a slap in the face when you come from an Android device.

ulisesrmzroche7• 13 years ago

If I may offer a little critique:

I'm on the really-hates-the-footer camp. It's off-putting. See the thing about the footer is that you already broke rule #2, you're trying to close the sale(it's not a gift, I know you're trying to get me to sign up to your newsletter) So putting it out like that is just obnoxious, and no one likes an obnoxious salesman. You should have just put the offer at the very bottom, once I read your article and I'm liking what you're saying, when I'm half-sold, not the large black footer that cuts out 1/3 of my screen, and I'm on an old macbook air, so screen real-estate is important to me at all times. And as was noted by ascimo(sic?) in this thread, on an android device it literally blocks the content!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5996040

The other thing is that it kinda doesn't sell you, which sucks because I'm sure you're a great dude, but you're telling me I should sign up because you're awesome, you're smarter, and you have way more fans than me. If you would have told me how it would have made my life easier, or the holy mantra (increase revenue, decrease costs) then it would have had a better shot.

The other thing is the headline, then copy, then picture layout of the bullet points. This goes against how we scan things, which is picture then headline then body copy. Visual, then bold and big, then small print. When you scroll down, the first thing you see is the picture, and then I have to scan up real fast, and then read down. Watch yourself and you'll do the same thing.

Also, that text is not organized in columns, so it makes it hard to read. Dividing it into two columns (like, say, a book, the epitome of the two column layout) would be so much easier to read and in turn, sell me more on what you're saying.

woah3• 13 years ago

I agree on hating the footer, but I have no opinion on your criticism of the content, because I didn't even read it because I was straining to focus on the actual site through the tiny slot provided.

ulisesrmzroche7• 13 years ago

This is probably the majority opinion of people who come from smaller devices. I too had to strain to read it, but kept on. I'm 25 with good eyesight, but as you said, that tiny slot is just too much to bear.

rexreed2• 13 years ago

I usually have my NoScript turned on, and it was a very pleasant read because I didn't even realize there was a footer there until I turned on scripts. In my opinion, the experience was better with the scripts off, even if the font wasn't as cool. I got the value from the article without the scripts on and footer missing.

ulisesrmzroche7• 13 years ago

You got the value because you were able to read through the thing already. However, the other side of the argument is that people are getting turned off immediately and never read the content, so they don't get any value at all, and worse, get pissed because the footer was all up on their face.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that this sort of footer is a good case for a GUI anti-pattern. It literally hurts your sales.

cookingrobot• 13 years ago

The newsletter is the gift. You don't pay for it, and you only sign up if you like this free content and want more.

All of this is just gifts to get you to know/trust/like them so that maybe in the future you'll buy their service.

ulisesrmzroche7• 13 years ago

That's the thing though. In the end, let's be honest, it's about money. We all know newsletters are to get us into your pipeline, and you know what? Maybe so, but not right now. Calling it a gift is just a bit arrogant. Especially with that footer. How is this guy going to get me to pay money on UX advice with that footer? I bet that's the common line of thought around here

And here's good a/b testing though, accidental as it was, because it was the people who read with noscript on that got the footer at the end and actually liked the content and it was those who saw the footer that got frustrated and didn't even read it.

Also, maybe I'm on the footer list? I hadn't thought about that. In that case, pencil me in as didn't like it, haha!

jwdunne• 13 years ago

I love this guide and I love how it's presented. The ideas look easier to use and definitely look nicer.

I would, however, be weary of implementing these ideas for the purposes of improving conversion because there aren't any numbers with each improvement. How does this author know for sure these ideas improve conversion? If they have been split-tested, this article provides a very good starting point of ideas for your own tests.

I'm not urging against trying these ideas though, definitely not, but please do test these for yourself. There are loads of factors which may make these ideas less ideal, such as your market, your product or service, your branding; the factors are potentially unlimited. Use a good A/B testing tool and measure impact on your conversions when implementing these!

tricolon• 13 years ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5526905

shyn32• 13 years ago

Hey your keyboard shortcut for N doesn't work. Infact M goes to next and P goes to previous. I think J/K are easier to use compared to N/P also.

shyn32• 13 years ago

Sorry someone had replaced my N and M keys.

bizodo• 13 years ago

The site needs a mobile friendly UI for newsletter sign up.

dschiptsov• 13 years ago

yeah, yeah, nice tutorial how to make a website for a new scam like MongoDB - Instead of having a decent product you have a "convincing design" (and "convincing blah-blah-blahs" from patio11).

All ideas in themselves are nothing new.. Sparse is better than dense, subtle is better than direct, manipulation attempts are offensive, etc..)

yaix• 13 years ago

I liked the point about offering an "undo" instead of "confirm action". The rest was just basics on sales pitch UI design.

And that anoying footer that covers 1/3 of my netbook screen?

ziko• 13 years ago

I thought these points are common sense.

Ideas on how to improve customer conversion and ease of use

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