http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/ User submitted comments to Practical Ecommerce's article entitled Web Conversion Strategy: When Design Dominates en-us Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:54:18 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/rss/ Practical Ecommerce v2.0.1 Ecommerce kmurdock@practicalecommerce.com bgetting@practicalecommerce.com 60 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment4348 Matt: Thanks for this discussion on the pertinence of design in online branding and messaging. While there are many criteria to judge design in general and web design specifically, I believe universally it's a matter of whether the design is complementary or detrimental to the final product. Unfortunately, many producers, whether WYSIWYG or hard coders, place design ahead of usability in their development process. Properly done, a well planned and structured site will be more effective when basing its design on clear strategy that engages and serves the intended user. www.designartsaz.com Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:54:18 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment4348 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3091 Here is another paper by Dr. Ronny Kohavi (former Amazon head of Data-mining who now works for Microsoft) that would be useful for both developers & designers: The full paper can be downloaded from here: "Practical Guide to Controlled Experiments on the Web: Listen to Your Customers not to the HiPPORon" http://exp-platform.com/Documents/GuideControlledExperiments.pdf The following is the abstract of that paper. ABSTRACT ------------ The web provides an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate ideas quickly using controlled experiments, also called randomized experiments (single-factor or factorial designs), A/B tests (and their generalizations), split tests, Control/Treatment tests, and parallel flights. Controlled experiments embody the best scientific design for establishing a causal relationship between changes and their influence on user-observable behavior. We provide a practical guide to conducting online experiments, where end-users can help guide the... Sun, 17 Jun 2007 21:44:01 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3091 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3089 Here is a useful paper for developers. I had posted it in other thread but it is also applicable in this thread: ABSTRACT ------------ Visitors enter a website through a variety of means, including web searches, links from other sites, and personal bookmarks. In some cases the first page loaded satisfies the visitor’s needs and no additional navigation is necessary. In other cases, however, the visitor is better served by content located elsewhere on the site found by navigating links. If the path between a user’s current location and his eventual goal is circuitous, then the user may never reach that goal or will have to exert considerable effort to reach it. By mining site access logs, we can draw conclusions of the form “users who load page p are likely to later load page q.” If there is no direct link from p to q, then it would be advantageous to provide one. The process of providing links to users’ eventual goals while skipping over the in-between pages is... Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:16:14 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3089 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3074 While "WOW - Whiz bang" design may not increase conversions, a simple aesthetically pleasing design will. An amateurishly designed site will sends the wrong message to your potential customers. I'm sure a site like a previous poster mentioned, Santa Fe Decor, would see an increase in conversions simply by using a workable color scheme, making better use of space and other design elements in their layout. Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:31:39 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3074 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3055 I'll have to throw in my opinion on this thread even though I am not a web designer but a software developer. Over recent years, I have seen many job titles that emerges in the Internet industry. Some title advises people how to use their mouse. Some advises people how to filter certain unwanted emails using their email-client program, one advises how to locate graphics exactly x inches from the top-left-hand-corner and exactly y inches from the left-frame, once advises on the web-users attrition rate, and never ending blah, blah, blah. There are too many unnecessary experts everywhere that are trying to advise on problems that they don't really need advise on. The experts come in with their huge expensive fees really to advise on very simple things but really made it out that it is a huge issue. There is nothing wrong with developing a website in its simplest form and deployed so that it is up and running in a reasonable time-frame. This is the way, that real... Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:07:41 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3055 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3048 Design is a bit of a sand trap. Elegant and eye-catching design is a lot harder to implement than folks might imagine. Matt's point is well taken; thoughtful integration of look, usability and function make for a 'sticky' shopping experience. Store owners, like their customers, love powerful visuals. We're a very visual society. I’ve designed FX and animation for feature films, countless commercials and short animated films. It can be hard to fight the urge to go full throttle with design, but often less is more. Especially if your priority for each visitor is conversion. That said, B&M retailers like Nordstrom's, Banana Rep., Gap, Abercrombie spend a fortune on the environment/visuals. Not a requirement if you’re site is a pricecutter, dollar store type online shop. But if you are brand conscious, want to stand out from the pack and cater an increasingly sophisticated demographic, then an effective blend of form and function are critical. And that type of... Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:00:41 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3048 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3043 It's refreshing to see someone of some "clout" saying what we've practiced for the past seven years. "WOW - Whiz bang" web design doesn't do anyone any good if it doesn't produce sales (conversion) on a retail web site. Michael Wise, http://www.santafedecor.com Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:13:40 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/498/Web-Conversion-Strategy-When-Design-Dominates/#comment3043