Pop Psychology & ConversionTricks, Tips and the Dark Side

@OptimiseOrDieCraig SullivanBelron® International

Drone, Blah

• Follow me @OptimiseOrDie• eBusiness Manager for the Belron®

group (Autoglass®)• Over 20 years of boring meetings

with lots of total timewasters• Looking after a 400M channel, 35

countries, 6 people• Ed and I like to do it with crowds• It’s not our site – it’s theirs

"If you go to the men's washrooms at the Schiphol

airport in Amsterdam, you may notice there's a fly in the

urinals. It’s screen printed .

So what do you think most men do? That's right, they aim at the

fly when they urinate.

They don't even think about it, and they don't need to

read a user's manual; it's just an instinctive reaction that means 80% less spillage!*

The interesting feature of these urinals is that they're

deliberately designed to take advantage of this inherent

human male tendency.“

This is my job.

*Also confirmed during trials of London Urinal Gaming

• This is my job• Why do I love this stuff?• Psychology of optimisation• Myths of optimisation• What skills and props do we use?• Where do you start?• What sorts of tests?• What happened• Photography• The dark side of the web• Questions

Outline

“The human explanation is always going to be more interesting and eye opening than a psychic one”

“It’s a mixture of magic, suggestion, psychology, showmanship and misdirection”

“I love the geekiness of magic”

Derren Brown – Midweek, Radio 4, 13 Oct 2010

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Why do I love this?

Old skool and good!

More recently…

Top reads:

So what?

There are 1000 trillion connections in your brain

Processing a HUGE amount of data about sounds, smells, messages from nerve cells, sensory data, vision

There are 100 million neurons in your retina processing this room, in high resolution, many times a second

In that same second, 4 million points of data whizz by

You’re only conscious of 40 of these

• If there is limited availability of something, we assume it is more valuable, and we want it even more.

Scarcity principle...

• Watch that bowl of sweets at the kids party!• Limited offers:• Hurry up – time running out• Only 2 seats left on that plane• Exclusive invitation, VIP membership• Scarcity of time – “Offer ends today”• Scarcity of access - “Available to members only”• Scarcity of time to act – “Order by 4:00, wear it tomorrow”• Threadless.com – limited t-shirt designs• MVT testing shows this stuff rocks – are you doing it?

Scarcity

• The need to fit in and belong is hard-wired into our brains and biology.

Social validation…

Social validation…

• Kitty Genovese story – One bystander (85%) Five people (31%)

• The smoking vent – One person (75%) 3 people (38%)• The fire extinguisher and the burning plane• We look to others to validate what we should do• Amazon – 2.7Bn and counting• Bubbling the best reviews to the top – most helpful

bit.ly/am_zn• Ratings and reviews affect us powerfully. Split tests:• Digital camera +20%, Travel review +10%, With picture

+20%• People who bought this also bought…• Rationalising your decision – the old brain wins

Social validation…

The systematic process of identifying and removing

barriers to positive behaviours, along with tools and testing

techniques to maximise positive outcomes.

Optimisation

Lets put this to work…

Insight

Usability testing

SurveysOps and CS teams

Clicktale

Social analysis

Customer contact

Eye tracking

Remote testing

Forms analytics Search

analyticsDepth

interviews

Market research

A/B and MVT

testing

Unstructured data

Web analytics

Competitor reviewCustomer

services

Primer on testing

=

Control Version A Version B

A/B test

+9% +2%

Multi variate Pizza

=

ExperimentIngredients Recipes

+2% +3% +1% +2%

+9% +4% -2% +1%

+5% +13% -7% -9%

Month 1 - results

+20% -2% +5%

+3% +2% +6%

+6% +10% -18%

So what about ingredients?

+2% +3%

+9% +4%

+5% +13%

Weed out some losers…

+10%

+13%

The final…

• Could be a page, widget, process or site• Review inputs• Model the desired outcome backwards• Design hypothesis• Kick the tyres• Create prototype• Test against hypotheses (UX, MVT)• User and Split testing is NOT expensive • You can start with a laptop and webcam• Even a piece of paper• You just add people

Build phase

Build

Prototype or HTML

Testing Round

Washup and

Prioritise

Hypothesis DesignInputs

AA BB

CC DD

+17.4%

+34.9%

+21.9%

ControlGet Started

Fix My Glass

Click Here

+6.97%

Control

AA

BB

Social validation…

-33% CPA

AA

BB

Low entry cost

• Visual Website Optimizerwww.visualwebsiteoptimizer.com

• Google Website Optimizer www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

• Optimizelywww.optimizely.com

If you want to move up from here, try Autonomy Optimost or Webtrends Optimize.

SPAIN

+31% over control

99% confidence

FRANCE

+8% over control

99% confidence

GERMANY

+12% over control

99% confidence

SWEDEN

+14% over control

90% confidence

Another example

+1-2.5%

+18.5% (subs)

Make sure you use real, authentic, smiling,

friendly, approachable people.

Don’t use stock images for testing or on your

site.

Low Q video and images are also fine –

they reinforce authenticity.

People images that suck…

Photo Guidelines

• Groups, vans, stores, head office, corporate guff = NO

• Single person – not groups or even person + customer, especially if they are interacting with each other (ignoring you)

• Open, Friendly, Natural, Smiling, Engaged, Alert = YES

• Smile best with eye crinkles• Uniform – has huge effect, even

wearing branded hat improves conversion

• Look straight at viewer or slightly towards CTA

• No folded arms, arms on hips, pointing, scowling, cheesy smiles, hands behind back, hanging useless by the side, clasped by groin, fiddling with hands

• Arms with prop instead – hold a clipboard, rag, tool – I’m working for *you*

• Plain backgrounds only• Female images work best in

almost every country – they slay the guys

• Natural, authentic and not ‘model’ or ‘stock’ image types work best for people

• Some of our best performing images would be rejected by advertisers as ‘too ugly’

• Want to know more? Tweet me @OptimiseOrDie or check out the @TheBrainLady

• Oh, and we also know that genital framing doesn’t work…

Image Guidelines – In a Nutshell

• Optimisation can be used in bad ways too• Either by accident (just stupid)• Or by design, to trick people*• More reading at:

http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/wiki/Home

* I trick influence people too but I call it optimisation (displacement technique)

The dark side

Sneaky fold

You evil gits

Sneaky basket

Hidden opt-out

Honeypot

Read Black Hat PoliticsOnline Dirty Tricks

bit.ly/IngLd2

Evil genius award?

• Expanding our UX and testing work• Exporting agile and lean tech to the business• Rapid expansion of testing community

• More skilled copywriting input to tests• 50-70% of our test lifts comes from copy!• We use the marvellous Stickycontent.co.uk• Catherine Toole and Econsultancy

• On hold music / IVR / Phone menus• EEG neural headsets and FMRI • Dynamic testing • Your Perfect Shop

Future stuff

Autoglass.co.uk

• User Centred Design +12.4% conversion• Multi Variate Testing +12.5% conversion• Optimised Mobile Site +4% conversion• Higher NPS score +5.5%• Total conversion increase = 41% (15%

worldwide)

• Reduced call time • Faster online booking time• Customer delight. Less worry. Lower friction• NO additional marketing spend needed• Web Channel : ROI positive within 2 weeks

Email

Twitter

Slideshare

: sullivac@gmail.com

: @OptimiseOrDie

: linkd.in/pvrg14

: slidesha.re/nlCDm6

More reading. Slides and resources on slideshare.net