Can incorporating a little bit of fun influence your users’ buying behavior? Meteorologists did a little experiment on the stairs with UX design, to see how people would respond to it. Instead of the normal staircase that people are accustomed to, they transformed the staircase into a piano.
Check out the video:
Did you like it? Can you relate to it? Yes, you can. Why? Because instead of a simple flight of steps, it is now a well-designed masterpiece. The same goes for the UX design of websites. If you alter the UX design of the website, keeping functionality intact but tweaking the aesthetic appeal, it piques the curiosity of new users and forces them to take a sojourn through your web space. When you provide your users with an enhanced user experience, it gives them a reason to trust you and stay with you for a longer period.
“On the web, usability is a necessary condition for survival.” – J Nielsen
Now the question arises. What triggers the behavior of users to buy online? Certainly, everyone is an Entrepreneur. But not everyone is the same. A professional custom website design agency can surely put your apprehensions to rest, but if you want to stay in the business for long, you need to ensure that the UX Design of your website is engaging enough to convert visitors into customers.
Coming back to UX Design – the real purpose of UX Design isn’t just providing the end-user with a dazzling experience, it is about designing a digital experience that replicates the physical experience. The goal of a great UX Design is to enthrall and capture the users, not drive them away from the website.
Without wasting more time, let’s dive into the world of UX Design & how you can design an experience that users will love to refer to their friends.
Let’s Start with Scarcity
The principle of Scarcity states that people tend to want what they don’t have. We value things that have a mortal lifeline and are prone to be unavailable to us soon. Thus, we tend to undermine those that are in abundance.
In a study conducted by Achewole, Lee, and Worchel in the year 1975, we tried to figure out how people would respond to cookies placed in two identical jars. Jar A was filled with ten cookies, while jar B contained only three. People were asked to take one cookie from any Jar that they liked. Which Jar do you think people found more attractive? Even though the jars were identical and so were the nature of their constituents, people made a grasp for Jar B.
Perhaps even more interesting, the researchers also concluded:
“Cookies were rated as more valuable when their supply changed from abundant to scarce than when they were constantly scarce.”
This is basically a common supply & demand problem. As availability takes a hit, the demand soars up. The same goes for UX Design.
How You Can Apply Scarcity To Your Design
Time-sensitive Deals
Set Sales Deadlines, limited-time discounts on abandoned cart items, or time-bound purchases for next-day shipping.
Similarly, adding a stock list is the most efficient way to grab user’s attention
Principle of Reciprocation
An ancient seed of wisdom still holds true centuries down the road. Do something good for someone, and they will happily do something for you in return. Give your users something useful first, and then ask them for a favor. I can happily venture that they will be happy to oblige!
Randy Garner – a social scientist conducted a study in the year 2015, on whether hand-written notes can increase the response rate of a survey. One-third of the participants were presented with a survey with a personal hand-written note, asking them to complete the survey. The other was sent a blank post-it note without any preamble.
The response: Not only were the hand-written surveys completed with a double response rate, but the quality of the answers was better as well.
Author and psychologist David Straker said, “The inner tension created in the gap between receiving and giving is often so powerful that we will give anything in return just to reduce this discomfort.”
How to Leverage Reciprocation in Your Design?
Give valuable information for free. This can be in the form of eBooks, tips, checklists, cheat sheets, podcasts, or videos. Or you can even ask for information from the user and they will love to take part in the competition.
The Salience Principle
In a website, users are drawn to information that is most relevant to them. By identifying those moments which turn users towards you, you will be able to upsell things by influencing the users with additional offers. Imagine if you go to Sears.com to look for a brand-new refrigerator. When you visit the website, what will catch your fancy: an ad for their financial plan, or finding the right fridge?
So, while fridge shoppers are not interested in the financial plan of the company, they are most likely to turn their gaze toward relevant information pertaining to the specifications of the new fridge.
How to Use Salience in Your Design?
The best kind of up-selling is during the checkout process. When the customer seems ready to finalize a purchase, it presents the perfect time to add something extra that won’t bother the customer.
Social Proof
When people aren’t sure what to do, they look for clues, and they seek out other people to clear their doubts. This is what we call social proof in action.
According to Robert Cialdini, the NY Times best-selling author, “Whether the question is what to do with an empty popcorn box in a movie theater, how fast to drive on a certain stretch of highway, or how to eat chicken at a dinner party, the actions of those around us will be important guides when it comes to defining the answer.”
If you want those confused users to buy from you, you can always try to influence those customers by revealing the reviews of other users.
How to Use Social Proof in Your Design?
You can start by selling on the big brands, and show your affiliations with the high-octane brands.
Customer reviews:
Or even social counts work wonders!
To Conclude it All
If you want your UX Designs to accomplish your business goals, you need to master the art of persuasion. Using the triggers above gives you infallible influence over your users and turns those design experiences into leads.
If you know any other ways in which UX Design influences users, feel free to share your valuable tips.
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August 17, 2019 
