Review of CXL Mini degree as a UX (week 4)
The first month of CXL Mini Degree is behind me! Today, I’ll introduce you to the last lesson from the first course included in the Mini Degree and we will continue with first parts of course number two!
Let’s see, what was covered in the last lesson of People and Psychology course.
Cognitive fluency
Remember, when you struggled in a situation when you don’t know what to choose? Try to bring the latest memory, when you didn’t know which meal to order, which coffee to pick this time, which plan-offer from the application you wanted to buy works best for you, or any similar event. Especially, when you were tired.
The easiest example I can think of, to explain what cognitive fluency is, is when you are waiting in the queue in a grocery store after a long day and you’re hungry. There is a chocolate bar next to the cash box. Fortunately, it the healthy one, with oatmeal’s, no added sugar, RAW product. Well, you’re tired, you still need to bring all these bags filled with heavy shopping home. There was also a promotion, clearly telling you, how much you save buying two bars today. So, you took them. Why? Because it was an easy, understandable choice.
This reminds us first of all about the Fogg Behavior Model: when there is a motivation (to kill the hunger), ability (the chocolate bar is right in front of you, just need to grab it), and a trigger we’re willing to take an action. The other thing is, that when we are tired, our cognitive ability lowers. During a long day, a lot of energy has been burnt and many decisions had to be made so far, so you’re more likely to take advantage of easier solutions. And last, but not least — without all these circumstances, we have a tendency to prefer things which we already know, have tried before and understood. It’s easier, it’s safer, it’s more comfortable, experienced before. That tendency is called Cognitive Fluency.
Implications in the digital world are crucial. Taking advantage of Cognitive Fluency requires building easy to understand a product’s description and present it in the readable form. It is one of the basics rules in UX and it supports decision facilitation. As mentioned, It is also easier to choose things, we already know, so previous experience is a big factor in creating a long-term relationship with our Audience. Lastly, we will always prefer to go with an option, which is the easiest to understand, so it may be a wise thing, to add the easiest description to our most important offer od product.
What I learned: Us humans by many factors in decision making. We prefer to choose things which are easy to understand, or we’ve already experienced
How will I apply it: I’ll pay more attention to distinguish the key business offers and products by the easiest description, make sure, that first purchase is a good experience, so people would recall it and prefer it in the future. I’ll carefully choose font type and size for important information leading to conversion
Now, we will dive into the content of the next course inside the Mini Degree!
Attention Basics
I am very excited because it will be focused on the topic of Attention, which is crucial in Information Architecture planning — all texts, labels, hierarchy need o grab attention, where we really need it, especially to support User Flow. It is also key in creating great messaging at the Welcome page, to make sure we introduce something that is a real grabber. Once we catch our User's attention, we need to maintain it. The second course in Mini-Degree at CXL Institute will introduce techniques to do both things. According to studies: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!
Trust
This is a first lesson in the Digital and Psychology Mini Degree, which is entirely covered by a video. A quick intro explains a little about chemistry standing behind the trust. There is a hormone that is related to trust. It is present in humans, but also in other species, like your dog. We’re talking about oxytocin. It is really hard to talk about trust-building without mentioning this hormone. In general, it is widely connected to social interactions.
When it comes to websites, trust is based on the first impression of the aesthetics.
In this interesting article summarizing credibility perception by Users in studies, there is an interesting example of rating the same content by Users only by changing its visual aspect. By bringing a more appealing presentation, the content was judged as more credible in 90% of respondents.
First impression
Moreover, the other studies mentioned in the article, indicate, that Users point out
“visual appeal” at the prime determiner of a positive reaction to the shown website.
Users form our thoughts about things we see almost unconsciously at the very beginning. What is very important to keep in mind, that it is hard to influence the first judgment, which I’ll just remind you, is formed in .05 seconds.
The visual aspect of the website and clear navigation are things that influence the good first impression. Clear flow established by links in the main menu is a key UX principal, and it should be always tasted well-thought component. The less complexed visually the site is and the more prototypicality, the better chances are that people will consider it is as highly appealing.
No surprise there, as I’ve already learned, our brain doesn’t like to be presented to demanding information, when it is not necessarily needed.
Value Proposition
If you would like to learn more about value propositions in terms of UX, I highly recommend reading “UX strategy” by Jaime Levy — for me a groundbreaking book, so wise, so condensed with practical knowledge, beautifully explains discovering value proposition for digital products.
But now, let’s focus on the value proposition of the business presented in headlines at the websites and it impacts on the first impression.
It tells potential clients who you are and what you do, most of the time in form of the main headline. To do your best, the sentences should underline the outcome for the Users, the value it brings to them (part of the human brain responsible for making a decision about action is very selfish — you can read about it in my weekly summary number 2.
Successful value propositions need to be short, written in plain language. It is a good idea to support benefits for the User with visual elements, but not too distracting, like bullet points or simple icons. Remember that images communicate much quicker than words to people — it is good to support the value proposition with an image representing it — a product, or service.
According to Adobe
54% of people want to see content that’s personalized to their interests.
Images
In general, it is recommended to use images to support the goals you want to achieve with your website. They need to be carefully chosen, to make sure you keep the tone you should use to communicate well with your Audience. Make sure, you include things that are essential for your messaging, everything else is just a distraction. The quality of the images will have a similar effect on the quality of the overall design — it will impact trust.
Personal touch
Again, according to Adobe
70% of users prefer when a company uses humor they can relate to.
I wanted to share this, to underline a simple fact — we prefer to acknowledge the personality of the company or a person when considering any engagement with their product or services. It should be taken under consideration when it comes to content creation and tone of voice used in general communication in all touchpoints.
What I learned: Actually, in these lessons, I repeat things I know, but I’ve found many interesting additional articles and researches standing behind the facts, so I am armed with new arguments
How I apply it: In every stage of UX process!
I can’t wait to meet you next week, with my review of week number 5! Stay tuned and have a good week ahead :).