{"id":6876,"date":"2015-07-10T07:19:49","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T14:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proxystudio.uxpin.com\/?p=6876"},"modified":"2024-05-13T23:00:36","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T06:00:36","slug":"designing-ux-conversions-beyond-3-click-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uxpin.com\/studio\/blog\/designing-ux-conversions-beyond-3-click-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing UX for Conversions: Beyond the 3-Click Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good UX equals good conversions. In this piece, we’ll\u00a0provide some UX tips for higher conversions and happier users.<\/p>\n

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Understand It’s Not Just About Clicks<\/h2>\n

For many years designers were told that a good website should only take the user three clicks for them to get to the desired destination. But the three-click rule has since been debunked<\/a>. Former Hubspot UX Director actually\u00a0found that it didn\u2019t really make much difference how many times somebody clicked in order for them to engage with the content or buy a product.<\/p>\n

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Photo credit: User Interface Engineering<\/a><\/p>\n

Porter\u2019s study analyzed more than 8,000 clicks, – determining if the user succeeded or failed in finding what they were looking for and how many clicks it took for them to give up. He found that some users visited as many as 25 and as few as two or three before stopping.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Three-Click Rule came from data, we would certainly see it with this wide variation in the number of pages they visited,\u201d says Porter. \u201cIf there is a scientific basis to the Three-Click Rule, we couldn’t find it in our data. Our analysis left us without any correlation between the number of times users clicked and their success in finding the content they sought.\u201d<\/p>\n

So there was no correlation between the number of clicks to user behavior in this case, nor was there to user clicks and customer satisfaction. As Porter points out, the three-click rule does have its place in forcing the design community to think more about users, but essentially it\u2019s a flawed concept that has no real basis.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Let Users Give Up<\/b><\/h2>\n

Users leave a website when they can\u2019t find what they want or at least see signals \u2014 an information scent, if you will \u2014 to guide them to it. Information scent describes \u201cthe extent to which users can predict what they will find if they pursue a certain path through a website,\u201d according to Jakob Nielsen<\/a>, who points out that it\u2019s also a larger part of information foraging theory<\/a> [PDF].<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: <\/i>Sybren St<\/i>\u00fcvel<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Creative Commons<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

This theory is concerned with how users interact through an analogy of animals searching for food. In the animal kingdom, predators that follow a strong scent believe that they will be rewarded with their prey at the end of the trail. Similarly, users who are looking for specific answers or products on a website will keep on searching as long as they keep finding links that appear to make the goal seem within reach.<\/b><\/p>\n

So long as the user is following what they believe to be a strong trail, they will remain on a site until they do.<\/p>\n

\u201c In our study of the usability of e-commerce sites<\/a>, for example, users were looking for a baby seat for their car, and quite logically looked in the automotive section of one of the sites we were testing. No baby seats there, so no sale,\u201d writes Nielsen in his article. \u201cUsers assumed that the site didn’t sell the product they needed because it wasn’t in the category where they assumed they’d find it. (In fact, the product was in a different section of the site, without a cross-reference from the car area).\u201d<\/p>\n

Leave a Logical Trail<\/b><\/strong><\/h2>\n

As we described in Web UI Best Practices<\/a>, a site with a strong navigation (and other guiding elements) will successfully convert more sales. A site that doesn\u2019t craft its navigation, content, links and overall hierarchy to logically point the user to where they want to go is one that will suffer from \u2018pogo sticking\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Photo Credit: <\/i>Gary H.<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Creative Commons<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Further to this, a site that provides all of the right things and creates a strong \u2018scent\u2019 but doesn\u2019t logically order \u00a0the content or product will lose sales. While the number of clicks don\u2019t mean a huge amount when it comes to user behavior, you should minimize whenever possible.<\/p>\n

As designer David Hamill suggests in his excellent piece for UXBooth, it\u2019s much more important that each click feels effortless<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Include The\u00a0Right UI Design Elements <\/b><\/h2>\n

Websites vary wildly when it comes to what they offer to their visitors. This means that there\u2019s no one-size-fits-all solution as to what constitutes the perfect page or site that converts. However, if the site is constructed bearing the above in mind, then that\u2019s a good start, and there are certain elements that make up a great landing page.<\/p>\n

These include:<\/p>\n