Users judge websites in a fraction of a second and their decision-making is largely controlled by unconscious though, not logic. Much of what influences users to take desirable actions is not as clear-cut as we would like to think.

Focusing on branding, design, and usability is only the starting point. Understanding the psychology behind motivation and action and how to incorporate that into web experiences can take your site to the next level.

Topics covered

• Defining credibility and persuasion
• Drivers and components of trust
• Evaluating credibility
• Cognition
  • Fostering cognitive ease
  • Human automaticity
  • Cognitive biases
  • Judgmental heuristics
• Influencing principles
  • Reciprocity
  • Commitment and consistency
  • Social proof
  • Liking
  • Authority
  • Scarcity
• Persuading people to:
  • Visit your site
  • Stay on your site
  • Believe your site
  • Take desirable actions on your site
• Searching behavior
• Pre-attentive processing
• Ratings and reviews
• Content dates and details
• Use of images
• Providing company information
• Testimonials
• Displaying advertisements
• Behavioral economics
• Easing decision-making
  • Complexity
  • Number of options
  • Compromise options
  • Order effect
  • Decoys
  • Zero price effect
• Eliminating purchase uncertainty

Format

The course is mainly in lecture format with a couple of group exercises to reinforce the learned principles and guidelines.

The course also includes:

• Findings from our own usability studies, including eyetracking
• Videos from usability testing of people's behavior in response to a design
• Screenshots of designs that work and don’t work, and why
• Opportunities to ask questions and get answers