Trick or Treat: What Kind of User Experience is Your Website Delivering?

Hello boils and ghouls,

Welcome to the UX Hall of Horrors. Here we’ll explore the grisly consequences of breaking usability best practices (or failing to understand online persuasion techniques).

Witches

A terrible fate awaits those who don’t make it easy for visitors to decide “witch” product is right for them. Beware the paralyzing pitfalls of decide-o-phobia.

Vampires

Ambiguity is the king of vampires. It will suck the lifeblood out of your business.

Your customers want to know all the important details of your offerings. We can justify imperfections, but ambiguity is just plain frightening.

Soaped Windows

Remember the principle of reciprocation, and its evil twin, revenge? That’s what you’ll face if you insult or annoy your customers, or fail to live up to their service expectations.

Lions and Tigers and Bears

Oh my! Is your website an online Haunted Forest? Are flying monkeys (like null search returns and Error 404s) snatching visitors away, never to return? I’d stay out if I were you.

Razor Blades in the Apples

Remember Dan Ariely’s real-world experiment on trick-or-treaters? How he got them to accept inferior FREE choices over logically superior non-free options? It was one of the best examples of the power of free.

Copycat Killers

You’re probably using social proof on your website, and that’s great. But remember that social proof also works in reverse, to bad behavior.

Are you inadvertently invoking negative social proof?

Escaped Mental Patients

Don’t let them catch you. Foster commitment, with public written statements.

Ugly Jerry

He’s scary and hideous. But used properly, Ugly Jerry can be great for sales. Don’t underestimate the power of the contrast principle.

Cobwebs

What your website will be covered with if you fail to match user expectations.