Tags – Design Thinking and Conversion Rate
Design thinking is based on the idea that there is no one right solution to a problem and somewhat is an issue linked to user experience.
And whilst there are many good practices aimed at increasing conversions, there comes a key stage where it is important to know the users better, i.e. analysing the user journey and applying user-centric methods.
As such, design thinking involves looking at things from multiple perspectives and using creative solutions to find the best possible outcome.
Essentially, it is both a method – a state of mind – and a process, with the goal to solve problems in terms of user experience.
When it comes to conversion rate optimisation, design thinking can be a very valuable tool, allowing marketing teams, designers and developers to not solely rely on intuition, but rather focus on human-centred research, reflection and design.
In this post, we will focus on how it can help you boost your conversion rate.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Conversion rate optimisation is comparable to design thinking tactics in that it focuses on developing a transparent approach for boosting the conversion rate of a website for particular activities.
The goal is the same for each of these approaches: explore, generate ideas, and test them.
This approach is similar to Design Thinking in that it also relies on research, hypothesis creation, and testing.
It’s impossible to predict what changes will optimise conversion rates when markets, personas and industries can be quite complex; intuition and personal feeling don’t have a role in Design Thinking, either.
Given that no one knows what will work with conversion, the main targets to concentrate on are innovation and testing.
A Common Mindset
A common state of mind is to accept a few truths first of all;
Opinions Are Irrelevant
Both in design thinking or conversion rate optimisation, subjective opinions do not count.
It’s hard to immerse yourself in all users’ perspectives and grasp them at first sight.
Instead, you must put your instinct on hold and focus on trustworthy data in order to make accurate judgements.
Of course, innovative ideas, opinions, and suggestions may be offered; they must, however, follow a logical progression from observations made and subsequently tested.
There is No Magical Layout
Conversion rates are unaffected by the colour, placement, or layout of your content; there is no universal rule that maximises the chances of optimising conversions.
Some practices work on some websites, but not others.
As a result, we must shift our thinking away from the notion of “good practice” and toward that of “process.”
And that’s the biggest commonality between conversion rate optimisation and design thinking: they both involve a clear-cut process, which includes collecting data, finding solutions, creating hypotheses, testing and analysing.
Understanding, Empathy and Research
The first step in Design Thinking or conversion rate optimisation is to put yourself in the shoes of your users and empathise.
Here, you need to get to know your users with regard to their goals, fears, motivations, desires, geographies, demographics and more.
That said, both quantitative and qualitative data needs to be collected to gather the most precise understanding of users. and for the purpose of optimising conversions, the goal is to concentrate your UX research on the website’s usability and possible stumbling blocks that may lower conversion rates.
To begin your research, here are a few techniques:
- Google Analytics: it is possible to know users and the interface’s quality through quantitative data. With this tool, you can observe the most used browsers, frequent age group or other demographic data. The bounce rate and conversion rate on particular pages can also be used to assess the website’s performance
- Polls, Surveys and Interviews: to collect qualitative data, the objective is to ask relevant questions directly to the users concerned, and gather answers based on possible improvements of the user experience
- Click Tracking: this is an effective method of understanding the habits and behaviours of users in relation to the website interface; you’ll be able to see scroll and clicks of a group of users in the form of heat maps
Overall, the aim is to achieve empathy for users and understand the different issues they’re facing on your website.
Define and Analyse
Once you have collected qualitative and quantitative data, you need to analyse it to understand its impact on your conversion metrics.
For example, it may be interesting to bring together recurring behaviours in personas.
On the whole, there are two main questions you should ask yourself:
- Is there a common problem faced by different users?
- Are there answers that come up often?
Transforming your data into real observations will help create hypotheses later. And analysing this data will give you a clearer idea on what to optimise for the user experience.
Hypotheses
As we mentioned earlier, the design thinking process consists of generating innovative ideas to find solutions.
As a team, you can come together to brainstorm and share ideas, create a debate and make an intelligent hypothesis that can be implemented in future tests.
Note, you should try to generate as many hypotheses as possible, then order these according to how easy they are to implement and how it will impact user experience.
Concluding Words
Conversion rate optimisation is often seen as an area reserved for large companies.
However, design thinking ultimately has the same objective: to generate and test innovative ideas to improve the user experience or the conversion rate.
So, if you are looking for a way to boost your conversion rate, design thinking is a tool worth considering: it’s an ideal process for carrying out a conversion rate optimisation strategy.
All in all, design thinking can help you to understand your customers better and see things from a new perspective.
So, use it to challenge your assumptions and come up with innovative solutions that could lead to improved conversions.
Get in touch now to find out more.
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