The Best Design is the One that Sells
Bringing testing into the web design process presents some interesting challenges. Traditionally, website designs are selected using the “beauty is best” approach, with the one that your team decides “looks the best” winning out. Unfortunately this system is flawed. In the thousands of conversion projects I have overseen, at least half the time the “most beautiful” page did not turn out to be best for the business.
The saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” should be modified to, “Beauty is in the eye of the customer.” A winning design should consider sales, not beauty. The customer’s response, not the CEO’s preference should prevail. The customers view may be revealed only through testing.
The problem is that creativity engenders a strong emotional attachment, kind of like a proud parent has for a new baby. It’s no use saying, “Your baby is ugly,” since these emotions arise independent of how good or bad the design might be.
When initially confronted with the idea of “testing” as part of the process, website designers often grow uneasy. The best way to circumvent their concerns is to be crystal clear: the goal is to produce multiple designs. Then each will be evaluated on the basis of whether it produces the most sales. This way everyone wins. Designers get to be “extra” creative and the business ends up with an awesome design that doesn’t just look great, it sells great, too.
Scott Miller is the CEO of Vertster.com and the author of the book, The ConversionLab.com: How to Experiment Your Way to Increased Web Sales Using Split Test and Taguchi Optimization. This past year he has overseen more than 2,500 web experiments.
