In my book, Neuro Web Design: What makes them click, I have a chapter on Social Validation: When we are uncertain we look to others to see what our behavior should be. Now some new research tests this idea online. In a series of research studies by Chen (see end for full reference), visitors to…
Category Archives: neuro web design
Don’t Personalize: Cluster Instead!
In a TED video filmed in 2004 and published in 2006, Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink and Outliers) talks about human variability. The talk is entitled “What we can learn from spaghetti sauce” because he discusses the evolution of commercial spaghetti sauces from only a few varieties to hundreds (at the time of the filming…
Thumbs Up: Credo mobile email hits 5 Persuasion hot buttons
I get plenty of marketing emails, and this one that came the other day really stood out. Credo Mobile… it’s a cell phone service provider that also promises political change! They use 5 different persuasion techniques, all on one page: 1. The word “Free” is very powerful and they use it several times 2. Scarcity…
Sexy Product Needs a Sexier Web Site
PNC bank has created a unique offering for people in their 20s (Generation Y). It really is different, and it’s getting a lot of press. But they seem to have missed the boat at their website. This is a great example of the concept of “the home page is dead”. At their home page (first…
New York City Stabbing a Hoax?
I was just doing some research on a murder that happened in Queens NY in 1964. You may have heard of it. It’s the Kitty Genovese murder. It’s the crime that led to an entire branch of social psychology research. Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death on the street while 38 witnesses watched and did…