Heuristic Analysis for your business: Digital Psychology and Persuasion Review

In our previous articles, we have talked a lot about different psychological and persuasion techniques but we never implemented the things on an actual site. In the heuristic analysis, we will discuss the teachings of CXL’s Digital Psychology and Persuasion mini-degree.

Let’s suppose you are talking to a prospective client and he asks you what can you do for my business? You start explaining to him emotional motivation, BJ Fogg’s model, Dopamine, Cortisone, etc. You will not be closing this prospect because now you have overwhelmed you with all of these details that he has no idea about. What a business owner wants to see is numbers. Instead of saying that your website is bad, you need to tell him the weaknesses in content, design, and strategy that you will be improving and how his competitors are better at persuasion content than his business.

If we are working with a client who needs the service of Digital advertisement, or SEO, or social media; we provide him with a thorough analysis of his current state, his competitors, and what we will be doing differently, and how that is going to affect their business. The same is the case with psychology and persuasion techniques, when we have a prospective client or even when we are starting with our own business or want to convince our bosses for using your techniques heuristic analysis comes in handy.

In the heuristic analysis, we will be looking at Relevance, Trust, Orientation, Simulation to conversion, Security & convenience, and Confirmation.

Relevance:

When auditing your website for relevance you need to place yourself as your target user and ask yourself one simple question “Is that the right page for me or the problem that I am facing?” If the answer is yes, you are moving on the right path.

The journey of relevance starts at SERPS, When a person searches for a problem on google and when he comes to your site your content needs to be providing him a solution to that problem.

Following are the questions that you need to be asked in detail and the relevance should be scored from 1 to 5 so that at the end you have a final score of relevance

• Is this the place that your prospect was searching for?
• Is this for people like your target users?
• Does your website follow the intent, especially headlines?
• Have you created the emotional resonance?
• Does your landing page show the solution to the problem?
• Does your value proposition fit the emotional values?
• Is the whole experience coherent to other pages?
• Is storytelling used to create resonance?

Trust:

After relevance, the next thing that kicks in is trust, If your content was relevant now the user is looking for reasons to trust you. This is the point where a user asks the question, Can I trust this site?

According to a study on How do users evaluate the credibility of web sites with more than 2500+ participants trust comes from

46.1% Website Design (Colors, Fonts, etc.)

28.5% Information Architecture

25.1% Information Focus (Clarity of Information)

15.5% Key Visuals

14.8% Useful Information

Following are the questions that we will be rating for trust and orientation

• Is the site design based on credibility principles?
• Is the information architecture clear?
• Does the brand stand clear and imply trustworthiness?
• Does the website use seals or any other security symbols?
• Is social proof visible?
• Are celebrities or other authorities used as testimonials?
• As a shop: Do you show the famous brands you are selling?

Orientation:

In this step, we will be asking What’s the next step if the customer trusts our site and wants to take the action? Where can he click to move forward?

You as a marketer control the attention of your users and you make them see what you want them to see. Following are the questions that we will be rating for this step

• Is a primary CTA clear and visible?
• Do CTA Elements show clear consequences of an action?
• Does the site help users overcoming the paradox of choice?
• Is it easy to compare options?
• Are secondary CTAs used to work on objections of users?

Stimulation to Conversion:

Stimulation is the final push towards the conversion If you messed up in any of the previous steps. Your competition is just one click away and the user is already motivated, he will complete the conversion from your competitor.

When a user has found the content relevant, trust your site and orientation is also perfect. Now the question arises Can I find a better deal? this is because users need a reason to complete the conversion or else they will keep searching.

Here are some questions that can help you rate your stimulation to conversion

• Does the site offer clear value propositions?
• Are the value propositions relevant?
• Are the value propositions unique? Really?
• Is the price/risk perception designed well?
• Does the site create a fun user experience?
• Are free gifts/elements of reciprocity used?
• Does the site show free wrappings/packaging?

Security & Convenience:

This is the place when your customer has a click that “buy now” button but when he is placing his credit card details in there, a sudden thought rushes through his mind “Is this safe?”

What you can do is provide the final push to the user by handling any kind of objections that may arise at this point and you need to anticipate their inner dialogue.

Following are the questions that can help you audit your security

Does the site answer typical questions on transactional pages?

• Are questions of customers anticipated?
• Is there an FAQ page?
• Are there links towards service areas to answer open questions?
• Is there a chat available? Call center?
• Is it possible to book additional insurances to reduce the risk?
• Leadgen: Is there an explanation why information is needed?
• Is a free try-out possible?
• Are your forms perceived as convenient?
• Are they really convenient?

Confirmation:

You bought the latest iPhone because it looked really cool and you wanted the look and feel of it. You are really happy with the thing but then the credit card bill drops in. You start giving yourself rational reasons as it can really help me with my work, I can study this thing, etc.

When people have converted on your website, to lower the stress level of your users you need to do something.

This step of the process can be audited by rating the following questions.

• Are you showing rationally good reasons for the buying decision?
• Are you using micro-feedback on pages and elements (e.g. inline validation)?
• Are you present good reasons on a thank you page?
• Are you using fun and interactions to increase fun + give positive feedback?

Now that you have audited all of the steps of the heuristic analysis, what you need to do know is that combine the total score, then the score you obtained, and calculate your optimized percentage. You can use the same process for your competitors and can show your findings.