TOPIC: Final Research Proposal: UX Design for Conversion Optimization

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TO: Dr. Getto

FROM: Hanna Gnann

TOPIC: Final Research Proposal: UX Design for Conversion Optimization

DATE: November 19, 2013

UX and Conversion Optimization

Designing for findability, usability, and brand reinforcement are basic requirements of web experience design. But the purpose of a website is not just to be found and admired. It's to generate leads, sales, and revenue.

Ask any dozen UX professionals, web designers, or marketers what should be improved on a page, and you’ll get a dozen (or more) opinions. But the business owners cannot take the risk of just putting up a new page based on opinions.The only way to know for sure is to run statistically valid tests of new user experiences, design, and copywriting variations. By running controlled A/B split tests on the live site, company management can get real data from live visitors and know with certainty which page variation would maximize sales.Conversion rate optimization process tests UX and persuasion hypotheses and allows you to create pages that are proven to generate more revenue (Goward, 2012).

One of the most highly regarded conversion optimization books in the online marketing industry is Landing Page Optimization:The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions. The authors criticize UX practitioners as usually good at the functional and architectural aspects of design, but usually weaker on the content issues, such as text copy, marketing message, and graphical design(Ash, Page & Guinty, 2012).

Although conversion optimization is a thriving in the business world, hardlyany academic studies exist on UX design and conversion optimization.

According to three in five (59%) companies surveyed, conversion rate optimization (CRO) is crucial to their overall digital marketing strategy. A further 40% consider CRO important (31%) or quite important (9%). Only 28% of companies surveyed are satisfied with their conversion rates(Econsultancy, 2013), which presents a big employment opportunity for UX professionals with knowledge of conversion optimization, content strategy and marketing.

Objective and Methods

The objective for my final project is to study the process of designing user experiences that will increase conversions on a webpage. The method of study will be an extended case method. ECM is an ethnographic research method that focuses on a detailed study of concrete empirical cases with a view to “extract” general principles from specific observations. Typically, a researcher would participate in and observe a number of related events and actions of individuals and groups over an extended period of time. The researcher would then construct his or her (ethnographic) story and theorize about a social phenomenon, rather than start with a theory to explain an empirical reality. ECM is at once a method of data collection, analysis, and theory building (Mills, Durepos & Wiebe, 2010).

My Qualifications

I have worked in online marketing for eight years and I constantly run into a situation where advertisers spend a lot of money on sending potential customers to their website, but often they don’t see sales increases from their efforts. Frequently the advertisement that send the user to the website was well designed, but the landing page was not designed to convert a visitor into a customer. This is where I see a huge opportunity to bridge the gap between marketing and UX design.I have recently been part of a major website redesign for an online publisher and learned how to perform usability studies, use heat maps to see where users are looking and particularly took part in decisions about advertisement placements. I have also been taking graduate-level courses technical communication and marketing for the past two years.

Costs and Benefits

I have three weeks to do a literature review of existing academic and commercial articles about UX and conversion optimization, which does not require any costs to finish. I will also design a case study which I will finish during my CAP in the spring semester.

References

Ash, T., Page, R. & Ginty, M. (2012). Landing page optimization: The definitive guide to testing and tuning for conversions. Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Econsultancy (2013). Conversion rate optimization report 2013. Retrieved from

Goward, C. (2012, March 2). Landing page optimization for more profitable experiences. UX Magazine, 797. Retrieved from

Mills, A. J., Durepos, G. & Wiebe, E. (2010). Encyclopedia of case study research. Retrieved from