If you’ve got a retail store, you’ll find a recent study by Ohio State University & Illinois State University very interesting. And if you’re building a web application, there are some important lessons to learn from this study as well.
It’s basic conclusions are two-fold:
- People are much more likely to buy a product if they actually touch it and hold it.
- People are willing to pay more after they’ve touched a product and held it for a more than 30 seconds.
So what does this mean for your retail store? Encourage people to touch things. Put up a sign that says “Pick Me Up” or “Try This On In The Dressing Room” with an arrow to the dressing room.
Since we build marketing software here at Volcanic, when I read this article, the key lesson I got out of it was to encourage users to start using the app asap. Many users will probably reject your app without using it. They leave before they “get it.” Our job as marketers and software engineers is get them to use the app. If they use it, they’ll probably love it (or at least a certain percentage of them will.)
Next comes the question: How can you encourage users to use your app? The answer will obviously depend on your app but this discussion at 37 Signals might be worth looking at. UI wisdom suggests the following answers:
- Don’t ask too many questions up-front. A good example is FaceBook. They don’t ask too much info before you can get started. It’s a simple form asking for simple (and not so personal) answers.
- Demonstrate value as soon as possible. Google is a great example. You go to Google.com, enter something in and bang, Google just created value for you by offering you relevant info.
- Reduce the friction. This is related to the first point but also includes other factors such as offering OpenID support, making it easy to find the sign-up buttons, making it easy to import their data from existing systems (like Outlook) and more.
What other factors do you think can encourage users to use your app?
