Usability Week 2009
San Francisco
Jun 22-27		 New York
Jul 13-17		 Sydney
Jul 27-Aug 1		 Edinburgh
Sep 14-18

Websites that Sell: The Role of Motivational Psychology in Website Design

  • San Francisco: Saturday, June 27
  • New York: Not offered
  • Sydney: Saturday, August 1
  • Edinburgh: Not offered

Bruce “Tog” Tognazzini
Full-Day Tutorial

Is your website achieving its full potential? In this course, you’ll learn to design sites that attract customers and motivate them to buy products or services, support your cause, or improve employee success and satisfaction, all in a pleasant, supportive environment that will ensure your site visitors will want to return.

Join Tog, our world-renowned user interface design guru, who (before the invention of the personal computer) was an award-winning salesperson for 15 years, selling millions of dollars worth of consumer electronics and teaching hundreds of others the secrets of “closing the deal.”

Drawing on both his extensive human computer interaction design and his sales experience, Tog will teach you how to avoid key website pitfalls that can drive potential customers away, and then thoroughly detail important motivational psychology fundamentals with emphasis on how to apply them to online sales. Armed with this thorough grounding in motivational psychology, you’ll ensure that your online customers not only stick around and buy what you’re selling right now, but will come back again and again.

What You’ll Learn

In this session, you’ll learn how to work in a cooperative team of designer(s) and marketer(s) to:

  • Transition from passive order-taking to actively selling products and services
  • Spot and correct “bailout points” where customers are leaving your site
  • Gather simple info from customers to help target your “sales pitch”
  • Design pages that motivate purchases, not just present data
  • “Close” sales, so customers will buy from your site or buy into your cause today

Course Outline

  • Motivational psychology: Theory and practice
    • How to apply motivational psychology to website design: Tried and true motivational techniques that can both improve the user experience and close sales
  • Understanding your customers
    • Moving beyond demographics to customer strengths, fears, and motivations
  • Simple, effective solutions to keep customers on your site
    • Tog will explain how, then you’ll work in small-group workshops to hone your techniques
  • Fix common “bailout” areas
    • Splash screens
    • Home pages
    • Registration forms
    • Checkout screens
    • And more...
  • Correct common problems
    • Creeping legalese
    • Confusing navigation
    • Content-free “About Us” pages
    • Presentation structure and content
    • And more...

Format

This full-day tutorial includes lectures and workshops.

Handouts

Copies of the presentation slides

Who Should Attend

This course will offer critical insights for designers, marketers, and project leaders working on the e-commerce front lines. Mastering the art of closing the deal online is also useful for anyone interested in learning to streamline their site’s user experience. Upon completion, participants will understand how to design websites that are attractive, engaging, and effective.

Instructor

Photo of Bruce “Tog” Tognazzini Bruce “Tog” Tognazzini is a Principal at Nielsen Norman Group. He is a recognized leader in human-computer interaction design. As chief designer at Healtheon/WebMD, he helped establish WebMD as the premier healthcare website. Before that, he was distinguished engineer for Strategic Technology at Sun, where he led the Starfire project, which predicted the rise of the World Wide Web. During his 14 years at Apple Computer, he founded the Apple Human Interface Group and acted as Apple’s Human Interface Evangelist. In 2000, he rejoined his long-time colleagues as a Principal at NN/g. A sought-after public speaker and consultant, he has published two books, Tog On Interface and Tog On Software Design, both from Addison-Wesley, as well as the webzine AskTog.