Heuristic Analysis Frameworks for CRO | Review 7

This week I decided to focus on the heuristic Analysis frameworks and reflect on what I've learnt so far this week on my journey with the CXL mini degree course with CXL. Using Andre Morys 7 levels of conversion can immensely assist you in increasing your conversion rate without even doing any A/B tests.

The Heuristic analysis framework will show you what are the main issues your website is currently experiencing. The issues that are brought to your attention because of the framework can give you an uplift in conversions.

Andre Mory's framework is very to understand and can be easily implemented on your website or a clients website. You can create benchmark reports and grade your website against your competitors and see where you need to improve within any of the 7 levels of conversion.

The 7 levels of Conversion

The instructor Andre Mory's introduces the heuristic analysis by describing what a heuristic analysis is. A heuristic is derived from previous experiences with similar problems. This means that the framework is built on an expert evaluation and previous research which allows you to apply to any website which then gives you the insight needed to create a hypothesis that could be used to test.

The framework consists of seven levels:

1. Relevance - Is this the right page for me
2. Trust - Can I trust this company
3. Orientation - Where do I click or how do I find the right product
4. Stimulating users to buy - Why should I buy or click here
5. Security - Is it safe to do that here?
6. Convenience - How easy will everything be?
7. Confirmation - Did I do the right thing?

This course was absolutely amazing and so easy to do when you are working on a website. You can go through each level and assess where you need to improve.

Relevance:

When a user lands on a website, they will ask the question, "Is this the right website for me?"

Creating relevance between the user and your web page all begins through their first interaction with your ad, search engine listing or Facebook/Instagram advert.

If are enticing a user to click on your search engine listing or AD and what you promised the user must follow through on your webpage. An example of this is showing a copy on an AD about how easy it is to sign up for online classes, then this should be the case. Message match what was used in the AD or search engine listing and make sure that signing up is an easy process.

You need to answer all the questions where relevance is concerned so that the user knows that they are at the right place to get what they came for.

Trust:

To take the visitor to the next step, you must build trust with various factors or interactions. A visitor could decide not to sign up or purchase an item on your website due to a lack of trust.

Things you could implement on your website to build trust:

• Use influences, doctors or celebrities to endorse a product 
• Include social proof on your website in different formats
• Include your logo on your website page and ensure its clickable
• Create clarity with your headlines and product descriptions
• Avoid cluttering your web design and make sure there is enough white space.

Orientation:

Once you build trust, the next step is to make sure that the visitors know what they need to do next or where they have to click. Don't confuse your users or make it difficult for them to figure out what their next action should be.

Things to keep in mind:

• Avoid displaying too many options
• Your call to action should state what happens next when you click on it
• Your product filters or search box should make sense
• Use different colours for comparisons 

Stimulating Users to Buy:

Give your users a reason to buy now on your website. Think about your offer and ask yourself how unique is your offer compare to your competitors. 

Avoid being unique by competing on price and delivery times. Users need a reason to stop their search and click/buy/do something moment.

Your value propositions need to be clear and if you need to explain then it's crap.

Security:

Even though you got the user to act or do something, does not mean that they will follow through with the desired outcome. Think of your website as a salesperson and you need to handle the objection.

Customers with clear objections have a higher probability than customers without objections. You need to find out what their real concerns are behind their objections and address this.

You can address this with web forms when asking for sensitive information and include a why we ask for this information section to put the user at ease.

There are many things you could do to handle any objections.

Convenience:

The next point is asking yourself how easy will everything be? If you have a web form with 12 fields, ask yourself if it's really necessary for all those fields. Can you remove input fields from the form?

The easier it is to do something the more likely someone will follow through. 

Things that could something seem complicated:

• Excessive text and field options
• No alignment
• Heavy colours, a lot of different colours
• Small fonts, small fields
• No clear visual hierarchy
• Too many steps

Confirmation:

Throughout the process, you need to give good reasons as confirmation for action. 

Inline validation of forms is also positive confirmation to users.

• A confirmation checklist you could use:
• Show rationally good reasons for buying decision
• Use micro-feedback on pages and elements (e.g. inline validation)
• Present good reasons on a thank you page
• Use fun and interactions to increase fun + give positive feedback.

I enjoyed this course and the presenter goes a step further on how to present the information to all stakeholders and how you can create a benchmark report against your competitors and use this to your advantage.