Recap

[00:00:00]
>> So really that's about it for session one. I've no idea how long we've been running because I haven't been paying attention. But let me summarize back to you what we've covered in this first session. Basically, when it comes to dark patterns, no you shouldn't be using them.

[00:00:16]
But make that a business argument, not an ethical one, you'll find a much easier to win stakeholders over. Second, make sure that in everything you're doing, you're addressing users objections and reducing the risk for them in your copy, in your design, in your calls to action. All of those kinds of things, reduce risk and address objections.

[00:00:37]
In your design, make sure you're always simplifying, keeping people's cognitive load down, and we're gonna explore that more in a minute. Focus in your content and in your testimonials on building trust and overcoming cynicism. Oops sorry about that. And finally, prioritize speed above everything else because that is gonna be by far the biggest way of improving your conversion rate.

[00:01:04]
Outside of potentially cognitive load, you could argue both have a pretty profound effect. So that's it for this session, we will be moving on to the next one in just a moment. But I do wanna spend a few minutes addressing any questions that may have come in before we proceed.

[00:01:22]
Have there been anything, Mark?
>> So I just have a comment that we don't use a framework for performance reasons.
>> Yeah.
>> And people compliment our website all the time. They post screenshots of web page test results or lighthouse test results and that kind of thing. And yeah, it works well for us

[00:01:44]
>> Yeah. I mean if you're building something like a full blown SAS product or something like that, then I can completely understand using a framework kinda makes sense in a context like that. But certainly for sales and marketing sites, which obviously is the main thing we're focusing on here, it's very rarely is it actually necessary to do that kind of thing.

[00:02:06]
So has anybody got any questions? If we don't have questions I think it might be quite fun to maybe look at some websites and see what we can do with some of the things that we've talked about so far.
>> Someone asked if you're going to get into your graphic design principles for converting websites?

[00:02:26]
Yes, yeah, absolutely. So we're gonna talk about content next when we're going to be talking about how to create a value proposition that presents it. But then after that, we're gonna look in depth at design principles and how to design a page that highly converts. I'm not gonna get into the fundamentals of design because there are other courses that do that.

[00:02:49]
But we're gonna look particularly at how to approach design for conversion.
>> There's a question about more information or anything that you could recommend on learning more about dark patterns.
>> Sure, [LAUGH] well, learning more how to do them. I mean, obviously this is the point where I have to pimp my own book, Click, which is published by Smashing Magazine.

[00:03:17]
And that kinda gets into all that we're talking about today in a lot more detail. If you're interested in dark patterns more generally, there's a website called darkpatterns.org, which is a good one to follow. They've also got a Twitter account, which I quite enjoy as well cuz they post examples of horrendous dark patterns that gives you good giggle every now and again.

[00:03:43]
But yeah, that's a good site, that one will help.