IA Summit 2010

This year’s IA (Information Architecture) Summit is going to be held in Phoenix, AZ and I just got the note this morning that my proposal to the conference is accepted and I’ll go to this 11^th year’s summit as a speaker! (Oh, and may enjoy the Speaker’s special registration rate:)

The paper is titled:

Conversion Rates: Small Design Tweaks That Make a Difference

Overall reviewers’ comments:

“Excellent proposal – benefits from a clear framework, examples of goals and approach. Could have value for all skill levels of attendees and has a solid strategic/tactical balance.”

“This was a very well prepared proposal and I could get a very clear idea of what your presentation would be like – well done.”

I am so excited and looking forward to meeting my peers in industry and hearing the latest trend and technology. RSS cannot substitute these conversations at any rate.

Conversion Series I – Persuasion

I recently had a chance to talk with a business development person about the conversion of a term life insurance website.

Problem Statement

The web has a conversion form, almost on every page; but how do you persuade your visitors to fill out the form, and what makes them convert?

Visitors type in the URL from an offline ad campaign they just heard, or stumble into the site by Googling or referrals, but do they really understand what Term Life Insurance is? How many varieties does Term Life Insurance include and what kind of customization you offer? How do you distinguish yourself from you major competitors?

Design Rationale

We had the consensus that the website might want to do a better job at convincing users why this is the service users want to go with, and we both thought the RELEVANCY to their users is a key part, i.e., how relevant the service is to them?

Solution

Persona.

image source: http://threeminds.organic.com/images/2008/01/persona_diagram.jpg

Persona is widely used in product design, helping UX designers and information architects understand the need of their users and construct the interaction accordingly – thinking in users hats.

From this discussion, I found personas have other potentials too, such as: persuasion.

Do your research and find the most representative types of users and create personas to put online. List out the age, gender, household income, education, marital status, life style, hobbies, any factors that may affect their Term Life Insurance; and answer those questions in the problem statement:

- What Term Life Insurance is?

- Varieties of your Term Life Insurance and what kind of customization you offer?

- How do you distinguish yourself from your major competitors?

I created a draft wireframe as an example: and you may list a synthesis of your personas on relevant pages (e.g., homepage), and dedicate one page further for each persona, and make sure that:

You tell the story in the first person.

People like stories. They may associates those attributes of personas to themselves. The more relevant, the better.

Success Measurement

Place the form on those persona pages and tag the form with event tracking so you can track the performance.

List a unique 800 # so you can also track offline sales from those persona stories.

Test and Learn

Design should be iterative. There is always probability that certain factors may skew the results, so tweak the format, information design if it doesn’t work that well; and if it works well, it doesn’t hurt to make enhancement.