The latest news in marketing automation, web design, social media, and user experience.
Summary: Feeling that there is only one chance can convince people to take action sooner, sometimes without careful consideration of consequences or alternative options. The scarcity principle is a well-documented social-psychology phenomenon that causes people to assign high value to things they perceive as being less available.
It’s rare that Google reveals any of its actual ranking factors, so it came as a big surprise when representatives announced they would reward sites using HTTPS encryption with a boost in search results.
Whenever I see one of those “Top ten designs of the year” or “Eight keys to good navigation design” I usually rip into them. It’s really not that I am a negative person. It is just that they always tend to be so overly simplistic. They underappreciate the importance of context or completely misunderstand human behavior.
In a study by Google in August of 2012, researchers found that not only will users judge websites as beautiful or not within 1/50th – 1/20th of a second, but also that “visually complex” websites are consistently rated as less beautiful than their simpler counterparts.
The new Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov, has been getting much media attention over the past few weeks due to flaws in the user experience after its launch. Heavy traffic, network problems, and design flaws have hampered users from shopping for health insurance. Many agree that the new website presents a fragmented user-experience, which was not tested properly before...