UX & CRO Optimising Accessibility Relevancy And Conversions

UX & CROUX & CRO
www.greenlightdigital.com
FEBRUARY2017
UX&CRO
OPTIMISING ACCESSIBILITY,
RELEVANCY AND CONVERSIONS

2 www.greenlightdigital.com |  +44 (0)20 7253 7000
WHAT IS CONVERSION
RATE OPTIMISATION AND
USER EXPERIENCE?
BY SARAH FABER PETERSEN
Head of CRO & UX
Greenlight is a multiple award-winning integrated digital marketing agency
that designs, builds, deploys and measures marketing solutions and campaigns
across Search, Content and Engagement, Display, Mobile, eCommerce, and
more, with the unwavering objective of achieving dramatic growth for its clients.
Greenlight promotes brands and products in 32 languages and 42 territories on
behalf of such clients as Hiscox, ghd, Dixons Carphone, Millennium Hotels and
Resorts, Laura Ashley and many more.
Ready to grow? Call us on +44(0)20 7253 7000
or go to www.greenlightdigital.com/get-in-touch
4 6
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION:
GET DIGITAL RIGHT BY APPLYING
A CUSTOMER-FIRST APPROACH
BY MATTHEW WHITEWAY
Client Services Director
HOW CRO AFFECTS
YOUR BUSINESS
Head of CRO & UX
10

3www.greenlightdigital.com |  +44 (0)20 7253 7000
6 6
6
UNDERSTANDING
UX AS AN SEO
RANKING FACTOR
BY BEA PATMAN
Head of SEO
UX: STAYING AHEAD OF
THE GAME IN 2017
BY MONNY LAM
Senior Digital Designer
UNDERSTANDING
DATA-DRIVEN
OPTIMISATION
Head of CRO & UX
IS SHOPPING ON YOUR SITE LIKE TRYING
TO FIND A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK?
BY CHRIS DUNN
Operations Director, FoundIt!
PUTTING USERS
AT THE HEART OF
YOUR BUSINESS
Head of CRO & UX
16
20
24 28
12

Ever found yourself shouting at your
computer when attempting to buy
something online? Whether or not it’s
just me that reacts that way, what’s clear
is that we now expect to have a seamless
experience when buying online, regardless
of where we are at the time and of the
device we’re using.That being said, we often
forget how much digital has evolved over
the last decade, and that it really wasn’t too
long ago that playing Snake on our mobile
phone was considered revolutionary. But
we do forget, and we do expect.The pace
at which digital has evolved is massive,
but at the heart of success is the ability for
marketers to take the time to ask themselves
some core questions which are focused on
customer behaviour and how well their
offering responds to key needs.
The fact of the matter is that media consumption
over the past few years has changed, and we’re now
seeing a paradigm shift in favour of consumers,
where they define the terms and parameters. Just
look at the way TV has evolved and think about the
last time you watched your favourite show; statistics
would suggest you viewed it “on demand” rather
than live, confirming the degree to which users are
controlling when and how to consume. Online is no
different. Simply being able to buy or enquire online
is no longer enough.
GET DIGITAL RIGHT BY APPLYING
A CUSTOMER-FIRST APPROACH
BY MATTHEW WHITEWAY, CLIENT SERVICES DIRECTOR
INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION

“Users want an experience that is tailored to them; they don’t want
to have to think about on-site navigation, they don’t want to have to
click through dozens of filters. They want instant access to content
or items, all on their terms – and they expect that journey to be
perfect from start to finish.”
That’s why user experience (UX) and conversion
rate optimisation (CRO) is so important. Creating
a frictionless experience that guides users from a
landing page to a purchase button should be a key
consideration for any digital marketing process today.
Digital marketers have been the envy of traditional
marketers for years due to the data they have at their
disposal. However, it’s up to website owners to use that
data to really understand how their consumers are
engaging with their website, and to identify pain points
and clarify how to tackle those. All too often, digital
marketers simply accept their site conversion rates and
instead put more money into the top of their funnel to
attract more traffic, and the potential gains that come
from site optimisation to get more from your existing
traffic are often overlooked.
It’s been suggested that it takes 1/20th of a second
for a user to decide whether they like a website or
not. Whilst I don’t entirely agree that a key purchasing
decision is really made that quickly, it’s clear that
users are now expecting and demanding a far richer,
engaging, and personalised experience than ever
before; and long-term growth and brand value will
effectively be offered to those who optimise to meet
those requirements.

UX & CRO
6

WHAT IS CONVERSION
RATE OPTIMISATION AND
USER EXPERIENCE?
SARAH FABER PETERSEN, HEAD OF CRO & UX
Over the years, I’ve met quite a few clients
asking for ‘conversion experience’ and
‘user rate optimisation’– this is, of course,
an exaggeration, but the point remains:
user experience (UX) and conversion rate
optimisation (CRO) are often confused,
combined as one or thought of as two terms
for the same practice. By having a look at the
ever popular ‘granny remote’ analogy, it’s easy
to understand what CRO and UX really mean
and how they operate in different spaces.
We all use remote controls, probably daily (depending
on your TV viewing habits, of course), yet we’ll rarely use
more than a few of the buttons. In fact, if we’re being
really honest, very few of us (engineers and avid techies
aside) are likely to know the functionality of 90% of the
buttons on them.
So, why are they there? All they do is clutter up the
‘interface’ and cause frustrating moments of “why is
everything blue? How do I undo that?” after hitting a
random, and often unknown, button when you pick up
the remote. Wouldn’t life (read: TV watching) be much
easier if we removed all the clutter and kept the most
used buttons on display with a ‘view more buttons here’
option, should you ever need them.

The illustration below shows three remote controls. The first remote is your standard non-optimised festival of
buttons – the functionality you need is there, but it takes effort to find them, and making a mistake is easy.
UX & CRO
Remote #1
Standard
Remote #2
UX optimised
Remote #3
CRO optimised

After extensive user research and data analysis of
button use (not really, but you get the point) we’ve
optimised the user experience of the second remote;
the most used buttons stand out and are further
enhanced with supporting titles, and all remaining
buttons are hidden but remain available. This makes
for an easy to use remote, an effortless user experience
where you’re not required to do any thinking or
endless searching. This is a remote my two-year-old
niece and seventy-year-old mum can both use – it
excludes no one.
Moving on to the third remote which has been further
optimised with a bit of conversion rate optimisation
(CRO) logic. In this example, we want viewers to pick
up the remote, turn on the TV and keep it on for as
long as possible. We encourage them to do so by
applying a few psychologically persuasive cues. We
separate the ‘on’ and ‘off’ buttons and enhance ‘on’
while ‘off’ is discretely placed to the side. To really get
people excited at the prospect of watching TV, we
add a few prompts or USPs to remind users why TV is
the best. We highlight channel 2, because that’s the
one we make most money on, and add some urgency
with a countdown to when the next show will begin.
Finally, we add some social proof for good measure
– other people love TV, you probably will too! This
fully optimised remote is not only easy to use, but also
encourages users to engage with it.
Now, let’s apply this logic to your website: does it
offer content, navigation and functionalities that may
confuse users and distract from the main purpose of
your site? Is it clear what users are meant to do on
your site, how it benefits them and how to proceed?
These are the questions that we need to ask ourselves;
your site isn’t really serving a purpose that’s of true
value to your business unless it’s optimised to your
user base and their behaviour and makes the user
journey clear and simple in order to engage and
convert. What’s interesting is how often the seemingly
greatest of websites are, in fact, not serving their
audience correctly and aren’t making their most
valuable touchpoints visible – and that’s exactly where
UX and CRO come in to help improve those journeys
and maximise the value of touchpoints you want users
to engage with.
“Your site isn’t really serving a purpose that’s of true
value to your business unless it’s optimised to your user
base and their behaviour and makes the user journey
clear and simple in order to engage and convert.”

UX & CRO
HOW CRO AFFECTS
YOUR BUSINESS
While conversion rate optimisation (CRO) has
always been around in one way or another, it has
yet to find proper ground in many businesses, big
or small.As a marketer of any kind, your success
is likely measured on ROI and growing sales.And
so, when it’s time to develop a digital strategy
geared towards acquiring more high quality traffic,
CRO would be the obvious path to follow – after
all, more users must mean more sales.That being
said, investing in CRO is often at the bottom of the
list when allocating budget, and as a function it
tends to get what’s left of the marketing budget
at the end of the year – something which really
puzzles me.
HOW TOUCHPOINTS IMPACT KPI’S
Over the years, I’ve been told by many brands that they
just don’t have the funds to invest in CRO services due
to low sales numbers and a need to focus on traffic
performance first. In my (granted, very biased) opinion
this makes little sense as this very challenge would
suggest that conversion optimisation is where they
stand to gain the most.
SARAH FABER PETERSEN, HEAD OF CRO & UX

“Working with CRO means
optimising the performance of your
site and with that, the performance
of your traffic, benefitting the overall
business and improving different
teams and channels’ performance –
everyone’s a winner!”
If, like many brands, you invest in paid traffic and as a
result achieve an increase in conversions of 2%, that’s a
great ROI. But if you optimised your website alongside that
activity and achieved a further increase in conversions of
50%, you’d be getting more conversions at the same ad
cost (lowering your overall CPA). Such cost savings would
give you the option to reinvest your savings back into
more digital activity, but most importantly, your site will
be performing at its best and adding a net improvement to
your paid media activity.
Embarking on a CRO adventure may seem daunting to
some, and resources may be a cause for concern. Sure,
a list of recommended changes to the site which will
improve conversions sounds great, but who’s going to
implement the changes? How do the changes fit in with
current schedules? What if the recommendations don’t
have a positive effect after all? These concerns are exactly
why we test.
CRO IS APPLICABLE TO JUST ABOUT
ANY SITE
If your site has sufficient traffic volume and conversion
or goal touchpoints, CRO teams can conduct experiments
across your site based on thoroughly researched
hypotheses. Conducting experiments leaves us
with scientific proof that a given recommendation,
if implemented on your site, will result in a lift in
conversions of x%. This takes away any uncertainty and
guess work, and you’ll not lose any resource implementing
changes unless you’re certain they’ll have a positive impact
on your bottom line.
On the other hand, some businesses overlook CRO because
they don’t feel it’s relevant to them; their product is not
click-to-buy or they offer a service that requires quotes
and a longer sales process. The reality is that no matter
what product or service you offer, there’s almost always
a way to help enhance sales through online conversion
optimisation.
Let’s say you sell yachts. Sure, it seems highly unlikely
anyone is going to make an impulse purchase based on
a big flashy call-to-action – even if it were possible to
complete an order online. But, if you break down your
main goal (selling a yacht) into sub goals, you can work
on optimising conversions on these. Examples of these
could be downloading a brochure, filling out a request
form, setting up a viewing or making a phone call. Digging
into your data further will allow you to discover how often
a document download leads to a viewing, and how many
viewings ultimately lead to sales. This allows you to set a
value for each goal and gives a clear indication of where
you should be focusing your CRO efforts.
And so I rest my case that CRO is definitely worth investing
in for just about any business. CRO is an effective tool no
matter what, whether you have a big budget and want to
do lots of test plans or you simply want to do some low-
cost investigative analytics and observe user behaviour.
Ultimately, CRO can give you enough insights to develop a
list of quick wins which will improve conversions based on
your goals and your site’s overall performance. Irrelevant of
how much you spend, you’re almost certainly guaranteed
that your money will be well spent – after all, you’ll
continue to reap the benefits of a better performing site
for time to come, alongside visible improvements across
other marketing channels.

UNDERSTANDING UX AS AN
SEO RANKING FACTOR
It’s only been a few months since Sarah (Head of
CRO & UX) joined the Greenlight team, but in no
time at all we’ve fallen into step on all things site
optimisation. So much so, in fact, that we spent
the back end of last year attending a number
of industry conferences together, preaching the
gospel of integrated UX and SEO. For us it feels
like a no-brainer – working so closely together
means that we’re easily able to identify the many
ways in which our respective channels overlap
and the many benefits that we can bring to one
another’s traditional KPI sets. I have to admit that
we’ve found it a little odd to still be encountering
dissent from those who feel that the two channels
continue to operate at cross-purposes, or who
frequently encounter conflicts between the two
teams within their own organisations.
BEA PATMAN, HEAD OF SEO
SEO

I want to convince continuing doubters of the
symbiotic relationship between the two disciplines,
and hopefully provide some constructive methods for
better integrating siloed UX and SEO departments.
After all, whether your focus is on acquisition
or retention, the likelihood is that any website
stakeholder will ultimately be striving – and in some
way accountable – for conversions. So, with that
common goal in mind, how is it exactly that these two
channels overlap?
ENGAGEMENT IS AT THE HEART OF
UX AND SEO LOGIC
The first thing to keep in mind is that this intersection
of interests is by no means new: UX considerations
have been creeping into the SEO canon for several
years. In fact, the Panda algorithm, which is central
to organic optimisation and turns six this year, is
entirely focused on the depth, breadth and quality
of a website’s content – factors specific to a user’s
experience of that site. Then there are engagement
metrics to consider; search engines observe user
interaction with results and look for “long clicks”,
whereby users stay on a page that they’ve clicked on
rather than immediately returning to the search. It’s
for this reason that SEOs will obsess about lowering
bounce rates and increasing the ‘stickiness’ of page
copy. But these are the exact performance metrics that
CRO and UX teams are also focusing on, so, why is it,
then, that conflict still exists between these channels?
In my experience, disagreement tends to arise not
around content-related matters, but when bigger
decisions about site structure, navigation and user
journeys need to be made. Menus have long been
a particularly rancorous UX and SEO battleground,
with (and forgive the generalisation) SEOs usually
arguing either for fewer links or for prioritisation of
commercially significant pages, and UX managers
pushing to have all content quickly and easily
available to users up-front. In this instance, it’s likely
that SEO decisions are being motivated (consciously
or unconsciously) by PageRank, which was one of the
original driving forces in SEO. Based on the principle
that page equity is passed around the web through
links, PageRank was for a long time one of the most
visible and easily measured ranking factors, which is
why it’s ended up playing such a significant role in
shaping the way that organic optimisation is carried
out.
“Whether your focus is on acquisition or retention, the
likelihood is that any website stakeholder will ultimately be
striving – and in some way accountable – for conversions.”

SEO
But PageRank is just one factor of many – and a
deprecated one at that. Google began pulling back
support for public-facing PageRank measures after
about a decade, slowly decommissioning the Open
Directory, the Search Console interface and, eventually,
the Toolbar view. At the same time, new measurement
tools were being introduced to help with optimising
more experience-focused site features, such as speed.
In fact, Google introduced the family of PageSpeed
tools at its 2010 developer conference – the same year
the Open Directory was shuttered. This isn’t to say that
PageRank is dead: it’s still operating in the background
as a component of the ranking algorithm. However, its
importance has decreased significantly over the past
six or seven years while that of user experience has
increased correspondingly, and it’s important that we
SEOs learn to adapt our old habits to align with this
new state of play.
FINDING A MIDDLE GROUND
So what’s the compromise? Well, sticking with the
menu issue for another minute, I don’t believe there
really needs to be one. The priority for SEO is ensuring
that the navigation helps robots to crawl sites
effectively and understand their hierarchy, while for UX
it’s a case of making it easier for users to move around.
This is because UX and CRO are founded on a “don’t
make me think” rubric – a user shouldn’t have to apply
any mental effort when interacting with a website.
Fundamentally, therefore, both channels are working
to clear a simple, intuitive path around site content.
This parity extends beyond just navigation, too. I
mentioned earlier that content tends to be an area in
which UX and SEO see eye-to-eye, and that goes right
down to the granular details. Mark-ups such as H1s are
clear demarcations both for robots and human users;
quality copy benefits relevancy, ranking performance
and adds value to a user’s interaction with a site; and
meta data helps both robots and users to understand
what a page is about and what information it might
help to deliver. In almost every aspect of on-page
optimisation, both teams should be working towards
the same goals, albeit for subtly different purposes.

If that still isn’t the case in your organisation, how
can you go about bringing the two teams into line?
Probably the most powerful olive branch is data.
Each team has insights into particular aspects of
the customer journey that the other lacks – SEOs
are likely to have much more data on search query
volumes and intent than UX teams, while the latter
will know how users behave on-site after they’ve
clicked on the organic result. Sarah’s team favours
Hotjar1
for user analysis because of the invaluable
insights its visitor recording can deliver. For me, these
have been revelatory: imagine discovering that a
page that we’ve carefully optimised and have ranking
for a given search query is confusing the hell out of
visitors who land on it from that SERP! Watching their
cursors frantically search the page for mentions of the
topic, or perhaps for products they expect to find and
don’t, is helping us to reflect on accuracy, relevancy,
content and layout to make sure that the journey from
acquisition to interaction is much more seamless. This
helps to win longer clicks, lower bounce rates, higher
relevancy scores and, of course, better conversions.
Meanwhile, I’ve been able to reciprocate with search
query data; helping, for example, to shed a light on
why a highly competitive short-tail term might not be
converting as the CRO team anticipated.
Once you’re integrating data at the top end of your
working processes, the next step is to review KPIs. The
likelihood is that you’ll discover a lot of similarities
– probably in the form of conversion and revenue
targets. It’s these, more than anything else, that really
serve to highlight the fact that you’re not dealing with
two parallel channels; rather two teams that handle
different points on the same user journey (one lines
them up while the other knocks them down, in other
words).
With algorithmic advancements making it easier
for search engines to measure user signals, and the
mobile-first index placing speed and simplicity at the
very centre of site optimisation, the significance to
SEO of what were once purely UX considerations is
only set to grow. My bet is that the brands that thrive
will be the ones that take proper steps to integrate
their digital teams rather than allowing them to
continue working in siloes. The reality is that much
of that work has been done by Google anyway: little
by little, the requirements placed on both teams
have been pushed closer in line over the last few
years. Now, the final step is communication, which, as
marketers, is inherent to our roles so should be the
easiest step overall.
1. https://www.hotjar.com/

UNDERSTANDING
DATA-DRIVEN
OPTIMISATION
UX & CRO
SARAH FABER PETERSEN
HEAD OF CRO & UX

In my years working in conversion rate optimisation,
I’ve often come across companies which insist that
they’re already doing CRO and have been doing so for a
long time. Many will settle with installing heatmapping
technology such as Crazyegg1
on their site and running
the odd A/B test. The only problem is, they don’t use
the data they gather through Crazyegg and there’s no
hypotheses or purpose behind the A/B tests they’ve
run – and while they may get lucky and strike gold here
and there, it’s not a winning strategy, and will rarely
ever result in major long-term improvements.
In my younger days, I always cringed a bit when
someone mentioned the word “data”– I thought it
sounded a bit geeky. Now, I’m all aboard the geek
train, and I’m hoping after reading this article you
too will jump on board (if you haven’t already). Many
marketers will use data to measure how different
marketing channels perform and to monitor overall site
performance. But why not also use the data to discover
where the site is suffering and take it a step further to
discover not just where the problems lie, but also what
the problems on those pages really are for users.
Your analytics platform is a gold mine of
information and should be the foundation
of any data-driven optimisation strategy.
“
”

UX & CRO
A high bounce rate is the first
indicator that something is
wrong. Something on these
pages discourages users from
engaging further with the site.
It’s also worth checking the
traffic source here, as that may
also be a factor.
BOUNCE RATE
Identify the pages with high
volumes of traffic and low
conversion; these are often
the pages where there’s most
to gain. It’s also worth taking
a look at how pages convert
compared to the site average.
CONVERSIONS
How is your traffic split between
devices? Do the majority
of users visit your site on a
mobile device and, if so, does
that channel lead to more
conversions? This is a great way
to learn where your efforts in
optimisation should be focused.
DEVICES
If you haven’t already, set
up a funnel in your analytics
platform to discover at what
point within the funnel your
users tend to drop off, as that
will be a marked pain point to
investigate further.
FUNNEL VISUALISATION
Do some browsers convert
much better than others? You
could potentially be losing out
on lots of conversions due to
technical and compatibility
issues.
BROWSER
HERE’S A LIST OF SOME OF THE FIRST THINGS TO EXPLORE
WHAT ARE YOUR CHALLENGES, AND WHERE DO THEY OCCUR?
Your analytics platform is a gold mine of information and should be the foundation of any data-driven optimisation
strategy. It helps identify where your site is struggling and gives insights on what to include in your optimisation plan.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING AND HOW
DO WE FIX IT?
Now we’ve identified where the problems are, but we
don’t know why or how we go about fixing them.
Sometimes the answer will be obvious once you’ve
had a second look at the issue in question, but more
often than not you’ll have to dig deeper and do
additional research before you can develop a valid
hypothesis for implementation or testing. To gain this
kind of insight, we need to study how users interact
with your site. Fortunately, we live in an age where
there are tools for pretty much anything, and user
insights are no exception to this, with tools like Hotjar2
,
Clicktale3
, SessionCam4
, Crazy Egg5
and Lucky Orange6
(the list goes on) which can help to gather all the user
behaviour data you could wish for.
These tools allow you to set up scroll, movement
and click maps to discover where on the page users
engage (and where they don’t) so you can identify
areas and touchpoints which are ideal for conversions.
Form analytics will tell the story of how your users
are interacting with key forms, as well as which
fields make users hesitate and where they drop off
altogether.
And then there’s the most qualitative data of them
all: user playbacks, which are end-to-end recordings
of individual user journeys. Playbacks, however, can
be tricky and aren’t the easiest insights to analyse
– they’re time consuming and, without a systematic
approach, can result in more confusion – and
sometimes even the wrong conclusion altogether. But
with the right approach, there are invaluable learnings
in observing how your users interact with your site
from which you can easily notice trends and walk away
with some immediate takeaways.
Ultimately, when it comes to optimising your site, data
is vital. It’s impossible to develop a valid optimisation
strategy without knowing where opportunities lie and
without having gained an understanding of how you
can achieve them. And while this article can only give
you a tiny glimpse of the amazing world of data, I hope
it’s inspired you to explore it further.
1. https://www.crazyegg.com/
2. https://www.hotjar.com/
3. https://www.clicktale.com/
4. https://sessioncam.com/
5. https://www.crazyegg.com/
6. http://www.luckyorange.com/

IS SHOPPING ON YOUR
SITE LIKE TRYING TO FIND
A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK?
UX & CRO
CHRIS DUNN, OPERATIONS DIRECTOR,

In its latest annual report1
, ASOS acknowledged
that because it offers one of the largest product
collections, shopping on its website could feel like
searching for a needle in a haystack.
“ASOS is the online fashion
destination with one of the
largest collections of products
and content anywhere in the
world. It’s why we’re growing so
quickly. But having everything
any customer could want is a
challenge – how do we make
sure that, among the tens of
thousands of items available, our
customers can find just the right
ones for them? Go onto our site
and search for, say, ‘black dress’.
You’ll get close to 3,000 results.
Who can find the needle in the
haystack of 300 dresses, let
alone 3,000?”
This really struck a chord with me, and it’s not
just ASOS that’s creating haystacks. In my role at
FoundIt!2
, a ground-breaking journey optimisation
platform, I see it happening industry-wide – with
many well-known eCommerce brands actively
expanding their range and moving into new
product areas.
I can just hear those conflicting boardroom
discussions now:
“We have a key strength in that
we have significantly expanded
our range of products, and now
have a great amount of choice to
offer our customers.”
“We also have a key weakness…
in that we have significantly
expanded our range of products,
and now have a great amount of
choice to offer our customers.”
That’s exactly the crux of the issue; by adding more
and more product lines to eCommerce sites we are,
in effect, creating a journey for many customers that
truly is like finding a needle in a haystack.
CVR%
T I M E S P E N T O N S E A RC H/B RO W S E
There is a significant negative correlation
with the time and effort taken to find
products and CVR:

UX & CRO
All that clicking, searching and filtering. Then there’s
the sorting, the scrolling, and all the ‘click here for
page 2’. It’s a minefield. And it’s no wonder that
customers who are unable to find what they want is
one of the biggest sources of customer frustration, low
conversion rates and lost sales opportunities.
This is a major headache for CRO and UX practitioners
alike. As the title of this article suggests, we’ve
created haystacks and, by and large, we don’t help the
customer when they’re trying to find those needles.
Search functionality and navigation bars should be
our friends here, but quite often those features are
unintuitive, not relevant and, crucially, not reflective of
human behaviour.
Take this page:
“
”
Search functionality and navigation bars
should be our friends, but quite often those
features are unintuitive, not relevant and,
crucially, not reflective of human behaviour.

If we stop and think about it, do we honestly
think the user’s most likely next step on the
site shown on the left is to filter by price (let
alone by £5 to £10 for that matter)?
We could check our page analytics, but that
would be swayed by a self-fulfilling prophecy
and also reflects clickable activity rather than
easily highlighting direct painpoints when
navigating a page.
Better still, we can talk to our search marketing
colleagues and gauge what the wider market
thinks by looking at keywords and customer
intent around a category. In this particular
example, it’s all about ‘Brand’ and ‘Storage
Capacity’, and in fact when digging deeper,
the lion’s share of the demand is in just two
brands: Seagate and WD. This issue could
be further exacerbated for our customer if
this was an A to Z sort as well, which would
effectively bury Seagate and WD, the most
likely next steps, even further down the
page. The problem here is we don’t surface
this language front and centre to help our
customers navigate and filter to the products
they’re most likely to be looking for.
By understanding what customers want
before they land on a website, we can present
more personalised and intuitive customer
experiences. Many eCommerce marketers are
looking beyond the out-of-the-box eCommerce
platform capabilities and facet navigation
engines to solve this problem. As I point out
above, inherently those solutions offer a one-
size-fits-all approach, which no longer fits our
customers’ ever-changing needs.
In order to have any chance of finding
needles in an ever-increasing haystack world,
eCommerce marketers are going to need to
really understand their customers’ continually
changing intent, at every level of their website
navigation while also instantly surfacing those
‘best of the best’ navigational options at scale
and front and centre in an always switched-on
environment. To do this, retailers need to invest
in technology that utilises customer data to
create more relevant journeys. ASOS, a digital-
first business and leader in the respective field,
has built its own systems to help surface the
right content and products, at the right time,
using an array of customer data and machine-
learning algorithms to make sure it holds its
customers’ hand each step of the way.
However, if you’re not ASOS and don’t have
the budget or resource to create your own
systems, journey optimisation technology has
been developed that can quickly be added to
your site and start improving the customer
experience, and your conversion rates, in
weeks. With the amount of information that
can be collected to create a personalised and
relevant user experience, I’m hoping that going
forward we’ll see an important shift away
from sites that resemble haystacks and move
towards fast, sleek and simple interfaces that
are driven by user data and interactions.
1. http://www.asosplc.com/~/media/Files/A/ASOS/
results-archive/pdf/2015-annual-report.pdf
2. http://www.foundit.com/

UX & CRO
In UX, how you deal with your
users and how they feel when
using your product are key
factors of success.
“
”24 www.greenlightdigital.com |  +44 (0)20 7253 7000

With the digital landscape constantly evolving
and new UX trends frequently appearing, it can
be a challenge to make sure your brand is as up
to date as can be. To give you a head start, we’ve
summed up three new user experience practices
that we believe will be the biggest game-
changers for brands in 2017.
1. AGE RESPONSIVE DESIGN
A one-size-fits-all approach to web design is quickly
becoming a thing of the past. Already, responsive web
design adjusts the content of your website to fit around
a device screen size or resolution. With a plethora of
audience data now available at our fingertips, designers
will increasingly take advantage of data to identify
unique visitors and offer them age-specific adaptations
over the coming years.
Through the intelligent use of audience data, there’s a
growing ability to create universally user-friendly, age-
appropriate experiences.
Age-responsive websites can be designed to tailor the
perfect user interface experience depending on your
target audience’s age, which could feature adaptations
such as:
• Font sizes and kerning adjusted to be
bigger and clearer for the elderly
• Select colour schemes dependent on the
user’s age; for example, the use of more
vibrant colors for kids or higher contrast
color schemes for older users
• Navigation options optimised to suit a
user’s competency level; it’s much easier for
beginners to navigate around a site using
prominent menu options, whereas more
advanced users may prefer less clutter
Web users today have a dramatically different level
of digital literacy - from digital natives right through
to silver surfers. With that in mind, UX designers need
to start taking advantage of audience data to make
subtle changes to accommodate for younger or older
audiences.
UX: STAYING AHEAD OF
THE GAME IN 2017
BY MONNY LAM, SENIOR DIGITAL DESIGNER

UX & CRO
2. CHATBOTS
Chatbots are’t a new thing, but they’re definitely one of
the hottest topics in the industry right now, and we’re
pretty confident you’ll be considering integrating one of
these onto your site soon.
A chatbot, short for chat robot, is a computer program
which simulates human conversation, or chat, powered
by system rules and natural language processing,
allowing users to interact with them via a chat interface
similar to Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Slack,Telegram
or text messages. Chatbots in apps are similarly an
upgrade to a mobile user interface, as they bring the
most basic type of human interaction – conversation –
into the digital environment.
Digital audiences are currently using messenger apps
more than they’re using social networks. Strategically,
if you want to grow your online business, you need to
be where your audience is and, at the moment, that
place is inside messenger apps, which makes chatbots
all the more important. It’s potentially a huge business
opportunity for brands who want to re-create an in-
store experience online, supported by technology that
users will welcome. With chatbots in place, brands will
be able to provide more personalised customer service,
generate sales leads around the clock and subsequently
increase revenue.

3. MICRO-INTERACTIONS
Micro-interactions are the tiny on-screen animations, transitions or reactions that are triggered when a user
interacts with an interface – from pushing a button to refreshing a feed. They give users an important form of visual
feedback in return for their action and when they’re well designed, they can transform an interaction that’s usually
dull and forgetable into one that feels human and satisfying. They make the user’s life much easier by allowing them
to know what’s happening, what has happened, and what will happen next as they interact with the interface.
There are four stages that make up each micro-interaction to consider: trigger, rules, feedback and loops and modes.
In UX, how you deal with your users and how they feel when using your product are key factors of success. Even
minor details deserve close attention. It’s important that designers recognise the subtlety of micro-interactions while
also taking care to design them beautifully. Getting these right will elevate your interface from one that users will
tolerate to one that they’ll love.
The trigger is the action
that starts the micro-
interaction; it should
be clearly visible to the
user and behave in a
predictable way. The best
triggers should be able
to anticipate the user’s
need without explicitly
explaining it.
Rules determine what
can or cannot be done,
and form part of the
user flow by defining the
sequence of events.
Since rules are invisible,
feedback helps us to
understand what’s
happening and to learn
the rules. Feedback also
offers an opportunity to
add brand personality to
your micro-interaction,
such as a CSS transition or
a related sound effect.
Loops and modes are the
last components. Loops
determine how long the
micro-interaction should
last, and define how they
change over time. On
the other hand, modes
should only be used as
the critical but infrequent
action that would disrupt
the flow of the micro-
interaction.
TRIGGER RULES FEEDBACK
LOOPS AND
MODES

PUTTING USERS AT
THE HEART OF YOUR
BUSINESS
UX & CRO
SARAH FABER PETERSEN,
HEAD OF CRO & UX
28
“We’re spoilt with a plethora of data these days, and
there’s so much we can learn about who our users are,
which gives us a great starting point when trying to
understand how to reach our target audience and
adjust the user experience accordingly.”

Websites are made for users – or, at
least, they should be made for users.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always the
case; user needs, expectations and
overall experience are often an after-
thought rather than the foundation
on which websites are built.
GAME OF STAKEHOLDERS
Developing a new website is quite
an arduous task which often requires
tedious research and planning before
you get to the design and develop-
ment stages. The general questions
that underpin web development are
usually as such:
• What’s the general purpose of
the site?
• What should it communicate?
• What’s the main end goal for the
users?
• What are the KPIs and what are
their priorities?
Now, you’d think that the answers to
these questions ought to be fairly
straightforward, but unfortunately
they rarely are. When you’re working
on a site rebuild or are optimising a
pre-existing site, stakeholders from
different departments will get in-
volved – each with their own agenda.
This is because departments are
usually measured against varying and
different KPIs, and so they want a site
that promotes and improves areas
related to their performance.
The battle of the stakeholders often
results in a power struggle over who
gets first placement in the hero slider
(a massive bone of contention for
many, I can confirm!) and which mes-
sage can scream the loudest across
the site; in such instances, stakehold-
ers tends to lose sight of the fact that
their individual goals are all elements
of the bigger picture and the overall
business objectives. Ultimately, work-
ing against each other is not only
frustrating for everyone involved, but
it’s also counterproductive.
The biggest casualty in this battle
is almost always the user in the
form of poor user experience. The
finished product may look new and
shiny, complete with messaging and
offers which visibly compete for
users’ attention – but none of these
things mean that the site is in any
way pleasant to use. This reality will
be hard to accept for stakeholders
who have built something that they
believe is great, but in practice isn’t
a reflection of user preferences or
behavioural tendencies.

This phenomenon is puzzling to me
– shouldn’t the user experience be a
central part of the overall conversa-
tion? After all, if users have a hor-
rible experience, what are the odds
of them converting into customers,
let alone returning to your site or
recommending it to their social
network?
RETURNING TO THE
USER
So, how do you create a site that of-
fers a good user experience? Simple,
you go straight to the source: the
user. Take the time to discover who
they are and what their wants and
needs are so you can be the brand
on the market that best speaks to
the facets that matter most to them.
We’re spoilt with a plethora of data
these days, and there’s so much we
can learn about who our users are,
which gives us a great starting point
when trying to understand how
to reach our target audience and
adjust the user experience accord-
ingly. For instance, if the majority
of your users are over 65 and your
site uses font size 10, then there’s a
very good chance they can’t read any
of your content – or will seriously
struggle to do so. This means you’re
asking your users to make an effort
to engage with your site, instead of
making it easy and inviting.
To learn more about what your users’
needs are, what content they interact
with and where they’re struggling
or getting lost, look to your current
website. Many tend to overlook this
goldmine of user insights because
they believe there’s little point if it’s
being scrapped anyway, but there’s
so much to learn from how users
currently interact with your site and
your brand.
You may discover that an internally
celebrated functionality is complete-
ly overlooked by users or rejected
because they can’t figure out how to
use it, or that a feature which you
were prepared to leave behind in
the redesign is actually very popular
and helpful to users.
Take a look at the user journey and
how users navigate your site and ask
yourself if they seem confused or
lost in any way, or whether there’s a
clear path that guides them to their
end destination – these are the key
nuggets of information which will
fuel fact-based decisions that will
result in a site that’s fit for use and
that meets your stakeholders’ goals.
WHY BOTHER?
While it may seem obvious to some,
not all are convinced that UX should
have a voice, let alone a loud one, in
the stakeholder battle of the bands.
But when you look at brands that
have crushed their online com-
petitors, it’s not always because they
offer something new or different,
but usually because they’ve simply
adjusted their product to meet their
customers’ wants and needs by put-
ting them at the centre of all their
decisions.
Take Facebook as an example –
while there were plenty of social
media platforms popping up around
the same time, Facebook was the
platform that stood out from the
crowd thanks to its user-centric ap-
proach. The site was stripped down
to just focus on simple-to-use UX
functionality, without flashy back-
grounds and clutter to distract from
the features users craved.
So, note to all stakeholders, please
listen to your UX team as they’re the
voice of your end users. Without a
simple and easy to navigate inter-
face, those end users won’t interact
with your site enough to contribute
to the core KPIs that each stake-
holder is held accountable for; and
ultimately you’ll be playing a losing
game when trying to convince them
to return back to your site.

Check out our showreel to learn more about our branding and
creative, responsive design and web development capabilities.
Watch it here: http://www.greenlightdigital.com/build/
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
The Design & Build team are our resident creatives;
the dreamers, the rainmakers. From big ideas to
creation to ongoing maintenance, their expertise
spans the board – making what seems like the
impossible, possible. What’s more, they always keep user
experience, interactive design and ongoing maintenance in mind
so that you end up with something that’s not just fit for purpose,
but built to last.
ALL OUR MAGAZINES ARE LOVINGLY
MADE BY OUR DESIGN & BUILD TEAM

www.greenlightdigital.com
The Varnish Works, 3 Bravingtons Walk, King’s Cross,
London, N1 9AJ
+44 (0)20 7253 7000
info@greenlightdigital.com

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