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But then, web usability has evolved through the years. How the people use the Web has also gone through some changes. Further developments allowed e-commerce sites to conveniently sell products online. Videos and dynamic pages became more attractive as the technology on the Web enabled websites to integrate them into the pages. People’s tastes also seemed to change as their means of online access also changed.

Not only that, the arrival of more and more websites tend to make choices for people going online become quite overwhelming. It became a struggle for more and more websites to get the attention of the people with a lot of them offering their own features, products and services. Competition especially among e-commerce websites increased.

Good website design today no longer is limited to just having an attractive web page for online visitors to visit. In order for websites to be successful (at least those who engage in e-commerce), a higher level of the art of persuasion must play a bigger role in design planning in order for such sites to have that edge overall the other websites online. How that can be done is what this e-book would try to provide the readers.

The Order Effect

Another quite intriguing fact about typical human behavior when making choices involves the “Order Effect”. Suppose you go into a website that sells digital cameras. You are provided with a means to list down certain attributes that you look for in a digital camera. The website then provides you with four choices that best match the attributes you have chosen. Which one would you likely choose?

This is what some researchers would try to know by conducting such an experiment. This time the products involved were tents. Participants were made to search for tents based on 10 attributes provided which included waterproofing, weight, air ventilation and so on and so forth. A selection of best buys was then provided based on the attributes that the buyers chose.

Despite the researchers providing 10 attributes to consider when buying tents, buyers usually focused only on two or three attributes. Aside from that, the researchers also varied how the order of the tents as they are placed on the page. They then tried to determine which tent buyers would likely choose. The results were quite surprising.

The results of the experiment showed that the participants based their eventual choice not on the attributes that they chose but based on the order of the choices. The participants usually chose to buy the tent that placed first in the order or results. The participants seem to disregard the attributes they based their initial choices for tents and simply went for the first one that showed up in the order. People were 2.5 times more likely to choose tent No. 1 than the others.

Order Effect on Web Design

The order effect can be of valuable use to the website owner. It is important to also consider how the order of the products appears on the Web page. Take advantage of the order effect by putting the first item on the page as the product that you would like to sell the most.

About the Author:
Wes runs Omnific Design which is a Strategic Graphic and Web Design studio located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Check out their site here: http://www.omnificdesign.com.au