We’ve written a lot about home page mastheads for our members over the past year, for a few reasons:
- They are a high point of conversion, since they represent most customers’ first impressions of your business.
- They are politically fraught, making them an important aspect of consultative work.
- They are usually poorly executed, with generic copy, features that don’t matter to customers, etc.
So we’re going to start picking apart a few stores’ mastheads every week. Some of them are good. Most of them are not. All of them need some form of improvement.
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As we put together our latest case study, I got on a call with a dear friend of mine, who took one look at our case studies and concluded that prospective clients might believe they are too good to be true.
Despite the fact that each case study is named.
Despite the fact that each case study has a testimonial quote from a real person.
Despite the fact that we often back up our evidence with screenshots & other data.
If it’s really true that prospective clients are so seized by fear & distrust that they look at real-world evidence of the economic impact of value-based design and think we’re somehow lying, then I have literally no idea what to do anymore. Serve another industry who gets it? Focus exclusively on writing going forward?
Anyway, another case study has been posted. It’s linked up there. We’re really, really proud of it. And the numbers in it aren’t fake.
Two new bits of work elsewhere:
- We were profiled on Starter Story about the business. A rare look into our operations these days!
- We wrote about developers & store design for Liquid Weekly.
This week, for paid members
- This week’s paid lesson talks about the crucial and highly non-optional issue of maintenance budgeting. Why is maintenance so frequently lumped in the marketing budget, and what can we do about it?
- We did a teardown for running brand Satisfy.
- And lastly, our design of the week covered a size selector that needs a better failure mode.
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Links & analysis
- A lovely deep dive into persuasive technology, useful for any practitioner of value-based design.
- A nice how-to for using object-oriented UX in user research. This feels like it would be especially useful for large product catalogs, more complex collection pages, and buy box design.
- Baymard reverses position on quick views, if the quick view is well-designed, and if it fits the right industry & product catalog.
This week’s paid lesson: How should one budget for store maintenance?
This week’s lesson is for paid members. Sign into our community to read it, or join us today to get access.