Buttons on the left is the winner
written by Allan on May 11, 2009
We recently added the Google Website Optimizer to LessAccounting.com. My first test was to see if reversing the layout would effect the sign-up percentage.
Conversion Results
With the design below were receiving 10% of our traffic to sign-up with a trial account.
With the design below were receiving 12% of our traffic to sign-up with a trial account.
How Google Website Optimizer Works
The optimizer works by adding pages to test and then having a goal page to mark the "conversion". We had two pages and the goal page was the sign-up page.
My Theory
The buttons are the left are "easier" (less cursor distance) than having them on the right. There is less chance the visitor will scroll past them. A jump from 10% to 12% is huge in my book. I highly recommend using the optimizer, I'll continue to test the brochure portion of the app in various ways.
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Allan loves his family more than breathing. He lives in Panama City, Florida & grew up washing cars at his family's car washes. Oh and Allan hasn't worn underwear since 2004.
8 Comments
Seems logical. Also on a smaller device the buttons may be below the fold or floating off the right hand side.
Have you tried testing the buttons at the top left?
The most interesting thing to try would be to see if splitting the colors on the tour and try buttons made any difference. As they have the same weight in terms of color.
I noticed the recent change on the front page and wondered if you’d been using something like Google Optimizer. Interesting results. Seeing both versions side by side, my eye is drawn to the left-side buttons quite a bit more.
The buttons are also prettier and more colorful than the application screenshots. When they’re on the left it’s easier to ignore the depressing gray screenshots. They’re also the more important information and users can’t tell what the app does from screenshots quickly.
It makes sense to have them seen first, but the 2% rise in conversion might as well depend on the season of the year and the angle of the sun that causes reflections on people’s monitors. I don’t know why that jump is huge in your book, is it really statistically significant?
I remember back in the early 2k’s, pre-programming career days, when I was doing design work primarily, I opt’d to do a pro-bono site for a drug rehabilitation facility (they are a non-profit, and needed the support)…I ran into the exact same situation where the page sidebar just felt like it was in the way on the left.
Moved to the right however really caused the content to pop and improved the entire layout dramatically, left to right, top to bottom, just like we read a book, seems the best way to structure content for consumption.
Great articles guys.
Just stumbled across this site today… your business philosophy really resonates with me.
I have a bit of a background in theater, and one of the things that is taught to aspiring directors is that the left side of the stage (from the audience’s perspective) is a “stronger” staging position.
Whether it’s true or not, the claim is that it makes a more compelling psychological impression on the Western audience because of our left-to-right reading conventions. For, say, a Japanese audience that reads right-to-left, the right side of the stage would be a more powerful position.
I don’t know if this claim reflects on a psychological phenomenon or if it’s something that theater academics teach just to give the impression that there is a science behind what they do. But, if it’s true, it might help explain this result of yours.
Interesting research guys. And very interesting information on theatre Darien.
My next round of optimisation would be to consider a primary and secondary call to action rather than giving both buttons equal weighting.
Perhaps at this stage “See the tour” should be the primary call to action as someone would want more information before handing over their details.
Just a theory, but one worth testing I think.
Storm Force
I just posted a horizontal heat map template and I used your A/B testing as an example.
Your theory seems to be correct according to Jacob Nielsen’s heat map data for horizontal attention.
Thought you might want to check it out. Thanks for sharing your data.