The second day of Conversion Conference kicked off with speaker Paul Rouke and moderator Kevin Gibbons.
Paul asked the audience if he thought responsive was the future or a fad. Half the audience said it was the future, while the other half thought it was a fad.
Paul continued with the presentation by asking the question below:
Why are retailers going responsive?
1) The case for the user
“From a user perspective, a site built using responsive design offers a high quality experience. Responsive design -when done right – provides for a fsimpler and faster experience”
– Maani Safa, innovation director at Somo
2) Case for the retailer
From the point of view of site owner, design only needs to be built once, saves time and money.
3) Impact
Matt Curry from LoveHoney said they saw a 60 – 100% increase in conversion rate after going responsive on their site.
There are 7 Guiding principles for cross device optimisation
1. Your proposition message should be visible sitewide and device wide.
Consider using the footer to promote the USPs on mobile and tablet. On mobile, consider adding in USP messages to your primary tools/navigation menu to view them regular visibility.
2. Consistency
Tools to streamline the user experience should be available on all devices. If you provide a wish list or save feature, ensure that by logging in visitors can browse and show when it suits them on all devices.
For example, the company Asos, have predicted search and kept this for mobile and desktop which is great for their users. They also have the “come back later” tag on the site for the different products.
If you predictive suggested search on the desktop site make sure you keep this for mobile and tablet. If you have large product sets, producing intuitive filtering across devices, is a must. Don’t take away this key feature for mobile visitors.
3. Transparency
Do you have a persuasive, transparent payment proposition?
Provide transparency of your service proposition is crucial for conversion.
- Make your payment options clear
- Provide visiblity and clarity of your delivery options and costs on your product page on all deviecs
- Make the available payment options clear on your shopping basket
- Provide visitors on all devices with access to your delivery and returns information throughout check out
- Within checkout, don’t hide delivery options within a dropdown – expose them all to allow visitors to make a choice
4. Findability
The key goals for navigation is that it has to be simple, fast and clear.
- Filtering should be quick and intuitive and consistent across devices
- Do not take away filter options for mobile visitors
- Ensure your filters are finer friendly for touches devices
5. Simplicity
Simplify the navigation to suit mobile and streamline your checkout.
- Simplify the header of your mobile site using the commonly seen tools icon
- In checkout, limit the amount of data you request to the bare minimum and don’t ask visitors to enter the same inforation more than once
- Disable the native auto fill feature on table and mobile
6. Flexibility
Provide flexibility for visitors in both visual display and delivery options.
- Provide flexible delivery options to suit your customers – this is becoming more important
- Provide the same delivery options across all devices and display options
- Maintain consistency of your feature set when it comes to browsing options for visitors
7. Usability
Bigger means better on mobile: make buttons and form fields finger friendly.
- Users prefer larger form fields that do not require precision pressing on mobile
- Don’t be shy about providing big, full width buttons on mobile
- Give your primary calls to action breathing space
- Do not neglect the importance of having a quick loading website, especially for mobile visitors
3 Take aways
Going responsive or not, brands need to have a mobile optimised user experience to stay competitive and not lose mobile sales.
Users do not care whether your site is mobile optimised or responsive – they just want the same tools and features for browsing and filtering across all devices – and they don’t want to have to zoom in and out !
Provide both device specific user interactions and give visitors the ability to choose whether they have a richer or simpler browsing experience.
