Doing it the way the crowd does!

What do you mean by social proof?

“5Star rating? Wow this must be good!” 

A common human psychology when we buy products today. 

With every product and service available online, user experience and using the right psychological principle to motivate users to take action have become extremely important.

When buying a product users base their decisions on the buying behaviors of others and this particular psychological phenomenon is commonly known as ‘social proofing’. It’s a natural human tendency to avoid being the initiator.  People want validation for making a buying decision and it is important for designers to incorporate this behavior in their designs.  Social Proof has been identified in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif, a social psychologist through an experiment. The experiment proved that we tend to take up that action, which have been already taken up by others.

When you log in to a fashion site, you don’t get to touch and feel the dresses. On a food app, you can only see the menu of the restaurants, but have no clue about the quality of the food. Even on a travel website, you have to rely on the images (mostly photoshopped) to pick up a vacation destination or holiday resort. In such situations, we depend on the experience of other users or their feedback on any particular website or app. We tend to go for those things, where the users have already commented or rated and avoid being the initiator in online transaction. Social proof is gradually becoming a very important parameter in creating an emotional design, which establishes user faith on a particular product or service. We go by what the crowd says and it’s high time to get these social proofing elements at the correct places on a user interaction platform.

Why should you add social proofing in UX and interaction design?

The idea, that people are influenced by others decisions, has led to the implementation of social proof in interaction design patterns . Let’s look at the two ways in which this psychological phenomenon can influence user patterns:

• ·         When you create an experience for your users, if your design layout includes features where there are evidences of social proofs, the conversions become doubled. If other people find an item good, we generally think it is more credible to buy. In fact, social proofs are better than advertisements since the end users get to see honest feedback from other end users directly.

·          

• We are generally too shy when we have to start off a trend. Our general human psychology makes us more comfortable to adapt to the trends, which are already quite popular. Before you knew it Facebook and Twitter was all the rage and even our moms have become avid users. When Facebook and Twitter came, it was only a small percentage of the people who joined just to stay connected with old friends and to make new connections. But with the connections growing, more people joined in. It just became an exponential growth for these social media sites since the ones who were left behind thought they are missing out to be the part of the latest trends. 

How you can add social proofs to your UX design?

Social proof needs to be seamlessly integrated into the interaction design patterns. Adding the right social cues at the right places in the interface enhances trust and credibility. If the design elements become too loud, then the user will feel these buttons are sponsored links. On the other hand, if it is hidden behind your regular menu bars and attractive images, customers will be disappointed on not finding the social proof triggers. Striking a balance between the two is an art and you can achieve that by following some of these popular social proofing techniques in UX design -

Ratings and Reviews:

Before buying any item on Amazon or Flipkart, checking out the ratings and reviews is a must. With ecommerce booming, users were not able to see and feel any item. They have started relying a lot on what other people thought about an item and most of the buying decisions are based on it.

Zomato, another name in this regard, is our reliable guide when it comes to going to restaurants. The ratings and reviews on Zomato are extremely critical and restaurants with low ratings get very less crowd. Ratings and reviews have become the important elements to create emotional design on a user interface.

Social Shares and likes:

If an article or any product gets a lot of shares and likes from other people, it spreads virally on social media. Content which are most liked and shared keep on coming back on your wall, because Facebook also believes in social proof. If an article is not having enough shares, we are always skeptical about commenting or liking it, no matter how good it is. And, not to mention how SEO loves popular content.

Count buttons:

Give your users a real time count on your number of subscribers, clients, followers and so much more. Keep the buttons dynamic, it gives the users an impression that the numbers are increasing every second.

Behavior filters:

Track your users’ journey on your website and open an option of “Customer who bought this also viewed – “. So if a lady is planning to buy a top, show her some bottom wear, which were seen by the customers who bought the top. She might end up buying a bottom wear as an impulsive shopper, just to match with her top.

Testimonials:

Social proof is incomplete without testimonials. This is very effective in service related websites and edutech apps, beauty and salon services etc.

Client Logos:

Presence of client logos on websites showcases affiliations with well-known organizations. This will help to instill customer faith on the organization.

Creating these social elements and displaying them strategically on the interfaces require an edge for design and proper learning sessions. ImaginXP offers various courses on UX design which help to instill the psychological element in user interfaces. 

Designing is incomplete without UX today and it’s high time for all the designers to adopt these skills to ensure a more credible user experience.