The CRO Course: Win on Mobile

8. Clarity

People can’t buy what they can’t find. Clarity or “findability” is fundamental when it comes to turning consumers into conversions but it’s often overlooked during the process of mobile design. In part 8 of the Win on Mobile series we look at the importance of mobile clarity.  

Why clarity is so important

When building digital experiences, aesthetics is often favoured over clarity and speed. But the most important factor for consumers is finding what they're looking for fast. Shift your focus to clarity in navigation and site search and customers will most likely respond positively.

Help customers find what they’re looking for in a hurry by focusing your efforts on mobile site search and navigation. Remember the mobile mantra: faster, findable, user friendly.

How visitors find what they're looking for

Improve site navigation and search

💡 A/B test placing top categories on the homepage

The homepage is often focused on campaigns instead of findability. Test adding popular categories at the upper part of the page so consumers on the go quickly can find what they need.

💡 A/B test removing automated sliders

Images can take a long time to load, so a slider with several images risk making visitors stare at a blank screen. It's also difficult to read messaging on a slide – further reducing clarity.

💡 A/B test reducing text and increasing clarity with bullet lists, subheadings and icons

Most consumers don’t read web pages — they scan and connect words with icons and images. Test replacing large paragraphs of text with easily digestible icons, bullets lists and imagery.

Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left.

Steve Krug,
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

💡 A/B test adding labels to icons

Don’t take it for granted that everybody will understand the icons in your site’s header. Test adding labels to the most important icons.

💡 A/B test adding functionality to your search

Users looking for specific products usually turn to site search. And visitors who search are on average four times more likely to convert. With that in mind, it’s easy to understand why great search functionality is vital for websites.

Make life easier to valuable customers by testing these site search functions…

💡 A/B test optimising search filters

Search and product categories can deliver endless results. Speed up conversion by providing filters that allow customers to get what they want from search.

Improve your search filters by...

✓   Implement advanced filtering with the ability to select several options

✓   Provide sticky filters so they are easy to find

✓   Usability tests can reveal the kinds of filters your customers want

Search success stories

Mango improved search by adding spelling suggestions and alternatives when no results were found. This plus a few other alterations increased the mobile conversion rate by 4.5%.

Read the complete success story here.

Lyst replaced a search icon with a search bar in the header and increased usage by 13%.

Read the complete success story here.

Matalan replaced a search icon with a search bar and increased mobile searches by 32%.

Read the complete success story here.

Exercise: The UX battle

Improve your mobile site’s clarity by getting together with your team and going through these UX checklists. Do the same with a competitor’s site and award a point for each box ticked — let’s see who comes out on top in the UX battle.

Let’s keep going and discover how to use Urgency, relevance and reduce distraction in chapter 9.