Designing for Long Term Conversion (Part 2)
In my previous post, the right choice of words for a button label made all the difference in click rates. But getting students to click the button was only part of the problem - they still had to successfully add a course before adding any flashcards. Most simply bounced off the next page.
Business Goals
1) Increase the avg. number of students who click 'Add a Course'
- DONE!
2) Increase the avg. number of students who successfully added courses
3) Increase the avg. rate of courses being added
We needed students to commit. Additionally, Skive needed a scaleable method for adding courses that solved the problem of duplicates, and included filling out a few more fields of info to help with marketing.
When students land on Skive's homepage, a search bar invites them to look up their university. With the help of Hotjar, combing through the anonymous recordings showed students often used the search bar to try to look up individual courses, instead. Taking my cues from this (unintentional) onboarding behaviour and teaming up with the creative director, once a student clicked the "Add Course Title" button, here was our solution:
Check for an existing course
Extending the existing search filter for finding universities to include course titles would primarily accomplish 2 things:
1) Prevent duplicates from being added (by showcasing existing courses in the results).
2) Help students sort through masses of data to quickly pinpoint the extremely specific materials they were looking for.
But the filter had another purpose:
Kickstart the "Add Course Title" Workflow
A search that turns up "no results found" is like being given a treasure map where X marks the Mariana Trench. It's enough to turn most people away, forever. For our "no results found" scenario, students could either click the course name, below, or the "add" button at the end of the input to jumpstart the "Add Course Title" workflow. This accomplished 3 things:
1) Reinforce for newcomers that adding a course title was their responsibility.
2) Provide students a workaround to "solve" the empty search, themselves.
3) Encourage completion by showing that from just typing the name of the course they wanted, the student had already taken the first step toward making it a reality.
Add Minimum Course Details
Having already committed the name they wanted, and the 'Finish' button hinting the end was (literally) in sight, students were more likely to fill out the remaining 4 fields and publish it live for others to begin adding content.
The Results after 1 month
1) Increase the avg. number of students who click "Add Course Title", per week
+45%
2) Increase the avg. number of students who successfully added courses, per week
+15%
3) Increase the avg. rate of courses being added, per week
+52%
BONUS UPDATE:
Avg. rate of courses being added, overall
1 month: +64%
2 months: -3%
3 months: +21%
Designing for Long Term Conversion (Part 2)
In my previous post, the right choice of words for a button label made all the difference in click rates. But getting students to click the button was only part of the problem - they still had to successfully add a course before adding any flashcards. Most simply bounced off the next page.
Business Goals
1) Increase the avg. number of students who click 'Add a Course'
- DONE!
2) Increase the avg. number of students who successfully added courses
3) Increase the avg. rate of courses being added
We needed students to commit. Additionally, Skive needed a scaleable method for adding courses that solved the problem of duplicates, and included filling out a few more fields of info to help with marketing.
When students land on Skive's homepage, a search bar invites them to look up their university. With the help of Hotjar, combing through the anonymous recordings showed students often used the search bar to try to look up individual courses, instead. Taking my cues from this (unintentional) onboarding behaviour and teaming up with the creative director, once a student clicked the "Add Course Title" button, here was our solution:
Check for an existing course
Extending the existing search filter for finding universities to include course titles would primarily accomplish 2 things:
1) Prevent duplicates from being added (by showcasing existing courses in the results).
2) Help students sort through masses of data to quickly pinpoint the extremely specific materials they were looking for.
But the filter had another purpose:
Kickstart the "Add Course Title" Workflow
A search that turns up "no results found" is like being given a treasure map where X marks the Mariana Trench. It's enough to turn most people away, forever. For our "no results found" scenario, students could either click the course name, below, or the "add" button at the end of the input to jumpstart the "Add Course Title" workflow. This accomplished 3 things:
1) Reinforce for newcomers that adding a course title was their responsibility.
2) Provide students a workaround to "solve" the empty search, themselves.
3) Encourage completion by showing that from just typing the name of the course they wanted, the student had already taken the first step toward making it a reality.
Add Minimum Course Details
Having already committed the name they wanted, and the 'Finish' button hinting the end was (literally) in sight, students were more likely to fill out the remaining 4 fields and publish it live for others to begin adding content.
The Results after 1 month
1) Increase the avg. number of students who click "Add Course Title", per week
+45%
2) Increase the avg. number of students who successfully added courses, per week
+15%
3) Increase the avg. rate of courses being added, per week
+52%