When we asked people to select three words from a list of positive and negative terms, respondents selected more positive reaction words and fewer negative reaction words for the emails with static images compared to those that had animated images. On average, an email with animation received 1.7 negative words and 1.3 positive words, whereas an email without animation received 1.2 negative words and 1.8 positive words. Both these differences were statistically significant at p < 0.005. [...]
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nngroup.com 
Design
When conducting research for customer-journey maps, use qualitative methods that allow direct interaction with or observation of users, such as interviews, field studies, and diary studies. [...]
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nngroup.com
Marketing
In many ways, personalization is a good thing. Internet users are so inundated with content, that filtering through the noise and presenting only information of interest can reduce user effort and enrich online experiences. Many users know that every interaction online is tracked and analyzed. All of this data is tagged and segmented to create individualized customer profiles, which drive the delivery of personalized content (stories, products, ads, and information) to us online. But when does [...]
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Customization
Provide value to users before asking them to receive your app’s notifications; tell them what the notifications will be about. Don’t send notifications in bursts; make it easy to turn them off. [...]
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nngroup.com
Multichannel
New Challenges for Transactional Email A few new problems have risen with the changing landscape of transactional email. While there is less “spam” in the traditional sense, users today are overburdened with email. They’re quick to call an email message “spam” if it feels irrelevant, too frequent, or otherwise annoying. This behavior is a major consequence of a pushy, salesy approach to transactional email. Additionally, users are quick to report email as spam through their email client if there [...]
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Automation, Study
In the world of design-optimization methods, A/B testing gets all the attention. Multivariate testing is its less understood alternative, often deemed too time-consuming to be worth the wait. While this method has its limitations, they are counterbalanced by its benefits, which cannot be easily achieved using A/B testing alone. [...]
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Test
Changes in Newsletter Usability over Time. Fewer formal subscriptions - Newsletter-subscription processes of the past were often very involved — perhaps because inboxes and newsletters were quite different in many ways. People had to deal with email-management issues, spam, and slow internet speeds, so subscribing to a newsletter used to be a substantial commitment and reflected a deliberate choice to create a dedicated relationship with organizations. Subscription forms were often lengthy and the [...]
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Design, Study, Trend
A problematic trend is spreading like an epidemic on the web. In a desperate attempt to nudge users towards conversions like newsletter signups some websites are adding manipulative link text to their popup modals. These user-shaming labels are called manipulinks (a clever term coined by Steve Costello): they employ the practice of what is often referred to as confirmshaming — making users feel bad for opting out of an offer (logically, this practice might better be described as declineshaming). [...]
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Listbuilding
Email newsletters, marketing campaigns, and email blasts live or die in the crowded inbox, with survival determined mainly by users’ scanning and assessment of sender information and subject lines. Satisfied users are those that are confident about their decision to open an email or bypass it. Clear, recognizable sender information and a well-written, descriptive subject line give users the information that they need to make an informed decision. [...]
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Subjectline
When looking at the form, you may hesistate for a second, because it's not immediately obvious what information to enter in each field. From our research studies, we've learned that even the slightest moment of hesitation when completing a form can significantly hurt the form’s response rate (that is, the number of people who complete the form). Forms are just a means to an end. Users should be able to complete forms quickly and without confusion. The following two tips show how using white space [...]
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nngroup.com
Listbuilding
Summary of report with 149 design guidelines for improving the usability of newsletter content, and subscription interfaces based on user research.
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nngroup.com
Unsubscribe, Listbuilding, Frequency, Marketing, Mobile, Social, Spam, Study, Video, Recommendation
EPiCβ - Rene's daily Email PiCks
