Are You Fluent or Disfluent in Landing Page Design Practices?

I was reading an article on the Boston Globe website last week, “Easy=True” about the effects of ‘cognitive fluency’ and saw an immediate connection to landing page design. 

The article defines cognitive fluency as “a measure of how easy it is to think about something,” and goes on to say that people prefer things they are familiar with.

Studies have shown that when presenting people with a factual statement, manipulations that make the statement easier to mentally process - even totally nonsubstantive changes like writing it in a cleaner font or making it rhyme or simply repeating it - can alter people’s judgment of the truth of the statement.

This research on fluency is important if you design conversion-focused landing experiences. If you’ve ever watched any of ion’s weekly webinars you know that I always review best practices such as having clean pages and simple copy. Think less, not more. This new research on fluency backs up the ‘less is more’ mantra.

If you are a webinar regular, you also know we talk a lot about experimentation. I encourage everyone to think outside the box because it’s a great way to find an unexpected conversion gem. Don’t be afraid to try new things. More great research backs this up too! The Boston Globe article discusses the benefits of disfluency:

“Fluent things are familiar, but also boring and comfortable,” he [Piotr Winkielman, a psychologist at the University of California San Diego] says. “Disfluency is intriguing and novel. Sometimes you like comfort food, like when you’re sick. And usually you want to try something new when you’re more comfortable.”

What I took away from this article is that both fluency and disfluency can be valuable conversion inducers. Take a quick read of the entire “Easy=True” article—it’s worth your time!