Moving the HIPPO: The Art & Science of Web Design for ROI

Website design is often seen as a realm of creatives, and design decisions often rely on (and stop with) stakeholder preference and reviewing competitors’ sites. Often, decisions come down to the HIPPO (highest-income person’s personal opinion).

The challenges with this approach are multifold: since stakeholder preferences may not be aligned to user or business value, and competitor sites may not be performing well either, emulating their approach means there is the risk of inheriting their bad decisions. As a consequence, websites are often not designed for users and perform below expectation.

In this interactive session, we will talk about how to design websites for maximum ROI, using time-honoured conversion concepts like size, colour, shape and orientation, supplemented by user research, to ensure visual and interaction design is strongly aligned to user and business needs. We will also discuss strategies for positively influencing your organization's design process to avoid poor design outcomes. Case studies will be presented throughout to reinforce core concepts.