SCIENCE BEHIND THIS IDEA

It?s no surprise that psychologically humans buckle under pressure when faced with uncertainty and instinctively want to back out, rather than think about probability and predictability. We do it in life threatening situations, but also when faced with minor decisions, such as what to do with a purchase we were about to make. Rather than think about what is the most probable next step and trust our judgement, we tend to give up completely.

If we don?t know where we are on a website and especially don?t know where we are in the checkout process, most of us will abandon the cart, rather than risk making a mistake with our purchase or credit cards. Knowing this is how your prospects and customers think can help you optimize your
website.

What to test

Variant A, or your current checkout page, does not have any progress bar or explanation of how the process works. Your customers have to rely on their own familiarity with these sorts of pages and hope that the next page is what they predict it will be. Variant B, or the test version of your checkout page, fixes this problem. On Variant B, there is a clear progress bar, showing the customer at each point where they are and what the next steps will be, so they don?t have to rely on instincts and hope.