Beauty & Brains: Plastic Surgery Websites for the Micro-Moment
Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device — increasingly a smartphone — to act ... They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped.
— How Micro-Moments Are Changing the Rules
As people say, 80% of success is just showing up. And in our tech-tethered world where prospective patients are only a click away, it's more true than ever for websites.
Except for websites, just showing up is not enough. To delight and persuade, your website has to perform like a virtual Houdini by shapeshifting into an increasing number of sizes and shapes: A really big show for widescreen laptops, but just a teacup performance on mobile screens. All while keeping your message center stage.
The importance of making a big impression on the small screen escalated last year when Google announced that more searches were performed on mobile devices than desktops.
Yet plastic surgeons may feel insulated from the design urgency to make a website mobile friendly. After all, isn't mobile search for impulse buys; lunch not liposuction? It's common knowledge that virtually no one weighs the pros and cons of a plastic surgeon without in-depth research, a task many find poorly suited for the tiny screens on mobile phones.
But here's the rub. The availability of information on multiple devices — at home or on the go — has fragmented the consumer journey into a hundred micro-moments that can take place at work, at home, and at play and on a plethora of devices.
Savvy plastic surgeons understand that showing up at multiple points along the decision path and on screens big and small gives them the opportunity to nudge a prospective patient down a new path or reinforce the path they are on.
So even micro-moments on a mobile device should be embraced as an opportunity to shape a prospective patient's journey.
"Search" Leads to "Research"
Mobile matters — even for considered purchases such as plastic surgery — because "search" is typically the first step a prospective patient takes on the longer journey of "research" to select a surgeon. And search is increasingly happening on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.
As a website provider for cash-pay healthcare, we've seen the mobile search trend first hand in our own data, which we've been collecting for more than 20 years. Millions of interactions on our clients' websites drives home the point: 54% of people access our clients' sites from mobile phones (46%) or tablets (8%), according to statistics we just pulled in May 2016.
We have actively tracked the shift to mobile over the past three years using data from clients' sites. As the chart below shows, desktop and mobile were neck and neck until last fall. At that point, mobile and tablet devices took the lead for visits to clients' websites.
Having created hundreds of websites for plastic surgeons, we have the data to decipher the digital body language of millions of potential patients as they visit clients' sites. These digital touchpoints leave a trail of virtual breadcrumbs revealing what works and what doesn't in converting a visitor into a patient.
It's a treasure trove of data-driven insight few companies have when they build websites for cosmetic surgeons.
Many web design companies simply lack the niche-specific data essential for enlightened design decisions. Instead, they are forced to rely on anecdotal data or wide-ranging Internet trends. They then cross their fingers and hope that these generic trends carry over to plastic surgery websites. We rely on data instead of hunches.
The New Normal: Multi-device
Our data also shows that mobile is only part of the story.
Consumers today shift among multiple devices throughout their journey of discovery, research, and purchase. It's not just mobile first. It's multi-session, on a dizzying variety of screen sizes and devices.
Grab your phone or tablet and see for yourself how gracefully this plastic surgery website performs on different devices.
Our own research shows that potential patients who are likely to convert interact with our clients' sites multiple times on multiple devices before they contact the practice. In addition, our statistics from just this past spring (March-April-May 2016) shows there is a 49% chance that a patient who fills out a contact form has been to your site at least one other time before they decide to convert.
If it takes multiple website visits before people feel comfortable contacting your practice, it's essential that a visitor's first impression doesn't drive them away. Once gone, they may never return, as these statistics show:
- 46% of mobile web users are unlikely to return to a website they had trouble accessing from their phone and 57% are unlikely to recommend the site.
- 35% of tablet users visiting a website with a poor performance are less likely to return to the site, even using another device.
Each design faux pas in a website introduces another opportunity to lose a prospective patient, which means the "just show up" formula for success has its limits. Yes, showing up is still important. But to reach the next level you also need to put on a good show to ensure your audience comes back for an encore performance.
Our responsive websites address user needs in any micro-moment by gracefully resizing to accommodate the dimensions of whatever device a potential patient reaches for: from widescreen expanses to the smaller, vertical format of a smartphone. See for yourself:
Oh, and it doesn't hurt to look pretty.
Beauty & Brains
Fair or not, people are hardwired to trust beautiful people and the same holds true for websites, your face to the world.
As aesthetically orientated humans, we're psychologically hardwired to trust beautiful people, and the same goes for websites. Our offline behaviour and inclinations translate to our online existence.
— Dr. Brent Coker, University of Melbourne study on online consumer behavior
But unlike a portrait hanging in a gallery, a website has to be more than just a pretty face. To be discovered and delight, your website needs to offer an optimum experience in both form and function to build trust and credibility in you and your services.
A website that is unattractive, clunky, and confusing undercuts your perceived value.
The biggest source of frustration is the inability to find relevant information on a website. The best way to stop defection to other websites, and increase loyalty, is to be interesting. Being pretty, but with nothing to say, is not enough."
— Dr. Brent Coker, University of Melbourne study on online consumer behavior.
Judgments about your website start in the blink of an eye. In just fifty milliseconds people start making conscious and subconscious judgments about your credibility and trustworthiness based on your website's design.
Is your site:
- Visually cluttered? That causes confusion, making your message harder to understand and people more likely to leave.
- Slow to load? Impatient, people will pogo stick back to a site where they don't have to wait.
- Hard to navigate? Navigation should be intuitive. In addition to overcoming the cognitive issues of figuring out where to go, a website must also address the physical obstacles. Consider the challenges on mobile phones where the finger is the new mouse. Small buttons and fat-finger typing could be your undoing.
Now more than ever good design requires both beauty and brains.
The Hallmarks of Good Design
Good design caters to the user, and here's where simplicity triumphs. A simple, clean design reduces the cognitive load — the mental effort — required to understand how to use a website or what it's trying to say.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
— Albert Einstein
The more mental effort required to use a website, the more likely people will be confused, miss important information, or just leave.
Just as your computer slows down when too many programs are open, so does the human brain. Inundated with too much information or a confusing format and people get overwhelmed. At some point they max out and leave.
In Vivo Examples of Our New Designs
Mesna Plastic Surgery
Hurwitz Center for Plastic Surgery
Gaines Plastic Surgery
Aesthetic Surgical Associates
Well-designed websites reduce the cognitive load by giving people the information they need, but only when they need it.
The trick is discovering the right mix of form and function that resonates with your audience. Unlike people looking for a movie or a pizza, people considering plastic surgery struggle to balance their right-brain and left-brain needs: A right-brain pursuit of what could be and a left-brain quest for facts that will reassure them.
To fulfill these dual needs, you need to understand your audience's mindset and how they behave online, such as:
- Where are the tipping points on a website? The pages that either drive patients away or encourage them to fill out a contact form?
- What pages are the most popular with prospective patients? How can navigation make those pages easier to find.
You can't rely just on logic for the answers to these questions because, frankly, people aren't always logical when they are on a website.
They fail to make optimal choices because they are prone to "satisficing," opting for choices or judgments that are "'good enough." Sometimes those choices are simply blind guesses because the mental effort required to understand a confusing website has exhausted their patience. At other times they just choose to leave.
So if logic isn't the Holy Grail of web design, then what is? Data.
The Holy Grail of Design
When people say one thing and do another, then data is where the truth lies. With more than 20 years of data on physician websites, we draw on a wealth of knowledge — not just hunches — to design websites with both beauty and brains.
We've captured millions of interactions that reveal how prospective patients look for information, navigate websites, and make the leap from visitor to patient. The process has allowed us to introduce a new class of data-driven designs that blend form and function, catering to the dual need for websites to please both search engines and people alike.
Because of the volume of data we have, we are uniquely positioned to draw statistically significant conclusions about the best ways to convince more patients to contact our clients' practices. Then we act on those conclusions, designing not just for looks, but for success.
Traits of Good Design:
- Less is more. Studies show that users prefer websites with lower visual complexity. A simple design allows you to focus visitor's attention right where you want it. On the message. Because our data shows that 50% of all pageviews are for four specific pages or sections of a site, we've simplified navigation to ensure the most popular items stand out.
- Embrace white space. Don't fill every nook and cranny with "stuff." White space allows you to direct a viewer's attention. White space also imparts an expansive feeling, which equates with quality. There's a reason advertising for luxury products takes this minimalist approach.
- Create a visual hierarchy. Users don't read, they scan the page looking for a likely landing spot. By using color, typography, or imagery you can help them on their journey with visual clues that guide them to their goal. Visual hierarchy makes the next step obvious. No thinking required.
- Make it a Lamborghini. Make it fast. In the online world, statistics show that speed wins. Web users insist on instant gratification, even when they are on mobile phones and hamstrung by limited bandwidth. Speed is also a boon when it comes to pleasing Google, which uses website speed as a ranking factor.
- Play by the rules. Websites should be original, but at the same time conventional. This is no time to force your visitors into a game of "Where's Waldo?" The standard parts of a website, such as logos and navigation, should be placed where people expect to find them. Otherwise, you simply frustrate visitors. Imagine reading a magazine that flouted conventions and put the table of contents in the back.
- Easy to navigate. Visitors should intuitively understand the structure of your website and where to find information. On mobile, buttons and links should be large enough and spaced so users can avoid fat-finger tapping mistakes.
- Beautiful at any size. As your brand ambassador, your website needs to look good on mobile, tablet, and desktop. Research shows that people make judgments about staying or leaving within milliseconds of arriving on a website.
Designing for Success
In today's multi-device world, design has more hurdles than ever to overcome. As consumers jump from mobile to laptop, design has to keep pace so websites look good on every device.
Don't be lulled into complacency by assuming the journey for important decisions, such as cosmetic surgery, happens only on desktops.
- Today's consumer takes advantage of micro-moments, fragmenting research into a multi-step process on multiple devices. Even though odds are they will eventually gravitate to a laptop for in-depth research, you still want to introduce yourself early in the journey, which most likely will happen on a mobile device.
- Even brief visits from a mobile device should not be discounted because first impressions are lasting ones. Each micro-moment is an opportunity to shape a prospective patient's journey. If you think mobile doesn't matter then you could be missing out on the longer pre-journey that builds trust and credibility in your practice.
- Be present at all stages of the journey to improve your chances of landing on a potential patient's short list of surgeons to call for a consultation.
In our tech-tethered society, you won't know when a micro-moment will happen. And you don't know where. But if your website embraces both beauty and brains, you'll be putting your best foot forward whenever, wherever it happens.