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Comment by ccarpenterg | Hacker News Reader

This is a very good example of UI optimization: http://cdn.kylerush.org/kr/images/contribute-before-after-sc...

Would love to know more about the reasoning and discussion behind going from a 1 page process to 4 steps. (ie: The typical purchasing mindset vs. donation mind set)

Thanks for the interest! I am planning to write another blog post on all the UI optimization soon.

Cheers! After looking at it more (I don't have experience donating to political parties), I realized (I may be wrong) that alot of information are actually mandatory and affect your taxes(?) down the road. Was confused why all necessary info required, like addresses and employment information. (When I was think of 1 page, I was think just donation amount + CC # and CVV)

But I look forward to reading any numbers of before and after you share!

Address is pretty standard for anyone accepting payments.

As for employer and occupation, we are legally required by the Federal Election Commission to do our best effort to gather the donor's employer and occupation. Doesn't have anything to do with taxes.

Ahh I see. I know some processor now forgo the requirement of addresses, eliminating alot of fields and barriers even more. It may take quite a while to get used (and feels scary too).

If it's anything like the non-profit space, the multipage checkout, if done right, can allow you to psychologically hook the donor in and yield higher completion rates. (Clicking a donation option is much lower commitment than typing your name and address as a starting point.) It also allows you vary the checkout steps based on what the donor selects. You can then treat a $10 differently than a $500 donor to optimize conversion rates for each cohort.

I've approached this problem myself for an ecommerce platform. In certain use-cases, less pages/steps doesn't always mean more conversions.

For this instance, the large photo background of Obama in action evokes more emotion than the formal portrait. Also, it's a very simple and clear call to action. In this case, the donation amounts are their add to cart.

It's also very important to understand how users got to the donation page. From the article, it would appear that most of the "sell" was done via other media (social, email, traditional links). After their A/B tests, I could assume that they are leaving the sell of "why" up to the users. This allows the designers to focus on conversions.

Lastly, the four steps aren't traditional "checkout" steps. Each step focuses on very specific information, eliminating clutter and keeping the user's attention. Too many elements on one page can be a bad thing.

The rationale I've heard before is that people are put off my large forms because they see the amount of information they're going to have to input.

If you split it up it looks like less, and by the time the user realises that step 3 has 10 fields they've already progressed through two pages and feel "invested".

This is absolutely correct. Plus the focus on the action: donate, then the user already feels committed! Oh, Brains.

Four steps is better for all sorts of purchases. Each bit of informations entered is a bit of effort invested in the process, making each additional step more difficult to quit (sunk costs). Making the first steps easier (and, especially, putting the payment info at the end) means the user is eased into the process. People also like seeing progress, hence the 1-2-3-4 thing (though that can also be daunting; seeing that there are many more steps to go: test this). Of course, while I think this is solid general advice, test/whatever for your own situation.

Big forms are scary. No one likes forms.

That's exactly what we did with voteforchange in 08. Scott Thomas and Chris Hughes were the brilliant team behind that. Then they went back to a one page form, like the only thing good about voteforchange was that you could make it cutesy and brand it really easily for lots of different demographic groups and not the shit tons of UI research and optimization that went into creating the shortest possible path for the registrant, collecting partial data, saving application state, etc.

That's what I hate about rails. You spend so much time filling out YAML and reading documentation and making sure you've got the right gems for the job and that you didn't accidentally go down a rabbit hole that by the time you're ready to build something it looks like the same bucket of sand everyone else is waiting for the tide to come and collect.

Know this. I will be somewhere in the world doing cool shit when the DNC shits in SVP's EC2 bucket. I won't know exactly when his heart dies, but I'll feel it. Like thousands of voices screaming out and being silenced. I might be in the bathroom taking a piss, looking in the mirror as the camera slowly pans in on my face and I will breath in slowly, and out like darth vader, but I'll know.

My personal experience with local politics was that when the chips are down in a local race people don't see the value of technology to organize. When you're working on a local level you have to think like a local businessman/woman. Politics at the local level has traditionally leveraged free work. Volunteer work. Above all. Get the sap. When the sap proves useful, use connections to get them a position up the food chain instead of paying for it. Save money. Save money. Don't spend. You're going to be a one term shill. You won't make it even if you make it. You'll be more in debt than you can imagine anyway. Sell out to those with money. Don't pay for anything. Don't pay for anything. Don't pay for anything. Use promises. Lie Lie Lie. Don't pay. Get it free. They live next door to lexis nexus and they don't "get it". Its wasted. That's what's down the pipe in 2014 and that's when your shit is gonna go down. That's when you'll need someone to fix it. You know who's gonna be on the phone? A volunteer programmer who's taking 1 class this semester because he failed his fuck... no fuck that. You know who's gonna be on the phone? Liz lemon. With no staff. There IS no fucking saturday night live. Liz has been pretending there is this fucking awesome comedy show and there isn't. There IS. NO. FUCKING. TECHNOLOGY. at the local level. Its not worth doing because if the president pays fuck all then we're not going to bust our budget getting, "data" pfff. Throw more bodies at it!

Harpo spelled nigger is harper.

Damn Nigga you crazy.

Maybe you got something to say.

Can't you Constrain your Cunt?!

After its all, just A-O-K.

If I was worth the skins and meat and seed I came into town with and I didn't spend half of it getting wasted with the local loser and I didn't brush and pop and settle well. I might have to run for president instead of ending my career framing what I should have... fuck it. Petraeus should be given . a role. He's kind of a good leader. Even if he can't entomologyze with the rest of US.

Well bend my foot on the way through door. I suppose I aught to have sympathy. I will pluck every silver haired thread from any dollhouse I'm given and I'll find the last stomped mouse on my way to work and I'll eat any shithead that thinks his men are more qualified to pre-suppose a pho-castrophe. I find men who think they're qualified to lead because they're matched with rough women. well. I find it amusing. I am rough women.

Opening that fat pussy is easy. Lets get to a financial agreement we can all live with. -Son of Baby Momma

I suppose that's kind of staid. If I send a message back on the tyson rocket it would be, "beat your children now! While there's still time!"

selection committees enjoy abstruse spelling. My son will host a stageplay regarding your annoying penchant for doubele consonants.

I enjoy sitting around feeling useless. That's why I choose to work in politics at the highest levels. Thank you so much for helping me achieve my dream of one day getting hired to sit around with my thumb up my ass for months at a time while you have endless fucking meetings. This is my thank you. Because I know how much you love offending people and nonsense. Thank you.

http://i.imgur.com/70nP3.jpg

http://imgur.com/NnAbH

Did this account get hacked between this post and the ones that immediately reply to it? (This post is rational, the others are completely nuts.)

In the first UI the users are overwhelmed with all the information they have to fill out in order to make the donation. In the final UI the process has 4 steps.

It's all about heavily reducing a users options and guiding them

I can't speak for them, but we do know that big forms are intimidating and tend to induce the feeling of, "Ugh, I don't have time for this now."

Even though there are technically more steps, they are unambiguous, digestible and feature a clear sense of progression. User usually don't mind multiple steps as long as they make sense within the context of the goal at hand.

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