Comments on: Human Photos Double your Conversion Rate

By: Meratvforum

Meratvforum — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 05:56:00 +0000

There is some truth about this, but you are missing one very important point in my opinion. Just because YOU write on peoples wall, twitter or an email that does not mean they have to answere you. This has nothing to do with human or not, random people have writte me on my wall, If I dont care I dont reply as simple as that.

I aint saying you are wrong with what you are saying because you are not! But in my opinion you take this a little too far. Just because you grew up in a small town and everyone was polite and knew each other it doesnt mean its the same elsewhere. I am from Berlin, Germany and random people talk to me all day on my way to work, I dont want or need to talk to all of them. After all I can decide what to do and what not, and acting rude is just rude because you think its rude. I think people shouldnt always pretend to be all nice and friendly because THAT isnt human! we arent nice and friendly, and we dont always need to be because we are in the end human!

By: Paul Gailey

Paul Gailey — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:53:00 +0000

i was looking for just such a public test result. it must have been done. i just cannot see how stock image can be more effective these days. its telling how few face stock images are used in web 2.0 style sites.

By: James

James — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:51:00 +0000

would like to know if pandas work too :D

By: Herschel

Herschel — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 22:23:13 +0000

This is very good information. I have resisted putting my face or anyone’s face on my homepage because I want the reader to imagine his wife or girlfriend (I craft glass specialty cards) and feel that having my mug show up on the screen will quickly destroy the “Mood” that the homepage tries to create. I do display a silhouette of a female, though. Would like to get any feedback on images vs. actual photographs in this type of situation. Thanks.

By: Reklama

Reklama — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:15:43 +0000

That’s really impressive, I’m gonna try it. It’s really good to see articles with results of concrete actions that increase the conversion rate.
Thanks and keep it that way.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:49:48 +0000

Give us the confidence intervals then. Don’t act like it’s a precise number – you can never statistically find the true mean.

By: John Hyde

John Hyde — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:56:58 +0000

It’s always good to see results from tests.

Interesting that all the photos are looking back at the viewer – it would be interesting to see tests where the person in the photo was looking at something else – eg towards a product or a form.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 06:38:32 +0000

Use an image of yourself as a child or a baby (assuming a light touch suits the situation). I bet you were very photogenic then.

By: Steven

Steven — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:57:52 +0000

Great post. And very timely for me as I have a client that does not want his own photo posted on his site due to the industry he is in. They have suggested using local images of the area and generic stock photography.
I have pushed the “personalization” and wanting to use their own staff.
Now I can show them your article and at least try to get some quality stock photography with people.

By: Jason Sew Hoy

Jason Sew Hoy — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:48:51 +0000

I’d love to see some case studies around the use of human faces to increase conversion when the goal is to drive sales of a product or service.

I’d suggest this isn’t as predictable as measuring clickthroughs to an “about us” page and it’s debatable as to whether human faces would improve conversions or distract people from the conversion funnel.

Guess there’s only one way to find out!

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:27:03 +0000

And we all know what they are! e.g. businessmen handshakes, attractive women in headsets etc.

I’ve actually thought about using them myself in times of desperation, but I’ve managed to resist.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:25:13 +0000

Very interesting! I’ll definitely be incorporating this technique into my corporate website when I give it a big overhaul in the next couple of months.

I think human photos must give a more trustworthy impression of the business / website owner, rather than it being a bunch of people who want to hide their identities behind their computer screens.

By: philip foeckler

philip foeckler — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:00:53 +0000

what about puppies?

By: Kaffebønner

Kaffebønner — Tue, 18 May 2010 20:14:10 +0000

Nice article – thanks!

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:00:10 +0000

Hi Ollie,

Yes, bounce rate isn’t the best metric here. But for Medalia Art a sale is a very complex process involving lots of phone calls with the buyer, so tracking sales for them in the A/B test is a bit difficult.

Regarding your comment on case study #2, I don’t think the phone icon may have any effect. In fact, it is an overused icon so people may have developed a blind eye for it (just like many people are blind to ads). A photo presents to people something they haven’t seen before plus it provides an emotional connect with the blogger! That way, readers also realize that there is a human behind all these posts :)

-Paras

By: Ollie

Ollie — Sun, 16 May 2010 19:23:32 +0000

Agree with Ab3 on this. Art is so subjective, it’s more likely that someone won’t like a painting or style than they will like it. By substituting the artist’s photos, the infromation people want is just one level lower in the site heirarchy, forcing a click. Bounce rate is the wrong metric to watch, perhaps?

Also, not sure that case study 2 is all due to the photo. The control design clearly showed a phone icon, where the amended design had just Contact Jason with his photo, without specifying or hinting at the contact method. Is it possible that people thought in the control situation that they could only contact by phone, which many people might not have wanted to do? But in the second situation, people may have expected that they could contact by several methods, so clicked more often.

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Thu, 13 May 2010 07:17:08 +0000

Ah, an interesting observation. Quite valid one too. It may certainly be possible that visitors were making judgement on paintings. Shall ask Medalia Art if they can follow up the test with your suggestion.

By: ab3design

ab3design — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:01:49 +0000

Interesting, but it strikes me that the example using the artists might be influenced by other factors than some innate response to human photos – namely the fact that when the image used to represent the link was an example of the artist’s work, this allowed users to make an early judgment as to the value of clicking that link – (ie, “hmm… don’t like that painting, don’t need to see more, so I won’t click here”) whereas the image of the artist gives no information as to what that person’s art looks like, and following the link is required to get that information. I’d like to see the results of this test with a control – say, with no image associated with the link, or a random image image that is neither a photo of the artist or an example of the work.

By: TheAL

TheAL — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:08:17 +0000

And therein lies the debatable issue. Ask me five years ago. I would have said, “Heck yeah!” Being educated as a systems analyst slash programmer, graphic design wasn’t always my forte. UI in general, maybe, and even then only to an extent. I’ve really just been self-teaching design over the last few years. I definitely care about a site’s conversion rate, but using photos in a design can still be tricky.

What should we strive to achieve? Ugly w/ a high conversion rate? A designer’s wet dream with a poor conversion rate? An acceptable compromise between? I’d like to hear some varied opinions.

By: mintocity

mintocity — Wed, 12 May 2010 10:55:28 +0000

Awesome article, really inspiring… thanks for sharing

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:06:57 +0000

Maybe there is a reason why stock photography is used so often. We all are subconsciously attracted to pretty human faces, so depending on the website, it never hurts to test stock photography on a site.

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:04:36 +0000

Fantastic! I will be curious to hear your results. Maybe you would want to throw in a version with generic icons just to see if the theory really works?

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:02:53 +0000

Well, what you describe is a debatable issue. A lot of times A/B test results produce an ugly version as a winner. As a designer would you use aesthetics over better results?

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:59:23 +0000

I can assure you that results were statistically significant. Revealing exact number of visitors isn’t possible because that is a data point a lot of our users choose not to publish.

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:54:26 +0000

Stock photography v/s genuine photos. Perfect case for A/B testing ;)

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:41:05 +0000

Yup, going too far with this concept may also hurt. Of course, you wouldn’t put your facebook photos on your personal portfolio for employment :)

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:39:14 +0000

Glad you liked it. But don’t consider it a tip and apply it as it is. Do A/B test it first. May or not work for all websites.

By: Paras Chopra

Paras Chopra — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:38:21 +0000

Thank you for liking the case studies :)

By: Gerben van Dijk

Gerben van Dijk — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:05:52 +0000

Very interesting read-up, thanks again!

By: Ali Ale

Ali Ale — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:56:35 +0000

Actually I never use my picture to all my bio profile or blog. After read this post, may be I’ll take my picture out.. Thanks!