

Why Users Click Right Call to Actions More Than Left - dshankar
http://uxmovement.com/buttons/why-users-click-right-call-to-actions-more-than-left

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blahedo
Nice in principle, but it'd be better if it could show real data. This post is
basically "why _we would expect_ users to click right-side call-to-actions
more than left-side" without actually backing it up and showing that they
_actually do_ so.

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Jebdm
I agree. I can even corroborate the hypothesis anecdotally, since CTAs on the
right side "feel" right to me, but without data it's still just a hypothesis.

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synnik
I'm amused that a UX article has such a poorly written headline that I had to
read it 5 times before I my brain parsed it properly.

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bxr
I thought it was going to have to do with left click vs right click until half
way into the article. In retrospect it was kind of a silly thing to assume,
but thats what my first pass saw, and I use enough software at work that likes
to throw everything important under the right click anyway that it seemed
plausible.

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larrik
I agree. I had assumed it was a reference to Right Click>Open in New Tab, and
the the whole idea was the a user would open your call to action for after
reading the current (something I do constantly).

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nchlswu
It's disappointing how many UX blogs, sites and "professionals" don't back up
their claims with data.

Too many articles give rationale behind design decision while presenting
reasoning as fact without supporting them with real data. There's nothing
wrong with providing readers your reasoning, but in an area such as UX, I
think these posts are more dentrimental than they are beneficial to those
coming up in the field.

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MercuryCreative
There is no data in the article to back up the author's hypothesis. Further no
control for colors or even action/offer button language. I have read other
papers with data and conducted my own UX studies that show completely
different results.

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matthewlyle
Care to share?

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MercuryCreative
I really would but I'll have to check with my clients. They were commissioned
reports. Perhaps once I get everything compiled into something consumable by
the public I'll release it as it's own HN post.

The gist of it was that to drive interaction with a website, cursor position
is more important than following the "active corners" design philosophy.

So from a pure graphic design point of view placing the action button in the
lower right is correct. We all learned that in design class.

However if you want people to actually interact with your action button then
it's better to put it closer to where the cursor normally resides. All of my
heat map testing shows there to be a natural cursor well on the left hand
side.

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sudonim
Flipping through ABTests.com, I was hard pressed to find pages that tested
having the call to action (CTA) on the left vs. CTA on the right.

I did find one for basecamp where they flipped left to right but it may not be
the reason for the improvement. <http://www.abtests.com/test/150001/homepage-
for-basecamp>

Without any evidence from the OP, how can we take the article seriously?

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merloen
I cannot parse this title at all. How about "Why it matters where you place
buttons that call for action."

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larrik
I don't know a ton about internet marketing, but I DO know that it pisses me
off when reading through the archives of a webcomic, and the Next Page button
is on the top instead of the bottom (it should really be in both places,
though).

Seems like a similar idea.

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araneae
You can also do the opposite to your advantage. For instance, the ad pop-ups
on salon.com have the close button on the left, which means I end up looking
at the ads a little longer.

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tuhin
The Ballpark site has the CTA at the right bottom part of the page as well. So
even they are following the principle/assumption rather than neglecting it.

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sliverstorm
This seems utterly groundless to me, especially because it doesn't describe my
eye movement.

Perhaps it's because I'm left-handed. Perhaps it's because I know content is
always left-justified (and let's understand each other- I'm not at your web
page for anything other than content). Either way, I don't pay much attention
to the bottom right area of a web page.

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zyphlar
You must read a lot of websites that are all forums, plain text. Web services
and online stores on the other hand need techniques like this to lay out
things in a way that makes sense. Imagine if Wal Mart had its cash registers
in the back and only niche expensive items at the front. Sales would drop. In
fact I think I just realized why malls suck so bad.

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JonnieCache
This is unlikely to apply to the billions of people that read right to left
however.

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zyphlar
Those sites are designed oppositely. This principle applies to movies and in
fact anything with a frame around it, there are certain emotions and intents
communicated with framing. Think of this as website framing.

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bluedanieru
Hmmm, I was expecting some interesting explanation _why_. (It's obvious enough
I guess, but sometimes even 'obvious' facts have explanations more intriguing
than you might at first suspect.) This article just tells me the fact of it
and what to do about it.

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destraynor
This article is nonsense. Disregard.

