Designing for Conversions: Techniques to Optimize User Action

Every user on your website is communicating with you. A hesitant mouse hover is a question. A rapid scroll is a sign of impatience. An abandoned form is a scream of frustration. This is your customer’s “digital body language,” and most brand websites are completely deaf to it. They are built as static, one-way monologues, oblivious to the clear signals of confusion and friction that are costing them millions in lost revenue.

That’s not just bad design; it’s bad business.

The brutal truth is that a high-performance website is not a monologue; it’s a masterfully guided conversation. It anticipates user needs, reads their behaviour, and systematically removes every barrier to action. This is the science of conversion-driven design. It’s not about flashy visuals or chasing trends. It’s about leveraging a deep understanding of human psychology to build a machine that turns visitors into customers with ruthless efficiency.
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The Friction Fallacy: Why Most Designs Miss the Mark

Brands design for an imaginary customer: a patient, rational user who will happily read every word and explore every link. The real user is impatient, distracted, and operating on a hair trigger. Data from the Baymard Institute confirms that nearly 70% of users abandon sites due to friction—a confusing layout, a vague call-to-action (CTA), or an overwhelming number of choices.

This friction is the silent killer of conversions. It’s the cognitive load of a cluttered page, the anxiety of a complex form, and the doubt sown by a lack of clear guidance. The result is a user who doesn’t just leave; they leave feeling that the brand doesn’t respect their time or understand their needs. The solution isn’t to make your website prettier; it’s to make the path to conversion clearer, simpler, and psychologically compelling.
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The Conversion Velocity Framework: 8 Levers to Accelerate User Action

Velocity is about speed and direction. A high-converting website doesn’t just get users to click; it gets them to the right outcome, faster. Our framework is a system of eight psychological levers, validated by double-blind split testing, designed to build momentum and accelerate the user’s journey from arrival to action.
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1. Direct the Eye (Visual Hierarchy)

Your CTA must be the undeniable focal point of the page. For our client Hyloh, a premium architectural hardware brand, the design had to feel elegant and minimalist. We used a strategic application of whitespace to isolate their “Enquire Now” button, creating a calm, uncluttered layout where the user’s eye was naturally drawn to the most important action. It’s not about making buttons bigger; it’s about making everything else quieter.
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2. Simplify Decisions (Hick’s Law)

Too many choices lead to no choice at all. Hick’s Law proves that decision time increases with the number of options. For Talent Recap, a media site with a vast amount of content, the main navigation was overwhelming. Using analytics, we identified that their three most popular categories drove 80% of engagement. We streamlined the main navigation to feature only those three, moving secondary categories to a sub-menu. This simplification made the user journey clearer and increased page views per session by 14%.
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3. Break Down the Journey (Chunking)

The human brain can only process so much information at once. “Chunking” involves breaking down complex processes into small, manageable steps. This was critical for Paperform, a tool for creating sophisticated forms with conditional logic. We designed their advanced features into a step-by-step wizard. Each stage focused on a single task, reducing cognitive load and making a powerful feature feel easy to use.
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4. Show Progress (The Endowed Progress Effect)

The Endowed Progress Effect shows that people are more motivated to complete a task if they feel they’ve already made progress. For Blossom, an investment app, their onboarding is a critical conversion point. We implemented a prominent progress bar at the top of the screen, showing users they were “Step 2 of 4.” This visual feedback created a sense of momentum and commitment, reducing drop-offs by 15%.
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5. Create Urgency (Scarcity)

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a powerful motivator. When used ethically, scarcity can prompt users who are hesitating to take action. For Talent Recap, we implemented a limited-time fan poll for a major TV show finale. A visible countdown timer created a sense of urgency, driving a 30% increase in participation in the final 24 hours compared to polls with no deadline.
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6. Leverage the Crowd (Social Proof)

As Robert Cialdini’s work proves, people trust people. Social proof is a shortcut to building credibility. For Blossom, we A/B tested different forms of social proof on their landing page. We found that a simple, relatable customer testimonial—“I started investing with $5 in under 3 minutes”—outperformed media logos and app store ratings, lifting sign-ups by 12%. It was a clear win for authentic, human validation.
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7. Clarify Next Steps (Ambiguity Reduction)

Confusion is the enemy of conversion. Every step in the user journey must be clear and unambiguous. For Paperform, their editor contains many powerful but complex features. To reduce ambiguity, we implemented “just-in-time” tooltips. When a user hovered over an advanced setting, a small pop-up would appear with a plain-language explanation, clarifying the next step without cluttering the interface.
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8. Eliminate Friction (Ruthless Simplification)

Every unnecessary field, click, or decision is a point of friction that can derail a conversion. We conducted a friction audit of Blossom’s sign-up process and found that asking for a middle name was a small but needless barrier. Removing that single, non-essential field contributed to a measurable lift in completed sign-ups. Ruthless simplification is a mindset that yields significant gains.
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Implementation Guide: From Audit to Optimisation

1. Audit for Drop-Offs: Use Google Analytics to find the pages where you lose the most users. For Blossom, we saw a significant drop-off at the funding stage, which guided our simplification efforts.
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2. Map User Journeys: Use tools like Hotjar to watch how real users navigate your site. This will reveal friction points your team has become blind to. We used this to optimise the template selection process for Paperform.
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3. Run Disciplined Split Tests: Test one variable at a time. Isolate your changes to know what truly works. Our double-blind tests for Blossom found their most effective testimonial.
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4. Prioritise Your CTAs: Ensure your primary CTA is the undeniable star of the page. Use the visual hierarchy principles we applied for Hyloh to guide the user’s eye.
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5. Simplify Choices: Audit your key pages and ruthlessly cut down the number of options, as we did for Talent Recap’s navigation.
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6. Seek an Expert Opinion: You can’t read the label from inside the bottle. Sometimes you need a partner, like the best branding agency in Sydney, to provide an objective audit and uncover your biggest conversion opportunities.
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Common Conversion Killers to Avoid

• Cluttered CTAs: A page with three competing CTAs has no priority. Focus on one primary goal per screen.
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• Complex Forms: Every field you add to a form decreases its completion rate. Only ask for what is absolutely essential.
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• Vague Navigation: Links that say “Learn More” are a missed opportunity. Use descriptive, action-oriented language.
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• No Social Proof: A lack of testimonials or reviews makes a brand feel untested and risky. Build trust by showing that others have gone before.
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• Overused Scarcity: Aggressive or fake timers erode trust and make your brand look cheap. Use urgency authentically.
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The Future of Conversion Design

The future of conversion design lies in hyper-personalisation. AI and predictive analytics will enable websites to dynamically adapt their layout, copy, and CTAs in real-time based on a user’s digital body language. The sites that win will be those that can have a one-to-one conversation with every user, seamlessly guiding them on the most relevant path. But the core principles of psychology and data-driven testing will remain the foundation of every successful conversion.

Is your website failing to convert visitors into customers? Partner with CUT THRU, the leading branding agency in Sydney and New York, to craft a conversion-driven design that gets results.

Click here to get a quote for elevating your digital performance.

About The Author

Jonathan Sankey is founder of CUT THRU, recognised for conversion-centred design and product-market fit testing. His evidence-based approach has driven growth for global brands and unicorn startups in Australia and America. A Netty Award winner (2023, 2024), he blends data with execution.

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