From the Editor:

As much as we like to proclaim our rationality, all too often our decisions are obased on emotion and social circumstances. In the end, despite all of our reasoning, we are largely emotional, and utterly predictable.

This month we'll look at how to understand users emotional needs, establish effective messaging, build trust, and ultimately persuade. 

Also, a shout out to Unbounce this month for providing us with out second article of this months newsletter.

Finally, if you're looking to know more, this May we're offering Internet Marketing Essentials, beginning on May 5th with Michael Stralker's "The Art and Science of Persuasive Design". For more information see the Internet Marketing Essentials information page, or click the image to the right.

Beyond Usability: Cool, Usable and Persuasive Web Design

Usability experts may argue that beauty lies in simplicity, or that aesthetic appeal comes from inherent knowledge of use, but they will all admit that, regardless of your definitions of aesthetic, a web site should be usable, beautiful, and effective.

7 Arm-Twisting Persuasion Techniques for Your Landing Pages

In this guest post from Unbounce, Oli Gardner steps you through 7 landing page design techniques intended to subtly--and sometimes not so subtly--persuade your visitors to convert. Included are using directional queues, using samples, being obvious, creating urgency, and making your users care.

Online Persuasion, part 1: How to Develop Effective Messaging

User testing is great. So are focus groups. But if you really want to understand your target audience you need to go deeper into the lives of the people you're trying to persuade, and the only way you're going to do this is with one on one interviews. In this post Michael Stralker gives advice on subject interviews, and how to properly develop questions that will let you understand their beliefs, needs, and emotions.

Online Persuasion, Part 2: How to Develop Effective Messaging

For the purposes of persuasive architecture, FACTS don't matter. You don't want to know about peoples lives, you want to know how they feel. Creating an effective interview means knowing how to questions your interviewee's in such a way as to expose their inner states.

Persuasive Web Design, Part 9: Build Trust By Showing Trust. (Or, "How to Steal a Camera.")

We trust those who trust us. Michael Stralker explains how simple acts such as forgiving return policies can create an inherent trust in users, increasing their willingness to buy.

From the Net:
You are Predictably Irrational

Unlike most months where I link to a particular blog post or article somewhere, this month we have a whole page of amazing information on how human beings behave in ways that are irrational, but oh so predictable. From how more information can make people like something (or some one) less, to which shoppers are the most likely to be influenced, to how we construct values, Dan Ariely has engaged in a wonderful collection of studies about the mind, mental illusions, and how we're all just a little more predictable than we like to believe.