Empathy · Principle 12 of 16
Reduce ambiguity
Nathalie Nahai's favourite trick works at a bar and on a sign up form: tell people how long this is going to take.
Bobby came into the Nathalie Nahai episode wanting to run psychology experiments on me. He'd read about Hick's Law and the famous jam study, where more choice led to fewer people choosing anything, and he wanted more tests like that.
Nathalie gave him something better, and she started with a bar. If you're approaching someone you'd like to chat to, she said, one of the best things you can do is frame it: "look, I'm in a bit of a rush, I've only got three minutes, I wondered if..." and then say whatever you came to say.
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12
Reduce ambiguity
When people don't know what happens next, they get defensive. So tell them.
"If you reduce ambiguity, people are more open to having a dialogue with you."
> i used to say "maybe". now i say "yes" or "no". woj says this is also a problem.
It works on sign up forms too. She gave the example of a registration page that tells you it "only takes 60 seconds." And: "If you reduce people's ambiguity and their fear, then they're much more open to having that dialogue with you."
Three minutes at the bar, sixty seconds on the form. Either way, the other person knows what they're getting into. Bobby's takeaway was a note to self: "rush Woj with impossible timetables and always provide extra hidden options."
Uncertainty costs you before anyone says no
Most of the ambiguity on websites isn't dramatic. It's small stuff. How long is this form? What happens after I click? Will I get a phone call? Is shipping extra? Where did the thing I was looking for go?
Each of those questions is a tiny bit of friction, and people deal with friction by leaving. I told Nathalie about an audit we'd done where visitors only ever clicked two buttons on the home page, while most of the useful content was buried six levels deep. You can hear me describe it, and how we moved it up front.
Nathalie's other favourite trick comes from Gestalt: we don't like "lack of completion". Show just the top of the next row of products at the bottom of the screen, and people scroll to see the rest.
The checkout
The strongest part of the episode is Nathalie on checkouts: paying hurts, and then we hand people a form full of red asterisks and split postcode boxes. It's all in give positive affirmation, which came out of the same answer.
Say what happens next
Most ambiguity is people not being able to see the next step. The fix is usually a sentence. "Takes about two minutes." "We'll email you a quote, no phone call." "Free returns within 30 days." Put it right next to the moment of doubt.
Nathalie's full interview on kwasi.com goes further into forms and persuasion, and her book Webs of Influence is still the one I'd hand a marketer who wants to understand why people click. On our side, the conversion copywriting guide covers answering objections before they're raised, and our piece on FAQ pages starts from a simple truth: "Visitors want direct, informative answers to their questions really fast."
Persuasion is for both sides
When I asked Nathalie where in the world people might be easiest to sell to, she didn't take the bait. She said "persuasion is a tool for good and it's only supposed to be used if it's for mutual benefit." Reducing ambiguity fits that. You're just telling people the truth early enough for them to decide.