Groups are a collection of people who would class themselves as being in a group.  How they behave is defined by group behavioural norms.  How they see things is governed by how the group is believed to see them.  If you are a part of a group, it is likely that you share (or wish to appear to share) goals and influences.

Remind you of anything?

On Twitter, we find and follow those we see as part of our group – or those who are in (or who lead) a group in which we wish to be involved.  This kind of activity can also be seen in Facebook (“liking” something because a friend “likes” it) and on Amazon (purchasing a product because “customers who bought X also bought Y”).  Website visitors take part in an increasing number of activities which are weighted in the visitor’s mind due to the activities of all visitors as a group.

All of which is great for marketers who know how to exploit this behaviour, but why do we succumb so easily to what the group tells us?  It is possibly clearer to see the effects in a physical group – in a room or a building or a face-to-face network – for example, people perform easy, learned tasks better and difficult unlearned tasks worse when being watched than when alone.  However, groups don’t require a presence – they require only an awareness of the group.

Being in a group may be driven by needing to get something done that can not be done alone; it may be driven by a need for a sense of identity or for the desire for, and pleasure in, social interaction.  Once we are in a group, we help to develop norms and regulate the behaviour of the group while distinguishing it from other groups.

Coming back to Twitter – have you noticed instances where “group leaders” influence the opinions of the rest of the group (if, in web analytics, you take the group to be a subset of those who use the #measure hashtag)?.  In blog posts, have you ever noticed the tide of opinion turn based on the comment of an established group member?  On LinkedIn, have you ever been approached by a user who perceives you to be a stronger member of the group than they?  Group members will develop familial feeling and loyalty – and this is becoming easier to do online with the advances in social media.  Being physically in a space with other group members is no longer a part of developing a group mentality.

Group behaviour is very useful as a method of self-comfort and developing networks.  Just remember to remember that you’re still an individual.

Original inspiration: Social Psychology (5th edition) – Michael A. Hogg, Graham H. Vaughan

Consider the following.  You’re thinking about taking a holiday this year and you want a destination that will be hot enough for lazing by the sea in May.  You have a couple of brochures.  You would base your decision on your own general knowledge of the countries represented in the brochures and your specific requirements for the desired holiday, right?  What you would not do is base your decision on the font in which the information was provided to you.  Surely not.  And yet…

Recent experiments have shown that font influences the fluency with which information is processed.  The amount of effort required to read can inform the choice of the reader.  An experiment similar to the following was run – showing two sets of readers the same text in two different fonts:

When the readers were asked to estimate the time it would take to do this task, most of those presented with the task in the clearer font (in this case Arial) thought it would take almost half the time other group estimated.  I.e. the time and effort taken to read the text influenced the readers’ feelings towards the task itself.

Similar experiments were run regarding more commercial subjects.  Given two product descriptions, again taking two groups and two fonts, readers were able to make decisions about product choice more easily if they could process the text more easily.

In the internet world, we know that a clearer font means a clearer message, but think about the other risks you take if you use “difficult” fonts for stylistic reasons.  You not only muddle your message, you influence the way in which your website visitors understand and view your product, your company, your website processes.  Ease of understanding breeds a sense of familiarity.  In a shop, this could lead to repeat purchases of a product.  Online, this could mean repeat visits.

Here’s another fascinating tid-bit.  In their article, Song and Schwartz refer to a study done in 2006 by Daniel Oppenheimer and Adam Alter which noted that companies with easier to pronounce ticker symbols (like KAR) performed better than companies with difficult to pronounce symbols (like RDO) on the first day of trading!  The thought was that the more pronounceable symbols seemed less risky.

Moving from font into visuals, have a look at the images below.

If you were told that one was a Bouba and one was a Kiki, which one would you think was which?

Most people would decide that the image on the left was a Kiki and that one the right was a Bouba.  This is true across languages and age groups and was first observed by Wolfgang Köhler in 1929.  This leads to the suggestion that object naming is not random, which leads to the thought that combining names with “inappropriate” shapes online could cause a subconscious clash for the website visitor.

The majority of people will answer “two” when presented with the question “How many types of each animal did Moses take on the Ark” despite the fact that they know that the Ark was Noah’s, not Moses’.  Fluency processing and visual cohesion should not be a nice-to-have in website design, but a fundamental part of ensuring that your website is engaging with people.