My First Impression of the New Mint.com Homepage
BY Editweapon @ August 19, 2008
In April I wrote a blog post called, Why the First 30 Seconds at Mint.com is WAY Better than the First 30 seconds at your Website. (If you haven’t read it and watched that design review video, I recommend doing that first. But hey, it’s your mouse, you can click wherever you want.)
One of the comments on that thread was from Jason M. Putori , the lead graphic designer of Mint.com. (It’s so easy to forget there are REAL people on the other end of these websites. Or is that just me?)
So here’s my first impression of the new Mint.com. (Executive Summary: Looks really pretty, not sure how it will increase conversion…worried conversion rates might actually drop because you pulled the "Learn More" conversion beacon from the homepage.)
Review of New Mint.com Homepage from editweapon on Vimeo .
UPDATE: I wrote all that and recorded that video yesterday (August 18th) afternoon, but I didn’t publish this post because I had to wait 80 minutes for vimeo to process the video and by then, well…you know how it goes.
However, since then, Jason (the designer of Mint.com) and I have exchanged a few heated emails (kidding!), and he watched the video you just watched. Our thread is below. What say you?
Editweapon wrote:
Jason, just did a “first impression video review”…waiting for vimeo to convert the video.
Candidly, I like it, but I don’t like it as much as the “old” version. The new one really popped nicely on first impression. And clearly, you are brilliant with Photoshop, etc. I’m not totally sure why I like the old version better.* My biggest concern, quite frankly, is only having one conversion beacon button “Sign Up…” above the fold on the homepage instead of “Sign Up” and “Learn More”. But that’s strictly intuition.
Mostly, let’s just see what happens to the overall conversion rate and abandonment rates when the new site goes live.
* = Just realized that I don’t like the hero shot on the new one. The graph is pretty and legible, but it’s not in the context of being inside a browser window like the “old” hero shot is. The old hero shot told me visually what mint is. This hero shot is, well, just a pie chart. It’s missing context. If that makes sense??
Jason wrote:
We actually ran it as an A/B test for I think two weeks before launching it, and the new site converted [significantly better than the old one].
Removing the second glossy CTA [Call To Action] button was conscious. I felt if you didn’t want to sign up there are plenty of other call outs elsewhere, like the tabs, and the other boxes on the home page. The second button failed my personal ’squint test’… you no longer really have to read that button title to intuit what’s going to happen because there’s no other one.
The change from the screenshots was mainly because we wanted to merge that tour below the fold, with the above the fold space. We weren’t sure people were clicking on those, and I got many complaints about the screenshots not being readable, despite that readability wasn’t the intent, it was more an overview shot. This way we were able to kill those two problems in a single shot. Your feedback though is valid… one way to solve would be to switch the tour stops. If the second one was first, then would that do it?
I greatly appreciate your thoughts… keep it coming.
Editweapon wrote:
Well, the numbers don’t lie! (Except I do distrust Google Web Optimizer a little because of some oddities I’ve experienced…)
Good logic for removing the second CTA, I can agree with that. I’ve only my intuition saying that if the biggest/boldest choice is A) Sign Up, or B) Leave the page, or C) Figure out which OTHER button, tab, nav link to click because I want to “learn more” before I sign up, then that might cause higher abandonment. The “Learn More” button might be sort of ugly, but it’s the lazy man’s answer to “Well, let’s see what this is all about before I sign up.”
> we wanted to merge that tour below the fold, with the above the fold space.
I don’t understand what you mean?> one way to solve would be to switch the tour stops. If the second one was first, then would that do it?
I don’t understand this either. What’s a “tour stop?”Btw, I couldn’t get to the Features and Why Use Mint pages earlier, but I can now. Wow, those look dynamite!!
Jason wrote:
Hah, that’s a problem. Did you see those tabs on the grass? You can click on them to go to different features. I’m guessing I need to make them more obvious.
Learn more I can do, as long as it’s not a heavy button. Text would be a great compromise.
Editweapon wrote:
Yeah, I saw the "grass tabs" at the bottom of the fold, but I wasn’t compelled to click on them. When I did, I saw the screen image change and thought "Oh cool."
Multi-variant test without a "Learn more" (what you have now), with a "Learn more" button equal to the size of Sign-up, and with a "Learn more" text link under the Sign-up button??
Loading ...Popularity: 23% [?]
Patrick, do you regularly use Mint.com? Why or why not?
Jordan R.
I must confess, I am not a user of Mint. (Which means, of course, every one of my visits is lowering their conversion rate by a fraction of a point.
I don’t use it because I don’t keep track of my spending. And I don’t do that because I’m anal/obsessive about everything. So if I kept track of my spending, it would be one more thing on my to-do list, because I would start to obsess about it.
Ironic, yes?
I think your point about the Learn More button is definitely valid. They do have many areas on which to click to learn more but you have to create a path of least resistance as people have no attention span and likely aren’t going to be ready to sign up immediately.
I do really like the 4 big buttons in the How mint can help you live a richer life. Nice and big and very pertinent. I think those rock.
I also get your point about the hero shot having more context when in browser. I think it’s still easy enough to get the idea in the new format but it’s definitely a good point.
I also miss the mint.edu button just because I thought it was a cool title.
Patrick,
After watching your videos and reading your posts on the old and new mint.com, I have a couple of comments followed up by some questions for you and Jason:
In general, I like the old design better, but I find that the copy is a bit stronger on the new design. The old design’s major headline was not that compelling (but the subhead was!) while the new designs headline is more compelling and immediately buttressed by credibility-building awards/recommendations. The old design’s bolded sub-heads within the body copy immediately drew the eye and were bottom-line benefit-oriented. They didn’t have huge credibility because you didn’t sufficiently explain HOW Mint was going to achieve these benefits, but they were more than enough to initiate a “Learn More”
The new sub-head within the body isn’t as hard hitting, but the actual body copy is far more compelling since it get’s into the HOW:
“Mint downloads, categorizes, and graphs all of your finances automatically every day— so you don’t have to. Know where you’re spending, without spending any effort”
Then there is the old and new sign-up buttons. Again, the new mint sign up button kicks butt because it promises ease of use” Sign up in Under 5 Minutes.” And if you want to learn more, there are actually better options for learning more about Mint on the new site than the old site.
So why do the guys I’ve talked to all prefer the old site to the new site? And who is it that prefers the new site?
My guess is that guys prefer the old site because of the design cues and because of the buying mode they’re likely to be in when they are not in charge of a family’s finances. The old site seemed dark even when it wasn’t = guy appeal. The old site immediately directed your eye to bottom line benefits and made it easy to either “Just Do It” or “Learn More” = Appeals to faster decision makers with a bit less (emotionally) on the line. The old site promised to “Put your finances on autopilot” = definitely a guy thing – or at least a singles thing.
The new site has a decidedly softer and more pastel-y feel to it = female appeal. The new site doesn’t harshly direct your eye, but lets you gather the information as you wish = slower decision making styles for people with more on the line. The new site immediately provides credibility clues and an explanation of HOW and WHY mint can accomplish great things for you – BUT those things aren’t shouted at you. The new site let’s you not just “Learn More” but learn about benefits of concern to someone who has to handle a family’s budget or finances: “all your accounts in one place,” “easy budgeting tools,” “Find Instant Savings,” etc. Yes, this requires more brain power or emotional investment to navigate, but it’s clearly more compelling if you’re the one trying to stretch a family budget. And finally, the new site says “How mint can help you live a richer life” = more of a female thing, especially when you think of richer in it’s more suggestive or emotional connotations.
So my guess is that this is a site that is appealing far more to heads of households and women than to younger or single guys. Or at least guys not directly involved with balancing the family’s checking account. I also guess that Mint.com has moved past the techcrunch crowd and more into the mainstream. So a greater appeal to women/head of household budgets, would basically equal a greater overall effectiveness at this stage. What do you think?
Jason, do you have any demographics data to support (or kill) this line of thought?
SUPER insightful Jeff. Reminds me that I need to always be aware that my first impression is “manly.” (I didn’t like the “richly” line, but I get it now!)
[...] SUPER insightful commment by Jeff Sexton about the new mint.com design & copy. Editweapon.com/mint2/#comments [...]
First off – we just signed up with Mint and in 2 mins had 75% of our accounts connected. Scary actually but I’m a risk-taker. The application is hands down fantastic and that’s what I care about.
Regarding the site design. They appealing to women? Because this color scheme is entirely too soft. I like the color scheme of their app instead. And I agree with y’all on how nothing stands out besides the orange button. Sign up in under 5 minutes – it took less than that.
The entire billboard area means nothing to me besides the headline. The Free anchored on top is perfect but does make me feel like it’s going to go away and not be free anymore.
The testimonials are so light grey it makes me feel that they’re not really important anyways. I’d just lose those. I hate when they don’t show the names of the people who say it. If I get the WSJ Janitor to say “I love TargetScope” can I quote that from Wall Street Journal?
The bottom buckets stand out because they’re full color. I’d like to see that more balanced up top.
Not sold on the brand. What’s it tell you? Tells me they bought a simple catchy domain name. Because they’re not trying to anything with the brand. Maybe that’s all you need nowadays… a good domain.
@ Jeff
Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. The update to the color and feel was part my personal preference and part my desire to make the content of the page pop more than the background. Gone is the (relatively) heavy gradient, gone are the now cliché reflections and perspective adjusted screenshots. I also wanted to make the site less “web 2.0″ and more fresh / earthy to fit in with the name of the company. On a side note, it seemed that everyone had ripped aspects of our site off since TechCrunch 40, from BoulevardR to Intuit. I felt the need to innovate here and do something a little different.
As for removing the bulleted list of benefits, frankly there was too much text on the last site. You had the header, subheader, 3 bulletpoints WITH supporting paragraphs, then 6-7 more points– some overlapping with the top 3. As I said in my latest GigaOM article, no decision was made there, so we had both things!
The homepage as a whole represents more of an exploratory philosophy as you mentioned, where instead of dumping absolutely everything on it, we want to encourage exploration to the other pages– which I spent A LOT of time on as well.
As for the demographics, I can’t really comment on what our audience is, but the copy was based off of thorough user research, and I think every Valley business wants and needs to expand beyond the TechCrunch crowd.
@Chris
Thanks for signing up. Patrick you should too… it’s pretty much automatic and will email you weekly once you set it up. Don’t login if you don’t want to!
Very interesting comment on the ‘free’. Mint will always be free, I did that to draw the eye, as demonstrated in Patrick’s video. He ‘fell for it’ so to speak.
But I’ll have to see if others feel the way you do. It could also be read as a qualifying statement, which it isn’t!
To your point about the quotes, as a designer I need to set priorities in the information. I can’t have every block of text on full blast, so the testimonials are there to support the headline, but not to overwhelm. The brand names of the papers give the quotes meaning.
As for your comment on the brand, I guess you’ve lost me. I’d like you to have a look at my blog http://blog.novaurora.com to learn a bit more about what a brand is.
Phew. Thanks guys. Lots to think about here.
I like the old Mint.com because I’ve never seen it before, and the “new” one sucks out loud, to be charitable.
It’s vague, slow and inaccurate. The transactions it pulled from my bank accounts don’t match the transactions in those accounts in all cases. So even though it gets the balances right, I found no compelling reason to spend any more time with the nonsense it made of my finances.
The transaction it missed was a digital check I had sent in error and then stopped payment on, so there should have been a check to Party A, and a credit from the bank on the same day. Simply not there, and there’s no way Mint could have connected the two and simply canceled them, because neither referred to the other.
The budget page made no sense to me. I had no desire to stay there and figure it out.
Certainly, I count as a conversion. The site looked cool, even though I’m male, but I went in knowing it was aimed at women. I’m man enough to wear pink.
But the bottom line is, I probably won’t go back, and I’ll probably kill my account soon.
@Sam
I’m sorry you’ve had problems with Mint, why don’t you contact me offline and maybe we can figure it out? We support thousands of banks and things will not always be smooth, but I’m sure we can do something to fix it for you. My email is jason at mint.
Sam, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, can you please rate your experience with Mint.com?
Can you think of a website that you would give a 5 to?
[...] Dude, this mock-up rocks. You know I love mint.com’s design and even the redesign has grown on me since my review. [...]
Your site was mentioned today by Brian Eisenberg during his webinar on the 4 modalities. I am now using http://www.mint.com as an example of good design, and sending people to your post, keep up the great work.
Searchengineman
Thanks for the kind words Searchengineman. I’ve learned lots and lots and bunches from Bryan E. The 4 Buying Modalities concept has been huuuuuuge. You’d do well to heed his advice. Cheers!