My Dog And Curvy Lines

April 10, 2024      Kevin Schulman, Founder, DonorVoice and DVCanvass

My dog, like many dogs, instinctually turns around in circles before lying down.  These instincts predate centuries of domestication and have no modern day value.  And yet, it’s part of her unconscious routine.

Humans have similar unconscious, evolutionary quirks and preferences.  For example we instinctively prefer curves over angles.  This could be rooted in the innate roundness of a baby’s face as we tend to associate curvy with friendliness, softness, and approachability, while sharp angles induce associations of toughness, hardness, and avoidance.

Approach and avoid, much like fight or flight are pretty hard-wired. What makes the buttons on the right different from those on the left? Yep, curvy or sharp angles.

A range of experiments on commercial websites showed increases of 20%-50% with curvy buttons beating sharp on click through rate, conversion and number of items put in the cart (i.e. value).  There was a survey component that confirmed people considered the rounded buttons more aesthetically pleasing.

More pleasing promotes more liking which promotes more “approaching” behavior.  Eye-tracking confirms the rounded buttons got more and longer gazes.

When does this preference not hold up or matter?  Any call to actions that are likely associated with ‘negative’ behaviors and are avoidance motivated – e.g., opt-out, unsubscribe, cancel.   In those instances the button shape makes no difference.

Kevin