Designing and improving your website with MBTI

1. Competitive visitor:
   Intuitive (N) and thinking (T), decides quickly based on facts.

2. Spontaneous visitor:
   Sensing (S) and perceiving (P), decides quickly based on feelings.

3. Methodical visitor:
   Sensing (S) and judging (J), decides slowly based on facts.

4. Humanistic visitor:
   Intuitive (N) and feeling (F), decides slowly based on feelings.

Competitive visitor: fast and fact-based

Through his intuition, the competitive visitor quickly sees through things. He (unconsciously) makes connections and sees the bigger picture. For example: if you give him the letters A, M and Z, he understands the alphabet, he sees the pattern. Hence, he can make his decisions quickly. In addition, he has a drive for facts. So the competitive visitor is action-oriented and needs only a few key facts to see the big picture.

Equally practical

On a website, the competitive visitor wonders why they should be here in particular. Are you credible and how will you help me achieve my goals? Amazon.com serves these visitors by providing a short list of author, book, price and delivery time. The competitive visitor can base his choice on these details.

Spontaneous visitor: fast and feeling-based

The spontaneous visitor tends to react to situations and improvise. He is focused on action, so he can experience new things quickly. That is why he makes quick decisions. When absorbing information, he makes strong use of his senses. As long as the feeling is right, the spontaneous visitor decides to take action.

Equally practical

The spontaneous visitor finds it important that you can customise a product to your liking. Good service is important. He is sensitive to offers and promotions. Amazon.com serves him by offering book bundles of two or more books at an interesting discount.

Methodical visitor: slow and fact-based

The methodical visitor wants to be able to make a good judgement on what is the best decision and, to do so, gathers all the concrete (factual) information needed to weigh things up. He takes the time to collect and compare all the data. If you do a good analysis then the best decision will come naturally, the methodical visitor will think.

Equally practical

The methodical visitor is curious about the whole process, about the background of a product. He does not rush into things. He makes conscious choices and wants to see proof and guarantees. Amazon.com offers this visitor the opportunity to read a few pages of a book before purchase. The methodical visitor will sleep on it and then make an informed decision whether or not to buy the book.

Humanist visitor: slow and feeling-based

The humanist visitor finds it important that he and the people around him feel good and has a strong intuition for this. When making and decision, it is important to make sure everyone feels good about it, so that is why it takes a bit longer. The humanist visitor prefers to think the situation through a bit more, so that you make the best decision for everyone.

Equally practical

Humanist visitors like to know who the company behind a website is. Experiences of others are important. How can I trust you and who all use your products? These are typical questions for the humanist visitor. Amazon.com serves these people by offering reviews of books. In addition, they show which other books people bought within the same category.

MBTI in person's

Now that we know that visitors come to our websites with different preferences, we better do something with it. Therefore, give your personas an MBTI character. Create at least four personas, so that you serve at least the four MBTI characters.

So is it possible to serve all four types with your website? Yes, it is possible. You can design the different functionalities and texts on your site to appeal to multiple types of visitors. Take, for example, a product review; a functionality that makes the humanist happy. The methodical visitor prefers to see a rating. You can combine those two things by putting on your website, "On average, our customers give this product an 8.7, view all reviews."

Quick decision-makers (spontaneous and competitive visitors) are less inclined to read and want to decide quickly. Offer them the right information above the website fold. Methodical and humanistic visitors do scroll and find the information they want to find. You can imagine that a website for accountants has relatively more methodical users than a website for a women's magazine. With this insight, you can optimise your personas.

Example web text

The web text below is optimised for all types:

"Quality care at a favourable price! Switch now and we will cancel your current insurance for you. With more than two million policyholders, we are one of the largest health insurers in the Netherlands. Find out what we all do to keep improving the quality of care."

Successively served here are the competitive (what's in it for me?), the spontaneous (that's handy!) the humanist (so many others do it too!) and the methodical (what do you all do then?). Do you also notice that the competitive and spontaneous visitors are served first? They decide quickly, so are the first to be served!