Add Borders or Backgrounds to Choosable Items

How should catalogs look?

Try wrapping each item in a border or background. This style nearly doubled conversion rates in ecommerce catalogs (e.g., beverages, resorts; Jia et al., 2024).

Based on eye tracking, customers saw more unique features in these catalogs because they viewed features within products instead of viewing a single feature across products:

Naturally, they saw more varied features.

But it also happened in retail settings: A restaurant doubled their drink sales when their signage wrapped each drink with a border (Jia et al., 2024).

Just be careful when comparisons are critical.

Pricing tiers are often evaluated with back-and-forth comparisons, yet rigid borders can hinder this motion by trapping eye gazes:

In these scenarios, discriminate each item with a solid background without any exterior fencing.

Stronger For

• Small Catalogs. Large catalogs were unaffected by discreteness because they already possessed variety (Jia et al., 2024).
• Contamination Worries. Visual borders feel like tangible borders that can protect food or luxury items from external touches. In one study, natural disasters seemed less likely to travel into adjacent regions when viewed on a map with darker borders (Mishra & Mishra, 2010).
• Curved Backgrounds. Round corners converted better than sharp corners, presumably because round objects feel more touchable (Biswas et al., 2024).

• Biswas, D., Abell, A., & Chacko, R. (2024). Curvy digital marketing designs: virtual elements with rounded shapes enhance online click-through rates. Journal of Consumer Research, 51(3), 552-570.
• Jia, Y., Ouyang, J., Dong, J. Q., & Jiang, Y. (2024). EXPRESS: Framing of Differences: Visual Product Frames Reduce Consumer Choice Deferrals. Journal of Marketing, 00222429241280224.
• Mishra, A., & Mishra, H. (2010). Border bias: The belief that state borders can protect against disasters. Psychological science, 21(11), 1582-1586.