How I Doubled Conversion Rates by Breaking Every UX "Best Practice"

Last year, I worked with a Shopify client whose conversion rate was bleeding—not because their products were bad, but because their "optimized" user experience felt like every other ecommerce site on the planet.

The data told a brutal story: visitors were using the homepage as nothing more than a doorway. They'd land, immediately click to "All Products," then get lost scrolling through 1000+ products. The homepage had become irrelevant, despite following every UX best practice we could find.

That's when I realized something crucial: your industry's best practices might be your biggest limitation. When everyone follows the same playbook, that playbook becomes noise.

In this playbook, you'll discover:

• Why conventional UX wisdom creates forgettable experiences

• The counterintuitive strategy that doubled my client's conversion rate

• How to identify when "best practices" are hurting your business

• A framework for creating truly lovable user experiences that customers remember

• Real examples of breaking rules that led to breakthrough results

This isn't about following website design trends—it's about understanding what makes users fall in love with your product.

Walk into any UX design meeting, and you'll hear the same gospel repeated like scripture:

• "Don't make me think" - Keep everything simple and intuitive

• "Three-click rule" - Users should find anything within three clicks

• "Above the fold" - All important content must be visible without scrolling

• "Mobile-first design" - Start with the smallest screen and scale up

• "Consistency is key" - Use familiar patterns and conventions

These principles exist for good reasons. They reduce cognitive load, improve usability, and create predictable experiences. The problem? They also create forgettable experiences.

When every SaaS onboarding flow looks identical, when every ecommerce site follows the same header-hero-features-testimonials layout, when every landing page uses the same conversion optimization playbook—you're not creating lovable experiences. You're creating commoditized ones.

Here's what the industry gets wrong: they confuse "usable" with "lovable." A lovable user experience doesn't just work—it surprises, delights, and creates emotional connections. Sometimes that means breaking the rules everyone else follows religiously.

The conventional wisdom assumes all users are the same, but different audiences have different tolerance levels for complexity, different expectations, and different needs. What feels "intuitive" to one group might feel "boring" to another.

The project landed on my desk with a clear challenge: a Shopify store with over 1000 products was struggling with conversion rates. Despite having quality products and decent traffic, customers weren't buying.

My client had already tried the standard optimization playbook. They'd implemented:

• Clean, minimalist homepage design

• Featured product sections

• "Our Collections" blocks with curated product groups

• Trust badges and testimonials

• Mobile-optimized layouts following every best practice guide

The problem became clear when I analyzed their user behavior data. The homepage was beautiful and followed every UX convention, but it was essentially useless. Visitors treated it like a doorway—they'd land, immediately click "All Products," then get overwhelmed by an endless scroll of options.

This is where most UX consultants would have suggested better navigation, improved filtering, or more sophisticated categorization. I proposed something different: what if we treated the SaaS product like a physical product on an e-commerce site?

My client was skeptical. "This goes against everything we know about ecommerce UX," they said. They were right—and that was exactly the point. In a world where every online store looks identical, being different isn't just creative—it's strategic.

The conventional approach wasn't working because it assumed customers wanted to browse categories and collections. But our data showed they wanted to see products immediately. They didn't want another step between landing and shopping.

Instead of fighting user behavior, I decided to embrace it. Here's exactly what I implemented:

Step 1: Killed the Traditional Homepage Structure

I removed every "best practice" element:

• Deleted the hero banner

• Removed "Featured Products" sections

• Scrapped "Our Collections" blocks

• Eliminated everything that stood between visitors and products

Step 2: Created a Mega-Menu Navigation System

Since the product catalog was massive, I built an AI workflow to automatically categorize new products across 50+ categories. This made product discovery possible without leaving the navigation, turning what was once friction into a feature.

Step 3: Transformed the Homepage Into a Product Gallery

This was the counterintuitive move that changed everything. Instead of traditional homepage sections, I displayed 48 products directly on the homepage with only one additional element: a testimonials section for social proof.

The homepage became the catalog itself. No extra clicks, no browsing categories—just immediate access to what visitors actually wanted to see.

Step 4: Applied the CTVP Framework

For traffic from different sources, I created specific landing pages using my Channel-Target-Value Proposition framework:

• Channel: Facebook ads, Instagram, Google Shopping, email campaigns

• Target: Different customer segments based on behavior data

• Value Prop: Customized messaging that matched ad creative

This approach from another ecommerce project ensured that every traffic source had a tailored entry point, not just the generic homepage everyone else uses.

The results spoke for themselves and challenged everything I'd been taught about homepage design:

• Conversion rate doubled within 30 days of implementation

• Homepage became the most used page again, not just a waypoint

• Time to purchase decreased significantly as customers found products faster

• Bounce rate improved as visitors engaged with products immediately

The most surprising outcome? Customer feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by seeing 48 products immediately, they felt excited by the variety and selection. What traditional UX would call "overwhelming" became "comprehensive" when framed correctly.

This project taught me that sometimes the biggest UX improvement is removing UX entirely. When you eliminate the friction between user intent and user action, magical things happen.

Here's what this experience taught me about creating truly lovable user experiences:

1. Question every "best practice" - Industry standards become noise when everyone follows them. Differentiation comes from intelligent rule-breaking.

2. Follow user behavior, not user research - What people say they want and what they actually do are often completely different. Data beats opinions.

3. Context matters more than conventions - A product catalog with 1000+ items requires different UX than a service with 3 plans. Adapt your approach to your specific situation.

4. Friction isn't always bad - Sometimes adding friction (like more qualifying fields in contact forms) improves quality while reducing quantity.

5. Cross-industry inspiration works - The best solutions often come from completely different industries. E-commerce sites can learn from SaaS, and vice versa.

6. Test counterintuitive approaches - Your biggest breakthrough might come from trying the opposite of conventional wisdom.

7. Lovable beats usable - Users will tolerate complexity if it delivers exceptional value. Sometimes "easy" is just "forgettable."