Paul Boag has written three books in the Smashing Library, and Click! How to Encourage Clicks Without Shady Tricks is just the most recent one. Paul wrote some articles for Smashing Magazine in addition to appearing on the Smashing Podcast and SmashingTV to promote the book and talk about some of its themes. Click! finally started shipping in June, and our beloved preorder customers found a surprise in those packages.

This Time, It’s Personal

Paul signed 500 postcards—designed by our own Ricardo Gimenez — and our first 500 buyers each received one of the signed postcards along with their copy of Click!

It was fun to watch the reactions pop up on social media:

Reading it in my car on this very moment!?? pic.twitter.com/TQHq8PyYFM

— Yakari Van Dessel (@yakarivd) June 15, 2020

What a lovley surprise today. I just revived a new book from @smashingmag. Many thanks to Paul Boag for a surprise note ? pic.twitter.com/VX7NH8WrJV

— Antonija ? (@AntonijaVresk) June 8, 2020

Who would have said that the book I purchased last month would arrive on my birthday! Best gift for myself ? thanks @smashingmag @paulboag pic.twitter.com/BZcirpJHyj

— Lu (@lubby_cat) June 9, 2020

this just got delivered before the weekend – good timing @smashingmag @boagworld pic.twitter.com/UmShqifaUe

— Jari Tirkkonen (@jatike) June 12, 2020

Look what came in the mail today!! This book is so relevant right now AND it looks so, so good on the inside. Wow. Thnx @boagworld and @smashingmag! Taking the rest of the day off now. Not really, but I wish I could. Man am I eager to fully read this. pic.twitter.com/d34UBpAxVI

— Marjolijn (@Marjolijn) June 10, 2020

The new @smashingmag landed in my mailbox this weekend ?? pic.twitter.com/rl3dAEd8a9

— Stanley van Heusden (@stannvanheusden) June 7, 2020

Haha, you’re welcome @smashingmag @boagworld pic.twitter.com/yBEKnurnvt

— Gijs Hosman (@gijshosman) June 10, 2020

Paul’s an experienced author, and we also had a very experienced illustrator for the cover and interior templates—Veerle Pieters! She has contributed artwork to Paul’s other books for Smashing, but she also designed the cover for our first Smashing Magazine Print edition. The illustrations and templates she provided for Click! helped make the book an inspiration to read, too.

Working with an experienced author and a seasoned illustrator is always inspiring. There were even a few pleasant surprises along the way:

@smashingmag keep this brillant idea ! pic.twitter.com/icFDRYwKNf

— Benoît HENRY (@bhenbe) June 14, 2020

Creativity In Quarantine

For a lot of us, quarantine has had a profound effect on our productivity levels. Feelings of being overwhelmed might be slowing you down, OR maybe your work is a welcome distraction, and you are getting a lot done right now.

One thing that has changed for most of us is our routines, though. This inevitably leads to some problem solving, which requires some creativity.

Click! comes along at a time when many of us need a creative “nudge.” The book inspires us to think differently about our routines for building online sites and services—what works, and what doesn’t.

“People are under enormous pressure to improve their conversion rates. Marketers have got targets they’ve got to meet, designers are under pressure … people are inevitably turning to dark patterns. Not because they want to, but because they’re under pressure to. They’re under pressure to bring about results.

So the premise of this book is, first of all, to explain why dark patterns are a bad idea. I talk about it from a purely business point of view, that these are the business reasons why dark patterns are ultimately damaging. And then that inevitably leads to the question of, well, if dark patterns aren’t the answer, then what is?

The majority of the book is exploring what you can do to improve your conversion rate without resorting to these kinds of more manipulative techniques.”

— Paul Boag, Smashing Podcast Episode 12

Plenty Of Inspiration

We want to help you stay inspired! You might like

• More of Paul Boag’s articles for Smashing
• Suzanne Scacca’s article on How to Feel More Energized When You’re Stuck at a Desk All Day
• Our community-driven collection of desktop wallpapers
• Our ever-expanding set of Guides, with topics curated by #TeamSmashing

And, have you looked at Smashing Membership lately? Members have free access to our eBooks, job board, partner offers, SmashingTV webinars, and discounts on just about everything else Smashing has to offer.

More Smashing Books

Promoting best practices and providing you with practical tips to master your daily coding and design challenges has always been (and will be) at the core of everything we do at Smashing.

In the past few years, we were very lucky to have worked together with some talented, caring people from the web community to publish their wealth of experience as printed books that stand the test of time. Trine, Alla and Adam are some of these people. Have you checked out their books already?

(ra, il)