Being a Thief of Ideas: How Borrowing from Other Disciplines Elevates UX & CRO
The most innovative UX and CRO professionals aren't just experts in their field—they're intellectual thieves who systematically borrow concepts from seemingly unrelated disciplines. From architecture to psychology, sports coaching to theatrical performance, these cross-disciplinary connections yield breakthrough insights that purely industry-focused thinking cannot achieve. This article explores how intentional idea theft creates competitive advantages in digital optimisation, provides a framework for identifying valuable concepts across disciplines, and demonstrates how leading practitioners are using this approach to solve complex user experience challenges. Companies that cultivate this "intellectual burglary" consistently outperform those limited by industry tunnel vision.
In the world of elite football, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is known for his revolutionary tactics. But what few realise is that many of his innovations came not from football, but from studying handball, water polo, and even chess. When asked about his approach, Guardiola once said, "I steal ideas. That's why I watch many sports." This philosophy of intellectual theft—borrowing concepts from seemingly unrelated fields—may be the most underutilised competitive advantage in UX and conversion rate optimisation today.
The biggest problem in our industry is that we keep recycling the same ideas. We attend the same conferences, read the same blogs, follow the same influencers. Then we wonder why our solutions feel incremental rather than revolutionary.
Mira Patel, Chief Experience Officer at Conversion Labs.
This digital echo chamber creates a feedback loop of familiar tactics: social proof elements, scarcity triggers, and simplified forms. These patterns work, but they're known to every practitioner—and increasingly, to every user.
The alternative? Becoming a disciplined thief of ideas.
The Art of Intellectual Burglary
To be clear, we're not talking about plagiarism, stealing designs or copying code. We're talking about something far more valuable: stealing conceptual frameworks and approaches from fields that seem entirely unrelated to digital experiences.
This process of transplanting ideas isn't random. The most successful thieves are methodical, focusing on disciplines that share underlying challenges with UX and CRO:
- Architecture: Designing spaces that guide human behaviour
- Behavioural Economics: Understanding decision-making processes
- Theatrical Performance: Creating emotional journeys
- Sports Psychology: Optimising performance under pressure
- Wayfinding Systems: Orienting people in complex environments
The most interesting solutions come from unexpected places. When you transplant a concept from one field to another, you often discover applications that weren't obvious in the original context.
Dr. James Chen, who studies cross-disciplinary innovation at Stanford.
Theatrical Staging Principles in E-commerce
Theatre directors use staging techniques to direct audience's attention to specific actors or props. Emma Richardson, a former theatre director turned UX designer, applied these principles to product pages for a luxury fashion retailer.
I borrowed the concept of 'stage right prominence' from theatre, In Western theatre, the most important character often appears stage right because our eyes naturally begin scanning there. By positioning key product benefits in this area of the screen, we increased add-to-cart rates by 16%.
Richardson didn't stop there. She also applied the theatrical concept of "beats"—emotional shifts within scenes—to product description layouts. "We restructured product descriptions to create emotional rhythms, alternating between rational benefits and emotional appeals, just like a well-crafted dramatic scene."
Wayfinding Systems in Complex User Flows
When Marcus James, CRO lead at FinTech innovator MoneyWise, needed to simplify a complex mortgage application process, he looked not to other financial services websites but to airport wayfinding systems.
Airports solve an incredibly complex navigation problem. They move thousands of people who don't speak the same language through a series of critical steps with minimal confusion. That's exactly what our mortgage application needed to do.
Marcus James at MoneyWise
By borrowing concepts like decision points, progressive disclosure, and reassurance markers from airport design, James reduced application abandonment by 24%.
Sports Psychology in Form Design
Sarah Ahmed, a former sports psychologist now working in CRO, applied performance psychology principles to checkout form design.
In sports, we talk about the 'flow state'—that zone where challenge and skill are perfectly balanced, Too much challenge leads to anxiety; too little leads to boredom. We designed our checkout to maintain this optimal state by adapting to user behaviour in real-time.
The result? A checkout that adjusts its complexity based on user signals, showing additional helper text when users hesitate and streamlining for confident users—a 14% conversion improvement.
The Future Belongs to Thieves
As AI and automation increasingly handle routine optimisation tasks, the uniquely human ability to draw unexpected connections between fields becomes more valuable. The future of UX and CRO belongs to the intellectual thieves—those who can look beyond industry best practices to find breakthrough approaches in unexpected places
So channel your inner Pep Guardiola. Steal relentlessly, borrow brilliantly, and create digital experiences that leave your users wondering, "How did they think of that?"
The answer, of course, is that you didn't—you stole it. And that's exactly what makes you great.