Coursera's homepage is a department store with no directory — you walk in knowing you want to learn something, and find yourself standing in front of seventeen different entrances simultaneously. The page does remarkable things well: the '91% of learners achieved a positive career outcome' stat and the salary data in the careers section are exactly the kind of concrete outcome language that converts browsers into believers. But the hero headline 'Learn without limits' — a brand tagline, not a value proposition — leaves the first five seconds of the visit doing zero persuasive work, while the page's most motivating content sits well below the fold.

Hick's Law research suggests that the competing carousel destinations, three simultaneous hero panels, and 11+ category navigation paths create enough decision paralysis to cost 10-25% of visitors before they've clicked anything. The 'What brings you to Coursera today?' self-routing widget — the one element that could channel intent into relevant content — is buried so far down the page that the visitors who most need it (undecided browsers) have already left. And the B2B segment ('Try Coursera for Business') shares equal visual real estate with the primary B2C conversion in the hero, which is like putting the wholesale entrance next to the retail one and wondering why shoppers are confused. There are 4 more friction points inside, but these three are where the registrations are being lost.