Do emotions have any place in website designing? Apparently, the research on human and consumer behaviour states that incorporating human emotions and behavioral attributes in website designing improved website performance and conversion rates.
So what is emotional website design? When the design elements used in a website layout connects to the users and target audience emotionally, it is usually called an emotional design. This was always present across multiple campaigns and promotions; it has only been recently introduced in the realm of website designing. Right now, emotional design is being used as a strong tool to eliminate competition and increase customer retention.
Mastering the Art of Emotional Website Designs concept!
What are the main influencers of emotional website designs?
When the experts at Las Vegas Web Design Co studied human behaviour and consumer trends on social media, they observed that the seemingly blurred boundaries of “personal” and “public” content on social media elicit emotional traits in user’s decision making. They incorporated a similar experience for users in the new-age emotional design principle. The main aim of this principle became the elicitation of an emotional look and feel that uplifts the purpose of the website.
The beginning of an emotional design?
What is common between all Home Loan pages of banking/loan websites? These pages almost always begin with the image of a happy (preferably elderly) couple with their home in the background. As time has shown us, emotional designs work best when started with an image that calls for the right emotions from the target audience.
Most child welfare websites include images of smiling children or beautiful faces looking curiously at the users. This works marvelously as the users are likely to make small contributions before leaving the website.
In many cases, we have also seen funny animations and doodles that accompany witty copies. Even this technique works marvelously to grab user attention.
All in all, you must remember to design for your users. Your website will be the connection between your user and your business. An emotional design should incorporate multiple aspects including demographic changes, cultural and social trends of target users, economic changes that might influence shopper’s choices and local events that will decide the buyer’s decisions.
What is a 3-level cognitive design?
All good emotional designs have a 3-level cognitive system that stimulates our brains to react to a particular design element. The 3 levels will also guide your customers’ brains in the decision making process.
1. Visceral level: this is when the unconscious or automatic reactions take over. This is common in every individual and remains uniform throughout the customer base. A good emotional website design with visceral elements will emphasize on crafting a positive first impression.
2. Behavioral level: this is more practical and it depends on features, performance, function and usefulness. The design elements are to be made practically useful. Basically, this is the basis of an intuitive user interface.
3. Reflective level: this refers to our thought process. Analytical, meditative and rational thinking fall under the reflective level. This is the most evolved and most critical level of perception. This controls the other two levels of perception and all our emotions are dominated by the reflective level as well. Creating a good reflective design can be really challenging as it needs to connect all the subtle layers of emotions together and create a sense of positivity about your brand.
All these 3 design elements must blend seamlessly into each other to create a perfect, emotional website design.
What is the right emotion?
You need to know your users and understand your customer base to determine the right emotion. While humor is a popular mood-changer, it can be disastrous if a mortuary website tries to rely on humor to break the glumness.
You should also understand that humor should not target any cultural, demographic and social differences. Racist jokes and dark humor may seem funny on social media. But relating your brand name to them is never a good idea.
Research has shown that “prolonged absence of recognition and appreciation makes customers feel dejected.” This indifference is enough to divert them towards your competition. Creating special design elements for your users is another wonderful way to ensure customer loyalty. You can include small messages of thanks for your users once they register, subscribe or buy your products. You can send them emailers and special coupons just to show your appreciation.
Wrapping it up –
Common design elements like color, font style, high-resolution images, the general tone of your website content and use of engaging animation are other popular key elements of emotional website design. But, you must be very careful about the risks of playing with emotions, just like in real life. In any case, remember to take customer feedback. If your users are indifferent, then your design was not good enough to elicit an emotional response.
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Valuable and informative article. Thanks for sharing.