Top 6 psychology-based web design tips to consider

Put yourself in the position of someone who has just landed on a particular site. Where can you find the information you need about what it offers? You may be annoyed with the choice of colors that are not pleasing to your eyes. Does the wrong choice of typography make it difficult for you to read the content? Or maybe it’s not obvious where you need to click to find the right page. If web design is a complete mess, you will probably give up and close the tab in a few seconds. That is not something you want to happen to your site visitors.

You want users to find all the information they need in a few clicks. You want a strong color scheme that makes your website cohesive and polished. Understanding the target users’ expectations, and the psychology behind them, plays an undeniable role in creating a strong first impression on users. Let’s take a closer look at the Top 6 psychology-based web design tips that you can apply to improve customer experience and make your website more effective.

1. Identify what your audience wants and needs 

You know your business, but do you know your audience? Who are they? What do they want? What triggers their buying decisions? What vibes would they get from the colors on your website? The first step is creating a survey for your clients and customers that will help you understand your customers’ preferences and their typical behavior.  Having gathered all this information about their demographics, gender, education level, culture, and age, will be your best starting point for addressing all those elements through the website design. 

2. Plan your color pallet accordingly to engage people’s emotions

Color can form 90% of a customer’s opinion of a brand - all within just 90 seconds, so making smart web design decisions based on the psychology of color is more important than you can imagine. Certain colors have soothing effects on our behavior, moods, emotions, and feelings. When it comes to web design, using the right colors can help you attract visitors, trigger their actions, and convince them to use your service. Workout the same color rules for your logo design.

Consider your top color picks as a whole, and how they work together, rather than just picking one and hoping that it will work alongside others such as background, text and CTA buttons. Specific color groups also are associated with certain feelings. Cooler colors on your website provide an inviting, professional and relaxed feeling. Green color will make your brand look reliable, trustworthy, safe, and eco-friendly. Blue color calls to mind feelings of calmness and tranquility that is widely used in  mattresses websites while purple (violet) is commonly used on business and financial websites. Warmer colors like red, orange, yellow and their hues reflect energy, passion, and happiness. In branding design, most visual identities have neutral colors (white, black, and gray) used along with their dominant colors.

3. Pick the right typography to make your brand more trustworthy and friendly

Typography is the style, arrangement, and appearance of text on your website. It is one of the several components of web designing that influence customers’ behavior and feelings about a product or service. The right one can persuade them to buy, love, and associate your brand with a personality you are aiming for. On the contrary, wrong typography affects memory, perception, thought, and emotion and echoes the overall user experience.

The most important elements of typography on your web page are: 

• Font: The lettering, size, weight, width, and height of fonts have high effects that influence consumer behavior;
• Alignment:  Where your website elements are placed and how do they interact with each other? Text alignment should be as consistent as possible to convey sound development and composition;
• Visual hierarchy: Can site visitors easily identify which category of information they are reading? Visual hierarchy in web design refers to the arrangement or presentation of elements in a way that implies the order of importance and influences in which the human eye perceives what it sees; 
• Typographical Emphasis: It helps guide the reader to take note of special words and key phrases. The most common treatments for achieving emphasis are bolding, italicizing & obliques, all Caps, or underlining. Don’t forget that, sometimes, less is more;
• Location: Just as the location of the store is important in the physical world, so is the position of the text on your site in the digital world. Make sure it is in front of the eyes of visitors.
  

4. Minimize distractions and design the page layout that entails much more than simply pleasing the eye of your website’s visitors

A website layout refers to placing and arranging text, images, and graphics on a website. Potential customers come to your website, they look around randomly, and then they decide on their own what action they’re going to take. If they can’t figure out how to buy your product/service, make an appointment, or contact your company because of a lack of clear navigation, it may turn them off. That is why you should focus on providing users with a clear path for navigation, make web pages visually appealing, and distinguish your brand from the competition. 

Also, don't overlook the importance of well-chosen photos on your website. We all know the saying “a picture paints a thousand words”. It means that it's easier to show something in a picture than to describe it with the spoken or written word. One way to trigger the desired emotional response is by the use of eye-appealing, high-resolution images in both your website’s design and content. Using photographs of actual staff members can help provide genuine insight into your brand. Not to mention the trust you build that way. A good, clear image showing how the product works and solves problems adds a human touch to website visitors. 

5. Make it easy for your readers to skim through the content on your web page

What if your target audience doesn't have a clear understanding of what your site has to offer? As the backbone of your online presence, a blog adds a sense of value to your website visitors. Not only you're making your website more visible in search engine results, but it's also something that your target audience expects to find on your page. This is where the term “F-shape” comes into play. Most viewers start at the top of web pages and read left to right, then diagonally to the bottom left and across to the bottom right, in the shape of the letter “F”. This knowledge is very important because your goal is to keep the visitor on the page while informing them about what it offers.

A person is more likely to do something if he or she sees other people do the same thing. Besides, your regular blog posts connected to the brand itself, people love reading social proofs from followers, product users, or anyone familiar with the brand. This is the part when user-generated content, or UGC, enters the scene. This powerful tool for businesses and advertisers represents an excellent way to increase the time spent on site, engage visitors, drive awareness and build up trust around the brand. Above that, leveraging UGC will help you create connections with the target users in a more personalized and authentic way.

6. A Strong Call to Action

CTA or Call-To-Action button is what will push a potential customer over the edge. Just another casual visitor to your website or a paying customer? It’s important to consider the copy you use, where a call to action button will be placed, what is the best color, and which CTA button shape is visually easier to process. Beyond the design elements, consider what the actual call to action is as well.  For instance, if you host webinars, you may ask them to join a webinar you’re throwing in the next week.  While this may convert reasonably well, consider the fact that a CTA such as a free download immediately after they fill out a form may get more conversions, though the prospects may not be as easy to convert.  By understanding the principles behind your target customers’ psychology, you can design a great call-to-action button for your website, boost conversions, and turn strangers into loyal customers or clients. 

Key takeaways

Today, almost anyone can easily create a decent-looking website. However, modern customers want something more than just decent. They don't want to see the "showcase" of a brand. They want to have an unforgettable experience, as much information about a product or service as possible, and social proof that your offer works. Since the psychology of customers is not something new, it’s wise to analyze the target audience and give them something they truly want. This applies equally to web design. Moreover, consumer psychology in web design is essential for strengthening the brand, influencing purchasing decisions, and creating lasting relationships with end-users.
There is no one-size-fits-all process. Test different techniques. Keep what works and change what does not work. Don’t be a copycat. Your target audience is as unique as your product or service. Listen. Be creative and test. Then test again. And again. When you manage to understand not only the ways consumers behave on our website but also the emotions that motivate them to behave in a certain way, you will be able to create a user-friendly and welcoming online environment for years to come.