So what defines great design? If you are reading this I can safely assume you are aware of what a website looks like and how visitors interact with it.
And let me clear it right away that great design is not just how you represent your content and make your website look good. Over the years, designers have tried to understand human psychology and create visual which incites positive human emotions. they have tried to help visitor take a decision when they land on a website, without making him confused.
The type of feelings your visitors produce when they visit your site — negative or positive—is what defines your brand. In order to achieve this, you must understand how the design elements affect human emotions and experience and take the desired reaction among the 35,000 decisions they take per day!
But the question is, what is the relation between human psychology, web designing, and branding, as I’ve put all three in the heading?
Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/mind-brain-mindset-perception-544404/
With this huge number of decisions being made by people every day, you have to think about the effect human psychology has on your brand. Whether you are a makeup manufacturing company or a pet care shop, you have to have a brand to become big-shot in your area of the market. And to make your brand successful, you need to understand human psychology, and also, you need a website, because in this internet age, not having a website is like committing suicide for a business.
So, your business needs a brand, to make a brand you need to understand human psychology and to project that brand to the people you need a website. Now that we are clear about the connection, let’s dive into the matter of branding and how psychology is affecting that.
Web Designing & Human Psychology
No matter what we are doing, psychology influences all our decisions. From deciding what to have for lunch to choosing the right car, it all comes down to our psychology. And the interesting part is that we are not aware of this influence most of the time.
However, when it comes to your business, you need to be aware of this psychological force behind decision making. The consumer’s decision, which is affected by their psychological workings, will affect you directly. Whether they chose your service or not, it all depends on this one thing only.
Now you may feel like there is no way you can control the consumer’s psychological workings and influence their decisions. But what if we tell you that you can do that? Turns out that you can, in fact, influence the consumer and make sure that they chose your brand over others.
There are plenty of ways to do it. But here we are going to talk about web designing as a tool for influencing consumer decisions.
Source: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/brain-mind-psychology-idea-hearts-2062055/
Web designing is one of the many ways of subtly persuading the user to choose your service than your competitors. The design of a website, the perfect implementation of your brand can influence the visitor on a psychological level and make them choose your service.
One of the most important parts of web designing is going to be branding. With the right portrayal of your brand on your website, you can get close to the visitor. But what is the relation between branding and human psychology? Let’s see.
Branding & Human Psychology
A brand is a name, term or symbol that sets your business apart from the others in the same market. It becomes your identity to the clients and it is what the client will use to categorize your brand.
When it comes to brands, consumers categorize the various brands they come across every day. From shoes to cars, every brand is categorized in their mind in such a way that whenever they are thinking about a certain thing, the brand related to it pops up in their mind.
Let’s talk about cars for an example. There are many different brands for cars in this market. And those brands have been categorized in people’s mind in such a way that when they hear cars, they either think of Ford or Volkswagon. (some even think Lamborghinis)
This instantaneous thought is a result of brand categorization. These brands have made such an impact on the consumer mind that they have entangled cars with the brand name. In fact, this is how most popular brands function today.
So you see that when it comes to successful branding, consumer psychology plays a big part in it. If your brand is not successful in making an impact on consumer psychology, then it is not going to be successful. Now there are a number of ways to make sure that your branding is successful, and web designing is one of those many ways.
Branding and Web Design
Web designing is an important part of branding your product/service. Today people are not discovering businesses through newspapers and television advertisements, they are discovering them through the internet. And that’s why your website needs to portray the perfect brand image for you.
When you are successful in portraying your brand through your website, you can easily influence the consumer’s decisions in your favor. But how do you portray your brand through your website?
Here are eight features on your website that can help you with branding your business.
Color
Color is the most important element when it comes to web designing. With the right color, you can influence people’s emotions and their subconscious in the most subtle way.
Different colors evoke different emotions in our mind. For example, green is the color of safety. For us, green denotes a refreshing feeling, a sense of calm. Whereas red gives us a sense of energy. It is also used to denote danger. And that is why green is used to paint the hospital walls and red light is used at traffic lights to stop people from crossing the road.
Source: www.specialtystoreservicesblog.com
Black, on the other hand, is a more luxurious color. That’s why black is used by famous fashion brands. So if you want to build a proper brand image through your website, you have to use the right color. And the right color depends on what kind of brand you want to build.
When you have decided on a color that would portray your brand properly, you should use it on your website. This way, people would easily associate your brand with that color. But do remember that different color has a different meaning for different cultures. Which is why when you are choosing a color, make sure that you pick a color that is universal.
Character
Consumers love brands that have their own personality and human-like quality. This phenomenon is called anthropomorphism. They feel like they can connect to the brand more if it has a personified image to it.
Source: https://www.theverge.com
A prime example of it is the blue twitter bird, or Duo, the green owl from Duolingo. We have not only associated these two images with these two brands, but we also feel connected t these brands because they have used personification in their branding. So when you are planning on the branding of your website, make sure to put some character into it.
Emotions
For successful branding, you need to stir up the emotions of the consumers with the use of web designing. Using the latest design is not enough, you need to associate your brand with pleasant emotions and feelings.
Source: https://sproutsend.com/
With an image of a smiling woman, Sproutsend has created a sense of happiness and positivity on their website. The visitor will carry on this sense of positivity throughout the website, and when they are in need of automated emails and SMS services, they would definitely think of Sproutsend than any other companies.
Consumers would be more inclined to choose your brand when they feel only positive vibes from your website. Because when they are indecisive, they would rather pick something that gives them positive vibes, than choosing something they are not sure of.
Consistency
The most successful brands in the world have one thing in common when it comes to the design of their website- consistency. While designing a website, you need to be consistent with the design, and the use of images and fonts. Using the same graphics and colors will give them a sense of personality.
Source: https://www.skype.com/en/
As an example of consistency, you can check out Skype’s website. Throughout the homepage, they continue using squares and rectangles with rounded-off edges. The use of boxes give an organized feeling while the rounded edges give a softens the feeling. Along with that, the repeated use of the boxes with some style gives a sense of consistency throughout the website.
Consistency also helps your website to perform better. When you are reusing contents such as images and fonts, your website is going to load faster. If someone visits your website multiple times, the website will load faster since the images are going to be displayed from the browser cache.
The Logo
Without the logo, you are not going to be able to make a proper brand. The logo serves as a symbol for your business and it needs to be creative to the level that it becomes iconic (like the logos in the image below). But no matter how creative you might be with the logo, make sure to display it on the top left corner of the website.
Source: https://animationvisarts.com/
The top left corner of the website is the first area the visitor is going to notice. If you put the logo in any other place they are going to feel disoriented, not to mention it will also mess with the consistency of your website. To create a good logo, and make sure to display it on the top left side of the webpage.
Value Proposition
The value proposition is a short, clear and precise statement that clarifies what the website and your service are all about to the first time visitor. The value proposition should be placed in such a way that the visitor can easily see it as soon as the website loads.
Source: https://stripe.com/
With a few words, Stripe has made clear what their service is about. This is the peak quality of value proposition as it is clear, concise, and placed in such a way that right after the logo, the visitor will see the value proposition and know what the website is all about.
Use Of Appropriate Tone
Depending on who you are dealing with you should change the tone of content on your website. For example, if you are dealing with millennials, the tone of your voice should be informal, and casual. But if you are dealing with senior bankers, then you need to use a more serious tone.
The use of appropriate voice in your website content is going to help create your image to the visitor, as well as make them feel connected to your website. With the right tone of voice in your content, you can connect to the right audience easily, and create perfect bran for your business.
Uniqueness
You are not the only one who is going to follow all these advice about branding through web designing. Your competitors are perhaps reading this same article as you are right now and they are going to apply the same principles to create their brands.
source: https://airtable.com/
The website of Airtable has not only applied all the elements needed to portray their brand on their website design but with the unique addition of colorful illustration on the homepage, they have set themselves apart from their competition.
This is why being unique while using all these principles is important. Just the colors, fonts, and tone of voice is not going to create your brand. Mixing all these ingredients with a generous dose of uniqueness is the key to perfect branding.
Did You Find the Connection?
In this world of fierce competition in all sectors, creating a brand is important for all kinds of business, whether big or small. Whether you are hiring a web design company in any part of the world, you need to make sure that all the above-mentioned advice are applied to create the perfect branding for your business.
A version of this post was previously published on medium.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: istockphoto