A lot more goes into your website than just creativity, planning, and coding. Applying psychology to web design can give your business a competitive advantage and improve engagement by website visitors!
Psychology in web design focuses on human behavior. How do people react when shown visual elements or content? Each business has a different goal for their website, but psychology always plays a role with visitor engagement and generating actual leads.
Website Structure & Navigation
To keep website visitors from getting confused on how to find content, stick to common elements that make sense. Remember, we’re all skimming content so you need to make your content easy to find
Headings, subtitles, taglines, and bold text helps the reader know which content in a block of text is most important.
Navigation elements should lead your website visitor along an easy-to-find path, making the journey more pleasant for a positive reaction.
The amount of content on your website should be minimal and concise so visitors do not feel overwhelmed.
Remember – we’re skimming!
Color Scheme
Colors get very different reactions from different people which is typically due to simple personal preference. The overall color scheme of your website can influence visitors to engage or to leave.
Colors affect our emotions, mood, and attitude. For example, blue is one of the most-used colors because it’s a color of trust, peace, and loyalty.
Read Neil Patel’s Psychology of Color and Conversions
Photos, Videos & Graphics
The web has become more visual, especially with how easy it is to share photos from our smartphones. People are most engaged on visual websites like Instagram and Pinterest, and it’s no wonder they have taken the Internet by storm.
High resolution photos and engaging videos get a more positive reaction from website visitors and promote engagement from website visitors.
Focus on great photos, interesting concise videos, and high-resolution graphics to help tell your story.
Fonts & Typeface
An element as simple as your font can affect the user experience on your website. Certain fonts feel more modern when viewed (like the sans serif fonts of Google and Apple) while other fonts might say traditional (like Times New Roman).
Safe your fancy fonts for titles only. Don’t use decorated fonts for body text since it will be hard to read on a phone. For readability on all devices, sans serif fonts are smooth and clear.
For size of fonts, your body text should be no smaller than 15 pixels for readability. Test your website on your phone and see if your body text is easy to read without zooming or pinching.
Build Trust
How does all of your content combined – fonts, text content, graphics, photos, videos – affect your target audience?
- Do they trust your business or organization based on your website content?
- Would they feel safe if they were to contact you?
- Are the faces on your website familiar to them?
Building trust through a website can be a challenge so use a focus group outside of your business for feedback.
By applying psychology to your website, your design decisions will appeal to your market, help you meet your online marketing goals, and give your company the competitive edge you need!
