10 Ways Web Design Can Help You Reinvent Customer Experience

The e-commerce world is growing.

These days, it is impossible for a business to survive without an online presence. Therefore, as part of your brand's digital marketing strategy, every design element should serve its purpose. 

Every element ? from usability to visuals ? is essential to the overall customer experience. Each has a significant impact on your brand to attract new customers and retain old ones. 

In this post, we are going to talk about the seven ways web design can help you reinvent the customer experience. Also, why this impact can boost your site design, helping you reach its full potential. 

It captures the audience’s attention 

Do you know that you only have approximately 8 seconds to capture your audience's attention once they land on your site? That means you only have 8 seconds to show them how great your brand is, and compel them to buy something from you. 

If all users see is how poor your design is the moment they land on your page, there's no way that they will notice what you have to offer them. 

So, how do you make the first few seconds count and compel visitors to continue exploring your site? Well, take note of the following elements:

• Go for a clean, minimalist, and uncluttered layout that places your brand's value in the spotlight.
• Place visuals with bold photography and compelling photographs that show well on both mobile and desktop devices. 
• Pay attention to the colors you pick, as it can have a psychological impact on your audience.  
• Utilize cohesive design elements such as textures, shapes, icons, patterns, and colors. Ensure that they are unified and well thought-out.

While what we have discussed are not the only things that you can do with your homepage, they are a great starting point to build an excellent first impression. 

It renders a professional presentation

According to Sytian Productions, a Philippines web designer, “An excellent design gives a professional presentation with your audience, as well as your prospects. That's why it is crucial that you establish yourself as an authoritative presence in your industry.”

Think about all the websites that you have visited recently. Chances are, you would immediately know those companies who hired a professional web design agency from the ones who do not. 

Having a site that is professionally designed helps build trust with your audience in the long run. They already know that you will not waste their time by giving them the best service that you can give. 

It creates a sense of trust

If you want to win over a potential customer's trust, start with excellent web design. It is one of the most influential factors that help users form an opinion about your business.

Having a high-quality web design boosts your conversion rates. When you regularly update your site such as your headings and images to make it more modern, it has a positive effect on your prospects. As a result, prospects are 2-3 times more likely to turn into paying customers. 

It increases functionality

Aside from having an excellent presentation, a good web design should also have great functionality.

When you are aiming for a responsive site, you are taking into consideration how your site will look across different devices. You have to ensure that your site will look the same across different devices, and still deliver excellent user experience no matter what device they view your site on. 

It has an impact on your credibility as a company

For a lot of users, their introduction to your business is through your website. That's why one of your main goals is to instill a sense of trust as soon as they land on your website. 

But how do you inspire trust with your audience instead of skepticism? 

There are two main factors to consider when it comes to building the credibility of your site: Expertise and trustworthiness. 

Your website has to convince the prospect that your knowledge and experience is enough and that the data that they find on your site is trustworthy and reliable. 

That way, there is a greater chance that you will be influencing their behaviors and attitudes towards your brand. It is easier for them to give you their personal information, revisit your site, and hold positive opinions about your brand. 

On the other hand, if your site lacks credibility, then you will receive the opposite effect. 

The reality is, a lot of users will only bank on your site if they trust it and the people behind it. So, let's say you are an e-commerce site that deals with users' personal data. Then you have to put the extra effort on your web design to gain your users’ trust. 

It helps users to navigate your website efficiently

Navigation is key when it comes to designing your site. Ideally, it acts as a map that features the core places that users can visit. It is how your customers explore and move on your site. 

Therefore, at its core, it needs to be intuitive and easy to use. 

There is nothing worse than seeing a site that is highly disorganized or has confusing navigation. It is crucial that users can easily find whatever they are looking for. 

Your site's navigation comes in various styles:

• Breadcrumbs: Boosts the searchability of your pages by showing a visual age that features the user's location within the site's hierarchy. Breadcrumbs significantly decrease the actions a visitor needs to take to move on to a higher level web page.

• Drop-down menus: This includes a list of drop-down items that shows up once you click a particular text selection or menu title. For some sites, you can find the drop-down menus on top.

Both types of navigation can effectively work together to create an optimal user experience. For instance, you can include a drop-down menu on your homepage. When somebody clicks on the homepage drop-down menu, you can utilize the breadcrumb navigation so that you can easily guide your users on their way back. 

If web users cannot easily find whatever they are looking for, then there is no reason to stay on your site anymore. Chances are, they will simply bounce and will move on to your competitors that offer an excellent user experience.

It establishes a visual hierarchy

When a user visits your site, and you present them with a lot of information that is not organized, they will leave immediately. 

An excellent design not only helps break up the content, but it also creates a visual hierarchy. Ideally, the content should be digested easily, and all the important data should be highlighted on the page. 

Here are some excellent elements in the design:

• For your body text, pick something that is appropriately sized and has a readable typeface. 
• Use whitespace effectively, as it allows your content to breathe.
• Utilize sidebars to feature or highlight all the crucial information in your copy.
• Give your headings a visual hierarchy through font-weight, size, and color. 
• Break up content using compelling quotes, icons, and descriptive imagery.

It is all about the looks

Having a visually appealing site is an excellent way to capture the attention of a prospective customer. After all, it will be the first thing that they notice.

There are several budget-friendly tweaks that you can do to make your web design compelling:

Go for a clean and modern design

Your goal should be to build a site that is modern and clean. If it looks outdated, has terrible formatting, and too busy for users, it will look unappealing. 

Instead, you want a site that is laid out strategically and has plenty of white space. Utilize trending design elements such as parallax scrolling, where two elements scroll at various speeds. 

Utilize Multimedia

Remember the quote, "a picture is worth a thousand words"?

Use multimedia for your design. Tell potential customers about your product, and how to use it to boost customer experience. 

Utilize full-width “hero” images to feature products, or even integrate interactive media, and videos. Using multimedia "above the fold" of your website has a greater chance of catching users' attention. 

Pick Colors Carefully

Whenever you are choosing a color scheme in your web design, you have to choose colors carefully.

Why? Well, for several reasons.

One of those is the psychological effect of colors. For example, blue is linked to dependability and trust, while green is closely linked to health.

Another reason you need to choose a color scheme with contrasting colors is that it can help you easily direct users. For example, using contrasting colors on your call to action buttons or CTAs (such as “buy now,” “learn more,” or “sign me up”) easily catches a user's attention. Thus, it is easy for you to prompt them to follow through. 

Make it Easy

When making your design, you need to figure out what the user needs from your site.

If prospects are looking forward to making a purchase or making a booking on your site, then you have to ensure that functionality is there. 

Aside from functionality, you also have to ensure that your site is easy to use. 

The three areas that you can use to enhance your customer experience is through your navigation, organization, and search. The search functionality should be developed so that users can search directly via your site. 

Your site's organization should be logical and predictable. Aside from that, you should also utilize headers, product categories, bold fonts, and so on. 

Build an Emotional Connection

Never underestimate the power of your website. Besides the fact that it lets people purchase your products and services,  it also gives you credibility.

Again, users tend to trust a web page that looks professionally designed over a crappy one. 

Here are ways how you can establish an emotional connection with your audience:

Tell a Story

A great way to cultivate positive emotions for your brand is through the power of visual storytelling.

If users experience positive feelings from your website, such as joy, excitement, happiness, and so on, they are more likely to convert. Having a well-developed story about your brand gives people a reason to explore and understand your brand a lot better.

Your website gives you an excellent platform to create a story about your brand and products. Over time, a lot of new and returning customers will be drawn to your brand's values.

Use Human Faces

Scientific evidence has shown that the human eyes are instinctively drawn to human faces, no matter what type of content it is.

When strategically placed, photographs with human faces helps build a connection with your audience. As a result, it is a lot easier to build your brand story. 

So, it is time to start using human faces on your About Us page, to show the people behind your brand.

If you are selling something, use faces of humans that interact with your products. That way, prospective customers can relate to your brand and products better. 

Remember that although making these changes may sound simple, they can have a significant impact on how users view your website and experience your brand. 

Over to You

If your website is not getting the kind of traction that you are expecting, then maybe it is time to take a step back. Then, do a critical evaluation of your web design. 

These tips are pretty straightforward to implement. Also, if done correctly, not only will it provide great customer experience, but it will also improve customer engagement on your site. These can be translated into online and offline sales. 

So, take note of these tips on how to revamp your web design. That way, you will be giving both your customers (and your business) the best experience possible. 

Hopefully, you will have a better picture of how web design can have a positive impact on your customer experience. Note that web design is more on the visual side of things. So it's up to you on how you can make your customer's journey more positive.

Featured Image by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash