As the internet diversifies to incorporate every culture, lifestyle, and ethnicity in articles and social groups, it is high time we paid attention to these aspects in a website space also. Websites on the internet are now extremely proficient with high-speed, higher performance and faster navigation tools. We are technologically way ahead in these times but are forgetting a very essential component almost a magical potion to raise the engagements exponentially. That is the realm of emotional connectivity, which binds us to things and makes them more prominent in our memory timelines. You can have that kind of an impact and leave an imprint in your users’ mind by tweaking and refining a few dimensions of your website model. After all, it’s not too difficult to simply be humane, is it?
Here are some aspects you would want to ponder on when engaging through an optimized website:
Speak with Stories
Storytelling has been an age-old profound way of putting your message across. Most ideas and concepts can be best perceived, understood, imparted and learned through stories. Even when describing an emotional occurrence, it’s much more attractive and emotionally binding when it reaches you through a narrative. The engagement numbers and response online largely depends on how effective your storyline is in showcasing your model, product or service. In web, design storytelling is of utmost importance and it engages and retains users faster than any other tool. Proficient ways of incorporating this in your design are by utilizing tools like Parallax, Horizontal or Infinite scrolling. They create a 3D effect by moving the background at a slower speed than the foreground as you scroll down with elements like graphics, links, interactive buttons, etc. which slowly unveil the brand identity bit by bit. These are accompanied by compelling full-screen visuals with a story on a text.
Put Forth The Right Emotion
Emotions are important but more important is to know how to use them to bring forth their maximum impact. A great emotional aspect added in a space where crisp or formal information was being expected would rule out the game altogether. The key emotional cues include humour, recognition and dissonance.
>> Humor
As one of the most lightening and attractive emotional cues, humour when used correctly makes your brand and its product line exceptionally alluring for your target audiences. Humour opens you up to firstly remove all your inhibitions so you grasp and revert to things more persuasively. Knowing your users in this aspect is very important as things that Affordable Web Designer Melbourne might be extremely funny for some, might be highly offensive for others. Taking this into consideration, it’s always great to have a mascot or animated figure become a guide to your website. This way the humour is subtle but at the same time makes the website come alive with its spectrum of humane hues.
>> Recognition
Humans like any other species feel comfortable when they see and recognize faces like their own. When we look at a human face, we are by default triggered to empathize with them or have an emotion about them. This is why it is the best idea to include high-quality photos at the key points of your page. We also like to be recognized for giving inputs and indulging in, this internally impacts our self-esteem. Recognition pushes a person to not just feel more valuable but also promotes them to do more through positive reinforcement. This why it is very very important to show appreciation for a user’s inputs, efforts, feedback and transactions through design elements. This can be done by including webpage versions that are inclusive for different languages and differently-abled people or via friendly fonts and encouraging messages. Show appreciation as they land on your website, fill in things or leave a comment. It’s simply saying “We care about you”.
>> Patterns
Everybody has a unique mental structure in place that a Web design with a consistent model helps people fit into theirs. When users can recognize patterns or the structure of a website Affordable Web Designer Melbourne and match it with their expectations, they tend to focus on the content and navigate through to reach their goal quickly. For this reason, you should know your user base well and present a coherent layout that provides what they’re looking for under familiar categorizations. If you want to intrigue and entice your users to spend more time engaging with your content, you can play around a little with dissonance as per your content’s requirement.
Tone of Voice
The tonality or the voice you give to your words is a crucial factor in forming the first impression and the platform for emotional connection.
How you interact with your users speaks about the relationship you have with them as even though languages differ globally the emotions and their expression remains the same. While words communicate certain messages, tone tells people what you think of them and how you want to be perceived. As for your website, know your sellable, buyers and the context of your messaging. In website design tone of voice can be effective in creating a mood matching your industry line and building a tremendous trust factor. Like a bubbly and warm tone can be effective for a toy seller while a law firm website can find formal, professional and crisp tones more effective.
Typography & Color
>> Color and the emotional effects of hues is well established for any field you name. A perfect blend of shades contrasted to create the right mood and feel works effectively for a home as well as a website. Although connotation to most colours is consistent through cultures, sharp polarity exists for some colours amongst diverse ethnicities. Some of the common colour perceptions across the world include:
– Red: Red represents power, passion, and dominance. Red always draws attention is why it is widely used for delivering warning messages.
– Green: Green signifies environment, growth and freshness. It has both the serene and cool effects of blue and warmth and energy of yellow.
– Blue: Blue signifies tranquillity, comfort, openness, and assurance. Lighter shades offer more playfulness and darker shades create royalty.
– Black: Black is the colour of power, grace and pride. It is the all-absorbing color and it speaks very boldly.
– White: White is the colour of peace that signifies purity, simplicity, innocence, and clarity. The use of white space makes the page look bigger other colours become prominent.
– Purple: This is the colour of royalty, luxury and mystery. It has a romantic tone and is preferred for displaying luxury items.
– Grey: Gray objectively signifies sombre moods, professionalism and business. The interplay of grey with white and black or shades of tans and pinks can create a very modern classic look.
However, these emotions can only be targeted and achieved when used in the right combinations and contrast as per your targeted demographic.
>> Typography is literally your handwriting for the users reading your content. It either complements your layout or becomes a design layout itself but seldom can you use it in isolation with respect to your entire page. You can play around with Best Web Design Company Melbourne shapes and colours to use your font as a graphic like a logo. Your fonts can switch the feel to your webpage so make sure you choose it wisely and make it consistent throughout. From warming, fun and familiar feel to sophisticated, minimalistic, no-nonsense look you can achieve any mood with the fonts. Just make sure that comprehensive capacity is not compromised at any cost.
Be Emotionally Intelligent
Lastly, most extremely importantly, different visual aspects entice different emotions in people across populations which is why these strategies have implied positive aspects as well as some risks. While some would find a graphic extremely humorous, others might be deeply offended with it, then there could be ones totally indifferent about it. Hate and indifference can be a perception for many. The indifference of users would simply mean your emotional strategy just did not cut through. However, being loathed or hated for a spectrum of emotion displayed could cost you a user base implying that the emotional designs are a double-edged sword. Having information over user preferences and predominant sensitivities can easily save you this trouble and help you connect more intelligently with your audiences.
