Using consumer psychology to create a user-friendly and effective website
Whether you are a web developer looking to create something unique, a designer wanting to understand how to influence user behavior, or just an ordinary someone who wants to give psychology a chance to get more sales on a simple e-commerce site— then this blog post is for you!
We’ll explore the psychological principles behind web design and how they can be used to create engaging user experiences.
There is approximately 2 billion websites currently online, and the number is constantly growing. So, with that in mind, it’s starting to get a bit difficult to make a user-friendly and effective website, whilst trying to be unique in some way, shape or form. You’re in luck though, because there is this thing called “consumer psychology” that you can use to gain some home court advantage. This may sound a bit complicated already, and while the possibilities are endless, I’m going to highlight some of the best and easiest, let’s call them “tricks”, in order for you to start getting your website on the right track to being user-friendly and effective.
Let’s start with something called the Aesthetic-Usability effect. AU is based on the idea that users tend to perceive attractive products as more usable. The same thing can be applied when it comes to visual design of the whole website. Needless to say, it also needs to be easy to use, something to go with the whole aesthetically pleasing design. Here’s a great example below:
This minimalistic homepage is a prime example of how you can incorporate a mesmerizing, yet simple drawing of a tree house in the woods with a “Go Near” title with a little CTA (Call-to-action) button that says “Explore nearby” and an easy-to-use check-in bar that simultaneously lets users put in their wanted location, check-in/out dates and the number of guests to get the most out of their time while maintaining the already said minimalistic design of the whole homepage. If you manage to create something like this — you’re golden.
Here’s another one — the paradox of choice. The so called paradox refers to the idea that more options to choose from equals more stress and actually makes it harder to make a decision. If you’re reading this because you want to improve the current state of your website then you’ll probably see you were “playing yourself” meaning — lowering your chances of selling a certain product or service. So, how do you improve? Start by limiting the number of CTA (Call-to-action) buttons or just having one, use page numbering or the “load more” button instead of creating just a large list, lower the number of default items displayed on the homepage, use filtering etc…
Picture above represents the wrong way to display what you have in store for your potential customers, while, on the other side, you have the picture below, the one that serves as a good example of how Netflix uses its knowledge of the above-mentioned paradox in their favor:
Let’s move on to the next one. The Zeigarnik effect. It suggests that when a task is left incomplete or interrupted, it gets remembered more than a task that has been completed. It’s based on the idea that unfinished tasks tend to stick in people’s brains more than those done.
You can use this to make finishing boring tasks on your website more pleasant, thus creating a better overall user experience.
The easiest way to do this is to create fun, eye-pleasing progress bars for a certain task. A next-level example is below:
When scrolling through a certain song that’s on the Stranger Things playlist, to find a certain part you liked, you get “transported” into The Upside Down. But, don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be as crazy as this, you can do a simple, nice-looking, yet functional progress bar that uses progress badges to make it seem like you’re actually making real progress and accomplishing something — like this one on LinkedIn:
Next up on the list is the serial-position effect. This effect focuses on the idea that people tend to remember the first and last items in a list much better than those that are in the middle. You can use this to “manipulate” users into selecting the items you want (or don’t) want them to select. This can be useful if done correctly. For example, you can put the product with the highest price first to draw their attention, and do the rest of the pricing in whatever order you want them to take action.
It’s going to be much more simple when I show you this example:
When setting up the prices, remember that you have to think about your target audience so don’t go too high on the first item. Also, you can use this effect without a specific list, just by highlighting or making certain sentences stand out (it still has to be done in a specific order) as you can see in another example here:
Furthermore, if you want to get the most out of using the mentioned effect in your favour, you can arrange the navigation menu on your homepage by putting the links you want them to click the most on the beginning and the end of the menu. E.g.:
You can combine all of these with the usage of another “trick”. This one is really simple, but sometimes integrated in the wrong way. It’s called the Von Restorff effect aka the isolation effect. When I said really simple — I meant it. It’s based on the theory that the more something stands out from the crowd, the more likely it is to be noticed. So, when it comes to your website, look for ways to make the things you want users to click on more distinct, more unique. You can do that by using a clever copy, highlighting a certain area or a button etc…
Here’s an example from ExpressVPN’s pricing plan:
You can compare the presentation of this pricing plan against the one from NordVPN’s website and see that both principles work just fine, but it’s about tailoring them to your needs, and by that I mean — the needs of your target audience.
In conclusion, there are many ways to improve the overall user experience, and if you use some of these fairly simple psychology “tricks” correctly, you can actually alter the users behaviour in a subconscious way, which can create a better feeling when navigating through the website, and eventually lead to more conversions or whatever your end goal is.
