The Essence of Having an Impressive Visual Design in your Business

Introduction

It hardly takes a fraction of a second to form your opinion about a person and the same applies to websites as well. The moment the visitors get glance at a webpage, their brain instantly suggests whether to spend the next few minutes on it or move on. As for the parameters that form their first impression of a website, the choice of colors, symmetry, structure, style, formatting, and website content matter a lot. This blog gives further inputs on the websites and the efforts needed to make an impressive visual design.

A Deep Dive into Research findings about Websites

Let’s find out the importance of the impression that visitors form about a website. Hopefully, it will help you to improve the look and feel of your website.

1) Your website has just 17ms to leave a suave user impression

As per a Google report, it takes 17ms for users to create an opinion about a website. The findings reveal that the websites with high prototypicality and low visual complexity are the best to leave a sound impression on the users. Here, by prototypicality, we mean the extent to which a design is successful in representing its respective category.

Lesson Learnt: The key point here is to have a simple and conventional website design. For example, it is better to avoid innovative layouts for an eCommerce website, as it will conflict with the general idea of people about an eCommerce portal.

2) The key sections of your web page have just 2.6 seconds to grab the eyeballs.

Yes. The users’ eyes take only 2.6 seconds to identify the most impressive area of a website. The researchers noticed the eye moments as the users went through the web pages and then analyzed the data that the eyes tracked. This helped them to evaluate the time the users took to focus on some specific sections before proceeding further, like the social media icons, logos, graphics, and menu. They concluded that the first impression works effectively in deciding the time the visitor stays on a page. Here are six elements of a website followed by the time the user invested in them before moving to the next section.

• Logo: 6.48 seconds
• Main menu: 6.44 seconds
• Search box: 6s
• Featured image: 5.94 seconds
• Content: 5.59 seconds
• Bottom section: 5.25 seconds

Lesson Learnt: For a great first impression and a longer visit to your website, the six elements mentioned here ought to look outstanding.

3) A whopping 94% of visitors form their perception about a website based on design only

A user interface with a captivating Visual appeal followed by flawless navigation holds the key to making the first impression of a website. Let’s understand this through a research report. In a survey, done by British Researchers, they found a staggering 94% of the first impressions about the design itself and a meager 6% impression about the website content.

The report revealed a major interest of website visitors in the superficial aspects. For example, 46.1% of the responding consumers prefer navigating through the websites depending on their visual aspects, such as font size, color schemes, website layout, and typography.

The moral of the story is that an impressive design can give a head-turning response to your website with an increased percentage of loyal visitors. Just the opposite, a website with an unappealing design contributes only to the growing bouncing rate and tends the visitors to leave it at an early stage. they hardly explore the website beyond the homepage.

4) Visual appeal even scores better over usability

When it comes to first impressions, users yet again choose visual appeal as the primary factor to create their perception of a website. As per research studies, even if it is low on usability but has a killing design, the website still manages to grab maximum eyeballs.

Lesson Learnt: Usability alone is half the job done. Visual impression always holds the upper hand. So, it is wise to invest in an out-of-the-box design. Naturally, it will contribute to higher usability by itself.

Making an Everlasting First Impression through Visual Design

Here is how you can add aesthetic appeal to your website and help it win a long-lasting first impression.

1) Make you website design unique

Is your website displaying a unique design, or is it just a carbon copy of a renowned brand, with just the changed logo and a few modifications here and there? If your answer is yes, then it is high time to redesign your website to have a long-lasting first impression.

The copied design would do no good to your business. Perhaps, to make your website an appealing and distinct one, paying attention to various aspects like brand, presentation, navigation, technology, logos, and fulfillment, would be beneficial. If the first impression of a visitor fails to distinguish your site from others, it is less likely for him to explore your product pages. By doing this, you are just giving leeway to your competitors that give a better aesthetic appeal to their website.

Lesson Learnt: It is important to give your brand a unique identity without confusing your visitors. It should reflect on your website as well as in all the business collaterals.

2) An inspiring design holds your ticket to fame

Is your website good enough to inspire your visitors? If not, then make it inspiring. If you are into the clothing business, your design should motivate the users to place their orders instantly. If yours is a tourism website, it should be inspiring enough to compel the visitors to book a tour straightaway. The crux here is that visual appeal holds a major say in keeping the customers glued to your website and converting them to buyers. Ahead of usability, your design should go a long way in convincing the visitors about your business credibility, your products or services, and your industry reputation.

Lesson Learnt: Dreams are impossible to fulfill unless you work on them. Evidently, a captivating website design is one dominating method to accomplish your business dream.

3) Do you focus enough on the fold area?

Website design has witnessed an immense transformation over the years and the way in which visitors browse through the website has also changed significantly. , the importance of the above-the-fold area has remained intact throughout these times. In layman’s language, above the fold is the area of a webpage or an email that you can see without scrolling down. It is the first thing that you see when you open a website.

The initial .05 seconds matter a lot in creating the first impression as the user will have a glance of this ‘above the fold area’ only within this short time. If he gets impressed with the navigation, he is likely to scroll down. Else, he will switch over to the next website appearing on the search engine result page, considering the previous one too complicated.

A Business Insider study reveals the reason behind customers abandoning online shopping carts. 25% of the respondents considered the website as too complicated, with difficult navigation. Around 60% left the website due to the involved hidden costs (delivery charges). Surveys opine that an ideal above-the-fold area should make it easy for customers to find:

• Time-sensitive promotions
• Deeper website navigation
• Discount or Reward program
• Latest product sale
• Free delivery message
• Customer support

Lesson Learnt: It is important to keep the above-the-fold area as aesthetic and commercially viable as possible to help customers get a positive first impression.

Wrapping up

Of course, the first impression is the last impression and it is no different in the case of a website. The importance of visual design is hence paramount in this regard. Research studies have proved time and again the essence of aesthetic appeal in luring visitors and turning them into buyers. It is hence inevitable to abide by this research and invest honestly in sprucing up the design of your website. Considering the fact that it hardly takes a fraction of a second for people to form an opinion about a website, you ought to work hard to engage the visitor from that first second.

We are one of the top Branding Agency in Dubai, our services are customized to meet your unique requirements. To view our customized services, please visit puneet.ae.