Opportunity knocks. Knock back. How to create engaging web design with neuroscience
“People decide whether this design is attractive or not within 500 ms, or even faster. A person’s emotional state, age and gender influence this decision. For example, men prefer symmetrical images, and if the smiling face looks at the user, probably, a website visitor will become a client.
Most clients prefer design and logotype with bends, and modern logotypes with unusual corners make an impression of a threat. Keep in mind that people think stereotypically and act according to the established patterns of behavior. You need to align your product with their behavior patterns in order to make it comfortable for the customers and effective for you”, says Polina Malakhova, UX/UI designer at Diceus.
Each feeling, sound, and sight has been added to our vision of daily experience that creates the foundation for our decisions. Neuroscience explores the nervous system and brain, then “intelligent design” uses an understanding of our perception of the things and objects to navigate targeted response.
Design with neuroscience in mind
A designer takes into account various factors to select a color scheme for a project. It involves context, harmony, symbology and needs to supplement the brand’s entire reputation and reach desired goals. Moreover, different nations have different associations with various colors. So, adapt your choice to the audience.
Then, base your design prototype on behavioral science ideas. For instance, people have “pre-attention visual area” in the visual cortex, and it is focused on the specific things. If everything is black and white or one color, we’ll detect it. But if one element is a different color, we’ll switch our attention to that object. And the same works for the forms: if everything is a circle, we’ll notice the object that is not a circle.
So, you can confuse people with many different colors on your website or app. Pick up to three main colors and emphasize the call to action button with a new color to grab user attention.
Besides, you need to know the basic principles of memory, decision, and vision. First of all, make all valuable elements visible to eliminate the user’s memory load. Experts say that noticing something is simpler than remembering it. So, key navigation options have to be accessible all the time and easy to find.
Make your design easy to consume to prevent information overload. Otherwise, your users will be too overwhelmed to make a decision. That’s why you need to break content to deliver it in the small portions.
Also, visibility of system status is an important factor as well. Users want to know what is going on now and what will be next. Use functional animation in order to show data uploading and downloading.
What each web designer needs to know about the people
The book 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People teaches about what motivates people and how they think. The book’s author uses experience with Fortune 100 companies and her thirty years of practice as a behavioral scientist.
She admits that storytelling is the best way to describe something according to the ability to create emotional contact with users and impress them. Also, website visitors make predictable types of mistakes. For instance, many users make a commission error with a few unneeded steps. This insight helps to understand users better and allows the prevention of common mistakes.
What else you should know is that people can keep in mind up to 4 items at once. It’s because short-term memory is very limited, so you need to adapt your products to help people successfully interact with them. Moreover, small bits of information award users by allowing them to gain new knowledge fast and easily. So, feel free to add to your web design people’s desire for control, progress, and mastery.
The design needs to make people feel like superheroes with great power. That’s why many computer games are so popular: users can realize their dreams, desires as anything is possible.
The author describes a hook to help users make a decision. The secret lies in understanding how a human brain works: the longer a person makes a decision, the more difficult it seems to do. So, make the user well informed to be more confident. Diagrams, bullet points, and necessary illustrations help to achieve this goal.
People scan screens based on past experience and expectations
You need to know what your users expect to see on the website or app firstly and where they will switch their attention next. For example, if they read from left to right, you need to place objects accordingly.
Moreover, people tend to look at your products based on their mental models. For instance, if they often buy goods at Amazon, they will look for the search field on the right. So, to narrow people’s attention, place the most valuable information in the center or top third of the screen. Don’t put important stuff at the edges. Bear in mind that people will not observe a page from the topmost corner but feel free to place there your logo, navigation bars, etc.
People will look for clues to get to know what to do with the objects. Make an easy design that will whisper useful hints in their ears. This help will support even experienced users to be more productive. Input hints allow users to know what information is expected to enter.
So, as we see, web design is not only about quality illustrations and relevant colors and fonts. It requires a deep understanding of people’s behavior patterns, how they think and what motivates them. These insights help to target their attention and make the “call to action” buttons effective.
