We all know that psychology is a powerful tool. When used correctly, it can influence and persuade people to take action. In the world of web design, this is extremely important.
If you want to create an effective website that converts visitors into customers, you need to leverage web design psychology. Keep reading to find out more.
What Is Web Design Psychology?
Your website design shouldn’t just make your website pretty. It should impress your visitors, hold their attention, and lead them to action.
That’s where web design psychology comes in. Each color, typeface, and space has a psychological significance, helping people connect to your website. These elements trigger subconscious reactions, which you must leverage to get that desired action.
It takes seconds for people to decide whether your website has all the choices and information you need. Web design psychology helps you, the designer, understand these subconscious processes and how to harness them.
The Benefits of Using Psychology in Web Design
The primary benefit of leveraging psychology in web design is talking to people in their language. It’s also talking in your language and finding common ground. That’s how you can build trust.
You want to use familiar colors and patterns, elements that make you stand out but also connect to people. You need visitors to understand what your website is about and where they can get more info quickly. Then, you have to push the right triggers. Comic Sans, for example, is a superb trigger, and we’ll discuss it below. Color, space, and lines also create a specific impact on how people perceive your website.
More importantly, all these elements set the tone for visitors’ engagement with your website.
How to Use Psychology in Web Design
Now you understand why knowing the basics of human psychology is essential in web design. Let’s see how you can leverage it!
1. ARRANGEMENT
Gestalt psychology shows how these elements below influence your visitors:
- Similarity — people perceive similar objects as the same or at least part of the same concept.
- Proximity — things close to each other are perceived as part of the same group.
- Continuity — you want your visitor’s gaze to move naturally from one element to another.
- Closure — an object that’s not entirely closed is still perceived as a whole because people’s brains will always fill in the gaps.
- Figure and ground — people simplify images into the main objects they’re looking at (the figure) and the other elements (background).