Enhance Your Web Design & UX To Boost Sales

You would undoubtedly agree with Paul Rand, an American art director and graphic designer who states, Design is the silent ambassador of your brand. Couldn't agree more! Though, we have been listening to the clich'd phrase for years now; don't judge a book by its cover, but the matter of fact is that we still do. We judge almost everything with its visual appearance, and the case is no different with websites. We judge a company's standard by the appearance and functionality of their website. A website is the first interaction of the company with its potential customers. In the words of Alina Wheeler (a famous author), Design is intelligence made visible. Isn't it interesting that something so superficial like a website design can influence the development of your business? So, to stay updated with the latest trends, let's take a look at the designs that have taken over the market at present.

Full-Width Background

• You can just not ignore the latest trend that follows the style of a full-width background. The previous year, 2015 marked an emergence of full-width backgrounds on websites and we see today that gradually they have become the industry's favorite. The full-width backgrounds mainly gained popularity because of the tidy look they give to a website. The appearance of a large background with a thin header is definite to appeal the visitors and lets them navigate the page. A Larger image on the top of the home page conveys the message loud and clear. This design mainly uses the front space to communicate the idea because that is the place which attracts the initial attention of the visitor.

Flat Design

• If you trace the emergence of Flat Design you will know that the first impression it left was: dull and boring. But it didn't take long for millions of websites to pick flat design as their face. This is when many web developers gave up on the heavy effects like gradients, shadows, various fonts, patterns etc. This change has mainly been observed since past two years, since the simple style of Flat design has been picked up by web developers.
• The main reason of the popularity and mass acceptance is the advantages it offers to both the user and the web developer. Before the flat design getting popular, there were many users who found it difficult to navigate these websites. When you remove all these heavy effects, the website gets easy to load in any of the devices.

Colors: Bold and Bright With 80s Vibe!

• With Flat design being in trend, the bold and bright colors have already become the latest trend. Color is one of the most important aesthetic in any kind of visual communication. A rightly matched color scheme may either attract the visitor or bore them away. They are capable of enhancing the perception of an object and thus must be used carefully. Companies like Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, and Medium have come up with an appealing color scheme in 2015. In 2016, as of now, we are seeing the frequent use of more funky colors, the bold and bright ones. Human beings have known to react differently to different colors. This is known as color psychology. While designing your website you must always keep your target customers in mind and the colors used in the website must be in accordance with them. If the solor psychology reacts positively a visitor will soon convert into a buyer.

Large typography

• No more spending millions on the font style of the web page. With a change in the trend and simplicity being the new thing, the new mantra of web developing is Keep it bold and simple. The current E-commerce industry understands that the smartphones have overtaken laptops when it comes to website browsing. The practice of the bold & large typography along with the images that explain better have enhanced the user-experience and helped in perceiving things better.
• The perks of large typography involve; neat and tidy look and the message being conveyed strongly and leave an instant impact on the visitors. Large graphics and texts are eye-catchy to the visitors which further increases the views on the content of the website. The large typography cuts the need for the user to zoom-in or zoom-out while purchasing something via mobile. You must make sure that usage of large typography is optimum and that it doesn't make the website to look hodgepodge.

Tile Navigation

• The visuals are known to capture the maximum attention of the user. The geo-metric tiled navigation gained wide acclaim in the E-commerce landscape. The tiles have minimal amount of text, yet that text is sufficient to put make the users understand in a single go. You can also find the tile navigation in windows 10, Lumia etc.
• The tiles are blocks with a picture on them, for example a tile for whatsapp will not have whatsapp written on it, but a logo of it, which conveys the message. This way the message is conveyed in a crisp pattern. The user knows where he will be leaded on clicking the block. In tile navigation the major emphasis is laid on the visual content to make the interface appealing to the user. Since, a user who is impressed with the website design is more likely to convert into a buyer.

After reading this article you must have already got a gist that when you go online to sell out your product via website, the product quality and reasonable price is not all you need. The overall experience of the user visiting your website plays an important role in the conversion. From personal experience, I can quote the example of Myntra and flipkart here (they share the same owner). Flipkart and myntra will offer you almost same clothes but not at the same price. myntra charges you higher, still I prefer Myntra over Flipkart because of its layout. It is so well managed and easy to browse whereas flipkart's layout is so cluttered and unorganized. This is where I learned how important the layout of the website is.