This is a series of short tutorials that deal with aspects of building a retail website, from the initial idea to the final implementation – so let’s jump on in with the basics – psychology.
As Web Programmers we train ourselves to follow complex protocols, and often such levels of mental discipline are a hindrance to creative thought (it’s the old left and right brain conflict). In our role as Web Designers we need the ability to think outside the square – to realise the logic of what we’re trying to achieve without becoming blinded by the process of getting there. We need to initially lay all of that training aside, and learn to think … like a customer.
Never lose track of the primary fact that everything you do should be geared towards providing the customer with what they want. It’s not about producing the cleanest code, the smartest loops, or over-impressing the client with fancy designs – it’s about giving the people that visit the site the information they need quickly. It’s about building trust through logical site flows, non-cluttered layouts, and upfront and accessible information. It’s about the user’s experience (covered in detail later). Before you start any web project you need to ask yourself (and answer) the following questions:
As you can see, site design doesn’t start with page layouts and colour swatches; it starts with a thoroughly researched understanding of the intended user’s wants and needs. The business that has approached you to design their site doesn’t just want you to make a site for them – they want you to make a site for their customers. Sadly, a lot of businesses also lose sight of that basic principal, and the contact person you deal with may be unaware of the huge differences between traditional advertising and an Internet site (especially if they have a Marketing background).
The main focus of traditional print advertising is to establish corporate identity very prominently as readers are quickly scanning a range of imagery (e.g. a newspaper page). You need to grab the user’s attention away from surrounding page elements, and hold it long enough to convey a message (usually product specials or event notification). An advert is considered effective if it follows a similar design to previous advertising (which builds visual pattern recognition) and if the advert literally jumps off the page shouting the name of the company. Smart adverts yell the message instead whilst relying on established visual recognition to identify the company. An Internet store also needs to achieve those same goals – but to a far less visual extent as there are no conflicting visual messages. So – if an Internet store isn’t a multi-page advertisement then what is it?
