How Graphic Design Influences Shopping Decisions

Are you familiar with the word “rationalizing”? This term in psychology denotes the desire of a person to give a rational explanation for the actions committed by them as a result of a subconscious, that is, an unconscious impulse.

And here’s an example from everyday reality. In a 2020 survey in the US, 51 percent of respondents said they were only interested in the price when buying, not the site’s design. Controversially, only seven percent of those surveyed said that design matters to them. It would seem that the topic from the title has been settled, and any conversations about UI services and solutions offered by specialists in this field can end right there.

• How Modern Technologies are Remodeling Customer’s Shopping Habits?

However, let’s take our time. In March-April 2020, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of purchases in online stores in Great Britain increased 31.3%. Note in the margin that even before this leap, Great Britain was among the world leaders in e-commerce. As of January 31, 2021, e-sales in the UK are up 24%, in the US — 17%, and in Canada — 15%.

Now imagine: in the US alone, online sales brought $431.6 billion to sellers in 2020. To date, there are 28.8 million registered enterprises in the United States in small and medium-sized businesses alone. Do you think this revenue was evenly distributed between them? And how many promising e-shops with dumped prices closed before the end of the year simply because visitors, even entering them, did not reach the point of placing an order?

Free Will? Seriously?!

Let me give you another story told by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow.

For a couple of months in a row, the researchers printed the “Turkish company” logo they had invented in a local newspaper. There were no offerings, no description, just some kind of symbol, a meaningless name, and a couple of words in Turkish. Two months later, the scientists asked this newspaper’s readers to choose from several offers with absolutely identical content. The names of each of the firms on this list were also fictitious. However, the survey participants saw them first, in contrast to the “Turkish company.” What do you think, whose offers seemed more attractive to them?

That’s right: the ones made by a company about which they did not know anything. But it already seemed familiar to them!

The psychologists who conducted this experiment confirmed what was said at the beginning of this article: often, people only think that they are making decisions due to rational thought.

In turn, experienced UI/UX design services professionals are familiar with these mental pitfalls. And they know exactly how to guide an e-store visitor from the entrance directly to the checkout.

That is why user experience experts are valued worldwide, literally worth their weight in gold. Along with the growth of e-commerce revenues, the salary of specialists who know how to attract a buyer to the page, keep him there, and not let him go until he sells your product is also growing. Still would! From April to June 2021, e-commerce in the United States generated $222 billion in sales. It is estimated that by 2024, online retailers will generate $11.3 billion in revenues from renowned UX design professionals such as QArea.

Ploys and Tricks of UX Design Under a Magnifying Glass

Let’s make a reservation right away: when we talk about design that allows you to increase online sales, we are not bearing in mind a burst of colors and unique artistic finds — nothing like this.

Remember the story from Daniel Kahneman’s book? People trust what seems familiar to them. Therefore, specialists from a UX company with an impressive portfolio will offer you not new, never-before-seen bells and whistles for your site. No, their task is to make the interface of your online store so that any visitor would feel at home here, and each element was precisely in the place where he intuitively expects to see it.

Such experts know too well the cost of bad design, and therefore will not allow anything to distract the visitor from why you invited him to your place: from the purchase.

Check the List

So, here are some signs that your store needs a new design. By the way, if you are just starting a business on the Internet, you better think ahead of time about a reliable startup partner that can provide an effective UX interface and save you from mistakes at the very beginning of the long road to success.

• Your website traffic has dropped.
• Conversion of your pages is far from desired. That is, visitors leave your store without making a purchase.
• Your store is not showing on the first page in Google searches.
• Your site is not displaying correctly on mobile devices.
• The bounce rate (a visitor leaves your site before reaching the landing page) is above 20%.

Recipes for Success

• Remember the story of the “Turkish company”: make your brand as recognizable as possible.
• Conduct a UX audit of your entire website. Please pay special attention to the presentation of crucial information; it should be in strategically verified places.
• Use branded on-page action indicators. The user should understand that clicking the button triggered a particular mechanism, and not the page just froze.
• Ask someone unfamiliar with your site to walk from the start page to the checkout point and ask how logical the navigation seemed to him.
• Think back to your own shopping experience. Write down everything that you like and annoy in other stores. With this list in hand, inspect your own site.
• Having understood what you need, contact the specialists. Consult with user experience experts on which metrics to look out for first.

A Few Words in Conclusion

Please take it as an axiom: when a user is looking for a product he needs, the supply on the Internet significantly exceeds the demand. Your task is to make him choose you. Hire a trusted UX company and let the experts create a path from the storefront to the checkout on your website that no customer wants to leave.