The new year ushers in a new set of trends online businesses should take into consideration. Competition in the e-commerce field is getting tighter, as more companies go online to adapt to the changes brought about by the lingering COVID-19 pandemic. Refusing to adapt to or embrace new trends may not necessarily end in a business failure, but it likely means foregoing opportunities to attract new customers or retain old ones. Elementor, a leading drag-and-drop free WordPress website builder, shares five tips on how online stores can perk up their cyber real estate to achieve better aesthetics and usability while enticing customers or keeping up with what online shoppers tend to prefer nowadays.
Spruce Up Your Webshop
1. Embody inclusivity
Inclusiveness is often associated with web accessibility, which is about providing opportunities for everyone, particularly those with disabilities, to experience the benefits of the internet. However, in web design, inclusivity can be broader and include sociopolitical, cultural, and personal preference considerations.
“Inclusive design affects every step of a website design process, from strategic decision making regarding the website target audience, to its tone of voice, and personalization, as well as defining the graphic language of your brand to accommodate all genders, viewpoints, experiences, and situations,” Elementor’s Shany Dvora points out in a blog post.
Online stores can benefit from designs, color schemes, and themes that are not associated with a certain gender, sociopolitical, and cultural biases. As one Pew Research study revealed, societies are becoming more divided than ever. Businesses joining the fray is remotely a good idea.
It is preferable to avoid anything that can be construed as divisive, discriminating, or geared towards a specific audience. Use images, illustrations, avatars, and other web elements that are neutral or diversity-promoting.
2. Let visitors swipe left or right
In the age of smartphones and mobile web-enabled devices, the conventional vertical scrolling format of virtually all websites is getting tired and boring. If you want to offer something noticeably different, consider the idea of horizontal scrolling for your site.
This is an excellent idea especially for those who use their mobile phones to access websites. Phone screens are getting taller, and moving up and down can become somewhat tiring and too mundane. Swiping screens left and right can be easier for most mobile device users, especially when going over product catalogs and the comments and product images shared by other customers in the feedback section.
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It is important to strategically design and position the navigation elements when doing sideways navigation. Since it is not something most internet users are accustomed to, it is easy for them to find site navigation confusing. This can drive away potential and existing customers. When done right, though, it can leave a fresh experience and an impactful impression.
Putting an obvious scroll bar at the bottom of a site to indicate horizontal scrolling can be unsightly. In its place, it would be better to use arrows or navigation buttons and breadcrumbs to indicate the position of the (currently viewed) page in the entirety of a website.
3. Try scrollytelling
While Elementor considers horizontal scrolling as a fresh and enticing idea, it does not mean that vertical scrolling should be abandoned. Webshops can put a new spin on vertical scrolling with scrollytelling. Elementor says this is an “increasingly popular way to leverage a digital interface and convey an intricate story.”
Well, what story is there for webshops to tell? Aren’t online stores supposed to be straightforward and conventional to ensure optimal usability? Webshop owners can be creative to attract more customers and make their stores stand out. And creativity does not have to mean confusing complexity.
Webshops can present their promos, vouchers, and other important information in an engaging manner through scrollytelling. Instead of putting out all information on the topmost page, the site can tease visitors or potential customers to scroll down to see more useful information.
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For example, discount codes do not have to be readily shown on the top. A question, instruction, or call to action can be presented on the top part of a page with the answer or other details shown below. Doing this helps increase the time visitors stay on a page and have more opportunities to see the other things the shop has in store.
Scrollytelling creates a more engaging experience that encourages customers to explore more of a site and stumble upon something they might find interesting. It requires careful and strategic designing, though, to avoid page errors and other flaws that can ruin the shopping experience.
4. Delight customers with Delight
“Delight” is an approach in web design that has become a staple in creating good user experiences. Essentially, it is like something that makes a visitor smile and come back for more. There are no specific parameters for it, but it suggests a combination of responsiveness, ease of use, and the occasional graphics-based features that users may not have expected but found pleasant and memorable for a specific site.
Take the case of the Airbnb website. It may look plain and simple, but the features added to it help define the kind of experience the company wants to create. The map tagging or marking feature, trip inspiration guides, travel blogs, and search buttons (for a text-based guided way to explore the contents of the site) create a delightful experience for a traveler looking for places to go or accommodations to stay in.
Elementor says there are two forms of delight design: surface delights and deep delights. The former is about the use of tactile transitions, gesture navigation, animations, microscopy, as well as sound and audio elements. The latter is about providing users a sense of reliability, excellent usability, functionality, and pleasure. Deep delights entail good page optimization to make sure that the site loads with the least possible waiting time and that navigation is as smooth and seamless as possible.
Delightful web design focuses on the customer experience to ensure glitch-free shopping and possibly subliminally coax customers to spread the word about the great experience they have had with a certain webshop.
5. Use kinetic typography
A picture paints a thousand words, but words convey clearer and more focused messages. As webshops compete for customer attention and make sure that their websites load more quickly and responsively, a graphics-heavy route may not be the best idea to pursue.
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With the advances in web technology, it is now possible to animate texts in a variety of interesting ways without drawing too many resources and complicating web design. It would be a waste not to take advantage of this tech to spruce up a webshop and capture customer attention, set a tone, or emphasize important segments of a site.
Towards creative efficiency
The increased competition in the online commerce space calls for efficiency to maximize the use of resources. It also requires top-notch creativity for online stores to stand out and grab more opportunities to convert eyeballs into customers. The tips above will surely create significant improvements to online shops that have been stuck to conventions for so long.
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