Conversion vs aesthetics: Which gives a better experience?
Of the 5 billion internet users, 1 out 6 people sells something. These people want to create an impression on their viewers while also driving sales; which is more important to achieve this? Conversion or Aesthetics.
All designers pass a message with their visuals and products. We use our visuals to achieve a goal; whether it's our visual or for a client - a message is always passed.
Why are goals so important? It would be meaningless to just start walking without a destination and even worse for a designer to work on something without figuring out the aim of the entire process. A destination gives direction. Similar to a roadmap, most designs aim at giving direction in a visually appealing manner to the viewer. The direction guides the viewer carefully from being just a mere prospect into a brand customer. This process in a nutshell is called Conversion.
To grab the attention of the viewer, first there must be an aesthetic appeal, followed by a strong call-to-action. The aesthetic appeal is for the viewers, to make them feel good. Viewers would prefer beautiful visuals over the ugly ones, because they feel the one more beautiful offers something better (The Halo Effect). At this point, the viewer is captured, from seeing one beautiful piece, to searching for more beautiful pieces. It's more like listening to a favourite song for the first time, and browsing through for more songs of similar genre or same singer. The call-to-action is the designer's secret weapon, it’s a tool to drive conversion, after you see a good visual, you take a further step to know more. This is exactly the type of pattern every designer wants to create!
Everyone wants to feel good, even a Designer!
In trying to feel good as a designer, we create something good which makes the viewers see and feel good, which in turn makes us feel good. This phenomenon is described by social psychologist as 'Altruism'.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Aesthetic gives a touch to all senses especially the visual sense. While there's a whole aspect of philosophy researching aesthetics, let's do surface work on Aesthetics and how it relates to design and conversion.
From our earlier 'Halo effect' there's a belief that good looking people offer more positive qualities asides from their looks. This is not true though! The same is valid in design. Good looking products and design are perceived to be more valuable and have more qualities.
Vision is the most dominant sense in the aesthetic process, it acts like a magnet drawing in the viewer, before eliciting other senses like hearing, touch and taste. This chain-like mechanism works wonders for physical product designers. From seeing something beautiful, viewers would want to hear more about your brand while also feeling the product will work well. With beautiful designs, positive emotions are triggered and it’s easy to win them over. They’ll tend to care more about your other designs, they’ll even tolerate your future mistakes and blunders. Just take a look at Apple fans.
Brands Love to achieve their goals
Brands give in more resources into creating something appealing to the viewers. Key researches are conducted, empathy maps are drawn targeted at a specific buyer persona. The main goal here is to achieve sales. Sales generate revenue. What is better than reaching the annual revenue target?
With more startups entering the mainstream everyday, every brand needs something more than just sales. Well more than making tons of sales per day, brands also try to warm up potential customers to become brand promoters. By doing this, they develop a potential viral marketing strategy. According to New York Times bestseller Peter Thiel "a product is viral if its core functionality encourages users to invite their friends to become users too". This is how Facebook grew rapidly, every time someone shares with a friend they naturally invite more people into the network. This method isn't just cheap - it's fast too.
The goal is to go viral, but it's a process. It's like guiding your prospects to climb a ladder, from attracting with aesthetics, converting into customers and finally turning them to brand promoters. By feeding your audience with beautiful designs and quality products, they'll be satisfied with your products and will keep coming back to you. This strategy is more of a win-win situation.
Specific action needs to be taken
In guiding your viewers through a buyer journey, each piece may have a different action for the audience to carry out because there are several tactics you can use to guide your audience in their journey.
It's important to tell your viewers what they should do so they don't just admire your pieces without taking any action. Action is the first step in the buyer's journey, it's important they resonate well with the audience.
Think about it: If you hadn't been drawn in by the copy or design of the Call-to-action(CTA), or been guided so eloquently through your sign-up process, you would probably use a lot fewer apps and websites than you do now.
It's really important to guide your visitors through the buying journey using strategic CTAs.
Aesthetic appeal and Conversion should be in Balance
These 2 concepts compliment each other. One goes first, then the other follows. First impression matters. When we perceive beauty with more of our senses we feel deeper pleasure from the design. Aesthetic design gives users pleasure from the start! It makes them form a bond with the design, a bond that goes beyond the initial interaction.
Conversion furthers the buying step. What is better than generating sales from your designs and products?
You need beauty and sales to be successful in the internet market.
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