They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. While that may be true for books (and for people as well), it’s not the case for a website’s home page. Your home page can make or break your visitor’s experience, even leading them to abandon their search.
But if the home page is such a vital component to a website, how come so many they are wrong? We’ll dive into this below and explore some of the common mistakes to avoid.
Home is where the heart is
A website cannot exist without a home page. It may not always be the first place people land when they land on your website, but they will eventually get there. Your online presence is your virtual brick and mortar. When a visitor lands on your home page, they are walking through the front doors of your establishment, so to speak. It must be clear to them who you are, what you provide, and how they will benefit from it. Ideally, your user will be able to understand all of this in seconds.
The 10 Second Rule
In most cases, a visitor’s experience on your home page will affect the amount of time to spend on your website in general. A study by the Nielsen Norman Group compared the time spent on a website with the Weibull distribution, a concept used to analyze a user’s “time to failure.” In other words, the time it takes for the user to bounce based on the amount of time the user spent on the home page.
Research by Chao Liu and colleagues found that 99% of websites have a 10 second chance. window. That is, visitors will decide if they want to stay or leave in 10 seconds.
Why is it important? Because it means you have 10 seconds to communicate your value. If a visitor stays longer than 10 seconds, they are likely to continue to interact with your site and visit additional pages. But if you don’t grab their attention in those 10 seconds, you risk leaving them.
How to design landing pages with micro-interactions in mind
A good landing page should communicate the value of your company, which is sometimes difficult to do. You will need to select the most relevant images, headlines, body text and icons. Then display it in a way that’s compelling to the visitor.
Microinteractions can help here by providing immediate feedback that engages the user. An example of a microinteraction is when a user hovers over the main navigation, revealing a dropdown or secondary navigation.
With this in mind, the question you might ask yourself is, “Where do I start?” ”
1. Start with the visitor
Start by gathering information about what is important to your ideal visitor, as well as how they might think and behave when they arrive on your site. User research is a great way to get this kind of data, some specific methods that can help retrieve this information are user interviews, a contextual query, and usability testing on your existing website.
2.Determine the layout
Your home page layout should support findability and learnability.Searchability refers to the ease with which a user can find what they want. needs on your site, and the ability to learn Zaje refers to the speed with which the user understands how to navigate the website and its functions. How you approach your user interface (UI) design will determine your success here, especially given the limited time you have to communicate your value.
There are many design principles to keep in mind for your design, but the The next three are a good place to start.
Typography
A website can’t exist without words, and the way you design them matters. Typography is very important to your homepage design as it is an extension of your brand credibility. For example, your user shouldn’t have to squint to read the copy. Consider the size, placement, weight, and color, and make sure everything is legible. Stay away from decorative fountains; instead, choose a more contemporary font, such as a sans serif. Arial, for example, is a popular sans serif display font.
Tip: select a font that is simple and has different weights, such as bold, ultra-fine, black, light, and Regular Creating a high contrast between the different sections of the content will also help. For example, a best practice for home page design is to use a much larger font for the title than for the supporting body text.
Images
What we see affects our decisions and feelings. and expectations. There is even a saying in the culinary world that “you eat with your eyes”. The same goes for the home page of a website. We decide with our eyes first, so make sure you choose images that your visitor can relate to and connect with.Does it demonstrate the problem they are trying to solve? Does it show the emotions they might feel?
Tip: For an e-commerce website, select professional images that reflect what the user would normally see if they were shopping in the store. Or if you’re designing a home page for a dog adoption agency, display images that aren’t just of dogs, but emotional images of people interacting with dogs. Adobe Stock is a great resource for finding stock images.
Your images should also tell a story that supports your business objective. That is, you want the image to show a user buying a product or adopting a dog, in a way that supports the business’s need to convert the visitor into a customer.
Composition
Selecting the right font and images are not enough; bringing it all together is vital. One way to do this is through the combination of images and button placement. For example, a button could take up the entire width of the screen, or it could take up a quarter of the total width. The space it takes up on the home page can either attract or distract the visitor.
To determine this, you’ll need to think about what you want your visitor to do on your home page. The best home page designs make that very clear. Apple’s home page is a good example of composition, with clear and strong calls to action.
Tip: Create a story that guides the visitor through the page Start and tell that story through your images and text. It should be clear what you want them to do and how you want them to interact with the home page. Starting with a wireframe can help you with this, as can using a grid to help determine the placement of all items.
3. Consider the platform
When Apple released the original iPhone in June 2007, it introduced us to a new web browsing experience. Now, we have even more devices for viewing websites, all with different screen resolutions. A visitor’s “first experience” with a home page can happen on mobile or any other device, which is why responsive design is so important.
Your home page, as a result , you should consider alternative viewing windows. The way you orchestrate typography, images, and composition will need to shift from desktop to mobile to provide a seamless experience.
One of the ways to accomplish this is by implementing a “mobile-only” methodology. first”, where you are designing for a smaller screen before designing for a larger one, such as a desktop. This forces you to make decisions about how to style your design elements and serves as a guard against “featureitis,” which is when excessive use of features in a product overwhelms its user. Keeping your home page simple and relevant is key.
Designing for mobile first isn’t the only way to create a seamless website experience. Understanding the context of use is also informative. The context of use refers to the environment in which the visitor frequents the website. Is he at home? While waiting for a bus? On the train? This will help you determine which platform should be the priority.
The Psychology Behind Design
Psychology plays an important role in UX design, and good web page design startup will benefit from that. Two psychological principles that are very useful are Hick’s Law and the Von Restorff Effect.
Hick’s Law states that the time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of options presented to the user. user. In other words, the more options you give someone, the harder it is for them to make quick decisions. With less than 10 seconds to make a good impression, this needs to be a priority. Try to limit the amount of information, interactivity, and general clutter on the page.
Design principles such as scrolling, hiding, and grouping are great tools for simplifying an interface:
- Scrolling is when you lay out content in other ways, such as making it available via a button or image, to reduce the number of names or categories in the menu.
- Hide refers to covering or not disclosing more information until a specific action triggers it. A good example of this is a dropdown menu, because it is not revealed until the visitor clicks or hovers over the corresponding page title.
- Bundling organizes similar information so that the visitor does not feel overwhelmed. For example, a carousel groups images and displays them horizontally on the page, usually separated by a border. The goal here is to reduce the user’s cognitive load.
The Von Restorff effect, also known as the “isolation effect,” suggests that when you present users with multiple homogeneous stimuli, they will remember only the only stimulus that differed from the rest. Creating a visual hierarchy that uses high contrast is a great way to accomplish this. An example is making one icon a different color than the others. This isolates the icon and communicates to the visitor that there is something unique or important about it.
This is also important for scannability, so your visitor can quickly assess whether the website is right for them. Implementing a pattern availability type also helps and can support discoverability.
Conclusion
Your home page is important. You can’t design a successful website without it, and there’s a lot that goes into it. You’ll need to understand your visitors, including their behavior and thinking, and then create a design that supports it. Fonts, icons, images, and the text itself should be intentional. Finally, the home page should be responsive, allowing the user to engage no matter what device they’re using and what environment they’re in.
But above all, keep your design simple. The user shouldn’t have to think long about what to click first or where to go to get the information they need. There are many more website do’s and don’ts to help you navigate this process, but focusing on the tips above will give you a good framework for a successful website homepage.
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