Aspects To Consider for Making Effective Ecommerce Websites
Ecommerce website designers are a harried lot these days. With more and more businesses opening shops online, designers are being asked to come up with unique designs that don’t just help create a powerful online presence, but a highly effective sales presence as well. Online merchants want their ecommerce website to play a dual role that can be defined in two words – Attract and Convert.
These two words can look and sound innocuous enough but they shouldn’t be taken at their face value. They hide great depths and the design of any ecommerce website must be able to explore these depths. A designer or a designing team that is in charge of crafting an ecommerce website must be aware of certain crucial aspects that will go a long way in helping them build a website that not only attracts visitors but also converts them into customers.
Knowledge of the products/services up for sale
It is the products or services that are going to be sold on the website, which play a huge part in determining the design of the website. As a designer, it’s your knowledge about them, their visual strengths and weaknesses, their color, shape etc. that will help you determine your ecommerce website’s design. Say, the website is selling bright colorful clothes for kids. The design must be aligned with the products on offer and use bright colors and textures that are a USP of the products that are being sold on the site. Using dull colors isn’t going to be able to highlight the product in the best possible manner. Let’s take another example of a website offering legal services. Garish colored images, bright background etc. are just not going to suit the purpose of this site at all. The designer needs to know about the colors, design elements and visual triggers that a website visitor expects from a website selling legal services.
Therefore, knowledge is paramount.
Understanding the Purpose
Another factor that has a role to play in website design and one which ecommerce
website designers must consider of vital importance is being in sync with the purpose of the website. Does it want to exude an air of sophistication? Does it want to display a certain attitude? Does it want to come across as ‘to the point’? The answers to these and many more questions will help a designer craft a design that is in line with the website’s purpose. Take for example the case of an online merchant selling sophisticated furniture solution for homes and offices. A website that offers a linearly defined look and feel, with images of the furniture on the product details page set against a white background aren’t going to cut any ice with the shopper. Such design is not going to reflect the inherent sophistication of the solutions on offer. On the other hand, a Flash based design that welcomes website visitors with views of the furniture placed against the backdrop of a tastefully designed home and/or office space will work wonders to create the right impression first up. The products details page can offer images of specific furniture set against the backdrop of a particular room in a house or office. The bottom line is that if the furniture is sophisticated, the website design should also look classy. Nothing else will create the necessary impact.
Who are you designing for?
No, ecommerce website designers are not designing for the client; they are in fact designing the website for the client’s target audience. It is their needs and requirements that are of significant importance and not that of the client. It is they who are going to visit the site and determine its success or failure. So, the question is, do you know who they are and what are their likes and preferences? To know more about the target audience, involves a process of thorough research and analysis. The age, professional profile, internet connectivity, and many other aspects of the target audience help designers build a clear profile of the user and ensure that the design meets the expectations of those users whose characteristics align with that particular profile.
Knowing these three things is an absolute must if a designer is to craft any ecommerce solution. This helps give shape to a solution that becomes a powerful sales tool.