What Is Product Page

The product page is a page of the e-commerce website that provides a customer with all the needed information about the particular item, allows them to check various options if they exist, and enables a customer to quickly proceed with the purchase process if they decide upon buying the item.

Unlike a real point-of-sale, an e-commerce website doesn’t provide physical contact with an item or assistance from shop staff. Product page becomes the major source of attraction, impression, information, and persuasion. That’s why its design, navigability, and usability play a crucial role in growing sales.

As we mentioned in our guide to the basic web pages, a badly designed product page may waste all the effort (usually massive and complex) taken to bring the buyer to the website and to this particular product. So, besides the attractive product presentation, focus on functionality, clarity, readability, and intuitive navigation.

Product page concept for a gardening e-commerce website

Typical Elements of Product Page

Basically, a product page:

• shows the image of the product
• gives all the needed information about the product
• allows users to check different color/model options (if any)
• enables visitors to see the reviews, comments, and ratings from earlier buyers
• allows for adding the product to the cart or wish list
• shows other relevant options.

Additionally, the product page may include such options as a comparison of different items, especially popular on websites selling different devices and appliances.

Product page interactions for Bennett, a tea brand e-commerce

Based on that, here’s a checklist of basic elements of the product page layout:

• name/title of the item
• photo
• price
• item availability
• add to cart/add to bag/add to basket/buy button
• add to favorites/save to wishlist button
• description
• social proof: rating, reviews, the number of previous buyers, the number of people looking at the item now, etc.
• choice of color
• choice of model
• choice of the number of items to buy
• size guide or calculator (for clothes and footwear)
• extended details (materials, technical specifications, dimensions, weight, special features, etc.)

The list above doesn’t mean that all the points are obligatory for any product page. The choice will depend on analyzing multiple factors, understanding the target audience, and careful prioritization to see which points to include and which may be eliminated from the list for this particular type of goods or kind of customer.

Product page first-screen view on Walmart

Design Practices for Product Pages

Visual Demonstration

Ecommerce platforms are the best place to prove the saying that the picture is worth a thousand words. Not able to contact the item physically, visitors will count on the visuals of the product to make their first impression about the goods. What’s more, images are noticed and decoded faster than words; they will be the first element attracting the visitor’s attention. They present the part of the content which is both informative and emotionally appealing.

That’s why many e-commerce platforms:

• use a set of images to present one item from different points and angles
• apply zoom functionality to enable a visitor to look at some parts of the photo closer, see the textures and small details
• combine the photos of the item with photos of it on a model or in the proper environment to give a better understanding of its looks and sizes

Product page first-screen view on Marks and Spencer: a combination of several photos shows the item separately and on the model

The approaches to photo content can be different and depend on both general brand strategy and particular campaign or collection style. However, what unites them all is:

• originality: special shootings are organized to make custom photos that correspond to the style defined in a brand book or specific campaign guidelines
• high-quality: no doubt, the quality of photos directly influences the impression about the particular item and the brand in general
• optimization for the web: being quality, photos shouldn’t be too big as it can dramatically influence the loading time, which in turn has a great impact on SEO; also, pages loading slowly are the solid reason for high bounce rate – unless the website offers something absolutely unique and super exclusive, people will just go away instead of waiting.

Product page for the niche brand of underwear, using photo demonstration on model

Except for images, other media, more complex or interactive, can also be used. Among them, you can now find:

• product videos, detailed video reviews, and instructions
• 360-degree view of the item
• augmented reality technologies helping people to observe the item in their own environment or try it on virtually

The product page of GNO Blankets website uses video demonstration and graphics with detailed demonstration of product layers.

Obviously, these types of media are often more complicated, time-consuming, and expensive in production than photos. So, the decision on their worthwhileness is usually based on the type and price of the offered item. For example, to sell a 5-dollar T-shirt, photos may be enough, but for buying a massively more expensive fridge, smartphone, computer, or even a car, customers need more convincing in the decision-making way. And in this case, expenses on the more complex but more impressive, persuasive, and informative visuals and media could be a worthy investment.

A creative product page concept for a website selling niche accessories applies special realistic effects to the functionality of a model choice.

The pet shop website uses video demonstrations of the items as a convincing way to see how the product works in the environment and sets the needed emotional connection.

Informative but Simple Description

The saying that people don’t read anymore has nothing in common with the product page: when customers are deciding upon spending their money, they do read what they need to know about the product they are going to buy. Still, it’s not the reason to overload the description, as the attention span is quite limited. The description text should be concise, factual, simple, and talking in the language of the audience. It should answer the basic questions: what the product is, what it looks like, what it does, and how it does it. And better to do it from the first lines, which have the highest chances to be read, instead of filling them with standard marketing hooks shoppers are already sick and tired of.

Another rule of thumb here is connected to the previous point: show, don’t tell. Well, it’s better to say, tell, but also show! Don’t just describe in detail how the bag looks inside – show the photo. Don’t just tell how beautifully this neckerchief matches that jacket – show the photo. Don’t just mention the size of a toy – show the child playing it. Combine the power of words with proper images to make the experience much more effective.

Product page first-screen view on Uniqlo: the page features a concise and informative description of the item and puts the details on materials and care in another tab, both in the pre-scroll area of the page. Another good thing is a clear definition of model size on the photo, allowing the customers to instantly understand the proportions.

The product page for the cosmetics website uncovers the information about the product gradually, with the core data above the fold, supporting the prominent item visualization; the split-screen approach helps to divide visual and text zones to make them easily scanned.

Super Obvious Call to Action

Calls to action (CTA) should be instantly noticeable. In e-commerce interfaces, CTA elements are the core factor of effective interaction with the product; they play a crucial role in usability and navigability and, therefore, in getting profits. When all the path of interaction and transitions is built clearly for users, but the CTA element is not obvious, misplaced, or designed badly, the risk gets higher that users will get confused and need to make an additional effort to achieve their goals – which is annoying. Therefore, the risk of poor conversion rates and bad user experience grows.

ASOS product page first screen: the CTA button differs from everything else on the page due to color contrast and is instantly noticed in the light, airy layout.

Focus on the Item

No doubt, thinking about the layout and content of the product page, both stakeholders and designers feel the urge to fill it with everything possible, and even more, to make the page super informative. However, be careful as this strategy may do a dirty trick: in that flood of information, the focus gets blurred, and visitors can get too distracted to make a decision. How to find the balance?

On the one hand, it’s recommended not to overload the page with a great deal of information that will overwhelm customers and distract their attention from the major goal – to make the purchase. On the other hand, visitors aren’t ready to jump from one page to another to get different information about the item they are interested in. Therefore, the designer has to take the time for thorough research on the issue, prioritize carefully, and find the balance of data that needs to be provided on the product page.

Is there a golden rule for all e-commerce websites? No way, as different customers and markets have different needs, and the type of the product also influences the choice of core and secondary information to show. The analysis of the target audience and user testing can give clues on what information is required for the specific categories of items or services.

Creative product page design for a niche perfume website focuses on item presentation amplified with an atmospheric video background and special effects.

The more pricey, uncommon, or innovative the product, the more information the customers usually want to get about it. And even for common stuff, there may be tons of questions and hesitations. Sure, all the needed information should be accessible from the product page, and the challenge for UX designers here is to find a way to organize it properly. Technical details, materials, weight and size, size chart or calculator for clothing and footwear, functionality for comparing the item with a similar one, and so on and so forth – any of those details can play the premier violin in a story of a particular item.

Use the principle of the inverted pyramid and uncover information gradually, from the most important and demanded shown first to more and more specific details unveiled further.

Instead of creating intrigue, be open, direct, and clean in content presentation.

Try to put all core information in highly readable form on the above-the-fold part of the page.

And test, test, test again, analyze the time on the page, heatmaps, and clicks, ask and analyze to know what buyers really need and what makes shopping convenient for them.

The product page on Amazon is based on the principle of the inverted pyramid: this above-the-fold view shows the core information and functionality buyers want and need to know about this type of product first of all. Engaging social proof is marked by the label of #1 New Release and shows what other products are often bought together with this one.

The second screen uncovers more about the actions of other customers interested in this theme: two sections, visually attractive due to the focus on product images, uncover other items customers view or buy.

And only after that, when scrolling further, users can find extended information, editorial reviews, etc., based on text without visuals.

Intuitive Navigation

Every button, link, and card design can change the conversion rate significantly. It’s vital always to remember: in the intense competition we observe in e-commerce now, buyers aren’t ready to wait or waste their time on unnecessary operations or efforts to understand where’s what they need. What they do demand from e-commerce is an experience that is faster, easier, and more convenient compared to going to the actual store. If this website doesn’t give it to them, they will look for it somewhere else.

So, adding to obvious CTA, make sure that users can effortlessly do common steps, for example:

• find search field
• use breadcrumbs helping to quickly understand the current position in the website hierarchy and probably take a step or two back instead of just going away
• be totally sure which elements on the page are clickable
• see if the item is already in the cart
• see the number of items in the shopping cart or bag (usually in the website header)
• use the power of visual dividers and common directional cues to perceive the information faster
• find the contact information and navigation links in the website footer

Product page first-screen view on Target: multiple photos of the item, both clean and integrated into the environment, clear and instantly noticeable controls for choice of color, the obvious search field in the header, breadcrumbs creating the secondary navigation level, social proof in the form of ratings and questions, and clear call-to-action element.

Consistency

Consistency means that the product communicates with the user in the same or similar way, whatever point or channel of communication. In terms of user experience, it means that similar elements look and function similarly, this way reducing the cognitive load and making interactions smoother and more intuitive.

In e-commerce interface, it touches both:

Internal consistency is about different parts of your interface or brand that look and behave as one clear system. For example, when you make all the CTA buttons on different pages or screens of your product colored and designed the same way, visitors can learn fast and will be able to quickly distinguish them at any step of their user journey.

External consistency is about parts of your interface that look and behave as typical patterns for most products of this kind. That’s, for example, when you use a shopping cart even on the website selling non-tangible products or underline the text links to give users a hint that they are clickable.

Sephora product page first-screen view: expected navigation in the website header, easily recognizable for e-commerce shoppers, super obvious call-to-action button, arrows used as the clearest directional cues for most users around the web, focus on the item presented in different visuals and highlights important and influencing decision-making for the target audience.

Power of Known Patterns

Adding to the previous point, UX designers would better never underestimate the power of habit. In UI for e-commerce, especially in the red-ocean spheres, the primary goal is not to shock and awe. Basically, UX designers become a friend or at least supportive shop assistant who greets visitor, guides them around the store, takes a right to the items they want, and make the checkout as fast and simple as possible. To make that all possible, designers should base their decisions on how actual customers behave.

There are many articles and videos calling creative people to hear their hearts, trust their guts, and think out of the box. However, design is not just pure creativity striving to show all the power of original solutions. First of all, it’s a way to solve the problem and make users happier. So, it’s vital to look at the interface from the user’s perspective and find a way to make interactions that will provide a smooth and easy way to purchase.

The power of habit plays a big role in the products of this kind. Choosing a layout, menus, or icons that stand too far from the ones users are generally accustomed to often brings confusion and frustration. For a simple example, the usage of any other image instead of a magnifying glass to mark the search field can result in a bad user experience as buyers know that visual symbol and will look for it. If you are ready for such experiments, take time to test them well and ensure that customers are ready for them, too.

H&M product page design is based on a minimalist approach: the first-screen view is designed around prominent images, model choice options, elegant and readable basics (product title, color name, and price), a heart icon as a well-recognized visual trigger of adding the item to favorites and a noticeable CTA button. Even the size options are hidden in the dropdown menu to put the number of controls to a minimum and focus all the attention on the visuals. Sure, it means additional clicks and scrolling; however, the approach may be reasonable and effective if the customers are used to this flow and appreciate this particular style, consistently reflecting the brand image in general.

In the article on home page design strategies, we mentioned that the website is made not for creative contests or galleries of fame but for real users. The positive impact of habit in terms of user experience can be stronger than the wish for revolution. No doubt, the dose of uniqueness is needed, but not so much to knock down the user. In e-commerce UI design, often aimed at quite a diverse target audience, too much of a revolution might scare and provoke hesitations: do I really need to buy this thing, a user may think, if it’s so hard to get it? Study the interaction patterns and typical products for that particular target audience to make their habits their power. And don’t forget to check that all the icons on the screen don’t have a double meaning; support them with text labels where needed. Strive for the balance between innovation and traditions.

Narrowing the focus, we may also talk about the power of habit for a particular e-commerce website. You could have read numerous reviews of the “poor UX design” of this or that e-commerce giant, breathing fire and brimstone into old-fashioned solutions or complex navigation. However, thinking deeper, it’s easy to understand that they activate the power of habit as a major approach of respect to their buyers, as plenty of their customers have been with them for many years. It’s not because they don’t know how to change; it’s because, at some stages of business development, the cost of change may be too high. It doesn’t mean that the changes are never made; they are just not as revolutionary and made in small steps.

Product page above-the-fold view on Etsy marketplace

Scannability and Skimmability

It’s already well-known that when coming to a website or app, users don’t usually read and observe all the content on the page or screen. Instead, they start with quick scanning to understand if it contains something they need or want. Knowing the eye-tracking models, Gestalt principles, and laws of visual hierarchy, designers and information architects can put the core data and interactive elements into the zones of high and natural visibility. Other factors making product pages scannable are readable typography and enough white space.

There are numerous things that have an impact on decision-making, and harmony is one of them. Eye-tensing color combinations, unreadable or not combining fonts, aggressive background, intrusive pop-ups or animations, annoying sounds, or pages loading for ages – any point of that stuff can spoil the experience quickly, distract users, and move them away, sometimes even without a clear explanation what they didn’t like. Details matter; think over them and organize them well.

First-screen view of the product page on George: due to the light, airy layout, the page looks clean and simple, but at the same time, it’s highly informative even at the stage of fast scanning.  

Dark, elegant, and catchy product page for the neon signs shop, balanced and scannable

Fewer Clicks

If going from page to page or jumping from screen to screen is not a part of the journey into the sales funnel, save every user’s click possible. Too many operations are tiring and annoying, which is a kind of negative emotion. And emotions have a huge impact on user experience and make retaining users much harder. Minimize the number of clicks on the way of choosing and buying whenever it’s possible – this way, you respect the user’s time better than the politest words of thanks. For example, avoid dropdowns for a small number of choices in basic options such as color or model choice.

Product page first-screen view on Sportsdirect website: no information is hidden in dropdown menus, so it’s super easy to scan the availability of models and sizes, the CTA is seen immediately, the number of items is changed easily by typing or manipulating plus/minus controls, arrows show how to see more images, and breadcrumbs help to jump back to choosing other items easily.

Exotic Fruit e-commerce app uses a tab for adding the needed number of products with a simple tap.

The OldNavy product page integrates the section of offered combinations with other items from the website, and it is not just an image to get buyers inspired: on hover, the shopper gets the list of links to items with basic information, which enables them to easily get engaged in further shopping and makes the relevant product accessible quickly.

Social Proof

Social proof is a big factor of impact on the decision-making process in both the physical and digital worlds. It is a psychological and social phenomenon of people copying the actions of others to undertake behavior in a certain situation. This term was introduced by Robert Cialdini in his 1984 book Influence; the concept is also called informational social influence.

In e-commerce, the experience of the previous buyers influences the behavior of the next ones greatly; that’s why ratings, comments, and reviews are needed, especially on mass-market platforms. They help customers feel united with a group of similar buyers, which is easy to feel in the actual store among other shoppers but even more needed in the online shopping experience when you are shopping alone in front of a computer or mobile screen. What’s more, reviews can answer the questions the customer has and, this way, support the positive decision about buying – or prevent from buying the wrong item and having a negative experience.

Here’s the product page on OldNavy: the first screen view, among all other details, includes the social proof showing the rating of the item with the number of people that marked it. Scrolling down, buyers are getting even more engaged: except for relevant products to combine this item with for the perfect outfit, the page uncovers the relevant items other customers looked at and liked, and further customers’ photos and details on reviews.

Interactivity

With more and more buyers online, brands and retailers can analyze more data about their behavior, needs, and wishes and integrate new approaches on that basis. Interactivity that imitates seeing the item from different angles and manipulating it, trying on the clothing or footwear, testing the make-up options on your face, virtually placing the piece of furniture or decor into your room – all that and diversity of other innovations are becoming more and more accessible and affordable due to the creativity, customer experience care, and new technologies. And sure, they help customers to make a decision.

Another vital aspect of interactivity in e-commerce now is personalization and customization, when people can customize their purchase instead of just choosing it from the catalog. Choosing a custom combination of flowers for a bouquet, customizing the burger or pizza with favorite ingredients, collecting a personal outfit or family look instead of just buying ready-made ones – able to add their own personality to the offer, many shoppers feel ready to buy.

Tasty Burger app allowing for creating custom burgers to buy

Mobile Adaptation

Needless to say, there are many daily things people do with their smartphones nowadays, and shopping is becoming one of the top options. Besides, mobile adaptation is among the core web vitals of search engine optimization. If you want an e-commerce website to be googled successfully and let the visitors have a seamless shopping experience from any device, make the product page mobile-friendly and reconsider the layout to make the interface convenient and navigable for mobile devices. Some e-commerce platforms go even further and also invest in creating their native applications for iOS and Android, but for many small businesses, it may appear not affordable or even not reasonable. Anyway, the product page, as well as the rest of the website pages, should be responsive and mobile-friendly, no matter if the native app exists or not.

Minimalistic product page for a fashion brand e-commerce focused on photos, easy choice of color, and responsive to be used on any device

404 Error

With product pages intensively used and often updated, there are different cases of running into an error. People can accidentally mistype a letter in the URL, or the page they saved before may not already exist as the product is already out of stock. Make sure not to let customers come across an empty error page and go away. Connect them to other pages, offer relevant options or categories, and do everything to take advantage of the error page involving a customer to check something else.

404 error page for a fashion e-commerce website

Bottom Line

Sure, the decision on the design practices to choose for a particular e-commerce project is a matter of thorough thinking, and the solutions on what to use and what to leave will be based on many subjective factors, from the type of product and market segment to the company budget, employers’ skills, individual tastes and specific needs of the target audience. The approach to mass-market e-commerce differs from the approach to a narrow niche. The approach to various generations of customers will be different.

Yet, all the practices mentioned above won’t work properly if the major condition of the commercial world is not followed, which is: the product should be good above everything else. All the other steps, investments, and practices make sense if the website sells quality goods and makes a website or app its channel of sales, not the place of lies and tricks.  Anyway, if the products you offer are good and the customer is already on the website, let the product page show the item in its best light and help the shopper to feel it like home, convenient, clear, and friendly.

Useful Articles

Here’s a bunch of articles to dive deeper into the themes of e-commerce, web usability, and user experience design.

UX Design for E-Commerce: Principles and Strategies

11 Profitable Strategies for E-Commerce UI Design

The Role of Branding in UI Design

Business-Oriented Design. Know Your Target

Product Page Design Inspiration: 17 Ecommerce Web Designs

Design for Business: User-Friendly Way to Profits

Two Types of User Motivation: Design to Satisfy

5 Basic Types of Images for Web Content

Web Design: 16 Basic Types of Web Pages

Error Screens and Messages: UX Design Practices

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic and video content by tubik

Сообщение Product Page Design: Best Practices on UX for Ecommerce появились сначала на Design4Users.

Project

Synthesized is the all-in-one DataOps platform which is helping to solve one of the most challenging problems we face as a society—the use of personal information. Synthesized makes it easy for organizations that want to collaborate on sensitive data. It enables enterprises to monetize and innovate through their data and speeds up the development of data-driven products. In as little as ten minutes, as opposed to months or years, Synthesized’s AI-based platform provides data practitioners with secure and compliant, ready-to-use, high-volume, high-quality data sets.

Telling about the product’s mission and origins, the founders mention that from their time as Machine Learning (ML) researchers at the University of Cambridge, they struggled to obtain sufficient clean and regularised data fundamental to building predictive models or testing a hypothesis. With ML projects becoming more advanced, the complications were also growing in the attempts to get high-quality, clean data sets. What’s more, they found a gap between the developments of the scientific community caused by the lack of infrastructure to share data safely. So, they started Synthesized with a mission to empower data scientists with the highest quality datasets for collaboration and innovation.

The task for the tubik team was to create a user-friendly and attractive website that would present and promote the service, uncover its benefits, and set a quick, easy connection to its users.

Web Design

Traditionally, the design process started with discussions with the client to dive into the nature of the service, the business goals, and the expectations about the functions the website should cover. After that, the team went through the stages of research and analysis that gave food for thought on how to create effective design solutions for the objectives set behind the website. And then, the stages of UX wireframing and design approach started to let all the sides of the process be on the same page.

Let’s take a look at the general design concept via some of the pages designed for the website. The search for a color palette that would be effective and set the proper mood resulted in a bold and contrast combination flexible for various design needs. Another key choice to make was the choice of fonts which gave the elegant and stylish combination of graceful Canela as a heading typeface and neat geometric Gilroy as a text typeface.

As the dress-to-impress rule still works, especially on the Web overloaded with pages and sites competing for people’s attention, the above-the-fold part of the home page moved through several iterations to find the visual way to reflect the connection to the world of synthesized data. This way, we came up with an animated full-screen background with abstract patterns adding depth and dynamics to the visual experience. The minimalist layout of this part of the page is scanned in no time and features the core navigation in the header, prominent tagline, and small description text to give a short and concise message about the nature of the product, and a CTA button whose noticeability is supported with bold color contrast to make it seen at once.

Background color contrast is used as the primary type of visual divider, helping to separate various web page sections and this way, make content perception easier. The pages look information-packed but not overloaded due to mastering the power of negative space and well-thought-out data visualization. It is a highly essential aspect to consider in user experience design for products that are non-tangible and innovative, so they demand a lot of explanation which is challenging to imagine and hard to show.

This page uses neat tabs with bulleted lists to present information about different features in a straightforward manner that is easy to skim and remember. The abstract background pattern reflects the idea of growth and gets animated to make the experience more engaging.

It’s easy to see from the pages above that one more aspect to consider in the design process was visual elements that would support text blocks. So, the custom icons were designed to support the consistency and integrity of the layout with informative graphics. Making them animated, we could also employ motion to attract visitors’ attention to particular elements and interactive zone, as well as add a pinch of liveliness to the web pages.

As mentioned above, balanced and attractive data visualization was one of the priorities in a project of such a nature, so this aspect was thoroughly thought-out, resulting in a range of techniques from graphs and code snippets brought to the common style to prominent infographic-like numbers presenting essential benefits.

The blog page design uses the uncluttered regular grid with one featured post on top. We also thought out and offered the design system for covers of the articles and resources, designed in a futuristic manner and satisfying both consistency and diversity needs.

Here’s the system of cover images designed for whitepapers and downloadable resources to be presented in style echoing the web platform’s visual identity.

The Company page is built around the animated photo gallery, which sets the emotional connection and adds a powerful human element to the presentation of the product.

As a number of our earlier projects, for example, Credentially or ShipDaddy websites, the Synthesized website was also implemented on Webflow. It enables both designers and the client’s team to effectively update the website in live mode and keep up with the speed of the company’s growth.

Mobile Adaptation

For any web project these days, the well-crafted mobile adaptation is not a privilege anymore but a must-have that makes the website look good and work well on any device convenient for the visitor, as well as have a significant impact on search ranking. Here’s a glance at how some pages of the Synthesized website look on mobile.

Synthesized is the company we’ve still been collaborating with, so it’s not the complete story: new design tasks are being covered, new challenges are being faced, and that’s the amazing experience to go through the different growth and scaling stages together with the client, from the basic website to the diversity of pages, content, and functions.

Stay tuned; new design case studies are coming soon!

More Design Case Studies

Here’s a set of more case studies sharing the design solutions and approaches for some of the design projects done by the tubik team.

ProAgenda. Identity and Website Design for Golf Management Service

BlockStock. Brand Identity and Website for Minecraft Models Resource

Carricare. Identity and UX Design for Safe Delivery Service

Kaiten. Identity and Product Design for Food Marketplace

THT. Website Design for Electrical Engineering Service

Komuso. Website Design for Wellness Tool

Nonconventional Show. Website Design for Podcast

ShipDaddy. Identity and Web Design for Shipping Service

Illuminating Radioactivity. Interactive Web Design for Education

Lumen. Website for Museum of Mountain Photography

GNO Blankets. Branding and Web Design for Ecommerce

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic and video content by tubik

Сообщение Case Study: Synthesized. Website Design for DataOps Platform появились сначала на Design4Users.

Stop Plastic Website

This web design project is called StopPlastic and deals with a hot and important topic of today: our world is overloaded with plastic, and this issue shouts for global attention. The website tells people more about the problem, its influence on nature and our future, and information about how to solve it.

Limited and contrast color palette, readable text blocks efficiently supported with negative space, impressive visual and video content, and smooth motion for interactions make the user experience emotional and engaging. Visuals are mostly presented by artistic and eye-catching collages and theme photos. Typographic hierarchy is made super solid to let users quickly skim the text content and not miss the essential ideas.

Ecotourism Website

This website was designed for a service for people that want to try ecotourism and have some rest deep in nature and far from the urban hustle and bustle. The home page features a stunning hero illustration. The Discover web page tells and shows more about the destinations and types of holidays to book, with the video integration to amplify the effect.

The design shows the balance of readability and decoration in typography choice, solid visual hierarchy, and thoughtful integration of different types of visuals: photos and custom theme illustrations.

Mobile adaptation helps to save visual harmony and allows users to interact successfully with the website from any device.

Zero Waste Website

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” Aldo Leopold’s words are full of truth, and luckily, that philosophy seems to inspire many people these days. This web design concept is also of that kind. Take a glance at a website devoted to a zero-waste lifestyle: here, people can communicate, get useful information and tips as well as buy eco-friendly and reusable stuff.

Promoting the philosophy of minimalism, sustainable consumption, and zero-waste living, the website design also sticks to minimalistic performance and navigation.

The product pages are built around the prominent product image and engaging animation of a bird to set a strong association with nature. The little bird image also works as a visual mascot uniting different pages of the website.

And here, you can check how the choice of color works on a product page, making the experience engaging due to smooth dynamic animation.

Blog pages feature lovely theme illustrations, split-screen presentation to make the text content scannable and readable, and an engaging loading animation. Here you will find the bird mascot supporting the integrity of transitions between pages.

And this page makes a part of the theme illustration work as loading animation.

Save the Oceans

This web design is devoted to a vital global problem of awful pollution of the world’s oceans, which has already become a disaster. Look at the user interface and interactions designed for Save the Oceans, a charity website gathering the community of people to make our planet a better place for future generations. The instant atmosphere of the theme is created due to the appropriate color palette giving a strong visual association to the majestic power of the ocean as well as atmospheric photo and video content.

The airy layout, bold typography, and ocean motifs transfer the theme to the visitors from the first seconds and make the content scannable and attractive, whatever the device they come from.

The 404 page deserves special attention, showing another piece of a creative idea by turning the error page into an atmospheric image supporting the general message of the resource.

Innovative Energy Service Website

The issue of alternative power sources and sustainable building is one of the hottest now, arising multiple innovations and new products. This web design concept is also devoted to this theme: it’s a home page design for the company providing services in new-age sustainable energy production, consumption, and even distribution for community needs.

The page features a digital theme illustration in the above-the-fold area to quickly set the visual associations and amplify the message provided in the tagline and core description block.

Environment Protection Community

With all the global problems our planet faces today, communities of people concerned with them are growing to prevent the negative impact. This web design example gives a look at a home page designed for the website of the eco-aware community consulting businesses and manufacturers, as well as launching projects devoted to environmental protection.  The composition and color palette of the hero illustration support the emotional appeal and create an instant message about the theme. The visual hierarchy of the webpage sets the basis for scannability to make the major information and CTA button instantly visible.

New web and mobile design collections from our team are coming soon – don’t miss the updates!

Tubik Design Collections

If you want to check more creative sets of web, app, and graphic design examples, here they are for you.

Design for Sales: 10 Creative UI Designs for Ecommerce

Steal the Show: Creative Web Design for Diverse Events

App Design Ideas: 7 Nifty Mobile Application Design Projects

Information Beautified: Media and Editorial Website Designs

UX Design for Traveling: Impressive Web Design Concepts

23 Impressive Web Design Concepts for Various Business Objectives

Mobile Design: 14 Stylish and User-Friendly App Design Concepts

Web Design: 26 Examples of Creative Landing Pages

UI in Volume: 3D Graphics in Creative UI Design Concepts

Logofolio: 16 Logo Designs for Different Business Goals

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic content by tubik

Сообщение Web Design Examples on Environmental and Ecological Issues появились сначала на Design4Users.

Project

Modern website design for the museum of mountain photography.

Client and Idea

Lumen Museum is located at the summit of the region Kronplatz (in South Tyrol). It covers 1,800 square meters dedicated to mountain photography: the 4 floors impress the visitors with insights into the history of mountain photography from its beginnings and the art of mountain photographers from different corners of the world. The museum harmonically combines history and innovations, interactivity, and exploration, covering the subject of mountain photography from diverse perspectives.

That what the museum team wanted to see on their website as well. It was important to make it modern and trendy but at the same time to preserve a strong and consistent connection of the physical museum with its online site.

The creative team from Tubik Studio assigned for the project included Vladyslav Taran, Denis Koloskov, Andrew Drobovich, Kirill Erokhin, Alexander Petulko, Dmitry Shevchishen, and Polina Taran.

Website Design

Here we welcome you to take a glance at the website we designed and developed for the Lumen Museum. Variety of elegant pages, smooth animation, engaging scroll, video integration, and other design solutions to present the amazing museum content online.

All the major pages of the website are based on a minimalist layout, impressive visuals, a light background, and mastered negative space: that makes them full of air and freshness and let the visitors feel it from the first seconds. Also, such an approach ensures that all the diverse visual content, from archive black and white photos to modern shots and videos, will look good on the pages.

The home page features the hero section based on the beautiful view of the museum building with an animated flow of clouds that makes it even more lively and atmospheric.

The typography solution didn’t feature decorative fonts; instead, the designers used the highly-readable and solid sans-serif font that becomes the foundation of solid typographic hierarchy. The website header features the link buttons for the core navigation areas as well as contacts and information about the museum address and schedule. The header is sticky so the user can reach the core pages from any point of interaction or page scrolling. The pages demonstrate the well-balanced mixture of static photo content, animated photos, and videos integrated into the layout.

The transitions between the pages are supported with an animated counter featuring the height of the museum location and this way it adds some entertaining elements into the process of switching to another page. Negative space works as a visual divider for the text blocks making the content look more digestible, well-organized, and readable.

The museum offers two types of exhibitions: Permanent Exhibitions, which are always available and have their unique performance, and Temporary Exhibitions that are operating for a limited period. While the pages for temporary exhibitions employ the same page template, the pages for permanent exhibitions all have unique designs that reflect the most interesting points and interactivity of actual museum halls.  For example, the exhibition page below features the organization and vertical animation of the photo collection that echoes the visual presentation of this interactive set in the exhibition hall of the Lumen Museum.

The consistent integration of video content allows visitors to dive deep into the atmosphere of the museum and feel its refreshing nature. The section of testimonials supports social approval while the simple and scannable footer offers links to different website pages. The webpages implement both vertical and horizontal scroll to allow for more diverse and informative interactions without unnecessary clicks and transitions.

The history page implements the horizontal scroll to build up a solid timeline of photos and concise text blocks guiding the visitors through the different stages of the location, the museum foundation, and development.

The airy calendar page invites the visitor to check the upcoming events and exhibitions: each item is presented with a date, type of the event, its name, the secondary text block for additional description or information, and a photo setting the quick visual association. A simple checkbox filter allows for tuning the list while the visual dividers help to clearly scan the structure and distinguish the items. This way the solid visual hierarchy is built to make the webpage scannable, readable, and eye-pleasing.

Here’s an example of a webpage whose wow-effect is based on the animated image of a photo camera.

To fulfill the navigation needs, an original set of minimalist outline icons was designed for the website.

To make the website beautiful and consistent regardless of the device it is visited from, we also thoughtfully adapted it to the tablet and mobile versions.

This project for Lumen Museum was an amazing experience for our team and the story of the great collaboration with the museum team: altogether, we achieved the goal to create the museum a beautiful online home and connect it with its audience faster and easier.

Check the live website of Lumen Museum to see more details of design and development.

More Design Case Studies

Here’s a set of more case studies sharing the design solutions and approaches for some of the UX design projects done by Tubik Studio.

GNO Blankets. Branding and Web Design for Ecommerce

Designer AI. Dashboard and Graphics for Fashion Service

Pazi. UX and UI Design for Vehicle Safety Mobile App

CashMetrics. UX Design for Finance Management Service

Bitex. UX Design for Stock Analysis App

Inspora. Brand and UI Design for Virtual Stylist

Nature Encyclopedia. UI Design for Education

Perfect Recipes App. UX Design for Cooking and Shopping

Tasty Burger. UI Design for Food Ordering App

Slumber. Mobile UI Design for Healthy Sleeping

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Web Design Case Study: Website for Lumen Museum появились сначала на Design4Users.

Project

Design and animation for an educational website devoted to life and movies of the famous film director Stanley Kubrick.

Idea

The initial idea was to create something extraordinary in terms of design and at the same time insightful in terms of content. It could be a website about a famous photographer, artist or anyone else connected with art.  Stanley Kubrick and his great works eventually matched all our criteria to create an interesting piece of work that would be not only good to look at but also interesting to read. There was no commercial or business goal behind the project: only creativity and the wish to share something cool and useful with the others.

It was Stanley Kubrick’s 90th anniversary when we started to work on Kubrick Life in 2018. It was a great honor for us to be the ones who eternalize his art on a well-designed website. Considering that Stanley Kubrick is one of the most influential filmmakers in history, we thought that there are a lot of admirers who would be thrilled to learn more facts about him and his art. On the other hand, some people might get more interested in Stanley Kubrick once they check kubrick.life.

UX Design Process

The idea was to create a complete and consistent story. Keeping in mind that Kubrick was a great filmmaker, the designers wanted the whole website to feel like a movie, allegorically.

The website features:

• the milestones of Kubrick’s life and career
• chronological filmography
• interesting numbers and facts about the filming process, cast and directors’ nature
• numerous archive photos and film episodes
• gamification elements

The narration was performed in chronological order and featured his films and some interesting facts to make the story of his life more enticing. From one movie story to the other, the readers get familiarized with Kubrick’s traits and techniques as a film director.

Stylistically, the designers added background noise, picked a quite old-school color palette and also worked thoroughly on typography to create this old movie-like feeling.

One of the things to mention is the scroll animations experienced by the readers along all the way. As the website performs as a huge long read, we needed to find a creative way to separate the films so we’ve come up with some unique animations for each film title. Another user-experience aspect is hidden stones like “Escape it” labyrinth that makes the interaction with a website more engaging and fun.

Among the hardest points for designers, there was that all the Kubrick’s films are of different genres and styles, they reveal different times as well. The most challenging aspect was to find a unified style to make all these films look consistent but still unique. They spent almost 3 months choosing the appropriate concept.

To reach “the movie effect” we used the infinite scroll as the main navigation element that takes us through the story of Kubrick’s life and filmography slide by slide. In the end, we found out that our long read is more than 300K pixels long! There is also handy side navigation for a more convenient experience. And some 3D graphics were specially created and integrated into the interface to make some episodes even more atmospheric.

The advantage of the creative team was the absence of time constraints because the project was in-studio and non-commercial. The only issue was to find the needed time and establish the point when the website could be considered done. Anyway, now when the website is live we are still working on polishing it.

The whole website has been built entirely on a Readymag platform with some custom HTML/JS/CSS code injections.

Also, one of our graphic designers Arthur Avakyan, being inspired by the website, created the stylized digital portrait of legendary Stanley Kubrick.

As soon as Kubrick Life was released, the creative team got the recognition from the community: it got the Site of the Day Award on The FWA as well as the Site of the Day and Developer Award on Awwwards. Later, it was also awarded by Webby and Red Dot.

So, welcome to check all the details of Kubrick Life by yourself.

Design Case Studies

If you are interested to see more practical case studies with creative flows for mobile and web design, here is the set of them.

Nature Encyclopedia App. UI Design for Education

Florence App. Illustrations for Healthcare Service

Inspora. Brand and UI Design for Virtual Stylist

Bitex. UX Design for Stock Analysis App

Slumber. Mobile UI Design for Healthy Sleeping

Real Racing. UX and UI Design for Mobile Game

Tasty Burger. UI Design for Food Ordering App

Watering Tracker. UI Design for Home Needs

Originally published in Tubik Blog

Сообщение Design Case Study: Educational Biography Website появились сначала на Design4Users.

Today’s D4U Inspiration post shares the pack of creative designs devoted right to that theme: check the variety of elegant and catchy webpages for exhibition, sports events, workshops, festivals, conferences, concerts, and so on. Welcome to see how UX designers let the website or landing page become an original letter of invitation. Enjoy and get inspired!

The landing page designed by Tubik for the conference where illustrators and digital artists share their experience.

W Festival website design by Sochnik 

Minimalistic landing page concept for a culture event by Cuberto

Website design for the book festival by Tubik

Website design for The Best of Pop Culture event by Sochnik

Landing page for the Bauhaus event by Tubik

Landing page design for Microsoft Events by Unfold

Landing page for circus events by Cuberto

The landing page with custom catchy hero art by Tubik for the modern art exhibition

The landing page design concept for the classical music festival by Mike Creative Mints

The landing page concept for a football match by Tubik

Typography-based creative explorations for the festival website interactions by Sochnik

Landing page for the fashion event by Tubik

Landing page concept for the music event by Beatris Veres

Black-and-white landing page design for a music event by Bethel Design

For more design inspiration, welcome to review the set of ecommerce app designs, educational interfaces, creative logos based on negative space, and impressive packaging design examples.

Сообщение At All Events: Awesome Designs for Event Websites and Landing Pages появились сначала на Design4Users.

What’s a promotional video?

Don’t want to sound obvious still there is no better explanation than to define a promo video as the one created to promote a company or its product. This type of videos is made that way so it could encourage people to buy a certain product or use the services of a company. They are usually small catchy videos showing all facets of a promoted object in the best way to prove people it’s worth of their time and money. Since promotional videos are popular and widely-used, everyone tries to find ways to make their videos original and creative. That’s why designers offer businesses promo videos created in different styles that stand out among thousands of the others because they are unique and catchy.

Types of promo video

Promo videos can serve many business purposes so there are different types each created to achieve certain objectives. For example, one of the most commonly used types of promotional videos is an introduction video. Its aim is to tell people about a business, its offers, and reasons why someone should care about it. An intro promo video works best for startups willing to present themselves and interest their potential clients. This type of video needs to be informative still short and entertaining so that it could catch the viewer’s attention.

Next type having popularity among companies is a product presentation video. Many businesses are looking for creative ways to tell about their products and a custom promo video is a trending tool now. The video can shortly present product features and tell about its value for users. Another type combines features of the two previous. These are landing page videos which aim at driving users to take expected actions such as purchasing or signing up. They usually are meant to present some unique offers which people can get by taking certain action like leaving contacts or else.

To gain people’s trust, companies often share testimonials from satisfied clients on their websites. Video testimonials are an effective way to show that a company is trustworthy and can bring values. One more approach to product promoting is short entertaining videos. This type usually doesn’t seem like promo videos because it isn’t centered on a product or a company. The videos are meant to catch people on the emotional level by showing funny, heart-moving, or thoughtful video pieces having a short plot and a promoted product can appear as a secondary element. Quite often, if done and introduced originally, the videos of this sort get viral and present additional support to the brand.

All the types of promo videos can serve as effective marketing tools. However, a company needs to choose the type accurately according to business tasks that the video is meant to accomplish.

Product presentation video for Toonie Alarm

Is a custom promo video profitable for businesses?

Custom promotional video creation requires time, money, and effort to spend, so obviously many companies are concerned with the question “What benefits will we receive from it?”. Here is the answer.

People perceive video faster than copy. Psychological research shows that human brain processes video material much faster than text. It means that people need to take more effort to read a copy of company’s offers rather than watch a video. That’s why, by placing a presentation promo video on a website, a company increases the chances that more people will know about their product. Also, a quality video can accurately transfer the message which a company wants to tell to its possible customers.

Video increases conversion rates. Since people perceive video better than text, they are more likely to be influenced by it. It is easier to gain users’ trust when they are able to see how the product works in a real time. If people trust a company and are interested in their offers, they more willingly take action such as signing up or trying a demo. What’s more, a powerful promo video is an effective way to retain users longer rather than a great amount of copy.

Good search engine results. A major part of the Internet content consists of text data. Video content has less competition so the users searching keywords are more likely to find a video on the first page. To achieve even better results, a promo video needs to have well-thought SEO with the appropriate keywords in the headline, tags, description, etc.

Better social sharing. People are crazy about nice videos and the thing they like even more is sharing these videos with their friends. Videos are mobile and easy to share, the reason why it can be easily spread across social networks. Businesses should keep in mind that buyers are the best marketers they have, so it’s vital to encourage users to share the links.

Video receives real-time feedback. Internet users like commenting videos and discussing it with the others. It allows a company to see what people say about them and their product. Analyzing the feedbacks, a company can make significant improvements.

Better branding recognition. If a company creates an interesting and original video, people are more likely to remember them. The thing is that video has the influence on the visual memory as well as the echoic one so the chances that users will recognize a brand increase twice compared to elements that are perceived only visually.

Creative video helps to stand out from the competition. Video marketing isn’t a new approach, even more, it’s been a top tool for decades. However, technology is evolving and so do approaches to video creation. Original and quality video can help a company stand out from competitors.

Promo video for PassFold project designed and animated by Tubik team

Promo video pitfalls to consider

Certainly, there is no ideal approach to product marketing: considering video as a promo tool, you need to keep in mind possible pitfalls it may bring. First of all, the creation of a powerful promotional video requires spending money and time. To make an effective video, professionals need to handle many processes: from scripting and video recording to video and sound editing. Original video will need unique graphic material and high-quality animation, so if a company wants a quality video, it must be ready to invest in it.

In case a company decided to make a promo video, they need to make sure it’s done right. Bad quality video can affect brand reputation almost as hard as a bad quality product. Also, promotional videos have to be useful and interesting otherwise the users may consider it as disrespect to their time which is also not the best thing for company or brand image.

One more thing you need to think about once you’ve applied a promo video is that not all people would like to spend their time watching it. It means that there must be another way for buyers how to learn about a product. It can be a short piece of copy that users could quickly scan and decide whether they’re interested or not.

And, finally, we shouldn’t forget about the technical side. High-quality videos can overload the server of the website so it works slowly. When you include a video as a content element, it should be thoroughly tested on different devices and conditions. It helps to make sure there will be no technical problems that may make users frustrated.

Case Studies

In the end of 2016, Opera, a web browser developed by Opera Software, presented their promo video devoted to their achievements over the past year. It was a short animated video called «Opera 2016: Year in Review» with illustrations showing their acquirements. To make this project done, Opera Software collaborated with the Tubik design team.

The main idea of this project was to create a positive and cheerful video presenting the fresh innovative features the company added in the web browser during the past year. It was agreed that the video must consist of illustrations accomplished in the 3D flat style and lush colors. Each illustration would present lifestyle object composition devoted to a specific month when a feature was delivered. The accent was made on the typography since Opera wanted to emphasize the useful opportunities their users have now. That’s why designers come up with the decision that animation of the elements should be minimalistic so that it couldn’t distract users. Here is the result.

Welcome to read a detailed case study on Opera video production.

Another case study to remember was participation in video production process for Binned, a USA-based service supporting cleaner and healthier environment for the local community by washing and deodorizing the trash bins outdoors. The idea to support the brand promotion with the short, bright and catchy animated video was absolutely logical for this case: trashbins cleaning is not the topic to which people are ready to devote their precious time and read about all the benefits. Meanwhile, the promo video with funny and friendly characters could become a good way to inform the potential users of the service about all its advantages in short seconds.  Moreover, activating multiple directions of perception, video was found impactful in stimulating positive emotional appeal which was to the client’s liking. Here’s the final video.

Welcome to read a detailed case study on Binned video production.

All in all, videos have taken a big part in our life, the reason why we should take all the benefits from it. Stay tuned!

Recommended reading

Step by Step Guide to Custom Promo Video Design.

Beginner’s Guide to Online Video Marketing: Making a Video (Part 1)

How Ecommerce Businesses Can Generate Organic Traffic with Video Marketing

The Top 16 Video Marketing Statistics for 2016

27 Video Stats For 2017

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Benefits and Pitfalls of Promo Videos for Web появились сначала на Design4Users.

What’s typography?

Typography is something bigger than just a design technique. A Canadian typographer, Robert Bringhurst, in his book The Elements of Typographic Style defines typography as the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form. In addition, typography transforms language into a decorative visual element.

Typography has a much longer history than the design or the Internet itself. First, it appeared approximately in the 11-12 centuries when people invented movable type system. A real typography revolution started after the Gutenberg Bible, the first major book printed via movable metal type, which marked the beginning of the age of the printed book in the West. The style of type used in Gutenberg Bible is now known as Textualis (Textura) and Schwabacher.

Nowadays, it is more than just copy printing and organization. Commonly, typography is defined as the art and science of font style, appearance, and structure which aims at delivering the aesthetic and easily readable copy to readers. Not that long ago, it was a specialized study for editorial office workers but now science is applied in different spheres and plays a significant role in the design.

The role of typography in design

Can you think of at least one example of web or mobile design without copy elements? It’s difficult, right? Still, just a presence of copy in the interface is not enough for effective UI and positive UX. Copy and its appearance should be well-thought otherwise it may spoil the design. There are designers who ignore typography studies because they think it’s too difficult to understand so it isn’t worth spending much time. However, typography is an essential part of effective design. Let’s see why.

People got used to receiving the majority of information in text form and designers need to make this process easy and productive. The basic knowledge of typography can help to comprehend the peculiarities of font visual presentation and its influence on users’ perception.

The effective copy is a key to the powerful design. Its effectiveness depends not only on its content but also on how it is presented. Font size, width, color, and text structure – all of that matter. Designers can transfer certain mood or message by choosing appropriate fonts and the ways of their presentation. This way typography helps the design to communicate with people. Visual performance and readability of copy in digital products have the great impact on user experience. If fonts are badly legible, people can face problems with navigation or even worse can’t use it at all. Today poor user experience in digital products is unforgiven since users can easily find a better alternative.

In addition, bad typography significantly affects the first impression because even when users don’t read copy, they scan it. In case fonts look inappropriate people may not want to learn about your offer or use your product.

Essential typography elements

To create profound typography, you need to learn its anatomy and the processes typography building requires. Let’s see.

Font and Typeface

Nowadays, many designers use terms “font” and “typeface” as the synonyms but that’s not quite right. Let’s straighten it out. A typeface is a style of type design which includes a complete scope of characters in all sizes and weight. On the other hand, a font is a graphical representation of text character usually introduced in one particular typeface, size, and weight. In other words, a typeface is something like a family and fonts are parts of it. These two are the main objects which designers and typographers change and transform to create readable and aesthetic typography. More about typeface styles will be presented here soon for our readers.

Mean line and baseline

Typically, type characters are placed in a straight line creating a neat visual presentation. The main tools assisting designers in the process are mean line and baseline. The first marks the top and the other bottom of a character body. Such lines allow creating fonts even. Of course, the lines are invisible in interfaces after designers finish their work.

Character measurement (size, weight, and height)

To separate different types of information and highlight the vital points, designers apply fonts in different weight and size. The type weight is a measurement of how thick type character is. The sizes are usually measured in inches, millimeters, or pixels. The height of the character is also called “x-height” because the body of every character in one size is based on the letter “x”. This approach makes them look even. It’s easy to segregate copy elements such as heading, sub-heading and body copy by varying these parameters.

Ascender and Descender

The ascender is a part of a letter that goes above the mean line like in a letter “b” or “d”. The descender is opposite to ascender. It’s a segment that extends below the baseline like in “q” or “g”.

White space

White space, also known as negative space, is the area between elements in a design composition. Readers aren’t usually aware of the great role of the space, but designers pay a lot of attention to it. In case the white space is not balanced, a copy will be hard to read. That’s why negative space matters as much as any other typography element.

Alignment

Creating effective typography is not that easy and it includes many processes. For example, alignment is an action of placing and justifying text. During the stage, designers aim at transforming randomly placed pieces of text into one unified composition.

Tracking

The process of tracking involves adjustment of space for a group of type characters which form a word and text block. A designer set appropriate spacing for all letters, making copy feel airy and pleasant to the eye. The effective tracking makes letters in a word easily readable.

Kerning

Kerning is a bit similar to tracking still they aren’t the same. Tracking means is spacing between all the characters of font while kerning is the process of adjusting the space between two type characters. It is usually applied for individual cases when a designer decides to change the spacing between two specific letters to make it feel more natural.

Leading

Leading is the spacing between the baselines of copy. The appropriate leading helps readers easily go from one text line to another and makes big pieces of text legible. In design, the standard leading is 120% the point size of the font still it can vary according to the typeface peculiarities.

Typographic hierarchy

As any other design element, typography should be structured. Typographic hierarchy is a system that organizes copy content in the best way for users’ perception first of all via modifications and the combination of typefaces and fonts. It is aimed at creating a contrast between the most meaningful and prominent copy elements which should be noticed first and ordinary text information. The contrast is created by regulating typography elements including typefaces, fonts, sizes, and colors as well as their alignment.

The Gourmet Website

Typographic hierarchy is presented with common types of copy content used in UI design. They are headlines, subheaders, body copy, call-to-action elements, captions, and others. These copy elements create distinct layers in design: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

The primary level of copy content includes the biggest type like in headlines. It strives at drawing the user’s attention to the product. The secondary level consists of copy elements which can be easily scanned. Those are subheaders and captions which allow users to quickly navigate through the content. And the tertiary level of typography includes body text and the other information. It is often presented with the small type still it should be readable enough. The typography layers assist users to learn copy content gradually step by step without effort and get oriented in the digital product.

The Big Landscape

Typography cannot be learned in one day. It requires constant studying and persistence. Follow Tubik blog updates and learn more about typography in design.

Recommended reading

Robert Bringhurst “The Elements of Typographic Style Paperback”

Erik Spiekermann “FontBook”

Simon Garfield “Just My Type: A Book About Fonts”

Tips on Applying Copy Content in User Interfaces

Every Design Needs Three Levels of Typographic Hierarchy

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Typography in UI: Guide for Beginners появились сначала на Design4Users.

In the issue of UI/UX glossary devoted to the web design terms, we have already provided a brief overview of what is a header. Today let’s look a bit closer at the topic and discuss what are the functions of a header and recommendations for its design. In addition, we will show a bunch of web design concepts applying different approaches to header design.

What is a header?

In web page layout, header is the upper (top) part of the web page. It is definitely a strategic part of the page as the area which people see before scrolling the page in the first seconds of introduction to the website. Being somehow a sign of invitation, header should provide the core information about the digital product so that users could scan it in split seconds. In the design perspective, the header is also the area making the broad field for creative design solutions that should be catchy, concise, and useful. Headers are often referred to as «Site Menus» and positioned as a key element of navigation in the website layout.

Comics Shop Home Page

The presented concept shows the home page for the online bookshop selling comics. The top horizontal area aka header presents the logo lettering showing the name of the website and the core navigation around: links to the catalog of items, fresh and special offers, blog, action figures, an icon of the shopping cart typical e-commerce websites and the icon of search.

What can a header include?

Headers can include a variety of meaningful layout elements, for example:

• basic elements of brand identity: logo, brand name lettering, slogan or company statement, corporate mascot, photo presenting the company or its leader, corporate colors etc.
• copy block setting the theme of the product or service presented
• links to basic categories of website content
• links to the most important social networks
• basic contact information (telephone number, e-mail etc.)
• switcher of the languages in case of multi-lingual interface
• search field
• subscription field
• links to interaction with the product such as trial version, downloading from the AppStore, etc.

It doesn’t mean that all the mentioned elements should be included in one web page header: in this case, the risk is high that the header section would be overloaded with information. The more objects attract the user’s attention, the harder it is to concentrate on the vital ones. On the basis of design tasks, designers, sometimes together with marketing specialists, decide on the strategically important options and pick them up from the list or add the others.

Let’s have a look at a couple of examples to see which of the mentioned elements designers placed in the header for particular websites.

Bjorn Website

This is the website of an interior design studio. The upper part of the page presents the sticky header which stays in the zone of visual perception all the time in the process of scrolling. It is divided into two blocks: the left part features brand logo while the right part presents the interactive area with links to several information blocks like “Product”, “Studio” and “Press” and call-to-action button “Shop” marked out with a shape. The central part of the header uses negative space for visual separation of these two blocks.

Event Agency Webpage

Here is another sample of the webpage with a bit different approach to the header design. This time the composition is built around the center featuring the logo and brand name. Left and right side are balanced around it with two links each allowing users to scan quickly and move to the information blocks they are interested in.

Why is header important?

There are several issues why the header is a vital element of many websites.

The first thing to consider is eye-scanning models which show how users interact with a webpage in the first seconds. This significant domain of user research is massively supported by Nielsen Norman Group and provides designers and usability specialists with the better understanding of user behavior and interactions.

In brief, when people visit the website, especially the first time, they do not explore everything on the page carefully and in detail: they scan it to find a hook that would catch their attention and convince them to spend some time on the website. Different experiments collecting data on user eye-tracking have shown that there are several typical models along which visitors usually scan the website. In the article about 3 design layouts, the author Steven Bradley mentions the following common models: Gutenberg Diagram, Z-Pattern, And F-Pattern. Let’s check what are the schemes provided for them in the research.

Guttenberg Pattern is quite typical for the web pages with the uniform presentation of information and weak visual hierarchy. As can be seen from the scheme we found in Steven Bradley’s research, it marks out four active zones – and two of them go across the typical header area.

Another scheme features Z-pattern and the presented zig-zag version is typical for pages with visually divided content blocks. Again, the reader’s eyes go left to right starting from the upper left corner and moving across all the page to the upper right corner scanning the information in this initial zone of interaction.

One more model is F-pattern presented in the explorations by Nielsen Norman Group and showing that users often demonstrate the following flow of interaction:

• Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F’s top bar.
• Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F’s lower bar.
• Finally, users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid stripe on an eye-tracking heatmap. Other times users move faster, creating a spottier heatmap. This last element forms the F’s stem.

All the mentioned models show that whichever of them a particular user follows, the scanning process will start in the top horizontal area of the webpage. Using it for showing the core information and branding is a strategy supporting both sides: readers scan the key data quickly while the website gets the chance to retain them if it’s presented properly. That is the basic reason why header design is an essential issue for UI/UX designers as well as content and promotion specialists.

In one of the articles devoted to practices of header design, its author Bogdan Sandu mentions an important point that should be kept in mind: “People judge the quality of a website in just a few seconds and a second impression is something absent on the Internet. In conclusion, a website must be eye-catching else, it would be nothing more than a big failure”.

Another thing to consider is that the header can become a great help in presenting the essential data to the user quickly and providing positive user experience via clear navigation. However, that doesn’t mean that every website needs a header. There are many creative solutions providing designs applying typical header functionality in other zones of the layout. Every case of website design needs analysis and research of the target audience for the product or service.

Design practices

Readability and visual hierarchy

The choice of typefaces for headers and the background color should get under highly rigorous research and testing as the aspect of readability in header plays a vital role. The user has to be able to scan and perceive this basic information as fast as possible without any sort of additional effort. Otherwise, you risk providing the non-user-friendly interface.

Daily Bugle Online Magazine

The design concept for a news website presented above features the header including the title of the website as a central element of the composition, two active links to basic categories of publications, link to live mode and search field marked with a magnifier icon.

The Big Landscape

Here is another website whose layout is built on the broken grid, so the header corresponds to this approach. The left part of the header is visually longer and consists of four elements: the logo and the links to three data blocks, while the right part is shorter and includes only two layout elements: search and call-to-action button market out with the shape and colored for the high level of contrast.

One more thing to remember is that there are different ways for a header to transform in the process of scrolling the page down. Some websites use a fixed header, which always stays visible and active at any point of interaction with the website; others hide the header in the process of scrolling. There are also websites which do not fully hide the header but shrink it in size in the process of scrolling, which means that they hide secondary information and leave only the core elements of the layout active and available during all the process of interaction.

Hamburger menu

Another design solution that is quite popular in the perspective of header functionality is hiding basic links of data categories behind the hamburger button. It is called so as its form consisting of horizontal lines looks like a typical bread-meat-bread hamburger.

This button is usually placed in the header and nowadays it is a typical element of interaction. Most users who visit and use websites on a regular basis know that this button hides the core categories of data so this trick does not need additional explanations and prompts. Hamburger menus free the space making the interface more minimalistic and full of air as well as save the place for other important layout elements. This design technique also provides additional benefits for responsive and adaptive design hiding navigation elements and making the interface look harmonic on different devices.

Ice Website

The presented web design concept shows the version of the hamburger menu. As the menu of the website contains many positions, the designer uses this technique placing the hamburger button in the area of initial interaction – top left corner. It allows creating the header supporting the general minimalistic style of the website. The horizontal area of the header is divided into two zones: the left zone presents branding and a short introduction of the website colored in red and keeping visual consistency with the visual performance of the headline and call-to-action element of the page; the right zone features icons of social networks and a search icon. The central part of the header is left empty which adds some air and balance to its design and works as a negative space separating two different functional blocks.

Slopes Website

This design concept presents the website with an original structure of the page, leaving the wide light margin on the left part of the page, with the brand name and logo in the top left part which is the first point of scanning. The other part presents an interactive zone and has its own header composition: hamburger button to the left and four core links of transition to the right. As this example of interaction shows, the hamburger menu allows the designer to organize numerous theme blocks of information and provide an effective visual hierarchy.

Although hamburger menus still belong to highly debatable issues of modern web and app design, they are still widely used as header elements. The arguments against the hamburger menu are based on the fact that this design element can be confusing for people who do not use websites regularly and can get misled with the sign which features a high level of abstraction. So the decision about applying the hamburger button should be made after user research and definition of target audience’s abilities and needs.

Fixed (Sticky) header

Sticky headers present another trend able to boost usability is applied effectively. Actually, it enables to provide users with navigation area available at any point of interactions, which can be helpful in terms of content-heavy pages with long scrolling.

Architecture blog

The presented design concept of a website has a fixed header that doesn’t hide while the page is scrolled. However, it follows minimalism principles featuring brand name lettering as a center of the composition, magnifier icon marking search functionality, and hamburger button hiding links to navigation areas.

Photography workshops website

Here is one more design concept featuring a creative approach to the header design. The initial view of the home page includes the extremely minimalistic header: it shows only social icons and the search. However, scrolling down users get the sticky header with quite a traditional set of navigation items: the first element to see on the top left part is hamburger button hiding the extended menu, then branding sign followed by the links to thematic information blocks. The composition is finished with the search placed in the top-right part of the page in all the processes of interaction with the page and supporting the feeling of consistency.

Double menu

Double menu in the header can present two layers of navigation. We have shown the example of such a trick in one of the recent case studies for a bakery website.

Vinny’s Bakery

As you can see, the website also uses a sticky header which consists of two levels of navigation. The upper menu shows the links to social networks, the logo, search, shopping cart, and hamburger button hiding the extended menu. The second line of navigation gives an instant connection to the core interaction areas: product catalog, locations for the point-of-sales, news and special offers, information about the service, and contact section. Visual and typographic hierarchy makes all the elements clear and easily scanned providing solid ground for positive user experience.

The bottom line is simple here: the header of any website is the strategically vital zone of interaction for any website. Each particular case requires its own approach which will be informative and usable for the specific target audience. User research can provide the good basis for the design solutions which can follow quite traditional forms of header organization or require totally new perspective.

Recommended reading

Here is a bunch of links to the articles and design collections which could provide further interesting explorations of the topic:

3 Design Layouts: Gutenberg Diagram, Z-Pattern, And F-Pattern

F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content

Sticky Header Usability: Making Menus Part of a Great User Experience

30 Interesting Examples Of Headers In Web Design

Headerlove: curated collection of headers design

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Best Design Practices for Website Headers появились сначала на Design4Users.

To create good design and employ colors more effectively, you need to understand how colors are formed and how they relate to each other. That’s why students at art schools, colleges, and universities study the science of color theory devoted to colors’ nature. Today, we offer you to remember (or maybe even learn) the basics of color theory about the color combination which can be effectively applied in your design creating process.

Color Wheel

If you had any lessons related to painting, you must have seen the circle consisting of different colors. It is called the color wheel which helps to understand how different colors relate to each other and how they can be combined. The color circle is usually built of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. The primary are those three pigment colors that can not be formed by any combination of other colors. Combining primary colors, we get the secondary ones, and the mix of the primary and secondary colors gives us the tertiary colors which usually have two-word names such as red-violet.

The color circle was created in 1666 by Isaac Newton in a schematic way and since then it has gone through many transformations but still remains the main tool for color combination. The main idea is that the color wheel must be made that way so colors would be mixed appropriately.

Color models

Before you start mixing colors you need to understand that color has two different natures: the tangible colors which are the surface of objects and the others which are produced by light such as the beams of TV. These types create two color models by which the color wheel is formed: additive and subtractive.

The additive color model considers red, blue, and green as primary colors so it’s also known as RGB color system. This model is the basis of all colors used on the screen. The combination of primary colors in equal proportions of this system produces secondary colors which are cyan, magenta and yellow, but you need to remember that the more light you add, the brighter and lighter the color becomes. Results obtained by mixing additive colors are often counterintuitive for people accustomed to the subtractive color system of paints, dyes, inks and other tangible objects.

The subtractive color model obtains colors by the subtraction of light. It consists of two color systems. The first is RYB (red, yellow, blue) also known as artistic system often used in art education, especially in painting. RYB was the basis for the modern scientific color theory which determined that cyan, magenta, and yellow are the most effective set of three colors to combine. This is how the color model CMY has been formed. It was mostly used in printing and when the photomechanical printing included black ink, the key component, the system was named CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). Without this additional pigment, the shade closest to black would be muddy brown.

Source

Additive vs subtractive

You should remember the major difference between these two systems: additive is for digital screens and subtractive for print media. If the design project you are working on is meant to be printed, don’t forget the simple but crucial rule: colors you see on the screen never look the same in print. Additive color spectrum is wider than CMYK, which is the reason why designers are recommended to convert their projects to the subtractive system of colors before printing so that they could see the result close to what they would get. However, if you work with digital products, RGB color system is the wise choice because it allows creating amazing things with its wide color spectrum.

Color Harmony

The word “harmony” usually associates with something orderly and pleasing. The color harmony is about the arrangement of the colors in design in the most attractive and effective way for users’ perception. When colors are organized, viewers feel pleased and calm, while disharmony in design gives the feeling of chaos and disgust. The color balance is vital in design since users make their impression of the website or application by the first look, and colors have a big influence. Designers distinguished the basic color schemes that work effectively.

Monochromatic

It is based on one color with various tones and shades of it. The monochromatic harmony is always a winning choice since it’s hard to make a mistake and create a distasteful color scheme.

Deetu Business Cards

Analogous

To create analogous harmony, you need to use colors located right next to each other on the color wheel. This type of color scheme is used for the design where no contrast is needed including the background of web pages or banners.

Night in Berlin App

Complementary

The complementary scheme is the mix of colors placed in front of each other on the color wheel. This scheme is opposite to analogous and monochromatic since it aims to produce high contrast. For example, the orange button on the blue background is hard to miss in any interface.

Rome Illustration

Split-Complementary

This scheme works similar to the previous one but it employs more colors. For instance, if you choose the blue color you need to take two others which are adjacent to its opposite color meaning yellow and red. The contrast here is less sharp than in complementary scheme but it allows using more colors.

Be Bright App

Triadic

When the design requires more colors you can try triadic scheme. It is based on three separate colors which are equidistant on the color wheel. To save the balance in with this scheme, it is recommended to use one color as a dominant, the other as accents.

Toonie Halloween Stickers

Tetradic/Double-Complementary

The tetradic color scheme is for experienced designers since it is the most difficult to balance. It employs four colors from the wheel which are complementary pairs. If you connect the points on the chosen colors they form the rectangle. The scheme is hard to harmonize but if you do everything right, the results may be stunning.

MoneyWise App

Color theory is a complex science that requires more than one day to learn. However, it is vital to understand the basics so that you could create an effective design with the knowledge of what you’re doing.

Recommended reading

Here are some materials we could recommend for those who would like to get deeper into the topic:

Design for Diversity of Cultures: Color Perception
Color in Design: Influence on User Behavior
Design Tips: How to Choose Colors for Interface
3C of UI Design: Color, Contrast, Content
How Shape and Color Work in Logo Design

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Color Theory: Brief Guide for Designers появились сначала на Design4Users.