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.

Crypto Blog

Cryptocurrencies present a hot and trendy theme to discuss and research these days, and this web design lets us also add two cents to it. Here are some pages for the blog about the crypto world. Stylish composition echoing traditional broadsheets layout, readable and elegant fonts, a minimalistic palette with cool color accents and trendy images — all that helps to transfer the idea of the quality and informative resource which is easy to use and stands out of the crowd.

Web Editorial About Insomnia

This web design was created for the online editorial to reflect the actual and globally known issue of insomnia, which significantly influences human health, both physical and mental. It’s easy to see that typography becomes the most prominent element of the design concept, not only sharing the information but also setting the atmosphere at once. Impressive manipulations with typographic elements become a part of the design approach and greatly impact setting of the mood and emotional background, which is also massively transferred by the thematic photo video content. Also, the trendy menu design, smooth and captivating, sometimes even hypnotic motion graphics, and color palette setting the visual connection with evening and night time contribute to the website’s elegance and visitors’ engagement.

Illuminating Radioactivity Educational Website

Illuminating Radioactivity is an educational web resource covering different aspects of radioactivity, designed by tubik and developed in partnership with the Bombshelltoe Arts and Policy Collective and the Stimson Center. The interactive home page, original typography, uncommon layouts, catchy images, thought-out data visualization ideas, and many other details helped present the topic from a much broader and more engaging perspective.

Read more about the design process and solutions in the web design case study.

Blog Layout Explorations

This web design concept demonstrates the layout exploration for the featured article based on a nuanced monochromatic palette, sophisticated typography, and photo content, creating the proper mood.

Art Institute Blog Design

Feel the power of sophistication as this web design project is literally made from it: that’s the look at the web page layout explorations for the blog devoted to art in its diverse manifestations. The airy layout, beautiful and prominent photo content, and elegant typography let the visitors catch the artistic vibes from the first second.

Geography and Ecology Blog

This is the user experience design concept for a niche blog devoted to topics connected with the environment, ecology, geography, and the modern state of nature. Here, the design impresses the visitor with spectacular photo and video content, illustrating informative and important text content and enhancing emotional communication with the readers.

Powerful Women Editorial

This design was created for the web editorial, telling the inspiring stories of amazing women who had the power to change the world. Close to design for printed media resources, the user experience is focused on text content elegantly presented with the following aspects:

• a well-thought-out choice of fonts
• stylish and moderate color palette
• prominent photo content, creating the needed atmosphere in split seconds and working in one harmonic composition with the text
• minimalistic and intuitive navigation
• smooth motion
• a solid visual hierarchy that allows for effective scanning and skimming.

Editorial About Generations

This eye-pleasing web design was created for an editorial devoted to different generations. Here, you will find the limited and contrasting color palette, sophisticated typography that makes even text-heavy pages beautiful and readable, airy web page layouts to let users quickly scan the content, and elegant use of imagery instantly creating the atmosphere.

Bartending Encyclopedia Website

This website is devoted to the theme of bartending, telling about various drinks and cocktails. Custom photo content, trendy split-screen structure, and dainty typography make the web pages beautiful and set a strong emotional appeal.

Stop Plastic Editorial

This web design project deals with a hot and important topic of today: our world is overloaded with plastic, and this issue shouts for global attention. Take a look at the original design for the editorial, telling people more about the problem, its influence on nature and our future, and the ways 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.

Skateboarding Culture Editorial

This design was done for the online editorial devoted to skateboarding culture and history. Minimalist layout, bold typography, monochrome color palette, irregular grid, prominent atmospheric images, and archive video content supported with smooth motion – all the mentioned immediately set the needed mood and engage the visitor to learn more.

Book Review Website

Here’s the web interface designed for a book review resource. The elegantly designed pages are based on color contrast, visually separating different content zones, typography ensuring a good level of readability and book cover presentation and smooth animation, making the user experience more lively and dynamic.

Culture Magazine Web Design

Online magazines are getting more and more online presence today, with people using the web to get both information and entertainment. So, for web designers, it raises the challenge to combine digital design trends with traditions of editorial design. Here’s the home page designed for a website of the online magazine about culture. Prominent photo content, trendy asymmetry, unobtrusive navigation, and well-checked readability make the layout elegant, attractive, and easy to use.

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

Tubik Design Collections and Articles

If you want to check more creative sets and useful articles on UX design for web and mobile, here are some of them.

Web Design: 11 Diverse Functional and Awe-Inspiring Website Designs

Dainty UI Design Projects Inspired by Food and Drinks

10 Elegant and Handy User Interface Design Projects

App Design Ideas: 7 Nifty Mobile Application Design Projects

Product Page Design Inspiration: 17 Ecommerce Web Designs

UX Design for Traveling: Impressive Web Design Concepts

23 Impressive Web Design Concepts for Various Business Objectives

UX Design: Types of Interactive Content Amplifying Engagement

Motion in UX Design: 6 Effective Types of Web Animation

5 Pillars of Effective Landing Page Design

The Anatomy of a Web Page: Basic Elements

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic content by tubik

Сообщение Elegant and Informative Web Designs for Media and Editorials появились сначала на Design4Users.

What Are Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are navigation elements used mostly in web design and supporting users in a journey around the website. Due to breadcrumbs, users get aware of where they are on the website and can get used to the website structure easier, which means that breadcrumbs present a tool for better wayfinding. Yet, breadcrumbs don’t replace the primary navigation menu; they present the secondary level of navigation and increase website usability in case it has lots of pages.

Breadcrumbs on the product page on Amazon

Why such a funny name is used for this interactive element? If you think it resembles something from a fairytale rather than from design terminology, you are right. The term echoes Grimm Brothers’ tale about Hansel and Gretel: in it, the characters used breadcrumbs to mark the way home and not get lost. On the web, it works the same way: breadcrumbs visualize the path or the users’ journey from the perspective of the website hierarchy. That’s why they are also called a breadcrumb trail.

Types of Breadcrumbs

As for classification, there are three basic types of breadcrumbs:

Location-based: they show the visitors where they are according to a website hierarchy, usually applied to websites with complex navigation schemes consisting of multiple levels.

Image source

Attribute-based: they show the visitors the trail of attributes of the page they are on.

Image source

Path-based: these show the visitors the trail of steps they took to arrive on the page they are on. This type is often referred to as less effective compared to previous ones and is not recommended to apply.

Why Use Breadcrumbs

Among the benefits of breadcrumbs as a navigation element, we would mention the following.

• increased findability: the more complex is the website architecture, the more content it has, the better organized it should be to be found quickly. Breadcrumbs give users another touchpoint to the content and help to understand the structure of the website easier
• fewer clicks needed: with breadcrumbs, website visitors can jump from one level of the hierarchy to any previous step with no effort and no need to take all the way back, which means it takes fewer clicks and transitions to reach the page they want
• effective use of screen space: crafted well, breadcrumbs take a narrow horizontal line with plain-looking text elements that don’t need much space, so users get navigated but designers have no need to overload the page
• no misinterpretation: breadcrumbs present the element which is hardly ever misunderstood by users: the behavior pattern for them has solidified through years and people rarely mistake this element for anything else
• lower bounce rate: breadcrumbs are great support for first-time visitors or people that have no everyday experience of dealing with complex websites, so the more confident they feel the slimmer are the chances of them bouncing the page. What’s more, it’s an effective way of engagement for the users directed to a particular landing page: seeing it as a part of the bigger structure shown via breadcrumbs, users can get interested in jumping to other pages and seeing more.

Minimalist product page by tubik for an e-commerce website uses breadcrumbs to follow the typical mental model users expect and help them with quick navigation.

Design Practices for Breadcrumbs

Here’s a bunch of UX design tips and practices that can help to master breadcrumbs as a supportive and handy element of web navigation. Bear in mind that none of these practices is a cure-all to apply for any website: the examples below show you how different products approach this navigation element to cover their priorities.

Don’t use breadcrumbs as the primary navigation

The key rule of thumb for breadcrumbs is using them as an addition to major navigation. They shouldn’t be seen and used as a replacement for global navigation, usually found in the website header or menu. Instead, they support and amplify primary navigation.

Place breadcrumbs above the H1 heading

The most common place where users expect to find breadcrumbs and where they work effectively as a part of the general layout is above the H1 heading. It may be the name of the category, the product, the article’s title, etc. Sure, not all the pages have visually defined H1 headings; in this case, designers find the most appropriate place, typically in the top part of the layout.

For instance, on the George website, the product page features the classic approach to the breadcrumbs: they are placed right above the H1 heading, with a slight line used as a visual divider between them. However, on the category page, which doesn’t have an obvious H1 title, the breadcrumbs just keep at the same position at the layout, below the top navigation, and visual dividers help to clearly separate the trail from other navigation elements and filters.

Consider starting a breadcrumb trail with a link to the home page

Noticeable and easy-to-reach link to the home page that allows the user to jump to the website’s main page from any point of the journey is still an essential part of web navigation. Although more and more users are getting used to the pattern when the logo featured in the website header is clickable and helps to jump to the home page, there are still many those for whom this flow is not obvious. As the breadcrumbs let users quickly define the website hierarchy and their current position in it, it’s logical to start the trail from the main page of the website.

However, if there is a text link to the home page in the primary navigation, for instance, in the header, you don’t need to double it in the breadcrumbs.

As well, in the case of a polyhierarchical website, you may want to concentrate users’ attention on a particular level or category instead of sending them to the home page. For example, Uniqlo starts the trail from the name of the major category user is browsing at the moment, letting the logo in the top left corner do the job of moving visitors to the home page.

Make the current location look non-clickable (or don’t show it)

There are two different approaches to the last item of the breadcrumb trail: you may show the name of the current page or finish it with the previous step, which means that the current page’s name isn’t shown at all. Whatever your choice, make sure that all the elements cover a particular goal and help users. If you suppose that adding the current location to the breadcrumbs is necessary to support usability, make it clear that it’s not clickable and thus looks different from the interactive elements. For the mobile experience, it’s better not to show the current location at all, as the screen space is very limited.

On the contrary, for all the other elements of the breadcrumb trail, make it obvious that they look clickable and are clickable.

Example of a breadcrumb trail on the Walmart website

Clearly separate the elements

One of the most popular separating symbols for the elements of the breadcrumb trails is the symbol “greater than” (>), which typically defines hierarchy and features the movement from the parent category to the child category. Other frequently used symbols are slash (/), right-angle quotation mark (»), and arrow to the right (→). So, designers do have what to choose from, don’t they? Some also separate breadcrumbs with the color putting them into the colored tabs that imitate the line of elements, each colored in a different shade.

Mind readability and white space

As well as for any text element, the primary goal of breadcrumbs is to make the information packed in written form perceived and absorbed easily and in no time. So, take care of making them highly readable rather than decorative. And make sure there is enough space between the elements so that it is easy to read them, visually separate the pieces of text, and click.

A clear and unobtrusive breadcrumb trail on the Google Support website

Show the website hierarchy instead of the interaction history

Unlike the fairytale characters who used breadcrumbs to mark all their way, web designers would do much more effectively turning to show users the clear hierarchy of the pages instead of all the way they got through to reach this page. Such an approach will always look more logical and, furthermore, will clarify the clear and simple path back for the visitor who could get lost otherwise. What’s more, in this case, breadcrumbs don’t work at all for users who landed on a particular page and didn’t take any steps yet.

As Jacob Nielsen mentioned in his article, “a history trail can also be confusing: users often wander in circles or go to the wrong site sections. Having each point in a confusing progression at the top of the current page doesn’t offer much help.”

Don’t clutter the page with too many elements

What if the breadcrumb trail gets too long? Sure, it won’t be good to overload the page, especially at the secondary navigation level. In the case of the too long breadcrumb trail, some of them in the middle can be hidden behind the ellipsis. But never hide the first and the last element so as not to break the logic.

In his article about breadcrumbs, Alex Zlatkus recommends not to let breadcrumbs take more than half of the page and think about such a shortening with an ellipsis inside when the trails get more than 5 items.

Image source

Sure, the final decision is up to the designers of the particular project. It should be based on usability testing, as there can be different creative design solutions that allow for organizing longer breadcrumb trails effectively.

Don’t emphasize breadcrumbs visually in the webpage layout

If you feel the urge to find a super bright and catchy solution for the breadcrumbs, consider refocusing that on the other object of the web page layout. Breadcrumbs are not the primer violin in this show; that’s not the goal behind them, so keep them stylish but moderate. No need for bright accents, bigger sizes, and impressive fonts – breadcrumbs should just provide the secondary level of wayfinding, not scream into users’ faces distracting them from more important things that solve users’ problems.

For example, the OldNavy website uses super minimalist and non-distractive breadcrumbs placed in the top left corner right below the header with primary navigation, this way sticking to a common left-to-right reading and scanning pattern. That makes breadcrumbs almost unnoticed when you don’t need them but easily found when needed.

Don’t use multiple lines of breadcrumbs on mobile

The most precious asset of any mobile app screen is space. So, optimizing your website for mobile, take special care about that aspect: if the breadcrumbs trail is just copied from the website to mobile, it may take several lines, and this way snips off the big part of the limited screen space. So, by that, you get into the higher risk that some critical elements, for example, the name of the product on the product page or the introductory text, won’t be seen at once just due to the lack of space.

Don’t apply breadcrumbs to the websites with a flat or simple hierarchy

As well as with internal website search, breadcrumbs are needed and helpful in cases when the website has multiple pages and a complex hierarchy consisting of multiple layers. Breadcrumbs are common – and expected by users – in big e-commerce websites and platforms, media and news websites, blogs, and magazines covering a wide range of topics, etc. If that’s not your case and your website has a simple hierarchy, primary navigation will be enough to let the users effectively interact with it.

Example of a breadcrumb trail on the California State University website

Breadcrumbs present the perfect example of how much details matter in user experience design for the web. Being far from primary and critical functionality but approached thoughtfully and crafted well, this interaction element can contribute much to making interactions easier and user-centered. Nevertheless, think twice and test twice before deciding upon them, as there may be more effective secondary navigation options to solve a particular task for a certain project.

Useful Articles

Here’s a bunch of articles to dive deeper into the theme of web usability and user experience design.

5 Basic Types of Images for Web Content

The Anatomy of a Web Page: 14 Basic Elements

UX Design: How to Make Web Interface Scannable

How to Design Effective Search

Web Design: 16 Basic Types of Web Pages

Directional Cues in User Interfaces

Negative Space in Design: Tips and Best Practices

Error Screens and Messages: UX Design Practices

From Zero to Hero: Look at Hero Images in Web Design

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

Сообщение Web Design Usability: How To Use Breadcrumbs появились сначала на Design4Users.

What Is Interface Error

Interface error is the state or condition when the app cannot do what the user wants. It usually happens in three typical cases:

• the app fails to do what’s requested (literally, like there is no such technical possibility or function)
• the app cannot understand the input from the user (or the input is invalid)
• the user tries to combine operations that cannot work together (that usually happens because the user isn’t aware of the processes inside the app)

Sure, errors present a kind of annoying or even frustrating part of the user experience. Yet, there is no way to avoid them, so designers, developers, and UX writers have to think about ways to make that kind of interaction more user-friendly and smooth. Why is that important? Because, as well as in real life, virtual mistakes make a significant psychological impact and form a negative emotional background. For example, the research measuring the psychological stress caused by smartphone interactions showed a direct connection between appearing error messages and the level of cortisol, a known biomarker of stress. It can increase anxiety feeling and provoke a user to stop trying to interact with the product before they even start analyzing what’s the reason. So, let’s see what to do with those situations.

This is what the error of filling out the subscription form on Tubik Blog website looks

Best UX Practices for Errors

Errors are like fights: the best one is the one that never happened. There are different strategies for error prevention, like tooltips, prompts, tutorials, directional cues, suggestions, highlights, limitations, and the like. Yet, what should you do with users that already experience the error? Let’s cover some points that are effective in designing errors that wouldn’t make the user instantly turn their back to your app.

Make the error instantly noticeable

It may seem obvious, but don’t get tricked by it: what seems obvious has to be thought about twice. The worst thing that may happen about the error is when the user is totally uninformed about what’s going on and gets lost in the process. Be always honest with the user, and don’t try to mask the error. Even if the interface is super minimalist and any alien inclusion hurts your perfectionist designer’s eye and soul. Beauty doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work.

For example, if the user is filling the form made of 10 different fields, don’t just inform them that the form is not filled correctly, don’t make them search from one field to another where they made a mistake, and don’t hope they will do it. Make the field with a mistake super visible and save users’ energy and time.

Use well-recognized visual markers

Knowing mental models and well-known patterns of user behavior, user experience designers can reduce the cognitive load. That’s particularly essential in error situations that are quite unpleasant by default. Error screens and messages may not be the best place for experiments, so consider markers that are quickly recognized by most users. The red color and exclamation marks are still among the most popular ways to attract users’ attention to errors. Yet, be careful using the color as the only way to mark the error: check if it works for color-blind users. Also, mind the high level of readability on different devices.

Here’s how the registration error is marked on ArtStation: the system marks the field with color and explains the issue with a text prompt.

Explain what happened

Whatever the reason for the error, you may feel the urge not to explain anything, just to proceed with solving the issue. And that’s a mistake. Firstly, you risk getting a user back in this error situation again and again as they don’t understand what is wrong with their actions or app response. Secondly, we’ve already mentioned that errors literally provoke a psychological state of anxiety, and you may not predict if this error becomes a part of the wrong interaction pattern. So, be sure to find a way to quickly explain the nature of the error and keep users informed. For instance, instead of just informing (“You cannot log in to the app”), make the message explanatory like (“The username or password do not match”).

Don’t add more actions than needed

Another thing you may feel like doing is putting all the errors on separate pages or pop-up windows to make them as catchy as possible. Don’t overplay with it: in most cases, it’s enough just to make a color contrast marker in the interactive zone instead of popping up the additional modal window with the message requiring another unnecessary click to get the user back to the same page. Imagine that you are filling in the registration form and get that kind of pop-up for errors; no doubt, you will hate it very fast. Don’t make your users experience that: aim at providing inline validation and keep the message close to the field in error.

Yet, a pop-up window will be helpful if the user needs to be redirected to another page because of the error. So, for each case, take into account all pros and cons and target your solutions well.

This is how the error is marked on the Tubik website when the user tries to complete sending the contact form without adding an email.

Write simply

It’s crucial to make the error message as simple and clear as possible. Clear for the target user, not for the designers or developers creating that product. Avoid special terminology and jargon which you may use with QA engineers, for example (Like “Error 4.7 occurred” or “syntax error happened”). Don’t use long, complex sentences. Don’t make long and ornate introductions; it’s not the best place for them. Go quick to the point and make it decent.

Don’t blame a user

There’s an easy way to make a bad situation even worse: just tell the users that they are not clever enough to interact with this app, and that is why the errors happen. Offensive, isn’t it? Whatever form you wrap this message in, it will hurt the user who is already worried about things going not the way they wanted. So, don’t blame a user, be polite, friendly, and helpful; that’s important for setting the right emotional background of the situation. Try using clear instructions instead of blaming: for example, say, “Enter the valid email address” instead of “You’ve entered the invalid email address.”

Be constructive

Informing the user about the error in the right way is not enough: whatever friendly information you got lost, it isn’t super worthy if you don’t know what to do next. So, be quick to let the user know how to solve the issue. Some of the popular practices are the following:

• If that’s a web interface, give the options to move to other pages of the website, first of all, the home page
• In the mobile interface, make it easy to take a step back or quickly connect to the spot of the error
• In case of complex forms and processes, do it for each step instead of at the end of all the processes

This 404 page of the fashion brand’s e-commerce website gives the visitor various options to jump to, marking the ability to get back to the home page as the main call-to-action

Consider using images and icons

It’s not a secret that people perceive and decode images faster than words. So, thoughtful use of an icon or image on the error screen can make communication faster, saving the users’ energy and a good mood. What’s more, images have a big potential for emotional appeal, which can reduce the tension of dealing with an error.

404 error page for the ShipDaddy website uses funny mascot animation integrating brand graphics into the web interactions and making the error page smoothened with fun.

Test and analyze

Don’t have an illusion that work on error presentation is finished with the UI/UX design stage of the project. It never stops because feedback from real users is the best way to improve user flow. A/B test different options, analyze carefully what are the most vulnerable zones and interactions, and use the findings to prevent errors where possible and smoothen the process where mistakes are unavoidable.

Add fun if that’s appropriate

The page or screen of error messages can use gamification, interactive content, or other ways to add fun, and this way reduces the negative effect. One of the good examples is the 404 page on Dribbble: as its target audience is designers, the resource uses their natural creative curiosity to add fun to the error situation, so users can see the collection of popular designs organized along with a similar color palette. On the page, users can continue the game and try other colors or search for what they need using the search field integrated into the error page.

Well-Done Errors Checklist

So, to sum up, well-crafted errors would rather stick to the following points:

• readable and clear
• easily noticed
• constructive
• effort-saving
• polite and friendly
• reasonably emotional

Useful Articles

Here’s a set of articles on more aspects and best practices of user experience design.

How To Use Visual Dividers in User Interfaces

How To Make Text Improve User Experience: Insights Into UX Writing

How to Design User Onboarding

Directional Cues in User Interfaces

How to Make User Interface Readable

Basic Types of Buttons in User Interfaces

Negative Space in Design: Practices and Tips

Big Little Details: 7 Helpful Elements of Web Usability

Types of Contrast in User Interface Design

5 Pillars of Effective Landing Page Design

Meaningful Error: 404 Page Design. Inspiration for Page Not Found

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

Сообщение UX Design Practices for Error Screens and Messages появились сначала на Design4Users.

The niche e-commerce website for the water brand uses different atmospheric videos to make the user experience positive and emotional.

Types of Video Content in Interfaces

People are overloaded daily with tons of diverse information coming from various channels. So, make no mistake, most visitors to a website or users of a mobile application aren’t going to spend much time learning about products or services, especially the new ones. In these conditions, video can become another effective way of communication, informative, dynamic, and attractive.

A catchy video crafted with an understanding of the target audience is a tool for attracting customers’ attention as well as a well-checked method of informing them quickly and brightly. Video content activates several channels of perception – audio, visual, motion – simultaneously, and usually does that wrapped in telling a story. Such a combination of factors often makes a video presentation strong, emotional, and memorable.

Hero section video used as a part of the home page for the gardening company website

Content and Goals Perspective

From the perspective of the content packed in motion and the goals set behind it, there are several popular types of videos we can often come across on different websites and applications.

Welcome (introduction) video: these are videos mostly used on websites, especially company and portfolio websites. This video usually aims at welcoming and greeting visitors and introducing a company, service, or person in a friendly and lively manner. Another option is the “about” video created to tell more about the company, people working for it, mission, achievements, etc. Videos of this kind should be quite short, concise, and telling a visitor the core information that could engage them to see more.

Promotional (commercial) video: this type of video rooting in TV commercials and movie trailers. It’s created to inform people about a product, service, event, brand or company, new release or premiere, major updates of the product, and so on, and so forth, in a way that encourages people to learn more, buy, or join in. It’s a video playing a big part in increasing brand awareness and focused on getting the target audience aware of the offer and its benefits.

Promotional video presenting Carricare brand

Showcase (showreel) video: that’s another type of video coming from the movie industry. It’s a video showcasing a set of previous works by a person or company. This one is usually quite long, about 2-3 minutes, and is often used as an impressive addition to the portfolio of people representing various creative spheres like design, animation, filmmaking, acting, modeling, marketing, and the like.

Tubik showreel videos

Short showcase video giving a glance at the icon design project for HUAWEI EMUI 10

Showcase video for the case study about the design process for the Glup delivery application

Video testimonial: these videos share the feedback from buyers and users, show them describing their experience with the brand, product, or company, this way sharing the signs of trust and loyalty and contributing to positive brand image and reputation.

Background video: this kind of video is used as a part of website design when the background of a page is chosen not to be static. As technical improvements in web development don’t stop, video backgrounds and any other kind of video integration into web pages aren’t seen as a great challenge anymore. So, web designers often turn to full-screen videos as a way to capture people’s attention, create the needed atmosphere, and give an instant glance at the product or service.

Background videos on the landing page promoting the mindfulness application.

Mywony website design uses full-screen video setting the instant connection to the nature of the product

Website for the editorial about insomnia uses a background video to instantly set the mood

Product video: these pieces of video are widely used as a part of the e-commerce user experience, in particular on product pages and landing pages, to give details about the product’s features and advantages, and inform customers about the problem-solving potential of the product.

Pet Shop website uses video content to demonstrate the products they offer in the proper environment and the way to connect faster to buyer’s needs

Hero section video: that’s another kind of web page video that is used as a part of the hero section, which is the above-the-fold part of the web page, often the home page, that includes a prominent and attractive piece of content, be it an image, video, text, slider or other elements. Choosing a video for the hero section, designers often breathe life into it, make it dynamic and strengthen its emotional appeal.

Hero video for PointZero25 event agency website

Hero section video used on the confectionery website home page

Video guides and tutorials: these are classic how-to videos. They present video instructions of a different kind showing the step-by-step process of interacting with a product, a piece of information (for example, a recipe), etc.

Explainer video: basically, this video explains to the visitor what the website, app, product, company, or service is about, and often answers the most frequent questions that may arise about it. Being a part of branding strategy, it is focused on presenting the benefits of the product or service and explanation about how to. It often employs storytelling showing the flow of interaction or sharing particular cases and situations, and infographics helping to understand the effect quickly.

Explainer video for OffCents

Entertaining videos: these videos are more about fun rather than information. Their main goal is to encourage emotional feedback and make it connected to a particular product, brand, or company. What’s more, videos of this kind have a high virality potential as having fun; visitors may want to share it with their friends or audience in social networks, this way spreading a word about the brand.

Educational videos: these videos usually become a part of educational platforms and can present a diversity of content, from specially crafted models explaining the processes to videos of wildlife or people doing different jobs.

Educational videos about wildlife integrated into the Nature Encyclopedia app

Design and Technical Realization Perspective

From the perspective of how it’s made, we could mention such common types of video content for UI design:

Live-action videos: these videos are closest to the classic filming process and feature real people, objects, or locations. Their major benefit is a strong collection with real life that has the great power of setting associations and encouraging viewers’ empathy.

Atmospheric live-action video as a part of the home page hero section for the Lumen Museum website

Example of a live-action video combining human talk and visual demonstrations

Fitness application using video tutorials on how to do exercises

Screencast videos: this video type captures the screen this way, showing particular processes. It is especially effective for various tutorials and product videos presenting digital products and software.

Screencast video capturing the illustration process in Procreate

Live-action screencast videos: as it’s clear from the name, this type presents a combination of two previous types. In this case, viewers can simultaneously see what is going on the screen and the person giving explanations.

Animation (cartoon) videos: these videos are very close to cartoons, which means that they present the animated sequence of many still images that can be presented in a variety of visual styles: 2D (flat), 3D (having dimension and depth), and stop-motion (capturing individual frames and combining them in a sequence).

Animated video created as visual storytelling support for the article about gamification in UI design

Motion graphics videos: these ones are based on animated graphic elements, for example, shapes or text, aimed at catching attention, impressing, and setting the theme, but not employing storytelling. They also become a great help in cases when complex or abstract information should be visualized in a way that is easy to understand.

Motion graphics video background for digital transformation agency

Ecommerce website design using impressive motion graphics video for the home page hero section

Photomontage videos: this video type imitates a slideshow, combining a set of photos in an animated sequence that can be supported by special effects, voice-over, or music. This type can work effectively to present various events, charities, or social issues, tell about companies, mark achievements and milestones, and the like.

Whiteboard videos: this is a captivating type of video, where the story, guide, or information flow is unveiled as a picture drawn step-by-step on the whiteboard.

Typographic videos: this is a type of video based on moving text. It helps to make text content perform in a more dynamic and emotional way and engage users that are not keen on reading static text content not to miss core messages. In most cases, it is supported by the voice-over or sound accompaniment enhancing the message.

360-degree (immersive) videos: trendy and getting more and more popular, this type of video records a view in all directions at the same time, this way allowing the viewer to get the full panoramic view. These are, in particular, effectively used as a part of the shopping or booking user experience.

Functions of Video in UX Design

Being a type of content that is quite complex in production and often needing much effort for smooth integration, videos in user interfaces are often in question. However, there are different functions they can cover, often better and faster than other types of content. So, by analyzing the target audience and business goals and considering these functions, designers and creative teams make a decision if they need a video and, if yes, what type is better for their objectives and budget. Let’s take a quick glance at them.

Information

The core factor in making video content considered a part of the user interface is making the information flow clear and easier to perceive. In many cases, a short 1-minute piece of video can share a chunk of information that would take far more time from the visitor reading it in text or trying to understand it from screenshots, mockups, and the like. That is a basic reason why various explainers, tutorials, and guides work well in video format.

No doubt, background videos applied to many web pages or screens now make them visually and emotionally appealing as well as informative, as the image instantly captures users’ attention much faster this way. Also, it supports the feeling of the integrity of all the layout elements.

An explainer video on the home page of Credentially website is placed in the above-the-fold area and lets visitors quickly check the benefits of the service

Atmospheric video integrated into the museum website design concept quickly gives visitors a glance at it in a realistic and dynamic way

Demonstration and Presentation

One of the strongest points of video content is the ability to demonstrate products or services using all the channels of perception at the same time. If visitors are interested, watching the video, they can consume quite a lot of information in a very short time without the need to scroll, read, see the pictures, and keep all those different pieces of information in mind in the process. As the human attention span is quite short, video often allows for using it effectively and gets higher chances of visitors’ engagement and website conversions. For instance, explainer videos or product videos allow for catching how to deal with it while the visitor is on the wave of interest. As well, for services that are focused on visual outcomes like design, advertising, illustration, art, modeling, and so on, well-crafted showcase videos can become the fastest way to the future client’s heart.

Video demonstrating Fitness App interactions

Short videos used instead of static images to demonstrate the options of models on niche accessories website lets customers learn more about the product and get a positive impression

Video demonstration of the product in the Drink Recipe application helps to impress users and supports the atmosphere of a bar or restaurant

Storytelling

Another strong point of video content is its ability to tell a story in a smooth and engaging way, according to the laws and techniques of visual storytelling, supported with voice narration or music enhancing that effect. People like stories: they clarify things, illustrate situations, are often fun and aesthetic, they are often easier to perceive and remember. In most cases, videos based on storytelling feature a plot that moves through 3 basic phases: showing pain points, activating emotions, and offering the solution.

Promotional video for the cleaning service tells an illustrated story using cute characters and sharing positive vibes

The video version of the case study on design for the Annual Awwwards 2020 website

Atmosphere

As well as images, many videos integrated into UI are super powerful in setting the needed atmosphere, which is a part of customer experience with the offered service, product, place, or event. This way, it pushes demonstration to a higher level, letting the visitor catch the vibe in split seconds. That’s one of the reasons why immersive videos are getting more and more popular and demanded.

The background video for the home page of the agricultural holding website impresses with the atmosphere from the first minute

The hero section video of the website for forest camping creates the needed cozy atmosphere from the very start of interaction with the website

The atmospheric hero section video on the winter holiday website shares the views of the destinations users can travel to, and this way lets them get stunned and dive into the mood instantly

Emotion

Whatever logical and clever people are, many of our decisions are partly or fully based on emotions, not only facts. “I feel it,” “I like it,” “I want it” – aren’t these reasons often stronger than any logic, calculations, and analysis? Video content is often a good way to cover that point: as it employs multiple perception channels and can collect various factors of influence together in a time-saving concentrated piece, the chances it sets the emotional connection to the audience get much higher.

Hero section video for a horse riding club sets strong emotional appeal

Archive video added to the article devoted to the historical period strengthens the emotional appeal of the page

Points to Consider

Loading Time

This is a core thing to consider when you decide upon video integration into the website or application. This issue requires a thoughtful approach from developers and thorough testing. That’s especially vital for the web pages that are expected to attract much organic traffic but can be downgraded in search results just because the loading time of the page is too long while the bounce rate is high as some visitors won’t wait long to see the page and will just move away. Think twice, consider technical options, and do your best to test that aspect. Otherwise, there won’t be much effect from even a very well-crafted video if it’s not even got a chance to be seen.

Contrast Issue

Integration of video content, especially full-screen backgrounds well-spread these days, requires much skill and effort to find the right contrast and hierarchy of elements and integrate the navigation and text content properly so that the page wouldn’t turn into an illegible mess. Test the contrast on various screens, devices, and in different environments to make sure it doesn’t spoil general readability and doesn’t break navigation leaving users lost in all that beauty.

Other Ways to Communicate

Make no mistake; video content is not a cure-all or a magic wand, as it could seem from everything mentioned above. Not all people like videos. Not all of them, interacting with your website or app, find themselves in conditions that are convenient for watching a video. So, don’t make the video your only way of communicating with visitors or customers. Support it with other ways of communication, like text and images. Otherwise, you risk losing a part of the audience just because video as a way of getting information is not comfortable for them. The “Show, don’t tell” rule may work, but the “show and tell” works better in this case.

Manipulations

Take care of allowing a visitor to manipulate the video where it’s needed, especially if it’s long and heavy. Think twice about using autoplay, as it may appear less convenient for your audience than the ability to control if they want to watch a video or not. Make sure that the user can control the volume of the sound part as audio autoplay as soon as the web page or screen is loaded is reported to be one of the most annoying aspects of the user experience. Put shortly, consider all the basic manipulations that will allow users to feel more confident with the video content in your web or mobile product.

Mobile Adaptation

What looks well on a desktop or TV, may not work at all on a much smaller mobile screen. As more and more digital interactions of different kinds move to mobile these days, this aspect should also be well-considered and tested for all types of content, including videos. Make sure that it looks clear and legible and is well-adjusted to the mobile screen of any kind.

Mobile adaptation for a niche e-commerce website selling accessories

Sure, that’s only the tip of the iceberg in such a deep and diverse issue as video implementation into user experience design, so we’re going to share more examples, UX practices, and tips about it. Anyway, this article may help UX designers, marketing specialists, and businesses to take into account the different benefits and pitfalls of using video content on websites and mobile apps. Stay tuned, and don’t miss the updates!

Useful Reading

For those, who want to dive deeper into the topic, here’s a list of handy articles:

UX Design: Types of Interactive Content Amplifying Engagement

Photo Content in User Interfaces: When and How It Works

Aesthetic Usability: Beauty on Duty for User Experience

5 Basic Types of Images for Web Content

Motion in UX Design: 6 Effective Types of Web Animation

Types of Contrast in User Interface Design

5 Pillars of Effective Landing Page Design

How to Improve Website Scannability

The Anatomy of a Web Page: Basic Elements

How to Design Effective Search

Web Design: 16 Basic Types of Web Pages

Videos as Instructional Content: User Behaviors and UX Guidelines

Step-by-Step Guide to Custom Promo Video Design

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

Сообщение UX Design: How Video Content Can Enhance User Experience появились сначала на Design4Users.

Mountain Resorts Website

This website design invites you to get stunned by the atmospheric mountain resorts and instantly sets the mood with the impressive video content and elegant typography. The website visitors are welcome to explore a variety of destinations with many interesting details smoothly integrated into the web page design, for example, the latitude and longitude of the specific spots. Also, the design concept literally plays with typographic contrast and uses the prominent cut-off typographic part at the top of some pages or the combinations of different fonts within one headline.

Lumen Museum Website

Here’s the website of Lumen Museum, the charming place that gives this fascination a photographic home with breathtaking views and interesting insights. The museum harmonically combines history and innovations, interactivity, and exploration, covering the subject of mountain photography from diverse perspectives. The website design features a 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, which makes them full of air and freshness and lets 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.

Learn more about this project in the case study about the Lumen Museum website design

Nature Expeditions Website

Here’s the concept of the website promoting expeditions that allow travelers to explore unspoiled nature and enjoy unusual destinations. The breathtaking full-screen hero video lets the visitors dive into the mood and get impressed immediately. Trendy shapes, elegant, neat fonts playing with upper case and lower case within one piece of copy, colored page backgrounds, and cool motion graphics pack the information in a stylish, emotional, and attractive dress.

Ecotourism Website

This website was designed to support people that want to try ecotourism and have some rest deep in nature and far from the urban hustle and bustle. The design shows the balance of readability and decoration in typography choice, solid visual hierarchy, and thoughtful combination of different types of visuals such as photos and custom theme illustrations. The home page features a stunning hero illustration while the Discover web page tells more about the destinations and types of holidays to book, with the video integration to amplify the effect. Mobile adaptation helps to save visual harmony and allows users to interact successfully with the website from any device.

Museum Website Concept

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots,” Marcus Garvey once said, and that may be the reason why museums will never be out of fashion. This design also touches on that important theme: it’s the website concept for Moesgaard Museum, a Danish regional museum dedicated to archaeology and ethnography. Impressive full-screen photo background lets the visitor instantly plunge into the atmosphere, while a solid typographic hierarchy supports both readability and visual elegance. The website uses interactivity to make the pages more engaging, and the pages demonstrate a thoughtful approach to data organization and visualization.

Geography Blog

This is the user experience design concept for a niche blog devoted to the topics connected with the environment, ecology, geography, and all things the modern state of nature. Here the design impresses the visitor with the spectacular photo and video content, illustrating informative and important text content and enhancing its emotional communication with the readers.

Event Booking Website

This design concept gives you a look at the website that helps visitors choose and book diverse events and experiences. The home page is made highly functional, with the form allowing users to search for the event in the above-the-fold area. In general, the website employs a variety of trendy shapes and minor geometric elements and makes shape and color contrast the primary tool of expressiveness, supporting beautiful photo and video content.

Winter Holidays Website

Take a look at atmospheric web design for the service helping to book accommodation and build routes for amazing winter holidays. The visitors dive into the magic of winter instantly due to the breathtaking video content naturally integrated into a minimalistic and airy web layout.

Yacht Hiring Website

Take a look at the website designed for the service allowing users to find and hire yachts. Atmospheric videos and beautiful photos, as well as the color palette, help visitors dive into the theme of sailing immediately. Interactive yacht visualizations assist in making the process of yacht choice both straightforward and fun, while sophisticated typography, functional color accents, smooth motion, and intuitive navigation make the web pages and their mobile adaptation attractive and easy to use.

New web and mobile design collections by 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 are some of them.

Web Design: 11 Diverse Functional and Awe-Inspiring Website Designs

Product Page Design Inspiration: 17 Ecommerce Web Designs

App Design Ideas: 7 Nifty Mobile Application Design Projects

Information Beautified: Media and Editorial Website Designs

23 Impressive Web Design Concepts for Various Business Objectives

8 Bright Packaging Design Projects Employing Illustration Art

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

Design for Sales: 10 Creative UI Designs for Ecommerce

Save the Planet: Web Designs on Environment and Ecological Issues

Web Design: 26 Examples of Creative Landing Pages

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

Logofolio: 14 Logo Designs for Different Business Goals

Web Design: 16 Basic Types of Web Pages

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic content by tubik

Сообщение Atmospheric Web Design Projects Inspired by Travel Mood появились сначала на Design4Users.

Project

Creating a collection of theme illustrations for the hero section on the home page of the hackathon platform website.

Client

Devpost is an international hackathon platform founded in 2009, supporting specialists from the IT sphere to take part in software competitions (hackathons) and get involved in the worldwide creative community. It helps hackathon participants build products, practice skills, learn technologies, win prizes, and grow their networks. The platform has partnerships with many technology giants like IBM, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Oculus, and others. The target audience of the website is quite broad, covering different age categories from young people, students of high schools, colleges, and universities, to adult professionals and experienced experts.

Process

The Devpost team wanted to refresh the look of the home page with bright and informative illustrations in the hero section. What’s more, to make the interaction with the page even more dynamic, they decided upon a set of pictures that would reflect different stages of a common hackathon and would change according to the different parts of the day. The point that added another challenge to the task was that the hero section presented a quite narrow horizontal space. Hence, the illustrator had to consider a composition that would look good, dynamic, and lively in such conditions.

After communicating with the client team and setting their preferences, the illustrator dived into the atmosphere of hackathons to catch the mood and find visual details that could reflect it. For that, she researched tons of photos from real hackathons to develop characters and objects that would bring a clear view of the event. The client team provided a mood board and a huge amount of information allowing for catching the idea of hackathons essence. Hackathons set the unique atmosphere combining high technologies and innovations with traditional approaches to solving complex tasks and checking hypotheses, design and coding, well-checked logic with out-of-the-earth experiments, the seriousness with fun, working alone with working together as a team. It pushes the limits to let the participants uncover new uncommon ideas and solutions as well as reveal the hidden powers of their minds. That was what wanted to be reflected in the set of hero illustrations: not only did they catch website visitors’ eye, but they also were informative and presented a sort of story. Due to the huge amount of information and detailed discussion, the illustrator got the powerful boost to quickly find the needed style and line of visual communication through the art to website visitors, which helped to build a clear and effective workflow.

As well, the illustrations could effectively add to the international nature of such events, presented by the great diversity of human characters, so the creative team invested much attention and effort to feature the variety of appearances, personalities, and nationalities. To reach a solid presentation of each character, the creative team developed narration behind each character, like a small piece of the story, telling who they are, where they come from, what they do, and what makes them special.

The final pack of images included four artworks organized along with the change of day phases and hackathon phases accordingly. Check the pack together with the sketches below.

Morning

Morning illustration shows the stage of registration when the participants get together in the event space. Here you’ll see the diversity of characters, some in the registration process while the others are taking selfies, napping after a flight, not to waste a minute while waiting. The artist employs several visual plans to make the picture deeper and more intensive, letting visitors get interested by looking into details.

Afternoon

The next illustration features the daytime when the hackathon is in its active, creative phase. Here all the characters are deep into the process: some are working on their laptops while the others are testing devices, sharing ideas, and brainstorming together.

Here’s a piece of screencast to give you a deeper glance at the creative process.

Evening

Evening illustration reflects the stage of discussion and presentation of creative results.

Night

Night illustration is more relaxed and shows the after-party mood around. The hints of devices all connected to charge the batteries echo the need to recharge for the hackathon participants.

So, it’s easy to see that the pack of illustrations presents a solid piece of multilayered visual storytelling with a wide variety of characters and details united with visual consistency and harmonically integrated into the home page layout.

One more factor worth attention to in building up consistency and integrity for all the set of pictures is small secondary details: you can find pets such as a cat and dog adding fun and friendliness to the atmosphere, the drones and wires of devices, the numerous stickers on the laptops, including the branded Devpost sticker, the mascot toys some participants take with them, backpacks with badges, typical clothing and footwear, etc. The illustrations strived to feature different styles of work (alone or together, extroversive and introversive), types of communication (offline and online), and posing of characters which is a distinctive feature of any hackathon. Here, you will find people sitting and standing in any possible poses. Also, you’ll find hints of eco-friendliness, allusions to games, and particular personality traits. All the details, collected from the photos of real earlier hackathons, let the visitors see themselves in the characters of the illustrations.

Mobile Version

Working on the graphics, the illustrator also had to consider the mobile version of the website, and it quickly got clear that it needed a different set of illustrations due to the totally different proportions. The screens below show that keeping the clear visual consistency with the web images, the adaptation for mobile screens demanded other compositions, choice of primary and secondary details, the combination of foreground and background, and the posing of the characters.

Another short video screencast is up to let you dive into the creative process for mobile adaptation of the artworks.

This case study was a great example of a careful creative approach to the concept of hero illustrations supported by tight and fruitful communication with a client team to get as many details as possible and provide an outcome full of interesting details and an engaging atmosphere.

Illustration Collections and Digital Art Case Studies

If you want to see more collections of illustrations or discover how they work in particular design projects, here’s the set of posts for you.

Book Illustrations for Visual Storytelling

Fulfill. Illustrations and Web Design for 3PLs Marketplace

Roebuck. Mobile Design and Illustrations for Educational App

World Humanitarian Day. Illustrations and Video for United Nations

In Search of Illustration: Design Process for Illustration Set

ABUK. Custom Book Cover Design for Audiobook App

Moonworkers. Digital Illustrations on Film Production

MYWONY. Storytelling with Brand Intro Design

45 Inspiring Illustrations About Workspaces, Creativity, and Art

Animal World: 4 Beautiful Illustration Sets About Wildlife and Pets

Tubik in Paris. Design Process for Narrative Illustration

8 Bright Packaging Design Projects Employing Illustration Art

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

The posts’ illustrations belong to their proprietors and cannot be used by other resources without a link to the source.

Сообщение Illustration Case Study: Hero Illustrations for Devpost Hackathons 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.

Project

Web and graphic design for an online educational resource covering different aspects of radioactivity.

Client and Idea

Although known more for quite a poor reputation, radiation as a phenomenon is presented by not only tragic but also curious and inspiring stories, facts, and findings. The clients set an objective:

• to experiment with the interweaving and creative retelling of these complex narratives,
• to push the common perception of the radiation phenomenon,
• to diversify and broaden the knowledge about radiation.

They wanted the project to revitalize the collective understanding and embolden people to be responsible custodians of our radioactive world.

As for the client side, Illuminating Radioactivity is generously supported by the Stevens Institute of Technology. It was developed in partnership with the Bombshelltoe Arts and Policy Collective and the Stimson Center. In addition to the website, a part of the project is the book Atomic Sublime by Lovely Umayam and Tammy Nguyen.

Design

The main creative direction the Tubik team got to realize by design and content presentation was changing the perspective of a common vision of the radioactivity phenomenon. In particular, the website had to present a lot of various information from experts and scientists in a comprehensible, digestible, and engaging way for a wide and diverse audience. The content visual performance had to shift the understanding of radioactivity as something negative to a much broader outlook, including the positive side as well.

The first iteration of web design was corresponding to educational needs: airy and elegant, simple and intuitive, somehow looking like a beautiful textbook. And that was the moment when the client got totally sure they wanted something absolutely uncommon and even revolutionary. They strived for the design breaking standards and stereotypes as the project idea in its essence aimed at breaking standard thinking about radioactivity.

So, Tubik designers developed a totally new concept of visual style and interactions.

Interactive Home Page

One of the clients’ wishes was to make the home page interactive. There are many stereotypical associations about radiation, mostly negative. The clients’ idea was to add the interactive form on the home page and offer visitors to input the associations they had about radioactivity. Yet, designers got them quickly convinced that offering a newcomer not knowing much about the website to take some effort was not the best way to go. Instead, they came up with an idea of a super interactive page. It opens the field full of bright tags featuring popular characteristics of radioactivity and hiding the name of the project. Moving the mouse cursor, users remove the tags, as well as the website, is going to erase the common stereotypes about the theme of radioactivity.

Typography

As text content is the core of the informational value of the project and readers have to interact with it much, the choice of typography means was one of the most important stages of the design process. The main font used for the title elements is also symbolic. It is called Opposite, and it was chosen for its original, attractive, and irregular geometry of characters. Amazingly, even the font supported the objective of setting the opposite direction to the global understanding of radioactivity.

Images and Animation

To step aside from the traditional presentation of archive photos and graphics, massive work was done on images. The major type of visual content for the website is trendy and catchy collages with a vibe of brutalism and livened with smooth animation.

Keeping the balance of text blocks and images integrated into the narration, the designers performed such a serious theme and content in a way that wouldn’t let the users feel bored.

Each section of the website also has a theme collage and a specific color solution. Together with the long-scroll structure, all that creates the amazing experience of engaging storytelling.

Details

There are also other design details that are worth mentioning as they added their two precious cents to cool interactions:

• an interactive cursor with dynamic visual effects supports the theme
• the effect of visual noise is added to all the website pages to amplify the atmosphere
• some of the website parts also feature the sound imitating the Geiger counter
• the pages devoted to the findings of particular scientists break the long bulks of information into several bright cards, changing one another in the process of the scroll and making text consumption easier

Technically, the base platform to realize the project was Readymag. When the general stylistic concept of the visual performance was agreed upon, the designers moved right to Readymag and built all the user experience with it from the very start. This way, they could check directly and in no time how the interactions and animation work together with the diversity of text and backgrounds.

The mobile adaptation of the website was also designed to impress visitors independently of their device choice.

No doubt, that was a super informative experience for all sides. The design team had to dive deep into the theme and work in tight collaboration with experts to make the website not only attractive and unique but also readable and trustworthy. This impressive website was recognized as a Site of the Day on Awwwards.

Check the live Illuminating Radioactivity website to find not only useful information but also bright and original design solutions.

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 by tubik.

BlockStock. Brand Identity and Website for Minecraft Models Resource

Roebuck. Mobile Design and Illustrations for Educational App

Lumen. Website for Museum of Mountain Photography

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

Tasty Burger. UI Design for Food Ordering App

Slumber. Mobile UI Design for Healthy Sleeping

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

Сообщение Case Study: Educational Website About Radioactivity Phenomenon появились сначала на Design4Users.

Pottery website design

Product or Service Demonstration

Obviously, photos present the major tool for the visual presentation of goods on e-commerce websites where the principle “you get what you see” is a vital part of success. As long as you sell something physical, the customer expects to see it by default; that’s really the case when the picture is worth a thousand words. For shopping online, the quality and style of photos are crucial as they often become the main trigger capturing the customer’s eye as well as one of the key elements in the decision-making process under conditions you cannot see and touch the real goods.

Other vital aspects of using photos effectively as a part of e-commerce experience and brand presentation are originality and consistency. To stand out from the crowd of competitors, online stores need their photos to look unique, memorable, and instantly transfer the brand image. That’s why regular photo shootings are an integral part of e-commerce reality. Depending on the target audience, different stores choose different approaches to photo presentation: some make it friendly, informal, and as close to real-life as possible, while others present their goods in original surroundings or model-posing; some resources prefer studio shots others take photos in special environments. Whatever the approach, an essential aspect is staying consistent in it to make it recognizable and so that website or app visitors can feel it like a pattern and didn’t handle too much cognitive load. As well, a consistent approach to the cross-platform photo presentation of the brand photo content in different marketing channels, such as social networks, advertising banners, newsletters, etc., sets a strong visual connection and helps shoppers recognize the brand whenever they see it.

A consistent approach to a visual photo presentation of the items on the e-commerce website for a fashion brand

Anyway, the photos should demonstrate the stuff from different angles and perspectives, especially on product pages. Another thing to keep in mind is that items photographed on models or in the proper environments have more chances to draw customers’ attention and look more convincing. It doesn’t mean that object photography doesn’t work, yet in most cases, seeing an outfit on a model, a toy in the hands of a kid, or a set of dishes on the served table lets the buyer easily imagine it looks and see its benefits. So, quite often, e-commerce platforms combine both types of photo presentation: a clean object photo with no distractions as well as its photo on a model or in the surroundings of use.

Certainly, it works the same way to demonstrate the services that can be visualized with photos.

Website for a massage services company

Creative approach to using photo content for not only setting a visual connection to the provided services of a cleaning company but also as a part of scroll animation

One more popular case often demanding thorough attention to photo content is the situation when the person or company has to build an online portfolio website. The visitor’s attention span is very short, so works in the portfolio should be dressed to impress. In this case, photos often become the major visual attractor and help to build a consistent presentation.

Fashion models portfolio website

MYWONY wedding dresses brand website

Setting Atmosphere

One more point photos are highly effective at is the ability to instantly transfer the visitor to the needed atmosphere. Properly chosen quality photo creates the mood, and this way engages the users to not only see the content but also somehow feel it, connected to their own experience and imagination.

Gin School website design

Home page for the ballet company website concept

Due to that, in particular, atmospheric theme photos are quite popular to be used in hero sections of websites and landing pages. This way, designers activate the factor of emotion and delightfulness from the very start of interaction with the interface.

Website design concept inspired by Moesgaard Museum

One more popular UI design trend of a recent couple of years is using photos as background images. Not only does this approach make the screens visually and emotionally appealing, but it also supports the feeling of the integrity of all the layout elements. On the other hand, it demands deep attention to contrast and legibility of all the elements, which may be harder to achieve than in the case of monochrome background.

Website design concept inspired by Moesgaard Museum: the home page features an atmospheric full-screen background photo.

The impressive 404 error page for the website devoted to saving the oceans features an impressive full-screen background photo, instantly communicating the problem to the visitor.

Lumen Museum website pages

Humanized Connection

Consciously or unconsciously, people tend to be curious about other people. What’s even more important, in many cases, human photos look more convincing and trustworthy to us. No wonder one of the key goals behind the photos on websites or apps is making communication more human-like. Photos of teams working on a product, pictures of people to connect to, from founders and top managers to support personnel, photos of clients providing testimonials or reviews, authors of articles in the blog or media, and many other cases – all of them aim at making the user experience more human and trustworthy.

Nonconventional Show interview podcast website

Website of a fashion designer brand 

Design concept for a website for a photography contest

Website design for Mayple, a fully-managed marketing services marketplace designed to help businesses work with experts.

Directional Cues

A directional cue is an element of the user interface giving a visual hint on a certain interaction or content and helps the visitor see it quicker and easier, just like road signs and signposts do in the physical world. Directional cues are an essential factor in enhancing digital product usability, as they:

• enhance the page or screen scannability
• strengthen the visual hierarchy
• improve navigation
• increase conversion rates.

Photos integrated into the interface can also cover that role. They mostly function as pointers (a photo of a human, animal, or object pointing at the needed element and this way attracting users’ eye to it) or gaze direction (a photo of a human, animal, or character whose eyes are directed to the needed element this way stimulating a natural urge of users’ curiosity to check what it is).

The hair beauty company website uses a hero image on the home page that works as a directional cue: the model’s eyes attract your attention to the zone of CTA elements.

Guides and Manuals

Being highly effective and common in setting a natural visual connection with the physical world, photos often become the primary demonstration tool in diverse manuals and guides. Be it a recipe, a guide on how to use a device, to knit a scarf, to tie a neckerchief in 20 trendy ways, or even how to take a photo – whatever kind of instructions is given to a visitor, supported with good photos it will work much more user-friendly and will be far handier than just a text.

Dessert recipes blog

Illustrative Article Images

One more goal efficiently covered with photos is illustrating articles and online editorials. Photos can add visual support to the topic of the article and strengthen the text.

The rule of thumb here is not to use photos as visual fillers. Both title images and photos included in the article have to work as visual helpers, not distractors, so make them meaningful, informative, or at least adding the necessary mood if the article is a piece of the emotional story. If you are telling a historical or retrospective story, find proper archive photos; if that’s the article about a specific place, don’t use stock photos to show something similar but get the ones from that particular location. Relevance is a key to successful photo usage in this case.

Online editorial about different generations

Bartending encyclopedia website

Web design concept for an online magazine

Creating Emotional Appeal

Another big reason to integrate photo content is the emotional appeal added to the user experience. Whatever logical and thought-out we try to make our actions, the emotional background of the situation plays a crucial role in engagement and decision-making. And that is the aspect where images in general and photos, in particular, are super helpful. They set strong associations and build up the necessary atmosphere, often even before a visitor starts reading, as images are perceived faster than words. With the properly chosen photo integrated into the web or mobile layout, designers are able to capture not only the user’s eye but also transfer the needed mood.

Confectionery website design setting strong emotional appeal

Online editorial about the history and development of skateboarding

Book festival website

Advantages of Photos in Interface Design

The significant advantage of photos is their ability to connect what users see on the web page with a real world of physical things and live people. Photos have been a part of human reality for many decades, much before the Internet’s advent, so this kind of visuals is fairly native, close, and clear for us. What’s more, with all those devices that let any of us capture something in a second, photography is really a part of everyday life for many people – so, being used on a website, it sets strong connections and associations.

What’s more, photography is also a kind of art. With them, you can set the balance of realism and aesthetics in your web user interface. You can keep the necessary style appealing to your target audience and creating the required emotional background. That is one of the reasons for choosing photos to support articles on blogs and media websites.

Website design for a horse-riding club

Points to Consider

Using photos in web design, consider the following tips:

• download high-resolution photos
• optimize them for the web/mobile so that too big images don’t overload the page or screen – loading speed is a crucial factor of positive user experience
• give the images enough air to breathe – keep the balance of negative space
• remember about responsiveness and test how the images look on different screens and devices
• don’t use photos as just decor – let them speak to users, transfer a message and support all the other layouts.

Where Designers Get Photos

There are three several ways:

• original photo production for the particular project: this is the most expensive option, but the photos will have the highest level of exclusiveness;
• paid stock photos: you buy a photo you need from a photo stock that offers a variety of shots. This may be cheaper than custom photo shooting, but you may spend a lot of time searching for the photos corresponding to your tasks;
• free stock photos: you take the photos from the communities or teams that share them for free. It is the cheapest option, but you have to be ready that other people may do the same so you’ll have to think well about how to make your design original under these conditions.

So, it’s easy to see that the way you choose depends on a specific project, its budget, and goals.

Anyway, even if you are the one who runs a blog or charity with no budget for visuals or if you are creating a design concept for your portfolio, free photo stock websites offer a lot of high-quality content now. As well, some stock photo banks offer a mixed scheme, with some content or formats available for free and more on subscription; as well, from some of them, you can also order unique photos for your goals or buy already available photos to be sure they belong only to you.

Among them, the following resources are often used for good photo content:

• Unsplash: it’s a community of photographers from all over the world sharing their photos for free. Photos are featured under thorough curation, so you won’t find trash there
• Pexels: a big bank of free stock photos on a variety of topics
• Pixabay: a huge stock of free images, not only photos but also illustrations and vector graphics.
• Shutterstock: a huge bank of stock images on different topics, most content is available with a paid subscription
• Depositphotos: another massive library of stock images, especially for business and marketing goals, mostly available with a paid subscription

Useful Articles

Here’s a bunch of articles to dive deeper into the theme of web and mobile user experience design

User Experience Design: 7 Vital User Abilities

5 Basic Types of Images for Web Content

UX Design: Types of Interactive Content Amplifying Engagement

The Anatomy of a Web Page: 14 Basic Elements

 10 Reasons to Apply Illustrations in UI Design

UX Design: How to Make Web Interface Scannable

Negative Space in Design: Tips and Best Practices

Motion in UX Design: 6 Effective Types of Web Animation

Types of Contrast in User Interface Design

5 Pillars of Effective Landing Page Design

User Onboarding Design: Practices and Tips

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

Сообщение Photo Content in User Interfaces: When and How It Works появились сначала на Design4Users.