NOMA Vino Taxonomico by Monotypo Studio

Monotypo Studio did this packaging design project, and they describe it the following way. The NOMA Wine Collection was born as a tribute to biodiversity, as well as to the tireless interest of human beings, from Aristotle to Karl Von Lineo, in understanding and studying their ecosystem. Two handmade illustrations were made, an edition inspired by the traditional Mushroom Route, carried out every summer by the Lic. in Biology Daniel Bojorquez in the Bosque de La Primavera. The biodiversity of the Birds Kingdom inspires the Second Edition.

Christmas Wine Labels by Tubik Arts

Catch the festive vibes with this packaging design project by Tubik Arts inspired by the winter holidays: here’s a glance at the custom wine bottle label designs with bright original illustrations for the special Christmas edition.

Wonderground by Cornershop

Wonderground is a place in Barossa Valley, a biodynamic vineyard, a boutique winery, and, most notably, a contemporary gallery and space for Barossa to lead with world-class art. Cornershop collaborated with the team at Wonderground to establish a brand identity and packaging that helps bring their unique vision to life.

Amuleto by Vantablack Studio

The creators of this wine packaging describe the idea as follows: “The ‘Expedition Uco’ wine project embarks on an intricate journey to the heart of nature, where each bottle becomes a testament to the struggle for vitality. The label, akin to a window into the subconscious, portrays the industrious ant, a symbol of persistence, standing out against a network of lines mirroring the intricacies of the soils that nourish our vineyards. This graphic dance embodies the symphony of life and death intertwined in an eternal ballet in the very unforgiving terrain where our vines seek sustenance. Just as humans delve into the depths of their psyche, in ‘Expedition Uco,’ we explore the mysteries of the earth to distill the energy forged through this fusion of opposites.”

Christoudia Winery Packaging by Reef+Co

The tale of Chrystoudia Winery unfolded in 1992 when the Christoudia family embarked on a journey to nurture their passion and expertise in enology. Nestled in the charming village of Kato Drys in Cyprus, this unique winery thrives in an idyllic microclimate, guaranteeing premium harvests and, in turn, crafting wines of extraordinary quality. Thirty years on, the younger generation of the family took on the exciting challenge of revitalizing the brand. The team at Reef+Co was entrusted with creating the new brand identity.

Mavrogianni Estate Wines Label Designs by Symbolic

The Mavrogiannis estate is located in a rich natural landscape at the foot of Mount Movris next to the historic river Larissos. The images of this place, its sounds, the creatures met there, the atmosphere it exudes are the identity and the soul of the estate. The Symbolic team included this place’s vibrant elements in the winery’s identity and labels. Inspired by all this, along with the winery owners’ boundless respect for nature and the processes required to produce a natural product, they have created four unique wine labels made entirely from Greek varieties. For each type of wine, they designed representations that describe with lyricism the hidden realities behind the hustle and bustle of modern life.

Graphia Wine Packaging Design by Studio Fen

Graphia, which means “to write” in Greek, is a self-initiated project for a collection of artisan wine label designs by Studio Fen, inspired by the love for typography and printmaking. The designs combine the artistic elements of handmade collages, typography, and silkscreen prints to create a visually striking and unique label set with subtle hints that pay homage to the typographic world.

CAOS Wine Label Design by Grit Studio

With this project, Grit Studio took on the exciting challenge of developing our own wine brand from the ground up. This passion project allowed them to extend their skills beyond client work and experience the brand creation process. They collaborated hand-in-hand with a skilled winemaker to blend their design imagination with real-world wine expertise to create this wine label design.

New D4U Gallery issues are coming soon; keep up with new posts.

For more inspiration, check the sets of other posts from our D4U Gallery, where we gather impressive creatives to share their art with you, for example:

• sophisticated brand identity designs
• stylish visual identity design projects
• identity and packaging design projects
• logo designs for different business goals
• people illustration gallery
• captivating 3D animation concepts
• collection of web design for media and editorials
• impressive packaging designs 
• artistic portrait collages
• childhood illustrations
• 3D illustrations
• book cover designs

Сообщение In Vino Veritas: Elegant Examples of Wine Packaging Design появились сначала на Design4Users.

Many things are going on in the background of the process, which, although we cannot see, we know to exist. However, when it comes to logo design, the complex processes in the background are much less visible, which is why it seems to some that it is easy to do and that anyone can do it.

The best example on which we can see how the value of a logo changes at the beginning of creating a particular brand in relation to the peak of the process of branding and monetization of its value is certainly the fashion industry.

There is more than a clear and tangible difference because certain items initially cost only a few dollars (euros, pounds, whatever currency), while later (many years later), with the help of branding and powerful marketing tools, they gain in value and it is a logo that sells every product at a high price. Well-known fashion brands often change their logos because they have to keep up with trends and follow the latest design tendencies. And they change not only their logos but also the design of the websites they have built for the business. Of course, a website doesn’t have to have only just one purpose. You can create pretty much any type of website you can imagine, either solely for business, an online store to sell your products or services, or a website for your business that also has an online store.

Now let’s go back to the process of creating a logo and its complexity. We said that some people think that it is easy to make a logo and do not understand how one can cost 30 euros, another 300, and some even 3,000. That is why we are going to clarify it in the next segment.

How Much Does One Logo Cost?

It seems that this is a simple question, to which the answer should ONLY contain a specific figure, and it will be considered clear enough. The price of a logo is one of the most searched terms on Google search, probably because all entrepreneurs, before starting to build their business, first make a business plan and determine a budget (in which, as one of the items, they put down the logo). So, maybe it seems simple, but it is not easy to give an implicit, short answer and satisfy all curious clients.

Whether you own a bakery, pastry shop, startup, or IT company, on many levels, it is essential to understand what and how much it means to have a well-designed logo. This is equally important for a company with only two employees, as well as for one with 2,000 or 20,000. Of course, the larger the number of people who will see the logo, the more critical it becomes.

A logo is the first element that customers see when they first encounter a brand. The logo is, initially, there to raise brand awareness, and then, over time, it becomes a recognizable element to which customers bond and, through it, build trust with the brand. It is also there to make customers feel a kind of emotional connection to the brand.

Now that we are familiar with the importance of a brand logo, it is time to explain what is included in the price and how it is formed when it comes to creating a logo.

What Determines the Price?

When determining the cost of creating a logo, designers keep in mind a few things. The client must be presented with a specific amount of work and what problem is being solved. Let’s start from the beginning.

Expertise

This should be considered and decided to whom from the team to leave the creation of a logo. Suppose one of the designers specializes in a specific industry and is much better at it than working on another project. In that case, his knowledge of a certain industry will always be chosen.

Urgency of designing

If the client needs a logo within, say, 48 hours, then it is clear that such a logo creation speed will require a special price. It is understood that the quality must be the same when working with the logo for 48 hours or when working much longer. However, the deadline for designers means that, if it is short, they have to work, think, and create faster, and if the deadline is more extended, then there is room for improvements, beautifications, and adjustments.

Project specification

This is a detail that plays an essential role in determining the price. This part is discussed and agreed upon with the client. For example, how many logo revisions the agency needs to do (that is, how many audits the client is entitled to). It is then agreed on how many different design solutions the client wants (whether it is three or four, for example). In addition to these two things, it is crucial, e.g., in which formats the client requests that the logo be delivered. These are just three short examples of how in detail designers negotiate with clients and what is important to reach mutually acceptable terms and prices.

Logo Value

After we wrote about the price and how it is formed, we want to emphasize what is most important when it comes to the value of the logo and that these are not any numbers and figures.
It would help if you didn’t view the value of the logo as an ‘abstract’ category, but that, on the contrary, you can very clearly determine by items how a quality logo will affect your business. Below we will briefly explain why a well-executed logo design is valuable for the brand and why you do not want to pay cheaply for the logo because it will cost you much more later.

Usage

Consider how much you will use the logo in your daily business life. This is a significant issue, which should be well understood. A clearly designed logo can last a long time and can be used in many ways and applied on different surfaces. This way, you will be able to use it for years on your website, business cards, packaging, social networks, and all other means you use for marketing purposes. Now try to imagine how many people come in contact with your logo and how it contributes to the greater visibility of your company. However, it still helps you in a way that your company has a professional visual identity.

Yes, you are right. It isn’t easy to estimate how many people see your company’s logo every day (sometimes, probably several times during the day) and how they react to it. Do they remember it, do they recognize it after a specific time, or do they not pay attention to it at all?

Reusable use of the logo in relation to, e.g., the flyer (which can be considered a disposable mean) is exactly why the price of the logo is higher. Much research and thinking are needed to make a logo to last as long as possible and be as relevant as possible.

Uniqueness

The logo is a key and essential visual element of the brand, and the brand is a central part of any business. What makes the difference between a successful business and one that never succeeds is a good brand. Your logo is part of the strategy by which you determine your business and how it will progress and develop. Besides, the logo is there to create a connection with customers, based on which customers will begin to recognize your brand and establish a relationship of trust with your business.

To achieve all this, your logo must be unique and authentic. It must represent your business down to the smallest detail, values, and mission because that is what your client will see first. How much is the first impression worth to you? Do you trust it?

Designer’s ‘Know-How’

We have all asked someone to do something for us that would take up only 5 minutes of his time. But we never thought it takes 5 minutes for someone because it took them much more, many years, for educating, practicing, and making an effort to get to do something very complicated in so little time.
So, you will not pay just for the ‘picture,’ not even for the time to make one logo (although, of course, that is part of the price, not to be confused). You pay for a designer’s knowledge and expertise (years and years of someone’s doing a specific job and all the knowledge they acquired while doing that job). The neighbor’s kid “who knows something in Photoshop” cannot make a quality logo. However, he can certainly make a cheap one.

There are many things to pay attention to – is the logo balanced, in what format was it delivered to you, does it represent the brand’s message, is it enough to be in one color? Now, think again, is it really worth it to get a cheap logo?

Bottom Line

Most business owners see the logo as just another item on the ‘to do’ list, which they think they can make themselves in a simple graphic tool. But there will always be a huge difference between the two worlds – on one side, the world in which we have a creative agency and, on the other, a “neighbor’s son who is a graphic design enthusiast.”

Usually, in life, you always get what you paid for, so value your hard-earned money and provide your business with a quality logo. Appreciate a person who will forever play an essential role in developing your business (your designer) because the logo is exactly that – the critical part of your business. If you need to create a logo, always contact professionals.

About the author: Lars Isaksson is a Swedish freelance content writer that has been writing blogs and articles about topics valuable for websites dealing with digital marketing and the tech industry. 

Read more about basic types of logos and logo design stages, learn when and why an animated logo is a good idea, and check the collection of inspiring logos mastering negative space usage

Сообщение Real Value of Logo Design and Why It’s Worth Investing появились сначала на Design4Users.

Project

UX and UI design for an admin panel and landing page of a finance management service.

Process

CashMetrics provides support for retailers, mainly in the fashion segment: it helps to organize their operations and monitor cash flows. It is aimed at simplifying operational processes, with a key focus on tracking profits, shipping costs, and fees. When it comes to financing, the first idea that immediately comes to mind is boring tables and complex calculations. So, the primary goal was to step away from dull, unclear, and overwhelming data presentation and make the service eye-pleasing and easy to use.

Dashboard

The first thing to focus the design effort on was a dashboard, the main page of the admin panel. That was one of the challenging pages as it had to consist of many statistics and graphics blocks. Besides those, a to-do list was also required on the dashboard.

So after the research was done, the creative team defined which stats would be the most useful and which of them required to be shown in charts for better perception. The designer ended up having 8 statistic blocks:

• Overview: the user can see general information about sales, orders, and profits for a selected period of time (year, month, or week) and watch the temps of growth.
• Inventory: the total quantity of items that the retailer has in the range and how many of them are in stock.
• Earnings: the chart that shows the positive and negative value of earnings.
• Sales & Expenses: the chart includes any costs incurred by the retailer and the number of goods sold
• Top-Selling Items: top 5 items ranged by the number of units sold. The user also can see how much profits he got from selling those items.
• Top-Selling Brands: shows which brands have more share in sales.
• Average Sales: average income and profit that the retailer make over a certain period of time.

To bring a little fun into charts and numbers, the designer chose a vibrant color palette that creates an appealing and clean look. For primary colors, deep blue and vibrant blue were chosen; for additional accents, the turquoise color was picked. The choice of background color turned on light to make the layout airy and easy to scan.

Also, one of the main requirements was to create a fee calculator to easily account for selling fees for marketplaces such as eBay, GOAT, StockX, and others. For marketplaces that are used most frequently by the user, it is possible to make a preset.

Inventory, Sales, Expenses

For tracking selling inventory and monitoring the status of the products, there is an Inventory page. It was important to make interaction with inventory and sales pages convenient and as clear as possible because these pages are the ones the retailer interacts with most often.

To create a new item, a user should specify a name, color, size, brand, quantity, retail price, and status. That helps to sort items and easily find one that is needed. The status of the item changes in one click in a dropdown with actions. When the last item has been sold, it is left in inventory with the status ‘Out of stock’. So when the item is in stock again, there is no need to put all the information down again; the retailer simply changes the status and quantity.

As there are a lot of properties that need to be filled to create a new item, the designer added a ‘Duplicate item’ feature. So, if retailers have similar items in different sizes and colors, they can just duplicate an existing item and change some of the properties.

In order to simplify the transition to the platform for new users, the ability to import sales information from Excel has been added. So, in general, there are three ways to add information to sales:

• Excel import
• quick transfer from inventory
• enter the information manually.

On the Expenses page, there are data supposed to be uploaded automatically and also could be added manually. When the retailer adds some item to inventory, the specified retail price of it also been shown in the Expenses. The retailer can also track expenses such as shipping boxes, software expenses, etc. Along with the sales data, expenses are visually represented in the chart on the dashboard.

Landing Page

For the landing page user interface design, the designer kept the clean and simple style as in the admin panel. Simple soft shapes on the background are consistent with a line chart in the header and also emphasize the simplicity and user-friendliness of the product. In the blocks with information about the product, there are CTA buttons “See more,” which redirect the user to sign up form, as well as “Join now” buttons.

Also, we added a perspective view of the dashboard page, focusing on the main blocks.

To sum up, based on its high practical value, the product itself and its landing page are based on the principles of user experience design consistency and a high level of usability to support users at every step with intuitive navigation as well as clear and concise data segmentation.

UX Design Case Studies

Welcome to review other case studies on UX design process and solutions for a variety of digital products:

Crezco. Brand Identity and UI/UX Design for Fintech Service

Uni. Landing Page Design for Fintech Service

Designer AI. Dashboard and Graphics for Service for Fashion Designers

Pazi. UX and UI Design for Vehicle Safety Mobile App

Bitex. UX Design for Stock Analysis App

Perfect Recipes App. UX Design for Cooking and Shopping

Tasty Burger. UI Design for Food Ordering App

Slumber. Mobile UI Design for Healthy Sleeping

Watering Tracker. UI Design for Home Needs

Home Budget App. UI for Finance

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic content by tubik

Сообщение Case Study: UX Design for Finance Management Service появились сначала на Design4Users.

What is E-Commerce?

As it’s mentioned in our free ebook “Design for Business”, in general terms, e-commerce (Electronic Commerce) is the direction of business activity when the process of providing customers with goods or services is done by means of electronic devices and the Internet. This sort of communication and finalization of sales adds some new aspects to data management, sales channels, advertising, presenting goods and services, and moreover — enabling the full cycle of commercial operations, including payments, delivery, and refunds.

The last decade witnessed booming e-commerce development. Today it provides opportunities for not only e-trade both from businesses to buyers but also online auctions and user-to-user sales platforms. E-commerce systems and activities today include presenting and booking a wide range of services, e-banking, commercial operations with e-money and e-wallets, diverse forms of e-marketing, and many other things which customers are using more and more often on the everyday basis.

Travel Gear Landing Page

The role of design for e-commerce

«If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful» says CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos, and it’s hard to argue. Obviously, the success of e-commerce activity depends on several factors among which:
— the quality of the product or service offered
— the quality of the content presenting the offer to customers
— the quality of design for the electronic platform — website and/or mobile application — via which the sales are going to be delivered.

So, it’s easy to see that the UI/UX design part plays a vital role. Thoroughly thought-out logic and transitions, simple and clear microinteractions, fast feedback from the system, attractive product presentation, easy payment flow, and plenty of other details and features can directly influence increasing profits for the business involved in such a popular e-commerce game. This is the field where designers and business experts can work as one team for good of everyone, first of all of the target users.

Designing an e-commerce website or mobile app, designers should definitely consider the following aspects:

• operational simplicity
• strong branding
• security of users’ data
• effective use of visual elements
• clear data presentation via menus, catalogs, etc.
• user’s ability to leave feedback about goods and services
• easily available general and contact information about the business providing goods or services
• design that supports the offer not overshadowing it.

Handmade Toys Landing Page

On that ground, let’s check the details in three key perspectives whose combination in design makes success for e-commerce platforms: business aspect, UX aspect, and UI aspect.

Business Perspective: Branding and Promotion

Websites and mobile applications for e-commerce are (well, should be) always the products created within a particular business scheme. It means they are part of a certain business plan with the specific goals in mind and the planned ways to achieve them. Therefore, design for this sort of product definitely starts much before the first real line appears on the paper or screen. There are several important issues that should be considered and agreed upon before the actual design starts.  Among them we would mention the following:

– USP of the product. It’s essential to set which benefit (or set of benefits) will differ this website or application from the others and make it the core value presented via design.

– defined target audience. In e-commerce, it’s important to set who your buyers are from the initial stage of the project. Knowing their age and culture, potential problems and wishes, the level of tech literacy, and trust in the idea of online shopping, the social circles influencing them and aspects forming their habits, designers can be more precise searching for the shortest way to a successful purchase.

– positioning, tone, and voice of the brand. How would you describe your brand? Is it friendly? Fun or serious? Mass or luxury? Easily available or exclusive? Does it communicate to potential buyers in formal, informal or semi-formal style? Does it open much or mostly keeps reserved silence creating the mystery around the offered goods? These questions may seem far from business which has to be all about finance, profits, points of sales, and other stuff of that kind. Still, these issues present the number of features which will set the future brand image. And the design is somehow going to be its face, outfit, and make-up.

– marketing and sales channels. No doubt, it’s hard to immediately set all the channels for selling and promoting the future product; however, effective business planning means thinking over the core of them from the start. It will enable the design team to track and support the consistent experience of both getting to the product and actually interacting with it. Even more, designers take an active part in setting and strengthening marketing and sales via a variety of means from branded items, landing pages, and product videos to exclusive photos, posters and banners attracting customers to the platform where they actually can buy.

– type of business relations. Type of business relations based on target customers deeply influences the core aspects of UX design. Set from the start whether it’s B2C, B2B or B2C to create proper layout and predict possible user behavior.

– typical environment of use. Designers need to know when, where and in which conditions users will typically use the website or app: these factors have a considerable impact on the decisions about layout, color scheme, typography, transitions and interactions, which all need to have the global objective to make the process of shopping easy, quick and enjoyable.

Gym Landing Page

It’s easy to see that all the mentioned points directly influence design solutions as well as techniques and approaches for their realization. It means that the best way to go is to involve designers in the discussion together with stakeholders and marketing specialists at the early ideation stage if it’s possible; if not, then specification and tasks provided to designers afterward have to include maximum information about those aspects. In case you work in outsource design team, make sure you get this information to be more concentrated on the key aspects of the task, and if not, communicate with the clients as long as it’s needed to get all those points clear. This communication will save many hours of iterations, which happens in cases when design is started out of the thin air without the basis of information and goals.

UX perspective

Talking about e-commerce, it’s vital to understand that selling the goods once via the website or mobile application is the minimal program of action. What stakeholders of the business really aim at is having this user buying via their website or app again and again. User retention is the direct condition of growing profits. And we have to admit that this aspect makes the e-commerce sphere highly attractive to designers. The objective which should be achieved is clear and simple: people have to reach the e-commerce platform and buy items offered on it.

Make no mistake, positive user experience is the key thing for user retention. In the case of e-commerce, the four key aspects of UX are quite clear:

• utility lies in the nature of the product: it helps users to choose and buy things and services they need.
• usability has to make the customer journey clear and easy, without unnecessary clicks, time lost on loading overloaded pages or inconvenient menu, the frustration of not getting feedback from the system, etc.
• accessibility has to bring up design that can be used by different categories of users, for example, people with disabilities (dyslexic, color-blind, etc.) or low level of tech literacy.
• desirability means that the app will get the look and feel which will make the experience enjoyable and users will wish to get back again.

Bookshop Website

Among the core aspects dealing with the mentioned issues and considered from the early stages of design like UX-wireframing and user research, we would mention the following.

Intuitive navigation

You can have an amazing website with stylish and trendy design and breathtaking images, but the success of it will be measured not by the number of “wows” it will bring out. The efficiency is measured simply: by the number of complete purchases. If users don’t buy, design means nothing while stakeholders lose their money. Clear intuitive navigation plays the premier violin here. At every step of interaction, users need to understand clearly plenty of simple things, like:

• what company or brand they are dealing with
• what page they are at
• where the menu is
• how they can get back to home page or catalog
• where the search and filters are
• how long the page-loading process is going to take
• how they can see the detailed information about the item
• how they can choose between the option for the same item (color, size etc.)
• how they can pay for the item
• how they can save the items they would like to get back to later
• how they can contact the seller
• how they can see the rating and reviews of previous buyers etc.

Bakery Website

Every button, link, and card can play a crucial role and change the conversion significantly. What’s vital to bear in mind: in terms of intense competition we have in e-commerce now, buyers aren’t ready to wait or waste their time on unnecessary operations. What they demand from e-commerce is the experience which is faster, easier, and more convenient compared to going to the actual store. If you don’t give it to them, they will look for it somewhere else.

Sales funnel

Sales funnel (in other words — purchase funnel) is a technique that moves the customer through several stages of involvement providing him/her with necessary information about the product and benefits persuading to make a purchase. As we described before in the book, basic sales funnel includes the following stages:

• Introduction (Awareness). User gets the initial information about the product, its brand name and nature. In other words, the user learns that the product or service exists on the market.
• Education (Interest). User is provided with more detailed information about the features and benefits of the product or service that can potentially interest them and solve their problems.
• Evaluation (Analysis). User gets the chance to compare the offer with its competitors and obtain the information about USPs (Unique Selling Points) of the offered product or service.
• Decision (Engagement). User gets final vital arguments engaging him/her to make a decision; it can be short summing-up about core benefits of the offer, data about additional bonuses or special offers, engaging call to actions and explanation of purchase process.
• Purchase. User makes a decision and takes the ability to make a purchase. The sale is done.
• Retaining (Repeating the experience). User gets the opportunity to leave feedback, obtain additional contacts supporting the offer, subscribes to updates, gets the chance to repeat the purchase easily if desired.

In terms of e-commerce, sales funnel is supported with a diversity of functions digital products can offer. Awareness of the principles of sales funnel leads to customer-centric, informative and engaging design solutions. Sales funnel can be either fully represented on the website or landing page as well as in mobile application or from an outer source, for example, social media taking over the mission of awareness and interest and directing engaged traffic to the platform enabling users to buy.

Comics Online Shop

Effective presentation of the items

The layout of the product pages or screens is another core aspect to think over. On the one hand, it’s advisable not to overload the page with too much information which will overwhelm users and can distract their attention from the major goal – to make the purchase. On the other hand, users aren’t ready to go from one page to the other to get different information about the item. Therefore, the designer has to take the time for thorough research of the issue and find the right balance of data given on one screen. The analysis of the target audience and user testing can give clues to what information is required by the target audience for the specific categories of items or services.

Jewellery E-Commerce App

UI perspective

Being concentrated on not only logic and transitions but also looks and style, UI design stage also contributes much to the success of the e-commerce project. It is the aspect that creates visual performance and sets the solid ground for the desirability of the interface and positive emotional feedback from the buyer. At UI design stage for e-commerce, designers have to find the general stylistic concept which will support UX aspects mentioned before and will give the online point-of-sale the attractive looks. Some aspects, which designers have to take into account in this perspective, are:

– choice of colors that correspond to the brand image and strengthen emotional feedback

– setting the style corresponding to the nature of the commercial offer: reaching the website, people should instantly understand if it sells household goods, fresh vegetables, trendy clothes, exclusive devices or anything else

– the visual hierarchy which makes the core zones of interaction instantly noticeable

– the general harmony of perception which sets the feeling of aesthetic satisfaction supporting positive user experience.

Design Studio Website

Points to consider

For the bottom line, here’s a simple check-list for some essential aspects designers would rather consider working on e-commerce projects:

– Know the buyers: user research will help to get the needs and wishes of target audience.

– Have users informed: make the screens or pages filled with information and functionality users really need for making a purchase.

– Keep design consistent: not only does the website or app itself need consistency of design for all the screens in terms of general branding, but also social networks, print materials, and actual point-of-sales appearance if they exist.

– Refresh the experience: minor changes or attractive details added to the interface from time to time without breaking general visual consistency can give the feeling of refreshment, like new looks of mannequins do in the window displays of the shop.

– Check your solutions: user testing can have a great impact on understanding the factors that boost conversions. Ideally, it should be applied not only in the process of design but also after the launch of an e-commerce platform on the basis of real user interactions and troubles which can arise.

– Be careful about revolutions and wow-effect: the power of habit plays a big role in the products of this kind. Choosing layout, menus, or icons, which stand too far from the ones users are generally accustomed to, can bring confusion and frustration. For example, usage of any other image instead of the magnifying glass to mark the search field can result in bad user experience as buyers know that visual symbol and will look for it. So, making this sort of experiments, take time to test them well.

– Respect the buyers: remember, that they are not abstract metrics – every figure in conversion report is about real people. Look for the interface that will respect their time, effort and needs and it will bring positive experience of shopping for both sides.

Organic Food Shop

Recommended reading

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

Two Types of User Motivation: Design to Satisfy

The ultimate guide to designing ecommerce websites

Ecommerce UX: 3 Design Trends to Follow and 3 to Avoid

Designing for 5 Types of E-Commerce Shoppers

20 Common UX Mistakes In Ecommerce Websites

Everything You Need to Know About Designing for eCommerce

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Strategies and Principles of UX Design for E-Commerce появились сначала на Design4Users.

What is landing page?

Landing page in its basic wide meaning is the term used for analytics to describe any page where the user started his or her journey around your site, in other words, where a user lands on the website. However, today the other, more specific meaning is used much more often to define a landing page. Behind this term, people understand the special web page created for presentation of the specific product, service, features, or options so that the visitor could get necessary information quickly and easily not being distracted.

That is why the analysts say a landing page is in most cases much more efficient than the home page. Home page can have too many options and getting through all of them to find the particular product the user can get distracted from making the decision, lose interest or even get annoyed.

Gym Landing Page

What is conversion and why is it important?

Talking about the sphere of design for businesses and products, especially in terms of their marketing and promotion, the word conversion is perhaps the most popular and widely used. In its most general definition, conversion means transformation, and depending on the field these words are applied for, it will be used for different objects.

Initially, in terms of e-commerce, where landing pages have perhaps the widest field of application, the conversion is the index showing how many visitors actually moved to the end of the way they were offered actually buying a product. So, e-commerce conversion transforms visitors (users) into buyers.

However, nowadays landing pages go far beyond e-commerce, therefore understanding of conversion also gets broader. In modern terms of comprehensive and numerous functions and needs, which users are able to fulfill with online resources and digital products, the conversion is the rate of cases when visitors did the action they were called to. And that can be not only buying something.

In terms of the landing page, conversion can be also fixed in case of:

• moving to direct use of a product
• subscription
• transition to the other page
• downloading an app or a file
• providing some information
• answering the question in the survey
• starting free/discounted trial use of a product
• browsing a library
• reading a more detailed description of the product or service etc.

Here we can see the concept of a landing page that presents a website of a rock group. Different blocks of the page provide different calls to action not overloading the user with the information. Therefore, a visitor needs split seconds to scan the page and find the necessary section that enables us to see more about the topic of particular interest.

Conversion means that your page transforms passive users into active. They don’t just observe the information given to them, but also do the action which is offered by this page. So, conversion is one of the most important indices of page efficiency which is vital for business. Landing pages are focused on engaging visitors with data performance and stimulating them to make the action which in the vast majority of cases is a part of a business plan.

Travel Gear Landing Page

Jeff Eisenberg, a successful businessman and head of an advertising agency, gives a brilliant thought about the importance of conversion: “It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic”. His words are proved by the practice of numerous businesses that directly target users to landing pages providing specific data and saving their most precious resource – time.

Why is the landing page needed?

As we mentioned in the case study about designing a landing page, it is easy to answer this question with a little metaphor. Imagine, you are going to visit, let’s say, New York, to walk around Manhattan. That is the dream of your life. Finally, you find the service which offers to take you to New York City fast and cheap. Great, isn’t it? You pack your bag, you charge your camera, you get up full of admiration as the dream of your life is going to get real. And then you are taken by those amazing people who offered you the realization of your dream to the entrance point of New York City. They leave you there to find Manhattan or any other place you want by yourself. How do you like it now? Who knows, perhaps you will be not so happy after an exhausting journey around the huge city looking for the place you want. Wouldn’t it feel great to be taken right to the destination, fresh and ready to admire and absorb positive emotions? Wouldn’t you as a customer be happier to reach your goal faster and easier? Sure, yes.

That is actually what a landing page does. When a person obtains the information from the outer source about the specific product, feature, information, or service and clicks through the link to its provider, sure, he or she doesn’t dream to spend a lot of time looking for the desired product or page among all the links and information provided on your homepage. The user wants to «land» directly at that very place which will make possible for him or her to get what they want as fast as possible and getting enough (but not too much) information to support their decision-making process. So, creating a well-thought-out landing page is really vital to strengthen marketing strategy and increase conversion rates.

As a practical example, here is the design concept Museu. It presents a landing page promoting art exhibitions. The idea behind it is to make this sort of promotion aesthetic and unobtrusive for the user as well as highly informative. The balance of minimalism and utility appealing is kept by means of style, color, and motion.

In the book “Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions” by Tim Ash, Maura Ginty, and Rich Page, the authors provide a concise set of rules which designers and marketers should remember about creating a digital interactive product. It’s high time to remember them now:

The Rules of Web Awareness:

• If the visitor can’t find something easily, it does not exist.
• If you emphasize too many items, all of them lose importance.
• Any delay increases frustration.

These thoughts make the solid ground for using landing pages in the case when you need to concentrate the user’s attention on something important, to make it noticeable and easily available. A landing page is a tool to emphasize one item, to make it quickly found, and to reduce delays in cases when the target user seeks for specific operations, services, or items. As the author of the highly informative article “The ultimate guide to designing landing pages that convert” Cameron Chapman mentions, “One of the biggest mistakes a marketer can make is sending traffic from any kind of advertising or PR campaign to their home page. Your home page likely has little direction or direct connection to the campaign sending traffic to it. That can leave visitors confused.”

What does a landing page consist of?

Actually, a landing page is a field for broad creativity and depending on the target audience and objectives behind it, it can be very different. There isn’t a single guide for the fixed scheme and construction of a landing page, but there is a basic thing that should be provided by any landing page. It doesn’t matter what size is the page, how many parts it includes, how many visual elements it uses, the most important thing for any page is that it should provide VALUE.

In general, typical landing pages often have:

1) General idea of the presented object (product, service, activity, etc.) with a call-to-action element. Users need to be provided with the basic description of the benefits, preferably not too detailed but concise and useful. The aim of this element is to inform the user and provide a clear and noticeable opportunity to actively use this information via a call to action element which can be presented with a button, link, contact form, subscription field, etc.

2) Testimonials and signs of trust. People usually tend to trust more to what is already used or tried by other people and recommended as worth attention. Therefore, testimonials from clients, considerable numbers of followers in social networks, awards, and certificates can have a great impact on the conversion rate.

3) Description of the main features. This block of information can be used as additional information supporting the description of basic functionality. It supplies a visitor with more details about the product or service, its abilities and technical characteristics, its influence on life and productivity, and the like. It certainly makes the landing page longer and requires more attention from users so applying this block should be always thoroughly analyzed.

The example provided below is a concept of landing page created for quite a specific purpose and target audience. As you can see, it involves all the elements mentioned above.  The aim of the page is to promote a shop for organic food. It is composed of several blocks presenting the name of the shop, products, highlighting some important aspects of service, call to actions, and testimonials. The designer sets the purpose to make it informative but not overloaded, appealing but not aggressive. To make the experience more attractive and engaging, the process of scrolling the page was livened up with animation, and the visual elements were selected to support the general theme and provide the immediate visual perception of the basic idea.

What are the important aspects of an efficient landing page?

– Target audience analysis

No landing page should be designed without a solid basis of research and analysis. A landing page is not an object of pure art, it is a part of promotion and presentation strategy. Designers working on a landing page should keep in mind that any marketing campaign comes from the definition of the goals and target audience. So, a landing page should be designed as a virtual bridge connecting the target customer with a product or service. For a web page with high conversion rates, design decisions have to be based on the analysis of the target audience’s preferences, abilities, and psychological characteristics. The design of a landing page that will work for everyone is a utopia, standing far from real business achievements and results.

– Market and competition analysis

One more aspect the designer should dedicate time and effort to is the analysis of the competition. Earlier we have already considered the connection between UI/UX design and advertising basics in the article “Advertising Rules to Design Good UX” and one of the points was devoted to the aspect of competition analysis. As far as the landing page is actually an active part of the marketing process, the analysis of the market is inevitable for a good result. Knowing the competitors, you will be able to create original ideas of presentation that will not get lost among other numerous products and services.

– Copy

Famous guru of advertising David Ogilvy said: “Every word in the copy must count.” This is a simple but unavoidable truth if you deal with a landing page. The decision on the amount of copy used on the page should be the aspect of thorough research and testing as it directly and highly influences conversions.

However, it doesn’t mean that every landing page should contain a minimal number of words. If it presents a famous company product or service or informs about special offers, sometimes short and a concentrated copy is enough to encourage users. However, if a new unknown product or service is presented, it is important to provide users with more information persuading them to follow the call to action.

The provided example shows the design concept of a landing page for a non-profit organization. It uses considerable copy blocks and supporting visual elements to set the understanding of the club activity.

– Branding elements

It is obvious that elements of branding such as a logo, corporate colors and typefaces, slogan, and other identity traits should be strongly presented on a landing page. They should provide a strong connection of a presented product, service, or activity with the company or brand visual and verbal identity. This improves the efficiency of the general marketing strategy.

– Visuals
As was explained previously in the post about visual perception in UI, people, in general, have incredibly broad abilities to perceive visual marks, recognize and proceed data even transformed in images of the high level of abstraction. In the vast majority of cases, people fix and perceive pictorial elements like icons and illustrations faster than words. A great proportion of users are visually-driven creatures by nature. As it is shown in all the examples provided higher, using attractive and informative graphics in landing pages enables users to catch the idea and scan the page much faster and saves their time as well as involves their aesthetic perception in the process.

Seafood Recipes Landing Page

– USP and CTA

These are two magic words to make a landing page efficient. USP (Unique Selling Point) is the most important benefit (or set of benefits) people can get with your product. CTA (Call to Action) has to encourage people to realize the conversion. An effective landing page quickly informs a user about unique selling points and provides noticeable, clear, and easily-available calls to action.

– Short loading time

One of the aspects influencing design solutions for landing pages should be a reasonable time of page loading. Users do not like to lose their time, and the landing page is not a piece of unique something that will be an exception. Don’t make the visitors wait. All the design solutions should be thought-out carefully not to overload the page and prolong its time of loading unnecessarily.

– Video Presentation

A video presentation can become a very good way to present a product without making users read long copy blocks. It involves all the senses of perception in the process. Video can make the page active and interesting. However, there is a pitfall to remember: the video has a considerable impact on page loading time. So, it should be really worth watching to become a design element of an efficient landing page.

– Responsive design

Several years ago one of the articles on Think with Google provided interesting facts and statistics about the importance of responsive design for web products. Among them, we can learn that:

• 61% of users said that if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site, they’d quickly move on to another site
• 79% of people who don’t like what they find on one site will go back and search for another site
• 50% of people said that even if they like a business, they will use them less often if the website isn’t mobile-friendly.

Perhaps, today those numbers are even higher as more and more people are using mobile technologies on an everyday basis. Neglecting this aspect may negatively influence conversion rates.

– Absence of distraction

As it was mentioned above, the landing pages should concentrate people’s attention around a particular object. So, it should get rid of any elements that can distract the user’s attention and highlight the parts directly influencing the conversion. The fewer additional links are used, the better. Call to action elements should get the fastest and highest level of attention. In this case, user will get the best navigation to the goal.

Here is a landing page for SwiftyBeaver native Mac application. As we can see it is designed in a minimalistic manner and concentrates users’ attention on a short copy about the product’s functionality and CTA enabling to request free beta access. Although the page provides other important links, they are designed in a way not distracting from the main elements providing conversion.

Why should you test your landing page?

In one of our earlier articles “Basic Grammar for Designers. Must and Mustn’t in Design” as well as in practical case studies, we have already mentioned the importance of testing. Experts in usability say and practice proves that it’s impossible to be fully objective about the project you work on, especially if it’s a long-term one. Moreover, a designer is not a magician turning into anyone who will use the product to understand the best way of doing anything. Therefore, creating an idea is not enough. You should test it to grab the real practical data and improve your product.

Let’s also remember David Ogilvy, who said: “The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.” Testing landing page enables to understand users’ behavior and fix the solutions that are not effective and user-friendly.

Studies based on practical landing pages testing prove that even such a small change as the color of a CTA element or placement of logo on the page, let alone the copy of the headline and CTA or length of general informative copy blocks, have a huge impact on conversion rates. Collecting statistics and analytics data and their careful analysis is a good way to effective design solutions providing high conversions and sales.

Useful Reading

Here are some handy articles to continue plunging into the theme of web design and graphics for user experience.

Web Design: 16 Basic Types of Web Pages

How to Improve Web Scannability

How to Create Original Flat Illustrations

The Role of Branding in UI Design

How To Use the Power of Mascots in UI Design and Branding

Negative Space in Design: Tips and Best Practices

Web Design: The Big Guide into Different Types of Websites

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Strategies of Efficient Landing Page Design появились сначала на Design4Users.

«Contrary to popular belief, designers are not artists. We employ artistic methods to visualize thinking and process, but, unlike artists, we work to solve a client’s problem, not present our own view of the world.» (Erik Spiekermann)

Modern design has multiple faces, sides, and directions. Some of them are more artistic than the others which are deeper concentrated on profits and goals. However, any way it goes, design is a sphere with a different perspective. Design is a goal-oriented and problem-solving activity applying art to serve people.

«Whether you are helping to launch a new business from scratch, or making incremental changes to an existing product, or something in between, any design task you undertake must serve a goal. It’s your job to find out what those goals are.» (Mike Monteiro)

Talking about the sphere of web and app design, one of the most practical and goal-oriented fields of creativity is design for e-commerce. In this domain, there are many factors influencing design decisions and lots of relevant aspects to study and research. Designing a product for e-commerce, be it a website, a web or mobile application, branding design, advertising materials, designers work within various limitations built by a particular product or service features, target audience, marketing and promotion strategy, business goals, budget, and investment plan, etc. Design becomes a tool working when used properly. Therefore, to use it efficiently, the designer needs to know the basics of business and economy as the goal of the design process in this case is creating an app or a website raising money and built on business techniques and methods. Moreover, quite often designers creating e-commerce platforms and products work in teams with marketologists, advertisers, researchers, analysts, and psychologists all of whom have a purpose to increase the level of profit brought by the final product.

So, today we decided to start collecting and explaining here basic business terms which are important in the process of digital design for e-commerce. Considering this list can make the designer much closer to marketologists and provide great help for better communication. In addition, keeping the aspects mentioned below in mind on the earliest stages of design such as UX research and wireframing is a good way to effective solutions increasing profits on the solid well-thought-out logic of interaction. The set of terms can be also useful for project managers involved in the process and managing collaboration between different sides of the same process.

Business Basics

Today’s section is focused on basic terms used in the domain of economics and business strategy mostly concentrated on sales in their broad understanding. Taking them into account and analyzing them significantly increases the chances of creating an efficient digital product.

«A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.» Michael LeBoeuf

E-commerce (Electronic Commerce)

«If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.» (Jeff Bezos)

Definition. E-commerce is the direction of business activity when the process of providing customers with goods or services is done by means of electronic devices and the Internet. This sort of communication and finalization of sales adds some new aspects to data management, sales channels, advertising, presenting goods and services, and moreover — enabling the full cycle of commercial operations, including payments, delivery, and refunds.

The last decade witnessed booming ecommerce development. Today it provides opportunities for not only e-trade both from businesses to buyers but also online auctions and user-to-user sales platforms. E-commerce systems and activities today include presenting and booking a wide range of services, e-banking, commercial operations with e-money and e-wallets, diverse forms of e-marketing, and many other things which customers are using more and more often on an everyday basis.

Design aspect. Obviously, the success of e-commerce activity depends on several factors among which:

• quality of the product or service offered
• quality of the content presenting the offer to customers
• quality of design for the electronic platform — website and/or mobile application — via which the sales are going to be delivered.

So, it’s easy to see that UI/UX design part plays a vital role. Thoroughly thought-out logic and transitions, simple and clear microinteractions, fast feedback from the system, attractive product presentation, easy payment flow, and plenty of other details and features can directly influence increasing profits for the business involved in such a popular e-commerce game. This is the field where designers and business experts can work as one team for good of everyone, first of all, the target user.

Designing e-commerce website or mobile app, designers should definitely consider the following aspects:

• operational simplicity
• strong branding
• security of users’ data
• effective use of visual elements
• clear data presentation via menus, catalogs, etc.
• user’s ability to leave feedback about goods and services
• easily available general and contact information about the business providing goods or services
• design that supports the offer not overshadowing it.

Product Card Animation

Randomizer concept

Conversion

«It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic» (Jeff Eisenberg)

Definition. Initially, in terms of e-commerce, conversion is the index showing how many visitors actually moved to the end of the way they were offered actually buying a product. So, for e-commerce conversion transforms visitors (users) into buyers.

Design aspect. Today ecommerce uses a wide range of techniques, so in terms of web or app platforms, the meaning of conversion also gets broader. In modern terms of comprehensive and numerous functions and needs, which users are able to fulfill with online resources and digital products, conversion is the rate of cases when visitors did the action they were called to. And that can be not only buying something.

For example, in our article about landing pages which are recognized as one of the strong tools for e-marketing and e-trade we mentioned that conversion can be also fixed in the case of:

• moving to direct use of a product
• subscription
• transition to the other page
• downloading an app or a file
• providing some information
• answering the question in the survey
• starting free/discounted trial use of a product
• browsing a library
• reading the more detailed description of the product or service etc.

Therefore, conversion for a webpage or app screen can mean different actions that correspond to the sales or marketing strategy of the particular business.

Conversion means that your page transforms passive users into active. They don’t just observe the information given to them, but also do the action which is offered by this page. So, conversion is one of the most important indices of the web page or app screen efficiency which is vital for business. It is a metric reflecting focus on engaging visitors with data performance and stimulating them to make the action that is a part of a business plan.

For designers, the factor mentioned above means that if they create design concentrated on conversion rates via positive user experience, their work will result in a website or app bringing profit both for user and business.

Landing Page Animation 

Read more and review the examples on this topic in our previous article

Sales Funnel

«Communications is at the heart of e-commerce and community.» (Meg Whitman)

Definition. Sales funnel (in other words — purchase funnel) is a technique that is deeply customer-focused and based on the gradual involvement of a customer in the process that potentially gets finalized with the act of actual purchase. When this technique is applied, the customer moves through several stages of involvement providing him/her with necessary information about the product and benefits persuading them to make a purchase.

The basic sales funnel includes the following stages:

— Introduction (Awareness). User gets the initial information about the product, its brand name, and its nature. In other words, the user learns that the product or service exists on the market.

— Education (Interest). User is provided with more detailed information about the features and benefits of the product or service that can potentially interest them and solve their problems.

— Evaluation (Analysis). User gets the chance to compare the offer with its competitors and obtain the information about USPs (Unique Selling Points) of the offered product or service.

— Decision (Engagement). User gets final vital arguments engaging him/her to make a decision; it can be short summing up about core benefits of the offer, data about additional bonuses or special offers, engaging call to action, and explanation of purchase process.

— Purchase. User makes a decision and takes the ability to make a purchase. The sale is done.

— Retaining (Repeating the experience). User gets the opportunity to leave feedback, obtain additional contacts supporting the offer, subscribe to updates, and get the chance to repeat the purchase easily if desired.

Design aspect. In terms of e-commerce, the sales funnel is a highly effective commercial technique supported by a diversity of functions digital products can offer. Knowing the principles of the sales funnel leads to customer-centric, informative, and engaging design solutions. Sales funnel can be either fully represented on the website or landing page as well as in mobile application or from an outer source,  for example, social media taking over the mission of awareness and interest and directing engaged traffic to the platform enabling the product.

In addition, sales funnel stages thought out and applied properly can work as a sort of filter letting quickly inform users about the product or service and move to the next stage for those who are potentially more interested while saving time and effort for those who are looking for something other.

However, sales funnel designed carelessly can play the opposite role: it can confuse users who are potential buyers and turn them out of the website or app without taking a chance to know proper information about the offer.

Sales funnel should be applied and designed on the basis of thorough research of the target audience and market segment. Moreover, it should be carefully tested from the very start of its implementation to measure if all the stages work efficiently. Practice proves that even minor design changes can bring big changes.

Björn

Sales Channel

«It is not your customer’s job to remember you. It is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.» Patricia Fripp

Definition. Sales channels are the ways through which the potential customers come to the point of e-commerce, be it a website or mobile application with which they can realize the actual purchase.

Design aspect. Designing for e-commerce, it is important to take into account the maximum of the possible sales channels which are really numerous on the Internet, from social networks to specialized forums, influencer reviews, and tailor-made advertising campaigns. Researching and understanding those channels gives broader prospects to the actual point of sale which you are designing for.

There are several vital aspects to remember about:

— Sales channels should be initially concentrated on the target audience. There is always the place and time to broaden the perspective as soon as the core target audience is involved. However, the attempts to «sell for all» and «design for everyone» from the launch can bring to a waste of effort, time, and money spent on design and promotion. Move gradually and measure the efficiency of design solutions at every step.

— Sales channels will work effectively from the initial awareness stage if they witness a strong connection to general brand identity. That is the reason to develop guidelines for online sources presentation in the brand book considering all the details of visual presentation and mission statement. Consistency is a powerful tool for both design and marketing.

— Sales channels should direct traffic to the places which enable users quickly get informed and make the actions they come for. For example, if the post on Facebook invites users to participate in the summer sale, they should be directed right to the landing page of this sale, not to the home page of the website.

The mentioned factors thought out at the stage of thinking over UX design solutions are able to make a good impact on conversion and sales rates.

Wood Products Landing Page 

Niche

«We will continue to see a convergence of the digital and physical world. Those who conquer that trend will be market leaders.» John Phillips

Definition. In business, niche means concentration of the offer on specific needs, wishes, and problems of a specific target audience. A niche market is a specialized market segment that is aimed at specific market needs with a close view of its demography, education level, level of income and purchasing abilities, etc. For example, when one company produces software generally used for creating and editing textual materials for a broad target audience while the other is adopted for specific needs of copywriters and editors (grammar checking, plagiarism analysis, synonyms prompts, etc.), the latter one presents the niche business.

Design aspect. Designing for a niche market and niche product, it’s important to learn all the details about the target audience as it is going to be quite specific and more details are usually influencing the process of design and marketing. Applying psychology of color, copy targeted at potential clients, deep analysis of their needs, and providing efficient layout, easy transitions, clear data presentation, and aesthetic features that suit this particular audience is a good way to high profit. In addition, creative ways to emphasize the specific nature of the product or service by means of design such as branding and original UI solutions can help the product stand out from the crowd and stay competitive.

Architecture Firm 

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

«It is quite true that man lives by bread alone — when there is no bread. But what happens to man’s desires when there is plenty of bread and when his belly is chronically filled?
At once other (and “higher”) needs emerge and these, rather than physiological hungers, dominate the organism. And when these in turn are satisfied, again new (and still “higher”) needs emerge and so on. This is what we mean by saying that the basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative prepotency» (Abraham Maslow, 1943).

Definition. One of the basic psychological theories widely applied in business on both micro- and macroeconomic levels. Developed by Abraham Maslow, it is focused on the hierarchy of human needs and consequently factors of motivation.

Its presentation found on Simply Psychology website features  5 levels of human needs featured by the theory:

1. Biological and Physiological needs — air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.

2. Safety needs — protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.

3. Love and Belongingness needs — friendship, intimacy, affection, and love, — from a workgroup, family, friends, and romantic relationships.

4. Esteem needs — achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.

5. Self-Actualization needs — realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth, and peak experiences.

Design aspect. Having read the points of the theory, it’s easy for a designer to ask: «What does it have in common with the design process?» The link perhaps doesn’t look really obvious, but it is fundamental in motivating people to use or buy products or services on different levels of economic relationships. Designing for e-commerce, which is one more type of human relationship, with a specific goal and ability to apply the mentioned theory can produce user-friendly and customer-centric products achieving its target audience and solving its problems.

Certainly, it’s great when the designer is able to involve professional marketologists in all the stages of the creative process and apply their professional knowledge and skills in design form. However, this opportunity isn’t always available. Moreover, a designer able to analyze economic basics and business factors influencing the design scheme and logic gets a higher level of proficiency.

In design for e-commerce, it is good to understand from the early stages of the process what stage of the Maslow’s pyramid the core target users are at. Answering this question, a designer is able to talk to users’ in their language and find the solutions that resonate in their hearts and minds the best. Users’ needs form their motifs, triggers that can catch their attention, words that can touch them, length of copy, and calls to actions that they are ready to accept and follow. Analyzing the level of needs and expectations, the designer is able to find the most efficient layout and informative graphic elements. Knowing and feeling the user is the solid foundation for problem-solving goal-oriented design.

Cafe Coupon App

4P Theory

“People don’t call it e-commerce anymore. It’s called omni-commerce, and it’s the idea that digital permeates every step of the purchase chain from product discovery to trial to pricing to actual purchase.” (Tolman Geffs)

Definition. The famous 4P theory, presented by Neil H. Borden and later grouped by E.Jerome McCarthy, also known as marketing mix, has become highly popular and efficient in business strategy, including the e-commerce sphere. It states that product launch and lifecycle are based on four «P» factors: product, price, place, and promotion. Business Case Studies website simply formulates it the following way:

«When marketing their products, firms need to create a successful mix of:

• the right product
• sold at the right price
• in the right place
• using the most suitable promotion.»

Marketing case studies prove that missing even one of the four mentioned positions can waste all the effort and reduce the levels of profit and brand awareness significantly.

Design aspect. No doubt, the 4P theory is highly applicable in design for e-commerce. The Price of the product is usually the furthest part from the designer’s decisions as it is decided and given by the stakeholders ordering the design part of the work. From the perspective of Product it works only partly being applicable to those cases when users buy digital products or services, let’s say mobile applications, which also need UI/UX design.

However, talking about the other two factors we can see how actual they are in terms of design effort and creativity. Indeed, designers creating websites or apps for e-commerce, create the right Place for trading and are responsible for making this place comfortable, attractive, and correspondent to the product nature as well as target audience expectations. As for the Promotion, today’s online marketing features numerous ways of presenting the product and achieving the target audience; its effectiveness also significantly depends on design decisions.

Neglecting close interconnection and mutual influence of all those factors on the final result increases the risk of poor rates. Design decisions made on the basis of those factors supporting each other help to provide pleasant, positive, easy-to-use, and user-focused e-commerce platforms.

Tubik Studio | Museu 

Gym Landing Page 

The bottom line

The set of business terms and their definitions given above builds the bridge between business strategies and designs able to efficiently support them. However, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed with all those techniques and forget the first and most important thing. There are no sophisticated design solutions, marketing techniques, and any sort of magic that will sell the bad product for a long time. Surely, there can be some effect, but it will never retain the users. The positive experience of interaction with a website will not overcome a bad experience of interaction with a low-quality product or service.

The offer is the key. Design is an actionable and helpful tool in every stage of launching, presenting, and promoting the product, informing users about it, and selling it in a fast and easy way. Nevertheless, if the product is of poor quality, the successful design of an e-commerce platform isn’t going to make it better. Think over the product and its user first, only then the design will give it the chance to beam at full.

«To satisfy our customers’ needs, we’ll give them what they want, not what we want to give them.» Steve James

Don’t miss our next article which is going to present the set of business terms useful for UI/UX and graphic designers in terms of marketing and user research. Stay tuned!

Recommended reading

UX Design for E-Commerce: Principles and Strategies
The Role of Branding in UI Design
Business-Oriented Design. Know Your Target
Business Terms in Design for E-Commerce
Two Types of User Motivation: Design to Satisfy Users
Sell Like Hotcakes: UI Designs for E-Commerce
Handy Tips for Home Page Design
Landing Page. Direct Flight to High Conversion

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Design for Business. User-Friendly Way to Profits появились сначала на Design4Users.