How did I start

Have you ever wondered ;

Why do most of the websites have client/customer logos displayed on the homepage? Why do websites have gifs or changing titles? Why do websites of most NGOs tell stories about an individual and not a group? Why do some websites have an about us page while others do not? and the list goes on......

Well we mostly go for any of these design layouts without exactly knowing the what's and why’s but If we get the answers to these questions it will become really easy for us to take the right decisions while creating a website instead of just copy pasting stuff, for that all we need to know is how to make any idea stick.

Here is a list of five principles which will make people stick to your website

Simplicity

What is a simple idea? Idea you come up with after filtering & prioritising what matters the most. Prioritise goals that are critical ahead of goals that are beneficial.

The filtered result is what we called a core of the idea. Core is what fills these blanks below:

If our Website does nothing else but does that one thing……….

The single most important thing our website does is …….

Concreteness

Concrete is that which could be explained and understood using senses. Images evoke when you hear, read or listen to it. Most of the time concreteness boils down to a specific person doing a specific thing or by Relating ideas to already existing concepts (use analogies)

Examples :

Look at the Slack hero Image: It shows two co-workers chatting about work. This forms an image in our minds which sticks with us.

Look at the hero title ”Welcome to your new HQ”: Creating an analogy between Slack and HQ makes you understand the idea better & remember it.

The more hooks an idea has the better it clings to your memory.

Credibility

Your Idea should instil trust, but how?

• People trust the recommendation of people they would want to be like (Names/Logos of your big clients)
• People trust the recommendations of their family & friends (Referral campaigns)
• People trust the recommendations of experts. ( Testimonials of experts)
• People trust details (Explaining Process or formula for success)
• People trust Statistics (Numbers and figures)
• People trust a victim story (story of change through testimonials)
• Customers themselves can be your credibility, you can ask them to test for themselves (Get a free trial)

Unexpectedness

It gets people to pay attention to our ideas. People pay attention to surprises, to something counterintuitive, to something unique, to something which breaks a pattern/schema, to something which changes.

Emotional

To make people care about your idea you need to evoke few emotions as listed below:

• desire to realise their potential
• self fulfilment, self interest
• aesthetic, symmetry, order, beauty & balance
• Belongingness
• Security

Apply these principles to your website design process and see the magic!