Satisfying Customers With Color, Shape, and Type
By Molly E. Holzschlag
Did you know that a site visitor has formed his or her first impression of your site within the first nine seconds of a visit? So how in the world -- taking download time into account -- do designers effectively entice and satisfy visitors? The answer is simple: appropriate design.
In basic terms, appropriate design is the act of matching the demographics and content of your Web site to specifically chosen colors, shapes, and type styles. This ensures that the combination of visual elements adds up to a design that's suitable to the content, and fits the audience with no need for additional tailoring.
Whether a site visitor knows it or not, he or she responds to visual cues on a psychological level. Well-educated graphic designers have been taught how to strategically create and place such cues to tease, please, and ultimately satisfy their visitors. And the satisfaction doesn't end with the visitor, of course. A happy site visitor is more likely to engage in the goal of your site -- whether it is meant to inform, entertain, or to sell goods or services.
Note that the information in this article assumes that the visitors to your site have normal vision. While this article's focus is visual design, next month I'll be covering accessibility and HTML 4.0 so that you can design sites that not only look great, but can be enjoyed by your low- and no-vision visitors as well.
The most obvious way to work on a visitor's psyche is to use color as a means of conveying messages about the site and its information or products.
