It is essential for any designer to understand customer psychology in building a solid visual brand and digital experience. While design aspects such as typography, imagery, and color scheme play a huge role in branding, it’s also important for brand’s to gather data revolving around a customer’s online experience – including what pages they visit, the ‘digital routes’ they may take, and so on. By reviewing visual identity, behavioral maps, and behavioral science, we can get a clear idea of how to create effective branding for any consumer.
Visuals can make or break the customer experience
Color schemes, shapes, typography, fonts, and other design elements are integral to a company’s visual brand. Effectively communicating a brand’s message through visuals is helpful in multiple ways. It allows customers to get a sense of what to expect from the brand, highlights a brand’s uniqueness, and educates consumers on where the brand fits in a larger market.
Visual identity comprises a brand’s logo, imagery, typography, colors, and creative design. A brand’s logo should be simple, communicative, and reinforce a positive brand image constantly. A good logo strikes emotion – the classic Nike Swoosh does an excellent job invoking a memorable connection. It represents triumph, victory, motivation, and optimism1. Seeing the Nike Swoosh at the end of a commercial or promo video often leaves the audience feeling encouraged and inspired.
A strong visual identity leaves a powerful first impression on its audience. BORN Group’s design approach and content guidelines speak to the ever-changing global market. We focus on keeping our visual aesthetic in tandem with our tone and voice, reflecting our values in innovation, transformation, and strength. The marriage of compelling images with insightful content represents our branding, leaving a sophisticated first impression on our audience and potential clients.
Behavioral Maps
To truly follow a user’s journey on a site, a brand needs to think from a user’s perspective and understand complex user behaviors. It is a common mistake for brands to get caught up in their own presumptions and neglect users’ real needs and pain points. In such cases, a behavioral map can be an effective solution.
A behavioral map focuses on a certain action performed by a customer that is deemed as ‘successful.’ Mapping exactly how the customer gets to the desired action will give us insightful information on how to keep users engaged and entice more users to complete the same action. Examples of helpful behavioral information include most-viewed pages, CTA or filters toggled, the engagement time spent on certain content modules, and the digital routes taken to an action, etc2.
To design a seamless user experience, a brand should identify key behaviors and reduce any obstacle a user may face to achieve said action. Utilizing behavioral data will help brands convert first-time users as well as increase ROI in the long term.
Pictured above is a simple example of a user’s behavior map on Klick, a digital healthcare hub3.
Choice
Behavioral science, as opposed to cognitive or social psychology, deals with the processes and heuristics of decision-making4. Personal preferences, purchasing power, and economic climate all have an impact on a consumer’s buying habits. Being able to identify product value propositions and occasions of purchases will also provide marketing professionals insightful information on building a successful brand5.
Design elements, consumer behavior, and user experience are integral to a brand’s digital strategy. Leveraging natural human instincts and user behavioral data will improve users’ digital experiences and elevate the overall storytelling and brand identity to a new level.
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Footnotes
2. https://www.mindtheproduct.com/how-to-design-products-using-behavioral-science/
5. https://www.omniconvert.com/blog/consumer-behavior-in-marketing-patterns-types-segmentation/
