Best Ways to Grab and Engage Online Users’ Attention

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Best Ways to Grab and Engage Online Users Attention

Designer’s Quest

Today, UI and UX designers are running after clues that show them how to grab the immediate attention of their users. It is an eternal quest. However, behavioral science is aiding a lot, and today I am going to depict how fundamentals of behavioral science are helping UI/UX designers.

 

Attention Span,

However, digital marketers’ quest is to attract users’ attention to their website or web application and engage users by pushing them into their customer journey. Therefore, their prime aim always remains to get attention to the content of the web page or landing page. In other words, we are talking about the attention span of users.

Unfortunately, as our exposure to the web increases, thanks to the mobile web, we are losing our attention span progressively. For instance, in 2000, the human attention span was about 12 seconds. But, after a couple of dozen years, i.e., in 2013, it is 8 seconds. And, it has been continuously falling since then.

So, the attention span of Generation Z is shorter than that of Millennials.

Therefore, web page loading becomes a crucial factor for the website’s success, and even search engines have included it in their ranking algorithms.

Today it is crucial for us to understand how the human mind works. How do your target audience’s brains attract and hold attention? How could you perceive the best user experience so far? Let’s see the human brain’s mechanism in due respect.

 

1. Grab the Eyes of Your Targeted Audience

Grab the Eyes of Your Targeted Audience

We know people value their time and cognitive power. But, if you think of attention as a currency, they are always stingy about spending these currencies. In simple words, they wish to spend less time and less cognitive power. So, if you want to grab their attention, you have to consider these two factors upfront.

If your website has low-value information, people are less inclined to pay attention to your message. If you want to grab their attention, you need to make that information high-value and generate their interest. Fortunately, we have many tricks and techniques to create a high-value message on the website through content and design. Let’s learn something immediately applicable in the world of UI/UX design.

Movement

Naturally, our brain pays attention to any movement in our surroundings. Fortunately, we have evolved our digital landscape from standstill images to animations. The animation shows activity and grabs onlookers’ immediate attention. Therefore, smart UI/UX designers spread some tints of animation on the landing pages.

Moreover, the animation is capable of delivering a message effectively if you have carefully crafted it. The same goes true for videos as it consists of movement. Video has one more advantage, and it is real-time depiction. A video looks more real than animation and builds trust among consumers.

Human Face

On the path of human evolution, we have learned many useful things, and non-verbal communication is one of them. Our face has different types of expressions and the ability to show emotions—for example, smiling face, crying face, frustrated face, and so on. Therefore, we have a natural affinity for human faces.

In due course, human faces grab the immediate attention of our brains, and designers, as well as marketers, always tend to use human faces with different emotions in their designs. Therefore, human faces in the design unanimously gravitate our attention, and we prioritize them first, then the texts.

In a human face, the eyes are the most significant facial feature and deliver our visual messages in the most efficient ways. Moreover, human faces promote trust and authority in the mind of onlookers. So, designers pick up human faces carefully and align them to their theme or message.

Color of Ambiance

The color of an ambiance sets the mood. So, designers freely use different colors in the background and foreground to grab the attention of our primitive brains. You can set the unlike color of a selected part and make it outstanding in the eyes of onlookers. Even shades of texts also play the same game when you want to differentiate a particular portion of readers or characters.

Text Style

Our eyes immediately recognize an odd or something dissimilar out of similarity. This principle of behavioral science applies to text styles. You can make texts bold, italic, or underlined, and they will grab your attention immediately.

 

2. Primitive Instincts or Primal Urges to Grab Attention

Primitive Instincts or Primal Urges to Grab Attention

Hunger, sex, and threats or danger are primitive instincts that our inner brain recognizes immediately. So, designers always tend to use these primal urges selectively in their designs and grab the attention of their targeted audience.

  •  Food: Suppose you add a photo of delicious dishes, hunger will spring up in your mind, and saliva will start secretion!
  •  Sex: The same goes true in the case of a photo of the opposite sex.
  •  Danger: Similarly, if any threats persist, it will draw our attention to the potential risk.

However, we cannot universally apply the primal urges to grab the attention of your target audience. Still, you need to check their appropriateness in the right contexts, or you need to create such contexts meeting the needs of your niche.

 

3. Emotion

Emotion

From science’s perspective, emotions trigger thoughts in the mind. Emotions lead users to take desired actions. Thereby, designers provoke emotions in the sense of onlookers through various techniques or combinations of techniques.

For instance, if you want to create emotions in an image that draws the immediate attention of onlookers, you must incorporate other techniques, such as color, shades, tones, faces, primal urges, and typography in the textual message, and a lot more to say.

For humans, emotions may be positive or negative. Positive feelings bring the human mind to a receptive state. So, users open their minds and are ready to learn more by paying attention to those emotions. Designers must create a mental association with products or services and explore them to grab the attention of users.

Similarly, designers take negative emotions to tap the primal urges and explore them in favor of their message in the design. Negative emotions also create motivation, but designers should turn those in the desired direction. It is an art in itself. Video is the best channel to create emotion using different senses.

For example, you can incorporate music, lighting, motion, faces, and different moods in a video and make them the most effective weapon to create other deep emotional states in the mind of your audience.

 

4. Storytelling

Storytelling

Naturally, children like stories, and so do adults. Human beings accept messages from different stories at different levels. Thus, the storytelling approach works well in grabbing the attention of your audience, and stories also create engagement at deeper levels. You can associate with your products and services in design and make them consume.

 

5. Passing Silent Info

Passing Silent Info

In the designing world, iconography is the way to pass the silent info to your audience. Silent cues are most effective and work magically in delivering marketing messages effectively. If you use icons smartly, you can tell a strong message without using any text or uttering a single word.

Apart from iconography, you can pass much silent info through other media, including graphics, images, and videos. Now, the question is what cues you will provide silently to your audience. Here are some techniques to achieve it.

  • Developing understanding and empathy by creating a buyer persona and empathy map.
  • Demonstrating your expertise.
  • Listening and feedback.
  • Being relatable.

 

6. Create Contrasts or Comparison

Create Contrasts or Comparison

When we give something vs. something, it offers comparison, and it always grabs the attention of users on the web. Basically, comparison demonstrates polar opposite viewpoints, and people take an interest in knowing it.

 

Who Will Help You?

After reviewing whatever is presented here, you may have got a clue that only experienced and knowledgeable UI or UX designers can help you in creating an attention-grabbing design for your ambitious project. Let me reveal the name of the agency: RP UXCollab. The team is completely ready to be successful in your endeavor. Would you like to discuss your requirements with the team?

 

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