User Interface Examples That Tap Into Consumer Psychology

The Big Idea   

The user interface (UI) allows consumers to interact with your website, app, or digital product to access information and complete tasks. Leveraging common elements of user interface design, you can tap into consumers’ emotions to drive business goals. Without proper design and optimization, you risk frustrating potential customers. In this article, we’ll explore the user interface, tips for designing UI, and ways the user interface can tap into consumer psychology to increase adoption. 

Whether you need to redesign your existing website or you’re creating a digital product from scratch, a solid understanding of how the user interface can connect emotionally to your consumers can activate increased engagement and beat the competition. 

What is the User Interface?

The user interface is the interactive design that connects consumers to your website, app, or digital product through the senses such as sight, sound, and touch, and it’s a subset of the larger user experience (UX). 

UI examples include the visual design of your website or app, as well as the way the information is organized and accessed by the consumer. A website landing page or the display screen of your smartphone are examples of UI. The user interface of digital products can also be the keyboard, a computer mouse, speakers, microphones, or even the voice of Siri. 

The user interface orchestrates the quality of the interaction between consumers and your brand leading to satisfaction or frustration, and consumers judge products quickly and decisively based on first impressions of the user interface. 

90 seconds is all it takes for consumers to make up their minds about products.

If you’re experiencing sub-optimal site traffic or app interaction, optimizing or redesigning the user interface could be needed to dramatically increase functionality and consumer engagement. 

Tips for Creating an Engaging UI

Designing a user interface to tap into consumer psychology involves a solid foundation in two areas. First, you need a strong understanding of your target demographic. Second, you need to have the ability to efficiently outline steps consumers need to take to perform actions within the user interface. 

Know your Target Demographic

Understanding the needs and challenges of your target demographic will allow you to anticipate and problem-solve their pain points with actions that tie to your revenue goals. For example, does your user interface create a memorable experience tailored for your potential customers based on their demographics and psychographics? Does your target demographic prefer to use their smartphone or their desktop? Is your user interface responsive for mobile devices to meet the needs of your consumers? Is your UI accessible for differently-abled consumers? These kinds of answers should be known to help design or optimize your user interface. 

Simplify Usability 

Creating an intuitive flow for the sequence of events needed to accomplish a task will increase use and adoption. The navigation, information architecture, and interaction should be as simple and intuitive as possible. If you map out the ideal customer journey, the actions that a customer takes to complete an objective, you’ll be able to make the experience as concise as possible. 

For example, say the number of mouse clicks it takes to convert is approximately five clicks. Simplifying the experience by limiting the number of clicks to two or three provides faster delivery for the desired outcome. Use the sequence of steps to outline business needs, while creating an intuitive, seamless experience that requires minimal effort. 

Examples of How UI Can Tap Consumer Psychology 

To create a memorable experience, your user interface should go beyond functionality to tap into desired emotions through design. 

Emotion is 24x more likely to persuade a consumer to purchase an item compared to reason. 

Additionally, emotional reactions are 3,000x faster than logical thought processing. 

Images & Colors

For digital assets such as websites and apps, your user interface can tap into emotions through images and colors. The right image can increase engagement and sales by creating a brand story that inspires your users to take action. Imagine you’re fundraising for an organization that needs donations for hurricane victims. Using large photos of the destroyed homes and landscape near the donation button should elicit an emotional response and drive donations. This is an example of how images on the user interface can influence emotions that drive business goals.

63% of consumers believe that images are more important than product descriptions.

53% of consumers confirmed that visuals are more important than reviews or ratings. 

62% – 90% of product decisions are based on colors alone.

While there is debate on color psychology as it relates to applicability across diverse groups of people, it’s worth testing and refining. Choosing a different color for a button on your website or app based on an A/B test could boost the click-through rate by up to 21%. 

Consistency 

To create trust, strive for consistency in user interface design and brand recognition. 

MRI research mapping brain activity confirmed that consumers prefer to buy from brands they recognize.

Providing a consistent design of the user interface creates trust based on predictability and brand recognition. Alexa and Siri each have a well-known voice for their user interface that is specific to their products. You can rely on this voice to be the same, which creates trust in the brand and the user interface experience. This is a great example of how voice-user interfaces for IoT devices subtly tap into psychology. 

By creating an aesthetically driven, branded experience, reliant on images, colors, or sound, you can tap into emotions such as obligation or trust to solidify the connection and recognition of your brand for consumers. 

Conclusion 

The user interface is how consumers engage with your digital assets or products. Designing an engaging UI starts with understanding your consumers and simplifying the interaction. Prioritize usability and tap into emotions through images, colors, and consistency. Create a memorable, straightforward user interface to improve click-through rates, conversions, and long-term adoption. 

Ready to design or redesign your user interface to tap into emotions that inspire action? Schedule time with our experts now.