Editor’s note: Browsing well-known e-commerce sites, it is not hard to find that all the pages are designed to be simple and generous, with a strong focus. Beyond visual appeal, there is a deeper reason for the design. This article, compiled from Fast Company Co.Design’s “Study: Clean Design Really Is Better,” takes you inside the secrets behind Clean Design.
While surfing the Web, maybe you’re looking for a rental car, concert tickets, or a pair of shoes. On some sites, a quick mouse scroll will do the trick; On other sites, the pages are too busy to leave quickly.
In all likelihood, the sites you’re attracted to are cleaner-looking, with more white space, less text, bold graphics, and a simple design. And it’s not just my personal preference — a new study from design analytics firm EyeQuant shows that clean, crisp designs lead to lower bounce rates, a measure of how many people leave a page without clicking on a link while browsing.
According to Fabian Stelzer, CEO and co-founder of EyeQuant, this kind of research on the relationship between simple design and the degree of conversion of web browsing has been notable in previous case studies. “A lot of marketers and designers wrestle with this relationship and try to reconcile it,” Stelzer says. “Their job is to create the simplest and most revealing interface for organizational invaders who want to put their content on the home page.”
Behind EyeQuant’s intuition is research based on real data. Stelzer and his team analyzed 300 different e-commerce sites that sell things like clothing, insurance, flowers and electronics online. Using machine learning algorithms previously developed by the EyeQuant team, each site is given a different “clarity score” on a scale of zero to 100, showing how clutter-free a page is. (A zero score is the worst, and most of these sites are as giddy as you can imagine; And 100 points website gives a person the feeling is wonderful such as godsend, happiness is pure). The algorithm is based on a previous EyeQuant study that generated data from thousands of users who rated the clarity of web pages, and Stelzer said it was at least 85 percent accurate.
Stelzer then visualized the clarity scores and bounce rates of those 300 sites in a graph generated by Amazon’s digital analytics site Alexa (not to be confused with Amazon’s voice assistant). The result? The stats: The simpler the page design, the lower the bounce rate, and this is true for almost any site. Stelzer said he had suspected there was a strong relationship between the two, but what was surprising was how strong it was. This suggests that visual clarity may influence a person’s decision to stay on an e-commerce site’s home page by a third, he says.
The study was not the most rigorous in the scientific sense — rebound rates may not be accurate, for one reason, though Stelzer said that since all the data came from the same source, correlations should be accurate within the scope of the study. Also, “clarity” is still a subjective issue (for example, I think designers are much more strict about clarity). But the study does support a logical theory of how people behave online — that in an already over-stimulated world, no one wants to be bombarded with more fuss.
“In today’s world, if you’re a consumer, there’s exponentially more content around you — more ads, more images, more redundant information,” Stelzer commented. Something clean and tidy will be more attractive because it won’t overwhelm people.”
There are other studies that affect bounce rates — most notably a study by software testing company Soasta in collaboration with Google, which found that load times have a significant impact on bounce rates (why are websites you visit always loading?). In conjunction with previous research, EyeQuant’s current study shows that clean design is another factor that keeps people on and off the site.
So, while web design is often criticized for being monotonous, there is something to be said for being monotonous. Not only is it more eye-friendly, it’s also better for e-commerce’s bottom line.
The original link: www.fastcodesign.com/90144106/st…
Compilation group produced. Editor: Hao Pengcheng