Website design is about user experience as much as it’s about transparency and functionality. Failing to understand your target audience and embracing stereotypes about them might cost you a lot of website traffic.
According to the Nielsen Norman Group’s extensive research on designing for teenagers, it seems that we know less of the new generations’ approach to the Internet than we might think. The same organization’s study on young adults also undoubtedly shows that we need to adjust our perception of young people online.
Do you want youngsters to be drawn to your website? Here’s what you should know.
Specify your target audience
Targeting a wide audience is a tricky strategy and a quite difficult one to succeed with. Rather than trying to please all young people, dedicate the time to selecting a portion of this massive group and making them your target audience.
Naturally, your website design will then need to be created to please the specific group you’ve targeted. You can’t use the same approach when designing with a kid, a teenager, a student, or a young working adult in mind.
Offer your target audience the best, custom experience that feels and looks tailor-made, and they will surely appreciate it.
UI serves UX, not the other way around
Whether your website is created to sell products, offer a specific service, or for academic purposes, when it comes to design, never forget the number one rule: User experience always comes before user interface. This means that no matter how attractive your website is, if it’s not user-friendly, transparent, and responsive, your traffic is going to take a massive hit.
Young people are not merely looking for a website that can offer an affordable product or service they need. They want a website that loads quickly, has all relevant information clearly showcased, and which design is both appealing and functional.
In other words, if any of your design solutions looks pretty, but doesn’t work optimally, get rid of it. The solution you are looking for needs to satisfy both of these important criteria.
If it’s not on social media, it didn’t happen
Young people may be on their phones a lot, but it’s definitely not to make phone calls anymore. For both teenagers and young adults, almost all conversations have moved online.
Ignoring the massive blow-up of social media can only do damage to your brand. Does your website have a contact section displaying just your business’ address, a phone number, and an email address? You will have to do more than that. Presence on social media and showcasing the appropriate badges on your website are a must, as these are the first contact options young people are going to look for.
If your brand has an interesting Instagram account, you can even add a corresponding plugin to showcase your IG posts in a separate section of your website.
Storytelling matters more than you think
It’s an open advertising secret that people buy the brand’s story rather than the product itself. Therefore, the story you need to create about your brand must be planned and written exceptionally well. Present your young audience with a feeling they can’t resist, help them solve a problem, offer some free perks, and you’ll capture their interest.
Whether it’s fun and playful or clean and simple, the design of your website will, naturally, have to be consistent with the story you tell about your brand. If your website sells sneakers or clothing, you may opt for urban, colorful, youthful design solutions. On the other hand, clean, minimal design will go very well with professional and academic websites.
A great story requires great packaging
A professional content creator should be tasked to write every line of text that will appear on your website. This assignment, however, is not the one that only your copywriter needs to ace. Arranging the look of textual content on your website plays a big role in how your brand will be perceived, so web designers will need to pitch in on this task as well.
Expert content creators from essay writing service strongly suggest that your content writer and typography expert must work together in order to achieve the best results. Certain basic rules apply to website content arrangement and essay formatting alike: Be mindful of your choice of fonts, remember the rules of readability, and be careful (and reasonable) with colors when it comes to this aspect of your website.
Conclusion
When it comes to website design, a young and a mature audience are not that far apart. They all demand site responsiveness, well-presented and easily accessible information, and good readability. Young audiences, on the other hand, will show a lot less patience and understanding for mistakes you may have made when designing your website.
If you get a chance to capture their focus, avoid making fatal errors that can drive the young visitors away in seconds. Attention is quite expensive in this day and age, so make sure your website is appropriately optimized to keep up with the demands of today’s information-congested world.
Other useful topics: