• Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Branding
    • Development
    • SEO
    • API Solutions Greenville SC
    • Web Applications
    • Mobile Apps
    • E-Commerce
    • Web Design
    • Power BI
    • SharePoint
  • Clients
  • Our Work
    • Rover – Case Study
    • Streamline
    • Century Printing
    • Big Gun Robotics
  • Our Partners
    • BigCommerce
    • Shopify
  • Our Blog
  • Contact
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow

Does Your Website Stress Out Visitors?

by Mojoe.net | Jun 19, 2020 | Design, Development, News, Website

SEO, Search Engines, Web Design, Web Development, Mojoe.net, Greenville South Carolina

Stress is a nasty thing and many of us deal with it on a regular basis. Our jobs, school, homes, relationships, and even things going on around the world can trigger feelings of panic, unease, and depression. And those are just chronic stressors. Think about the small things that send your body into instant fight-or-flight mode on a daily basis (e.g. traffic jams, unhelpful customer service reps, getting sick when you have a big project due).

The last thing you want is for someone to visit your website, only to feel like they:

  • Need to battle their way through it, or
  • Leave immediately and never come back.

There are a variety of ways a website can cause stress and leave visitors wondering if their response should be to fight or flight. Slow loading times. Overwhelming navigations. Excessive 404 errors. You get the point. But the design itself could be a problem, too.

If your bounce rates are really high and performance isn’t an issue, then this is something you need to look into. Here are some ways for web designers to take traditional stress-busting tips and apply them to websites.

How To De-Stress Your Web Design

Most stress relief guides provide a similar set of tips. But how exactly do you apply something like “Get outside for fresh air” to a website?

Here are some ideas:

1. DRAW FROM NATURE

There’s a reason why stress relief articles always suggest that people get outside. There’s something about nature that’s very calming.

If you think about the way people live their lives today — always on, always connected, always trying to make a better life for themselves — it’s the exact opposite of nature. That’s probably why people are so attracted to its simplicity and healing qualities in times of stress.

Companies with “natural” initiatives (think REI or CLIF) can get away with using imagery containing nature scenes and drawing on the feel-good vibes associated with them.

CLIF homepage with promotional images in nature

For other companies, however, you’re going to have to think outside the box as nature photographs won’t make sense for most.

An alternative solution is to look at your color palette.

One of the great things about spending time in nature is the abundance of color you’ll find. Look at any travel blog or social media account and you’ll find proof of this immediately.

There is such a vast array of colors in nature that you could draw from.

That said, nature’s colors aren’t always peaceful or safe. Take, for instance, aposematism. This is the ability animals have to signal that there’s danger here — and they do it with color.

“The function of aposematism is to prevent attack, by warning potential predators that the prey animal has defenses such as being unpalatable or poisonous.”

The most commonly seen colors in aposematism are:

  • Red,
  • Yellow,
  • Black,
  • White.

Generally, when these colors are used, it’s in high contrast to the surrounding colors and scenery, so it’s not like the actual appearance of red or black is alarming. It has to do with the context.

You should take a look at your website and note if there are any colors sending the wrong signals.

Does a dark mode-like design seem too ominous for the lighter personality of the brand? Are red accents reminiscent of blood against the stark white background? Does the bright yellow coloring feel out of place?

Bear Grylls’s website, for example, feels a bit edgy and unnerving:

Bear Grylls website with adventure nature imagery, strong black and red accents

Bear Grylls doesn’t run some feel-good travel show. He’s always putting himself (and others) in life-or-death situations. So, in this case, the aposematism-inspired color palette is a good choice.

For your website, though, most of you don’t want your visitors to associate the brand with danger or death. So, spend some time studying nature photography (the stuff that makes you feel good) as well as reading up on color psychology to fix the signals your website is sending to visitors.

2. CREATE A PREDICTABLE RHYTHM

Yoga is one of those activities often recommended for people experiencing stress. As the Mayo Clinic explains:

“Yoga brings together physical and mental disciplines that may help you achieve peacefulness of body and mind. This can help you relax and manage stress and anxiety.”

At the core of yoga, is a composite of physical poses and steady breathing. If you’ve ever practiced it before, you know how good it feels when you get into the rhythm of it. Breathing in… and breathing out.

Yoga isn’t the only mindfulness practice that draws on steady breathing to calm the nerves.

As you focus on breathing in, holding that breath and releasing, your body and mind relax. Breathing exercises also help people calm hyperventilation and other erratic breathing patterns that get the heart rate up and send the mind racing.

So, how does this correlate to your website? Well, what you need to do is identify elements and interactions that feel unpredictable and shocking — ones that make visitors feel as if they have no control over the experience, like they can’t slow down and take it one bit at a time.

Rhythm and repetition play an important role in this, but you know this already. That’s why button shapes and colors are designed consistently site-wide. That’s why you choose no more than two or three fonts to establish a rhythm and dictate hierarchy in your content. That’s why you build mobile-first websites within a grid (even if the design sometimes appears asymmetrical).

The thing is, when new design patterns or elements become popular, it’s easy for these good and calming practices to go out the window.

Take, for instance, websites that use scroll-triggered animations like Unleashed.

Unleashed scroll-triggered animations

While it’s certainly an attractive website and one that’s going to stand out from the competition, it presents an uneven experience from start to finish. Visitors are more likely to focus on the surprises that wait for them around the corner instead of on reading the content on the site (which is difficult with the way it’s presented).

This website is all about building anticipation; not value.

If you look at the Smashing Magazine, for example, the design still has the opportunity to “surprise” visitors every now and again:

Smashing Magazine home page design and subtle animation

The big difference here is that hover-triggered animations don’t have to come at the expense of the predictability of the design or your visitors’ comfort levels.

Just be mindful of this. While it might seem like trying something new is what your site needs to stand out, don’t forget that you’re designing primarily for the user experience. And if users aren’t responding well to the creative choices you’ve made, it’s time to bring back a more stable rhythm to it.

3. REMOVE THE EXCESS NOISE

For a long time now, researchers have studied and reported on the damaging and stress-inducing effects environmental noise can have on people.

“Babisch established the modern noise reaction model, postulating an ‘indirect pathway,’ in which disturbance of sleep, communication and activity by low-level noise exposure causes changes of emotional and cognitive parameters and annoyance, followed by chronic stress reactions and adverse health effects.”

That’s no surprise to anyone who’s lived in a major city or visited one before. They’re polluted with sounds of people honking and shouting, loud buses or trains passing by, construction workers chipping away at the streets and buildings. At a certain point, it eventually gets to be too much.

This is one of the reasons why white noise machines, nature sounds and classical music are a popular means of drowning out the excess noise in our environments. They take all of the harshness and overwhelming nature of our surroundings and mute it or, at the very least, turn it down to a minimum.

When a website is designed with too much “noise”, a similar solution is needed.

But how is noise defined on websites? It’s not auto-playing music on them anymore.

The big thing is to look for things that don’t belong there. If your design is overcrowded, remove the elements that contribute little to the user experience and conversion rate.

For example, how frequently do people engage with your live chat window? If it’s not happening frequently or the interactions aren’t meaningful, just get rid of it. The same goes for other non-essential elements. Banner ads. Auto-play on videos. Exit-intent pop-ups.

Is the interruption to the user’s experience really worth it?

Here is Neil Patel’s website:

Neil Patel website 'Do you want more traffic?'

When visitors enter the home page, they’re asked: “Do you want more traffic?”

Let’s say the answer to that is “no” because the visitor has come here to read more about marketing and SEO on the blog. However, the top of the blog page again asks them the same question:

Neil Patel blog 'Do you want more traffic?'. Visitors have the choice to say 'Yes' or 'No'

Logic would dictate that clicking “No, I have enough traffic” would remove the banner from view since no “X” is available to dismiss it. Instead, visitors who click it are taken away from the blog and returned to the home page to start the loop all over again.

This type of website friction is no different than an environmental noise or irritant — kind of like a child asking “But why?” over and over again until you give them the answer they want. Eventually, visitors are going to get fed up with the pressure to convert and leave for good (maybe not in Patel’s case, but definitely on a website for lesser-known brands).

If you notice your visitors ignoring the noise you’ve placed before them on the website, don’t try and jam it down their throats even further. Just get rid of it.

Wrapping Up

“Unlike the real world where people take time to identify their stressors, identify solutions to beat them and work through their issues, that’s not going to happen on a website.”

They’re either going to suffer through the experience and be left with a sour taste in their mouth… or they’re going to immediately bounce off the site and be left with a sour taste in their mouth.

If you want to remove the stress from your web design, look to traditional stress relief activities to iron out the issues. If you can turn your website into a relaxing and welcoming environment — while still pushing all the right buttons to drive visitors to conversion — you’ll lower your bounce rates as well as visitors’ stress levels.

Article Provided By: Smashing Magazine

Web Design, Web Development, Web Graphics, Website Designer, Developer, Development, Greenville, SC, SEO
If you would like to discuss Your Website with Mojoe.net or your website’s analytics, custom logo designs, social media, website, web application, need custom programming, or IT consultant, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-859-9848 or you can email us at dwerne@mojoe.net.

Recent Posts

  • Enhancing User Experience with Web Applications
  • Web Developer Alex Werne
  • Custom Software Development Solutions for Business
  • Dark Mode Benefits and Implementation Tips
  • Top 5 Benefits of Professional Web Development Services

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • May 2025
    • April 2025
    • March 2025
    • October 2024
    • September 2024
    • August 2024
    • December 2023
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • July 2023
    • May 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • February 2019
    • March 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • October 2014
    • July 2014
    • April 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • April 2010
    • June 2009
    • April 2009

    Categories

    • AI Development
    • App Development
    • Blog
    • Branding
    • Cloud Storage
    • CMS Content Management Systems
    • Computer Programming
    • Cybersecurity
    • Design
    • Development
    • Ecommerce
    • Email Hosting
    • Google Services
    • Google Services
    • Graphic Design
    • Hosting
    • IT Consultant
    • Laravel
    • Logo Design
    • Marketing
    • Mojoe.Net
    • News
    • Power BI
    • SEO
    • SharePoint
    • Social Media
    • Software Development
    • SSL Certificates
    • team members
    • Uncategorized
    • URL/Domain
    • Web Design
    • Web Development
    • Web Hosting
    • Website
    • WordPress

    Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org
    Mojoe M a web design and development company located in Greenville SC

    Ready to get started? Contact us today!

    Start Today

    Terms  |  Privacy

    © 2023 MOJOE. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Mojoe.
    • Follow
    • Follow
    • Follow

    60 Directors Dr, Greenville SC 29615

    Phone: (864)-991-5656

    Email: info@mojoe.net