The 9 laws of Website Design

THE 9

LAWS OF BUSINESS WEB

DESIGN

The 9 Laws

Law #1 - The Hick-Hyman Law

Have you ever heard of the Hick-Hyman Law?

It states that the amount of time required for a consumer to make a decision is directly correlated to how many options that consumer has.

You’ve probably heard of the study that showed that people were less likely to buy jam in a supermarket if they were shown 12 samples of jam, rather than just 6.

You need your customers to make a simple, easy decision to buy with you or work with you as quickly as possible.

Limiting the information overload they experience upon visiting your website is crucial.

The best way to utilise the Hick-Hyman Law is to figure out what you want from your customer the most, then optimise for that.

Just a few tabs or rows on a sidebar will do, don’t swamp your customer with options, like Overstock did in the example below.

Law #2 - The Law of Action

CTA’s (Call to Action’s) are essential for any website. Odds are, you know what CTA’s are, or at least you should.

CTA’s solicit the customer with a request to engage with your website in a meaningful way (I.e. book a consultation, order now, etc.)

Many websites include CTA's as a pop-up, but CTA's can be used in other ways, too. Even simple messages encouraging customers to follow through shopping increases the checkout process rates.

With many of my clients, simply adding a CTA can increase customer conversion by 60%.

Law #3 - The Law of Thirds

The Law of Thirds is based on the rule of thirds in photography.

In photography, you’re supposed to visually divide an image into thirds both horizontally and vertically, which leaves you with nine squares.

The four middle intersections of the squares are natural points of interests for viewers.

Images and text at these intersections have the most impact.

Many websites place their most important subjects on these intersections. You don’t have to design your website strictly according to this, but rather, consider this a worthy guide.

In fact, many websites don’t include the navigation bar anywhere in these intersections, because they prefer their call to action (CTA) to be on these intersections.

Law #4 - The Law of Speed

Customers are incredibly impatient. The internet has been around for more than 20 years, and customers are accustomed to fast, reliable, attractive websites.

One study by the Aberdeen Group stated that a mere one second delay in page load time results in a 7% reduction in conversions.

Run your website through any one of these tools for insights into what slows down your website and how to fix it:

Google PageS