User Experience
Animation is often misunderstood and criminally neglected. In a world where statistics rule, and conversion is king, animation is often seen as an unnecessary luxury. Applied correctly, animation will not only dramatically improve the way your store looks and feels but it will also hold your customers’ hands as it guides them through their purchase journey one step at a time.
Guide your customers through your store with beautiful animation
One of the most important qualities of a well-designed store is the ability to draw customers attention to the most important part of the page. This is easier said than done after all people are random and if we don’t provide a clear path they’ll be gone.
By controlling how, and when, elements appear on the page you can direct customers to one of your tasty food collections. Be it Burgers, Donuts, Ice Cream or Pizza.
A storefront might look great once all everything is loaded, but if content appears in a random order it can leave the consumer feeling disjointed and lacking direction.
By controlling the order in which content loads, while also adding simple animation, you can dramatically improve the user experience and influence where the user is going to click next.
By having the key icons appear last we can guarantee they will do a better job of grabbing and holding the customer’s attention. Adding a lovely pop animation is the icing on the cake and helps to make the icons appear more engaging and significantly increases the chance of the customer interacting with them.
Don’t settle for just okay, upgrade to awesome
Designers & developers often fall back on tried and tested methods to handle user feedback and that is certainly not a bad idea after all these methods are better than leaving a user hanging.
But if you want to create a premium user experience for your customers and to stand out against your competition you need to step up your game.
When a customer navigates to a collection of products why should they have to watch an animated gif spinning with no end in sight? There has to be a better way. Using staged loading and subtle animation not only creates a more premium look and feel to your store but it also improves the perceived load speed and naturally draws the users eyes down the page.
Animated gifs are a way to cut corners but there are better ways to provide user feedback.
The end result is a much-improved user experience that will help turn a standing collection page with an okay click-through rate into a high performing collection page that pushes helps more users continue their purchase journey.
Use animation to remove friction and keep the customer moving towards their goals
You want the journey from the storefront to the checkout to be as smooth as possible. One of the biggest mistakes we often see is the customer hitting a dead end after adding their product to the cart. The last thing we want is to give the customer the opportunity to stop and contemplate if they really need four mountain bikes — the answer is yes, everyone always needs more bikes. Adding any friction at this point in the user journey can turn what was going to be a sure thing into a lost sale. Once the product has been added to the cart we want to make as simple as possible for the customer to move to the checkout and complete their purchase.
A frictionless add to cart notification with clear signposting can guide the user directly to the checkout.
When everything comes together you will have a store that customers will love to use
Stepping up your game in a competitive market can be the difference between winning over long-term customers or losing out to your competition. With the right animations, you can breath new life into your store and create an experience that your customers love to use. A storefront that once felt lifeless, and lacking in focus, could be dramatically improved. Points of friction that previously resulted in lost customers can be fine-tuned to perfection. And most of all everyone will be talking about how awesome your store is.
