Web standards and expectations change continuously. We are now in an age where visitors want to socialise, be entertained, and find information all on a personal level. The key to effectively answering this need is the use of engaging media. Audio, videos, graphics – these can all help you improve user experience. But the medium that you will want to focus on to get the results you want is images.
Quality images help convey your website’s message better.
Homepage of Queens Arcade.
According to a number of studies, as much as 65% of the general population learn by seeing. This means that most people can better retain and retrieve information through visual cues. The results make total sense when you consider that much of the sensory cortex is dedicated to vision. In fact, the human brain is proven to be able to identify images seen for as short as 13 milliseconds. You could say that makes the phrase ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ true.
Thanks to the brain’s rapid processing speed, you are given only a short amount of time to impress visitors. Adding to that is the fact that many organisations are already making the shift to using a wide range of digital media to boost their online presence. This is evidenced by how 63% of the average web page today is comprised of images. All of these mean that you really need to start ramping up your efforts to appeal to users visually.
You cannot achieve the ideal results by settling for the first free stock photo you can find however. Even if a certain illustration may fit the context or theme of the page where it will be inserted, it might not compel people enough to browse through your products or stay longer on your site. If there is one design rule you should remember, it is to choose pictures wisely.
“What should I look for in an image?” you might be wondering. Well, that would depend on the kind of emotion or reaction you want to incite. If you want customers to feel more empathetic towards staff, put photographs of your employees on your company profile page. It seems oddly simple but it actually works, as made clear by the Radiological Society of North America in their research of patient photos.
Which is more authentic and reliable? The Overly Excited Business People stock photo on the left or the real team on the right?
If you are interested in enhancing trust, create product mock-ups especially when you are dealing with digital goods. Studies have found that people are more likely to accept something as truth when it is accompanied by a picture, even an uninformative one. For increasing response rate in general, focus more on women, babies, and attractive individuals. When uploading product images, use high resolution close-up pictures of the items from different perspectives.
No matter what kind of images you might need for your site, just make sure you get those that are of good quality. A survey held by an Oracle e-tailing group has found that 75% of shoppers mark quality as a top factor before making a purchase. A National Retail Federation study supports this same idea with results that show 94% of consumers stating image resolution as ‘somewhat to very important’ in their shopping experience.
Beautiful images of products or work that has been conducted speaks measures about your businesses abilities.
Not only do high quality images appeal more to customers, but they are more likely to get picked up by other blogs, or shared by visitors in social mediums – improving your sites ability to bring in new traffic!
Images courtesy of Page and Daley Builders.
On the whole, there are several things to look into when you want to get your website images right – subjects, colours, sizes, etc. But the main point is, pictures are great for prompting people to browse through your pages. Quality and well-thought out images play a great role in convincing online visitors to purchase your products or avail of your services.
