Do all magazine covers look the same to you?

It actually takes a team of editors and photographers to agree on the format and layout of every single front page.

There are often hundreds of magazines on the newsagent’s shelves and there are always one or two that attract your attention more than others. It might be that certain magazines appeal to your personal interests but the photographs and titles of certain magazines bypass your preferences and make you curious enough to wonder what the story is all about – even if you had no interest in it right up to the moment you saw the magazine.

The same applies to websites and web design. A great web design is so much more than just delivering content and making it look good. Your website is the ‘cover page’ to your business. The first impression, given by your design, should captivate as many customers as possible. Your aim is to lure them inside your website to view your… hidden pages – ‘that’ front page should tickle their curiosity. Feelings about your website and your organization – positive or negative – must captivate your audience; these must not be overlooked when designing content.

Personality colour testing was developed by psychologist Max Lüscher in 1972. Customers generally make an initial judgment on a product within 90 seconds of interaction with that product and about 62%-90% of that judgment is based on colour, [Singh, Satyendra (2006)]. Colour influences perceptions that are not obvious, such as the taste of food; colours can also enhance the effectiveness of placebos. For example, red is a very emotionally intense colour, it enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure.

An attractive, commercial and interesting design of a website will make it stand out against the competition. Design (appeal) and SEO (search engine optimisation) are the two major concerns for any individual to ensure that, when their website goes live, they have an outstanding presentation that will be viewed by as many people as possible. This is what it is all about – reaching and interacting directly with as many customers as you can.

Colour – Typography – Content – Space – Imagery are five major areas of website design and development that have the biggest impacts on the psychology of website visitors.

Why are psychological principles so often looked upon as unnecessary in web design? By taking psychology into account in your (website or else) design, it is more likely that your visitors will perform the actions you want them to.

Many products survive in the market not because they are necessarily the best, but because they have invested a lot of money in a powerful marketing campaign. A 2004 Chanel advertising campaign featuring actress Nicole Kidman and Rodrigo Santoro amounted to a whopping $33 million to produce.