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The 7Cs Of Web Design

Using the 7C’s of Web Design is a surefire way to enhance the customer journey and offer a seamless user experience.

The 7C’s have been used for years to:

 

Read the rest of the post to get an understanding of what the 7Cs of web design are and why you should be using them.

 

What are the 7C’s of web design?

 

The 7 C’s are seven design elements to follow in order to ensure a seamless user experience on your website. They act as a kind of checklist for designers and developers when creating websites or UIs.

The 7C’s stand for:

Discover a more detailed understanding of each of the 7C’s individually below.

 

Context

Context is whether what’s on the page matches what the person is looking for.

This is often dictated by the layout of the website and the all-around design of the user interface.

For example, if you’re looking for houses to rent in your town and you went on to a page and didn’t see a listing of a lot of houses. And that page didn’t let you search, filter and look at each house –  you going to be pretty disappointed.

That’s why context is incredibly important when designing a website because it’s not just about making a site pretty – it’s about making sure it satisfies what the user is there to do.

To make sure you’re website has the right context. You need to challenge yourself on:

 

Content

Content is of course, what is actually on your page. This includes everything from the text, images, videos and even the sounds it makes when interacting with it. The content on your webpage should:

All of these add to a webpage’s overall presentation and a professional, sleek appearance will aid your customer’s journey. A positive customer journey will ultimately improve the likelihood of purchases and return sales.

 

Community

Another great way to improve your website design is by taking a look at the community aspect of it.

By community we mean, is there a way to engage with the company on your site?

How websites do this can vary depending on their niche but some of the ways we typically see this done are:

Doing some of the above, makes your site feel a little more accessible to the user and creates trust. And with stats like 63% of people saying they are more likely to buy from a shop that displays its customer’s reviews – you can see how important it is to get your users to trust you.

 

Customisation

71% of consumers expect personalisation. That’s how important it is.

Personalisation allows you to speak directly to each customer and treat them as an individual. Like you’ve built your service or product specifically for them.

This can have a profound impact on how a site converts with 94% of companies experiencing an increase in conversion rates after adding personalisation to the site.

Personalisation can take many forms on a website but some of the most common ones you’ll see are:

All of them have their place in making a user feel like you’re talking directly to them.

 

Communication

Communication is how you get your message across to a user. And how they can get their message across to you.

Because truly great communication is a two-way street.

When assessing communication on a website you need to look for things like:

Depending on the type of site, these things are a good indicator of whether the user can get in touch with the site and whether the site can get its key messages across to the user.

 

 Connection

Connection what other sites do you link to. This is both in terms of external sites but also other sites that you may own.

For example, you may have a “My Account” feature that may be a sub-domain. If this doesn’t interlink with your current site you’ll disrupt the user journey.

With external sites, there are genuine benefits in linking to them and showing your connection where it is relevant.

Just as an example, let’s imagine you’re a travel agent. If you’re not showing the relevant accreditation from people like ABTA and ATOL and linking to their site then you’re a lot less trustworthy and authoritative. The same may also apply to having recommended provider logos from tourist boards that link to their site.

All of these signals add up to show how relevant you are on the web.

 

Commerce

Making your website transactional is an essential part of any web design.

What that transaction looks like can vary. It might just be a sign-up for a newsletter or it could be purchasing a product on an eCommerce site.

The point is that every website needs to have some sort of end goal in mind. And more importantly:

Otherwise, you’re just creating something pretty that doesn’t serve the business at all.

Some of the ways that sites typically do that is by:

There are literally hundreds of ways –  a whole industry dedicated to it – to make your website more transactional.

 

Summary

Whether you’re looking to design a website or enhance an existing one, it is important to keep the 7C’s of website design close in your mind.

By ensuring you have included all of the 7C’s framework you can feel safe in the knowledge that your site is built with the user in mind.