Effective Web Design for Mature Consumers

How To Create Web Design That Sells to Mature Consumers

Whether you call them Baby Boomers or mature adults, they are the most powerful consumer group online. Yet, they are not infatuated with technology, nor are they easily influenced by the fads of the day. However, they spend more when they shop online. How can web design be more effective when selling to the most affluent and well-educated consumer group online or off? As a web design consultant for more than ten years, I have a track record of creating appealing web sites that connect with mature consumers. How can it be done? Here are a few principles that work :

1. Focus on being human, not technical. Web design must have a sense of humanity, personal contact, and warmth to connect with senior consumers. They want to connect with people, not gadgets. Therefore, web design needs to focus on people, mirror human qualities, and give emotional values to the products or services it promotes. There must be a strong human component to web design. It works best when it makes an emotional connection to the user.

Frankly, this is an area where much of modern web design falls short. Most online marketing feels like it was designed by technicians for technicians. Programmers and web designers share a unique, and at times cryptic visual vocabulary unique to their profession and culture. However,  effective web designers create visual communication that reflects the life experience and outlook of their audience, not their own. Web design that appeals to mature consumers should be warm, inviting, and make the user feel comfortable. They should feel relaxed as they browse the web site, not overwhelmed or intimidated.

2. Make it familiar. Sometimes browsing the web is like being at the United Nations. Everyone seems to be speaking a different language. Don’t try to reinvent the Web by needlessly complex or radically new approaches to navigation or page layout. You force the visitor to waste time trying to understand how your web site works, rather than focusing on your product. Keep it consistent and familiar. Stick to what your audience knows.

To that end, I like to borrow heavily from magazine design in my web page layouts. Magazines are  familiar vehicles for content delivery. While they can be very creative, they all stick to proven layouts. No one has to learn how to use or read a magazine. This familiarity allows readers to focus on the content, not the structure it comes in.  I strive to create web design that evokes the feeling of flipping the pages of a favorite magazine. What can be more comfortable and familiar? When web site visitors are comfortable, they become immersed in your message or product.

This article provides a sample of a web design I recently developed for mature consumers. It has a dignified, warm personality, and invites the visitor with tasteful, appealing colors and page layouts. The layout has a magazine-like feel, with large, appealing images and clear, legible text. It is all in good taste, something mature consumers will also find appealing.

I invite you to browse my web design portfolio at http://newark1.com. You will find many examples of appealing web design we have done for businesses large and small that appeal to mature consumers. Please contact me if you want further information on my web design services. -Donald Peterson

Tags: web designers