When you land on Zara’s website, the polished visual design immediately evokes a sense of modern style and sophistication aligning with their brand image. But does aesthetics play a crucial role in actually serving all brands? Or are functionality and simplicity more important in many cases?
In a User Experience (UX) case study by Mouchumi Gogoi analyzes and redesigned Zara’s website and UX (Gogoi). Zara has mainly been criticized for its poor usability, quirky aesthetic, and accessibility issues (Gogoi). Although its quirky aesthetic got Zara’s name around in conversation, it confused users, required unnecessary back and forth navigation, and had a small inaccessible font in addition to insufficient information. Focusing on a quirky and new online shopping experience ended up counterintuitive, hindering the function of the product and therefore representing Zara as a bad brand overall.
A counterexample to Zara could be Craigslist. This infamously bland website looks like it was designed in the 1990s with walls of plain text links. However, this has not prevented Craigslist from becoming one of the most widely used classified ads platforms. Information is readily available providing a streamlined experience for any user, young and old. For Craigslist, issues like overloading users with information and enabling scammers are bigger barriers to effectively serving users than aesthetics.
Keeping authenticity in mind, aesthetics do play a major role in user perception of credibility, especially for retail websites. For example, Shein website design is very polluted with ads and an unimpressive user interface (Takahashi). This led many to suspect it was a scam site just out to take people’s money. It took word-of-mouth reviews on a trusted platform like TikTok to convince people that Shein, despite its aesthetic, was legitimate. Shein even went on to redesign their website to add credibility based on user concerns and suspicions – an example of how improving the user experience of an interface enhances the brand/product itself.
This dichotomy makes us examine what good design really means – is it what looks the prettiest or what most effectively solves user problems? How does one design a brand that balances the two?
Even a platform as massive as Google has a relatively plain homepage with just a logo, search bar, and links rather than flashy graphics or intricate layouts. But this allows users to instantly find what they need – information. The aesthetics are secondary.
Ultimately, the role of aesthetics depends greatly on the specific brand and primary stakeholder. If Zara was a modeling site, visuals would significantly impact experience and be appreciated by those who may not even use it. But if the UX of a brand is not designed in the context of their audience, the aesthetic does not serve its purpose. At the end of the day, a brand is trying to sell a product or service first, aesthetics come second.
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