Consistency builds trust.
Speed builds trust.
Simplicity builds trust.—Automattic Design Principle
Lately, my focus has been revolving around landing pages and landing page systems. So while I was going through our design principles the other day, it struck me:
All our potential customers go through the same micro funnels before they sign up through our website: consistency → simplicity → speed. Let me explain by starting from the bottom.
Speed
Our average landing page session lasts about 1.5 minutes. This is the time frame in which our visitors can make a decision to choose WordPress.com as the partner on their journey. The sooner publishers, small business owners, builders, and other potential customers can make that decision without any hiccups, the higher the chance they’ll trust us. Speed builds trust.
Simplicity
Once they’re on our website, things can be a little tricky, because they don’t actually read it. Human eyes scan them and recognize patterns instead.
As design or marketing teams, we tend to spend a lot of time crafting our content strategy. But it’s not all about crafting the most accurate sentiments into our story, it’s the very way we present them. The shorter our content is and the more digestible visual forms we use, the higher the chances are that our potential customers will get our message and believe we understand their needs. Simplicity builds trust.
Consistency
Our visitors land on so many different pages, and through various channels—sometimes even more than once. Wherever we present ourselves to our potential or existing customers, it’s crucial we feel like one and the same identity to them. And it’s not just about visuals.
We’re an 800-people multinational company, so keeping a consistent approach, voice, tone, style and overall experience in so many touch points over time requires serious effort and coordination. Visual familiarity is important, but consistency builds trust.
If you look at conversion through the lens of funnels, you realize that even the smallest design decisions matter. The more people make it through one funnel with our help, the higher the chance they will ultimately trust us after the next one.
Cover photo by James Thomas Thomas.
Automattic Design 