Web Design for Digital Natives

Digital Natives, also known as Millennials, are probably ones of the most complicated readers to interest, as they not only demand what should be demanded but also need to be challenged, and want to be fascinated by the uniqueness. Their attention span will be decreased drastically if they see a lack of creativity. This generation is screaming "creativity", "storytelling" and "authenticity," so as you can assume, it can be very challenging to explain what digital natives are really looking for in web design. If you are starting a product or have a business targeting millennials, this article will explain and maybe help you make necessary decisions on how to better target this generation through web design features.

Modern style

While Millennials were injected to the Internet at a very young age, they remember the good old style of web design from the 1990s back to the time very vividly. Therefore, they are very enthusiastic about a web design that will look at the furthest from those old-fashioned times. Millennials tend to like a 'neat' and 'minimalist' approach to web design with some bare areas for the design to 'breathe'. They tend to like high-quality images and video content as they've gotten used to Instagram and other social media channels. Overloading web design with text is also a determining factor, as millennials are usually well educated, it's a good idea to keep text direct, to the point, and short.

Mobile responsiveness

Mobile responsiveness is nothing less than making your web design look fabulous on a mobile device or a computer screen. This is greatly crucial because digital natives are much more on their phones than they are on their computers. Many businesses depreciate this characteristic and end up losing their target audience because of it.

Tell a story to Digital Natives

Digital Natives love movies and really soak up compelling stories. This is probably when you really get the thought of a Millennial. If the story is captivating, they will be there to listen. In web design, there are two ways to execute storytelling: either telling the story of your product or business or creating web design in a way that tells a narrative across the pages. The secret is to talk to them like you would in a real situation.

Dynamic and interactive features

Digital natives like a few dynamic elements in web design. It doesn't have to be very strong, it can be something subtle such as web design scrolling effects (ex: parallax, image reveal, etc.) or it can be a complex 2D or 3D animation. If this kind of interactive feature upgrades storytelling in any way, then you've really caught their attention to a whole new level.

UX and functionality

Millennials succeed in simple situations and they don't want to think too much about navigating a site. UX Web design is very important, and it should be so simple it should look like a pizza. When you eat pizza, you don't think about it, you just make it. This is how the UX of your web design should be, easy, and smooth to navigate.
If you are not really sure you can implement this web design right, you can always ask professionals for help, for example, Eleken.

These tips are extremely important and crucial in attracting and retaining Digital Natives as customers. If done right, there's a good chance they'll show their loyalty and approval to you.