What do you do when you meet a person for the first time? You ask them questions, right? You listen to them relate funny anecdotes, opinions, and beliefs that reflect who they are, as an individual.
Stories have always featured in the human experience, and when it comes to business and brands, it’s not very different. They are a powerful means of communication and can be used to educate, inspire, and instill values in people.
In the end, the goal is to connect to more people and across diverse platforms. The advancement of technology has meant that people now have more access to these platforms and as a result, expect increasingly higher standards of engagement from businesses.
The Future is…Storytelling
You can’t deny the fact that humans are very visual creatures. We all love something that’s familiar and simple to understand. Who doesn’t?
Therefore, it's only natural for people to form a first impression of your website, within moments of landing on it. With time, people's attention spans have shortened, and users now just want to quickly access all the great stuff on a website and be done with it.
For mobile website design, storytelling can prove to be a great tool. Here’s how:
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For starters, the small screen compels you to be more precise, and tell your story more effectively. After all, you don’t have much space to waste. And we all know how endlessly scrolling feels like ( read super-tiring).
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Secondly, the small screen means that you have the freedom to make users reach your story’s climax faster, which in the long run, means more conversion.
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To add to that, storytelling as part of a mobile-friendly website design works really well because smaller screens give the impression of a book. And it’s easier to immerse yourself in something that’s almost book-like.
A lot of businesses tend to let the rich visuals and images do most of the talking. This is because, with videos and pictures, you can cut down on the need for lengthy narratives. After all, a picture’s worth a thousand words, right?
The Famous Four
The Boston-based research organization, Latitude, recently explored the subject of storytelling as part of mobile website features. They later revealed the results of their research as a study titled “The Future of Storytelling”.
The results indicated that people generally look for content that blurs the line of truth, in a subtle yet effective way. Sure, a tiny bit of story wouldn’t harm, as long as it’s authentic.
Based on the observations, the study stated that the art of mobile website design is primarily governed by the four I’s. Here’s what they are:
Interactivity
The most obvious of the four great commandments of mobile website design is interactivity. Mobile web design inherently offers a lot of playing ground for designers.
Making your website more interactive is a brilliant way to get more visitors to engage and participate. Some of the biggest fashion legacies in the world have embraced the idea of incorporating storytelling as a way to celebrate and uphold their image.
Case in point: Louis Vuitton. The iconic French brand is no newbie when it comes to telling a great story. In 2010, it launched its now uber-famous lifestyle blog NOWNESS and with it, drove the public’s attention to their story, as opposed to clothing or fashion.
The brand’s so far built a great legacy with their stunning mobile website design, that’s filled to the brim with adverts and pictures that are firmly rooted in cultural heritage.
Tapping on such images on mobile devices is fairly commonplace, and businesses can utilize this feature to their advantage.
In addition to these, parallax scrolling and creating a full parallax site can also be considered as great mobile web design ideas.
Immersion
If you’ve ever hovered over to the webpages of popular fandoms (say Marvel or DC) online, you’ll notice how engaging and immersive the content is.
Fans and users alike, love to pounce on every tiny detail that they can find. Achieving this kind of transmedia success is something that all businesses can aspire to when creating a mobile website for their products.
There are simply tons of ways in which you can tell a good story and gain a steady customer base that's loyal and dedicated.
Integration
If you're looking to create a mobile-friendly website, it's vital that you pay attention to how it performs on mobile, in contrast to the web.
Does it display beautifully on both platforms? Most people visit websites on their smartphones these days, and therefore, designers must keep in mind that they are swift, simple, and easy on the eye.
There's no point in creating a visually rich story on your website if it doesn't perform quite as well on mobile, as it does on the web. Or if it keeps crashing, breaking, or worse still, never loads.
Impact
When you decide to make your web page mobile-friendly and engaging, make sure the storytelling part has a lasting impact. Does it create ripples of real-world change?
Does it make people care about the most pressing issues? You can no longer hope to engage people with your mobile web design and yet not look into the kind of impact your site has.
Some Thoughts
Everyone loves a good story. But when it comes to effective mobile web design, the story should do a bit more showing than telling.
Storytelling isn’t just about big brands and bigger stories. If you want a mobile website for your business, you must convey to your end-users your story and what you have to offer. Plus, a site that really shines on mobile.
