Do Websites Have Personality?

Everybody who uses the internet has come across hundreds if not thousands of websites, all with their own unique design, functionality and essentially an individual personality. Each one of those websites have been designed to reflect a certain image and generate an initial feeling when a user visits. The website could be bright and friendly, dark and moody or clean and trendy.

Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations (Ryckman, 2004). The word “personality” originates from the Latin persona, which means mask. Significantly, in the theatre of the ancient Latin-speaking world, the mask was not used as a plot device to disguise the identity of a character, but rather was a convention employed to represent or typify that character.

(Wikipedia)

The website needs to have a strong personality reflected in the design. The web design needs to appeal to the user in the first few seconds of them opening the page, other wise they’ll have no problem hitting the back button to find a more appealing website. We all are familiar with the well known phrase “First impressions last” when meeting somebody – this is the same principle for viewing a website for the first time.

The web design must reflect the personality of the content and present the information in a clear formation.  The higher the cognitive load and the less intuitive the navigation is, the more willing users are to leave the web-site and search for alternatives.

The personality of a website sets the tone of your visitors experience and they will normally remember the type of website by the feeling they got when they visited it.

The personality of a website is normally reflected by the images, design and colours used. However, the personality can also be exaggerated in the website copy. If your text is written in a formal, business-like style you will come across as formal and business-like. This could be a good style for a law firm or accounting agency. A light hearted style of writing will portray a more casual, laid back attitude which could be suited to a funky web design agency or graphic design studio.