Many factors influence consumer purchasing decisions. And user experience design offers marvelous opportunities for nudging your prospects closer to buying. But what is it, exactly, that inspires shoppers to choose (and remain loyal to) specific brands?
While numerous elements impact the overall sales cycle, emotional connection is among the strongest ones.
Research shows that 95% of all buying decisions are subconscious. 57% of people who feel emotionally connected to brands will spend more, while 76% will pick those businesses over their competitors. Furthermore, scientific studies show that awakening positive or negative emotions directly encourages consumer action, showing how effective emotional marketing can be when used in the right setting.
When incorporated into a site’s UX design, emotional marketing can boost several key performance markers. So, if you want to leverage emotional UX design, here’s how to do it in a way that will forge strong brand connections and contribute to your business’ success.
Elevate Purchase Intent with Emotional Trust Signals
People buy from brands they trust.
Credibility and competence are so essential to today’s consumers that 45% of people won’t even consider purchasing a product that doesn’t have any reviews testifying to its effectiveness.
But while some formats of social proof work because they’re objective, measurable, and provide shoppers with real-life data, others drive consumer action because of their emotional, human impact.
So, as you explore methods to leverage emotional UX design, why not emphasize the authenticity factor of your customer testimonials? Enriching your website’s design with user-oriented social proof — like the Somewhere customer spotlight video below — offers a marvelous opportunity to create a shopping experience that builds trust by relying on authentic, relatable, and human-first content that speaks to your prospects’ wants and needs.
Leverage Urgency in CTAs, Badges, and Pop-ups
When exploring methods to use emotions to build connections between your target audience and your brand, fear may not be your first choice. Nevertheless, when used correctly, this negative emotion can have positive effects.
FOMO — the fear of missing out — is a powerful sentiment. It relies on psychological triggers to drive immediate consumer action and can offer benefits such as increased customer engagement, brand advocacy, and conversion rates.
The best part about this design strategy is that it’s easy to enhance high-value UX elements with FOMO.
The simplest solution is to build urgency into your site’s most valuable UX elements. The “start free class now” CTA button on the Destination Certification homepage encourages web visitors to act sooner rather than later, allowing the brand to engage and convert more customers.
Source: destcert.com
However, you could also employ emotional UX design to elevate the attractiveness and effectiveness of your existing conversion elements.
For example, something like a “running out” badge, similar to the one used by House of Fraser right above its product page CTA, is a great way to leverage emotions to boost conversion rates.
Source: houseoffraser.co.uk
Or, if your goals consist of building long-term customer relationships, you can use FOMO elements — like pop-ups — to encourage newsletter sign-up conversions. From there, you can start developing relationship-building email marketing campaigns that will forge emotional connections between your prospects and brand and make it easier to convert and retain new customers in the long run.
The one thing to keep in mind about incorporating negative emotions into your website’s UX design is that going too far could backfire.
In general, the only effective method of employing FOMO is to be honest. Don’t generate sales pressure just to force consumers to act sooner.
Instead, prioritize transparency regarding product availability. Then, acknowledge the fact that a gentle reminder about diminishing availability could be valuable to some of your future customers and use FOMO-inducing tactics accordingly.
Provide Immediate Gratification
People naturally gravitate toward experiences that provide them with instant gratification.
This psychological behavior is rooted in a survival instinct that encourages humans to satisfy immediate necessities before thinking about the future. The feeling of instantly scratching an itch, so to speak, triggers a release of dopamine that can be exceptionally satisfying (and even addictive).
Now, if you think about the primary reason people go on the internet (or interact with brands, for that matter), you’ll find that the ultimate goal consists of removing pain points.
So, if you want to leverage UX design that will delight your target audience and result in a stronger brand-customer connection, explore ways to immediately resolve their pain points.
For instance, user behavior research shows that 69% of online shoppers go straight for the search bar when landing on a site. With this in mind, one of the best ways to use emotional UX design is to employ this web element in a way that will provide instant gratification.
If you check out the primary conversion element on the CodaPet homepage, you’ll see that it allows prospects a quick way to find vets (and learn about prices) in their area based on a few core criteria.
Source: codapet.com
Or check out how RapidDirect does it. This business developed a web applet that allows visitors to upload a design file, which results in them receiving an instant free DFM analysis.
Source: rapiddirect.com
As you can see, the outcomes of both of these UX design strategies include not just immediate gratification. The overall effectiveness of the web elements allows the businesses to establish their competence, successfully delighting consumers and making them much more likely to convert and choose the brand for all their similar needs in the future.
Make Brand Loyalty Appealing by Offering Aspirational Benefits
One of the most prominent reasons to build stronger connections with your target audience is the opportunity to turn them into loyal customers. After all, if emotional closeness between brands and customers directly contributes to brand loyalty, average order value, and customer lifetime value, it’s only natural that it could be one of the keys to achieving long-term business success.
However, the fact is that today’s consumers are increasingly disloyal to brands.
According to research from McKinsey, approximately 50% of consumers switched brands to save money in 2024, while nearly 40% did so for the sake of experiencing something new.
And while this consumer behavior may not be something you can completely prevent, you can leverage emotional UX design to make it less likely to occur to you.
How? Well, you could try framing your brand loyalty value propositions in a way that appeals to your target audience’s aspirations.
Research has found that 37% of global shoppers fall into the category of aspirational consumers. These people want exclusivity and new experiences, value personal relationships with brands, want to be part of a community, and usually aren’t afraid to spend more.
For example, if you check out Lululemon’s Membership Program, you’ll see that its emotional appeal rests on providing customers with a more enjoyable shopping experience. In order to advertise these perks, this brand uses subtle yet noticeable UX elements, calling consumers’ attention to the fact that Members get the opportunity to return final sale items or build more seamless shopping experiences by saving their choices for later.
Source: lululemon.com
Or, if you check out Sephora’s site, you’ll see that it uses small but noticeable design elements to emphasize that Beauty Insiders (a name that already communicates exclusivity) always receive free shipping, no matter how much they spend.
Source: sephora.com
Turn Frustrations into Enjoyable Brand Experiences
Finally, as you explore methods to leverage emotional UX design, do your best to transform your target audience’s frustrations into enjoyable brand experiences.
For instance, something as simple as gamifying the product discovery process — as done by OrthoBracing with its Cold Therapy Quiz — can be a beautiful opportunity to forge a stronger connection with potential customers.
Source: orthobracing.com
On the one hand, this type of UX element demonstrates your brand’s dedication to helping its prospects resolve their pain points, making people more likely to want to buy from your brand. On the other hand, it gamifies the product evaluation process, further contributing to a positive association between your brand’s CX.
Personalization can have a similar effect — especially if you employ it to make web visitors feel like shopping with your brand is the best way to reach their desired goals.
For instance, knowing that its prospects care about putting together contemporary chic outfits, Marcella completes its product pages with a “complete the look” section. This web design element presents shoppers with a personalized recommendation regarding what items they should buy to achieve a specific look.
Source: marcellanyc.com
Another way fashion brands use UX to arouse positive emotional reactions among shoppers is by using personalization to make product discovery easier from a sizing point of view. A growing number of businesses are now incorporating sizing elements, aiming to assist consumers in finding the right fit, which automatically increases the chances of them being happy with their purchase and maximizes their likelihood of buying from the same brand in the future.
Final Thoughts
Even though the concept of UX design may not seem to have anything to do with consumer emotions, the simple fact is that the browsing experience you create does affect your prospects’ feelings and shopping behavior.
So, if you’re looking to employ emotional marketing to encourage first-time conversions or nurture loyalty, why not focus on forging connections between your audience and brand?
By implementing the tactics discussed in this guide, you’re guaranteed to witness a temporary uptick in conversions and sales. The strategies described here could also be a wonderful starting point for elevating AOV, CLV, brand loyalty, and, most of all, customer satisfaction. So go ahead and give them a try.
- 5 Ways to Leverage Emotional UX Design and Forge Strong Brand Connections - April 14, 2025
- 4 Ways to Use the Power of UX to Gain a Competitive Edge in 2025 - January 21, 2025
- 8 UX Mistakes That Will Hurt Your Conversions and What to Do Instead - November 5, 2024
Give feedback about this article
Were sorry to hear about that, give us a chance to improve.
