Online Consumer Dogmatism

Online Consumer Dogmatism

Alex Wilson | 22/09/2009

Consumer dogmatism is a personality trait that measures the level of rigidity that people display towards unfamiliar products/websites, that is contrary to their original beliefs and knowledge of how websites work.

This concept is rather prevelant in web design, as quite frequently the creative ability of our design team far outweighs the consumers need for such trickery and captivating design.

Although the majority of our design work still holds a large level of creativity, certain projects call for web design that is far easier for consumers to familiarise themselves with, using popular understanding of how websites typically function and look.

We find that highly dogmatic consumers tend to prefer designs that are more authoritative and explicit in their layout. To this end, we find that using recognisable features and functions helps ease the potentially reluctant consumers to engage with the website - while still employing new creative means of displaying content.

This train of thinking is particularly hard for designers who have a natural desire to explore new ideas, but something that can slowly but surely transform how consumers utilise websites.

tags: Online Marketing