What is Call-to-action (CTA) design?

In UI design, a Call to Action is a component or collection of elements in design created to make a user perform a specific task, this task can be buying a product/service from the website or taking them to a particular webpage. A well-designed CTA can turn viewers into customers. In this article, we will discuss everything about Call to Action design. we will learn about what a Call to Action is. What are its components? as well as how to create a Call to Action component.

CTA design

What is a Call to Action?

In UI design, a Call to Action is a component or collection of elements in design created to make a user perform a specific task, this task can be buying a product/service from the website or taking them to a particular webpage. The job of a Call to Action is to it grab the visitor’s attention to something that the designers want the visitors to look and act upon. Its job is to make the visitor perform the desired action, which could be buying something, clicking somewhere, filling out some form, etc.

For Example, Buttons and Forms are common Call To Action. The Call to Action component is one of the most highlighted components of a website design and has a big impact on the overall website design. Mostly we use Call to Action to redirect the visitors to a payments gateway page or the most important page in the website.

Components of a CTA

There are 6 main components that make up a Call To Action. A good Call To Action is made up of a combination of two or more components listed below.

1. Heading: Heading of the Call To Action is the main text for the CTA which has to grab the user’s attention towards in Call To Action. The job of the Heading component is to make the visitors pause and focus on the other CTA components to know more about the Heading.
2. Helper Text: Helper text is the text that expands on the topic discussed in the Heading. All the confusion about the Heading is taken care of in the Helper text. For example, we have a Heading – “Is anyone else as excited for the DSA course as we are?”. For this the Helper text could be – “We can’t wait for you guys to join this journey of learning Data Structures and Algorithms with our passionate team of engineers.” Now another Helper text to give users an assurance that buying the product would be worth it – “Each class will be live and comes with doubt clearing section to clear your doubts and questions for practice.”
3. Images or Visuals: This a an optional component but having an interesting image really improves the Call To Action visually.
4. Video element: Having an engaging video related to the product/service we are using the Call To Action for is a “good to have”. Having a video is also optional, don’t try too hard to have videos and images if you can’t create a professional video.
5. Form: Form component of the Call To Action is for taking input from the users. This input could be anything, their name, email, password, phone number etc.
6. Button: Button is simply any button that we create in our design only difference being your color and text should resonate with the Heading of the CTA.

Best Practices for Call To Action

Designing a CTA might be tricky and the prerequisite to this is that you must know how to design basic elements of a webpage. For designing a Call to action component, make sure to follow these best practices:

• It should make people act quickly: A very important important metric for a Call To Action component’s performance is how well it appeals to the user and how quickly it makes the user perform the desired task. You Call To Action must be designed to appeal the user’s attention or user’s emotion and make them act as quickly as possible.
• Ask yourself – Why should people click on it: One of the best ways to create a Call To Action is to ask yourself, “if I was a visitor in this website, would I click this Call to Action?”. This way we can identify if the call to action needs to be improved or not. If you are unable to identify problems yourself, you can also use Usability testing methods for this.
• Provide Some value: Your Call To Action must provide any value to the user. For Example, for designing a Call To Action for a e-book store, rather than saying “join now”, we can say “Join Now and get a free E-book” or “Join Now and get 50% off on your first book”
• Use First Person Perspective: Always refer to the user as First Person. For Example, This is the correct way of addressing your user – “Get your free E-book”, while this is the incorrect way of addressing your user – “Get an E-book”.
• Proper use of Typography: Use fonts that are easily readable. Don’t use more than 2 fonts, rather you can create variations on the font size and font weight to set visual hierarchy.

Conclusion

In UI design, Call to Action is a component or collection of elements in design created to make a user perform a specific task, this task can be buying a product/service from the website or taking them to a particular webpage. It is responsible to turn your visitors into customers. And a lot of users go to the important pages like the payment gateway page through the Call To Action component, this make it even more crucial part of the website’s design. Make sure to follow all the points we discussed in our article in order to create a really effective Call to action components.