There’s a surprising lack of the human face in web design. While I certainly wouldn’t advocate over-using it, I am often surprised at how little I see it around the web. Perhaps designers and content creators are not aware of it’s power. Never mind them, soon you will be.
We’re Drawn to Faces
There is an area of the brain specifically dedicated to recognizing the human face, called the Fusiform Face Area (FFA). Because humans are so social, we’re drawn to faces, especially the eyes.
This is particularly true on the web, where 1) faces are generally less prevalent, and 2) faces aren’t actually a human, so the social anxieties and mental demand that would usually accompany eye contact are not present.
We’re actually drawn to faces more on the web than we would be offline.
Impress emotions on your visitors by showing pictures of people experiencing that emotion.
Faces can actually be a more reliable way to communicate emotion across cultures than words.
What does this mean for your website? Human faces are powerful device. Faces attract the eye and can be used to draw attention to an area of the page. Further, within a fraction of second, your visitors will recognize and even subconsciously empathize with the depicted emotion. Generally speaking, you want this shared emotion to be happiness, but in some circumstances inciting pity or sadness can be helpful in sharing a subject with your visitors.
Facial emotions are universal across cultures, while even colors hold different meaning across cultures. In today’s flattening world, faces can actually be a more reliable way to impress a subconscious emotion on your visitors.