In this XYZ Quarterly we’ll cover six user experience tips that can help you create a brand website that leaves a lasting impression. We’ll also provide a recap of XYZ’s Q3 2022 activity.
We have previously reviewed the importance of selecting a memorable domain name as well as how to help optimize your website for search engines. User experience refers to the overall experience that a visitor has while visiting your website. UX includes all the aspects of the interaction between your brand and your current or potential customers, and your website plays an integral role. An effective UX design can help you ensure a positive association between your website and the interests of your customers.
A positive association generates a lasting impression that can keep your customers coming back, and even develop organic brand ambassadors who will speak positively about your website. For a strong online presence, complement your domain name and SEO strategies with an overall experience that will leave a lasting impression. That’s the reason we’re sharing user experience tips for an impactful brand website as part of this year’s XYZ Quarterly theme of Back to Basics. We’ll provide you with six UX tips that can help you develop a brand website that makes an impact, as well as six .xyz websites that are putting these tips to use.
Read on for Part 1: “Six user experience tips for a brand website that leaves a lasting impression”
Or jump down to Part 2: “XYZ’s Q3 2022 Recap.”
Your website is one of many crucial ingredients of your brand. Your brand is the experience, perception and reputation that people have of your services, including their experiences using your website. Your brand identity is an expression of your brand, and a logo can go a long way to communicate your identity, values, and services. A great logo can stick on the minds of your visitors. It can be applied on social media profile pages, merchandise, business cards, and most importantly, your website. Your branded website may be one of the first interactions people have with your company and it is your opportunity to make a lasting impact and visually express your purpose.
TheHug.xyz is an example of a community-focused website that has branded with a logo that communicates their values. The platform is created by Facebook Live creator Randi Zuckerberg and venture capital firm M13 founder Debbie Soon, and is designed to embrace and empower all Web3 creators, including women, non-native English speakers, BIPOC, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, and LGBTQ+ folks. As such, TheHug.xyz features branding using two specific logos: one of a happy emoji enjoying a hug, and the other is the word “hug” adorned by the same two hugging hands featured on the emoji. These logo choices help communicate the platform’s interest in embracing, advising, mentoring, and empowering aspiring web3 creators of all kinds.
Developing a logo that helps visitors understand your brand, remember your website, and communicate your core services can emphasize your brand’s values, promote brand awareness, and leave a lasting impression.
Customers want to easily find the information they need as quickly as possible. To help customers find the answers to their questions, your website can include helpful resources like tutorials, FAQs, instruction guides, related articles, and other materials that are designed to help customers understand your product or service. By not making resources readily available, you risk causing your visitors to experience frustration or confusion instead of satisfaction. A frustrated or confused visitor may decide to move on to the next service.
ForceofNature.xyz is an example of a website that makes a wide assortment of resources readily available to its visitors. This non-profit organization is dedicated to helping young people realize their change-making potential in the face of climate change. ForceofNature.xyz works to accomplish this goal by leading student programs, speaking at schools and universities, and creating curriculum and supporting resources for educators. The website features a Resources link where students and educators can acquire all the helpful materials they could need to take advantage of the organization’s services. For teachers, ForceofNature.xyz offers continuing professional development in the form of training sessions to help educators respond ethically to climate change concerns, navigate difficult conversations, and create spaces that promote wellbeing. They feature a Climate Anxiety Discussion Guide, which is a 4-module discussion guide aimed to help facilitate conversations about the climate crisis while safeguarding young people, navigating strong feelings, and fostering emotional resilience. They even have a video that highlights the purpose of the guide. For students, ForceofNature.xyz offers programming intended to foster change by uncovering their interests as aspiring activists and clarify what they need to be effective as change-makers.
By featuring helpful resources on your website, you can leave an impression of preparedness, thoughtfulness, and a dedicated interest in earning and retaining the attention of your visitors.
Brand voice is the specific personality that a brand uses in all of its communications. Particular people likely stand out to you because they’re great talkers and storytellers, and do so in a unique way. That is the type of memorability and lasting impression you may want from your brand voice. If your brand was a person, what personality traits would they take on and how would they speak? How would that person respond in different situations? Taking that into consideration can help you develop your brand voice. This voice can then be applied to every communication from your brand, especially your website. A distinct brand voice can help your website stand out from the crowd and give your brand a personality.
NaN.xyz is an example of a website with a distinct brand voice. The Germany-based practice has collaborated on typefaces with leading agencies and global brands, including Google and Virgin. NaN.xyz seems to pride themselves on creativity and whimsy, and indicates on their website that they can be found “at the intersection of serious and slaphappy.” Throughout NaN.xyz’s website, you can discover a true understanding of their witty and tongue-in-cheek personality. Atop their homepage, they state “NaN is an exploratory and service-driven type design practice, creating for and collaborating with the weird, the wise and the wonderful.” In the descriptions of nearly every typeface offering, one can read something that will yield a smile. The description of font NaN Holo states: “Think about your favorite hairdresser that you’ve known for years. Holo is the AI recommended automaton which replaced your hairdresser without you even noticing.” The font NaN Juane indicates a practiced motto: “Take a bad idea and do it well, or at least die trying.” Where they intend to list open source typefaces in the future, they state: “We’ll be adding our Open Source fonts here soon. Patience grasshopper.” NaN.xyz does not miss an opportunity to inject a distinctive brand voice into all of their copy.
Developing a distinctive brand voice can help your website stand out, express an endearing personality, and create a lasting impression on your visitors.
If your brand website includes an eCommerce option, then sales are often your main goal. To achieve this goal, you can aim to make your website’s marketplace design as easy to use as possible. A well designed online marketplace can seamlessly guide customers through the process of making a purchase. An impactful marketplace is likely easy-to-navigate and can result in continued use. If your online marketplace is not easy, you risk losing your visitors to a website that is more intuitive. Including an ample amount of product photos, specifications, and interesting details can help your customer feel as informed as possible without being able to see the product in person. This can reduce their reluctance to make a purchase and leave a positive impression of your website.
Black.xyz is a specialty coffee roaster located in Bratislava, Slovakia. Their e-shop section is a prime example of eCommerce that is impactful and easy to use. Black.xyz’s knowledge of their coffee is evident in how they describe each type they carry. They explain each coffee’s variety and exactly where it came from on their website. For example, their Tanzania Blackburn coffee is meant to be light and citrusy with notes of lime, tangerine, green tea body, grapefruit acidity, and an herbal honeydew finish. If a bolder variety is what you’re looking for, their Black Sheep blend is more full bodied with notes of dark chocolate, wild berries and dried stone fruits. Each product description includes photos of the front and back of the packaging, and images of the rich coffee beans. Black.xyz also sells merchandise, such as the Black Mirror nano scale. The product description explains that this compact scale is ideal for checking and preparing espresso, and is enriched with a coffee flow control function that can make it easier for you to monitor the coffee flow in real time. Black.xyz’s description is optimized with the inclusion of a simplified list of properties as well as a 90-second video highlighting the scale’s attractiveness and ease of use.
A thoughtful and customer-focused eCommerce platform can establish trust, boost revenue, and encourage return visits to your website.
Much like your logo, the color choices you use in your materials can influence how people perceive your brand. Colors can affect mood. For instance, studies say that orange and yellow can foster happiness, while gray can elicit sadness. Many brands carefully select their color schemes to help build their recognizability over time. Many people across the globe can immediately recognize McDonald’s red and yellow color palette. Google’s website features a primarily white background, with their logo using distinctive traces of blue, red, yellow, and green. .XYZ uses purple, which studies suggest can represent courage, creativity, mystery, and magic. Studies in logo color psychology suggest that if people are familiar with your logo, color can become a shortcut for conveying visual details about your brand. Colors can help establish familiarity. That familiarity can create a lasting impression of comfort, and comfort can encourage your website visitors to return over and over again.
Wunks.xyz is a community platform centered around a collection of 6,000 NFTs aimed at paving the way for equity of access in the NFT space. The Wunks.xyz website serves as an example of how to establish a color palette for your brand. The NFT collection has a tagline of “Women Punks with Purpose” and is inspired by the Cryptopunks, Larva Labs Studios’ original NFTs that debuted in 2017. Throughout Europe and the United States, the color pink is thought to be a calming color associated with love, kindness, and femininity. Wunks.xyz is taking ownership of that color, and applying it to their website to pay homage to influential women and to attract more women to the web3 space. Their homage even states: “We, Wunks, are here to stay with our own style and rocking a whole lot of pink!” The easy-to-navigate website is rich with dark hues of pink, broken up by images of Wunks NFTs that feature a pale pink background. Because color can also help important features to stand out, they have included a pink call-to-action (CTA) button against a black background to encourage visitors to join their Discord community. The color palette and design of Wunks.xyz helps the website express female empowerment, representation, and equity.
Establishing a pleasing and strategic color palette on your website can help communicate a feeling, create a memorable association, and generate an impression of familiarity that can encourage your website visitors to return.
Your website visitors should have an easy way of finding out how to contact you. Contact information improves the user experience, and user experience is something considered by today’s search engines when it comes to determining your website’s ranking. Without easy access to your contact information, some visitors may opt to consider another business with a website that makes it easy for them to get in contact. A “Contact Us” page can play a crucial role in turning your website visitors into your repeat customers by generating trust and providing them with a place where they can find all your contact details easily, including email address, postal address, and more. You can include a live chat option, which helps customers chat directly with a customer service representative, or a customer contact form, which helps people email you directly without having to visit a separate email platform. Social media sections containing Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other profiles are another great way to provide access, and can also help you gain followers and interact with potential customers who may have questions.
ArtsandLetters.xyz is an example of a website with a comprehensive contact page. This independent creative agency is based in Richmond, Virginia and was founded by former creative director Charles Hodges, who previously worked for Google Creative Lab. Charles continued fostering this relationship across a range of projects, and ArtsandLetters.xyz launched in 2017 with Google as its first client. At the top of the ArtsandLetters.xyz homepage, visitors can easily click Contact to reach the agency’s full assortment of contact information. The page features three different email addresses to use, depending on whether you are proposing new business, seeking public relations assistance, or simply want to say hello. On the page footer, the agency shares their postal address and phone number, as well as their Instagram and LinkedIn profiles. This is all the contact information one might need in order to seek further information or inquire about becoming a new client.
When you have a contact page that clearly provides your contact information, you can help generate trust and demonstrate your interest in hearing from potential customers.
Enriching the user experience of your website can help you build a strong online presence and develop a strong brand. A thoughtful user experience can help grow your amount of website visitors and keep their attention. Your easy-to-navigate and resourceful website can generate trust and word-of-mouth advertising. Enjoyable and memorable visuals can create comfort and familiarity. Recognizing the importance of your visitor’s experience can help keep you on track in your efforts for a powerful online presence. Following the examples of the six .xyz websites above can help you develop a website with a user experience that makes a lasting impression.
We are nearing the conclusion of 2022 and entering the final chapter of another successful year. With the acquisition of a 34th domain ending, a return to NamesCon, and releasing more .xyz premium domains for registration, we’ve been quite busy. Here’s everything we’ve accomplished this past quarter.
In August, XYZ Registry welcomed .Lat as the 34th domain in our XYZ Family of memorable and intuitive domain extensions. We are excited to share this versatile option of branding online with Latinx identity. There are boundless ways of branding with a .Lat domain. Take a look at some established websites already using .Lat:
In September, XYZ returned to the annual NamesCon conference. The Austin-based global conference aims to bring together the domain investors and service providers who develop the digital asset industry, including domain names, NFTs and more. We had a great time catching up with our industry friends, and enjoyed great conversations with our registrar partners, industry insiders, and bloggers. It was really great to see each other in person to celebrate the domain industry and share about our successes.
We continue to see unique projects from all over the world developed on XYZ domains. With even more domain endings in the XYZ family, there are brands, businesses, and individuals from across the globe using our diverse range of options to develop their online presence.
Some of the standout websites we highlighted this quarter include:
Artists, innovators, and creative brands have 34 versatile domain extensions to choose from within the XYZ family. The time is now – register your own domain today!
With the holiday season fast approaching, we suggest taking action to register your .Christmas domain. And don’t forget about our other perfectly distinctive domains: .Game, .Guitars, .Audio, .Diet, .Flowers, .Hosting, .Pics, .Mom, and .LOL.
These descriptive, memorable, and keyword-rich domains offer so many opportunities to establish your idea online and make a lasting impression. Let these celebratory dates spark inspiration to launch your big idea:
Register your festive domain today!
On September 1, 2022, the XYZ Registry made new .xyz premium domains available. This release featured highly brandable domain names such as Fave.xyz, Refi.xyz, and Authentication.xyz (available as of September 2022), as well as 3-letter domains, 3-number domains, 4-letter domains, and more.
You can take advantage of these valuable options to help you launch your next big idea. Don’t miss out – register your own .xyz premium domain before someone else snags it first!
You can discover a curated selection of available .xyz domains with our unique search tools:
Every Wednesday we share a #WebsiteWednesday feature about a creative and forward-thinking member of the .xyz community. Web3 developers are continuing to launch exciting projects on .xyz domains, and we featured a great selection of crypto-focused websites:
NFT projects are heavily populating the .xyz community, and we enjoyed sharing a captivating assortment:
Unique organizations and businesses establish their online homes on .xyz domains. Here’s a few that we’ve shared:
We also highlighted some well-organized personal websites.
Typedream is a no-code website builder that helps you build and customize web pages in minutes. Our ongoing partnership affords us the opportunity to support many Typedream customers as they develop their online presence with .xyz domains. We’re proud to see innovative websites being developed, like BitChick.xyz, a Bulgaria-based collection of 3,333 unique NFTs on the Polygon blockchain, and IcedOutBallerz.xyz , a United Kingdom-based collection of 2,222 NFTs on the Solana Blockchain.
Tellie is a website builder designed for quick and easy web2 and web3 websites. Through our exciting new partnership, we’ll be able to support Tellie customers as they launch their ideas or build their personal portfolios with .xyz domains.
For the past five years, XYZ has been a domain industry cycling jersey sponsor for Elliot Silver of DomainInvesting.com and his riding partner John Berryhill as they participate in the Pan-Mass Challenge. This 80-mile charity ride raises funds for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, whose efforts are to help people fight cancer and help to find a cure for cancer. XYZ was once again the lead jersey sponsor for the 2022 event, and we were happy to donate to such a great cause. Elliot raised $23,500 for this year’s ride, and we couldn’t be prouder of his accomplishments. As shared on Elliot’s blog, he and John have raised over $105,000 for Dana-Farber in the past 9 years.
XYZ helped support participants at 45 hackathons in the third quarter of 2022! Motivated coders received .xyz domains to help encourage them to develop their unique ideas online. Many hackathons were held virtually, while others took place throughout the world:
FOCUS Youth Organization, HACKERZ STREET, Hackclub Rait Summer of Code, Tech Optimum Hacks 2022, Escalade, YBT Pitch Competition 2022, Ordinatrix by Pyrotech, XINO’22, ADL Appathon, REDESIGN – DESIGN FOR THE FUTURE, Odyssey, Z3NITH’22, HACK O HEIST, Error404 Hackathon, Web3Hack, ProjectBeta 6.0, imAgine.py v3.1, Funathon, Impact Hacks, Garuda Hacks 3.0, BtB Hackathon, NextStep Hacks, Katy Youth Hacks, Hackonix, PeddieHacks, UNNAT 2022, Future Hacks 2022, Halocon 4.0, Ignition Hacks 2022, Hackducation, Createch 4.0, MesoHacks, IT@CuttingEdge 2022, DITU ACM SC Hackathon 2022, HackOdisha 2.0, <enTECHed>, AutumnnHacks, Hack The Mountains 3.0, TechnoQiz, EVOQUE, WWPHacks, INNERVE
XYZ is happy to help educational hackathons and mission-driven non-profit organizations share their ideas with a global audience on their own .xyz domains. If you are interested in signing up your own hackathon with XYZ to help the next generation of internet users build the future of tech, contact us today!
Q3 was filled with innovation and accomplishment, and we look forward to more developments in the .xyz community for the conclusion of the year. Stay tuned by subscribing to our newsletter, and following us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
XYZ is proud to share about the many incredible members that make up the XYZ community! We encourage you to do your own research before using the products and services of the websites we feature. The information about products and services contained in this blog post does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by XYZ.
