Sliced Bars or Imperfect Stars? How to Shape Consumer Preferences with Your Product Rating Design

Humans are innately inclined to spontaneously create a whole image out of impartial or missing visual elements. Based on this level of visual processing called Gestalt, consumers perceive non-rectangular (vs. rectangular) product rating units to be incomplete after vertical cutting, affecting their decision-making.

Why should you care? By understanding how the design of rating/review elements influences product preference, you can strategise your visual marketing techniques to positively shift buyer behaviour in the desired direction. Either rectangular (specifically bar ratings) or non-rectangular (specifically star ratings) formats can be tactically adopted in your business by looking at rating distribution, by identifying the audience more susceptible to the visual rounding effect and ways in which this effect can be prevented when needed.

Read More