Target and Walmart are both corporate companies that sell goods and services, both online and in a physical store. Walmart is ranked as the largest retailer worldwide since the 1990s. This is factored by its large number of customers and many stores. However, other stores have been coming up, such as Target. Target established an online store to cater to the needs of its customers through a digital platform while Walmart established an online store to reach several customers that it could not grasp in the past. Both websites have used four design concepts in their sites, which are contrast, alignment, proximity, and repetition because these aspects make a website stand out and also make a customer's experience easy when navigating the Website. Therefore, when comparing both websites, Target's online store proved more straightforward to navigate because of the mixture of colors used in the font, which attracted many customers.
Contrast
Contrast is a method of making design elements appear different from each other to make essential aspects stand out. It can also create a focal point and build visual interest by manipulating variations in color, scale, space, and other factors. The font is an essential aspect of a website, and both Target and Walmart use a standard font type that is widely available on most platforms. They both use dark fonts on most parts of the Website, and additionally, they both follow a horizontal grid for their shop layout. In contrast, however, Walmart uses a smaller font for their site compared to the target. For users with eye impairments, Target's Website proves to be more convenient to read and access. In turn, this can prove advantageous to Target as more users would opt for their services. Target Inc could make more profit and even have a much-satisfied customer base. Additionally, the mixture of colors in the font is also attractive and makes a customer take a lot of time on the Website as they look for other products, due to its appeal (Kim, Hyun & Park, 2020).
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Figure 1. The contrast on Walmarts header
Figure 2. The contrast on Targets header
Repetition
Repetition is essential because, when a product or service is not repeated on a website, customers find it hard to trace the product. A lack of proper attention to repetition could lead to losses and bad publicity due to bad customer experience. When comparing the two online stores, Target has many repeated items that enable customers to find what they are looking for faster. Also, the use of a recently viewed item category at the bottom of the page ensures that the user can track products they are interested in buying. However, Walmart offers a lot of different products and services, making repetition rather challenging. Therefore, when a customer is shopping using Walmart's Website, they will take a lot of time looking for a product compared to a customer using Target's Website.
Additionally, frequency has been used confusingly in Walmart because certain items have been replicated under different names, which is misleading to the consumers. The recurrence of similar items using contrasting terms has created a lot of scepticism, making more consumers want to go to the store rather than buy from its Website. However, Target's online shop does not have the same concern, and this has helped more consumers choose the Target website because of the high degree of confidence they have created.
Figure 3. Repetition on Walmarts body
Figure 4. Repetition on Target's body
Proximity
Proximity design essentially means that objects adjacent to each other are viewed as a unit. The content relevant to the web page is put close together and forms a cohesive entity (Peters, 2016). Both websites show excellent care and consideration of how elements such as menus and other various aspects of the site are grouped and how different sections of a website are grouped. Designers use white space as an integral part of their design to improve not only the user interface and the user experience on the Website.
The business for which the design is made matters; for instance, with Target, different categories within the Website's navigation bar categorize each set of options. Walmart practices proximity in the form of graphical elements with appropriate labels for these categories. Target has also laid out its products on its Website. This means that when a customer wants to order a product, it is easy to differentiate one product from the other. However, Walmart has arranged its products very close to each other on its Website. A person would choose to buy from Target because of its great layout of products rather than Walmart as ordering and arranging items can positively and negatively affect users based on specific disabilities.
Figure 5. Proximity on Walmarts Navigation
Figure 6 . Proximity on Targets Navigation
Alignment
Business alignment is when a company understands its buyers' underlying needs and acts upon those needs through their language of product features, benefits, and communicating with them via forums, chats, and digital media such as emails. Through this, a more seamless brand experience is created, generating more sales. When comparing Target and Walmart websites, Target tends to understand its customers' needs more than Walmart. It is currently giving a lot of promotions to its customers, thus attracting many customers because of the low prices on goods and services they need. Walmart, however, has fewer advertisements on its Website. When a customer is undecided on which Website to visit but decides on looking at each Website, they will likely be more attracted to Target than Walmart since Target understands its consumers' needs. It also ends up getting a lot of loyal customers.
Figure 7. Alignment on Walmarts body
Figure 8. Alignment on Target's body
Conclusion
Target and Walmart are retail companies that have developed e-commerce websites popular among many Americans and international consumers. These websites are similar in many ways, but also have few differences. Proximity is used within both sites through the categorizations of navigation items into clearly identifiable groups. Contrast and alignment are used to ensure there is a clean interface that allows for a straightforward user interface. Finally, repetition is used to repeat products within the sites and allow users to make sure they remember products. It is important to note that the two websites are within the same competitive domain, meaning they aim to attract the same client, and the result of each one is based on what attracts their clients.
References
Kim, D., Hyun, H., & Park, J. (2020). The effect of interior color on customers' aesthetic perception, emotion, and behavior in the luxury service. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services , 57 , 102252.
Peters, J. F. (2016). Computational proximity. In Computational Proximity (pp. 1-62). Springer, Cham.
