Front-end web design has been through a revolution in the last decade. In the late 2000s, most of us were still designing static magazine layouts. Nowadays, we’re building “digital machines” with thousands of resizing, coordinated, moving parts.

AIDA is an acronym used in marketing and advertising to describe the stages that a customer goes through in the purchase process. The stages of Attention, Interest, Desire and Action, generically follow a series of cognitive (thinking) and affective (feeling) stages culminating in a behavioral (doing e.g. purchase or trial) stage. This should sound familiar since this is what we do through design, especially persuasive design.

By now, most people working in tech know and feel the deep concerns related to surveillance capitalism fostered and upheld by the tech giants. We understand that the root of the problem lies within the business model of capitalising and monetising user data. Stories of how people are being exploited surface on a daily basis.

A visitor takes action, a contact form is submitted, a lead is born. A lead generation website has a specific set of pages, each with specific elements. Each element aligns with the expectations and psychology of the visitor and the marketing program of the business. Let’s break it down.