Today we’re gong t be talking about how any design output is the combination of the elements that go into it, and that while often we spend our time engineering and endlessly tweaking the individual elements themselves, it’s important to take a step back every now and then and ask yourselves, “Is this design accomplishing what it was intended to? In order to do that, lets breakdown some of the elements by taking a look at 10 principles for successful design.
We’re going to do this in a visual, qualitative way, so no statistics - the only numbers you’ll see in this presentation are the numbers of each title slide.
Ready to go?
Probably the most appropriate place to start - certainly for large projects such as a web design or re-design, or a rebranding. It’s super critical that you are clear on what it is you are offering your customers or potential customers. If you are not clear yourselves, it’s going to be really different to get that across to them. In exercises such as this, we often begin by asking the following 4 questions:
Who are you What do you do Why are you different
How does it matter
Here’s a great example of a homepage design for a company that gets their value prop over in a super quick and easy way. You know within 4-6 seconds exactly what you’ll get here. And what’s more impressive is that not only is the promise clear in this example, – but they’ve done it in a way that’s inspirational! You find yourself wondering, or even dreaming….what’s possible.
And as we talk about the sum of the parts – note the relationship here between the image, and the text. The image itself is beautiful and simple – what every one would want their desk to look like? There is perfect balance, the brands colors stand out, and they have made what could be a generic stock photo there own buy adding the logo onto the coffee cup, the paper clips etc.
KISS
Many of us are selling complex technologies or solutions. Stuff that is hard to communicate, hard to distill down into a cool image and a few words right.
But just how much information can you get across in an opening frame of a website? Are you able to determine what’s the one key message that you want your users to get quickly?
These guys not only do it in a Simple way, but they even called their company Simple. They’re a challenger to established brock and mortar banks, targeting millennial who don’t connect with traditional banking, and don’t want to pay the charges of traditional banks. Isn’t this beautifully elegant? The way banking should be – free, mobile, Simple.
Millenials are a touch nut to crack. Some large companies are paying consultants $10,000 / hours to help them figure their behavior out. These guys must have got it right as a couple four years after launching they were acquired by a large traditional brank for $120Mn dollars.
Sets expectations (this should only take about 5 minutes)
Maybe one of the most important elements….WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR USER TO DO? And how to you get him or her to do it? It sounds simple, and we often throw in a CTA buttin (or multiple CTA’s) , and psend hours agonizing about what color it should be etc, and we think we’re done. But have we really given the user a compelling reason to take action?
Anyone familiar with Jet.com? Describe their business, taking on Amazon etc.
One of the most important startup launches in history, these guys managed to get 375,000 users to sign up – BEFORE LAUNCHING! HOW did they do that?
All Jet Insiders will also get a six-month free membership to the site. The Top 1000 Insiderswill receive a free five-year membership, and the top 100 earned a lifetime membership.
Off course there were other emotional drivers at play here including competition / gamification (which play on peoples egos as they seek bragging rights), curiosity, exclusivity etc.
And off course there was a way to check your status, what award level you had reached etc.
Again, this is HARD. Some of the subject matters that we deal with are….boring right? But there has to be a way to spice things up a bit (while still staying within the brand personality and tone) right?
Anyone recognize this brand? For designers – InVision is a great resources for inspiration, both in their mastery of visual design, and in the way they get their messages across through clever copywriting. I subscribe to their email newsletter, and even though I suffer from email overload like all of us, I bet that if there were a way to check my personal CTR’s per brand, these guys would win.
So how do they remain “not boring”. Take a look at the email article on the left – there’s a CTA hidden there….anyone wanna guess what it is? Who says “Download Now”. And who says “Access Report”.
OK…so we don’t always have the time to design a masterpiece right?
What’s more – there are some instances where “lack of design” might even be the right approach. Take a look at this email that landed in my in-box a couple of days ago.
This “design” seems perfectly in harmony with the personality of the brand it represents. Something modest, honest, not trying to sell you something you don’t want, and in my opinion fits the purpose perfectly.
Show of hands – who has ever launched a website after a huge effort (strategy, design, copywriting, testing, implementatIion etc)….and then left it like that for months and years, without ever changing anything?
I’ve certainly done it. Not proud of it…but it happens. And it shouldn’t.
Those of you from Canada will recognize this brand right? Sure, not all of us have the opportunity or ability to change our home page messaging with the arrival of a new crop (or in our case product). So you don’t have to do it every week or two. But many of your users are returning visitors, and if you don’t keep your content dynamic, they’re gonna get bored.
Interesting to note the different types of CTA’s. Anyone want to venture a guess how many there are? 3.5.
There is no question about it that conversion rates are higher as the content / offer is more tailored to the user’s need state or circumstances. Right – no-one will argue about that. Just look at the top consumer brands and retailers who tailor the content of each and every email, including personalized coupons, offers, recipes etc, based on their users actual behavioral history. Anyone who is a member of SuperPharm’s lifestlye club will know that they get personalized coupons – and the redem ption (in digital talk) conversion rates of personalized coupons are higher by multiples than those that are not personalized.
You can be sure that Sephora didn’t send this to members in California.
Interesting to note one technical aspect of Sephora’s email marketing. All content is in the form of images……The only reaosn that I can think of is that it’s easier to deal with multiple screen sizes that way….and while most of us would look at that technique and turn up our noses…it’s working for them and as a leader in digital marketing, I’m sure they’ve done their homework.
Writing copy is HARD. It’s probably the hardest thing that we do.
It’s often tempting to right down everything you know, throw it at the designers, and ask them to make it look pretty. But to take a lot of information, and to distill it down into it’s essence (meaning “less words” is really, really tough. It’s even tougher in Israel where we often see non native English speakers trying to write English copy. As a rule of thumb “don’t try it”. It never works.
So lets take a look at one example of a company that seems to get it right every time.
Easily recognizable right? They have what’s called an “unbreakable” brand – you can recognize them by just looking at parts of their design, even without seeing their logo or name.
And they got their message across in 6 words (ok…maybe 9). And maybe that should be something of a guiding light i.e. if you can’t distill your value prop down to a few words (it doesn't’t have to be 6…) then likely your customers don’t get it either. That’s the principle of the elevator pitch – only in todays day and age – even that’s too long.
Note the main CTA is below the fold. Everybody know to scroll down now….
Easily recognizable right? They have what’s called an “unbreakable” brand – you can recognize them by just looking at parts of their design, even without seeing their logo or name.
And they got their message across in 6 words (ok…maybe 9). And maybe that should be something of a guiding light i.e. if you can’t distill your value prop down to a few words (it doesn't’t have to be 6…) then likely your customers don’t get it either. That’s the principle of the elevator pitch – only in todays day and age – even that’s too long.
Note the main CTA is below the fold. Everybody knows to scroll down now….
Is your navigation clear and easy. Can users find their way around your site? From an execution POV, This is getting harder as more and more consumption of our content is taking place on mobiles, causing us to rethink both menu structures, types and depth of content etc.
Anyone heard of Hicks Law (also know as the paradox of choice?). Basically – the more choices you have, the harder it is to choose (put differently – the more choices you have, the easier it is to choose (or do) nothing).
Square Could it be any clearer than this. They’ve take it to the extreme – basically no navigation…..and only one choice. (they do have some more info anf buttons below the fold to download on the app stores.), but basically, they are not giving you a lot of choice.
There is another way to say this “Be Honest” or “Don’t try to trick your customers”. This is part of another principle (that we could talk for hours on) regarding how the design we do is just one part of the total product marketing effort – with the emphasis on PRODUCT MARKETING.
You cannot divorce your messaging from the actual product experience itself – and it’s the combination of the two (along with other factors() that determines how users feel about your brand.
As Seth Rogan said – “The best form of marketing is product marketing”. And BTW – if the product marketers get it right – it makes everything much easier. And if they get it wrong – no amount of good design can make up for it. (Designers are not magicians)
By accepting the discount, I had agreed to sign up for a Handysubscription — something that, at the time, I thought I could dodge by deleting all the recurring appointments they’d automatically scheduled for me. It turns out that clicking a few “cancel” buttons wasn’t enough to eliminate all my future appointments. The only way to do that was to dial an 800 number and speak to an actual human being. And those human beings were available to talk only during the hours I worked.
I want to dispell a myth….ther eis NOTHING in our world that just takes a minute. Not resizing an image, not adding some text, not not changing the color of the CTA….NOTHING!
Squeezing every product feature onto the home page (above the fold)
Fast
Cheap
Resist the urge to make the logo larger
Doesn’t need to “Pop”
Getting rid of the white space
