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The Case Against UX Testing

Picture a dark office, blinds drawn. Picture a UX designer smoking a cigar. See the light filtered through the smoke whipped to fog by a spinning ceiling fan. Watch as the UX designer sits at a desk and considers the website.

The UX designer has devised a series of tests to determine if a green button is better than a red button. One of them involves tipping a tortoise onto its back. He looks the website over carefully and says, “Describe in single words, only the good things that come to mind about your mother.”

The website pauses, sweating under pressure, then replies, “Let me tell you about my mother…”

BLAM! The website pulls the trigger of an unseen gun, and the UX designer collapses, leaving the project to be rebuilt from scratch in Material by Harrison Ford, with overuse of Post-its delegated to Edward James Olmos.

Who Does UX Testing Actually Serve?

In the past’s bleak dystopian future (1982’s Blade Runner was set in 2019) no one benefitted from asking the wrong questions. And little has changed.

Designing any test to verify UX is fraught with as many complications as administering the test. Questions are skewed by bias, conscious or otherwise, and competing agendas. Even with something as apparently simple as a split test, the potential for distortion is immense.

When planned by a designer, a UX test offers little benefit to a client; the benefit is to the designer, who can then say their ideas are validated (or not).

Imagine hiring a developer to code a website, only to discover that the developer didn’t know CSS and expected to be paid to learn it before completing the work. You would hire someone else because that developer isn’t qualified.

From a client’s perspective, a UX designer should know, through experience, whether a green button is better than a red button. Designing an elaborate test to split-test the button color serves little purpose other than indemnifying the designer against mistakes.

The ROI of UX Testing

It’s widely accepted that there is substantial ROI (Return On Investment) from UX testing. We’ve all heard apocryphal stories about sites that split-tested their checkout and improved retention by 5%.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that without user testing, that site could have improved its checkout retention by 4.9% simply by hiring a competent, experienced designer. But what about the remaining 0.1%? Well, for most sites, 0.1% represents very little profit. And the cost of recovering it via testing far exceeds the benefits.

When a company the size of Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, or Google split tests a website, it can afford to allocate $25k for user testing because it stands to gain 0.1%, and that represents far more than $25k. To meet the same 0.1% improvement, a small business has to design and run the same tests, incurring the same costs. But in the case of a small business, $25k could eat up all of its profits.

UX testing almost always works. But it is only profitable at scale.

If a good UI designer with a grounding in UX can improve checkout retention by 4.9%, tripling the project budget for just 0.1% more is a tough sell. Bluntly, that $25k is better spent on advertising.

What UX Designers Can Learn From Psychiatry

We all have the tendency to think we’re unique. It’s a survival trait attributed to our prehistoric brain. That belief in uniqueness is particularly strong in highly competitive people. We all think our site, our side-project, our approach are original. And we’re all wrong.

When a psychiatrist sits down with a patient, they have two immediate goals: categorize that patient into an established diagnosis, and assess the severity of the condition. It may be that the patient is depressed or anxious or even suffering from a potentially more debilitating condition like schizophrenia. What the psychiatrist is not trying to do, is define a new illness.

Occasionally — perhaps once per decade — a genuinely unusual patient will present themselves, and a new form of illness is considered. New treatments are found and tested. These treatments are rarely developed on behalf of individual patients; doctors work with grants from governments, medical schools, or the pharmaceutical industry and publish their results.

The vast majority of websites face similar problems. They deal with similar demographics, work within a similar culture, and deal with similar technology. As such, they can be categorized in the same manner a psychiatrist categorizes patients.

The key to delivering successful UX solutions is not UX testing in individual cases, but rather UX research, examining similar projects, and cribbing their solutions. If you categorize a project accurately, you’ll find a solution readily available.

Replacing User Testing With UX Best Practices

Your client doesn’t need to pay for UX testing to benefit from it. Enterprise sites, government sites, and even personal projects will test UX patterns. Sites like Shopify or Stripe will user-test their checkout processes at scale and enable companies to benefit from the results by adopting their platforms.

If you’re currently testing designs for small business, one of two things is true: either you’re wasting your client’s money investigating a problem someone else has already solved, or you’re designing something so original that it has no precedent (and you probably shouldn’t be).

Designers should be opinionated. Designers should know UX best practices and how they apply to a range of scenarios. Designers should be capable of making an educated guess. Designers should be self-validating.

Once or twice in your career, you may find a legitimate need to test something. However, the vast majority of the time, the correct answer is to tip the tortoise back onto its feet and choose whichever color button has the higher contrast.

Featured image: Still of Brion James in Blade Runner. Copyright Warner Bros. Entertainment

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Quiz: Are You Prepped For Meeting Design Clients?

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Walking into an initial meeting with a new client can be nerve-wracking. If you’re a freelancer, your income could depend on the outcome; if you’re part of an agency, then your colleagues’ incomes could rely on it too.

More often than not, you’re meeting someone successful enough at negotiating to own a company. The time you spent learning code, or a design system, they spent brokering deals.

So how do you know that you’re ready for the meeting? What questions should you ask? What answers should you provide? Check you’re prepared for meetings by bookmarking this week’s quiz and testing yourself in advance.

We’ll get started with an easy one about anatomy…

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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How I Saved My Design Agency & Tripled My Profits

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There was a point at which I was very close to losing my business, and I didn’t realize how close.

I wasn’t always a good planner, and I didn’t plan to start an agency. One day I was a freelance graphic designer, my job list grew, I hired some help, and suddenly I was managing a team.

There isn’t a guidebook for new business owners, you have to learn on the job, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. We expanded rapidly from two to four people, then seven, and suddenly we hit 16 employees in just 18 months. It was pretty scary and felt like driving on the freeway without brakes. A client shared a story that they were turning over $20m, and the owner was only taking home $30k. It felt like where I was headed. At that point, I could easily have lost it all.

I took a hard look at the numbers and realized that we were barely breaking even, let alone profitable. That needed to change to stabilize the business and regain control of my operations. The change wasn’t easy, and there were some hard lessons, but 11 years later, with a strong local team and 40+ awards for our work, I’m thankful for that wake-up call.

There are other people in my position struggling with the same issues I faced, so I’d like to share the four key things I did that helped turn things around and move us from surviving to thriving.

1. Don’t Diversify Your Services

I wanted to do it all, and as the business owner, it was hard to turn down a new client. Our instincts are to help, and declining opportunities feels wrong. In our industry, digital agencies, especially web design agencies, try to cover all bases from marketing, SEO, adwords, design, photography, and coding. Everyone wants to be a one-stop shop for clients. I used to be that person: I would wash your car and shine your shoes if I could.

Do not give in to that fear.

When you’re a generalist, you spread yourself too thin. I know: a decade ago, we were offering dozens of services outside of the web design realm: packaging, branding, copywriting, sticker design, SEO, hosting, analytics, you name it, we provided it. We used over seven different CMS for our projects. If a client wanted it, we tried to offer it, no matter how unsuitable it was for us.

On the surface, we fulfilled our projects, and our clients were always thrilled with the results. But below the surface, our operations were dissolving into a mess. Our eyes weren’t on the prize; we were always chasing after each little job for cash. It took too much time to learn new skills. When I looked at our timesheets and deducted the unbillable hours, our projects would hardly break even.

What hurt us even further is that with diversifying, we had to manage multiple workflows, software, and systems: Sketch, Illustrator, Photoshop, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Google Analytics, Final Cut Pro, etc. It was expensive with minimal return. It was like an Olympic swimmer signing up for a swimming-diving-ice-skating club when their passion is swimming.

So I took a step back. I boiled it down to what we enjoyed and excelled at. Ask yourself: for what do you want to be known? For us, it was psychology-driven, conversion-focused web design. This was the service our team had the most skills in and collectively could give the best value to our clients. Once I’d figured that out, it was easy to eliminate those other services and specialize.

You can niche down by service or industry and be the specialist in what you offer.

2. Know Your Numbers

The first red flag that my business was in trouble was when I said to my accountant, “I feel like my business is doing great.” He replied, “I don’t care how you feel. The facts are in the numbers. Show me your accounts, and I’ll tell you if you’re actually doing well.” As an intuition-driven guy, it was a real eye-opener; I’d only ever relied on gut instinct.

At one point, we had a ton of work coming in, so I hired a few juniors to help the rest of the team. The team grew to 16, and the vibes in the studio were great, but the numbers weren’t. Instead of increasing efficiency, projects took 40 hours longer than they should have done. Why? The seniors and mid-level designers were taking time out to train the juniors! Reassessing the team showed me I needed to hire experienced staff, so projects ran on time and budget. It was a hard decision but a necessary one to keep us afloat.

The crucial numbers for any design agency are your timesheets, where bottlenecks lie, how much you’re spending, how long a project takes; these determine your actual margins. Setting up quantitative software like Toggl, Gantt, and Asana were a game-changer for us. They gave our project management real purpose and potential. Knowing the average hours our primary type of project took made it easy to give clients realistic deadlines, anticipate the need for fresh hiring, and know when our plates were full. You do not want to bite off more than you can chew.

3. Become The Best Fit For Your Target Market

You can’t please everyone, and frankly, you shouldn’t be trying to. One type of bait won’t attract every kind of fish. First, identify the type of fish you want to catch, the pond where this type of fish lives, and finally, bait your hook with something that type of fish can’t resist.

Your sales team should be able to identify them instantly, and all you then need to do is streamline your team, process, and systems towards being the best fit for them.

4. Double Down On Marketing That Works

There are many different marketing avenues you can go down, but go down too many, and it becomes a tangled web of confused messaging.

Remember, just because your competitors are doing it does not mean it’s the most effective approach for your target market.

There are really only inbound and outbound types of strategies, and it’s a great idea to list out the pros and cons (and the ROI of each) concerning your target market. Or, you can approach marketing based on your existing skillset — for example, if you detest being in front of a camera and don’t want to do video marketing, then just don’t do it.

Identify what works for you, and then be consistent. Consistency is the secret to a successful marketing strategy.

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SAP, Siemens et Atos : la continuité numérique comme réponse au défi climatique

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Réduire l’empreinte carbone d’un produit nécessite une vision de bout en bout de son cycle de vie. Pour cela, il est nécessaire de casser la barrière IT existant entre la conception et la supply chain. SAP et Siemens proposent des intégrations avancées entre PLM et ERP. Avec Atos, ils s’allient pour aider les industriels à relever le défi climatique.

Les industriels sont confrontés à un triple défi : proposer des produits toujours plus complexes, dans des délais toujours plus serrés, tout en réduisant leur empreinte carbone. Le bilan de la COP26 de Glasgow est sans appel : constater la réalité du changement climatique ne suffit plus, il faut agir. Histoire de compliquer la situation, la raréfaction des matières premières s’ajoute aujourd’hui à l’urgence climatique.

Le sujet de l’empreinte carbone est crucial pour trois raisons principales :

  • Les clients sont toujours plus nombreux à demander comment sont fabriqués les produits qu’ils achètent et quelle est leur empreinte carbone. Une empreinte que l’entreprise doit être capable de mesurer.
  • La législation devient de plus en plus contraignante, poussant ainsi les entreprises à être plus vertueuses en matière d’environnement. Mais également à mettre en place des outils montrant la réalité de leurs actions dans ce domaine.
  • La RSE met en exergue le sens des responsabilités des entreprises. La green line (empreinte écologique) devient progressivement aussi importante que la top line (revenus) et la bottom line (marges).

Une problématique à traiter de bout en bout

« L’Union Européenne veut réduire ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre de 55% en 2030 et vise la neutralité carbone en 2050. 2030, d’un point de vue industriel, c’est presque aujourd’hui, constate Denis Goudstikker, Teamcenter Business development Executive chez Siemens Digital Industry Software. À ce jour, un tiers des entreprises se sont fixé un objectif zéro émission, mais seulement 9% de ces entreprises ont réellement lancé des actions en vue de les réduire. »

Pour qu’un produit ait un impact environnemental minimal, il faut l’optimiser de bout en bout, de la conception à la production en passant par son utilisation et son recyclage. « La plupart des entreprises se concentrent uniquement sur les émissions liées à leur activité, explique Olivier Everaert, Head of Green PLM chez Atos. Elles ne prennent pas en compte l’ensemble du cycle de vie du produit et de sa chaîne de valeur, ce qui mène à des résultats sous-optimaux. Il faut penser en termes de réseau, où tous tendent vers un but commun, du fournisseur de matière première à l’industriel… et jusqu’au consommateur. »

« La réduction des impacts environnementaux commence dès la conception du produit, enchaîne Bruno Hemery, Head of Siemens partnership, SAP France. Elle se poursuit avec les approvisionnements (matières premières, emballage, etc.). Puis lors de la fabrication : produire mieux permettra d’avoir moins de rebuts en bout de chaîne et de consommer moins d’énergie. La logistique peut aussi être optimisée, en regroupant par exemple les approvisionnements de plusieurs fournisseurs (parfois concurrents) devant livrer un même client. Il faut également être capable de mieux connaître l’usage des produits, ce qui permettra de les améliorer au fil des versions. Enfin, d’autres éléments sont à prendre en compte, comme le recyclage et l’économie circulaire. »

Les actions en faveur de l’environnement ne sont pas forcément des investissements coûteux. Réduire la quantité de déchets générée lors de la production se traduit ainsi par une diminution des besoins en matière première et donc un abaissement des coûts de revient.

SAP et Siemens, artisans de la continuité numérique

Pouvoir prendre en charge l’ensemble du cycle de vie d’un produit nécessite de casser une barrière dans le système d’information de l’entreprise, celle séparant la conception, pré carré du PLM, et les fonctions finance, achat, production, vente, prises en charge par l’ERP. « Il faut décloisonner ces deux mondes, afin de mettre en place une continuité numérique, confirme Bruno Hemery. L’information pourra ainsi circuler dans les deux sens, la conception influant sur la supply chain et – partie innovante – la supply chain et l’usage du produit pouvant influer plus directement sur la conception. La continuité numérique permet également de s’assurer que l’information est identique des deux côtés. »

Le partenariat annoncé le 14 juillet 2020 entre SAP et Siemens vise à donner corps à ce concept de continuité numérique. Il s’est traduit par la livraison de nouvelles intégrations entre les offres de Siemens et de SAP. « Cette intégration fine entre nos deux plateformes donne une compréhension de l’ensemble du cycle de vie d’un produit permettant de s’assurer dès sa conception que l’on va dans la bonne direction, tout en restant compétitifs. La clé de la réussite est d’être capable d’amener des processus vertueux et compétitifs, » résume Denis Goudstikker.

Par ailleurs, la réduction de l’empreinte carbone passe souvent par de l’innovation. C’est le cas par exemple lorsqu’un constructeur automobile adopte des motorisations électriques ou à hydrogène. « La continuité numérique permet de créer des conditions favorables à l’adoption d’innovations, tout en maîtrisant le risque et en préservant la compétitivité de l’organisation, poursuit Denis Goudstikker. C’est un environnement qui permet de se préparer à n’importe quel scénario. »

Des ateliers pédagogiques animés par Atos

Atos sait diagnostiquer la chaîne de valeur des entreprises, afin de les aider à mettre en place une supply chain durable. Chaîne de valeur dont la visibilité et la transparence seront assurées par la mise en place d’une continuité numérique. La grande majorité des entreprises restent toutefois au début de cette transformation. Atos propose des ateliers pédagogiques gratuits leur permettant de mieux comprendre les applications pratiques de cette approche.

« Nous présentons une vingtaine de cas d’usages qui couvrent l’ensemble du cycle de vie d’un produit et nous montrons quelle est leur contribution sur l’empreinte carbone, détaille Olivier Everaert. Lors du premier atelier, les participants sont invités à nous faire remonter leur avis sur ces cas d’usage. Sont-ils applicables à leurs métiers ? Semblent-ils valables ? Peuvent-ils être améliorés ? Le second atelier permet de faire une plongée sur quelques cas d’usage sélectionnés, puis de discuter avec les participants de leur feuille de route de transformation. »

Ces ateliers d’idéation mettent l’accent sur le codéveloppement des cas d’usages et la cocréation des trajectoires de transformation des entreprises. Un premier brainstorming avant le passage à l’action…

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SAP, Google Cloud et delaware accompagnent la marque de prêt-à-porter Gémo dans sa stratégie omnicanale

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Paris, le 10 janvier 2022 – Gémo se dote aujourd’hui de nouvelles solutions technologiques centrées sur la data, avec l’offre de migration RISE with SAP. Objectif : développer une approche omnicanale de pointe, conjuguant parfaitement ses lieux de ventes physiques et son commerce en ligne. Le maillage de ses entrepôts et de ses magasins représente en effet un atout clé pour l’enseigne familiale du groupe Eram, qui entame, grâce à SAP S/4HANA, une stratégie d’accélération de sa transformation numérique pour en faire un véritable levier de croissance.

SAP, Google Cloud et delaware, trois acteurs au service de la simplification

SAP, fidèle à ses ambitions, démontre une fois de plus sa capacité à apporter tous les outils nécessaires pour s’adapter aux évolutions du marché et notamment à celui du prêt-à-porter. Fort de son expertise de leader des logiciels de gestion d’entreprise sur de multiples industries, SAP a en effet toutes les cartes en main pour accompagner Gémo dans le challenge que l’enseigne souhaite relever à horizon 2025.

Le choix de Google Cloud s’inscrit dans une logique de capital technologique. A travers cette migration dans le cloud, réfléchie, progressive et déterminée, Gémo souhaite valoriser la stratégie de big data déjà engagée avec Google. Pouvoir intégrer parfaitement les données SAP, tout en bénéficiant de la sécurité, de la flexibilité, des capacités d’analyses et de la résilience de l’infrastructure, a été décisif dans la sélection de Google Cloud.

Pour intégrer SAP S/4 HANA et ses modules spécialisés, Gémo s’adosse à un acteur local et international reconnu sur le marché SAP. delaware, est un expert de l’intégration SAP dans l’industrie du retail / fashion et est notamment présent à Nantes près du siège de Gémo. Il a su démontrer la valeur ajoutée de la solution SAP pour Gémo et déployer les équipes d’experts nécessaires pour accompagner cette transformation.

Avec 440 magasins, 4 000 collaborateurs et plus de 12 000 références produits, l’enseigne Gémo habille aujourd’hui 1 français sur 5, et ambitionne d’entrer dans le top 5 des acteurs du marché de l’équipement de la personne. La modernisation des outils, basée sur un cœur SAP, doit permettre de répondre aux ambitions de croissance omnicanale, en France et à l’international, en intégrant de nouveaux modèles de business.

Une transformation numérique engagée pour soutenir la croissance à venir

Les technologies proposées aujourd’hui par l’offre « Business Transformation as a Service » de RISE with SAP ont été bâties dans le but de soutenir cette croissance et d’apporter les solutions innovantes afin :

  • d’accélérer le Time To Market de l’ensemble des projets : les distributeurs producteurs se doivent d’être rapides pour répondre immédiatement aux demandes des consommateurs ;
  • de tenir les engagements dans le taux de service ;
  • de personnaliser l’expérience client ;
  • d’assurer la fluidité et l’efficacité de la chaîne d’approvisionnement et de distribution ;
  • d’apporter le meilleur sur la disponibilité des collections selon les saisons et sur la centralisation de l’offre ;
  • et de garantir la pérennité de l’entreprise et préserver sa rentabilité.

« L’accompagnement de la stratégie de transformation de Gémo est la raison d’être de ce partenariat  à haute valeur ajoutée avec SAP, Google Cloud et delaware. C’est en effet en trouvant de nouveaux relais de croissance avec une approche omnicanale, en améliorant l’expérience de nos clients et en garantissant l’excellence opérationnelle de nos chaînes logistiques que nous assurerons à notre groupe une place de leader dans le secteur hautement compétitif de l’équipement de la personne en France, et à l’international, pour les prochaines décennies », annonce Philippe Thirache, Directeur Général Gémo.

« Accompagner l’enseigne Gémo dans sa transformation numérique est une grande fierté pour nous aujourd’hui. D’autant que nous avançons avec la même vision, toujours tournée vers le client et avec l’ambition d’améliorer et de simplifier la vie de chacun. Nous avons hâte de constater le fruit de ce nouveau partenariat et de permettre à Gémo de déployer sa stratégie omnicanale.» précise Frédéric Chauviré, Directeur Général SAP France

« Nous sommes fiers d’accompagner une marque comme Gémo et un groupe comme Eram, fleurons de la distribution française, dans leur accélération numérique, et de démontrer notre pertinence technologique dans leur stratégie de croissance, de soutenir l’enrichissement constant de leur expérience et de leur satisfaction client. » explique Anthony Cirot, Directeur général de Google Cloud France.

« Gémo est une entreprise engagée, ancrée sur son territoire, et fait partie des leaders sur son marché. Nous sommes ainsi particulièrement fiers de participer à la transformation de cette enseigne française reconnue. Les experts et la direction de delaware sont mobilisés pour faire de ce projet une réussite à la hauteur des ambitions de Gémo. A travers ce programme et avec le concours du groupe Eram, nous continuerons de favoriser la démarche invest in digital people en faveur de la reconversion professionnelle dans le secteur du numérique » complète Aymeric Fosset, associé delaware.

 

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5 Brilliant Ways to Tackle Designer’s Block

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If you are a designer and have never dealt with designer’s block, you are probably a superhero. For us mortals, designer’s block is a pretty common problem. There are occasions when we sit in front of our screen, and our creativity just evaporates.

I have spent many hours trying to get rid of this annoying wall. It took some time, but I have found some tactics that work best for me. So, do not panic! In this article, we will share five ways you can overcome designer’s block and get back on track.

From innovative sources of inspiration to the importance of collaboration and food, nothing will be left out. But first, let us analyze what designer’s block is and how common it is among creatives.

What is the Designer’s Block? Can You Force Creativity?

In a few words, designer’s block is nothing but a situation where you are stuck as a designer. In this unpleasant moment, you feel like you are losing your design skills and creativity.

Fortunately, this is not permanent. Of course, you are still a great designer. You should know and embrace that designer’s block happens to almost every creative out there. Even the most experienced of us. So the first thing you should do is to stay calm.

Remember that you can not force creativity. When designer’s block comes knocking on your door, you need some time to recover.

So instead of panicking, take to heart some practical tips that will help you regain your confidence and creativity.

How to Get Rid of Designer’s Block?

1. Take Care of Yourself

In some cases, designer’s block is your own body’s reaction. Think about it. How can you perform well when you are tense with pressure? There are many ways to take care of your mental and physical health. For example, you can take a break and have a snack.

Sleep is also critical when it comes to avoiding designer’s block. Recent research has shown that creative thinking is directly related to our periods of sleep. Lack of concentration, more mistakes, and erratic behavior are just some of the consequences of insufficient sleep.

For this reason, napping is a smart solution to designer’s block. So if you are feeling unproductive, first make sure you are not tired or hungry.

2. Change Your Location, Get Inspired

But what if you’re not hungry or tired? There are situations where we are stuck in front of a project. If that’s the case, you should decide to take an inspirational break.

The first thing you can do is to change your location. If you are working from home, you should get some fresh air. There are numerous sources of inspiration that can help you overcome designer’s block. Personally, I take a break and visit one of the following sources:

  • Parks: Nature will calm you and help you get inspired.  
  • Art Galleries: A designer’s best friend. Visiting an art gallery can help you find the missing elements for your upcoming project. 
  • Coffee shops: Quiet coffee shops are an intelligent way to get inspired. What’s better than a big mug of coffee and relaxing music?

Alternatively, watch a movie or a TV series. This may sound like an unorthodox way to get inspired, but it works perfectly when overcoming designer’s block.

3. Explore the Power of Collaboration

More than 90% of graphic designers in the world are freelancers. Although freelancing is an exciting job, it can be pretty lonely. The next time you are struggling with designer’s block, you might want to ask for some help.

Other UI or UX designers can help you see a project through different eyes and find the missing design elements. For this reason, collaborating with other designers is a great way to overcome designer’s block.

On the other hand, you can also ask your friends or family for ideas and feedback. Remember that inspiration can come from anyone.

4. Plan and Break the Project into Chunks

Most times, I get stuck as a designer, it is entirely my fault. To be precise, there are many cases when we do not plan the project efficiently. When the work is overwhelming, the lack of a well-organized plan can be why.

The best thing you can do is to take a step back. Take a look at the work that needs to be done. Then, you can start breaking your project down into small sections. If you reorganize everything, you can get rid of designer’s block in a matter of minutes.

Try not only to organize your tasks but also to manage the time you will spend on each chunk. This will probably help you understand that you have more time than you think.

5. Apply Some Pressure, Just Start

Unfortunately, few of us have infinite time to find inspiration. Most professional designers work with deadlines. That’s why putting pressure on yourself is not always a bad thing.

After following the above tips, all you have to do is start. Don’t forget that the designer’s block will remain until you start designing.

When I try to apply some pressure, my first drafts are usually bad. But after a while, everything comes back to normal.

Wrap Up

If none of the tactics analyzed above helped, you can always use one (or more) of the following quick tips:

  • Take a short break (5 minutes or so);
  • Start with the most challenging task;
  • Go for a walk or exercise;
  • Ask for more information about the project. Sometimes, the client can help you overcome designer’s block;
  • Think about what is distracting you and solve it.

Remember, every creative out there has faced designer’s block at least once. So there’s no need to panic at all. Of course, not all of us deal with it in the same way. That’s why you should first try out the tips above and find out what works best for you. This will help you overcome designer’s block and regain your skills as a designer.

 

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The Top 5 Form Types to Use in Your Web Design 

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There are a lot of factors that contribute to a better user experience on a website. Pages need to load quickly to give users peace of mind and efficiency. Navigation must be clear and straightforward, with direct pathways for visitors to follow when finding your contact pages, blog posts, and products. Your colors need to work seamlessly together while providing just enough contrast in the areas that need it most.

Excellent user experience needs to be considered for every part of your website that acts as a touchpoint with a potential customer or user.

One of the most significant touchpoints of all is your forms.

All websites need some form of interactive content to thrive. Users need to be able to do something with the site, whether it’s looking for information with a search bar, contacting a team for a quote, making a booking, or completing a purchase. Forms power the majority of the interactive activities available on websites.

If you know how to master great UX on a form, you can contribute to more meaningful interactions between your brands and their customers. But not all web forms are the same. Here are some of the top types of forms you need to master and how you can optimize them.

The “Opt-In” Form

The Opt-in Form is probably the best-known form in the digital landscape. It’s essentially a form that asks visitors to “opt-in” to a specific offer. Sometimes, this means signing up for a webinar; other times, it’ll be agreeing to an email newsletter or a regular series of blog updates.

Opt-in forms grab attention quickly and ask for something specific from the audience. For instance, this example from HuffPost encourages visitors to “Subscribe to the Morning Email.”

Opt-in forms are all about generating action.

Sometimes, they’re placed at the bottom of a landing page after a company has had a chance to explain precisely what they’re offering. Other times, you’ll find the opt-in form situated on a sidebar of a website, constantly enticing people to “sign up” if they like what they see on a blog post or article.

It’s also common for opt-in forms to appear as pop-ups and exit pop-ups on modern websites. For example, a brightly colored opt-in form that promises an immediate benefit to a customer could encourage them to hand over their details before they abandon your website.

How to Design a Great Opt-In Form

So what kind of best practices go into an excellent opt-in form?

  • Start with simplicity: If you’re asking your visitors to do something, don’t overwhelm them with too big of a request straight away. Keep the form short and simple, so it doesn’t seem like too much extra work for the visitor. Something like “Subscribe to our newsletter” should ask for nothing more than an email. 
  • Highlight the benefits: Most customers won’t want to give you a place in their inbox or the opportunity to interact with them further unless you can offer something in return. Even if you’re asking for something small, like an email address, let the customer know what’s in it for them. In the HuffPost example above, the company highlights that you can wake up to the day’s “most important news.” 
  • Give the visitor the power: Let your visitor know they’re in control here. They want to see that they’re getting exactly what they need from you in exchange for their contact details. This means reassuring them that their email address won’t be used for spam, like H&B Sensors does here: 

The Contact Form 

The Contact Form is another crucial part of building an effective UX for your website – but it’s also an element that web designers and business owners often overlook. When customers decide they want to learn more about a business, they need a quick and easy way to get in touch.

Contact forms need to be easy to find and use on any website. Usually, your user will expect to see a link to the contact form situated somewhere at the bottom of your webpage. It might be called “Contact Us” or “Customer Support.” Avoid anything that would go over the user’s head.

Aside from being easy to track down, your contact form also needs to reassure an audience that they’re making the right decision by getting in touch. Therefore, the content needs to be short, sweet, and authoritative—highlight why the user might contact your company and how they can do so.

Avoid any unnecessary information in the contact form. For example, you don’t need to know your client’s age and their job to answer a question about where their nearest physical branch is. Keep form fields to the point, or you’ll chase customers away.

How to Design a Great Contact Form

Design something personalized but straightforward to make the most of your contact form. Use features like smart content and conditional logic, if possible, to adapt the page to the user’s needs. Dynamic content is becoming increasingly valuable these days. Other best practices include:

  • Set the right expectations: Let your customers know how active you are and how quickly they can expect to hear back from you. Imagery and the right fonts can also set expectations about the kind of communication your audience can expect. For example, this contact page from the Marvel app is fun and playful, like the company itself:

  • Provide multiple options: If your customer doesn’t want to use your contact form, give them another way to get in touch. Ensure the contact page includes information like where to find you on social media and your professional phone number. 
  • Simplify things on your end: To ensure that you can contact your audience as quickly as possible, allow your customers to choose a specific subject that their query is connected to. Allowing them to choose “Sales” or “Order issues” means you can automatically direct the message to the right team member on the back-end. 

The Online Payment Form 

Sometimes, when your customers have seen what you have to offer and they’ve checked out the competition, they decide to go ahead with their purchase. To facilitate this, you’re going to need an online payment form. Online forms ensure that your customers can safely enter their credit or debit card details to purchase whatever you have to offer.

Most payment processing companies like PayPal, Square, and Stripe come with payment forms included, so you can easily embed them into a website in minutes. However, there’s always the option to customize those payment forms.

For instance, ideally, you’ll need a payment form that keeps your customer on the same page, so they don’t have to log into another browser to make their purchase. The fewer transitions your client has to make, the safer they’ll feel.

How to Design a Great Payment Form

When designing any payment form, simplicity and security are the two most important factors. Your customer should be able to enter their information quickly and easily and get through the transaction process without worrying about their details.

Remember to:

  • Keep it simple: The fewer fields the visitor has to fill out, the better. Customers still feel uncomfortable sharing personal information and payment details online. Make the experience as painless as possible. If your client already has an account with your business, you might create a system that automatically fills some of the fields, such as their email address, name, and billing address. 
  • Offer the right integrations: The proper payment forms will integrate with the payment services your customers prefer to use. Options include PayPal, Stripe, Square, Verified by Visa, and Mastercard. Get a developer to integrate the right APIs with your form to give your customers the broadest range of options. 
  • Ensure security: Give customers peace of mind by providing as much security evidence as possible. An SSL certificate that places the padlock on the top of the browser next to the URL is a great way to make customers feel more secure. Integrating verification options so your customers can avoid fraud issues is another significant step. Sometimes just putting logos from the card types you accept on the page will make a customer feel more secure. 

Support Forms

Some companies bundle the contact form and the support form together. Others have a separate support form to get their queries routed directly to the people most capable of helping them. If you want to take the second route, it might be a good idea to design a “help” section on your website where you can locate the support form.

The “Help” section on a site often appears alongside other links on the footer. For instance, it could appear alongside “About” links and “Contact” options. Here’s an example of Hubspot’s Customer Support options:

The best customer support pages come with various ways for clients to help themselves and find answers to their most pressing questions. For example, you might have a search bar where your audience can search for the answers to their queries or a knowledge base full of helpful blogs.

Hubspot allows users to choose between a blog, knowledge base, academy training center, community forum, developer discussion board, and assistance from a certified partner.

How to Design a Great Customer Support Form

Designing a good customer support form is about getting your audience the information they need as quickly as possible. Once again, you’ll need to stick to as few form fields as possible here to avoid angering an already frustrated customer. Also, remember to:

  • Ask for the right information: Find out what the query is about by giving the customer a drop-box menu full of possible topics to choose from. If you need a product reference number or something similar, ask for that at the top of the form, then allow the customer to provide extra information about their query underneath. 
  • Set expectations: Let your customers know when they can expect to get a response to their concerns and provide them with advice on what to do next. For instance, you could invite them to check out your knowledge base while they wait for a response. 
  • Keep it simple: Avoid using technical jargon on your support request forms. Be direct in your requests for summaries of the issue at hand, contact information, and other supplemental data. 

Customer Feedback Forms

According to Microsoft, around 96% of customers say that customer service is crucial in determining their loyalty to a specific brand. Another 52% of global customers believe that companies need to respond to the feedback provided by customers.

To ensure your customer service strategies are on-par with what your customers expect, you need to get feedback from your audience. That’s where a feedback form comes in. Customer feedback forms often appear after a client has finished purchasing on the “thank you” screen. They may also occur after a customer has completed a service interaction online.

Here’s an example of an Apple feedback form:

How to Design a Great Customer Feedback Form

By leaving you feedback, your customer is doing you a massive favor. They’re giving you a chance to learn from your mistakes and improve the service you can give next time around. Feedback is one of the best tools for any business that wants to grow and thrive.

If you want your customers to use your feedback forms, you’ll need to make them as simple as possible. Your customers don’t have time to waste on a complex form.

  • Don’t make any fields mandatory: Don’t stop your customers from submitting a form unless they’ve completed every field. Allow them to enter the information they consider to be the most important, and that’s it. You can even fill some of the form out for your customer, if possible, by entering their name and email address if they’re already a member of your site.
  • Make it mobile responsive: Remember there are around 3.5 billion smartphone users worldwide. You can’t afford to lose feedback because your form isn’t responsive. Every form should look and feel incredible on any device. 
  • Include a rating option: If your customers don’t have much to say about your service, or they’re not wordsmiths, they might prefer a rating option instead. A one-to-five rating system that allows your customer to judge your product or service on a scale of poor to wonderful is a great way to gain quick information. Check out the Uber Engineering example here:

Though you can pre-enter some information on a feedback form to make your customer’s life easier, don’t overstep your bounds. Adding your customer’s email address to the form is fine if they’re already a customer with you. Pre-selecting the “very satisfied” rating above would look presumptuous.

Top Tips to Improve Every Form Design

The online form is an essential part of any web design project, but it’s also frequently overlooked. Unfortunately, without a good set of forms, your customers will struggle to interact with your company in a meaningful way.

When creating any form, remember:

  • Reduce friction: Reduce the friction for your customers by asking as few questions as possible. The less your customer has to answer, the better. If you can pre-populate forms with information like your customer’s name and email address, this could help. 
  • Keep it simple: Make sure that the form is clean and easy to use. Your customers shouldn’t be confused about where to click or how to submit their information. A single-column design is often better than a multi-column option.
  • Be clear in error messages: Don’t just tell your visitors that something has gone wrong. Let them know what they need to do to submit the form successfully. If possible, use inline validation with real-time feedback to let your audience know that you recognize the information they’ve submitted.
  • Keep data secure: Make sure your audience feels safe by letting them know how you will use this information and why you’re asking for it. If you’re asking for an email address, make the benefits of entering that information clear. 
  • Make fields optional: Allow your audience to add more information to a form if they want to – but don’t demand it. Give some freedom to the visitor. 

The better your forms are, the more effective your interactions with customers will be. Remember, it’s not just the face-to-face interactions that your customers judge when making decisions about your business and whether to trust you. Today’s digital world has prompted a new demand for more meaningful virtual experiences.

Your form could be the first interaction you have with a client, whether it’s a contact form, a booking form, or something else entirely. Get that right, and you can improve your chances of your customers coming back to interact with you again later.

 

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10 Tips for Effective UX Writing

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Many people believe that UX design is all about creating slick, engaging images and top-notch user flows. While those things have their merits, UX designers do much more than that.

UX writing is an essential skill in developing an app or solving a UX problem for a client. UX writing is when we craft UI text to communicate with a product/service user. UX writing includes valuable text like instructions, buttons, menus, just-in-time warnings, etc.

This article will analyze what you need to look out for even before you start writing. After that, we will explore ten crucial tips for UX writing that every UX designer should know.

Practical Tips and Tricks to Improve Your UX Writing

As with UX design in general, UX writing is about achieving a goal. Think of a wireframe you have created: The first thing you do when designing is to identify the real problem and set out to find the right solution. The same goes for UX writing.

Accordingly, before you start writing, make sure that you:

  • Have identified the UX problem;
  • Understand the goals of the client’s digital product;
  • Are familiar with the target audience;
  • Know the style and tone of voice you should use.

Once you are familiar with all of the above, you are ready to start writing. Let us explore all the tips and tricks you can follow to improve your UX writing.

1. Be Concise

This is one of the most important tips concerning UX writing. UX designers should always seek the shortest path from point A to point B. This is not only true for UX writing.

So conciseness is all about shortening your sentences and writing only what is necessary. This way, you’ll achieve a better user experience. Remember that most people tend to quickly scan instead of actually reading.

2. Be Clear and Helpful

If you are concise, the text you write will be clear and valuable. Since our goal is a compelling user experience, you should avoid being wordy. Our text needs to be helpful to the reader. What does a user need to know about the product or service?

All you need to do is anticipate what users need and what they are concerned about. Then, by analyzing your target audience, you can easily remove unnecessary text and make your UX text clear and useful.

3. Be Positive

You want the user to have a positive feeling when they first engage with your digital product. Well, for the target audience to be positive, your writing needs to be positive as well. To achieve that, you should avoid negative statements.

Of course, this is not a rule that you must always follow. For example, using “don’t” is not always bad because you can use it for emphasis. Nevertheless, try to avoid such words when describing your product or service.

4. Be Consistent 

Consistency has everything to do with sticking to the guidelines you (or a client) set at the beginning of the UX project. Your UX text must always match the style and tone you have chosen.

Try to pay attention to details. For example, when it comes to numbers, you can write 2,000 follows, 2.000 follows, and 2000 follows. It does not matter which you choose, as long as you remain consistent throughout the project.

5. Use Active Voice

Although it is not always wrong to write in the passive voice, the active voice is generally more helpful for UX writing. Your text will be more precise, tailored to your audience, and more potent with the active voice. And when your written text is clear and powerful, it is also more engaging.

6. Don’t Get Wordy

In most cases, when you are done writing, you believe that your text is clear and valuable. And that’s reasonable. However, it is wise to reread your text and delete all the filler words.

Adjectives and adverbs are usually unnecessary, and you can remove them from your UX text.

7. Choose Strong Verbs

But if you have no adjectives and adverbs, how can you emphasize and strengthen your text? All you need to do is use the correct persuasive verb. Strong verbs help you formulate compelling CTAs without being wordy.

8. Use “You” Words

Now that we have mentioned CTAs, there is nothing more convincing than the word “you.” Words and phrases like “you,” “you will,” “you are,” “you have,” “your,” “yours,” etc., are the best way to connect with your target audience and let them be the leading character on your UX Journey Map.

9. Avoid Articles and Exclamation Points

Although it may sound bizarre, the use of articles is not necessary for people to understand what you are saying. The same goes for exclamation points. Of course, you can use exclamation points for emphasis, but not always. Save them for the most exciting aspects of your project.

10. Don’t Use UX Writing to Point Out UI

This is a widespread mistake made by us UX designers. If you have to point out an interface element of your design with text, there is probably something wrong with the design.

Remember, UX text is not about explaining your user interface; it’s about providing valuable and transparent information about your digital product.

Wrap Up

You should keep in mind that the above tips are only guidelines and not strict rules. For example, there are occasions when the passive voice or an exclamation point should be used in UX writing. In any case, you will be one step closer to your goal if you make sure that your UX text is concise, clear, valuable, and consistent.

 

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50 Best Websites of 2021

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2021 has been both memorable and instantly forgettable. Pop stars were freed from modern-day servitude, some people tried to overthrow democracy, and we all vacationed at home.

Despite the weirdness of the times, the web kept growing, kept changing, and kept on pushing boundaries. We saw a wealth of new sites launch or relaunch with significant updates.

Here are the 50 best sites launched on the web this year. Enjoy!

Crusta C

In April, seafood company Crusta C cleverly used the simple logomark ‘C’ to apply a cutout video effect.

Slow

Slow is a collective of creatives aiming to implement slow movement principles. Its site reflects those aims, creating a sense of calm and deliberation.

hnst

2021 saw tons of brutalist-inspired design. hnst’s take on the style works thanks to the bright red in place of the standard black.

Marram

This site for boutique hotel Marram uses a soft color palette to create an impression of soft golden light and calm.

Levitate

In July, we loved this site for running-blade brand Levitate. The site is clean and light, with a sense of inherent motion in the photography.

Niarra Travel

There’s some beautiful photography on this site for eco-conscious, bespoke travel agency Niarra Travel.

Plunt.co

The core of this site for Plúnt is a combination chooser which feels pleasingly reminiscent of an animal flipbook.

Moth Drinks

Moth makes classic cocktails in a can. The striking black and white graphics and masking effects for its holding page stunned us back in March.

Seed

Selling supplements is hard; people are understandably skeptical. So this site for Seed packs in research and scientific information and avoids the hard-sell.

Wavemaker

Another excellent portfolio site in 2021, this time for creative media agency Wavemaker. The site is uber-confident while still being playful.

Wild Souls

Wild Souls makes nut butters, tahini, and other Greek delicacies. Its site is colorful and warm, and the site typography is soft and appealing.

JUST Egg

JUST Egg produces egg-like food from plant material. The huge photography and bold typography do a great job of making a new concept appealing.

Aalto University

One of the most popular designs of 2021 was Aalto University’s site with its in-depth campus tour. The simple navigation inspired several imitators.

Wisr

Scroll interactions were big in 2021, and Wisr features a Heath Robinson-style machine that ‘runs’ as the user scrolls down the page.

Cevitxef

This site for Cevitxef ceviche restaurant in Bilbao does a great job of making us hungry. Drama is created by oversized text, heavily-styled photography, and lots of movement.

On

The best digital agencies keep their own sites simple, like this site for On digital technology studio that uses black on light blue and adds infinite scrolling.

Acayaba + Rosenberg

We found Acayaba + Rosenberg’s use of architectural photography and subtle scrolling a pleasing browsing experience.

Madre

This site for home linen company Madre uses extraordinary fine-art style still-life photography to enrich a very simple site.

Hyperframe

“Show, don’t tell” is a well-worn mantra. Hyperframe’s site implements it by demonstrating the product’s major selling point on scroll.

Gemini

This exceptional WebGL experiment was built to show what’s possible in the technology. Have a play with the car; it’s a ground-breaking demo.

Felt

In 2021, collaborative mapping tool Felt launched in private beta. Its excellent site does a great job of creating interest while doubling as a recruitment notice.

imNativ

Not every project is exciting, but this excellent site for imNativ uses macro photography to great effect to promote upholstery fabric.

Websmith Studio

Excellently named Websmith Studio uses color to highlight, and the noise effect applied to the background adds subtle interest.

Singita

High-quality photography and a terracotta-based color scheme create an inviting ambiance for Singita, an African eco-tourism and conservation brand.

Fluff

A fullscreen background behind a mobile view for desktop? It sounds like a horrible idea, but this site for cosmetics brand Fluff pulls it off.

Chiwawa

This great site for Chiwawa cantina features wrestling masks, skeletons, and tone-on-tone color to create a lively and distinctly Mexican site.

Nothing

This site for Nothing’s ear(1) earbuds is packed with confidence. Appropriately, it looks even better on mobile.

Chérie Healey

Lots of experts have tried to tell us how to live our lives in the last couple of years, but Chérie Healey’s site manages to stay on the right side of positive without slipping into clichés.

Wayfinder

Wayfinder, a game about our connection to nature using generative code, AI, machine learning, and data mining, could not have been more 2021 if it tried.

Green Angel Syndicate

Not too many investment groups are thought of as ethical, but Green Angel Syndicate specializes in funding companies fighting climate change.

Tether

As the days got darker in the Northern hemisphere, we were wowed by this site for Tether, a cycle safety system using video and illustration to explain its clever approach to bike safety.

Patricia Urquiola

Back in January, we loved the new site for Patricia Urquiola design studio, thanks to its bright, bold colors that we thought inspired confidence.

Headup

Headup’s businesslike approach is created thanks to a pleasing color palette and geometric graphics.

Redwood Empire

For Earth Day on April 22nd, Redwood Empire Whiskey created a microsite promoting a competition styled to match their bottle labels.

GT Super

The one-pager for GT Super has a certain drama in keeping with the font itself and allows you to play around with the size, weight, and style.

Planet of Lana

Due for release in 2022, Planet of Lana is a game from Wishfully Studios, and its teaser page launched back in June has kept us intrigued ever since.

The Longest Road Out

This charming site for The Longest Road Out is a travel map and journal based on the creators’ road trip around Britain, Ireland, and the outlying islands.

Made Thought

Made Thought has a bold aesthetic and approach that explains its outstanding client list.

Miti Navi

Miti Navi makes extraordinary sailing boats. We were attracted to how its site presented a luxury product in an original way.

La Nouvelle

Another powerful digital design agency site was La Nouvelle’s, which used a combination of contrasting and complementary color combinations to catch the eye.

Caleño

Caleño makes non-alcoholic distilled spirits. They relaunched their website in March with bright, joyful colors that reflect the character of the brand.

Capsul’in — Aluminium

This demo site for a coffee pod manufacturer isn’t a site as such, but it demonstrates that even in 2022, there’s room for parallax scrolling.

How Many Plants

Everyone needs a few more houseplants, and How Many Plants is a great guide to how to own and look after them. The illustration style is friendly but efficient.

How & How

One of the most approachable design agency sites of 2021 was How & How’s. It keeps things light and clean, and effective.

The Hiring Chain

Part of a campaign encouraging businesses to employ talented people with Down Syndrome, The Hiring Chain website dispels myths with clearly presented facts.

Virgile Guinard

Back in February, we couldn’t get enough of photographer Virgile Guinard’s portfolio site. Blocks of color pulled from each image hide the image allowing you to focus on one image at a time.

Studio Nanna Lagerman

Studio Nanna Lagermann’s site excels at creating a sense of space and calm. The color palette is soft and neutral. The type is large but clean and sophisticated.

GOOD Meat

Veganism is a growing trend, and one of the sites promoting it with gorgeous colors is this site for lab ‘grown’ meat.

Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce

This one-page site for Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce is big and bold. Click almost anywhere, and two bottles of sauce go into your cart.

Ebb Dunedin

The site bucks the trend for luxury hotel design and instead is styled to complement its interiors. We could have done with time at this boutique hotel in 2021, maybe next year…

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How to Use AR in Brand Experiences

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AR (Augmented Reality) continues to build as one of the most exciting technology innovations to appear in recent years. More accessible than virtual reality experiences, since no specialist headset is required, AR has quickly emerged as a crucial tool for building unique experiences.

Although interest in AR as a tool for customer interaction and experience has been growing, demand has skyrocketed in recent years. In addition, since the pandemic of 2020, companies no longer have the same in-person opportunities available to create meaningful relationships with customers.

To ensure a client is fully invested in your brand today, you need to find a new way of building that emotional link. As an immersive, experience-led solution for brand building, AR can improve a company’s chance of earning brand loyalty. What’s more, around 71% of consumers say they would shop more often if AR technology were available.

The question is, how do you develop your own AR branded experiences?

Creating Branded Experiences in AR

For an augmented reality experience to be effective, you need more than just the right technology; you need a strategy for how you’re going to engage, empower, and support your target audience.

The best AR branded experiences aren’t just multi-dimensional advertisements; they’re tools intended to engage, inform, and entertain your audience in a new, highly immersive realm. Before you can begin to work on your AR app, you need to think about what kind of branded experience you want to develop. Here are some excellent examples to get you started.

AR Try-Before-You-Buy Interactions

Globally, ecommerce sales are growing at an astronomical pace. Going forward, there’s no question that the digital landscape will become the new platform for shopping and transactions. But, unfortunately, there are some limitations when it comes to shopping online.

While the right website developer or designer can create a stunning site packed with information about a product or service, there’s only so much that a webpage can do. Delivering a truly immersive user experience for your target audience involves replicating the kind of in-person experiences they would get in a digital format.

The best example of this is the “try-before-you-buy” AR app. Most commonly seen in the clothing and beauty industries, this app allows customers to use AR filters to see what everything from a new hair color to a shade of lipstick might look like on them. The experience is highly accessible and engaging because it builds on customers’ familiarity with filters and similar effects on social media channels like TikTok and Instagram.

A popular example of an AR try-before-you-buy experience comes from Sephora, with the “Virtual Artist” application. Originally installed within the Sephora app in 2016, the technology uses Modiface to scan and track the eyes and lips of the customer using a smartphone camera. After that, the system can overlay eye-shadows, lipsticks, and other products, to give the customer idea of what they might look like in real-life.

As AR applications become more mainstream, new solutions are emerging for companies concerned about things like privacy. Consumers who don’t want to load their image into a system for try-before-you-buy experiences can still access the benefits of AR with the right tools.

For instance, ASOS created the new “See My Fit” service in 2020 to help customers shop for clothing during the pandemic. The solution allows users to see what clothing will look like on a model with a similar body type to their own. This helps to show shoppers how products realistically look in similar bodies while reducing the risk of returns.

ASOS certainly saw the benefit of this innovation, with an increase in revenues of around 24% in the six months leading to the end of February 2021.

AR for Product Catalogs and Visualization

We all remember what it was like to flick through the glossy pages of a magazine or catalog for our favorite stores. Unfortunately, in today’s digital age, these paper brochures are far from the most efficient tool for shopping. We need a more digital experience that allows us to select products, see what they will look like, and add them to our virtual baskets.

One excellent example of how companies can use AR to improve the overall shopping and visualization experience for customers comes from Home Depot. The brand was one of the first to upgrade its user experience strategy with a new Project Color application in 2015. Although this app might seem a little outdated by today’s standards, it’s still an excellent insight into what companies can do to improve their customer’s brand experience.

The Home Depot app used AR to scan a room and implement the color a customer chose for their walls into that space, considering things like furniture, shadow, and lighting, to allow for a more realistic insight. The app has updated significantly over the years to become increasingly immersive.

Visualizing products in a real, contextual space is hugely beneficial for a customer’s purchasing experience and perception of a specific brand. If your customer sees buying the right product from you as simple and convenient, they’re more likely to stick with your organization long-term.

The product catalog and visualization approach to AR in brand development has grown increasingly popular in the last two years, perhaps driven by the demand for more online shopping opportunities. In 2020, Wayfair announced the release of an updated version of its “View in Room” app, which now uses LiDAR technology to provide enhanced utility when shopping for home products.

According to Wayfair, the LiDAR technology and “RealityKit” software give customers a more authentic and realistic view, so they can make better decisions about what they want to buy. According to Apple, customers are 11 times more likely to buy an item of furniture if they have seen how it looks in their home using AR.

Creating Unique Brand Experiences

AR is one of the technology innovations in our current landscape, helping blur the lines between digital worlds and reality. In a future defined by the rise of the metaverse, AR could have a significant impact on how we spend our time in a more virtual world.

Already, companies are taking advantage of this, with things like virtual pop-up shops and temporary experiences intended to differentiate their brands. For instance, Machine-A, a London-based concept store, is usually committed to showcasing contemporary fashion designs.

When it became apparent that London fashion week for 2020 would be virtual, Machine-A came up with a virtual boutique enabled by AR. By scanning a QR code embedded into billboards and posters across London, users could enter the boutique virtually from their phones and experience the designs themselves.

The concept created by Machine-A has opened the minds of countless business brand teams and marketers to new methods of increasing engagement and awareness among customers. In a world where you can’t necessarily interact with your top customers in person, providing them with a new and immersive experience can be a great way to generate loyalty.

The companies more willing to invest in innovative solutions like AR are also more likely to stand out as innovators in their field. Other companies have experimented with similar “pop-up” experiences and unique ways to capture audience attention. For example, Burberry placed a QR code in a Harrods store, which customers could scan to visit a branded experience, where an Elphis statue walked around in their surroundings through the lens of their smartphone camera.

It’s even possible to use AR experiences to attract the attention of new audience groups. For instance, the retail brand, Pull & Bear launched an AR game created with Facebook to help the company reach the 90% of Gen Z customers who identify as “gamers.”

Provide New Levels of Customer Support

As many of today’s businesses know, memorable branding isn’t just about having the right image or website; it’s also about providing the correct level of customer service and support. Most purchasing and brand loyalty decisions made today are based on customer experience.

Providing customers with unique experiences to improve their shopping journey is sure to make your company stand out in the new digital age. But it’s also possible to go even further with AR in your brand CX strategy too.

Amazon Salon, for instance, the first bricks-and-mortar hair salon created by Amazon, was partially established to test new technology. The “point and learn” service, for example, allowed customers to point a product they were interested in on a display or shelf and immediately access educational content. Users could also scan QR codes to visit the product page on the QR site.

This helps customers immediately get to the product they want to buy without relying on input from human services agents. In a similar vein, AR could be an excellent way to onboard a customer, learning how to use a new product for the first time.

Imagine having a user’s manual your customer can enjoy scanning through, thanks to AR technology. All your customer needs to do is scan the QR code on the back of a product, and they can see the item they need to build or install coming to life in front of them. This reduces the risk of customers having to call for help from tech support and means clients can see the value in their purchases a lot faster.

Companies can embrace AR as a virtual learning experience, helping users collect information and learn how to do things through an immersive first-hand experience. This kind of immersive technology could help to make any brand stand out as more user-experience-focused. Even car companies could essentially provide their customers with a complete virtual HUD showing them how each button and dial on their dashboard works.

Upgrade Website Design

Perhaps the most common way companies will be using AR to create branded experiences today is by updating their website. You’ve probably already seen examples of AR being used in a host of retail sites, with new experiences designed specifically for the age of augmented reality.

360-degree images, for instance, allow customers to essentially “look around” a product, and see it from different angles, just like they would if they were looking at the item in-store. We can see an excellent example of this on the BMW build-your-own web page, where vehicle browsers can see their vehicles from every angle.

The 360-degree product viewing experience lets you check everything from the side molding to the sculpted edges in perfect detail.  

QR codes and app downloads can also allow customers to take their AR experience even further, looking at things like what life would be like behind the wheel of one of these virtually augmented vehicles.

As AR becomes more commonplace and the tools available for designers in this arena continue to expand, there will be even more opportunities available to bring AR into the website experience. Even essential website upgrades today might include allowing customers to upload pictures of themselves or their homes, then using augmented reality technology to implement parts of a product catalog into the space.

AR Virtual Events

Finally, when it comes to exploring all the unique ways you can build a better brand experience and excellent customer relationships with AR, it’s worth looking at the event space. The event landscape has struggled significantly over the last couple of years. The pandemic forced most live events to be canceled, and although the post-pandemic era holds new hope for upcoming in-person experiences, the landscape will be very different.

Going forward, most companies plan to avoid a complete shift back to in-person events by creating “hybrid” experiences and augmented reality events instead. Augmented and virtual reality tools allow customers to step into an event arena from wherever they are.

For instance, the Pot Noodle Unilever brand hosted a virtual alternative careers fair in AR, where people could use their phones to navigate through a range of graduate employer booths. The unique career fair experience was designed to replace the more common in-person interactions graduates might have as they approached the end of their education.

The custom-developed 3D booths featured a range of different employers, and students could tap on the booth screen they were interested in to see a video from each employer. As an added bonus, the connection to the Pot Noodle AR careers fair website meant that students could also instantly apply for any of the jobs they were interested in.

Similar events could help brands recreate some of the meaningful experiential experiences that their customers have been missing out on in the last couple of years. They could also act as a valuable tool for bringing together people in a hybrid event, where someone visiting an in-person demo table could scan a QR code to send virtual demonstrations of a product back to their team.

This would reduce the number of people who needed to be present in an event environment at any given time, reducing the risk of health issues.

Bringing Brands to Life with AR

In the new consumer landscape, brand relationships are more important than ever. As a result, customers are making more careful choices about who they purchase from, based on their understanding of that company’s values and differentiators.

Now that you won’t always have an opportunity to interact with customers in-person to earn their trust, AR could be the solution for a lot of companies in search of new engagement tools. All you need to do is figure out how you’ll leverage all the benefits AR can offer.

Will you be creating an app, building a new website with enhanced 360-degree photos, or designing in-person experiences? Hopefully, these examples have inspired you to start exploring your options.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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