
đź‘‹ Oi, mga repapips, Brian Dys here! I love music, photography, and creative stuff like UX design and art. This is a place where I collect my thoughts and works. Apart all these, I’m Jaycelle’s better half and Bryce’s dad. 🥰
Just read this book – Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug – in two nights straight and even if the 2nd edition was in 2005, the wisdom that I got from it is still relevant.
And in the footnotes I came to discover “new” reads:
As an exercise on Front-End Development, The UI Team took a screenshot from instagram.com and treated it as if it were a design mockup.
We then proceed to deconstruct its Structure and Skeleton (Elements of UX) thru Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Information Design. The knowledge that arose in this deconstruction was used in building the HTML and CSS.
See the Pen RE:Creation: Instagram by Brian Dys Sahagun (@briandys) on CodePen.
We, as Visual Designers, have experienced how time-consuming it was to build the Front-End of a design mockup basing only on a simple image.
The Design Handoff warrants to have more than the Brand Guidelines, Style Guide. It must also have some form of Information Architecture and Interaction Diagram that could greatly make Front-End Development faster.
HTML could accommodate Intentions Oriented Programming (IOP).
IOP is based on intentions rather than constructs.
Code could be validated but a deeper level and meaning depends on the intentions of the programmer.
I had the privilege of sharing about Organic Growth and UX with the IdeaSpace 2017 startups. This was a meetup event by Voyager DX (digital transformation).
First of all, congratulations to all of you, IdeaSpace startups in being part of this very helpful and enabling organization.
I am also thankful to be part of IdeaSpace 2016 as the designer for Aboo (an audiobook platform).
Let me introduce myself.
Let me share with you some insights on how you could leverage on UX improvements to foster organic growth within your startups.
I would be mentioning the words “users”, “audience”, and “customers” quite often. Please note that I might use them interchangeably while simply pertaining to the group of people that you serve or wish to serve.
What is organic growth?
What is organic growth?
Now that we’ve defined UX and Organic Growth, the question is:
Could you drive organic growth thru UX improvements?
Yes, of course.
Let me share with you these 4 simple practices of UX improvements.
Question: who among you have Facebook pages or communities for your startups?
How about Twitter?
Instagram?
How about websites?
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It is common for businesses to be where most of the people are.
You are present in those different channels and platforms.
It is important to have a cohesive, unified look & feel in all of those channels and platforms.
1. Cohesive look & feel
The look & feel is the aspect of your brand that appeals to the senses.
It includes but not limited to your
Things that your brand exudes and your audience perceive is the look & feel.
How do you look or appear in their perception?
How do you make them feel?
Be cohesive.
It will strengthen your sense of identity with your audience.
It’s a given. We are present and active in multiple channels and platforms.
We constantly exert effort in maintaining a role in our customers’ lives – some, more active than others.
The messages that we send out to our audience could be more effective if there’s a clear call-to-action.
This is true especially for messages with marketing intent.
2. Clear Call-to-Action
2. Clear Call-to-Action
Let’s take a look at an example of what a clear call-to-action looks like.
This is WeAreVamos.com.
Vamos is a local boutique brand that started 4 years ago with a 4-model line-up of socks and now has a wider product range and is retailing in 100 shops in 4 countries.
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There are only two things to do in this website.
The call-to-action hits the nail on the head by being both
Because of the clear CTA, the customers could immediately begin accomplishing what they intend to do
2. Clear Call-to-Action
Having a clear CTA is just the start.
It’s important to note that what lies beyond the CTA must be what your customers expect to see.
In this case, the e-commerce shop.
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A big part of Vamos’ success lies in leveraging Tackthis as its e-commerce platform.
Tackthis streamlines the operational processes so that the business owners of Vamos could focus more on product development.
3. Consistent Branding
Where should you be consistent?
If you’re present in different channels like websites and search engine assets:
In social media:
And in general:
A consistently active and responsive brand exudes trustworthiness.
Your customers know they can count on you.
Cohesive look & feel, clear call-to-action, consistent branding…
These could all make your users happy but
Remember to also build an audience on your own turf.
4. Own Audience
4. Owned Audience
Being in your own platform is just the start.
Reaching and keeping your intended audience comes next.
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This is Philippine Airline’s own platform – a mobile app.
The time came when they needed to grow their mobile app users.
So they partnered with us thru our customer engagement platform, Freenet.
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Freenet enables your websites and apps to become more accessible to your intended audience thru its Sponsored Data technology.
Partnering with Freenet has helped PAL increase their mobile app visits from 660,000 to almost 2 million in just 6 months – a 190% growth. This translates to a 140% increase in their mobile app usage.
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Let’s have a recap.
Having these 4 simple practices of UX improvements (a.k.a. making customers happy) are sure-fire ways to foster organic growth in your company – especially if you’re a rising star in the startup industry.
Thank you for your time.
More power to your startups.
The difference is in the taste.
Good UI tastes good while bad UI tastes bad.
But some people like the taste of bad and some people like the taste of good.
It makes no difference if you could serve what people like.
Update: 20 May 2022
Looking back at my answer from almost 4 years ago, I would now expound that bad UI design causes bad things to happen like users not being able to achieve their goals; users making grave mistakes; users getting addicted the wrong and unhealthy way. All these (and more) are examples of what bad design offers.