Theory - The Usabilla Blog

Guaranteed Success With Emotional Marketing In Only 5 Steps

on May 1, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 2 Comments

Any good marketing strategy is built on emotions. This is not a secret. What seems to be a secret at times is how we know which emotions to work with. It can be quite tricky to appeal to a target group and to actually reach the right people with a marketing campaign. Here are the good news: It doesn’t have to be that tricky. Most of you might not know about it, but there is a great way to turn your target group into real and tangible people to help you better understand what makes your customers tick: The so called Sinus Milieus.

In this article, I will briefly introduce the concept behind Sinus Milieus and then guide you through 5 steps towards effective emotional marketing. If you are in a position where you need to reach people, I really recommend you to read on.

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Theory

A Cry For Looking To Other Methods For User Centered Design

on April 24, 2012 / by Tristan Weevers / 1 Comment

This guest post is written by our friend Tristan Weevers.

In 2004 and in 2005, Neville Stanton wrote two books with 200 methods and tools for Human Factors. In 2010, Chauncey Wilson added another 100 specific for user-centred design (UCD). In addition to books like these, people started to collect methods online. I found a lot of them, some better than others. However, it seems that no one really uses these collections, or even knows about them.

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Theory

UX & SEO: A Love Story

on April 12, 2012 / by Mark Oleszczak / 1 Comment

This is a guest post written by our friend Mark Oleszczak

Oftentimes, when people hear the words “search engine optimization” – they think of shady people who love keyword stuffing, gimmicky page titles, and who in general love to ruin the cleanliness of a beautiful website. While those people do exist, it’s important to note that not all search engine optimizers are the same, and there are a number of easy things you can do as a designer to ensure your site is beautiful for both your target audience and for robots.

Aww… robots.

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Theory

Will Digital Natives Take Our Throne?

on April 3, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / No Comments

I spend quite some time of my life learning about digital technology, how it works and all the great things you can do with it. By now I’m quite handy with computers, I understand how the Internet works, and I own and use multiple devices that allow me to be connected 24/7. This interest for IT differentiates me from many other people my age and as that it gives me certain advantage, for example on the job market.

Lately the term digital natives has popped up a lot and it made me wonder not only who these people are, but also why they have become such a popular topic. Rumors are that once these young generations enter the job market, they will put all the rest of us in the shade. I can see that with the growing importance of technology in almost every market, being savvy in the field can be very convenient. But do they really pose a threat to those, who grew up not knowing what the Internet was?

I looked into this new phenomenon of digital natives and I’d like to share some of my insights with you. And no worries, we don’t need to fear the shadow just yet.

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Design

Form And Function Go Hand-In-Hand

on March 20, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / No Comments

There have been plenty of discussions lately about usability. Still I notice that people get the usability confused with the actual look and feel of a website. A good website requires a lot from us as designers: Clean coding to make sure everything works and everything works fast; great usability to meet all expectations people have when visiting our site; and at the same time an exceptional user experience to differentiate us from competitors and to help us build a relationship with our users. Where do we start to design a website that meets all these requirements?

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Design

Designing Effective Social Media Buttons

on March 15, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 4 Comments

Social media marketing has become quite popular. I believe there are two main reasons why. First, because the Web 2.0 offers increasing possibilities for this new marketing strategy, and second, because social media is easily and for everyone accessible through modern mobile devices. Besides, I think people rely on social media marketing simply because it is popular and somehow seems to suit our constant connected existence of the 21st century.

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Design

Conversation Is the End Goal: an Interview With Eric Fisher

on March 13, 2012 / by Anneke Schapelhouman / No Comments

Eric Fisher is a storyteller turned product architect. He was the Social Design Evangelist at Facebook where he wrote the guidelines on Social Design. Eric has also worked as a designer at both Google and Apple and he independently works with startup companies to help architect their products.

Anneke had the opportunity to interview Eric for our readers. Here are some great insights into the role of a designer at big companies, how design will change because of all the data we are collecting, ethics, and much more.

Eric Fisher

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Theory

Thinking About Design, Fast and Slow

on February 23, 2012 / by Jurian Baas / No Comments

The premise of Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow is that we employ two very different ways of thinking. The book is very dense, and a highly recommended read. Kahneman says that the main goal of his book is to arm people with a better vocabulary about thinking, which in turn allows them to understand our biases, decisions and behavior better. While that is great for everyone, I think it’s especially valuable for designers. It lets you see that most of the time, there is no ‘one’ user, but one with multiple modes of thinking. Most good designers have observed their users interacting with their products multiple times. Insights from this book let you put more weight on these observations.

The cover of Thinking, fast and slow

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Design

The Future of Customer Interaction Tools

on February 14, 2012 / by Jurian Baas / No Comments

Because we offer Software as a Service, we need to keep clients happy month after month. A renewed membership is just as important to us as spreading the gospel of easy design feedback to people who haven’t heard of us. If we want our customers to love our service, we have to focus on the UX of long-term relationships. This is what we want to achieve, interaction by interaction:

Customer Interaction, from Like to Love

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Theory

How Technology Makes Interpersonal Communication Bounce

on February 10, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / No Comments

To me communication is like a bouncing ball. At least if we look at how it evolves over time in regard of its level of personality. Why? Well, it started with the most personal way: face to face communication. Then, through different mediated channels of communication, it reached its low point. Now, with the advances of the Web 2.0, personal communication reaches a new climax.
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