-
9 March 2012
It may seem counter intuitive, but they are not. What they are is “coherent” and the rules and proceses used to interact with them are consistent throughout; so even if you have to “learn” a new methodology of interaction, once you learn it, you are never surprised because it is applied commonly throught the user interfaces.
In the same way that a reader or movie goer is willing to temporarily “suspend their disbelief” and enjoy a story, as long as the internal rules of the story, whether they are based on magic, science fiction, or speculation, are consistent and coherent and obey this “internal logic”, a good interface design does not need to be “intuitive”. It can be completely different than every method of...
-
30 January 2012
Remember when IBM dominated the computing market in such a way that the Justice department filed an antitrust suit? The suit lasted for 13 years, from 1969-1982. That was the time when IT departments not only managed the IT assets of a company, but also provided the data crunching IT services.
Everything changed when Apple and Wintel liberated departments from that dependency. All of a sudden they were able to perform financial modeling, accounting, HR administration, and marketing analysis by themselves, using decentralized IT resources in the form of the PC.
Was that a bad thing? Clearly not for the users of IT, who radically increased both the range of what they could do and the speed of obtaining results.
What about the IT department, did it disappear?
...
-
20 October 2011
“There is more similarity in the marketing challenge of selling a precious painting by Degas and a frosted mug of root beer than you ever thought possible.”
– Alfred TaubmanNo matter the area, or even the product, companies rely on their Marketing and Advertising specialists in order to sell.
Even if creative ideas may be immensely diverse, the fact is that every Marketing and Advertising strategy begins at the same place and with the same principles.
But even if they do, it is not unusual to see many campaigns go wrong, ending up with large amounts of money put to inefficient use and in a weak return of investment.
Fortunately, there is a simple and fast way to avoid a failed Marketing and Advertising campaign...
-
14 October 2011
User feedback is probably one of the most critical, effective and efficient methods for optimizing market research, marketing, and advertising.
Most companies are pretty good at acknowledging, and acting upon the need, to proactively solicit customer feedback.
This traditional type of proactive market research, solicited feedback, is all about asking people to form an opinion or conduct a task, and listen and observe to their answers and actions and reactions as they engage with provided stimuli. In other words, soliciting insights from users and customers.
However, despite the positive feelings we usually associate with the term "proactive", this is not the only valid way to receive feedback.
Unsolicited, “reactive” feedback,...
-
6 October 2011
Yesterday we made a post on designing for the users and some basic usability and user experience notions to remind our readers about the importance of user-oriented design and development.
Today, with that thought, we would like to add a note on our blog about a visionary, world leader and one of the most important and influential characters in the design and technology worlds.
Steve Jobs (1955-2011) once said “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works”.
At only 56 years old, this great man who did not settle with the Status Quo leaves behind a legacy and the knowledge of a brilliant mind geared by creative thinking, new perspectives on users, and the beauty of combining usefulness and aesthetics.
... -
5 October 2011
"If your users have many questions, it's a failure of your primary site design. It becomes not so much customer support, as much as customer complaints".
- Jakob NielsenOver the past years, we have seen a growing popularity of designs and Marketing and Advertising campaigns created and designed for end users and customers.
Once you start practicing user-oriented designs or campaigns, and you see the tremendous increase in customer take up and loyalty, and decrease in customer support costs, chances are that you will not want to stop.
Iterative Product Development
Experts say that designing and developing a product is both a creative and a communication process.
...
-
30 September 2011
It is often said that “less is more”, but when it comes to Online Marketing & Advertising Research, “the more the better”.
That said, doing both quantitative and qualitative should be only done with a clear understanding of the strengths and benefits of each.
For example, when doing qualitative exploratory research, the number of respondents beyond a number between 5-10 per study, is not the main factor; far more important is to enable a setting with a minimum of bias (within a participant’s home), and minimum barriers to participation (to ensure you are receiving feedback from your target demographic, rather than limiting yourself to stay-at-homes, students or the unemployed).
If you allow a minimum invasive testing...
Latest tweets
- “Affordable access to representative users”
- “Less Bias introduced by testing environment”
- “Easier connection between findings and recommendations”
© Userlytics Corporation 2012 - Patents Pending