Design Archives - Christopher S. Penn - Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

Almost Timely News: A Simple Way To Test Your Design (2022-11-06)

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Almost Timely News: The End of the Public Watercooler (2022-10-30)

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What’s On My Mind: A Simple Way To Test Your Design

I just got back from delivering the opening keynote at Heapcon, a developer conference in Belgrade, Serbia. I enjoy traveling (well, to be clear, I enjoy visiting new places. I don’t love the actual traveling portion a ton) and I leapt at the chance to visit a new nation I hadn’t been to before. As much as I love machines and technology, it’s people who power marketing, and the best way to learn about people is… to be with people and observe them.

Serbia, if you’re unfamiliar, is a country in the Balkans. If you’re looking at a map of Europe, go to the right of Italy, across the Adriatic Sea, and you’ll run into Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo. If you slept through social studies in the 1990s, this collection of nations used to be called Yugoslavia.

What’s unique about Serbia is that unlike its neighbors, it retained the use of Cyrillic as the primary alphabet for normal usage. Most of its neighbors use the Latin alphabet (aka what you’re reading right now). Thus, Serbians write their country name as Србија, while in transliterated Latin characters, the same characters are written Srbija.

So what? I’m not especially good at reading Cyrillic. I’m better than I used to be, because I’ve consumed a lot of news this year about Ukraine and much of it from the source – Ukrainians – which means having to struggle through reading Cyrillic characters to at least sound out the words I’m seeing, especially on media that doesn’t have translation. What that means is that when I visited Serbia, reading all the signs and content was not second nature. When I visited Montenegro earlier this year, I could tell that a shop labeled Apoteka was a pharmacy. Seeing the same sign written апотека was an additional hurdle.

This gave me a rare opportunity, an opportunity to rely on design cues for navigation rather than literal words. Take a look at this city street:

City street in Serbia

Without a word of the language understood, can you understand the basics? You can see the speed. What direction traffic is supposed to go. Where there’s parking. What to look out for. There are so many cues embedded in the context of daily life that are the same in many nations that if you were dropped onto this street with no translation software, you could still figure out what’s what for the most part. You might not be able to communicate with people, but you could navigate.

Here’s the interior of a store. Do you understand the general idea of the store? What it sells? How much Serbian do you need to know to understand what you’re looking at?

Women's Secret Store in Usce Shopping Center

I would assume not. It’s fairly apparent what the store is, what they sell, and that lots of stuff is on a 30% off sale. You could probably shop there, successfully buy something, and not have to speak at all.

There are only so many ways to do things like commerce, navigation, etc. in daily life that are rational and will help people accomplish the tasks in front of them. Even with language as a barrier, those commonalities make life easier to navigate. (and create shared cultural connections, too!)

Next, take a look at this:

Novosti website homepage

What kind of website is this? Without understanding a word of the language, can you tell? It is, of course, a news site, Novosti. How did you know what it was, if you don’t read Cyrillic characters or the Serbian language? Because there are enough design and layout cues you’ve seen from other news sites that makes determining what the site is apparent.

That’s the power of good design. Good design is fresh and unique but also invokes enough cues and commonalities that someone with little to no idea of the context of language at least knows what they’re looking at.

So here’s the big question when it comes to your marketing: how good is your marketing if it was in another language, a language you didn’t speak? Could someone still navigate the important parts? Do you have enough familiar design cues that make your marketing content intuitive?

Suppose my newsletter looked like this:

Almost Timely in Serbian

Without being able to read Cyrillic (or Serbian), can you tell in general what you’re supposed to do? You can see the YouTube video in the middle. You can see the yellow calls to action. And what really stands out to me?

The emoji. The emoji are symbols, miniature images that convey meaning without language needed. There’s a little TV in the YouTube link. There’s a pair of headphones in the MP3 link. It’s apparent what those are.

Try this test on your own content, on your own website. Google Translate allows you to put in any URL and have it translated. Translate to a language you don’t understand at all, and see how much your design still helps someone navigate and get a sense of what the site is, what it’s about, and what they could do. Is it apparent what business you’re in, what’s for sale, what someone should do just from the design?

By the way, this isn’t just important for international audiences. This also helps anyone who’s neurodivergent, dyslexic, or just not a strong processor of language. If you have the right design cues, you will help them do business with you more easily without overreliance on text alone.

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ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

Besides the new Google Analytics 4 course I’m relentlessly promoting (sorry not sorry), I would recommend giving a watch/listen/read to the bit on trusting thought leaders.

Skill Up With Classes

These are just a few of the classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

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👉 Google Analytics 4 for Marketers
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Get Back to Work!

Folks who post jobs in the free Analytics for Marketers Slack community may have those jobs shared here, too. If you’re looking for work, check out these five most recent open positions, and check out the Slack group for the comprehensive list.

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What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

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Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

All Things IBM

Dealer’s Choice : Random Stuff

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Events I’ll Be At

Here’s where I’m speaking and attending. Say hi if you’re at an event also:

SMPS, November 2022, Las Vegas

Events marked with a physical location may become virtual if conditions and safety warrant it.

If you’re an event organizer, let me help your event shine. Visit my speaking page for more details.

Can’t be at an event? Stop by my private Slack group instead, Analytics for Marketers.

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

My blog – daily videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes
My YouTube channel – daily videos, conference talks, and all things video
My company, Trust Insights – marketing analytics help
My podcast, Marketing over Coffee – weekly episodes of what’s worth noting in marketing
My second podcast, In-Ear Insights – the Trust Insights weekly podcast focused on data and analytics
On Twitter – multiple daily updates of marketing news
On LinkedIn – daily videos and news
On Instagram – personal photos and travels
My free Slack discussion forum, Analytics for Marketers – open conversations about marketing and analytics

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

You Ask, I Answer: IBM Courses for UX Designers?

Cristina asks, “Thank you providing an overview (in layman’s terms) of IBM’s free Cognitive classes which I stumbled across on their website during my job search. Would these classes be helpful to an aspiring UX designer?”

UX design itself is one of those things that you want to be clear about doing. It’s different than graphic design or UI design, and more closely related to CX, or customer experience. In terms of courses, no. The courses you want to focus on are part of IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking curriculum.

https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/

You Ask, I Answer: IBM Courses for UX Designers?

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Machine-Generated Transcript

What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for watching the video.

In today’s episode, Christina asks, thank you for providing an overview in layman’s terms of IBM free cognitive classes, which I stumbled across on their website during my job search.

Would these classes be helpful to an aspiring UX designer? No.

So let’s let’s unpack this.

UX design itself is one of those things that you want to be clear and very intentional that you are doing.

I’m sure you know this.

But for those who have not spent a lot of time hanging out with various creative folks, UX is different than graphic design.

It’s different than UI design.

And it’s more closely related to CX or customer experience.

So think of it this way.

Graphic Design is the use of predominantly visual tools.

Although there is such a thing as audio to I’m to give somebody to communicate information to somebody, it uses things like colors, and images and text and things.

And you see it everywhere, right? You see it in everything that you read, you see it on every website, you go on, you see it outdoors, and billboards you see in thing even things like architecture, UI, or user interface is the specific subset of that for helping design, the way that an interface looks and the way that somebody would use it.

Now UI and UX are somewhat are much more closely related.

Some people use them interchangeably, but the user experience part typically has more strategy to it, and more focused on people and outcomes.

Think about the old consulting saw people process platform where people process technology, UI focuses a lot on the technology.

UX focuses on each of the three in a blend of how do we give the user of this thing, the best possible experience.

And then cx explodes that to every aspect of the customer journey.

So it’s not scope limited to say just the interface of a particular or the experience that a particular part of the customer journey delivers.

Customer Experience covers the whole gamut from the moment you pick up the phone, to the moment that user is done with your product or service.

In terms of IBM courses for UX, you definitely cognitive classes is good to see how coders and data scientists and folks are using the IBM tools and learning the tools to be able to create great outcomes.

There is an entire design thinking a set of courses, some which are free, some of which are not free.

from IBM, the practice you don’t want is free and the design thing for AI are free.

So those two are, are free.

And they’re excellent.

I took and did the certifications for both of those, they were fantastic.

Because they teach you IBM design thinking philosophy, which is their way, their specific way of doing it.

And then you see applications of it.

And the AI one is really powerful, because it’s spends a lot of time thinking about those human elements, those human outcomes, those business outcomes, what is a business problem to be solved, that artificial intelligence is useful for.

And that’s different than just traditional user experience, because a substantial chunk of user experience in AI is going to be about the outcome, the data scientist and the AI engineer are going to go build and test and deploy machine learning models, inside of these elaborate systems.

And inside the systems, then you don’t ever see there is no user experience in terms of what the user sees, the user sees nothing.

They just know that it’s out there as sort of a black box, what the user does see is the outcome, here’s the result and see that dashboard, or it’s a model that’s in production, or it’s a mobile phone app, but whatever it is, the user doesn’t, doesn’t interact directly with the model for the most part.

So design thinking for AI, which I think is like, again, it was one of the best courses I’ve taken on this talks about how do we think about the outcomes of our AI work in ways that are valuable, and that communicate that value effectively to the customer.

So you can find that it’s ibm.com slash design.

Slash thinking is where you can take those the practitioner badge and the AI badge.

certifications are available for free.

So take in and pass both of those.

And this, I think, a really good principles that it when you go through the course, it’s interesting, because it’s not academically, all that complex, right.

It’s not something that requires you to have like a PhD in mathematics to understand the principles of design thinking, What’s hard about it will be the application of those principles to your work, the willingness to follow the outline process, knowing that it will slow you down to the time to an MVP, but it will set the foundation so that if the product does make it through the MVP process, and and becomes goes into production, you don’t have to re engineer from the ground up, you’ve done the hard work up front, to build it to succeed.

So check out those courses.

I think those are a really terrific starting place for an aspiring UX designer to think and learn and train on IBM is version of that.

Now, as much as I love IBM, I would also suggest that you look around at some of the other major tech companies and some of the other major you’re designing consulting firms as well, to see what their perspectives on UX are because you want to get a basket of different capabilities.

Every one of these larger companies has its own focus and interpretation of how the world works and how they build for the world.

And so you want to make sure that you have a handful of these to work with set and a half of these philosophies and how each company like how Google approaches design, how Apple approaches design, how IBM approaches design, how Toyota approaches design, so that you can be as flexible as possible for requirements.

So great question a fun question, check out that course.

And be on the lookout for other design thinking courses as well.

As always, please leave comments in the comments box below.

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I’ll talk to you soon.

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You Ask, I Answer: How Important is Design in Marketing?

Pradeep asks,

“How important is design as an element in a company’s online presence? Many businesses are uninterested in investing in design as they believe that it is too expensive with non-measurable returns. Also, since tastes of the audience keep on changing, it is wasteful to invest in the cycle of designing and redesigning the appearance.”

Great design aligns your brand with your audience. Like clothing, design controls perception and opinion. How important is your audience’s opinion of you? That dictates how much you should invest in design.

Watch the video for the full answer, including why “casual” design is like casual clothing – and more expensive than you think.

You Ask, I Answer: How Important is Design in Marketing?

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Machine-Generated Transcript

What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for watching the video.

In today’s us guy answer Pradeep asks How important is designed as an element in the company’s online presence. Many businesses are interested in investing in this vertical is they believe it’s costly with non measurable returns and since the audience tastes keep on changing it’s wasteful to invest in a cycle designing and redesigning the appearance of your digital presence.

There’s not a clear answer here.

Prior to working with the last company I worked at I thought design of the same about design that it was just a largely a an exercise in futility that people should value for

what you can do for them not how look but when you work in an industry like public relations perception and appearance and.

opinion matter a lot they they are how people make decisions for good or ill when you walk into a room. If you are wearing this like a very casual hoodie that’s going to convey a certain impression. If you’re wearing a three piece suits gonna come convey a very different impression. And the reality is your design has to be aligned to your brand. Just as your clothing has to be aligned to your brand or your personal appearance has to be aligned to brand. If you walk into a room and you are Mark Zuckerberg you’re wearing a hoodie and jeans right back in the day

late Steve Jobs wore black turtleneck and jeans. If you are going to

JPMorgan Chase on Wall Street, you are wearing a suit, it would be folly to wear anything but that. Because that is part of that organization’s culture and.

You part of design is conveying that

to the audience.

You are either a little bit like them or you understand them and what they want. So how important is design as an element of your company’s culture,

it reflects your company’s culture. If you don’t invest in design, that’s fine. However, if you are pitching companies to whom design and perception matter a great deal or your product or service revolves around perception and opinion

you will miss the boat, you will not get the business.

Conversely, if design a perception matter a great deal to you, but to your audience. They’re unimportant.

You know, if you are a

firm and you believe in a very strict dress code and.

you’re pitching

tech companies that have see the C suite, no one in the C suite older than the age of 30, you’re going to come across as a little out of touch with them and so align your design

and your investment in it with your audience. Some audiences.

They don’t have all that much interest in great design

other audiences do now, I would argue, there’s a baseline amount of design that needs to go into any company, no matter what to to get that alignment, particularly if you are not technologically capable doing so

companies see as an expense because good design is expensive and you can tell the difference between bad design and good design based on how easy design makes to do to let audiences do what they want to do if you get to somebody’s website and it’s super easy and you don’t need to spend any time figuring anything out. You’ve got great design.

Regardless of whether it is simple or complex or bespoke or casual.

Think about how much casual clothing costs, right, you go to a designer store or brand name store and you can buy a pair of ripped jeans that are already ripped for like 90 bucks or 200 bucks, you know like, but they’re already ripped. Why am I spending free rep to clothing because it has to

If you value that brand and you value that look and yet you value the functionality of the clothing as well, at least to some degree, it’s got to stay on your body for for decency sake, then you will have to pay that much money for clothing that is theoretically defective right because it is it matches that look but you want. So even in a case where your design is casual may not be cheap. So just as true for clothing or food.

For any of these things that control perception.

So that’s the answer their design is perception and if perceptions important. You should invest in it. Is it wasteful to invest in it. When you have to design a redesign for the appearance of the audience because the audience tastes keep changing it depends on the audience and what you’re selling if you’re selling food or clothing or things that are highly culturally influence, then you’re gonna spend a lot of design. If you want to be relevant to your audience

Birkenstocks were very popular shoe 20 years ago, they’re not as popular now. And so if you are a shoe company, you’d want to be selling today’s shoe or ideally today issue and and tomorrow’s shoes so that you can keep up with with the market. On the other hand, if you’re selling

b2b SAS firewall software and hardware,

then your design has to reflect the audience but doesn’t necessarily have to reflect cultural changing taste as much.

Because people’s tastes when they’re buying that product or not as

not as transparent as it were so good question. The answer is, you’re going to spend a lot on design, no matter what and and you should spend as much as you can afford.

In order to make life easier for your audiences and to help change their perception of who you are,

so that it is aligned with them. Thanks for asking. As always, if you have questions, please submit them to us. I answer and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the newsletter. Thanks for watching.

Category: Design

You Ask, I Answer: IBM Courses for UX Designers?

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You Ask, I Answer: How Important is Design in Marketing?

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