How do you find a design balance between your user experience and your business goals?

In the eyes of designers, it seems that all things related to business and marketing are rubbish. First, they are not rubbish. Second, even if they are rubbish, who do you think should stand up and do the cleaning work? Who do you think is more suitable for sorting out all kinds of complex, confusing and bad things, and integrating them into a form that will make users happy and drive business development? In many cases, the answer is "designer."

The goal of product design is to solve the problem. The excellent design comes from the perfect interpretation of the functional characteristics and the process of the goal, not the pleasing appearance of the interface.

As the concept of digital marketing has gradually become popular, those departments closely related to the company's business have also competed to play the role of decision makers in product design and experience. It must be said that in today's era, for these departments, to accurately track and locate the target group and meet their potential needs for marketing, data analysis, design and even product development related capabilities are essential.

This has also led to some problems, because in such a situation, many companies do not know how to deal with the relationship between the responsibilities of the relevant team.

For example, the marketing team wants to have a frame in the page to get the user's email address, and the design team will tell them they can't because the experience sucks. This is the scene we are familiar with. Who's right and who's wrong? Unfortunately there is no single answer.

I have always believed that the excellent design will always put the user goals in the first place. But I also know very well that marketing that facilitates interaction and improves conversion rates by getting user mailboxes is also important for products, services, and companies themselves. So in this case, the business strategy becomes a design constraint. Only the disadvantage for the benefit, coordination and breakthrough constraints, can achieve great design.

As designers, the great challenge we face is how to weigh all constraints, comb through complex and confusing factors, and integrate them into a product design that is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing to meet corporate strategy.

　　Both

Learn from a team that is young, enterprising, and thinking ahead, rethinking the problems you face and the solutions that are at your most adept.

It is an indisputable fact that marketing strategies that meet the goals of the company and its products do need to communicate our design to potential customers, but that does not mean that designers must compromise on the bad models on the market. The internet world is always moving forward, try to find a balance between user goals and business goals, and try to innovate in a few nuances, so that the design can bring a good experience to the user while driving the realization of business goals.

Case: An abrupt bomb frame

This is something that all users hate.

You point to a link on Twitter, the content of the new page starts to load, you just read three words, and then the whole page is covered with a layer of dark things, in the middle is a frame, there is a form for you to fill out the e-mail address. You are really likely to be willing to give your information to each other as long as they provide the service that you are interested in. The problem is, they didn't give you a chance to get any information, just a few seconds before the bomb box appeared.

This is a typical bad experience. If you think about it, you may even find this design intent silly.

For the sake of product and business objectives, it is the responsibility of the designer to present the form in a more appropriate way in this scenario, rather than to fundamentally reject the requirement as an excuse to "enhance the experience." Can the form be hidden by default, only to provide a resident entrance on the side or bottom of the page? Or is it still in the form of a frame, but only when the user has read most of the content before rendering it? Try to consider this from two dimensions of space and time. Specific marketing needs may not be evasive, but the best solution comes from your own thinking.

In this case, the GOODUI approach is a good balance between the user experience and the business goals.

They've tried a lot of different strategies, now we can see that there is still a possibility to continue to adjust the program, but the current practice as shown in the above, eye-catching call to action is placed between the third and fourth content, will not suspend the top will not block any major content, and the content strategy is also worth learning , they tell potential customers exactly what their services are, how often they interact, and what they can gain from their customers.

You can imagine that users read the quality of the content provided by Goodui, one, two, three, and it is appropriate to provide service guidance at this point in time for potential customers who already have a certain understanding and trust in them.

But then again, the way the design behaves in practice ultimately depends on the data. If the conversion rate is not rising, then still need a new round of thinking and validation.

　　Everything is about balancing

Everything is difficult to perfect. Even if you have a high sense of balance, in many cases, you can't find the perfect solution for all the problems by being influenced by more realistic factors, such as crazy delivery dates and so on. In this case, the design can be guided only as far as possible with the most basic usability and ease of use.

Turn off the button to do a larger, so that the marketing content in style and ordinary content has a significant difference, remember the user's shutdown do not let them repeat over and over again until the angry ... Make the marketing content of the beautiful some, at least let the user does not have the style of the content itself negative feelings.

Everything is a trade-off. On the one hand to understand the importance of product experience for users, on the other hand, we must understand the importance of product strategy for team substantive development, after all, only at the business level to make progress, we can get more resources to ensure that the design continues.

Let's look at a good case of balance. Daniellelaporte.com's team clearly understands the balance between product design and business strategy, and they know how to present important marketing information to the user in a very elegant way.

Modal interface style and the overall quality of the site consistent, but at the same time can form a clear contrast.

Semitransparent masks help users determine the current page environment.

The Close button is obvious.

The content is simple and clear, the personality is full, compared with the ordinary "register Now", "unlock" more attractive.

Danielle Laporte's online marketing style is to strengthen its own brand, but also to a new generation of customers to bring a pleasant experience, the formation of a mutually beneficial situation. Integrating design thinking into business strategy, incorporating product thinking into design strategies, and seeking a balanced goal is to create a win-win situation for sustainable development.

Two point suggestion:

At the beginning of each project, encourage the team to speak freely, talk about their perceptions and puzzles about their business goals, and unify their perceptions of goals.

Fully communicate, summarize all the problems on the basis of unified goal cognition, understand the constraints that design function may face from the project. There is no need to discuss a specific solution prematurely, only to see the full picture of the problem first, to make a reasonable trade-off in detail.

　　Put yourself down and look at the big picture

Over the years, I've tried not to be tempted by my interests, because I don't want to compromise my design to a business strategy.

I guess at that time I really believe that a good product experience can conquer everything, and all kinds of business strategy will only damage the product experience and affect the brand image. For this reason, I will occasionally be tough to reject business requirements until I realize that inefficient execution can cause more damage to products and brands.

In the eyes of designers, it seems that all things related to business and marketing are rubbish. First, they are not rubbish. Second, even if they are rubbish, who do you think should come out and do the cleaning work better? Who do you think is more suitable for sorting out all kinds of complex, confusing and bad things, and integrating them into a form that makes users happy and promotes business development?

In many cases, the answer is "designer."

A good designer should have excellent coordination ability, should know how to surpass the small ego, expands the vision to the product and the business overall situation, helps the team to solve the problem. Refusing to accept reality clearly does not help us expand the influence of the design function. Embrace the new ecological environment, find their own balance points, under various constraints to weigh the optimal solution is the best policy.