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How to Create Quality Content That Ranks

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By Usman Raza    

Quality content does not always rank. The advantage of Author credibility and how up to date the content is can sometimes be irrelevant to how it ranks. That isn’t to say those factors are useless, but content creators tend to miss an important factor that controls ranking: Relevancy.

What is Quality Content?

This is a simple definition. Quality content is determined by its success. If it has achieved a goal, drives traffic, conversions, or Google search rankings, it is seen as quality content.

The quality of content is not determined by what is put into it as much as its effect on a particular audience or search query.

The definition of quality content has shifted from the past, where it was defined by its relevance to a search query. However today, it is formed by relevance to the people who search for it.

What’s the Difference?

When creating content that is relevant, it is important to realize the difference between content that is relevant to a search engine, and relevant to the person searching. Content should be designed to meet the needs of the customer, first and foremost. That is, producing content that meets the needs of the person searching, instead of matching keywords to a search query.

How to Be Relevant

That is not to say using keywords are bad. Instead, evolve your experience with keywords to prioritize those people. People with problems to solve and questions to answer make content Relevant.

Know your Audience

When creating relevant content, it is important to know your target audience. The best way to do this is with tools like Google Analytics. It is designed to analyze different aspects of a website, from viewer location, most and least searched content and best to worst content.

When creating content based on analysis of your website, keep in mind the nature of your target audience. These questions here are perfect to consider what your target audience is all about.

  • Who are they?
  • How old? What gender?
  • What Social status/ background?
  • What do they like?
  • What are there problems?
  • Where do they live?

Now that you have figured out just what your target audience is like, it’s time to produce content that is based on that information. Make sure to write at a level your audience can easily comprehend.

Finding out the nature of your audience is an immensely experimentative path. However, deciding and sticking to a particular niche is the best way to normalize your audience.When posting content on social media, make sure to utilize analytics tools to determine the state of your content in relation to your audience. Audience analysis helps content creators adapt to their needs to keep content relevant to the audience. This is more officially known as data-driven marketing.

Backlinking

Backlinking is a great way to ensure your content is relevant. Web pages rank because websites link back to them. The reason they are linked to the web page is because they add useful information. Giving and receiving backlinks are truly one of the most powerful ways to rank content.

The benefits of backlinks for content ranking are:

Ranking is Organic – Backlinks drive organic traffic to your website. Organic traffic ranks content and web pages a lot higher than paid traffic. Websites and content that ranks organically are also more likely to be clicked.

Organic traffic is ideal for establishing trust with consumers over time while PPC traffic is great for producing short-term conversions.

Index Speed – Backlinked pages can be found more quickly by a search engine’s bots which in turn index’s it much more effectively. The quicker a page is indexed by a search engine, the faster it can start ranking.

Referral Traffic/ Low Bounce Rate – When producing blog content, the aim is to have a low bounce rate. This is the rate at which people come to your website and the time they spend on the website. If the content does not constantly grab the attention of the readers, then high bounce rates are sure to come as a result.

When receiving or giving backlinks, referral traffic is distributed from the referer to the authority content. Referral traffic is good because it usually has a low bounce rate. Since referral traffic is comprised of users looking for extra information relevant to the primary search query, it has lower bounce rates.

Also, referral traffic is trackable in Google Analytics, making it a useful way to monitor the strength of a backlink.

How Backlinks Affect Relevance

Backlinks should come from pages that are relevant to the content. This is how backlinks create relevancy.

When backlinking content to a web page, you create referral traffic to the backlinked website. Although this does not inherently create more traffic to your webpage, it does, however, increase its ranking on a search engine and strengthens the credibility of the page if the backlink is relevant to the page’s topic.

When receiving a backlink from another website, users are referred to you. This improves the relevance of your page and drives referral traffic to your page. Since that traffic is referred, there will be a low bounce rate for users who have searched that topic. This also establishes your page as a form of authority because your source supports related content.

When creating content, It is important to know your audience and seek the support of backlinks. When users view content that is relevant to their needs and supported with information that is also relevant, the content will rank highly in search engines. Use keywords that relate to your target audience and seek the aid of data to drive content that highlights your audience’s needs.

By Usman Raza    

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Sourced from Business 2 Community

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10 High-Paying Jobs That Require a Knowledge of Data Analytics

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By Charlie Custer

There’s never been a better time to learn data analytics and enter the workforce as a data scientist. The job landscape is promising, opportunities span multiple industries and the nature of the job often allows for remote work flexibility and even self-employment.

Plus, many data analytics experts boast a high median salary, even at entry-level positions.

With technology reaching new heights and a majority of the population having access to an internet connection, there’s no denying that Big Data and data analytics have become hot topics in recent years – and a growing need. According to IBM, the number of jobs for data professionals in the U.S will increase to 2,720,000 by 2020.

Demand for knowledgeable data analytics professionals currently outweighs the supply, meaning that companies are willing to pay a premium to fill their open job positions.

But the skillset and job opportunities within data science go beyond the tech and digital spaces. Let’s take a look at what you need to know as a data scientist – and what you’ll learn when you take our courses.

What Skills Are Required for a Job in Data Analytics?

As you delve into the 10 jobs we have here and start applying for positions in the data analytics field, you’ll notice many of them require the same foundational skills. Make sure you’ve mastered these before you start sending your cover letter and portfolio to potential employers.

And, if you find a skill that you still need to learn, remember that you can take an affordable, self-paced data science course that will help you learn everything you need to know for a successful career in data science.

Python

Python is currently one of the most commonly used programming languages.

Having a solid understanding of how to use Python for data analytics will probably be required for many roles. Even if it’s not a required skill, knowing and understanding Python will give you an upper hand when showing future employers the value that you can bring to their companies.

If you’re ready to advance your programming language proficiency, learn how to manipulate and analyze data, understand the concept of web scraping and data collection, and start building web applications, consider enrolling in our Python for Data Science: Fundamentals Course.

SQL (Structured Query Language)

Working with data sources is a necessary aspect of data analytics.

Early in your career, you’ll need at least a basic understanding of SQL. SQL (pronounced sequel) is often a major component of these positions. When you go to interview, listen for hiring managers’ mentions of this programming language when asking about your work with databases.

The experience you’ll get in our SQL courses will give you a good foundation. Like Python, SQL is a relatively easy language to start learning. Even if you are just getting started, a little SQL experience goes a long way.

Knowing the basics of SQL will give you the confidence to navigate large databases, and to obtain and work with the data you need for your projects. You can always seek out opportunities to continue learning once you get your first job.

Data Visualization Skills

Knowing how to visualize data and communicate results is a huge competitive edge for job seekers.

On the job market, these skillsets have high demand (and high pay)! Regardless of the career path you’re looking into, being able to visualize and communicate insights related to your company’s services and bottom line is a valuable skillset that will turn the heads of employers.

In this way, data scientists are a bit like data translators for other people in the organization that aren’t sure what conclusions to draw from their datasets.

At Dataquest, students are equipped with specific knowledge and skills for data visualization in Python and R using data science and visualization libraries.

10 Jobs that Require a Knowledge of Data Analytics

Before you take the time to learn a new skillset, you’ll likely be curious about the earning potential of related positions. Knowing how your new skills will be rewarded gives you the proper motivation and context for learning.

Lots of employers are hiring for these positions, both remote and onsite, worldwide. Here are a few positions worth looking into – and their median incomes, according to popular job search websites.

1. IT Systems Analyst

Systems analysts use and design systems to solve problems in information technology.

The required level of technical expertise varies in these positions, and that creates opportunities for specialization by industry and personal interests. Some systems analysts use existing third-party tools to test software within a company, while others develop new. proprietary tools from their understanding of data analytics and the business itself.

A typical systems analyst in the US makes around $68,807.

2. Healthcare Data Analyst

Healthcare data analysts have the opportunity to improve the quality of life for many people by helping doctors and scientists find answers to the questions and problems they encounter on a daily basis.

The amount of data coming from the healthcare industry is growing rapidly, be it with the increased popularity of wearables like Apple Watch or through enhanced medical testing in clinics, hospitals and labs. Plus, with a rise in regulations and restrictions on how that data can be stored, retrieved, and processed, demand for proficient data analysts is on the rise as well.

The median salary for a Healthcare Data Analyst is $61,438.

3. Operations Analyst

Operations analysts are usually found internally at large companies, but may also work as consultants.

Operations analysts focus on the internal processes of a business. This can include internal reporting systems, product manufacturing and distribution, and the general streamlining of business operations.

It’s more important for professionals in these roles to have general business savvy, and they often have technical knowledge of the systems they’re working with. Operations analysts are found in every type of business, from large grocery chains, to postal service providers, to the military and can make upwards of $75,000 annually. Due to the versatile nature of this data analytics job and the many industries you may find employment in, the salary can vary widely.

4. Data Scientist

Much like analysts in other roles, data scientists collect and analyze data and communicate actionable insights. Data scientists are often a technical step above of data analysts, though. They are the ones who are able to understand data from a more informed perspective to help make predictions. These positions require a strong knowledge of data analytics including software tools, programming languages like Python or R, and data visualization skills to better communicate findings.

These positions are challenging – and rewarding, with an average salary of $91,494. The demand for data analytics experts with technical backgrounds is at an all-time high.

Dataquest has multiple learning paths that are tailored to provide you with everything you need to hone your technical skills, including the Data Scientist Path that will help you become a certified data scientist.

5. Data Engineer

Data engineers often focus on larger datasets and are tasked with optimizing the infrastructure surrounding different data analytics processes.

For example, a data engineer might focus on the process of capturing data to make an acquisition pipeline more efficient. They may also need to upgrade a database infrastructure for faster queries. These high-level data analytics professionals are also well-paid, with median salaries being comparable to data scientists at $90,963.

6. Quantitative Analyst

A quantitative analyst is another highly sought-after professional, especially in financial firms. Quantitative analysts use data analytics to seek out potential financial investment opportunities or risk management problems.

The median salary for quantitative analysts is $82,879. They may also venture out on their own, creating trading models to predict the prices of stocks, commodities, exchange rates, etc. Some analysts in this industry even go on to open their own firms.

7. Data Analytics Consultant

Like many of these positions, the primary role of an analytics consultant is to deliver insights to a company to help their business. While an analytics consultant may specialize in any particular industry or area of research, the difference between a consultant and an in-house data scientist or data analyst is that a consultant may work for different companies in a shorter period of time.

They may also be working for more than one company at a time, focusing on particular projects with clear start and end dates.

These positions are best for those who like change, and those who have a narrowed interest and expertise in a field of study. Analytics consultants are also in a great position to work remotely, another enticing factor about this role to consider.

Compensation varies widely by industry, but $78,264 is a representative salary for the role.

8. Digital Marketing Manager

Digital marketing also requires a strong knowledge of data analytics. Depending on your other complementary skills and interests, you could find yourself in a specific analytics role within a company or agency, or simply applying your data science expertise as a part of a larger skillset.

Marketers often use tools like Google Analytics, custom reporting tools and other third party sites to analyze traffic from websites and social media advertisements. While these examples require a basic understanding of data analytics, a skilled data scientist has the ability to create a long-term career in marketing.

A lot of money could be wasted on campaigns that do not drive traffic, so marketing professionals will continue to need analysts to make smart decisions about how to leverage existing resources.

While digital marketing positions have a wide range, the higher end salary for an advanced digital marketing manager is $97,000.

9. Project Manager

Project managers use analytics tools to keep track of a team’s progress, track their efficiency, and increase productivity by changing processes.

Project managers need at least a working understanding of data analytics, and often more.

These positions are found internally at large corporations, and frequently in management consulting. Another example of a career trajectory for project managers could be moving into product and supply chain management, which companies rely on to maintain profit margins and smooth operations.

A typical salary for a project manager is around $73,247.

10. Transportation Logistics Specialist

A transportation logistics specialist optimizes transportation of physical goods, and could be found in large shipping companies, like Amazon, UPS, naval transport companies, airlines and city planning offices.

A data analytics background is especially helpful in this job because transportation logistics specialists need to reliably identify the most efficient paths for products and services to be delivered. They must look at large amounts of data to help identify and eliminate bottlenecks in transit, be it on land, sea or in the air.

With seasoned professionals in this industry making around $79,000 per year, a transportation logistics specialist is an appealing career path for individuals who are detail-oriented, technical and forward thinkers.

A data analytics background also helps transportation logistics specialists, among others, to focus on the most important issues, seeing potential problems and solutions in context and communicating those effectively.

Data Analytics Opportunities Around The Globe

These are just a few of the many high-paying jobs which require knowledge of data analytics. Specific figures from this article are for the median salaries in the United States, all cities included.

Salaries in each city may vary and reflect local demand and general cost-of-living expenses. Boston, Portland, and Denver, for example, have become hotspots for data analytics positions.

While the numbers included in this article represent a typical salary in the United States, opportunities for data analytics professionals can be found all around the globe. Many of them can even be done remotely, allowing you the highly-desired opportunity to work from anywhere in the world on a competitive US salary.

Whether your goal is to get a full-time job in a new industry, advance in your existing career, or work for yourself in the data analytics field, Dataquest can prepare you for the opportunity. With the portfolio-building missions and projects in Dataquest’s Data Analyst path, a community of mentors, and a strong alumni network, you’ll have all you need to become a certified data analyst and be set up to get the job of your dreams.

By Charlie Custer

Sourced from DATAQUEST

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How to Streamline Reporting with Google Tag Manager & Google Analytics

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By Brett McHale

One area that seems to elude many digital marketers is the relationship between conversion tracking and website analytics. Often, when businesses get started with online advertising, they have established each piece of the puzzle separately, with Google Analytics monitoring site traffic, and paid channels (like Facebook and Google Ads) tracking conversions individually within their respective dashboards.

This set-up may be effective on a small scale, but it will inevitably cause issues when your efforts expand. Having the proper tracking to view granular paid channel performance in Google Analytics will allow you to add another layer of attribution to hold each channel accountable for what’s really happening on your website.

In addition to Analytics, Google offers tools to streamline the process of managing website pixels and conversion tracking for each channel. With the combination of clean conversion tracking and reliable analytics, you should be able to scale your paid programs without having to worry about whether the information you’re looking at is accurate.

In this post, I’ll walk you through how to use Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics to improve your paid channel performance reporting in four steps.

Step #1: Implement Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager allows you to implement and manage the tags on your site in one place. This means you only have to place a snippet of code once across your site as opposed to manually inserting a tag from every channel individually. After the GTM tag is implemented, you will be able to add and manage tags all in one place. The reason I start here is that many advertisers will manually place each paid channel’s tracking pixel individually on the pages of their website. This can create confusion and clutter within your website’s code. To simplify the process of adding multiple pixels and tracking codes to your site, I highly recommend setting up Google Tag Manager as soon as you can. This will also make the life of your future web developer much easier if your team and operations scale.

To get started with tag manager you’ll have to create an account.

getting started with Google Tag Manager

Once there, you’ll want to follow the steps for establishing your account information. Name the account after your business and continue to set up the “container.” The container will be your website address:

set up Google Tag Manager account

You’ll want to select “web” before proceeding. Google will then generate two tags for you to place across your site.

install Google Tag Manager

The top tag will be implemented within the <head> and the second after the opening <body> tag. It’s a good idea to copy and paste these tags and save them in a document so that you can easily access them at any time. If you use a platform like HubSpot to manage your site, it’s rather simple to apply these tags across all web pages quickly.

Keep in mind that if you use a third party for landing pages, you’ll want to have this code injected there as well.

Before you implement the GTM tag across your website, you’ll want to remove tags from any paid channels that had been previously manually installed. You will be able to transfer these tags to GTM afterwards, but removing them in the meantime will ensure that those tags aren’t firing multiple times or causing issues once the GTM tag is in place. It’s also a good idea to save these pre-existing pieces of code in a document – I’d suggest the same one that you have the GTM tags in for safe keeping. If you are managing accounts for clients, make sure that they give you publishing permissions in their GTM. This will allow you to create new tags and publish them on your own.

For Facebook, there is a quick way to implement the pixel into GTM. After you finish setting up your Tag Manager account and remove pre-existing paid channel tags from your site, go to Facebook Business Manager and select “Pixels” from the main drop-down menu:

Facebook Pixel

Select “Set Up Pixel”:

select "Set Up Pixel"

Then select “Use an Integration or Tag Manager”:

Google Tag Manager pixel options

This should then allow you to choose Google Tag Manager from the list and follow the walkthrough to easily implement the pixel. In Google you can add your conversions by going to Tools > Conversion > and then selecting the specific conversion you would like to add. At the bottom of the page there should be an option for “Tag Setup.” There you will be able to select the Google Tag Manager:

choose to install using Google Tag Manager

This will provide you the information you need to create the conversion in Google Tag Manager. This includes the conversion ID and conversion label.

To create a new tag for any channel, select “New Tag” from the Google Tag Manager home screen and then choose the channel you want to set up:

Google Tag Manager home

When doing so you will be prompted to choose how each tag fires or when it is “triggered.” For Tags like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google Remarketing, you’ll want to set them to fire on “All Pages”:

LinkedIn Insight

For something like Google Ads conversion tracking, you’ll want to have the tag fire only on specific page URLs:

choose specific pages for trigger configuation

Here, you can specify which pages you want the conversion to fire. For example, “thank you” pages or any destination page associated with the conversion. After doing so, you also have the option to add a conversion linker to the pageview event. Conversion linkers are used to help tags measure click data so that conversions are measured effectively. To add a conversion linker tag, simply select “New Tag” and “Conversion Linker” from the tag configuration menu:

Google Tag Manager configuration menu

Then you’ll want to have the linker trigger to “All Pages.”

Once you add in your tags from each respective channel, select the “Submit” button at the top of the page. This will push the changes you made to Tag Manager Live:

push tag manager live

To ensure that your GTM is firing properly, I suggest downloading the Google Chrome extension Tag Assistant. This plug-in will allow you to see which tags are live on specific web pages.

You can also get the Facebook version of this tool to ensure those tags are firing as well.

To use these tools, go to your website and enable the Tag Assistant extension:

Tag Assistant extension

Here you can see the two tags are in place and firing. This is a good way to ensure you removed old tags properly without having to dig through each page’s code.

Step #2: Set Your Google Analytics Goals

The essential piece of the reporting puzzle is tying Google Analytics Goals back to your efforts in paid media. In case you haven’t established Google Analytics Goals yet, I’ll walk you through the process.

Sign into your Google Analytics account and select the proper view for your website. On the left-hand side, select “Admin” (FYI, you’ll need to have admin privileges in order to create goals in Analytics).

go to Google Analytics Admin

After that you’ll want to select “Goals” from the desired view:

select Goals in Google Analytics

From there you can view existing goals or create new ones. You’ll want to ensure that the goals that exist or the ones that you create are synonymous with your paid advertising conversions, like demo requests, ebook download, free trial start, purchase, or add to cart. You have a few options when it comes to creating the types of goals you want, including goals from a template, custom goals, and smart goals. I recommend creating custom goals because they allow you the flexibility of specifying destination URLs:

select goal type in Google Analytics

The idea here is to create goals that are identical to the conversions you have in place within your paid channels. For example, if you are driving traffic to an ebook landing page on Facebook, then you will want to have ebook “thank you” pages established as goals within Analytics. In a scenario like that, you’ll want to select “Destination.” From there you will be able to specify the destination landing page for the conversion event in the same way you would in your paid platforms. Assuming Tag Manager is properly established, you will be recording conversions within each individual channel respectively – with goals set up in Analytics for those conversions, you can now use Analytics to compare and ensure that the results are comparable.

Step #3: Start Using Analytics URL tracking

In order to see the specific source of traffic in relation to the goal completes, you can use Google’s URL campaign builder.

Here, you can create unite URL UTM parameters for each specific paid channel campaign. Under “Campaign Source,” you can put the respective channel (Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, etc). After having everything set up and your campaigns running, you can then go to “Goal Flow” underneath the “Conversions” section in Analytics:

select Goal Flow in Google Analytics

From there, you can then select one of your custom goals in the top right and view the amount of goal completes from each respective channel. For example, ebook downloads:

example of goal flow in Google Analytics

There are other ways to get channel visibility like this, but I found this to be the simplest way to do it.

Step #4: Keep Track of Your Reporting

After you have Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics set up for your desired conversions for each channel, you’re almost done. Because you’ll be able to see what channels are driving which goals, you’ll want to make sure you’re keeping on top of regular reporting to make the most of this information.

If you’re seeing numbers that are not aligning to your reports in Google Analytics from Facebook, for example, you can go into your custom conversions and see if there is an issue there (on the Facebook level). The idea is to make Google Analytics your source of truth when tying back costs from your paid efforts. You will also be able to use Analytics to monitor page traffic and the associated metrics for pageviews and bounce rate (this comes in handy as Facebook’s click data is usually far from accurate). You will also be able to get insights into how users are interacting with the rest of your site after entering through a paid channel. For example, a user lands on your site through and ad but navigates to another page and converts. You will be able to see this information and tie it back to the overall paid ROI.

If you want to consolidate all of this data into one simple dashboard, consider using a tool to connect your accounts and create reports automatically. Some good options include Databox, OpenStack, and WordStream Advisor.

With Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics goals working in harmony, your paid channel reporting will become streamlined and a lot more accurate. If you ever wondered what results you actually received from paid advertising, having these systems set up is the first step towards clarity.

By Brett McHale

Brett McHale is the founder of Empiric Marketing, a digital marketing agency dedicated to scaling startups through paid search and social.

Sourced from WordStream

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Digital Brand Marketing For Online Campaign Referrals

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Do you think online referral campaigns have any role in digital brand marketing? Yes, Of Course. According to the marketers, referral campaigns serve high in enlarging number of buyers and various marketing strategies can also done digitally(through Online) in order to promote brand as well as product. Conducting Online campaign is not a difficult task, just click to Webmarketing123.com refer the guidelines to get a basic idea of how to do digital brand marketing for online campaign referrals. Online Campaigns are carried out to create a center of attention on viewers mind about the existence of products, its brand image, how it is digitally promoted etc. To achieve this, most of the marketer selects referral programs as an important tool. Why is it so?

Because they believe in Buyers words and they know the power of it. The Words/feedbacks from the new buyer/ loyal buyers play a vital role in expanding the business. Once, the customers get satisfied with the particular product then they will act as brand ambassador in selling the products to the others. They will share information related to prices, after sales services, online payments etc, to others and Convert them to first time user then to repeat buyer then to prospect and finally to loyal customers. Try hard to get Good WOM (Word of Mouth) feedbacks in Online.

Importance of Digital Brand Marketing

Digital Brand Marketing is the marketing strategy of searching, investigating, encouraging, advertising, selling, and distributing a company’s brand. It encloses set of creating responsiveness on the subject of the brand, advertising, exposure, endorsement, pricing. As far as now, the people and Internet, both are in each other’s pocket. So, it is not a difficult task to advertise everything. The populaces have a fondness of goods or messages which ought to be pleasing to eyes and mind.

Referral Campaigns

Referral Marketing is one of the best marketing strategies to promote the products and increases the level of purchase among the customers. Almost, every sale will result in profit making, because it is done with buyers word of mouth. Referral Marketing is one of the best digital marketing strategies which help in saving time, cost, energy of the marketer. At present, online referrals and services are considered to be the most useful and effective marketing strategies where the new start ups as well as well established business people can make use of it.

Framework for Online campaign Referrals

Based on the ideas of https://www.webmarketing123.com, there are few frameworks for digital brand marketing to be carried out for online campaign referrals (Word of Mouth). The word of mouth is always requiring less investment of money. It is one of the low-cost methods to market your product and helps to bring large number of customers. It is done effectively through Online Referral programs, campaigns etc. The objectives for accomplishing the campaigns repeatedly develop the brand image and draw many buyers.

They are

Identify the target and try to aim on it with proper referral campaigns. Automatically helps in increasing sales, profit, goodwill

Use simple language to describe about your product and brand. It should be appealing and convenience to the buyers. Encourage the existence buyers to give positive word of mouth to the others. This will be done very easily by providing discounts, gift coupons, credit points, if they give referrals to others. Frame attractive SEOs where the customers get attracted towards it at the first look. Make use of Google Analytics to have track on success rate. Make the product available for full time in all social media. In everywhere the viewer has to see the product/brand details say in messages, blogs, email etc. Just have hope on Social Media. Make Staffs as lawyers for your brand. Instruct staff members to have a friendly communication with their known members about the brands.

Through Online referral campaigns, proficient web portals, the entrepreneurs can publicize their brands to the customers in an effective way. The Digital Brand Marketing is emerging at a higher level due to emergence of Internet. It applies so many electronic means and platforms to market a company’s business. Every folks use online for diverse reasons say for starting and promoting the business.

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How to Train Someone to Translate Business Problems into Analytics Question

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By Louise Herring, Helen Mayhew,  Akanksha Midha and Ankur Puri

Analytics translators perform some of the most essential functions for integrating analytics capabilities in a company. They define business problems that analytics can help solve, guide technical teams in the creation of analytics-driven solutions to these problems, and embed solutions into business operations. It’s specialized work, calling for strong business acumen, some technical knowledge, and project management and delivery chops.

Deploying translators is especially important during a company’s early efforts to use analytics, when much of its analytics know-how resides in a small cohort of data leaders and practitioners. We’ve seen companies hatch ambitious plans to apply analytics in dozens of situations—only to pull back because they employ too few people who can deliver solutions. That gap should shrink in the long term, as analytics pervades business and analytics training becomes a standard part of employee development. But in the face of competitive pressure, companies cannot wait to work with analytics on a large scale. Translators can help businesses climb the analytics learning curve quickly and roll out more use cases than they might otherwise.

While translators can acquire some of the requisite knowledge for the job through coursework, they make the most impact once they have developed practical skills through on-the-job experience. Yet it is all too common for executives to assume that employees can act as effective translators, capable of delivering analytics solutions, once they complete a class on the rudiments of modelling. In fact, employees who only receive classroom training are more like teenagers who sit through a driver’s-education course, then walk outside and try to drive away—with no behind-the-wheel training, supervised practice, or road sense.

Translators can only master their trade by observing seasoned colleagues at work and then working on actual problems with expert guidance. This progressive, real-world learning approach prepares translators to manage diverse teams of specialists, create replicable workflows, and apply business judgment while assessing trade-offs. None of these steps can be skipped if a company hopes to apply analytics widely and generate significant value.

Recruiting translators and positioning them for impact

Before launching a translator-training effort, executives should map out a company’s analytics strategy and priorities. Then they can determine how many translators are needed in each part of the business—and target recruiting and training programs accordingly.

Translators typically sit within business units, in proximity to day-to-day operations in stores, plants, mines, call centres, and other sites where employees make products or deal with customers. These vantage points let them spot uses for analytics and ensure that analytics solutions are embedded into the business for impact.

Ideally, translators will have spent time working in business operations before starting translator training. Existing business staff often make better translators than new hires because they have an important quality that is hard to teach: knowledge of a business domain where analytics will be applied. To put this another way, business operations are the typical translator’s “mother tongue.”

In addition to business acumen, other qualities companies should look for in internal translator candidates include comfort working with numbers, project management skill, and entrepreneurial spirit. Training curricula can then concentrate on the technical knowledge and practical methods that translators need.

Building basic analytics awareness

The first stage of a translator-training program should equip employees with fundamental analytics knowledge: a basic understanding of how analytical techniques can help solve typical business problems, as well as general familiarity with the process of developing analytics use cases.

This level of knowledge is readily attained from a week or so of classroom training covering:

  • The potential to use analytics broadly within their industry and, more specifically, across the business’s value chain.
  • General techniques for prioritizing analytics use cases and defining their scope.
  • An overview, and ideally a simulation, of the lifecycle of an analytics use case: defining a business problem, selecting target variables, brainstorming features of a potential solution, and interpreting results.
  • The roles that translators and other specialists (such as data scientists, data engineers, technical architects, and user-experience designers) play at each stage of an analytics use case.
  • The major types of analytical approaches (descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive), with deep dives into a few common algorithms (such as decision trees, neural nets, and random forests) and how they apply to business problems.
  • Methods for evaluating the performance of analytics models and understanding the trade-offs associated with particular models.
  • Agile ways of working—testing and learning from short development cycles, or “sprints”—that help multi-functional teams to deliver effective solutions swiftly.
  • Practices for embedding analytics solutions in the business and overcoming implementation difficulties, such as cultural barriers.

Translators also need the technical depth to hold their own when discussing problem-solving approaches with data scientists. Many take online tutorials to learn common programming languages, such as R or Python, and learn more complex algorithms. To lead delivery of use cases, though, translators must hone their skills through hands-on practice—much as language students reinforce their classroom learning when they are immersed among native speakers.

Developing the ability to deliver analytics use cases

An analytics use case follows an end-to-end process that is applicable to a wide range of business problems. The translator first helps define a business problem and “translates” it to data scientists in technical terms. She then confirms that the selected analytical technique solves the problem cleanly and efficiently, and she might collaborate with designers if the use case calls for a tool for front-line colleagues.

The process concludes with implementation of the analytics solution, which the translator facilitates by helping users incorporate it into their routines. This often includes explaining to end users what takes place inside the “black box” of a model, so they can be comfortable leveraging the insights it delivers.

Most translators learn the delivery process through classroom or online study and then master them during apprenticeships. They start by observing expert translators on the job and gradually assume more responsibility, culminating with responsibility for teaching others. The typical progression consists of the following stages:

  • Shadowing an experienced translator on one or more use cases.
  • Leading use cases under the supervision of an experienced translator.
  • Leading use cases independently, turning to experienced translators for help with specific difficulties.
  • Coaching apprentice translators on the pathway described above.

There’s no fixed number of use cases that translators must complete at each stage to progress their abilities. The right number is the number that prepares translators to advance to the next stage, and it can vary with the range and sophistication of the analytical techniques and business problems that a translator deals with, among other factors.

Our experience suggests that translators spend six to twelve months in training. Others may be ready sooner. One translator at McKinsey started training with a degree in engineering and several years of consulting experience, which had taught him to structure and solve business problems. After studying data science in a week-long executive-education course, he worked alongside an experienced translator and then began leading use cases. Now he’s not only a productive translator, but he also serves as a teaching assistant in analytics classes.

Since companies that are just beginning to implement use cases usually don’t have experienced translators, some rely on external translators to deliver their first wave of use cases and oversee their initial apprentices. Once three or four employees have learned to deliver use cases, they can train new apprentices.

Translator training is one of the most important analytics investments a company can make, because companies seldom capture the full value of analytics without capable translators. The key to training a translation workforce is a multi-tiered progression, in which employees study concepts in a classroom before mastering new skills through apprenticeships. Translators connect the theory and the practice of analytics; their training courses must do the same.

Feature Image Credit: Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images 

By Louise Herring, Helen Mayhew,  Akanksha Midha and Ankur Puri

Sourced from Harvard Business Review

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The Results Are In: Data Is King And It’s Delivering Big Wins For Mobile Marketers

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Sourced from MARTECHSERIES

Ninety-Eight Percent of Global Mobile Marketers Have Increased Their Focus and Investment on Data in the Last Five Years, with 97 Percent Citing Improvements as a Result

Industry analysts and market experts alike have predicted data would play a central role in mobile marketing during 2019. In an effort to better understand its impact, YouAppi, a leading growth marketing platform for premium mobile brands, reached out to more than 540 of the world’s top in-house and agency marketers to find out how critical data has become for the brands they represent. A full 98 percent of respondents said they have increased their organizational investment in data, spending that has been substantial from both brand and performance marketers alike. These investments are proving worthwhile, as 97 percent of all marketers have seen improvement, more than half of those calling improvements ‘significant.’

Areas of investment include reporting and dashboard technology (81 percent), in-house data analytics teams (64 percent), purchasing 3rd party performance data (47 percent), adding more data-centric roles on internal teams (46 percent) and hiring outside agencies for data analysis (24 percent).

The Impact of Data on Marketing Duties

In addition to increased spending, 96 percent of marketers say their job duties have also required a larger focus on data, with 57 percent categorizing that increase as significant. Though every level of the marketing team has been impacted by the role of data, executives have seen the largest change, with 62 percent citing a dramatic increase in their focus on data and metrics.

This increased reliance on data is also creating the need to develop new skills. Ninety-six percent of all respondents agreed that brand marketers would benefit from adopting the data expertise of performance marketers, and 91 percent said performance marketers need to adopt the positioning and creative expertise of brand marketers.

“It’s fantastic to see more organizations take advantage of the skills and expertise that performance and brand marketers bring to the table, and create an environment where these two disciplines can better complement one another” said Moshe Vaknin, founder and CEO of YouAppi. “As marketers continue to invest in more sophisticated data analytics, and find creative ways to make that data actionable, they will see measurable results that connect them in powerful ways to their end customers.”

A Rosy Outlook

The majority of marketers feel confident in their own job security, with 64 percent citing zero concerns about impact to their employment. Over the last two years, the bulk of hiring has happened at the performance marketer level (46 percent), while an additional 32 percent of respondents say their companies are hiring both brand and performance marketers at equal rates.

What’s more, marketers anticipate ongoing investment in marketing efforts throughout 2019, with 91 percent of performance marketing teams and 54 percent of brand marketing teams anticipating additional budgets and expenditures in their departments.

The survey included 543 mobile marketers from around the globe, all of whom had responsibility for brand and/or performance marketing either in-house, with an agency or at a marketing technology provider. For the purposes of the survey performance marketing was defined as marketing with clearly measurable goals or actions such as driving clicks, installs, or post-install events; brand marketing was defined as marketing focused on reaching audiences through relationship building, storytelling, and creative with actions that are less precise to measure.

Sourced from MARTECHSERIES

 

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Build Better Brand Engagement by Tapping into Your Buyers’ Emotions

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By Linda Landers    

How do you feel when you read a Disneyland social media post? Or an ad for the latest Apple product? Does a message from BMW or Audi evoke a particular response from you? These brands all excel at making emotional connections with their consumers that are designed to build ongoing relationships and trigger a purchase.

Think about what makes you choose one brand over the other. More often than not, it’s emotion. Through emotional branding, brands appeal directly to consumers’ needs, creating a connection that often results in long-term brand loyalty.

Understanding Which Emotions Drive Your Consumers

The products or services you sell can pique your buyers’ emotions, which is why many consumers often prefer brand name products to generic ones. You can capitalize and build on these emotions with a deeper understanding of why your customers do what they do.

For example, Disneyland taps into the following buyer emotions:

  • Excitement for new things
  • Fun
  • Family values

Disney’s television commercials, social media posts, articles, and other content center on these three emotions. The excitement of new rides, the discovery of a new park, and the pure joy that a Disney family vacation can offer.

What about Apple? With so many options for consumer electronics—phones, streaming services, tablets, computers—what makes buyers choose to spend more money on Apple products? Typically, it’s the desire for the best, and the desire to belong.

Apple has long focused on the emotions of those who want to own the latest and greatest technology. Those who own Apple products feel a part of a select group. Apple intensifies these feelings of belonging through marketing materials that focus on superior technology, and through the services they provide.

The ability to own a luxury car has long been a symbol of status. Car brands understand this and create imagery and content to cement and increase the feelings of self-achievement, the sense of power, and the desire to own the best.

What emotions do your products evoke in others? How can you sharpen and solidify those emotions into buyer loyalty? And do those emotions align with your brand mission and values?

Aligning Your Brand with Buyer Emotions

A deep dive into your brand should include a comprehensive understanding of your customers, inside and out. You can do that by creating buyer personas for your brand. What drives your buyers? What are their hopes, dreams, and desires? What do they do for fun? How can your brand help them achieve those hopes and dreams?

The emotion you want consumers to feel must be present during all aspects of their interaction with your brand, from first encounter to their most recent purchase. That includes service before and after the sale, each and every time. To create real, lasting connections, check in with your buyers—ask them pointed, thoughtful questions about their experiences with your products, and give them a chance to make suggestions.

Embrace Change

In most cases, a buyer’s motivation for making their first purchase is not the same motivation for future purchases. A buyer may purchase their first BMW out of a sense of self-achievement. They’ve reached the point in their careers where they can afford one of the best vehicles on the road, and they’re proud of that accomplishment.

But what prompts their next purchase? They’ve already satisfied that need for self-achievement, so the next purchase will be based on another emotion – perhaps the desire for a safe driving experience, or their trust in the quality of workmanship.

Apple understands this, too. Buyers often want to have the best that’s available, and they want the excitement of discovering new products and features they haven’t experienced before. And then there’s Disney, which brings 48 million people back through its gates each year by creating new rides and experiences for their consumers to enjoy.

Your brand can’t rely on the initial purchase motivation to keep customers coming back. Whether in-house or working with your outside PR/marketing firm, you must continue to identify the experiences and emotional connections that are important to your consumers and provide them throughout your relationship with them.

Feature Image Credit: stux / Pixabay

By Linda Landers    

View full profile ›

Sourced from Business 2 Community

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Sky, Unilever and P&G slash UK traditional ad spend as Brexit approaches

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By John McCarthy

Some of the UK’s largest traditional advertising spenders greatly tightened their belts in 2018, with overall spend slumping across cinema, outdoor, press, radio and TV.

According to research from Nielsen, top spender Procter & Gamble reduced its traditional ad spend from £196m to £186m in the UK last year. Sky’s expenditure, meanwhile, slumped to second with a 30% decline from £177m to £124m. Unilever fell out of the top three advertisers for the first time in the last five years, coming in at number seven and down 29.2% to £82.8m from £116m.

By John McCarthy–

Sourced from The Drum

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To Win and Keep Customers, Focus on the Experience

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By Angel Vaccaro

Moments now matter more than place or channel for brands trying to connect with consumers. To deliver the most engaging experience in the moments that matter, CMOs need the right strategy, technology, organizational structures, and metrics.

Today’s connected consumers expect instant information and experiences that “wow” them. If they have a question, they want to do a quick search on their phones and get an immediate answer. If they’re buying concert tickets, they want to see seating options, the view from their selected seats, and the best place to park—all before hitting the buy button. If they’re B2B customers, they want seamless contracting, procurement, and supply chain processes. In this instant-access economy, brands are challenged not only to deliver the right information over the appropriate channel but to give consumers relevant, personalized experiences in the make-or-break moments that matter.

Brands that can do this effectively have an opportunity to improve customer relationships, differentiate themselves from the competition, and drive brand value. Consider a retailer that has a loyal, high-revenue-generating customer who gives a one-star rating to a piece of clothing sold on the brand’s web site. Beyond just aggregating this review with all the other reviews to determine whether to keep this product in the lineup, the brand can go a step further. It can acknowledge this person as a high-value customer and take a personalized action such as sending the customer a replacement free of charge or giving her a gift card.

Or consider a sports venue that wants to create a more personalized fan experience to drive people off their couches and into the stadium. The venue could use a one-stop app for everything: If a customer shows a preference for a premium beverage, the app could trigger a notification asking whether he wants it delivered to his seat and, later, as the game comes to an end, give him access to nearby restaurant reservations reflecting his preferred cuisine. Throughout his visit to the stadium, the customer could be given personalized photos, the opportunity to engage in interactive gaming through augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR), and tips on the most efficient navigation for his journey home.

Delivering this type of one-to-one interaction and exceptional customer service in crucial moments can result in improved customer satisfaction, repeat business, and positive social media promotion, all of which lead to increased experience value for the customer and increased business value for the brand.

But how can brand leaders maximize business value without underinvesting or overinvesting in these experiences? As CMOs are increasingly charged with driving revenue and growth for their companies, they can rethink technologies, organizational structures, and metrics to help them find the perfect balance.

The “Three Ds”—Data, Decisioning, and Delivery

CMOs can consider the three Ds when designing and implementing technology platforms to support the offering of relevant, personalized content to consumers in the moments that matter:

  • Data. A customer data platform that contains relevant information about customers—who they are, how they have interacted with the brand before, where they browse, how they respond—is foundational to enabling this type of personalized engagement. It is also important for CMOs to make sure their companies are in compliance with applicable data privacy laws and regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
  • Decisioning. Once companies have compiled customer data, they can use software and analytics programs to make decisions about how to deliver the right content to customers in relevant moments and how to maximize value. It’s no longer a matter of creating awareness at the top of the funnel or driving purchase at the bottom of the funnel. With advanced analytics and decisioning software, brands can interact with consumers at precise moments throughout their journeys to create that wow factor and differentiate their brands.
  • Delivery. Finally, brands can orchestrate their responses and other interactions with consumers based on data and insights from analytics programs, whether that means sending a personalized email offer at just the right time or advising a support agent what to say when a particular customer phones the call center. Customer engagement orchestration software can help enable the automated, contextual delivery of one-to-one communications with customers. Emerging technologies such as AI, AR, VR, and connected devices give marketers more ways than ever to provide contextually relevant, immersive experiences to customers.

Organization and Talent

As they look at deploying new technologies to deliver relevant content and experiences to consumers, it’s important for companies to start with a well-thought-out strategy that’s supported by senior leaders.

It’s also essential for ownership of CX to be clear and consistent across the enterprise. At more than half of large organizations, the role of CMO has been expanded to include end-to-end CX. (Alternatively, CX may be elevated to a distinct function, led by a chief experience officer, complete with a dedicated budget, staffing, and governance of all CX capabilities enterprisewide.)

To support the technical enablement of CX, CMOs are partnering closely with their chief information officers, often bringing critical CX processes and skills back in-house and using cloud-based solutions, plus adding more tech-savvy professionals—data engineers, data scientists, business intelligence specialists, and the like—to their teams.

Proving ROI on CX

As the CMO role becomes more influential in the C-suite, marketing leaders are under increasing pressure to demonstrate a return on their investments, particularly when it comes to the value of CX to the organization. CMOs can start with a few initiatives and track select KPIs that support the case for investing in end-to-end CX technologies and capabilities.

Some CX-value metrics include:

  • Net promoter score
  • Customer satisfaction score
  • Usability score
  • Average revenue per visit
  • Brand engagement frequency
  • Campaign ROI
  • Repeat visits
  • Social sentiment (e.g., shares, likes)
  • Referrals
  • Average customer tenure/loyalty.

Steps CMOs Can Take Now

To help their organizations deliver the most engaging content and experiences to consumers in the moments that matter, CMOs can take the following steps:

Create a new mindset. Providing contextually relevant content and experiences to reach consumers in the right moment is not just a project—it requires a shift in mindset. CMOs can lead this charge by becoming CX champions at their organizations and having a plan in place to show the tangible value of investing in CX.

Start small. Begin with a pilot project focused on a single engagement channel (e.g., email or mobile app engagement) or single outcome (e.g., increased enrollments, increased satisfaction score), show some quick wins, demonstrate value, then create a road map to scale across the organization.

Reorganize for CX. Determine the organizational structure needed to operationalize change, for instance by creating a CX leadership council with clear accountabilities made up of marketing, sales, service, and other functions that interact with the customer.

By Angel Vaccaro

Angel Vaccaro, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP; and Natalie Groff, senior manager, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Sourced from The Wall Street Journal

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Five Lessons from Architecture School that Will Improve Your UX Work

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By Colin A. Eagan, M.S.

“The doctor can bury his mistakes. An architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

As digital design people, we like to think we’re all fancy. We’re much more advanced than print designers. Our work looks great on desktop and mobile. We wear scarves, un-ironically, indoors.

But it’s good to recall, scarves aside, that we’re the new kids on the design block. Architecture, for example, has been around for quite some time. I thought I wanted to be an architect when i grew up, and took some classes in school. Instead I became an information architect, which, as it turns out, sounds decidedly less impressive when introducing oneself. But where was I.

Because architects have been designing human-spatial interactions for like, ever, there are a number of helpful principles they take for granted that can be useful for UX (User Experience) people in those moments when you’re grasping for a design compass. Here are just a few from architect and author Matthew Frederick.

1. “The more specific a design idea is, the greater its appeal is likely to be.”

Users will gravitate to products with a clear design focus. Image Credit: Mathew Fredrick

This will immediately resonate with anyone who’s ever had a design direction watered down in the interest (however well-intended) of “making the product appeal to more users.” This is honestly one of the most difficult balances to achieve in client work: wanting to be receptive to input, but also making sure the work accomplishes what it’s supposed to do in the first place. Matthew Frederick, AIA:

“Being nonspecific in an effort to appeal to everyone usually results in reaching no one. But drawing upon a specific observation, poignant statement, ironic point, witty reflection, intellectual connection, political argument, or idiosyncratic belief in a creative work can help you create environments others will identify with in their own way.”

It’s an interesting concept because it’s counter-intuitive. Why not add a specific link for all of our audiences? Why not include all of our business units on the homepage — won’t they feel left out? Well, you may be doing more harm than good. I really like the concept of design inviting the user to interact in his or her own way. It gets at the heart of what UX is about: not creating experiences per se, but creating an environment for experiences to take place. The user will always meet your work on his or her own terms.

2. “Any design decision should be justified in at least two ways.”

Entry way serving as congregation space. Image Credit: Matthew Frederick

I love this because it discourages lazy design thinking. Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but it’s not all that hard to build a website these days. Anyone with a bottle of wine and a Wix account can do it. But UX people make their money in taking highly complex information and making it appear dead-simple. That means you really have to get the most out of every design element. In architecture terms, this means thinking about both the form and the function of space:

“A stair’s primary purpose is to permit passage from floor to floor, but if well designed it can also serve as a congregation space, a sculptural element, and an orienting device in the building interior. A window can frame a view, bathe a wall with light, orient a building user to the exterior landscape, express the thickness of the wall, describe the structural system of the building, and acknowledge an axial relationship with another architectural element.”

In digital terms, if you’re struggling with the layout of a particular page, you might consider how you want the user to feel in addition to what you’d like him or her to do. If you’re not using techniques like CSS Shapes yet, this can be a great way to get your content to work harder by putting in something other than boxes. CSS3 animation in general offers a huge range of possibilities to have page elements work double-time: check out the subtle movements on French creative site waaark, for example, or the appropriately-unsettling site for feminist communal living experiment one shared house, where eyes literally follow you around the room.

Likewise, you can use this rule to weed out the interactions that are purely self-serving. For example, what about that auto-advancing hero carousel to ensure all 26 of our business priorities are displayed on the homepage? Do we really need that? (Spoiler: No).

3. “A parti is the central idea or concept of a building.”

Various concepts that capturing the feeling of a design project. Image Credit: Matthew Frederic

“A parti [par-TEE] can be expressed several ways but is most often expressed by a diagram depicting the general floor plan organization of a building and, by implication, it’s experiential and aesthetic sensibility. A parti diagram can describe massing, entrance, spatial hierarchy, site relationship, core location, interior circulation, public/ private zoning, solidity/transparency, and many other concerns. The proportion of attention given to each factor varies from project to project.”

For UX people, the idea of a unifying design concept is nothing new. Those I’ve worked with know I’m a big fan of the diagramed core content strategy statement, for example. I don’t burn a ton of time on it, but it is a great way to get the team aligned on the brand mission. Likewise, we’ve been using a lot of UX mood boards lately, or even simpler approaches like the 4×4 Mini-Design Brief.

But a parti can help you hone in on your desired experience even more. Architect-cum-experience-designer Steven Hien sums it up well with this example in his excellent piece How to Use Architectural Parti in Digital Design:

  • Parti in Architecture: “Experience a building like a diamond.”
  • Parti in Digital Design: “Experience a website like the California coast.”

What does a “website like the California coast” feel like? What does it sound like, or smell like? Now that’s a design challenge!

Of course apps and websites, unlike buildings, change rapidly overtime. The parti can provide the uniting force behind those changes (until you decide to bulldoze the whole creaky thing and start over, that is). Take Uber’s app redesign, for example, which evolved around the parti of “Where to?” leading to specific UI updates like re-working the product selection slider.

As a side note, we should point out that one shouldn’t take any of these concepts too far. I probably wouldn’t go up to my developer, for example, and complain that the latest code release “doesn’t align to the design parti.” (Unless you want to get punched directly in your parti).

4. “Any aesthetic quality is usually enhanced by the presence of a counterpoint.”

Points and counterpoint. Image credit: Matthew Frederick

Building on the previous idea, just because you have a unifying concept does not mean all of your design elements need to be uniform. By contrast, adding a stylistic counterpoint to your design will emphasize, rather than detract from, the central idea.

“If you want a room to feel tall and bright, try designing an approach through a low, dark space. If you want an atrium to feel like a geometrically pure, highly organized center of a building, surround it with spaces that are more organically or randomly organized.”

In digital design, this can be something as simple as alternating light and dark layers as a user scrolls down a page, or something even more jarring like this example from Vanguard Prague. I’m not sure I love it personally, but the “static buzz” does create an interesting counterpoint to the otherwise minimalist design to emphasize the unconventional feeling of the living space.

What’s more, counterpoints in digital spaces needn’t be visual. With the advance of artificial intelligence (AI), interfaces like chat-bots can now respond to humans in real time, and are beginning to take on their own personalities. How might the inherently probing nature of a bot prove a useful counterpoint to the aesthetic quality of your site? It’s an interesting question, whether you’re creating AI to help with taxes, take out a new insurance policy, or simply text back your mum.

5. “A good building reveals different things about itself when viewed from different distances.”

Appreciating design from afar and up close. Image Credit: Matthew Frederic

Finally, this is a good one to recall in terms of designing for the first-time user as well as the returning user. In any new project, it’s easy to design with only new visitors in mind — where will they look first? Will they be overwhelmed with choices and flee? Will they hate us and trash us on Twitter? These are reasonable questions, but in reality, anyone can only be a new visitor once. Just as a well-designed building reveals new information to the inhabitant, your interface should provide sufficient detail and refinement to support the user who is up-close and personal, day after day. I’ve talked before about content density, longitudinal studies and other techniques for keeping this person in mind.

But this principle is also interesting in light of recent backlash against superficial, template-driven sites that skimp on actual content and value. UX designer Kate Meyer draws some clever architectural parallels in her article linking this backlash to recent trends toward brutalism and anti-design:

  • Brutalism intentionally attempts to look raw, haphazard, or unadorned. A reaction to cookie-cutter, pre-made template sites that dominate the web today.
  • Anti-design is brutalism without the rigor. Intentionally creating ugly, disorienting, or complex interfaces, often with a complete lack of visual hierarchy.

Of course, anti-design can get you noticed and talked about, but it makes longevity difficult to achieve. Clinging to an intentionally unintuitive interface, for example, is now blamed, among other factors, for where Snapchat went wrong.

It’s important to remember that the principles of these reactionary movements are founded in legitimate concerns about the sameness of today’s digital world. Reacting on that ground alone, however, can lead to a lot of equally terrible designs (and even some great counter-reactions like the site Brutalist UX Deliverables, which includes such awesome user stories like: “As a User I want to Visit the website so that I can See it.”) So it’s simply a question of how far you take it.

Or, to put it in terms of the age-old architectural question: Less is more? Or less is a bore?

By Colin A. Eagan, M.S.

Colin A. Eagan, M.S., is Principal for User Experience at ICF in Washington D.C., where he directs content strategy and information design projects for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and government clients. He is a frequent contributor to UX conferences and publications, including Confab, Convey UX, IA Summit, and The UX Booth. He credits any career success thus far to not going to law school. You can follow him @colineags

Sourced from UX Planet

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