The commercialization of the internet in the 1990s brought about the need for web-based user experiences. Web designers and developers began considering usability and user-centered design principles to create user-friendly websites.

Today, UX design and research roles have become increasingly specialized. Most organizations and companies hire an entire department to oversee various aspects of their business to improve the experience for their clients and customers.

UX Optimized Landing Pages

Let’s discuss the elements you would consider in designing landing pages that convert.

Content and Messaging

• Headline and Subheadings – Short and to-the-point headlines with a value proposition. Help your visitors solve what they came to your site for. Your message should be clear, eliminating all doubts on why they are there.
• Persuasive Copy – Explain why your product or service is beneficial. Keep the points concise and highlight the advantages of what you offer.
• Comparison Points – Your market research will have led you to create a product that solves a pain point; list how you are better than your competitors.
• Easy Navigation – Make it easy for users to navigate to other pages, but don’t distract from the primary goal of the landing page.

Visual Design

• Appealing Design – From color theory, layout, and typography, placing the proper contrast and emphasis on features along with your branding and identity all come into play to create an aesthetic feel.
• Visual Hierarchy – Apart from making it look good, there is a science behind the flow of presenting information. Consider the natural eye movement of viewers. Guide their eyes through the design, starting from important elements and leading them through the content.
• Media – Use interactive media where possible. Video can have a big impact and conveys benefits to your audience with demonstration. Make sure your images are high quality and show various features where necessary.

User Interaction

• Navigation – You want visitors to find information. The navigation should not just be straightforward but also provide the links that help with decision-making.
• Call to Action (CTA) – Action-oriented and prominent. Make the CTA stand out visually and position it where users naturally look.
• Form Optimization – Gather the data needed to invite the user in and keep it simple. Activate it with a social login to move this process along faster.

User Trust and Social Proof

• Social Proof – Customer reviews and a current client list of reputable brands that trust your products or services deliver credibility and quality assurance.
• Testimonials and Case Studies – Some visitors look for validation before purchasing. Add success stories or case studies that show how others have benefited from your product or service.

Technical Optimization

• Mobile Responsiveness -As mobile use grows, you should begin your design process with a mobile-first approach. Responsiveness also deals with the content side of things, for it to be friendly to read and interact with.
• Fast Loading Speed – Page load times are one of the biggest things that get overlooked the most. Check how fast your page loads on various mobile devices, if available.

Conversion Optimization

• A/B Testing – Test out variations of your landing page with button colors, headlines, CTA text, and media. Some demographics prefer a particular approach, which is fine, as you can tailor landing pages to these areas.
• Exit-Intent Pop-ups – Though some UX designers frown upon this approach, it does convert some users at the last minute. Use additional value propositions or incentives in this case.

User Experience Clarity

• Content Clarity – Your content makes people understand what you are offering. Write it out to be simple to read and comprehend, propose solutions, and explain why they should trust your product to help them.
• Emphasis on Value – Explain how your product can offer them value by saving time and money or solving a problem.

Follow-Up and Appreciation

• Thank You Page – Once your customer completes their action, redirect them to a thank-you page acknowledging their purchase. Use this to provide further instructions or offer additional resources.

Effective UX design can have numerous benefits for your business. It can increase user satisfaction and loyalty and reduce bounce rates while improving conversion rates.

Additionally, a well-designed user experience can enhance brand perception by positively associating usability and quality.

In conclusion, UX design is an essential discipline that makes digital products visually appealing, functional, and intuitive for users. By prioritizing users’ needs throughout the design process, you can create a meaningful experience that leaves a lasting impact on your audience.

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For your website to be the first point of contact is another matter entirely. Google has published its principles* of E.E.A.T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) as guidelines to rank organically. But getting an elusive top 5 position can take months if not a few quarters.

If you are looking for immediate results, all search platforms offer the option to run paid ads, which appear above the organic listings.

How do your ads get attention? By writing compelling, friendly, and engaging ad copy which boosts your click-through rate (CTR), leading to higher conversion rates (CVR).

How Important Is Ad Copy?

You most likely have done a few searches today. You may have also clicked on an ad, or two, for a product you were interested in. Simply put, ad copy works by capturing the viewer’s attention and encouraging them to act by clicking.

The difference between a successful campaign and one that just bleeds your marketing budget is the ad copy.

To take a small detour, it can be hard to imagine how big the search market is at times, so I thought I would share some statistics about Google.

• Google gets visited 89.3 billion times per month
• Google holds 91.9% of the search market
• 63% of Google’s U.S based organic searches happen on mobile phones
• As of 2018, 46% of product searches start on Google
• Only 0.63% of people click anything beyond the 2nd page

You can read more statistics at the link below**. Other engines like Bing and Yahoo are popular choices to run paid ads on as well.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if your ads could consistently get interest from a sizeable portion of the people in the statistics above? For this post, we will use Google Ads as our example, so continue reading below.

Writing Ad Copy That Converts

We have a basic primer now on why search and good ad copy are essential. Let us explore interesting and offbeat ways to write some that convert.

While this won’t be a grammatical overview, it will help you develop trend-based ideas, and how to get attention for your product or service. So, let’s get started.

Your three main areas of focus for any text ad would include the following:

• Headline – This is the main title of your ad, the first thing anyone reads. The headline should include the relevant search query to have a higher chance of interest.
• Display URL – Include the URL you want the viewer to visit here.
  • For aesthetics, you can display the URL as: https://weborithm.com
  • But the actual URL would be: https://weborithm.com/promotion
• Description – The details about your product or service will go here. An inviting call to action or promotional text helps the viewer understand what to expect when they click.

User Intent

Every search a user makes has an intention.

Types of intent include:

• Finding information
• Looking for a product
• Find a specific page or site
• Ready to purchase

Intent plays a significant role in determining the Quality Score of your Google Ads, which, as we know, decides the ads’ position on the search results page and the cost per click (CPC) for your keywords.

A few things you can do to improve the impact your ad has on someone’s intent are:

• Use Relevant Keywords – The keywords you choose should be closely related to the intent of the person searching for them. For example, if someone is searching for “birthday party ideas,” your ad should include the keywords “birthday,” “party,” and “ideas.”
• Relevant Copy – The content of your ad copy should align with the user’s search intent. If your ad addresses the user’s query and provides relevant information, it is more likely to receive a higher Quality Score. Using the same example, the ad could state “Want to organize a birthday party your child will never forget? We have dozens of ideas on our site.”

Check out the Backlinko article linked below for reference and related reading.***

Emotional Triggers

Getting people to read your ad, and then click on it works best when it evokes a response. The one trigger universally known to get the most interest has always been the emotional angle.

Understanding your customer’s profile is the first step in using it correctly. Crafting an ad that mainly targets a stay-at-home parent differs from what it would say to someone working in a corporate office.

Emotional triggers can evoke joy, fear, curiosity, nostalgia, or empathy, making the ad more memorable and impactful. But these triggers have to be used carefully, in a way that is ethical and responsible. As an advertiser, you should avoid using negative emotions in a manipulative or exploitative way, and you should always be clear about the purpose of your ad.

Scarcity

People are interested in things that are not easily or always available. Limited quantity, for a limited time, has worked for nearly everyone who has used it effectively.

But you must use this tactic in your ad copy only when there is genuine scarcity. Having a monthly discount and running the same ad at the same time every month doesn’t build a sense of urgency.

The best times to use this element are during anniversary sales, holidays, and major events like graduation and sporting contests. For example, during the Super Bowl, you could promote an exclusive line of sportswear, or during graduation season, you can promote an offer on graduation gifts.

Natural Language

Your ad should initiate a conversation in the person’s mind. So write it as if you are answering a question, which is basically what a search query is most of the time.

For example. “Are you looking for car insurance? We have a special offer for you.“

Highlighting your keywords in the text also increases the Quality Score (QS) that Google assigns to your ads. The more relatable your text, the higher the chance of getting clicked – which can lower your ad cost-per-click (CPC) due to a higher QS.

So while someone pays $1.00 per click, due to your higher QS you only pay $0.75 and show higher in the listed results.

Data in Ads

When we say data, we mean numbers. Some examples include:

• Buy 2 Get 1 Free
• #1 Rated Real Estate Agent
• 1000+ Satisfied Customers

Including relevant statistics, data, or ratings in your ad copy increases your chance of getting a conversion. Plus, presenting numbers in your ad text can help improve your ads’ visibility to viewers.

Try not to use numbers just because; instead, present a factual assessment-based figure demonstrating value to your potential customer.

Call to Action Click

Eventually, your ad should have the one final element, the Call to Action Click! Yes, we know everyone calls it ‘action,’ but you are looking for a click. The action happens on your landing page.

An excellent call to click would have all or some of the following elements:

• It should be clear, concise, and easy to understand. For example, “Sign up Now” or “Get Your Free Trial.”
• It must be specific about what the user is getting. An example is “Get Your Free Quote.”
• It can also be urgent, as it could be a limited-time offer. For example, “20% Coupon Expires Today.”

Some additional tips include using action verbs to motivate users to take action. Use testimonials to increase trust and credibility. Create a sense of excitement with statements like “Don’t miss out” or “Act Today.”

To conclude, crafting compelling ad copy for Google Ads drives conversions and maximizes your return on investment (ROI). It would be beneficial if you tailored it to your target audience and highlighted the benefits of your product or service.

Once you have created your ad copy, test different variations to see what works best. Testing and revising strategies will help you to optimize your ad copy for clicks and conversions.

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* – Google guidelines
** – Oberlo
*** – Backlinko

In my previous post, I wrote about how I found a niche and successfully created a product. A product that kept me busy for the better part of a decade.

But sometimes, life decides for other things to happen. When you are dealing with product growth you also have to factor in the finer nuances of your long term approach. Finding balance with the immediate requirements to achieve momentum supports your product management abilities.

With WP Auctions running on auto-pilot I thought things would hum along. If you are at a point in your life where you are thinking this, let me tell you something – You. Need. To. Double. Down.

Here are the top 5 warning signs to monitor for your business or product, and some tips on getting through these hurdles.

Warning Sign #1

The first, and most important one, that I would advise any founder or business is concerning customer support. If you find support requests dropping, it is an early indication of sales decreasing very soon. The more people have questions, find faults, or ask for features, the better you will perform with revenue.

Trust me, I didn’t register this before it was too late. Big mistake.

Around 2015, our growth chart slowly started showing a dip. I took it as a seasonal blip, seeing as how there were some more competitors. It was also around this time I noticed fewer pre-sales questions and website traffic in general.

Address this early on, by constantly engaging with your customers. Even when they seem to be happy. Write about use cases, and share how features can help them use your product better. Address pain points, and how your product solves them.

Stay engaged. The biggest problem why startups struggle is because they don’t reach their user base. Use social media, blogs, newsletters, email blasts, guest posts, reviews, videos and everything else in between to connect.

Warning Sign #2

One reason for sign #1 was that we didn’t ship as often. Having experienced 4 years of 100%+ YOY growth, I thought it would just…continue?!

So we thought we should diversify, and start some new projects. Causing feature updates for WP Auctions to be less frequent.

For clarity, this was in our 4th or 5th year of operations. Before that, we were always shipping.

Building new products turned out to be a time sink though, with minimal return on investment (ROI) for the long run. It was fun to work on something else while WP Auctions was in auto mode. We should not have stopped feeding our golden goose.

Keep shipping, don’t deviate.

We did do one thing which helped our product roadmap take off quickly. A few clients wanted some modifications to our plugin. We made a deal where we charged them a nominal fee, but get to keep code rights and integrate the features into our core offering. They saw the benefit in not paying us for extended support for their modifications for the foreseeable future.

The above tactic won’t fit into most startups business growth plan, and that’s completely fine. It’s just something that helped us grow the plugin in features, and provide funds for future development.

To add an important takeaway, hire an extra helping hand when you are growing. I talk about this in Sign #5 below.

Warning Sign #3

If your competition replicates your playbook and they ship more often, guess what? Your customers will notice and switch over.

Our ‘freemium’ model worked well, almost too well. No other competitor in our space used a similar strategy. It was only time before someone would put two and two together and gain traction with the same concept.

As a consolation, I’ll accept it as flattery.

If you see someone replicating your strategy you need to reinvent. Take some time, think up new ways to stay relevant – rinse and repeat, till something sticks. It’s basically time to go back to the ‘drawing board’ and revive your product.

Warning Sign #4

Adapt to the market. Do it, and do it fast. As the extensibility of WordPress reached new levels we didn’t innovate fast enough to latch on to new waves.

Integrating with WooCommerce, developing partnerships, and creating add-ons for payment providers were a few things that were requested, but we never got around to doing it.

As the ecosystem evolved, we didn’t. Adapt and integrate, like yesterday.

Thinking about it now, this is exactly how we should have reinvented ourselves. (from point #3 above)

Warning Sign #5

For all of the above, sometimes you need more than two heads. Add a developer, or marketing person as soon as you get some traction. Free up your time, so that you can focus on what you do best. In my case, that would have been developing the product roadmap.

We had started working on some features that would have put all our competitors behind us. But, time constraints and….life just made alignment hard. That’s when you need that third or fourth head to keep the engine oiled up.

Get help when you can afford it. For us, that would have been in our 4th year of operations. Manage your expenses while revenue catches up, it will be worth it. It just gets exponentially harder to do this when revenue starts to stagnate.

The bottom line, you need a team if you want to achieve more.

“Act”ion Matters

Remember, the single most important thing you can be doing to keep traction on your side is to “act.”

• Interact
• Transact
• React
• Enact
• Impact

Building a business comes with responsibilities, not just to yourself, your customers, and those who work with you. But also to the product itself. Once a client begins working with your product, they see it as an extension of you.

Develop your product well enough, and let it speak for you.

I hope the above helps you look at your setup and allow you to catch any of these warning signs. Experiencing and acknowledging them did help me in other projects, hope it does the same for you.

WP Auctions is now under new and able management since 2022, and I still consider it one of the better auction plugins available for WordPress.

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I was fortunate to be a part of some small product journeys in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s. One such experience is the topic of discussion here for those looking to start an online business.

The post will go over how we found a niche, built a product for it, saw it grow, and the challenges we faced. I will also share some insights on a go-to-market vs organic growth comparison.

In a future post, I will discuss the metrics you need to monitor to maintain product health and measure sales growth.

Where’s My Market?

WordPress was the thing to be involved with back in 2004/2005. With blogging taking center stage, everyone and their cat was setting up their blogs.

In my experience, it wasn’t until the end of 2005, with the release of WordPress 2.0, that it took center stage.

The ‘market’ for selling plugins/themes was almost non-existent, as the open-source ethos of WordPress made most developers release them for free. It is still the driving force behind the CMS today, which is fantastic.

But everyone has bills to pay.

Finding My Niche

Would the market ever develop for designers in the WordPress ecosystem? I thought to myself as I tried to figure out ways to make a living with it. The odd theme design jobs were great, but not consistent.

As demand for premium plugins and themes grew, I decided to create something.

Finding Owen Cutajar, my developer partner, was a stroke of luck. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having a great partner to work with. Before I approached him, I already had an idea of what I wanted to develop.

For a time I had a store on eBay as a side hustle. We sold clothing, jewelry, and all sorts of things. It was the only reliable site where you could host auctions.

So I did, what any entrepreneur would do, I decided to disrupt the market. Seeing as how everyone was gravitating to a certain platform, why not allow them to do more with it?!

We created an auction plugin, the first of its kind for WordPress, and named it WP Auctions.

Build It, And They Will Come

We released the initial version of the plugin in 2007/2008, after a few months of ‘beta’ development. It was a lukewarm response. I think the first sale happened a few weeks after the launch.

But it wasn’t until 2009 or early 2010 that the plugin started to take off. Waiting close to 2 years for traction is tough. It creates a lot of doubt. In the meantime, we continued to try different things.

We also released a free version on WordPress.org. First, to give back to the community as we strongly believe in the concept of open source. Second, it turned out to be a great driver of organic traffic to our premium version.

The market eventually noticed that you can use this plugin to hold auctions. Instead of the only option at that time, eBay.

That was when our hockey stick growth chart began. As each new version release added features, our user base grew. Introducing a multi-user option helped the revenue bar tick up a bit.

We were approached regularly by charities and people wanting to use the plugin to raise money. It was a great feeling receiving their thank you notes and how much they could raise because of it.

As our sales grew, the first competitor appeared. Yes, it took almost 2/3 years before someone released another plugin.

That was a gratifying feeling, knowing you were the first in the world in an untapped market.

1st Acquisition Offer

The best part was that we got an offer from someone who wanted to acquire it. I remember quoting a price that was around 2.5/3 times our yearly revenue. They didn’t seem to think they could make their money back.

We hit that target the next year.

2nd Acquisition Offer

We were hitting a healthy 5-figures in yearly revenue by now, cue the 2nd offer. I once again quoted a price of 2.5/3 times our annual recurring revenue (ARR). I believe it was in 2011. They didn’t think the plugin would make them that much money.

So they built a competing product (which shut down in a year).

We hit the acquisition price I had quoted – the following year as revenue. You can high-five me here -

I’m not sure when the 3rd offer came, but yes as you guessed they didn’t think they could make their money back. We hit that target in 2012/2013.

Go To Market vs Organic Growth

We laid out a go-to-market strategy – mind you, I call it that now, back then it was just ‘the plan’. It revolved around making sure everyone thought of the plugin when they thought of auctions.

As you can tell, it does fall short of a few major things. Today, I would pay attention to niche customer targeting, create value by explaining how it addresses pain points, and track some metrics.

Another important element of the “GTM” was pricing. Our only reference was what other plugins were costing and we kind of just came up with a price. But it wasn’t until a few versions were out that we reached a price point that kept sales steady.

Today, I would look at market demand, competition, and perceived value before deciding on cost.

Implementing the above steps seemed natural without any elaborate schematic to reach more users. I couldn’t have done more as product development and support always took a chunk of my time.

But knowing what I know now, we should have invested more in marketing.

Looking at the organic side of the business. My key performance indicators (KPIs) at the time were just website traffic and sales. I should have paid attention to many more metrics.

On the one hand, our Net Promoter Score (NPS) was decent. Early reviews provided us with direction to make our product better.

SEO-wise, we had the market cornered for the targeted search keywords. Our in-house efforts rewarded us with the #1 spot for ‘auction plugin’, and variants, for the better part of a decade.

Even so, you still need to market.

So, what happened?

Year-over-year revenue growth was 100%+ for 4 years in a row. Everything was going great until it wasn’t.

I relied too much on organic growth, without optimizing for the metrics I was not measuring. I also unintentionally paid less attention to the GTM strategy, by relaxing on advertising. Even though, we were doing discount offers, plugin add-ons, free installation offers, and more…we only relied on search engine traffic.

Your GTM strategy needs to be marketed, otherwise, it’s just an acronym.

There’s a reason why the biggest retailers online advertise on their brand name keywords, and a lot more.

Fast forward to today. Since 2022, the plugin has moved on to new owners who are doing some great work with it.

In my next post, I will share the top factors that blinked red for product growth and were early warning signs.

Read it here: A Product’s Journey, 5 Warning Signs and Rescue Tips

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User experience design has been around since the first GUI was built by Xerox. As the need for user-friendly websites and mobile browsing grew, so did the requirement for a specialized UX approach.

UX design is a creative process undertaken during product development that involves market research, strategy, and design. The main goals are to create interactions or interfaces that satisfy users and are efficient and easy to use.

In this post, we discuss the methods and concepts that convert users into customers. Most online users don’t realize that a team or a very skilled individual considered their needs, emotions, and habits during development. Allowing them to complete the tasks and their journey while interacting with your product in a non-fussy and accessible way.

Better Research = Better UX

There’s enough information available today to make market research a better-informed step. Apart from helping you build one cohesive thought process, here are a few more reasons it is a necessary one.

Informed Decisions: First things first, all UX designers must consider that they are probably not the ideal customer for the product they are working on. You can use data and evidence from products in the space to remove assumptions or personal preferences. The information you gather can assist you in matching design decisions with social context to deliver meaning for real users.

Qualitative Aspects: The decisions UX designers make also depend on the intended target audience, their perceptions, and the pain points they experience. Emotions are an important element of UX design too, which can be assessed through surveys, interviews, and eventually user testing.

Focus on Impact: Analyzing current challenges and opportunities focuses your ideas on result-oriented efforts. Even the tiniest details help your users make the choice you desire from them. The impact of happy users is that it makes a good product – great!

Competitive Analysis: Each sector has its fair share of competition, which (thankfully) makes it easier to understand your target customer. With various key metrics, engagement, and analysis you can identify your product’s distinctive selling points and areas where you can dare to be different.

Bottom line: It allows your product to deliver on unmet user needs with its ‘unique value proposition.’

Prototyping & Testing

Once you have your research and defined a UX methodology to follow, you can create some prototypes.

The goal in this phase is to gather as much feedback as possible on the core functionalities and interactions. You can select low-fi for quick iterations, or high-fi for user experience testing. At this stage, use any combination of:

• Paper sketches
• Digital wireframes
• Interactive prototypes
• Functional prototypes
• Storyboarding
• Virtual reality prototype (if product oriented)

Use moderated sessions to test your prototype user flows, task completion, and overall ease of use.

A step-by-step process would look like this:

1. Gather test results
2. Identify recurring issues
3. Usability problems
4. Prioritize critical issues
5. Implement changes
6. Repeat the testing process

Eventually, you should find your results aligning with your predefined goals and metrics. Your results, and your user personas, provide you with a UX design theory that is user-centered and effective.

One more thing, this phase is iterative, and developing a sound UX strategy will take into account gathering feedback and testing across different user groups. Moving from a more ‘exploratory’ to a ‘confirmatory’ testing process.

Recent Case Study

A recent project involved developing a fitness membership site for a client. I’ve highlighted the process to show you what it looked like.

I had done a site for a similar client a few years back, so I could lean on the experience designing for this target audience. However, the work and user flow are very different today.

Project Overview

• The purpose of the site is to educate and promote low-impact fitness workouts.
• Promote the membership product to visitors.
• Target customers are in their 30s and up, and want a no-equipment and low-impact workout regimen.
• Create articles to attract long-tail keyword-specific searches.
• Look inviting.

After surveying the top competitors in the space we decided on a ‘Hero’ image carousel with a content flow starting with a message, and benefits, moving to a video, membership plans, testimonials, and general information.

After a few iterations, the site is now ready for marketing and a few customers have already signed up.

Iteration and Development 

Your final phase involves iterating your prototypes with user feedback and collaboration. Lightweight testing, as part of your development cycle, is the easiest way to gather real-time feedback and perform usability checks.

Remember, the user experience changes with each iteration. So create a framework to measure:

• Key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Task success rates, and
• Conversion metrics

Interviews and user interface (UI) testing sessions can provide a quantitative approach to identifying any pain points.

Once you get to this point, you know how your users are reacting and interacting. Additionally, you will also learn how they think. User psychology plays a huge role in experience and should be a part of your development. Create user personas and establish market goals in this cycle to deliver a final ready-to-promote product.

Ultimately, your UX design process would have built a bridge between design and development with style guides, design specifications, and assets.

Now, you just need a go-to-market (GTM) strategy. But that’s a post for another day.

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The number one priority for almost anyone using the platform is increasing their follower base. It may seem like an uphill task, but using unconventional means to attract new followers can be a creative outlet.

Traditional methods of posting high-quality content, using relevant hashtags, and engaging with your audience are essential. Here are some unique approaches you can consider.

Creative Ways To Get More Followers

Use Instagram Live: Start by promoting your live broadcast date and topic of discussion in advance. Post teasers of the event and showcase any product or news you will discuss or announce beforehand. Build the hype, and if you invite a guest, have them cross-promote the event on their profile. It’s great for increasing engagement and attracting new followers.

Giveaways and Contests: People like free things. Giveaways have always worked to build engagement and brand awareness and help you reach a wider audience. During the contest:

• Ask participants to follow your account
• ‘Like’ a post
• Tag their friends
• Use a unique hashtag to enter

Select at random and announce the winner.

Encourage User-Generated Content: Your current follower base is there because they decided to connect with your brand. A great way to build even more loyalty is to ask some of them to create content related to your products or services. Feature their content on your profile, strengthening your community and attracting followers to your account.

Collaborate with Micro-Influencers: Large influencers are great if you have a large budget. If you don’t, consider collaborating with micro-influencers with a minor but highly engaged following. They often have a more authentic connection with their audience and can drive a decent amount of interest. Plus, you will have built a personal rapport with someone who will remember you should they get famous.

Instagram Takeovers: Allow influencers to take over your Instagram account for a day or during a special event. Not only will all their followers shift their focus to your profile for the duration, but your brand will resonate with everyone else who may see it because of its buzz.

Use Trending Memes and Challenges: Trends can happen in the blink of an eye. Have your team or yourself track what is new, viral, and being shared. Incorporate these memes or challenges into your content when relevant to leverage their popularity.

How It’s Made/Works: Curiosity always needs an open door to venture through. Sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of your business, whether it’s the manufacturing process, a day in an employee’s life, or how your product is made, helps develop a deeper connection with your brand.

Creativity can be your best ally in expanding your business’s follower base. While the journey may seem challenging, it offers many opportunities to increase reach, build brand identity, and create meaningful connections with your audience.

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It does this by analyzing large amounts of data, which is then re-generated in ways depending on the prompts the users enter. In theory, generative AI algorithms apply a probability approach to produce new versions of data that mirror the source. The algorithms then use their programmed creative and imaginative behavior to generate original and unexpected outputs.

Time will tell if this technology’s impact on business and our natural creativity will be revolutionary. One thing is sure: Generative AI is not going anywhere, and its influence on our world is just beginning.

By 2025, generative AI will account for 10% of all data produced, up from less than 1% today.

Gartner

How Does Generative AI Work?

Generative AI models and algorithms are trained on massive amounts of existing data, including books, articles, and websites. The model (a computer program trained to make predictions or decisions based on data) learns the patterns and structure of our language and can generate new content similar to what it was trained with.

It can potentially transform various industries, though it does present significant risks and challenges. As this technology evolves, the debate on using it responsibly and ethically has grown with it. In recent times many instances of deepfakes, especially with prominent personalities, have caused uproar, whether they were created using generative AI tools or video editing.

Some of the features of this technology include:

• Creating content that is hard to differentiate from human-created content.
• Automating tasks and performing them quicker than humans.
• Creating synthetic data, which can train and evaluate other AI systems.

But that’s all very generic; let’s understand a few technicalities behind how it works. Some cool Gen AI tools are listed below if you want to skip this section.

Neural Networks: Generative AI relies on neural networks, particularly deep neural networks, as the foundational architecture.

What are neural networks?

• These consist of interconnected nodes, similar to brain neurons, that process and transform data.
• The networks learn patterns to generate new content based on vast training data.
• It then adjusts its parameters to minimize errors between the actual and desired output.

This process is repeated until the network can predict the result for new data examples accurately.

Natural Language Processing: Generative AI uses natural language processing (NLP) to analyze and generate human-like language.

• Natural language processing (NLP) is a machine-learning technology that allows computers to interpret and understand human language.
• It enables generative AI to understand and generate text, speech, and other forms of human communication.

Adversarial learning: Many generative AI models use adversarial learning, a technique where two neural networks are trained to compete against each other.

• One network, the generator, is trained to create new content.
• The other, the discriminator, is trained to distinguish between actual and generated content.

Loss Functions and Optimization: Generative AI models use loss functions to measure the difference between the generated and desired outputs.

• That means generative AI models learn by comparing their creations to real examples. They score themselves using different systems and take tiny steps to improve, getting closer to perfection like an artist learning new techniques.

Generative AI Sites

Here are a few sites that use generative AI technology to power their services.

Video

• Synthesia: An AI video platform for creating videos. It allows you to turn text into high-quality voiceovers with one click.

Images

• Bing Image Creator: Bing Image Creator is an AI image generator powered by OpenAI’s latest DALL-E technology. It allows users to type in a prompt and generate an image instantly.

Workflow

• Bardeen: This AI automation tool enhances your productivity and saves time. It is a no-code AI workflow automation platform that replaces repetitive tasks such as notifications, joining meetings, sending email reminders, scheduling, and data extraction with shortcuts.

Design

• Designs.ai: Designs.ai uses artificial intelligence to generate variations and millions of design assets. Its tools can customize designs, making them suitable for different purposes, from branding to social media content creation and creative projects.

Content

• Copy.ai: Copy.ai is an AI-powered copywriting tool that generates high-quality marketing copy and content for businesses. It uses deep learning algorithms to understand user behavior and craft human-like copy that will most likely attract and convert the target audience.

Have you used generative AI in your work or any of your projects? If so, how has the reaction been, and in what ways do you see it contributing to your daily tasks? Leave a comment and let us know.

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Divergence and Convergence

In 1996 Béla H. Bánáthy, a professor at San Jose State University and UC Berkely, published ‘Designing Social Systems in a Changing World’ which included a diagram for ‘divergence-convergence model’ which was later interpreted by the UK’s Design Council as The Double Diamond Process Model.

Wikipedia

As the model was being studied and mapped out by the council, the team set out to make it applicable in any field, not just design per se, but more as a model for innovative discovery and solutions.

Some online resources seem to attribute the creation of the process to Alex Faickney Osborn.

The four stages of the model are:

Discover

In this stage data is gathered and the problem, or opportunity, is identified. Through market research, user testing and other avenues all the information that pertains to what needs to be addressed is brought together. Managing the data so that the project brief is clear and concise makes the next phase easier to execute.

Define

This phase focuses on turning your research data into a beatable problem. With all the gathered data you must be able to define the challenge into a statement, that underscores the problem at hand. Take the time to elaborate the problem, find bottlenecks and opportunities. As most agree, you finally should have a ‘problem statement’ that clearly defines what you were charged with finding a solution for.

Develop

Early prototyping, testing and many iterations later you should reach a stage where you are actively developing the solution. Bring together all involved teams so that you reach a quantitative level of ideas, enough to filter out what works and what doesn’t.

Deliver

Here you test out on a small scale before finally shipping. Your testing user base will show you which iteration of your final product solves the problem in the most efficient and cohesive manner – which helps you innovate with a design driven approach.

Understand Why

Use the Double Diamond concept as a helpful model to understand, communicate and map the complexity of design. Once you understand why you need to use it the phases become a part of your development process, whether you work alone, in a small team or in a remote based global collaboration network all trying to bring life to something that will solve your users greatest need.

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To read more about the model visit the British Design Council.

Design Thinking

The first thing that comes to mind when ‘thinking’ about design is – prototypes. Making up an example of how you think a product or service should be experienced, or rather bring about an experience, for the user helps you build towards the final result.

Getting as much as you can resolved earlier in the planning process, based on human-centered feedback, allows for a rapid development cycle later on.

5 Phases of UX Thought

Empathize – In this phase you are working to understand your users needs, desires and their thought process. This can be done via personal interviews and surveys.

Define – From the data gathered in the above phase the core problem should now be outlined. The problem statements defining where the pain points are will help you streamline the next phase.

Ideate – Now it’s time to think outside the box, in fact throw the box out, and push all your boundaries to get the breakthrough idea. Use sticky notes, whiteboards, mood boards, napkins..what have you. Encourage discussions so that eventually you narrow down to an idea that stands out.

Prototype – All the identified problems should now be presented with rapid prototyping to test the solutions for them. This stage doesn’t need to be polished, so focus on thinking up optimal solutions for everything that has brought you to this stage.

Test – You’ve got your ideas and prototypes ready? Great, put them in front of potential customers of the product or service and get their feedback. Look for areas that resonate with the customer, this indicates you have solved a problem and formed a connection, an experience.

Hope the above helps you, or your organization, work with a better UX flow in your projects.

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Tonight’s 2022 World Cup final will be one for the record books. Will Lionel Messi, one of the most successful football players, finally add the trophy to his list of achievements. Or will France hold on too their title as current World Cup champions?

The 35-year-old has already made history in scoring in the 1,000th game of his career, as Argentina beat Australia 2-1 to qualify for the quarterfinals. Time will tell if the 7 time Ballon d’Or winner will be able to score in what will probably the most important match of his life. He has said that this would be his last World Cup appearance, adding to the aura that this match will create for him and Argentina.

“Yes. Surely yes. There’s a lot of years until the next one and I don’t think I have it in me and finishing like this is best.”

Messi on whether this will be hist last World Cup

Argentina has not been able to win the World Cup since Diego Maradona in 1986. To Argentinians, Lionel Messi is probably the best chance at bringing the trophy to their countries football legacy.

The match starts at 15:00 GMT. Who is your pick to win it?