Dynamic Creative In User Experience Design

All design is inherently subjective.

How people perceive and are affected by design depends on who they are, what their circumstances look like and what their expectations are. Subjectivity applies not only to media and graphic design, but to art, fashion, architecture or any other form of visual expression.

We judge with our eyes.

This is especially problematic in the world of user experience, which to a large extent revolves around functionality and usability. The usefulness of browser- and app-based experiences depends on how well they enable users to accomplish what they’re trying to do. Accomplishing goals, on the other hand, also depends on how motivated users are. This adds an emotional dimension to this otherwise highly rational discipline.

Structuring a website (or an app) so that the user merely understands how to use it is simply not sufficient. If the user does not want to use a website, the empirical knowledge of how to use it is largely inconsequential. Therefore, content must be packaged in a way that the user is emotionally motivated to partake of it and here, design has an important role to play.

A survey conducted by Carleton University in Ottawa, published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology, determined that users form their impressions of a website and its visual appeal within the first 1/20th of a second of visiting it. Even more surprisingly, these first impressions colored the entire experience of the site, whether or not the whole site actually turned out to match that initial perception. The conclusion of the survey was that this first impression was “unlikely to involve cognition” – meaning it is largely an emotional response.

However, presenting a differentiated audience with a unified, undifferentiated design – however well optimized – will not account for the variances in people’s preferences and goals. Such a design will never be entirely effective. Given that users are different and have different preferences and expectations, effective UX design has to be personalize-able. This is quickly becoming an expectation, if not the norm.

A recent study published by Salesforce found that 80% of users expect online experiences to be personalized and tailored to their needs. This means that brands simply cannot afford to broadcast the same uniform message to a single, undifferentiated audience. Marketers need to find ways of communicating to individuals, not audiences.

This posits a problem of scale.

Very few marketers or publishers of content can afford to employ armies of designers and content producers to tailor experiences to each individual user. More importantly, they cannot do so in real time.

Enter dynamic personalization.

By devising smartly constructed, modular design systems based on creative componentry that can be freely interchanged, it is possible to compose entire user experiences based on incoming media signals. These signals can reveal behavioral-, demographic- and psychographic details about each individual user, allowing the experience to programmatically flex and adjust to some of those factors.

This ensures a successful, results-oriented communicative solution that scales. In addition, it may even be able to predict favorable outcomes through the application of AI-technology such as machine learning. Done right, it will allow marketers to dial in the most effective combination of content and design with increasing accuracy.

Testing naturally becomes a central element in such solutions, where a multitude of creative options can be fed into the learning engine. The ideal mix can thus be determined, assembled and verified as users arrive on site. In iProspect’s own testing, we regularly demonstrate incremental conversion gains through dynamic, personalized experiences. However, fully capitalizing on this opportunity requires a shift in how brands look at design and how brands go to market.

The era of the static, monolithic brand is over. Modern brands need to understand their audiences, find ways of communicating on a personal level, and truly become interactive.

(Reposted)

Design, and especially identity design – but really all types of design that depend on recognizability – is not like auteurship, or artistry.

As a designer, you are not speaking in your own voice – you need to find the voice of the client, and understand how that voice resonates (or doesn’t resonate) with the intended audience.

This means that your job as a designer is more akin to that of a casting director.

You need for your design to play a role, and to express itself in certain ways that are consistent with the script – i.e., the client’s brand strategy. And if the client is unsure about that strategy – meaning, they are essentially shooting a movie without a script – you need to define the role for them, and find the right actor. Your design needs to embody the personality that you would advise the client to assume.

You need to conduct a Casting Call.

You need to define the client’s visual persona, and articulate how it should act when it’s on the stage, in order to be able to convey the right message in a credible and convincing way.

Some clients will come to you and ask for a certain actor: “We’d like for Al Pacino to play this role!”. Meaning, they come to you with an outside-in idea of someone who they think would represent them, when the actor’s job is to FORGET about who they are, not act as themselves, and instead embody the ROLE.

For that reason, you ought to take all such suggestions with a huge scoop of salt.

Treating a visual brand identity like a known commodity, like a well-known actor, means the audience are at risk of only seeing THAT actor; seeing THAT face – not experience the role that the script actually calls for.

This is the same as applying a recognizable ”style” to a brand identity. ”We want clean and modern”, say many corporations, afraid of stepping out of line with expectations and industry tropes. But their identity, as defined by the brand strategy, may not express itself best in a clean and modern ”style”, just like Al Pacino might not be the right face, or the right voice, for that role.

Think about your brand as if it’s an actor about to get on the stage, and then define the role based on how you need the audience to experience and react to your brand. Make sure your designer conducts a casting call, and casts the right actor in the role – an actor which will be able to let audiences see past their recognizable face, and experience the persona they are trying to express.

If your brand identity design does the job right, it will be able to embody the true persona of the brand, as opposed to pretending, and putting on stage clothes while still being recognizable as someone else’s borrowed personality.

Never just create a one-off asset when you can construct something reusable

Never just create a reusable single template when you can design something modular

Never just design modular components when you can devise a framework

Never just devise a framework when you can architect a design system

Never just architect a design system when you can define a user experience

Never just define a user experience when you can plan out a user journey

Never just plan out a single user journey when you can improve lifetime value

(Reposted from 2020)

Over the past decade, we have seen the rise of Fake News, and the dangers of social media allowing us to stay in our closed opinion bubbles, finding support for almost any misguided opinion there is.

Artificial Intelligence will only aggravate that problem.

A.I. supplies the psychological confirmation mechanisms that convince the ignorant that they are right: they can continuously iterate and demand changes until they are satisfied.

In my experience, the only thing that (misguidedly) satisfies an ignorant client is to get exactly that which they want to see through unlimited iterations.

What ”proves” to them that the result is ”good” (which they themselves by definition lack the objective capability to determine) is that they persuade themselves through requesting changes, and that the progressive results of those changes in and of themselves supposedly mean that they have ”refined” the results. When, in reality, all they have really done is go through a long series of bizarre, totally subjective mutations which at no point were guided by deliberate, knowledge-based or empirical judgments.

That is, in my mind, the real problem with A.I.: it enables limitless, automated and arbitrary mutations, without any of us ever really understanding the purposefulness or adequacy of the decisions made along the way. We simply outsource important decisions to the A.I., without understanding or even being aware of those decisions, relying entirely on the machine to make the right decisions – even though the machine has no awareness of “right” or “wrong”.

This is certifiably insane.

We ought to be deeply troubled by the fact that we have no way of ascertaining the factual accuracy of the decisions made by the A.I. or, more importantly, the MORAL consequences of the decisions it makes.

We dismiss the dangers of A.I. at our peril. We may think that the current outputs produced by A.I.s are unsatisfactory, and that A.I. poses no threat for that reason. But those are mere details that A.I. will get progressively better at resolving. That is, after all, precisely what A.I. does: it learns, iterates and improves its output, and that is happening at an ever accelerating pace. If we believe that we can judge A.I. by the quality of what is produced TODAY, then we are missing the very essence of the problem.

Specific results are difficult for A.I. to procure TODAY, simply because they are still new to the A.I., and the machine lacks sufficient data upon which to base its results. This is a challenge that will disappear on its own through the very way that A.I. is constructed: to gather more data, and refine its output indefinitely.

The current problem with A.I. is this: the advocates for Artificial Intelligence are experts on the technology, not subject matter experts in the fields in which A.I. is being disruptively accelerated and implemented. The ACTUAL subject matter experts have no means through which to validate the veracity of A.I. output, and the technical experts don’t appear to care about the morality of it.

The long-term problem with A.I. is an ascerbation of that very problem: the more advanced A.I.s get, the harder it will be for its human counterparts to validate or justify its results, or even understand how it arrived at those results.

The way I see it, the key issue is that A.I. is a “black box”: it produces results without us knowing how it arrived at those results, and we therefore lack the ability to validate or dispute them. And this is an escalating problem, which worsens the more complex A.I. gets: the black box gets blacker and blacker. We will eventually require “Voight-Kampff-detectors” in the hands of A.I.-psychologists, who will try to analyze the A.I., and understand its decisions.

Talk about chasing your own tail.

If we outsource decisionmaking – in any form – to the A.I. machine, we are in deep trouble. Because A.I.s CAN and DO make mistakes: its decisions are only as good as the data fed to it.

Ultimately, decisions are validated not on the grounds of veracity, but on the grounds of morality – morality that A.I.s don’t have. There may be thousands of data points that support a certain decision, but the decision may still be an immoral one.

Decisions without morality?

That is Skynet right there. Or, if you wish to be more sophisticated: Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics – laws that are yet to be enacted.

The creative process involves some highly delicate group dynamics.

The objectives of each stage of the process are very different, and because this requires different approaches at each different stage, misalignment in how people perceive the process and in how they behave can cause disruption.

Usually, this disruption occurs as a result of a misalignment or asymmetry in roles, behaviors or contributions during the process. However, these are mainly triggers but not necessarily causes.

This misalignment is actually a very common problem in nearly all creative work – a misalignment between intents and attitudes, which can often cause conflicts. Some people are in ideation mode whereas other people are in resolution or critique mode, etc.

Since this is a very common part of my day job, and since I have also actually lectured at various design schools on creativity, as well as written a book on the creative process, I wanted to share my perspective on these possible creative misalignments.

First, let me dig into the parameters of the creative process:

Basically, the creative process is one of repeat contractions and expansions through different stages. The process is convergent and divergent at different times, and trying to be divergent while others are trying to be convergent (and vice versa) is what causes most creative disagreements. At times, there is a need for decisiveness and clarity, then sometimes there’s a need to allow for ambiguity and an open mind, and finally, there is sometimes a need for constructive refinement, which is where special considerations for tact and tone need to be made, since efforts and emotional investments are at stake.

I tend to consistently split the creative process into three stages: Strategy, Tactics and Execution.

The Strategy phase is where the work is convergent and participants try to define the “Why“, meaning, what is the actual purpose of the work. This often requires an emphasis on analysis and clarity in terms of objectives. You can’t really have multiple purposes for creative work (or at least you shouldn’t), and the required clarity here CAN turn argumentative, since the “Why” is often a loaded, weighty question. If there is argumentation here, it probably needs to happen in order to sort through all the parameters of the work, and determine which ones are important. Applying a divergent mindset at this stage can be challenging for many people, since it lacks the requisite focus, and most people tend to find that frustrating.

EXAMPLE: In putting together or evaluating a creative brief, you often need to probe quite deeply into the purpose for the project, and the intended outcomes. We can’t really expect everyone to have the exact same thoughts on this, so it is important to iron out all the kinks and let this debate play out. The benefit of a more thorough vetting of the “why” is that you will hopefully have a lot more alignment on the objectives going forward.

Then there is the Tactics phase, where focus is on discovery and finding options – the “What” stage of the creative work, meaning, What it is that actually solves for the “Why“. This is where ideation happens, and that always benefits from suspended judgment, since ideation is by nature ambiguous and divergent. Applying a convergent mindset at this stage means people may feel that their ideas are being overlooked or dismissed, so it is important to catalogue all ideas and reserve judgment for later. At the same time, this is a process that has its distinct, specific purpose, and applying this divergent mindset can be destructive at other parts of the process.

EXAMPLE: When considering different possibilities for creative solutions, these may take many different forms, and may initially not be very relevant, as ideas tend to deepen and get progressively more useful the further into the process one gets. For that reason, it is vital to get all ideas on the table, in order to build relevance and probe more deeply into the subject matter. Usually, it is easier to gauge the usefulness of individual ideas only when one has exhausted most of the possible avenues. The best mindset at this stage, in my experience, is to strive to catalogue all ideas, and sort them into categories. A single early idea may not be perfect in its initial form, but it may well trigger other, better ideas within the same category at a later stage.

Finally, there is the Execution part of the process. The objective here is to choose and refine ONE chosen solution, threading it through the needle of the “Why” (i.e. the purpose), arriving at mechanics that help define the “How” – i.e., how to execute and finalize the idea. At this point, effort has likely already been invested in order to build the chosen solution, and while that needs to be reviewed and evaluated (constructively, positively and encouragingly), it is also highly likely to cause tension if participants revisit any of the previous stages, as this will cause rework, and also means that the solution was not based on the right parameters from the beginning (hence, causing wasted effort). Quite often, this causes exasperation, especially with the person managing the execution, as there can be a feeling of added, previously unknown (and often subjective) parameters being applied after the fact.

EXAMPLE: When presented with a proposed solution, consider that you are now not at the initial stages of the process – the solution that is being reviewed is a product of decisions and conclusions made at earlier stages, and a selection of one specific option among many. For that reason, it is best to focus on refining what you see, and present these suggested refinements as improvements, as opposed to rework.

Now, as I mentioned above, I believe we can trace most of potential creative disagreements to situations where we team members have been at misaligned stages of the process mentally, and the comments are therefore difficult to reconcile with everyone’s individual mindset. This may cause frustration or, at worst, a feeling of work being dismissed, or a role being under threat.

For this reason, the creative process needs to be shepherded carefully through the stages, and efforts should be made to frame discussions appropriately, in order to establish greater clarity around what the objective is at each stage.

In summary:

Strategy – Means argumentation is allowed and may in fact be necessary, as important considerations should not be left unaddressed.

Tactics – Means argumentation can be destructive, and an open mind is necessary, in order to consider all possibilities and encourage all team members to bring out their ideas, without fear of being judged.

Execution – Means argumentation may be inevitable, in determining what works and what doesn’t, but it’s important to respect the effort that has already been made, and ideally try to build on it as opposed to want to throw it out. (I am personally fundamentally against throwing out creative work – even if it didn’t fit the current objective perfectly, there may always be another purpose for that work).