What is in a user persona template? Why are they absolutely essential to an effective UX design strategy?

Think back to kindergarten when your teacher told you that everyone’s special in their own way. As much as adulthood tries to tell us otherwise, it’s actually true. 

Each person you encounter has unique wants, needs, thought processes, and problem-solving methods. This is why there’s no way to create a digital product that solves the needs of every person on the planet.

We’re all too complex for a catch-all solution that works for everyone. But, with a good user persona template, you can find out how to satisfy the needs of a specific audience.

A user persona puts a human face to the data used to build digital products. They help designers visualize the person using the finished product and create solutions suited to their abilities. But what kind of information does a user persona template cover?

What’s in a User Persona Template?

• The basics
• Goals
• Pain points
• Personality
• Scenarios
• Quotes
• Fun facts

What is a User Persona?

A user persona is a fancy way of saying a profile of your intended user. It contains different sets of information, from basic demographics to nuances or quirks. When you use all that info as a guide for building your product, you can find a way to cater to your target user’s most basic wants, needs, and instincts.

Pretend you’re buying a gift for someone. Think about how much easier it is to shop for your best friend instead of that uncle you only see once a year during the holidays. That’s because you understand your best friend on a deep, emotional level (which helps you find a gift that’s super meaningful to them).

That doesn’t mean you have to take your user out for beers to get to know each other better (unless you want to…we won’t judge). But you need to go straight to the source to find out who they are and how they solve problems.

Read more about UX personas in our blog!

UX Personas vs Buyer Personas

This one’s for our marketing friends…

Another term you’ll probably hear used interchangeably with user personas is buyer personas. And it’s easy to see why the two get confused. A buyer persona covers all the same ground, but with a different end goal (sometimes).

The endgame of a buyer persona is to get customers that closely match the profile to buy the product. For example, if your company sells hard seltzers, you probably wouldn’t tap into a scotch enthusiasts club to figure out what your next delicious, fruity flavor should be. 

Instead, you’d probably survey the customers at places that sell lots of White Claws (nightclubs, beach bars, etc). That’s not to say there aren’t scotch drinkers that enjoy the occasional seltzer, but you’ll want to cater to your most frequent, loyal customers.

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With the vast digital marketplaces online and an e-commerce store for every product under the sun, your buyers can ALSO be your users. This is why you’ll see the two terms used interchangeably so often.

Let’s say your brand of handmade, craft ingredient seltzers isn’t sold in most big box retail stores. You’ll need to figure out how to market your brand to your target demographic and come up with the easiest way for them to buy your product online. This is where these two personas become one.

The Value of User Personas

As a UX design agency, we love user personas because they give us insight into what we don’t know. Since we aren’t experts in the fields our clients come from, we rely on heavy research to build our user-friendly designs.

We can understand quite a bit about industries and best practices from talking with our clients. But we find out everything we need to know about creating the product itself from user personas.

User personas have a huge impact on the success or failure of digital products. In fact, according to this recent marketing blog, user personas made websites 2-5 times more usable than before.

When you understand how the user thinks and how they go about achieving their goals, you can tailor your product according to their needs and get rid of pain points before they become big problems.

Now, you probably think this means that all you have to do is some googling to create this fictional person, right? HECK NO!

UX design without robust user research isn’t UX design at all. It’s just design for the sake of design. And the biggest part of that user research is the face-to-face time you get with the user!

The feedback you get from user interviews is the heart and soul of your product — the human touch that technology needs to resonate with real people.

So, say it once more with feeling…A user persona is not a replacement for user interviews!

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What's in a User Persona Template?

A user persona template dives deep into the traits of your future users. Instead of just focusing on their basic information or buying habits, you see what makes them tick. Not every user persona template covers the same ground, but here are a few ideas to help you build one.

The Basics

Probably the least interesting ground to cover, but important nonetheless. Every user persona template should establish some basic demographic information like:

• Name
• Age
• Occupation
• Location
• Marital Status
• Family Life

This quick snapshot of your user doesn’t get super deep but it gets the wheels turning. It lets you imagine what their day-to-day life looks like and the role digital products might play in it.

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The Goals

We all have hopes, dreams, and aspirations for ourselves. You probably can’t help your user become the next President of the United States, but you can certainly help them by creating a digital product that helps them accomplish smaller goals and tasks.

Your mission is to find common goals and jobs to be done amongst your target demographic and narrow down which ones are attainable with your product.

Let's say some potential users we interviewed were single women in their late 20s living in a major metropolitan area. Some of their goals were unique to them, but there were a few that overlapped:

• I want a promotion at my job by this time next year.
• I want to travel the world and make interesting new friends.
• I want to find a way to make data entry less boring at work.
• I want to get VIP access to the exclusive club that opened downtown.

Now, you probably can’t help these ladies with that special promotion or get them into the hot new nightclub. But, depending on what kind of company you work for, you can probably create a product that streamlines data entry or finds cheap flights to anywhere in the world.

An effective method of shaping out persona goals is to treat it like the user is “hiring” your product to help them complete a job. Why should they choose yours? The job that needs to be done using your product should be an exact match for the user’s needs.

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Pain Points

No matter how much your users have in common, that doesn’t mean they think the same way (or follow the same path to reaching their goals).

For your product to serve its purpose for the user, you need to consider the roadblocks they may encounter along the way. Ask yourself: What keeps the user from accomplishing their goals?

Let’s go back to our late-20s career girl. Data entry is easily the worst, most time-consuming part of her day. But why is that?:

• Outdated technology
• Bad mobile experience
• Complicated data integration
• Repetitive entry

Think about how your product could fix these problems, speed up the process, and make her more productive at her job.

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Personality

How does someone’s personality affect their problem-solving skills? And how can you use those nuances to guide your product design? Pay attention to how the user behaves when you interview them. 

Were they ready and willing to give their open and honest feedback or were they sugarcoating everything so they didn’t sound too harsh? Were they more focused on ease of use or the look and feel of the product?

Building your product around these aspects will make the user feel like you’re catering to their most basic instincts, making it much easier to incorporate the product into their everyday lives.

• Introverted vs extroverted
• Left-brain vs right-brain
• Active vs passive
• Analytical vs impulsive
• Ambitious vs modest
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Scenarios

The circumstances around the reason that a person is using your product play an important role in user psychology.

For example, the desktop version of your product could be a dream to use. But if the mobile version was an afterthought and the user is ALWAYS on the go…that could pose a big problem.

Carefully consider when and where your target users are interacting with your product and how they are feeling while using it.

Looking at our 20-somethings career girl again, we already know she’s dreading the tedious data entry at her job. You may not be able to change how she feels about the task, but you can certainly empathize with her feelings and cut down on as many steps as possible.

Similarly, how might she feel while looking for flight prices to her dream destination? Excited, nervous, curious? How can you amplify those positive feelings and reduce the negative ones?

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Quotes

You can glean a lot about a person from their self-reported personality traits, but quotes let you see those traits in action.

Quotes are the best supporting information for your personality profile because they give you a sense of how your future user thinks and communicates. The more unfiltered the quote, the better.

Take a look at this quote:

“I just want to buy something. Why do I have to log in? Why do I have to find a stylist? I just want to buy the damn thing.”

Is the quote harsh? Maybe. But does it give you a clear picture of the type of user that frequents your product and what they’re thinking while using it? Oh yeah, it does.

Repeat after us again…Negative feedback is still usable feedback!

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Fun Facts

Because we’re all about making UX personas fun here at CreateApe 😉

The info listed so far gives you a pretty clear picture of what your user is like and how to cater to their basic instincts. However, there’s nothing wrong with getting a few extra tidbits of information for a more intimate view into their everyday lives.

Fun facts are also a great icebreaker during user interviews. Talking about themselves and their favorite things will make the user feel more comfortable during their interview and less hesitant about sharing their thoughts and opinions.

• Myers-Briggs type
• Brands they love/hate and why?
• Astrological sign
• Hobbies
• Favorite movies/TV shows
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So, How do I Build a Template?

There are plenty of premade user persona templates online covering all this information (and then some). We also have a CreateApe-approved version you can download here!

User Persona Template by CreateApeDownload

With all these ideas and pointers, building your own user persona template is a breeze! Face-to-face time with your future user is invaluable when creating an effective digital product. So use that time and the information you gather to your full advantage.

Remember that user personas are a small portion of your UX design strategy, and there are several moving parts when bringing a digital product to life.

Want some help creating a user persona template for your specific project? Need a guide for building your UX design strategy? Start a project with us today!

If you’ve been following our YouTube channel, we’ve been talking a lot about how to find a proper villain. If you’ve ever watched Oceans 11, I’m referring to the scene when Brad Pitt, playing Rusty Ryan, is walking with Don Cheadle’s character, Basher Tarr, and Tarr declares, “It will be nice working with proper villains again.” In the tech space, you know when you’re working with a proper villain. So what sets apart a standard UX/UI designer from a “proper villain”?

Know the basics of other specialties

A proper villain might be a designer, a developer, or even a copywriter, but they are a proper villain because they know more than just their specialty. If you can speak with authority and understand other disciplines in the tech space, you’re a proper villain.

If a UX/UI designer can speak to front end development, like what bootstrap is and why it can be important, you’ve found yourself a villain.

How do I find a proper villain in the UX/UI space?

The Portfolio

The first thing you’re looking for is a portfolio. If a designer has their own domain showcasing their designs, I can often get a feel of their personality and design work. I want to see they have an understanding of UX architecture, conversion, and mobile design.

Work should be curated and easy to browse. Showcase 3-4 detailed case study project that lead the viewer through a story about the start, difficulties, and outcome of a project. Simply, how did you get from point A to point B.

Keep it simple. The last thing you want is for a potential client or hiring manager to be looking at your portfolio and get overwhelmed by music and too many graphics. If you’re in the UX/UI space you want your portfolio to emulate an optimized, conversion-centric site.

Everything they present should work well, have smooth transitions, and look great. It doesn’t matter if you worked at Google in the past, if your portfolio isn’t up to par, you’re not a proper villain.

LinkedIn

A proper villain’s LinkedIn should be hefty. There should be skills, recommendations, a decent work history. Be wary of red flags. If you see that someone has 10 different positions in the course of 2 years, ask more questions.

When you’re working on many different products from a freelance standpoint, really big, complex, and robust web applications, eCommerce sites, and mobile applications will take a lot of time. If someone’s been working in that area for over 1-2 years if shows they’ve been able to hone their skills from that project and rub shoulders with key players.

Know industry tools/trends

If I ask a designer what they often use to create their designs in and they follow up with whether that is high fidelity design or low fidelity design, I know I’m in the right place.

Knowing the trends that are happening within the space gives you an advantage. Applications like Sketch, which allows you to wireframe and do prototyping, works well with developers. This shows me you keep up with the latest advancements in a tech driven field.

Are they a good fit?

Proper villains need to work well with each other. At the end of the day whether it be a bank robbery, a heist,… or designing a mobile application, it needs to be a good fit! After about 5 minutes into assessing whether they’ve checked all the boxes to be a proper villain, I’ll ask about culture fit. Do they have a sense of humor? Do they play video games? Seriously though. VIDEO. GAMES. It’s a almost a “must” at my company.

So you’ve found your villain…

Truth be told. You’re never going to know how someone really works until you start to work with them. You don’t want to be in the middle of a crime and have your partner screw it up by accidentally stepping on laser beams. That’s why sample projects are vital.

Sample projects

Sample projects let you know the things you never were going to find out in the interview. Give them a quick project like ideas around the homepage, designing a quick banner or social image. You’re going to see if they are responsive, communicate effectively, and what questions they’re asking. If they’re responsive and asking the right questions, you’ve found your proper villain.

Want to learn more?

Let us help get you situated for the Mobile First changes coming your way. It’s a jungle out there, click here so you don’t have to go at it alone! Let our CreateApe experts act as “jungle guides” and help you traverse the wilds as we take your project to new heights.

Sometimes the best way to recognize and make up for our mistakes is to laugh at them first. That’s what the sub-reddit /r/assholedesign is for, to call out the UX and industrial designer that insists on making people’s lives harder. Almost everyone’s been subjected to the great feat of simply trying to cancel your account only to be met with a thousand step procedure or a technological design that just complicates or confuses the process. That’s why this sub-reddit hits the mark.

As an offshoot of the popular sub-reddit /r/CrappyDesign that features everything from signs, advertising, and third grade projects gone wrong, /r/assholedesign has over 400,000 subscribers who delight in the humor of “designers who know exactly what they’re doing…but they don’t care because they’re assholes.” The site serves as a place to shame bad design varying from architecture, packaging, and web interface.

Some of the posts will have you wondering what the conversation was like in the design meeting. I can only envision “Ah, let’s make it harder by adding three steps, or better yet, let’s make the unsubscribe button invisible!”

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According to the moderators, “satire is ridicule of asshole design techniques” and the amusement of posters reveals exactly that. Not only does it intend to amuse, but the sub-reddit reveals dark patterns in design, “tricks used in websites and apps that make you buy or sign up for things you didn’t mean to.” These patterns have implications for society, but also for the future of design.

This guy is definitely a subscriber of /r/assholedesign:

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Doesn’t everybody love a classic dark pattern?

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We need this type of sub-reddit because sometimes, even professionals need a reminder of what and what not to do. Anyone with an iPhone 6 or above feels this struggle when trying to listen with their headphones and charge their phone at the same time (that’s some serious “asshole” design).

Although framed in a comical way, /r/assholedesign reminds us that looking at our failures in a UX/UI community allow designers to focus on designs that make the experience better, and not worse, for the user. Laughing at our mistakes and old designs help us grow as a group of professionals. We’ll be the first to admit that sometimes a lesson needs to accompanied with a good laugh.

Make the most of your online product with a UI/UX evaluation.

Designing with a specific purpose in mind is a fast track to profit, especially when you know what needs to be fixed. We’ll take a closer look at how Amazon used a UI/UX evaluation to make millions from one seemingly minor change.

At this point, we’re sure everyone’s well aware of the now larger-than-life corporation dominating the online marketplace, but there’s a reason why the company saw an 18,233% increase in online sales across their first 20 years.

Amazon built themselves through informed decision-making by constantly performing UX evaluations on their own site. They focused on improving where they believed it mattered the most and continued to enhance in a constant growth cycle.

Their logo, for example, underwent two drastic iterations before the one we see today. They completely redesigned and expanded upon their site over 15 years. Though this isn’t the focus of this success story.

Around the middle of their growth, Amazon decided to change a single button. This change required the insight given by numerous UX evaluations to point them in exactly the right direction.

They performed four key steps when evaluating their site, and it’s the very same process CreateApe uses when conducting UI/UX evaluations:

• Research
• Analysis
• Recommendations
• Planning
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Research

Much like most things, Amazon wasn’t perfect. They had a massive problem regarding their checkout process, but the issue wasn’t apparent at first – the corporation merely noticed something was causing customers to abandon their carts.

Amazon decided to look a bit further into why they were experiencing such a high bounce rate around checkout.

This stage of the UI/UX evaluation revolves around the gathering of information. The goal is to learn about the users, competitors, and potential usability issues to get the best possible idea of where to start analyzing.

Think of it like a map. At a glance, it’s just a myriad of lines that offer too much information to go by. However, if you have a destination in mind, you can focus on a specific area and avoid data overload.

The research process is, by far, one of the most important aspects of a UX evaluation because it focuses your attention on what needs to be done.

Analysis

By working with UX consultants and tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Usability Hub to turn that initial concern into insight, the now multi-billion dollar company noticed a glaring issue regarding the aforementioned process.

During the middle of Amazon’s lifetime, people would generally treat them like any other website. Some users just didn’t want to create an account, so why force them? The site unknowingly perpetuated the problem by bringing up a menu, requiring the user to log in or register during checkout.

A substantial amount of people were lost due to them forgetting login information or outright not wanting to create an account.

Especially around the early stages of online ordering, requesting user information often led to first-time shoppers abandoning their carts. Not to mention Amazon noticed roughly 160,000 “forgot password” page results each day.

For perspective, this was back in 2009 and roughly three stadiums worth of people had problems daily.

Online shopping has increased by around 800% since then. With 2.14 billion online shoppers now in the mix, the stakes are much higher to get things just right.

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Thinking back to the map example, imagine this step as connecting the dots between two locations. You now have a better idea of where you are, and you know where you’re going.

Moving forward, Amazon now knew where to go, and so they went.

Recommendation

If you were in Amazon’s shoes, what would this problem look like? 

A several-million dollar corporation wanted to fix a menu to make sure potential customers don’t abandon their carts.

Amazon could’ve gone about solving this in almost any direction they wanted. If they thought it was necessary to redesign the entire website, then that’s what they would’ve done.

However, it was up to the decision-makers to listen to the advice given by UX consultants, and the UI/UX evaluation process provided those recommendations in order to solve the problem as effortlessly as possible.

These recommended alternatives are based on the insight created from the analysis process. To reiterate, Amazon could’ve chosen to do any number of things to fix this problem. They took the recommendations of those with industry experience to see which process could fix it most effectively.

Imagine this step as choosing the path forward on the map. At this point you know the start, the end, and now you’re finding out the best way to get there.

To get from point A to point B, the company listened to their UX consultants.

Planning

The pros made the recommendation to change just one word.

All they did was replace the “register” button with “continue” on the same menu that popped up on checkout.

The seemingly minuscule change allowed users to complete a transaction without creating or logging into an account, resulting in a drastically increased engagement rate as users wouldn’t abandon their carts as often.

This surgical replacement of a single word in a button would result in a $300 million increase in yearly revenue.

On the map, we’ve arrived at our destination in the most efficient way possible.

Where To Start With Your UX/UI Evaluation

The UI/UX evaluation process exists to put your site on the right track.

For example, our partners at DigitalPosition hired us to optimize and fix their website. Even with the request being fulfilled in Q4, the website saw a 133% increase in overall success. Their conversion rates had reportedly skyrocketed, resulting in a strong end to 2021.

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With that said, we make it our mission to research the best possible methods, and move forward with a clear goal in mind to make your website the best it can be.

Every site has aspects of it that can be fine-tuned or even entirely redesigned, but ultimately it’s up to you on how to proceed. Perhaps you don’t need an entire overhaul, and your million-dollar button is just waiting to be found.

Or on the flip side, maybe a total redesign is just what your site needs.

We have the industry experience, specialized tools, and tried-and-true processes in place to prove which would work for you.

CreateApe offers you a broad, yet focused view of your project through actionable ideas to enhance your product with proven data in mind and your success in hand.

Without something to back up an idea, the design is created for the sake of design, and CreateApe can put purpose in your website with user-backed data that speaks for itself.

It’s a jungle out there, and we’ll be your guide.

Over the years we’ve worked with some great companies and amazing individuals. We love the work we do (or we wouldn’t do it). But more importantly, we love and value the relationships we create with our clients. This is the story of one of those relationships.

Six years ago, we met Steve Feldman, founder of Renovation Angel. In addition to what was at the time two subsets of their company, Green Demolitions, and Kitchen Trader. Since 2005, Steve and his super talented team have conducted thousands of projects for members of the Forbes 400, professional athletes, and everybody else in-between. With a long term retainer in place, Renovation Angel, America’s premier recycler of luxury pre-owned kitchens and renovation items, allowed CreateApe to lead them on a digital rebrand.

What Are The Benefits Of A Retainer?

First, let’s discuss the parameters of a retainer. Retainers are beneficial for several reasons. One of the most obvious is that the client receives a discounted rate in exchange for a long-term commitment. In the bigger scheme of things, however, the best benefit of a retainer is the freedom of collaboration. Both the client and the design team know there is a wealth of hours to allow room for excellent products to be created. Neither side is worried about pinching hours to stay within a certain budget. All the work being done is already included!

It isn’t just the security, trust, and speed; it’s the collaboration and the teamwork. As an agency, we’re able to fully enmesh ourselves into the brand. We learn the nuances which help us deliver consistent success. Working with Renovation Angel, we knew the brand inside and out. We knew the stakeholders and what they were expecting and the best way to approach success. This kind of investment from both the vendor and client is priceless.

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How A Retainer Transformed Renovation Angel

When Steve initially contacted us it was to revitalize their website’s User Experience design. Since then, we’ve helped them kick off and improve their entire digital footprint from Renovation Angel to Green Demolitions. Now that they have let go of their other two brands: Kitchen Trader & Green Demolitions.

What had begun as an initial “UX-friendly” revamp turned into a full-blown site re-launch. At the time, not only were we just working on Renovation Angel, but also Green Demolitions, the e-commerce portal of their company. With our help, their website traffic increased by 40%, and their overall sales increased by 15%. Brand engagement almost doubled, and the sleek modern feel we helped to create was being mentioned by consumers and industry professionals alike.

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Increased Flexibility

There are many moments when both the client and us, as the vendor, benefit from the flexibility of being on a retainer. On a retainer, the client can pivot from idea to idea. Because they have a clear outline of the scope of work possible, (the actual tasks we can do), without worrying too much about budgets. Our dedication to transparency keeps expectations manageable and deliverables on schedule.

For example, every month Renovation Angel had a monthly sale that required a lot of soft and hard collateral to be created. Several different web banners of various sizes, an email design, and a price tag design (for use on the showroom floor) were created. Being on a retainer allowed the entire team the flexibility of trying different things over a period of time. That eventually served as the foundation of our well-oiled design process.

Design Processes

Flexibility and agile design processes are definitely important parts of our long-term client success. When redesigning their site to be an e-commerce website, it made it easy to spec out the scope of the project together. Even while decisions were being made, we were able to maintain the status quo of business as usual while putting our best foot forward. We had accumulated knowledge over the span of several years on their target client demographic. This allowed us to come up with impactful conversion-centric designs in much less time.

“That was a really big win for the retainer because we were able to work even at times when they weren’t available to provide guidance and ultimately help move the needle forward. Having the opportunity to work within the boundaries of a retainer proved to be advantageous for the business in more ways than one,” said CEO Alessandro Fard.

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Efficiency of Operations

Renovation Angel took many risks over the years, especially when it came to brand architecture. While Renovation Angel focused on the donations side of their company, both Green Demolitions and Kitchen Trader were e-commerce based sister-brands. Each sold luxury kitchens and home renovation items. Fast forward to 2019, the brand organization is has undergone another transformation. All three brands have merged under the Renovation Angel umbrella, bringing its own set of challenges and opportunities.

Our new job was to capture the attention of many verticals. The new website, one that merged all three aspects of the brand so far, had to be luxurious, modern, edgy and welcoming. It’s part non-profit, part recycling, part luxury, and interior design. We had to create a fully immersive online space that customers could easily shop and understand.

The feedback from their team was, “Oh my gosh, this makes it so much easier to not only upload information and keep the information up to date for the users to see, but also for our team to manage information.” Now, when Renovation Angel would receive phone calls asking questions about their products, they were able to reference a fully robust website. They now had up to date information that was not only easy to engage with, but impactful. Not only did they see an increase in sales, but in their daily efficiency of overall operations.

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A Synergistic Win

One of our favorite aspects of collaborating with a client within a retainer framework is the opportunity to work on exciting new projects all the time. As Renovation Angel took off, we had the privilege to work with an organization that had undergone many iterations for continued quality improvement. We ultimately saw improved success markers across the board.

Not only were we working on keeping their websites up to date and ensuring things continued to convert, but we also got to develop social media channels, and direct marketing campaigns. The work that we did went from just a one-off project to become a six-year collaboration that we’re very lucky to be a part of.

In the end, the most important aspect of a retainer is the ongoing relationship between the agency and the client. Risks, opportunities, and great ideas don’t exist in a vacuum. Our retainer with Renovation Angel allowed us to bring those ideas to life in the best way possible. We feel so lucky and grateful to have worked with such an amazing team at Renovation Angel over the years and can’t for what lies ahead in the future!

Want To Learn More?

Let us help get you #JungleReady. Let our CreateApe expert team be your jungle guide. We will help you traverse the wilds as we take your project to new heights.

Google has officially announced that they will be moving to “mobile-first” indexing. This means that Google will now use the mobile version of a web page for “content indexing and ranking.” As of last year, mobile devices surpassed desktop internet usage worldwide as desktop became a secondary touch point for most users. So, it’s no surprise Google is moving away from a desktop-centric ranking system.

Historically, Google has used desktop versions of page content for indexing but are now using mobile to identify relevant content on the page. Mobile First won’t serve in conjunction with desktop indexing, but as a separate entity in which Google will utilize going forward.

Google is claiming that this new mobile indexing system won’t change ranking, yet in the developer notes it explicitly claims “mobile-first indexing means Google will predominantly use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.”

What mobile solutions exist right now?

Well, there is a spectrum of options.

Now that Google is penalizing your ranking efforts by prioritizing Mobile First designs, we all kind of have to follow suit. Most designers use a blend of already made bootstrap frameworks and custom design additions to automatically condense information into a mobile device. This is a lazy (but totally acceptable!) way to answer the Google First problem.  

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But what can you do to make sure your website is on top of the mobile game?

Depending on time and resources, there are different approaches you can take to design for mobile. Best case scenario is for every desktop design you have, a mobile design will also be created. This takes into account the nuances of each platform and still allows for maximum creativity and interactivity on each page. Now, I’m not advocating for you to suddenly spend an inordinate amount of time producing highly nuanced mobile designs in the next week. However, here are some tips and tricks you can implement to create a better mobile presence:

Sticky Navigation:

Sticky navigation is when a user scrolls through content and your navigation stays sticking to the top of the page. This is key on mobile. If you have an informational site, landing page, or even a product page, having navigation stay sticky will allow your users to easily find content instead of having to search for it. If they decide to take an online action, they can do it easily. Instead of having to scroll back up to “learn more” or Buy Now, it’s right there in front of them.

Truncation:

Things that make sense on desktop don’t necessarily work on mobile. A lot of business owners will have a website with simple navigation, a beautiful hero image, a main value proposition with titles, and maybe even a call to action button. These usually look great on desktop, but the moment you start to degrade that it into a mobile space, it will typically stack everything to look like an endless scroll. (You lose the CTAs and the emphasis you designed for.)

To avoid that, use truncation procedures like:

• Make icons smaller
• Have one sentence of website copy featured with an option to expand for more.

Truncation is adapting to mobile so that it’s easier to use and consume for the user. If truncation is done right, everything will be placed higher on the web page in a succinct and accessible manner.

Why is this important?

We don’t absolutely know what will convert the user, but what if it’s the testimonial that was buried in that giant scroll? Truncate your content intelligently when designing a mobile solution to increase user conversion and experience.

Image Sizing:

Sometimes clients will have a beautiful photo on a desktop page, but when it comes time to design for mobile the image is simply too big and decreases usability for the user. You don’t want everything on your desktop design featured on your mobile design. Make sure your images size gracefully or have your designer resize the image altogether so that it fits within your mobile solution.

The rule of thumb for mobile isn’t less is more, but to design with intention. A great UX/UI team will know how to guide you through these steps by first getting to understand your demographic, business goals, and budget. We do the research so you don’t have to.

Want to learn more?

Let us help get you situated for the Mobile First changes coming your way. It’s a jungle out there, click here so you don’t have to go at it alone! Let our CreateApe experts act as “jungle guides” and help you traverse the wilds as we take your project to new heights.