Usability for Conversion: Stop Using Fads, Start Using Data

When it comes to creating and designing a product, we are looking for the best solution to ensure we meet our goal. Ultimately, our goal will always be to convince the customer to buy our product or use our service; i.e., for converting leads into sales. But what can we do to ensure the highest conversion rate (i.e., of leads to sales) possible? When we look around for ways to understand what works with conversion and what doesn’t, we may encounter several fads or trends that presumptuously claim to know exactly what we need to do; things like changing a button to a particular color, using a particular picture or icon, or employing a certain layout. However, there is no one size fits all “magic bullet” to conversion. EVERY demographic is different, so we need to use our data and our knowledge of our specific targeted audience to create designs that convert. IF there is one single piece of advice that’s most important, it’s to focus on usability.

Stop following trends to achieve your conversion rates.

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A 3D Text Rendering Tutorial

With the availability of tools like DirectX and OpenGL, writing a desktop application that renders 3D elements is not very difficult nowadays. However, like many technologies, there are sometimes obstacles making it difficult for developers trying to enter into this niche. Over time, the race between DirectX and OpenGL has caused these technologies to become more accessible to developers, along with better documentation and an easier process of becoming a skilled DirectX or OpenGL developer.

DirectX, introduced and maintained by Microsoft, is a technology specific to the Windows platform. On the other hand, OpenGL is a cross-platform API for the 3D graphics arena whose specification is maintained by the Khronos Group.

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What Is Strategic Design Thinking and How Can It Empower Designers?

What should the role of the designer be in today’s times of complexity, unsurity, and frequent change? What is Strategic Design, and how can it empower the designer beyond traditional practice? Are designers a group of technicians and artists who produce products and artefacts for short contracts? How can they fulfill more essential roles of big picture projects? Designers are often set into roles of minor problem solving and yet their training and expertise allows for a wider set of potential influence. Strategic Design thinking suggest that if designers could communicate and employ their skills more effectively, they can position themselves in order to influence a bigger picture.

How can strategic design thinking produce innovative projects that affect big picture issues?

Such are some of the questions the Helsinki Design Lab, a design research initiative funded by the Finnish government, posed throughout its advocacy for Strategic Design Thinking. The ambition of this research group was to identify and codify the design strategies and vocabulary developed within innovative case studies. Each of studies dealt with complex conditions, as many important issues today are entrenched in systems and networks of several intersecting elements. The intent of this article is to investigate how Strategic Design might be applied to the design and development interests of the freelance Toptal community.

Strategic Design requires a certain vocabulary in order to communicate the values of the design practice. Much of these values have to do with becoming involved in the background and organization of projects, rather than the forming of the product, or outcome. Any successfully designed project, whether its an interface, building, or luxury car, is really a product of all of the underlying systems behind its making. This means the bureaucratic context,the financing, the company history, et cetera.

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