A UX designer is one of the most in-demand careers in the creative industry right now. Understand the fundamental skills a UX designer should have.
Few fields offer more growth opportunity than user experience (UX). User experience roles are considered to be some of the best jobs in America, according to CNN. Entering this promising industry requires the right training and skills to meet rising business demands.
Defining UX Design
UX describes all interactions a customer has with a company, its services, and its products, the Nielsen Norman Group explains. Designers who specialize in UX work to ensure all points of contact, from the opening of a product’s box to the layout of its digital interfaces, are easy and enjoyable to navigate. The UX skills that designers need are varied, stemming from areas such as graphic design, psychology, engineering, and marketing. UX designers must cultivate a wheelhouse of both applied and soft skills to excel.
Applied Skills for UX Designers
When students possess an applied skill, they have knowledge of a specific competency. This might, for example, mean gaining familiarity with UX tools such as Adobe Creative Suite.
UX designers can benefit from mastering these five applied skills.
Research
To effectively perform their jobs, UX designers must understand what their audiences want and how they view the world. This means mastering the ability to plan, conduct, and analyze findings from a variety of research methods, UXmatters explains. Aptitudes in user testing and analytical research are particularly helpful.
Information Architecture
Information architecture involves organizing information in an understandable manner. Applicable to websites, apps, software, printed materials, and even physical spaces, information architecture may include systems like labeling, navigation, and search functions.
Wireframing
A wireframe is a blueprint for each screen of an interface. Its main purpose is to show how something works, not how it looks. Wireframing defines the elements that need to be present from page to page. It includes all the interface components that are needed for all possible interactions and is generally designed in gray scale, using boxes and lines.
Prototyping
Prototypes allow designers to test functionality. They help designers to ensure there is a match between a system and its users before construction on the final product begins. Prototypes allow designers to test both page functionality and overall navigation. As problems are identified, the UX designer may go through several iterations before landing on a design that meets both business and user goals. UX designers should have the ability to prototype quickly and effectively.
Visual Communication
Because design is highly graphic in nature, UX designers need to be competent in visual language. Proficiency in visual communication includes an understanding of concepts like:
Layout
Color
Typography
Icons
Images
Design theory
The UX designer skill set goes beyond applied skills, however. UX professionals also need soft skills for success.
Soft Skills for UX Designers
In addition to mastering technical requirements, UX designers must have certain “soft skills,” or aptitudes applied to multiple work settings. These might include qualities such as adaptability or self-awareness. “Soft” UX design skills may include the following.
Curiosity
Professionals who are curious have the capacity to engage with clients, products, and challenges in meaningful ways. Curiosity leads to asking insightful questions, active listening, and engaging more deeply with problems. UX is a consistently changing field. Developing a sense of curiosity helps designers keep up.
Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and feel the emotions of others. UX emphasizes a positive customer experience. That’s why the best UX designers take the time to learn about people and their inclinations. A deep understanding of end users allows designers to create products that truly engage and delight.
Communication
Communication is essential in UX. Designers must convey product ideas, explain thinking behind designs, and work with other teams. Their work also requires elements of storytelling. Effective communication skills help designers create, collaborate, adapt, and improve products and systems with ease.
Collaboration
Good UX design means incorporating the ideas of developers, clients, and team members. UX designers need to effectively give and receive feedback, explore solutions, and incorporate the expertise and needs of everyone involved in a project to create the best products possible.
How to Improve UX Design Skills
If you want to gain an edge in the UX industry, you have numerous options available.
Consider an Online Degree Program
Online degree programs provide you with groundwork to base your career on. The digital format of online programs offers invaluable hands-on training. Earning higher education credentials also provides a boost in your job search. However, beware of short-term programs. Learning UX for a week might be interesting, but it won’t necessarily help build the foundation for a successful career.
Follow UX Experts
Learn from the best, by staying on top of the publications, blogs, and social media postings of the UX industry giants.
Knowing other UX professionals means opportunities for professional development and employment. Societies such as the User Experience Professionals Association or AIGA (the professional association for design) can provide valuable support and community.
Perhaps the best way to improve your UX design skills is to enroll in a university degree program. At Lesley University, you can find the resources you need to establish your UX career.
At Lesley University, the online BS in Design for User Experience equips students with the training they need to influence and inspire in the field of UX. Students will learn how to research, interpret, conceptualize, and design interfaces that create more holistic and interconnected user experiences. This asynchronous, interdisciplinary program allows students to begin or refocus their careers to successfully work in a wide array of contexts and work environments.
Are you an entrepreneur planning to launch your IT application? Or, are you an enterprise IT manager in charge of building a new enterprise IT application? Before you start building your system, you need to decide the most appropriate software architecture. We explain the top 10 software architectural patterns here.
In this article, we will cover the most relevant questions regarding software architectural patterns:
Software Architecture Pattern: What is it?
Why Should You Focus on Software Architecture?
How do You Know if Your Software Architecture is Good?
10 Common Software Architecture Patterns
Evaluating Software Architecture Patterns for Your Strategic Application?
Software Architecture Pattern: What is it?
Before delving into the common architectural patterns, let’s understand what software architecture is. Software architecture is a pictorial representation of the IT system that communicates the following:
The organization of the system;
Different components vis-à-vis their functions;
How the components interact with each other.
The schematic representation is an outcome of the design principles software architects use and the decisions they make. A typical software architecture requires decisions concerning security, performance, manageability, etc.
Why Should You Focus on Software Architecture?
The design principles, architectural decisions, and their outcome, i.e., software architecture together enable a software system to deliver its’ business, operational, and technical objectives. You need to get the software architecture right due to the following reasons:
A software development team makes the first set of decisions during the software architecture pattern selection. Only the business requirements are available before this stage. The first set of decisions are crucial in any project since sub-optimal decisions might result in budget and schedule overrun.
Your business stakeholders need to know about your progress. Software architecture acts as a visual communication tool, therefore they can understand the system you are building.
Software architecture models make it easy to reuse them in other projects since you now know the decisions you made and the various trade-offs.
How do You Know if Your Software Architecture is Good?
Following are indications that you have a good software architecture:
The software is easy to maintain;
Business stakeholders can understand it easily;
Good software architectures are usable over the long-term;
Such architecture patterns are flexible, adaptable, and extensible;
It should facilitate scalability;
The team can easily add features, moreover, the system performance doesn’t diminish due to this;
There is no repetition of the code;
The system can be refactored easily.
10 Common Software Architecture Patterns
It’s time to study the 10 most common patterns, so, here we go:
Pattern #1: Layered architecture
We often use ‘N-tier architecture’, or ‘Multi-tiered architecture’ to denote “layered architecture pattern”. It’s one of the most commonly used patterns where the code is arranged in layers. Key characteristics of this pattern are as follows:
The outermost layer is where the data enters the system. The data passes through the subsequent layers to reach the innermost layer, which is the database layer.
Simple implementations of this pattern have at least 3 layers, namely, a presentation layer, an application layer, and a data layer. Users access the presentation layer using a GUI, whereas the application layer runs the business logic. The data layer has a database for the storage and retrieval of data.
This pattern has the following advantages:
Maintaining the software is easy since the tiers are segregated.
Development teams find it easy to manage the software infrastructure, therefore, it’s easy to develop large-scale web and cloud-hosted apps.
Popular frameworks like Java EE use this pattern.
There are a few disadvantages too, as follows:
The code can become too large.
A considerable part of the code only passes data between layers instead of executing any business logic, which can adversely impact performance.
Pattern #2: Client-server
“Client-server software architecture pattern” is another commonly used one, where there are 2 entities. It has a set of clients and a server. The following are key characteristics of this pattern:
Client components send requests to the server, which processes them and responds back.
When a server accepts a request from a client, it opens a connection with the client over a specific protocol.
Servers can be stateful or stateless. A stateful server can receive multiple requests from clients. It maintains a record of requests from the client, and this record is called a ‘session’.
Email applications are good examples of this pattern. The pattern has several advantages, as follows:
Clients access data from a server using authorized access, which improves the sharing of data.
Accessing a service is via a ‘user interface’ (UI), therefore, there’s no need to run terminal sessions or command prompts.
Client-server applications can be built irrespective of the platform or technology stack.
This is a distributed model with specific responsibilities for each component, which makes maintenance easier.
Some disadvantages of the client-server architecture are as follows:
The server can be overloaded when there are too many requests.
A central server to support multiple clients represents a ‘single point of failure’.
Pattern #3: Master-slave
“Master-slave architecture pattern” is useful when clients make multiple instances of the same request. The requests need simultaneous handling. Following are its’ key characteristics:
The master launches slaves when it receives simultaneous requests.
The slaves work in parallel, and the operation is complete only when all slaves complete processing their respective requests.
Advantages of this pattern are the following:
Applications read from slaves without any impact on the master.
Taking a slave offline and the later synchronization with the master requires no downtime.
Any application involving multi-threading can make use of this pattern, e.g., monitoring applications used in electrical energy systems.
There are a few disadvantages to this pattern, e.g.:
This pattern doesn’t support automated fail-over systems since a slave needs to be manually promoted to a master if the original master fails.
Writing data is possible in the master only.
Failure of a master typically requires downtime and restart, moreover, data loss can happen in such cases.
Pattern #4: Pipe-filter
Suppose you have complex processing in hand. You will likely break it down into separate tasks and process them separately. This is where the “Pipe-filter” architecture pattern comes in use. Following characteristics distinguish it:
The code for each task is relatively small. You treat it as one independent ‘filter’.
You can deploy, maintain, scale, and reuse code in each filter.
The stream of data that each filter processes pass through ‘pipes’.
Compilers often use this pattern, due to the following advantages:
There are repetitive steps such as reading the source code, parsing, generating code, etc. These can be easily organized as separate filters.
Each filter can perform its’ processing in parallel if the data input is arranged as streams using pipes.
It’s a resilient model since the pipeline can reschedule the work and assign to another instance of that filter.
Watch out for a few disadvantages:
This pattern is complex.
Data loss between filters is possible in case of failures unless you use a reliable infrastructure.
Pattern #5: Broker
Consider distributed systems with components that provide different services independent of each other. Independent components could be heterogeneous systems on different servers, however, clients still need their requests serviced. “Broker architecture pattern” is a solution to this.
It has the following broad characteristics:
A broker component coordinates requests and responses between clients and servers.
The broker has the details of the servers and the individual services they provide.
The main components of the broker architectural pattern are clients, servers, and brokers. It also has bridges and proxies for clients and servers.
Clients send requests, and the broker finds the right server to route the request to.
It also sends the responses back to the clients.
Message broker software like IBM MQ uses this pattern. The pattern has a few distinct advantages, e.g.:
Developers face no constraints due to the distributed environment, they simply use a broker.
This pattern helps using object-oriented technology in a distributed environment.
Pattern #6: Peer-to-peer (P2P)
“Peer-to-peer (P2P) pattern” is markedly different from the client-server pattern since each computer on the network has the same authority. Key characteristics of the P2P pattern are as follows:
There isn’t one central server, with each node having equal capabilities.
Each computer can function as a client or a server.
When more computers join the network, the overall capacity of the network increases.
File-sharing networks are good examples of the P2P pattern. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency networks are other examples. Advantages of a P2P network are as follows:
P2P networks are decentralized, therefore, they are more secure. You must have already heard a lot about the security of the Bitcoin network.
Hackers can’t destroy the network by compromising just one server.
Under heavy load, the P2P pattern has performance limitations, as the questions surrounding the Bitcoin transaction throughout shows.
Pattern #7: Event-bus pattern
There are applications when components act only when there is data to be processed. At other times, these components are inactive. “Event-bus pattern” works well for these, and it has the following characteristics:
A central agent, which is an event-bus, accepts the input.
Different components handle different functions, therefore, the event-bus routes the data to the appropriate module.
Modules that don’t receive any data pertaining to their function will remain inactive.
Think of a website using JavaScript. Users’ mouse clicks and keystrokes are the data inputs. The event-bus will collate these inputs and it will send the data to appropriate modules. The advantages of this pattern are as follows:
This pattern helps developers handle complexity.
It’s a scalable architecture pattern.
This is an extensible architecture, new functionalities will only require a new type of events.
This software architecture pattern is also used in Android development.
Some disadvantages of this pattern are as follows:
Testing of interdependent components is an elaborate process.
If different components handle the same event require complex treatment to error-handling.
Some amount of messaging overhead is typical of this pattern.
The development team should make provision for sufficient fall-back options in the event the event-bus has a failure.
Pattern #8: Model-View-Controller (MVC)
“Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture pattern” involves separating an applications’ data model, presentation layer, and control aspects. Following are its’ characteristics:
There are three building blocks here, namely, model, view, and controller.
The application data resides in the model.
Users see the application data through the view, however, the view can’t influence what the user will do with the data.
The controller is the building block between the model and the view. View triggers events, subsequently, the controller acts on it. The action is typically a method call to the model. The response is shown in the view.
This pattern is popular. Many web frameworks like Spring and Rails use it, therefore, many web applications utilize this pattern. Its’ advantages are as follows:
Using this model expedites the development.
Development teams can present multiple views to users.
Changes to the UI is common in web applications, however, the MVC pattern doesn’t need changes for it.
The model doesn’t format data before presenting to users, therefore, you can use this pattern with any interface.
There are also a few disadvantages, for e.g.:
With this pattern, the code has new layers, making it harder to navigate the code.
There is typically a learning curve for this pattern, and developers need to know multiple technologies.
Pattern #9: Blackboard
Emerging from the world of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) development, the “Blackboard architecture pattern” is more of a stop-gap arrangement. Its’ noticeable characteristics are as follows:
When you deal with an emerging domain like AI or ‘Machine Learning’ (ML), you don’t necessarily have a settled architecture pattern to use. You start with the blackboard pattern, subsequently, when the domain matures, you adopt a different architecture pattern.
There are three components, namely, the blackboard, a collection of knowledge resources, and a controller.
The application system stores the relevant information in the blackboard.
The knowledge resources could be algorithms in the AI or ML context that collect information and updates the blackboard.
The controller reads from the blackboard and updates the application ‘assets’, for e.g., robots.
Image recognition, speech recognition, etc. use this architecture pattern. It has a few advantages, as follows:
The pattern facilitates experiments.
You can reuse the knowledge resources like algorithms.
There are also limitations, for e.g.:
It’s an intermediate arrangement. Ultimately, you will need to arrive at a suitable architecture pattern, however, you don’t have certainty that you will find the right answer.
All communication within the system happens via the blackboard, therefore, the application can’t handle parallel processing.
Testing can be hard.
Pattern #10: Interpreter
A pattern specific to certain use cases, the “Interpreter pattern” deals with the grammar of programming languages. It offers an interpreter for the language. It works as follows:
You implement an interface that aids in interpreting given contexts in a programming language.
The pattern uses a hierarchy of expressions.
It also uses a tree structure, which contains the expressions.
A parser, external to the pattern, generates the tree structure for evaluating the expressions.
The use of this pattern is in creating “Classes” from symbols in programming languages. You create grammar for the language, so that interpretation of sentences becomes possible. Network protocol languages and SQL uses this pattern.
From the very beginning, any digital product development project needs a clear idea of what exactly to build and why. Often, the “clear idea” can be associated with a long list of requirements – a fixed list of project specifications.
Quite a scary phrase, agree? For this reason, most software projects start to shift to a more flexible approach, where they can easily respond to new information, user and market needs, as well as their business goals.
We talk about Agile scrum methodology. To map the connections and dependencies between all the software development pieces and business needs, we break down all the requirements into prioritized steps, which are user stories.
In this blog post, we give a foundational understanding of what user stories are, how we write them at CX Dojo, and how they can be used to create products using an agile workflow.
WHAT IS A USER STORY?
User stories are short descriptions of something that users of your product want to achieve, written in a simple and non-technical way. They are used to define the product backlog in an Agile development workflow. As a rule, a user story consists of three elements:
The desired feature;
The user persona;
The main objective or benefit to the feature.
They usually follow this format:
“As a [type of user] I want [some particular feature] so that [some benefit] is received.”
In other words, every user story includes who, what, and why of product features. Let’s take a closer look at each part:
As a [type of user] – For whom is this feature designed? We should also determine their intent, as well as the value they’ll gain from this feature. This is achieved by creating a buying persona.
I want [some particular feature] – What is the user trying to achieve? Here we describe the end goal of the user not aspects of the feature itself.
So that [some benefit] – Define the potential problem that requires to be solved so that the user can benefit from the feature we’ve implemented. In other words, how will we deliver value to the user, and will it solve a problem?
With the help of this template, you can write them at whatever level of detail you want. At the highest level, you can write a large user story that covers a huge range of functionality. For example: “As a user, I want to get access to the list of local restaurants. ”. Such large user stories are called epics.
That’s a lot to work from a single sprint or iteration. So we usually break down epics into smaller chunks like:
“As a user, I can register in the app so that I can see a full list of local restaurants”.
“As a user, I can log in to my account so that I can have access to data based on my subscription”.
A user story allows us to get requirements written in a language that is understandable for both business and the development team. If written properly, our customer immediately sees the result of the implementation of particular functionality. At the same time, this allows the development team to be more flexible when choosing technical solutions and meeting customer expectations.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF WRITING USER STORIES?
The key thing is delivering business value. You should start writing them with a clear business value statement. At the moment when you haven’t done anything yet and the costs are minimal, define “why you need this functionality or feature”. After reading a user story, the product development team knows why they are building a feature and the value that the feature creates for the end-user. With the help of user stories, you can crystallize the value of your idea early on and further create better user experience, more effective roadmaps, and ensure that the user can easily accomplish their goals with the product.
It’s also worth noting that user stories are not a magic wand and they won’t replace complete project specifications. They act as a starting point for further refinement by the scrum team. Primarily, a they serve the following purposes:
Provide a functional overview of the product and allow the development team to roughly estimate the work and the product owner to quickly prioritize it.
Describe the functionality in the simplest possible way and don’t get the team bogged down in writing specifications every time the scope changes, as it always does.
WHAT IS AN EPIC?
User stories are not always the same: some of them can be completed faster, others might take a bit more time and resources. A set of user stories form epic. Epics are too complex to implement in a single sprint or iteration, so we break them down into several smaller stories. It’s also more convenient to discuss the product at a high level, for example, with stakeholders with no technical background, by looking at it as a set of epics.
When creating epics, a product owner includes the following things as a very basic structure:
Introduction;
Product requirement;
Technical requirement;
Design requirement.
Epics and user stories further shape the entire roadmap of the system.
In a nutshell:
User stories: short, compact descriptions illustrating a customer need and desired outcome.
Epics: larger bodies of work which group related user stories together.
WHO CREATES USER STORIES?
In case of Agile methodology, anyone can write them. At CX Dojo, The Product Owner (PO) “owns” the product backlog on behalf of the stakeholders, and is primarily responsible for creating and managing it throughout the development lifecycle. Our client is not obliged to understand the technical nuances, just like the development team shouldn’t dive into the client’s business aspects. Therefore, the product owner acts here as a link between the development process and the customer.
THE ANATOMY OF A USER STORY
A basic user story is like a summary. It should be short, unique, and not misleading. We always create a new story from the perspective of any particular role: a business or a user. This part is considered to be the cornerstone of the user story: it creates empathy in the team for the user and a clear understanding of the problem to be solved.
The second required part is “comments”, which are the key clarifications that the business wants to communicate. Writing the “comments” section should contain a small set of business rules, if any, or more detailed explanations and steps of a previous part.
The final part is the acceptance criteria. It’s a must-have ingredient of each user story, which is written from the product’s point of view. Acceptance criteria is a so-called checklist that determines whether all the parameters are completed and working. Before the developers mark the user story as “done”, they have to make sure that what has been written in the user story works as planned and tested. Acceptance criteria is an important part of the entire development process as it helps to clarify what the team should build before they start to work as well as ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding the problem/solution of the product.
At CX Dojo, when writing acceptance criteria, we adhere to the following rules:
Keep acceptance criteria simple and concise. This is not the case when we prepare comprehensive documentation. It’s a laconic formulation of what should happen in the system for the user story to be achieved.
Everyone on the team must clearly understand what is the acceptance criteria. If the developers don’t grasp the point and outcome of the acceptance criteria, consider it useless.
Just like acceptance criteria should be well-written, it should also be easy to test so as not to leave any ambiguity. This allows testers to properly confirm that all requirements have been fulfilled.
Okay, maybe so far it looks a little confusing until you see real examples of user stories paired with acceptance criteria. Let’s take a look at one of our projects. This is an online platform that helps to find local restaurants. For this project, we’ve already created a number of user stories so let’s take two of them as an example: one from the user’s perspective and one from the perspective of a restaurant owner.
EXAMPLES WITH ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA
“AS IF I’M A USER”:
Basic user story:
As an unregistered user or logged in user, I can see the restaurant preview page, so that I can navigate to the selected restaurant, see restaurant description, and contact details.
Comments:
As an unregistered user, I can see restaurant details only for one restaurant.
As a logged-in user, I can see details for a number of restaurants that are nearby if those are available in my region.
Design:
1. [Details Preview]- Restaurant preview page.
2. [Hello Preview] - where a user can choose a restaurant to see more details.
3. [Registered Preview] - where an unregistered user can select a restaurant to see more details.
4. [Search Preview] - where a logged-in user can select a restaurant based on search criteria.
Acceptance criteria:
As an unregistered user, I can click on the restaurant on [Registered Preview].
As a user, I can see if there is no internet connection with the ability to retry to connect.
As a logged-in user, I can select a restaurant on the [Hello Preview] page to see the details.
As a logged-in user, I can use multiple categories to sort out restaurants that are nearby.
As a logged-in user, I can see which criteria were selected (mark in orange or gray out).
As a logged-in user, I can use a search to find a restaurant by name and see search results.
As an unregistered user, I can see the Details Preview page of the restaurant that is available for unregistered users.
As an unregistered user, I can see restaurant description, address, and contact details on the Details preview page.
As an unregistered user or logged-in user, I can click the “Start your way” button on the map and navigate to the restaurant by pre-installed navigation app.
As an unregistered user or logged-in user, I can click the “Telephone number” button (if exists) so that I can use my phone to dial in.
As an unregistered user or logged-in user, I can click on the website URL (if exists) and the link will be opened in the browser.
As an unregistered user or logged-in user, I can click the “Pro tips” button and content should be updated accordingly.
As an unregistered user or logged-in user, I can zoom in or zoom out the map.
As an unregistered user or logged-in user, I can click the “Back” button to return to the previous page.
EXAMPLES WITH ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA
AS IF I’M A RESTAURANT OWNER”:
Basic user story:
As a restaurant owner, I want to attract my potential customers with photos of my establishment.
Comments:
Implement uploading restaurant cover photo.
Implement uploading restaurant photos.
Acceptance Criteria:
As a user, I can upload cover photos up to 2mb by clicking on the image container.
As a user, I can upload multiple restaurant photos up to 2mb by clicking on the “add image” button.
As a user, I immediately see newly uploaded photos.
Photos are bound to the restaurant without hitting the “save” button.
As a user, I can delete a photo by clicking the “trash” icon in the right upper corner of the uploaded image thumbnail.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN USER STORIES & REQUIREMENTS?
HOW TO ESTIMATE USER STORIES?
Once you’ve written your user stories, you can begin estimating them. The development team estimates them in story points. Each one is prioritized according to:
Business needs (the customer always sets priorities).
The project logic model (backlog prioritization is a joint process between the development team and the business).
Then we add up the time for all user stories in the backlog, divide by the number of developers working on the project, and calculate a rough estimate of how much time it will take to complete the project. The further you are into a project, the better you’ll be able to calculate the average number of story points your team completes per sprint. By knowing the sprint duration and multiplying it by the total number of stories divided by velocity, it is possible to estimate the duration of the entire project.
CONCLUSION
User stories help manage the development process more effectively. With this approach, the business is confident that the team is moving in the right direction and the implementation of each story speeds up the product release. In order to complete more user stories during each sprint, you can expand the team or create up to two separate scrum teams on complex projects.
Contrary to what many people think, graphic design isn’t a dying industry. Looking closely, however, it’s easy to see why some people would believe so. From the field being saturated to the advent of free and user-friendly graphic design software, it’s clear why some have given up on graphic design.
Is graphic design dead? The answer is a resounding NO. Recent studies conducted by IBISWorld show that in 2019 alone, the industry generated a revenue of $15 billion with an annual growth rate of 3.5%. It is expected to grow further at a rate of 2.7% to become a $14.8 billion-dollar-strong industry.
Penji is a living proof that graphic design is alive and kicking. We’ve helped thousands of businesses with all their graphic design needs. If you’re still in doubt, read on to learn why graphic design isn’t dead and is here to stay.
Why Some People Think Graphic Design is Dead
It may come as a surprise to you that there are people who think that graphic design is already dead. Especially for the graphic designers themselves who have experienced tight competition, it’s understandably so. As long as there is access to cheap computers and free design software, fake graphic designers will proliferate. It is sometimes overtaking the jobs of qualified ones.
Also, websites that offer to create a logo for you for just five dollars, and other similar gimmicks, give the impression that graphic design is dead. With these channels, you’re sure to get cheap graphic design, nothing else. For your business to stand out, a generic logo or website from a template just won’t cut it.
A few business owners are also to blame for graphic design’s perceived death. Some entrepreneurs think that graphic design is a one-time thing. After the website, logo, and letterhead have been designed, it’s time to let go of the designer. Later, we’ll discuss why this shouldn’t be the case.
Why Companies Hire Graphic Designers
Any seasoned entrepreneur can tell you that graphic design is an essential part of business. But factors such as limited finances can make these business owners forego their graphic designers. And some think that after establishing their brand identities, there is no longer a need for a designer.
Graphic designing for your business is a continuous endeavor; here’s why:
Consistent Brand Identity
Your brand identity is your main point of communication with your customers. Entrusting the continuity of the scheme to someone who doesn’t understand graphic design can be a significant blunder. Your visual identification deserves to keep its integrity, and only a professional can help you achieve this.
Cleveland Cavaliers hired an external graphic designer for their fan engagement platform. The brand identity, as you can see from the photo below, shows that it remained intact and recognizable.
Create smart, effective campaigns efficientlyMeet your conversion goals using visuals that stand outI need this!‹›
Become an Inspiration
Great design inspires. Your customers, as well as employees, can benefit from this graphic design advantage. Excellent visual design can attract customers and encourage your employees to promote your brand.
Provide Adaptability
A good graphic designer can prepare your business for the ever-changing digital world. Technology is continually changing, and your brand has to keep up. Good design can ensure that your website and other design materials can be viewed on multiple devices and platforms.
The Firefox logo had been through many redesigns in its history. This image shows the transition from detailed design to something more streamlined. The logo was simplified to fit beyond the normal website browser.
Gain Fresh Perspectives
Graphic design can also become stagnant, and a professional designer can help maintain the freshness. You’ll gain new perspectives from someone outside of your business and provide you insights you may have never seen before. A good graphic designer will work with you to create new ideas that will keep your business on its feet.
Creativity Will Love On
Advancements in technology will make us think that AI will replace most of the work humans do. This may be so, but specific industries that require creativity will never succumb. You may have the most exciting website in your niche, but without innovation and creativity, soon enough, it’ll become boring and stale.
Stand Out From the Competition
A professional graphic designer can help you stand out from the crowd. The WordPress templates shown below serve a purpose, and sometimes you’ll find a website design gem through a template. But don’t be surprised if you see some other websites to have that similar look as yours. Your company is unique, and its overall design should show how one-of-a-kind you are.
Saves You Time and Money
Business owners have a lot on their hands. If you leave the design work to a qualified graphic designer, you’ll be free from the burden of getting the design right. You’ll have more time and energy to focus on what matters most in your business.
Why Graphic Design Will Never Die
Every aspect of your business will always require graphic design. And not just a one-size-fits-all plan, but a quality graphic design that’s uniquely yours. Whether it’s your website, promotional paraphernalia, corporate branding, web and print design, it has to include graphic design as an essential component.
In this fast-paced world we live in, is graphic design dead? Not only is it alive and well, but it’s also here to stay for good. Graphic designers are integral parts of a business and will contribute to a company’s success. Graphic design has become an indispensable asset and investment for a business.
How to Get the Most from Graphic Design
Great graphic design is a business investment that will reap lots of benefits for your company. If you think that finding the right graphic designer is a difficult task, Penji can help you. We have vetted designers that can provide you with all the graphic design you’ll need.
For a monthly fixed price of as low as $369, you can have all the design, plus all the revisions you need. We’ll always make sure that you get the designs you love.
Are you a startup planning to launch a new service? Or an entrepreneur trying to solve a problem in your company? One solution might be the realization of a digital product. But how should you address this problem? In this post I will guide you through all the digital product development stages.
Note, this article is meant to be an introduction to user-centered digital product development but is not a fully blown step by step guide.
What is a Digital Product?
A few years ago we would only speak about “websites”, which were mostly showcasing your company. Sometimes an e-commerce section would be provided as well.
Nowadays, the digital landscape has become much more complex and specialized. From a dating app to an event management platform to a chatbot, a lot of services have already been digitized. Meaning turned into apps.
But, how do you actually build your own digital product?
1. Analysis, Research & Preparation
This step is key. Here you should do everything you can to help make the decision whether you should actually proceed and build that service. Or save your money, time and focus for something different and better. A solution-based approach to problem-solving rooted in “Design Thinking” will ensure you invest in the right idea.
Empathize with the user and define the needs
Do a market research to clearly outline the problem your target audience is facing. Also, find out if they are willing to pay (and how much) for this service you are about to build?
Ideate
Perhaps you already have the perfect idea. But it can be good to use different brainstorming and ideation techniques to help you think outside the box and reach a wider list of potential solutions. Then you can investigate and test to narrow the list to the best one.
Budget
Of course, initially you also need to define what financial assets you have at your disposal. Make sure you have enough resources for the post-launch phase. The product will likely not be profitable from day one and may require further iterations and tweaks to become truly valuable.
Minimal Viable Product (MVP)
Maybe the idea for your app or digital product has a very broad scope and many features. But for the first version is it very important to focus on the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Projects can quickly become over-complex and modular approach will ensure you don’t spend resources on features that turn out to be unnecessary. Cut out all the nice-to-have features for now, start with something small and build on it. This approach will make it much easier to change direction if needed.
2. Sketching & Wireframing
Now that you know where you’re going, it’s time to think about how this digital product should look. If you’re working with an agency, they can bring in experts to develop this for you.
But it can also be helpful if you come up with initial sketches or wireframes for your vision. This can help your partner to clearly understand your idea and make budgeting easier and more precise.
3. Design
How should this product look and feel? If it’s an app, how will the screens look on an old Android tablet or brand new iPhone X?
Ask the designers to provide you with a clickable prototype (for example on InVision). Seeing and interacting with your product on the devices where it will be used, will help you view your product from a user perspective. Printouts of screens are less useful. You need to tap, click and experience those designs before approving them.
At this stage it is also good to discuss user interface animations. For example, how will the transition from a closed to open menu look like? The difference between good and great UX depends on small details.
4. Prototyping
Before actually starting development on the first version of your product, you can ask to have a scaled down version or “prototype” developed.
Maybe this prototype will have only a basic design, include only the main features and won’t be fully integrated into the rest of your architecture.
But once you have this prototype, you can run tests with your team and your target audience. And see how they react as real users. At this stage the discussion shouldn’t be about design, but more about functionalities.
5. Agile Implementation
Agile Development
Yay, you can start coding! Or most probably the team you’ve hired for that can. Avoid waterfall projects where all requirements need to be agreed upfront and go for an agile approach that supports product evolvement and adjustment. Using an Agile project management methodology significantly increases development productivity, gives you more control and results in an end product that provides real value to your users. As part of this process, the project will be split into development phases known as sprints, with working software delivered at the end of each sprint.
Testing & Quality Assurance
Is that app working as it should? On all devices? Is this speed sufficient?
How do you know you are you really done? A definition of done can help here as well. Testing should be built into the development process to make sure you don’t run into problems come launch day.
Iteration
A step is not working perfectly? A feature needs tweaking? Users have demanded an additional option? Iterate again and again until the product is ready to go live.
6. Launch
This is the moment you have been building up to. You are ready to unveil your digital product to the masses (or to your very specific niche ;). I advise a soft/private/beta launch over a very public launch. There always will be bugs or unplanned use-cases in a first version. So being a little cautious and low profile at the beginning can give your product the positive start it needs to succeed. It is difficult to win back precious users after a high-profile launch flop.
Marketing
It’s time to roll out your marketing and communication plan, which you should have already started planning in the preparation phase. You know your personas from your market research, so make sure to know what, and to whom and how you are saying it.
7. Maintenance & Support
Often overlooked, the maintenance and support are not the most exciting part of digital product development. But if your product is successful, this will be the longest stage. And might end up costing much more than the initial creation and launch if you don’t plan and safeguard resources for it. Often your development partner will offer value for money long term service level agreements. So make sure to clearly specify this with your provider upfront, be it an external company or a dev team within your organization. You don’t want to face the nightmare scenario of post-launch bug-fixes damaging your product reputation because your resources have been moved to another project.
You’re tired of how slow your business has been going. You know you offer a useful and valuable product to customers, but you haven’t seen the success you expected.
You decide to invest in making SEO and online marketing more of a priority. After doing the initial improvements yourself, you realize you have the budget, but not the time to devote to internet marketing.
After all, you have a business to run.
Until your business grows and has the financial capacity to hire some marketers, you’re going to have to try and navigate the internet marketing arena yourself or hire an outside SEO company.
You go through the selection process of choosing an SEO company and you’ve found one you’re sure that you can work with.
Now that the service contract is signed, what should you expect?
It is important to keep an eye out on how committed your SEO company is to your business. Every SEO company is going to approach your situation differently, and it’s important to know what they’re doing along the way.
Positive SEO results take time to be noticed and seen. In fact, in a Google video, it was mentioned that it takes 4 to 12 months, on average, for any kind of improvements to your website to start having an impact on your search engine results.
If you start seeing better than average results in 1, 2 or 3 months you need to know if it’s because there’s not much competition in your industry, or if your company is using questionable methods to produce fast – but unsustainable – results. On the other hand, if you have to wait for over a year to see results, you should take notice and investigate what your company is actually doing.
So let’s talk about some of the things you should always expect from your SEO company to make sure they’re keeping you in the loop.
An Introductory Meeting
Once you selected an SEO company to oversee your business’s internet marketing activities, you should have an introductory meeting either in person, conference call or via video. In this meeting, you’ll be introduced to your account manager and team. They’ll use this opportunity to ask you additional questions about your business and your marketing and SEO goals. They will outline their processes and state their pricing.
They also mention what you should expect when working with them. If you’re like most business owners, your knowledge of SEO and how SEO agencies operate are limited and may even be way off the mark. As the company expresses what you can expect from them, you need to be sure they know what your expectations are for them. Let them clarify things you don’t understand like time allotment and billing cycles.
It’s also important to remember that the sales people you previously worked with were likely giving you generalities and some likely strategies. Once your team has a chance to take a closer look at your website, they may have some different suggestions and strategies.
This initial meeting is a great time to reconcile any differences between what the sales rep initially suggested and what your specialist has determined to be the best solution.
This is where you also get to ask additional questions or express any concerns that you’ve thought of. Be sure that you come into this meeting with a list of such things and make sure they can answer them all.
Initial Website SEO Audit
If you didn’t get around to having an SEO audit done for your website while you were still in the process of selecting an SEO company, the first thing a good-quality SEO agency will do is run an initial audit of your site.
If you have a Google Analytics account, your newly hired SEO firm will need limited access to your reports and dashboard. The SEO company will likely have additional tools and programs that will diagnose the SEO health of your website.
The turnaround time for a website SEO audit will depend on the size and complexity of the site. Websites with many pages, for instance will take longer than a website with just a few.
Someone from your SEO team will call to discuss the results of the audit, this should be the person directly managing your account. He or she will clearly explain their observations, suggestions and concrete next steps that need to be taken.
The more interactive these calls the better. The account manager will either walk you through a screen share of what is being discussed and how to implement the suggestions, or a conference call will be done with your team.
Depending on the type of contract you have with your company, you will either receive an email with the report and the account manager’s notes and step-by-step directions on how to implement changes should also be expected. Or, if you’ve given more website access to your team, they can implement the changes for you.
This audit should also be the basis for a timeline for the work that they will be doing for you.
Regular Communications and Check-Ins
A good, reliable, reputable SEO won’t just dump you with a list of “to-dos” based on their website audit findings.
Your account manager should also always be available to answer any questions you may have.
You should expect regular reports to let you know how things are going. They will want to keep you in the loop by being transparent about their strategies and activities.
Throughout the course of your contract, your account manager will let you know of any changes or anything that doesn’t look right. He or she will also work with their team to troubleshoot and fix any issues that come up.
Conclusion
You’ll know you made the right choice if your company is willing to speak with you clearly about their strategies, perform a detailed audit to establish a baseline for your campaign, and maintain ongoing communication over the length of your contract.
We know that SEO is not one dimensional nor is there a quick and easy SEO fix. Many businesses can’t keep up with the constant nuances and work associated with effective internet marketing.
That is what we’re here for. We want to take the SEO weight off your shoulders so you can focus on important business operations.
To learn more about how we can help your business or what you can expect by working with us, don’t hesitate to contact us today.
People ask us one question over and over: What is a digital product? And why should an entrepreneur focus on digital products instead of just their physical counterparts?
We live in an increasingly diverse marketplace. People are earning money from a variety of endeavors, whether they hang out a shingle online or start a brick-and-mortar business.
Maybe we’re biased given our industry, but we believe that digital products offer the easiest and least expensive point of entry for any aspiring entrepreneur. Our Knowledge Commerce customers — entrepreneurs who earn great money teaching what they know — prove our hypothesis.
Today, we’re going to guide you through the process of understanding digital products and figuring out what you might want to sell. Even if you’re already part of the digital economy, you might discover a new revenue stream to add to your burgeoning business.
We’ll start by defining a few terms, then we’ll get into our 17 suggestions for the most profitable digital products to sell online.
What Is a Product?
A product is any item that you can sell to someone else in exchange for cash or barter. It could be a piece of produce, an electronic gadget, or a comfy couch.
Until the Internet altered commerce for the better, a product was always a physical object or item — something to distinguish it from a service. It was something you could pick up, see, smell, hear, or even taste.
That’s changed now that many entrepreneurs start businesses online. The virtual world has opened up a new category of products (which will get into later).
The point, however, is that a product is something you sell. Most often, you ask for money in exchange for the product. That’s how you earn a living.
Products differ from services in that there’s no obligation beyond the transaction. The product already exists, so there’s no further work for the seller to perform.
What Is a Digital Product?
A digital product is any product you sell online that doesn’t have physical form or substance. You can’t hold a website theme in your hand, smell an e-book, or taste a software program — Uber eats does come close though ; ).
You can turn digital products into physical products. For instance, many people buy e-books in PDF format, then print them on their computers. The product becomes physical, but it started out in digital format.
Some online entrepreneurs try to take shortcuts. They create poorly constructed digital products and assume they’ll make a living from them.
More often than not, those entrepreneurs fail. Why? Because customer retention matters more than customer acquisition.
In other words, your goal as an entrepreneur who sells digital products should be to create more products and convince your existing customer base to buy them. That’s how true wealth becomes possible.
Why Are Digital Products Preferable to Physical Products?
You might wonder why you would offer digital products instead of creating your own physical product. After all, physical products dominated commerce for hundreds of thousands of years.
Digital products have many advantages over their physical counterparts, especially for the entrepreneur who sells them.
Inventory never becomes an issue (either in surplus or deficit).
You don’t have to find a place to store your products.
Customers can, in most cases, receive the product immediately upon purchase.
There aren’t any costs related to materials or assembly.
This isn’t to say that you can slap together any digital product and generate a fortune. The product still needs to offer incredible value if you want your customers to return.
You can funnel the time and money you save on creating digital products into making new products available to your customers. Spend your money and time on marketing and advertising as well as branding.
How Can You Market Digital Products More Effectively?
Marketing digital products isn’t much different from marketing physical ones. You have to define your audience, target them with brand-appropriate messages, and keep the lines of communication open.
The main difference is that explaining the need for a digital product sometimes proves more difficult than illustrating the benefits of a physical product.
If you need laundry detergent, for instance, you go to the supermarket or a big box store. You scan the shelves, find your favorite brand, and take the detergent to the checkout counter.
That’s something you need if you want to wear clean clothes.
The Most Profitable Digital Products To Sell Online
Now that we’ve covered some of the definitions and obstacles, let’s jump into the opportunities. After all, you probably want to generate as much cash as possible from your online business, so you’ll want to sell the most profitable digital products.
We’ve identified 17 options, many of which you can create and sell directly from the Kajabi platform.
Resist the urge to try to create them all. It’s tempting, but it will spread you too thin. Start with a single product — one that will resonate with your target audience and provide them with maximum value.
Once you’ve established your flagship product, you can branch out. At some point, you might be able to hire staff members to help handle administrative work while you focus exclusively on the creative process.
Without further ado, let’s look at this list of digital products and explore how they might be able to help you grow your business.
1. Courses
We’re obviously big fans of online courses here at Kajabi. In fact, courses are the primary way by which our Kajai Heroes generate income.
An online course is just like an in-classroom course except that you teach online via text, video, and audio assets. Your customers learn via distinctive modules based on the name of the course and the material you want to convey.
Customers can take your course in their own time without having to worry about meeting deadlines or stressing themselves out. Plus, you can create courses of different sizes and at different price points.
Some of our customers have created dozens of courses, while others stick to one flagship course. It’s entirely up to you. Plus, down the line, you can create other digital products that complement your courses.
2. E-books
E-books are growing in popularity month over month. In 2015, more than 220 e-books flew off virtual shelves, and experts predict that e-books will eventually take over physical books in terms of sales.
You can write an e-book on any topic you like. The best news is that, once you complete the product, you don’t have to do any further work — other than marketing, of course. It allows you to earn passive income over months and years.
As the entrepreneur, you decide on the e-book’s length and content. You can either self-publish it on your Kajabi website or seek a traditional publisher.
If you already have customers who have bought your online courses and other digital products, you can introduce them to your e-book. You have a built-in pipeline of potential customers.
Some entrepreneurs also create e-book series. They sell them individually and in bundles, which gives them the opportunity to upsell. You could also cross-sell them with your online courses.
3. Photography
Since millions of people publish content on the web every day, there’s a constant demand for unique photography. Stock photo sites, such as Fotalia and iStockphoto, buy images from creators just like you.
Alternatively, you might want to sell your photographs from your own websites. Many fine art photographers take this route so they don’t have to share their profits with established marketplaces.
A great way to get people excited about your photography is to post your images on sites like Flickr and Instagram. These platforms allow you to retain all rights to your photos, which protects your intellectual property while exposing you to potential customers.
Keep in mind that you can sell photographs in many different ways:
Digital files only
Small prints
Large canvases
Novelty products (such as mugs and T-shirts) with your images on them
The sky’s the limit if you’re a shutterbug.
4. Music
Major labels no longer control what music makes it into the headphones of your average consumer. Indie musicians can make excellent livings by selling their creations by themselves.
Musician and singer Amanda Palmer, for example, launched what was, at the time, the most successful crowdsourcing campaign in history to fund her next album. Since then, she has relied only on grassroots marketing to sell her band’s music.
You can record your own music, then make it for sale anywhere you wish. The freedom to explore your own musical talent and to retain creative control over your output can be freeing as a creative.
Furthermore, you don’t have to worry about dealing with bureaucratic red tape. Instead, you can focus exclusively on your music.
Since you no longer need to produce a physical product, such a CD, you can make your music available exclusively as digital files. People can then listen to them on MP3 players, their computers, and other devices.
5. Web Elements
There’s a huge demand for web elements in today’s economy. For instance, many people earn six or seven figures by selling WordPress themes.
Premium web design templates create passive income because you only have to create the theme once. You might have to update it from time to time because of changes to the content management system (CMS), but that’s far less work than creating a whole new product from scratch.
Additionally, you can create as many web themes as you want. The more you provide, the more customers you can potentially convert.
Other web elements can also prove popular in the marketplace. You might sell thematic elements for a web design, such as navigational buttons, header images, font combination suggestions, social sharing buttons, and more. If you’re creative and artistic, there’s no limit to what you can create and sell.
6. Research and Data
Conducting one’s own research and data can absorb considerable time. Some people don’t want to expend that energy to gather data in one convenient place.
That’s where you come in. Selling data — such as information about your industry or the results of your own studies — can prove massively popular. People who buy that data can then use it to inform their own businesses.
7. Tutorials and Guides
It’s true that many people post free tutorials and guides online. However, if you can create one that’s longer, more in-depth, and of higher quality, go ahead and sell it as a digital product.
We live in a DIY culture. People want to learn how to do things themselves. They’d rather save their cash than pay somebody else.
Plus, consumers want to learn everything they can about subjects that interest them. Documentaries and similar forms of television remain extremely popular for their educational value.
In terms of format, you can create a tutorial or guide however you wish. Some Knowledge Commerce professionals prefer to create videos, while others are better with text or audio. You decide.
8. Software Programs
If you’re a computer whiz, creating a new piece of software might launch you into the stratosphere in terms of potential revenue. People love software because it inevitably cures a pain point.
From productivity and web insights to designing and drawing, lots of software programs have stood the test of time. They remain popular because their core audiences are loyal fans.
These days, many software programs are sold as subscriptions instead of licenses. In other words, your customers pay a nominal monthly fee to use your software. As long as they pay, they retain access.
In many ways, the subscription model offers better revenue potential than licensing. If you sell licenses, you get paid just once. The customer never has to give you another dime. However, you can decide what payment model makes the most sense for your business and wallet.
9. Recipes
Cookbooks are among the best-selling books of all time. People are always looking for fresh takes on their favorite recipes, and many consumers want to explore cuisine from around the world.
Sure, you can find recipes for free online, but there’s a reason people pay for actual cookbooks. It’s assumed that a paid product offers better quality and higher value.
If you’re a chef — amateur or professional — you could put together a cookbook with your best recipes. Consider grouping them based on a specific theme, such as comfort food or recipes from a specific country or city.
A theme makes the book more marketable and therefore more likely to gain traction in the market.
Of course, cookbooks aren’t the only way to release recipes. You could create an app or subscription service that delivers recipes to subscribers. Think outside the box to create a unique digital product that will get everyone talking.
10. Apps
Speaking of apps, it’s possible that mobile applications have become even more popular than software packages. However, they’re essentially the same thing — just one a different platform.
For instance, people used to play games installed via CD-ROM on their computers. Today, they can play similar games on their phones or tablets via an app.
Some apps involve a small charge, while others are so-called “freemium” releases, which means that you can include in-app purchases for people who want more features, benefits, or information.
You don’t even need technical skills to develop an app. You can hire a freelance developer to help execute your idea and pay a flat fee. Many entrepreneurs take this route.
There are also software program that make creating a simple app fairly easy. However, if the app doesn’t offer much in the way of features, it will become a hard sell for savvy consumers.
11. Podcasts
Most podcasts are free. Entrepreneurs and creatives use them to promote their brands, products, or services.
However, you can also create a subscription-based podcast that offers more features, in-depth guidance, and more. There are numerous ways to do this.
For instance, you could create a subscription-based podcast for which people pay you directly. It would work just like a traditional membership site except that the content is exclusively audio.
You could also take the freemium route. People can listen for free, but if they pay, they get bonus features, extra audio, and other incentives. For example, many creatives use services like Patreon to fund their podcasts and other creations.
12. Printables
As mentioned above, digital products don’t always have to remain virtual. Printables have become a popular commodity for crafters and for people who like to stay organized.
You might create printable agendas, schedules, planners, artwork, scrapbooking assets, or something else entirely. You just need an idea for which someone would be willing to pay.
Just package the printables like you would any other digital product. You deliver the package when the customer pays.
13. Swipe Files
A swipe file is a document that contains valuable assets for a particular goal, hobby, or job. For instance, writers often keep swipe files filled with examples of good copy they might want to emulate in the future.
However, swipe files can contain anything you want. If you’re an artist, you could create a swipe file full of icons and other graphics your customers might use on their websites, marketing assets, or other deliverables.
You could also create a swipe file filled with research, data points, checklists, and more. Crafty professionals might sell swipe files with DIY projects, while parenting experts could sell swipe files with indoor activities for children of various ages.
The possibilities are limitless. The important thing is to make sure the information in your swipe file is truly premium. In other words, it should be regurgitated content from your blog or contain information people could find freely on the web.
14. Templates and Calculators
Similar to tutorials and guides, templates and calculators have become increasingly popular. People want the easiest way to get from Point A to Point B.
Templates could be for anything from interior design to music composition, while calculators might help people determine the ideal interest rate for a mortgage or the best combinations of investments.
You can get creative with these types of assets, but make sure they offer more than the free examples available on the Internet. Your template or calculator should be so sophisticated that you wouldn’t dare give it away for free.
15. Patterns
If you’re the crafty sort, creating your own patterns for cross-stitching, knitting, crocheting, watercoloring, and more can help you assemble a salable digital product. People are always looking for fresh, new patterns with which to create and decorate their homes.
16. Graphic Arts Bundles
Most people don’t know how to create their own graphics, icons, and other graphic assets. They rely on free or premium products for those needs.
The DIY and commercial market converge in this case. Entrepreneurs like you want to build their own websites, but they need attractive assets with which to populate their designs.
Of course, it’s not all just about web design. A creative might use someone else’s graphic assets to design T-shirts and other consumer products. They don’t know how to create the actual art, but they can arrange a pleasing design for sale.
Companies like DesignCuts offer bundles at a significant discount and from multiple creatives. People can buy lots of premium products at a low rate, which benefits both the consumer and the seller.
You can also sell graphic arts bundles on your own. You might do a mix of different types of graphics or create a bundle for each type. Potential assets could include the following:
Backgrounds
Textures
Clipart
Woodcuts
Fonts
Overlays
Stencils
Shapes
The list goes on.
17. Coaching Packages
We mentioned before that the commercial marketplace has changed over the last few years. Products and services aren’t as carefully delineated as they were 20 years ago.
You might have noticed that you can now order clothing, sunglasses, and even razors as a service. You subscribe to the service and you receive your deliveries at set intervals.
However, you can also sell services as a package deal. As part of your Knowledge Commerce business, you could offer coaching packages to supplement your income and to create more intimate relationships with your customers.
For instance, let’s say that you teach people how to be better leaders. You’ve created online courses, e-books, and other digital products, but many of your customers would like one-on-one tutoring.
To respond to that need, you create a coaching package. For $300, you’ll spend 30 minutes on the phone with your customers once a week for one month. Of course, you’d adjust the numbers to your liking.
It’s a digital product because you’re selling it as a bundle. It’s also a service because you’re working with your customers one-on-one.
You don’t have to live near one another. You could set up email, telephone, or Skype consultations with your customers. It’s never been easier to accrue customers from the other side of the world.
Once you have a product to sell, you have to find a place to sell it. This can depend on what kind of product you make. For example, you’ll likely want to sell a digital book or audiobook on a platform geared for that like Amazon or Audible.
We always recommend having your own site to sell digital products in addition to third-party marketplaces. That way, you have more direct control over the relationship with your customers. You can also often avoid the hefty service fee that many platforms solve.
Sure, you could set up a website on your own and create the backend needed to offer online courses, membership sites, and other digital products. Creating such a setup would take hundreds of hours of work — and that’s if you have the skills necessary to do it. You can also lean on an all-in-one business platform like Kajabi, as it makes it simple to have a business around digital products.
I had my fair share in designing and building large systems. I’ve taken part in rewriting Uber’s distributed payment systems, designing and shipping Skype on Xbox One and open-sourcing RIBs, Uber’s mobile architecture framework.
All of these systems had thorough designs, going through multiple iterations and had lots of whiteboarding and discussion. The designs then boiled down to a design document that was circulated for more feedback before we started building.
All of these systems were large at scale: hundreds of developers build them – or on top of them – and they power systems used by millions of people per day. They were also not just greenfield projects. The payments system rewrite had to replace two, existing payments systems, used by tens of systems and dozens of teams, all without having any business impact. Rewriting the Uber app was a project that a few hundred engineers worked simultaneously on, porting existing functionality to a new architecture.
Second, there were no architects on the teams that owned the design. No IT architects or enterprise architects. True, neither Uber nor Skype/Microsoft have hands-off software architect positions. Engineers at higher levels, like staff engineers, are expected to still regularly code. For all the projects, we did have experienced engineers involved. However, no one person owned the architecture or design. While these experienced developers drove the design process, even the most junior team members were involved, often challenging decisions and offering other alternatives to discuss.
Third, we had practically no references to the common architecture patterns and other jargon referenced in common software architecture literature, such as Martin Fowler’s architecture guide. No mentions of microservices, serverless architecture, application boundaries, event-driven architecture, and the lot. Some of these did come up during brainstormings. However, there was no need to reference them in the design documents themselves.
Software design at tech companies and startups
So how did we get things done? And why did we not follow approaches suggested by well-known software architecture approaches?
I’ve had this discussion with peer engineers working at other tech companies, FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google), as well as at smaller startups. Most teams and projects – however large or small – all shared a similar approach to design and implementation:
Start with the business problem. What are we trying to solve? What product are we trying to build and why? How can we measure success?
Brainstorm the approach. Get together with the team and through multiple sessions, figure out what solution will work. Keep these brainstormings small. Start at a high level, going down to lower levels.
Whiteboard your approach. Get the team together and have a person draw up the approach the team is converging to. You should be able to explain the architecture of your system/app on a whiteboard clearly, starting at the high-level, diving deeper as needed. If you have trouble with this explanation or it’s not clear enough, there’s more work required on the details.
Write it up via simple documentation with simple diagrams based on what you explained on the whiteboard. Keep jargon to the minimum: you want even junior engineers to understand what it’s about. Write it using clear and easy to follow language. At Uber, we use an RFC-like document with a basic template.
Talk about tradeoffs and alternatives. Good software design and good architecture are all about making the right tradeoffs. No design choice is good or bad by itself: it all depends on the context and the goals. Is your architecture split into different services? Mention why you decided against going with one large service, that might have some other benefits, like more straightforward and quicker deployment. Did you choose to extend a service or module with new functionality? Weigh the option of building a separate service or module instead, and what the pros and cons of that approach would be.
Circulate the design document within the team/organization and get feedback. At Uber, we used to send out all our software design documents to all engineers, until there were around 2,000 of us. Now that we’re larger, we still distribute them very widely, but we’ve started balancing the signal/noise ratio more. Encourage people asking questions and offering alternatives. Be pragmatic in setting sensible time limits to discuss the feedback and incorporate it, where it’s needed. Straightforward feedback can be quickly addressed on the spot, while more detailed feedback might be quicker to settle in-person.
Why was our approach different from what is commonly referred to in software architecture literature? Actually, our approach is not that different in principle, to most architecture guides. Almost all guides suggest starting with the business problem and outlining solutions and tradeoffs: which is also what we do. What we don’t do is use many of the more complex tools that many architects or architecture books advocate for. We document the design as simple as we can, using the most straightforward tools: tools like Google Docs or Office365.
I assume that the main difference in our approach boils down to engineering culture at these companies. High autonomy and little hierarchy is a trait tech companies and startups share: something that is sometimes less true for more traditional companies. This is also a reason these places do a lot more “common sense-based design” over process-driven design, with stricter rules.
I know of banks and automotive companies where developers are actively discouraged from making any architecture decisions without going up the chain, getting signoff from architects a few levels up, who are overseeing several teams. This becomes a slower process, and architects can get overwhelmed with many requests. So these architects create more formal documents, in hopes of making the system more clear, using much more of the tools the common literature describes. These documents also reinforce a top-down approach, as it is more intimidating for an engineer, who is not an architect, to question or challenge the decisions that have already been documented using formal methods, that they are not that well-versed in. So they usually don’t do so. To be fair, these same companies often want to optimize for developers to be more as exchangeable resources, allowing them to re-allocate people to work on a different project, on short notice. It should be no surprise that different tools work better in different environments.
Simple, jargonless software design over architecture patterns
The goal of designing a system should be simplicity. The simpler the system, the simpler it is to understand, the simpler it is to find issues with it and the simpler it is to implement it. The more clear language it is described in, the more accessible that design is. Avoid using jargon that is not understood by every member of the team: the least experienced person should be able to understand things equally clearly.
Clean design is similar to clean code: it’s easy to read and easy to comprehend. There are many great ways to write clean code. However, you will rarely hear anyone suggesting to start with applying the Gang of four design patterns to your code. Clean code starts with things like single responsibility, clear naming, and easy to understand conventions. These principles equally apply to clear architecture.
So what is the role of architecture patterns? I see them similarly in usefulness as coding design patterns. They can give you ideas on how to improve your code or architecture. For coding patterns, I notice a singleton pattern when I see one, and I raise my eyebrow and dig deeper when I see a class that acts as a facade, only doing call-throughs. But I’ve yet to think “this calls for an abstract factory pattern“. In fact, it took me a lot of time to understand what this pattern does and had my “aha!” moment, after working with a lot of dependency injection – one of the few areas, where this pattern is actually pretty common and useful. I’ll also admit that although I spent a lot of time reading and comprehending the Gang of four design patterns, they’ve had far less impact on becoming a better coder than the feedback I’ve gotten from other engineers on my code.
Similarly, knowing about common architecture patterns is a good thing: it helps shorten discussions with people, who understand them the same way as you do. But architecture patterns are not the goal, and they won’t substitute for simpler system designs. When designing a system, you might find yourself having accidentally applied a well-known pattern: and this is a good thing. Later, you can reference your approach easier. But the last thing you want to do is taking one or more architecture pattern, using it as a hammer, looking for nails to use it on.
Architecture patterns were born after engineers observed how similar design choices were made in some cases, and those design choices were implemented similarly. These choices were then named, written down, and extensively talked about. Architecture patterns are tools that came after the solution was solved, in hopes of making the lives of others easier. As an engineer, your goal should be more about solving solutions and learning through them rather than picking a shiny architecture pattern, in hopes that that will solve your problem.
Getting better at designing systems
I’ve heard many people ask for tips on becoming better in architecting and designing systems. Several experienced people will recommend reading up on architecture patterns and reading books on software architecture. While I definitely do recommend reading – especially books, as they provide a lot more depth than a short post – I have a few suggestions, that are all more hands-on than just reading.
Pull over a teammate and whiteboard your design approach. Draw up what you are working on and why you are doing things. Make sure they understand. And when they do, ask for their feedback.
Write up your design in a simple document and share it with your team, asking for feedback. No matter how simple or complex thing you’re working on, may that be a smaller refactor or a large project, summarize this. Do it in a way that makes sense to you and a way that others can understand – for inspiration, here’s how I’ve seen it done at Uber. Share it with your team in a format that allows commenting, like Google Docs, Office365, or others. Ask people to add their thoughts and questions.
Design it two different ways and contrast the two designs. When most people design an architecture, they go with one approach: the one popping in their head. However, architecture is not black-and-white. Come up with a second design that could also work. Contrast the two, explaining why one is better than the other. List the second design briefly as an alternative considered, arguing why it was decided against.
Be explicit about tradeoffs you make, why you made them, and what things you have optimized for. Be clear about constraints that exist and you’ve had to take into account.
Review other’s designs. Do it better. Assuming you have a culture, where people share their designs via whiteboarding and sessions or documents, get more out of these reviews. During a review, most people only try to take things in, becoming one-way observers. Instead, ask clarifying questions for parts that are not clear. Ask them about other alternatives they’ve considered. Ask them what tradeoffs they’ve taken and what constraints they’ve assumed. Play devil’s advocate and suggest another, possibly simpler alternative – even if it’s not a better one – asking them their thoughts on your suggestion. Even though you’ve not thought as much about the design as the person presenting it, you can still add a lot of value and learn more.
The best software design is simple and easy to understand. The next time you’re starting a new project, instead of thinking, “How will I architect this system, what battle-tested patterns should I use and what formal methodology should I document it with?”, think “How can I come up with the simplest possible design, in a way that’s easy for anyone to understand?”.
Software architecture best practices, enterprise architecture patterns, and formalized ways to describe systems are all tools that are useful to know of and might come in handy one day. But when designing systems, start simple and stay as simple as you can. Try to avoid the complexity that more complex architecture and formal tools inherently introduce.
Contrary to what many people think, graphic design isn’t a dying industry. Looking closely, however, it’s easy to see why some people would believe so. From the field being saturated to the advent of free and user-friendly graphic design software, it’s clear why some have given up on graphic design.
Is graphic design dead? The answer is a resounding NO. Recent studies conducted by IBISWorld show that in 2019 alone, the industry generated a revenue of $15 billion with an annual growth rate of 3.5%. It is expected to grow further at a rate of 2.7% to become a $14.8 billion-dollar-strong industry.
Penji is a living proof that graphic design is alive and kicking. We’ve helped thousands of businesses with all their graphic design needs. If you’re still in doubt, read on to learn why graphic design isn’t dead and is here to stay.
Why Some People Think Graphic Design is Dead
It may come as a surprise to you that there are people who think that graphic design is already dead. Especially for the graphic designers themselves who have experienced tight competition, it’s understandably so. As long as there is access to cheap computers and free design software, fake graphic designers will proliferate. It is sometimes overtaking the jobs of qualified ones.
Also, websites that offer to create a logo for you for just five dollars, and other similar gimmicks, give the impression that graphic design is dead. With these channels, you’re sure to get cheap graphic design, nothing else. For your business to stand out, a generic logo or website from a template just won’t cut it.
A few business owners are also to blame for graphic design’s perceived death. Some entrepreneurs think that graphic design is a one-time thing. After the website, logo, and letterhead have been designed, it’s time to let go of the designer. Later, we’ll discuss why this shouldn’t be the case.
Why Companies Hire Graphic Designers
Any seasoned entrepreneur can tell you that graphic design is an essential part of business. But factors such as limited finances can make these business owners forego their graphic designers. And some think that after establishing their brand identities, there is no longer a need for a designer.
Graphic designing for your business is a continuous endeavor; here’s why:
Consistent Brand Identity
Your brand identity is your main point of communication with your customers. Entrusting the continuity of the scheme to someone who doesn’t understand graphic design can be a significant blunder. Your visual identification deserves to keep its integrity, and only a professional can help you achieve this.
Cleveland Cavaliers hired an external graphic designer for their fan engagement platform. The brand identity, as you can see from the photo below, shows that it remained intact and recognizable.
Create smart, effective campaigns efficientlyMeet your conversion goals using visuals that stand outI need this!‹›
Become an Inspiration
Great design inspires. Your customers, as well as employees, can benefit from this graphic design advantage. Excellent visual design can attract customers and encourage your employees to promote your brand.
Provide Adaptability
A good graphic designer can prepare your business for the ever-changing digital world. Technology is continually changing, and your brand has to keep up. Good design can ensure that your website and other design materials can be viewed on multiple devices and platforms.
The Firefox logo had been through many redesigns in its history. This image shows the transition from detailed design to something more streamlined. The logo was simplified to fit beyond the normal website browser.
Gain Fresh Perspectives
Graphic design can also become stagnant, and a professional designer can help maintain the freshness. You’ll gain new perspectives from someone outside of your business and provide you insights you may have never seen before. A good graphic designer will work with you to create new ideas that will keep your business on its feet.
Creativity Will Love On
Advancements in technology will make us think that AI will replace most of the work humans do. This may be so, but specific industries that require creativity will never succumb. You may have the most exciting website in your niche, but without innovation and creativity, soon enough, it’ll become boring and stale.
Stand Out From the Competition
A professional graphic designer can help you stand out from the crowd. The WordPress templates shown below serve a purpose, and sometimes you’ll find a website design gem through a template. But don’t be surprised if you see some other websites to have that similar look as yours. Your company is unique, and its overall design should show how one-of-a-kind you are.
Saves You Time and Money
Business owners have a lot on their hands. If you leave the design work to a qualified graphic designer, you’ll be free from the burden of getting the design right. You’ll have more time and energy to focus on what matters most in your business.
Why Graphic Design Will Never Die
Every aspect of your business will always require graphic design. And not just a one-size-fits-all plan, but a quality graphic design that’s uniquely yours. Whether it’s your website, promotional paraphernalia, corporate branding, web and print design, it has to include graphic design as an essential component.
In this fast-paced world we live in, is graphic design dead? Not only is it alive and well, but it’s also here to stay for good. Graphic designers are integral parts of a business and will contribute to a company’s success. Graphic design has become an indispensable asset and investment for a business.
How to Get the Most from Graphic Design
Great graphic design is a business investment that will reap lots of benefits for your company. If you think that finding the right graphic designer is a difficult task, Penji can help you. We have vetted designers that can provide you with all the graphic design you’ll need.
For a monthly fixed price of as low as $369, you can have all the design, plus all the revisions you need. We’ll always make sure that you get the designs you love.
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