Post on 10-Nov-2014
description
The New era of Intelligent
Visuals on Social media
and User Experience
Design
Social Media –
Man is a social animal. Man lives in groups which create society, the members of society are functionally
related to each other and no one can exist without society. The essential qualities of human nature such
as the capacity to acquire knowledge, to learn language, enquire and think; respect and regard, play,
and work, help and the like are developed in society only. These capacities are revealed through social
interaction.
Internet and social media has provided us broader multi cultural, multinational and multi lingual
platform to interact, share our ideas and emotions with each other. It’s a new way to create larger
groups and gives us an option to stay connected day and night online with our groups through computer
or mobile from anywhere in the world which helps us to decide which product we are going to buy or
where should we go for entertainment etc. We all take opinions from our group members before taking
such decisions. It has huge impact on all kinds of businesses today. At the same time we can calculate
customer’s behavior in various ways first time in our history. We use this data to improve our product
and to increase customer satisfaction in order to create more profits in businesses. Social is a way of
thinking to build businesses around people.
People are increasingly likely to find out about products and brands from their friends rather than from
your business. It means that it is much harder to control how people first come to experience your
messages. Today we share our views and beliefs of our customs and society globally. We know each
other better than ever, emotionally we are one step closer to flat world. We have come to know that we
have great visionaries who think about whole planet, sustainable growth and profits.
Mapping your brand’s social graph is a must in businesses today, social media intelligence helps us to
promote our product in different groups which helps us understand how people in different groups
perceive things, think, react to certain comments and chose products.
A mascot used for the site naukri.com on facebook page of naukri (Info Edge India Limited)
Intelligent Visuals-
Earlier we only had brand ambassadors who used to promote our product through advertisements. Now
online world has given us the human like virtual mascot who is a unique virtual character representing
our vision as a company and expresses our product’s usage to everyone in a unique manner everywhere
on social media networks. We can give him a name and image we want to give and make him do or say
anything in our way on basis of our marketing strategy on a very low price. People love the way they talk
and think and share ideas. He becomes friend of users he not only promotes our product but talks to
them as well and people actually like him. Even if they are not using the product they know it exist
through him. We can make him look cute, trendy and modern and can change his mood also. We can
make him stand anywhere we want him to having our product in his hand or he can have just a thought
provoking warm friendly conversation with users to add light humor in their life. Users love to share him
with their friends in other groups as well which highlight the product to a larger segment of users as we
know that one person’s group members have their individual groups on social network sites which has
different set of users and sharing idea in one group can spread to other groups via its members and
hence it can become talk of the town. He does conversation on weekly basis or daily basis with the users
and asks them to share their thoughts also on certain topic in friendly manner. It stimulates their mind
and engages them with the nature of the product or things related to the product.
An article used for the site naukri.com on facebook page of naukri (Info Edge India Limited)
Face book is our social platform to stay in touch with all our friends, family members etc on daily basis.
We can daily share our ideas and communicate with user about the product we have i.e. job related
articles in case of naukri.com. It engages user with the site and he gets update about the industry. Social
web page let’s him share his thoughts also with us. It’s a great platform to check the social image of the
product and to measure user likes and thought about it up to some level. We can upload images related
to the product and services we have to have daily interaction with the user.
A video used for the site naukri.com on naukri (Info Edge India Limited)
These virtual agents will become more friends with us and human like as they will start talking to us in
future through our machine to stimulate dialogue with us in order to advise us and enable our
transactions. Advertisements through animation and videos are not new but now supported worldwide
by new generation devices like smart phones and tablets in online media.
Mobile sites-
Mobile site for the site naukri.com on naukri (Info Edge India Limited)
Mobile is a very handy device which we carry everywhere and mobile sites have made internet also
handy. We can search, apply for jobs, shop, chat, promote products, send photos, videos etc. on mobile
applications and mobile sites on a very low cost. We can take opinions of our loved ones before buying
any product. Responsive websites are made in the framework which enables it to get uploaded on multi
devices.
Mobile site for the site naukri.com on naukri (Info Edge India Limited)
Html 5 is giving high growth to web Apps. Mobile internet users are increasing rapidly, cloud computing
will drive mobile computing this year. People are switching over to tablets from heavy desk tops and
laptops. Tablets and smart phones are loaded with new Apps and support latest technologies which
tempt the tech savvy new generation to use these products. The price of these devices are much lower
than the Desk tops and laptops.
The homepage of the site Naukrigulf.com (Info Edge India Limited)
Design-
Design is what our product looks like, feels like and works like as a whole. Design is a process of doing
our work beautifully by keeping everything in mind in detail. This entire thought process creates an
environment which connects various people of various fields together to create a product. The idea and
the feeling which helps the development of the product decide how user is going to feel while using this
product. It does not mean that the good environment will result the best product but giving respect to
user’s requirement along with the Crossover of Business, Design and Technology has huge impact on the
success of the product. Crossing over of business, technology & design creates a new strategic business
discipline. We cannot solve anybody’s problem without giving importance to his point of view; we
cannot sell any product only by enhancing its beauty unless we have paid equal attention to how it’s
going to assist the user in terms of providing him the best solution on reasonable cost as compared to
other options available in the market. No doubt when we add beauty in some product it increases its
face value. Beauty with brains works the best. We all are very emotional people and we want everything
we have in our life to look beautiful, for example we want our home to look beautiful, our workplace to
look beautiful, and our environment cozy, comfortable and beautiful. Beauty makes things look pleasant
and soothing to eyes and mind. Same way we want our product also to look beautiful, one likes to show
his beautifully designed website to everyone in place of not so beautifully designed but user friendly
website to someone. It increases our happiness and excites our emotions that we have created
something beautiful and that encourages us to show it to everyone. It’s difficult to like very intelligent
but dirty looking product. Nobody wants to highlight or notice such things so it’s not wise to under
estimate the power of aesthetics.
Naukri fast forward services homepage for the site naukri.com on naukri (Info Edge India Limited)
User experience-
User Experience is making the user’s journey smooth, result oriented, delightful and memorable while
using the product. Today the goal of user is not only just to buy a product or service but he wants to
analyze which product or services suits him the best. We have all kinds of products and services
available from all across the globe in huge variety online today that it gives various options to user such
as different price ranges depending on the resources available in any particular country which helps him
compare and choose the best deal for him. Content writing, technical content writing, smooth and
secure transaction services, online chat and helpline no. plays a major role to helps him understand and
compare the products. Free shipping saves his commuting cost to buy a product. Communication is the
lifeline of this process. If proper and effective communication is not happening between departments
the end product will never be able to meet the requirement of the user so as the stakeholder.
We can’t only keep measuring how smoothly the user is using our product or website but we have to
measure other available options in the market also in that very field in order to analyze how to make our
product more usable and salable. It’s about understanding if the options available in the market are
meeting the demands of the user in various ways or not. Communicating the gap between the demand
and supply of the requirement of the user and services available to meet those requirements is also the
job of User Experience designer. A joint meeting with the stake holder, technology department, user
experience expert, designer and the user is part of the development cycle of product in many companies
today. UX department is not just a department, it’s a culture meaning when it’s working effectively it
changes the culture in the company. Understanding what exactly user wants to solve and providing him
the best solution in current scenario which can work for him determines the success of the product.
Involving him right from the beginning helps everyone understands his point of view and his level of
understanding which helps the organization understands practically how to build solution around his
demands. User’s feedback after using the product and services determines whether he would like to use
it again or not or recommend it to other people in his group or not. The word of mouth plays an
important role in portraying the personality of the product in the market. If the first impression of the
product is not pleasant than the journey ahead will be full of useless hurdles or a cost to the company.
Answering the queries to deal with this confusion arises with someone’s bad feedback on websites or in
front of the users is time consuming and tedious task. Breaking the bad image which has been created
by the word of mouth of the users is tough task.
Innovation –
Innovation happens when we bridge people, ideas and information to communicate creative solutions
for better results. Creativity is about seeing solutions that others haven’t seen yet. Without innovative
ideas we cannot grow or evolve in anything. Change is inevitable that’s why every product has its life
cycle, after that every professional or organization has to update their skills or product to meet the
market demands. Mobile phones, computers and operating systems keep updating and keep adding
new feature in their products as per market demands every year. The behavior of user is constantly
changing, after some time they demand new solutions to simplify their lives. They are open to spend
money and time to find out the best solution to ease their lives. Innovation helps us to think out of the
box and encourages us to try new things to see different perspective of things. User experience
designer’s work is to understand what user wants in place of what he is saying because most of the time
he is confused he does not know how to solve his problem. Making his journey smooth and fulfilling is
user expert’s job. User expert’s biggest role is to bridge multiple people of different background and
their multicultural ideas from different departments to create the best possible solution for the user and
for the organization based on mutual understanding and benefits.
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The content and visuals are from Info Edge India Limited and any use of the content and images is prohibited. Written by Preeti
chopra, priiti_chopra@hotmail.com, 2013.