In marketing, data is power. Surveys of marketers across industries suggest that brands of all shapes and sizes have hopped on the big data bandwagon. The Direct Marketing Association found that 84 percent of respondents plan to increase spending in data-driven marketing for 2015.

Just the same, an InfoGroup survey found that brands rely on a number of different sources to collect and analyze this data. All of these activities are done in the name of improving customer experience with the type of marketing content and information that compels conversions and appeals to new customers.

Data is important, but it’s not just having all of this information that makes data-driven marketing successful. There are several important steps marketers must take to ensure they reach the outcomes they want within their budgets. Here are four steps any marketer can take to turn data into actionable insights that directly improve customer experience.

Conduct interviews to fill in the gaps

Quantitative data is great to determine which strategies work and where a brand needs to see improvement. However, no statistic can explain why a campaign succeeded better than the customer who made the decision to convert, whether that meant a purchase or a simple request for more information. Reaching out to customers and asking them what drove them to act will provide context to  quantitative metrics.

It’s important to conduct a few interviews from each customer segment using your product, too. What worked for one customer may not have been as effective for another. Understanding data and trends mean collecting information from a sizable sample of your target audience.

When conducting interviews, the goal is to get to know the different user groups. By looking at usage and behavior data in a third-party analytics tool, such as Preact, you can identify specific user groups and analyze the product features used most. If the goal is to improve the overall product, you need information from different categories. Alternately, if the goal is specifically to optimize a certain feature, you can subset user categories.

In both cases, you can send out either a survey via Survey Monkey or Tech Validate, or an email asking if recipients are interested in having a conversation. You’d be surprised how many people want to talk to you, and they often have great feedback and advice about what’s working and what needs improvement.

Examine usage data to assess customer experience

Segmentation and personalization are all the rage in Web marketing. Big data helps companies understand different portions of their target audience and identify the best content for that group based on what made similar customers convert. This process can always improve, though. What attracts a young millennial to your product may be different from what attracts a Gen-Xer or Baby Boomer.

Consider who you are trying to attract. Are all of these groups satisfied with their experiences? Are they similarly engaged with your product? The ways different website visitors interacted with certain content and how it moved them through the conversion funnel will highlight what is working and what can improve.

Preact can also track event data, such as how know many times a customer has clicked on a certain button or viewed a page. It collects contact and professional information, which helps to determine customer segments. You can also keep track of formal customer complaints with tools such as Zendesk, which can help uncover bugs quickly via Zendesk tickets.

Identify stagnant customers to bring them back

Sometimes a strategy doesn’t yield the expected ROI, or it doesn’t keep customers coming back to a brand. When someone converts once or twice but then doesn’t return, there may be an opportunity to capture that customer again with a better understanding of the conversion paths he took.

Again, look at your quantitative data to hypothesize what could be happening, conduct experiments and hold interviews. Once there’s a clear pattern for why these customers aren’t returning, solve the problem in your product, and then reach out to past customers with new information to get them back onboard.

To conduct experiments, consider using Optimizely, a tool that allows you to change the wording, placement of buttons, text and more, essentially creating multiple versions of the same Web page. Wording can have a big impact on a prospect’s decision, so it helps to write a couple versions of your Web page and compare. Optimizely will expose randomly selected customers to each page and keep track of how each performs.

Analyze acquisition data to assess progress

The introduction to the conversion funnel is the type of information some brands can end up neglecting. There’s so much content coming out of a marketing team, marketers might forget to think about what’s working and what isn’t.

The first point of exposure a customer has to a company can be the most important, so it’s always a good idea to determine which channels are really working to attract new or repeat customers. The results may come as a bit of a surprise, and it’s a great way to redirect time and effort to more effective channels.

Analytics tools, such as KISSmetrics, track acquisition channels and allow you to see how many customers are coming from places like Google or paid advertisements, and if they’re converting. If you continue to track customers from various channels over time, you can see which channels are performing best.

Google Analytics is a good, free alternative to track these measurements. Most bloggers and smaller companies start with Google Analytics and then subscribe to a more robust third-party tool once they have some cash in the bank.

The more data a marketer has to make decisions for a brand, the better. It can’t just be about the raw quantitative analysis, though. There are insights that must come from that information to ensure it brings tangible benefits to a company.

Sometimes, finding those answers will take a bit of digging. Investigate the true meaning behind every piece of information, and you’ll see all that data really start to prove its value.

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How about a Star Wars Droid that projects a Virtual keyboard on any surface, you gonna love it if you are a Star Wars Fan

This little Star Wars Droid is pretty awesome, well it can project a keyboard on any surface and connects with almost any device or OS (iOS, Android, Mac, Windows PC) with its powerful Bluetooth connectivity.

Built by Japanese electronics brand imp, the gadget throws a qwerty keyboard on flat surface and emits the original voice of R2-Q5 when in use.

The limited edition R2-Q5 Star Wars Droid projector will be available on Star Wars day May 4th, and will cost around £176.

Another Version R2-D2 is a little bit cheaper and comes with a very rare difference in functionality

Interested, Pre-Order from Amazon Japan

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Mysterious alien cell towers called ‘Interceptors’ snooping on US citizens pinpointed

All of the mysterious cell phone towers in the U.S. can now be pinpointed and most of them dont belong to US government says Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America. He made this observations while launching a real-time service called Overwatch to pinpoint these interceptors.

Goldsmith said that ESD America was the only company which had systems in place to locate these private spy towers. The towers are called IMSI catchers, for the International Mobile Subscriber Identity that is attached to every cell phone. They mimic legitimate cell towers and reroute nearby cell transmissions through them. But they’re not phone company equipment. ESD said it discovered the IMSI catchers in the course of testing the company’s military-grade secure Cryptophone 500 cell phone.

ESD found 17 towers initially across the US and now the figure had jumped up to 54. Goldsmith said that the interceptors could be a listening/call-handling box. Surprisingly ESD discovered more than a dozen interceptors near the U.S. Senate and White House.

While it was speculated that these interceptors belonged to NSA and its sister agencies, Goldsmith is quick to rubbish this possibility. He says NSA has enough muscle to directly tap into the phone calls instead of erecting these innocuous towers.

Asked about whether these Interceptors were made in the United States, “We believe a majority of them are non-U.S. government,” he told VentureBeat “Looking at the types, the sophistication, [there are]more foreign than domestic.” The largest percentage uses open source OpenBTS, he said, suggesting they are laptop devices used by a hobbyist.

“If you are U.S. [government], you use U.S.-made,” he said, because it is reliable technology. He added that U.S. technology for IMSI catchers shouldn’t be exportable, under International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

ESD says it will offer its new interceptor-catching service only to the U.S. government, and to other governments “strictly allied” with the U.S. When it was pointed out to Goldsmith that the ESD website promoting the new service doesn’t mention that, he told me it would be added.

“We want the government to be able to catch” those setting up these towers, he said. If the U.S. and friendly governments don’t want the service, Goldsmith said, “we won’t supply it.” Goldsmith states that at least 14 foreign governments have evinced interest in the ESD’s services.

The interceptor hunting is conducted with ESD-built, briefcase-sized sensing devices that the company deploys in an area. The tech sets up a “firewall” that monitors connections to cell towers from ESD devices. Goldsmith said the service doesn’t monitor individual messages.

Goldsmith said that these interceptors can be detected with Samsung Galaxy S3, S4, or S5 smartphones which have to be modified to detect and report back the interceptors’ locations. Cryptophones can also detect the IMSI catchers, but they are not designed to report back the data.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced an investigation into the unauthorized use of IMSI catchers.

Resource : VentureBeat.

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A class of people are happy, a few are neutral and some of them are angry with the way it has been going on in the country. In this latest video message, hacktivist group Anonymous has targeted US President Barack Obama for his imperial style of Presidency. Anonymous said in the video:

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious

Anonymous has targeted Obama administration for various issues. They said:

The controversial bills that have been Passed and actions like defending the wall street banks like Bank of America and other commercial banks and credit card companies. Helping banks rather than helping home owners with their debts,  not Reducing debts from main street instead of wall street are some of the actions that have created quite a stir among the citizens. Make no mistake about it: this is not about national security. 

Hactivist group Anonymous didn’t stop there and continued to lash out the American government:

Warrantless wire tapping and other access are eroding the civil liberty. People are witnessing slow and steady takeover of their true freedom. The government taking over banks, insurance companies, car companies!! Telling them what cars to drive. And now taking control over health care. American people are forced to do something they do not want to do. Government should not be in control, people should. Obama administration may subvert the constitution. Total power in one person’s hand is not the American way. People are now not believing in the government and its agenda. There is only one option left: just be true to the people. 

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In today’s world of infinite-scrolling websites and touch devices, you must understand interaction design in order to create user experiences that feel fluid and life-like.

As described in Interaction Design Best Practices Vol. 1, interaction design requires mastery of multiple UX disciplines — which makes sense, since it’s not easy to make a system of objects feel friendly, learnable, and useful.

Let’s start by defining IxD, breaking down the core principles, and explaining a 5-step process to better interaction design.

The 5 Pillars of Interaction Design

Good interaction design is driven by a human connection. But what drives human connection and how does that translate into a computerized interface? The answers to these questions aren’t so black-and-white. In our experience, we’ve found that success depends on the perfect execution of UX fundamentals.

1. Goal-driven Design

Even if you’re not personally conducting user research, you still need to know how to build the insights into the design.

 Source: MailChimp Personas

We’ve found these UX processes help you empathize with users as people made of flesh and blood:

1. Personas — Personas are fictional characters created from the behaviors and psychologies of your target users. Personas come in handy as a reference when making crucial design decisions, for example, “What kind of checkout process would Sally the Seasonal Shopper prefer?”

2. User Scenarios — Related to personas, user scenarios explain how the personas act when using the site. For example, “It’s Black Friday, and Sally the Seasonal Shopper has a long list of presents to buy online before work.” User scenarios force you to explore the context in which the persona interacts with your product.

Source: Detailed Experience Map

3. Experience Maps — Going one step further from user scenarios, experience maps chronicle all the conditions surrounding a single interaction, including emotion and external circumstances. “Angry that her skiing trip ended in a broken leg, Sally the Seasonal Shopper must do her Christmas shopping as quickly as possible.”

These three techniques create a complete picture of the experience: the user, the scenario, and the entire emotional journey.

2. Usability

Usability is the bare minimum for design. If your audience can’t use the product, they certainly won’t desire it. Let’s look at EventBrite’s seat designer.

This online app lets event organizers create a reserved-seating event from start to finish with a high level of detail (such as determining rows, tables, and a dance floor, if needed). It consolidates a multi-step, multi-program process into a single linear path.

Source: EventBrite Seating Designer

Like Eventbrite, a system’s usability must be effortless. The less attention the user pays to figuring out the system, the more they can accomplish the task at hand.

3. Affordances & Signifiers

The concept of affordances is that a function must speak for itself, and suggest its own use (i.e. a road affords walking). Signifiers hint at the affordance (i.e. the road’s flat surface signals you to walk with your feet).

Affordances in Design

Without signifiers, users can’t perceive the affordance.

Source: Affordances in Design

In the above example, you can see the progression of button design. The first stage lacks any signifiers and looks just like standard text, while the third stage resembles a button with its rounded edges and gradient.

Source: Affordances in Design

Signifiers also work as metaphors, because people also need to know whythey would interact with something, not just if it’s possible. In the above iPhone dock example, you can see how the rounded edges let us know that we can interact with the buttons, while the metaphorical images (phones, envelope, musical note) communicate the purpose.

4. Learnability

In an ideal world, a user remembers every function after a single use. Reality is much different. Familiarity and intuition must be designed into every interface.

Successful interaction design boils down complexity by creating consistencyand predictability. For example, don’t make some links open in a new tab while others redirect the user. Likewise, don’t use a lightbox for some images while others open in a new tab.

Consistency creates predictability, which improves learnability.

Source: Consistency As the Key to Better UX

A common tactic for improving learnability is using UI patterns. Many sites and apps already use these patterns so the user is familiar (plus the pattern is consistent), and you’re still allowed plenty of creativity to customize the design elements for your site.

Source: Breadcrumb Navigation in Website Design: Outdated or Trending?

For example, breadcrumbs are a common web pattern for helping users navigate. It doesn’t matter what site you’re on, if you see breadcrumbs, you understand how they work. This familiarity lends itself to a product’s learnability. When products are learnable, it encourages people to use those products, which naturally improves usability.

5. Feedback & Response Time

Feedback is the heart of interaction. Since every interaction is a conversation between your user and product, your product better be friendly, interesting, and helpful.

Source: Applied Interaction Design

Whether an elaborate animation, a beautiful micro-interaction, or a simplebeep, your product must communicate if the task was or was not accomplished (and what to do next).

In the below example from Hootsuite, the owl simply “goes to sleep” after a long period of user inactivity, which makes sense since the app pulls in data from Twitter (and doesn’t want to overload the API). The feedback is intelligent and fun, and actually turns a possibly negative experience (stopping updates) into a positive one.

Source: Emotionally Intelligent Interaction Design

Another key factor in feedback is response time. The best response times areas immediate as possible. Imagine how infuriating it would be if you were playing a guitar, and every note came seconds after strumming.

5-Step Process for Improving Interactions

Now that you know the fundamentals, we’ll describe a process we’ve found helpful to nailing the details.

Source: IXDA Columbus

As notable interaction designer Stephen P. Anderson advises, it can be eye-opening to have someone pretend to be your interface while you interact with them as a user. You’ll be able to hear out loud any awkward responses from the interface, which will help you avoid creating robotic interactions that feel inhumane. Once you’re done with the role play, you can start scripting the narrative and restructuring interaction.

Here’s the process:

Roleplay the interaction — Grab two people, one to act as the interface and the other to take notes. Make a browser window prop to be held by the interface person and show the interface on a projector. Then, start a dialog with you as the user explaining their goal, and the “interface” limiting their responses only to labels, menus, and anything else on the UI. Check out thisvideo and transcript to see how it plays out.

Source: Interaction Design Roleplay & Micromoments

Map out the narrative — Document each step of the experience, including tasks and emotions. As discussed in The Guide to UX Design Documentation, this can be as simple as a few user scenarios or as complex as a 4-stage experience map.

Source: Anatomy of an Experience Map

Simplify the steps — Users sometimes have goals that require many steps (buying a car online, booking airline tickets). As recommended in The Guide to Prototyping, your interface must be able to separate a complex goal into simple steps (like asking for a destination, then a departure/arrival date, etc). For example, Virgin America’s stepped form design make the booking process feel much easier than it is.

 

Source: Web UI Patterns 2014

Limit user choices — This is probably the hardest step, but you must minimize the actions available to users. Always ask yourself if all the choices are critical for that moment in time. If not, separate it for another conversation.

Pay attention to micromoments — A micromoment is when a person might hesitate, advance, or stop when engaging with interfaces. If you look back to the role-playing exercise, you’ll remember the moments of apprehension. To clarify the conversation, take advantage of microcopy and UI patterns like contextual actions and selection-dependent inputs (which we discuss in Web UI Patterns 2014).

Just like a magician’s trick will fail if the details are off, just one bad interaction can ruin the entire user experience. The process we described above will help you approach interaction design as a conversation rather than just a way of animating interfaces.

If you’d like more inspiration and examples of good interaction design, this Quora thread includes great sources ranging from films to websites likeCore77 and PatternTap.

Closing

Interaction design isn’t about how interfaces behave, it’s about adapting technology based on how people behave. You must know your target users like and expect, functionally and emotionally. Based on the technological constraints, you must then design the product for desirability.

The best interaction design is barely there: your product responds promptly, doesn’t require much thought, and works like a good magic trick.

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Comparing Apple to Hitler for its closed and restrictive system, LeTV boss makes a pitch for his Android phones

Google’s Android operating system for smartphones and tablets started out as a viable alternative to the expensive, restrictive and closed iOS operating system from Apple. Over the years, Android has gained immense popularity and users with around 2 billion + smartphones and tablets running on it.

However a Chinese businessman and owner of Android smartphone manufacturing unit, LeTV did something very unnatural. He put up a ad campaign equating Apple to Hitler.

The ad which is meant to take a dig at restrictive and closeted Apple’s iOS operating system.

LeTV’s CEO, Jia Yueting posted an image that showed Hitler raising his hand on one end and a few kids on the other end. Apple’s logo is on Hitler’s dress, which symbolizes the comparison in a clear way.

Not that LeTV is popular, in fact it is yet to release any smartphone under its brand name. The ad campaign seems to an effort to rouse up sentiments and be in spotlight for a few days.

We surmise that this is not a very good campaign. Taking on world’s most innovative company when you dont have any product to offer is just not done.

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11:53 AM

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“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

“Anything you to do to stretch yourself out of your comfort zone will ultimately enable you to take larger risks and grow.”

I’m sure we’ve all read plenty of quotes and articles about the importance of escaping your comfort zone. I know I have. But for years, I’d always taken this type of advice with a pinch of salt. That was until I started my own business. Now, doing something new, frightening and out of my comfort zone is an almost daily experience.

“You’re up next, Ash.” I was sat in the crowd.

It was my turn to get up and pitch my startup to an audience of mentors, investors and founders. I was nervous.

Four minutes later, it was over. I walked back over to my seat in the crowd and felt amazing. Pushing myself into something uncomfortable and coming out the other side felt so rewarding.

What is a comfort zone?

Your comfort zone is an artificial mental boundary, which gives you a sense of security and feelings of , well, comfort. Within this artificial comfort zone, everything is routine, familiar and safe.

Inside our comfort zone we rarely seem pushed and rarely unlock our full potential or achieve what we’re capable of. Often, people will stay in a job or relationship just because of its familiarity, security and the fact that the unknown can seem extremely daunting. After all, why break a routine if it’s comfortable?

Though the comfort zone is an artificial boundary, there’s plenty of research and science to back its existence and effects on human performance.

Reaching optimal performance

Have you even been in a situation where the pressure has been on you? Maybe a presentation to your boss, investors or a potential client; a first date with someone you really want to impress or an impending deadline you see as impossible.

Just when you feel the last thing you need is a bit of anxiety or some last minute nerves, they kick in; you start to question yourself and fear the worst; What if I don’t finish this work in time? What if she doesn’t like me? It may feel like the end of the world is approaching, but actually, a little anxiety is a good thing.

Just outside of our comfort zone lays a space called ‘optimal anxiety’, it’s a sweet spot of human performance and place where we’re motivated to succeed.

Similar to an athlete who has just prepared and warmed up for a big game, optimal anxiety is the space where we are ready to perform at our best.

The theory that anxiety can aid performance is not something new, the idea goes back to at least 1908 when Robert Yerkes and John Dodson released a study showing that arousal (anxiety) increased performance. The study also shows that only certain levels of arousal are good for performance, too much has the opposite effect and is detrimental to performance.

Therefore, pushing ourselves too hard, too often can also create a notion that challenging ourselves is a negative thing and re-enforce our desire to stay within our comfort zone.

Why leave your comfort zone?

Your comfort zone isn’t a bad thing. It’s far from it. We all need a space where we can relax, feel at ease and comfortable. So, why should we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone from time to time?

You can achieve more

Sometimes a goal can seem out of reach and unachievable. Often this will put us off chasing the dream and we’ll settle for the mediocre (or what is achievable within our comfort zone).

As illustrated by this inforgraphic from Marcus Taylor, as we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone into optimal anxiety and our ‘growth zone’ challenges will become easier and our comfort zone expands.

Eventually, things that previously scared us will become part of our growth zone, then move into our comfort zone, thus helping us achieve more than we previously thought possible.

You’ll lead a more fulfilled life

Comfort can lead to laziness, and as we’ve already touched on stepping outside of our comfort zone can lead to heightened activity and optimal performance.

Comfort may feel good in the short term, but as Ran Zilca, explains on Psychology Today, sacrificing productivity for comfort may lead to regrets in the long run.

“We live in a society where comfort has become a value and a life goal. But comfort reduces our motivation for introducing important transformations in our lives. Sadly, being comfortable often prohibits us from chasing our dreams. Many of us are like lions in the zoo: well-fed but sit around passively stuck in a reactive rut.

Comfort equals boring shortsightedness, and a belief that things cannot change. Your comfort zone is your home base, a safe place not to stay in, but to return to, after each exhausting and exhilarating expedition through the wilderness of life. Take a look at your life today, if you are enjoying a shelter of comfort, break through it and go outside where life awaits.”

You’ll deal with change better

Sometimes we’re forced to leave our comfort without any choice. The more you push yourself to do things you wouldn’t normally do and experienced uncertainty in a controlled manner, the better you’ll be able to deal with un-expected situations as they arise.

You’ll be more creative

Pushing our boundaries, new experiences and learning new skills are great ways to inspire and educate ourselves. With new experiences and leanings behind us we can start to look at old problems in new ways and come up with new creative solutions.

4 ways step outside of your comfort zone

Whatever goal you’re trying to achieve — whether business or personal — there’s no doubt at some stage you’ll have to make a move that feels uncomfortable at some point.

There are plenty of ways to step outside of your comfort zone and extend your boundaries. Here are some ways you can do so to help yourself become more productive and escape whatever has been holding you back:

Change your daily routine

Most of us have a set daily routine, by making small changes to this we can push ourselves to step outside of our comfort zone. You don’t have to make huge changes, small subtle differences in your day-to-day routine can be enough to change your perspective.

If you run everyday, you could push yourself to go an extra mile tomorrow. If you get a coffee every morning before work, why not try a new flavour or get a fresh fruit juice instead.

If you’re tying to grow your business try pushing yourself to make one or two extra sales calls each day.

Think big, but take small steps

Maybe you want to start your own business, quit your day job to pursue your passions or hit your next big growth milestone. These may seem like unattainable goals, but if approached in small steps you can slowly push the boundaries of what you feel is possible.

As Lewis Howes explains in this Forbes article, “If your goal is to “start a business” — change it to “interview one business owner.” By taking an initial step outside your comfort zone will help you move towards your greater goal.

In my case, when I came up with the idea for my startup I took the smallest possible step to launching it and gradually kept taking small steps along the way to until I had a product to launch.

Look forward to the outcome, whatever happens

Fear of failure can be a big reason we stay within our comfort zones. If you want to achieve something go for it, if you dream of building a business, then give it a try.

Noah Kagan explains in his interview with Internet Marketing Party, “Roughly 86 percent of what we do fails. But eventually the 14 percent works, and that’s what everyone else sees.”

Leaving your comfort zone isn’t about getting something right first time, it’s about extending your horizons and allowing yourself to grow — no matter what the initial results may be.

Try new things

Over at Physcology Today, Alex Lickerman explains, “New things or a new way of thinking is often frightening. But if you think about it, most of the things we fear don’t actually come to pass. What’s more, we’re often unable to anticipate the good things that do occur as a result of our trying something new.”

Trying new things can be as simple as new foods or bigger things like travelling to new places, taking a new class or learning a new language. When it comes to building a business, leaving your comfort zone is essential. Almost everyday you’ll be pushed into new situations and unfamiliar surroundings.

What have you done that’s taken you outside of your comfort zone?

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11:52 AM

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