Well let's just acknowledge that the fundraiser is really the one creating 99% of the interaction experience - but your potential donor will see this product too. So first of all, we wrap the Waysact software in your branding. So we highlight and support the integrity and trustworthiness already inspired by your brand and your ethos so that our product just looks like an extension of your branding collateral. The product is designed to legitimise an interaction, and to make that interaction a happy one. Good design often creates an instinctive endorsement, before logical conclusions can prove the point. In those first few seconds when a potential donor talks to a fundraiser, the first impressions that they form are crucial, and weâve always believed that something just *beautifully* designed can make that a positive experience. And good design backed by clever technology also gives the interaction a âprofessionalâ feeling, which someone scribbling details down on paper just canât impart.
First impressions really count for the staff who have to use the admin side of the product as well. When we train new staff, we have found they warm to the product, because of its design and layout. (And sure, the little monsters help - what a change from endless black and white columns! Why canât work be fun?). As a company we are extremely keen to keep up the positive feeling - and we are always building new features to keep our power users satisfied. Because we have a design framework, when we add new features, they seem to show up in places that feel natural. As the staff become power users, our investment in design helps them do common tasks rapidly and efficiently; our design approach allows us to âstackâ functionality features that they need in places that seem logical and reasonable, but donât get in the way when you are learning the software. This is a really different approach from many software products that seem more and more bloated with unnecessary features, and sluggish to respond. We think that design and design frameworks makes sure that your 500th impression of the product is still a warm one.
Getting software to feel like an intuitive experience, and to create and sustain great first impressions relies on more than just dusty and theoretical principles of good design. A core part of our design strategy is user-centric iterative design. So we build new sections for the product in response to our users' needs, and then tweak them in an iterative way to get them right. When we start creating these new sections, we start by asking a few simple questions - âWhatâs the problem weâre trying to solve todayâ and then, âWhatâs the common scenario?â, and then âWhereâs my coffee?â
At this point, what I really want to hear is a story about my super user, âKimâ, and I want to hear about her problem in the context of what sheâs trying to achieve. Then I try and work with her to define how sheâd like to experience the same process. Then we go away and draft up a few concepts in paper, and then iterate them until we are ready to code them up and test them. Youâd be surprised at how simple this approach is, and yet how often it doesnât happen. Many companies start with a coder having go at creating something useful to solve a half defined problem, thus leaving out analysis of the issue and the context, and forgoing imagining better user interaction. The results are often poor. âSolve first, ask questions afterwardsâ isnât the best way to build new software, despite how fast and simple it seems at the outset. We find taking a user centric approach means that we can build things properly that real people need, then iterate in small changes to make the new solutions sparkle.
Now, you canât talk about design at Waysact without mentioning the monsters. Colourful and plentiful? Yes! Useful and practical? Actually also yes, funnily enough. How did that happen? Simple - we read âDesigning for emotionâ by Aaron Walters, the Director of User Experience at MailChimp. Wait. Letâs go back a bit. We simply love MailChimp at Waysact. Itâs a beautiful, intuitive and extremely powerful product. More than 6 million people use MailChimp to design and send email marketing campaigns. Our road map includes integration with MailChimp, and already many of our clients use it independently to keep donors informed. But besides this, it's simply a beautiful product to use, and itâs just a bit different because not only is it powerful and almost foolproof, it feels⌠delightful. Using MailChimp makes you feel just a tiny bit happier. Having worked with it we thought Walters probably knew a thing or two about interface design.
One of Walters' core ideas is that when designing interfaces for humans we must not only make our interfaces functional, reliable and useful - but we should go one step beyond - we should make our designs pleasurable and even extraordinary. One of the ways to achieve this is through emotional engagement with your users. âTo engage your audience emotionally, you must let your brandâs personality showâ, says Aaron Walters. So our monsters are a way of letting our personality show through. And people like that. In fact many businesses are moving a similar direction. ââŚthis honesty is creeping into the personalities we craft for our businesses, and our users are beginning to expect the websites and web applications they visit to reflect a personality that they can relate to.â We like being authentic, itâs an ethos that pervades the company, and when you talk to us, thatâs what youâll hear.
So, really considered design contributes to the experience of using Waysact by creating great first impressions with both fundraisers and experienced charity staff. Great design means we can iteratively develop the software and add functionality that seems intuitive, consistent and logical for people who use it everyday, without creating âsoftware bloatâ. This really builds sustained positive feelings for our everyday users. And taking a design first approach means that we try and understand what out users need within the greater contexts of their common processes, which lets us imagine how things could be better. We try and speak authentically âŚÂ and we can rock a little three eyed green monster with 28 pink boots like nobody's business. The end result is that we think that our software delivers more value to the charities we so proudly work with, and they reward us with loyalty, satisfaction and constant feedback.
