What is Design Thinking?

In the world of technology and design there is a phrase that is often thrown around and seen to be an important trait of creatives and this term is Design Thinking. But what is design thinking and is it something you need to put into practice in order to run your online business? In this blog post we'll take a look at what defines design thinking and what it can do for your business.

Design thinking is a 5 step thought cycle that leads to critical analysis and problem solving

Design thinking is an approach to problem-solving that focuses on understanding users' needs and experiences in order to create innovative and effective solutions. In the context of online businesses, design thinking can be a valuable tool for creating products and services that meet the needs of customers and stand out from competitors.

The Phases of The Design Thinking Approach

Design thinking typically involves several phases, including empathy, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Here's how each of these phases might apply to an online business:

1. Empathy: In this phase, the online business seeks to understand the needs, wants, and pain points of its target customers. This might involve conducting user research, analyzing customer feedback, or simply observing how people interact with similar products or services.

2. Define: Based on the insights gathered in the empathy phase, the online business can define the problem it is trying to solve or the opportunity it is trying to seize. This might involve framing the problem as a "How Might We" question or creating a problem statement that captures the essence of the challenge.

3. Ideate: With a clear problem statement in mind, the online business can then generate a wide range of ideas for how to address the challenge. This might involve brainstorming sessions, ideation workshops, or other techniques for generating creative solutions.

4. Prototype: From the ideas generated in the ideation phase, the online business can then create low-fidelity prototypes to test with users. These might be simple wireframes, mockups, or other types of prototypes that allow the business to quickly iterate and refine its ideas.

5. Test: Finally, the online business can test its prototypes with users to gather feedback and refine its ideas. This might involve user testing sessions, surveys, or other methods for gathering feedback from customers.

At the heart of these phases is the customer/ user. By always approaching your problem solving from a user-centric point of view you are more likely to create solutions that enhance your businesses success in the market. Ultimately, design thinking can be a powerful tool for online businesses to create products and services that are truly customer-focused and stand out from the competition. By putting the user at the center of the design process, online businesses can create experiences that truly meet customers' needs and expectations.

In their blog post Creately demonstrates how these phases can be visualised in a practical way using various types of diagrams and flowcharts. If you are interested in learning more about how to practically map out your design thinking process I recommend you take a look at this blog post for some inspiration. (this is not a sponsored link - I just liked their post).

Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. Involving five phases—Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test—it is most useful to tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown. - Interaction Design Organisation

How to learn Design Thinking methods:

There are many resources available for people who want to learn more about design thinking. Here are a few options:

1. Online courses: There are many online courses that cover design thinking, including both free and paid options. Some popular platforms for online courses include Coursera, edX, and Udemy.

2. Books: There are many books that cover design thinking, including popular titles like "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman, "Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value" by Thomas Lockwood, and "Change by Design" by Tim Brown.

3. Workshops and training programs: Many design agencies and consulting firms offer workshops and training programs that cover design thinking. These programs are often tailored to specific industries or business needs.

4. Design thinking organizations: There are many organizations that promote and support design thinking, including the Design Management Institute, the Interaction Design Foundation, and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford.

5. Online resources: There are many online resources available for learning about design thinking, including blogs, videos, and podcasts. Some popular options include IDEO's Design Thinking for Educators toolkit, the Stanford d.school's Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking, and the Creative Confidence podcast by IDEO U.

There are many ways to learn about design thinking, and the best approach will depend on your individual learning style and needs.

Put simply, design thinking helps website owners create user-centric websites that meet the needs of their customers and stand out from competitors, resulting in better business outcomes. Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) famously said:

"The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer.Our goal is to be earth's most customer-centric company." - Jeff Bezos

If you think about how you run your business, do you believe you utilise this thought methodology in your decision making or ideating process? Is this something that you believe you are good at or something you'd hire out to a consultant? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Colour and Web Design and where the two meet

My passion for design and the way it speaks to our emotional selves is huge part of what informs my work. Design is made of many constituent parts, but one of the most impactful and immediately obvious is colour.

Colour is an instinctive stimulus that excites the most innate and ancient parts of our psyche and subconscious

Colour plays a crucial role in web design as it can impact the user's perception of a website, affect their emotions, and influence their behavior. A well-chosen color palette can help a business to create a brand identity, evoke certain feelings and emotions, and convey important messages.

Think about brands that want you to BUY NOW - they are all red... Coca-Cola, KFC, Mcdonalds - they use RED to stimulate that part of your brain that says "ACT NOW HUMAN! The fruit is ripe, the emotions are high, the energy is present". In contrast brands that use the colour blue want you to feel relaxed, like an ancient human might have felt while lying on their backs staring into the sky on a warm and peaceful day. Brands that use the colour green wants to convey a sense of wealth and abundance and so they choose a colour that is associated with the end of winter and the arrival of new life and fruitful gains. This is why fast food brands use red, financial advisors and investment funds often use green and banks and insurance companies love to the colour blue.

The psychological impacts of colours on the human mind are a well documented phenomenon and the use of colour in brand design is often informed by these theories.

When it comes to choosing the right color palette for a website, there are a few things that business owners should consider:

1. Brand Identity: The color palette should align with the brand identity of the business. If the business has a logo, the colors used in the logo should be incorporated into the website's color scheme. This will help to create a cohesive and recognizable brand identity.

2. Target Audience: The color palette should be chosen with the target audience in mind. Different colors can evoke different emotions and have different cultural meanings. For example, if the business is targeting a younger audience, brighter and more vibrant colors may be more effective, whereas a more subdued palette may be more appropriate for a more mature audience.

3. Contrast: The color palette should have good contrast to ensure that text is legible and the website is easy to navigate. Colors that are too similar can be difficult to distinguish, leading to a poor user experience.

4. Accessibility: It's important to choose colors that are accessible for all users, including those with color blindness or other visual impairments. This can be achieved by using color contrast tools or by using colors that are widely recognized as being accessible.

5. Trends: While it's important to stay up to date with current design trends, it's also important to choose a color palette that will stand the test of time. A website that is too trendy may quickly become outdated and need to be updated, which can be costly and time-consuming.

These days colours and colour palettes go through waves of changes as trends evolve and develop. From around 2014 to 2019 Gradients were all the rage online. All the hippest brands used colour gradients in their branding and on their websites. From 2020 to now we are seeing a influx of new generation using very vibrant, yet flat bold colours with a high contrast.

From 2014 to 2019 gradient designs were 'in". This trend corresponded with the development of updates to the CSS programming language which made these colours possible on websites using code.

Since 2019 we have seen an increasing number of sites using this kind "flat and bold" approach to colour palettes.

In summary, choosing the right color palette for a website involves considering the brand identity, target audience, contrast, accessibility, and trends. By carefully selecting a color palette that aligns with these factors, a business owner can create a website that is both visually appealing and effective at conveying their message to their target audience.

At Marshall Arts we are passionate about the use of colour (or the lack thereof!) in our work. As content marketers we are deeply rooted in our passion for design. I hope that this short article gave you some insights into the way that colour influences your customers impression of your brand and how choosing the right colors for your brand can affect the success of your website. Of course, this is a huge subject and we have only skimmed the surface of the conversation. Is there some element of colour that you'd like us to write about in future or perhaps is there a question that's on your mind now that you know what you know. Let us know your thoughts, questions and comments below and as always, if you enjoyed this post, why not subscribe to our site so that you can get first notice when we publish new insights and articles.

SEO v.s SEM: What is the difference between Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation

SEO and SEM are different strategies that both rely on Keyword Research and Content Creation

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are both important tactics used by online businesses to increase their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). At Marshall Arts we help our clients with both their SEO and their SEM strategies to ensure that they draw in business through both organic and paid methods. While SEM and SEO have many commonalities, they differ in their approach and the way they help businesses achieve their goals.

The main difference is that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is focused on optimizing a website in order to get traffic from organic search results. On the other hand, the goal of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is to get traffic and visibility from both organic and paid search. | Backlink.io

SEO In a nutshell:

SEO is the process of optimizing a website and its content to improve its visibility in organic search results. This involves a combination of on-page and off-page optimization techniques, such as keyword research, website structure optimization, content optimization, link building, and technical optimization. SEO is a long-term strategy that takes time and effort to see results, but it can provide sustainable benefits for your business.

SEM in a nutshell:

SEM, on the other hand, is a paid advertising model that involves bidding on keywords and placing ads in search engine results pages. These ads typically appear at the top or bottom of the SERPs and are marked as "sponsored" or "ad." SEM can provide quick results and help businesses get in front of their target audience right away, but it can also be more expensive than SEO in the long run.

Commonalities between SEO and SEM:

While Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are different strategies for improving a website's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), they do share some commonalities:

1. Keyword Research: Both SEM and SEO require keyword research to determine the most relevant and valuable keywords to target in search results. By understanding the keywords that potential customers are searching for, businesses can optimize their content and ads to target those specific keywords.

2. Quality Content: Both SEM and SEO require high-quality content that is relevant, informative, and engaging. This includes on-page content such as product descriptions, blog posts, and landing pages, as well as ad copy for SEM campaigns.

3. User Experience: Both SEM and SEO require a focus on providing a positive user experience. This includes website speed, ease of navigation, mobile-friendliness, and other factors that impact how users engage with a website or ad.

4. Analytics: Both SEM and SEO require the use of analytics tools to track and measure the effectiveness of the strategies. This includes monitoring website traffic, engagement metrics, conversion rates, and other key performance indicators to make data-driven decisions.

Overall, both SEM and SEO require a strategic approach that takes into account a range of factors to improve a website's visibility in search results and attract more targeted traffic.

Check out this great article by the folks at AHRefs - they are a top notch resource for everything related to SEO and SEM. This hubspot article has some really great visual aids that make understanding the difference much easier.

Conclusion, SEO And SEM are different approaches to achieve the same thing

In summary, SEO and SEM are two different approaches to achieve the same goal of improving a business's visibility in search engine results. SEO is a long-term strategy that focuses on organic search results, while SEM is a paid advertising model that focuses on paid search results. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and the choice between the two depends on the business's goals, budget, and timeline.

Because they are so similar, the effort that you put in on the one can pay off on the other. At Marshall Arts we recommend to all of our clients to put time and effort into their SEO, while we only recommend SEM strategies to some. If you are ready to start thinking about your SEO strategy take a look at this article we wrote titled: Getting Started With SEO For your Website .

If you would like to discuss your SEO strategy with us and even hire us to develop and execute a strategy for your business, click here to book a call with us.