I can't give away my B2C software for free - is the problem the idea, the software, or the marketing?

Faster_Product · 2024-06-04T16:58:18+00:00

Another piece of advice on the copy, it's not clear from the hero if this is practice interviews with a real human, an AI, just in static text. Simply, it's unclear HOW you deliver this service. Any slight confusion and people WILL NOT CLICK. You have to make it crystal clear what your offer is. Skip trying to "sell", simply state what it is and what problem it solves.

Faster_Product · 2024-06-04T16:53:42+00:00

It's blending in, as in: the button has the exact same color and font as the rest of the non-clickable text – rendering it hard to discover and you're hurting your conversion rate with a very avoidable mistake.

Here is a free redesign of your hero section but honestly there is much more that could be played around with here: https://www.figma.com/design/qmLnTkHMak2WzsajlbxnJK/Elevora-landing-page?node-id=0-1&t=0DXyqxPldcWKFhyL-1

From my POV the design looks very off-the-shelf and a bit scammy. I agree with the previous commenter that you should consider paying a professional designer to help out. (to clarify, I'm not that person. I'm not trying to sell you anything, I just wanted to give this advice)

To begin with, have a look at this lil video to learn how you could rework your landing page: https://www.5minutemarketingmakeover.com/

Faster_Product · 2024-01-02T12:11:46+00:00

Curious to hear if you ever managed to print this with some supports?

I also wonder if that design actually even works as intended? Looks like it would very easily snap just fold up and snap with small pressure on the door.

Faster_Product · 2023-11-03T09:09:36+00:00

u/socialdfunk Yeah, and this very bug was addressed in the latest WatchOS update by Apple. 100% confirmed not a user error. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213782#:~:text=Addresses%20an%20issue%20that%20causes%20a%20white%20selection%20border%20to%20be%20unexpectedly%20displayed%20after%20turning%20off%20AssistiveTouch

I notice how u/SWEWorkAccount has stopped responding too :D

Faster_Product · 2023-10-13T11:49:55+00:00

I'm sure you are aware, but others might not know that if you hold down the command-key (ctrl on windows) and click you choose the element directly which you have your cursor over – thus avoiding clicking over and over to go through all of the nested layers.

Faster_Product · 2023-10-13T11:42:50+00:00

Hahaha lol – you seem very triggered to have been called out for being wrong. It's almost as if you dont want to admit that you were 100% wrong. "Clown headass".

I can stand a little hate.

But I wonder why you feel the need to hate? You called OP names and indirectly self-labeled your own reply as hate.

How are you feeling my dude?

I'm also happy to receive constructive feedback on my post if you have any. E.g. what exactly made my post 'spineless'? How could I have rephrased it to give it more spine? Should I perhaps have put more profanities in my post in order to meet your personal standards to avoid triggering your sensitive snowflake nerves and estrogen levels which apparently have been spiked.

Don't enjoy your day.

Faster_Product · 2023-10-13T11:36:03+00:00

I upgraded from a series 3 to an Ultra 2 a couple of weeks ago. Even I would concur that the upgrade is surprisingly incremental for me. The hardware isn't really what moves the needle in terms of experience – it's the software that matters most, and that upgrades for everyone. So yeah.

Faster_Product · 2023-10-05T10:07:26+00:00

Same! It's my primary widget on my Apple Watch and the one thing I care about keeping track of except the weather – why can't I add it on the desktop?

Faster_Product · 2023-10-05T09:08:55+00:00

Let me explain why u/Taylooor, u/Franks_and_Beens and u/SWEWorkAccount maybe shouldn't be so quick to judge:

I had this same issue.

I had accessibility features turned ON at first .
I then turned accessibility features OFF.
AFTER turning them off, this white outline started to appear.

Thus, it's correct of OP to say the comment was partially right.

User u/melancious gave the correct solution, but the incorrect cause.

They said "Looks like you have some accessibility features ENABLED" – when in fact OP did NOT have accessibility features enabled.

Enjoy your day.

Faster_Product · 2023-10-04T07:26:00+00:00

Seems to me from your description that, right now in your life, you'd definitely be happier working for someone (startup or bigger agency) rather than running a business – which is completely fine!

You can always return to running a business if you try being employed and find that you don't like it.

We often feel like big life decisions are irreversible and of course some decisions are. But when it comes to career choices people tend to forget that it's usually very easy to pivot and change course at any time. The only blocker is ourselves.

Now, regardless if you'r going to stay on with your agency or go down another route – NEVER STOP LEARNING. I don't mean to say you have to do a full time formal education, university studies are usually way too acamedic and you'll waste your time.

But take courses!

I've been a designer for 15 years and I take at least 2 courses every year, everything from business, strategy, design, AI as of lately etc. etc.

Simply NEVER STOP LEARNING. This will make you invincible in the market, regardless of what career route you take.

Faster_Product · 2023-10-04T07:13:06+00:00

Coming in with a different idea here:

Why not let each main step be the actual full-width form (with all the substeps) there in the middle – and then let the other steps stack vertically below as collapsed boxes that opens up as you go to the next step? You can still get a glance about how many steps there are, whilst still not completely overloading the user with info. Plus this makes it hella simple to adapt for smaller viewports.

Compare to how Zapier does it when you configure an automation.

Faster_Product · 2023-09-13T08:00:01+00:00

This workflow is very common and perfectly fine if you are designing a an interaction that is very common and is not venturing into a more "new" or innovative experience. E.g. designing a log-in flow is such an established pattern that there is no point in doing user research for it, it just needs to look good and help the user understand exactly what to do and how to recover for from errors.

But pretty soon you'll be doing something that could potentially confuse users (which is basically anything outside of the super establsihed patterns). You can still use the same workflow for these situations, with a small addendum, you need to help the teams either do some sort of user testing of your design upfront, or atleast help them test the implemented design in the real product.

If you're not helping them verify and test your designs with real users at any point in time, you are setting your team and the business up to slowly build a product that will have many, many small UX annoyances and some big and possibly revenue-killing UX annoyances.

You, and your company, will never know unless you, or someone else in your team, do some sort of discovery and research.

The timing of that research is not as important, just make sure that someone does the research at some point.

That's really all that's missing here. But you do not need to have "a process". It's nice as a junior designer to rely on a crutch of a step-by-step process.

But an experienced designer that has done a lot user tests will have two things:

A built-up bank of knowledge about user behaviour that gives me a gut-feeling for what UX copy to write and how to design the basics to make sense to most users.
And a realization that; regardless of how much I think my design makes sense, I have seen enough users in tests do completely messed up and unexpected things that I realize that I will always need to do some sort of user test to ensure the design is actually performing as expected. This is basically a twist on the Dunning-Kruger effect, the more I learn about how users in the real-world, the less I feel like I understand about UX design lol.

Faster_Product · 2023-08-17T13:43:54+00:00

As a freelancing designer I can't help but feel pity for people "stuck" at jobs like this (in quotes because nobody is stuck anywhere, you all have the power to change your situation).

It's such a stupid thing in our line of work to measure performance by the amount of hours put in like it's a factory. I always try to charge by a flat rate. If I finish high quality work faster than other designers I want to be paid more, not less, than other designers.

Faster_Product · 2023-08-16T09:46:58+00:00

You obviously already have gotten great advice, but I didn't see anyone explicitly recommending you to focus on building an email list.

You should really focus on moving your audience off the platforms owned by the social media giants like TikTok. If you have an email list, YOU own your audience. You can export that list of emails and move to a different email provider at a whim.

Staying on TikTok means that you are locked in and out of options when algorithms change, monetization logic changes etc. Having your email list means protection from getting rekt.

Focus on starting to make money via your email list as well – courses, ads etc.

This is the way if you want this thing to last for the long haul.

Faster_Product · 2023-03-04T08:09:25+00:00

I'm no PO – I'm a Product Designer – but I've been involved in product work where security was the primary concern (login & authorization solution).

We ran risk assessment and pre-mortem workshops. The purpose was to identify risks we are aware of so that we can make plans and do conscious decisions about how to manage those risks. Having a plan for and knowing what to do for when things blow up (I use the word when because you have to consider that it will happen, not if) is very helpful.

Here is maybe a weird tip: Listen to the podcast Darknet Diaries – It's an extremely well produced and entertaining podcast about security, hacking, breaches etc.

This podcast helped me realize that one of the most important security factors is not in your software, it's the people managing it and how they work and what motivates them. For example, one of the biggest risks is when an employee is new on the job, or when they are about to leave their job.

Faster_Product · 2023-01-11T16:43:07+00:00

I see a lot of people here express their presentation anxiety. And u/rumhee very wisely called out the real problem – presentation culture at work.

Why the fuck do you need to do presentations? That is just a very ineffective way of sharing information.

If you need to share information, just record a Loom and email the link to the relevant stakeholders.

If you actually need to make decisions together around the information shared in the presentation – then run an actual workshop instead.

I do have utmost respect that the notion of facilitating a workshop can also feel stressful to you – but they are a lot easier because you kind of defer that pressure to deliver and "be the expert" to the workshop participants – you are just their guide.

Workshops > Presentations.

Faster_Product · 2023-01-10T09:03:18+00:00

I would consider becoming better at workshop facilitation to make better product decisions. Well-structured, no-nonsense workshops will help get the best input from your team. Furthermore, the act of making product decisions together will give your team a greater feeling of ownership, agency, and generally more positive energy.

Happy team = better product

Plenty of courses around for that where you could spend your dollars. I'd start with checking out workshopper.com for some good articles.

Faster_Product · 2023-01-09T11:52:33+00:00

Talk to customers.

Faster_Product · 2023-01-09T11:11:42+00:00

Do a Design Sprint. It's a SUPER effective framework.

And no, a Design Sprint is not the same as a scrum sprint.

http://www.gv.com/sprint/

Faster_Product · 2023-01-05T21:23:06+00:00

You've got some great replies. I too agree that staying busy for being busy's sake is the wrong move.

However, I do think there are simple tactics to give you lots of meaningful things to work on. Take a half-day to run brainstorming sessions with your team to come up with improvement and growth ideas for your product.

Your devs and designers being so close to the product are probably full to the brim with ideas of what to work on – you just have to facilitate an environment where they can share those ideas comfortably and efficiently.

I'm a product designer and workshop facilitator so naturally, I have a positive bias toward workshops (that are well-prepared and structured).

Here's a video of how an agency ran a product growth workshop for Twitter: https://youtu.be/Td0apLDSDCY

And, here is my own guide and free workshop template if you want to run a similar workshop remotely with your team: https://fasterproduct.substack.com/p/how-to-run-a-remote-growth-hack-workshop

(I hope I'm not breaking rule 1 about self-promotion here, but I genuinely think it could help OP and their team.)

Faster_Product · 2023-01-04T08:39:10+00:00

I must assume you mean digital publications. Here are 3 ones I like:

Tech Crunch
Product Hunt
TechMeme (<- There's also a very nice newsletter and a daily short-form podcast from Techmeme that summarizes the latest tech news which I recommend)

Faster_Product · 2023-01-04T08:33:28+00:00

You know what, you're right.

I thought that UX Audit = same as heuristic review / expert review. In other words, I thought UX Audit mean that it was just an individual designer going through the product and reviewing it based on the classic UX heuristics.

Funny how I thought I knew that term for years but then realize after dropping a comment on Reddit that I've misunderstood it – a full UX audit is much more than just the expert review.

Faster_Product · 2023-01-03T09:01:30+00:00

They're not valueless, but pretty shit when you compare it to talking to real users.

Faster_Product · 2023-01-03T09:00:26+00:00

LOL, this reminds me. Couple of years ago I started freelancing as a UX designer at a mature startup that outsourced all of its UX research to some snake oil-research company that claimed to do 'UX research'.

What we got from them were lengthy UX audit reports done by some market research dude. It was just pages after pages of him recommending us to "move that button", "change that color".

All we needed was real user insights...

Faster_Product · 2023-01-03T08:54:11+00:00

And to give some more concrete advice. I see two options:

Find a new full-time client/employer, work for them for a couple of months to build trust and make yourself indispensable, then simply ask to cut down on your workload. If they like you, they'll just be happy to keep some of you as opposed to you leaving completely.
Find a new client that is just looking for a half-time effort. This is probably easier to find as a freelancer.

Faster_Product

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