Last week in Melbourne, something special happened: there was a conference of 200+ Shopify Partners: an event called Shopify Pursuit. Naadei Atafu, lead designer at Zyber Ltd, had the honour of speaking in front of Shopify-focused designers, developers, and business owners, to educate them about DDD.
What’s DDD? You might think it stands for Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane, but in this case, it means Data-Driven Design.
It’s an old practice of web designers to identify and emulate trends, often using design sites like Dribbble or Awwwards. There’s nothing wrong with an aesthetics-driven approach (ADA, if you will), in fact it usually results in a very beautiful website.
But Data-Driven Design ensures tangible business results, and thus is a superior method of web design. Naadei’s goal at Shopify Pursuit was to educate fellow agencies about the best way for them to get results.
When Naadei DDD’s a website, she starts with Data Analysis– looking at information from Google Analytics, Surveys, Heat Maps, User Testing, and Split Testing to determine how visitors use a website.
Once the data has told its story, she often finds that only a few small changes are needed to improve the website’s performance. ADA sells you a new car, DDD checks to see if all you need is an engine tune-up. If ADA is a heart transplant, DDD is a low-fat diet.
A few weeks after the changes are made, Naadei checks up on them to see if they were effective. This allows a continuous feedback loop, until the website has reached a state of optimization. Only with Data-Driven Design can your website be as productive as possible.
DDD is not without its drawbacks. The data needs to be translated, so clients can see the value of the proposed changes. This is why Zyber has a dedicated Client Relationship Manager (hi, Josh!) in charge of helping clients understand the importance of the changes we make to their site.
Does this mean Zyber now makes ugly websites? No. Aesthetics will always have a role in web design, but with DDD, it’s all about FFF: Form Following Function.
With this simple precept, we’ve had an 80% reduction in design revisions, and a 65% increase in businesses signing up with us. And you could be a part of that! Email us at sales@zyber.co.nz to discuss how DDD will turn your business into AAA- Absurdly Affluent Arbitrage!
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