Too often we create brands, experiences, and content that sacrifice humanity on the altar of conversion optimization. In this session, we’ll explore how to make our products feel less like a business transaction and more like a conversation through human-oriented brand, marketing, and experience design.

1. Good evening,
WebVisions!
Meagan Fisher
@owltastic on twitter

2. Previous “Clients”

3. Previous “Clients”

4. “Become a beloved
business with loyal
customer advocates.”
The Goal of Service
Industry Companies

6. Trying to create
that “Potato
Patch” feeling

7. Show customers
they are welcomed,
supported, &
valued.

8. But… service is
so annoying.

9. Software
• Consistent
• Streamlined
• Efficient

10. Software
• Consistent
• Streamlined
• Efficient

11. Software
• Consistent
• Streamlined
• Efficient
• Mundane
• Forgettable
• Joyless

12. “Become a beloved
business with loyal
customer advocates.”
Online businesses

13. Show customers
they are welcomed,
supported, &
valued.

15. “We must be more than
user-centered, we must
be human-centered—to
know people first as
people, not as users or
customers or clients.
Our designs are
conceived from a deep
understanding of
humanity and with the
desire to help individuals
accomplish their goals.”
https://www.ibm.com/
design/language/
framework

16. Putting the humanity
back in software
• Have a welcoming personality.
• Put a face on your business.
• Speak like a human being.

17. Have a
welcoming
personality.

18. “Everything has a personality:
everything sends an emotional signal…
Even where this was not the intention of
the designer, the people who view the
website infer personalities and
experience emotions… Horrible
personalities instill horrid emotional
states in their users, usually unwittingly.”
Donald A. Norman, Emotional Design:
Why We Love or Hate Everyday Things

19. Accidentally
Horrible vs.
Beloved
Personalities

20. “The major dimensions of
personality are dominance
and friendliness… positive
emotions are associated
with a friendly demeanor…
while negative emotions
are associated with
unfriendliness.”

21. Dominant vs. Friendly
Angular Curved
LightHeavy
Aa High Contrast Aa Low Contrast
Dense Whitespace
Bold Regular
Uppercase Lowercase
abc abc
XYZ xyz

23. Yikes.

25. Personality in
online travel
booking
services.

28. Dominant vs. Friendly
•Angular vs. curved
•Heavy vs. light
•High contrast vs. low
•Caps vs. lowercase
•Bold vs. regular
•Dense vs. whitespace

31. Dominant vs. Friendly
•Angular vs. curved
•Heavy vs. light
•High contrast vs. low
•Caps vs. lowercase
•Bold vs. regular
•Dense vs. whitespace

33. Dominant vs. Friendly
•Angular vs. curved
•Heavy vs. light
•High contrast vs. low
•Caps vs. lowercase
•Bold vs. regular
•Dense vs. whitespace

34. “Our main philosophy is that we
want you to spend as little time
on our site as possible with the
least amount of pain.”
Steve Huffman, Hipmunk cofounder.
via Forbes, “Why Hipmunk Is The World's Best
Travel Site”

35. Does this design show
dominance or friendliness?
Is that what’s intended?
What is the user’s emotional
state? Does this design hurt
or help it?
Consider your
personality.

36. Put a face on your business.

37. “As we gaze at the world, we discover
ourselves looking back… This instinct
is guided by our primordial desire for
emotional connection with others. We
are hardwired to seek emotion in
human faces. For this reason… photos
of human faces in a design can
profoundly influence an audience.”
Aarron Walter. “Designing for Emotion.”

38. twitter.com/facespics

39. Friendly
faces
create
trust and
belonging.

44. Cute mascots
aren’t right for
every business.

45. “We want people to think of Dropbox as a place to
collaborate, and a big part of that is elevating the people
you connect with. One way we're doing that is thinking
about places we can surface user's faces on the web.”
Daniel Eden, dribbble.com/shots/1972358-Faceholder

49. You can start
small & keep
it simple.

50. Sprout, the
emotional
little video.

51. Speak like a
human being.

52. “How can we leverage
our content to identify,
target, and engage top
innovative
pinfluencers?”

53. cipsum.com

54. sansbullshitsans.com

55. “Publishing content that is self-
absorbed in substance or style
alienates readers… you might not see
the effects of narcissistic content right
away, but someone will eventually
come along and eat your lunch by
offering the exact same thing in a
user-centered way.”
Erin Kissane. “The Elements of Content Strategy.”

56. “Publishing content that is self-
absorbed in substance or style
alienates readers… you might not see
the effects of narcissistic content right
away, but someone will eventually
come along and eat your lunch by
offering the exact same thing in a
user-centered way.”
Erin Kissane. “The Elements of Content Strategy.”

58. This could
be any
business to
business
service!
✓ Take control of your
online channel
✓ Take advantage of
enterprise-class features
✓ Scale and grow your
business – now and into
the future
✓ Flexibility to meet your
unique needs

61. “Only NetSuite’s customer service
software gives everyone that
interfaces with the customer access
to complete, key customer data in
real time empowering them to
better support your customers
while driving upsell and cross-sell.”

62. what the hell.

65. Believe in
Something

71. “Words don’t always need to be
pressed into service for
functional needs; sometimes
they can be used simply to satisfy
our emotional needs. We’re
emotional creatures… bringing a
smile to your users’ faces can
make a world of difference.”

74. dribbble.com/mariusz

76. dribbble.com/
LumenBigott

77. “Let’s think of our designs not
as a facade for interaction, but
as people with whom our
audience can have an inspired
conversation. Products are
people too.”
Aaron Walter, “Designing for Emotion.”

78. Show people they are
welcome, supported,
& valued.
• Have a welcoming personality.
• Put a face on your business.
• Speak like a human being.

79. Thanks!
@owltastic on twitter
owltastic.com
http://bit.ly/webvisions-nyc