1749 – The Shift to User-First Design with Daniyal Vadsaria

Josh (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Would you like consistent and predictable sales activity with no spam and no ads? I'll teach you step by step how to do this, particularly if you're an agency owner, consultant, coach, or B2B service provider. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create more than $10 million in revenue. Just head to up my influence and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to up my influence and click on podcast. We'd love to have you. With us right now, we've got Daniyal Vadsaria. Daniyal, you are the chief marketing officer for comment now. Comment is on the web at comment at Cod. Mint.com. Daniyal, thank you so much for joining us.

Daniyal (00:01:12) - Yeah. It's a pleasure to be here.

Josh (00:01:15) - Awesome. Let's talk about continent first. What is continent? What do you do?

Daniyal (00:01:19) - Comment is basically a company which focuses more on the development aspect of software development, app development and web development.

Daniyal (00:01:27) - So our core is more geared towards the development. And we are also geared towards more the latest technologies including AR and VR. So we are more geared towards the development side of it. And my role within the company is to promote the company to the right audience and help them get more business on board.

Josh (00:01:45) - Well, I've got your website pulled and this might be helpful for someone that's listening a conversation right now. What I would share, like just kind of looking through your gallery here or your work is that it's very friendly is the way I would describe your design. It's just very accessible. Like I feel there's also this sense I think a lot of your things are just very accessible. Like I feel like I'm in a friendly place. I feel like this degree of positivity on, you know, some things that are otherwise like, you know, they're not they could be. You can. I've seen a lot of boring websites, you know, in some of these areas that you serve. But in your case, again, it's just a lot of very simple things like I'm loving like for example, like Rover obviously the gourmets, the meta, these are just ping doctors.

Josh (00:02:41) - These are really, really cool. It's like I'm getting ready to play a game or something.

Daniyal (00:02:47) - So basically, you know, the projects that we do, we are actually very involved since the day one, even if they're not opted in for marketing. My aspect here is to always make sure that their app is user friendly. So even if that's not my domain to jump into the project, I make sure that anything that is delivered from Fortement has that user experience. So when you come to our website and you feel friendly, that's the tone of voice that we carry with, you know, our company. So comment is definitely a friendly company who will guide you, be our assistant, be act like a consultant for you instead of a sales person. So yes, we have a company and yes we have targets to meet, but how we do it is very different. We become your friend. We understand your needs and then deliver exactly what is your needs. We are need based company. We focus on needs of our customers and we deliver exactly what's needed.

Daniyal (00:03:41) - Instead of just pitching you ideas one over the other.

Josh (00:03:45) - Well and it seems to carry over in your design as well, where again, it seems to be very customer focused, customer driven. Right. And I think that I think a lot of us, at least initially on our first draft of our website, usually tends to be pretty focused on our product and our features. And can you talk about the, you know, that whole when we're thinking about user experience, why is it so critical to be really focused on that end users needs?

Daniyal (00:04:19) - I'll make it very simple for you. And the audience was listening to us. So whenever you visit any website, the company's aim should be to convert the lead. So any traffic that comes on to your website, you should have a user journey which takes your consumer from the point A to point B, catering all their touchpoints and giving them the information intent that they use to come to the website. So the intent serving the intent is the main thing. Once you do that, what you get in return is the lead form submitted.

Daniyal (00:04:50) - So our end goal is to have lead form submitted. Now if any user comes on to our website, they must have an intent. So if they jump on to mobile application page and then they're looking for mobile application and health care services. So they will actually go to that page. They get all that information that actually get to see our portfolio, some of our work that we have done and then some credibility aspects where they see our testimonials, they see our recognitions. So it helps them, gives them enough information so that they can make up their mind or at least fill up the lead form. So all in all, it's a win win situation where user gets everything that they have intended and they have come to the website for and we in return get the lead so that we can get in contact and help them, you know, turn their ideas into reality.

Josh (00:05:37) - Now, what are some trends that you've been seeing when we think about, you know, kind of web development, mobile? Are there any major trends that you've been seeing this year that, you know, if someone hasn't revisited their kind of their front facing, you know, kind of front in front of the house, you know, environment that they should probably be aware of, that you know, that they might be suffering from some outdated user experience or, you know, certainly branding design perspective.

Daniyal (00:06:09) - Exactly. So the first thing that we have been seeing over a few years is that we were first focused on web, so everyone was focusing on web first, and then we jumped on to the mobile first design for UX. Now is the time when you focus on user first, so it's more geared towards now the person instead of the device that they're using. So initially it was more geared towards web. Then we jumped onto mobile and now it's more geared towards user. So you have to make information as user friendly and focus more on the conversion rate, optimization of your device, any identity device it may be. So you have to give information in the lowest possible number of clicks. That's what you need to focus on. So you need to give precise information and less number of clicks. So if I have you scroll on my website again and again and you have to find things in my website, you'd be you'd not be bothered to do all of that things. So my job is to make it easier for you.

Daniyal (00:07:12) - So you have everything in front of your eyes. And my website or my mobile app actually guides you what needs to be done next. So there is one thing that your thing should be very simple. Any design that you're creating should be very simple and should guide users exactly what needs to be done next, instead of them finding what needs to be done next.

Josh (00:07:31) - Now, is there maybe something that a founder could do right now if they were looking at their own website, maybe a filter or a lens, that they could look at their own website and ask some good questions and try to identify if they're off track.

Daniyal (00:07:49) - So the first thing is that they need to identify and understand their audience, their current audience, because that's the first thing where you get to make decisions based off. So you need to understand exactly where you at and what's your drop off. So many people having their websites, having their mobile app, they don't get to see actually where they see the drop offs. So there could be certain pages where they're experiencing great amount of drop offs, where some pages are performing way too good.

Daniyal (00:08:17) - So maybe you're performing in some pages, you're giving the content in the correct manner. However, the other pages are completely ignoring them, so the traffic that you're receiving on all of those pages is actually your waste, because you're spending money to get traffic one way or the other. Even if you're going for organic strategies, you're paying for the team. And if you're going for a paid media, then definitely you are paying platforms to get traffic onto your platform. So the first thing is evaluate your own assets and get to see where you're going wrong. The next thing that you have to focus on is definitely the user experience. Now, if you go to your website, do not view the website as someone who knows the website. Be a third person. Be a person who's visiting the website for the first time and then experience it. If it's easy to browse, if it's easy to collect information, if you get everything that you have intended for. So for example, to give you an example, I'm looking for a website which focuses on NFTs.

Daniyal (00:09:15) - Now I've come to the website and the same page for NFT. Now do I get enough information for that? Do you see the portfolio? Do you see the expertise that you have? Do see that you have worked on the right tech stack that needs to create NFTs and what's the scope? So all of these things matters. So again, I press a lot on user journey user experience because that's the key because I'm coming from a marketing standpoint. And definitely the first approach for me would be to convert users into customers.

Josh (00:09:45) - Yeah. Daniyal, who should be engaging with comment like who should reach out and have a conversation? Or is there something that you would recommend that maybe a resource or something that you would recommend from this conversation that they might go, if they're interested in exploring this world of being much more clear with their audience or, you know, potentially, you know, gaining inspiration on how they can be a lot more user centric.

Daniyal (00:10:17) - So first off, I'll because this question has a lot of holes.

Daniyal (00:10:21) - So yeah. Sorry.

Josh (00:10:22) - One. Oh, as per usual for Josh.

Josh (00:10:27) - All right.

Daniyal (00:10:27) - So how can and who should connect with me and with anyone who is more inclined towards improving their user experience or the products that they create for their customers? They can connect with me directly if they have any business ideas, or if they have a website or an app that they want to create or make it better, then they could connect directly with comment at info at Cottman. If they want to connect with me, they can connect directly at Daniyal at Match.com. Now the second fold of it, seeing for inspirations is definitely always look for anything better than what you have done. Now when you think that you have created something, absolutely.

Josh (00:11:08) - The amazing.

Daniyal (00:11:09) - You have not achieved everything because there are people doing much better job than what you have done. And technology changes. Everything changes. People needs changes, their focus changes. So you have to be adaptable. If you are stuck in a myopia, then you don't get to see what happens outside.

Daniyal (00:11:25) - So live outside the box and see the inspirations. What I do personally, if I have a project on board, I look for customers. So the first thing that I do is research. So competition customers what they need and what are their touch points, where do they actually get to the information and how do they avail it. So understanding the audience and exploring the competition out there. So that's how you see both the ends, what other people are doing for your audience, and you understand your audience the way you want to approach them. Create a mix of all of those things, and then you come up with your own strategy for user experience, user journey, be it on your mobile app or your website or any experience. Now recently we are working on a project which is more geared towards learning experience, language learning experience. So it's a complete VR experience. You just wear the headset and then you are in a VR experience and you come across different scenarios. So maybe you're traveling from airport to your hotel and the taxi driver is communicating with you in Arabic about the money or the change, so you can respond back.

Daniyal (00:12:34) - You see the options and you respond with the correct option. So you can say keep the change or this is not the correct amount in Arabic. So that's how you get to learn. So there are different aspects and based on different audiences, you have to come up with a unique idea for that.

Josh (00:12:50) - Yeah. Your website again comment to a friend. That's listener conversation. Think the best thing you can do is to go take a peek. And I'd recommend you click on the button that says see our work. And I think that that's going to give you a really very quick understanding of the type of work that you do. Really, really fun, really attractive user experience, really good design. I really like this. So, Daniyal, again, you're the chief marketing officer at Codman Daniyalle area. I want to thank you so much for joining us. Is there anything else that you already gave out, your contact information? Is there anything else you'd recommend people do after this conversation here listening to this conversation.

Daniyal (00:13:33) - Um, first thing is that I'm always open on LinkedIn. So if you have any questions or anything, if you see I post a lot on LinkedIn as well. So any emails, anything, I'm always open to give out my information. And I'm a person who believes in sharing information. So anything, any project related queries, any learning related queries, any questions that you have, feel free to reach out to me and I'd be more than happy to help you out with that.

Josh (00:14:00) - Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, again, Daniyal Vadsaria, thank you for joining us. Chief Marketing Officer at comment on the web at Mint.com. Thanks, Daniyal.

Josh (00:14:10) - It was a pleasure.

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