FounderBuzz

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Scott: Hi, this is Scott Olson with FounderBuzz, and today I'm here with Andrew Maier of UX Booth. Thanks for being with us, Andrew.

Andrew: Thanks for having me.

Scott: Well, I always like to start off with a little bit about yourself. So, why don't you tell us who you are and what you do?

Andrew: My name's Andrew, and I started with UX Booth maybe three years ago almost. I created that as a blog to kind of share my passion about interaction design and user experience design. From there, I joined a couple of consultancies, and now I'm just an independent consultant. I currently reside in Cambridge, Massachusetts where I'm helping startups here improve their user experience.

Scott: Great. With startups, one of the biggest challenges is certainly how do I tell my story. They've got their product. They've got their idea. But then, how do people find out about it? So, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how things are changing and how companies can better tell their story to their audience.

Andrew: I think that in a large way, today, brands are built by interactions, interactions with blogs and with web applications primarily, and those are the two things I see by and large with the clients that I work with. I would say for people who are just starting out to definitely have a blog so that you have your own voice, but be aware of the content strategy, how you're going to develop your message to your customers, how you're going to work with them, as well as things like art direction and content strategy, just overall saying, "How am I going to evolve over time?" So, that it's not just a one-off solution but that it's part of a larger strategy for your company.

Scott: Yeah. As people get their websites up, is there a mistake that you've seen made over and over again that you could help our audience avoid?

Andrew: Yeah. I would say content just for the sake of content. I mean, right now, Google makes it really easy just to find whatever you're looking for. For that reason, you shouldn't create solutions just to have them. There's a phrase, "making a solution without having a problem to solve." I think for any of the articles that I write, every time I come to writing, I try to say, "What story am I trying to tell, and is that something that somebody can find really quickly on Google? Or what resources are people already using for this kind of content?" And making something that doesn't just become like something that fills a concept landfill but fills a need, becomes a resource. Creating things like that, for UX Booth, it definitely wasn't something that I created just in a contrived way to say, "Oh, well, this is going to just have content out there." Every time I wrote an article, I tried to solve a problem.

Scott: Yeah. Well, and maybe one other thing too is that I would love to hear your thoughts on is the balance between design and the look and feel of a site and the content of the site and how that works together.

Andrew: It's really interesting because I think that, in a large part, since we're all publishers, we're all kind of designers in our own way. We have to design a framework that the concept lives inside. I'm reading a lot about typography right now. It's interesting because typographers, their entire kind of mantra amongst really professional typographers is that you're supposed to live behind the content. You're supposed to let the content speak for itself, but kind of just amplify it. Never have like a personal style or a brand that you attach to things as a typographer.

I think, in a lot of ways, publishing, writing your own blog, or living through your content is the best way to be. Don't let the design kind of speak louder than the content itself. Let the content kind of amplify your brand and your vision, because that's really, at the end of the day, that's how people are interacting. It's all based around conversation, and you don't want to kind of drown out the healthy conversation that you and your customers are having.

Scott: Great.

Andrew: Does that help?

Scott: It does. I think that's great advice. I certainly appreciate you taking the time today.

Andrew: Thank you.

Scott: Thanks Andrew.