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    Top 3 Design Trends for 2015

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    By Chris Buoni

    Has digital taken over the design world? Results of a quick Google search for “2015 graphic design trends” would seem to indicate it has.

    In researching our list of the top design trends for 2015 one thing was clear: digital design, especially for the web, is setting the standard for current design trends. This is not new for 2015. The impact of digital on graphic design trends has been evident for at least the past year.

    One of the more popular digital trends that emerged in late 2013 and continued through 2014 was flat design. This aesthetic, adopted several years ago by Microsoft, was catapulted to the top of the design world by Apple with its launch of IOS7 in September 2013. IOS7 abandoned Apple’s long-standing use of skeuomorphic design in favor of flat. During 2014, the move towards flat influenced the design of foundational graphic elements like logos. Several prominent American brands, including Hershey’s and Pizza Hut, redesigned their logos in the flat style, which was a departure from the more realistic logos that served some of these companies for as long as we can remember.

    So the question today is not will digital continue to impact graphic design? The question is which trend will impact it the most?

    See below for some possibilities.

    Material Design

    Similarly to how flat design had a champion in Apple, another technology giant is behind the newest trend in digital—material design. Google has created its own visual language that attempts to marry the classic elements of good design with the innovation that technology and science offer. According to Google, their new design language is influenced by the interaction of paper and ink. Google’s material design has three main principles: material is the metaphor; design is bold, graphic and intentional; motion provides meaning. Much of the recent commentary says material design is a slight shift back towards skeuomorphic design. Shadow and depth are being added in moderation to the popular elements of flat design like simplicity and bold color.

    Emphasis on Large Type

    When working with type in 2015 think BIG. And while you’re at it, think imperfectly handwritten too. Large type continues to be in for 2015; scripty, handwritten fonts are popular as well. It’s all about making an impression and complementing the simplicity of the flat movement. Some other trends in type this year will include letter stacking and type intersecting with objects.

    Full-width Background Images

    More commonly known as hero images, full-width photos prominently placed in the background above the fold on websites will continue to be prevalent in 2015. This was a huge trend during 2014 that is expected to continue this year. The big, bold image is usually accompanied by sparse yet large type that communicates a simple message or call to action. This growing digital trend actually relies on a principle that graphic designers have known for ages: humans are better visual communicators. Most people more easily connect with images than text. Advances in processing speed, bandwith and HTML coding now allow web designers to take advantage of a style that has a long-standing place in print. But one twist on the hero image that is taking hold is the use of video in the background instead of a still image. It will be interesting to see how movement can be translated to static formats. We have to wonder about how else future designers will merge design thinking with the array of attributes each individual medium brings.

    4 Essential Traits for the Communications Firm of Tomorrow

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    by Joe Olivo

    Having reached the noteworthy milestone of being in business for 35 years, I’ve spent some time recently reflecting on all that I’ve witnessed, firsthand, over that period. The prevailing theme in what I’ve seen through the years is a breathtaking pace of change in the way organizations communicate.

    As a business owner, I’ve had the opportunity to witness these changes from multiple perspectives. I’ve participated in the different strategies and tactics our clients’ have rolled out to achieve success in outbound marketing. Our involvement in their outbound efforts has given me a glimpse of their growing embrace of inbound marketing as well. As a full-service communications provider, we’re now working with our clients at an earlier stage in the process for both inbound and outbound efforts. We get to observe and impact strategy and planning, not just tactical execution downstream.

    The cumulative effect of all of the changes I’ve seen in the way organizations communicate is the emergence of a need for a new type of communications firm. Much like our own company, public relation firms, and traditional advertising and marketing agencies, are transitioning into a new form to continue providing relevant solutions to their clients. The communications firm of tomorrow surely will not look like the traditional providers of yesterday.  While I’m sure each will have their own differentiator, firms that succeed will have these attributes at their core:

    Ability to Leverage Predictive Analytics

    As organizations continue to gather more and more customer data, it will be imperative for firms to be able to help mine the data to predict future customer actions and results with high probability.

    A Foundation Built on Good Design

    Whether in digital or printed communications, the importance of design cannot be underestimated. With the dizzying array of messages pulsing through multiple channels, it is imperative that good communication design help capture the audience’s attention. A recent study from Missouri University of Science and Technology indicated that two-tenths of a second is the maximum amount of time it takes for a viewer to form an impression. Conveying your message quickly through good design is a must.

    Holistic Application of Creative Thinking

    For a period, ad agencies were considered a creative execution arm of corporate marketing departments.  While effective creative execution will always be important, being able to broadly apply creative thinking to help solve business problems and offer original solutions will differentiate the firms of the future.

    Have a Niche

    Because of the vast amount of information available today, and the fast pace of change, it is nearly impossible to effectively understand and serve multiple industries at once. It will be incredibly rare for a firm to survive in the future by applying a broad, shallow approach that spans multiple vertical markets. The most adept firms will provide their core offerings in the industries and markets they understand the best.

     

    While the future is always murky and hard to predict, one thing is certain: the current pace of change in communications will continue well into the future. The companies that continue to evolve, and convince their clients that it is in their best interest to evolve too, will prove to be the successful firms of the future.

    My Top Takeaways from the HOW Interactive Design Conference

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    by Chris Buoni

    Let’s get this disclaimer out of the way right up front – I still love print.

    I’ve worked in print for years, I deal with print every day, and I spend a great deal of my time helping my customers with print. I believe there is, and always will be, value in the printed word. So professing how enlightening and fun my time was at the most recent HOW Interactive Design Conference in Washington, D.C., might sound a little awkward to some. A print guy talking about interactive? No way.

    Attending sounded awkward to me at first too. But after spending two days immersed in interactive design discussions, surrounded by interactive design professionals 24/7, I don’t feel awkward talking about interactive at all. I actually feel energized. I’m excited about the professional possibilities interactive presents for me and for Perfect.

    Yes, early on during the conference I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Information architecture, UX, transformative technology, usability—all terms I have learned and discussed, but never in such concentration and proximity of so many experts. It was a landslide of fresh concepts. The theory and discussion, while informative, had the potential to overwhelm.

    But then a funny thing happened. The more sessions I attended, the more comfortable I felt with all of the new information. And, the more the interactive designers talked, the more their wisdom sounded like the conversations I’ve been having with my print design colleagues for years. Once again, I was reminded that no matter the medium, good design is built on research, planning and a clear understanding of audience. Empathy, hard work and of course, natural talent, are still the best ingredients for memorable design and a positive user experience.

    Some universal design principles cross over presentation channels:

    • Success lies at the intersection of audience (user), copy (content) and creative (Development)
    • We should focus only on the necessary content (message)
    • You must challenge assumptions—every element must have a reason for inclusion
    • Structure is vital—order never arises from chaos
    • Design conveys and supports tone
    • Great design can simply express complex ideas
    • Your design must have intent

    Feeling much more at ease after my realization, I was able to absorb and appreciate all of the great information the speakers delivered at the conference. I got to know familiar concepts at a deeper level and learned about emerging topics that are critical to successful interactive design.

    For all of my colleagues—both print and interactive—who could not attend, here are some of my favorite takeaways from the HOW Interactive Design Conference:

    • We are getting increasingly closer to replacing front-end coding with a stable platform (see Macaw).
    • Therefore, back-end structures that can move data through complex exchanges will become the more important Development need.
    • Create a system for building your websites that maximizes thought equity and leverages MEAs (Minimum Effective Artifact)—great thinking by Chris Cashdollar!
    • Great tools are available for selecting and measuring font usage in digital space (Google, Typekit and others have tools to measure the impact of font choice).
    • Contrast ratio for a website should be 4.5 to 1.
    • Mobile first Information Architecture (IA) not only places a primary emphasis on user experience (UX) but it necessitates the importance of content hierarchy and simplicity.
    • Optimum line length should be 45-75 characters for interactive.
    • PDFs are futile in the digital space because they are non-responsive. They are like paper in a digital universe.
    • Moore’s Law will eventually meet physical limits. The pursuit of new technology may soon give way to improving existing platforms for usability.

    Getting Reacquainted with the Importance of Great Design

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    by Joe Olivo

     

    Steve Jobs was a quirky and incredibly demanding titan of business. He could at times be rude and almost belligerent to those who he believed weren’t measuring up to his standards of performance. I learned this while recently reading Walter Isaacson’s excellent biography of Jobs.

    Isaacson’s book does a great job of detailing Jobs’ life and the innovation he brought to the computer, mobile phone and music industries. The book takes you through the history of the personal computer through the lens of one of the individuals most responsible for bringing it to the masses. What I also gathered from the book was that Jobs was a brilliant visionary and an ardent supporter of great design. Jobs placed top priority on Apple products being well designed both in function and style.

    I purchased my first personal computer in 1984 upon entering Drexel University, as all incoming freshman were required to own a Macintosh. I have a vivid memory of turning on the computer for the first time and experimenting with different programs like MacPaint and MacWrite. I remember being amazed at all of the different typefaces and colors you could use to create a document. While I was by no means a designer, it gave me a sense of the importance of creativity in design. This was not an accident. Sometimes forgotten in Jobs’ creation of the Macintosh computer was the value it placed on typography. This was not a machine created solely for data processing; the attention Apple paid to typography was driven by Jobs’ near obsession with the beauty of type. He treasured creativity and realized its significance on many different levels.

    In our current information-glutted, media-saturated world, visual creativity in both traditional and new media can get lost. With so many forms of media, and the speed at which information moves, the importance that should be placed on quality graphic design is often forgotten. High quality content deserves high quality design. Good design will engage the viewer, visually translate what is being communicated, and inspire people like I was inspired by the Macintosh.

    At Perfect, we have gained a newfound respect for quality graphic design during the past year. As a company who operates on both sides of the marketing equation (we market our own organization while simultaneously providing marketing services for our clients) we hold ourselves to a high standard in all of our communication efforts. Creative design is an important part of this.

    With the commoditization of print and the templates that are available for use with digital media, it has become easy to try to “automate” design. We have not done that. Our additional investment in original creative design has allowed us to enhance our brand. From branding elements, to collateral marketing materials, to social media iconography, original creative design has helped us achieve an increased return on investment in our communications efforts.

    In today’s environment, tight budgets can tempt business owners and marketing professionals to limit their spending on graphic design. This is a mistake. Those who look beyond the cost and realize that an investment in quality graphic design will yield greater dividends are the ones who will have their message stand out in this media-saturated world.

    Maintaining Enthusiasm – The Role of Internal Communication During Perfect’s Transition

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    An Internal Communications Plan Has Buoyed Employee Morale During Perfect’s Transition Phase

    By Joe Olivo

    One of the greatest experiences I have as a small-business owner is when a visitor to our facility compliments me on our organizational culture at the end of their tour. Our current and potential print and marketing clients often comment that they can sense the enthusiasm of the Perfect employees they come in contact with during their visit. This is something I take great pride in. I believe the enthusiasm our visitors witness is genuine and a true part of our culture, which values every employee.

    As Perfect embarked on our transition from printer to full-service marketing communications provider earlier this year, one of the challenges I had was to make sure our employees’ enthusiasm continued. Many of our employees have been with Perfect for 15 to 20 years. Most have been involved with the printing side of our business during their entire tenure. I had to make sure every employee knew that this transition was a natural part of the evolution of our business and the growth would benefit everyone. While the marketing and communications services we now provide may seem different from how ink is put to paper, in the end, Perfect is still helping companies improve their communications to meet business objectives. While our name change officially occurred on April 1st of this year, the effort to communicate with our employees about the evolution started well before that.

    To ensure we effectively communicated about the transition we joomla_4eloped an internal communications plan prior to executing our name change. Key elements of the plan included selecting the appropriate communication channel, communicating openly and honestly with the team, and gathering feedback during implementation. 

    Because of the nature of how and where most of our employees work, I felt it was important that they primarily receive information directly from me. Many of our employees aren’t in front of a computer during the day so e-mail and social media are not effective for us internally. We need to communicate face-to-face, so we instituted quarterly all-staff meetings. At these meetings, key stakeholders in our transition process speak to staff to explain what is occurring and discuss the goals of the transition strategy. Although we also communicate internally with a newsletter and the periodic memo, these all-staff meetings have proven to be a very reliable way to reach our entire team.

    Another key aspect of our internal communication plan is communicating openly. We need to keep messages concise and on point. We also want to deliver all news, both good and bad. Recently, I learned that we could possibly lose a project that is a significant part of our business. I communicated this news to our employees directly at one of our all-staff meetings. While no one likes hearing bad news, I felt it was better for our team to hear this directly from me. Speaking directly to the employees let me communicate that this possible loss of business was in no way related to our transition. If anything, it underscored the importance of the evolution we’re pursuing to offer a wider range of valuable services to our clients.

    The last element of our current internal communication plan is soliciting feedback from our employees. Our staff is encouraged to offer feedback and ask questions, even about areas or topics they may not be directly involved with. This has helped create buy-in and support for the transition efforts. It has also helped me identify internal brand ambassadors who I did not realize embraced change so willingly.

    Overseeing Perfect’s journey from printer to a full-service marketing communications company has been an enlightening experience. The importance of an effective internal communications plan is clear to me today; it can pay significant dividends if done correctly. While our current efforts are still in the early phases, they have allowed our staff to better understand how our organization is evolving. This has resulted in continued employee enthusiasm and increased employee performance. I’m confident this will mean continued compliments from our client visitors about the energy of the Perfect employees.

     

    Additional Resources:

    Internal Branding: What is that exactly?

    http://www.inwardconsulting.com/internal-branding/

    Best Practices to Create an Effective Internal Communications Plan to Improve Profits

    http://betterbusiness.torkusa.com/best-practices-to-create-an-effective-internal-communications-plan-to-improve-profits/

    Three (fifteen) Fundamental Questions Can Help Marketers Hit Their Mark

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    Do you find yourself bouncing from tactic to tactic, hoping to find the right approach in your marketing efforts? The world is moving quickly and communication professionals are running themselves ragged trying to keep up. With technology disrupting every facet of our lives, marketing success can be incredibly elusive. So what should you do?

    Let’s begin with what you shouldn’t do. You shouldn’t retreat. If the goal is reaching your market in the new communications landscape, retreating to old tactics and hoping they will still be impactful is probably not the best way to advance your career. While old methods may offer some personal comfort, eventually they will stop being effective and your sales pipeline will dry up.

    You also shouldn’t merely convert traditional tactics into new media. If you believe converting a printed newsletter into a digital newsletter will bring credibility with your audience in the digital age, you are missing the mark. The same can be said for all digital and physical marketing assets.

    What you should do to ensure marketing success is joomla_4elop a strategy. Your strategy must be established before you deploy any tactics.

    Today’s communications landscape has brought more than just a change in how we deliver information. It has changed the balance of power in the world of business transactions. Today, customers hold the power. They are informed, connected and looking for true partners who know their needs and are prepared to provide custom solutions that maximize their investments. Customers also demand authenticity. To successfully reach your customers you must have a deep understanding of who they are, what their needs are and how your product or service can help them succeed. Only tactics that are informed by an accurate understanding of your customers will hit the mark. Before you deploy any tactics, you need to ask yourself some fundamental (and traditional!) questions to help joomla_4elop your strategy:

    Who is our audience?
    1. Who are they?
    2. How do they communicate?
    3. How do they decide?
    4. How do they perceive you?

    Who are we?
    1. What makes us unique?
    2. Who are we today?
    3. What do we aspire to be?
    4. Where are the gaps?

    What is our market?
    1. What is the opportunity?
    2. Who is the competition?
    3. What has changed?
    4. Where do we fit in?

    By taking the time to understand your customers and research your market opportunities, you can joomla_4elop a comprehensive plan and strategic approach that will connect to an audience of real people who live in a real world and want real community. That’s the key to long-term, sustainable success.

     

    Do You Advertise Your Business? It Could Cost You More to Advertise in the Future

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    Earlier this year, Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), introduced a comprehensive tax reform proposal in the U.S. House of Representatives that aims to simplify the U.S. tax code and lower current tax rates for individuals and businesses. Currently, U.S. corporate tax rates are among the highest in the civilized world. While many people, regardless of political affiliation, would welcome a less complex tax code and reduced rates, there is one “reform” in the proposal that should make anyone involved in the marketing and advertising industry blanch. For that matter, the “reform” might make any business owner who advertises their product or service gasp.

    As a way to help offset the revenue lost through Camp’s proposed tax rate reductions, his reform plan removes or adjusts many current tax deductions. One such adjustment is that the deduction for business advertising expenses would be amortized over time instead of being claimed for the year the expense occurred. Currently, for every $1 a business spends on advertising, it can deduct $1 as a business expense in that tax year. Camp’s proposal would allow for 50% of the advertising expense to be deducted in the first year with the remaining 50% to be amortized equally over a 10-year period. Putting aside the impact this would have on the bottom line of any business that advertises, the “reform” would open a Pandora’s Box of issues that could be endless.

    The rationale for this “reform” is that it takes time to fully recoup any expenditure of advertising dollars through new sales. Therefore, the full amount spent should not be immediately deducted. Most likely, inexperienced staffers who were tasked with finding additional revenue by eliminating or reducing current business deductions inserted this provision in the plan. These staffers have little actual business experience and do not realize how broad advertising expenditures might be.

    Details of this provision, which is now commonly being referred to as an “ad tax,” do not specify what constitutes advertising. This has the potential to significantly increase the number of expenses that could qualify as an advertising expense while taking away the full deduction for them. Considering the ever-changing marketing and advertising landscape, and all of the media channels and communication tools that businesses now use, “advertising expenses” could become infinite. Will social media activities need to be amortized? Are salaries related to advertising campaigns fully deductible as an expense? What about a sales lunch? Do content marketing efforts constitute an advertising expenditure?  

    The questions left open by the proposal’s vagueness, combined with the complexity of the current “advertising” environment, certainly would cause many businesses to change how they allocate advertising expenditures. Not good news for professionals in the advertising and marketing industry.

    Hope for those opposed to such a “reform” to current business deductions lies in the fact that with the coming Congressional elections there is little chance that Camp’s proposal will advance during the current Congressional session. Split-party control of the Senate and the House makes advancement of the plan unlikely as well.

    However, because of how the Congressional budget process works, Camp’s proposal will stick around, with aspects of it likely being used in future efforts to reform the tax code or balance the federal budget. Camp has said the estimated “savings” that would result from the amortization of business advertising expenditures is $169 billion over a 10-year period. That is a significant amount; it is just a matter of time before another Congressional staffer latches on to this provision during a future budget negotiation as a way to “add” revenue to the federal coffers.

    Because any change in how advertising expenditures are allocated would have significant ramifications on the advertising and marketing industry, we must be vigilant in ensuring this “ad tax” is not enacted. Business groups representing the advertising industry have already started the process of educating congressional representatives on the true cost of removing this deduction; we must be sure to educate our colleagues in the industry as well.

    Additional Resources:

    Follow the conversation on Twitter: #adtax #taxreform #adage

    For a full transcript of Camp’s proposal click here: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/statutory_text_tax_reform_act_of_2014_discussion_draft__022614.pdf

    For other pieces summarizing the issue, see:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2014/02/26/analysis-of-chairman-camps-proposal-for-tax-reform-part-1-individual-tax-reform/

    http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/limit-ad-tax-deduction-rep-camps-tax-reform-package-155978

    Joint Committee on Taxation, “Estimate Revenue Effects of the Tax Reform Act of 2014”- https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4562

     

    “Patent Trolls” Scaring Companies that Use Technology as a Bridge to Better Business

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    I recently attended “Print’s Voice ’14,” the annual “Capitol Hill Fly-In” event co-sponsored by the Printing Industries of America. This annual visit to Washington, D.C., is held to give those connected to the graphic arts and printing industry the opportunity to meet directly with members of Congress and their aides. For two days I made my way back and forth between the House and Senate offices of the U.S. Capitol to discuss needed reforms to the U.S. Postal Service, tax policy, free trade and patent law. During the course of the briefings I attended, I became aware of an issue within current patent law that should be of interest not only to those connected with the graphics arts and communications industry, but to anyone who uses technology in the course of conducting their business.

    This may seem like an overly broad warning. A close inspection of the details of this issue, however, makes its importance clear to everyone in the business community.

    Patent law within the United States was established to protect the rights of those who create original works. Patent assertion entities (PAEs) are organizations that actively work to ensure intellectual property laws are enforced.1 These PAEs can conduct their business in the legitimate pursuit of fair play. Sometimes, though, they work solely for financial or business gain. An example of this is the strategy employed by Apple and Microsoft during the last several years.

    Both Apple and Microsoft have spent billions of dollars purchasing the patent portfolios of other tech companies.2 This has given the two technology giants ammunition to use in their frequent court battles with other tech companies over smartphone technology. By owning the patents to technology they did not originally invent or create, Apple and Microsoft can be awarded royalties and license fees for its use, or they can force competitors to remove functions or features that use the technology from their products.

    While original inventors and patent applicants can form PAEs to protect their invention, PAEs are more frequently being formed by investment groups looking to purchase intellectual property for the purpose of holding and enforcing a patent. Overly broad patents have given birth to these types of PAEs, which are also known by the moniker “patent trolls.” Patent trolls buy patents and then enforce them against companies who have inadvertently or perhaps unknowingly incorporated the patented technology into their business or product.

    To illustrate how broad these patent assertions are, a group of printers in California recently received a patent infringement letter from a law firm that indicated they were violating a patent that supposedly covers “a system having a digital copier/scanner/multifunction joomla_4ice with an interface to office equipment (or to the Web) for scanning and transmitting images electronically to a destination such as email applications, or local files.” The law firm wanted $1,000 per employee for past infringement and future licensing. What company is not using the technology described by this infringement letter?

    Another egregious example of patent trolls asserting their claims are lawsuits that have been filed against small coffee shops that provide Wi-Fi for public use. Yes, someone has claimed to have a patent on this. Pertaining specifically to the graphic arts industry, claims have been made against companies using the Internet to sell print and against those who use computer-to-plate technology.

    While the broad assertions of owning these seemingly general and commonly used technologies is a significant and concerning issue for all businesses, the more immediate dilemma for companies that receive an enforcement letter is the way they are crafted. Companies that have received letters say there is often very little specific information regarding which patent has been violated. In addition, the letters offer a quick settlement of the issue, through a payment anywhere from $2,500 to $80,000. If the recipient agrees to the payment within a specific time frame the PAE agrees to not proceed with the lawsuit. The dilemma for these companies is that hiring an attorney to research and defend such broad accusations can easily exceed the potential settlement amount. This essentially amounts to legalized extortion under our current patent law.

    It will be difficult to find a balance between allowing for the protection against valid patent infringement and discouraging the abuse of patent litigation. An encouraging sign, however, is that the Obama administration and both Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree that something needs to be done. There is consensus that patent trolls represent a real threat to our economy. This agreement between political bodies that rarely agree on anything provides hope that a solution can be found before the coming Congressional elections in November.

    Additional Resources:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/business/economy/tech-lawsuits-endanger-innovation.html

    http://www.american.com/archive/2013/august/the-paradox-of-patent-assertion-entities

    The Real Toll of Patent Trolls – http://www.inc.com/magazine/201202/kris-frieswick/patent-troll-toll-on-businesses.html

     

    Bridging the Engagement Gap – Using Print to Reach Age-Specific Audiences

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    There’s no arguing that we now exist in what many have called a social and digital economy and that it is here to stay.[i] From tablets to mobile joomla_4ices just about every product and service is connected in some way to the digital world with each aspect of our lives experiencing the impact of technology. Because of this, most companies have either established a strong foothold in this space, or they are continually experimenting to find the right way to connect with customers. However, many still struggle to align continual innovation and consistent product Development around consumer adoption of new technologies (think of the app that allows us to close the garage door from a remote location). As sexy as technology is, the answer may lie in a more tried approach.

    While social (and digital) adoption rates continue to increase (see: How Digital Behavior Differs Among Millennials, Gen Xers and Boomers), many companies and organizations are still left with the daunting task of bridging the gap between their drive to innovate and stay in front of a younger, more intuitive consumer base, without leaving existing customers who did not grow up with cell phones, microwaves, cable television or even computers.  Enter print.

    According to Raphael Heaggans of Niagara University, the challenge is often associated with learning styles. “Older adults have special learning needs that differ from younger adults when it comes to technology. Younger adults have not lived life without technology whereas older adults were introduced to it and are challenged to learn it.” There’s also the challenge of how technology (and techno-drive products) or introduced to consumers – sometimes via the television or the web, which assumes targeted consumers have level of comfort with technology. “Technology is not necessarily presented as a form of experiential learning that is based on the older adults’ experience thus making learning technology less embraceable.”[ii]

    So what can a company, university or any entity do about it conquering the engagement divide? One way to bridge this gap is to produce simple and accessible instructions in a way that many adults are accustomed to learning and digesting information…in print. By using simple graphics and step-by-step instructions, organizations can provide a safe approach for consumers and members of their communities that may not necessarily be as digitally intuitive as other segments of their markets. While it does involve additional creative, and in some cases a baseline understanding of how to present instructional material, it can often mean the difference between positive customer experience and frustration and abandonment.

    The image above is an example of how a step-by-step approach to presenting information in a familiar format aims to assist a segment of the organization’s population that can benefit from a new app. The myPennMedicine app allows users to access online medical records from Android and iPhone joomla_4ices. While it does assume some knowledge of its user-base, the card and content are simple, accessible and clearly written. There’s also a phone number which would require (dare we say it!) a phone call.

    In the age of technological explosion, it is important not to overlook simple yet important factors facing engagement. This includes learning style, age-of-audience and preferred method of communication. In some cases, printed instructions that walk users through new digital offerings is a great way for customers and prospects alike to feel engaged.

     

     


    [i] http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/the_social_economy

    [ii] http://apbrwww5.apsu.edu/SRATE/JournalEditions/212/Heaggans.pdf

    Photo credit: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/boroughs-old-people-overtake-young-2013694