VISION before VISUALS: Set Yourself Up for Design Success

What's going on in this video? We are going to take a look at James. He submitted his URL to get critiqued. He says what we do, we're struggling with clarity, especially the hero header. Now, I don't have any context for what this is. I've never seen it before. So I am just going to react and give some critique here if I can. This is probably more of a. Of a situation that would benefit from having a conversation or strategy session, things like that. So I'm not guaranteeing that this will be any good. Okay, so first of all, Head Teacher chat. Supporting school leaders in education. Through every product, service, resource, our mission shines clear to pave the way for school leaders. Shape the minds of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. They support teachers, they've got a newsletter and you can browse stuff I offer Coaching school for teaching Leaders. I'm trying to. I'm really just trying to figure out what is this? What is this? Head Teacher webinars. Planners. Okay, so they're. They're an e commerce store. It seems possibly they also have podcasts. They've got planners, podcasts, webinars, products and services. I will say overall, the design looks pretty nice, but it is. I'm definitely not sure what's going on here. I don't know if this is an e commerce store, if it's a newsletter. I don't know if it's. Are they selling this? Are they just like curating this? And then like this person, Helen Tarok, looks like they're just like curating educational resources. Yeah, I can understand the comment of struggling with clarity, especially the hero area. Honestly, I'm not sure what this is. It seems like there's some good content. I almost want to say, should this be turned into a newsletter Only sign up for our newsletter. We have a newsletter that is all about supporting school leaders and their education. Join our newsletter and maybe they optimize. I feel like it would make a little bit more sense because I honestly don't know what I would do here. Do I just. I buy planners and I can listen to podcasts. Maybe they get a referral, but there's not even like a referral tag. So I'm actually not 100% sure what is going on. And I'm typically when we're saying like educational solutions for school leaders, what problem is getting solved if there's a solution that's getting offered? Unfortunately, I don't know if I'm actually helping that much. What are these icons? Cart and then chat. I think like I said, overall, the design looks pretty. Pretty put together. I think there could be. I don't know if we really need this full sidebar here. I actually don't think that that's not really going to help much. Yeah, I don't think it's going to be helpful for me to dig into the design. A lot of these individual pieces look pretty good, but it's more like. I think I feel the question. I feel the response. Struggling with clarity. I get that. I think this is more of a. Is it a. Maybe a business question primarily? I don't know if this is a nonprofit or if this is, I don't know, a hundred percent what this is. Head Teacher Chat. Yeah, I'm a little bit at a loss. Like, maybe it should be a newsletter. I almost feel like there should be like a primary target where it's. We want you to sign up for our newsletter. We support teachers. We provide all this education material for supporting leaders in education. And maybe it's like primarily a newsletter. We send a newsletter every Friday. Hop on our list for lunch. Did I come here for breakfast? Am I just passing through and saw. So I'm, I think just around the clarity point. I would focus on. I would really focus on one area and it. I'm just guessing that the newsletter signup would create the most value as like a very low barrier to entry. I would imagine that your ideal target market is school leaders supporting school leaders. So teachers. Yeah, I. I almost think there needs to be like a curated version of this that is maybe newsletter only. And it's like almost redo the landing page completely that talks all about the newsletter. It seems like there's a ton of stuff here, but it's a little bit like all over the place. And I think it's a matter of would this be better pitched as a newsletter? It's just a little bit unclear. It's. It's unclear as to what the main offer is. And so honestly, that's really difficult to design for when you don't have that, like, clearly articulated. Even from maybe a business point of view. If I was going to bet on it, I would almost bet that maybe there is confusion around the business plan or the model and that might be causing some design issues. But yeah, that's tough. I wish I could do more. I'm just gonna look at this real quick. Just because this is a random newsletter that I thought of. Morning Brew. Become smarter in just five minutes. Get the daily email that makes reading the news enjoyable. Stay informed and entertained for free. So this reminds me of what this Head Teacher chat thing is, but. And they've got, like, curated blogs, they've got podcasts, but it's really focused on a newsletter and they want you to join the newsletter. I didn't even know they had all this stuff. This is actually pretty interesting. But. But yeah, it seems like there's not too much of a difference between, like, podcast, web webinars, products and services. Seems like there's a similar crossover here. But notice how they are. Their main call to action is become smarter in just five minutes. Get the daily email that makes reading the news enjoyable. I think there's a lot that could be worked on with this one as well, but I think that is the main thing and you are. The call to action is newsletter. But typically your call to action needs to be an action. So, like, newsletter is not really an action, it's a noun. So let's say subscribe to our newsletter or get this in your inbox or get the support you need or whatever. Like some kind of action verb that is compelling. I would remove, browse and probably just go ahead and put name and email, possibly, like just throw that on the form right here. And I definitely don't think we need both top and sidebars. I think we could probably do away with a lot of this and just have it come out when needed. But again, I think a lot of it could be a little bit more geared towards the newsletter. In a lot of ways, though, I feel like this one's pretty, like, all over the place as well. But it is, like, maybe a tiny bit more focused with the newsletter and it's become smarter in just five minutes. Who I can become smarter. But this one is more like, we are supporting school leaders in education through every product service. Our mission shines clear to pave the way for the school leaders to shape the minds of tomorrow. Whether you're looking for resources, we are here for you every step of the way. So this, like, positioning, statement, and even this headline is all about we and our vision, what we're doing. And I think it would be a lot more clear if it said, and this is a good example, this one's not about Morning Brew. It's more about, hey, you can become smarter in just five minutes. You can get the daily email that makes reading enjoyable. You can stay informed and be entertained for free. You should subscribe. Whereas this one is all about we, our, and so on and so forth. So if you could rewrite this in a way that is get the support you need as a leader in education and then craft this into some more some sort of like more compelling statement that really gets into the mind of that school leader. I think that would be a better start to bring clarity onto this page. And ultimately I think that would help with figuring out the design of everything. And so, hey, our goal is to get people signed up for this newsletter. So that means we don't need all these links on the left and the top. We might be able to just put a big thing in the footer or maybe there is a menu button somewhere that shows all of this stuff. Maybe it says menu in the top and Headteacher chat in the top left. And maybe it's a combination of some of these. You definitely don't need all that in the same place. So I hope that is helpful. I wish I could do more like design critiquing, but I think that is ultimately what I'm noticing on this one. So a little bit different of a video, but it also helps just to know. You really have to crystallize that person, that Persona, that avatar that you are targeting with your content and knowing exactly who they are and what they want to hear and speaking to them versus talking about yourself. And that a lot of times can help clarify the user experience and the way that you design and create from that standpoint. So anyway, a little bit different this time, but thank you for watching. Let me know in your comments what you think of this video and I'll see you in the next one.