The Delhi edition of our flagship summit for Web Designers & Developers, Ctrl+F5 was every bit a great experience as the first one in Bangalore. The Delhi NCR belt boasted a stronger contingent of Web Professionals as the turnout tipped 120 well before the sessions kicked off, the enthusiasm of the audience was palpable! With our partners at Radix celebrating their 2nd anniversary of .ONLINE, .WEBSITE and .SPACE, the Ctrl+F5 Delhi was a fun, memorable & engaging day of great learning and opportunity.
A fresh line-up comprising Felix Jamestin (Sr. Product Manager, Directi and Co-founder at Myoki), Suveer Bajaj (Co-founder at FoxyMoron) & our very own Shridhar Luthria (Sr. Vice President, Channel Partnerships, Endurance) were geared up to share their years of experience in the Tech Industry as the show kicked on with a freewheeling chat. Here’s what our sessions had to offer:
Fireside chat with all the speakers
Our first session of the day was an interactive one between our speakers and Web Designers & Developers as they discussed the numerous challenges faced in everyday operations, with respect to the growth drivers in the industry, customer behavior, and talent acquisition. The focal points of this session were:
- Customer education: Clients have no plan of action, just want to take their business online for the sake of it & are not aware of what they want to achieve with their website
- Choosing an online store format: Business owners are unsure if they should go for a marketplace model or an inventory model (pricing of products in this model seemed to be confusing)
- Challenges in talent acquisition: Design Agencies repeatedly highlighted the challenge posed by the lack of talented employees to fulfill key requirements in technology, design and operations. There appears to be a huge lack of practical training and skills as far as freshers are concerned
Our guests had a lot to share with us as well. For example, one big misconception among end customers is how the website denotes a starting point and not the primary objective of an online presence. Several of them fail to understand that the potential of online presence lies in the ease and accuracy of marketing it and not in merely possessing a website. Apart from acquiring talent, retaining talent is also quite a challenge. All the efforts and money invested in training the new candidate are wasted, the moment the candidate decides to make a switch for few extra bucks. The panelists took note of all these and addressed it during the course of their sessions, in addition to their primary agendas.
Felix Jamestin (Sr. Product Manager, Directi and Co-founder at Myoki)
Topic: Persuasion in Design
“Persuasion starts with good design.” At around 11 AM, Felix kickstarted his session with a statement that most people who aren’t in the UI/UX space may find intriguing. He spoke about why design matters more than ever in today’s times and the reasons for why we need it. He professed that behavioural change is what we should be striving for through efficient design.
Felix shared some of his favorite reads such as ‘The Psychology of Persuasion’ by Robert B. Cialdini and ‘Nudge’ by Thaler & Sunstein. Through these books, Felix was able to synthesize a few simple principles that can influence behavioural change in customers. To quote Felix, “They are:
- Scarcity – Creating a sense of depletion in product stock can influence consumer behaviour
- Authority – Assertion and confidence are essential factors in product placement. Give your customers the feeling that you are giving them what they deserve
- Social Proof – This reminds me of David McClelland’s need for affiliation (N-Affil) in motivational theory. Human beings need to feel a sense of involvement within a social group”
The psychological impact of content and aesthetics are paramount in influencing a consumer’s buying decision and Felix delivered a very enlightening session to our guests that rammed this point home.
Suveer Bajaj (Co-founder at FoxyMoron)
Suveer’s session was more framework-based. He spoke about what the current state of digital marketing is in India and how one must go about it. He stated that we’ve got to start viewing ‘digital’ as an evolving ecosystem. Suveer spoke about the current trends & technologies, and how the traditional buying flow has slowly evolved to a more linear model with inputs from several sources and decisions being made at uniquely identifiable micro-moments.
Some excerpts from Suveer’s session:
“With virtual reality going mainstream, video content is bound to be the future. An average of 414 minutes is spent by each user on video content. Have a look at Meerkat & Periscope at the moment. Periscope is at 40 years of live video stream each day!”
In order to capitalize in this ever-evolving digital jungle Suveer advised start-ups to:
- Find the right partner
- Find eager learners who want to grow with you
- Organizational hierarchy is not advisable, keep it flat
Suveer summed up his session saying that India is going to lead the growth in the Asian markets. He shared his experience over the years and urged business owners to understand their vantage point that they are in now and how to capitalize the same.
Shridhar Luthria (Sr. Vice President, Channel Partnerships at Endurance International Group)
Shridhar positioned himself as an outsider with a unique vantage point from which he has observed the industry evolve and used his keen marketing acumen to break down the issues faced by the industry today. He gave an end user’s perspective of what design should do and with his inimitable delivery, held the room in rapt attention. Shridhar empathized with the crowd stating that he is neither a web designer nor a developer. What he had to offer was simply his experience, in a business catering to web designers and developers. He highlighted a few purposes that UX and Design serve – intuition, ease of use, and ultimately conversions. Here are few responsibilities that are essential according to Shridhar:
- To cultivate Empathy
- To make peoples lives Easy
- To make a Difference
Understanding the user and the context of his use is of prime importance. According to Shridhar, the context could be; why is he/she on a website? What is the type of device used? What are his/her needs?
Check out our photo gallery from Ctrl+f5 Delhi:
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