Interview with Anthony Foti – Web Developer-Designer on Workman Publishing UX/UI Design
Interview w/ Anthony Foti – Web Developer-Designer on Workman Publishing UX Design
Got to know Workman Publishing, and also wrote –
Workman Publishing: A UX Breakdown
This is the follow-up interview with one of the main Web Designers at Workman, enjoy.
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Please explain Workmans Publishing Business objective?
(AF) The key objective is to sell books.
So not necessary to build traffic but to sell one or a slew of particular products?
(AF) O yeah, yeah the intention and goal, with KPI’s being factored into account as well…is to primarily sell books, books that are considered prime-real estate in that particular genre.
I notice that there are books with authors, like Jamie Lee Curtis and other celebrities that are below the fold, why are they are not highlighted on the top of the home page?
(AF) Because, because really that is just supplementary reading, because we know that individuals are creatures of habit and have small attention spans we attempt to hold interests throughout the page, but we promote books not authors so we trigger our point-of-action on the top of the page to give prime titles dominance and secondary reading as back titles.
Do you rely on data and is where the money spent reflect data-driven decisions?
(AF) Yes, we continuously review query reports of site traffic, and all triggers like: bounce rate, conversation rate, ppc and affiliate marketing, we look at pages with most retention, and books redirected to amazon.
With all this what is the Customer Persona?
(AF) Female 35-60.
What is the design model?
(AF) It would help to understand full UX design stack, but but a catalogue perhaps – we have a horizontal desire, we create barriers… for genre, promos, seasonal content especially, overall it’s a layered design that has a Visual Hierarchy with flagship books.
Any design improvements?
(AF) The site was rehashed two years, ago, I hope not.
It looks pretty solid, I know.
One Critic I guess I would have is below the fold, really towards the footer there is some banner that had toy plush frogs for some reason, I ask why that break in theme?
(AF) Yeah that is from best selling author Sandra Brighten, she does children books and sells toys and package deals with her book, basically an ad – then of course their is a ROI there (a cut).
- end of interview