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Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer Podcast. This is your host, Lee. And on today’s show, we are giving hope to developers and anyone around the world that says that they cannot design. Design can be learned. It’s not something that you have to be born with. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Before we kick off the show, here is a word from our sponsor.
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Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to another episode. And today in the house is Piccia Neri, speaker of about a zillion different languages and a very good friend of mine. How are you today?
Piccia Neri:
I’m very well. Thank you very much. But it’s slightly exaggerated introduction, but there you go.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Ever so slightly, I think it’s just under a zillion different languages that you Just
Piccia Neri:
under a zillion. Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Under Getting close
Piccia Neri:
to a zillion. Yes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I believe there’s about 4 key languages, isn’t it, that you’re very fluent in?
Piccia Neri:
Yes.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yes. Drop those on us. You don’t have to actually speak from those languages. Obviously, English, you’re doing very well there.
Piccia Neri:
I’m I’m doing alright with English, but I’m doing okay with Italian because that was my my birth language. Yep. And then Spanish because I did a bit of university here, and then I’ve been living here for a couple of years. Mhmm. And then French because I had friends in Paris, and no one in friend in Paris speaks to you unless you speak good French, so I had no option. Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Actually, a story about that. I I actually went through the entire effort in France ordering something in French. And then the person very quickly then said, oh, fair enough. Would you like Coca Cola with that all in perfect English? I was like, what? You watched me struggle for 20 minutes and then reply in English.
Piccia Neri:
That’s that’s why that’s what they do it for. That’s, you know, that’s part of the brightens up their lives. Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly. Folks, if you don’t know who Peacher is, me and Peacher met. We knew of each other. We were in WP Elevation Communities and and WP Innovator. We actually met at the London WordCamp where Peter was talking about the Gestalt principles that you may have heard lots of rumblings about, which is well, I’m not gonna murder what that is. I’ll let you explain what that is later. And we’ve obviously got on really, really well. We talk practically every week.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We hang hung out in London the other day, and we went to the museum, which was amazing, and we talked deep philosophical things, didn’t we, at the museum? So so me and you have become really good friends, and we’re hoping to be working together as well in the future. And it made sense to have you 1, Peter, because you you are a design expert. You’re a a UX expert as well. And I guess I just wanted to learn a few things from you, especially because I come from a development background. I’m a developer before I’m a designer, and I think quite a lot of people who’ve got either into the WordPress space or into the web building space are pretty much from a development background. We’ve had fun geeking around trying to work out how sites are built, and before long, we’ve become developers, but then trying to actually lay stuff out on a page becomes really, really complicated. So first of all, before we dive into that, I’d love to just learn a little bit about your history. So who can jump back into that time machine? And can we just find out how you got into design and then how you launched your business and and what it is you’ve been doing these last few years?
Piccia Neri:
So, yes, I am actually, trained as an artist story and funnily enough. So, and I got started with design because after university I set up a book publishing publishing company with friends in Italy. It was actually arts books, or the exhibition catalogs and things like that. So and there was a tie at a time when, well, let’s say it was a while ago. And, it was in around the mid nineties, in the mid nineties. And, so it was designed for prints and I absolutely loved it. But then after that, I moved to London and I carried on with the arts, book design. But then that can get, if not boring, a little bit restrictive because you just wanna try your hand out at designing other things.
Piccia Neri:
Because when you design for art, you it really is about the art. Yeah. I mean, the challenge is that you have to make it creative and interesting. But, anyway, just, you know, it’s it’s so I got into all sorts of design. I just wanted to try out everything, and I freelanced in lots of, London agencies. I freelanced also the Sunday Times, and I got, a lot of experience in branding and also what it means to be creative with design. What’s the difference between something that needs a creative concept behind it or not? And then still working a lot with culture culture institutions mostly, though I’ve always left time for that. And then I, became the creative director of the design department at the British Film Institute.
Piccia Neri:
So for those years, I designed a lot of film posters and film seasons and distribution, film, posters and, got into film festivals. So there was a lot of, design for events and things like that. And, anyway, that’s, and then I started and then I got into, web design because it I got to the point where I felt I really wanted to have the ability to run my own website without being held hostage by, my developer who was a friend as well Yeah. Which sometimes didn’t make it easy. And, also, I started getting interested in for a while, I was doing, for I think about a year, I did a, a I had a blog that was called 1 Sketch A Day. And I was finding it, which obviously was a WordPress blog. And I was finding it frustrating to not understand how to do simple things such as changing fonts and things like that. So I was like, right.
Piccia Neri:
That’s it. I’m learning it. Because also I thought, and I think I still totally stand behind it, that if you want to design for the web, you need to code a bit. Because if you don’t, as a designer, you can stay a fully a designer and never never even call yourself a developer, but if you don’t understand a little bit of of coding, you you can’t. You just simply don’t understand the web, in my opinion. Yeah. So, so that’s how we got started. And then that leads me sort of back to where you started, Leigh, because what I noticed as I started getting into WordPress, which was my tool of choice, I noticed as I started getting to know more people and so on, design always seemed an afterthought.
Piccia Neri:
It was always about something else. And even at work camps, whenever people talked about design, even if there was a design talk, it was use usually a CSS talk, which to me just isn’t what design is about because it Yeah. Fact, interestingly enough, CSS is style sheets. And to me, design isn’t style. Design isn’t about making things pretty. To me, design is much more. So that’s that’s where it all got started actually because I really thought I started thinking, yes. Completely, designers should learn how to code, but actually, coders should also learn about design as well.
Piccia Neri:
And I believe that did you have Belinda White on Agency Life?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yes.
Piccia Neri:
Yeah. Exactly. She’s brilliant like that. She’s completely she said this to me once. We had a conversation about this whole thing, and she’s been she’s an amazing person and designer, and she, we totally agreed on this point. She said, you know, I was always pestered by developers saying I should learn how to code, but actually, how about you understand what design really means?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I I absolutely agree with regards to, your your point on design and design is not style sheets. But you said design means a lot more to you. I would love to know what is your within a minute description of what you believe design is. Because I probably guarantee you a lot of people would stumble over a answer to what is design. If we were to ask anyone in the community, I think I would stumble. I mean, I would say it’s to solve a problem, but that is probably an oversimplification. So could you share what you believe design is?
Piccia Neri:
It’s true, though. True. It’s like time a run time a run. Yes. Design definitely does solve a problem, but that’s so does drawing. Drawing is solves problem visual problems for instance. But to me, design is about design is a process and it’s about planning. The meaning of design originally is this, your planning.
Piccia Neri:
So that’s why my point with developers is you do need to use design thinking because you are a designer in the sense that you are a planner. You don’t design visually, but you do, make plans and you do need to have a design approach, which is why one of the talks that I do is about design thinking, which is a a process. So to me, design starts way before I actually even begin styling a page, and it’s very much about having a system that you apply every time. And then within the system comes also how to, effectively lay things out on a page, how to use color, how to use typography, and so on. That’s part of that. But it’s it’s it comes almost at the end, not at the beginning. And even how to use topography isn’t actually, about the styling. It’s not just, you know, it’s not just applying colors.
Piccia Neri:
It’s it’s, it’s having a system is the simplest way that I could put it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So design is obviously solving a problem and you can solve a problem like like you alluded to in many different ways. A drawing you can solve problems on a drawing, but you do need a system and that system I mean, to try and unpack what you’re saying then, let’s go beyond the minute. Having a system, are you simply talking that when we begin to build a website, we shouldn’t be thinking about style sheets or colors or anything like that yet. We should actually be thinking of some sort of structure like a wireframe or does this go even is this even earlier than a wireframe? Could you kind of describe the the thought process that a designer slash developer should be going through when we’re entering into a project even before we code, even before any of that?
Piccia Neri:
It’s way earlier than the wireframe, in fact.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wow.
Piccia Neri:
Now it’s yes. Because it’s all about it’s it’s something that there is a such a thing as design thinking. It is a thing. It’s and it’s, it’s a, process that starts from empathy. It’s various phases when you approach a design project, but also any kind of project. It could be even a life project that or even how you talk to your children when they don’t wanna eat, their breakfast. It’s, literally
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I usually will sound very stern, and that’s an interesting
Piccia Neri:
Somehow, I have I have, I I can’t see you quite being that stern without bursting out laughing at some point. But anyway, it starts from empathy. So the first thing about design is that when you design something, anything, you are solving a problem. You are going to solve a problem for someone. But if that someone isn’t you, you’re not gonna know what the problem is unless you put yourself in their shoes. Yeah. So this is where it starts from. It starts from empathy, and empathy starts way earlier than wireframes.
Piccia Neri:
I’ll give you an example that I give in the design thinking talk. When someone if a client comes to you and says, I need to increase traffic. I need to buy more traffic. This actually physically happened to me very recently. They said, can you please help us with our Google Ads? Well, that’s it’s not what I do. I can’t, but I know enough I know enough to to know where to go. So, I said, well, wait a minute. What what, what’s the website and what do you need the Google Ads for? So, well, we’ve got traffic, but we haven’t had any conversions.
Piccia Neri:
What which for them is simply people getting in touch with them, contact contacting them. And I had a look at the website and said, stop immediately running any spending, any money that you’re spending. It be Facebook ads, Google ads, just please stop spending any money. Because the website was designed in such a way that it was almost impossible to find the contact form and get in touch with this travel agency. So that wasn’t the problem at all. But until I get on the website and start thinking about the problem as if I were someone trying to get in touch with the agency because I wanna book a trip on the Camino de Santiago, I wouldn’t have found out. So with that, if you don’t use design thinking, you tell the client, okay, let me I’ll hire a Google Ad, ads expert, and that’s gonna cost you 2,000 k, a month, and the ads are gonna cost you another 5.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Do you
Piccia Neri:
know what I mean? Mhmm. But and then you don’t get the results because you haven’t taken the time of actually looking at the real problem and put yourself putting yourself in the shoes of the the end user. Because it’s all about the user. It’s a human centered process, basically.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Just to kind of expand on that then, we have the exact same sort of scenario in IT back in the day when I was in IT. I feel like I’ve shared this story many years ago on the podcast before, but it was a case of somebody approached us in IT at one point and said, we need a new email server. So if you bear in mind a new server back then when you were looking at about £3,000 plus many hours of implementing it, plus adding it to the domain and, you know, all all of these all of these questions. This was gonna cost a lot of money. So that was what the client asked for. However, when we then delved into what was the problem, all they needed was to create an email address for several members of their new team. They didn’t know necessarily what to ask, so they asked what they thought was correct. But without diving into the problem and working out what it is that they really want to achieve, you might actually be giving them the wrong solution.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So I don’t know if that helps prove your point, but, it is it is very much about, yes. You’re right. The the wireframing can happen at some point, but the very, very first conversation is what are the problems that you have? What what do you need to be able to achieve, I guess? And then we can then start to look at, do we throw loads of money at Google or actually, how the heck do I what it was that you said about Santiago? Because that sounded so good. Say it again.
Piccia Neri:
How the heck do I book a trip on the Camino de Santiago, which is
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Camino de Santiago. There
Piccia Neri:
you go. Which is a, a, route that, crosses Europe, and goes to Santiago de Compostela. It’s a pilgrims route, and it’s also an amazing, amazing, like, sort of lifetime experience kind of Yeah. Trip. And, so, yes, what you described is exactly that kind of situation. So you did apply design thinking. Then of course it goes
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Without knowing it as well.
Piccia Neri:
Without knowing it because you’re so clever. So but that’s what I mean when I say, when I talk about, design being a a process rather than styling things. Yeah. And also because, really, when I started designing for the web, it changed me very, very much as a designer. It really changed me, deeply, the way I I thought about things and the way I used my imagination. Because also you could argue that when you design for the web, it’s very rare that you need to be creative.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. You
Piccia Neri:
need to be creative in finding solutions. But then my argument is that developers are very creative like that.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Mhmm.
Piccia Neri:
It just is that visual creativity. It’s something that comes up very often as well. You know, so many developers that say, oh, but I don’t have an artistic bone in my body, and I you don’t need it. No. Really, you don’t need it, because what the imagination that you need to have, you already have proven many times in your professional life than than that you have it. It’s not, it’s possible that you get asked to create a campaign or a concept for a website, but then it’s got nothing to do with a website design. It’s about the marketing campaign. Mhmm.
Piccia Neri:
So when you design a website, you don’t need to be an artist. You just really you really, really, really don’t. But what’s changed for me was that when I was, designing before, especially if you design for film, which is what I ended up doing for many years, you have to be very imaginative, and also you sometimes almost you almost need to trick the viewer. If there’s a a, you know, a clever visual trick that momentarily gets people lost slightly is actually that’s welcome. It’s a good thing to do. Whereas so sometimes I look at things that people do in design for print, for instance, where you have things that I’ve done, like making a book title really difficult to read one way or another because it looks really, really cool. But now it’s the opposite. You can’t do that in web design.
Piccia Neri:
The frame is completely different. It’s it’s it’s very much the opposite. So in a way, it’s made me a better designer in in a way because it’s it’s made me think and consider things that I didn’t consider before. And this is proven to me by the fact that whenever I we find this this, you know, we all have this kind of sports that you look at, like the Webby Awards or the, you know, whatever. And you look at, you know, all these kind of awards and the the you always come across nightmare websites that are a nightmare for usability and accessibility, and they’re full of animations and so on. And and maybe they look amazing, but that’s actually quite terrible. And, usually, there’s a print designer behind that because they just you know, it’s a different mentality.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wow. So this is actually I was just thinking that this was a conversation for developers, but, actually, this is a conversation for designers who are used to design to print as well. I think the big difference here is the interactivity, isn’t it, of the web or of software, whatever it is you’re designing that a person is interacting with. If it’s designed for print to catch the eye on the side of the street, then that’s the problem you’re solving. That’s a different sort of design, isn’t it? If it’s a design for a magazine other than maybe the index area that you need to probably think through and maybe kind of tabs or anything to help people navigate through the document, everything else again is to be pretty and appealing to the eye as it were, and to point out the information you really need to get to, the infographic, whatever it is. But when it comes to the design for the web, again, booking this trip to the Santiago, again, I can’t even say it, actually be potentially becomes the actual only focal point of the website. Perhaps that’s the only thing that they want people to do. Therefore, that actually dictates the entire design thinking of even where a button will be or what is loading on the home page, etcetera, because of the things that you need to achieve and because of the interactivity that needs to happen.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I guess there’s also things like UX, isn’t it? And and UI, all of that sort of stuff. You I guess the user experience potentially being you don’t want them to have to click through 8 different things to be able to get to the thing you want them to do. You want them to do it as soon as possible. Would that be certainly. Yeah. Alright. Well, yeah. So on so this is this is obviously a great episode therefore for both parties.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
There’s you amazing print designers out there who are designing for web, and it’s it’s very easy to design a website that looks like a brochure, not without this kind of design thinking that, that Peter’s talking about. And then there’s also as developers who are thinking, oh, how the hell do I lay this and make it look freaking awesome? And, yes, we want it to look nice, but actually what’s more important, I think is what you’re saying, is that we need to be thinking of how can I lay this out so that the thing that needs to happen gets done
Piccia Neri:
Exactly?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Rather than how can I make this look like the most amazing website in the world on the planet with all of these animations, and it takes half an hour to load, which is actually not the best?
Piccia Neri:
Exactly. And the whole point is after all that the simpler, the better. There’s a there’s a famous book, which is a Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think. And really literally that’s if you just remember that, if that’s your mantra, don’t make them think, don’t make your users think. That’s it. Just everything that you do when you lay out a website must lead there. So if everything looks too simple, too same y, then you’re making people think because they can’t tell which one’s the button because it looks too much like everything else. When everything looks completely different, then you’re making them think too much.
Piccia Neri:
When you’re giving them too many choices instead of one choice, then you’re making them think too much. So that’s that’s the the mantra really is that don’t mean not don’t make them think. And then also that leads me to my other main sort of tenet, which is good design is good marketing. That’s my argument because you know really well, because you’re a a developer who’s also a really good designer and who appreciates good design. You know very well that good design is good marketing. That’s that’s exactly what you said. If people can’t press the right button to book the trip or to buy their t shirts or whatever Say
Lee Matthew Jackson:
it again. Say it again. Go on.
Piccia Neri:
Which one? Which one do you want to say?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
The the one about booking a trip to wherever it was, Santiago. It just sounds
Piccia Neri:
so cool. Camino de Santiago. So cool.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Sorry. Right. Back to your point. I’m a child. I’m
Piccia Neri:
a child. So you are a child. That’s why we love you. Anyway, so, yes, the the, what was I saying? Yes. The good design is good marketing because good design helps marketing out because the aim of a good designer is to make the thing happen that you want to happen, which is very different from when you design for print. So that’s why I had to check. So in a way, UX is about good marketing. If you I follow various UX, like, gurus and I, you know, obviously, I I keep myself informed but I’ve and I’ve, watched their courses.
Piccia Neri:
There’s also one is Jo Natoli who’s amazing, is also a wonderful a lot online school, which is called the Interaction Design Foundation, and they have even just a book, the blog posts that they have there. If you just read all of read all of them, you you’re gonna have you’re gonna, you know, be well prepared have a good preparation. Yeah. And but fundamentally, that’s always the underlying thing, which is why sometimes I find surprising that it’s so difficult to sell good design to clients because it’s all and and Goodyear and UX. It’s because it’s all about marketing. It’s all about making sure that your website works in a way that you want it to work which is to help your users, ergo ultimately to make you money. That’s all there is to it.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I hear you. So Yeah. So far then we’ve learned that there is a big difference between print design and design for web. We’ve unpacked as well that it’s really, really important that we actually start with a problem what needs to be achieved before we even consider the design because that’s going to significantly change the the UX, the user’s experience. That’s going to significantly change how you lay it out, the UI, etcetera, and the design. You’ve also explained as well that we don’t really necessarily need to have the quote, unquote artistic bone or quote, unquote design bone in our body because if we’re approaching it with this sort of system, it helps us be logical and functional, which is actually what the design needs to be. Exactly. Is it why is it, what’s the right words? Is it reasonable for me to therefore assume, however, that to still be able to achieve all that and also make it look appealing to the eye? Is that where learning a few principles will come in useful like Gestalt with regards to, you know, how the eye perceives things and is drawn towards things? Would that be a reasonable assumption or am I literally talking out my bottom?
Piccia Neri:
You are not talking out to your bottom. It’s a very reasonable assumption and it’s a very useful assumption because when I see in Facebook groups, you know, people posting saying, oh my god, I haven’t got any inspiration. I’ve looked at so many Pinterest boards because I can’t design this new website. And actually all they need, then it transpires that they’re lost because they’re developers who have to design because that’s normally happens, especially those of us who work with small businesses. Yeah. And all they would need is some solid foundation that tells them what to do. And Gestalt is a very good starting point because actually the the principles of design, at least Western design, because this is how we do things here. It’s not necessarily it’s the it’s not necessarily all over the world, but this is how what we know in the Western world.
Piccia Neri:
The principles of design are either based on Western art theory Mhmm. Or
Lee Matthew Jackson:
and
Piccia Neri:
slash or based on Gestalt, theory. Because Gestalt theory comes out of Germany in around the, twenties or 19 twenties, which is also around the same time that the Bauhaus School of Arts and Design, started. Modernism as well. So that’s where modern design modern design sort of was born as I mean, I’m not gonna give you a history of design now. This is sort of a very but but, however, that’s where it all starts. So if you get and it’s nothing scary or terribly difficult. It’s just incredibly helpful because it’s gonna let you know. It’s I wouldn’t you wouldn’t attempt to go skiing without a lesson.
Piccia Neri:
There are things that you just shouldn’t do unless you wouldn’t go driving without someone telling you what what to do. Yeah. So it’s kind of the same thing. It’s unsurprising that people sometimes that, you know, developers or people who are not designers get a bit lost. This which is why, you know, a client trying to design their own website in Wix because it’s got a good builder doesn’t make make much sense because the fact you know, if you give me, you know, I don’t know, a I’m not gonna make a very bad example, but if you give me a violin, I’m not gonna be able to play it just because I have the tool.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s actually a really good point. It’s a really, really good point. I mean, yeah. So having a visual builder as it were inside of WordPress does not suddenly mean that everybody are are going to be able to create amazing websites. But neither does purchasing a theme necessarily mean that that’s going to be a good website because what we’ve clearly unpacked here is that when we’re building a website, when we’re designing our website, etcetera, it’s actually all about the problem rather than, you know, how it looks. So Yeah. It feels like for many years, we’ve all been you know, not all of us. You know, there’s there’s many enlightened people, but a lot of us, and I’m including myself here, are are being very much led by how it looks before I’ve even got to the point of trying to understand the problem that I’m solving.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
In fact, the the website that I currently hate the most is my own website with regards to its visual appealingness, but I love it the most because it does exactly what I needed it to do, which is generates us leads and gets people straight to the estimate generator of which they then make inquiries. So I’m like, I Yeah. I don’t necessarily think it’s the most prettiest website in the world. It’s definitely not by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s actually really ridiculously functional and people understand exactly what we do and we don’t have any awkward questions. We get way more for form fill ins than we’ve ever had in my life. So Fabulous. Yeah. So It’s amazing.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But I kinda that proves that point. But, I think as well it’s the conversation that I’ll often have then with people. Well, well, can’t we buy a theme, and go ahead from there? And and this this really does help you have that conversation with the client saying, you’re probably not the right person for us because we don’t just install themes and make them pretty for you for a few quid because that’s not how we run a sustainable business. What we actually do is we work with you, work out what your problems are. We then lay out a custom site build for you that will, you know, allow those activities, those actions to actually happen. This is a important process that we will go through, and it’s not cheap either. It’s going to cost you x thousands of pounds to get started. If you are ready to commit to that and you wanna use our expertise and our talent, let’s let’s rock and roll.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Otherwise, I can only recommend you go ahead and go over to Wix or not even bother and try and find some budget. You know? Exactly. And we’ve had similar conversations, and it’s only through you saying what you’ve said. It’s kind of just connected a whole lot of things that I knew in my brain but hadn’t really joined together. And then as you’ve described things, I’ve realized, well, I’ve kind of been having these conversations without realizing it for a long time, all these frustrations where, you know, we’re building from an existing these you know, an existing template, and then we’re all wondering why the site doesn’t do what it is that you know, why aren’t we getting more we’ve designed this lovely new site. Why aren’t we getting more inquiries? Well, that’s actually because we all just downloaded the theme that you asked for, and we just filled in the blanks and changed your logo. That’s not actually how your specific target audience need to see the website. We actually need to oh my gosh.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m preaching now, aren’t I? We actually need to engage in this process. That’s why it’s so freaking important. That’s why robots aren’t gonna replace us. That’s why ThemeForest is not
Piccia Neri:
that good
Lee Matthew Jackson:
of web design. So every single web designer listening right now, take a deep breath to let it go and go, thank the lord. AI is not replacing us. And, Peacher, I believe you have, after that rant of mine, you are have some webinars that people can access to start to help them understand it, start to help them think like this and get their design game on. Can you tell us all about Design for Geeks, please?
Piccia Neri:
Yes. So Design for Geeks started because I started giving talks about these things precisely for this reason. Because I wanted to get give, people a something to say to their clients beyond it looks like like rubbish or or, or, you know, I don’t like this color or, you know, give reasons to to defend your choices to your clients. You shouldn’t even say the word defending because it’s sort of has a negative connotation. But basically then people started asking me whether I I would do courses for it for this. And I’ve started doing that. And the project is called Design for Geeks, which is a Facebook group, as well as a website where I’m slowly but surely putting up all the, talks and webinars that I’ve been giving recently for free, but there’s also a whole course that you that is based on a series of 1 hour webinars with with quizzes and assignments and so on that deal with all of this. And the the angle for me always is to give a reason for design.
Piccia Neri:
Design, when you’d make a choice, when you take a decision, it’s there’s it’s always for a reason. It’s never on a whim. And on the web, it needs to be all the more so than anywhere else because you have also to deal with things such as accessibility. That is actually a legal requirement that clients, you know, like to ignore, but it’s actually a legal requirement. Then, usability as well. Then who’s your audience? What you want want them to do and so on, all the things that we talked about here. So there’s that there’s that apps aspect so that you feel really empowered to to say, no. It can’t be read and it can’t be bigger, which is one thing that comes up often to make the logo red and to make it bigger, for instance.
Piccia Neri:
And also how the fact that you don’t need to be an artist to deliver a fantastic website and to always the other mantra is the the whole point, the design thinking behind it is that they are, at the end, there’s always the user. And you have to think about, about it and you have to think like them, which is another way of selling your designs to a client because often the problem with clients is that they want what they like. But it’s not about that. It’s not about what they like. It’s exactly the case of your website. It’s not about what you like. It’s about what your clients or prospects need when you they land on your website. So they don’t need a pretty website.
Piccia Neri:
They need to find out exactly how much they’re gonna spend. And I have visited your website, and I thought that the the, estimate builder, whatever you call it, is amazing. I thought, wow, this is brilliant. It’s just great. It’s exactly what you want as a client. And I have I’m not surprised. It totally gets you more leads. So, yes.
Piccia Neri:
So the the the, webinar course is just the basis for what will be a much bigger course in the near future. But for now, it’s it’s, a huge it’s it’s about 10 hours of, of, material that really gives you solid solid grounding into making design choices and never again finding yourself thinking, I don’t know how to build this website. It just won’t happen ever again. It just doesn’t happen.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So if you do not want to feel like that again, I don’t know what to or don’t don’t know how to lay out this website, or if you want to argue with a client with regards to when they come up to you and say, no. I I feel like this has not got the wow factor. Well, you can be armed with with real solid, provable, systematic answers, logical answers that people really can’t argue with. Go to design for geeks.com. You can access all of the content. You’ve got your free course, haven’t you there? And you can also access the Facebook group if you go to forward slash groups forward slash design for geeks, and go ahead and join that group. I’m in there as well. It’s a great group.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And the great thing about the group feature is that you show up regularly. You do a lot of live streams. You share what’s going on in your life. You share what’s going on in the design world. So there’s a lot of really useful information, and I’m loving that you are giving hope to developers and designers around the world just helping them understand that design is not necessarily for the Mozarts of the world as it you know, as in the really gifted people who happen to be have been able to paint things, aged 2 or 3 or 4. And I remember now that Mozart is actually a musician. That was a terrible example. But you get what I mean.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. You know, but we can learn these systems. And you’ve you’ve encouraged me. I actually took quite a lot of what you were sharing, and that helped me with regards to Angle Crown, you know, with that website as well. So, obviously, I thank you, for for what you’ve shared. So, folks, that’s over on design for geeks.com. Have a look at that. You’ll actually see me on the website there as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Look at that. There I am. There’s a little, a little a little comment about how much I love Peacher and her skills. So, folks, go check that out. Thank you, Peacher, for your time. I’m looking forward to having you on again, and I would love to do a livestream as well at some point in the near future in the Facebook group where maybe we can take some questions from the audience with regards to your thoughts, on design, and maybe we could even have a look at some websites as well together and have a conversation about those, work out what may be working, what may not be working on them, and maybe give some advice. So maybe we could set that up in the WP Innovator group. That would be phenomenal.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Folks, if you don’t know where that is, you can find that on agencytrailblazer.comforward/group. Be sure to be in there as well. That’s 2 awesome groups to go hang out with as crazy cool dudes. So, Peter, all that’s left to say is thank you. You are a legend. I can’t wait for you to be back in the UK again. So we can go ahead and do the rest of the museum because that was ridiculously too big.
Piccia Neri:
Yeah. And,
Lee Matthew Jackson:
and next time I’m in Spain, I’ll give you a shout. Thank you so much.
Piccia Neri:
Wonderful. Thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure to be here.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Nice one. Take care. Bye bye. Bye. And that wraps up today’s show. Don’t forget if you have any comments or thoughts about this episode, then head on over to the Facebook group. That’s agencytrailblazer.com/group. If you enjoy this podcast, then please be sure to go over to Itunes or whatever you are using to consume podcasts with.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And please leave us a 5 star review because that really helps us. And if you can think of any other agency owner, WordPress enthusiast, developer, designer, anyone who may benefit from this podcast, then can I also ask you as well, please do share it? Please share the love because we wanna grow this community. Learning from each other is so important. And finally, before I go, don’t forget that we have the YouTube channel with tons of awesome content and all of the visuals for the agency life series. So head on over to agency trailblazer.comforward/youtube, and you’ll be redirected there. We will see you in the next episode.
