UX Prime

31/12/2024

As we move closer to the final hour and another year soon to be in the rear view mirror, before we open up yet another chapter, 365 fresh new pages, we wish you and family a blessed crossover and a prosperous new year.

23/09/2024

Discover your Identity.
Know Thy Self.

Branding Services.

STEALTH

01/09/2024

Hello Friend, do you have a moment to share a word about our Lord and Savior, Metazack AI?

31/08/2024

Ugh, here comes another blackout. I guess I'll have to continue my UX design in Dark Mode. 🤦😑

31/08/2024

There couldn't be a more perfect day to listen to Yanni - The end of August.

30/08/2024

Solving complex problems that are unique with real world potential always appeals to me. It is the challenge that comes with these types of projects as you're thrust into a scenario where you really have to imagine, think outside of the box and sometimes even reinventing current paradigms.

The fields of Computer Science and software engineering have unlocked new dimensions into thinking about and tackling the human condition. Great software does change lives, impacting the quality of work and that of life in general.

I've always been drawn towards the enterprise software space, it's a domain I want to be known to have innovated in. There's something that amuses me about solving a business problem through software or abstracting the entirety of a businesses processes into a software platform.

All this excitement landed me into the Indie Hacker space where people leverage modern technologies to ship SaaS products fast and shortening the release cycle with each successive product.

What a time to be alive!

26/06/2024

The expanded Fouche & Co Recruitment Experience

As a brand matures, a design framework emerges from its set of design assets and overtime paradigms evolved to manage the disparate and complex array of these assets which helped improve communication, cohesion, efficiency and consistency.

The value of a logo system and more broadly, standardisation is flexibility and customisation, facilitating a streamlined and adaptable solution as depicted in the image below which represents the different permutations under which the Fouche & Co logo can exist without affecting recognition and consistency in identity.

Before this logo was expanded into a responsive system, a few refinements were made mainly to add visual balance for a look that is more stable, premium and amusing to look at. The typeface was upgraded to one that is more dynamic with increased flexibility in the designs that cascade from this system.

In total there are 13 logos in this system, much fewer if not counting the expanded variants which brings down the number to just 8 just to showcase how extensible the sytem is which allows for the perfect representation of the brand regardless of medium, from a profile pic to a favicon, from a header image, to a website navigation bar, from a social media banner, to a real world print, from a desktop screen to a mobile phone.

This system not only reduces design and development time, but also improves the adaptability of the brand in a rapidly chianging digital landscape where enhanced flexibility for marketing and branding initiatives is crucial.

On my first impression with the Fouche & Co website was the logo, it didn't look optimised for various platforms and devices, while it is a PNG, it is one with a solid background and while a stacked logo works on a mobile device, an inline logo is more optimised for a nav bar in larger screens. However, a more in depth audit of the Fouche web experience itself will have its own post.

I am scouting the World Wide Web looking for websites to 10x in a way that is meaningful and valuable to both brand and customer, for both to meet their goals more effectively. While users expect more functionality in the websites they visit, companies benefit from the value of streamlined or better yet, automated processes, it results in a more effient business, more reactive and responsive to customer needs.

Perhaps I may just land on your website next. However, you can reach out for an audit across the metrics of conversion, accessibility, ui/ux, security, seo etc.

16/06/2024

A whole makeover just for you, the kind of brand you've always envisioned for yourself.

The level of elegance that conveys the very thoughts and imagination that set you on this path, the path to perfecting the job fit. We commit to things that are bigger than ourselves in a strong response to an unmet need, sometimes an ich that cannot be unshaken can press on so hard that we refuse the to accept the state of things.

A strong cause is always bigger than the person who assumes it, defining their mark on the world. It is this mark that draws my interest and invigorates my passion, to perfect perfect the mark, it's communication and systems.

I've been looking much closely at the recruitment scene as a niche and for this one in particular, brand and website revitalisation are quite ancillary to why exactly I've taken a keen interest into this niche.

With Fouche & Co Recruitment I felt I could do something special with their logo when expanded into a responsive system. But what is a responsive logo system and where's the value? To whom should it matter? and more importantly how did I even get here with this logo? The image below is quite incomplete, what you're seeing is but an extension of this responsive logo system.

As we live in an economy that requires flexibility, agility and adaptability it is essential for a brand to adapt to different scenarios, use cases and conditions.

14/06/2024

State of the Nation's Platforms
Technology adoption took an interesting turn in Africa where a large majority of people use smartphones as their main computing device; a trajectory that led to some interesting innovations not seen in the first world.

The proliferation of the smartphone not only did it lead to a boom in the connected community , it also led to the mobile money revolution, an innovation that would prove itself vital for radical transformation in our part of the world.

These innovations quickly led to the smartphone being accepted as the ideal channel for the delivery of Government services, with the ever growing prominence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution many opportunities and threats have surfaced, coupled with the ever growing complexity of our technological systems, likewise there is a growing challenge in implementation, realising the most value and being equipped enough to fend against the growing sophistication of threat actors.

Charne Mostert reports a surge of over 20% in Cybersecurity related incidences the majority of which target government systems which constitutes a huge blow to the national security framework of South Africa and threatens the core tenets of national security.

The Sophos "The State of Ransomware in South Africa 2023" reports on organisations that experienced ransomware attacks in the preceding year to have risen as high as 78%. The trends show that as African countries continue to expand their digital infrastructure and more people get online, a proportional or exponential surge in Cybersecurity related incidences ought to be expected.

Our government's efforts towards digitising its services are praiseworthy, these efforts date back and in some cases it does come out as a pioneer, however being first isn't what matters and the bigger issue not being the surge in cyber attacks against our government, the latter only reflective of the current state of our world.

The major concerns regarding the state of the Nation's Platforms are first and foremost hinged on the security posture of these systems, to what extent is security built in to the architecture across all levels of abstraction? For systems that hold sensitive state and citizen data, systems that are essentially the lifeblood of the nation whose disruption presents the potentiality of chaos, distress, loss of life.

We cannot end with out calling out the obvious lack of forethought as to the technology stack, system design, product management, user experience; the very thought of putting yourself into the shoes of the average South African. The modernisation efforts are hindered by archaic procurement practices that are never flexible enough for modern delivery and deployment methods. Frustration as a stigma attached to our governments systems is an association that will take a while to change and as a concerned citizen I cannot help but want to do something about this.

30/05/2024

AI as a Core Competency.

Following the new craze around generative algorithms and all the promises it comes with, companies are looking to spearhead the evolution towards AI being a core competency internally.

As the tides continue to change, industry leaders are wrestling to stay abreast of the AI wave all in the attempt to maintain an edge over their competitors as in today's world, competitive success is determined by the extent to which enterprises can facilitate the effective implementation of AI systems, a paradigm underpinned by the a transofrmation that spans people, systems, processes and culture.

Proper enteprise wide AI adoption goes beyond encouraging employees to make use of AI chatbots, this in itself isn't an AI strategy as it doesn't account for the policies that govern company secrets, intellectual property and proper coordination in line with the company's mission and goals.

With generative AI models having proven their benefit and the potential value they are set to unlock it is critical that companies economy-wide begin to view Artificial Intelligence as a core competency and what makes it even more crucial is that in the technology's infancy there is the early adopter's priviledge as these companies don't only get to lead but also to define the standards and use cases of these tools across industry verticals.

Opportunities continue to open up as the current incumbents in the AI space are moving to create more enterprise solutions which improves the availability of case studies that will inspire even more transition towards AI based processes and workloads. For companies looking to adopt these enteprise solutions, for them it isn't a Plug 'n Play process, there are internal company dynamics to navigate as adoption will always have friction.

While the friction and delayed adoption from the employees is warranted as the use of these tools trigger feelings of imminent and eventual retrenchments, it is crucial for leaders to cultivate a spirit of human machine cooperation that will allow companies to build more competency on their current headcount. Essentially doing more with the same number of people but augmenting that workforce with AI systems.

Meet the Chief AI Officer

With increased adoption of AI based solutions to transform operations and systems, even for companies building AI solutions for the market need an executive level AI professional. It is important to have a high level oversight and coordination, to create maningful and measurable KPIs and to ensure success in the AI goals of the enterprise.

For any technology that is still in its infancy, it is usually difficult to source talent even more so for high level executive roles, but as pivotal as these times have proven to be it is important to begin laying the groundwork and the best time for that was yesterday.

25/05/2024

In today's world, having some form of web presence is as much a given as business cards have always been, with more and more companies continuously evolving their websites into full blown interactive platforms in an effort to automate specific aspects of their businesses.

As the technology landscape continues to evolve, with older paradigms falling out of date, new threats and vulnerabilities emerge, as well as web content, presentation and configuration grows stale, it is ever more critical to regularly audit your website to unweave every nook and cranny to identify avenues for optimisation acros every layer of abstraction from server, to code, to config, to content.

Optimisation efforts include quality of life improvements like the proper use of images with some of the best practices being: Making use tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim to reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality. Smaller images load faster, improving user experience which can be taken further by implementing lazy loading and responsive images.

It is crucial to also consider the user's scenarios, what device they use, bandwith and internet connection quality as some of the aspects to optimise for, it allows you to deliver the best experience under any scenario or circumstance which maintains a high quality brand impression without compromise.

These tweaks and considerations can significantly impact your website’s performance, SEO, and user satisfaction. But if you want a comprehensive audit tailored to your site, reach out to us.

28/03/2024

Holy Poster Design for an upcoming local gospel event.
Simple and spirit filled.