Oh, Daylight Saving Time. You Catch-22 little SHIT. đ
Dangling âOh, you want more LIGHT during the daytime, do youâŠbut hereâs the catch â you LOSE an hour of sleep, suckers!!!â in front of our winter-ravaged minds and bodies!
DO YOU THINK THATâS FAIR, DST?? đ đ đ *Cue evil laugh* đ đ đ
Ugh. Oh well. Seems a perfect time for another episode of the 4 (3?) AM Report, our weekly podcast that digs deep into whatâs keeping marketers and entrepreneurs awake at night!
This week, we have an incredible guest AND a caveat:
Guest? Canadian lawyer and trademark agent for Mason PC, Cynthia Mason is in the house! Caveat? Sheâs one of our clients, BUT sheâs so brilliant we couldnât keep her all to ourselves!Cynthia has created Markably.ca, an online trademark registration tool that is a game changer for entrepreneurs and businesses.
What keeps Cynthia up at night? USER EXPERIENCE! And how vital it is to offer people the most simplified, intuitive system possible.
So, have a listen, because she maps out for us a great use-case on trusting yourself, and capitalizing on your knowledge đ§ đ§ đ§ â the deep understanding you have of the people youâre trying to reach, then using those insights for everything from user behaviour to journey mapping until đ„BOOMđ„ you have an online UX that converts!
And for those of you who want a sampling of what youâre going to learn today, read on!! (another example of great UX,đđđ right here! đ)
What Keeps YOU Up at Night?
âSo, what keeps me up at nightâŠI mean, I'm a trademark lawyer. And one of the new elements of Canadian trademark law is when you register a trademark, you have to classify your goods and services. Now, the classification system is this internationally accepted system where they have divided basically all the products services in the world into 45 different classes, right. And when you register a trademark, your application needs to be indexed according to the classes that your products and services fall into. And your government fees that you pay for that registration will depend on the number of classes that are covered. So it's a huge deal now to classify goods and services to get it right to get the fees, right. Because if you don't, I mean, your application will still be filed, but you're going to receive an objection, your application is going to be delayed, it's going to take you longer in order to get to the registration pointâŠthe way I've divided it is, I've given you categories of common goods and services, and you select the categories that apply to your business. And then within those categories, you select more specific products and services and where necessary, you provide additional detail. But depending on what you select, that triggers the number of the class and the class fee, and that's built into your trademark application right from the get go!â
Merge Your Brain Power with Your Software!
âI guess the difference between when you someone like you who's like an actual professional in the field, constructs the software as opposed to just a general developer being like, here's a bunch of forms. I guess the point I'm making is we're trying to bring together both the user friendliness of the whole thing which is what you're talking about in the classification, you're taking people through those *steps of thinking* so that they can choose the relevant categories. But then there's also the fact that it's you. A lawyer and a trademark agent. And, you know, you obviously know the subject matterâŠSo, it's like sitting down with a lawyer and having them ask all those questions that you would be askedâŠyou know, the way you've approached the user experience here is you've provided them with that kind of âhandholdâ throughout the whole process.â
What in the HECK does UX Even Mean?
âWhat does the term user experience mean? And quite simply, it's like, people behave a certain way, right? And they go online, they try to find information. They search in certain ways. That's user behavior, then you sort of like, based on studying, you make some assumptions about what they're going to do. That's called journey mapping. And user experience is when you're like, âCynthia, I will probably read this and click it. Let me make a pretty button here for Cynthia to click here.â And then if she clicks that button, where she's going to go is going to be a page, which actually explains why she's on that page. And that's the part I find that a lot of people sort of fall down on, and you've done a really good job of, like, you know, giving that sort of consideration. We like to give people some things to think about in terms of what constitutes, you know, good user experience. And one of the things that we were talking about was the idea of housekeeping.â
Housekeeping: Not Just for Houses Anymore!
âThe housekeeping idea!! Making sure that everything's in order, everything works. You know, how many times have you gone to something clicked a button and you can't find the page or information is out of date, and you just dismiss it right away. Even if you go to someone's blog, and the last thing they posted was a year ago, you kind of dismiss that almost right away as well. So that's what we call the housekeeping. That's the first thing that people can do to even up their UX game a little bit. It's just, make sure everything's the way it's supposed to be up to date and working. Take chatbots. One of my pet peeves. And I know the idea behind it is to provide a better user experience to keep me on that page. So, let's say I was filling out a form online, and I was confused. There's a little chat bot button. Everyone loves chat bots now. But it's not an email, it's supposed to chat with me. And you get a message saying thank you for submitting that question. We will get back to you in 48 hours and I'm like, âOh, I'll just close it down. Otherwise, I'd email the help the info, email. In that case, screw the chat bot!â Maybe You don't need to have a chat bot or especially I would say don't have a chat bot unless you can have the chat bot work like a chat bot.â
Dude. Youâre Making Me Think Too Hard
âI mean, you know, I think with any user experience, you want to put something out there that makes life easy for the person on the other end. And I mean, I know I personally I like reading things, articles, blogs that are very conversational and, you know, funny and sarcastic and get the point across in easily, not in complicated, you know, run on sentences that I have to read six times in order to get the point - like it goes back to âDon't make me think. Maybe make me laugh a little bit. Don't make me think.â
HA! There you have it. The next time youâre trying to determine whether YOUR digital user experience is where it should be â just ask yourself: Are people required to think too much here? Because if they ARE, chances are theyâre gonna bounce!
About Cynthia
Cynthia Mason is a Canadian lawyer and trademark agent who helps innovative businesses protect their names and logos. Over the last 15+ years, she has helped businesses of all sizes and stages protect their trademarks, and sheâs passionate about teaching business owners how to protect all the hard work theyâve invested into growing their brands.
Connect with Cynthia
Facebook and Instagram: @MasonProfessionalCorporation, @markably
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