Design Principles

Emarsys Design Principles are shared guidelines that capture the essence of what good design means for our company, and advice on how to achieve it.

The principles are ordered by importance.

1. Purposeful

The purpose of Emarsys is always obvious. We provide easily accessible turn key solutions for common marketing problems, not just a toolbox of technology. We have an opinion about how marketing should be done, and this narrative is visible in our workflows, we never leave our users to their own.

Provide turn key solutions:

• Emarsys should provide easily accessible solutions for common marketing problems, not just a toolbox of technology.
  • Identify primary use cases and build the flow around these meaningful defaults.
  • Include meaningful blueprints and templates.
• Emarsys has an opinion about how marketing should be done.
  • Make sure the workflow reflects our narrative.

2. Adaptable

Emarsys is adaptable to our users’ specific needs. We prepare for scalability, as some of our users are huge, some of them are small — but they might grow huge as well. We consider collaboration, since most of our users collaborate across multiple departments. We achieve functional adaptability by turning use cases into a coherent system.

Prepare for scalability and collaboration:

• Some of our customers are small — some of them are huge. Prepare your design to be used both in a small scale and in a huge scale.
  • Anticipate problems that might come with scalability over time: layout, data, performance. Better safe than sorry.
  • Some of our customers use workflows alone, some collaborate on them across multiple departments

Make functionality adaptable for specific needs through systemising:

• Our customers are varied, one size fits all doesn’t work.
  • Explore and research less vital but perfectly valid use cases, and build a system around them.
  • Don’t cut off functionality if it makes sense to have in the system.
  • Don’t ignore edge-cases.

3. Clear

Emarsys always communicates clearly with our users. We show our logic, how our software calculates the results. We make sure our users never feels lost in Emarsys. We provide inter-connected tools and resources, which can be used in various ways and contexts. We speak to our users in a language they know, with consistent tone and terminology across the product.

Show our logic:

• Build trust by communicating to the user how Emarsys thinks and works. Be transparent with calculations and results. Marketers should never feel unsure about the legitimacy of our data.
  • Make connections between data and resources clear by matching them with styles and visual cues — colours, typography, layout.
  • Avoid making the interface too noisy — further information should be optionally accessible in context, when the user demands it.
  • Show the input and the output, and how we got to it. Don’t put the math and the process in a black box.

Put the marketer in our workflow:

• The marketer should always know where they are in Emarsys — where they came from, where they are now, and what’s ahead. They should never feel lost in our system.
  • Workflows should have a definitive start and end point. Alongside with the steps in-between, all of these should be visible to the user.
  • To support focused work, a single step in the workflow should be focused on a single goal (e.g. setting something up, creating content).
  • The workflow should make sense to the marketer’s mental model. Always validate your workflow concepts with research.
  • Make our system more predictable by creating workflows as similar as possible among our products. Only reorder common workflow steps or introduce new ones if necessary.
  • Always call to action for what’s next. Don’t put dead ends in workflows.
  • Always provide an escape route, so the user can cancel their action and return to a safe state.
• Data and resources shouldn’t be siloed. They should be inter-connected, used together, work together. That’s the power of built-not-bought.
  • Don’t introduce a new resource — try making use of what we already have, and expand on that if it’s needed.

Speak to our personas:

• Use language that marketers know.
  • Refer to objects in common marketing terminology.
  • Don’t burden marketers with technical terms.
• Emarsys terminology should be consistent.
  • Use Emarsys terminology consistently across the whole platform, always refer to our own central vocabulary. Don’t invent new terms on your own.
  • Avoid Emarsys-exclusive terms if possible. In case you need to use these, always explain.
• Tone of voice

4. Trustworthy

Emarsys appears as a professional tool that marketers can rely on. We never ship interfaces that don’t feel complete, and make sure they are coherent and consistent across the product. We leverage existing components and practices of our Design System, and expand our system if there’s a strong, valid reason to.

Make the interface feel complete:

• Half-finished designs shouldn’t be shipped.
  • Take care of the Design System fundamentals before making the interface fancy.
  • Pay attention to even the smallest details — they add up to form a big problem for our customers.

Keep the interface consistent across the product:

• Interfaces should not stick out as something alien to the product.
  • Don’t make pages or components that are vastly different in perceptually or functionally from the others.
  • Keep the styling consistent across the product (e.g. white spaces, font scaling, colour usage, etc.)
  • Keep the interactions coherent and reliable (e.g. action-result, processes, etc.)
• Leverage existing components and practices.
  • There are always opportunities to expand the Design System, but be mindful about it.
• Identify opportunities where you have to innovate.
  • There are solutions that you cannot build using merely our design system components, and require unique approaches.

5. Comfortable

Emarsys feels comfortable to be used all day long. We make sure not to tire our users’ eyes, hands, and brain. We provide an aesthetic, state-of-the-art interface, designed to be future-proof with battle-tested solutions. We pay attention to the needs and behaviors of power users. We save our users from doing repetitive, time-consuming tasks, so they can get to their goal quicker.

Provide a state-of-the-art interface:

• Aesthetics should be a tool to communicate with the marketer, not merely ornamental.
  • Use visual anchors to lead the eye (e.g. primary button).
  • Reduce noise by removing visual elements which aren’t communicating efficiently.
• Trends might just end up being passing fads, with no benefits on the long run.
  • See which trends have stuck around, analyse why, and make a case for them.
• Our products’ life-cycles are long, and we won’t be able to update to the newest trends every year.
  • Prepare for the next few years. Try picking more timeless, future-proof solutions.

Ensure all day long comfortability:

• The interface shouldn’t tire the user’s eyes, hands, and brain.
  • Make interface legible by using proper contrast, sizing (text, interactive elements), visual anchoring.
  • Decrease noise by only showing what’s necessary for the user to see at the given moment.
  • Reduce number of clicks, interactions as much as possible (e.g. balance click and hover interactions, provide keyboard navigation).
• Emarsys should liberate our users from doing repetitive, time consuming tasks.
  • Don’t asks for the same things multiple times.
  • Make easily available what we already know.

Think of the power users:

• Our products should be easy and quick for both newbies and Emarsys experts.
• Our efforts to make life easier for rookie marketers shouldn’t be an obstacle for power users.
  • Training material should be only visible to people who are interested in it.
  • Don’t slow power users down by making them ride with training wheels.
• Shortcuts enable more efficient work.
  • Related, relevant workflows should be linked together.
  • Let marketers get to their most used files quickly and easily (e.g. pins).
  • Let marketers get back to work quickly and easily (e.g. recent files).
  • Enable quick navigation with keystrokes and shortcuts.

6. Empowering

Emarsys empowers the marketer. We educate them about Emarsys itself by providing them information about functions they’re using, and opportunities to try new features. We aim to turn Emarsys rookies into Emarsys experts. We inspire marketers to do amazing work by showing them what’s possible, and providing them a safe environment to experiment.

Educate marketers:

• Marketers should know everything about the functions they’re using.
  • Display contextual tips.
  • Signal limitations, always give reasons (e.g. permissions).
• Marketers should know about opportunities and features.
  • Show descriptive blurbs of products.
  • Support upselling relevant products.
• Emarsys rookies should be turned into Emarsys experts.
  • Tell marketers how they can use Emarsys more effectively and efficiently.
  • Show shortcuts and Emarsys best practices.

Inspire marketers:

• Show marketers what amazing things can be done.
  • Show outcomes they can achieve in Emarsys.
  • Think of ways to display what others have done in Emarsys.
• Enable marketers to experiment in a safe environment.
  • Show marketers pre-calculations of the impact of their plan.
  • Avoid persistent destruction by making things recoverable and cancelable.