Consistent UI Design For Apps & Marketing Sites

Over the last year or so Google has rolled out a new consistent look and feel across all their properties. While I am not in love with the design, I am in love with their consistency. One aspect that I think all start-ups should learn is being consistent between the apps and the marketing sites. Every google property has a marketing site that tells you about the application and convinces you to sign-up for it. Every software as a service start-up has the same thing. So many start-ups do not carry the same look and feel all the way through from the marketing site to the application to the mobile app and beyond. Here at Cloudmanic Labs we are guilty as charged.

Most users do not know what a marketing site vs an application site is. Nor do they care. They just want to be able to get what they want when they want it. So when you start with one look and feel and transfer to another look and feel users might think they have left the site. Imagine driving down the road in a desert. All of a sudden, you blink and you open your eyes to find yourself in the middle of a city. You are still driving down the road. You are still fine. However, you would have to take a few moments to process the change.

I think we owe it to our users to focus on a consistent experience across all our properties at Cloudmanic Labs. Users should be able to flow between our sites and apps fluidly without having to recompose when going from one site to another. It might take a while (well over a year) but we are going to start refactoring our properties to be more consistent.

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