Widget personalization

Editors of the Xperience website can tailor their marketing messages to appeal to different audiences.

• Widget personalization. Editors can handpick content variants targeted at a contact group. Imagine tailor-stitching a bespoke experience: “Ah, this content is for the early risers; that content is for the night owls.”
• Personalization in code. Developers can code personalization conditions directly into a website’s markup. In this case, editors have limited options to customize the messaging from the administration UI. Personalizing through code is especially helpful when you have precisely defined your content strategy to support the customer journey. Developers predefine how the content should behave, personalization just happens, and editors can move their focus elsewhere.

Test widgets with real-life content

UX designers love to jump right in and start cranking out website wireframes. They usually don’t have content to work with at the start, so when they need to fill space with something, they paste in some placeholder text or images and move along. These solutions work, but partially.

More often than not, your team will discover that your content barely fits the wall of nonsensical Lorem ipsum text you’ve used to test the widgets.

Don’t compromise on dummy content. Since you completed the content audit, you’ve likely already molded your content strategy and defined your brand tone and voice.

Use your existing content from the audit and strategy and recreate it using the new widget prototypes and their properties. Find out if you can design your content in a way your brand book defines, identify other needs for widget configuration, and discuss options with your project owner.

Validate every decision with ROI

Every project implementor needs to stay vigilant and monitor the requests from the stakeholders and the editing team.

Adding new features, tweaking existing configurations, or simplifying options sounds straightforward, right? However, nothing is as simple as it seems.

If your existing widget already moonlights as a Swiss Army knife (meaning it supports complex behavior and different configuration options), updates can get complicated. It’s not just about removing a property; it’s about orchestrating a series of changes.

When editors dream up fresh behaviors, such as updating the widget, it involves more than just developers:

• UX and Front-End Engineers need to tweak how the content in the new widget’s configuration renders across devices.
• Developers often must adjust complex series of if-else conditions and deploy their changes in UAT.
• Testers guard user experience and ensure visitors don’t trip over surprises.
• Stakeholders must ensure the new widget’s behavior aligns with their vision.

From experience, it’s safe to say that this update cycle rarely gets done in one pass. So, before you request any complex or straightforward change, remember that it can also mean getting back to the drawing board and seeing what this piece of content will do and what it will look like.

Summary

With the right properties, Page Builder widgets transform content editors’ experiences and help them design their website content without developers. Editors can craft their pages with finesse, tailor the user experience, and guide website visitors toward conversion, and boost ROI.