Resisting Trends While Remaining Cutting-Edge

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Creating a product or a service requires one to be in tune with the digital world as it is today. We know this to be true simply by our natural negative reaction to hopelessly dated interface designs and website aesthetics.

We spot the differences instantly. It is of course then logical to try to stay with the times and update our approaches to build things that feel fresh and modern.

However, there is a step you can take in this process to make a bigger impression on your audience, while still slotting in nicely with the current state of the digital goods and services market.

This step is learning to navigate the tension between fitting in with others and standing out.

In some ways, fitting in is a ticket to getting eyes and ears on your project. On the other hand, this places your product with all of the others, and the user likely ends up purchasing and preferring the cheapest, most straightforward one in the bunch. The competition is no longer so much about the identity of the product, but rather it is about who can offer the lowest price and the most optimized experience for the same thing.

Standing out can be a wonderful thing if your strength lies in creating something truly innovative and new. If you can assure people your work is as good as all of the products out there in the market but it also comes with something that no one else has, it is really more about delivering a good impression than trying to outplay the competition. All of a sudden you have more power and control over how you approach your product development.

A smart way to go about things then is to fit in with others only as much as necessary and then have the courage to stand out and offer something that can't be purchased or gotten anywhere else.

Read [our article]("web link to the post Working Smarter, Not Harder") on working smart to see how embracing minimalism in your work will help you achieve this!