Hey 👋
Peter from Built for Mars here, with some news:
- BFM4, an all-new experience, is out now.
- There’s now a new paid product, called BFM+.
TL:DR
- The most recent case studies will always be free, in full.
- I explain who this is aimed at, and who shouldn’t buy it.
- If you’re a product builder, use code “earlyspacebird” before December 1st to get 25% off for life.
Okay, let’s start with the exciting stuff, by covering what’s new:
Introducing: Built for Mars v4
1. A totally redesigned browsing experience
I routinely have people reach out to tell me that they’ve only just found a case study that I published years ago, and how impactful it still is to this day.
Trends change, fashion changes, but UX principles rarely do — because they’re rooted in human biases.
I didn’t want to release a one-time UX course. Instead, I’m building a library of studies, ideas and experiments that can be consumed at your own pace, by anyone, of any skill level.
With that future goal in mind, the way you browse, filter and discover new content has been overhauled.
You can now:
- Directly compare collections.
- Browse by industries (e.g., “Finance”).
- Browse directly by any company (e.g., “Monzo”).
And a lot of work has gone into the organisation of case studies, to help you find new and interesting research, every time you log in.
An example of this, is how we now track study completion progress.
Not only will you start to see more relevant unread content suggested to you, based on your reading history, but you can keep track of your progress.
2. Static fire complete, time to launch UX Bites
What you’ve seen of UX Bites to date has essentially been a series of experiments. As of today it’s 10x better.
There are now powerful filters to run product sessions, find inspiration, solve specific UX problems and track what others in your industry are doing.
All of the following are now possible:
- Show me all of the UX Bites for Apple.
- Show me all UX Bites in the Finance industry.
- Show me how other teams are tackling Cognitive Drift.
- Show me how UX can be used to reduce Churn.
- Show me the best UX used inside Dashboards.
Combined together, you can create advanced queries.
- Show me the best UX for Baskets and Checkouts, in the SaaS industry.
- Show me how Financial companies are introducing User Delight.
- Show me how to build Habits inside Dashboards.
- Show me how Apple increases Perception of Value.
It’s awesome. You can go and use them right now.
Bear in mind, it’s still early days, and there’s limited content. More is added daily, but I have a high bar for what is considered UX Bite worthy.
i.e., I could go and pay someone to tag 10,000 Bites, but it’s more important to me that every item in the feed is worth your time, and contextualised.
But that’s not all.
Once you’ve found a selection of UX Bites that you’re really interested in, simply switch to the new ‘Expanded View’ mode.
Boom, you’ll reveal even more context and analysis.
This includes associated psychology, impacts and “Behind the Bite” — where I explain in more detail why something works, or how to implement it yourself.
3. UX Psychology
I’ve said it before:
UX psychology is the glue to stick all of this research and analysis together.
They’ve been upgraded too, with new metadata and filters, such as Impacts.
You can now run similar queries to Bites and studies, such as:
- Show me all of the UX psychology that can help build Habits.
- Show me what I need to learn, to help reduce Anxiety for my users.
- Show me the design principles that can help increase Feature Usage.
All of the UX Tooltips have had a mega bump in content too.
Including:
- Potential impacts.
- Product (and implementation) tips.
- Experimentation ideas (A/B tests).
- What to measure (i.e., how to test for it).
- Examples of UX Bites.
4. Smaller improvements
They’re the big three, but there have been so many quality-of-life improvements.
You may notice:
- Faster loading (partly due to image optimisation).
- Higher image quality (particularly noticeable when reading text on the slideshows).
- Improved company pages.
- UX Bite submission process (become a hunter).
- So much more
Built for Mars Premium
What is it? A paid subscription, designed for product builders.
The free tier
Don’t worry, there is (and will always be) a free tier that is enough for 95% of my audience. To be quite honest, you may not even notice that anything has changed, aside from a few prompts on the site.
Here’s what everyone gets for free, without needing an account:
- The most recent case studies are free.
- Each case study will remain free for 3 months.
- A limited number of UX Bites are free.
- All of the UX Psychology summaries are free.
I know that a lot of you read the case studies when they’re released, laugh at the occasional terrible meme, and might even recommend my work to others.
But, you’re not either actively working in a product team, or willing to pay for any kind of UX research.
I get it. It’s the reality of a hobby vs your profession.
And I love that Built for Mars is so accessible, and has been slowly introducing the value of UX to people around the world, without needing to sign up for anything.
So, if the above sounds like you, please don’t pay. You’ll continue to get new case studies when they’re released, and the UX Bite digests, just as you have been.
And you can share an article to your team, friends, or on social media, knowing that it’ll remain free for everyone, for those first 3 months.
The paid tier
I’ve worked with more than 100 of the best product teams in the world, and spoken to many more. I know how hard it is to be inspired these days.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to filter through the noise of places like Dribbble and Behance, to find quality UX ideas and experiments.
BFM+ has been designed for product teams and individuals who:
- Are ready to commit to a sustainable habit of both improving their UX skill, and regularly exercising those design muscles.
- Routinely want to use UX Bites to find new ideas and experiments to improve core business metrics, like finding that next 5% boost in conversion rates, or reducing churn.
- Value benchmarking their product against the industry, and keeping a close eye on what their competitors are doing.
- Value the ability to dive really deep on a specific piece of UX Psychology, and get practical implementation tips.
If that sounds like you, then head over to Built for Mars Premium to learn more.
It starts at just £8 per month (with an annual plan).
And until December 1st, I’m offering 25% off for life, using the code “earlyspacebird”.
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COUPON FOR 25% OFF FOR LIFE: EARLYSPACEBIRD
Works for both the monthly and annual plans until December 1st, 2023.
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