7 REASONS WHY teaching Millennials is like trying to reach your audience on mobile ?

I have been lucky enough to give a 2 Days intensive workshop on mobile at CreaDigital, a great digital school in Geneva. I had to teach International GenZ students about Mobile UX and UI, navigation best practices, project development choices, creativity, advertising and data on mobile.

1/ A MULTITASKING AUDIENCE

They are clear multitaskers. Just like in real life, they own, bring and use simultaneously multiple devices and YOU need to adapt to this new paradigm.

2/ PERFECT UX COMPULSORY

If you use slides, you’ll need a perfect design and user experience. This is a little reminiscent of website before Google’s Mobileggedon : if you’re too long, too boring, your audience will just switch and churn ! Or worse, get you unlisted!

3/ INFINITE SCROLLING

They are ‘scrolling’ through your speech… if you’re interesting, you’ll catch their attention. If not, they corroborate the study: mobinauts have a goldfish attention lifespan: just above 7 seconds.

4/ NATIVE LANGUAGE REQUIRED

They are naturals. Digital, mobile is their native language.

If you’re using too many verbose explanations, complicated graphs with tons of text you’ll lose them. (I know, this is obvious). You need to connect and really share the same mindset to make jokes that will resonate. Or you’ll lose credibility points.

5/ VIDEO IS A MUST

Video is a great way to make a point and to make sure you’re audience doesn’t switch…As long as it’s not too long !

6/ ENGAGING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE IS KEY

All the case studies they had to participate in, they were highly involved, innovative and quite relevant.

So if you want to keep your audience loyal, you need to be engaging both in your contents, speech, workshops and methodology.

I had exterior speakers talk about real life problematic and pain points they were facing while building their apps, and that was much appreciated. (Thank you so much Gwenaelle from MRS and Anna from PetitMarché!).

7/ THE NEED TO USE BOTH DATA AND CREATIVITY

Using KPIs and data on what your audience likes is tantamount on mobile, as much as it is in a classroom!

Use paper boards, games, creativity methods. Just like in mobile gaming, send regular signs and feedbacks.

At the end of the day, eventhough the Millennials age group is demanding and difficult to please and to engage, I enjoyed alot the passion, natural and ‘fresh attitude’ they have. I clearly had to adapt and get out of my comfort zone, and I loved it.

I might have learned as much from them as did from me !