This interview is with Chris Andrade, Founder, Pixelbricks Design.
To kick things off, as the Founder of Pixelbricks Design in London, how do you describe your focus in custom web, UI/UX, and eCommerce to new clients?
My focus is simple: create things that work! I’m not the type of designer who will create crazy animations and make websites hit you in the figurative face!
I’m focused on what currently works based on retrospective studies. However, I make sure it looks great. My goal is to allow business owners to hit the ground running.
Looking back, what key experiences took you from branding work to founding Pixelbricks, and how did they shape your approach to building and optimizing websites?
Great question. I’ve always been the kind of person who likes to push my skills to their limits. Honestly, this mindset comes from growing up in Stockwell, London, where you had to keep pushing yourself in order to escape a negative environment. Additionally, there was always an entrepreneurial spirit in that environment. This gave me the beneficial yet delusional belief that I could become whatever I wanted to be.
When a new client comes on board, what is your step-by-step discovery process to translate business goals into clear UX requirements?
My first 10 minutes of any discovery call is just getting to know them. Not the business, but them. We laugh and talk about random things. This is an intentional step. I especially find joy in working with new business owners.
Then we dive into the business: the objective, the dream, and the kind of people they want to use their product or service. But we’re light along the way. I dislike it when things become too corporate; I keep it human.
Through a series of well-placed, natural questions, I’m building up the bigger picture.
Once goals are defined, what criteria do you use to choose between DIVI, Webflow, or another stack for a given project?
So, DIVI sites are for general brochure websites. Webflow is generally for projects that require much more from the CMS.
If we’re talking about web apps, then that’s a stack of tools.
Staying with optimization, can you share a recent data-driven change you implemented (informed by heatmaps, session replays, or Core Web Vitals) and the measurable impact it had?
Yes. With Coaching Focus Group, we publish a number of articles, and recently we noticed that even though people read these articles, they very rarely (if ever) turn into conversions. So, we’ve started implementing CTAs/promotions mid-article along with a form for one of their upcoming coaching programs. We’re yet to see the results.
Microsoft Clarity has been an incredible tool for them, but also for us at Pixelbricks. Seeing where people drop off helps us place well-timed popups.
We pride ourselves on experimenting and testing results, even tiny experiments.
Shifting to eCommerce, what is your most dependable tactic for reducing friction from product page to checkout for small- to mid-sized stores?
Just keep it simple. Never try to break the current mold too much. People function based on memory. When we do things that break their flow, they will stop and pause. That’s unproductive time.
Content plays a big role too—you once used a Medium blog to boost a key page; how do you now integrate content distribution with on-site UX so pages both rank and convert for clients?
Good question. The Medium blog is just a flag, really, allowing browsers to draw a bigger picture. Sometimes we use this blog to signpost content on our main site. At other times, we use it to publish new findings with fresh or interesting perspectives. Although Medium will only provide nofollow links, it still helps build context.
Finally, as a founder wearing many hats, what repeatable system or checklist have you created that saves time while protecting quality across your builds and post-launch optimizations?
I’m still working on this, and I think I always will be! That’s just how my crazy brain works!