Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent Van Gogh.
In today’s digital world, most artists have found themselves a home on Instagram, Pinterest, Deviantart, and so on. Yet while they get the work done (mostly!), nothing can be compared to the flawlessness and professionalism of an up and running website.
According to this research, 93% of business purchase decisions start with websites’ search engine ranking. If you are willing to cater to a large chunk of the audience, a website is a must begin with. There are many aspects herein- designing a stunning website, using SEO to get maximum reach, displaying meaningful information, copyright, pricing, etc.
Let’s explore why social media platforms are not enough in today’s time and the importance of having a website as an artist:
1. Complete control: As an artist, you need your creative freedom, which may or may not be possible without your website. Additionally, on social media, you are just one of the many accounts and will not be recognized in a sea of artworks. If you want to take your audience seriously and not miss out on your work, a website is what you need!
When you can sell your art directly from your website, you don’t have to pay commission to others. Everything you earn comes now to you! A website lets you be in control of your art and your money and this is super important in today’s time. If you want to actually earn what you deserve, a website is a way to start.
2. Sense of professionalism and credibility: Selling art online is like a business, and for that, you need a Website. With a website, you can add your contact information, build a portfolio of your work, and sell your artwork without having a middleman. All this leads to a sense of professionalism and builds your reputation as an artist.
With a website, you establish yourself as a professional; and not just a hobbyist that makes your brand credible in the digital space. In addition, a website gives you a sense of being an artist or a creative person in the real world. We all make purchases online through websites – so why shouldn’t you have a website?
3. Marketing: Where there is art, there is a need to market it. A website provides all relevant information about you and proves your authenticity to potential customers and investors. The pandemic has ensured that everything shifts online – and it has impacted the creative world in ways more than one! Galleries now screen their artwork online, and exhibitions take place online too! Collectors want to visit a website to screen an artist’s work rather than just social media accounts.
When you rely on third-party services such as Facebook and Instagram to advertise your art, you have no control over the presentation and the look of your listing. With a website, you get complete control over how your website looks and you can alter the aesthetics according to your brand.
4. Customized portfolio: A portfolio allows you to showcase your artwork to interested parties in a matter of a few seconds!. It presents others with evidence of what you make and is a one-stop destination for your potential customers. “Website” is a perfect platform to exhibit your art from anywhere, at any time.
You can put together your best designs for the world to see with the help of a website. You are a small business owner and you need to display what you do best for everyone to see.
5. Copyright: Everything you post on your website solely belongs to you. You can add watermarks to your pieces to ensure others do not use them, and you can also get the copyright of your brand. Copyrights provide artistic protection and also lets you profit from your works. The right to make copies, distribute them, and display your work publicly belongs to YOU.
Without a website, others can easily copy your art and publish them as their own. Plagiarism is common in today’s world and a website will help you avoid that misfortune. Nobody likes their work being used without credit.
Now that we have established that a website is essential, here are some unmissable tips for you:
Use high-quality images. Good quality graphics should be a no-brainer! If you are proud of your art, showcase it in the best possible way. We recommend investing in a good camera. It will be beneficial for you in the long run – take our word for it!
Add details. Details include having a title, adding the dimensions, the year of your artwork, and the price. Provide visitors with every bit of information needed to purchase your art. All this facilitates in making your website more searchable on search engines. Adding watermarks is an excellent practice to mention if a particular piece of art is available for sale.
Another crucial thing for your website is an artist biography and CV. A good memoir and a portfolio of your art will help you apply to galleries, competitions, museums, and so on. It also gives your visitors and collectors an idea of who you are and what you do. Giving them a glance at what you have worked on before makes it easier for them to decide on collaborating with you.
Having an email list can help you accomplish so much. Did you know that 89% of marketers use email as the primary channel for generating leads? It is a cost-effective and highly impactful digital marketing tool that can easily reach your fans and customers in their inbox. Provide your visitors with an effortless way to join your email list. Don’t make it complicated.
Conclusion:
While it may seem like websites are not that important anymore, it is essential to note that they are ubiquitous in today’s times. It is the new ‘normal’ for artists. In addition, most millennials prefer blogs and websites to Instagram pages.
A website mirrors the art you create. It is a fantastic way to express what you are and is your ‘home’ online. How artists make a living is changing every day! Artists are now small businesses and prefer being independent to hosting their art on someone else’s page. All we have to say is create your art and market your art!
What are you waiting for? It’s time for you to take your art to the next level!
I appreciate the clarity of this trick that Mikael Ainalem posted over on Reddit:
It’s a one-liner that toggles the class on the so you can mock up different states and toggle between them on click.
<body onclick="this.classList.toggle("active");">
Could be on any element as well!
CodePen Embed Fallback
This can be a big thing. See “The Power of Changing Classes” as a case in point. Even if you aren’t much of a JavaScript person, classList is perhaps the one API you should know.
And maybe an optional follow-up if you’re up for it.
Automattic, the makers of Jetpack and many other WordPress-y things, have sponsored my site (me = Chris Coyier; site = CSS-Tricks) for quite a while. I use Jetpack myself, and I’m always trying to tell people about its features and benefits.
Yet I get the sense that there is a decent amount of hesitancy (or even general negative feelings) toward Jetpack. I want to hone in on that and understand it better. This will be useful for me in my attempt to be a good sponsoree, and useful for Automattic to improve Jetpack.
Being a solopreneur is not an easy job. You’ve to handle a dozen things yourself and take care of important decisions. Hiring and managing a software development team as a solopreneur may seem like an even more daunting task, to put it subtly.
But, if need be, you must be able to handle things well so that your software development process goes hand in hand with your key business milestones.
In this article, let’s explore some unique and proven ways to manage a development team as a solopreneur. By the end of it, you’ll take away some brilliant ideas to manage a team and ensure that the growth of your business is on track.
1. Pick Your Team Wisely
Tips for managing a team start with choosing the right team. As a solopreneur, you’ll have to communicate the development requirements, ensure that the development cycle is on track, and manage the team to ensure maximum productivity. But, all this is only possible if you have the right team on your side.
So, ensure that you pick the development team who are:
Have the ability to come up with creative solutions
Do not need micromanagement
Align with your business’ values and goals
Are you enthusiastic about contributing to your business’ growth?
2. Know When to Meddle
Yes, as a solopreneur, you might feel the need to monitor each and every step of your development team and micromanage their tasks. But it is very crucial to understand that this approach doesn’t benefit you and your team.
As a solopreneur as well as a team manager, it is essential to stay updated on the whereabouts of your development team. But, it is best to avoid taking this too far, so much so that you start micromanaging them.
Another point to note here is that you must know when to meddle in the software development process and when not to. For example, as a business owner, you should set expectations and ensure that you communicate the requirements.
On the other hand, it is best to leave the technical decisions up to your development team as you might not have adequate knowledge on that front.
3. Communicate the Requirements in a Clear Way
One of the key factors in managing your development team better is proper communication. Lack of communication or miscommunication can lead to irreparable damage leading to a waste of valuable resources such as time, money, etc.
Hence, it is vital that you start with a clear system of communication that enables you to hand over all the requirements that you need from the development team. This step becomes even more important as a solopreneur as more things are at stake.
4. Understand the Risks Involved
A common mistake that most solopreneurs make while managing a software development team has unrealistic expectations. This may stem from the lack of understanding of how software development works or because you’ve invested your valuable resources in the development team.
Either way, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of all the risks involved in the software development process and set yourself for failures. You can do this by networking with other solopreneurs and understanding the risks involved by communicating with your development team.
5. Set Clear Goals and KPIs For Your Development Team
Setting clear goals for your development team as a whole as well as for individual team members is essential to ensure maximum commitment and productivity. Therefore, try setting clear monthly and quarterly goals for your development team right from the beginning. This way, you can ensure that your team is on the right track.
It is also crucial to set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track the progress of your development team. If your software development team follows an agile process for software development, you can measure KPIs such as velocity, burn down, code coverage for testing, cycle time, etc.
The KPIs that you set and track can also be specific to the software that you are looking to develop. For example, if your software development team is working towards adding additional features to your order fulfillment system, then you can track KPIs that are specific to the order fulfillment process.
6. Leave Room For Innovation
Innovation and creativity are not just for huge companies and corporations. There is room for software innovation everywhere – even in a small business. Innovation can lead to better solutions, increased profits, better software development efficiency, reduced costs, and many more great benefits.
Hence, instead of simply expecting your development team to work on tasks assigned to them, leave some room for innovation. Encourage them to come up with new ideas and speak up if they feel that they can benefit your business in any way.
You can have open, interactive sessions on innovation every month to encourage this practice, and you may be surprised by the kind of results you see.
7. Recognize and Reward Good Work
Every relationship works two ways. The same applies here as well. Instead of simply expecting your development team to put in a great effort, you can reciprocate their efforts by rewarding them on a timely basis.
Recognizing and rewarding good work can benefit your business in many ways. First of all, it will help you retain your team members better as they will find greater work satisfaction. Moreover, it will also encourage your development team to put in the effort needed to benefit your company as a whole.
Final Thoughts
Managing a development team may seem like an impossible task as a solopreneur. But with the right approach and systems in place, you can achieve some great results for your business.
The strategies and tips mentioned in this article will help you hire and manage a development team as a solopreneur in the most efficient way possible. Implementing these tactics will help you achieve your business and software development goals within the stipulated timelines.
That might be an exaggeration, but only slightly. But when it comes to knowing how to negotiate a raise like a pro, it’s only a slight exaggeration. The truth is ‘when’ often plays a bigger role in the success or failure of a proposal than the ‘what’ or ‘how’ part of the equation. What’s most important is to be at the right place at the right time. Be lucky.
Roman philosopher, Seneca, put it eloquently when he said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” But when the opportunity comes knocking, it can sometimes be difficult to hear the knock amid all the other noises around you.
Let’s take a look at the factors that should be in place for when you ask for a pay raise. Then we’ll consider ways to use these factors to your best advantage.
Why do You Want a Salary Raise?
Presumably, you negotiated your salary or agreed to the company’s offer when you first came on board. Something has happened since then. Something has changed.
The change could have come in the status or position of your company: it has secured new investors, has been purchased, has merged, has downsized, or grown significantly.
The change could have come in the market: your company has secured a new large contract, your company has grown to improve on its market share.
The change could be an external factor: the local or national government has passed new regulations easing the company’s tax burden, new developments have made the price of a material or service you count on significantly cheaper.
Or the change could have come in you: you have been with the company for over a year and are thus more experienced and more qualified than the person who signed the employment contract over a year ago, you have taken courses or training sessions and you now have more qualifications.
Whatever factor has motivated your decision to negotiate a pay raise, it is important to understand that you are setting a precedent, you are defining expectations.
If you base the negotiation on the fact that the company has improved its market share or profits significantly, what will happen when the company loses market share or when they see a dip in their profits? You have now established the precedent that this is grounds for a reexamination of your salary.
If you base the negotiation on the fact that you are now more qualified thanks to the additional training and experience you’ve gained, this may set the expectation for you to continue, every year new training courses and accreditations. This may be in line with what you want. It may not. Be wary of how you set precedent and how it could come back and bite you when the shoe’s on the other foot.
Want, Need or Deserve?
Do you want a salary raise? Or do shifts in the buying market and/or the job market dictate that you deserve a raise? Or has something changed in your life to the extent that you now need a raise?
It is important to understand the difference and know just what the motivating factor is.
Of the three options, want, need, or deserve, you have a much better chance of receiving satisfaction from the negotiation wanting a pay raise, more so than with either needing or deserving. Simply put, need and deserve are too binary. You’re painting both you and your employer into a corner. It becomes dangerously close to an ultimatum right from the start.
Additionally deserving a pay raise is arguable. You may have statistics that show you are underpaid, but it may be equally as easy to find data to the contrary. Your claim of deserving a raise can be disputed.
On the other hand, wanting a pay raise is subjective. It is not arguable. It is not open to fact-checking or data to support the claim. No one can reasonably argue that you don’t want what you say you want.
Furthermore, when you need a pay raise, you are placing yourself in a no-win situation. Either your employer does not grant you what you need and the strain in the relationship between the two of you is now irreparable. Your employer does not even have the opportunity to make a counter proposal, perhaps give you something that does not meet your exact ‘needs’ but is appealing in other ways. Meeting a need is binary; the need is either met or it isn’t.
A want, on the other hand, is more amendable. It is possible to not satisfy a particular want yet satisfy another without causing irreparable harm to the relationship or leaving the negotiating table completely unsatisfied.
Approaching the negotiation with the mindset, and the rhetoric to back it up, that you want a raise rather than need one or deserve one significantly increases your chances of being satisfied.
What Are the Ambitions of Your Company?
The salary a company offers to fulfill a particular position reflects the value they place in that position and it also reflects on the company’s ambitions. Are they happy operating with a budget in the lower tier of their sector? Do they strive to be leaders or forerunners in their field?
By proposing a salary raise, you are allowing the company to reevaluate their ambitions, to reconsider how much they want to invest in their company.
It shouldn’t be hard to find an example of a competitor that pays a higher salary for a similar position to yours. Is your company comfortable not being at the front? Perhaps your company also wants to give you a raise when it’s put to them in terms of acting on their ambitions.
What Can They Afford?
The chances are that following a positive change in either you or the company (as mentioned above) and by you coming to them wanting a salary raise, they will want to make you happy. They will want to give you a raise. Don’t give them a reason not to. Don’t make it hard for them to comply.
To avoid this, you’ll need to have a decent idea of how well your company’s doing, notably in relation to the previous year, and how well their project doing going forward. Sources for this kind of information vary from company to company with also varying degrees of reliability. Expressing interest in the health of the company you work for is rarely discouraged, even if it’s known ahead of time that the information will be used to negotiate a salary raise.
You can request sales figures and projects from a sales manager or accounting information from the accounts department. Often, direct and honest inquiries offer the easiest solutions.
Getting an idea of how well your company is doing in relation to the last time your salary was discussed and how well they expect to do going forward will allow you to set a reasonable amount to your demand, one that the company should be able to meet.
A Data-Driven Argument
You could go to the negotiating table armed with stat points and statistics that justify your demand. It’s better to be prepared with these arguments rather than not be prepared.
However, when you enter into a data-driven argument, you are presenting the case on its merits, on what you deserve. This is far easier to discredit or counter than basing your argument on what you want.
It is rare to have a conversation that starts with ‘I want a raise’. Be followed with, ‘Why do you want a raise?’ More commonly, you’ll find: ‘I want a raise.’ followed by ‘Why do you think you deserve a raise?’ Already, the company is trying to turn the negotiation into something more disputable.
If you have done your research and know what your company can afford. You should not need to venture into a discussion of what you deserve. Entering into a data-driven argument does not play to your advantage. Simply stating what you want should be enough to provoke your employer into action.
Though, often the employer will want to offer data-driven arguments as to why it is not a good time to consider a pay raise. It is often to your advantage to keep the argument about what you want, rather than what you deserve or what the market dictates. You can invite your employer to analyze the data to find a justification for their decision. But the data will not change what you want and is of little import to you.
What you want is indisputable and you have the knowledge that they can afford to give you what you want.
Conclusion
It boils down to timing and framing. Voice your demand after a significant change in either you or your company. Find out what your company can afford or what kind of investment their ambitions could inspire. And present the salary raise as something you want rather than something you feel you need or deserve.
With this framework in place, you are creating a scenario in which it is easy and appropriate for your employer to give you satisfaction and are, thus, optimizing the chances of a successful negotiation.
“Sleep on it” – some of us hear this expression very often. But did you know that you can take this expression literally?
Sleeping before making an important decision can improve the quality of that decision.
But what does this say about us, that a good night’s sleep helps us be more rational?
In this article I’m going to dig more into this topic:
Of how we think;
If we are as rational as we think;
How we make decisions;
How we can take all this knowledge into marketing.
But let’s start with this interesting word in the title: “neuromarketing”.
The roots of neuromarketing started back in the ’50s when Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays coined the term “Public Relations”, because “Propaganda” was a hated word during and after the second world war.
He was suggesting that people are irrational and that their decisions can be influenced with the help of crowd psychology and psychoanalysis. I totally recommend the BBC series “The Century of Self” to find out more about this. I’ve seen it twice, but I plan to revisit it.
Fast forward to the 21st century, neuromarketing emerged as a science that wants to map neural activity to consumer behavior to help marketers craft more science-based campaigns. Neuromarketing takes qualitative and quantitative research into the future.
Most of us think of ourselves as being conscious and deliberate creatures, but are we?
Back in the ’60s, the first versions of the rational choice theory were formulated. They stated that when we make decisions we make lots of calculations, we take into account the potential decisions of other actors in the process and that we make a cost-benefit analysis. Emotions don’t play a role here, and the social structures we belong to, don’t affect our choices.
Hmmm…but we are social creatures, we belong to tribes that are connected by rules and principles. Can we make decisions outside those principles? Turns out that it’s very hard to do this.
40 years later, Daniel Kahneman wrote his acclaimed book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. He received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his pioneering work with Amos Tversky on decision-making. His research says that there are 2 models of thinking in our brain dubbed as System 1 and System 2.
Inside System 1, thinking and deciding are fast, on autopilot, intuitive, slow-learning, and emotional.
Inside System 2, thinking and deciding are slow, deliberate, they take effort, they play by the rules, and minimize emotions.
These two systems lay in our brains. System 1 is older than the other from the evolutionary perspective. There’s a great metaphor out there where System 1 is compared to an elephant, while System 2 is the rider (developed by the NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt).
The rider symbolizes the rational brain. He’s responsible for direction and planning, but sometimes he can get trapped into overthinking. On the other hand, the elephant relies heavily on its freeze, fight and flight instincts. It’s emotional and prefers short-term outcomes over long-term ones. He likes to get things done fast. For example, the rider is the one telling you that you need to exercise, eat healthily, focus on saving money. The elephant just loves instant gratification and might opt for that extra ice cream before sleep.
Now, let me give you an example of how the rider and the elephant function and how this can affect our society.
There was an experiment performed back in 2009 that looked at more than 1,000 rulings made in 2009 by eight judges. Here are the conclusions:
The likelihood of a favorable ruling peaked at the beginning of the day;
There’s a decline of favorable ruling over time from a probability of about 65% to nearly zero;
Favorable ruling spikes back to about 65% after a break for a meal or snack.
There’s a fascinating podcast episode about this and similar situations, on Hidden Brain, with Daniel Kahneman. The episode is described like this:
“Psychologist Daniel Kahneman says there are invisible factors that distort our judgment. He calls these factors ‘noise’. The consequences can be found in everything from marriage proposals to medical diagnoses and prison sentences. “
It’s a gem, I’m telling ya!
Now, this experiment with the judges is both fascinating and scary. We are talking about the same persons deciding differently before and after lunch? It seems that the rider just fell from his elephant…
Now, let’s revisit Daniel Kahneman a bit. Together with Amos Tverski, he introduced the notion of “cognitive bias” to define people’s flawed responses to decision-making.
Let’s take a quick look at some of them:
Confirmation bias – the tendency to look for information that confirms our own preconceptions. For example, let’s say Robert does not believe in climate change. He would always read articles and research that stand by his belief. He wouldn’t read the information that contradicts his ideas;
Endowment effect – the tendency that people often demand more to give up on an object than they would be willing to pay to get it;
Fundamental attribution error – the tendency to overemphasize personal factors and underestimate situational conditions when explaining other people’s behavior. Here’s an example: Maria is driving, while she is suddenly cut off by James. Maria says that this is happening because she knows James is a jerk and an unskilled driver. She does not think that there might be another explanation…maybe his wife is in labor at the hospital.
Gambler’s fallacy – the tendency to think that future probabilities are changed by past events when in reality they are unchanged (e.g., no one won at the roulette in the past hour, so winning is close);
Halo effect – the tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to extend from one area of their personality to another in others’ perceptions of them. When this bias occurs it can prevent someone from accepting a brand or a person, based on a belief in what is good or bad. For example, in my opinion, Nestle is bad, because its business leaders think that water should be privatized, and this contradicts my beliefs.
Hindsight bias, also known as “the knew-it-all-along phenomenon” – a memory distortion phenomenon where people perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were. You knew all along who the killer was in your favorite movie, right?
Hot-hand fallacy – the expectation of streaks in sequences of hits and misses whose probabilities are, in fact, independent (e.g., coin tosses, basketball shots);
Illusory correlation – the tendency to identify a correlation between a certain type of action and effect when no such correlation exists.
In-group bias – the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their group;
Mere exposure effect– the tendency by which people develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.
Now that we know all this, it’s time to take our decision-making discussion even further and enter the marketing realm.
People have many beliefs and behaviors, some controllable, others not, that interact and influence our consumer actions and choices. Through various techniques, it is possible to identify factors that tend to influence most consumers in predictable ways.
And here comes Robert Cialdini who back in 1984 wrote a book called “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”. He explains the psychology of why people say “yes”, and how to take this know-how into practice. His book is based on thirty-five years of rigorous research.
He developed 6 universal principles that can be applied not only in marketing but any aspect of life. These principles can guide us into becoming better persuaders, but also how to defend ourselves against persuaders. Let’s look at them from a marketing perspective, and how you can apply them in your strategies:
Reciprocity
People are wired to treat people like they treated them. It seems we hate to be indebted to others. For example, if you have an awesome ebook on your site, visitors would feel ok to leave their email address to get that piece of valuable information. Just don’t push it and ask for too much from them.
Consistency
Once we take a stand, we will face lots of pressure to behave consistently with that commitment. This is what explains why unpredictable people are less likely to be liked and to thrive among others. Going a bit further into marketing, when a brand commits to something it should stay by its commitment. Also, when a website has a certain design and messaging, it is advisable that ads, emails, social media messaging, are consistent with that design and copy.
We will often copy the behavior of others, and we need to have our actions validated by others.
Here’s an example of social proof used on the pricing page by the folks at Planable. They use a “most popular” badge for one of their plans.
Here’s a marvelous example from Nat Geo’s show “Brain Games”. In this experiment, people are shown a card with 3 straight lines, named A, B, and C. They have different heights. Next, on a separate card, they see a single line. They have to decide if that line has the same height as A, B, or C. When someone makes a choice, he has to move behind the card with the name of the choice. The first 9 persons choose A. But they’re a decoy, and the answer is wrong. The rest of the people (with very few exceptions) feel the pressure, and do not go with their gut, but with the “wisdom of the crowd”.
Now, how can you apply this principle in marketing? Well, you can use reviews, case studies, testimonials to back up your story.
Authority
We have a tendency to obey authoritative figures.
In Jun 2021, Cristiano Ronaldo (one of the world’s greatest football players and a health fanatic) removed two Coca-Cola bottles during a press conference at the Euros, and asked for water. What happened next? Coca-Cola’s shares’ price fell, meaning a $4bn loss in value.
This explains why influencer marketing is so powerful these days, especially with the rise of social media.
Liking
The more we like someone, the more we can be persuaded by that person. For example, we often judge people based on how they look. If a person is likable, we trust her more.
This is why you can make the most of your “About us” website page, and try to put some friendly faces there. Here’s an example from Tooploox, a software development company.
Scarcity
When you believe there’s a short supply of something, you want it more. This induces a FOMO feeling, meaning the “fear of missing out”.
The folks at Booking are doing this, with their available properties.
Neuromarketing uses functional MRI (fMRI) to analyze how our brains work under certain stimuli. This is why people argue that neuromarketing is trying to find the “buy button” inside our brains. But the truth is that neuromarketing provides us with valuable insights regarding human emotion and decision-making processes.
Here’s an example: neuroscientists at UCLA scanned the brains of people watching Super Bowl commercials. They concluded that a Doritos ad stimulated empathy and connection, while other commercials provoked fear or anxiety.
It seems that the neuromarketing techniques are more reliable than traditional techniques such as surveys or user interviews. Why so? Because people aren’t able enough to describe and predict their own cognitive processes, while, on the other hand, brain responses offer more objective insights into their behavior. But there are some limitations as well. People argue that these experiments are made in a safe environment (a lab), and in the real world, behavior can change.
But, fear not, no “buy button” got discovered and neuromarketing needs a technology that is not easily available.
Still, there are some ethical concerns around this. What if companies with big budgets, will misuse neuromarketing conclusions?
Let me give you an example. Children are sensitive to ads because their neural inhibitory mechanisms are not yet mature. This means that they can easily be manipulated. Advertisers can take advantage of their lack of self-control. This is happening in traditional marketing as well: McDonald’s and Disney partnered to serve toys with Happy Meals.
So, some ethical concerns arise here, when dealing with vulnerable categories: children, old people, people with diabetes, etc., and regulations are needed.
Understand why a customer chooses your product or your competitor’s product;
Encourage users to perform actions that have value for you (eg: clicking on a call to action button, buying something, writing a review, etc.);
Create higher engagement with your prospects;
Here are some practical ideas:
Use people faces in ads, but pay attention to the focus of the gaze
Most of us are attracted to babyfaces. This has been known for years, and advertising has included babies in their ads for a while now.
Yet, what changed?
An eye-tracking experiment showed that if the baby looks straight to you, your focus would be on the baby.
But if the baby looks at a product, or some copy, your focus shifts.
Using sound and color to sell a product
Powerful bass makes people subconsciously attend to dark objects, or white color attracts more when compared to black. This explains why in web design whitespace gets a lot of attention. Also, products with light colors sell better when placed on the top shelf, while products with darker colors perform better on the bottom shelf
Creating an efficient product design process
I have an interesting example for you here. A 2016 study concluded that people with a high body mass index (BMI) prefer a thinly shaped bottle, even if the drink is higher in price. Now, why does this happen? It seems that in the Western culture thinness is associated with economic value.
This can go in two directions: both healthy and unhealthy drinks manufacturers could profit from this.
Unpleasant weather conditions can lead to hedonic consumption
It seems that when people are feeling down because of the weather, they try to compensate for their mood by an increase in hedonic consumption. This has a stronger effect on women because they are somewhat more susceptible to weather-related influences on mood.
Anchoring
The first piece of information a potential customer receives is very important. It sets the tone for their purchasing behavior. Neuroscientists have discovered that we are rarely able to evaluate the value of something based on its intrinsic worth, but instead, compare it with the surrounding options. For example, when a product is valued at $100, but then there’s a 40% discount, and you see the second price of $60, the $100 price serves as an anchor.
Impulse buying and its stimuli
Research suggests that 62% of in-store purchases are made impulsively. This can give some hints to advertisers on how to communicate, present promotions, and make use of all sorts of sensory stimuli to sell.
No, I’m not talking about a neuromarketing experiment, using fMRIs 🙂
I’m talking about an A/B testing one, where you can take an existing conclusion in neuromarketing and see if it works for you and your website visitors.
Let’s assume you want to use a hero image on your homepage using people’s faces. How can you make the change, measure its impact, and decide whether it was a successful one or not?
You run an A/B test.
For this you will need to use:
A control version of a page;
A variation of the same page based on a single change – your hero image in this particular case.
Next, it’s time to plan your A/B test:
Define your business goals, your key performance indicators, then your metrics that will sustain your KPIs and goals. Eg: you might want more clicks on the main CTA that lays inside the hero image.
Make sure you can collect the data that you need to calculate and understand the goals selected above. Google Analytics can help you out here.
Formulate a hypothesis. It can be something like: “we expect a click-through rate growth of X% if we add people’s faces to the hero image. That X% can be established taking into consideration historical data. Now, you can test this on mobile devices only, specific geo, the fewer variables the more conclusive the test.
Prepare the experiment. Tools like Google Optimize or Omniconvert can help you prepare for the test. These tools can show you when the test has reached statistical significance, meaning there’s a clear difference between the control and experiment. It can tell you how long the experiment should run, based on your sample size. Now, for small sample sizes, you might need weeks till you see the results. The tools allow you to split the traffic equally between your control version of the page and the experiment one.
So, what are you going to test out first?
Wrap up
Neuromarketing wants to provide us with some valuable insight regarding decision-making processes. What it CAN’T provide: tools to control our mind.
It’s true that neuromarketing needs regulations, but so does traditional marketing.
Conversion rate optimization makes strong use of neuromarketing and consumer behavior principles. But, use them wisely and respect your customer. Don’t forget about Cialdini and his “reciprocity” principle -> people are wired to treat people like they treated them.
This month, you will either love or hate the featured design trends.
The common theme among them is a strong design element that can create distinct emotional connections. They range from interesting monotone color choices to brutalist examples to AI-inspired faces and design elements.
Here’s what’s trending in design this month.
1. Interesting Monotone Color Palettes
Monotone color palettes aren’t something that we usually call a trending design theme because mono patterns are almost always in style. What makes these monotone website designs interesting is color choice.
The trend is to use a pretty unconventional color choice for monotone color palettes. For example, would you start the design process thinking of an all-mauve, canary yellow, or purple aesthetic?
For most designers, those probably aren’t the first choices. But, conversely, the outcome of those decisions is rather stunning in each of the examples below, whether you love the color choices or not.
What works (and what might fall short) with each of these trending examples:
Wookmama: This mauve color scheme might be the first one you’ve encountered? It uses varying hues that are pretty in-your-face. It works because the concept behind the website is to create custom color schemes. The challenge lies in contrast and that there’s not a lot of distinction between hues in the mono scheme.
BBC Storyworks: The deep purple color palette with pinkish highlights is bright and readable, despite the dark background. White text and elements with smooth animation bring out the regality of the color choice. The challenge with this color is that purple often has strong emotional associations for individuals (good and bad), and you don’t know what “baggage” users might bring to the design.
Yellow Pony: This design is incredibly bright and has some brutalist undertones. What makes this color choice work is that it stops you in your tracks. You can’t help but look at the bright yellow and oddly-colored pony. The challenge, like with Wookmama, is contrast. There’s also a lot going on here with the bright color.
2. Fairly Brutal Black and White
Brutalism and brutalist design themes seem to keep ebbing and flowing. Understandably, it seems like, as a whole, designers can’t quite decide how they feel about this overall visual theme.
This trio of fairly brutal designs shares more than starkness in technique. They also feature distinct black and white color schemes and animation.
Put it all together, and the overall theme is maybe more “fairly brutal” than straight brutalist, re-emphasizing the hesitancy with the trend.
What’s nice about each of these designs is that they feel special and content-focused. This is a little in contrast with some other brutalist designs that are so stark and harsh that it can be hard to figure out what you are supposed to do with the website or what information is most important.
The other interesting thing here is that while all three websites have a similar design theme, they are nothing alike. (Personally, I find this type of brutalism and the included animation a lot easier to understand and digest. It uses the harsh feeling that you want to associate with the style but adds an element of comprehension that’s incredibly valuable.)
Callshop Radio uses an almost magazine theme style, block design with big buttons, a simple animation, and flash of color.
BCKDRP features a more subtle richer, almost black background with blocky type and accented color without the harshness often associated with brutal styles.
Vision Get Wild may be the closest to true brutalism, but the animated element in the center of the screen has a simple softness that lightens the entire feel.
3. Futuristic Faces
The final trending design element this month is a fun take on faces. There’s a movement happening with a futuristic or artificial intelligence/cyborg-inspired look to the people featured in the designs.
It’s hard to say where this design inspiration is coming from, but it is fun to look at with so many ways to play the style. The other commonality seems to be the dominant use of female faces.
These computer-generated images start with photos that are brightened and smoothed so that all imperfections are lost. The faces have no lines, color that might not look 100% natural, and enhanced features that may or may not be realistic.
You aren’t quite sure if you are looking at a face from a video game or image in many instances.
The types of websites that are using this design trend are similar in content and fashion, art, gaming, portfolios, and AI themes, among the most popular.
The true common thread is imagination. This type of design element can’t come to fruition without a strong vision and the ability to see the vision through creation.
These examples use progressively more futuristic variations of the trend:
HueLe Museum: The least AI-looking of the examples, has imagery with super bright light on faces to remove lines and imperfections so that the models almost the look of mannequins.
Jenny Lin: The portfolio design shows the designer in a style representing her work with a headshot that features an augmented reality, or digital design feel with an almost plastic-looking, on-the-verge of cartoon style.
Ruby9100m: The imagery here is full-on futuristic. From coloring to facial features to an almost Frankenstein-pieced-together look, nothing about this image insists on reality. (Did you notice the blue hand?)
Conclusion
This month’s design trends are a lesson in experimentation and evolution of other visual concepts. They also create an immediate impact on you in terms of emotion because of strong design choices.
Trends like these tend to come and go quickly; nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how they evolve.
Web design is such a rectangle-based design medium that literally any deviation from it feels fresh. Michelle Barker gets into using math in various ways to programmatically draw lines, shapes, and animations that end up looking both beautiful and have that “I could use this” feel.
Python is the programming language of choice for developers around the world, especially due to it offering a clean, simple, and easy way to code alongside being highly scalable or versatile.
Most of us are aware of Python due to its immense popularity, but what kind of a language is it?
Python is a high-level programming language that supports structural, procedural, and functional programming paradigms. It is an interpreted language, unlike C++ or Java, which are compiled languages, fundamentally making Python execute code slower than them but on the other hand, also provide limitless programming abilities.
Python also serves as an Object-oriented programming language that allows developers to write concise and logical code. Python can be extensively used for building complex web applications but it also suffers from speed issues and rendering errors. Python is a backend language and thus uses JavaScript to convert the UI to a compatible format that can be rendered by browsers or the client-side.
It is dynamically typed, as opposed to static representations such as in HTML. There are many benefits that Python brings to the table for developers, especially if the aim or goal is to build sophisticated web applications or integrate AI or analytical systems into web environments. However, like every programming or scripting language, Python has its drawbacks.
Why Python?
Python is truly powerful and boasts of multiple libraries, tools, and frameworks that assist developers in building various projects. Python is easy to learn as well, boasting of a simple set of rules or syntax that is very easy to understand. Even though Python requires a lot of memory and lacks speed, it makes up for it through portability and by being easy to read. Python makes it possible for developers to build web sophisticated programs or apps on the server-side, which react to user interaction. Python promotes automation, analytics, testing, data generation and allows projects to be completed incredibly fast through the use of readily available frameworks.
Python boasts support for GUI, being able to build dynamic and highly immersive applications. Python might not be the fastest, but it is definitely one of the cleanest languages out there. Fundamentally it is making debugging, collaborations and upgrades very easy. Python is also open-source, this makes it easy for developers to use Python in any way that suits them without the need for a license. Alongside the massive support of libraries and frameworks, Python is truly suitable for a variety of purposes and can be used extensively even in web development.
Python in Web Development
Due to the availability of libraries and frameworks that are meant to be used with Python, it removes the need for developers to build web applications from scratch. The extensive list of frameworks and libraries ensures that developers have an easy time building web applications, sometimes even removing the need to code entirely and simply build applications or UI visually by just manipulating logic where required. Python is used for implementations of Machine Learning or AI in web applications or for creating sophisticated programs that run from the application-side or server-side. Python is used extensively to build recommendation engines, search algorithms, app environments, e-Commerce systems, and smart UIs. Let us look at some of the big companies that have used Python or are using Python for Web Development.
Instagram: Instagram was completely built using Python, effectively using the Django web framework and Instagram is still using Python 3 as their code base to this date. It allows Instagram to be simple and easy to maintain, it also makes it extremely easy to upgrade and implement new functions. Python has allowed Instagram to become massively scalable as well, with the need to support millions of active users.
Netflix: Python is also the preferred choice for many developers at Netflix due to it being simple to use. Netflix uses Python to empower analysis of data directly through the server-side while. Netflix also takes the help of Python to enable the Central Alert Gateway, which is a system that routes alerts to the required individuals without risking duplication. Python is also used by Netflix for security purposes and tracking as well. Python allows Netflix to use trackers that alert developers in the case of any security changes or if SSL certificates expire across domains.
Google: Python is one of Google’s official server-side languages. Python is extensively used due to its rapid deployment capabilities and easy maintenance. Google chooses to only use C++ when it comes to memory-intensive tasks, being replaced by Python for most back-end tasks. Even when other languages such as Bash or Perl are used, they are generally decoded or converted into Python before deployment. Google’s first web-crawler or Google’s first spider was built using Java, however, it turned out to be quite complex to maintain, use and debug, hence it is switched to Python immediately after rewriting it using Python.
Facebook: Python is used in Facebook for infrastructure management, a binary distribution, operational automation, and hardware imaging. Python allows developers at Facebook to write less code and makes maintenance easy. Fundamentally, this allows the people at Facebook to spend more time on improvements and upgrades. Python also ensures that Facebook’s infrastructure is scalable and stable.
Spotify: Spotify uses Python primarily for data analysis, suggestion systems, and recommendation engines. Python is extensively used for backend services that communicate with each other using frameworks and libraries written in Python. Spotify prefers Python due to it enabling faster development pipelines and also synchronicity. Spotify is known for using Luigi, a well-known Python module to interpret a massive volume of data analytics. Spotify uses thousands of separate Python processes to work on Hadoop cluster nodes.
Many large conglomerates, MNCs, and start-ups use only Python for everything while some explicitly use it for security, data analysis, automation, forecasting, fraud prevention, and application layering. For instance, Reddit prefers to only hire engineers who know Python extensively. Reddit prefers everything to be written in Python, while the core engine of Uber is written using Python and Java as well. Huge amounts of the primary code that has existed since the beginning in Uber’s applications are based on Python. Here are a few other companies that have taken the help of Python to build their web applications and websites.
Quora
Reddit
Lyft
Dropbox
Uber
Pinterest
Advantages of Using Python
Python has its drawbacks but it has many more advantages that web developers across the globe can benefit from. Let us look at some of them.
Python is very easy to learn. Python uses clear, simple, and concise logic, allowing developers to write faster. Python is easy for beginners due to it having more in common with the human language than a compiling language such as C++. Python also allows users to write less code in comparison with other languages.
Python is easy to visualize and represent the data. Charts and plots can be used to visually represent data that allow developers to understand the data and gain valuable insights. Web developers extensively use Python libraries such as Matplotlib for reporting and visualization purposes.
Python allows easy debugging and maintenance. Python is great for building prototypes rapidly and then bringing them to life. Web development is highly efficient and fast when using Python. Python boasts of many tools for testing as well as allows applications to be deployed much faster. Components in the code or the small units of code run separately, fundamentally allowing debuggers to tackle errors and bugs more effectively.
Python has a huge community behind it and immense support, continuous upgrades, and plenty of new libraries and features coming up annually. Python has one of the richest collections of libraries and frameworks, fundamentally allowing developers to spend less time building web apps from scratch or drastically reducing their development time using tools, builders, and plugins.
Python is capable of using an object-oriented programming (OOP) approach, making it less expensive to develop applications and less time-consuming. This is due to OOP that promotes the organization of different properties and behavior into classes, elements, and objects, fundamentally making it easy to find errors and work on isolated components of the code.
Python is very versatile and adaptive. It is also easy to scale. Python is known for being able to be integrated with pre-existing technology or architecture easily as well. Python supports various integrations, data formats, and external implementations (APIs or mobile infrastructure).
Python can be used for data generation and Data Science. Python is also extensively used for implementing Machine Learning or AI infrastructures inside websites or web applications.
Python is portable and supports dynamic semantics. Python can be integrated or embedded inside multiple variations of web environments with ease. Developers can add to Python’s own vocabulary and connect various components together.
Python prides itself in being readable and simple, making collaboration easy and allowing developers to understand code written by others. Python is also very popular and is used by a huge community of developers. All of this makes it easy for companies to use Python for web development due to it being universally accepted and understood.
Python supports multiple programming paradigms or styles. This allows web developers to modify their approach at any given moment.
Python allows room for upgrades and optimizations alongside massive manipulations of code or programs at any given time during development. Python has support for multiple data types as well.
Python is great for server-side scripting, allowing users to implement multiple algorithms from the backend or application-side, based on visitor actions.
Finally, Python is an open-source, empowering modifications or redistributions.
Drawbacks of Python and Common Issues
Even though Python offers many advantages, there are some drawbacks that are faced by developers, especially when building web applications. Not all of these drawbacks are relevant outside constructing web-based applications or projects; however, in the case of web environments, front-end aspects, speed, and memory dependency make a lot of difference. Here are the common problems that developers face when working with Python.
Python does not support multiprocessing extensively, even though it technically is capable of doing so. This makes converting code harder and also limits the code that developers write.
Python is an interpreted language and unlike compilers, Python takes time to execute code as compared to Java or C++. Developing using Python is rapid and fast, however, the final execution of the code is not exactly so. Python is still faster than JavaScript and a few other languages and even crosses C++ in certain benchmarks.
Python does not have enough professional developers, especially ones who use Python for web development purposes. In general, as well, there are many more Java developers when compared with the number of Python users. However, this number is slowly changing as more developers have increasingly started adopting Python.
Python is great for web applications but it is not suitable for mobile applications. Python does not allow the best visually appealing approach towards mobile development and thus even for mobile browsers, developers choose to use native development methodologies, front-end technology or React.
Python is a dynamically typed language, fundamentally executing tasks during the runtime of the applications as compared to static languages. This creates speed and loading issues and sometimes leads to errors during runtime.
Parallel concurrency and multi-tasking cause fatal crashes in the program due to Python not being able to multitask efficiently.
Python does not handle memory-intensive tasks well. Python consumes massive amounts of memory that makes it an issue to sustain.
Python poses a threat to design and restricts truly immersive content. Expressive or heavy use of elements might crash applications or simply allow them to not be rendered. This limits developers in terms of graphics and designs, fundamentally having to make less interactive applications.
Best Frameworks for Web Development
Frameworks are packages or modules that contain pre-written and default code that assist development. In the case of web development, Python prides itself on having multiple frameworks such as Django that make developing much easier. Frameworks have pre-built components that allow developers to directly get into customization and optimization aspects instead of configuring, setting up, and coding the primary structure. These tried-and-tested frameworks provide an easy solution for deploying projects fast while being highly reliable and versatile. Here are the best frameworks available for web development using Python.
Django
Django allows developers to build fully functional web applications that are scalable. Django offers features such as support for databases, easy modification of code or components and code reusability. Django fundamentally makes it very easy for developers to modify and expand their projects. Django also provides a secure method of managing user passwords or accounts. It is one of the most preferred open-source frameworks because it adds security measures as well as allows developers to deploy concepts within a few hours.
CherryPy
CherryPy uses an object-oriented approach for web development and allows applications to be built rapidly. It boasts of testing tools and a very expansive configuration system. CherryPy also has tools for encoding, authentication, caching, and static elements. It has a secure and stable webserver alongside an adaptive plugin system.
Flask
Apart from Django, Flask is probably used by the highest number of web development projects using Python. Flask allows developers to easily manage, maintain and customize applications. Flask is also very flexible and does not force any pre-determined layouts or dependencies. It is one of the most preferred choices for testing as well alongside this framework promoting the future extension of the core.
Pyramid
Pyramid is also another framework known for promoting scalability. It is lightweight and provides everything needed to build any web application. It has support for databases, plugins, and static assets. It also implements security measures and allows developers to add functions later on.
TurboGears
TurboGears promotes fast, sustainable, and efficient web app developmental processes. TurboGears officially supports MongoDB and also various template engines. It also boasts of a transaction manager that allows the deployment of multiple databases. TurboGears allows developers to build both simple and sophisticated applications using minimal or full-stack methodologies.
Web2Py
Web2Py is another framework that promotes the rapid development of web apps. It allows developers to build applications around secured databases using full-stack methodologies. It enables the dynamic writing of SQL and includes a Database Abstraction Layer. Web2Py also addresses security concerns and eliminates them.
The frameworks above are the most commonly used ones for web development; however, there are some more that one can choose from.
Bottle: A lightweight micro web development framework that has a built-in HTTP development server and incredible support for templates, metadata, file uploads, form data, etc.
CubicWeb: This is a semantic web development framework. It allows developers to reuse components known as cubes.
Falcon: This framework is known for being a WSGI library that provides reliable and flexible performance when building APIs and applications.
Quixote: This is another framework that is known for being flexible and high-performing when building web applications.
Useful Libraries for Web Development
Before wrapping up, let us also check some of the best Python libraries that can be used for Web development.
Dash: Dash allows users to develop web applications that implement data visualization. This library offers a huge number of features such as graphs, charts, dashboards, etc.
Natural Language Toolkit: This is another suite of libraries that allow mathematical or statistical processing and text analysis of human language data.
Zappa: Zappa allows developers to build serverless applications.
Pandas: Pandas is used for data manipulation and data analysis. It offers various operations and data structures that allow the manipulation of time series and numerical tables.
Scrapy: Scrapy can be used for data extraction and is a web crawler used for data mining, data scraping, and automated testing implementations.
NumPy: NumPy or Numeric Python allows users to use high-level mathematical functions. NumPy also adds support for massive multi-dimensional arrays and matrices.
Requests: ‘Requests’ is a great resource enabling smooth communication with systems or applications. ‘Requests’ is used for sending HTTP requests rapidly to acquire data or HTML pages.
SciPy: SciPy or Scientific Numeric Library is used for technical and scientific computing. It supports optimization, integration, algebraic functions, interpolation, and image processing among many other functions required for engineering and scientific projects.
Wrapping Up
With the huge number of tools, libraries, frameworks, resources, and a large developing community behind it, it is no surprise that Python is slowly becoming the most preferred choice for programming.
This can be observed in the case of web applications or web development as well, which fundamentally places Python at the top when the goal is to build advanced applications or integrations inside web environments. Even with the few drawbacks that Python possesses, mainly due to it being memory exhaustive, the benefits of using Python far outweigh the disadvantages. Python allows developers to truly become limitless and build extraordinary applications across the web and even mobile-browser environments.
Every day design fans submit incredible industry stories to our sister-site, Webdesigner News. Our colleagues sift through it, selecting the very best stories from the design, UX, tech, and development worlds and posting them live on the site.
The best way to keep up with the most important stories for web professionals is to subscribe to Webdesigner News or check out the site regularly. However, in case you missed a day this week, here’s a handy compilation of the top curated stories from the last seven days. Enjoy!
