eCommerce is a booming industry today, but navigating the online space can be tricky. With so many options that users can shop in, you need to keep your site attractive to keep users interested.

However, maintaining users’ attention is more challenging than it sounds, and this is where eCommerce pop-ups come in. 

What Is The Definition Of A Pop-Up In eCommerce?

An eCommerce pop-up is essentially an overlay that you place on your website to stop visitors and show them an offer. 

One familiar example might be a pop-up offering a discount for your first online order if you subscribe to the site’s email newsletter.

How Do Pop-Ups Benefit eCommerce?

Pop-ups can be useful for your eCommerce strategy for many reasons. 

Increase Conversion Rates

If you’re struggling to increase sales, you can add an exit pop-up and offer visitors perks like free shipping, discount codes, and other promotions that will convince them to come back to browse through your products.

Grow Customer Database

Email marketing is a great way to boost customer engagement and strengthen relationships, so you can use pop-ups to collect emails from new site visitors. Use the best contact management practices to stay on top of all your email correspondence. 

Reduce Cart Abandonment Rates

Many times, customers add products to their cart but leave without finishing their order. In these cases, you can use psychological marketing by displaying a pop-up that shows their items have a limited-time discount or are only limited in stocks.

It creates a sense of “fear of missing out” (FOMO), which prompts them to check out their cart.

Collect Customer Feedback

Pop-ups can also come in handy for collecting feedback to help you improve the shopping experience and customer service quality. For this use, the pop-up should be a short questionnaire with multiple-choice questions, star ratings, and direct questions to keep the process short.

Provide Targeted Content

Another big benefit to using pop-ups is the ability to provide targeted content to your visitors based on their browsing history, length of time spent on a page, and other factors. The pop-ups work like ads, where you set specific parameters to activate what pop-ups will appear on a specific user’s screen.

Boost Customer Loyalty

Pop-ups are great for boosting customer loyalty since they allow you to give your shoppers incentives like gifts, promo codes, free or discounted shipping, and the like. 

Types Of Pop-Ups

There are many types of eCommerce pop-ups that can be used depending on your objectives and needs. 

Email Sign-Up

This is perhaps one of the most familiar types of pop-up, which entails asking visitors to write down their email address, usually in exchange for a small incentive like a discount. It is useful for growing your email list and encouraging purchases.

Sale Promotion Pop-Up

Whenever you have promotions, it helps to put them into a pop-up to inform customers loud and clear and encourage them to make a purchase. Common sales promotions you’ll find in pop-ups include discounts, limited-time offers, giveaways, and seasonal campaigns.

Coupon Pop-Up

Coupon pop-ups are as the name suggests—they’re pop-ups offering visitors a coupon or coupon code to get a discount for their order. 

Some variations will combine this with an email sign-up pop-up, wherein users type in their email to get the coupon code, while others simply display the coupon to incentivize immediate purchases.

Updates, News, & Notifications Pop-Up

This type of pop-up intends to keep users informed, so they don’t miss out on any important announcements and updates. It could be about an upcoming product launch, promotion, webinar, or even new content to attract customers and generate more interest for your brand.

Welcome Pop-Up

This is a pop-up that shows up immediately or shortly after your web page loads. It’s designed to target first-time visitors and capture their information so that you can nurture the lead. 

Exit-Intent Pop-Up

Targeted to visitors who are about to leave the site and used to convince them to stay or take a particular action. The most common use cases for exit pop-ups would be to prevent cart abandonment, remind users of benefits, collect feedback, and recommend alternatives.

The Do’s Of Pop-Ups

To guide you, here are some of the top things and handy tips you should consider when designing your eCommerce pop-ups.

DO Use Power Words

Your goal is to trigger a certain emotion from users when they see your pop-up. Thus, you can evoke that emotion and get a quicker response from them by using powerful words.

DO Make Your Pop-Ups Look Distinct

As the term pop-up suggests, you want these banners to pop when they show up on users’ screens. Use bright colors to draw in the viewer, yet pay attention to how the colors you chose to go together. Better yet, make sure the popup’s color palette matches your brands for full continuity. 

DO Offer More Than Deals

Pop-ups may be effective for promotional deals like discounts and vouchers, but there are many other ways to benefit from them. You can also share relevant content, give targeted recommendations, and provide feedback forms to make use of the full potential of pop-ups.

The Don’ts Of Pop-Ups

Pop-ups can drive huge conversions if used correctly, but getting it right can be tricky. 

DON’T Display The Same Pop-Ups All The Time

It would be more effective to personalize your pop-ups and tailor them to visitors based on their cluster or behavior. For example, you can segment the ads among first-time visitors, repeat customers, and abandoned customers. 

DON’T Show Irrelevant Pop-Ups

The risk of bounce rates increases if you display irrelevant pop-ups to visitors, especially if it’s their first time checking your site. Pop-ups may be useful, but only to the extent that they provide something valuable to the user, or you might just drive them away from your store.

DON’T Use Generic CTAs

The call-to-action (CTA) is one of the most critical elements in your pop-up, so you shouldn’t overlook them and use a generic message. Your copy is just as important as the design, so much that in some cases, it could be the factor that determines whether a user engages with your pop-up or not!

Tips For Fantastic eCommerce Pop-Ups

While there’s no one way to answer this question, here are some tips that you can use to help you through the process. 

• Display your ads at the right time. It’s important to know what pop-ups are appropriate for each stage of the buyer’s journey so that they serve their purpose instead of becoming a distraction or annoyance to users. 

• Use eye-catching imagery. The visual aspect of your pop-ups may affect whether a user chooses to read your offer or skip it. Your pop-up should match how your site looks and feels, so avoid using tacky fonts or spammy language. You can even create a moodboard to showcase all your ideas. 

• Add social proof. Whenever possible, incorporate social proof into your pop-ups. This can be ratings, short testimonial quotes, success indicators like the number of products you have sold, and other forms of proof to show users that they can trust you. 

• Target pop-ups based on the audience. Segmenting your pop-ups to match your audience’s demographic and buying behavior is important to ensure that you show them something relevant and useful to their context.

• Monitor and measure results. Think of your pop-ups like any other marketing strategy. You must monitor them continuously and measure their effectiveness to ensure you’re getting your desired results. 

• Avoid being intrusive. Make sure you allow visitors to look through your site a bit before displaying any pop-ups. One way to do this is through a time-delayed pop-up that only shows up when a user starts to browse your products, so they aren’t bombarded immediately after entering your site.

Pop-Up Design Styles

You’ve got design options ranging from the most minimalist to the most complex, fun, and gamified. 

Here are some of the common types of pop-up designs that you can use: 

Yes/No

This design is as its name suggests—it’s a pop-up prompting the user to say yes or no to a question or offers that you’re posing. If the user isn’t interested, they can opt to “Continue Reading” instead.

Lightbox

It is perhaps the most common pop-up design for eCommerce sites. The pop-up appears over the web page and darkens the background to highlight the pop-up and grab a user’s attention.

Gamified

Gamified pop-ups are some of the most effective designs because they’re fun and engaging. Here, you’re essentially adding a mini-game to the pop-up, which users can play to get a prize like a discount or an incentive.

Floating bar

Floating bar pop-ups are more subtle than other designs since they resemble banners that rest at the top of your web page. However, you can still personalise them in a way that makes them pop and stand out once a user visits a particular page. 

Yes/Yes

The Yes/Yes pop-up design is similar to Yes/No in that users get a yes or no option for the offer. However, the main difference is that with the Yes/Yes design, the two options will bring users to the same place.

For example, Bluehost used a pop-up to bring users who sign-up to the Bluehost website to grant them their free domain. 

Lead Magnet

As its name suggests, it’s a pop-up that contains a lead magnet, which is an offer you promote on your site—usually a free product or service in exchange for contact information. 

A unique way you can use this pop-up is to invite visitors to attend a webinar you’re hosting. 

Survey

It’s designed to invite users to take a survey so that you can learn more about their interests. Surveys are most ideal if you’re trying to get customer feedback or doing market research for a new product or service you might be planning.

Our Favorite Examples

We’re rounding up some of our favorite examples to give you an idea of how you should create your pop-ups.

Soaked In Luxury

At first, glance, Soaked in Luxury seems to be doing the same thing as many other players, but the biggest difference you’ll see is their CTA. 

Where most fashion eCommerce sites would ask you to sign up for their newsletter, Soaked in Luxury offers them a chance to win ?700. No doubt, it’s an extremely effective way to catch a visitor’s attention and convince them to give you their contact details in no time at all.

Amazon

Known as the King of eCommerce, Amazon has established a solid footing in the industry, so you know that they’re doing something right. 

One of the things you’ll notice first when you visit their site is a pop-up prompting you to sign in or create an account. It may seem like a small and almost inconsequential thing, but it’s a subtle way to notify visitors of what they should do when they enter the Amazon site.

Kellogg’s

When their website loads, you’ll see a lightbox pop-up design inviting you to sign-up for their family rewards to get special discounts, collect points for rewards, and get exclusive coupons and access to recipes. 

The pop-up is highly effective in building customer loyalty and solidifying Kellogg’s position as a household name in the cereals industry. 

Colgate

Colgate uses their pop-ups strategically to ensure that they get as much information as possible from every new site visitor. Once their page loads, you’ll see a lightbox pop-up asking you to sign up for their newsletter so that you can get emails for discounts, savings, product updates, and other promotional offers.

Subway

Subway has a uniquely designed pop-up displayed at the right side of the screen instead of the usual center. It’s also the usual email sign-up form, it’s eye-catching without disrupting the viewer from the center of their screen because of its position.

Final Thoughts

Pop-ups are a valuable tool you can use in your eCommerce strategy to drive sales, increase conversions, and capture a larger customer base. However, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” strategy for designing and implementing your pop-ups. 

Given this, it’s important to plan your pop-up campaigns carefully before launching them.

The post The Ultimate Guide To The Best eCommerce Pop-Up Design appeared first on noupe.

Great web design is crucial to the success of any online business, with 50% of customers saying they believe it’s crucial to a business’s overall brand. 

Naturally, the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to great web design is typically the cost. 

How can you create an awesome website that builds trust and converts without breaking the bank first? 

Is it even possible to access great web design without paying agency fees?

In this article, we’ll show you how to avoid agency fees, keep costs down—and still design a great website for your online business.

What Are Your Web Design Options?

When it comes to building and designing your website, you’ve pretty much got 3 options. You can either: 

• Work with a professional web designer 
• Work with an agency 
• Design your website yourself with a website builder or theme

Working with a Professional Web Designer 

Working with a professional web designer will cost you a lot more money than doing everything yourself. Depending on who you hire and their level of expertise, you can expect to pay anything from around $500 to $10,000+.

This is, can be at least, a one-off fee, and it also means that you’ll be able to draw on someone’s experience when it comes to designing a quality final product that matches your brand and attract more customers. 

Plus, your web designer will take care of everything for you, while you get to work on the core aspects of your business that matter. That said, you will need to communicate your vision to your designer (and vice-versa) so that you end up with a website you’re happy with. 

The only real downside to working with a web designer is that it’s highly likely that they don’t double-up as a developer. In such a scenario, you will need to hire a developer, too. 

Working with a Web Design Agency 

Working with a web design agency is your most expensive web design option. However, because it’s also the best design option in terms of how your website will look and attract customers, it’s the one most online businesses would prefer to go with—if possible. 

Because a web design agency is an agency and not just one individual web designer, you will likely get a whole team working on your website. This can bring many benefits, and you likely have the opportunity to purchase other services, like a content writer, a developer, an SEO pro, and so on. 

Instead of getting just a website that’s nicely designed, you’re essentially getting the whole package. 

That all said, there are drawbacks here, too. The biggest is that web design agencies are expensive and they may require more time to complete your website. Another disadvantage is that you might end up paying for a web design agency that just isn’t a good fit for you, and which doesn’t quite get your vision. 

Moreover, it might be the case that you overpay for the “whole package,” when in reality you could have paid for each separate part—an SEO person, a content writer, etc for a smaller fee. 

How To Access Affordable Web Design 

As we’ve seen, web design agencies can bear fruit in terms of the look and feel of your website, and make sure your website is optimized for SEO—and fix any development faults. 

However, because web design agencies are so expensive, many startups prefer to look for cheaper but still awesome alternatives.

If you are attracted to the idea of working with an agency that can deliver a deluxe package, you could look into startup finance options, such as revenue-based finance.

If, however, you want great but affordable web design and don’t want to pay agency fees, let’s take a closer look at your options. 

Use a High-Quality Website Builder

Website builders like Wix come with a whole raft of tools and helpful resources so that even complete beginners can start using them straight away. 

Using these tools, you can build a website from scratch that matches your brand, and one that works just as well on mobile devices as it does on desktops. How amazing your website turns out will come down to your own personal skill levels.

If you aren’t ready yet to build an entire website—there are landing page builders that focus on creating stand-alone landing webpages. These are ideal for businesses that sell one or only a few products.

Website builders’ basic plans often start out from just $14 a month. But it’s still a smart idea to also work alongside developers and SEO experts who can help you truly develop your website. 

Additionally, for many website builders, you will need to purchase a separate web hosting plan. The cheapest options start out at around $2.49 per month. A hosting plan should come with things like automatic backups that keep your website running smoothly with as little downtime as possible. 

That said, how much you pay for a web host depends on your needs. Bloggers can get away with a shared hosting plan (the cheapest option), but bigger business websites will benefit more from a managed hosting plan that’s faster, where prices can often start from about $20 a month. 

Also, while website builders are fine for smaller websites, it’s probably a better idea to work with a freelancer if you’re planning to build a much bigger website that attracts high volumes of traffic.

Use Website Themes

Designing your website yourself with a theme is arguably the cheapest option. You can work with a content management system like WordPress, which is the most popular CMS in the world—and it has free themes available for you to use. It can, however, cost more money over the long-term if you want access to available add-on features. 

The biggest drawback is that, unless you’re an expert designer yourself, there’s every chance your website won’t look as good as it could do once you’ve set your theme up. 

Conclusion

Great web design doesn’t have to break the bank. Working with an agency can be super expensive, but there are ways to achieve a quality, high-converting website without paying for expensive agencies.

You can go down the DIY route and use an inexpensive website builder that gives you access to an array of templates and tools to get you started, or you can work alongside an expert freelancer who will help bring your ideas to life. 

The post How to Access Great Web Design Without Paying Agency Fees? appeared first on noupe.

When creating a component-based, front-end infrastructure, one of the biggest pain points I’ve personally encountered is making components that are both reusable and responsive when there are nested components within components.

Take the following “call to action” () component, for example:

On smaller devices we want it to look like this:

This is simple enough with basic media queries. If we’re using flexbox, a media query can change the flex direction and makes the button go the full width. But we run into a problem when we start nesting other components in there. For example, say we’re using a component for the button and it already has a prop that makes it full-width. We are actually duplicating the button’s styling when applying a media query to the parent component. The nested button is already capable of handling it!

This is a small example and it wouldn’t be that bad of a problem, but for other scenarios it could cause a lot of duplicated code to replicate the styling. What if in the future we wanted to change something about how full-width buttons are styled? We’d need to go through and change it in all these different places. We should be able to change it in the button component and have that update everywhere.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could move away from media queries and have more control of the styling? We should be using a component’s existing props and be able to pass different values based on the screen width.

Well, I have a way to do that and will show you how I did it.

I am aware that container queries can solve a lot of these issues, but it’s still in early days and doesn’t solve the issue with passing a variety of props based on screen width.

Tracking the window width

First, we need to track the current width of the page and set a breakpoint. This can be done with any front-end framework, but I’m going using a Vue composable here as to demonstrate the idea:

// composables/useBreakpoints.js

import { readonly, ref } from "vue";

const bps = ref({ xs: 0, sm: 1, md: 2, lg: 3, xl: 4 })
const currentBreakpoint = ref(bps.xl);

export default () => {
  const updateBreakpoint = () => {
  
    const windowWidth = window.innerWidth;
    
    if(windowWidth >= 1200) {
      currentBreakpoint.value = bps.xl
    } else if(windowWidth >= 992) {
      currentBreakpoint.value = bps.lg
    } else if(windowWidth >= 768) {
      currentBreakpoint.value = bps.md
    } else if(windowWidth >= 576) {
      currentBreakpoint.value = bps.sm
    } else {
      currentBreakpoint.value = bps.xs
    }
  }

  return {
    currentBreakpoint: readonly(currentBreakpoint),
    bps: readonly(bps),
    updateBreakpoint,
  };
};

The reason we are using numbers for the currentBreakpoint object will become clear later.

Now we can listen for window resize events and update the current breakpoint using the composable in the main App.vue file:

// App.vue

<script>
import useBreakpoints from "@/composables/useBreakpoints";
import { onMounted, onUnmounted } from 'vue'

export default {
  name: 'App',
  
  setup() {
    const { updateBreakpoint } = useBreakpoints()

    onMounted(() => {
      updateBreakpoint();
      window.addEventListener('resize', updateBreakpoint)
    })

    onUnmounted(() => {
      window.removeEventListener('resize', updateBreakpoint)
    })
  }
}
</script>

We probably want this to be debounced, but I’m keeping things simple for brevity.

Styling components

We can update the component to accept a new prop for how it should be styled:

// CTA.vue
props: {
  displayMode: {
    type: String,
    default: "default"
  }
}

The naming here is totally arbitrary. You can use whatever names you’d like for each of the component modes.

We can then use this prop to change the mode based on the current breakpoint:

<CTA :display-mode="currentBreakpoint > bps.md ? 'default' : 'compact'" />

You can see now why we’re using a number to represent the current breakpoint — it’s so the correct mode can be applied to all breakpoints below or above a certain number.

We can then use this in the CTA component to style according to the mode passed through:

// components/CTA.vue

<template>
  <div class="cta" :class="displayMode">
    
    <div class="cta-content">
      <h5>title</h5>
      <p>description</p>
    </div>
    
    <Btn :block="displayMode === 'compact'">Continue</Btn>
    
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import Btn from "@/components/ui/Btn";
export default {
  name: "CTA",
  components: { Btn },
  props: {
    displayMode: {
      type: String,
      default: "default"
    },
  }
}
</script>

<style scoped lang="scss">
.cta {
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  
  .cta-content {
    margin-right: 2rem;
  }

  &.compact {
    flex-direction: column;
    .cta-content {
      margin-right: 0;
      margin-bottom: 2rem;
    }
  }
}
</style>

Already, we have removed the need for media queries! You can see this in action on a demo page I created.

Admittedly, this may seem like a lengthy process for something so simple. But when applied to multiple components, this approach can massively improve the consistency and stability of the UI while reducing the total amount of code we need to write. This way of using JavaScript and CSS classes to control the responsive styling also has another benefit…

Extensible functionality for nested components

There have been scenarios where I’ve needed to revert back to a previous breakpoint for a component. For example, if it takes up 50% of the screen, I want it displayed in the small mode. But at a certain screen size, it becomes full-width. In other words, the mode should change one way or the other when there’s a resize event.

I’ve also been in situations where the same component is used in different modes on different pages. This isn’t something that frameworks like Bootstrap and Tailwind can do, and using media queries to pull it off would be a nightmare. (You can still use those frameworks using this technique, just without the need for the responsive classes they provide.)

We could use a media query that only applies to middle sized screens, but this doesn’t solve the issue with varying props based on screen width. Thankfully, the approach we’re covering can solve that. We can modify the previous code to allow for a custom mode per breakpoint by passing it through an array, with the first item in the array being the smallest screen size.

<CTA :custom-mode="['compact', 'default', 'compact']" />

First, let’s update the props that the component can accept:

props: {
  displayMode: {
    type: String,
    default: "default"
  },
  customMode: {
    type: [Boolean, Array],
    default: false
  },
}

We can then add the following to generate to correct mode:

import { computed } from "vue";
import useBreakpoints from "@/composables/useBreakpoints";

// ...

setup(props) {

  const { currentBreakpoint } = useBreakpoints()

  const mode = computed(() => {
    if(props.customMode) {
      return props.customMode[currentBreakpoint.value] ?? props.displayMode
    }
    return props.displayMode
  })

  return { mode }
},

This is taking the mode from the array based on the current breakpoint, and defaults to the displayMode if one isn’t found. Then we can use mode instead to style the component.

Extraction for reusability

Many of these methods can be extracted into additional composables and mixins that can be reuseD with other components.

Extracting computed mode

The logic for returning the correct mode can be extracted into a composable:

// composables/useResponsive.js

import { computed } from "vue";
import useBreakpoints from "@/composables/useBreakpoints";

export const useResponsive = (props) => {

  const { currentBreakpoint } = useBreakpoints()

  const mode = computed(() => {
    if(props.customMode) {
      return props.customMode[currentBreakpoint.value] ?? props.displayMode
    }
    return props.displayMode
  })

  return { mode }
}

Extracting props

In Vue 2, we could repeat props was by using mixins, but there are noticeable drawbacks. Vue 3 allows us to merge these with other props using the same composable. There’s a small caveat with this, as IDEs seem unable to recognize props for autocompletion using this method. If this is too annoying, you can use a mixin instead.

Optionally, we can also pass custom validation to make sure we’re using the modes only available to each component, where the first value passed through to the validator is the default.

// composables/useResponsive.js

// ...

export const withResponsiveProps = (validation, props) => {
  return {
    displayMode: {
      type: String,
      default: validation[0],
      validator: function (value) {
        return validation.indexOf(value) !== -1
      }
    },
    customMode: {
      type: [Boolean, Array],
      default: false,
      validator: function (value) {
        return value ? value.every(mode => validation.includes(mode)) : true
      }
    },
    ...props
  }
}

Now let’s move the logic out and import these instead:

// components/CTA.vue

import Btn from "@/components/ui/Btn";
import { useResponsive, withResponsiveProps } from "@/composables/useResponsive";

export default {
  name: "CTA",
  components: { Btn },
  props: withResponsiveProps(['default 'compact'], {
    extraPropExample: {
      type: String,
    },
  }),
  
  setup(props) {
    const { mode } = useResponsive(props)
    return { mode }
  }
}

Conclusion

Creating a design system of reusable and responsive components is challenging and prone to inconsistencies. Plus, we saw how easy it is to wind up with a load of duplicated code. There’s a fine balance when it comes to creating components that not only work in many contexts, but play well with other components when they’re combined.

I’m sure you’ve come across this sort of situation in your own work. Using these methods can reduce the problem and hopefully make the UI more stable, reusable, maintainable, and easy to use.

---

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Nested Components in a Design System originally published on CSS-Tricks. You should get the newsletter.

What is the psychology of fonts?

Most people are more engaged in visual content, less writing (a phenomenon that psychologists call the effect of visual imagery), looking like a text (like a font) on a brand font psychology in logo design, advertising, and other products that are important for brand recognition. That brand memory lowers writing content.

Not only the modern look of the text is an essential factor for branding, but the old look of different fonts can have a psychological impact on the viewer. Having changed the style of the typeface, having made it more emotional and tighter, the designer can change the beauty differently to the brand.

For example, a bank that wants to convey to its customers a sense of stability and decline can choose a traditional serif typeface, and a tech start-up can choose a futuristic sans-serif typeface so that clients embrace it as innovative.

Psychological thinking can be extended even to other design elements, such as color. Advanced designers can combine a few psychological effects, choosing fonts and colors, after which the combination of design elements is psychologically thought out, which conveys one of the emotional font moods.

The influence of the emotional fonts on the perception of the consumer of the brand

Font style definition – can best be conveyed by describing different font styles.

Direct elongated fonts

They convey a business mood and are almost universal fonts. However, it should be borne in mind that direct font will be inappropriate for non-mass and original products that need to be distinguished from competitors. It may seem tedious and faceless if you do not beat it with an unusual color scheme.

Strict square fonts

They are mainly used in the design of advertising industrial products, technologies, and social advertising. Lightness and simplicity are inappropriate here. These fonts are designed to adjust a person to the seriousness of the information provided. They give the impression of importance and authority, so they are designed to attract business partners and investors.

Rounded fonts

They convey a sense of comfort and coziness. When square fonts look strict, rounded ones are positively perceived as a good attitude of the brand towards consumers.

Italic fonts

Most often used to advertise products that target the audience of girls and women. Italic fonts evoke a feeling of lightness and beauty. This is how beauty salons, clothing, and cosmetics stores advertise. Italics facilitate the perception of information, and it looks less important. Therefore, notes and the author’s digressions are highlighted in italics.

Handwritten fonts (script type font)

What is script font definition? Script psychology definition is that they have a unique element of fluid stroke attached to them. In layman’s terms, it is writing using a brush while connecting letters. They were mainly used for print packaging, signage, and advertising. Not suitable for outdoor advertising and slanted fonts – they are challenging to read if you choose a large font size. At the same time, they are great for emphasizing the exclusivity of a product or service. Handwritten fonts are used for advertising legal and consulting services, medical practice, and writing invitations during political PR campaigns.

The visual rhetoric of the text

Text documents mix both visual and verbal rhetoric. Verbal rhetoric refers to the actual textual information and affects the reader’s ability to understand and perceive the content. Visual rhetoric involves the visual elements and forms the overall impression of the document. Graphic elements in the text can activate the semantic imagination – they form individual semantic connections between blocks of text, more broadly explain what is said in the text, or form content that is not related to what is presented in the text.

Web design typography trends

Recent research shows that the emotional state of readers is the result of user experience. The perception of the font depends on the level of knowledge. The headset directly affects the external text on the screen or the document. Depending on the amount of text offered to the reader, choosing fonts that improve the positive attitude and perception of what is read is necessary. Psychologists say that in a state of happiness, the process of human thinking expands, activating creative thinking. When a person is optimistic about shopping, he ignores the inconvenience of the interface. And the choice of inappropriate fonts can cause negative emotions, accompanied by a critical assessment of your site’s user interface.

An attractive interface evokes positive typography emotions and is perceived more efficiently, producing a sense of harmony in visitors.

Font pairs

The main rule: Choose a font pair before you start the design.

This will allow you not to be confused in size in the future, not to think about what font to use here and how to use it here. It is better to define it once (which heading you use, the subheading, and their dimensions) and then apply it in your layout.

With the advent of user-friendly web fonts, the opportunity to improve your site has become even more accessible. But many fonts can confuse not only a beginner – which one is right for you?

The site is the text. When we visit a page, much of the content we come up with is text.

What happens on the page in terms of font pair? When we visit the site, we see many combinations of text. We see headlines. We see some main text. We see some captions and some notes next to them. We know the date. We see “today” written in a completely different font. This font is also different from the title, for example, and here it is. And how to combine it all correctly is a question.

The main rule is sufficient contrast. Not too big, not too small – the one we need here and now. And 4 tools for creating pairs of fonts – the so-called four ways, four tools that we can influence the contrast.

1. Of course, the font. These are Antiquity and Grotesque, for example. Because of the maximum contrast between them. Antique is a slash font. Grotesque is a slash font.
2. We can use typefaces within one font and different fonts in the same way. For example, it’s regular spelling (Regular), bold and Italic.
3. It is also important to say about the size. It would help if you had a difference between your lines. Your font was more than 1.6. 1.6 is a figure from the proportion of the golden ratio. Use it as just a factor. If you have a text and want to make a title to it – multiply the size of this text by 1.6, and you will get the size of the title. If that’s enough, maybe you’ll have to increase it again.
4. And, of course, color. There are, in principle, established pairs that can be taken and used—for example, Baskerville and Gill Sans. We see a bold typeface in the title, a font with notches, and the text is written in sans serif font. There is also enough contrast – we see the difference between the two fonts.

Also Garamond and Verdana. It is one of the golden rules of font selection definition. When selecting a font pair, you can use such established pairs as Garamond for headings. Verdana is a perfect font for typing the main text – it is comfortable to read. At the same time, Garamond is quite expressive for headlines.

Proxima Nova and Palatino – on the contrary, we use Proxima Nova headers – is a font without serifs.

And Palatino can be used for some book sets, sets, maybe articles. Palatino + Proxima Nova

Another example is PT Sans and PT Serif. These are fonts that are part of one typeface, that is, so-called fonts of the exact nature. That is Sans in the title, Serif in the main text.

What is the beauty of using a headset as part of a font pair? The fonts are similar: they were made by one author and have a single concept. They have, of course, differences in the image – there are notches, there are not, but they are very harmoniously combined. Helvetica + Times.

Perception of the font as part of the logo

Only 6% of international brands use a picture as a logo. 56% use a combination of text and images, and the symbols of 37% of the remaining brands are inscriptions. Thus, the vast majority of companies use text when creating a logo. Font values ??should not be neglected, and enough time should be devoted to creating a logo with a font that best communicates the brand philosophy to the person.

A logo where the text is placed in a square or circle is associated with confidence, in an ellipse – with a creative approach. The inverted triangle looks like a call to action, and the diagonal arrangement of the text is associated with speed and speed.

The best font for perception

63% of the fonts used in company logos are serif-free. The most popular among them is Helvetica. This font is used in 21% of logo inscriptions.

Helvetica is considered the best font for perception.

Where to get fonts?

• google.com/fonts is a directory of free fonts from Google
• typekit.com – similar in model, concept. We can take fonts from there and use them on the web, for example, immediately.
• myfonts.com is a massive database of fonts. There are a lot of English fonts, Latin, and there is also Cyrillic.

Conclusion

To sum up, try to remember the following:

• Make sure the text matches the situation in which it is presented
• Size matters – logical choice of size emphasizes where needed
• Use a font that displays the dialog you want to run
• Color is paramount for conveying subliminal messages to your reader
• You can also use color to draw attention to certain parts of the text
• Text is useless if it is not easy to read – help your reader use logical formatting.
• The image is not just colors and forms on the side, not for people.

Though people react to visual culture emotionally, designers can manipulate the psychological reactions of their gazers, sensing the choice of design characteristics, such as colors and fonts. The development of the psychology of fonts in marketing is becoming an important area of ??research and practice in branding and advertising.

Although it was the prerogative of great corporations, small businesses now recognize the value of stowing the psychology of emotional typography in marketing and brand design. It has been brought to light that different fonts are poured into the psychology of a person, and the deacons of hard fonts are to inspire the building to change the taste of life. It’s not surprising that brands are beginning to hire designers so that they can be smart, understand the psychology of fonts, and know fonts that evoke emotion.

For designers, that company’s understanding of the psychology of fonts is the key to molding how to remember the brand and how customers accept it. It is also true that the word strength in different fonts is different.

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The world does not stand still and things change every year, if no color daily. There are new technologies, trends and growing interests in many areas.

Design is no exception. It is probably the most unpredictable trend there can be. Just yesterday your T-shirt was the hottest fashion trend, and now you need something new. Or just recently we could see a revival of retro styles in fonts, posters, and logos, even though it seemed impossible.

When it comes to web design, it is always looking to the future. Due to its fairly dense relationship with innovative technology, the digital sphere can delight all of us every year with something new in animation, user interfaces, and immersion depth. The year 2022 will also be promising in this regard, as we will soon see.

Besides visual trends, we also mention technological ones, keeping in mind that design is a planning job, actually engineering, and not just gradient selection. We appreciate things primarily not just for their color, but for how well they solve their tasks.

Dynamic Content

At the moment, many users are getting a bit fed up with the old type of sites and want to see a new level of personalisation. For this, it is a great idea to add dynamic content (also called adaptive) to your website. In this way, some sort of chip is added to your website and all your content changes depending on user demographics, behavior, preferences and interests.

In other words, the site will shine with new colors, not only visually but also technically. Changing headlines, subheadings, parts of text and images to suit the needs of potential customers will have a positive impact on your project. Using dynamic content, you can also easily create modules without programmer help. For example: with this solution, it’s possible to display a list of available products, manufacturers, or categories (by various criteria) in a modern eCommerce template.

Retro

Remember what we feel when we look at old photographs, games, things. A warm feeling of nostalgia comes over us. Designers love to play on users’ feelings, so they apply this trick in web design.

As the emergence of the Internet becomes an increasingly distant memory, up-and-coming web designers of today draw inspiration from those early days. The so-called ’90s style was characterized by bright background colors, visible table markings and robotic fonts.

While all that was implemented back then with pretty fun results, web designers of 2022 are reviving that trend, while still having the benefit of nearly 30 years of collective design experience.

As well as being a showcase for a variety of tricks, graphics and color, the web of the 90s was also an era when there were no rules and very few professional web designers. Designers who have emerged since then and work to industry standards now see those early days as a breeding ground for unrestricted creativity (for better or for worse).

Three-Dimensional Colors

Color schemes in web design have been trending towards gradient for a long time, and this year’s trend seems to be the next evolution, with color transitions becoming more realistic than ever. Following Apple’s Big Sur OS example, we expect colors to be rich and three-dimensional, almost like fruit that you can pick right off the screen.

This trend is achieved by a darkening that gives roundness to the flat icons of years gone by. While we expect this to appear more often on app icons, web designers are also eschewing neat gradient transitions for mixed background colors that seem more imperfect and natural. Two colors next to each other can suddenly blend together, or can retain the shadows and depth of colored objects. Overall, this trend suggests that 2022 web design colors aspire to higher levels of realism.

3D Elements

Visual effects successfully attract the attention of the potential audience, fully showcasing the virtual space. The design trends of 2022 are aimed at shortening the time it takes to open a resource. In the future, the emphasis will be on small frameworks. Three-dimensional elements will be a useful addition, and may increase usability. Design will look more original and unusual. In 2022, development specialists will be looking for new tools for fast loading of information on the page, including graphic images.

At the moment, they are creating interactive animations that are more memorable for the user, but do not slow down the loading speed of the site. The main purpose of such a picture is to attract the attention of visitors . The motion effect has a positive effect on a company’s reputation and promotion, increasing the number of target audiences.

Dark Design

This trend will only strengthen its position and progress this year. Many users have noted that it is the dark theme that they activate in their daily lives. This light is known to feel less strain on the eyes. It is also recommended activating the dark background if you use the device before going to bed. This promotes easy falling asleep and also has little effect on the quality of sleep. And, in general, a lot of people like dark mode. 

Dark mode combined with OLED (organic light-emitting diode) can prolong battery life. Many large companies have already introduced a dark theme to their own digital designs in UI/ UX design. The popularity of the feature will only increase. In addition, in 2022, companies will offer several design options. The user will be able to choose the interface that suits his or her preferences in the most pleasant way.

Animated Logos

The year 2022 does not abolish business cards, notepads, pens and booklets: animated logos make no sense for print products. But online brands are facing new challenges and looking for new solutions, one of which is creating animated logos.

And this is a legitimate expectation because they have many advantages, such as:

• They attract attention. It means that they help increase brand awareness.
• They look good on mobile devices. Catchy animations look more interesting than a static logo.
• Most importantly, they showcase a story. The idea of a static logo evolves into an animation. It allows you to show not only the mission of the brand, but also its values in a few seconds!

Minimalism

Of course, good old-fashioned minimalism has not been abandoned. Sometimes you get the impression that it will always be on trend.

These days, end-users prefer minimalist and clean websites because they help them focus on what is most important, rather than being distracted by insignificant details.

With a lot of information already present everywhere, the modern user is looking for accurate “no water” information, seeking to eliminate unnecessary wandering around the web.

Websites with a huge number of elements can not only distract the user from getting the information they need, but also get forgotten rather quickly. After all, when instead of searching for certain information it is necessary to leaf through a huge amount of content, the user is more likely to choose only the button to close and forget the site.

On the other hand, a minimal, clean and dynamic website, complete with bold font where appropriate, helps the user to access the information they need very quickly without much effort.

New Fonts

Typographic trends change direction every year. In 2022, designers will no longer welcome classic fonts and are more likely to use custom typefaces as well as serifs (a short, usually perpendicular stroke at the end of a letter that begins and ends the main stroke of the character). The size will also change quite frequently. From word to word, the semi-transparent font will overlap the non-transparent one. Plus, boldness and italics will be added. You can see this trend in MasterBundles, CreativeMarket and Etsy.

Authenticity

Does it seem to you that sometimes you visit almost identical websites? More online platforms have become similar to each other. Finding something out of the ordinary is becoming almost impossible. A new trend was born out of this — authenticity. The essence of this trend is to combine things that are very difficult to match, to be unusual, to be out of the box, leaving the users baffled by what they see. It is about working with meanings, ideas and the presentation of information.

Parallax Effect

The “parallax effect” is still a popular design solution today. It is one of the trends of the 2022 website, and has been for years. It is not surprising as it is a really worthwhile move to get users’ attention. Parallax is commonly referred to as an optical illusion that occurs when floating parts are formed. Presented method is commonly used in the design of web pages. This effect allows visitors to the site to feel the effect of immersion to the fullest extent.

Conclusion

We can say for sure that most of the trends will, of course, take over from previous years, but they will also have higher quality content using new, modern technology. But what is really fresh about these trends is that they are aimed at creating excitement.

Whether they bring back a forgotten decade, delight the user with interaction and animation, or offer something created by hand, the goal of this year’s web design trends is to create an instant sense of wonder, no matter how unconventional the approach may be.

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If, as a business owner, you too are confused between the terms software developers and software engineers, you are not alone.

Not only do the terms sound similar, but there are specific responsibilities of software developers and software engineers that get intertwined, making it even more challenging to differentiate between the two.

Despite sharing many similarities in software development, both software developers and engineers approach a particular task differently based on their skillset. In this blog, we will dive deep into the skills and responsibilities of both software developers and engineers so that the business organization has a clear idea when they are hiring them.

Software Developers and Software Engineers are highly skilled and knowledgeable tech professionals who could be an asset to a business firm. Therefore, it is essential to know their differences correctly. Otherwise, it may harm an enterprise for a more extended period.

Let us begin!

Who is a Software Developer?

A software developer is a professional whose primary work is to develop softwares that can run across various computer devices, tabs, and smartphones. The dedicated software developers are very creative and brainstorm masterminds who can create giant networks or underlying systems or focus on a specific program or an app.

The experienced software developers also focus on using various source debuggers and other visual development environments to write programs and modify codes and debug the softwares for client applications. Moreover, they are also expected to document and test the client software and write codes for apps that boost access to servers or services.

Top Technical Skills for Software Developers

Software development is a very complex job. Thus, business organizations expect software developers to be aware of specific technical skills that would help them during the software development process. For the knowledge of our readers, we have listed the essential technical skills that software developers must possess to excel in their work.

Algorithms and data structures

Understanding data structures and algorithms are essential for best software developers as they are the heart of software programming. Moreover, many business enterprises and employers are looking for talented software developers who are efficient in different data structures such as map, set, linked list, array, etc. Therefore, knowledge about basic algorithms and data structures will help software developers build better applications.

Cloud computing

Software developers must be highly skilled in cloud computing. Tech pundits worldwide also believe that cloud platforms will remain in demand in 2022 and years to come as there is no shortage of space, and companies can store their data quickly in a synchronized way.

Git and Github

An expert software developer must have a strong hand in knowing the versions of source controls such as SVN and Git. For example, more than 70% of the organizations use Git and Github as it has streamlined the market significantly. Therefore, the custom software developers must make some effort to be familiar with the advanced versions of this source control, such as knowing the concepts of merging and branching.

Top Soft Skills for Software Developers

Along with being brilliant in the technical aspects, the software developers must have some soft skills such as the interpersonal skills to make the communication process easy during the entire software development project.

Accuracy and attention to detail

It will not be an overstatement if we say that a software developer must have surgeon’s precisions while writing codes. They must be able to extensively run through their work to be the problem-solvers themselves and point out even the tiniest mistake that is messing up the entire code.

Willing to work in a team environment

The software developers should always strive to become brilliant individually but must also be able to do well in a team environment. They must have excellent collaborative skills and a cool head over their shoulders for staying calm under challenging circumstances.

Staying curious

A software developer who remains on one’s heels while doing a task will become a liability in the future. Therefore, they must always be looking for self-development by challenging themselves to remain at par with the changing requirements of the dynamic business environment.

Who is a Software Engineer?

A software engineer is mainly responsible for applying state-of-the-art software engineering principles to develop, design, test, maintain, and evaluate the software. Along with the software lifecycle, the latest engineering trends applied by the software engineer also relate to incremental development, consistency, generality, and modularity of the software.

The dedicated software engineers apply mathematical analytics and work on a larger scale than the software developers. As a result, they play a pivotal role in creating new tools for software development used by the software developers.

Top Technical Skills for Software Engineers

To become an efficient software engineer, a tech professional must have a strong hand in hardcore technical skills. For the benefit of our readers, we have listed a few of the top skills below:

Object-Oriented Design (OOD)

A specific software design approach has become popular since the proliferation of the software development realm. Object-Oriented Design (OOD) includes the critical principle of software design such as encapsulation, abstraction, decomposition, inheritance, and generalization. Therefore, if the software engineer is well-aware of the OOD guidelines, they will be able to develop reusable, modular, and very flexible software.

Software testing

One might say that software testing is an area where the quality assurance team has a specialization. But an experienced software engineer must know the ins and outs of software testing as it will help them reduce the time of overall software development.

Knowing the software testing process will also make the analytical and problem-solving skills better of the software engineer.

Accurate coding and computer programming

The instances where the software engineers would be required to code are rare, but it will be handy for them to be familiar with the programming languages. Knowledge of leading programming languages such as Python, Ruby, C/C++, etc., will make it easier for software engineers to be good with the data structures and algorithms.

Top Soft Skills for Software Engineers

Apart from being proficient with technical skills, software engineers must also have excellent ‘people skills’. Some of the leading soft skills that make the expert software engineers stand apart from their league are:

Leadership and persuasion

Along with being profound in their work abilities, software engineers are also expected to lead a team. Therefore, a software engineer must convey the basics of the development project to the team and guide them through all the thick and thin. Moreover, if the engineers are aware of the software engineering trends, it would assist them in sharpening their leadership skills.

In addition, they must persuade their team members to put in their 100% during the software development process so that the software renders the desirable outcome at the market.

Self-confidence

Software engineers must have complete confidence in their skills. Self-confidence will help them guide a team if they are stuck anywhere during the development process of software project. Moreover, with self-confidence, the software engineer will be able to look at problems from a different angle and have more chances of solving them quickly.

Taking risks

Apart from leading by example, the software engineer must also not shy away from taking calculated risks. The risk-taking ability will help the software engineer get out of one’s comfort zone and be better at their work. Moreover, it will also help them learn new skills that they can apply to better the software development procedure.

The Key Difference Between Software Developers vs Software Engineers

Below are some essential aspects that business organizations must consider to clarify what to expect from a software developer and software engineer.

• A software engineer is involved in the entire software development process, whereas the software developers are only included in one aspect of the software development process
• The software engineers create tools such as eclipse, visual studio, etc., while the software developers use them for development purposes
• A software developer writes the entire program while the software engineer works on the component to build a system.
• The software engineers solve issues on a larger scale. Moreover, the scope of work of software developers includes everything, but it is limited.
• Software engineers work in a team while the software developers can either work alone or are a part of team.

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Let’s take a moment to think about the time you’ve spent navigating intranets, password resets, project management software, or government websites. How many moments of technological frustration can you add up in the last few days when you think about them? Some of these websites and platforms are too important to avoid — they enable us to fulfill fundamental human transactions and operations. In today’s world, it’s become common to feel our energy is depleted by this steady stream of digital experiences.

Given our increasing dependency on digital interactions, advocating for good UX will become increasingly necessary, as our reliance on digital tools continues to grow. A new canvassing of experts in technology, communications, and social change by Pew Research Center presents a universal view that “people’s relationship with technology will deepen as larger segments of the population come to rely more on digital connections for work, education, health care, daily commercial transactions and essential social interactions.” As this shift toward what is dubbed a tele-everything world continues to unfold, the people who work in tech hold an incredible responsibility to ensure that their creations make life simpler, not more stressful or more time-consuming.

As a designer, I feel a sense of responsibility to dig deeper into why it’s so uncommon to encounter digital tools that are straight-up simple, empathetic, and helpful. In this article, we will explore the causes, as I’ve seen in my practice, look at the effects this can have on the team, and finally propose some actionable solutions that don’t just say: convince people to increase the budget.

Common Sources Of Bad UX In Your Product

If good UX has been a hot topic in the industry for years, then why is bad UX still so common? The easy answer points toward product designers and developers as individuals who create the UX itself. However, if you believe that, then your bad UX problem will persist despite hiring the most competitive talent on the job market.

Based on my experiences as a UX Designer and Design Manager, here are the top four underlying reasons why your tech product might be experiencing Bad UX:

1. Under-Resourced Dev Teams For The Size Of A Company’s Goals

These conditions place the team in a ‘starvation mode’ where delivering anything on time is already difficult enough; the steps required for quality UX are extremely difficult to prioritize. The issue here is that company leadership views Good UX as luxurious (which is quite hilarious, because UX is often a key differentiator in the most competitive products out there), even as a hindrance to velocity (which is equally hilarious, because of the disastrous impact Bad UX can have on velocity in the long run, but whatever, leadership).

“I encounter under-resourced dev teams constantly, and it’s disheartening every time. Usually, quality is the first thing to go, even though most professionals know it should be scope. Decision-makers in these contexts have a very hard time imagining scoping down, so they consistently push the team to move faster instead.”

— Aidan Gordon, Technology Lead

2. Under-Resourced Design Teams For The Number Of Developers

A recent survey of 377 professionals by Nielsen Norman Group revealed that about a third of designers are outnumbered by at least 10 developers. Imagine the pressure on designers when there’s such a skewed ratio like this. They need to pump out screens and logic for devs (short for developers) to work on every week. The team’s production velocity is wrongly measured by its dev power, and because the design bottleneck is so strong, devs have to wing it and just kind of ‘figure out’ UX independently. Thoughtful user testing falls by the wayside, as designers’ workloads are unmanageable.

3. Misunderstanding “Agile” As “As Fast As Possible”

Agile workflow tactics gained popularity without paying enough attention to the underlying rituals that enable them to be successful. According to Atlassian (the creators of Jira) and Confluence)), Agile calls for “collaborative cross-functional teams, open communication, collaboration, adaptation, and trust amongst team members.” Each and every one of those key aspects are easily deprioritized when a team’s strategic goals force them to operate in starvation mode in the first place. Agile, as it was designed, recognizes that good UX is the result of navigating continuous dependencies between all branches of the product team. In other words, Good UX requires a lot of back and forth, which is a kind of collaborative and communicative mode that immediately falls to the wayside when we are in a rush.

“I’ve observed companies that aren’t committed to an iterative mindset and process, but use “Agile” as a bandaid for quicker releases. Sometimes, there’s a fear coming from leadership that we might never return to fix something, or a fear that we won’t be able to sell version 1 without a fully functional feature X. Unless the whole company embraces iterations, the product team will either struggle to release quickly, or to release quality… the concern is if we release a v1 with less than perfect scope we will never go back to fixing it.”

— Jill Hesse, Director at Genomics Data Management

4. Misunderstanding The Meaning And Purpose Of UX

Often, when I’ve been hired to work for teams, I have observed that the main issue was simply a mild and widespread confusion about what User Experience really is, both in the tech crew and the business crew. Misunderstanding the purpose of UX is akin to misunderstanding its value. If this happens on the business side of the company, then the product team will likely be under-resourced in the design department. If this misunderstanding happens on the product team level (perhaps due to a lack of designers in strategically influential positions, or lack of designers altogether), UX winds up being disregarded or thought of as just UI, which is to say: “something that can be added later.”

This summary is meant to offer a view of the operational and cultural forces that bring about UX failures. If you’re a leader in tech, I hope you draw the essential link between the happiness of your product team, the quality of the User Experience, and your business’ revenues. Your product team knows what conditions they need in place for them to produce a high-quality UX. They have some of the answers to your Bad UX problem, and they might be a heck of a lot simpler than you think.

The Impact Of Bad UX On Your Team And Company

In organizational psychology and modern ways of viewing work, like Officevibe’s Employee Engagement Guide, there’s often a theme that comes up: happier employees make more productive employees/better work. I’d add users into this cycle somewhere because creating excellent experiences creates a virtuous cycle into revenue and solidifies the meaning we find in contributing positively to others.

On the flip side, when bad UX has lingered in a product for so long, it can feel like a mountain to overcome, and it grinds down the talented and passionate humans on your team.

The effect can play out on teams in a few ways I’ve seen in real life:

• Long-term ‘UX bugs’ harm team morale.
  Over time, the glaring UX issues product can force a continuation of being caught between a rock and a hard place, where a revamp is increasingly needed, but would require more and more resources. In this kind of scenario, you might see designers regularly churning out band-aid features instead of creating elegant solutions. The team can still produce new, innovative features, but more slowly and with more mental (dare I say emotional) labor than is necessary. It basically just gets harder and harder to create stuff that you could be proud of. It can get demoralizing over time.
• Lack of opportunities to create Good UX wears down confidence.
  As a designer (or other people on a product team), your job, your portfolio, your sense of credibility in the space, sense of confidence — and I’ll even go as far as saying your self-worth — are directly affected by the impact you feel from your work. You know you are talented, interested and capable enough to produce great things, but anyone caught in a Bad UX situation for a long time will see those joyful and creative feelings start to dim.

“As a designer, working in a user-driven product culture is so important for your own satisfaction. If you’re working within a company or team with a weak UX culture, you can get stuck meeting one or a few people’s biased preferences instead of hundreds or thousands of users’ real needs. You know you’re letting users down. In some cases, you’re even adding more friction and frustration into someone’s life… Over time, your confidence in the quality of your designs diminishes, and, eventually, so does your overall engagement at work.”

— Erica Gregor, Head of Design & Product at Penrose Partners

• Bad UX hinders a team’s growth and strategic value.
  When Bad UX pervades in such a way that it causes your team to lose time or motivation, under-delivery becomes the norm. It starts to seem like, from the outside lens, that your team isn’t relevant or competent. When it’s hard for a team to demonstrate its strategic/business value, investment in the team’s growth can slow down, and they don’t get to benefit from the innovation power of a more diverse range of skills and talents.

Solutions For Preventing Bad UX

The discussions I’ve had in the industry about the causes of Bad UX always revolve around too little time or resources to achieve the elegant and empathetic design-dev workflow proposed by experts in Agile, Design Thinking, etc. But notice the irony of some of the biggest, most funded teams still producing Bad UX. Have you ever tried joining a Microsoft Teams call as a ‘free’ user? Not only is more time and resources a false solution to Bad UX, the very focus on “more resources as the solution to Bad UX” makes Good UX seem like a privilege that only the most funded projects can access.

“I am not sure if I have got stuck in Groundhog Day, or have become the center of the universe. I try to log in… It says I am not on Teams yet, and asks me to “Sign up.” I am taken to the Teams home page, where I click on “Sign up for free.” It says, I already have an account setup… So I click on “Sign in.” Now it asks me to open the app… And then it says that I am not on Teams…”

— Sumit Anantwar, on being stuck in a login loop on Microsoft Teams

Enterprise Case: How Design-Dev Collaboration Identified A Dealbreaking Project Barrier

We were tasked with redesigning a command-line tool for an enterprise product that required the download and upload of an XML file. The weakest point in the tool was the lack of guidance and feedback people received as they used the tool. When we showed the wireframes with new error messages and guidance to the developers, they revealed to us that the tool already had problems parsing errors in the right order because of the nature of the XML file and the underlying database.

Once everyone realized that the main purpose of the redesign would be impossible to fulfill within the scope of work, we decided to scrap the project until we could fix things properly.

Biotech Case: How Design-Dev Collaboration Maintains A Healthy Project Scope

We were designing a custom field configuration interaction and had designed a lot of cases as we went. Users of this biotech platform could create their own: number field, text field, multiline text field, radio button dropdown, toggles, and so on.

Thankfully, we had two developers review the design team’s wireframes and logic early on. One dev pointed out way more logic that needed to be defined because this scientific software had requirements that were buried deep in the code like the number of decimals to show, the maximum possible value, etc. This prevented a major scope creep during implementation and prevented users from being blocked at migration time.

Hopefully, these examples allow you to imagine just a small glimpse into the potential that these workflow improvements and collaborative culture can generate.

Conclusion

Our work in the tech industry can feel like a grind at times: fast deadlines, rushing, redoing work you’ve already done, and pushing sub-par final implementation out the door. This, in part, is because a company’s strategy or a team’s workflows don’t help catch complexity early enough, so devs and designers have to respond by patching in weird UX solutions just to get a thing out the door.

Here’s a recap of some actionable steps that are sure to improve the UX culture in your team:

As a product leader:

• Open a discussion with your team: What needs to be true in order to deliver higher quality user experiences? This question should help you notice frictions in their team structure and their workflows.
• Offer the whole team (including developers, researchers, managers, and quality analysts) a learning experience about UX like this introductory course. Celebrate the end of the course (and put it into practice) together by designing and implementing a new feature.
• Same goes for working in Agile: get everyone on the same page through a common learning experience like through this book and put it into practice together through a shared project.
• Implement new, quick rituals that gather your whole team during the design process, especially in its early and messier stages. Your developers, managers, and QA people might feel out of place at first, but that’s only because the world has taught them to feel that way. This simple exposure to design will grow to influence what they care about in their work and eventually shift everyone’s sense of responsibility for good user experiences.

As a product team member, do what’s in your power about the recommendations above:

• As a designer, invite a developer to a 30-minute meeting showing them a new feature you’re conceptualizing or some fresh research insights you are working with.
• As any team member, host a discussion with your team about how you might deliver higher quality design without needing new resources. Test it out and share your learnings with your Manager.
• As a developer, get a sense of some tactical UX/UI basics with this course and try using some of the principles next time you work on a feature, note the most seamless pieces you implemented and share with your team.

All in all, we want all levels of a company and all members of a product team working with the same definition and values around UX. In companies where there’s shared responsibility for the quality of a product, collaboration flows organically and frequently. This constant meeting of perspectives and skills is our way forward if we want to honor the idea that tech should help people save time and effort in as many ways as possible.

Resources

• “Experts Say The ‘New Normal’ In 2025 Will Be Far More Tech-Driven, Presenting More Big Challenges,” Janna Anderson, Lee Rainie and Emly A. Vogels
• “Consumers Now Average 4.2 Hours Per Day In Apps, Up 30% From 2019,” Sarah Perez
• “Typical Designer–to–Developer And Researcher–to–Designer Ratios,” Kate Kaplan
• “Stuck In A Login Loop… I Have Or I Don’t Have Is The Question,” Sumit Anantwar (Microsoft Tech Community)
• “Switching From Host To Traveler,” Airbnb Community Center
• Atlassian Agile Coach

Sometimes it’s easy to feel like the world is going to pieces all around us, especially when we’re doom scrolling Twitter between news alerts every few minutes. But if we step back a little, things may not seem so bad.

On the web, we see companies and individuals taking a positive stand, making changes, and carrying on despite challenging circumstances. So in this month’s collection, we celebrate confidence and accentuate the positive, as the song says. Enjoy!

Plastic Bionic

The ‘change view’ option is well used in this portfolio site for Plasticbionic design studio. The grid view is especially pleasing.

Fabricca

Creative agency Fabricca has gone for a simple look, with some appealing illustrations and custom icons.

Normand

The color scheme and display font choice (Knockout) make a strong statement here for law firm Normand.

Dumpling Delivery

We all need some bored-on-a-slow-friday-afternoon distraction from time to time, and Mailchimp delivers the goods here.

OTR

OTR is a mental health service for young people aged 11-25. The site does a great job of feeling approachable and friendly to younger users while not being condescending, cutesy, or childish.

neueMeta

Good use of block color adds extra depth to this otherwise brutalist portfolio site for neueMeta design studio.

Vitra Chair Finder

This interactive questionnaire helps the customer identify the best chair for their needs. The animation is done well here, and a page of swirling Vitra chairs is a lovely thing to see.

Chia Studios

A good balance here of serious and fun in Chia Studio’s portfolio site, professional but friendly.

Sagmeister 123

The concept behind this limited clothing range designed by Stefan Sagmeister is that, taking the long-term view, the world is actually getting better. As such, the Sagmeister 123 site has an overall feeling of quiet positivity. And a koala.

RecPak

RecPak is a meal replacement shake designed for taking during outdoor activities. The site has an active, dynamic feel that works well to convey a sense of rugged outdoor adventure.

Alicia Moore

This site for Alicia Moore clothing brand oozes style and sophistication with soft colors and beautiful fashion photography.

Think Packaging

Think Packaging’s website has a bright, bold, fun feel. Case studies are well presented visually but keep text to a minimum.

BP&O

Brand design and packaging blog BP&O has added extended content for subscribers, and their new site is a pleasure to browse.

The Future Factory

The Future Factory is a business lead generation agency, which doesn’t sound, well, a bit dull. But, some funky animation and slightly quirky type certainly do not convey dullness.

Polybion

Polybion’s new website has a spacious feel with a rich color scheme adding a sense of confidence and brand maturity.

The Empathy Experiment

The Empathy Experiment is an interactive ‘game’ from digital agency media.monks that examines empathy and inclusivity in the workplace while at the same time showcasing some technical skills.

Belle Epoque

The opening scroll on Belle Epoque’s site is really pleasing, and the random floating shapes are intriguing.

Richard Ekwonye

Richard Ekwonye’s portfolio site is clean and straightforward. Skills are on display, but without intruding on the content.

SND

SND has created UI sound kits. The site is as simple as it could possibly be, and yet it is impossible not to investigate all the sounds and start imagining where you could use them.

KMZ Industries

Regular readers will know how much we like technical/industrial-made-interesting sites, and this one for KMZ grain storage systems is a perfect example.

Source

The post 20 Best New Sites, May 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

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!”

The 3 Best Project Management Tools for Freelancers in 2022

14 Best YouTube Channels for Designers in 2022

MassCode 2.0 – Free and Open Source Code Snippet Manager

The Principles and Laws of UX Design

CSS Parent Selector

The Front-End Developer’s Guide to the Terminal

Svelte Vs React: Which Javascript Framework Wins in 2022

5 Github Repositories You Should Know as a Developer

Horizon UI – Trendiest Open-source React Admin Template

5 Things I Hate About Being a Developer

Source

The post Popular Design News of the Week: April 18, 2022 – April 24, 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

It’s no secret that we’re a society that favors instant gratification. Although it has its time and place, most of us don’t have the patience to wait for an email response anymore – we want answers right here, right now. 

Because of this, brands are increasingly looking at how they communicate with their customers. Many are turning away from the standard channels, and are instead looking towards the new kid on the block: conversational commerce.

Fast, efficient, and capable of boosting sales in new and exciting ways, conversational commerce is fast finding its footing in the ecommerce world – and it looks like it’s here to stay. 

Below, we’ll dive deeper into what conversational commerce is, the benefits it can bring to your website UX, and how to make sure your website is fully optimized to support it. 

What Is Conversational Commerce?

It’s a good question, and if you had an Alexa or a Google Home sitting next to you, they’d be able to tell you the answer in a heartbeat. 

As it is, we’re happy to fill in. Simply put, conversational commerce is when voice assistants and messaging services intersect with – and often improve – the sales process. 

You may not realize it, but conversational commerce has probably already made its mark on your daily life. Perhaps you’ve had a discussion with a customer service assistant using a customer service live chat, or maybe you’ve replenished your coffee supply through your smart speaker. You might even have used a chatbot to create a personalized outfit for yourself. 

If you can’t live without your voice assistant, don’t worry. You’re not the only one! A third of the United States’ total population uses voice search regularly, and 1.4 billion people currently use chatbots. It was predicted that by the end of 2021, 85% of interactions would be handled by virtual assistants, and with COVID still driving the online retail space, it’s no surprise that experts estimate that by 2025, voice and chat technologies will be bringing in around $290 billion.

Sources: Statista, eMarketer, Smallbizgenius, Juniper Research

For anyone working in the commerce space, the data speaks volumes: if you aren’t using conversational commerce, you should be. Its popularity is on the rise, and users are increasingly looking for ways to bring conversation into their everyday shopping experiences.

How Does Conversational Commerce Affect Website UX?

The increased functionality provided by voice search, live chat, and chatbots all contribute towards a shopping experience that feels more 3D. But what is it specifically about conversational commerce that appeals to users so much?

1. It’s Convenient

Nowadays, anything that makes something faster and easier is going to be a winner. Being able to write your shopping list whilst changing the baby’s nappy or doing chores is multi-tasking at its finest – and conversational commerce helps with that. 

Voice search, particularly, is all around us. On our phones, our smart speakers, and even our watches. This means there’s always going to be something within hearing distance to deal with your customers’ requests. 

Similarly, having a live chat or chat box function on a page means that your users can get answers in seconds, rather than having to actively search for phone numbers or email addresses

Ultimately, conversational commerce takes out the middleman and streamlines the sales process. 

2. It Delivers a More Personalized Experience

When it comes to marketing, personalization isn’t new, but delivering a truly personalized experience when shopping online has always presented somewhat of a challenge. Conversational commerce solves this. 

By its very definition, conversation is a personal thing. Using it in your ecommerce strategy allows you to provide options for customers to access a completely tailored experience at every stage of their buying journey.

Conversational commerce strategies give each user access to more information on products, as well as provide a way to upsell new options and add-ons that they might not have considered before. 

Overall, conversational commerce is a little like adding a bespoke personal shopping experience to your website. And who doesn’t love to feel special now and again?

3. It Provides a Higher Level of Customer Service

Did you know that 81% of millennials experience anxiety when they know they need to make a phone call? This, combined with the fact that 91% of consumers globally prefer real-time assistance, means that old-fashioned methods of customer service are on the way out. 

Luckily, conversational commerce is there to fill the gap. Whether you’re looking for a faster way of providing customer assistance, or you want to deliver a more personalized offering, live chat and chatbots are both excellent ways of leveling up your customer help and support. Voice search also has its part to play here, giving answers to your users’ queries in a matter of seconds. 

The best part about using conversational commerce in customer service is that it offers a more interactive way for customers to speak directly to brands in real-time. It ensures that service is faster and more targeted, with no pesky wait times. 

How to Optimize Your Website for UX

One thing that’s for sure is that conversational commerce isn’t going anywhere, and over the coming years, it’s only going to mature and settle fully into its position within the industry. 

Now you know what it is and you know the benefits, there’s only one question that remains: how can you optimize your website for conversational commerce if you’re not using it already? 

Below, we’ll cover the optimization steps for all three methods of conversational commerce, so your website will be primed for a symbiotic conversational commerce-UX relationship.

Optimizing for Voice Search

Optimizing your website for voice search is pretty similar to optimizing for search engines. That’s because digital assistants use search engine snippets to find their answers. So, the higher you are in the rankings, the better.

Below, you’ll find some tips to make sure your website is ready for voice search:

• Make use of structured data – This helps Google to find where the answer to a question is on your page. You could add an FAQ section to help with this.

• Use a conversational tone in your content – This means making sure that your tone of voice reflects the way users will phrase their questions.

• Optimize for mobile – All smartphones come with a digital voice assistant, so it makes sense to tick this box as firmly as possible!

• Use long-tail keywords in your copy and titles – When asking questions, users will often use full sentences. Using long-tail keywords will help you to target more niche queries because of this. 

• List your business locally – Lots of users use digital assistants to find local businesses. Make sure your website contains lots of regional indicators so you can be found more easily. 

Adding Live Chat to Your Website

Adding live chat to your website is as simple as clicking a few buttons. No, really. You’ll need to sort out staffing and operation hours yourself, but the actual technicalities behind getting your live chat up and running are pretty straightforward.

The process depends on which type of website you have, but generally, one of the three options below will work for you:

• Use external platforms – There are plenty of third-party platforms that provide this service, such as Olark, Sendinblue, and Livechat. These platforms usually come with an additional monthly cost of around $16/month and above. 

• Use inbuilt website builder apps – Website builders are one of the easiest ways to create a website, and they make it simple to add a live chat function, too. Usually, these services are provided by an external platform, but you can integrate them with your website through an app.

• Use a CMS plugin – If you built your website with a CMS, plugins are your answer. Usually, there are plenty to choose from and they work in the same way as an app integration would.  

Adding An AI Chatbot to Your Website

Similar to live chat boxes, many businesses find chatbots more convenient for the simple fact that they’re run by an AI and don’t require staffing. This means that you can have them running 24/7 if you like. 

When it comes to adding one to your site, the process is very similar to adding live chat:

• Use an inbuilt function provided by your website builder – Most website builders come with inbuilt chatbot functionality, so all you need to do is insert it into your website design. If your builder doesn’t offer this, you could choose to install an app instead.

• Use a CMS plugin – There are always tons of apps in a CMS plugin library, so you should have a ton of choices when choosing a chatbot app. Once you’ve picked one, simply click to integrate it with your website. 

• Hire a UX designer or developer – If you’d rather take a hands-off approach, you could hire a UX designer or developer to do it for you. This is an especially good idea if you want a more complex live chat system, which might not be provided by apps and plugins. 

Summary

As with all things, one era ends and another begins – in this case, the time of conversational commerce is nigh.

Not only does conversational commerce make for a more convenient shopping experience for your customers, but the extra layers of personalization and more interactive customer support options it offers are largely responsible for boosting and driving sales.

The good news is that if you aren’t already using conversational commerce as part of your sales strategy, this is easy to rectify.  Whether you want to use one conversational commerce strategy or all three, you’ll be on your way to success faster than we can say, ‘Alexa, what’s the weather like today?’

The post Conversational Commerce: How It’s Affecting Website UX and 3 Ways To Optimize Your Website For It appeared first on noupe.