Employees often suffer burnout during stressful periods due to value disconnect, pressure, overload, and lack of managerial support. The signs of burnout include lack of concentration, physical fatigue, and reduced productivity. In the worst cases, it can cause some employees to leave their jobs.
Managers have a role to play in reducing burnout in the workplace and increasing productivity. Knowing how to do so will help managers to retain employees and improve their overall well-being. This guide reveals the best practices for managers to reduce burnout.
Holding walking meetings
Holding walking meetings is a great way to reduce stress and allow employees to recharge. They can get out of the office for a while and be active during the meetings. Walking meetings are more effective with small groups such as departments. Managers must ensure that the walking meetings are as productive as other meetings.
During the meetings, teams can discuss the roadblocks they are encountering at the workplace and suggest ways to overcome the difficulties. It is also a great opportunity to share project updates, upcoming tasks, and new opportunities. People can discuss how to outsource the calling process and other non-core business activities like IT infrastructure management, HR payroll, facility management, general accounting, and more.
Helping workers connect to their purpose
Encouraging employees to connect to their purpose can also help to prevent workplace burnout. Emotional connection to work means connection to the organization and the purpose, which could help employees cope with stressful situations.
Managers can connect the employees’ roles to the organization’s vision, mission, and values. They should make people understand how their work contributes toward achieving the organizational goals. It is also important to help workers participate in job crafting, so they reflect on the meaning of their work. This causes the employees to think of how making small changes in their roles can make a difference in the organization.
Promoting management training
There have been many cases of employees leaving their jobs due to bad bosses or poor working environment. Others prefer to stay in low-paying jobs if they are allowed to work with a great boss. If managers are not well-equipped, they can create a stressful environment, and this may hinder the achievement of organizational goals.
Managers must provide management skills and tools, such as functional computers with advanced programs. Slow computers can reduce productivity among workers due to frequent overtime, which is a major cause of burnout. Computers often begin working slowly due to many junk files. Showing the employees how to clean up system junk can help to avoid having slow working computers and boost productivity. Optimizing your Mac to get the best performance should always be your top priority.
Prioritizing workplace health and wellness
Managers should regularly provide their staff with opportunities to be away from work or unplug. Employees can also manage stress by finding a quiet place to relax, pray and meditate.
Investing in office aesthetics such as new pictures, plants, and inviting chairs could also create a less stressful environment. During periods of high workload and stress, managers can support their staff through mental health awareness. Other ways to promote wellness at the workplace include:
Allowing staff to rest
Encouraging staff to give back
Boosting morale by celebrating wins
Encouraging employees to remain calm during stressful periods
Maintaining flexible job options
The pandemic made many organizations shift to work-from-home or remote work mode. Many employers have known that people can be productive even when working from home. Leaders have learned how to manage remote teams and encourage collaboration. They should be open to people’s circumstances and offer flexible working options.
Managers can make arrangements to allow people to work from home on a part-time basis to facilitate time management. The employees don’t have to struggle with domestic activities such as medical appointments and coordinating family affairs.
Promoting work-life balance
Maintaining a work-life balance is also a practical way to prevent burnout. Many people juggle a lot in their work, and personal lives and the line between the two can be challenging. Even with days off, some people may resist using their free time for self-development.
Taking a break to work can improve employees’ moods and boost productivity in the long run. Managers can encourage the staff to use their time to completely unplug and recharge. Organizations with flexible work schedules can offer shortened Fridays to allow employees to have long weekends, especially during summer and spring. If an employee is on vacation, bosses should avoid calling them with job-related matters.
Encouraging social connections
Human beings are social-they cannot live in isolation- an employee will rely on their boss or other employees for support. Social support relates to factors such as well-being, stress, health, and engagement. Managers can foster community among their staff by boosting social networks and team support. Through social connections, workers can find support that can prevent stress and burnout.
Managers can encourage employees to design plans for social connections through meeting colleagues, family members, or friends. To motivate remote employees they can also schedule regular online coffee breaks or organize virtual team-building activities. Celebrating employees and bringing teams together are also practical ways to prevent burnout and promote a sense of belonging.
Monitoring work schedules
One of the major causes of burnout is work overload. Leaders must ensure that employees are not tasked with unrealistic workloads or rigorous schedules. Sometimes workloads may spike, but this is not a reason to overwork people. It becomes challenging for them to sustain demanding schedules and heavy workloads.
Leaders should monitor the work schedules to improve performance and ensure business success. They can do so in the following ways:
Planning tasks
Understanding resource availability
Allocating tasks evenly and fairly
Setting priorities
Encouraging employees to avoid multitasking
Managing change effectively
Setting realistic goals
Setting realistic work deadlines
Open communication
Communication is a game-changer in any organization setup- withholding information and having minimal communication can cause stress among the staff. Managers should encourage open communication within the organization to ensure that everyone receives transparent and timely updates.
Leaders should help employees to understand expectations and how their performance can bring change to the organization. They can give members of staff opportunities to discuss stress factors and voice their frustrations. Setting feedback options could give employees a voice concerning the problems they are facing. Open communication options may help employees to relieve issues that could lead to stress and burnout.
Offering growth opportunities
Lack of growth opportunities and advancement is a leading cause of stress in many organizations. Technology is evolving, so it is important to help employees to acquire new skills to enable them to adapt to changes in the business environment.
Employees can find new opportunities within and outside the organization. Managers should help employees to take stressful situations positively rather than see them as threats. Involving employees when setting goals makes them understand their expectations at the workplace, and this may boost their job engagement.
Conclusion
The relationship between managers and employees helps organizations to succeed in the long run. It also offers career advancement, drives collaboration, and alleviates workplace stress and burnout. Heightened stress levels at the workplace can lead to reduced productivity, absenteeism, and employee turnover, which may be costly to the organization. Managers can implement the above strategies to prevent burnout and create a better working environment. Although other factors outside an organization could lead to stress, managers have a bigger role to play.
With digital marketing, businesses grew, and marketing evolved. There were simply too many potential channels for brands to reach out to their target audience when it comes to digital marketing. So, the demand for digital marketing is really not a surprise. With IoT devices furthering this cause, brands have come a long way since the old-school advertising and marketing strategies.
At its initial stage, marketing was more of an art, but technology dissected it, and now it’s as much of a science as it’s an art! Marketing departments were able to increase the ROI by many folds, and moreover, with tech, they can quantify their efforts and measure the impact.
There were many influential technologies that played a major role in this transformation, but Artificial Intelligence took it to a whole new level. From AI-enabled bots to independent systems, marketing operations became simplified yet the intensity amplified. Particularly in the area of content marketing, AI played and will continue to play a significant role.
Irrespective of the industry, location, or business model, content marketing proved to be an effective tool for brands to reinforce their presence, develop new connections, and educate their customers and audience.
In this article, we will see how AI impacts brands’ content marketing efforts and strategies.
Crafting the strategy
We all know how leveraging data changed the marketplace, and its effect on marketing, too, is not to be taken lightly. And AI facilitates organizations to leverage data. For instance, a popular brand like Nike or Apple will have enormous consumer data, and if done manually or even with technology but without AI, it would take at least decades before they begin to understand data.
With the versatility that AI brings to the table, marketing departments could narrow this window to mere days! On top of that, AI operates with insane accuracy! It’s incapable of human errors, and its efficiency and effectiveness will only go up as it works longer. With AI, brands can easily understand the area where the action happens. Based on this understanding, marketing leaders and managers can devise a strategy that caters to their audience.
Nailing the accuracy
The “Content” in content marketing is just half the answer! The other half is taking the content to the audience. Content is time sensitive, meaning they get outdated once the hype wave moves away. So, the pressure to bring the right content to the audience at the right time is on the marketers!
However, AI systems have been found to be extremely useful in helping marketers in this regard. AI systems can understand the user’s preferences by analyzing their previous interactions and hook them up with interesting pieces of content. The neat part, however, is that the system gets better with every interaction. So, the more a user interacts (or does not interacts), the system operates with higher accuracy.
Creating the content
Ever since AI became a “thing”, writers are often threatened with AI replacing them in the marketing fields. Well, it’s logical as to why they are afraid, as AI has grown by many folds in just a matter of years, but it is highly unlikely for AI to replace writers. Though there are AI systems in the market and in development to create content on their own, catering to the context, they are more efficient when the system is paired with a human writer!
Take Google Ads, for instance. They have completely stopped their expanded text ads and rather focused on developing responsive search ads. Though the AI system pairs the suitable headings with the body content, the copies are still being written by a writer! There are many other platforms that use AI to create content, but there is a huge difference when a writer uses it than any others.
Chatbots for the win!
As the market got increasingly consumer-centric and the business strategy became more digital, the importance of chatbots couldn’t be sidelined. Chatbots are basically independent AI systems that are modified to suit your business needs. Chatbots can not just initiate conversation but can solve most of the user’s immediate problems instantly. It can converse with a “human” tone, making the conversation more contextual and lively.
However, in 2022, chatbots will also help a great deal by contributing to the content marketing strategy. Businesses are producing content almost daily, and it might be difficult for users to find a particular piece of information without diving deep into an ocean of manuals or articles. Enter chatbots! They can help a user find the specific piece of information that instantly helps the user out. It can also materials related to the user’s interactions without overwhelming them. It’s a great win for businesses, particularly at a time when websites are highly popular!
Predictive analytics and content marketing
Predictive analytics is helping businesses to take effective decisions by narrowing the risk horizon. With the normalization of AI, predictive analytics has become more accessible and accurate, too! Now, there are only a handful of enterprises that do not include predictive analytics in their strategy.
In content marketing strategies, predictive analytics can help identify marketers with the type of content that a user will be interested in. Without AI, such a level of sophistication is simply out of the question! Content creators can pour their efforts into areas that actually bring value. With the market being highly competitive, accuracy has become a crucial factor, and AI-enabled predictive models can help creators to cater to the audience of tomorrow. Content creators and marketers can operate with minimum risk while maximizing their efforts at minimal resources! How lucky can it get?
Conclusion
Industry leaders have always believed and still believe that technology can bring new perspectives to a business, helping them to identify opportunities and capitalize on them. And Artificial Intelligence can further elevate this “digital vision”. Collaborating with dedicated Enterprise AI solution providers can dramatically increase your AI implementations and efforts. It could prepare us to move towards a sustainable future if leveraged properly. AI penetration is transforming the internal operations of an organization, and it certainly has a positive impact on marketing operations, too! So, it’s gonna be an exciting future for marketing!
As front-end developers, we understand the foundational role data plays in our daily jobs. It may come from an external API, a CMS, or even a spreadsheet. But god forbid we need to talk about setting up databases.
Those days are over. With serverless databases becoming popular by the day, it has never been easier to create a full-stack architecture with both vertical and horizontal scaling, high availability, and bulletproof consistency.
To fully reap the benefits of such an architecture, it’s essential to understand what decisions are made for you. In the same way that the “learn JavaScript, not a framework” mantra became popular, we also ought to understand the concepts behind database architecture in order to use them reliably. So, welcome to the first part of our “Databases for Front-end Developers” series.
This series is not going to make you an expert on distributed systems or capable of jumping into a database admin role, but it will shed some light on the concepts, terms, and acronyms you will face when getting ready to choose your next stack. See it as a primer on (serverless) databases. Hopefully, it will give you a push into the rabbit hole and make you confident in joining conversations to evaluate tradeoffs for different solutions.
Spreadsheets And Content Management Systems
What?! Spreadsheets? Well, yes. The user interface (you and I, or U and I, or UI) is quite similar to that of a database. Spreadsheets give you a table in which to store data. In some cases, they will only allow you to define specific data types per column. The familiarities are there, but spreadsheets find an abrupt end once we pop the hood.
The availability is questionable: spreadsheets are not meant to serve content, only store content. For starters, they will not fuel an app as it scales, and they may not obey certain best practices when it comes to assuring data integrity. Up to very recently, they were the quickest way to get started with some data layer. But now, there is no point for an app not to use a real (serverless) database (more on this later).
A Content Management System (CMS) is another kind of database. “Content” is a special kind of data that the CMS specializes in. It will provide the user (developer) with enough abstractions to facilitate managing such data to a point where the underlying database is not a concern. It will handle the deliverability, availability, and integrity of your data. But the heavier the abstraction is, the higher the tradeoff. The data types are limited to what the CMS will give you, with most even imposing their own architecture for handling relations, queries, types, etc. Of course, there are still significant and viable use cases for CMSs, and they aren’t going anywhere. So, as long as you’re sure that’s your use case, you’ll be fine with one.
Growth Pains
If you choose the simpler, “abstractionful” route of a spreadsheet or a CMS as your source of truth and your data begins to diversify, obstacles will show up. The first issue with a spreadsheet is usually about the underlying API, it’s often not intended for most average-sized apps’ traffic, and then there are the first refactoring conversations.
With a CMS, APIs are usually not the problem, but managing the data can be. As an app grows and data diversifies, some of it ends up not being content anymore and may be more related to application logic.
When data is not content, managing it in a CMS is not ideal. It’s less flexible and often doesn’t fit the owner-team workflow. Now, while it is perfectly possible for other databases and CMSs to coexist, it’s up to the developers to understand the pros and cons of each solution and decide what is best for their app’s delivery and user experience.
Database Admin Is Hard
As front-end developers, the first time we talk about databases is usually a conversation about “relational vs. non-relational.” From then on, while trying to figure out the differences, we loosely hear a myriad of terms, such as ACID, BASE, and even CAP Theorem. This article will skip a thorough explanation of these differences. We will look better into them in the next part of this series. For now, it is sufficient to say “non-relational” databases impose eventual consistency on an app.
Eventual consistency can also be unwrapped into a longer discussion, but let’s take it as this:
Eventual consistency means that in certain special conditions, the data received is stale.
Like comments in a blog post, they won’t affect your app if a few seconds after a write you still don’t see the latest one. But password updates need to be strongly consistent always, not eventually consistent.
Of course, those are not the only differences. Query performance is different between each type of database. One can imagine being eventually consistent allows for quicker reads because there is less assurance involved.
More Growth Pains
Once the database is decided, the app can grow steadily and smoothly for a while. As an app gets big, data complexity grows, and as data complexity grows, the database becomes slower. At scale, how do we make a database faster?
Do you add more resources to a single server? (vertical scale)
How do you replicate data across a cluster of machines?
Do you split your database into smaller partitions (shards) instead? (horizontal scale, more about this in part 2)
Do you add a faster in-memory database in front of it for common queries? (key-value store)
Those are not easy questions to answer. It depends on the user base, the type of data, the amount, frequency, and origin of queries. Is your database read-heavy or write-heavy? And though there is a multitude of factors impacting this decision, there’s also a high cost attached to making the wrong choice.
Additionally, some use cases may even require searching through data easier from user-land. A search engine is not an easy problem to solve and often requires an additional type of database to properly index your data (if sharded, it’s even harder). Having all this around your user’s data also brings a whole set of tools around it just to make it maintainable.
Even more, keeping an eye on our databases (now “data infrastructure” if we’ve got a search engine in the mix) requires a high level of observability and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing). This introduces a whole new level of complexity!
As you may have noticed, very high stakes are associated with creating, maintaining, and growing a database. Decisions that can make or break an app, decisions that are costly to go back on, and that must be made relatively early.
Serverless Databases Are Fun
Because of all the complexity mentioned above, many investors and incubators have their eyes turned to startups creating serverless databases. They are a whole new category of databases. The concepts of traditional ones still apply, but differently.
Serverless Databases
To understand what a “serverless database” really is, we first need to deconstruct the term. It is a common joke that “serverless” is a misnomer. Still, the point of a serverless architecture is to abstract away from the consumer (developer) the complexity of handling site reliability and server maintenance provided by a serverless vendor, such as Netlify, Vercel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and so many others. I tend to like Xata’s definition of “serverless database”.
A “serverless database” does for databases what serverless does for servers. The complexity is lifted away (to different degrees depending on the chosen platform). Some, like Supabase and Firebase, will offer a multitude of serverless related features to couple with your database; others, like AWS Aurora or PlanetScale, focus on making it easier to use and scale PostgreSQL and MySQL DBs. And finally, there are others that abstract the database entirely, like Xata. They provide you with an ORM-like SDK, keep the database behind an API, and are able to offer a complex set of database features, bending the current limitations of traditional relational and non-relational databases.
Once we get to the next part of this series, we will talk about different kinds of databases. Then you will be ready to pop the hood on any serverless database offering you want and understand the differences for yourself. Meanwhile, let’s keep it superficial.
Batteries Included
Don’t take the “serverless” prefix lightly; these databases are from a different breed. They are able to offer guarantees and performance that “traditional” databases require some effort to reach, sometimes not even so. This is because on serverless databases, the work has been done, just not by your team.
The same way “serverless” means you don’t need to handle your server, “serverless database” means you don’t need to handle your database. The platform will handle it for you.
Because of this, the decisions about scalability and deliverability are often made external to your team. What your team gets is the assurance that any request will receive a response in a timely manner and that data will respect the consistency guarantees. Again, different solutions have different tradeoffs. It’s important to check what each offering imposes before jumping in.
See You On The Next One
Hopefully, this has been enough to spark your curiosity. This is the first article of a 3-part series. In the next ones, we will cover more in-depth information about what databases actually are. Specifically, we’ll look into:
Schemas,
Theorems and models,
Types of databases,
whatever you suggest in the comments below!
All that necessary knowledge will enable you to choose the best solution for your app. Understanding the tradeoffs of different serverless solutions and surrounding yourself with the right kind of help is crucial to setting your app up for success. Reach out to me if you need anything meanwhile. Otherwise, see you in a few days!
Businesses always attempt to optimize their operational efficiencies by improving their project management to focus on driving growth and profits. Business leaders work on various strategies to reduce costs by improving manufacturing processes, inventory management, HR practices & systems, and project management.
Project management refers to the use of specific knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to deliver something of value. It was used in the engineering and construction sectors but is now being increasingly implemented in Information Technology and health care industries. It involves planning and organizing a company’s resources to accomplish a task, event, or duty. Different project management methodologies have been practiced across various industries, including the Traditional, Waterfall, Agile and Lean methodologies.
A project’s success is heavily dependent on project management professionals who play a critical role in it. Project managers must possess relevant skills and experiences to deliver planned outcomes and are, therefore, highly sought after by businesses to achieve their goals. Professionals aspiring to work as project managers can consider the industry-acclaimed online PMP certification by KnowledgeHut.
Project Management and Project Management Methodologies
Project Management involves applying specific knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to manage projects and provide value to stakeholders.
In other words, project management is leading a team to accomplish results or deliverables within a set timeframe. It involves project documentation, planning, monitoring/tracking, and communication to deliver work successfully within time, scope, and budget constraints.
Project Management Methodology (PMM) is a framework of principles, techniques, and procedures used by Project Managers to manage complex projects efficiently. PMM vary in how they’re organized structurally and in the usage of different deliverables, workflows, and project management software development.
There are several PMMs in practice. Project Managers need to be aware of them to decide on the methodology best suited for the organization and crystallize on the most appropriate Project Management Professional (PMP) training, especially online PMP certification. Let us consider the best project management methodologies and their unique features and application suitability.
1) Waterfall Methodology
As the name suggests, the Waterfall methodology is a framework wherein the project phases flow downward. In this methodology, a particular phase must be completed before progressing to the next project phase, ensuring substantial control is possible at each stage. Using a planning process, the methodology enhances the possibility of recording all project deliverables while reducing the loss of any essential data in the initial stages. This methodology uses Gantt charts for planning and scheduling.
Though widely perceived to be a traditional methodology, it has been a leading project management methodology used for several years across many industrial sectors, especially in the construction sector.
A drawback of the Waterfall methodology is that it doesn’t provide flexibility if a project’s scope changes midway.
The Waterfall approach is considered suitable for manufacturing and construction sectors, which are very structured in their operations.
2) Agile Methodology
Agile methodology was developed for projects requiring substantial speed and flexibility while allowing continual improvements for delivering quality solutions. It achieves this by using brief stints of delivery called “Sprints.” Agile PPM is very interactive, permitting quick changes during a project. It is widely used in software development projects as it facilitates quick identification of issues and modifications at the beginning of the development.
Agile methodology reduces complexity and risk, permits repeatable processes and immediate feedback, and enables faster turnarounds. It potentially needs less documentation than Waterfall, and agile requires a substantial time commitment from everyone involved in the project when going through each iterative version. Agile methodology can be ideal for projects requiring less control and provides much more real-time communication within self-motivated team settings.
3) Critical Path Method (CPM)
CPM methodology involves several steps and is typically used in projects with interconnected activities. CPM methodology comprises:
Identifying the critical tasks required to meet the project goal.
Estimating the time needed to complete the tasks.
Based on the above, schedule a critical path that helps achieve the project goal in the shortest period possible.
The teams have to reach milestones in the process of moving from one task to another. A key aspect of the methodology is that it reveals critical as well as noncritical processes by showing tasks that require the longest and shortest time, respectively. This analysis helps crystallize critical activities and those that are not. However, CPM’s drawback is that teams in larger and complex projects might not identify the critical actions all the time. CPM is mostly used in small or mid-sized projects.
4) Scrum Methodology
One of the online PMP certifications, the Scrum methodology’s name originates from the formation of rugby. It is an interactive component of the Agile framework. The Scrum sessions are utilized to mark the tasks that are high on priority. The process of project management is assessed by a Scrum master instead of a project manager. A group of teams work independently on assigned projects. This is followed by a meeting with the Scrum master in which evaluation of results and prioritization of backlogged tasks takes place.
One of the drawbacks of the Scrum methodology is that bigger teams might find it challenging to adapt, leading to delayed progress and, ultimately, failure. To succeed, all the team members must be active participants. The software development industry largely uses the Scrum methodology.
5) Lean Methodology
Lean project management, as the name implies, involves doing more by using less. In other words, increasing value in the projects and manufacturing processes by eliminating non-optimal activities and processes focuses on optimizing verticals, technologies, and assets.
Henry Ford used flow production to automate the process of building cars. Toyota picked up on this idea and extended Lean project management beyond manufacturing to continuous improvement of the product development process. The Software development sector now uses lean processes to increase value by focusing on end-user feedback.
Lean methodology is widely adopted by the Construction and Manufacturing Industries and the Education sector, and startups and Software development firms are also following the Lean methodology. Project Managers should consider being equipped with online PMP certification and Lean methodology training to fuel their career growth.
6) Six Sigma Methodology
Motorola Engineers first introduced the methodology in the mid-1980s. Six Sigma methodology improves quality by identifying non-feasible or inefficient processes in the project. It applies quality management and empirical statistics, leveraging domain expertise.
As per the Six Sigma methodology, continual efforts in improving processes to achieve stable and expected results are most important to the project’s success. Sustain quality in a project depends on the entire organization being devoted to it. Organizations require a Six Sigma certification to adopt and practice this methodology, and the six Sigma methodology works best in large organizations.
7) PRINCE2 Methodology
PRINCE2 stands for Projects in controlled environments. A structured and certified methodology, it was initially developed by the UK government for its Information Technology projects in 1989 and was called PRINCE. This led to the development of a general project management methodology in the year 1996, which was named PRINCE2.
PRINCE2 framework uses processes that are constant, stages that are controlled, resources that are appropriately allocated, assessing progress on a consistent basis, and alignment to organizational goals. The board manages the project allowing the project team to execute the plan separating the roles of Decision-makers and Doers.
PRINCE2 methodology is ideal for larger companies, requiring thorough documentation and process management. Project Managers should consider being equipped with Knowledge Hut’s PRINCE2 training.
PRINCE2 is a popular project management methodology widely used by many UK governmental agencies, and it has since been adopted by the United Nations and several other countries.
8) Kanban Methodology
The Kanban methodology utilizes a visual approach to project management. Kanban in Japanese means Billboard. The methodology manages workflow by placing tasks on a Kanban Board – that displays workflow and progress for the benefit of all team members. The Kanban methodology utilizes a visual approach to reduce inefficiencies. It is an excellent project management tool for Lean Manufacturing and Agile projects.
Toyota applied the Kanban project management methodology in the late 1940s to control its vehicles’ production rate as per the demand rate. Toyota used it in their lean manufacturing model, known as the Toyota production system.
Kanban was initially used in the manufacturing and software sectors and has since found extended usage in Human Resources, marketing, organizational strategy, and executive processes.
9) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)
PMBOK is the Project Management Institute’s book of processes, important terms, and guidelines. The PMBOK prescribes definitions and guidelines for project planning, scheduling, executing, and controlling. PMBOK is in many ways the the bible for project management processes for any industry. PMBOK involves five significant steps: Initiate, Plan, Execute, Control, and Close. PMBOK is regularly updated with the latest techniques and best practices. PMBOK is helpful for all projects -big or small, as all projects go through the various stages outlined in the book.
10) Extreme Programming (XP)
Extreme Programming, popularly referred to as XP, is an Agile software development process that improves productivity. It involves brief cycles of development and multiple releases for the benefit of Users, and it actively seeks customer requirements that can change the course of the project.
Extreme Programmingwas developed by Kent Beck while working on the payroll project entitled “Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System.” He wrote the book – “Extreme Programming Explained” in 1999. XP is considered the best PPM tool when project requirements change frequently, and it’s also suitable for project scenarios when the customer doesn’t have a clear idea of what they want.
Conclusion
Project management tools are essential for businesses to accomplish their goals and objectives. Several project management methodologies are available, and organizations follow a particular project management methodology (PMM) that is best suited for their business goal. Project Managers are critical to organizations driving their business growth plans and should know the various PPMs. Training in Project Management is very important for Project Managers to deliver business results. Online PMP certification and PRINCE2 training from KnowledgeHut are excellent options worth pursuing.
Bringing a new application to market is always a business risk. About a third of startups fail because there is no demand for their products. To avoid this and not waste money, companies practice the development of a minimum viable product (MVP). This article will tell you what an MVP is and how to create it.
What is an MVP?
A minimum viable product is the first version of an application with a minimum set of basic features. It is ready for work and release to the market. This is a test version that helps to find out if a business understands the needs of its target audience correctly.
For example, when the Instagram MVP came out, users would log into the application, upload photos, apply filters, and share them with their friends. This social network has become popular from the start. The creators began to develop the program by adding new features: hashtags, live filters, stories, monetization tools, and so on.
The MVP concept was clearly illustrated by Henrik Kniberg, the author of Lean from the Trenches. He compared two product development processes: the traditional one and building an MVP.
In the traditional approach, a project team builds a product step by step. As a result, a business wastes time and money but customers may not like the final product.
With an MVP, things are different. A company focuses on the users’ problems and offers a solution. It enters the market. Customers use it and leave comments on its performance. Based on this feedback, the software development team improves the product and adds new useful features. Thus, after each such refinement, the product evolves.
In practice, it turns out like this: developers create a product within a month or two, implement the most important features, and invite users to test them. If the business idea is good and customers are willing to work with the application, the team continues to improve the software until it becomes a full-fledged digital product.
What are the benefits of an MVP for a business?
Companies start software development with an MVP to reap the following benefits:
Bringing an application to market faster. It will take developers only a few months to create an MVP. Then it enters the market and starts generating money that can be used to refine the product.
Attracting early adopters. An MVP introduces a business to the target audience. By researching it, the company learns what users like and what they expect from this software.
Getting valuable customer feedback and improving a product. An MVP is needed to check the number of users and buyers, the cost of customer acquisition, and so on. This data will be useful to improve the first version of a product.
Understanding if a product is suitable for the market. Software developers evaluate whether users like an application and whether it outperforms competitors’ offerings.
Getting started with minimal investment. The cost of developing an MVP is lower than that of the final software version as it includes only the main functions with which the program serves the target audience.
Attracting investors for the further development of a project. With the help of an MVP, it is easier for a business to demonstrate the merits of a product and get funding. When investors see that an idea works, they are more willing to invest in custom software development services.
How to build an MVP: a step-by-step guide
Companies often want to create a perfect product. As a result, the development of an MVP is delayed and the budget is running low. Other organizations, on the contrary, cut software functionality so severely that it becomes unsustainable.
Eric Ries, the author of The Lean Startup, has a simple piece of advice. After you come up with a product, you need to cut the functionality in half and repeat the same thing twice. It means that you should reduce the version by eight times.
An MVP development plan includes the following four steps:
Research the market
Eric Ries defined the main goal of startup projects: “The fundamental activity of a startup is to turn ideas into products, measure how customers respond, and then learn whether to pivot or persevere. All successful startup processes should be geared to accelerate that feedback loop.” For these purposes, you should conduct market research.
To create a relevant and useful product, project participants must know the purpose of the application, who will use it, what customer problems it will solve, and how exactly. By analyzing competitors, a business learns from their ideas and adds its own unique features, which makes the product stand out in the market.
Create a customer journey map
To create a useful program, you need to look at it from the point of view of customers and trace all the steps of users to the completion of purposeful action.
For the consumer journey map to be comprehensive, you need to do the following:
Define user categories;
Define user tasks, that is, actions that users need to perform to achieve their goals;
Define the end of the user’s path, for example, “buy product”.
The map ensures that developers don’t miss anything when they create an MVP. As a result, clients will receive useful and up-to-date software.
Select the main features of the application
A customer journey map can help you determine which features to implement in your application. The software development team will prioritize functionality as low, medium, and high. The critical functions, without which the product cannot work, will be included in the MVP in the first place. For convenience, project teams use a priority matrix.
This is how a team providing custom software development services describes what features will be included in the first and subsequent versions of the product.
Develop and launch an MVP
When an MVP is released to the market, the software development team will constantly analyze customer feedback. It will tell you how to develop the product, what features to add to the software, what prevents users from achieving their final goals, whether there are errors, and so on.
An MVP may undergo several iterations before a useful competitive application is obtained.
Major mistakes of MVP development
Here are common mistakes of MVP development.
Creating a product without researching the market. From a business perspective, a software product may be perfect. But if it fails to solve a consumer problem, it doesn’t make sense.
Overloading an MVP or creating a feature deficit. An MVP includes the most necessary functions for the normal operation of an application. All other features can be added in future versions.
Not prioritizing features. Working with an MVP does not stop at one release. For the software to develop consistently, you should plan what features will be implemented in each iteration.
Conclusion
An MVP helps to learn a lot about users and “test the water” before diving headfirst. All you need to do is plan your business hypothesis, define the core features of an MVP, understand your target audience, and find the right software development partner offering outsourced IT support. A team of professionals will help you build the most efficient solution.
First impressions on websites matter. Make them matter.
66% of individuals would rather view something wonderfully designed than something straightforward if they had only 15 minutes to view the information. Thus, the design of your site is an essential component. For your business website to be successful, you need to understand the importance of web design.
Your website is a gateway to business through which visitors connect with your business. That’s how visitors view the business as a whole. A poor website can seriously damage a business’s reputation, whereas a good website can increase its influence and generate leads. A study found that 38.5% of web designers believe that users leaving a website is primarily due to the outdated or non-appealing design.
Additionally, responsive web design is extremely important in this. There’s a strong possibility a visitor will simply leave your website if they have to pinch to zoom in and out. Making changes that alter how people view your website the first time they interact with it can make all the difference between these two results for you.
This shows why web design is a crucial aspect to boost your business. Now, let’s know what are the key components for a great web design.
Latest Trends To Keep In Check
Well, as we discussed above, how impactful can the design of your website be? Now, your website must adapt to the latest trends. But what are these trends?
Designing your website should take into consideration some current trends. Such as:
Claymorphism
Memphis Design
Complex Gradients
Behavioral design
Visible Borders
Glass Morphism
By keeping these trends in mind you can start designing your websites. Although there are some future web design statistics that you shouldn’t miss.
So, let’s check the stats now.
Web Design Statistics To Keep In Check
Your company website is more than simply a place where people can learn the bare minimum about you and your brand. It becomes a helpful marketing tool and valuable addition to your company.
Additionally, your website design should build trust and inform the target audience, in addition to meeting the fundamental needs of your business. For a successful manufacturing website overhaul or facelift, keep these things in mind.
Well, to make sure you design a proper website, you must be aware of the latest trends and statistics. Here, you will find some interesting and crucial stats on web design that will help you understand the various aspects of designing a website.
Now, let’s begin.
The web design of your site accounts for 94% of first impressions
“The first impression is the last impression”. Well, even in the world of web design, 94% of first impressions are design-related. Thus, it is one of the most important & crucial aspects to keep in check.
As per the research, users will form a judgment about a website in about 0.05 seconds. You want to make a positive first impression when someone discovers your company for the first time. This may affect how they view your company going forward. The bulk of first impressions made of your website is based on its design. Therefore, it’s important to make a good impression with your web design, create a stunning website, and engage your audience with your page.
To make a lasting first impression, design a visually striking website that attracts and draws in your viewers. 75% of people acknowledge evaluating a company’s credibility depending on the layout of its website. Build a website that represents your business, is aesthetically pleasing, and offers users a great first experience on your site, whether you do it yourself or employ a web design firm.
75% of website legitimacy comes from design
You want people who find your company online to recognize it as a legitimate operation. Because a poorly designed website may give the impression that you are spamming or unreliable. Unattractive layouts or content will turn 38% of users away.
Therefore, it is quite important to put time, money, and effort into creating a professionally designed site to ensure that you increase sales as well as credibility and trust with your audience. Because if your website isn’t beautifully designed, you run the danger of losing your audience’s trust and discouraging them from using it.
For your website, invest in top-notch design. To develop ideas on how to create a top-notch website, you can look for samples of excellent design to obtain a sense of how your site should appear. You may build a trustworthy website by picking the appropriate colors, aesthetic components, and layout.
Websites that are well-designed can have a visit-to-order conversion rate of 200% higher than those that are poorly designed.
You should also ensure that your website is safe. To guarantee that you’re giving your audience a secure browsing and buying experience, check to see if your website has HTTPS and an SSL certificate.
When consumers have a bad user experience, 89% switch to a competitor
You must be preoccupied not only with creating a positive first impression but also with maintaining that impression as visitors browse your website. Even the most nicely crafted website will be rendered useless if users are unable to navigate it and find the information they seek.
44 percent of consumers share negative online experiences with their friends. Users will leave if they are unable to quickly access the information available on your website. If you don’t want to start losing leads to the competition, you must prioritize user experience on your website. You get a $100 return on each and every dollar you invest in enhancing the user experience on your website. The key to success is an advanced website that is simultaneously appealing and functional.
Focus on features that will improve the user experience for your audience while you construct your website. As per the research, 42% of visitors tend to leave a website due to inefficiency. Thus, pay attention to details like creating a well-organized navigation system, including visual elements to break up the text, and making sure your website runs quickly. The website design must be easy to navigate.
The viewer should constantly be aware of their location on the website and have quick access to any location they desire. If one is accessible, it would be a great idea to use it. Although it seems simple, most websites might be made better in this regard. Functionality should be the goal because there is a thin line between an interactive menu and one that is obtrusive.
85% of adults believe that a company’s mobile website must be at least as good as its desktop website. Thus, you may build a more user-friendly website with the aid of all these components.
On their homepage, 70% of small company websites lack a Call to Action (CTA)
Contrarily, whether you’re a Fortune 500 firm or a Small/Medium Business, implementing Calls to Action incorrectly can have a major impact on your turnover. In actuality, CTA errors are unaffected by the size, age, or reputation of the organization. Depending on the type of business you operate, the type of CTA you include on your homepage will vary, but users will leave if there isn’t one. Users would like to know what your website intends them to accomplish, whether they realize it or not.
When creating a CTA, you need to comprehend the psychology of the customer. As you can see in the image above, ThemeSelection has placed CTA buttons very properly. As a visitor when you land on the product page you will definitely look for the demo or preview button to get an overview of the product. Thus, this is the exact area where you can use the CTA that navigates to where exactly the user wants to go.
According to research, most people base their decisions on whether their acts are reasonable and likely to be in their best interests. It’s surprising how frequently businesses lose out on opportunities to connect more deeply with potential customers. Almost 70% of small companies don’t have a proper Call To Action, which leads them to poor business.
Thus, You must pay attention to Call To Action design to prevent a serious loss. Through CTA, You may convince your visitors to read your emails or do particular actions, like making a purchase or joining the mailing list, by using a well-written CTA. You can create great CTAs by placing text on a button or just a link with the appropriate anchor text.
A website’s layout and navigational links are viewed by 38% of consumers
Visitors to websites wander all over the place, therefore your website’s navigation must be logical, approachable, and simple to use. If customers have even a slight difficulty locating what they’re looking for on your website, they won’t hesitate to leave and find another. As per the research, 38% of users who visit a website for the first time examine the page’s design or navigational links.
When visiting a website using a mobile device, 83% of users expect a faultless experience. Even though it now seems obvious, using a responsive website will guarantee that it will appear beautiful on every device a website visitor may use. Thus, it is crucial to provide proper navigation. However, users might not always use it. But still, chances are high that they will be impressed by the easy and flawless navigation. In addition to informing visitors about your products or suite of services, your website also acts as your primary point of sale online.
74% of users are more likely to return to mobile-friendly websites
People spend 70% of their Internet time on mobile too. With more people acquiring access to mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, it’s crucial to have a website that works well on them.
If businesses’ mobile websites or apps offer pertinent product recommendations, 63% of smartphone users are more inclined to purchase from them. Reactive design is one of the most important components of a mobile-friendly website. By using responsive design, you ensure that your website is compatible with any device a user may be using. As you can check the graph below, smartphone users are rapidly growing. Thus, you should not avoid these stats.
More than 54% of all web traffic worldwide is currently generated by mobile devices. Therefore, you risk losing up to 50% of your potential clients if your website isn’t mobile-friendly. Consider a smartphone user accessing a desktop-friendly website. It’s nearly impossible for potential consumers to locate what they’re searching for if text, photos, and buttons don’t adjust to fit touchscreen controls and smaller screen sizes; after a few incorrect clicks, they’ll probably go somewhere else.
According to Google’s research, almost 75% of users say they prefer a mobile-friendly website, and 96% of users claim they have come across websites that were not made for mobile devices. For businesses looking to interact with mobile users, this is both a major issue and a major opportunity.
Each year, slow-loading websites lose $2.6 billion in revenue
Yes, you heard correctly. A slow load time can increase shopping cart abandonment by 29.8% because their websites don’t load quickly enough, websites lose out on over two billion dollars in revenue each year. People dislike having to wait as websites load information, which discourages them from completing a purchase. This website statistic is important because it demonstrates how urgently your audience needs to acquire content. Make sure you’re on the winning side of the fast-loading website vs. the slow-loading website battle.
It has been reported that websites that load in five seconds earn 70% longer user sessions. Without a quick website, your company will be left behind. Fast-loading websites from your rivals will bring in more visitors and money. Your conversions will rise by 7% simply by speeding up your website by one second.
Design statistics indicate that 47% of users anticipate a web page to load in 2 seconds. To determine how quickly your site loads and where improvements might be made, you can utilize tools like Google Pagespeed Insights. You may also spend money on page speed services to hire a third party to optimize your website so you can concentrate on managing the influx of new visitors.
In 2021, 9 out of 10 viewers indicated they wanted to see more videos from brands and companies, while 96% of consumers increased their online video consumption. In fact, by 2023, it’s predicted that the average individual would watch 100 minutes of online streaming daily. Well, that’s why you shouldn’t neglect the importance of videos regardless of your business type. Automatically playing videos can significantly boost a page’s intrigue. They can be utilized to tell a narrative and greatly minimize the quantity of additional text required to describe your company.
When optimizing your website, you should include visual areas of interest to draw viewers in and encourage interaction. Consequently, it is wise to include videos when designing and optimizing your website. It will capture the attention of your visitors right away and persuade them to get in touch with you. This is known as “conversion,” and it’s likely the ultimate objective of your website. As per the research, users spend 88% more time on your site if you have videos on it.
This will enhance the visual attractiveness and interactivity of your website. But there’s no need to go overboard. Your audience can benefit and the user experience will improve if you make videos for difficult ideas or lengthy material. The degree of interaction should never surpass the benefit because, as previously said, there is a thin line between “interaction” and “annoyance.”
The most appreciated elements in website design are color (40%), and photos/images (39%)
According to survey data, companies looking for new clients can employ marketing color tactics to boost sales. Color preferences are ingrained instincts that may not be reasonable but have a significant impact on our decisions. Therefore, a person’s perception of a website’s color scheme may influence whether they decide to buy something or use a service.
When buying a product, According to a study, 84.7 percent of customers claim color as the main reason they choose a particular product to purchase, and 93 percent of consumers emphasize a product’s visual appeal when making a purchase. Thus, color plays a really vital role to boost the business. 46% of individuals think blue is their favorite color to see on a website, while only 23% say yellow is their favorite color for website design. Businesses should consider color selection closely and customize color schemes to user preferences.
Photography engages users and captures their interest when it comes to site design. Websites with poor photos have a higher chance of having a higher bounce rate from uninterested visitors. Beautiful photos of your business’s facilities, staff, and products help you come off as professional. Nearly 39% of respondents mentioned photos/Images as the affecting elements while visiting a website. Photos engage users and capture their interest when it comes to site design. Do note that websites with poor photos have a higher chance of a higher bounce rate from uninterested visitors. While using photos of your business’s facilities, staff, and products help you come off as professional.
Thus, your company should start by adding photographs and choosing a color scheme for your website. Then, concentrate on incorporating not just the previously listed visual components, but also typography, infographics, and animation.
Visitors to the website first browse the top left corner.
Users’ eyes naturally travel from the upper-left corner of your website down and to the right after they arrive. Similar conclusions were reached by a Yahoo study. Look at your website to see what is available in these zones. To the top-left corner, reposition the value proposition. When someone does choose to read a page, their eyes move horizontally from left to right, frequently focused on the upper-left corner of a webpage or the main content section of the webpage, which is generally triangular.
You can get a general description of the eye movement pattern when gazing at (often text-heavy) content as in the Gutenberg diagram. Except for the region at the bottom right, it generally fits this zoning conclusion. The top left is the major optical area, the top right is the strong fallow area, the bottom left is the weak fallow area, and the bottom right is the terminal area. The user’s eyes naturally start at the main optical area and move in sweeping motions across and down the display to the terminal area.
However, this pattern varies according to the design and function of a page. For instance, a person’s eyes will move differently over a page with a two- or three-column layout, a blog with a lot of text, or a slideshow with a lot of photos.
Thus, it is necessary to place things in the right area.
Conclusion:
As you can see, website design is constantly evolving and changing. Some aspects that were popular years ago (such as picture sliders) are falling out of favor, and it’s difficult to forecast what websites will look like in the future.
Whatever “best practices” you follow, keep in mind that a website isn’t “done” after the first design. People are more likely to trust websites that have recently been updated or evaluated.
Commit to researching web design statistics and keeping trends in mind. Use them to demonstrate your responsiveness when rebuilding your website.
Remote management of a development team may be quite complex, especially if you never worked with a remote team before. While it’s easier to just assign tasks and expect good results, it’s much more effective to take a thoughtful approach and establish a great relationship with the team. For company owners, it is important to develop a strategy that will help transform several remote developers into a cohesive and robust team. We’ve rounded up the top 5 management tips to help you build strong relationships with your remote team and achieve great results together.
Maintaining a positive attitude: 5 tips for successful management and retainment of your team
The fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the labor market is no longer in doubt. The appetite for remote employees remains high among employers, who offer an option of remote work to increase employee retention, increase productivity and reduce infrastructure costs. However, the remote model of work brings challenges as well. Juggling time zones, lack of physical communication and distractions at home are just some of the struggles that both employees and employers face. Therefore, companies need to be flexible and adaptive in managing their remote teams so nobody feels left out. Below are our recommended tips for building a great and trustworthy relationship with your remote developers.
Regular meetings and communication on the schedule
If meetings are not managed properly, they can harm your project and cause missed deadlines or major miscommunications. Strict adherence to the schedule of meetings will help you organize your team’s workflow in a way that everyone stays on track. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of meetings:
Prioritize meetings: it’s not obligatory to schedule meetings for every subject that you need to discuss. Sometimes, an email, a phone call, or a Slack message may be more efficient and quicker. Hence, prioritize your meetings and schedule only important ones.
Prepare for meetings: if a meeting is not properly planned, it can quickly turn into a mess. Therefore, before the meeting, plan the time and list down the main points to discuss. Also, it’s a good idea to send everyone meeting notes before the meeting.
Understand different meeting cycles: daily standups, sprint planning, and team retrospectives all have different purposes and duration and should be planned correspondingly.
In general, meetings should be short, relevant, and regular. A meeting is a great way not only to inform colleagues about project status and/or updates but also to ask questions and share different points of view so you need to encourage and promote that.
Set clear expectations and requirements and ensure everyone understands them
A clear definition of the scope of work and of expected deliverables is an important aspect that impacts the success of your project. Thus, it is important to set clear project timelines and realistic expectations for team members from the beginning. Lack of clear expectations is the source of many disagreements and is a frequent cause of project failure. What can you do to set crystal clear expectations for your team?
Set realistic expectations and requirements for project timelines;
Use a project management system to fine-tune the development cycle;
Make sure each team member understands the requirements and their tasks.
Engage your team members
Remote developers often feel isolated because they do not physically interact and communicate with their colleagues. To increase the engagement of your team, think of various activities like team buildings to lift the team’s spirit up. Here are some more ideas:
Co-op gaming: gaming can become a great break from the routine and unify employees in your company. Examples of co-op games are Among Us, GeoGuessr or Codenames – you choose the one that sounds most fun to you and your team.
Virtual Developer summits: such events include educational talks, workshops, and brainstorming sessions where developers can share their knowledge and get to know each other better.
Online events: corporate training sessions and webinars on various topics via Zoom, Skype, or Google Teams are also a great way to help people get to know each other.
Such activities help maintain corporate culture and contribute to employee satisfaction greatly. A strong sense of team spirit can help your remote team pool their talents and strengths to better solve their goals.
Consider different time zones and plan work correspondingly
One of the keys to project success is understanding the differences in time zones in case you work with a team from a different country. Working together in different time zones can be a challenge because of the lack of constant communication. In contrast to office work, developers working remotely often have their preferred hours of operation. Here are some tips to help developers work more productively across different time zones:
Define each employee’s time zone and preferred work hours;
Use various time zone management tools and apps, such as Google Calendar, Team TimeZone, and Harvest;
Create common rules for communication and collaboration;
Keep asynchronous communication in order.
Working in different time zones requires that each member of a team know and respect different hours of operation. This may seem obvious, but it’s really important. With open communication and smart use of remote tools, you can achieve productive, efficient, collaborative, and flexible teamwork.
Encourage career development among your remote employees
Your remote team members should know that the company is interested in helping them plan their career growth. Therefore, the main goal for managers is to provide career development opportunities for remote developers.
Managers who manage remote teams should notice what excites and motivates each team member, and if they excel, offer them a promotion or a piece of advice on how to achieve a career goal. Career advancement opportunities motivate developers to work harder and add value to the company. Other career development opportunities that you may want to consider are:
Sending developers to relevant conferences;
Providing professional development opportunities within the company;
Offering team members to attend online learning platforms;
Implementing an assessment structure (like the Shield platform) where remote employees can understand what growth opportunities are available.
Use the right tools to improve work efficiency
When you manage a team of remote developers, it is important to use various tools that help structure the work of each team member. From communication tools to project management tools, they all help your team stay on the same page. To help you choose, we’ve selected a few of the most useful ones that are highly recommended for implementation in your organization:
Project and task management: Jira, Trello, Todoist and Harvest;
While there are many excellent free or low-cost tools available, you should give preference to those applications that have the features and functionality most important to the team and your project.
Final thoughts
The secret to managing a remote team of software developers is simple: make your company’s culture inclusive and diverse and treat remote developers in the same manner as your in-house employees. Many excellent development teams are scattered all over the world, and the quality of work is never determined by geographic location. The overall success of your project and speed of development depends on how you plan and manage remote teams.
I am honoured to be invited by Shih Chien University College of Design to give a keynote speech during their Lens International Design Conference 2022 on January 7th 2022.
In the conference The Lens, design is interpreted as a multi-perspective lens that transforms all elements in our daily lives in the past, present, and future into multiple possibilities. At the same time, it reflects our hopes, fears, desires, anxieties, beliefs, and values that entangled in our minds. Like the rebirth of light after refracted, design continuously records, interprets, and transforms everything into materialized narratives and carriers such as products, architecture, media, and clothing. In this way, design attempts to bring the world together. Moreover, it doesn’t merely focus on human beings but also on nature, time and space, species, and even other time zones of the world.
This conference also celebrates the 30th anniversary of Shih Chien’s Department of Industrial Design (SCID). Congratulations my friends!
I was in good company. The other keynote speakers included Chiaki Murata, Jurgen Bey, and Srini R Srinivasan. All shared, in their keynotes, very interesting perspectives of design. Due to COVID restrictions for entry into Taiwan, most of the invited keynote speakers attended the event remotely. All of us had to record our keynote speeches prior to the conference.
The entire conference was recorded and shared on Facebook live. As my keynote was a recording of a recording, it was a little muffled. With permission from the organisers, I thought it would be a good idea to upload a clearer recorded keynote on YouTube.
My Redesigning Design keynote was a result of a longitudinal study, driven by a lifelong passion to understand how Design works. In my keynote, I challenged Designers to rethink their roles just as hard as they rethink their client’s solutions. My hypothesis is that Design is a form of Risk Management. I then layed out the foundation of thinking that led me to this conclusion.
I hope you enjoy this video and I would love to hear any feedback you might have on my thoughts about Redesigning Design.
If you are interested in a full conference recording you can check it out here. I come in at the 1hr 38min mark.
Designing a beautiful “article” is wrought with tons of considerations. Unlike, say, a homepage, a long-form article is less about designing an interface than it is designing text in a way that creates a relaxed and comfortable reading experience.
That’s because articles deal with long-form content which, in turn, tends to be valued by a ”time on page” interaction with users. We want someone to read a complete narrative. There’s a natural space between the time someone lands on an article and reads all the words. And hopefully, that space is immersive enough to not only hold a user’s, but provoke thoughts, ideas, and, possibly, actions. At least that’s what I’m hoping as I have your attention and you make your way through the very article you’re reading.
There’s a balance. On one hand, we hear that “no one reads the Internet.” On the other, a long-form article demands careful attention. Considering the current value of content marketing and the growing impatience in users, captivating readers for as long as possible should be a key concern. Let’s take a look at some best practices and examples of incredible article pages to get a better idea of what makes a visually appealing reading experience for long-form articles (without sacrificing user experience), and how we can replicate the effects.
Quick wins
Let me quickly list out what I think might already be obvious to many of you, but are effective things for content legibility:
Increase the font size: We know that 16px is the default and is perfectly fine in many designs, but a larger font size is inviting in that it implies the user is free to lean back and settle in without having to angle forward with the screen in their face to read.
Aim for characters per line: Very few people I know like to work harder than they need to, and that goes for reading too. Rather than using the full viewport width, try to narrow things down and balance that with your larger font size to get fewer characters on each line of text. Your sweet spot may vary, though many folks suggest somewhere between 45-75 characters per line to help limit how far the reader’s eye has to work to go from left to right. Chris has a bookmarklet to help count characters, but we also have the ch unit in CSS to get predictable results.
Bump up the line height: A default line height is going to feel smashed. It’s funny, but more space between lines (up to a point, of course) is less work for eyes, which seems antithetical to the characters-per-line advice where we generally want eyes to travel a shorter distance. A line height between 1.2 and 1.5 seems to be a pretty typical range for long-form content.
You may be accustomed to designing “above the fold” where real estate is a prime commodity. That’s sort of like beach-front property in the web world because it’s where we’re used to packing in high-value things, like hero banners, calls to action, and anything else to help sell a thing. Above the fold can be a lot like a dense urban downtown with high traffic and high-rise buildings.
Articles are different. They allow you to stretch out a bit. If we want to take the city development analogy a little further, articles have the acreage to lean into a “less is more” sort of design approach. That’s what makes seemingly small design choices — like type — so important to the overall experience.
Check out the example below. The link underlines have a little more room to breathe (specifically, they appear below the descenders). This is actually something that you can enable sitewide but looks especially nice on article pages since it increases readability. That’s the sort of subtle design choice that contributes to extra breathing room.
text-underline-position: under; is the line of CSS that makes this work. Naturally, text-decoration must be set to something other than none (underline in this case), too.
The example above also features text-decoration-thickness, which alters the thickness of underlines (and other line types). You can use this CSS property to match a line’s thickness to a font’s size and/or weight.
Here’s a full example:
a {
text-decoration: underline;
text-decoration-thickness: 2px;
/* or */
text-decoration: underline 2px;
text-underline-position: under;
}
But before you reach for the text-decoration shorthand, Šime Vidas has a few “gotchas” when it comes to using it that are worth reviewing.
Leading into the content
Drop caps are stylized letters that can be placed at the beginning of a document or document section. They were once used in Latin texts, but today they’re mostly used for decorative reasons.
Personally, I think that drop caps hinder readability. However, they can be a nice way to “lead” a reader into the main content, and they shouldn’t introduce any serious accessibility issues as long as you’re using the ::first-letter pseudo-element. There are other (older)methods that involve more HTML and CSS as well as the use of ARIA attributes in order for the content to remain accessible.
Using ::first-letter, the CSS would look something like this:
/* select the first letter of the first paragraph */
article > p:first-child::first-letter {
color: #903;
float: left;
font-family: Georgia;
font-size: 75px;
line-height: 60px;
padding-top: 4px;
padding-right: 8px;
padding-left: 3px;
}
It sure would be nice if we could use the initial-letter property, but there’s pretty much no support for it at the time I’m writing this. If we had it, all that math for font size and line height would be calculated for us!
CodePen challenged folks to show off their drop-cap-styling skills several years ago and you can see a whole bunch of neat examples from it in this collection.
Skip to main content
Screen readers allow users to skip to the main content as long as it wraps it within a element. However, those who navigate websites by tabbing don’t benefit from this. Instead, we must create a “skip to main content” anchor link. This link is customarily hidden but revealed once the user makes their first tab (i.e. show on focus).
It would look something like this:
<!-- anchor -->
<a id="skip-link" href="#main">Skip to main content</a>
<!-- target -->
<main class="main">
<!-- main content -->
</main>
#skip-link {
position: absolute; /* remove it from the flow */
transform: translateX(-100%); /* move it off-screen so that it appears hidden but remains focusable */
}
#skip-link:focus {
position: unset; /* insert it back into the flow */
transform: unset; /* move it back onto the screen */
}
.main {
scroll-margin: 1rem; /* adds breathing room above the scroll target */
}
There are other ways to go about it, of course. Here are a couple of deeper dives on creating skip links.
I love the illustrations in this article. Despite how incredible they look, they don’t demand too much cognitive attention. They introduce brief moments of delight but also suggest that the article itself has something more important to say. Partly, this comes down to the use of transparency, whereas rectangular images capture more negative space and therefore demand more attention (which is fine if that’s the desired effect and images are crucial to the story).
However, it’s important to know that the images aren’t actually transparent at all, but instead are non-transparent JPEGs with the same background color as the content. I’m presuming that’s to keep the size of the images smaller compared to PNGs that support transparency.
The downside to “faking” a transparent background like this is that it would require additional trickery (and maintenance) to support a dark mode UI if your site happens to offer one. If the illustrations are pretty flat and simple, then SVG might be the way to go instead since it’s small, scalable, and capable of blending into whatever background it’s on.
But if you’re bound to using raster images and would rather work with PNG files for transparency, you’ll want to look into using responsive images and the loading="lazy" attribute for faster loading times.
Put the focus on the type and semantics
You may have very little say over how or where someone reads content on the web these days. Whether the user receives it in an RSS feed, gets it delivered by email, sees it copy-and-pasted from a colleague, finds it on a scraped site, or whatnot, your content might look different than you prefer. You could design what you think is the most gorgeous article in all the land and the user still might smash that Reader Mode button to your dismay.
That’s ok! The discoverability of content is very much as important as the design of it, and many users have their own ways of discovering content and preferences for what makes a good reading experience.
But there are reasons why someone would want a Reader Mode. For one, it’s like “not seeing any CSS” at all. By that, I mean Safari’s Reader Mode or Brave SpeedReader, which use machine learning to detect articles. There’s no fetching or executing of CSS, JavaScript, or non-article images, which boosts performance and also blocks ads and tracking.
This sort of “brute minimalism” puts the focus on the content rather than the styles. So, you might actually want to embrace a browser’s opinionated reading styles specifically for that purpose.
The way to do that is not by using CSS, but by paying closer attention to your HTML. Reader modes work best with markup that uses simple, semantic, article-related HTML. You’ve got to do more than simply slapping
tags around the article to get the most from it.
You might just find that a minimal design that emphasizes legibility over slickness is actually a good strategy to use in your site’s design. I’d strongly suggest reading Robin’s post on the “smallest CSS” for a solid reading experience.
Roundup of long-form articles!
I’ve shared a lot of what I think makes for a great reading experience for long-form articles on the web. But seeing is believing and I’ve rounded up a bunch of examples that showcase what we’ve covered.
Polygon uses a strong, provacative visual to hook readers into the ain content. Notice how the drop cap, larger font size, and increased line height make this feel like a page you can sit back with and relax.
The TASTE website uses transparent images that blend into the background color of the content. There’s plenty of space between elements and bold accents — like thick borders and a heavy drop cap — pull the reader’s eye down the page.
The Outline is a prime example of minimalism. Notice how something as subtle as a squiggly horizontal rule can be an eye-catching embellishment when there are fewer things competing for attention.
The brutalist style of the Dropbox blog is probably a controversial one. The colors, fonts, and use of space are all over the place, and the content being floated to the right just feels unfamiliar. But does it break any design ‘rules’? Nope. I could grow to like it in time, especially in a milder form.
Urban Beardsman’s design is extremely linear. As somebody that has difficulty concentrating and is easily distracted by sidebars, in-article CTA boxes, and even blockquotes, I very much enjoy how easy it is to read this blog like a book. The perfect example of “less is more.”
There’s nothing unique about the GoSquared blog, but it managed to include pretty much all of the things we discussed in the article — a better underline design, seamless images, and some very readable typography. Quite impressive.
The Smart Passive Income blog proves how far you can get just by choosing a legible font and using readable font sizes, line heights, letter spacings, and paragraph spacings.
Recipe pages are consistently sucky, but not Little Fat Boy. The lack of sameness throughout the page makes it easy jump to different parts of the recipe without getting lost. Plus, the ingredients are pinned to the top-right for your convenience.
Security is of utmost importance for any business, big or small. You can have the most beautiful website in the world, but if it’s not secure, you’re at risk of losing everything. In this comprehensive guide, we will discuss security testing and its importance. We will also take a look at various security testing software tools and approaches. So whether you’re a business owner who wants to ensure the security of their website, or a developer who wants to learn more about security testing, this guide has you covered!
What is Security Testing & Why Is It Necessary?
The term “security testing” refers to the practice of evaluating the security of a website, app, or system. It aids in the identification of possible assaults. Security testing may be completed manually or using automated tools.
As we’ve mentioned, security is of paramount importance for any business. Data loss, funds, and clients can all be caused by a security problem. It may also damage your reputation and make it more difficult to recover from the assault. That’s why security testing is so vital! It aids in the detection and repair of threats before they can be exploited by hackers.
Types of Security Testing Software
Penetration Testing
Penetration testing is an essential test technique that every organization must implement. It involves utilizing seasoned hackers to execute a variety of attack methods. Penetration testing is also referred to as security testing. It is utilized to assess the system’s security by putting it through its paces in real-time.
Vulnerability Scanning
Vulnerability scanning is the practice of identifying and correcting significant flaws in an information system. Vulnerability scanning is usually done by a program that compares the system to known vulnerability signatures automated tool. A scan report is produced from the scan’s results, which are usually recorded as a vulnerability scanning report.
Risk Assessment
Security risk assessment is the process of detecting and avoiding potential hazards and flaws in an information system before they become a problem. It aids in determining the status of information security within a company, as well as identifying areas of risk. It’s a systematic, analytical approach for examining an information system’s safety and identifying potential security risks that could be used to inflict damage or harm to a business.
Security Auditing
Security auditing is an element of the security assessment process. It involves reviewing computer-based systems, networks, or software to ensure that security precautions are working properly. It’s commonly completed as part of a security audit service by a third-party service provider. The report should assist in assessing an organization’s security readiness and identifying areas where it may be vulnerable to various threats.
Source Code Review
Reviewing the full source code of an application for potential security concerns is known as source code review. A third-party security firm can analyze the source code of the software to detect any security flaws that the developer may have overlooked. The goal of source code examination is to look at applications with new eyes for possible security concerns.
Security Testing Software Approaches
Security testing software is the process of testing software for security flaws and inadequacies. Three distinct methods are used in security testing software. Let’s look at each approach separately.
Black Box Testing
The black box testing approach (also known as opaque testing) is a kind of software security assessment. The test engineer in a black-box security test has no insight into the software’s or system’s internal workings.
The test engineer must rely on previous documentation, past experiences, and feedback from the software’s creators and users to create tests. The test engineer is unfamiliar with the system’s inner workings or application being tested.
White Box Testing
During white box testing, also known as glass box testing, the tester has access to not only the system’s internal state but also its code structure. Because of this, white box testing is sometimes called glass box examination.
Gray Box Testing
A gray box security test is a hybrid form of testing that combines both expertise and skill. This is a combination of white-box and black-box testing. The gray box test consists of portions of the two tests, with the tester having some knowledge but not all of it. Testers can find what they’re searching for without knowing where it originated using this method.
Software Security Testing Tools:
Astra Security
Astra’s Network Security Solution is a one-of-a-kind product from Astra Security, which can help you discover and address network security vulnerabilities. Astra’s solution aids in the identification of network security flaws as well as the plugging of gaps.
The solution examines and assesses your network to identify network devices, ports, and protocols that may be vulnerable, in order to help you address any issues promptly.
OpenVAS
OpenVAS is a network security tool that may perform a thorough vulnerability assessment. OpenVAS is a worldwide initiative with organizations from many countries using it. It’s available for no cost and may be used with commercial software.
The OpenVAS tool is produced by Greenbone, and the paid version is known as Greenbone Security feed. The free one, on the other hand, is called Greenbone Community feed.
Metasploit
Metasploit is a computer security project that focuses on penetration testing and IDS signature creation. It’s free, open-source, and accessible to everyone.
The goal of the project is to teach network administrators and penetration testers about security flaws that have been used by penetration testers during security audits, as well as ways to use them in order to maintain a secure network configuration.
Conclusion
Security testing is important because it can help you find and fix security vulnerabilities in your software before they are exploited by attackers. There are three main approaches to security testing: black box, white box, and gray box. There are several distinct types of penetration testing, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. It’s critical to select the appropriate one for your needs, so understanding what they all have to offer is important. There are a number of security testing tools to choose from; some of the most popular ones include Astra Security, OpenVAS, and Metasploit.
Regardless of the tool you employ, ensuring that your software is secure is a necessary step in the development process. You may ensure that your program is as safe as possible by performing security testing on a regular basis and early.
