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Exploring the Top-Earning Opportunities: A Guide to the Highest Paid Programming Languages

December 12th, 2023 No comments

Computer programmers build web properties, software, and mobile apps. These specialists use programming languages like Ruby, Javascript, and C to accomplish this goal.

If you’re an aspiring software developer, it can be difficult to know which one to master. After all, there are dozens of programming languages available. The good news is that many programming languages have significant earning potential.

In this guide, we’ll cover the in-demand programming languages to master in your career.

The Highest-Paying Programming Languages by Average Salary

If you’re looking to advance your career and earn a high salary, you should learn and master these popular languages to get started:

  • Python: $141,658 /year
  • Ruby: $134,186 /year
  • C++: $120,212 /year
  • Golang: $120,086 /year
  • Java: $117,931 /year
  • Rust: $109,905 /year
  • SQL: $109,407 /year
  • Swift: $103,072/year

*All salaries are the US national average and sourced from ZipRecruiter

These aren’t only some of the highest-paying programming languages in the world, but they’re also the most popular.

Whether you take an online course, boot camp, or attend a community college, you shouldn’t have trouble learning these open-source programming languages.

How to Increase Your Earning Potential: Best Practices for Computer Programmers

It’s not enough to learn the highest-paying programming languages. If you want to become a successful computer scientist, here are some tips. 

Learn Different Programming Languages

There are dozens of programming languages in the world. Software development teams sometimes use several programming languages, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning to build dynamic mobile applications. 

On top of that, building integrations through APIs and SDKs means learning how different programming languages relate.

Image of how an API works

(Image Source)

To advance your career, you should invest time in learning different programming languages. This is especially true if you plan on working for Fortune 500 companies in the future. 

For example, Swift is commonly used in the Apple coding ecosystem. If working for Apple as a programmer is one of your career goals, Swift should definitely be on your priority list. 

Build Credibility

Another way to increase your earnings is by building credibility in your niche. There are several ways you can do this, including:

  • Creating thought-leadership content: Do you have something new to share with other coders? If so, you can write for other websites and produce content showing your level of expertise. 
  • Freelancing: You can also elevate your credibility by offering your services for side projects. This can give you some extra cash in your pocket, introduce you to new people, and expand your connections. 
  • Contributing to open-source projects: Open-source projects require volunteer community members to stay afloat. If you contribute to developing new software, patches, desktop applications, web architecture, and updates, your work will last for a long time and even catch the eyes of prospective employers. 
  • Participating in hackathons: These events feature countless hackers and computer programmers from all walks of life. Think of it as a networking opportunity – like LinkedIn, but for computer programmers and enthusiasts only.

Following these strategies can help you get your name out there, find new job opportunities, and connect with like-minded people who can become connections later. 

Continue Learning

The world of modern technology is always changing. The best computer programmers can stay on top of new developments and adapt their processes. There are many ways you can evolve your learning.

One way is by attending keynote speeches. Doing so lets you learn from some of the brightest minds in software testing. The good news is that these events are usually affordable and held in public places.

You can also meet other programmers and grow your network through public learning events. Another way you can continue your learning is by taking online boot camps.

coding boot camp infographic

(Image Source)

These online courses teach beginner, intermediate, and advanced web development trends. Upon completing a boot camp, you’ll receive a certificate, which you can add to your resume. 

Switch Companies

If you believe you’re stagnant in your current job, you should explore more opportunities. Software development is a continuously changing industry. The more ambitious you are as a computer programmer, the more likely you are to succeed over your peers. 

You should work with a company that’ll challenge you to learn something new daily and contribute to a world-changing project. 

Oh, and let’s not forget that you can see an average 15% salary increase when changing jobs. 

Start Your Own Business

Embarking on the journey of starting your own programming business can be a transformative step towards significantly increasing your earning potential. Start by doing some research and reading up on small business blogs to gain insights on starting and running a business.

Unlike traditional employment, running your own business in the tech industry means there’s no ceiling on how much you can earn. The more innovative and efficient your solutions are, the greater the demand and, consequently, the higher your potential income. 

Need inspiration? Ryan Hogue earned $85,000 a year as a full-time web developer. Now, he makes $14,600 a month in passive income. That’s an impressive jump. Talk about inspiring. 

However, an often overlooked but critical aspect of this process is the importance of registering your business with state authorities. This legal step is essential to avoid unnecessary fees or, worse, being denied the right to operate. 

By ensuring your business is registered and compliant with state and local regulations, you protect your venture and establish a foundation of credibility and trustworthiness in the market.

Final Words

Learning these popular programming languages can increase your earning potential and advance your career. 

It’s not uncommon for successful computer programmers to earn well over $100,000 a year or more in today’s digital world. Developer salaries are well above the median salary and some of the highest-paying jobs. 

If you’re ready to expand your horizons and learn some new programming languages, studying the ones in this guide is a great first step.

These languages are great for beginners because they’re often simple and easy to learn and have a wide range of applications.

You can use them for everything from web development to game design to software engineering. They’re constantly evolving, so new learning opportunities are always there across tech companies (or starting your own).

Here’s to your success as a software engineer or skilled developer! 

Featured Image by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

The post Exploring the Top-Earning Opportunities: A Guide to the Highest Paid Programming Languages appeared first on noupe.

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40 Best New Websites, 2023

December 11th, 2023 No comments

What makes a website great? Is it the design, the functionality, the subject? Or is it specific design elements like the typography, or colors?

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How to Land the Web Development Job of Your Dreams

December 8th, 2023 No comments

If you’re looking for a fulfilling, lucrative career in tech, you can’t do much better than being a web developer. There’s just one issue: It’s extremely competitive. To snag your dream job, you’ll need more than just skills and desire. You’ll need to differentiate yourself during the entire interviewing process from making sure your resume gets noticed to wowing interviewers and employers into making an offer. 

Despite the challenges of landing a web development position, it can be well worth the effort to try. The U.S. News & World Report has listed “web developer” as the seventh-best STEM sector occupation and the ninth-best overall career. And those rankings aren’t likely to wane anytime soon. Employment opportunities for web developers are expected to grow significantly until at least 2031. At an average salary range of around $81,000, that’s a reason to get into the web developer game.

Ready to stand out as you pursue the web developer path? Put these innovative techniques into motion and you’ll position yourself for the outcome you want.

1. Ditch your old-style, single-template resume.

You might already know that plenty of companies rely on software programs to sift through the resumes they receive. Typically, those programs evaluate applicants on how well their resume information matches the job description. Resumes that contain appropriate keywords and candidate data will be more likely to reach human eyes.

In other words, your resume needs to be carefully tweaked every time you apply for a role. Yet it can be very time-consuming to rework your resume to fit each job opening. That’s where you can leverage the power of AI-fueled software. For instance, you might want to apply to one dozen or more web developer roles. Rather than manually updating and optimizing each one, turn to free software like Teal to do it for you. 

Teal offers job seekers a comprehensive platform that makes it easy to build your resume with AI and customize it to match closely with individual job descriptions. The company’s core SaaS product also provides users with a dashboard where they can track their customized resumes. Haven’t written your resume yet? No worries — Teal can make suggestions and keep your resume from falling through the cracks or being denied by an algorithm “gatekeeper.” 

2. Create an impressive portfolio.

Even if you’re somewhat new to web development, you’ll be expected to showcase your technical abilities. This is best done in an online portfolio that can be shared with potential employers. However, you don’t want to clutter your portfolio with junk or make it difficult to evaluate. Your portfolio should be streamlined and contain just enough samples to entice someone to ask for a first or second interview. (Or make you an offer!)

What belongs in your web developer portfolio? You should have some examples of projects that relate to the job you want. For example, let’s say an organization is looking for someone with extensive coding capabilities. Your portfolio should contain two to three examples of pages or site elements that you wrote the code for. Don’t just share the code. Describe the goal, talk about how you met the goal through coding, and illustrate the end result. This will paint a clear picture of the talents you’re bringing to the table. 

You can host your portfolio on any site you like, including on a read-only Google doc. Just be sure that you link to your portfolio on your resume. Don’t be afraid to include the link in your cover letter and, if applicable, your application form. Over time, be aware that you’ll need to update your portfolio and replace dated experiences with fresh ones.

3. Use social media to your benefit.

As with any field, web developers have online communities, forums, and groups. Consequently, you should become visible in these social communities. Present yourself as both a thought leader and an eager learner. For example, you might want to answer questions posed by others and post some questions yourself.

Publishing articles on LinkedIn can be another wait to gain some credibility among other IT professionals and corporate leaders. The same is true for posting, sharing, and commenting on Facebook and X, too. The more people you engage with in the IT sector, the higher your likelihood to hear about job openings — and get noticed. 

What if you’re comfortable in front of the camera or talking to a crowd? Setting up your own YouTube or Twitch channel devoted to web development could make sense. The higher your following, the more authority you naturally acquire. Plus, you may be able to make a little money on the side by coding live. Small-time Twitch streamers with 100+ viewers can net up to $1,500 monthly. That’s not exactly peanuts.

4. Stay up to date on the industry.

The world of technology is expanding and evolving at a faster-than-ever pace. In a flash, your knowledge can become outdated if you’re not keeping up. Therefore, it may be wise to invest in certificates or degrees, and the occasional coding bootcamp. (As a side note, bootcamps will offer the chance to meet peers and expand your network, which is a bonus advantage.)

Not sure where to start? There are many places that offer training to current and aspiring web developers. Some are well-known institutes of higher learning like Arizona State University and Capella University. However, other programs are run by companies known for web development. A helpful site for discovering short-term and long-term web development classes is Coursera. While Coursera offers some options that are branded to itself, others are through partnerships with universities and companies. For instance, Coursera features classes for learners at all levels from IBM. 

As you advance your continuing education credentials, be sure to add them into your resume as well as your LinkedIn profile. This step can be easy to forget, but it’s essential if you’re trying to highlight exactly what makes you a more appealing, well-versed candidate than someone else.

Web development might be a crowded field, but that doesn’t mean you can’t edge your way in. Just take a little time upfront to plan out your career strategy. Then, go forward with gusto. Someone has to land every job that’s available — and the next person who hears “You’re hired!” could be you.

Featured Image by James Harrison on Unsplash

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Top 5 IP Ping Tools

December 8th, 2023 No comments

When you’re dealing with network issues, the go-to solution that often comes to mind is using a ping monitoring tool. Why? Because it’s the quickest and ?asi?st way to check if your s?rv?rs or d?vic?s can talk to ?ach oth?r ov?r th? n?twork. It’s lik? a virtual handshak? to s?? if ?v?rything is okay. 

Ping monitoring tools help you keep an ?y? on your int?rn?t protocol (IP) and r?lat?d compon?nts. Th?s? tools l?t you manage and watch over your connections, making sure your n?twork is doing its job – k??ping syst?ms conn?ct?d and running smoothly. 

By using a ping monitoring tool, you can quickly v?rify if your conn?ctions are working as they should. It’s lik? a n?twork h?alth ch?ck to see if your systems ar? up and running or if th?r?’s a hiccup. 

Now, let’s div? into th? world of ping monitoring and explore some of th? b?st tools out there to help you monitor and fix any n?twork hiccups. 

How Ping Monitoring Works?

By doing Ping tests regularly, you can figure out the fastest, slowest, and average times for the device to respond. We call this time between sending the signal and getting a response the “ping time,” usually measured in milliseconds (ms). The lower the ping time, the better – it means your network is speedy and in good shape.

Ping monitoring is lik? s?nding a fri?ndly signal to a d?vic? or comput?r and ch?cking how quickly it r?sponds. It’s lik? saying “h?llo” to s?? if ?v?rything is working smoothly. If the d?vic? replies fast, it’s a good ping, but if it takes too long, it’s considered bad. 

Here’s the technical bit: ping sends a special message called an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo request to a specific spot on the network. When that spot gets the message, it quickly replies with an echo to confirm it got the signal. So, ping monitoring is like a quick conversation to make sure everything is running smoothly in your network.

Top 5 Ping Tools 

Here are the top five ping tools that can help spot issues by providing real-time network info.

SolarWinds Ping Monitor Tool

With SolarWinds Ping Monitor Software, you can easily keep an eye on how quickly devices respond. All you have to do is pick the device you want to watch. This software lets you share monitoring data using text files or show it off with images or graphs.

And it’s not just about pinging! SolarWinds comes with a bunch of cool features. You get a WAN Killer Traffic Generator, a MAC Address Scanner, an SNMP MIB Browser, a Ping Sweep, a Subnet Calculator, an MIB Walk, a Switch Port Mapper, and a whole lot more. It’s like having a superhero toolkit for checking and managing your network.

Site24x7 

The Network Monitor part of the Site 24×7 is smart. It uses the ping monitor to find all the gadgets connected to your network and creates a list of them. Then, it takes this info and makes a cool map to show you how everything is connected. Regular check-ups make sure this map is always up to date.

Site24x7 is like a superhero for monitoring everything related to your online world – websites, cloud, servers, networks, applications, and even how real users experience your site. It keeps an eye on important things like how fast your site responds and if it’s available, giving you useful metrics. Among the basic monitors in Site24x7, you find ping alongside other friends like HTTP/HTTPS, WebSocket, DNS, and FTP, NTP, or SMTP servers.

PingPlotter 

PingPlotter Pro is a great tool for checking how your network is doing. It works on Windows, Mac OS, and iOS, and you can even keep an eye on things remotely through a web interface. This means you can monitor lots of devices from one place.

For a quick look at your n?twork’s h?alth, PingPlott?r Pro has summary scr??ns and jitt?r graphs. Th?s? h?lp admins s?? what’s going on with just a glanc? at th? data. But what r?ally stands out is its trac?rout? f?atur?. 

With a us?r-fri?ndly int?rfac?, it shows you th? tim? it tak?s for data to travel and any loss?s that happen along th? way. It’s lik? following a virtual trail of data from point to point, giving admins a cl?ar vi?w of what’s happ?ning in their n?twork and making it ?asi?r to spot and fix problems. 

Better Stack

B?tt?r Stack is like a superhero for keeping an ?y? on your onlin? stuff. It does a bunch of cool things, like checking if your w?bsit? is up, managing incidents, and letting p?opl? know if th?r?’s downtim? through status pages. 

With B?tt?r Stack, you g?t ch?cks for all kinds of things – k?ywords in URLs, multipl? v?rification st?ps, heartbeat ch?cks, SSL, ping, and port monitoring. It’s lik? having a virtual sup?rh?ro squad, making sure ?v?rything runs smoothly. Plus, it plays nic? with oth?r tools you might already be using,  lik? Datadog, N?w R?lic, Grafana, and mor?. 

Here’s the neat part: Better Stack checks your website every 30 seconds, not just from one place but from different locations. This means no more false alarms or missing issues that depend on where you are.

If something goes wrong, Better Stack doesn’t just tell you there’s a problem – it shows you exactly what happened with screenshots and a timeline. You can use its reports and analytics to look back at how well your site has been doing, check if it meets service level agreements (SLA), and understand incidents better.

iplocation.io

The Ping test tool by iplocation.io is like a handy helper for people who want to check if a website, domain, or IP address is working okay. It’s super easy to use – you just open it, type in the website or IP address you’re curious about, and hit the “Ping Now” button.

After that, the tool gives you some useful info. If ?v?rything’s good, and no data is lost, it m?ans th? conn?ction is solid,  and th? thing you’re ch?cking is onlin?. But if th?r?’s data loss, it could m?an th? connection isn’t r?liabl?. 

If th? tool tim?s out, it’s lik? a littl? r?d flag. It might m?an th?r?’s an issue with th? IP addr?ss,  th? thing you’r? ch?cking is offlin?, or th?r?’s som?thing in th? way that’s stopping it from r?sponding to ping r?qu?sts. 

Final Words  

For IT professionals, it’s crucial to know if their important s?rv?rs and n?twork gadg?ts ar? doing well or if they sudd?nly go offlin?. A ping tool is lik? a helpful buddy in this situation. It constantly sends r?qu?sts to your important n?twork d?vic?s, making sur? ?v?rything ar? okay. 

Using a ping monitoring app is smart because it doesn’t hog up a lot of your network’s power.  This means you can k??p your s?rvic?s running smoothly without slowing down your whole network or internet connection. How you s?t up your ping monitoring d?p?nds on what you need, but with a littl? digging and t?sting, you can find th? b?st way to k??p your n?twork in top shap?. 

Featured image by U. Storsberg on Unsplash

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Preparing For Interaction To Next Paint, A New Web Core Vital

December 7th, 2023 No comments

This article is a sponsored by DebugBear

There’s a change coming to the Core Web Vitals lineup. If you’re reading this before March 2024 and fire up your favorite performance monitoring tool, you’re going to to get a Core Web Vitals report like this one pulled from PageSpeed Insights:

You’re likely used to seeing most of these metrics. But there’s a good reason for the little blue icon sitting next to the second metric in the second row, Interaction to Next Paint (INP). It’s the newest metric of the bunch and is set to formally be a ranking factor in Google search results beginning in March 2024.

And there’s a good reason that INP sits immediately below the First Input Delay (FID) in that chart. INP will officially replace FID when it becomes an official Core Web Vital metric.

The fact that INP is already available in performance reports means we have an opportunity to familiarize ourselves with it today, in advance of its release. That’s what this article is all about. Rather than pushing off INP until after it starts influencing the way we measure site performance, let’s take a few minutes to level up our understanding of what it is and why it’s designed to replace FID. This way, you’ll not only have the information you need to read your performance reports come March 2024 but can proactively prepare your website for the change.

“I’m Not Seeing Those Metrics In My Reports”

Chances are that you’re looking at Lighthouse or some other report based on lab data. And by that, I mean data that isn’t coming from the field in the form of “real” users. You configure the test by applying some form of simulated throttling and start watching the results pour in. In other words, the data is not looking at your actual web traffic but a simulated environment that gives you an approximate view of traffic when certain conditions are in place.

I say all that because it’s important to remember that not all performance data is equal, and some metrics are simply impossible to measure with certain types of data. INP and FID happen to be a couple of metrics where lab data is unsuitable for meaningful results, and that’s because both INP and FID are measurements of user interactions. That may not have been immediately obvious by the name “First Input Delay,” but it’s clear as day when we start talking about “Interaction to Next Paint” — it’s right there in the name!

Simulated lab data, like what is used in Lighthouse reports, does not interact with the page. That means there is no way for it to evaluate the first input a user makes or any other interactions on the page.

So, that’s why you’re not seeing INP or FID in your reports. If you want these metrics, then you will want to use a performance tool that is capable of using real user data, such as DebugBear, which can monitor your actual traffic on an ongoing basis in real time, or PageSpeed Insights which bases its finding on Google’s “Chrome User Experience Report” (commonly referred to as CrUX), though DebugBear is capable of providing CrUX reporting as well. The difference between real-time user monitoring and measuring performance against CrUX data is big enough that it’s worth reading up on it, and we have a full article on Smashing Magazine that goes deeply into the differences for you.

INP Improves How Page Interactions Are Measured

OK, so we now know that both INP and FID are about page interactions. Specifically, they are about measuring the time between a user interacting with the page and the page responding to that interaction.

What’s the difference between the two metrics, then? The answer is two-fold. First, FID is a measure of the time it takes the page to start processing an interaction or the input delay. That sounds fine on the surface — we want to know how much time it takes for a user to start an interaction and optimize it if we can. The problem with it, though, is that it takes just one part of the time for the page to fully respond to an interaction.

A more complete picture considers the input delay in addition to two other components: processing time and presentation delay. In other words, we should also look at the time it takes to process the interaction and the time it takes for the page to render the UI in response. As you may have already guessed, INP considers all three delays, whereas FID considers only the input delay.

The second difference between INP and FID is which interactions are evaluated. FID is not shy about which interaction it measures: the very first one, as in the input delay of the first interaction on the page. We can think of INP as a more complete and accurate representation of how fast your page responds to user interactions because it looks at every single one on the page. It’s probably rare for a page to have only one interaction, and whatever interactions there are after the first interaction are likely located well down the page and happen after the page has fully loaded.

So, where FID looks at the first interaction — and only the input delay of that interaction — INP considers the entire lifecycle of all interactions.

Measuring Interaction To Next Paint

Both FID and INP are measured in milliseconds. Don’t get too worried if you notice your INP time is greater than your FID. That’s bound to happen when all of the interactions on the page are evaluated instead of the first interaction alone.

Google’s guidance is to maintain an FID under 100ms. And remember, FID does not take into account the time it takes for the event to process, nor does it consider the time it takes the page to update following the event. It only looks at the delay of the event process.

And since INP does indeed take all three of those factors into account — the input delay, processing time, and presentation delay — Google’s guidance for measuring INP is inherently larger than FID: under 200ms for a “good” result, and between 200-500ms for a passing result. Any interaction that adds up to a delay greater than 500ms is a clear bottleneck.

The goal is to spot slow interactions and optimize them for a smoother user experience. How exactly do you identify those problems? That’s what we’re looking at next.

Identifying Slow Interactions

There’s already plenty you can do right now to optimize your site for INP before it becomes an official Core Web Vital in March 2024. Let’s walk through the process.

Of course, we’re talking about the user doing something on the page, i.e., an action such as a click or keyboard focus. That might be expanding a panel in an accordion component or perhaps triggering a modal or a prompt any change in a state where the UI updates in response.

Your page may consist of little more than content and images, making for very few, if any, interactions. It could just as well be some sort of game-based UI with thousands of interactions. INP can be a heckuva lot of work, but it really comes down to how many interactions we’re talking about.

We’ve already talked about the difference between field data and lab data and how lab data is simply unable to measure page interactions accurately. That means you will want to rely on field data when pulling INP reports to identify bottlenecks. And when we’re talking about field data, we’re talking about two different flavors:

  1. Data from the CrUX report that is based on the results of real Chrome users. This is readily available in PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console, not to mention DebugBear. If you use either of Google’s tools, just note that their throttling methods collect metrics on a fast connection and then estimate how fast the page would be on a slower connection. DebugBear actually tests with a slower network, resulting in more accurate data.
  2. Monitoring your website’s real-time traffic, which will require adding a snippet to your source code that sends traffic data to a service. And, yes, DebugBear is one such service, though there are others. You can even take advantage of historical CrUX data integrated with BigQuery to get a historical view of your results dating back as far as 2017 with new data coming in monthly, which isn’t exactly “real-time” monitoring of your actual traffic, but certainly useful.

You will get the most bang for your buck with real-time monitoring that keeps a historical record of data you can use to evaluate INP results over time.

That said, you can still start identifying bottlenecks today if you prefer not to dive into real-time monitoring right this second. DebugBear has a tool that analyzes any URL your throw at it. What’s great about this is that it shows you the elements that receive user interaction and provides the results right next to them. The result of the element that takes the longest is your INP result. That’s true whether you have one component above the 500ms threshold or 100 of them on the page.

The fact that DebugBear’s tool highlights all of the interactions and organizes them by INP makes identifying bottlenecks a straightforward process.

See that? There’s a clear INP offender on Smashing Magazine’s homepage, and it comes in slightly outside the healthy INP range for a score of 510ms even though the next “slowest” result is 184ms. There’s a little work we need to do between now and March to remedy that.

Notice, too, that there are actually two scores in the report: the INP Debugger Result and the Real User Google Data. The results aren’t even close! If we were to go by the Google CrUX data, we’re looking at a result that is 201ms faster than the INP Debugger’s result — a big enough difference that would result in the Smashing Magazine homepage fully passing INP.

Ultimately, what matters is how real users experience your website, and you need to look at the CrUX data to see that. The elements identified by the INP Debugger may cause slow interactions, but if users only interact with them very rarely, that might not be a priority to fix. But for a perfect user experience, you would want both results to be in the green.

Optimizing Slow Interactions

This is the ultimate objective, right? Once we have identified slow interactions — whether through a quick test with CrUX data or a real-time monitoring solution — we need to optimize them so their delays are at least under 500ms, but ideally under 200ms.

Optimizing INP comes down to CPU activity at the end of the day. But as we now know, INP measures two additional components of interactions that FID does not for a total of three components: input delay, processing time, and presentation delay. Each one is an opportunity to optimize the interaction, so let’s break them down.

Reduce The Input Delay

This is what FID is solely concerned with, and it’s the time it takes between the user’s input, such as a click, and for the interaction to start.

This is where the Total Blocking Time (TBT) metric is a good one because it looks at CPU activity happening on the main thread, which adds time for the page to be able to respond to a user’s interaction. TBT does not count toward Google’s search rankings, but FID and INP do, and both are directly influenced by TBT. So, it’s a pretty big deal.

You will want to heavily audit what tasks are running on the main thread to improve your TBT and, as a result, your INP. Specifically, you want to watch for long tasks on the main thread, which are those that take more than 50ms to execute. You can get a decent visualization of tasks on the main thread in DevTools:

The bottom line: Optimize those long tasks! There are plenty of approaches you could take depending on your app. Not all scripts are equal in the sense that one may be executing a core feature while another is simply a nice-to-have. You’ll have to ask yourself:

  • Who is the script serving?
  • When is it served?
  • Where is it served from?
  • What is it serving?

Then, depending on your answers, you have plenty of options for how to optimize your long tasks:

Or, nuke any scripts that might no longer be needed!

Reduce Processing Time

Let’s say the user’s input triggers a heavy task, and you need to serve a bunch of JavaScript in response — heavy enough that you know a second or two is needed for the app to fully process the update.

Reduce Presentation Delay

Reducing the time it takes for the presentation is really about reducing the time it takes the browser to display updates to the UI, paint styles, and do all of the calculations needed to produce the layout.

Of course, this is entirely dependent on the complexity of the page. That said, there are a few things to consider to help decrease the gap between when an interaction’s callbacks have finished running and when the browser is able to paint the resulting visual changes.

One thing is being mindful of the overall size of the DOM. The bigger the DOM, the more HTML that needs to be processed. That’s generally true, at least, even though the relationship between DOM size and rendering isn’t exactly 1:1; the browser still needs to work harder to render a larger DOM on the initial page load and when there’s a change on the page. That link will take you to a deep explanation of what contributes to the DOM size, how to measure it, and approaches for reducing it. The gist, though, is trying to maintain a flat structure (i.e., limit the levels of nested elements). Additionally, reviewing your CSS for overly complex selectors is another piece of low-hanging fruit to help move things along.

While we’re talking about CSS, you might consider looking into the content-visibility property and how it could possibly help reduce presentation delay. It comes with a lot of considerations, but if used effectively, it can provide the browser with a hint as far as which elements to defer fully rendering. The idea is that we can render an element’s layout containment but skip the paint until other resources have loaded. Chris Coyier explains how and why that happens, and there are aspects of accessibility to bear in mind.

And remember, if you’re outputting HTML from JavaScript, that JavaScript will have to load in order for the HTML to render. That’s a potential cost that comes with many single-page application frameworks.

Gain Insight On Your Real User INP Breakdown

The tools we’ve looked at so far can help you look at specific interactions, especially when testing them on your own computer. But how close is that to what your actual visitors experience?

Real user-monitoring (RUM) lets you track how responsive your website is in the real world:

  • What pages have the slowest INP?
  • What INP components have the biggest impact in real life?
  • What page elements do users interact with most often?
  • How fast is the average interaction for a given element?
  • Is our website less responsive for users in different countries?
  • Are our INP scores getting better or worse over time?

There are many RUM solutions out there, and DebugBear RUM is one of them.

DebugBear also supports the proposed Long Animation Frames API that can help you identify the source code that’s responsible for CPU tasks in the browser.

Conclusion

When Interaction to Next Paint makes its official debut as a Core Web Vital in March 2024, we’re gaining a better way to measure a page’s responsiveness to user interactions that is set to replace the First Input Delay metric.

Rather than looking at the input delay of the first interaction on the page, we get a high-definition evaluation of the least responsive component on the page — including the input delay, processing time, and presentation delay — whether it’s the first interaction or another one located way down the page. In other words, INP is a clearer and more accurate way to measure the speed of user interactions.

Will your app be ready for the change in March 2024? You now have a roadmap to help optimize your user interactions and prepare ahead of time as well as all of the tools you need, including a quick, free option from the team over at DebugBear. This is the time to get a jump on the work; otherwise, you could find yourself with unidentified interactions that exceed the 500ms threshold for a “passing” INP score that negatively impacts your search engine rankings… and user experiences.

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How to make WordPress GDPR-compliant

December 7th, 2023 No comments

What Is GDPR?

GDPR(General Data Protection Regulation)  is a set of European regulations designed to protect your data. It gives you control over how your data is used and ensures that businesses handle it by stringent guidelines. Before using your data, they must obtain your consent and notify you in case of a data leak. Businesses that violate these regulations risk incurring hefty fines. These guidelines apply to any business, regardless of location, that handles information from individuals in Europe. Similar to a global norm, GDPR protects the privacy of your data.

The Importance of GDPR Compliance in the Digital Age

Following through with GDPR is becoming increasingly crucial. These regulations benefit the public and businesses by protecting people’s privacy. By abiding by these guidelines, everyone’s information is kept secure.

  • GDPR requires companies to disclose to customers how they gather and use personal data. Customers will grow to trust you as a result.
  • GDPR is a crucial web security undertaking that forces companies to take great care of customer data. This increases the security of online information and helps to prevent data breaches.
  • GDPR increases your control over personal data. You have the option to view, edit, or even remove it.
  • Despite coming from the EU, GDPR is mandatory for any international business handling the data of EU individuals. So it’s akin to an international law.
  • Businesses that violate GDPR risk facing steep fines. Thus, to stay out of difficulty, firms must abide by these guidelines.

In essence, GDPR compliance is not just a legal obligation but also a commitment to ethical data practices in today’s interconnected world.

Does the GDPR Apply to My WordPress Website? 

Whether the GDPR applies to your WordPress website depends largely on your audience and data handling practices.

  • Audience Location: If your website caters to users from the European Union, regardless of your location, GDPR applies.
  • Data Collection: Collecting personal data like names, email addresses, or IP addresses from EU citizens means GDPR is applicable.
  • E-Commerce: For WordPress sites involved in various services, including e-commerce, GDPR compliance becomes essential.
  • Plugins and Analytics:  Installing WordPress plugins or analytics tools that gather user data and also bring your website under the interest of GDPR.
  • Global Standard: Given its broad scope, many businesses opt for GDPR compliance as a global standard for data privacy and protection.

In summary, if your WordPress website interacts with EU citizens or collects any form of personal data, GDPR compliance becomes crucial to avoid potential legal and financial repercussions.

Requirements of GDPR for Websites

A set of regulations for websites is the GDPR. To protect your information, they must abide by these guidelines. It functions similarly to a to-do list for websites, keeping your personal information safe from tampering or disclosure. Your online secrets are protected by these guidelines.

  • Unambiguous consent must be obtained from users before collecting, processing, or storing their data. This includes WordPress cookies and email subscriptions.
  • It should be clear on websites how they gather, utilize, and distribute your personal information.
  • Collect only the data that is necessary for the intended purpose.
  • Users have the right to access, rectify, erase, or port their data. Websites must facilitate these rights.
  • Implement strong security measures to protect data from breaches. This includes secure storage and encrypted data transfers.
  • In case of a data breach, affected users and relevant authorities must be notified within 72 hours.
  • Appoint a DPO (Data Protection Officer)  if your website processes large amounts of data or sensitive information.
  • Ensure that any third-party processors you use are also GDPR compliant.
  • Obtain parental consent for processing data of children under the age of 16 (or lower, depending on the member state).

Adhering to these requirements helps ensure that your website is compliant with GDPR, thereby enhancing user trust and avoiding potential legal consequences.

Who Is Subject to GDPR?

GDPR functions similarly to a set of guidelines for companies handling names and addresses or other personally identifiable information. It instructs them on how to protect that confidential information. For instance, companies need individuals’ permission before using personal data, and they have to remove it from their systems when it’s no longer required.

  • Any business based in the European Union, regardless of where the data processing occurs, falls under GDPR.
  • Companies outside the EU are subject to GDPR if they offer goods or services to, or monitor the behavior of, EU residents.
  • Applies across all sectors, from tech companies to retail, healthcare, and beyond.
  • Both entities that control data (decide how and why data is processed) and those that process data on behalf of controllers are included.
  • Websites that collect data from EU residents, including personal blogs, e-commerce sites, and social networks, must comply.

In essence, GDPR casts a wide net, encompassing virtually any organization that handles the personal data of individuals within the EU, regardless of the organization’s location.

Primary Rights Under GDPR 

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) grants several primary rights to individuals regarding their data. Understanding these rights is crucial for both individuals and organizations handling personal data:

  • Right to Access: Individuals have the right to access their data and obtain information about how this data is processed.
  • Right to Rectification: This allows individuals to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
  • Right to Erasure (Right to be Forgotten): Individuals can request the deletion of their data in certain circumstances.
  • Right to Restrict Processing: Under certain conditions, individuals can request that the processing of their data be restricted.
  • Right to Data Portability: This right allows individuals to receive their data in a structured, commonly used format, and to transfer that data to another controller.
  • Right to Object: Individuals can object to the processing of their data for specific purposes, including direct marketing.
  • Rights about Automated Decision Making and Profiling: Individuals have the right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which have legal or similarly significant effects on them.
  • Right to Lodge a Complaint: Individuals can complain to a supervisory authority if they feel that the processing of their data violates GDPR.

People now have more control over their online personal information thanks to these rights, which are crucial for maintaining their privacy. To stay out of legal hot water and maintain the confidence of their clientele, businesses must abide by these regulations.

Making Your WordPress Site GDPR Compliant: Practical Steps 

Making your WordPress site GDPR compliant involves several practical steps to ensure you’re handling personal data responsibly and legally.

Update WordPress and Themes

  • Regular Updates: Keep WordPress, themes, and plugins updated. The latest versions often include important security patches and features for data protection.
  • Compatibility Check: Ensure that updates are compatible with GDPR requirements. Some themes and plugins might not be compliant, necessitating a switch to those that prioritize privacy.

Use GDPR-Compliant Plugins

  • Privacy-Focused Plugins: Install WordPress plugins designed with GDPR in mind to prioritize user privacy and data protection.
  • Data Handling: Plugins that process personal data should offer clear information about their data handling practices.
  • Regular Audits: Regularly review your plugins for GDPR compliance, as standards and regulations may change over time.

Add Opt-ins for Forms and Newsletters

  • Clear Consent: Add clear opt-in mechanisms for forms and newsletters. Users should actively consent to data collection and usage, and this process should be documented.
  • Cookie Consent: Implement a cookie consent tool. This lets users choose which cookies they allow, aligning with GDPR’s emphasis on informed consent.
  • Transparency in Forms: Ensure that forms on your website explicitly state what the data is for and how it will be used.

You must protect the data of your users. You can accomplish that and gain their trust by doing the things listed above. Make sure you routinely evaluate and improve your practices.

Key WordPress-Specific Considerations 

In the context of WordPress, there are specific considerations to keep in mind, particularly regarding privacy policy updates and handling analytics and cookies.

Privacy Policy Updates

  • Regular Reviews: Regularly review and update your privacy policy to reflect current data handling practices.
  • WordPress Tools: Utilize WordPress’s built-in tools to create or update a privacy policy, ensuring it covers all aspects of data collection and usage.
  • Transparency: Clearly articulate how and why personal data is collected, stored, and used on your WordPress site.

Handling Analytics and Cookies

  • Consent for Cookies: Implement a system to obtain explicit consent from users for cookie usage, in line with GDPR’s requirements for informed consent.
  • Analytic Tools Compliance: Ensure that any analytics tools used are compliant with GDPR. This often involves anonymizing IP addresses and providing users with the option to opt-out.
  • Cookie Policy: Include a detailed cookie policy on your site, explaining what cookies are used for and how users can control them.

These WordPress-specific considerations are essential in maintaining GDPR compliance. They not only address legal requirements but also enhance user trust and website integrity in the digital realm. Regular updates and transparency in these areas are key to effective data protection and privacy management on a WordPress site.

Protecting User Data and Handling Breaches (200 words)

Protecting user data and efficiently handling breaches are critical components of data management and privacy.

Data Security Measures

It is essential for ensuring user data security. When transferring and storing data, use robust encryption techniques to protect critical information. This ensures that access is restricted to those who are permitted.

Do thorough security audits regularly to find and fix any vulnerabilities in your system. A robust defense against potential breaches is maintained with the aid of these audits.

Strict access control procedures should be used to limit access to sensitive information. Keep admittance to authorized staff only and prohibit unauthorized individuals from entering.

Observe the data reduction principle. Only gather information that is necessary for the goals you have in mind. This lowers the possible impact in the event of a breach by limiting the amount of sensitive information kept.

Procedures for Data Breach Notifications

  • Incident Response Plan: Have a detailed incident response plan in place for data breaches, outlining steps to take when a breach occurs.
  • Timely Notification: In case of a data breach, GDPR mandates notifying the relevant authorities within 72 hours. Affected users should also be informed promptly.
  • Documenting Breaches: Keep a record of any data breaches, including the effects and the remedial actions taken.

Trust-building and legal compliance both depend on user data protection. In today’s digital environment, robust security measures and well-defined breach-handling procedures are essential.

Additional GDPR Tips for WordPress Sites

For WordPress sites navigating GDPR compliance, here are additional tips to enhance data privacy and security:

  • Conduct regular website audits to identify what personal data you’re collecting and ensure it’s being handled securely and legally.
  • Ensure clear user consent mechanisms are in place, especially for cookies and subscription forms. Users should explicitly agree to the collection and use of their data.
  • If using third-party services (like email marketing tools), ensure they are GDPR compliant and set up Data Processing Agreements with them.
  • Adopt a data minimization approach. Collect only the data that is necessary.
  • Facilitate users’ rights under GDPR, such as the right to access, rectify, or delete their data.
  • Use SSL encryption to protect data transmission on your site.
  • Educate your team about GDPR compliance to ensure everyone understands their role in protecting user data.

Implementing these tips can significantly bolster your WordPress site’s GDPR compliance, safeguarding user data and reinforcing your site’s credibility and trustworthiness in the digital realm.

In conclusion, ensuring your WordPress site is GDPR compliant is a crucial aspect of managing a digital presence responsibly in today’s data-driven world. From understanding what GDPR is and its significance to applying its principles specifically to WordPress, this guide has covered essential facets of compliance. 

It extends further only following the law to ensure that we adhere to GDPR. Gaining confidence, protecting people’s privacy, and guaranteeing data security are equally important. We must take concrete actions to achieve this, such as upgrading our WordPress themes, utilizing compliant plugins, and putting robust data security mechanisms in place. When using the internet, these items provide people with a sense of security and confidence.

FAQ’s

1. How do I update my WordPress privacy policy for GDPR?

  • To update your WordPress privacy policy for GDPR, start by reviewing your current policy to ensure it accurately reflects your data collection and processing activities. Use WordPress’s privacy policy guide as a framework. Your policy should clearly state what data you collect, why it’s collected, how it’s used, and users’ rights regarding their data. Include information on cookies, third-party data sharing, and how users can access or delete their data. Regular updates are necessary to reflect changes in data practices or regulations.

2. What plugins can I use to make my WordPress site GDPR compliant?

  • There are several plugins available to help make your WordPress site GDPR-compliant. For consent management, consider using plugins like ‘CookieYes’, ‘GDPR Cookie Consent’, or ‘Complianz’. Tools like ‘WP GDPR Compliance’ or ‘Data443’ are useful for handling personal data requests. These plugins assist in automating consent management, handling data access requests, and ensuring your site complies with GDPR’s cookie policy requirements. Always ensure that any plugin you use is up-to-date and well-supported.

3. How do I handle user data requests under GDPR?

  • Under GDPR, handling user data requests involves several steps. Firstly, verify the identity of the person making the request to ensure data security. WordPress offers tools to facilitate this process, like the ‘Export Personal Data’ and ‘Erase Personal Data’ tools under the Tools section. Respond to requests within one month, providing the user with a copy of their data in a readable format, or erasing their data if requested. Keep a log of requests and actions taken to maintain compliance records.

Featured image by Freepik

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Why Your Business Should Focus on Employee-Generated Content

December 7th, 2023 No comments

Audience and brand loyalty are invaluable in today’s competitive business landscape. Your business’s reputation and profitability are at the mercy of your customer relationships. So, you’re smart to constantly seek ways to deepen customer connections. 

Employee-generated content (EGC) can be a game-changer in this regard. EGC is any content crafted by employees and shared on their social media pages and other digital platforms about their work experiences and expertise. 

Quality EGC gives you something else to share with customers that incites an emotional connection with your brand. In addition, it can have a profound effect on your internal processes and employees. 

Let’s explore why prioritizing EGC is a must and how businesses can get their employees to create and share EGC consistently. 

Why EGC Should Be a Priority for Businesses 

According to Sociabble, “98%?of employees use at least one social media site for personal use, of which 50 percent are already posting about their company.” 

Most of your employees are already on social media talking about their work days, what they do for a living, and the company. In addition, there are millions of websites and podcasts out right now. Many of your employees could have their own blogs or podcasts disclosing their work experiences as well. 

So, whether you’re leveraging it or not, what they’re sharing on their social media platforms, blogs, podcasts, and other digital platforms about work is impacting how others view your company and what actions they take with it. 

In addition, by not collecting and using EGC, you’re missing out on opportunities to elevate your business internally. 

EGC should be a priority for businesses for these three main reasons:  

Give customers more reasons to love your business

Some people only need to know you have great products at affordable prices to move forward with purchases. However, many others need more to convince them that your business is worth their money and loyalty. 

For example, how you treat your employees could be the deciding factor for a lot of consumers. Many won’t support a business that treats its employees poorly. 

Conversely, if a company can prove how well it treats its employees, it’ll help customers form a positive perception of the business that ultimately inspires purchases and brand interactions. 

For instance, a lack of work-life balance can cause employees a lot of harm. They can’t show their personal responsibilities and passions the attention they deserve because they’re burnt out. 

Long hours can also negatively impact their physical health, including their oral health. Stress can cause employees to grind their teeth, wearing down enamel. They won’t be able to fight off gum disease as efficiently. And they may be so worn out they can’t make dentist appointments. 

Many companies may fail to provide their employees with the work-life balance they need to avoid poor health and life outcomes. You, on the other hand, can show your commitment to helping your employees maintain a healthy work-life balance thanks to EGC.

Whether through vlogs of work-from-home days or posts praising the flexible scheduling options, your employees can show customers they’re well taken care of, giving consumers more reasons to love your business.

Get valuable insights into your company’s processes 

As great as EGC is for bettering customer relationships, it can also be a valuable tool for gathering insights about your internal processes. 

It’s never fun to hear employees express issues with their work experience, especially when you’re hearing about them for the first time on a podcast episode or blog post. Even if they’re just saying, ‘I wish this was better at work,’ you can restructure your processes so that they better support employees when you have this information. 

Continuous process improvement is essential because:

  • Better processes equal happier, more productive employees
  • It streamlines technology implementation
  • It helps you identify and solve hidden bottlenecks
  • You can take advantage of opportunities in your market faster
  • You can determine whether or not what you’re currently doing accommodates growth
  • Customer satisfaction improves because you can fulfill orders more efficiently, respond faster, and serve consistently 

Actively seek out the content employees are creating that expresses concerns and shares the suggestions they have for making things better in your company. You can use it to make more informed decisions about how to improve. 

Deepen employee relationships 

You can empower your employees and make them feel valued by encouraging them to share content that reflects their experiences, insights, and expertise, so long as your efforts are genuine and about more than profit. 

We say that last part because your employees know when you’re asking them to do something as a means to an end, like asking them to share positive work experiences just to enhance recruitment efforts. 

Yes, that’s an important goal for EGC. However, you want to collect EGC for meaningful purposes, such as trying to amplify employee voices and create a better work environment for them.

Your employees will be more likely to create EGC when they know it’s for something significant. Not only that, your relationships with them will get stronger as you implement their suggestions and they see you’re actually listening. 

How to Encourage Employees to Create and Share EGC

EGC can be influential in a business once you get ahold of it. The key phrase there is once you get ahold of it. Getting employees to create and share EGC can be difficult for a few reasons: 

  1. Employees may be concerned about the consequences that come with being honest
  2. They may not know what good EGC looks like or how to create it 
  3. It may not seem worthwhile to spend time crafting EGC 

Addressing these three things is a good start if you want to encourage your employees to create and share EGC regularly. 

You don’t want your employees bashing your business online. However, you do want them to be honest about their work experiences and authentic in their content. 

Reassure your employees that you want truthfulness. Let them know there won’t be consequences for sharing their story respectfully. But set the expectation that they come to you with serious complaints or concerns first and not their online platforms. 

EGC guidelines would help with point number two. You can share good examples of EGC that your employees can reference when creating their own content. Explain what isn’t appropriate to share online. Detail how to make the best content

You can also make a repository for visuals, messaging, and templates your employees can use to simplify the creation process. 

Finally, you can give your employees the push they need to create and share EGC by offering incentives. For example, you could have employees rack up points for every piece of EGC they publish. Whoever gets the most points at the end of the quarter gets a gift card to their favorite place.

It will take some time to get the ball rolling with EGC. However, it’s worth the effort for what EGC can bring to your business.

Featured image by fauxels

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Five-Second Testing: Taking A Closer Look At First Impressions (Case Study)

December 6th, 2023 No comments

In today’s world of shortening attention spans and omnipresent hustle, wasting even a second could mean losing the chance to earn more time from a person you want to impress. If your interests lie in creating good user experiences, there is a fair chance you have heard of five-second testing.

Five-second testing is an established technique of usability research used by UX researchers, designers, product managers, and in a variety of other professions, such as marketing or business analysis.

In short, you show a picture of whatever you are designing (site, app, pair of socks) to a member of your intended audience for exactly five seconds. Then, you hide the picture and ask the participant a couple of questions. The goal is to learn whether the reaction — the participants’s first impression — is what you wanted to see. Did you get the main message across? Do people remember the company’s name? Sounds like an efficient way to test your product without needing to turn to full-on usability testing, right?

Note: The word “participant” in this article is used to refer to users involved in five-second testing or related usability research methods. The word “user” is used in more general contexts since users form first impressions all the time, not just when you are testing it.

Why is it five seconds exactly, though? Are five seconds some magical moment when everything we see should become clear? And if it does not, does it automatically mean that a user experience is bad? Or are five seconds just the right amount of time for first impressions to brew in the user’s mind so that they’re neither undercooked nor overcooked?

These are some of the questions that we asked ourselves. Not satisfied with the answers written by others who covered the topic before us, we kept drilling and conducted an actual peer-reviewed scientific case study, exploring the hidden truths behind the testing of first impressions. The research paper examines the five-second test and discusses the results.

So strap in and read what science has to say about five-second testing. And then, what the implications are for you so that you can take practical advantage of this new knowledge to develop better first impressions of your services or products. But first, let us delve into what we know about five-second testing and its caveats so that you see the greater picture of the focal points of our investigation.

The Mythos Of Five Seconds And Its Gaps

You may be familiar with the well-known statistic that a website has about ten seconds to communicate its key message to the user. Knowing that waiting only five seconds to ask testing participants about their first impressions may suddenly seem like an odd choice. If indeed visitors of a website have about ten seconds to grasp a message, are five seconds really enough time for users? There is an alleged justification, as we explain below.

Cutting a bit forward, though, the factual basis for it is admittedly a bit of a Wild West if you look for hard data to support it. There is an almost uncanny resemblance to another not wholly scientific five-second rule that says it’s okay to eat food off the ground if it’s within five seconds from when it dropped there.

The five-second testing method has its origins as a simplification of usability testing. The first references to five-second testing point to Christine Perfetti, who coined the term for the method in the mid-2000s. The answer to “Why five seconds exactly?” comes largely from anecdotal evidence in the form of the experience of usability researchers.

The common story is that if something is shown to participants for more than five seconds, their first impressions will start to deviate from the actual user’s genuine initial impressions. The participant’s perspective becomes more analytical and less task-driven. The five-second test lets you avoid overtly speculative feedback that nobody would give you under normal circumstances.

Fair enough, that could potentially be true. But five seconds is still quite a short period of time. Consider how different people can be when it comes to their cognitive abilities (and there is nothing wrong with that). For example, one user’s sharp perception may let them realistically form first impressions in five seconds or faster, but another user may barely have the time to blink, much less absorb any meaningful information–they need a moment to take it in at their own tempo.

The reasoning starts to fall apart a bit more at its seams once you also consider the visual complexity of the stimulus (a.k.a., the picture you show to the participants). The nature of the things you may want to test can range from very simple to very complex. If the stimulus is simple, it is possible to take even less than five seconds for participants to form their initial impressions. Would this mean that there would be the risk of them using the remaining time to get over-exceedingly analytical?

Conversely, there is the question of whether five seconds is enough time to let participants realistically visually scan a more complex stimulus. I can already hear staunch proponents of five-second testing saying that this last discrepancy is actually rightfully intentional. It’s a feature, not a bug, if you will.

After all, if a stimulus is too complex, that is exactly why you conduct five-second testing. It allows us to find out about things like complexity. It can help you find out if participants cannot extract the key information you want to communicate so that you can fix it.

However, we need to consider that not all user interfaces are the landing pages of websites. They serve to support different user tasks, some of which cannot avoid having a certain degree of complexity.

Five-second testing guides typically avoid directly addressing testing of these types of user interfaces by saying that the method has the following limitation: it should not be used to test user interfaces with multiple purposes. If the same stimulus serves for more than one task, it is alleged that you should probably conduct full-fledged usability testing, which is technically correct (the best kind of correct).

Giving up on the five-second testing in the inherently more complex user interfaces, however, also gives up on its advantages for measuring and optimizing first impressions. For instance, the idea that a screenshot or a mockup is all you need to quickly find usability problems and iterate your designs. This is where five-second testing really shines.

Usability testing does not tell you accurately what the actual first impressions are without considerably interrupting the participant. And even then, you would encounter the same problem: At what moment from when the participant is exposed to a design should their first impressions be gauged so that they are genuine?

As we have discussed so far, there are certainly a fair number of question marks surrounding five-second testing. The method still undeniably has a number of merits, as proven by our experience at UXtweak, where we also provide our own Five Second Test tool. A lack of proper research on the topic is what drove us at UXtweak Research to conduct our very own case study.

The Science, Abridged

Essentially, what we sought to investigate in our case study are the relations of a number of key factors that are absolutely crucial for five-second testing:

  • What are the cognitive abilities of the participant engaging in the five-second test?
  • How visually complex is the stimulus shown to the participant?
  • For how long is the stimulus shown to the participant?
  • What kinds of questions do we ask the participants afterward?
  • What is the feedback that participants give you?

As you may have noticed, time — that iconic yet controversial five-second threshold — is considered a variable factor. In our experiment, we investigate the differences in feedback between three separate groups of participants who are shown pictures for either five (5) or alternatively two (2) or (10) seconds (so a bit less and a bit more time, respectively). This means that it would not be correct to refer to it as just a five-second test anymore, but rather an N-second test (or a first impression test, if you do not wish to be too pedantic about the number of seconds).

Each participant first passes not just one but two cognitive ability tests. Human minds are multifaceted, and there is not just a single “cognitive ability” metric that would encompass everything that the mind can do. Among standard tests used by psychologists, we picked two that are linked to abilities that can be found as the most relevant to the formation and testing of first impressions:

  • Perceptual speed: How quickly you pick up visual information.
  • Working memory: How much information you can mentally process at the same time.

Working memory is the appropriate memory ability to focus on since it operates with information that receives the user’s attention. This distinguishes it from sensory memory (the memory processing information that our senses pick up) and long-term memory, where information is stored persistently for later use.

For the first impression test itself, six website screenshots were used as the stimuli. These screenshots were selected for possessing a broad range of visual complexity, from the simplest with just a few visual elements to the most complex with a number of distinct sections that serve different purposes.

Screenshots of real websites local to Czechia and Slovakia were translated into English, and their logos were replaced with fictional brand names so that, for all intents and purposes, the website screenshots would be authentic yet also unfamiliar to the participants who were recruited in the UK.

Finally, participants were asked to provide feedback by answering practically a complete portfolio of the various types of questions that can be typically asked during a first impression test. Each type of question tests a different aspect of the first impressions that the participants have formed inside their heads:

  • Attitudinal questions: Rating a perceived quality of the website (e.g., ugly vs. attractive) on a scale from 1 to 7.
  • Target identification questions: Questions directed at specific elements or aspects of the stimulus.
  • Memory dump questions: Asking participants to describe everything that they remember about what they saw.

The resulting answers were analyzed both quantitatively (with statistics) and qualitatively (by inspecting the contents of the received answers on an individual level). With it, a number of conclusions can be reached, some expected and some rather surprising.

Now that you have a picture of what our case study was about let’s dive into the actual, interesting implications for developing the first impressions of your product.

Note: If you would like to immerse yourself in further details of how our case study was conducted, you can learn more in our scientific paper.

Takeaways

Statistically, all the variables we experimented with — the time duration of showing pictures to participants, the participants’ innate cognitive abilities, and the visual complexity of pictures — had a significant effect on the first impression answers.

For instance, between the groups that were shown screenshots of websites for two, five, and ten seconds, the number of answers that incorrectly identified what the websites were for dropped as time progressed. Notable is the difference between five and ten seconds. If the participants were really focusing on inconsequential details after five seconds, there should not be differences in recognition of such a key aspect as the website’s entire purpose.

Statistical differences lay the grounds for further observations on how changing the conditions of a test can (or cannot) affect its results:

  • Attitudes crystallize faster than in five seconds.
    In attitudinal questions where participants are asked to rate how they view the picture’s various qualities (e.g., from clear to confusing, from captivating to dull), answers stay relatively consistent, regardless of how much time the participant has or how good their cognitive abilities are. If you are laser-focused on assessing participants’ attitudes about your product and nothing else, you could present pictures for two seconds, or possibly even less, as research done by others on a related topic also implies.
  • Logos are recognized earlier than in five seconds (with one exception).
    The target identification questions where participants are asked to recall the company name from the logo are, on the whole, impacted by time very little. This is to be expected: when viewing a website, our eyes are usually drawn to the top left corner to find out where we have found ourselves. There is an exception to this rule, however.
    Among participants with slower perceptual speed, significantly fewer identified the company name correctly at two seconds when compared to five seconds. This establishes five seconds as a more inclusive choice for timing your first impression test if you expect your target audience to have, on average, lower perceptual speed than the general populace and if the primary aim is to test contents of the header, such as logo design or company name identification. Otherwise, two seconds is a safe bet.
  • Irrelevant nitpicking? Yes, if visual complexity is low.
    In some cases, the popular narrative about five seconds being a good viewing time for testing first impressions is indeed true. Particularly for the simplest website screenshots, once five seconds have elapsed, participants start paying attention to minute details (e.g., the girl’s shirt color in the hero image).
    Curiously, though, having more time does not mean that participants would write longer or more complex answers. Instead, when participants have ten seconds to view the screenshots, the higher visual complexity of the screenshots is reflected in better-quality answers. Participants stay more on-topic–describing how the site is visually structured or justifying their criticisms of the page’s design. Different viewing times may be optimal in different situations. Especially since…
  • Low working memory warrants longer viewing time.
    When asked to reiterate what they saw in their own words, participants with low and high working memory provided significantly different answers. With low working memory, answers become shorter, less complex, and recall fewer concepts overall. However, when the viewing time is extended to ten seconds, these differences disappear. This implies that the same information is being processed — memory capacity just dictates how fast it can happen.
    Without knowing where each participant’s memory ability stands, it is difficult to tell what they would actually recall if we left them to work at their own pace. Consequently, assessment of working memory before testing first impressions (and adjusting viewing time accordingly) should be considered a good practice.
  • For cognitive powerhouses, five seconds are enough.
    A less practical point maybe, but if you are developing an app for people with reasonably high perceptual speed and working memory — be it the mentally gifted, hyperproductive hustle enthusiasts, or caffeine addicts — you could likely show them your screenshots for just two seconds and get similar results as in a five-second test.
  • Give participants the proper amount of time to form a first impression.
    When the visual stimulus is more visually complex in a first impression test, the task of mentally processing it becomes more difficult and time-consuming (just like in any normal scenario). This manifests in test results. Fewer people correctly identify the purpose of a more visually complex website, and they recall fewer elements and aspects of the website.
    This could be seen as a bit of a paradox since more complex stimuli mean there is actually more content that participants could potentially remember and comment on, but only if they had the time to absorb the information properly. Data shows that when participants are given ten seconds, the answers do actually normalize, becoming more similar to stimuli of lower visual complexity.

If the purpose of the particular first impression test is not to remove all visual complexity at any cost outright, we would suggest adjusting the viewing time to reflect the visual complexity of the stimulus.

Keep in mind there are still aspects of first impression testing that remain unknown. A reasonable question that you can ask now would be: “Okay, so how exactly do I time my first impression test?” While we can sum up our observations into a conceptual framework of how time can be treated in first-impression test planning, it is not an exact guideline; there may be other interpretations or exceptions.

Take this more as an eye-opener and a call to action. Indeed, in our study, ten seconds yielded more appropriate results for more complex websites than five seconds did. But there is nothing to say that for other websites, the best timing could not be fifteen or even twenty seconds. Even more so, once you also factor in the influence of the cognitive ability of each individual participant.

The key takeaway? When you gauge your audience’s first impressions about something, take a more holistic approach.

Consider your goals for your test. What kind of questions do you want to ask? Use some of the tools that are available to measure the visual complexity of the pictures that you want to present. Give your participants a short working memory test before you start bombarding them with pictures and questions.

Try to adjust the timing in your first impression test to match the situation. To give an analogy, by blindly following a different five-second rule and eating off the floor, you could end up getting sick. Be just as cautious about relying on myths in your usability research methods. This is not to discount five seconds. As we show, it is still good timing for first impression tests in plenty of cases, but it is not the be-all and end-all as far as first impression testing goes. By broadening your perspective, you can do even better.

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How to Master the Art of Building An LMS Website

December 5th, 2023 No comments

Ever imagined learning could be so easy?

Like you’re learning from your own home. Maybe some of us thought about it. However, it was not that easy for everyone before. The Internet has become our blessing to shower us with this newfound opportunity. As people started building their online presence through websites. Then the rise of WordPress, a popular Content Management System (CMS), made it more popular. 

Everyone can easily create their websites and share their content with their audiences. 

In this blog, we’ll explore the concept of LMS and delve into the benefits of LMS website online courses.  Furthermore, we will discuss the key elements that can help you save valuable time and expenses. Not only this, how this can enhance your skill assessment, and promote ongoing learning and skill advancement.

What is a Learning Management System (LMS)

Before diving deep, let’s discuss the concept of LMS. As already mentioned, LMS refers to a Learning Management System. This is a software application or web-based platform designed to facilitate the administration, documentation, tracking, and delivery of educational courses or training programs. 

LMSs are used in various settings, including schools, universities, businesses, and other organizations to manage and organize learning content, track learner progress, and administer assessments.

Benefits of Online Courses and LMS Sites

When the questions come about creating any websites, we have to think about their benefits for both the audience and for owners.

Building an LMS site and online courses offers numerous benefits like making education more accessible and flexible for a diverse range of learners. If you’re a teacher then you can provide convenience by allowing your students to access materials and lectures from anywhere with an internet connection. This can help eliminate the need for physical attendance.

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 This flexibility is particularly advantageous for individuals with busy schedules, working professionals, or those with geographical constraints.

Secondly, online courses often offer a self-paced learning environment, enabling students to progress at their own speed. This personalized approach can help students with various learning styles. It allows everyone to delve deeper into complex topics or review material as needed. 

Online courses frequently offer various subjects, allowing learners to explore diverse fields of interest beyond traditional academic boundaries.

Moreover, the interactive nature of online platforms fosters a collaborative learning experience. Students can engage in discussions, share perspectives, and collaborate on projects, enhancing their understanding through diverse viewpoints.

Furthermore, online courses often come with cost benefits, as they eliminate expenses related to commuting, textbooks, and sometimes even tuition fees. This affordability expands educational opportunities to a broader audience, promoting inclusivity and lifelong learning. 

Overall,  online courses empower individuals with the flexibility, accessibility, and affordability needed to pursue education in a dynamic and interconnected world.

Why WordPress is Important for LMS Sites

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WordPress is now moving forward with its unique functionality day by day. Statistics show, There are approximately 810 Million websites built since the inception of WordPress.

The reasons behind this is the flexibility and time-saving. There are various reasons behind creating an LMS website in WordPress. If you’re a tutor then building an LMS website in WordPress can provide you with the following benefits-

Unified Learning Center

If you wish to create an LMS website then this can serve as a Unified Learning Center. You may wonder how.

It helps you bring diverse educational resources, materials, and activities into a cohesive digital space. This centralization brings up a seamless learning experience for both educators and learners. It helps promote collaboration and interaction.

Versatility and Expandability

The versatility of the LMS website,  allows you to integrate various multimedia elements, such as videos, quizzes, and discussion forums. 

With this LMS site, you can expand to accommodate a growing user base and evolving educational needs. You can also make them scalable and adaptable to changing requirements.

Improved Educational Engagement

One of the primary benefits of online courses is the enhanced engagement they offer. When you create an LMS website, it facilitates interactive learning through features like discussion boards, live chats, and collaborative projects. 

This engagement helps foster a sense of community. It also improves comprehension and retention of the course material.

Streamlined Administration and Monitoring

Efficient administration and monitoring are critical for the success of online courses. LMS automates administrative tasks, such as enrollment, grading, and progress tracking. 

Anyone can reduce the workload on educators and ensure a more organized and systematic approach to course management.

Saving Time and Expenses

LMS brings about significant time and cost savings. Traditional classroom setups often involve logistical challenges and overhead costs. 

With online courses powered by WordPress LMS, it can help you reach a global audience without the need for physical infrastructure, saving both time and expenses.

Skill Assessment and Performance Oversight

WordPress LMS provides tools for assessing learners’ skills and monitoring their performance. Through quizzes, assignments, and real-time progress tracking, educators can gain valuable insights into individual strengths and areas that need improvement. 

This data-driven approach allows users an independent and personalized learning experience.

Ongoing Learning and Skill Advancement

The learning journey doesn’t end with course completion. LMS facilitates ongoing learning and skill advancement through features like continuous assessment, certification programs, and access to supplementary resources. 

This ensures that learners stay relevant in their fields and continue to develop their skills. 

Build a Successful LMS Course Using WordPress Plugins

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For those looking to create a dynamic and user-friendly LMS course, WordPress plugins can be a game-changer. 

These plugins can provide additional functionalities, customization options, and seamless integration with the WordPress platform. 

Before starting this, you need to focus on some important basics. This could help you create a successful LMS website to share knowledge.

Focus on your LMS 

There are different ways you can create an LMS website. Before creating, you have to decide if you will start a free LMS website or a Premium Course site. 

If you’re thinking of creating a premium plugin then you should go for some free topics. It will attract your audience in the long run. Then you can go for some free or premium plugins.

Build a Structure for your WordPress LMS Website

Building a well-structured WordPress LMS (Learning Management System) site is a critical step in creating an effective and user-friendly online learning experience. A thoughtfully organized structure not only enhances the overall navigation but also contributes to a positive learning environment. Here are key considerations when building the structure for your WordPress LMS website:

Clear Course Categories

   Organize your courses into clear and intuitive categories. Whether it’s by subject, difficulty level, or any other relevant criterion, clear categorization helps students quickly find the courses they’re interested in.

Logical Course Progression

   Consider the logical progression of your courses. Arrange them in a way that makes sense for learners to follow, ensuring a smooth flow from basic to advanced topics. This helps students build a strong foundation before moving on to more complex subjects.

 Intuitive Navigation Menu

Design an intuitive navigation menu that prominently features essential sections such as Home, Courses, About, and Contact. Make it easy for visitors to explore your LMS website and access the information they need without confusion.

Engaging Homepage

Your homepage is the first impression visitors get of your LMS website. Create an engaging homepage that highlights featured courses, upcoming events, or any special promotions. Always use compelling visuals and concise text to capture attention and encourage exploration.

Individual Course Pages

Provide detailed information for each course on the dedicated page. Don’t forget to include a course description, learning objectives, instructor details, and any prerequisites. 

Additionally, offer a clear enrollment or registration button for easy access.

User-Friendly Dashboard

For enrolled students, create a user-friendly dashboard where they can easily access their courses, track progress, view grades, and access any additional resources. 

A clean and organized dashboard enhances the overall user experience.

Search and Filter Options

  Focus on implementing robust search and filter options. Try to allow your users to quickly search for specific courses or filter courses based on criteria like duration, difficulty, or instructor. 

This feature enhances user convenience and helps them find relevant content efficiently.

 Responsive Design

  You have to ensure your LMS website has a responsive design. It has to be adapted to various screen sizes, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. 

A mobile-friendly design is essential for accommodating learners accessing your site from different devices.

Consistent Branding

   Maintain consistent branding elements throughout your site. Try to include color schemes, fonts, and logo placement. 

Consistency creates a professional and cohesive look, reinforcing your brand identity.

Feedback and Support Channels

Include channels for feedback and support. Whether through a contact form, live chat, or a dedicated support page. You have to ensure that users can seek assistance or share their thoughts easily.

By focusing on these aspects, you can create a structured and user-friendly WordPress LMS website. With these steps, you can not only attract learners but also provide them with a seamless and enjoyable online learning experience.

Choose a Free WordPress LMS Plugin

Selecting the right LMS (Learning Management System) plugin for your WordPress site is crucial, especially if you’re opting for a free option. Here are some considerations to guide you in choosing a free WordPress LMS plugin.

Tutor LMS

Tutor LMS is a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) that stands at the forefront of empowering educators and inspiring learners in the digital education landscape. Built with a commitment to simplicity, versatility, and innovation, Tutor LMS transforms your WordPress LMS website into a dynamic online learning hub.

This LMS plugin can help you create-

  • Intuitive course for your LMS website,
  • Quizzes and Assignments,
  • Personalized dashboard for managing roles (Admins, Instructors, Students),
  • Lesson management, and
  • Many more.

Tutor LMS has developed some cool premium features for its users. Some of the best are Tutor reports, Emails, Certificates, WooCommerce Subscriptions, and more amazing features.

CoSchool

CoSchool LMS is a handy plugin that turns your WordPress website into a powerful online learning space. Whether you’re creating, managing, or selling courses, CoSchool LMS has got you covered. It’s super easy to use, making it a breeze to build and grow your online learning platform right on WordPress.

This WordPress LMS plugin can provide you with a seamless experience while creating an LMS website. Some of them are-

  • Efficient course creation and management,
  • Student-focused features (dashboard, enrollment, etc),
  • Transaction and reporting tools, and
  • More features.

This feature-rich plugin comes up with some more premium features like a certificate builder, payment add-ons, WooCommerce integration, multi-instructor, course bundle, and All-access pass.

LearnPress

LearnPress is a fantastic WordPress LMS Plugin that lets you easily create and sell courses online. With a simple interface, you can design course curriculums, and add lessons and quizzes without any coding. It’s perfect for making education and online course websites quickly and effortlessly. No coding skills are required!

Some of the best parts of this amazing plugin are-

  • Supports WordPress Multisite
  • Helps you manage courses easily
  • Provides a bunch of add-ons, and
  • Offline payment options

This LMS plugin is actively developed. It has some premium features as well. You can use WPML Add-on, Co-instructor, payments, and more enriching features.

Conclusion

Getting good at selling courses using WordPress LMS plugins is like unlocking a superpower for making a difference. Whether you go for TutorLMS, CoSchool, or LearnPress LMS, the key is to use their cool features to make learning awesome for your audience. 

Just remember, the real trick is connecting with your learners, making each course not just a lesson but a game-changer for them. Don’t always think about your benefit but think this way that it makes an impact. 

Start building your courses with an LMS plugin today, and let everyone discover the amazing stuff you know!

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The Rise of Mobile Marketing: 14 Strategies for Business Owners

December 5th, 2023 No comments

If it’s unclear how critical mobile devices are in daily life, look around. With heads bent over phones and conversations streaming across imperceptible wireless earbuds, consumers rely on their smartphones and tablets for everything from finding a great restaurant to catching up with Grandma. If you’re a business owner debating whether or not to dive into mobile marketing, let these statistics help you take the leap: almost 97% of people between the ages of 16 and 64 own a smartphone, and they spend over 4.5 hours on it every day. Mobile marketing is on the rise — here are 14 strategies to help you meet your customers where they are.

1. Start with a mobile-friendly website

A mobile-friendly website means it’s optimized for devices. All text and graphics fit neatly on a smartphone or tablet screen without losing quality, and the design is responsive. Not only does this mean that consumers can interact with your business no matter where they are, but it also improves search engine rankings. It lays the foundation for successful mobile marketing efforts.

A mobile-friendly website is a great first step to take while you look into other strategies. Even if you take no additional steps, this one step alone will improve your customers’ user experience and help you get started with mobile marketing without breaking the bank.

2. Invest in text

Text messages sent to consumers have a higher open rate than marketing emails (98% compared to just under 20%). Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Message Service (MMS) are great ways to send time-sensitive promotions and updates but can also be used to send personalized messages and offers to customers. 

3. Develop an app

This one gets a bit more technical and may require some digital help, but developing a mobile app can give a bump to sagging sales and weak conversions. It’s a convenient, branded environment that allows customers to interact with products and check out services. Typical features such as push notifications and in-app promotions are great ways to catch customers’ attention. If you lack the technical skills or are on a budget and cannot afford to hire a developer just yet, a no code app builder can help you with this step.

4. Utilize geofencing

Another useful app feature is geofencing. Geofencing casts a net in a specified area (for example, a five-block or five-mile radius) that alerts customers when they enter it. This location-based marketing sends a message when customers enter the fence, offering special deals or promotions. This solution is excellent for businesses that don’t have significant native foot traffic.

5. Enable mobile payment solutions

Mobile payment solutions are fast, easy, and secure. These convenient mobile wallets enable contactless payments that can increase a consumer’s impulse purchases and enhance their overall experience. 

6. Don’t ignore the socials

The statistics are astonishing. Almost 100% of smartphone users access social media on their devices.  In fact, social media platforms are accessed predominantly via mobile devices.  If you are on a limited budget, spending most of your dollars on campaigns tailored to mobile social media users can increase engagement and conversions. This means adding vertical videos, creating swipeable content, branching out into growing platforms (TikTok, anyone?),  and including clear call-to-action (CTA) messaging.

7. Keep campaigns zippy

As much time as people spend on their mobile devices, very few are inclined to linger on one particular site. With attention spans shrinking, mobile campaigns must quickly get to the point. This means short, zippy texts that get to the point and videos that utilize jump cuts to keep customer attention.

8. Add QR codes

Want to bring more customers from the physical world into the digital one? Just add QR codes. This type of “phygital” marketing strategy bridges the gap between consumers who are used to a more hands-on approach but may be open to completing a sale or learning more online. A scannable QR code takes customers to your website, app, or special offers.

9. Optimize for voice search

Smart devices easily translate a verbal question into results (think asking a smartphone to find a business or requesting a playlist from Alexa). Recommendations are based on optimized search results. This means that descriptions and text match queries or requests that mimic human speech. Include long-tail keywords into website descriptions and add an FAQ site for distinct categories and offerings.

10. Get (sort of) real

Augmented reality (AR) is one way to create an immersive customer experience. Consider home goods stores that allow customers to upload a picture of their space and place products into it. This is incredibly convenient on a mobile device, where a customer can snap a quick picture or take a short video to immediately understand how a product might work for them.

11. Cultivate influencer partnerships

Millennials, in particular, are inclined to believe in trusted personalities online (influencers). If you are marketing to millennials, cultivating influencer partnerships can drive trust in your business and customer action. Which influencers you approach depends on your business goals. Some influencer markets, such as beauty and fashion, are more saturated than others, so take time to identify your target audience before getting into influencer partnerships. 

12. Run the numbers

Regardless of the marketing strategy, it’s essential to use data analytics to see how your mobile marketing strategies perform. This helps you better understand consumer behavior and personalize your marketing messages. You can set specific measurements for clicks and conversions, but sending out surveys to get direct consumer feedback is possible.

13. Make targeted changes

So what do you do with the feedback you get? You personalize your offerings. Personalization of content makes it more engaging for your target customer. You might divide your marketing messages into different categories based on age, gender, or other factors that relate to your various products and services. This segmentation can improve and refine your message so that more clicks become conversions. 

14. Don’t stand still

The rise of mobile marketing represents a fundamental and permanent change in how your business interacts with customers. These mobile strategies tap into endless possibilities and can increase your customer base.  They outline a roadmap for you to stay ahead of the curve as mobile marketing continues to evolve. 

Regardless of which you choose to implement, you must keep moving forward. Your customers are mobile, and your mobile marketing should be just as agile.

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