Java Collection is a pretty favorite subject in Java articles. But here, I’ll share my personal thoughts and ideas that you might not know.
From the first look, Java Collection is a set of structures that fit different problems, like quick data search. But in practice, Java Collection interfaces are representing notions from discrete math.
Who is Grammarly for? Can a grammar checking tool like Grammarly replace a human editor and proofreader? Is the Grammarly checker worth it? Are the Grammarly free checks sufficient for me, or should I upgrade to Grammarly Premium? Should I install Grammarly on Chrome? How effective is Grammarly for Word? Is downloading the Grammarly desktop app worth it? You have questions…all of which we’re going to answer.
I have been using Grammarly regularly for proofreading my documents and emails since 2015 and have witnessed its evolution as a product firsthand. After checking over three million words during this period, I can confidently say that Grammarly has come a long way. Raising $200M in total funding at a valuation of $1B+ so far, and with more than a million downloads per month, Grammarly is now a top-1000 website by traffic worldwide.
I write a lot, so Grammarly has been my go-to writing assistant for correcting passages and enhancing my writing. I first tried the Free version, and in May 2020, I upgraded to the Premium version, finally! Grammarly Premium is a great tool that takes care of most of your writing, proofreading, and plagiarism-checking needs for intensive work.
In this article, I’ll explain what Grammarly is, its features, what it does (functions of all versions and products), the pros and cons of using Grammarly, my rating of Grammarly, who should use the Free version, and who should use the Premium version and the difference between the two. I’ll also explain how to use Grammarly properly. I’ll then compare it with other popular tools and suggest which ones suit your needs. In the end, I’ll leave you with my final assessment and FAQs.
Grammarly is an online digital writing assistant that checks for a range of English grammar and spelling mistakes. It also helps enhance the writing through its excellent context-based clarity suggestions (Premium version).
Grammarly is a writing aid that checks not only for spelling slights, grammar rules, and clarity issues but also identifies the tone of the writing to provide relevant instructions through its Error Cards. It also has a plagiarism checking tool, which is available with the Premium version.
Grammarly employs AI (Artificial Intelligence) and NLP (Natural Language Processing) to check the content for all possible syntactic and semantic issues. Although it has an extensive database, it is still incomparable to human proofreading and professional editing, especially when it comes to understanding the context of the writing.
Grammarly is astonishingly easy to use, primarily due to its compatibility via the Browser Extension/Add-on, from which you can use it on millions of websites. Moreover, its other product forms, i.e., the Online Editor (Web App), Desktop Application, MS Word/Outlook Add-in, and the Grammarly Keyboard for iOS/Android, make it accessible everywhere.
It automatically detects issues in the content in the Desktop App, the Online Editor, and the browser (even in Google Docs, which is in Beta at this time) via its add-on. Yet, for the MS Word Add-in, you have to click the Grammarly button to activate the app. Grammarly explains all detected issues via an Error Card that contains relevant information for each item. You can implement it by clicking the suggestion, ‘Ignore’ the problem, or ‘Add to Dictionary’ (in case of a spelling issue). You can also provide feedback (if you think that the suggestion is wrong). The Free version checks only for spelling and critical grammar mistakes. The Premium version also reveals a ton of advanced ‘Clarity Issues.’
The Tone Detector helps you estimate the entire document’s tone, which can be valuable for many writers who target a particular audience, e.g., formal writing for the business audience.
Grammarly, overall, excels at almost all the things it does, and therefore the free version is recommended for everyone. Grammarly provides a generic readability score. Advanced grammar checks like the clarity checker, the plagiarism checker, and many other features are not available for the free version.
Grammarly is dominant amongst its competition, but it doesn’t solve all English language problems. It is useful at picking syntactic mistakes but still misses significant semantic errors, which can be a problem for people who are not particularly adept at English — as they won’t notice these slips.
| The Good | The Bad | & The Ugly |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of use – simple, intuitive, and efficient interface | English language only | Tad expensive (notably the monthly subscription at $29.95 per month) |
| Context-based grammar checking | Not 100% accurate (primarily misses linguistic bloopers) | No free trial for the premium version. |
| Fantastic grammar checker | Business account starts at three users and charges per number of users (can be a bit expensive for small businesses) | Only one account (license) for the premium version. You can use it on up to five devices. |
| Convenient tone detector | Insufficient as a standalone tool (doesn’t do everything) | Incomplete sentences can sometimes go undetected |
| The insightful error cards are instructional and productive (they help you to improve your writing) | Unlike ProWritingAid and Hemmingway Editor, it doesn’t provide much information about the whole passage, Grammarly’s scoring is generic right now | No substitutes are suggested in many cases. Example: synonyms, rephrasing suggestions for the intricate text, etc. |
| Integrates well with MS Word, Outlook, WordPress, emails, social media, and millions of websites | The free version is limited to fundamental grammar and spelling mistakes | Cannot determine contextually incorrect sentences (it cannot perceive the meaning of the written document) |
| Knowledge-base | The premium version identifies repeated words but sometimes doesn’t provide a suitable alternative to use | Short on vocabulary suggestions (not as competent as the free thesaurus writing tool) |
| The Grammarly keyboard is available for Android & iOS for FREE | Free version shows the number of advanced clarity mistakes but doesn’t tell you what those mistakes are and where they are | The formatting tool is rudimentary. You have to write in another text editor and then import it to the Grammarly Editor to format your writing accurately |
| Personal dictionary | Google Docs is not supported yet (in Beta). | Restricted to English only, and it also doesn’t translate other languages as Ginger does. |
| The adjust goal option allows you to customize Grammarly’s feedback. | It can miss simple semantic issues, which sometimes can be caught by text editors like Google Docs and MS Word. | |
| Formatting remains the same if you import/upload a document, but it changes if you copy/paste. | Plagiarism Detector is not available for the free version. | |
| Weekly writing stats (sent to user email) can help you identify your problem areas | The browser extension can malfunction, i.e., opening and closing the Grammarly editor within a website (sometimes) duplicates the content | |
| Option to download the detailed performance statistics as a PDF | Sometimes Grammarly doesn’t catch all mistakes on the first try. You have to refresh or scroll to let it run again and see if it finds new issues | |
| Grammarly blog teaches English grammar rules, writing techniques, and more | ||
| Context-based checker is more accurate than competitors | ||
| Provides rephrasing suggestions for complicated sentences | ||
| The premium version excels at catching inconsistencies |
Everyone
Despite being limited, Grammarly (free version) is a phenomenal tool. Therefore, I would heartily recommend it to everyone. It’s free, and it’s convenient.
The free version should be everyone’s go-to tool for proofreading social media statuses, tweets, and comments. It is also crucial for editing all sorts of short-form writing, such as emails. Professional writers can also use the free version to catch typos and basic grammar mistakes.
Apart from all the necessary features offered in the Grammarly free version, Grammarly Premium provides several other valuable elements such as an advanced clarity checker and a robust plagiarism checker. All these help you enhance your writing effectively.
Grammarly Premium is a helpful tool for people who are already adept at English as it still requires plenty of work on catching semantic errors. Businesses and Professional writers who do intensive writing should give the Premium version a go. From writing, editing, and proofreading to plagiarism checking, it is almost an All-in-One solution (though not a substitute for a human proofreader – at least yet).
People, especially students who cannot learn from their mistakes, should avoid relying on Grammarly as it can hinder their learning process.
Granted, Instructional Error Cards and Weekly Writing Stats (emailed to the user) can pinpoint your weak points, but educating yourself from there on is entirely up to you.
Just like ‘Auto-correct’ hinders people’s ability to learn proper spellings, Grammarly can do that for learning grammar rules.
Grammarly is an excellent tool, but it still makes slips, which can be misleading for amateurs who don’t have a solid grip on the English language. Therefore, if you are not proficient enough in English, you should only subscribe to Grammarly Premium if you can remember that it is not a replacement for a human teacher or a proofreader. Or, you can continue using the Free version, which is competent enough to check fundamental grammar and spelling oversights.
Furthermore, businesses and professionals who are infrequent users can stick to the Free version if they feel they will not be making the most of the Premium version.
A comparison with basic text editors will illustrate Grammarly’s true potential:
Microsoft Word is the most popular and feature-packed text editor. It includes a basic grammar and spelling checker that catches typos in real-time. However, MS Word is very limited in its grammar checking capabilities.
I’ve written many articles using Microsoft Word, which were considered error-free by the text editor. However, when I put the same documents in Grammarly’s Editor, there’d always be some critical mistakes caught by the Free version and some clarity or consistency mistakes pointed out by the Premium version.
Grammarly finds inconsistent punctuation that MS Word missed.
Google Docs is another mighty text editor, which is free to use. It also has numerous features, including spelling and grammar checking. Google Docs’ grammar and spelling check software only flag issues with an alternative in its database; otherwise, it ignores them. It auto-corrects the obvious spelling blunders. It can also pick missing determiners (articles) better than Microsoft Word. However, once again, when compared to Grammarly, Google Docs falls far behind in exposing slip-ups.
Grammarly in Google Docs.
Google Docs performs a little better than MS Word when it comes to punctuation, yet it is incomparable to Grammarly, which is in Beta for Google Docs.
Grammarly proofreads content written in English (American, British, Australian, and Canadian) and gives detailed performance statistics. Weekly Writing Statistics are emailed to the user account, and you can download a complete PDF that extensively illustrates your performance.
From scoring to pointing out all mistakes and amendments, Grammarly doles out a comprehensive document that you can use to improve your weak areas. Grammarly can function as your teacher in this regard if you learn from these mistakes and try to improve your performance, especially in areas pointed out by the software.
Grammarly is available in the following product versions:
All these versions are usable in the following product forms:
Grammarly’s web application acts as an online editor to upload a document, copy/paste content, or write directly. It has a 4MB size-limit and a 100,000 characters-limit (about 60 pages). When you upload a file, a pop-up tells you that your document formatting will restore when downloaded.
Grammarly’s interface for the online version and the desktop app is identical, and it is outstandingly intuitive and accessible. A dedicated writing assistant panel on the right side contains valuable information and choosable options. It also lists and categorizes all the errors found.
A bar at the bottom contains a few formatting options and some length-related info about the passage.
Typing in any online text editor activates the ’Grammar and Spelling Checker’ when the extension is on. It underlines (in red) all the issues in real-time. Hovering over the problem pops up an Error Card that contains corrections and more information about the mistake.
You can use the Grammarly icon at the bottom-right of online text editors to activate or deactivate the tool. This option is beneficial because sometimes you want to check your content but don’t want distractions while writing. I recommend turning on the extension after you have completed your draft and now want to begin the editing phase. You can also open the Grammarly editor within a website for added convenience.
The Grammarly add-on is available on all popular browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge Chromium, etc. And it is compatible with millions of websites and the web versions of many desktop applications, including WordPress, emails, social media, work platforms, and many more. Grammarly for Google Docs is in Beta right now. The Grammarly extension also gives you the option to ’Show Definitions and Synonyms via Double Click,’ which works like a dictionary within any website.
The Grammarly icon within your text editors tells you the total number of issues found on the Grammarly pop-up. However, you have to scroll through the document and find those problems yourself. It is not as efficient as the online Editor. The extension only shows the critical issues inside your online editor. It gives you the option to open the online Grammarly Editor to see the errors pointed out by the Premium version. The browser extension also works slower for lengthy content. It is convenient but only for short-form writing.
The desktop application, like all other products, is online only and doesn’t work offline. An internet connection is necessary as Grammarly uses its database to process the document. The desktop app is identical to the online editor.
You can integrate Grammarly into Microsoft Word and Outlook through their Add-in. Unlike other Grammarly product forms, the MS Word Add-in activates when clicked — otherwise, it stays dormant. When enabled, a right panel appears with suggestions, Error Cards, and statistics, just like the Online Editor and the Desktop App. Grammarly has no character limit for the MS Word Add-in.
You can download Grammarly Keyboard for both Android and iOS through their respective stores. Now available for iPad as well, it is easy to use as it works like the auto-correct feature available in the smart devices. It gives suggestions when Grammarly encounters any grammar or spelling lapses.
Grammarly is a tad expensive when purchased as a monthly subscription, which costs $29.95 per month. The quarterly ($59.95) and annual ($139.95) subscriptions offer better value for money. Through its weekly newsletter and other channels, Grammarly presents discount offers to its free users from time to time, which you can avail yourself of to get an even cheaper deal for the Grammarly Premium subscription.
Grammarly Pricing Plans for Premium Version – Monthly, Quarterly, Annual
Grammarly Free is limited but still adequate for many as it gives you critical grammar and spelling checking capabilities. It is usable in all product forms.
Grammarly Premium, along with Spelling and Grammar Checker, offers an advanced Clarity Checker, Plagiarism Checker, and experimental Tone Detector. All Grammarly features are available for the Premium version.
Grammarly for Business offers all the Premium features for three or more users. It also gives you an admin panel to customize your experience. You can add a personal dictionary, among other things, which will be accessible to all users. Grammarly for Business includes:
Grammarly Business Pricing Example
Grammarly @Edu is also an available option, of which educational institutes and organizations can avail themselves. It caters to a large number of accounts, as it targets students.
Grammarly has hands-down the best interface among all the writing assistants. It is incredibly intuitive and user-friendly.
Grammarly integrates with millions of sites and text editors. It is also compatible with MS Word (both for Windows and Mac) and Outlook via an Add-in. It is still in Beta for Google Docs.
Grammarly is incompatible with some desktop apps, but you can use Grammarly in their web versions.
For products where you can upload text documents, the supported document formats are: .docx, .rtf, .odt, .txt.
Grammarly is restricted to English only, including American, British, Canadian, and Australian English. Grammarly doesn’t support foreign language phrases, translation, etc., at the moment.
Grammarly checks for spelling mistakes based on context. It is excellent at differentiating between commonly misspelled words. It can also tell Common and Proper Nouns apart (in most cases).
All Grammarly products on all plans help you check for grammatical errors and syntax issues in the provided document in real-time.
The Plagiarism Checker is not available for the free version. When I inquired about plagiarism in hard copy, patch plagiarism, and ProQuest, here’s what Grammarly Support had to say:
“We teamed up with ProQuest to provide even more accurate plagiarism checks: currently, Grammarly’s plagiarism checker searches major proprietary databases along with over 16 billion web pages. You can check ProQuest libraries here http://www.proquest.com/libraries/academic/databases/.
Please note that Grammarly catches verbatim plagiarism and slightly modified text that can be classified as unoriginal. As comprehensive as our algorithms are, significantly rephrased text oftentimes can’t be traced back to its source.”
Note: I checked this document with both; Grammarly Plagiarism Checker is not as robust as Copyscape, but it’s catching up fast.
It detects a variety of tones based on the context of the given passage.
Grammarly Tone Detector
Grammarly checks for advanced issues for the Premium, Education, and Business versions. The Free version checks for limited conciseness; the rest is available on the Premium version only.
Grammarly offers support via its extensive, well-written, and user-oriented knowledge-base. Grammarly also provides support via email (24/7 for the Business version) if you can’t find a relevant answer in the knowledge-base.
Moreover, the Grammarly Blog teaches, among other useful things, the proper use of grammar in English.
The Grammarly Blog teaches the rules of English grammar and gives tips on writing. It also specializes in teaching about the most common blunders, which are also a strong suit of the application.
You can view the ‘Statistics Summary Card’ by clicking the ‘See Performance’ button. Or you can download the detailed statistics via the Download PDF Report option. These statistics are in-depth and contain exhaustive information regarding the whole document, including your score, errors, reading time, speaking time, and more.
Grammarly Performance Stats
You can customize Grammarly’s feedback according to your needs. This option gives you an adjustable chart where you can set your preferences according to your needs. It helps with the document’s tone, the difficulty level depending on the target audience, and more.
Grammarly Adjust Goals
Grammarly gives you the option to get your work checked by experts. It’s a particularly convenient option for those who cannot or do not want to rely on their proofreading skills better than finding and hiring someone yourself.
Grammarly Expert Writing Help
Grammarly has a free version with a powerful-enough spelling and grammar checker. It is available in all product forms – Online Editor, Browser Extension, Desktop Application, and Word Add-in. The Free version checks for up to 150 grammar rules.
It is superb at uncovering elementary grammar fallacies due to its context-based checking, powered by its robust AI and NLP software.
The Free version doesn’t show clarity issues. It reveals the number of clarity issues in the content, but it doesn’t tell you what and where those issues are.
The Premium version shows advanced grammar issues such as clarity, conciseness, dangling modifiers, squinting modifiers, monotonous sentences, intricate text, split infinitives, and many more. It checks for over 400 rules of English grammar, far more than the Free version. Grammarly Premium also has a plagiarism checker within the interface, which is mighty-enough for online plagiarism checking.
When you run some text through any version and product form of the app, Grammarly will process the document for the following:
However, Grammarly will not point out many of these mistakes for the Free version. It will only tell you the number of such problems in your content.
Grammarly Checklist
Let’s see some examples.
Grammarly detecting the wrong form of a verb.
Grammarly Context-Based Checking
Grammarly detects unknown words, and if you capitalize them, it considers them proper nouns. It can also miss the incorrect use of a term if you spell it correctly and put it within commas.
Grammarly while dealing with proper nouns, capitalization, and unknown words
Grammarly can differentiate between phrases and sentences. Therefore, you can write headings and subheadings in the form of expression.
Grammarly differentiating between sentences and phrases
Grammarly catching multiple mistakes in one sentence
Grammarly pointing out the wrong determiner-article use
The Grammarly algorithm is not good enough yet at recognizing incomplete sentences. Grammarly is far from perfect, as evident from these examples. Google Docs suggested ’was because’ for the last line instead of ’is because,’ but Grammarly missed that.
Grammarly can miss incomplete sentences.
Grammarly is only making one suggestion that the article use may be incorrect here in the below image.
Cannot detect incomplete sentences (sometimes) if other issues exist
Grammarly suggests you change the first line in the below image because it believes it’s caught a sentence fragment. You accept the suggestion, and it becomes the second line, which is, again, a sentence fragment, according to Grammarly.
Grammarly ‘sentence fragment’ suggestions
Sometimes, the suggestions are right as well.
Grammarly recognizes sentence fragments in some cases
Comma
Grammarly is a sniffing-hound-on-steroids when it comes to commas — both missing and wrong ones. It pinpoints the exact location where you should place a comma in a sentence. Whether it is between clauses, a list of items, or something else, Grammarly knows if you have missed a comma or placed a wrong one. It also exposes the famous “Oxford Comma.” Grammarly now points out any inconsistent punctuation (curly vs. straight commas, for example) in your articles.
Grammarly pointing out the missing Oxford Comma
Hyphen
First, it points out the missing hyphen. Once you rectify the error, it points out the wrong capitalization. Grammarly works in steps for multiple errors in a sentence.
Grammarly catching a missing hyphen.
Semi-colon & Colon
Grammarly catches the incorrect use of the semi-colon & colon.
Period
Grammarly points out a missing period
Missing Apostrophes
Grammarly can catch missing apostrophes
Apart from correctness that checks for critical grammar mistakes, the Premium version has options to check for clarity, delivery, and engagement, along with many more correctness checks.
Clarity check is not available for the Free version; all other versions of the app have it. It catches linguistic issues that a fundamental grammar checker cannot reveal. These include dangling modifiers, split infinitives, misuse of passive voice, intricate text, inappropriate colloquialisms, etc.
Grammarly Premium can detect inconsistencies and gives you the option to select one form if a word has been used inconsistently in the same document. It can also detect inconsistent punctuation, for example, curly and straight commas.
Grammarly Premium identifies text inconsistencies.
For unclear or complicated sentences where there might be an issue of a dangling modifier or something else, Grammarly suggests an alternative way to write the same sentence.
Grammarly Premium giving rephrasing suggestions
Grammarly can also note if you have used many unnecessary words in a sentence. If there are more words and less content in a sentence, then it suggests you rephrase it. This option can help you make your content non-fluff.
Grammarly is so-so at deciphering when the passive voice is right to use and when you should avoid it in a sentence. My experience is that, more often than not, it will recommend that you rewrite a sentence if it detects passive voice use anywhere.
Grammarly – always – detects passive voice use.
Grammarly exposes unclear and hard-to-follow sentences in the written piece. Sometimes it gives alternatives (if one is available in its database), but usually, it only tells you to rephrase the sentence to make it more understandable.
If you continuously write similar sentences in a passage, Grammarly will detect these sentences’ monotonous nature and advise you to rephrase them.
Grammarly detecting a monotonous passage
Grammarly suggesting alternatives to sound confident
Sound more diplomatic with Grammarly!
Grammarly Premium catches informal sentence structure like a preposition at the end of a sentence. Some other informalities include inappropriate colloquialisms, split infinitives, etc.
Grammarly points out informality.
Grammarly Premium points out overused words and suggests using an alternative here, but sometimes it doesn’t provide suitable options like the Thesaurus Writing Tool.
Grammarly suggesting engaging alternatives
Most of the time, the suggestions are worth considering, though.
Grammarly is suggesting more engaging alternatives
The Grammarly Free version catches all critical issues as it checks for 150 Grammar Rules to determine errors in a document. The Premium version looks for over 400 Grammar Rules and detects far more problems than the Free version.
I wrote an article and checked it through both the Free and the Premium versions. Here is the difference between how the stats of both look like before making the suggested changes:
Original Stats (before checking with Grammarly Free)
Original Stats (before checking with Grammarly Premium)
After editing another article and making the suggested changes, here’s how the Free version stats look like:
Grammarly Free Stats
After editing the same article using the Premium version, the stats look like the following:
Grammarly Premium Stats
Grammarly is a marvelous tool, but it is incomparable to human proofreading. Grammarly cannot detect the sense and meaning of the written text. It catches blunders using English language and grammar rules as efficiently as a machine can. However, some mistakes can slip through Grammarly if there is no syntax error, but just a linguistic or semantic misuse.
Grammarly didn’t suggest anything for a nonsense sentence
Grammarly is not an alternative to human proofreading
Grammarly is evolving with time and has gotten pretty accurate in identifying common mistakes. Its extensive database helps Grammarly recognize errors based on the context.
Grammarly scours the whole text for errors when you provide it a written document. Thankfully, it also checks for blunders as you write or edit your text in any product form – Chrome Extension, Online Editor, Word Add-in, Desktop App (Windows and Mac), and the Grammarly Keyboard for iOS and Android.
With Grammarly, you get a highly-efficient software, which is not only a phenomenal editor but also incredibly easy to use.
You can customize your Set Goals and your Personal Dictionary with the ‘Add to Dictionary’ feature in the Error Cards. This element is convenient for proper nouns and personal vocabulary (even words from a different language).
Based on your Goals, Grammarly, through its tone detector emojis, cautions you of your tone – the vocabulary and phrasing you are using. You can adjust goals keeping in mind your target audience and choose the most appropriate words to use.
Apart from basic grammatical mistakes, Grammarly helps you fix linguistic oversights. It tracks down a wide range of slip-ups, including dangling modifiers, intricate text, split infinitives, passive voice misuse, redundancies, and many other slips. In essence, the Clarity Checker elevates the level of your writing.
It is a bonus in all senses of the word. It might not be essential to the app, but it certainly assists users. Grammarly plagiarism checker is not the absolute best in the industry, but it does the job swiftly. It checks plagiarism across 16 billion pages on the internet and ProQuest’s database.
Error cards are compact, simple, and instructional. They serve their purpose elegantly. Any shortcoming that you experience in Grammarly’s usage so far is due to its still-not-so-extensive database. Error cards also fall short when it comes to giving suggestions due to this very reason. Otherwise, they are usually handy.
You can proofread, remove typos, and analyze the content quickly via the app’s free version. You can also use it before buying the Grammarly Premium subscription.
Supported on both Android and iOS, The Grammarly Keyboard App functions like the auto-correct feature. It gives real-time suggestions about the proper use of grammar and spellings in the written text. Grammarly is now available for iPad and supports hardware keyboards as well.
Grammarly provides customer support via its extensive database and email. By now, almost all popular queries have a database entry. Furthermore, the Grammarly Blog assists with learning English grammar rules.
Grammarly has amassed a plethora of information in its database, which helps run the application smoothly. This knowledge allows the app to identify problems based on the context. You will find accurate solutions for most common issues, thanks to its extensive database growing with time.
The Grammarly Blog focuses on teaching people English grammar rules and common mistakes in their writing. There are dedicated articles for each item; separate sections cover different punctuation like Commas, Hyphens, etc.
The weekly writing stats sent via email and the downloadable detailed performance stats PDF give you comprehensive feedback on your writing. This feature helps you pinpoint your mistakes better than anything else available in the market.
Grammarly Insights are the real-time feedback that the application provides regarding your writing. It bases it on your Set Goals. You can customize this feedback according to your needs, which can be amazingly valuable if you cover different audiences. Insights also include the reading time and speaking time, which is particularly useful to Vloggers, YouTubers, etc., who can quickly determine how much time their script will take on the video.
Grammarly is the most popular and best-in-class digital writing assistant tool, growing exponentially both in features and number of users, indicating that it will provide the best services to its customer base.
Grammarly is notably popular among professional writers, bloggers, publishers, marketers, and businesses, showing that Grammarly has a demanding clientele to please. Therefore, their standards are supposed to be (and they are) higher than the competition.
Having more than a million downloads per month and being a top-1000 website by traffic globally, Grammarly has raised $200M in total funding at a valuation of $1B+ so far, which speaks volumes of its success, investors’ trust in the product, and its projections.
The Free version identifies only critical grammatical errors, typos, and limited ‘conciseness.’ Moreover, it only lists the number of total advanced clarity issues in the text with an ‘Ad’ that keeps asking you to buy a Premium subscription for these issues. It also doesn’t support plagiarism checking.
The biggest drawback of Grammarly is that it is a tad expensive for many. Grammarly Premium can be a costly subscription at $30 per month if you don’t have much writing to proofread.
Grammarly is good at picking fundamental grammar mistakes – even context-based grammar issues, but it still cannot understand what you have written. If you write a nonsense sentence with no grammatical fault, Grammarly will consider it a correct sentence. It can also happen with incomplete sentences.
Grammarly is a mighty grammar checker but lags behind when it comes to rating the whole document. Its scoring is based on mistakes and length of words and sentences only, unlike some other tools that provide a more comprehensive text scoring. Grammarly is also not an alternative to human proofreading as it can’t understand the meaning of the written content.
Grammarly has a limited vocabulary in its database so far, which leads to inaccurate synonym suggestions at times. The Thesaurus Writing Tool, another free digital writing assistant, has an extensive vocabulary due to its vast Thesaurus.com database and offers far more vocabulary suggestions and alternatives.
For many suggestions like Intricate Text, Split Infinitives, etc., Grammarly doesn’t provide an alternative. You have to rephrase the sentence yourself. Grammarly only points out bloopers sometimes, which can be a little frustrating for amateur writers.
Grammarly is not supported everywhere yet. The most prominent places are Google Docs (in Beta at the moment – which doesn’t include Grammarly Premium corrections and the Pop-up Grammarly Editor) and desktop applications. However, it works on the web versions of these desktop applications via its browser extension.
Grammarly Editor is imperfect for writing purposes. It is incomparable to authoritative text editors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. So you have to write your text in another editor and import it in Grammarly for proofreading if you want proper formatting of your document.
Grammarly wants you to upgrade all the time. When using the Free version, you’ll get constant notifications to upgrade to Premium to check for issues that are not available in the Free version.
Grammarly doesn’t offer support for languages other than English. There is also no option available for translation like Ginger.
The Grammarly Premium account gives you only one license for use on up to five devices. It is an obstacle for people with multiple accounts for different purposes. Grammarly Premium is already expensive, so buying two licenses is not feasible for the majority.
Grammarly stands out as the most prominent and well-received tool when you compare all popular digital writing assistants. It has been endorsed and appreciated by countless publishers and writers. Grammarly has become a top product in the digital writing industry with its robust marketing and significant NLP and AI improvements.
Grammarly Inc. has secured enough funding as of late 2019 to improve its natural language learning database to enhance its AI-based application further. Keeping all this in mind, it is evident that Grammarly is dominating the market. Still, there are a few products that come close for one reason or the other. Here are the top 5 Grammarly alternatives in 2021:
Pros: Long-Form Writing (Books, etc.), Writing Insights, Separate Checking of Issues, MS Word Add-in, Efficient Browser Extension
Cons: Short-Form Writing, Fewer Errors Detected, Not for Amateurs, No Free Version
ProWritingAid is considered a worthy alternative to Grammarly (notably for long-form writing – books, etc.), but it falls far behind Grammarly for short-form writing.
ProWritingAid is accurate, feature-rich, and integrates well with apps and websites, but the interface is not as user-friendly as Grammarly’s. It also reveals fewer issues as Grammarly has advanced context-based grammar checking capabilities.
ProWritingAid offers better pricing and value for money (Premium is $60 per year, $70 with Plagiarism Checker), and it also has a Lifetime Plan. However, it doesn’t have a free plan like Grammarly. The Online Editor has no word limit, unlike Grammarly’s 60-pages or 100,000 character limit.
ProWritingAid provides many options/tabs to check for each issue separately, handy for longer articles or books. However, it is not as user-friendly for short writing pieces.
It also presents a better analysis of the whole document and provides a lot of information regarding your writing, which you can use to improve your writing style.
ProWritingAid has an easy-to-scroll-through panel at the right-side that contains corrections and suggestions, which you can use to see all issues without scrolling the entire document.
ProWritingAid has the following tabs to check for each issue separately:
Pros: Keeps Formatting, 60 Languages & Translation, Built-in Dictionary, Browser Extension, Free Version
Cons: Fewer Issues Detected, Fewer Insights, Interface is just OK, no MS Word plugin
Ginger is also a notable competitor of Grammarly. It has a free version, and it integrates well with different websites. However, it doesn’t have an MS Word plugin. It is also not as accessible due to its clunky interface.
Ginger is not as powerful as Grammarly, but it is still a decent alternative. Ginger’s annual subscription is $89.88 (cheaper than Grammarly’s).
Ginger keeps the original formatting of the text document, which is pleasant. It also has a Translator within the app that supports 60 languages. Also, there’s a built-in dictionary, which you can use to find alternatives to overused words.
Pros: Cheap, Integrates with Platforms, Gimmicks – i.e., Templates, etc.
Cons: Interface is awful, Fewer Mistakes Caught
WhiteSmoke is cheap to use, but it has a horrible interface. It integrates with many platforms, but it is incomparable to an advanced tool like Grammarly. It has some useful gimmicks like templates for specific writing purposes, i.e., Sorry, Thank You, Condolences, etc.
The annual subscription of WhiteSmoke costs $79.99. However, it is not advanced enough to be considered better value for money.
Pros: Free, Vocabulary suggestions on hovering the cursor over a word, Blog
Cons: Editor is dreadful to use, Ruins Formatting
Thesaurus Writing Tool is a free-to-use online text editor powered by Thesaurus.com. You can copy/paste or write directly in the Editor. It doesn’t retain the original formatting, which makes it a bit uncomfortable to use. Just click on the ‘Check for Grammar’ button, and it will work its magic. It also has a dedicated blog that teaches you how to write better.
The Thesaurus Writing Tool is unimpressive when checking grammatical errors, but it is highly potent in vocabulary suggestions. Its interface is simple but insufficient. Hover over any word, and it will show you a vocabulary card with a lot of synonyms. Clicking on any suggestion will replace the original term with the selected item. The replaced word gets a yellow underline. An undo option is available if you are not happy with your word selection.
Pros: Free, Information about Text, Text Readability Score
Cons: Ruins Formatting, Fewer Mistakes Caught
Hemingway App is yet another incredible tool that is quite capable and straight-forward. It is convenient for analyzing your document as it scores the content based on its readability. It has a free web app and a paid desktop app. You can copy/paste into the online Editor or write directly, but it messes up the formatting.
Hemingway App identifies the use of passive voice, adverbs, and difficulty of reading. It recognizes long sentences – even the easy-to-read ones – as complex, which affects the document’s grade.
Using advanced NLP and AI, Grammarly free is hands-down the best and must-have writing, editing, and proofreading tool for everyone that checks for spelling and critical grammar mistakes. Easy to use, compatible with most popular products, and trusted by millions of users, Grammarly instantly elevates your writing everywhere; statuses, comments, emails, documents, tweets, you name it! Trying out the free version before upgrading to a premium plan also makes sense.
Grammarly Premium is a more robust and advanced tool with numerous amazing features like an advanced clarity checker, tone detector, and plagiarism checker. The Premium version is unparalleled when complemented with knowledge of the English language and some other tools. However, it is insufficient as a standalone tool because it can make slips (especially semantic ones).
I highly recommend Grammarly Premium to professionals (freelancers, writers, bloggers, authors, publishers, and editors) who require intensive use of the app. Similarly, Grammarly for Business is a good investment if your team does intensive writing. Non-intensive users should stick to the Free version as it suffices.
Aa one user said, “Grammarly Premium helps you sound like a pro, or at least helps you avoid looking like a fool!”
Is Grammarly a good app?
Yes, Grammarly stands out among its competitors as it has advanced context-based grammar checking capabilities, thanks to its up-to-date natural language processing and artificial intelligence.
Is Grammarly Premium worth it?
Yes, for the most part. However, it is a tad expensive for many. It is suitable for professionals and businesses that have lots of writing needs. It identifies several advanced grammar issues that the Free version only counts. However, it is not a substitute for human proofreading as it can make linguistic mistakes that a human can easily find.
Is Grammarly supported in Google Docs?
It is in Beta at the moment. So, it should be available shortly. At the moment, it is imperfect as it only specifies the number of errors. You have to scroll the document to find those mistakes (underlined red) on your own. It has already started working in the comments, though.
Is Grammarly supported in Quora?
Yes, Grammarly works with Quora.
Is Grammarly supported in Medium?
Yes, Grammarly is available for Medium.
Can Grammarly replace a professional editor?
No, it can’t. Grammarly can make simple semantic mistakes because it doesn’t know the meaning of the written text, so it cannot replace a professional editor. It is only suitable for catching syntactic issues.
Is Grammarly supported in Microsoft Word?
Yes, a plugin is available. It is an efficient plugin as it gives similar options in Microsoft Word as it does in its online editor and desktop application. Grammarly is now available for both Windows and macOS versions of MS Word.
Is Grammarly available for Mac?
Yes, Grammarly’s desktop app is available for macOS. Grammarly is available for both Windows and macOS. Grammarly for MS Word is also available for Mac now.
Is Grammarly supported in WordPress?
Yes, it is supported. You can use Grammarly in WordPress via its browser extension.
Is Grammarly supported in Gmail?
Yes, it is. You can edit your email using the Grammarly browser extension within Gmail. However, it is not the best solution for lengthy content. For extended text, the Online Editor, the Desktop App, and the MS Word Add-in are better options.
Does Grammarly work offline?
No, it doesn’t. Grammarly uses its database to run the app, so an internet connection is necessary.
Does Grammarly help you improve your writing?
Yes. If you read the weekly stats, detailed performance stats PDF, and Grammarly Blog for grammar rules and writing tips and try to implement them in your writing, Grammarly can significantly improve your writing capabilities.
Is Grammarly Safe and Secure?
Yes, Grammarly is quite safe, as Google verifies it. Moreover, Grammarly is as secure as any other site that uses SSL/TLS encryption. It is also reliable for plagiarism checking as it doesn’t violate your privacy.
What is the Grammarly cancellation refund policy?
You can get your money back if you are not satisfied with the Premium subscription by contacting Grammarly support within ten days.
Is Grammarly a reliable checker?
Yes, Grammarly outperforms its competitors. Yet, it cannot surpass a professional human editor.
Is Grammarly available for Android/iOS?
Yes, it is. You can use the Grammarly Keyboard to edit your text for grammar and spelling errors by installing the Grammarly Keyboard app from the Play Store or the App Store. It works like the auto-correct feature. Grammarly is now available on iPad as well.
Check out Grammarly for yourself.
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The post The Most Comprehensive Grammarly Review Ever first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
La plupart des pays industrialisés recyclent leurs déchets depuis déjà des décennies. Nous trions le verre, le plastique, le papier et le textile en les jetant dans les poubelles prévues à cet effet. Mais qu’advient-il ensuite de ces déchets ? En faisons-nous assez ? Et qu’en est-il des régions qui sont devenues des dépotoirs ou qui n’ont pas mis en place de systèmes de recyclage ?
Malgré nos efforts, près de 9 millions de tonnes de plastique sont déversés chaque année dans les océans en raison de notre modèle de consommation linéaire actuel Extraire, Fabriquer, Jeter.
L’entassement des déchets dans les décharges n’arrange rien. Pas moins de 1,3 milliard de tonnes de déchets sont mis en décharge chaque année et ce chiffre devrait grimper à 2,2 milliards de tonnes en 2025. Les dommages causés à l’homme, à la faune sauvage et à l’environnement sont considérables, mais nous pouvons prendre des mesures pour les atténuer.
Outre les déchets plastiques et électroniques, les textiles, notamment les textiles non biologiques, sont en grande partie responsables du problème. Selon l’Agence de protection de l’environnement des États-Unis (EPA), les Américains jettent 13,1 millions de tonnes de textiles par an, dont 15 % seulement sont recyclés. Cela signifie que plus de 11 millions de tonnes de textiles sont déversés chaque année dans les décharges, libérant dans le sol des colorants et des produits chimiques qui contaminent les eaux souterraines et nuisent à l’environnement. Pire encore, à mesure que les textiles se décomposent, ils libèrent du méthane, un gaz à effet de serre nocif qui contribue de manière significative au réchauffement climatique.
L’industrie textile est la plus polluante après le logement, le transport et l’alimentation. L’apparition des achats en ligne a bouleversé nos habitudes. Aujourd’hui, les consommateurs commandent les articles en plusieurs tailles ou plusieurs couleurs, les essaient et retournent ce qui ne leur convient pas, ce qui crée de nouveaux défis pour les commerçants. De nombreux détaillants sont contraints de jeter plus de 25 % des articles retournés, soit des tonnes de marchandises neuves déversées chaque année dans les décharges.
Dans ce contexte, le secteur de la mode éphémère est soumis à de fortes pressions pour repenser sa stratégie de production et merchandising en vue de réduire les dommages écologiques.
La protection de l’environnement relève de la responsabilité collective. Si les gouvernements, les consommateurs, les fabricants et les détaillants font leur part du travail, il est encore possible d’inverser la tendance. En tant que citoyens et consommateurs, nous avons un rôle important à jouer.
Nous pouvons tous refuser d’acheter des articles en plastique à usage unique, des produits vendus dans des emballages superflus ou des vêtements bon marché qui finissent dans des décharges après avoir été portés une ou deux fois.
Nous pouvons réduire les déchets en évitant d’en générer, par exemple en réduisant le volume des marchandises achetées en ligne, puis retournées au vendeur. Pour ce qui est de la réutilisation, cette pratique est en plein essor. Des friperies aux associations caritatives, il existe de nombreux moyens de remettre des textiles, meubles et appareils sur le marché plutôt que de les déverser dans les décharges.
Enfin, le recyclage doit être l’objectif ultime. Il permet non seulement de réduire la dépendance à l’égard des matières premières, mais il crée des emplois et diminue l’impact de notre société de consommation sur l’environnement.
Toutefois, il existe encore un énorme fossé entre ce que nous aspirons à faire en tant que consommateurs et notre comportement au quotidien.
Même si plusieurs études, telles que l’enquête sur les emballages plastiques de 2017 réalisée par l’institut britannique de sondage Populus, confirment la motivation des consommateurs à mieux gérer leur consommation et leurs déchets de matières plastiques, il reste encore beaucoup à faire. Par exemple, les étiquettes d’emballage sont souvent source de confusion et la communication des collectivités locales sur les options de recyclage disponibles n’est pas suffisamment claire.
Une participante à une enquête a donné un excellent exemple de la complexité à laquelle les consommateurs sont confrontés lorsqu’ils tentent d’adopter les bons gestes. « J’ai effectué des recherches sur les couches biodégradables, qui me semblent être une bonne idée », a-t-elle déclaré. « Mais apparemment, ces couches peuvent uniquement être recyclées dans un composteur. Si elles sont mises en décharge, elles produisent du méthane, ce qui est réellement nocif pour l’environnement. »
S’agissant des matières plastiques et de la pollution qu’elles engendrent, une manière de résoudre le problème serait de les éliminer tout simplement de la chaîne logistique.
L’an passé, l’équipe SAP Leonardo a lancé un projet d’innovation collaborative dans le cadre du UK Plastics Pact de WRAP afin de trouver de nouvelles solutions face au problème de pollution plastique. L’initiative a débuté par une enquête ethnographique visant à déterminer comment les citoyens perçoivent le défi de la pollution plastique. Sur la base des résultats de l’enquête, cinq personas ont été développées pour représenter les attitudes et comportements qui prévalent aujourd’hui dans la société britannique, depuis les sympathisants jusqu’aux ardents défenseurs de l’écologie.
Plusieurs thèmes sont ressortis de cette étude : le devoir de réduire la consommation de matières plastiques, la confusion et les mythes sur le recyclage, la nécessité d’apprendre et de répondre de manière appropriée et, enfin, la nécessité de sensibiliser.
Dans le cadre de la deuxième phase du projet, un marathon de programmation et une session de conception créative organisés sur trois jours ont rassemblé des experts et des innovateurs de SAP et de grandes entreprises internationales comme Unilever, HSBC et Deliveroo. Les équipes ont été invitées à concevoir des prototypes de produits et services autour des cinq thèmes pour les différents personas. Les prototypes sont en cours de développement et de test dans une phase d’incubation. Les solutions visant à éliminer le plastique seront présentées à l’occasion de l’exposition collective Design Frontiers, qui se déroulera au London Design Festival en septembre prochain.
Pour ce qui est de la gestion des déchets industriels et ménagers, le lot d’efforts déployés varie d’un pays à l’autre. La Suède importe à présent des déchets, car moins de 1 % de ceux générés dans le pays se retrouvent dans des décharges. Le reste est recyclé ou brûlé pour chauffer les maisons. Le processus est tellement efficace que la Suède s’est mise à manquer de déchets et a commencé à en importer auprès de pays voisins pour alimenter son programme national de valorisation énergétique.
L’Allemagne est un autre exemple : sur les 45,9 millions de tonnes de déchets ménagers produites en 2017, seules 0,5 million de tonnes ont été mises en décharge grâce aux directives de l’UE, à des réglementations nationales strictes en matière de gestion des déchets et à des installations de traitement des déchets de pointe. La ville de Heidelberg, par exemple, a ajouté des capteurs intelligents à ces bacs à ordures et les a connectés à la solution SAP Connected Goods. La ville dispose désormais d’une visibilité en temps réel sur l’état des déchets, ce qui réduit le nombre de camions à ordures sur la route, en éliminant le ramassage inutile et le remplissage excessif. Cela a également contribué à la réduction du bruit, du trafic et de la pollution.
On constate aussi des progrès dans le Global Fashion Agenda. À la fin du premier semestre de l’année dernière, l’Engagement 2020 en faveur du système de mode circulaire avait été signé par 94 entreprises représentant 12,5 % du marché mondial de la mode. Ces entreprises se sont engagées à collecter et revendre des vêtements et des chaussures, de même qu’à accroître la part de vêtements et chaussures fabriqués à partir de fibres recyclées. Elles ont également promis de rendre compte des progrès annuels et, plus important encore, de transformer leurs pratiques commerciales linéaires actuelles.
De plus en plus d’entreprises prennent conscience des avantages d’une approche circulaire et de plus en plus de consommateurs réclament des produits et services plus durables. Dès lors, il est encore possible d’inverser la tendance.
Publié initialement en anglais sur Forbes dans la catégorie Brandvoice
The post Quatre manières de préserver notre planète appeared first on SAP France News.
This is the eighth article documenting what I’ve learned from a series of 13 Trailhead Live video sessions on Modern App Development on Salesforce and Heroku. In these articles, we’re focusing on how to combine Salesforce with Heroku to build an “eCars” app—a sales and service application for a fictitious electric car company (“Pulsar”) that allows users to customize and buy cars, service techs to view live diagnostic info from the car, and more. In case you missed my previous article, you can find the link here.
Just as a quick reminder: I’ve been following this Trailhead Live video series to brush up and stay current on the latest app development trends on these platforms that are key for my career and business. I’ll be sharing each step for building the app, what I’ve learned, and my thoughts from each session. These series reviews are both for my own edification as well as for others who might benefit from this content.
20 years ago, Wikipedia was started with the ambitious aim of creating a free encyclopedia for the whole world.
Looking back 20 years, the world was a very different place: the Dot Com Bust had just passed; the average US house price was just $136k; Jack Bauer was only 24 hours into saving the world; President Obama was several years away from the US Senate; Destiny’s Child were topping the charts; the appalling events of 9/11, and everything that followed, were still months away.
Some startups from the same era have gone on to raise billions of dollars, a few have even turned a profit, while most have slipped into the realm of permanent 404s, Wikipedia has determinedly stuck to its original altruistic intent.
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Wikipedia is highlighting some of the 280,000 volunteers who edit entries every month, keeping the site on point.
With 21,000,000,000 searches per month (give or take) Wikipedia has become an unparalleled authority for the web. With most-viewed articles from the past ranging from Darth Vader to Avengers: Endgame, to COVID-19, humans across the planet have a source of news that is transparent, independent, and democratic.
So happy birthday to Wikipedia, may we be celebrating again in 20 years.
The post Celebrating 20 Years of Wikipedia first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
User experience is one of the most important aspects of web design, but many experts overlook that UX doesn’t just apply to web pages. User experience as a concept encompasses all aspects of end-user interaction with a company.
That means you need to discover the right UX strategies for everything from your homepage to your email marketing and even your listings on Google.
Today, we’re going to explore some of how you can apply UX principles to your client’s image on search engines.
Let’s start with the basics: 89% of customers start their purchasing process with a search engine. That means that whether you’re creating a portfolio to sell your services or building a website for a client, the first connection a customer has with your design isn’t on the homepage.
Most of the time, you’re driving a specific experience for an end-user before you even realize it. Before you can wow an audience with a beautiful site design or an amazing CTA offer, you need to convince them to click on your Google link.
When you invest in user experience, you think carefully about the journey that an end-user goes through when interacting with a brand. This often means considering things like the user’s intent, their needs, and their pain points.
Those same principles apply to create an impressive search engine listing.
UX on a website is all about giving your audience what they need in an informed, and strategic manner; UX in the search engine results works the same way.
So, how do you begin to apply the principles of UX to your Google Search results?
It’s much easier than you’d think.
Delivering an excellent experience on a website often means providing end-users with the information they need as quickly as possible. Imagine designing a landing page; you wouldn’t want your audience to scroll forever to find what they need. Instead, you’d make sure that the value of the page was immediately obvious.
When creating an image for your search engine listing, you’ll need to take the same approach. This often means thinking carefully about two things: your headline and your meta description.
Around 8 out of 10 users say that they’ll click a title if it’s compelling. That means that before you do anything else to improve your SEO strategy, you need to make sure that your web page’s title is going to grab your audience’s attention.
The best titles deliver instant value. These titles tell the audience exactly what they’re going to get when they click onto the page. The promise drives action, while clarity highlights the informed nature of the brand.
The great thing about using an excellent title for a page is that it doesn’t matter where you’re ranked on the search results. Whether you’re number 2 or number 5, your customers will click if they find something they want.
It’s just like using a CTA on a landing page. Make sure your titles are:
Trust factors are another essential part of good UX.
When you’re designing a website for a new brand, you know that it’s your job to make visitors feel at ease. Even in today’s digital world, many customers won’t feel comfortable giving their money or details to a new company.
Within the website that you design, you can implement trust symbols, reviews, and testimonials to enhance brand credibility. On search engines, it all starts with your URL.
Search-friendly URLs that highlight the nature of the page will put your audience’s mind at ease. When they click on a page about “What is SEO” in the SERPs, they want to see an URL that matches, not a bunch of numbers and symbols
Use search-friendly permalink structures to make your listing seem more authoritative. This will increase the chances of your customer clicking through to a page and make them more likely to share the link with friends.
Once you decide on a link structure, make sure that it stays consistent throughout the entire site. If a link doesn’t appear to match the rest of the URLs that your audience sees for your website, they may think they’re on the wrong page. That increases your bounce rate.
To deliver excellent UX on a website, you ensure that your visitor can find all of the answers to their most pressing questions as quickly as possible. This includes providing the right information on each page and using the correct navigational structure to support a visitor’s journey.
In the SERPs, you can deliver that same informative experience with a meta description. Although meta descriptions often get ignored, they can provide a lot of value and help you or your client make the right first impression.
To master your meta descriptions:
Don’t forget that adding keywords to your meta description is often helpful too. Keywords will boost your chances of a higher ranking, but they’ll also show your audience that they’re looking at the right result.
You’ve probably noticed that the search engine result pages have changed quite a bit in the last couple of years. As Google strives to make results more relevant and informative, we’ve seen the rise of things like rich snippets. Rich snippets are excellent for telling your audience where to look.
On a website, you would use design elements, like contrasting colors and animation, to pull your audience’s attention to a specific space. On search engines, rich snippets can drive the same outcomes. The difference is that instead of telling a visitor what to do next on a page, you’re telling them to click on your site, not a competitor’s.
When Google introduced rich snippets, it wanted to provide administrators with a way of showcasing their best content. Rich snippets are most commonly used today on product pages and contact pages because they can show off reviews.
Install a rich snippet plugin into your site if you’re a WordPress user or your client is. When you enter the content that you need into the website, use the drop-down menu in your Rich snippet tool to configure the snippet.
Ideally, you’ll want to aim for the full, rich snippet if you want to stand out at the top of the search results. Most featured snippets have both text and an image. It would help if you aimed to access both of these by writing great content and combining it with a relevant image.
As a website designer or developer, you’ll know that different people on a website will often be drawn to different things. Some of your visitors might immediately see a set of bullet-points and use them to search for the answer to their question. Other visitors will want pictures or videos to guide them. So, how do you deliver that kind of diversity in the SERPS?
The easiest option is to aim to take up more of the search result pages. Google now delivers a bunch of different ways for customers to get the answers they crave. When you search for “How to use Google my Business” on Google, you’ll see links to blogs, as well as a list of YouTube Videos and the “People Also Ask” section.
Making sure that you or a client has different content ranking pieces for the same keywords can significantly improve the experience any customer has on the search engines. Often, the process of spreading your image out across the SERPs is as simple as creating some different kinds of content.
To access the video’s benefits, ask your client to create YouTube videos for some of their most commonly asked questions or most covered topics. If you’re helping with SEO marketing for your client, then make sure they have an FAQ page or a way of answering questions quickly and concisely on articles, so they’re more likely to appear in “People Also Ask”:
Speaking of Google My Business, that’s another excellent tool that’s perfect for improving UX in the search results. GMB is a free tool provided by Google. It allows business owners to manage how information appears in the search results.
With this service, you can manage a company’s position on Google maps, the Knowledge Graph, and online reviews. Establishing a company’s location is one of the most important things you can do to help audiences quickly find a business. Remember, half of the customers that do a local search on a smartphone end up visiting the store within the same day.
Start by setting up the Google Business listing for yourself or your client. All you need to do is hit the “Start Now” button and fill out every relevant field offered by Google. The more information you can add to Google My Business, the more your listing will stand out. Make sure you:
Taking advantage of a Google My Business listing will ensure that your audience has all the information they need to make an informed decision about your company before they click through to the site. This means that you or your client get more warm leads and fewer people stumbling onto your website that might not want to buy from you.
If you’re already using things like rich snippets in your Google listings, you should also have a structured schema markup plan. Schema markup on Google tells the search engines what your data means. This means that you can add extra information to your listings that will guide your customers more accurately to the support they need.
Providing additional schema markup information to your listings gives them an extra finishing touch to ensure that they stand out from the competition. You might add something like a “product price” to a product page or information about the product’s availability.
Alternatively, you could provide the people who see a search result with other options. This could be an excellent option if you’re concerned that some of the people who might come across your listing might need slightly different information. For instance, you can ask Google to list other pages along with your search results that customers can “jump to” if they need additional insights.
Baking structured data into your design process when you’re working on a website does several positive things. It makes the search engine’s job easier so that you can ensure that you or your client ranks higher. Additionally, it means that your web listings will be more thorough and useful.
Since UX is all about giving your audience the best possible experience with a brand, that starts with making sure they get the information they need in the search results.
Remember, as you begin to embed UX elements into your search engine listings, it’s important to be aware of relevant evolutions. Ultimately, the needs of any audience can change very rapidly. Paying attention to your customers and what kind of links they click on the most will provide you with lots of valuable data. You can use things like Google analytics to A/B test things like titles, pictures, featured snippets, and other things that may affect UX.
At the same time, it’s worth noting that the Google search algorithms are always changing. Running split tests on different pages will give you an insight into what your customers want. However, you’ll need to keep an eye on the latest documentation about Google Search if you want to avoid falling behind the competition.
Like most exceptional UX aspects, mastering your SERP position isn’t a set it and forget it strategy. You’ll need to constantly expand your knowledge if you want to show clients that you can combine UX and SEO effectively.
It’s easy to forget that there’s more to UX than making your buttons clickable on mobile devices or ensuring that scrolling feels smooth. For a designer or developer to deliver wonderful UX for a brand, they need to consider every interaction that a company and customer have. Most of the time, this means starting with the way a website appears when it’s listed on the search engines. Getting your SEO listing right doesn’t just boost your chances of a good ranking. This strategy also improves your reputation with your audience and delivers more meaningful moments in the buyer journey.
Featured image via Unsplash.
Looking for the best new CMS plugins to take your website to the next level? Well look no further.
In this post, we’ll cover a list of the best new CMS plugins for December 2020. This article will include useful plugins for WordPress, Shopify, Craft, and Joomla. Let’s get started…
OptiPic is a simple WordPress plugin that allows users to easily optimize and compress images.
The plugin also returns the WebP versions of images if the web browser supports it; if the web browser does not support WebP images, OptiPic will return a compressed version of the image. It also returns responsive images on mobile screens when the website is opened on a smaller device.
The image compression and WebP conversions occur in the background, so images load fast. The plugin takes advantage of caching to speed up load times.
Haglit is an AI-powered sales chatbot plugin for WooCommerce stores. The plugin allows customers to negotiate the price of products on your online store.
Haglit enables customers to haggle with a chatbot to get a personalized discount directly on the product page. In physical brick and mortar stores, conversation and haggling help to increase conversion rates and sales. Haglit allows you to bring that same interaction to your WooCommerce store. Customers can negotiate discounts and sellers can increase sales using Haglit’s discount algorithm.
The plugin is very easy to set up. All you need to do is sync Haglit to your WooCommerce store and set the maximum discount that will be allowed for a particular product. After publishing your settings, Haglit will take care of turning visitors into customers.
Brosix Live Chat plugin allows you to easily add live chat support to your WordPress site. It provides instant communication with your site’s visitors.
The plugin is easy to set up and use. All messages between customers and customer agents are encrypted. There is also a dedicated chat room on Brosix for your agents. Brosix has a mobile application for phones/tablets, a web application that works on all web browsers, and desktop applications for computers. The plugin comes in three availability options for agents and several color icon options.
Brosix offers two plans; a free plan that allows only one agent and a premium plan with more collaboration and administrative features.
Rankchecker.io is a free tool from Google that allows you to monitor your website’s ranking on search engines. The plugin allows you to check search engine rankings for multiple keywords on Google’s SERPs. Rankchecker.io can check keyword rankings for any country or language.
Bitcoin Widgets is a payment gateway plugin for WordPress users. It allows your customers to pay for goods using bitcoin.
You can receive the bitcoin payments directly to your crypto-wallet. Customers can also pay for goods with a bank card. These are the currencies that are supported: USD, RUR, EUR, UAH, INR. KRW, TRY, GBP, BRL, AUD, HKD, and TWD.
To collect bitcoin payments, just add your wallet address for payout. The payment transfers usually happen within 30 – 60 minutes depending on the network. There is also no processing fee.
Remove Emoji CSS and JS is a simple plugin that allows you to remove emoji CSS and JS from your WordPress website. Removing these CSS and JS scripts will help improve the performance and speed of your website.
Using the plugin is straight forward. Just install and activate the plugin to remove emoji CSS and JS from your website.
GuardGiant is a security plugin that stops hackers from logging into a WordPress website. The plugin uses a modern approach to make sure that genuine users are not locked away from their website. When a genuine user successfully logs into a device for the first time, the plugin treats the device as trusted. So if a user has failed login attempts on a trusted device, they are directed to ‘Lost Password’ forms instead of being completely locked out of their account.
Users will receive alerts when someone logs into their account from an unrecognized browser or device. Some of its features include brute force protection and detailed logging of all login attempts. The plugin also obscures login errors so that hackers cannot detect valid account names.
The plugin is easy to use and the default settings are already optimized to keep hackers away.
Schema Integration is a lightweight plugin that makes it easy to add schema markup to WordPress websites.
The plugin will automatically add the structured schema.org data markup in the recommended JSON-LD format to your website in seconds. The plugin supports multiple schema.org types. You can add the schema types anywhere on your site. All the schema types in the plugin are valid when tested on Google Structured Data Testing Tool.
Setting up schema using the plugin is easy. All you need to do is select the schema type you want and fill in the desired fields. The plugin will take care of the rest.
Promo Video Maker is an effective WordPress plugin for creating professionally designed videos for your business. The plugin allows you to turn static images into videos.
Some of the features in the plugin include free video templates, licensed audio tracks, and a free library with over 1.4M assets. The plugin comes with an easy to use editor. It easily integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can also manually embed the videos on any web page. With Promo Video Maker, you can easily create advertisements and testimonial videos to promote your products and services.
Backup Migration is a WordPress plugin for creating a backup of your site. All you need to do is install the plugin and click on “Create backup now”. The plugin allows you to schedule backups. You can also determine which exact files or databases you want to backup. The plugin is free to use.
Joli FAQ SEO is an easy-to-use plugin for creating multiple FAQs pages.
The plugin comes with a one-page drag-and-drop FAQ builder for creating fully responsive and mobile-friendly FAQ pages. The plugin is very great for SEO. It does not use jQuery in the front end. The plugin’s JavaScript file size is 4kb minified and the CSS file size is 6kb minified. You can customize the FAQ page to fit your website’s theme. The pro version integrates with WooCommerce and has an instant search bar.
QuizToAction is a simple Shopify plugin that allows you to catch the attention of your store visitors using interactive quizzes. At the end of each quiz, you can add a call to action. Currently, the plugin only allows email subscriptions as the call to action.
UGC Shoppable Customer Content plugin makes it easy to get user-generated content from your customers. With the plugin, you can invite your customers to share photos of their purchases through an on-site upload or email submissions.
The plugin comes with a widget so that you can display the UGC on your store. You can review the photos before they are uploaded. During the uploading process, the customer is asked if their photo can be shared on social media. If their answer is “Yes”, you can share the photo on social media through a shareable icon on the platform.
Checkify is a simple Shopify plugin that makes it easy to add a terms and conditions checkbox to your cart page. You can also add age verification and any customer agreements required by your store. No code is required to install the plugin. It uses a one-click install and will appear immediately after installation.
It is compatible with all browsers and Shopify themes. Checkify will show a warning if a customer tries to check out without checking the checkbox.
Hop Reveal plugin gives Craft site editors a quick visual cue on which server-side they are working on, development, staging, or production. You can choose what to name or color the labels. The plugin also allows you to view key environment variables that will be useful during development.
Donkeytail is a field type in Craft that allows you to quickly and easily content manage points on images.
Donkeytail is compatible with GraphQL. It also works with all content types including entries, categories, assets, users, variants, and products. You can use Donkeytail to showcase multiple products within an image.
Ol Content Modal is a Joomla module that allows users to display articles, K2, or custom items on a popup modal. The extension also allows users to show full articles in a popup window; use a navigation arrow to move from one article to the next.
Mx contact is a responsive Joomla module that allows you to add a custom contact form to any page on your website. The extension is great for collecting customer feedback and contact details. The contact form can either appear on a wall or as a popup.
Ruxin QR Code allows you to add QR codes to your Joomla website. The extension allows you to set your QR size, display custom links, set the background color and put a footer label. You can also show your logo or label in the center of the QR code.
Featured image via Unsplash.
By the end of the year, the number of global smartphone users is expected to reach 3.5 billion. That’s a significant 9.3% increase over the last 12 months.
In a world where everyone is constantly connected to their mobile devices, it makes sense that web developers and designers would need to consider new rules for how they create engaging experiences. After all, most of us find browsing from our smartphones to be much more convenient than sitting down at a laptop each day.
With a little luck, you’re already taking steps to mobile optimize your website but standards are changing all the time. To make sure your website is up to scratch, here’s your guide to prioritizing your site for mobile, ready for the new year.
The first step in updating your web design and development principles, is understanding the concept of mobile first design, and how it’s changed.
With a responsive website, you create something that adjusts to the screen size of any device; with a mobile-first site, you’re focusing first-and-foremost on the user experience that people get when they’re on mobile, taking that as your starting point, and building from there. Instead of building your website for the desktop and using mobile as an afterthought, you start with a consideration of mobile.
Even Google is highlighting the demand for this process lately, with the mobile-first indexing algorithm. If you can’t design for mobile-first, then you could risk your clients being unable to rise up the search engine ranks.
So, how do you get started?
Web developers and designers are nothing without a great toolkit.
The good news is that there are solutions out there that can help you to master the right skills for a mobile-focused user experience. For instance, Skeleton is excellent for small-scale projects that require fluid grids and minimal compiling.
Alternatively, Bootstrap can offer a one-size-fits-all solution for the front-end development for mobile devices. There’s a default grid system available, plenty of components, and JavaScript plugins to work with.
With the right tools, you can minimize and prioritize the content that’s most valuable for your website projects. This is crucial for maximizing website speed and creating clarity when it comes to content and imagery.
For instance, check out the ESPN website; it’s split into very easy-to-follow categories of content that are perfect for scrolling on a smartphone. The grid of videos makes it feel like you’re using a tool like YouTube.
Once you have the right tools to assist you, it’s time to begin building your mobile-first website from the ground up. Rather than jumping straight into considerations of the latest design trends, it’s important to start with the foundations.
For instance, navigation within a mobile page is usually hidden under a hamburger button. However, you can take this concept to the next level too. For example, the Shojin mobile website only demonstrates the most important website options within the navigation bar to avoid overwhelming users.
The key here is to keep things as simple as possible, without restricting what your audience can do when they visit your website. Although you want to keep the number of interactive elements on your site small, you also need to ensure that those elements are easy to find and use.
All buttons and CTAs should be clear and tappable. Fonts need to be large enough to read from any screen, and your navigation system needs to be 100% simple, without slowing anything down.
On average, we recommend making all clickable elements at least 48 pixels in height.
Images are a crucial part of any website. They add context and appeal to your design. However, they can also seriously slow down your website if you’re not careful.
Remember, different devices have different demands when it comes to imagery. A desktop page may need a 1200px wide image, while a mobile-only needs the image to be 400px wide at most. The old way of making your images work was to load a large resolution image and use the same file on every platform. Unfortunately, this slows downloading time significantly.
Instead, it’s better to have at least two different versions of the same image for your mobile and desktop solutions. You can also consider SVG.
SVGs are incredibly scalable – more so than bitmaps. With SVG, you can ensure any icon or graphic continues to look sharp and clickable across all devices. Because these files are often smaller, your site loads quicker too! Hubspot is great at using SVGs.
Intricate illustrations are a massive component of HubSpot’s brand. If those images were saved as PNGs or other alternative files, then they would take forever to load. Because they’re all SVGs, you can enjoy the same consistent experience across desktop and mobile.
It’s not just the big graphics and images that make a huge difference to your website when it comes to mobile-first design. You also need to think about the legibility and clarity of your website across all devices and platforms. If people can’t read the value proposition of the company that you’re designing for, you’re going to have a major problem.
Focus on making your content as easy to read as possible. Look into the typefaces that seem most appealing on a range of devices.
Remember to balance the body and heading font sizes for the device size too. You’ll need to ensure that the experience feels consistent and smooth as your users scroll through each page. Just take a look at the mobile version of the IMPACT website, for instance.
The headings aren’t as huge as they are on the desktop version of the website, and they’re displayed below, rather than above the featured image. However, this helps to give a more immediately eye-catching and structured experience to mobile users.
There’s even a handy “Search Engine Optimization” tag included, that users can click on if they want to find more related articles.
When it comes to typography, remember that it’s not just size and clarity that matter, but how things are structured throughout your website too. Your type should naturally guide your visitors along the page.
Finally, on smartphones, you can accomplish a range of amazing things that you might not be able to do when using a desktop device. Your users can make calls, open apps, send messages, and more, all from within their mobile browser. They can also move their smartphone around a room, taking advantage of concepts like AR and VR.
Taking advantage of the unique capabilities that smartphone design can offer gives you a chance to get unique with your user experience.
Making the most of the mobile experience can be much simpler than you’d think. For instance, on a desktop site, you could list your phone number on a contact page. On a mobile site, the number can begin a call when clicked. You can also take the same approach with email addresses, and social media icons too.
Depending on how experimental you feel, there’s also plenty of opportunities to go above and beyond with your mobile features. You may decide to create a mobile app version of a website that your customers can download onto their phones.
Alternatively, you can look into things like AR technology. This could allow your users to practice placing items of furniture that they may be thinking of buying from an online retailer into their house, so they can see how well they work with their other interior design choices.
Ultimately, having a responsive website that works on both mobile and desktop devices is mandatory in the modern world. However, going above and beyond with mobile-first design is a great way to get ahead of the game.
If you can focus on building a website that puts the experiences of mobile users first, then you can create something that’s much more likely to grab audience attention and deliver amazing experiences.
If nothing else, showing your clients that you have what it takes to design for mobile is an excellent way to ensure that you can gain as many new project opportunities as possible.
Since there are so many CMS plugins out there, it can be overwhelming to choose the best ones for your website. We’ve done the research for you; this list contains the top new CMS plugins for November 2020. You’ll find useful plugins for WordPress, Craft, Shopify, and Joomla.
Let’s get started…
404 Page Editor is a simple WordPress plugin that helps you add custom text to the default 404 page on your website. The plugin comes with seasonal and industry-related 404 templates. One useful feature of the plugin is that it backups your current 404 page before changing it. So you can restore the backup page anytime you choose. The plugin duplicates your current 404.php page to wp-content/uploads/404-page-editor/ so you can easily find it. You can also change the text on the plugin to fit your local dialect.
Most WordPress themes and plugins load their CSS in the wrong areas of your website. This can slow down your site. A slow website will reduce user experience and lead to increased bounce rates.
UnusedCSS will help reduce the size of your website’s CSS files by up to 95%. The best part is that the plugin works automatically. It will remove any unused CSS when visitors view any page on your website. UnusedCSS will automatically reduce your website’s load times by reducing your CSS files and page size. The plugin also optimizes the performance of other WordPress plugins and extensions. UnusedCSS also works with WooCommerce themes and plugins.
Simple Redirects is a WordPress plugin that helps you to automatically redirect requests to another page on your site or any other place on the web. The plugin allows you to easily redirect users from your old web pages to new pages using 301 or 302 redirects. You don’t have to worry about losing backlinks or page rank. Any incoming links to the old web page will be automatically passed along to the new page. The page rank on the old page is also transferred to the new page. The plugin is useful when migrating a WordPress site when don’t want to retain the URL structure.
HTML Validation plugin helps you identify any HTML validation errors on your website. The plugin works automatically in the background of your website and will send you regular reports. There is a progress bar on the report screen to show you the progress of the scan. The plugin uses WordPress Cron to scan the content of your website. There is also an option for the plugin to automatically fix any HTML validation issues on your website. You can also choose to fix the issues manually.
Just Highlight is a simple WordPress plugin that helps you highlight text in your posts or pages. You can use this plugin to highlight any portion of the page you want to draw the reader’s attention to. You can highlight the background of the page and also add animation to the highlighted text. In the WordPress admin area, you can change the speed and color of the animation. The plugin is compatible with Gutenberg, and the WordPress classic editor.
DeviantArt Embed is a simple plugin that helps you embed any work from Deviant Art into a post. The plugin provides a block for the WordPress block editor so you can easily embed the image. It uses a DeviantArt oEmbed API to pull the images and their descriptions, and creates an embedded image.
Static Optimizer is a static file optimization plugin that serves and optimizes static files on your website. The plugin will help you increase your website speed by automatically compressing your static files. It is easy to set up, you just need an API key to get started. Other useful features that the plugin offers include automatic JS and CSS minification, automatic image optimization, and processing of responsive images. You don’t have to worry about losing your files if their server is down. The plugin automatically backs up your files and will load your original files when their servers are down (either because of an upgrade, maintenance, or outage). By default, only images are compressed when you activate the plugin; you can also choose to optimize fonts, CSS, and JS files.
RankBear is a keyword rank tracker plugin that helps you analyze your SEO efforts. With RankBear, you can track the keywords for each of the posts and pages on your site. While the plugin has a paid plan, you can track up to five keywords for free. On the free plan, you will receive weekly reports on each keyword you are tracking. You can search for the rank and volume of a keyword in every location supported by the Google search engine. RankBear is a lightweight software-as-a-service plugin hosted by Amazon Cloud Services. The plugin also offers the option to download the keyword reports to CSV.
Table of Contents Block is a plugin that allows you to easily create a Table of Contents for your WordPress posts. The plugin is lightweight and will automatically add a Table of Content in your website’s posts and pages. You can select the heading tags you want to add to the Table of Content. It also has a dedicated support team to assist you. The plugin works fine with all standard WordPress themes.
Markeaze is an all-in-one communication plugin that allows you to add live chat to your online stores. The plugin will help you improve your customer service by decreasing your response times. With the plugin, you can collect your visitor’s contact information via a widget. This feature is useful in building a subscriber database. You can also use the plugin to track customer behavior on your site, inform customers about new products, help customers with active orders, and collect customer feedback. You can also use the auto-reply function to answer commonly asked questions.
Image Toolbox is a Craft CMS plugin that offers image-related tools for your templates. The plugin will automatically create a WebP variant of the images you upload. It also has a fallback for browsers that do not support WebP images. Other useful features the plugin offers include automatic creation of placeholder images and generation of responsive images with multiple variants. The plugin also supports Imager-X (or old Imager).
Element Panel plugin allows you to add elements and an eager-loading panel to the debug toolbar. This feature will help you benchmark your templates in Craft CMS. For elements, the panel has a dashboard that shows how many elements are populated. It also shows how many elements are duplicates. The plugin also shows you how many eager-loading elements are detected. Duplicate elements are grouped by field name.
VStore Shoppable Videos is a Shopify plugin that allows your customers to shop directly from your videos. The plugin allows you to embed your products into any video. Since videos have a high engagement rate, this plugin will significantly improve your store’s conversion rates.
ProofMotion Video Testimonials plugin helps you to easily collect video testimonials. The plugin sends an automated email or SMS requests to customers asking for their satisfaction feedback after making a purchase. The responses are analyzed to determine whether the customer had a negative or positive experience. Customers that offer negative feedback are sent to customer care to help them with the problem they encountered. Happy customers are prompted to make video testimonials of their positive shopping experience. ProofMotion guides the customer through the interview so they can give the best testimonial. They also offer an on-site widget so you can easily share your testimonials.
Real ID is a Shopify plugin that allows you to verify customers’ real identity using a photo ID and facial biometrics. The plugin is perfect for orders that have an age restriction, verifying flagged fraud goods, and selling expensive goods. Real ID will help you identify whether a government-issued-ID is fake during fulfilment. All the customer needs to do is take a selfie on their phone. This way, even if a customer has access to a stolen physical ID, they won’t still be able to make any purchase. The plugin can verify documents such as passports, visas, national IDs, driver licenses, and more. Real ID will help you handle GDPR compliance. The plugin is available in hundreds of countries around the world.
Accessibility is a Joomla plugin that allows your website visitors to easily access your website content. The plugin will remove any barrier between the visitor and your Joomla site. There is no coding required and you can customize the plugin directly from the module manager. The plugin has a useful feature called Dyslexic Readability; this feature allows your visitors to set the entire document font to a dyslexic-friendly font. Visitors can also grayscale the page, resize the fonts, and resize the word space. From the backend module, you can add any custom CSS and JS. The plugin is also available in 12 different languages.
Reading Time is a simple plugin that will help you easily show the reading time of your Joomla articles. The plugin is easy to set up and does not require any coding. You can customize every parameter, including the text, in minutes. You can also choose to exclude categories, articles, and menu items. Reading Time also allows you to easily add custom CSS code from the plugin parameters.
Featured image via Pexels.
Les marchés de clients individuels, optimisés par les plateformes et les algorithmes, peuvent désormais devenir instantanément une communauté ouverte pour des actions collectives et coopératives.
La technologie aide les clients à interagir plus facilement et à s’organiser en un nombre infini de communautés numériques exigeantes, parfois même révoltées.
Ces communautés se forment souvent de manière spontanée et se développent de façon exponentielle à un coût quasi nul. Nous le voyons, par exemple, lorsque de simples histoires individuelles deviennent virales ou lorsque des entreprises ont à affronter, quasiment du jour au lendemain, des foules qui entreprennent des actions difficiles à gérer.
La création et le partage d’objets sociaux sont au cœur de cette révolution des communautés numériques (1). Les communautés numériques étaient initialement basées sur des intérêts communs et se sont formées autour de points de rassemblement en ligne tels que des groupes de discussion et leurs artefacts numériques, les publications. De nos jours, les objets sociaux numériques prennent toutes sortes de formes, comme les tweets, les photos, les évaluations par les pairs et les mises à jour de statut (c’est-à-dire à peu près tout ce qui suscite un intérêt et une participation de masse et qui peut être facilement partagé).
Plus de 140 000 communautés mondiales se sont formées sur Reddit, couvrant des sujets très sérieux, et d’autres beaucoup plus obscurs. Par exemple, un groupe de 71 000 membres partage des photos de coussinets d’animaux.
La facilité avec laquelle des groupes comme celui ci peuvent se former, communiquer et agir implique que ces communautés sociales ne sont pas limitées à des objectifs de divertissement. Certaines sont clairement formées pour déstabiliser ou disrupter des entreprises. Les téléspectateurs, par exemple, ont réussi à faire revivre des séries télévisées, à faire pression sur celles qu’ils n’aimaient pas et à exiger que certaines soient réécrites.
Pour réussir, les entreprises doivent être capables de créer des objets sociaux importants aux yeux des groupes numériques et, par extension, de devenir la pièce maîtresse du fonctionnement du groupe. Il s’agit de trouver le bon équilibre : elles doivent éviter de déclencher la colère d’un groupe et de devenir l’objet de leur mépris.
Plusieurs sociétés de jeux en ligne ont donné naissance à des communautés participatives en transformant leurs jeux en objets sociaux. Les gamers peuvent partager des stratégies, créer de nouvelles versions des jeux et y jouer ensemble. Les sociétés de services musicaux transforment les playlists favorites en objets sociaux, qui sont ensuite facilement partagés avec d’autres personnes à la recherche du mix parfait.
Aujourd’hui, les sites d’avis sont généralement utilisés pour complimenter ou critiquer une entreprise en fonction de l’expérience vécue. D’autres utilisent ces avis pour décider quel produit acheter. De plus en plus de communautés numériques optimisées par l’IA se formeront pour partager opinions, conseils, bonnes pratiques et expériences personnelles autour d’intérêts communs.
Les plateformes de données permettent aux clients de se regrouper pour acheter des articles à prix réduit. Les plateformes basées sur les coupons offrent des prix réduits sur des quantités minimums définies par le fournisseur. Les sites de financement participatif (Crowdfunding) permettent aux clients d’attirer l’attention sur une cause charitable ou de proposer leur aide pour développer de nouveaux produits. En échange d’un paiement initial, les donateurs reçoivent généralement le nouveau produit dès son lancement.
Chargés par les clients d’obtenir le meilleur prix (par exemple via des comparateurs), les robots d’IA pourraient à l’avenir collaborer pour négocier et acheter collectivement des marchandises. Les robots d’IA apprendront à rechercher et à mobiliser d’autres robots d’IA pour aider à servir au mieux les intérêts de tous leurs clients.
Utilisez le Big Data et l’IoT pour concevoir des objets sociaux qui s’intègrent à vos produits, plateformes numériques et à votre présence en ligne et que les gens veulent créer et partager. Oubliez la création et le contrôle de tout le contenu pertinent de l’entreprise, et optez pour le développement de communautés au sein de l’entreprise afin de partager du contenu qui bénéficie à l’entreprise dans le cadre de leurs interactions sociales.
Votre produit peut représenter la raison d’être d’une communauté, en permettant aux gens d’interagir de manière utile entre eux. Par exemple, de nombreux fabricants d’appareils de fitness utilisent des applications pour créer des communautés autour de ces appareils et accroître les interactions via des plateformes numériques.
Aidez les communautés numériques à comprendre ce qu’elles veulent être, à défendre leurs valeurs et à atteindre leurs objectifs. Plusieurs entreprises de prêt-à-porter, par exemple, ont tiré profit de la volonté de leurs communautés de faire une différence à l’échelle mondiale, en associant l’achat d’un produit à une aide destinée à des communautés dans le besoin.
Publié en anglais sur insights.sap.com
Références
(1) « Social objects » (Objets sociaux), Wikipedia, consulté le 2 octobre 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_objects.
The post L’expérience client future : des marchés aux communautés appeared first on SAP France News.
