1. Beautiful Connectivity

22 janvier 2021/par Service comm.

3 Essential Design Trends, November 2020

As we turn the corner into the final part of the year, many of the new websites and redesigns that we see during much of the rest of the year tend to slow down. Many businesses are focusing on fourth quarter and holiday sales.

With that being said, there are plenty of holiday flourishes already showing up on many websites. But there are still a few trends that don’t have a holiday theme.

Here’s what’s trending in design this month.

1. Beautiful Connectivity

Web elements that merge and flow into one another can be difficult to design but the payoff is totally worthwhile. This website design trend exemplifies connected elements in a way that’s beautiful and mesmerizing.

You can accomplish it with static elements or interactivity; the common theme is that design parts enter the space of one another and merge in ways that are seamless and visually interesting.

The thing that makes it exceptionally tricky is responsiveness. To ensure that pieces work well at all sizes when they overlap or encroach on the space of one another takes a lot of planning and testing.

Here are a few examples of projects that do it well – and each one does it in a different way.

Kirk Whayman’s website uses a floating ice cube over simple lettering. The interactivity is spot on here with hover actions that allow you to move the block with the letters refracting in an expected manner. (It would be easy to play with it all day.) But the coolest interaction happens when you “break it” (click on the cube). The elements continue to merge and interact in a new and different way.

Kikk Festival uses animations and giant scrollable illustrations and plenty of elements that overlap within the space. What’s neat is that everything on this canvas seems to touch everything else. The staircase design encourages scrolling and lettering and smaller animated elements all connect to the steps in the sky motif.

Multi Options Nursing takes a totally different approach. It uses a static split screen with a photo on the right side that merges into a round graphic element. It takes two not-s-interesting images and makes something out of them. The design carries this theme below the scroll as well and this style of image presentation carries a nice visual weight without feeling heavy.

2. Almost Brutalism

Brutalism just seems to keep coming back around. For those that love this trend, it keeps evolving as well.

The latest styles of brutalism are a little less mono but still pretty sharp with harsh lines, questionable type readability, and a lot going on in a compressed space. These projects also seem to be embracing color and alternative font choices more readily.

Fledge uses a split screen – still a dominant trend two years running – with a blue that’s almost too bright with an almost white offset color. The text is big and smooshed into the space tightly. Depending on the breakpoint, you might not even get the whole phrase on the left side. The design challenge is what are you supposed to do here? There are some hover animation cues, but they aren’t very direct.

Loeven Morcel’s design has hints of brutalism and elements of elegance. What makes this design skew toward the brutal side is use of space and typography. Like the previous example, it falls into the territory of “what should I do here” with some concerns about readability. Most of these issues are resolved on the scroll if you move beyond the homepage.

Szymon Michalczyl’s site is another that is close to brutal in style but has an element of sleekness that doesn’t quite carry it over the edge. The simple framework has that brutalist feel but the use of simple, clean fonts with plenty of space pulls it back into a more mainstream design scheme.

3. Beige Everything

Is a shade of beige the color of the year for 2020? Or is it just how we all feel?

Beige backgrounds are everywhere, making this one of those design trends that you can’t miss. The good news is that designers are playing with different shades of beige as well as warm and cool variations. Beige on its own can take on some of the color from accent hues and imagery, so that’s important to keep in mind when using this in the background.

The other variable is how saturated to make beige coloring. Most designs are using some of the more muted options while mostly playing with the levels of green and red. But darker beiges are also an option.

Simon Daufresne uses a beige that is the color that comes to mind when you think beige. It’s simple, a hint reddish, and is used with black only to maintain true color.

Discovered Wildfoods uses a more neutral feeling beige with a more green undertone (or is that color feel coming from other design elements). The neutral and natural color fits the brand and association this website is trying to create.

Aebele Interiors also uses a more traditional beige but with a bold mustard accent that makes the color feel exceptionally warm. What’s nice about this color combination is that in small sizes the mustard colored-type almost falls into the beige background, but at larger sizes seems to almost jump off the screen. It’s an interesting color juxtaposition.

Conclusion

Personally, this month’s trends are a mixed bag. I love the lines and interactivity of the beautifully connected examples. It shows that elements can cross and work together well.

On the flip side, brutalism and beige just aren’t my style. But apparently, they appeal to a lot of people based on the number of projects using these styles. What do you think? I’d love to know how you feel about these trends. Let me know on Twitter.

2 novembre 2020/par Service comm.

The Ultimate 10 UX Influencers to Follow

The digital world is a place of constant change. Just as you get used to a new design trend, another one appears, forcing you to rethink the way that you approach each client project.

As a web designer, it’s up to you to make sure that you have your finger on the pulse on the latest transformations in the industry. However, it can be challenging to know for sure which trends you should be taking seriously, and which you can simply ignore.

One option to refine and enhance your design journey is to pay attention to influencers.

Influencers aren’t just there to guide customers into making purchasing decisions. These people are thought-leaders in their field. They spend all of their time tracking down ideas and concepts that really work. That way, they can maintain a successful reputation online.

Sourcing information and motivation from the following UX influencers could help you to create some truly amazing websites in 2020:

1. Andrew Kucheriavy

Andrew Kucheriavy is the phenomenal co-founder and CEO of a company named Intechnic. Andrew was one of the first people in the world to be given the “Master in User Experience” award. This means that he’s an excellent person to pay attention to if you want help understanding the ins and outs of user experience design.

As one of the leading visionaries in UX, business strategy, and inbound marketing, Andrew has a lot of useful information to offer professionals and learners alike. Andrew is particularly active on Twitter, where he’s constantly sharing insights on design and marketing. You can also find input from Andrew on the Intechnic blog.

2. Jeff Veen

Another must-follow for designers who want to learn more about understanding their audience and their position in the marketplace, Jeff Veen is a leader in UX and product design. Veen got his start with the founding team for Wired, before he created the Adaptive Path company for UX consulting. Jeff Veen is also known for being responsible for various aspects of Google Analytics.

Over the years, Jeff has expanded his knowledge in the design space, and mentored various companies, from WordPress to Medium. He also has a fantastic podcast that you can listen to for guidance when you’re on the go.

3. Jared Spool

Jared Spool has been tackling the most common issues of user experience since before the term “UX” was even a thing. Excelling in the design world since 1978, Jared has become one of the biggest and most recognizable names in the user experience environment. He’s the founder of the User Interface Engineering consulting firm. The company concentrates on helping companies to improve their site and product usability.

Jared offers plenty of handy information to stock up on in his Twitter feed. Additionally, you can find plenty of helpful links to blogs and articles that he has published around the web on Twitter too. He’s followed by Hubgets, PICUS, and many other leading brands. Make sure that you check out his collection of industry-leading talks on UIE.

4. Jen Romano Bergstrom

An experimental psychologist, User Experience Research coach, and UX specialist, Jen is one of the most impressive women in the web design world. She helped to create the unique experiences that customers can access on Instagram and Facebook. Additionally, she has a specialist knowledge of eye-tracking on the web. You can even check out Jen’s books on eye-tracking and usability testing.

When she’s not writing books or researching user experience, Jen is blogging and tweeting about usability and researching new strategies in the web design space. It’s definitely worth keeping up with Jen on Twitter, particularly if you want to be the first to know about her upcoming seminars and learning sessions.

5. Katie Dill

Katie Dill is the former Director of Experience for Airbnb, so you know that she knows her way around some unique experiences. With an expertise in working with companies that harness new technologies and UX design, Katie Dill is at the forefront of the user experience landscape. Dill attends various UX conferences throughout the year, and publishes a range of fantastic videos on YouTube.

You can find blogs and articles from Katie published on the web; however, you’ll be able to get the most input from her by following Katie on her Twitter account.

6. Khoi Vinh

Khoi Vinh is one of the most friendly and unique UX bloggers and influencers on the market today. He knows how to talk to people in a way that’s interesting and engaging – even about more complicated topics in UX design. Vinh is a principle designer at Adobe, and he has his own podcast called Wireframe. However, he still finds time to keep his followers engaged on Twitter.

Over the years, Khoi has worked as a Design Director for Etsy and the New York Times. Vinh also wrote a book called “Ordering Disorder” which examines grid principles in web design. According to Fast Company, he’s one of the most influential designers in America. Additionally, Khoi has a brilliant blog where you can check out all of his latest insights into UX design.

7. Cory Lebson

Cory Lebson is a veteran in the world of web design and user experience. With more than 2 decades of experience in the landscape, Cory has his own dedicated UX consulting firm named Lebsontech. Lebson and his company concentrate on offering UX training, mentoring, and user experience strategy support to customers. Cory also regularly speaks on topics regarding UX career development, user experience, information architecture and more.

Cory is an excellent influencer to follow on Twitter, where you’ll find him sharing various UX tricks and tips. You can also check out Cory’s handbook on UX careers, or find him publishing content on the Lebsontech blog too.

8. Lizzie Dyson

Another amazing woman in the industry of UX, Lizzie Dyson is changing the experience landscape as we know it. Although she’s a relatively new figure in the web design world, she’s recognized world-wide for her amazing insights into the world of web development. Lizzie also helped to create a new group specifically for women that want to get involved in web design.

The Ladies that UX monthly meet-up welcomes a community of women into the digital landscape, helping them to learn and expand their skills. Lizzie regularly publishes content online as part of Ladies that UX. Additionally, she appears on the Talk UX feed – an annual design and tech conference held for women around the world.

9. Chris Messina

Chris Messina is a product designer and a technical master who understands what it takes to avoid disappointing your users. With more than a decade of experience in the UX design landscape, Messina has worked for a variety of big-name brands, including Google and Uber. He is best known as the inventor of the hashtag!

Chris is a highly skilled individual who understands the unique elements that engage customers and keep people coming back for more on a website. You can see Chris speaking at a selection of leading conferences around the world. Check out some of his talks on YouTube or track down his schedule of upcoming talks here. Chris also has a variety of fantastic articles on Medium to read too.

10. Elizabeth Churchill

Last, but definitely not least, Elizabeth Churchill is a UX leader with an outstanding background in psychology, research science, psychology, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, human interaction with computers and more. She knows her way around everything from cognitive economics, to everyday web design. Churchill also acts as the director of UX for Google Material Design.

A powerhouse of innovation and information, Churchill has more than 50 patents to her name. She’s also the vice president of the Association for Computing Machinery too. When she’s not sharing information on Twitter, Elizabeth also has a regular column that you can tune into on the ACM Interactions magazine.

Who Are You Following in 2020?

Whether you’re looking for inspiration, guidance, or information, the right influencers can deliver some excellent insights into the world of web design. There are plenty of thought leaders out there in the realm of user experience that can transform the way that you approach your client projects. You might even discover a new favourite podcast to listen to, or an amazing series of videos that help you to harness new talents.

Influencers are more than just tools for digital marketing; they’re an excellent source of guidance for growing UX designers too.

Featured image via Pexels.

9 octobre 2020/par Service comm.

3 Essential Design Trends, October 2020

Design can make a statement. It evokes feeling and can encourage thought and conversation. That’s the common theme among the three trends in website design this month.

Each trend is rooted on the time and place where we live and includes elements that provoke thought. Kudos to these designers and design teams for jumpstarting conversations. Here’s what’s trending in design this month.

1. “Taking a Stance” Design

From social to environmental issues, design projects are echoing the sentiments of their audiences and organization in a way that take a stance on an issue.

Once taboo, this is becoming increasingly used as a technique for brands who are no longer worried about turning off a certain segment. The goal is to rally the core audience and people who feel the same way about an issue or cause.

There’s also a secondary thing happening here. Some designs aren’t really position based, but use imagery and language that resonates with a movement to associate with that feeling.

Never Heart uses “Join the Revolution” and a dark image with a heart to tug at your feelings. It can help create an association to a cause that you believe in without stating that cause directly. The design feels strong and inviting while making you feel like part of something.

Skye High uses “powerful” twice in the headline to convey a particular messages to women. The agency is looking to work with “powerful” women. It’s a timely statement and message that could resonate with a lot of business-women at various levels of their careers.

Discovered Wildfoods is a brand that is rooted in sustainability. The corporate model and responsibility of the brand shows through in the website. This type of design helps connect people with mutual feelings to the brand and products.

It’s refreshing to see more websites and brands embracing social causes and issues. It can be tricky for a number of reasons. But for some brands, it pays off.

2. Abstract Art Elements

If you are worried about a lack of images, or not sure how to portray images in an appropriate way due to the worldwide pandemic – groups or not, masked or not – abstract art elements can be the solution.

Widely used for startups and apps, more abstract design elements are everywhere. It’s an easy way to create strong visual interest without photography.

The most common use of abstract art elements is often in the form of geometric shapes with animation. This is something that almost anyone can understand and simple shapes and movement can be quite stunning when done well.

The good news is this aesthetic can work for almost any type of website. Try it for a redesign when you don’t have photography that feels appropriate in the current environment or if you want to create focus for content that drives website visitors to the words or scroll. This works with more abstract concepts when they are simple and help you move quickly from the visual to text.

Here’s how each of the examples handles abstract art elements:

Indicius uses bouncing circles that move toward text and down the screen to drive users to the headline and scroll action.

With Code uses a fun fuzzy circle with different animations to draw you in.

Appimized uses bright color and a monotone scheme with geometric shapes to sell its services.

3. Images That Make You Think

This might be the most visually interesting, and thought-provoking, website design trend we’ve seen in a while. These designs all feature images with a little something different or unusual that make you think.

There are a lot of different ways to do this – marry photographs and illustrations, create imaginary imagery, animations or effects, visual tricks that play on depth perception or create pseudo-3D effects.

The commonality is that the visual is so striking and unusual that website visitors stop and engage with the design. What do the “oddball” visuals mean? What message do they convey? How did they do that?

All of the questions could be associated with this different style of visual representation.

Bling uses a combination of a photo with illustrated animated elements to draw the eye. The yin and yang between reality and fantasy is quickly evident and makes you want to know more. (It doesn’t hurt that the animation uses dollars and lightning.)

Kibun is interesting because the photo choices create an optical illusion of depth. It matches the content of the design well because the website features artistic textile panels with an artistic design. The illusion is in the angles and coloring of photographs and their placements on the screen. The only downside of this design is that it loses the artistic panache on mobile because the images stack.

Oddball images can sell. We Are Mad stands out because it uses a contrived image, but doesn’t go oversized with it. The more subtle placement is ideal and arguably more attention-grabbing.

Conclusion

Website design can be a powerful thing, as these trends and examples show. Don’t discredit the power of choices in color, imagery, animation, and text when creating a digital experience. Design can mean a lot of different things depending on the audience as these examples show.

At the same time, these design trends are powerful and meaningful. They provide context into our world, our time, and our feelings. Don’t be afraid to experiment and make a statement with your design work. Just remember to keep in mind all potential impacts (positive and negative) before taking the project live.

5 octobre 2020/par Service comm.

Le fonds SAP.iO investit dans Jina AI, société de recherche basée sur les réseaux de neurones

Actualités, ERP & Applications, Innovation, SAP

BERLIN – SAP SE (NYSE : SAP) annonce que son fonds d’investissement, SAP.iO Fund, a soutenu Jina AI, une entreprise berlinoise fournissant une solution de recherche basée sur les réseaux de neurones, en open source.

Jina AI combine les récentes avancées en matière de Machine Learning en traitement du langage naturel, vision et reconnaissance vocale dans une nouvelle plate-forme de recherche, afin d’offrir une plus grande précision, flexibilité et adaptabilité aux entrées de recherche.

Le projet principal de Jina AI, Jina on GitHub, permet aux utilisateurs de créer une solution de recherche native dans le cloud, fonctionnant sur la base du Deep Learning. Jina permet de réduire de plusieurs mois à quelques minutes le temps nécessaire à la construction d’un réseau de neurones prêt pour la production et adapté aux environnements commerciaux ; qui exigent un cycle de développement rapide. Depuis la sortie de On GitHub en mai 2020, ce projet a déjà attiré plus de 2 000 engagements de la part de 48 contributeurs du monde entier. Dès maintenant, Jina prend en charge la recherche de texte, d’image, de vidéo, d’audio et de données multimodales. D’autres types de données seront pris en charge à l’avenir.

« Alors que les entreprises accélèrent leurs transformations numériques, un besoin est apparu pour une recherche d’entreprise plus efficace et précise » a déclaré Ram Jambunathan, vice-président senior de SAP et directeur général de SAP.iO. « Nous sommes enthousiasmés par le potentiel de Jina AI à fournir une solution de recherche précise aux clients de SAP. »

Jina AI a été fondée par le Dr Han Xiao, qui est connu pour le développement de l’infrastructure de recherche de nouvelle génération pour l’application de messagerie de Tencent, WeChat. Il est également connu pour son leadership au sein du bureau du programme Open Source de Tencent, où il a encouragé la culture open source et de développement de la société. Xiao a été membre du conseil d’administration de la Linux Foundation AI en 2019 et est fondateur et président de l’association germano-chinoise de l’IA.

The post Le fonds SAP.iO investit dans Jina AI, société de recherche basée sur les réseaux de neurones appeared first on SAP France News.

28 septembre 2020/par Service comm.

SAP partenaire des DesCodeuses pour augmenter le nombre de femmes dans la tech

Actualités, ERP & Applications, Ressources Humaines, SAP, Uncategorized

SAP annonce accompagner la prochaine promotion des DesCodeuses, association engagée au service des femmes et des territoires. Par ce partenariat SAP entend renforcer son action en faveur de l’augmentation du nombre de femmes dans le secteur de la Tech. SAP apporte son expertise et le volontariat de ses collaborateurs engagés sur l’égalité et la mixité.

Depuis sa création en 2017, l’association DesCodeuses a pour mission d’informer, sensibiliser et de développer le pouvoir d’agir des femmes des quartiers prioritaires en les outillant, en les formant et en les accompagnant vers les métiers du numérique.

Depuis 2019, l’association a créé sa propre formation de développeuse / conceptrice permettant à des femmes de développer des compétences techniques, métiers et la confiance en soi. Après le succès de la première promotion, les DesCodeuses continue son aventure cette année avec SAP comme parrain de sa promotion « Katherine Johnson », physicienne, mathématicienne et ingénieure spatiale.

« Avec ce partenariat, l’association profitera de l’expérience et de l’expertise d’un des leaders mondiaux de la tech pour accompagner et mentorer nos étudiantes. SAP et les DesCodeuses ont cet ADN commun avec une culture de la mixité et du développement des femmes dans le monde de l’IT. Les parcours exemplaires de femmes chez SAP seront inspirants pour nos candidates de la promotion Katherine », explique Souad Boutegrabet, CEO et fondatrice des DesCodeuses

Membre du comité de sélection des futurs candidates, SAP accompagnera également l’association au travers de :

Mécénat de compétences : les collaborateurs de SAP partageront leurs connaissances du milieu de la tech et accompagneront les femmes de la promotion. Au programme : des ateliers de Design Thinking, des cafés virtuels, des session tech et des simulations d’entretiens d’emploi.
« Women role model » : les talents féminins de SAP témoigneront sur leur parcours, métier et challenges. Une occasion unique d’appréhender le monde de l’entreprise et celui de la tech sous le prisme féminin et découvrir les multiples enjeux technologiques des organisations : ressources humaines, ventes, IA…
Hackathon : Pour stimuler les étudiantes à élaborer un projet tech ambitieux, SAP et les DesCodeuses organiseront pour la première fois un hackathon.

Ces sessions et activités font écho avec les différentes actions et objectifs que s’est déjà fixés SAP sur son engagement pour la mixité au sein de son entreprise.

« Être le parrain d’une promotion des DesCodeuses, entièrement composée de femmes est un message fort et encourageant dans notre combat pour la mixité au sein de SAP. Je suis ravi que les collaborateurs SAP soient si engagés, volontaires et motivés pour accompagner ces talents au féminin qui, peut-être, se retrouveront un jour dans le bureau d’à côté. L’ensemble de nos actions menées avec les DesCodeuses permettront de mettre en lumière l’expertise et le savoir-faire nécessaires pour travailler dans une entreprise du monde du numérique » explique Erik Marcadé, directeur R&D de SAP France

The post SAP partenaire des DesCodeuses pour augmenter le nombre de femmes dans la tech appeared first on SAP France News.

23 septembre 2020/par Service comm.

Looping Measures of Effectiveness Back to the Creative Team

When analysts for professional sports teams noticed that marketing promotions that included the team’s logo vastly outperformed similar creative assets that featured player imagery — something which, to the casual observer, this may simply sound like good analyst work — it showed something significant: creatives rarely receive an analytical assessment of their work.

More than half of creatives say they rarely…get qualitative performance data about the creative content

Those analysts didn’t just stumble upon that insight. The feedback loop — where someone is dedicated to evaluating the creative used in marketing campaigns and feeding the data back to designers — was the result of a concentrated effort to improve the creative process, workflow and by extension, organizational culture.

More than half (55%) of creatives say they “rarely” or “never” get qualitative performance data about the creative content they’ve produced. Less than one-in-five creatives (17%) receive such feedback “always” or “often.” That’s according to our research, as published in the 2020 In-House Creative Management Report, which was conducted in partnership with InSource, a professional association for in-house creatives.

Two Approaches to Measuring Creative Value

The 2020 In-House Creative Management Report revealed that 89% of respondents think creative work is important to meeting business objectives. Similarly, 87% said their organization is giving them the same or more credit for the business results their work delivers for the organization.

How can a creative team improve what it does for a business if they never see how their work influences market behavior?

Those statistics are encouraging since creative teams have been asked to do more and more — with the same or fewer resources — for years. However, to sustain this positive relationship with marketing and business leaders, creative teams will need to find quantitative ways to demonstrate their value. The feedback loop strengthens the strategic relationship creatives have with their business leaders.

So how can creative value be measured? Efficiency and effectiveness are the two primary approaches.

Efficiency

Measures of efficiency center on output. Efficiency aims to quantify requests, project by volume, type, requestor, and per designer, completion times, cycle times, cause of delays, and rounds of revision.

Such measures are essential for making a case for the resources the creative team needs to get the work done. In our research, most in-house creative teams are at least thinking about output metrics. This is a good start but it’s just the beginning.

Effectiveness

Measures of creative effectiveness are the next level in organizational sophistication. The creative process doesn’t end when a project has been approved. Instead, there’s a feedback loop that still needs to be completed – performance metrics must be shared with the creative team. How can a creative team improve what it does for a business if they never see how their work influences market behavior?

Importantly, the benefits of sharing performance data goes beyond process improvement. It spreads to the overall culture which strengthens the partnership between creatives and marketing.

As Brent Chiu-Watson, a product leader at Adobe, wrote, measures of efficacy lead to a “mutual interest in understanding creative effectiveness.” In turn, cross-functional collaboration improves and the whole team begins “to provide better insight through dialogue.”

3 Ideas for Looping Measures of Effectiveness Back to Creative

When marketing organizations are interested in measuring creative, there is often more emphasis on measures of output than there is effectiveness. Sometimes, what gets measured is what’s easy to measure. There are several reasons for this:

Creatives haven’t traditionally focused on metrics;
The trend of bringing creative in-house has been driven by efficiency;
Creatives don’t typically have access to performance metrics.

“There is an old adage that you can choose quality, speed or cost, but not all three. Sometimes two, but never all three,” says Adam Morgan, an executive creative director for Adobe, who contributed to the 2020 In-House Creative Management Report. “So, we say the most important thing is quality creative, but then we measure on speed and efficiency.”

Fortunately, Adam and several other big thinkers in the creative space offered some ideas for approaching this business problem.

1) Establish metrics and access in the beginning

“Two thoughts come to mind when you see creative teams not getting feedback on their work. First, does that data even exist? The marketing team might not be collecting it because they haven’t defined success metrics,” wrote Ilise Benun, a speaker, author and business coach for creative professionals at Marketing Mentor.

“Second, the marketing team has data, but they aren’t providing it. In that case, the creative team has to make it easy for the marketing team to pass that data over. Define what those metrics are at the beginning of the project, and then set up the project so that you can collect that information or have direct access to it at the end of the project.”

2) Pair creatives with analytics teams

“In general, teams that are earning their seat at the strategic table are probably also more connected to data. But I don’t think that the creative department should get swamped down in endless metrics,” says Adam.

“Use this as an opportunity to build a strategic partnership with even more departments within the organization who are already focused on measuring performance.”

3) Sharpen analytical skills of creatives

“It’s important to remember that operational metrics are key to showing the impact creative work has on the business,” says our very own Molly Clark, who heads our marketing team. “Creatives will strengthen their relationship with the business by becoming analytical creatives – the best combination of data-driven and creative.”

A Culture of Creative Feedback

The design team for the professional sports organization, at the beginning of this piece, were surprised by their analysts’ findings: most usually agreed that player imagery is visually more compelling. However, the organization built a feedback loop into the creative process that put combined analytics and creative to drive better business results.

Featured image via Unsplash.

9 septembre 2020/par Service comm.

Code pour le climat : Au Danemark, les enfants sont les moteurs de l’innovation

Actualités, ERP & Applications, SAP

Avec son réseau mondial, SAP co-innove dans des domaines cruciaux tels que l’éducation et l’accès à la technologie, afin d’aider le monde à mieux fonctionner et à améliorer la vie des gens. En des temps comme aujourd’hui, de nouvelles voies d’innovation sont nécessaires – et parfois, ce sont les plus petits d’entre nous qui nous surprennent le plus.

Le mois dernier, des élèves de sixième et de septième année (secondaire) au Danemark ont eu la possibilité de participer à des cours pour apprendre le codage virtuel grâce à une collaboration entre l’Association danoise de l’industrie (ITC), certains de ses membres et Sofaskolen ou «l’école du canapé».

Ils proposent quotidiennement des tutoriels virtuels en direct gratuits pour les élèves du primaire, depuis la crise du COVID-19, sur YouTube et sur la chaîne de télévision nationale TV2. Sofaskolen a contacté l’Association danoise de l’industrie ITC pour créer une classe de code virtuelle.

SAP Danemark est un membre fondateur du concept de classe de code et soutient depuis 2016 le projet visant à combler le déficit de compétences numériques. C’est la première fois que la classe de code est proposée de manière virtuelle.

Avec NNIT, membre fondateur du concept classe de code, et Netcompany, un partisan du concept, ont défié la créativité des enfants sur trois thèmes :

Code for the Climate: SAP a demandé aux étudiants de développer une solution qui nous permet de mieux gérer le climat, par exemple via une application ou un jeu qui prend en charge le recyclage ou aide à éviter le gaspillage alimentaire. Pour préparer les enfants, ils avaient été initiés à la pensée de conception de base et au codage Scratch la veille.
Code for the Body: le NNIT voulait que les élèves trouvent une solution qui nous fasse bouger davantage, car trop de gens s’assoient sans vraiment bouger. Cette solution pourrait, par exemple, être une application ou un jeu qui apporte de l’exercice au travail ou du mouvement dans une journée d’école, de manière amusante.
Code for Love: Netcompany s’est concentré sur le fait que de nombreuses personnes sont trop seules, en particulier en ce moment pendant cette période de confinement. Ils ont demandé aux élèves de trouver des solutions qui mettent les gens en contact, par exemple, à travers une solution qui permet aux grands-parents et petits-enfants de mieux se connaître, ou qui permet aux voisins de découvrir qu’ils ont des intérêts communs.

Pendant trois jours, les étudiants ont travaillé en petits groupes virtuels sur l’une des questions ci-dessus. À la fin du cours, les idées ont été présentées aux entreprises qui leur ont fourni un retour d’information sur leurs solutions créatives, à l’instar de l’émission de télévision « Dragons Den ».

Louise Ferslev, PDG de MyMonii et connue de l’émission télévisée «Løvens Hule», la version danoise de «Dragons Den» (programme dans lequel les entrepreneurs présentent leurs idées commerciales à un panel d’investisseurs), a entraîné les enfants sur la manière de présenter leurs idées aux entreprises.

Bien que l’enseignement se soit déroulé dans un environnement virtuel sur sofaskolen.dk une initiative d’éducation en ligne gratuite de COVID-19 d’Alinea, il y a eu beaucoup d’interaction pendant la semaine et les organisateurs ont été impressionnés par la variété des idées et la qualité des présentations et des techniques vidéo proposées par les élèves.

Une nouvelle génération courageuse, avisée en matière de technologie et sensibilisée à l’environnement, est en route.

En savoir plus sur l’objectif et la promesse de SAP: https://www.sap.com/corporate/en/purpose.html

Posté initialement en anglais sur news.sap.com

The post Code pour le climat : Au Danemark, les enfants sont les moteurs de l’innovation appeared first on SAP France News.

18 août 2020/par Service comm.

How to Integrate AI Into Your Toolset

Artificial Intelligence is the use of computers or machines that have been created to work and react like humans. Some of the computers that have AI, are designed to include speech recognition, and learn user behaviours so they can predict activities or decisions before they happen.

AI creates a bridge to a new kind of interface, making work processes easier for businesses and customers alike.

Why is AI Important?

There are constant AI technological advances being made, so why not make the most of them and start integrating them into your toolset today? Read on to find out just why AI is important and how you can benefit from it in your work too.

Lower Costs

By integrating Artificial Intelligence into your toolset, you can stand to both save and earn more money. AI will leave you spending less time on various aspects of website management and development, freeing some of your time up and allowing you to finish websites faster. It will also leverage your set of skills and allow you to build greater sites that people will be willing to pay more money for.

Improve Customer Experience

Artificial Intelligence can be used to analyse data in much more depth than the human eye, so will greatly improve the customer experience. It will allow a more personalised and streamlined experience that users will be grateful for. By integrating AI into your toolset, you will soon learn about certain trends and patterns that AI picks up and utilise this with future sites you build, as well as being able to make suggestions to improve the customer journey on the site.

It’s The Future

With so many devices in our everyday lives tuning in to AI, it’s important websites are no different. Just look around many homes and you will likely see a device such as Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home. Phone’s have Siri or Bixby and many laptops have AI systems such as Cortana. As our technology continues to develop, websites need to do this too. Soon we will expect everything to be integrated and be able to control websites in a similar way to our AI devices with voice control and recognition.

How To Integrate AI Into Your Toolset

Chat Bots

One popular example of AI that is integrated into many different websites now, is the chat bot. A feature on a number of major sites, chat bots allow customers to ask and receive answers to questions without an employee having to take time out of their day to answer menial questions that they get asked all the time. The use of AI cuts out the middleman and recognises certain phrases and words to give the most relevant and comprehensive answer.

The first chatbots used to rely on simple, pre-programmed conversational pathways, but these had disappointing and often irrelevant results. More recently they use sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) systems which are a lot more complex and don’t follow just a scripted path, but allow for more meaningful conversations.

Sketch to Code

If you’ve just started in web design, or there are certain elements you are still learning about, AI can help with “sketch to code”. This clever piece of AI can transform a handwritten note, sketch or diagram into a valid HTML mark-up code that maintains itself. This can work from something as simple as a new design for a quote system, to something more complex.

Background Systems

AI can work in the background of a site in the run up to events and collect key aspects such as website analytics. Once this data is complete, the AI can take final instructions from you such as the content, theme and color preference and create a design from scratch that it thinks will perform the best due to the intelligence and knowledge it has been gathering in the background.

Voice Recognition

Back in 2012, the W3C Community introduced the Web Speech API specification with the aim of enabling speech recognition and synthesis in modern browsers. At present, Google Chrome is the only browser that has introduced this, however there is a HTML5 Speech Recognition API will allows JavaScript to have access to a browser’s audio stream and to convert it into text.

It’s important to get up to speed with voice recognition API’s as it’s predicted voice control will be huge in the future. If populating websites, think about how people speak and be sure to include some long-tail keywords that sound more natural. This will help those sites to rank when voice control is adopted more widely.

Adobe Sensei

Adobe Sensei is an AI and machine learning framework that is powering Adobe tools. It is a handy option to add to your toolkit to manage and work on your files.

If you are sourcing images for a website in Adobe Stock, there are over 100 million assets to sift through. Adobe Sensei uses AI and deep learning to understand what exact objects are within an image as well as deeper components such as the aesthetic quality, composition, color palette and even the emotional concept behind the images. This means it can quickly find the image most matched to your needs, saving you hours of time you would have spent sorting through to find the image you want.

Yossarian

Yossarian is a great tool that allows you to craft mood boards. With an aim to generate new ideas faster, it cites itself as “discovery with a twist.” Yossarian uses AI when creating mood boards to return “diverse and unexpected concepts” that share loose associations with what you have searched for, allowing you to be more creative. It will source different ideas and inspiration around what you are searching for, including many you might not have thought of associating with your initial search term.

Brandmark

If you create logos and design templates within your work, Brandmark logo maker is a great AI tool to add to your library. They cite themselves as the most advanced AI logo design tool on the market at the moment. Whether logo creation is something you currently offer, or something you are looking to do, this AI tool can make it easier.

Autodraw

Autodraw is another useful tool you can use for design jobs, where you draw a rough sketch and it will turn it into a neat graphic. This is a handy one to use in association with the concept of sketch to code above. It pairs the magic of machine learning with drawings to help you create professional looking graphics and visuals, quickly.

Featured image via Unsplash.