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Cloud Computing et Objets Portables : Une Puissante Association

Cloud Computing et Objets Portables : Une Puissante Association

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Les objets portables et le cloud computing sont une puissante association qui offre de nombreuses possibilités pour améliorer la productivité et la collaboration.

L’évolution des technologies portables

The Power of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a key factor in the development of wearable technology. By connecting wearable devices to the cloud, users can access a wide range of features and services. For example, cloud-connected wearables can access real-time data from the internet, such as weather forecasts or traffic updates. They can also store data in the cloud, allowing users to access it from any device. Additionally, cloud-connected wearables can be used to control other devices, such as lights or thermostats. This allows users to automate their homes and offices with minimal effort.

Le Révolution des Objets Connectés

Le marché des objets connectés a connu une croissance remarquable au cours de la dernière décennie. Les objets connectés ne sont plus limités à compter les pas ou à surveiller les fréquences cardiaques. Ils englobent maintenant une vaste gamme d’applications, allant de la santé et du fitness à la réalité augmentée et à la réalité virtuelle. Les montres intelligentes peuvent mesurer vos schémas de sommeil, les trackers de fitness peuvent surveiller votre santé cardiaque et les lunettes de réalité augmentée peuvent superposer des informations numériques sur le monde réel. Ces appareils ont évolué pour devenir des outils puissants, améliorant nos vies quotidiennes.

Le Pouvoir du Cloud Computing

Le cloud computing est un facteur clé dans le développement de la technologie portable. En connectant des appareils portables au cloud, les utilisateurs peuvent accéder à une large gamme de fonctionnalités et de services. Par exemple, les appareils portables connectés au cloud peuvent accéder à des données en temps réel sur Internet, telles que des prévisions météorologiques ou des mises à jour de trafic. Ils peuvent également stocker des données dans le cloud, permettant aux utilisateurs d’y accéder depuis n’importe quel appareil. De plus, les appareils portables connectés au cloud peuvent être utilisés pour contrôler d’autres appareils, tels que des lumières ou des thermostats. Cela permet aux utilisateurs d’automatiser leurs maisons et leurs bureaux avec un effort minimal.

L’Avenir du Codage

Le codage est un autre élément essentiel pour améliorer les capacités des objets connectés. Les développeurs peuvent utiliser le codage pour créer des applications personnalisées qui tirent parti des données recueillies par les appareils portables. Les applications peuvent être conçues pour fournir des informations personnalisées et pertinentes aux utilisateurs, telles que des conseils sur la santé et le fitness ou des mises à jour sur les conditions météorologiques locales. Le codage peut également être utilisé pour créer des applications qui intègrent les objets connectés à d’autres appareils, permettant aux utilisateurs de contrôler leurs appareils à distance.

Le codage est un outil puissant qui permet aux développeurs de créer des applications qui tirent parti des données recueillies par les objets connectés. Les applications peuvent être conçues pour fournir des informations personnalisées et pertinentes aux utilisateurs, tout en leur permettant de contrôler leurs appareils à distance. En combinant le cloud computing et le codage, les développeurs peuvent créer des applications qui tirent parti des capacités des objets connectés et qui améliore
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Why Web Design Still Matters in 2023

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As we move into 2023, there are an increasing number of ways companies can engage with their customers. And as the number of apps, browser extensions, social media feeds, newsletters, vlogs, and podcasts grows, you can be forgiven for thinking that websites are a little less essential than they were in say, 2021.

However, the truth is that websites remain an irreplaceable part of the digital landscape and they will continue to be into 2023 and beyond.

Websites, as the keystone of a centralized, privately run digital experience couldn’t be more relevant. Unlike competing technologies, websites allow almost total control of their source code, and that provides an opportunity for skilled designers and developers to compete against the biggest names in their clients’ industries in a way that simply isn’t possible in tightly governed systems like social media.

Not only does quality web design help businesses increase their traffic, but it can increase the quality of that traffic; an attractive and user-friendly web page will encourage web users to stay on the page longer, and explore more of the content it links to.

Websites vs. Social Media

For many brands, the option they turn to for connecting with customers is social media. Particularly platforms like Facebook and Instagram. While billions of us are happy to while away our free time on social media, it’s not a great platform for informed decision-making or task fulfillment. For any form of productivity, websites are superior:

  • Flexibility: Websites can be customized to suit a company’s vision and values, whereas social media tends to magnify accounts that reflect its own values.
  • Ownership: When you publish on your website you own your content, when you post to social media the platform tends to own your content.
  • Investment: As we’ve seen recently with a certain bird-themed social network, you can spend years investing time in your social media channel only to have it canceled by an individual with his own agenda.
  • Findability: Websites are discoverable on search engines, and although algorithms govern these search engines, competition across different search engines keeps search algorithms honest. Social media networks each use a single algorithm making them free to skew browsing any way they choose.
  • Scaleability: Websites can take advantage of the latest technologies to improve user experience, on social media user experience is governed by the network’s decisions.

Websites vs. Apps

When it comes to owning a piece of the internet, a connected app feels like ownership. However, websites have a number of benefits over an app, from a superior user experience to lower development costs. And ultimately, apps are also controlled by 3rd parties.

  • Accessibility: Websites are universally accessible, while apps are usually limited to certain operating systems or platforms. If you want to distribute to devices, you’ll need to be approved by the store owner who can (and will) change the terms and conditions of store distribution without consulting you.
  • Flexibility: Websites provide a greater level of flexibility and scalability than apps.
  • Cost-effective: A simple website can be created and launched in a weekend, they are considerably more cost-effective to develop and maintain than apps.
  • Findability: Search engines have evolved around website technologies, and it is far easier to create a discoverable website than an app that ranks high in an app store.
  • Universality: Websites have lower entry costs for users, and there aren’t any downloads or purchases required.
  • 3rd-party features: Websites can integrate 3rd-party content like chatbots, payment gateways, and forms, that generally require licensing to include in an app.

Websites vs. Podcasts and Vlogs

There’s no question that podcasts and vlogs are engaging types of content. However, they are very limited when it comes to different kinds of experience. These tend to be passive, linear experiences. Even if your podcast opens itself up to listener interaction, your customers are still passive consumers.

  • Cost-effective: Websites can be set up very cheaply, podcasts and vlogs on the other hand require high-production values to compete.
  • Longevity: Well-written website content can remain relevant for years, the lifespan of a vlog or podcast is often just a few months.
  • Flexibility: Websites can embed podcasts and vlogs, as well as virtually any other content; podcasts and vlogs can only ever be podcasts and vlogs. Websites will continue to evolve long after podcasts are obsolete.
  • Simple: There is now a range of no-code options for creating a reliable website, meaning it can be done with little to no skills or experience. Podcasts and vlogs require a great deal of technical knowledge to produce.
  • Findability: As with other technologies, podcasts and vlogs can’t compete with websites when it comes to search engine optimization.
  • Faster: A well-designed website is much smaller than a podcast or vlog, making it cheaper and easier to access, especially on a cellular network.

Websites in 2023 and Beyond

In 2023 websites will still be a critical part of a successful business strategy and web designers will continue to be essential members of any team.

Websites continue to offer numerous benefits over other technologies including increased flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and superior search engine opportunities.

Unlike social media platforms that allow you to customize a few assets like avatars and colors, websites can be completely customized to fit the tone and style of a brand. Additionally, websites have a far lower barrier to entry than podcasts, vlogs, or apps. While apps may offer a richer set of features than a website, that is offset by the restrictions on platform and device capabilities that apps impose.

Websites will continue to evolve as the tech landscape changes. New ideas for consuming digital media will appear over time, offering unique new experiences — for example, mass adoption of AR (Augmented Reality) is just around the corner. However, the website is perfectly evolved for the types of simple customer interaction that businesses rely on, and will continue to matter in 2023 and beyond.

 

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What Even Is Web Design in 2022?

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The term “web design” refers to the process of planning, organizing, and editing content online. On the surface, it seems like a simple enough concept. However, the reality is what we consider “web design” can change over time, influenced by our perception of the “web.” 

In 2022, a professional web designer might create custom websites from scratch, but they may also be responsible for: 

  • UX Design: Creating elements focused on user experience
  • App design: Building digital components of a website or online experience.
  • Theme design: Creating visual tools for supplementing web design. 

Web design isn’t just about making a site look attractive anymore. The definition goes beyond the aesthetic to include a complete consideration of the functionality, performance, and abilities of countless assets we engage within the digital world.

What is Web Design? The Definition Today

Web design is the practice responsible for creating a website’s overall look and feel or web asset (such as web and mobile apps). It involves the process of planning and building elements of your project, from structure and layout choices to graphics and presentation. 

Web design has various components that work together to create the final “experience” of a website, including graphic design, interface design, user experience design, search engine optimization, content creation, etc. These elements determine how a web asset looks, feels and performs on various devices. 

Though the definition of web design in 2022 has evolved, it’s still different from web development, which refers to the actual coding which makes a website work. When you’re building a website, you’ll need web design and web development. 

Elements of Web Design in 2022 

When designing a website, modern designers need to consider two overlapping concepts: the overall appearance of the website and its functionality. The proper connection between these elements will maximize the site’s overall performance and usability, and make a design more memorable (for all of the right reasons). 

Let’s break down the elements of web design into its visual and functional components.

Visual Elements of Web Design

Visual elements of web design influence how a design looks. The various visual components of a design should still follow the basic principles of graphic design. In other words, designers should be thinking about contrast, balance, unity, and alignment simultaneously. The visual elements of web design include: 

  • Written copy and fonts: A website’s appearance and the text on the site often go hand in hand. Designers need to work together with content writers to ensure written copy makes sense structurally and uses the correct fonts for legibility. 
  • Colors: Colors for web design are usually chosen based on factors like color psychology, which demonstrates a color’s ability to affect how someone feels, and branding. Most brands have specific colors they use consistently throughout their visual assets; this helps create a sense of cohesion and unity in designs.
  • Layout and spacing: Layout and spacing influence how content is arranged in an app, website, or another visual asset. The right layout helps to create a visual hierarchy, guiding a viewer through a page and drawing their attention to the correct information in order. Spacing helps to separate components on a page and create legibility. 
  • Images, icons, and shapes: Images, icons, and shapes help convey significant amounts of information. The right ideas and icons can strengthen a brand message, direct a customer’s attention using a web app, and bring context to a design. 
  • Videos and animations: Videos and animations are becoming increasingly common in today’s web design strategies. Videos can include 360-degree videos, which help immerse someone in a space, video streams, and short content clips.

Functional Elements of Web Design

Functional elements in web design are the practical components designers need to consider to ensure websites and assets work as they’re supposed to. A website, app, or any other web asset needs to function correctly to be accessible to users.

Functional elements of web design may include:

  • Navigation: The navigation elements of a website or app are among the main components determining whether a site is functioning properly and ensuring a good user experience. Audiences need to be able to move around the app or website quickly. 
  • User interactions: Your site visitors may have multiple ways of communicating with your web app or website, depending on their device. You’ll need to make sure people can scroll and swipe on smartphones and tablets and click on desktops. If your website has VR or AR elements, you’ll also need to consider these immersive components in your design.
  • Speed and performance: While web development elements can also influence a web design’s speed or performance, it’s also essential for a designer to show elements of the composition don’t weigh down the functionality. Designs need to load quickly and correspond with the demands of browsers on various devices.
  • Structure: A website’s structure plays a critical role in user experience and SEO requirements. Users need to easily navigate through a website without encountering any issues like getting lost or ending up on broken pages.
  • Compatibility: A good design should look perfect on all devices, from a wide range of browsers to the various devices users might leverage today. 

What Does Good Web Design Look Like in 2022?

More than ever, achieving high-quality web design is crucial to success in any industry or landscape. More than half of the world’s population is active online. If you’re not appealing to this audience correctly, you’re missing out on endless opportunities.

Notably, while elements of good web design can be subjective, such as which themes or colors someone might prefer for their website, the underlying foundations of strong web design are the same for everyone in 2022.  

Good web design is any design that looks good, performs as it should, and delivers the best possible experience to your target audience. Effective web design should include components like:

  • Effective use of white space for organization and structure.
  • Clearly presented choices and navigation options for the user.
  • Clear calls to action to drive user activities from one page to another.
  • Limited distractions and a straightforward user journey. 
  • No clutter or unnecessary components irrelevant to the needs of the user. 
  • Responsive, flexible design accessible on any browser or device.
  • High-quality content and images are designed to hook a reader’s attention.
  • Appropriately sized fonts and legible typography.
  • A good balance between images and text on a page. 

Other elements like eye-catching imagery and professional photography can help your web design stand out. Using the right building blocks, like a strong color palette and the right shapes or icons in your design is helpful. 

Of course, there is some scope for variation in good web design. A web designer in 2022 needs to be able to adapt their use of the various essential elements of design to suit a specific target audience or the unique identity of a brand.

What Doesn’t Work for Web Design in 2022?

Just as web design elements seem to appear consistently in all excellent examples, there are also parts of web design we’ve left behind over the years. Simpler, more straightforward designs have replaced cluttered spaces, flashing images, and endless animations. 

The focus in 2022 is on creating an experience that’s simple, engaging, and intuitive, capable of speaking to the right audience without confusion or being visually overwhelming. In most cases, some of the top components to avoid include:

  • Clunky performance: Non-responsive website design, slow pages, and other examples of clunky functionality are a no-go in 2022. Websites need to be quick and responsive.
  • Distracting content: Flashing images, animations, and complex backgrounds are a thing of the past for a good reason. Websites today need to be clean, simple, and clear. Any elements which don’t add to the value of the design should be removed.
  • Generic content: Filler text, irrelevant stock photos, unclear buttons, and links can be removed from today’s website designs. A web design should be specific to the audience’s needs and the brand’s identity. Generic components don’t work.

Creating Web Designs in 2022

Today, the underlying definition of web design has a lot of similarities to the definition we’ve known for several years already. Creating a great website or web asset still requires focusing on user experience, aesthetic appeal, and functionality. However, today’s web designers generally have more components and different devices. 

Web design in 2022 is about creating high-quality experiences for customers that can support various environments and devices. The best web designs are aesthetically appealing, functionally reliable, and capable of adhering to the latest trends in web creation, like augmented reality, 360-degree video, and ultra-high resolution. 

 

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Open-Source Platforms For AR and VR

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Aside from gaming, augmented reality (AR) tools and virtual reality (VR) tools are employed in several industries, and they have many beneficial applications. In today’s article, we will outline some of the most useful open-source platforms for AR and VR that can help developers and non-developers implement these technologies.

Without wasting any more time, let’s move ahead and learn in detail about AR and VR technologies as well as a few relevant platforms that are free and open-source.

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How to Use AR in Brand Experiences

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AR (Augmented Reality) continues to build as one of the most exciting technology innovations to appear in recent years. More accessible than virtual reality experiences, since no specialist headset is required, AR has quickly emerged as a crucial tool for building unique experiences.

Although interest in AR as a tool for customer interaction and experience has been growing, demand has skyrocketed in recent years. In addition, since the pandemic of 2020, companies no longer have the same in-person opportunities available to create meaningful relationships with customers.

To ensure a client is fully invested in your brand today, you need to find a new way of building that emotional link. As an immersive, experience-led solution for brand building, AR can improve a company’s chance of earning brand loyalty. What’s more, around 71% of consumers say they would shop more often if AR technology were available.

The question is, how do you develop your own AR branded experiences?

Creating Branded Experiences in AR

For an augmented reality experience to be effective, you need more than just the right technology; you need a strategy for how you’re going to engage, empower, and support your target audience.

The best AR branded experiences aren’t just multi-dimensional advertisements; they’re tools intended to engage, inform, and entertain your audience in a new, highly immersive realm. Before you can begin to work on your AR app, you need to think about what kind of branded experience you want to develop. Here are some excellent examples to get you started.

AR Try-Before-You-Buy Interactions

Globally, ecommerce sales are growing at an astronomical pace. Going forward, there’s no question that the digital landscape will become the new platform for shopping and transactions. But, unfortunately, there are some limitations when it comes to shopping online.

While the right website developer or designer can create a stunning site packed with information about a product or service, there’s only so much that a webpage can do. Delivering a truly immersive user experience for your target audience involves replicating the kind of in-person experiences they would get in a digital format.

The best example of this is the “try-before-you-buy” AR app. Most commonly seen in the clothing and beauty industries, this app allows customers to use AR filters to see what everything from a new hair color to a shade of lipstick might look like on them. The experience is highly accessible and engaging because it builds on customers’ familiarity with filters and similar effects on social media channels like TikTok and Instagram.

A popular example of an AR try-before-you-buy experience comes from Sephora, with the “Virtual Artist” application. Originally installed within the Sephora app in 2016, the technology uses Modiface to scan and track the eyes and lips of the customer using a smartphone camera. After that, the system can overlay eye-shadows, lipsticks, and other products, to give the customer idea of what they might look like in real-life.

As AR applications become more mainstream, new solutions are emerging for companies concerned about things like privacy. Consumers who don’t want to load their image into a system for try-before-you-buy experiences can still access the benefits of AR with the right tools.

For instance, ASOS created the new “See My Fit” service in 2020 to help customers shop for clothing during the pandemic. The solution allows users to see what clothing will look like on a model with a similar body type to their own. This helps to show shoppers how products realistically look in similar bodies while reducing the risk of returns.

ASOS certainly saw the benefit of this innovation, with an increase in revenues of around 24% in the six months leading to the end of February 2021.

AR for Product Catalogs and Visualization

We all remember what it was like to flick through the glossy pages of a magazine or catalog for our favorite stores. Unfortunately, in today’s digital age, these paper brochures are far from the most efficient tool for shopping. We need a more digital experience that allows us to select products, see what they will look like, and add them to our virtual baskets.

One excellent example of how companies can use AR to improve the overall shopping and visualization experience for customers comes from Home Depot. The brand was one of the first to upgrade its user experience strategy with a new Project Color application in 2015. Although this app might seem a little outdated by today’s standards, it’s still an excellent insight into what companies can do to improve their customer’s brand experience.

The Home Depot app used AR to scan a room and implement the color a customer chose for their walls into that space, considering things like furniture, shadow, and lighting, to allow for a more realistic insight. The app has updated significantly over the years to become increasingly immersive.

Visualizing products in a real, contextual space is hugely beneficial for a customer’s purchasing experience and perception of a specific brand. If your customer sees buying the right product from you as simple and convenient, they’re more likely to stick with your organization long-term.

The product catalog and visualization approach to AR in brand development has grown increasingly popular in the last two years, perhaps driven by the demand for more online shopping opportunities. In 2020, Wayfair announced the release of an updated version of its “View in Room” app, which now uses LiDAR technology to provide enhanced utility when shopping for home products.

According to Wayfair, the LiDAR technology and “RealityKit” software give customers a more authentic and realistic view, so they can make better decisions about what they want to buy. According to Apple, customers are 11 times more likely to buy an item of furniture if they have seen how it looks in their home using AR.

Creating Unique Brand Experiences

AR is one of the technology innovations in our current landscape, helping blur the lines between digital worlds and reality. In a future defined by the rise of the metaverse, AR could have a significant impact on how we spend our time in a more virtual world.

Already, companies are taking advantage of this, with things like virtual pop-up shops and temporary experiences intended to differentiate their brands. For instance, Machine-A, a London-based concept store, is usually committed to showcasing contemporary fashion designs.

When it became apparent that London fashion week for 2020 would be virtual, Machine-A came up with a virtual boutique enabled by AR. By scanning a QR code embedded into billboards and posters across London, users could enter the boutique virtually from their phones and experience the designs themselves.

The concept created by Machine-A has opened the minds of countless business brand teams and marketers to new methods of increasing engagement and awareness among customers. In a world where you can’t necessarily interact with your top customers in person, providing them with a new and immersive experience can be a great way to generate loyalty.

The companies more willing to invest in innovative solutions like AR are also more likely to stand out as innovators in their field. Other companies have experimented with similar “pop-up” experiences and unique ways to capture audience attention. For example, Burberry placed a QR code in a Harrods store, which customers could scan to visit a branded experience, where an Elphis statue walked around in their surroundings through the lens of their smartphone camera.

It’s even possible to use AR experiences to attract the attention of new audience groups. For instance, the retail brand, Pull & Bear launched an AR game created with Facebook to help the company reach the 90% of Gen Z customers who identify as “gamers.”

Provide New Levels of Customer Support

As many of today’s businesses know, memorable branding isn’t just about having the right image or website; it’s also about providing the correct level of customer service and support. Most purchasing and brand loyalty decisions made today are based on customer experience.

Providing customers with unique experiences to improve their shopping journey is sure to make your company stand out in the new digital age. But it’s also possible to go even further with AR in your brand CX strategy too.

Amazon Salon, for instance, the first bricks-and-mortar hair salon created by Amazon, was partially established to test new technology. The “point and learn” service, for example, allowed customers to point a product they were interested in on a display or shelf and immediately access educational content. Users could also scan QR codes to visit the product page on the QR site.

This helps customers immediately get to the product they want to buy without relying on input from human services agents. In a similar vein, AR could be an excellent way to onboard a customer, learning how to use a new product for the first time.

Imagine having a user’s manual your customer can enjoy scanning through, thanks to AR technology. All your customer needs to do is scan the QR code on the back of a product, and they can see the item they need to build or install coming to life in front of them. This reduces the risk of customers having to call for help from tech support and means clients can see the value in their purchases a lot faster.

Companies can embrace AR as a virtual learning experience, helping users collect information and learn how to do things through an immersive first-hand experience. This kind of immersive technology could help to make any brand stand out as more user-experience-focused. Even car companies could essentially provide their customers with a complete virtual HUD showing them how each button and dial on their dashboard works.

Upgrade Website Design

Perhaps the most common way companies will be using AR to create branded experiences today is by updating their website. You’ve probably already seen examples of AR being used in a host of retail sites, with new experiences designed specifically for the age of augmented reality.

360-degree images, for instance, allow customers to essentially “look around” a product, and see it from different angles, just like they would if they were looking at the item in-store. We can see an excellent example of this on the BMW build-your-own web page, where vehicle browsers can see their vehicles from every angle.

The 360-degree product viewing experience lets you check everything from the side molding to the sculpted edges in perfect detail.  

QR codes and app downloads can also allow customers to take their AR experience even further, looking at things like what life would be like behind the wheel of one of these virtually augmented vehicles.

As AR becomes more commonplace and the tools available for designers in this arena continue to expand, there will be even more opportunities available to bring AR into the website experience. Even essential website upgrades today might include allowing customers to upload pictures of themselves or their homes, then using augmented reality technology to implement parts of a product catalog into the space.

AR Virtual Events

Finally, when it comes to exploring all the unique ways you can build a better brand experience and excellent customer relationships with AR, it’s worth looking at the event space. The event landscape has struggled significantly over the last couple of years. The pandemic forced most live events to be canceled, and although the post-pandemic era holds new hope for upcoming in-person experiences, the landscape will be very different.

Going forward, most companies plan to avoid a complete shift back to in-person events by creating “hybrid” experiences and augmented reality events instead. Augmented and virtual reality tools allow customers to step into an event arena from wherever they are.

For instance, the Pot Noodle Unilever brand hosted a virtual alternative careers fair in AR, where people could use their phones to navigate through a range of graduate employer booths. The unique career fair experience was designed to replace the more common in-person interactions graduates might have as they approached the end of their education.

The custom-developed 3D booths featured a range of different employers, and students could tap on the booth screen they were interested in to see a video from each employer. As an added bonus, the connection to the Pot Noodle AR careers fair website meant that students could also instantly apply for any of the jobs they were interested in.

Similar events could help brands recreate some of the meaningful experiential experiences that their customers have been missing out on in the last couple of years. They could also act as a valuable tool for bringing together people in a hybrid event, where someone visiting an in-person demo table could scan a QR code to send virtual demonstrations of a product back to their team.

This would reduce the number of people who needed to be present in an event environment at any given time, reducing the risk of health issues.

Bringing Brands to Life with AR

In the new consumer landscape, brand relationships are more important than ever. As a result, customers are making more careful choices about who they purchase from, based on their understanding of that company’s values and differentiators.

Now that you won’t always have an opportunity to interact with customers in-person to earn their trust, AR could be the solution for a lot of companies in search of new engagement tools. All you need to do is figure out how you’ll leverage all the benefits AR can offer.

Will you be creating an app, building a new website with enhanced 360-degree photos, or designing in-person experiences? Hopefully, these examples have inspired you to start exploring your options.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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How to Prepare for the Immersive Web

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Websites as we know them are going to change very soon. The days of text, images, and basic interactions in a 2D browser window have served us well, but virtual, augmented, and mixed reality experiences are getting better all the time. Developers and designers need to think beyond the browser window and prepare for an immersive future.

Many have been very skeptical about VR and AR in the past because despite grand promises about what they would achieve, they’ve mostly failed to deliver on the scale that the industry hoped for.

But it’s different this time: industry leaders like Meta, Apple, and Microsoft are pursuing a range of different mixed reality projects; they see the opportunity and are dropping hints about what’s next.

In a survey from Perkins Coie LLP and the XR Association, nearly 9 in 10 respondents said that by the year 2025, immersive technologies—including augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality — will be as ubiquitous as mobile devices.

That’s a bold prediction, but it could be our new reality.

Use Cases

VR and AR aren’t a logical fit for every website, and that’s fine. There’s no need to force an immersive experience on something better suited to a standard viewing experience.

But when they’re done right, 3D experiences can add a lot to your website. Check out the demo experience from Mozilla, the 3D tours from Matterport, and the immersive storytelling from Within.

Here are a few areas where these technologies shine:

  • Retail – VR can be used to provide a virtual showroom where customers browse through products. AR can even bring the products into your home by showing you how a piece of furniture will fit in your room, what a painting will look like on your wall, or in Apple’s case, how a product will look on your desk.
  • News – Coverage of events can be enriched by providing a 360-degree view and placing viewers in the center of the story.
  • Training – AR can generate virtual overlays over physical equipment so employees can have hands-on training that’s more effective.

Define Your Platform

Adding immersive experiences to your website will require various skills based on what you’re trying to create. Whether you’re new to web development or are a seasoned developer with many years of experience, the main difference from classic web development is that you’re switching from a 2D to a 3D experience. Development in VR/AR is much closer to developing 3D video games than creating web applications.

First of all, you need to decide on the hardware that you’re building for. Are your viewers mainly using computers, smartphones, or a headset like the Oculus Quest? Each hardware category offers a different set of capabilities for what’s possible.

Next, when we look at 3D engines and frameworks on the market, some big names like Unity, Unreal Engine, and CRYENGINE stand out. Most of these engines were spun out of game development and are based on programming languages like C, C++, or C#. While very powerful, they’re overkill for anyone trying to create a basic immersive web experience.

The good news for web developers is that the WebXR Device API is an open standard specified by the W3C with a JavaScript API that makes immersive experiences possible in the browser. So if you already have a background in web development, you can use your knowledge of JavaScript to get started.

There are some useful frameworks and platforms that make working with WebXR more convenient:

  • A-Frame – A web framework for building 3D experiences.
  • React 360 – A framework for the creation of interactive 360-degree experiences that run in the web browser. As the name already suggests, it builds on React and reuses the concepts you already know.
  • Amazon Sumerian – A managed service that lets you create and run 3D, AR, and VR applications. Since it’s integrated into the AWS ecosystem, it’s also possible to add AI-enabled elements into your generated world.

Create Your Content

No one wants to read long blocks of text in 3D. Since we’re talking about visual experiences, it’s logical that the emphasis should be on creating content that is pleasing to the eye and interesting to look at. What works on a normal website probably isn’t going to feel natural in a 3D environment, so you need to decide what visuals you should create to suit the format.

What high-resolution images and assets do you need? Can you add videos? How about 360-degree videos? Will viewers just be looking at something, or will they be able to interact with it?

You also can’t forget about sound because it’s a critical part of immersive experiences. What music and sounds should you create to make the content come alive?

Not everyone is going to have the latest and greatest device or 5G coverage. The requirements for bandwidth and transmission quality are much higher with 3D content. A few milliseconds of latency can go unnoticed on a typical website, but in a VR/AR setting, it can make the experience laggy or unusable.

Try to optimize your content to be the highest quality it can be within a reasonable file size. If the experience starts to suffer from too many assets downloading at the same time, it’s better to create a more streamlined experience that maintains a high performance rate.

It’s important to consider your hosting infrastructure, as well. This shouldn’t be a big problem, but it is worth mentioning that you need to add new content types to your configurations, and your CDN needs to support these new types, too.

Make Your Content Flexible

When we’re talking about getting your website ready for immersive experiences, we’re not just talking about having people scroll through your regular website in VR. That isn’t compelling for your audience.

The idea is to take some content that’s already on your website and separate it from the presentation layer so you can use it in a 3D environment or any other platform that you want. Classic content management takes place in silos, which means you cannot easily reuse the content from your website.

This separation can be achieved by using a classic database, but if you want developers and content teams to collaborate, a headless CMS is front-end agnostic and more user friendly.

Start Experimenting Today

Building 3D content experiences may seem intimidating, but as we’ve seen, you likely already have the web development skills necessary to get started and try out some different ideas.

What you build today will prepare you for the 3D future of tomorrow.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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3 Essential Design Trends, July 2021

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This month, you will either love or hate the featured design trends.

The common theme among them is a strong design element that can create distinct emotional connections. They range from interesting monotone color choices to brutalist examples to AI-inspired faces and design elements.

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

1. Interesting Monotone Color Palettes

Monotone color palettes aren’t something that we usually call a trending design theme because mono patterns are almost always in style. What makes these monotone website designs interesting is color choice.

The trend is to use a pretty unconventional color choice for monotone color palettes. For example, would you start the design process thinking of an all-mauve, canary yellow, or purple aesthetic?

For most designers, those probably aren’t the first choices. But, conversely, the outcome of those decisions is rather stunning in each of the examples below, whether you love the color choices or not.

What works (and what might fall short) with each of these trending examples:

Wookmama: This mauve color scheme might be the first one you’ve encountered? It uses varying hues that are pretty in-your-face. It works because the concept behind the website is to create custom color schemes. The challenge lies in contrast and that there’s not a lot of distinction between hues in the mono scheme.

BBC Storyworks: The deep purple color palette with pinkish highlights is bright and readable, despite the dark background. White text and elements with smooth animation bring out the regality of the color choice. The challenge with this color is that purple often has strong emotional associations for individuals (good and bad), and you don’t know what “baggage” users might bring to the design.

Yellow Pony: This design is incredibly bright and has some brutalist undertones. What makes this color choice work is that it stops you in your tracks. You can’t help but look at the bright yellow and oddly-colored pony. The challenge, like with Wookmama, is contrast. There’s also a lot going on here with the bright color.

 

 

2. Fairly Brutal Black and White

Brutalism and brutalist design themes seem to keep ebbing and flowing. Understandably, it seems like, as a whole, designers can’t quite decide how they feel about this overall visual theme.

This trio of fairly brutal designs shares more than starkness in technique. They also feature distinct black and white color schemes and animation.

Put it all together, and the overall theme is maybe more “fairly brutal” than straight brutalist, re-emphasizing the hesitancy with the trend.

What’s nice about each of these designs is that they feel special and content-focused. This is a little in contrast with some other brutalist designs that are so stark and harsh that it can be hard to figure out what you are supposed to do with the website or what information is most important.

The other interesting thing here is that while all three websites have a similar design theme, they are nothing alike. (Personally, I find this type of brutalism and the included animation a lot easier to understand and digest. It uses the harsh feeling that you want to associate with the style but adds an element of comprehension that’s incredibly valuable.)

Callshop Radio uses an almost magazine theme style, block design with big buttons, a simple animation, and flash of color.

BCKDRP features a more subtle richer, almost black background with blocky type and accented color without the harshness often associated with brutal styles.

Vision Get Wild may be the closest to true brutalism, but the animated element in the center of the screen has a simple softness that lightens the entire feel.

 

 

3. Futuristic Faces

The final trending design element this month is a fun take on faces. There’s a movement happening with a futuristic or artificial intelligence/cyborg-inspired look to the people featured in the designs.

It’s hard to say where this design inspiration is coming from, but it is fun to look at with so many ways to play the style. The other commonality seems to be the dominant use of female faces.

These computer-generated images start with photos that are brightened and smoothed so that all imperfections are lost. The faces have no lines, color that might not look 100% natural, and enhanced features that may or may not be realistic.

You aren’t quite sure if you are looking at a face from a video game or image in many instances.

The types of websites that are using this design trend are similar in content and fashion, art, gaming, portfolios, and AI themes, among the most popular.

The true common thread is imagination. This type of design element can’t come to fruition without a strong vision and the ability to see the vision through creation.

These examples use progressively more futuristic variations of the trend:

HueLe Museum: The least AI-looking of the examples, has imagery with super bright light on faces to remove lines and imperfections so that the models almost the look of mannequins.

Jenny Lin: The portfolio design shows the designer in a style representing her work with a headshot that features an augmented reality, or digital design feel with an almost plastic-looking, on-the-verge of cartoon style.

Ruby9100m: The imagery here is full-on futuristic. From coloring to facial features to an almost Frankenstein-pieced-together look, nothing about this image insists on reality. (Did you notice the blue hand?)

 

 

Conclusion

This month’s design trends are a lesson in experimentation and evolution of other visual concepts. They also create an immediate impact on you in terms of emotion because of strong design choices.

Trends like these tend to come and go quickly; nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how they evolve.

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Popular Design News of the Week: February 22, 2021 – February 28, 2021

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Everyday design fans submit incredible industry stories to our sister-site, Webdesigner News. Our colleagues sift through it, selecting the very best stories from the design, UX, tech, and development worlds and posting them live on the site.

The best way to keep up with the most important stories for web professionals is to subscribe to Webdesigner News or check out the site regularly. However, in case you missed a day this week, here’s a handy compilation of the top curated stories from the last seven days. Enjoy!

The Application of Augmented Reality in Web Design

15 Funny Web Design Memes Only Web Designers Will Get

Tauri: Build Desktop Applications with a Web Frontend

20 Best New Websites, February 2021

Spotify is Testing a Redesigned (and Much-Improved) Library UI

Boardly – A Minimalistic Planning Board for Your Projects

A Big List of Must-Bookmark Sites for Digital Designers

10+ HTML CSS Marquee Examples

7 JavaScript ES2020 Features You Should Try

16 Office Pranks For When Life Goes Back To Normal

What Is the Best Ecommerce Platform?

Choosing New Tools and Technology for Your Web Projects

Getting Deep into Shadows

Bablab – Portfolio Websites for Photographers and Artists

7 Essential WordPress Plugins for a New Client’s Website

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What’s New in Ecommerce, February 2021

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There are some interesting shake-ups on the horizon for ecommerce: Experiential shopping, Virt-ical worlds, Au naturale models.

We’re starting to see signs of them already — many of them spurred on thanks to the events of 2020. Below, we’re going to explore what’s going on with these new ecommerce trends and technologies and take a look at a bunch of sites that are setting really cool examples for each.

1. Experiential Shopping

With many stores, either closed to in-person shopping during the pandemic or their capacities severely limited, online shopping and BOPIS became much more attractive options for consumers.

That said, buying something like a pair of jeans or a new pair of glasses is much different than the pack of toilet paper someone’s bought for years. There are just some things you have to try to know if you’re going to like it and make sure it fits.

Augmented reality and other immersive shopping tools are bringing those “try-on” capabilities to people’s homes.

There are a number of technologies built specifically for this purpose:

Obsess is a particularly noteworthy one. It’s an ecommerce platform that enables retailers to build virtually immersive shopping experiences. Charlotte Tilbury is one such retailer that is taking advantage of it.

Obsess, the augmented reality and immersive shopping experience platform

At the end of 2020, Obsess announced that it had received $3.4 million in seed funding, so expect to see more Obsess-powered ecommerce sites and apps.

ByondXR is another platform that empowers brands to design immersive experiences for online shoppers:

ByondXR helps brands create experiential shopping

Retailers like Lancome, Procter & Gamble, and Calvin Klein have used ByondXR’s immersive commerce technology.

Another option is offered by Matterport:

Matterport's virtual shopping experiences and 3D store mapping tech

This technology is interesting as you’re not just creating a virtual store. You can also design a 3D model of a brick-and-mortar shop that in-store shoppers can use to get in and out quickly.

2. Virt-ical Worlds

There’s a new trend brewing, and we see it most commonly on websites for fresh and youthful brands. I wouldn’t say it’s nostalgic design, per se, though there are certainly some elements reminiscent of the bold, in-your-face style of the web in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s.

No, I think what we see here is a creative reimagining of our world.

With so many people having spent time in their homes and with their faces glued to screens, there’s been a blurring between our VIRTual and physICAL worlds. This new web design trend is one I’m going to call the Virt-ical World. While parts of these sites look like the websites we’ve designed in years past, there are motion, color, and sizing elements that feel more like a trippy virtual simulation.

Let’s look at some examples.

Starface is a company that creates acne-fighting products.

Starface's in-your-face website design

This is one of the more experimental designs in this set of examples. Still, it’s one that shows us how far the boundaries can be pushed without totally compromising the online shopping experience.

Billie is another company having fun with this trend. I’d say this is on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Billie has a fun, candy-colored website design

For the most part, this ecommerce site looks similar to other small retailer sites. However, the fun, candy-colored palette, the bobbing products, and the color shifts add a somewhat surreal element to the design.

Catching THEO is another ecommerce brand playing around with this Virt-ical World.

Catching THEO mixes nostalgia and modern design

See what I mean by this style feeling somewhat nostalgic? Thankfully, this site commits to today’s good, clean, responsive design while only using some of the more fun and quirky elements from the past.

Au Naturale Models

When I talk about au naturale models, I’m really referring to the makeup-less faces, relaxed hairstyles, and casual apparel that we’re seeing ecommerce models don these days.

I think it’s safe to say we have the pandemic to thank for this. And it’s not just because many of us took a more casual approach to getting dressed during the week. It’s also because the pandemic wiped away the glitz and glamour from many of our lives.

I don’t know about you, but it was kind of nice seeing fewer Instagram influencers flaunting their luxurious lifestyles and more real people rocking their matching pajama sets. I think brands have sensed this change in mood over the last year, and they’re now putting forward their own simple and casual styles for us to connect to.

There are tons of ecommerce websites we’re seeing this on in 2021.

Here’s Dove’s homepage, where they specifically call attention to the lack of digital distortion in the photo:

Thinx also uses more natural and realistic-looking models to show off its undergarment products:

Madison Reed takes a unique approach with this trend:

Madison Reed shows off some of the real faces of its customers

While the hair color brand does a great job of using diverse models around the site, it also has this scrolling bar showing off its customers’ very natural and real faces.

Wrap-Up

It feels like ecommerce trends and technologies are changing at a rapid pace these days. To help you stay on top of what’s new in ecommerce, stay tuned to this blog for more interesting news and changes to the landscape.

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