In the 2020 COVID pandemic, most enterprises have realized the importance of creating an effective digital presence. While some businesses used digital presence to promote their services and business continuity, other companies used the latest trends to stay ahead among competitors. One of the most popular and widely used platforms is Node.JS, which is widely used for the development process.
What is Node.JS?
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.
The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.
Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.
Naturally, there are bad clients out there, but 90% of the time, it’s not really the client who is at fault. Poor communication, a lack of setting expectations, and a failure to qualify clients beforehand is usually the problem.
If you’re dealing with a problematic client, there’s usually not a lot you can do to ‘fix’ things — you should focus on finishing the project as well as you can. However, what you can do is ensure this situation never arises again.
We’ve been taught that the customer is always right. But to be honest, that’s not always the case. It’s your job as a designer and brand consultant to help your client grow their business. Because of that, you may think you have to make every idea a client has — but if these ideas do not serve their business and their brand, you have to speak up! Remember that you were hired for a reason, and that reason is that you can help them build their brand, not because you can design anything they think of.
So, to avoid the ‘difficult’ client scenario, here are a few things you can do.
Figure out who your ideal client is and determine that you will only work with them. Ideal clients are usually people who understand you and respect you and your expertise. A client who hires you because they know what you have to offer (i.e., working towards their business goals) will be more receptive to what you present to them — they will also be more receptive when you push back ideas.
you have to be willing to decline projects
Your ideal client is not someone who wants to dictate the whole process to you (clients who already have an idea in their head and want you to make it into reality for them).
This means you have to be willing to decline projects. This can be super difficult — saying no to a paying client always is — but the mental toll of working for a non-ideal client is never worth the money!
Be selective with your clients and ensure you are on the same page before accepting any projects. To work only with your ideal client, you can have a method of qualifying them ahead of time. Some people use questionnaires; others sit down and have a chat with potential clients. If they meet your requirements, that’s great. If not, then let them know it might not be the best fit for both of you. You can also refer them to another freelance designer, who you know would be glad to have their work.
People usually become freelancers because they have a set of skills that doesn’t tie them down to one employer — you may have even developed this skill set deliberately to avoid being stuck in one office, working for one company!
So don’t forget that you are not an employee. Your clients don’t get to send you to non-productive meetings, have you in the office at certain times, or dictate any other part of your working life to you. As a freelancer, you work for yourself — don’t get caught up in the idea you are ‘employed’ by your clients.
If your client starts acting like an employer, you need to gently remind them that you are a freelancer. They chose to work with you because of your skills and talents, and as long as you deliver it on time and budget, they can’t complain about how you do it!
One of the most frustrating parts of freelancing is over-demanding clients: it happens to us all, but it happens because we let it happen!
When you start a project, define exactly what you will and won’t do as part of a contract. Then, if the client wants more than you said you would give, you can refer them to the scope document and offer the additional work at an extra fee.
Documentation saves you a lot of hassle!
Having a fixed scope for all your work will free you from the ‘demanding client’ problem. Before you start working for them, sit down with them and ask them exactly what they want from your design. That way, you know exactly what you should do and what you should not do. You can then document the services you will provide and get a written confirmation from them. Clients will sometimes forget what they told you before — which is why having written documents to show them is useful.
If they ask for additional services, you can update the document stating these changes and send them a copy. Documentation saves you a lot of hassle! It’s your responsibility to be organized and professional at the end of the day, even with over-demanding clients. Always treat them kindly — never be rude, as this will cause them to give you a bad review and hurt you in the end. Act like a professional from the start, and your clients will treat you as such.
You may find yourself with a client who is forever changing their mind or forgetting the details — so make sure all your agreements with them are documented, and both of you have copies. Just like the scope of work documents, you can refer to these agreements in the future, and it will resolve any issues you have.
You need to set clear expectations both before and after someone becomes your client — tell them what they can expect in the project and what is included and what’s not included. Remember that your time is valuable: you cannot work indefinitely, so it is okay to set limitations in a project. One way to do this is to offer two rounds of revisions on a project. This is more than enough to come out with a design a client is happy with. Most clients will understand these limitations as long as you communicate them from the get-go.
Rather than taking your design brief from the client and going off on your own to design everything, set some project milestones or benchmarks. Don’t be that designer who goes radio-silent until the final design is presented (we know, creatives like the idea of the ‘big reveal,’ but remember this is business, and communication is key!).
Benchmarks are important for a few reasons. Firstly, presenting the final design may sometimes work out, but other times, the client doesn’t like it or the direction they had in mind. Secondly, it saves you time – you don’t need to design a whole project only to have to go back and revise it all!
creatives like the idea of the ‘big reveal,’ but remember this is business, and communication is key!
Plan regular check-ins with your client, include them in the process, and ensure you are on the right track.
Take a branding project, for example. You can present to your client two or three logo concepts, providing them with options. This decreases the number of times a client is unhappy with the project’s direction because they can choose which one they want. Remember to make each design unique, rather than just a small variation of the other. Think of them as three different directions to explore with your client, and take it from there.
Ensure each concept you provide is top of your game, too — that way, whatever your client chooses, it will be a great design. Imagine you make two okay concepts and one great concept, and your client chooses the weakest design!
Imagine the scene: you go to a meeting with your client to talk about the final design. You arrive, and as well as your normal contact, the CFO is present at the meeting. They take one look at your design and decide it doesn’t work.
Don’t get mad! For a start, you don’t know if the CFO has the final say on the design, and even if they do, you have an agreed scope of work, and this is now an opportunity to move the goalposts (for a fee) and renegotiate the scope of work. Look at this as an opportunity, not as a setback!
Also, remember that you can’t please everyone all the time. Not everyone will love your designs, and it’s not a personal attack.
Think before you open your mouth — communication is crucial in the freelancing world, and you need to be on par with your clients’ energy and vocabulary. Imagine you have just agreed on a project with a new client, and after the meeting, they say, “I cannot wait for you to knock this logo out of the park!” And you reply hesitantly, “I’ll do what I can.”
This has already made your client doubt you, and that’s a red flag. Now your client may leave the meeting wondering if they chose the right designer for the job. What you and your body language need to say is, “Hell, yes! We’re going to knock this logo out of the park!”
This is why matching a client’s energy is so important. If they are aggressive in articulating themselves, you should be, too; obviously within limits — always be professional, but don’t be afraid to sound excited and confident!
Sometimes, you don’t get on with someone. It happens. We can’t be best friends with all of our clients! If there’s a personality conflict that’s causing problems, it can be impossible to resolve. You may want to have someone else handle the client relationship or transfer the project to another freelancer.
being afraid will never get you anywhere as a freelancer
What makes being a freelancer great is that you actually have all the power — you can fire a client if it’s really not working for you. An employee cannot fire his or her boss. If the relationship between you and your client has turned sour, you hate the work, and it’s causing you too many headaches, you can get rid of them. No one can make you work for someone!
Even if your client represents a huge chunk of your income, don’t be afraid to fire them. There are always more clients — being afraid will never get you anywhere as a freelancer. You also need to remember that your quality of life is just as important as your income! One cannot exist without the other — there’s no point in having a huge paycheck if your sanity is suffering due to it.
‘Difficult’ clients in freelancing do exist, but a lot of the time, you’ll discover they could have been avoided if you, the designer, took a few key steps.
You should always be selective with your clients and ensure they fit your ‘ideal client’ model; if they don’t, you can gently refuse their project and send them on to another designer who is a better fit.
When you do start working with a client, remember they are just that, a client. They are not your boss or employer, and you are a freelancer. They don’t get to dictate your working hours or appearance in meetings. They agreed to work with you, for your skills and talents, as long as you deliver quality work on time, they don’t get to tell you what to do.
Always have a scope of work in a written contract and set expectations before you begin. This saves you hassle later when a client becomes overly demanding. Along the design process, document all agreements in paper and have benchmarks wherein you check-in with your clients.
Finally, take care with how you handle your clients in person – don’t take offense if they don’t like a design, match their energy, so they have no room to doubt you, and if it really just isn’t working due to a personality conflict, remember you are free to leave!
Featured image via Pexels.
User experience is one of the most important aspects of web design, but many experts overlook that UX doesn’t just apply to web pages. User experience as a concept encompasses all aspects of end-user interaction with a company.
That means you need to discover the right UX strategies for everything from your homepage to your email marketing and even your listings on Google.
Today, we’re going to explore some of how you can apply UX principles to your client’s image on search engines.
Let’s start with the basics: 89% of customers start their purchasing process with a search engine. That means that whether you’re creating a portfolio to sell your services or building a website for a client, the first connection a customer has with your design isn’t on the homepage.
Most of the time, you’re driving a specific experience for an end-user before you even realize it. Before you can wow an audience with a beautiful site design or an amazing CTA offer, you need to convince them to click on your Google link.
When you invest in user experience, you think carefully about the journey that an end-user goes through when interacting with a brand. This often means considering things like the user’s intent, their needs, and their pain points.
Those same principles apply to create an impressive search engine listing.
UX on a website is all about giving your audience what they need in an informed, and strategic manner; UX in the search engine results works the same way.
So, how do you begin to apply the principles of UX to your Google Search results?
It’s much easier than you’d think.
Delivering an excellent experience on a website often means providing end-users with the information they need as quickly as possible. Imagine designing a landing page; you wouldn’t want your audience to scroll forever to find what they need. Instead, you’d make sure that the value of the page was immediately obvious.
When creating an image for your search engine listing, you’ll need to take the same approach. This often means thinking carefully about two things: your headline and your meta description.
Around 8 out of 10 users say that they’ll click a title if it’s compelling. That means that before you do anything else to improve your SEO strategy, you need to make sure that your web page’s title is going to grab your audience’s attention.
The best titles deliver instant value. These titles tell the audience exactly what they’re going to get when they click onto the page. The promise drives action, while clarity highlights the informed nature of the brand.
The great thing about using an excellent title for a page is that it doesn’t matter where you’re ranked on the search results. Whether you’re number 2 or number 5, your customers will click if they find something they want.
It’s just like using a CTA on a landing page. Make sure your titles are:
Trust factors are another essential part of good UX.
When you’re designing a website for a new brand, you know that it’s your job to make visitors feel at ease. Even in today’s digital world, many customers won’t feel comfortable giving their money or details to a new company.
Within the website that you design, you can implement trust symbols, reviews, and testimonials to enhance brand credibility. On search engines, it all starts with your URL.
Search-friendly URLs that highlight the nature of the page will put your audience’s mind at ease. When they click on a page about “What is SEO” in the SERPs, they want to see an URL that matches, not a bunch of numbers and symbols
Use search-friendly permalink structures to make your listing seem more authoritative. This will increase the chances of your customer clicking through to a page and make them more likely to share the link with friends.
Once you decide on a link structure, make sure that it stays consistent throughout the entire site. If a link doesn’t appear to match the rest of the URLs that your audience sees for your website, they may think they’re on the wrong page. That increases your bounce rate.
To deliver excellent UX on a website, you ensure that your visitor can find all of the answers to their most pressing questions as quickly as possible. This includes providing the right information on each page and using the correct navigational structure to support a visitor’s journey.
In the SERPs, you can deliver that same informative experience with a meta description. Although meta descriptions often get ignored, they can provide a lot of value and help you or your client make the right first impression.
To master your meta descriptions:
Don’t forget that adding keywords to your meta description is often helpful too. Keywords will boost your chances of a higher ranking, but they’ll also show your audience that they’re looking at the right result.
You’ve probably noticed that the search engine result pages have changed quite a bit in the last couple of years. As Google strives to make results more relevant and informative, we’ve seen the rise of things like rich snippets. Rich snippets are excellent for telling your audience where to look.
On a website, you would use design elements, like contrasting colors and animation, to pull your audience’s attention to a specific space. On search engines, rich snippets can drive the same outcomes. The difference is that instead of telling a visitor what to do next on a page, you’re telling them to click on your site, not a competitor’s.
When Google introduced rich snippets, it wanted to provide administrators with a way of showcasing their best content. Rich snippets are most commonly used today on product pages and contact pages because they can show off reviews.
Install a rich snippet plugin into your site if you’re a WordPress user or your client is. When you enter the content that you need into the website, use the drop-down menu in your Rich snippet tool to configure the snippet.
Ideally, you’ll want to aim for the full, rich snippet if you want to stand out at the top of the search results. Most featured snippets have both text and an image. It would help if you aimed to access both of these by writing great content and combining it with a relevant image.
As a website designer or developer, you’ll know that different people on a website will often be drawn to different things. Some of your visitors might immediately see a set of bullet-points and use them to search for the answer to their question. Other visitors will want pictures or videos to guide them. So, how do you deliver that kind of diversity in the SERPS?
The easiest option is to aim to take up more of the search result pages. Google now delivers a bunch of different ways for customers to get the answers they crave. When you search for “How to use Google my Business” on Google, you’ll see links to blogs, as well as a list of YouTube Videos and the “People Also Ask” section.
Making sure that you or a client has different content ranking pieces for the same keywords can significantly improve the experience any customer has on the search engines. Often, the process of spreading your image out across the SERPs is as simple as creating some different kinds of content.
To access the video’s benefits, ask your client to create YouTube videos for some of their most commonly asked questions or most covered topics. If you’re helping with SEO marketing for your client, then make sure they have an FAQ page or a way of answering questions quickly and concisely on articles, so they’re more likely to appear in “People Also Ask”:
Speaking of Google My Business, that’s another excellent tool that’s perfect for improving UX in the search results. GMB is a free tool provided by Google. It allows business owners to manage how information appears in the search results.
With this service, you can manage a company’s position on Google maps, the Knowledge Graph, and online reviews. Establishing a company’s location is one of the most important things you can do to help audiences quickly find a business. Remember, half of the customers that do a local search on a smartphone end up visiting the store within the same day.
Start by setting up the Google Business listing for yourself or your client. All you need to do is hit the “Start Now” button and fill out every relevant field offered by Google. The more information you can add to Google My Business, the more your listing will stand out. Make sure you:
Taking advantage of a Google My Business listing will ensure that your audience has all the information they need to make an informed decision about your company before they click through to the site. This means that you or your client get more warm leads and fewer people stumbling onto your website that might not want to buy from you.
If you’re already using things like rich snippets in your Google listings, you should also have a structured schema markup plan. Schema markup on Google tells the search engines what your data means. This means that you can add extra information to your listings that will guide your customers more accurately to the support they need.
Providing additional schema markup information to your listings gives them an extra finishing touch to ensure that they stand out from the competition. You might add something like a “product price” to a product page or information about the product’s availability.
Alternatively, you could provide the people who see a search result with other options. This could be an excellent option if you’re concerned that some of the people who might come across your listing might need slightly different information. For instance, you can ask Google to list other pages along with your search results that customers can “jump to” if they need additional insights.
Baking structured data into your design process when you’re working on a website does several positive things. It makes the search engine’s job easier so that you can ensure that you or your client ranks higher. Additionally, it means that your web listings will be more thorough and useful.
Since UX is all about giving your audience the best possible experience with a brand, that starts with making sure they get the information they need in the search results.
Remember, as you begin to embed UX elements into your search engine listings, it’s important to be aware of relevant evolutions. Ultimately, the needs of any audience can change very rapidly. Paying attention to your customers and what kind of links they click on the most will provide you with lots of valuable data. You can use things like Google analytics to A/B test things like titles, pictures, featured snippets, and other things that may affect UX.
At the same time, it’s worth noting that the Google search algorithms are always changing. Running split tests on different pages will give you an insight into what your customers want. However, you’ll need to keep an eye on the latest documentation about Google Search if you want to avoid falling behind the competition.
Like most exceptional UX aspects, mastering your SERP position isn’t a set it and forget it strategy. You’ll need to constantly expand your knowledge if you want to show clients that you can combine UX and SEO effectively.
It’s easy to forget that there’s more to UX than making your buttons clickable on mobile devices or ensuring that scrolling feels smooth. For a designer or developer to deliver wonderful UX for a brand, they need to consider every interaction that a company and customer have. Most of the time, this means starting with the way a website appears when it’s listed on the search engines. Getting your SEO listing right doesn’t just boost your chances of a good ranking. This strategy also improves your reputation with your audience and delivers more meaningful moments in the buyer journey.
Featured image via Unsplash.
Looking for the best new CMS plugins to take your website to the next level? Well look no further.
In this post, we’ll cover a list of the best new CMS plugins for December 2020. This article will include useful plugins for WordPress, Shopify, Craft, and Joomla. Let’s get started…
OptiPic is a simple WordPress plugin that allows users to easily optimize and compress images.
The plugin also returns the WebP versions of images if the web browser supports it; if the web browser does not support WebP images, OptiPic will return a compressed version of the image. It also returns responsive images on mobile screens when the website is opened on a smaller device.
The image compression and WebP conversions occur in the background, so images load fast. The plugin takes advantage of caching to speed up load times.
Haglit is an AI-powered sales chatbot plugin for WooCommerce stores. The plugin allows customers to negotiate the price of products on your online store.
Haglit enables customers to haggle with a chatbot to get a personalized discount directly on the product page. In physical brick and mortar stores, conversation and haggling help to increase conversion rates and sales. Haglit allows you to bring that same interaction to your WooCommerce store. Customers can negotiate discounts and sellers can increase sales using Haglit’s discount algorithm.
The plugin is very easy to set up. All you need to do is sync Haglit to your WooCommerce store and set the maximum discount that will be allowed for a particular product. After publishing your settings, Haglit will take care of turning visitors into customers.
Brosix Live Chat plugin allows you to easily add live chat support to your WordPress site. It provides instant communication with your site’s visitors.
The plugin is easy to set up and use. All messages between customers and customer agents are encrypted. There is also a dedicated chat room on Brosix for your agents. Brosix has a mobile application for phones/tablets, a web application that works on all web browsers, and desktop applications for computers. The plugin comes in three availability options for agents and several color icon options.
Brosix offers two plans; a free plan that allows only one agent and a premium plan with more collaboration and administrative features.
Rankchecker.io is a free tool from Google that allows you to monitor your website’s ranking on search engines. The plugin allows you to check search engine rankings for multiple keywords on Google’s SERPs. Rankchecker.io can check keyword rankings for any country or language.
Bitcoin Widgets is a payment gateway plugin for WordPress users. It allows your customers to pay for goods using bitcoin.
You can receive the bitcoin payments directly to your crypto-wallet. Customers can also pay for goods with a bank card. These are the currencies that are supported: USD, RUR, EUR, UAH, INR. KRW, TRY, GBP, BRL, AUD, HKD, and TWD.
To collect bitcoin payments, just add your wallet address for payout. The payment transfers usually happen within 30 – 60 minutes depending on the network. There is also no processing fee.
Remove Emoji CSS and JS is a simple plugin that allows you to remove emoji CSS and JS from your WordPress website. Removing these CSS and JS scripts will help improve the performance and speed of your website.
Using the plugin is straight forward. Just install and activate the plugin to remove emoji CSS and JS from your website.
GuardGiant is a security plugin that stops hackers from logging into a WordPress website. The plugin uses a modern approach to make sure that genuine users are not locked away from their website. When a genuine user successfully logs into a device for the first time, the plugin treats the device as trusted. So if a user has failed login attempts on a trusted device, they are directed to ‘Lost Password’ forms instead of being completely locked out of their account.
Users will receive alerts when someone logs into their account from an unrecognized browser or device. Some of its features include brute force protection and detailed logging of all login attempts. The plugin also obscures login errors so that hackers cannot detect valid account names.
The plugin is easy to use and the default settings are already optimized to keep hackers away.
Schema Integration is a lightweight plugin that makes it easy to add schema markup to WordPress websites.
The plugin will automatically add the structured schema.org data markup in the recommended JSON-LD format to your website in seconds. The plugin supports multiple schema.org types. You can add the schema types anywhere on your site. All the schema types in the plugin are valid when tested on Google Structured Data Testing Tool.
Setting up schema using the plugin is easy. All you need to do is select the schema type you want and fill in the desired fields. The plugin will take care of the rest.
Promo Video Maker is an effective WordPress plugin for creating professionally designed videos for your business. The plugin allows you to turn static images into videos.
Some of the features in the plugin include free video templates, licensed audio tracks, and a free library with over 1.4M assets. The plugin comes with an easy to use editor. It easily integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can also manually embed the videos on any web page. With Promo Video Maker, you can easily create advertisements and testimonial videos to promote your products and services.
Backup Migration is a WordPress plugin for creating a backup of your site. All you need to do is install the plugin and click on “Create backup now”. The plugin allows you to schedule backups. You can also determine which exact files or databases you want to backup. The plugin is free to use.
Joli FAQ SEO is an easy-to-use plugin for creating multiple FAQs pages.
The plugin comes with a one-page drag-and-drop FAQ builder for creating fully responsive and mobile-friendly FAQ pages. The plugin is very great for SEO. It does not use jQuery in the front end. The plugin’s JavaScript file size is 4kb minified and the CSS file size is 6kb minified. You can customize the FAQ page to fit your website’s theme. The pro version integrates with WooCommerce and has an instant search bar.
QuizToAction is a simple Shopify plugin that allows you to catch the attention of your store visitors using interactive quizzes. At the end of each quiz, you can add a call to action. Currently, the plugin only allows email subscriptions as the call to action.
UGC Shoppable Customer Content plugin makes it easy to get user-generated content from your customers. With the plugin, you can invite your customers to share photos of their purchases through an on-site upload or email submissions.
The plugin comes with a widget so that you can display the UGC on your store. You can review the photos before they are uploaded. During the uploading process, the customer is asked if their photo can be shared on social media. If their answer is “Yes”, you can share the photo on social media through a shareable icon on the platform.
Checkify is a simple Shopify plugin that makes it easy to add a terms and conditions checkbox to your cart page. You can also add age verification and any customer agreements required by your store. No code is required to install the plugin. It uses a one-click install and will appear immediately after installation.
It is compatible with all browsers and Shopify themes. Checkify will show a warning if a customer tries to check out without checking the checkbox.
Hop Reveal plugin gives Craft site editors a quick visual cue on which server-side they are working on, development, staging, or production. You can choose what to name or color the labels. The plugin also allows you to view key environment variables that will be useful during development.
Donkeytail is a field type in Craft that allows you to quickly and easily content manage points on images.
Donkeytail is compatible with GraphQL. It also works with all content types including entries, categories, assets, users, variants, and products. You can use Donkeytail to showcase multiple products within an image.
Ol Content Modal is a Joomla module that allows users to display articles, K2, or custom items on a popup modal. The extension also allows users to show full articles in a popup window; use a navigation arrow to move from one article to the next.
Mx contact is a responsive Joomla module that allows you to add a custom contact form to any page on your website. The extension is great for collecting customer feedback and contact details. The contact form can either appear on a wall or as a popup.
Ruxin QR Code allows you to add QR codes to your Joomla website. The extension allows you to set your QR size, display custom links, set the background color and put a footer label. You can also show your logo or label in the center of the QR code.
Featured image via Unsplash.
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.
The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.
Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the corporate business world to network with associates and communicate with potential clients using online communication tools. Hence, given the current market conditions – having a functional and efficient communication system has become the need of the hour. Due to which platforms offering text, voice, and video chat features must ensure they offer enterprise-level models. These platforms must be customizable and scalable. It is also important for the communication platform to be of a certain standard that supports a huge number of users with minimal latency rates. Nevertheless, with multiple options in the market, it can be difficult to choose the right real-time communication platform.
So, what is Twilio? Twilio is one of the top-rated cloud communication platforms in the market that uses a PaaS model. Twilio offers developers tools or software-based platforms to integrate voice, video, or messaging into any mobile app. Twilio is basically a developer’s platform, which means that this platform cannot be used by a marketer or a non-developer. Twilio as a communication platform provides a powerful API system for phone services offering companies to make and receive phone calls and send and receive text messages instantly.
A domain name is used to represent online entities and provide users with access to websites that can help them accomplish goals like purchasing products, finding information, and connecting with others. As the internet a tool universally used in commerce throughout business practices, it is important to know what sites you are accessing, as well as any threats that may exist from those domains.
With phishing attempts and other cyber threats on the rise, online security should be a key part of business planning. Preparing for these risks will help prevent the theft of information and protect your organization and client-base. Having a plan in place will lend your business credibility and reliability in the eyes of your users and partners, who will know that they can trust you with their sensitive data.
De la conception à l’utilisation, le numérique permet de suivre l’ensemble du cycle de vie d’un produit. Mais aussi de transformer la relation entre le fournisseur et ses clients, en proposant des innovations comme le Product as a Service.
Le jumeau numérique est une réplique numérique d’un objet, processus ou système. Alimenté en temps réel par des données venant de son jumeau physique, le jumeau numérique permet de disposer d’informations clés sur le dispositif ou service simulé. L’apport de techniques de Machine Learning ouvre même les portes du prédictif.
L’utilisation de la simulation numérique et de modèles 3D n’est pas nouvelle, mais cet usage était auparavant limité aux bureaux d’études.
« Le jumeau numérique existe dans l’ingénierie depuis une bonne vingtaine d’années », confirme Denis Goudstikker, en charge du Business Development du PLM et du SLM chez Siemens Digital Industries Software. « Dans l’industrie automobile, la simulation numérique a permis de raccourcir le temps de mise sur le marché d’un nouveau véhicule. Il y a trente ans, on jetait 100 véhicules contre un mur pour pouvoir assurer un certain niveau de sécurité. Il y a vingt ans, on n’en jetait plus que 5, après en avoir jeté 5000 dans un autre mur… virtuel. » Une avancée qui s’est traduite par un meilleur niveau de sécurité et une accélération du processus de conception des voitures.
Avec le jumeau numérique, les barrières sont éliminées entre l’ingénierie, la production et la maintenance. Et même au-delà, puisque cette continuité numérique peut se prolonger hors des murs de l’entreprise.
« Le constructeur nous fournit des définitions numériques de son produit », témoigne Eric Miralles, CIO de SNOP, équipementier automobile de premier plan. « À partir de cette définition, nous fabriquons les outils qui vont nous permettre d’emboutir les tôles suivant ce cahier des charges. Il faut pour cela que la chaîne allant de la conception à la production soit numérisée. La modélisation numérique de l’ensemble de la chaîne permet d’avoir une maîtrise globale des processus. »
Le jumeau numérique offre également des opportunités après la phase de fabrication.
« Si le jumeau numérique est né dans le milieu industriel, la capacité de connecter de façon massive des objets distribués aux clients, au travers de l’IoT, permet de développer de nouveaux services, mais aussi de redéfinir la relation entre client et fournisseur », analyse Luca Ammassari, Group Deputy Chief Information Officer in charge of Applications chez Engie.
De la conception d’un produit à son utilisation, en passant par la production, le jumeau numérique permet de suivre l’ensemble du cycle de vie d’un produit. Mais également de réduire le time to market de nouvelles offres, la simulation numérique permettant d’accélérer la conception, le test et l’industrialisation des produits.
« Le jumeau numérique permet de répondre à des enjeux économiques et de recherche d’efficacité dans la production, analyse Eric Miralles. Sa mise en place nécessite toutefois une transformation numérique, mais aussi une transformation des organisations et des hommes. Il faut savoir saisir cette nouvelle opportunité par étapes et accompagner les équipes dans ce changement. »
« Le jumeau numérique est également important pour identifier et comprendre le comportement du matériel, poursuit Denis Goudstikker. Et ainsi optimiser son design et sa maintenance. Analyser le comportement acoustique d’une turbine permet par exemple de détecter tout changement dans son fonctionnement. Des modèles prédictifs vont alors déterminer si et quand elle tombera en panne. »
Les usages dans le secteur de la maintenance commencent à devenir communs, « mais il y a une chose à laquelle on s’attendait moins : le packaging d’objets et de services, explique Luca Ammassari. Le constructeur d’une turbine va proposer avec son équipement des services prédictifs basés sur l’utilisation d’un jumeau numérique. Il va s’appuyer sur les informations issues de turbines installées dans le monde entier qui seront comparées en temps réel au comportement de votre turbine, pour vous donner des probabilités de défaillance ou de perte de performance. »
Construire le jumeau numérique de l’ensemble d’une ligne de production n’est pas toujours possible. Certains équipements anciens, amortis sur des dizaines d’années, ne sont en effet pas équipés de capteurs et ne peuvent parfois pas l’être.
La bonne pratique consiste à avancer par étapes, sur des projets ciblés, au fort ROI. « Il faut mener ses projets selon une approche agile, par petits pas et construire ainsi progressivement de la compétence en interne, explique Luca Ammassari. Certains projets auront des résultats décevants, mais cela ne doit pas remettre en cause la démarche. »
Difficile de savoir de quoi demain sera fait en matière d’innovation, constate Luca Ammassari, « c’est pourquoi notre objectif est d’accompagner les entreprises en leur fournissant des fondations capables d’intégrer ces innovations. Notre but n’est pas de proposer des offres clé en mains, mais une plate-forme permettant de sortir de la supply chain classique pour créer un nouvel écosystème. »
Une logique de partenaires qui est essentielle pour Eric Miralles. « C’est cet assemblage de partenaires qui nous permettra de digitaliser l’ensemble de notre supply chain », confirme-t-il. Et de conclure : « La crise que nous traversons aujourd’hui est un accélérateur et il y a beaucoup d’opportunités, très positives, qui nous permettent d’accéder à ces innovations. »
The post Le jumeau numérique, facteur d’optimisation du cycle de vie des produits appeared first on SAP France News.
Jumpstart your next design project or speed up a workflow with some of these new tools and resources. With so many new tools being developed all the time, you are almost certain to find something that can help you with projects.
Here’s what new for designers this month.
Everypixel Patterns solves a common design problem: Creating seamless patterns with graphic editors is such a long and exhausting process. That’s why some people choose to get patterns from stock websites but that can be a challenge too (and difficult to search). This tool makes getting patterns less time-consuming. It includes a gallery of well-designed content, which you can customize and edit as needed.
Multiavatar is a free and open-source multicultural avatar maker. Type something in the input field and generate one of 12 billion avatars. (Everything is randomly generated and free to use.)
Lobe is a machine learning app from Microsoft that helps you create and train models. Start by showing the app examples of what you want it to learn and it will train a model for you. The tool is pretty easy to understand and you don’t need or experience or code knowledge to use it and you can train an app for free on your computer.
Laser Cat is a silly and fun Google Chrome extension that adds a cartoon cat to your browser that allows you to zap away anything you want to remove in the browser window. It’s light and fun. Go play!
Pattern Collect is a curated gallery of patterns by various designs and illustrators. You can download patterns for use in projects or submit your own to share with the design community. The library is searchable and you can get new patterns via email if you subscribe.
FarbVelo is a color palette generator that shows a new and random scheme with every refresh. The color choices are fresh and could work for a variety of projects, too.
CSS Clip Path Editor is a cool little pen by Mads Stoumann that puts an image inside of almost any clip path you can imagine. There are presets to choose from or you can adjust the settings and paths to create your own image shape.
Responsive & Configurable SVG Waves is a soothing pen by Jhey. Change the background and wave elements for a simple and cool animation in SVG.
Veed lets you host, edit, and deliver videos in the cloud using a REST API. It works on any browser, device, and bandwidth, and keeps your website light, even when delivering heavy video content.
Overlay is a plugin for Figma or Sketch that transforms components and symbols into clean and reusable React, Vue, or HTML code. The benefit? Use it to create more consistent websites and design systems more quickly and in a pixel-perfect manner.
List.js is a library for adding search, sort, filters, and flexibility to tables, lists, and other HTML elements. It is built so that it will work on existing HTML and be invisible. Plus, it is simple to install and use.
Design tokens are a “hot term” says Andy Bell. So, he wrote an explainer that breaks down what they are and how they might look in a standard data format like JSON. Read the explainer and you’ll be able to identify design tokens and understand them.
SVG Path Editor makes it easy to manipulate paths for any SVG element. The grid – if you choose to use it – helps edits stay symmetrical and easy to manage.
Operator Lookup is a practical and fun tool. Enter a JavaScript operator in the search box to learn more about what it does. (You can also choose from a “keyboard” of options.) Thanks for the tutorial, Josh W. Comeau.
Beacon is a tool designed to help you write, run, and share SQL in Slack. It makes collaboration easy so you can work on and run queries, debug, and resolve issues all in a single platform.
Plaiceholder transforms your images into lightweight placeholders using pure CSS or SVG.
Machine Translation is available as Cloud API, on-premise translation server, and SDK that can be easily integrated into lots of business cases. Both solutions work with 110 languages.
Draggable Blend Generator does just what the name implies. Change the blend mode of a background and foreground using a draggable tool so that you can see the changes in real time. Just enter the URL of a background image or pattern and color swatch and you are ready to go.
Jam Wand is a “magic wand” for making changes on your website, starting with copy. Click on any text, edit it, and submit the change to GitHub to be merged into the code. Copy changes as easy as click, type, and click again. (This tool is still in beta.)
Boost UI Kit is a collection of elements and components that will help you finish website design projects using a bright and airy style. It works with Figma for easy integration.
Romanizer is a fun game that tests your knowledge of Roman numerals. With two modes – a randomizer and a challenge you can participate in – you’ll learn to convert numbers visually in minutes.
Itmeo Market is a new online graphics marketplace with exclusive and ready-to-use templates for a variety of projects. Templates include elements for logos, UI kits, graphic elements, Instagram templates, landing pages, and more. (This is a paid/subscription-based resource.)
Bellmoco Handcola is a beautiful decorative typeface with fun swashes and serifs. The free version is for personal use only.
Bondie is a handmade brush typeface with fills in many of the letterforms. It contains 106 characters and is free for personal use.
Bovino has multiple weights that can work for display or body text. The modern serif is free for personal use.
Estilistica is a thin modern style sans serif with smooth lines and a vertical profile. It is best suited for display use and is free for personal use.
