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AccessiBe Review 2020: Solving Web Accessibility with AI and Scalability

Web accessibility is important for two reasons:

  1. Being ADA & WCAG compliant is required by law (we’ll explain this further) so if your website isn’t compliant, you can get sued.
  2. It allows people with disabilities to browse your website, which increases your potential audience and it is the decent thing to do.

In this accessiBe review, we’ll cover:

How Does accessiBe Work

accessiBe is an automated solution that combines two applications to achieve full compliance.

Foreground application: the accessibility interface. This is the accessibility menu that allows users with disabilities to adjust the various UI and design elements on your website so it meets their unique needs.

Background application: proprietary AI technology that’s responsible for the ‘heavy lifting’, screen-reader, and keyboard navigation optimization.

The combination of these two applications is unique for accessiBe for a few reasons. While most available accessibility solutions offer just one of the two or rely on manual remediation, accessiBe checks both boxes and does it in a fully automated way.

Additionally, and most importantly, accessiBe continuously scans your website, every 24 hours, identifying and fixing new accessibility issues as they arise. Websites are dynamic – meaning, keep updating constantly with new content, pages, images and so on; being ADA and WCAG compliant is an ongoing concern, not a one-time fix.

How to Install and Setup accessiBe

You install accessiBe by inserting a single line of code on your website.

From your end, that’s all it takes.

The first thing that happens is that the accessibility interface appears on your website. The menu is available via the accessibility icon (that also appears automatically.)

Source: accessiBe website

Next, the AI application scans and analyzes your website for accessibility issues and compatibility with screen-readers and keyboard navigation requirements and fixes them. This automated process takes 48 hours.

Once the initial 48 hours have elapsed, your website is compliant.

From here on, accessiBe automatically scans your website every 24 hours to identify and fix new accessibility issues as they arise due to website updates.

Why Ongoing Compliance is Important

We’ve mentioned this already, but it’s important to stress this point.

Whether you have an e-commerce website or a company website, you keep updating and changing your website; new items go up for sale, new videos and content pieces are added. Every addition or removal from your website has the potential of creating accessibility gaps (like missing alt text for images.)

By continuously scanning and fixing your website, accessiBe ensures that you stay compliant. An accessibility audit remediates your website for the specific point in time the audit took place. Meaning, you’ll need to audit your website periodically to remain compliant, which is a costly affair. With accessiBe you don’t need to worry about this.

accessiBe Front End Features – The Accessibility Interface

The accessiBe accessibility interface (the menu that is available for users) is installed automatically on your website once you insert the line of code. Let’s look at the various features that are available for people with disabilities.

Accessibility Profiles Explained

First, it allows you to choose from a pre-defined set of profiles optimized for various disability needs:

When one of the profiles is selected, the required adjustments are instantly applied to your entire website.

For example, The ADHD Friendly Profile creates a reading mark that follows your mouse movements that diminish distractions and allows better focus:

The Cognitive Disability Profile frames all the elements in bounding boxes and adds an ‘reading cursor’ that acts as your mouse to allow enhanced orientation:

Each of the predefined profiles includes a suite of features that target the unique accessibility needs of the disability; the Epilepsy Safe Profile prevents videos from playing automatically, dims all the colors on your website and eliminates flashing and blinking animations; the Visually Impaired Profile enhances all your website’s visuals, enlarges all fonts to allow most visual impairments conditions (degrading eyesight, tunnel vision, cataract, glaucoma and more) to be able to browse your website with ease.

The last two profiles, Blind Users and Keyboard Navigation, work in unison. They allow blind and motor-impaired individuals to browse and use your website as they are used to, through screen-readers and keyboard functionality, respectively.

Two things need to be mentioned here:

  1. Blind individuals have screen-readers installed on their computers in the OS-level, meaning, on the hard drive of the computer. They use them to navigate the internet by having the software read for them every text that appears on the screen. As can be seen in the screenshot above, the Blind User profile is ‘launched’ automatically once accessiBe detects that the user is using a screen-reader. This is a crucial functionality since obviously blind users aren’t able to locate the accessibility icon.
  2. The same goes for individuals that are using the keyboard instead of a mouse to navigate the web, both the motor-impaired and the blind. accessiBe detects and automatically enables keyboard navigation on your website.

On top of the predefined accessibility profiles, accessiBe’s interface allows for further adjustments that can be controlled specifically to allow a personalized browsing experience according to the user’s needs. Let’s look at these adjustments.

Accessibility Content Adjustments Explained

The content adjustments allow you to control every aspect of the written content on your website. The menu looks like this:

Each of these elements allows for granular control of the way content, or text, is presented. From altering the entire website’s text to a readable, sans-serif font that is easier to follow, to highlighting titles and links, to adjusting font size, the spacing between lines and letters and using a text magnifier that follows your cursor on the screen.

Here’s how it looks with Highlight Titles and Highlight Links turned on:

You can see all the links are highlighted with an orange bounding box while all titles are highlighted with a blue bounding box.

Accessibility Color Adjustments Explained

The color adjustments allows users to control every aspect of the color scheme on the website:

From adjusting contrast and saturation, to switching the entire website to a monochrome color scheme, to adjusting textual elements and background colors. Let’s look at a few examples.

Here’s a side-by-side of default appearance and the Dark Contrast adjustment turned on:

And here’s how it looks with the Monochrome adjustment turned on:

Accessibility Orientation Adjustments Explained

The orientation adjustments allow full control of ‘distractions’ that make it hard for individuals with epilepsy, ADHD, and cognitive disability to browse the web:

As such, the orientation adjustments allow users to mute sound, hide images, stop animations and additional ‘focus’ features such as an enlarged cursor and reading assistance that highlights the text being read.

Here’s how the Remove Images adjustment works:

accessiBe Back End Features

Unlike ‘accessibility plugins’ (more on that later) accessiBe provides a comprehensive back end treatment to your website – automated, AI-powered analysis of compatibility with accessibility requirements and fixing of the elements that need adjustment.

It should be noted that 70% of the WCAG compliance requirements deal with screen-reader and keyboard navigation compatibility and all these requirements are not answered by installing an accessibility interface widget that merely makes UI and design adjustments.

For example, an accessibility widget will enable you to enlarge the font on your website, to adjust the saturation or to highlight links, but it won’t enable a blind individual to differentiate between a shopping cart icon and a checkout icon, nor will it enable a motor impaired individual to easily navigate a menu.

This is a crucial consideration to make when choosing a web accessibility solution. Being WCAG compliant is a YES / NO situation. Your website is either compliant or it’s not, there is no middle ground here.

accessiBe’s back end features come to solve and answer all these compatibility issues that enable full screen-reader and keyboard navigation functionalities.

Screen Reader Compatibility Explained

Screen Reader is a software for blind individuals to use computers and browse the web. As the name suggests, the software reads aloud what is seen on the screen for blind individuals.

The screen reader software is installed on the computer. But in order for it to work with websites, the website needs to be compatible with the software. To achieve compatibility with screen reader software, WCAG requires that a website should adhere to a set of attributes called Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) that are installed within the website’s code, allowing it to ‘communicate’ with the screen reader.

Let’s take social icons as an example. We are all familiar with those icons – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – they are instantly recognizable for us visually. A screen reader software doesn’t actually ‘see’ elements on the screen, rather it scans the website’s code to understand what appears on the screen. As such, a Facebook icon code simply says ‘link’ and has the URL that directs the user when clicking the link.

So with a website that isn’t compatible with a screen reader, that doesn’t have ARIA tags implemented, the screen reader will read to the blind person “link” for the Facebook icon; not very helpful, is it?

When ARIA tags are implemented, additional information is added to the Facebook icon – and any other visual link on the website – that describes what is the link. So the screen reader will read to the blind person “Facebook link”.

It’s not difficult to imagine the scope and effort of the work needed in order to implement ARIA tags on your entire website.

Keyboard Navigation Compatibility Explained

Keyboard navigation means that motor-impaired individuals are using their computers only through their keyboard, rather than a mouse. Scrolling, clicking links and menu buttons, opening and closing tabs – everything is done using designated keys.

There are many issues relating to keyboard navigation as today’s websites are highly complex, layered with content elements, and react dynamically to user behavior. Any element of the website must be compatible to allow full keyboard navigation.

Let’s look at a popup as an example.

Popups can be triggered for a variety of reasons. For mouse users, it is a simple occurrence; you can bring the cursor to the area of the popup, click on one of the fields to input details or click the X to close the popup.

But how do you handle the popup using only the keyboard? How do you differentiate between ‘regular’ functionalities of the website and that of the popup? How do you ‘shift the focus’ of the keystrokes to a layered element? You need to allow unique keystrokes to operate the popup, keystrokes that are activated only when a popup appears.

It’s one example of the many challenges making your website compatible with keyboard navigation. The list of WCAG requirements for compatibility with keyboard navigation is a long one, and understandably so as it needs to enable motor-impaired individuals to navigate your website with the same ease as the rest of us using a mouse.

How accessiBe’s Background Processing Achieves Screen Reader and Keyboard Navigation Compatibility

Without getting too technical, what accessiBe does is scan the entire code of your website and adds keyboard functionalities and ARIA tags to various elements on your website directly. It won’t interfere with your site’s code, but rather add an additional ‘layer’.

accessiBe’s AI ‘learned’ all of ARIA’s tags and keyboard functionalities required by WCAG and when scanning your website’s code implements all the required adjustments to achieve full compliance.

How accessiBe Makes Menus Accessible

Menus are a good example for understanding what the accessiBe background processing does and the benefits it provides.

We recognize menus on websites instantly, because we saw thousands and thousands of them. We know how they look, we know what their functionality is, and we know where to hover and click in order to reach the various pages of the website.

But if you remember, we said that screen readers don’t ‘look’ at the screen, but rather scan the site’s code to understand structure, identify links and read them aloud with all the text that appears on the page.

So menus are coded as a list structure, because in a way they are. A screen reader will announce a menu as a list, which might be confusing for a blind user. Additionally, many menus have drop-down sub-menus, accessible via a hover or by clicking a little triangle. Without proper ARIA tagging, a screen reader will miss the sub-menu.

What accessiBe does is adding readable tags for every element in the menu so a screen reader will recognize and announce each element properly. The ‘list’ code structure will get a “menu” tag, and the sub-menu will get a tag for ‘sub-menu’, thus allowing the blind individual to utilize the full functionality of the website.

Additionally, accessiBe alternates the tags on-the-fly while the site is being browsed. Once a sub-menu has been opened, a tag that says “sub-menu open” will be added to indicate to the screen reader what has happened, and will be changed with the tag “sub-menu close” once the sub-menu has been closed.

Image Recognition

One of the key elements of accessibility compliance with screen readers is to provide accurate alternative descriptions for images, known as alt text.

accessiBe utilizes various image, object and character recognition technologies (OCR and Iris) to provide highly descriptive and accurate depictions of images displayed on the website. Without adding screen-reader compatible alt tags to images a blind individual would simply not be aware of the existence of images, and miss out on the information usually displayed on images.

Let’s look at the following banner images from an e-commerce website:

As you can see, valuable information is communicated via the images – sales and discounts – the kind of information any shopper would want to know.

This is the descriptive text that accessiBe’s AI assigned to these images, completely automated with no human intervention (from left to right):

  • Image contains: shopping,  shorts, woman, ashion; image text: extra 50% off shorts
  • Image contains: shopping, red top, woman, jeans, fashion; image text: 50% off bottoms
  • Image contains: shopping, blue jumpsuit, woman, fashion, bed, ; image text: 50% off jumpsuits & rompers
  • Image contains: shopping, shoes, ocean, woman, fashion; image text: 50% off shoes

Again, doing this kind of work for the hundreds to thousands of images that are displayed on every e-commerce website requires a lot of time and effort. accessiBe achieves this in a completely automated way, and every image added to your website instantly gets its alt text.

Comparison of accessiBe with Accessibility Plugins

There are many web accessibility plugins out there. They offer a ‘quick fix’ for ADA and WCAG compliance – add an accessibility menu and you’re done.

As tempting as it may sound, the distinction between an accessibility menu and being fully compliant must be made.

As we’ve mentioned earlier, there are two parallel tasks that need to handle in order to achieve ADA and WCAG compliance:

  • Front end – UI and design adjustments, achieved by the Accessibility Interface (the visible menu for content, font, color and orientation adjustments)
  • Back end – screen-reader and keyboard navigation compatibility, achieved by implementing ARIA tags and further code adjustments

Reminder: 70% of accessibility compliance requirements deal with back end adjustments, meaning, screen-readers, and keyboard navigation compatibility.

Accessibility plugins, whether free or paid, only answer the front-end requirements. Meaning, after installing an accessibility plugin, you are just 30% compliant. Since accessibility compliance is not a scale (you don’t ‘get points’ for making it halfway through) you’ll need to turn to an additional provider to do the back end work.

accessiBe, on the other hand, provides a full accessibility compliance solution, covering both UI and design requirements through the accessibility interface AND screen-reader and keyboard navigation compatibility requirements through it’s automated AI technology that analyzes and makes adjustments in the code-level of the website.

Benefits of Using accessiBe Over Accessibility Plugins

  • Achieving complete accessibility compliance
  • Dealing with a single provider, rather than two or more
  • Cost-efficiency (manual audit and remediation service are expensive)
  • Complete compatibility with screen-readers and keyboard navigation
  • Enabling true accessibility to individuals with disabilities

Comparison of accessiBe with Manual Accessibility Services

Manual accessibility services can help you achieve full accessibility compliance, but it comes with two major disclaimers:

  1. You’ll still need an additional solution for an accessibility interface, which the service companies don’t provide
  2. The compliance achieved is for the point in time the audit and remediation were performed. Let’s explain this point further.

Companies that offer a manual accessibility service assign a team of accessibility experts to do an audit of your website. The result of this audit is a lengthy document detailing all the accessibility faults that your website has. It is a valuable document as it gives you a precise depiction of what needs to be fixed in order to achieve compliance.

From here there are two possible paths:

You can either take the audit results to your development team and have them remediate your website accordingly.

Or, some of the service companies offer a remediation service, meaning, they’ll assign their own engineers to manually make the necessary changes in your website. Needless to say this extra service isn’t given for free.

In both cases, you are looking at a process that takes weeks if not months (depending on the number of pages your website has.)

Additionally, since it is a manual process done by experts, it comes with a hefty price tag.

But most importantly, the audit and remediation hold for the time they were done. Unless you have a 100% static website, meaning, you do not make any changes to your website – never add or remove products, never update content – the ‘effect’ of the audit and remediation fades away with time.

Since the process was manual, any changes you make to your website must be handled manually accessibility-wise. You added a new banner with a link to items on sale, you’ll need to go into the code and add ARIA tags. You added a new image, you’ll need to go into the code and add alt text compatible with screen-readers. And so on.

Some of the manual accessibility service companies offer maintenance services as well. They will periodically audit your website (manually) and provide a remediation document that will need to be implemented (manually) either by your development team or by theirs for an additional cost.

These costs add up. Having your website audited and remediated for compliance on an ongoing basis takes time, effort, and money. But you don’t have a choice. Being ADA and WCAG compliant is an ongoing task, since websites are dynamic and being updated regularly.

accessiBe, on the other hand, offers a 100% automated and ongoing compliance solution. The initial audit and remediation process is carried out – with no human intervention – in 48 hours (compared to weeks or months by a manual provider). Then, your website is scanned every 24 hours to identify and fix accessibility issues using accessiBe AI technology. Meaning, compliance maintenance is constantly carried out ‘in the background’ keeping you ADA & WCAG compliant at all times.

Which brings us to another crucial point regarding manual accessibility services. They make it extremely hard for you to scale up. Every business has a constant aim to grow, but with a manual accessibility service, scalability becomes a pain point. The more you grow the more time, effort and money you need to put in to remain compliant. You want to add another section to your website, you want to launch an additional website? Using a manual accessibility service will hold you back. You’ll need to account for additional time before going live to manually enable accessibility and additional funds. For fast-moving companies, time becomes a serious burden.

Since accessiBe offers an automated and ongoing accessibility solution, scalability is not an issue.

Benefits of Using accessiBe Over Manual Accessibility Services

  • Time-efficient
  • Cost-effective
  • 100% automated
  • Ongoing compliance
  • Infinite scale
  • Single provider for full compliance (front end and back end)

How to Check Your Web Accessibility Compliance Level

Before you get started on your path to being ADA & WCAG compliant it’s important to understand the current state of accessibility your website provides.

Obviously, if you’ve never taken any steps to make your website accessible to individuals with disabilities, there’s no need for this – your website isn’t accessible in any way.

This is actually highly important if you have taken steps to make your website accessible, like for example, installing one of the accessibility plugins. You might be under the impression that by doing so your website is both compliant and accessible to individuals with disabilities.

There’s a simple and quick way to face the accessibility reality.

accessiBe offers a free, automated compliance audit tool available online named aCe. It uses accessiBe AI technology to scan your site, detect accessibility issues and provide quite a detailed report on the various elements that impact your website’s accessibility, and those include:

  • General score
  • Clickables
  • Titles
  • Orientation
  • Menus
  • Graphics
  • Forms
  • Documents
  • Readability
  • Carousels
  • Tables

Each of these elements is given a score and some explanations to the specific issues that need attention within the context of these elements.

In addition to gaining a compliance audit with the remediation steps needed to be taken in order to fix these issues, aCe gives you a very clear idea of where you stand and what needs your attention in order to achieve compliance.

We gave it a try. We ran a website that has installed one of the accessibility plugins (which was recognized, by name, by the aCe audit tool) and the results cement the point that these plugins aren’t comprehensive enough of a solution for true ADA & WCAG compliance.

Here are the results:

As can be expected, the UI and design side got relatively high scores, due to the accessibility plugin installed on the website, but anything that has to do with back end compatibility with screen readers and keyboard navigation got a failing score.

Conclusion

accessiBe is an automated and comprehensive web accessibility solution that achieves ongoing compliance with ADA and WCAG regulations for your website.

It offers a unique combination of front end and back end compatibility, meaning, it provides an end-to-end solution for both user-facing accessibility interface, and compatibility with screen readers and keyboard navigation.

The solution offered by accessiBe is a no-touch, no-code, continuous compliance utilizing proprietary AI technology that audits and remediates your website.

It is by far one of the most affordable web accessibility solutions, starting at $490 for websites with up to 1,000 unique pages.

When compared to accessibility plugins, accessiBe’s offering is robust and comprehensive, delivering full compliance that plugins aren’t able to.

When compared to accessibility manual services, accessiBe offers a speedy and automated audit and remediation process compared to the lengthy, manual and highly expensive offering of the service companies. Additionally, accessiBe, unlike accessibility manual services, delivers ongoing compliance and the ability to scale with ease and speed.

The combination of AI-based audit and remediation, the most comprehensive accessibility interface on the market, ongoing compliance, scalability, and a highly affordable plan makes accessiBe stand out from the competition by offering a unique end-to-end solution for achieving ADA and WCAG compliance in a fast and simple way.

Featured image via Unsplash.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source de l’article sur sap.com

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Editors’ Picks: Summer 2020

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Agile 

AI

Big Data

Cloud

Database

DevOps

Integration

  • Mulesoft 4: Continuous Delivery/Deployment With Maven by Ashok S — This article is a great example of what we want every tutorial to look like on DZone. The main aim of this article is to provide a standard mechanism to release project artifacts and deploy to Anypoint Platform, from the local machine or configure in continuous delivery pipelines.
  • Integration With Social Media Platforms Series (Part 1) by Sravan Lingam — This article helps you to build a RESTful API through MuleSoft that integrates with LinkedIn and shares a post on behalf of one’s personal account. I like this article because, in the age of social media, it’s so important for businesses to be connected and integrated!

IoT

Java

Microservices

Open Source

Performance

  • What Is Big O Notation? by Huyen Pham — Aside from a silly name, this article is an example of an in-depth analysis on a little-spoken-about concept. In this article, take a look at a short guide to get to know Big O Notation and its usages.
  • Is Python the Future of Programming? by Shormisthsa Chatterjee — Where is programming going? This article attempts to answer this question in a well-rounded way. The author writes, "Python will be the language of the future. Testers will have to upgrade their skills and learn these languages to tame the AI and ML tools".

Security

Web Dev

  • A Better Way to Learn Python by Manas Dash: There’s so many resources available for learning Python — so many that it’s difficult to find a good and flexible place to start. Check out Manas’ curated list of courses, articles, projects, etc. to get your Python journey started today. 
  • Discovering Rust by Joaquin Caro: I’m a sucker for good Rust content, as there’s still so many gaps in what’s available. Joaquin does a great job of giving readers his perspective of the language’s features in a way that traditional docs just 

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Popular Design News of the Week: August 24, 2020 – August 30, 2020

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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.

How to Make Halftone Gradient in Photoshop

 

Drawing Simple Line Patterns Using HTML5 Canvas

 

10 Online Design Tools You Never Knew You Needed

 

4 Best Content Management Systems (CMS) for Marketing

 

9 Mistakes Designers Still Make

 

6 Visual Design Principles that UX Designers Should Be Aware of

 

Best Way to Lazy Load Images for Maximum Performance

 

17 Stunning Examples of Sites with Horizontal Scrolling

 

Less is a Bore. Why Tech is Finally Embracing Maximalism

 

What Does it Mean to Have a High-Quality Website in 2020?

 

8 Project Management Tips for your Next Web Development Project

 

MergeURL – Shorten Urls for Free Without User Registration

 

13 Design Challenges to Improve and Showcase your Skills

 

How to Find Web Design Clients

 

Waitlist API – Quick and Easy Waitlist with Built in Referral

 

What is the Small Web?

 

24 Beautifully Designed Pricing Page Examples

 

7 Practical Tips for Better Microcopy

 

15 Awesome Developer Home Workstations

 

Pentagram Designs “edgier” Visual Identity for Rolls-Royce

 

Gorgeous Gradients: A Curated Collection of Dreamy Color Transitions

 

Experts Weigh in on the Biden-Harris Logo

 

50+ Modern Fonts to Use on your WordPress Website in 2020

 

15 Florist Websites that will Inspire Every Flower Lover

 

Create your First React Native Android App

 

Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.

Source


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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What Are Good Traits That Make Great API Product Managers

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As more companies realize the benefits of an API-first mindset and treating their APIs as products, there is a growing need for good API product management practices to make a company’s API strategy a reality. However, API product management is a relatively new field with little established knowledge on what is API product management and what a PM should be doing to ensure their API platform is successful.

Many of the current practices of API product management have carried over from other products and platforms like web and mobile, but API products have their own unique set of challenges due to the way they are marketed and used by customers. While it would be rare for a consumer mobile app to have detailed developer docs and a developer relations team, you’ll find these items common among API product-focused companies. A second unique challenge is that APIs are very developer-centric and many times API PMs are engineers themselves. Yet, this can cause an API or developer program to lose empathy for what their customers actually want if good processes are not in place. Just because you’re an engineer, don’t assume your customers will want the same features and use cases that you want.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Understanding SAP Landscape SetUp and Associated Challenges – Part 2

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In part one of this blog, I provided a high-level introduction to SAP Systems, Clients, Landscapes, and Transports and how they might fit together in a ‘standard’ configuration. But like life, SAP tends to be a bit more complicated than that. The reality of marrying architectural constraints with complex business needs means that the kind of simple landscapes I described in my last piece often will not do the job. Something more complex is required.

In this article – part two of three – I will look at some of the more advanced concepts associated with SAP Landscape Design and how to manage the increased complexity that comes with them. 

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Quality Sense Podcast: Mobile App Performance With Sofia Palamarchuk

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In today’s Quality Sense episode, Federico Toledo sits down for a chat with a colleague and friend, Sofia Palamarchuk. She’s a Director and Board Member of Abstracta and the co-founder and CEO of Apptim, a tool that helps you to test and analyze native mobile app performance.

After beginning her career as a performance engineer at Abstracta, she led our expansion to the United States – heading up business development. After seeing the challenges that mobile development teams face, in 2019, she embarked on a mission to transform the way global mobile teams create quality apps.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Adveo opte pour SAP Commerce pour développer son activité et répondre à la demande croissante des consommateurs

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Levallois, le 15 juillet 2020 – SAP France annonce qu’Adveo, l’un des leader européen en matériel de bureau, matériel scolaire et fournitures, utilise la solution d’ecommerce SAP Commerce pour renforcer sa croissance. Avec 345 collaborateurs et un réseau de 1500 distributeurs indépendants dont une grande partie regroupée autour des trois enseignes CALIPAGE, Plein Ciel et Buro+ répartis entre la France et le Benelux, l’entreprise rencontrait plusieurs challenges : l’évolution de la demande des professionnels et du grand public, le développement du e-commerce, et, plus récemment, la crise du Covid-19.

Pour répondre à ses nouveaux enjeux, Adveo a massivement investi dans le numérique pour renforcer son expérience réseau et client final. L’objectif : améliorer la traçabilité des produits, faciliter les échanges d’informations avec son réseau, mise en place de contenus et de solutions au service de ses distributeurs pour développer l’e-commerce en parallèle des points de vente physiques… Pour gagner en agilité sur l’e-commerce, l’entreprise a misé sur la solution SAP Commerce hébergée sur le cloud Microsoft Azure et intégrée par Delaware. Le déploiement a été effectué en un temps record entre mars et mai 2020, en pleine crise sanitaire.

Gagner en agilité pour booster la croissance

En quelques années, Adveo est passée d’une offre traditionnelle (papiers, stylos, archivage, impression…), à une offre élargie couvrant les besoins des professionnels et du grand public. L’entreprise est passée en quelques années de 10 000 à 25 000 références et ambitionne d’atteindre 45 000 d’ici fin 2022.

« SAP Commerce est un choix stratégique de croissance misant sur une plus grande flexibilité pour nous adapter rapidement aux évolutions de la demande, à la transformation du commerce et ainsi réduire le time to market des nouvelles offres ou encore tracer de nouveaux flux logistiques », explique Philippe Guillotin, président d’Adveo.

Adapter l’offre pour dynamiser les ventes en pleine crise sanitaire

« Le déploiement de la solution nous a ainsi permis d’être extrêmement réactifs pendant la période de confinement et de créer rapidement des gammes spécifiques (plexiglas, masques et gels hydroalcooliques) pour répondre aux besoins liées au Covid-19 en référençant rapidement plusieurs centaines de distributeurs. Elle nous a permis de répondre aux problématiques logistiques liées à l’augmentation de la demande sur certaines gamme de produits », ajoute Philippe Guillotin.

Adveo simplifie ainsi son activité, avec le développement de ventes profitables pour les distributeurs, et une vraie bonne expérience d’achat pour le client final.

SAP Commerce pour plus de flexibilité et de réactivité

L’hébergement sur le cloud nous a permis d’intégrer rapidement la solution au sein de l’entreprise et d’extraire facilement les données pour les transférer de notre ancienne plateforme vers SAP Commerce. Plus des deux tiers du projet se sont déroulés pendant le confinement, et nous n’avons rencontré aucune difficulté d’accès à la solution. Le cloud nous apporte une flexibilité et une forme de garantie de fonctionnement : nous n’avons aucune limite de capacité », explique Alexandre Rochereau, DSI d’Adveo. « Combinée avec l’ERP SAP, nous disposons d’une solution complète, intégrée et automatisée qui nous a permis d’éliminer de nombreuses contraintes manuelles. »

Créer de nouvelles expériences

Avec la nouvelle version de SAP commerce, Adveo a pu enrichir l’expérience interne, améliorant le pilotage et facilitant la publication des nouvelles références sur leur solution logistique, directement intégrée à la solution SAP. Les utilisateurs sont devenus responsables de leur catalogue et peuvent publier eux même les nouveaux produits grâce à une ergonomie optimisée, leur permettant de réduire les dépenses liées à l’intervention d’experts IT.

Enfin, SAP Commerce a permis à Adveo d’atteindre son objectif de devenir conforme avec les nouvelles normes RGPD, assurant ainsi la confidentialité des données des 1 500 distributeurs de l’entreprise. A court terme l’entreprise va généraliser les échanges digitaux avec ses fournisseurs et déployer de nouvelles solutions d’e-procurement au service de l’ensemble de ses distributeurs.

À propos de SAP

SAP est le leader du marché des applications d’entreprise : 77% des transactions financières mondiales passent par un système SAP. L’entreprise accompagne les organisations de toute taille et de tout secteur à mieux opérer. Nos technologies de machine learning, d’Internet des objets (IoT), d’analytique avancée et de gestion de l’expérience aident nos clients à transformer leur activité en « entreprise intelligente ». SAP dote les professionnels d’une vision approfondie sur leur activité et favorise la collaboration pour garder une longueur d’avance sur leurs concurrents. Pour les entreprises, nous simplifions la technologie afin qu’elles puissent utiliser nos logiciels comme elles le souhaitent, sans interruption. Notre suite d’applications de bout en bout et nos services permettent à plus de 440 000 clients d’opérer de manière rentable, de s’adapter en permanence et de faire la différence. Avec son réseau mondial de clients, partenaires, employés et leaders d’opinion, SAP aide le monde à mieux fonctionner et à améliorer la vie de chacun. Pour plus d’information, visitez le site www.sap.com

The post Adveo opte pour SAP Commerce pour développer son activité et répondre à la demande croissante des consommateurs appeared first on SAP France News.

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8 Design Secrets of B2B Vs B2C Websites

Web design clients come from a wide variety of backgrounds. One day, you’ll be designing a portfolio website for a voiceover artist, the next you’ll be creating a comprehensive ecommerce site for a leading retailer. In an ideal world, you’ll get to a point where you eventually specialize in a niche. However, you’ll need to master both avenues first.

The more time you spend in this industry, the more you’ll learn that every client comes with their own unique requirements and challenges to consider. However, there’s a particularly huge divide between the kind of web design projects you do for B2B clients, and the ones you do for B2C customers.

Both B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) websites need to be clear, concise, and aesthetically pleasing. They should always have a strong focus on user experience, and they need to work consistently across devices. However, being aware of the difference between B2B and B2C projects will help you to deliver better results to your customers.

Defining the Differences Between B2B and B2C Sites

Some web design trends remain consistent in any environment.

Whether you’re creating a site for a hairdresser, or a leading SaaS company, you’ll need to deliver responsive design, intuitive navigation, and excellent site security.

Your process is unlikely to differ from B2B to B2C much in terms of project milestones, phases, prototyping and wire-framing. The differences that arise between B2B and B2C projects often come in the approach you take to building certain elements.

Let’s take a closer look at the things you might need to consider:

1. The Target Audience

In any design project, it’s always important to keep the end customer in mind. Knowing your client’s target audience will help you to create both an image and a tone of voice that appeals to the right people.

B2B Websites

With B2B websites, you’ll be speaking to a range of highly-educated individuals who already have a general knowledge of your service. The aim here will be to show the end-user how you can help them achieve better results. For instance, m.io highlights “syncing communication” so you can “effortlessly chat” with your team.

The language and content of the website is all about highlighting the key benefits of the products, and the kind of outcomes that they can deliver. The Nielsen Norman Group reports that there’s often a lot of discussion between decision-makers when they’re checking out a B2B website.  

Designers need to work harder at convincing B2B buyers that they’re making the right decision. This is particularly true when you’re selling something like a software subscription that requires a lot of long—term investment.

B2C Websites

On the other hand, while B2B customers make decisions based on logic, information, and well-explained benefits, B2C customers are more influenced by emotion. They want quick solutions to their problems, and the opportunity to purchase from a brand that “understands” them.

Look at the Firebox website, for instance. It instantly highlights an ongoing sale at the top of the homepage, addressing any concerns a customer might have about price. That combined with a quirky layout full of authentic photos and bright colors means that customers are more inclined to take action.

2. The Purpose

Another factor that can vary from B2C to B2B websites, is the motive behind a customer’s purchase. Knowing what’s pushing a target audience to interact with a brand will help you to create a website that appeals to specific goals.

B2B Websites

B2B websites often aim to solve expensive and time-consuming problems for companies. To sell a decision-maker on the validity of a solution, it’s important to thoroughly explain what the solution is, how it works, and how it addressees a specific pain point.

Look at the Zoom website for instance, they don’t just tell people that they offer video conferencing, they address the practical applications of the platform:

B2C Websites

Consumers are a lot easier to appeal to in terms of emotional impact, because many of them come to a website looking to fulfill an urgent need. Because of this, many web designers can take advantage of things like urgency and demand to encourage conversions. For instance, look at this website from TravelZoo. It takes advantage of a customer’s desire to get away:

A B2B website needs to focus on providing information that helps companies to make more confident decisions. What’s more, with B2B sites, decisions are often made by several stakeholders, while B2C sites ask a single person to make a choice. A B2C website needs to address immediate concerns and connect with customers on an emotional level. B2C buyers still want to do their research on products or services, but the turnaround is much quicker, and often requires less information.

3. The Design Elements (Visual Appearance)

Just as the focus of your website design and the audience that you’re creating the experience for can differ from B2B to B2C websites, the visual elements of the design might change too.

B2B Websites

In most cases, B2B websites are all about presenting a highly professional and respectable image. You’ll notice a lot of safe and clear choices when it comes to typography and imagery. It’s unusual to see a B2B website that takes risks with things like illustrations and animations.

Look at the Green Geeks website for instance. Everything is laid out to encourage clarity and understanding. Information is easy to find, and there are no other issues that might distract a customer.

B2C Websites

On the other hand, B2C websites can be a little more daring. With so many different options to choose from, and most customers buying out of a sense of urgency or sudden demand, designers are under pressure to capture attention quick. This means that it’s much more likely to see large pieces of eye-catching imagery on B2C sites, with very little text.

Movement, like slideshows and animations often play more of a role here. Additionally, there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to experiment more aggressively with color. Take a look at the Yotel website, for instance. There’s very little textual information here, but the appeal of the website is conveyed through sliding images:

4. Website Content

The way that information is conveyed on a B2B website is very different to the messages portrayed on a B2C site. Usually, everything from the language, to the amount of content that you use for these projects will differ drastically.

B2B Websites

When designing for a B2B website, you’ll need to be careful with content, as you’ll be speaking to a very mixed audience. If your site caters to different industries, you’ll need to ensure that you show authority, without using too much jargon. Some companies even create different pages on their site for specific customers. The aspin.co.uk website covers the benefits from a company, sale and integration perspective:

Rather than try to talk to all business owners about their differing communication pains, G-Suite anticipates its audience and creates pages for each.

B2C Websites

Alternatively, B2C websites can make things a little simpler. For instance, on glossybox.co.uk, there’s no need to provide a ton of information for different types of shopper, designers can appeal to one audience, i.e. the “beauty addict”:

In both B2B and B2C websites, the aim of the content should always be to answer any questions that the end user might have.

5. CTA Buttons

Call to Action buttons are often a crucial part of the web design journey. However, it’s sometimes difficult to determine where they should be placed, or how many buttons you need.

B2B Websites

Because the decision to buy something won’t always happen immediately with a B2B website, these kinds of sites often use a variety of CTAs. For instance, you might have a “Request a Quote” button at the top of a page, as well as a Sign in button.

On the Klaviyo site, for instance, you can request a demo, sign up or log in:

You can place CTAs lower on the page with B2B websites too, as it’s more likely that your customers will be scrolling through the site to collect more information before they decide to buy.

B2C Websites

On the other hand, with B2C websites, you usually don’t need to give your visitors as many options. A single option to “Add to Cart”, or perhaps an extra choice to “Add to Favorites” is all your user will need. Customers need to instantly see what they need to do next as soon as they arrive on a page:

On the Evil Hair website, you immediately see how to add a product to your cart.

Remember, the sales process is a lot quicker with B2C customers. This means that you need your CTA buttons to be front and center as soon as someone clicks on a page.

6. Contact Forms

In a similar vein, the way that you design your contact forms will also depend on the end-user that the website wants to appeal to. There’s a very different process for getting in touch on a B2B website, compared to a B2C site.

B2B Websites

B2B websites often require longer contact forms, as clients need to collect additional information about a prospect’s position in a company, and what that company does. B2B companies need to share things like what they’re looking for in a service, and how many users they have, so a sales team knows what kind of demonstration to give.

As with any strategy for contact form design, you should always only include the fields that your client needs and no more. If you demand too much from any client, you could send them running in the opposite direction. Check out this straightforward option from Ironpaper, for instance:

The form addresses as many relevant questions as possible without overwhelming the customer. Because the site handles things like design, it makes sense that they would ask for a link to the company’s existing website.

B2C Websites

On a B2C website, there are very different approaches to contact forms. You may have a dedicated contact form on your website where people can get in touch if they have any questions. A FAQ page where customers can serve themselves is another great way to help your client stand out from the competition. Check out this option from River Island, for instance:

On the other hand, you might implement pop-up contact forms into a website if your client wants to collect emails for email marketing. In that case, it’s important to make sure that you’re only asking for the information you need, and nothing more.

The easier it is to sign up for a newsletter, the more likely it is that customers will do it. Being able to enter their name and email address and nothing else will make the signup seem less tasking.

7. Search Bars and Navigation

Whether you’re designing for B2B or B2C companies, navigation will always be a critical concern. End users need to find it easy to track down the information that they need about a company, whether they’re looking for a particular product or a blog.

B2B Websites

On a B2B website, the search bar often takes up a lot less prominence than it does on a B2C site. That’s because all of the information that a client needs, and the buttons they need to take their next steps, are already visible front-and-center.

As a designer, it will be your job to push as many people to convert as possible, by making the purchasing journey the most appealing path for visitors. For instance, on the Copper website, the “Try Free” buttons are much easier to see than “Continue with Google” or “Login”:

With B2B sites, the focus is on a very specific goal. Although navigation still needs to be available, it doesn’t need to be as obvious as it is on a B2C site.

B2C Websites

On the other hand, most B2C websites offer a wide range of products, and they’re perfectly happy for their customers to purchase anything, as long as they eventually convert. Because of this, they make navigation a much more significant part of the customer journey.

The search bar is often presented at the very top of the screen where customers can see it immediately. Additionally, there may be multiple pages within certain product categories, so that customers can browse through the items they’re most interested in. For instance, look at the homepage on the IWoot website:

The navigation elements in B2C websites need to be a lot more obvious, because consumers are more likely to use them when they’re searching through their options.

8. Social Proof and Testimonials

Finally, social proof is one of the things that will work well for improving conversions on any kind of website. When your customers aren’t sure whether or not they should buy from you, a review or testimonial could be just the thing to push them over the edge.

B2B Websites

On a B2B website, the decision-making process takes a lot longer. Because of this, it’s worth including as much social proof as possible in every part of the website. Client testimonials, reviews and ratings, and even high-profile company logos make all the difference. Many B2B websites include a page dedicated to case studies highlighting the success of other brands.

Your client might even go as far as to ask for a page that highlights their awards and recognition or showcases comparison tables that pit their products against the competition.

For instance, Authority Hacker has a “what the pros say about us” section as social proof:

B2C Websites

With a consumer website, you can include consumer ratings and reviews wherever you like. However, it’s most likely that you’ll want to have a place where customers can see the reviews of other clients on the product pages themselves. On the EMP website the company gives users the option to click on the star review section to jump to a different space on the page where testimonials are listed. This ensures that customers don’t have to scroll through a lot of excess information if they just want to add an item straight to their cart.

Designing for B2B vs B2C

In the world of web design, no two customers are ever the same. While you’ll need to adapt your processes to suit each customer you interact with, you can set your expectations in advance by learning the differences between B2B and B2C strategies.

 

Featured images by Chris Ross Harris and Mike Kononov.

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Diversity Initiatives in Web Design

Web developers have been the bedrock of any company’s business strategy for some time, and the industry is continuing to thrive and grow at a rapid pace. This is why it’s surprising that it is so lacklustre when it comes to diversity.

A recent study revealed 80% of those in the design industry are male, and more specifically 79% within the field of web design. According to WISE, just 23% of the people working in STEM roles (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) are female and women currently account for just 15.8% of the UK’s current generation of engineering and technology graduates.

Why the Lack of Diversity in Web Design?

The main reason for this, as cited by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that women still lack the confidence to pursue these careers, despite their school results being as good as (or better) than their male counterparts. Research has found that the professional and technical services sector has the fourth-highest gender pay gap of all UK industries. If more women were to join these higher-paid sectors it could help reduce the gender pay gap as a whole, as well as help female economic empowerment.

This division is seen in ethnic minority groups too. The numbers for BAME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) employees in the British tech industry are unknown but is estimated by the British Computer Society to be at 1-2%, a ridiculously low number in this day and age. This is why groups and organisations are cropping up designed to promote an industry that reflects all of society rather than one part of it. Here are some of the organisations to pay attention to who are bridging the diversity gaps in web design.

Girls Who Code

Girls Who Code are working to create opportunities for women within tech, aiming to deepen their computer science skills and confidence. They run a range of programs designed to equip women with the necessary computing skills to pursue opportunities in the field and to give chances that are often shunned due to society. Founder Saujani states that women are socialized to seek perfection, and this is something that needs to be overcome. One way to break that mentality at an early age, she says, is coding:

[Girls] walk into these classrooms and they feel like they will never be good at it, and when they learn how to create something, whether it’s a website or app, it changes their mindset and they stop giving up

Adobe Design Circle

Adobe Design Circle is another initiative aiming to introduce all members of society to design. They want to create more visibility for design as a viable career path for anyone that might be considering it, and to help with youth entering the field. This is opening the opportunities of working in tech and web to aspiring designers at a young age who aren’t necessarily yet conditioned by the pressures of society and showing them it can be a realistic career path.

They have their own scholarships and mentoring initiative to support these goals too. The faces behind the team of Adobe Design Circle range through multiple ethnicities and have a fairly even male-female divide. This equal representation alone is inspiring. One of Adobe’s core missions is to offer youth the opportunity to learn and express themselves through creativity and technology, regardless of their economic or cultural backgrounds. With this they specifically encourage applicants of all backgrounds to apply and offer many other opportunities from mentoring to internships.

Ladies that UX

Ladies that UX are a collaborative community of women in UX aiming to “support each other, push the UX boundaries and promote female skill and talent.” It is a European-based initiative where each city involved runs slightly different events and groups decide together what they would like to get from their meetups. They assist each other with UX challenges, discuss topics, and brainstorm ideas. Ladies that UX was created in 2013 by Georgie Bottomley and Lizzie Dyson with the aim of bringing together women in the industry, offering support and creating connections around the world.

Xuntos

Xuntos is aiming to create the largest community of ambitious and talented individuals from under-represented groups in the technology industry. It works to nurture university students and recent graduates that are often overlooked in the tech industry by the means of educational workshops, university hubs, events and an active community. The very name “Xuntos” is a Galician word which means “together” and this is their most important factor. They want people to realise they are not alone and just because the representation isn’t there, doesn’t mean their capabilities aren’t.

Colorintech

Colorintech is a non-profit organisation that was founded in 2016. It aims to close the gap and shorten the learning curve, with a strong community designed to help each other. The company was founded by Silicon Valley tech executive Dion McKenzie and ex-Googler Ashleigh Ainsley after they became frustrated at the few black individuals in the field. Since its inception 30,000 students, professionals, volunteers and tech companies have been impacted by their work, and over 450 minorities graduated from their programs in 2019 alone.

UKBlackTech

UKBlackTech are on a mission to create the most diverse tech sector in the world. Their aim is to encourage more ethnic minorities to enter the UK’s technology workforce and make an impact. To help with this, they design and implement different initiatives to help them get employed and retain employment, put on bespoke events that target aspects such as specific job roles or tech topics and promote different opportunities for members to apply to.

Witty Careers

Witty Careers was created with the aim to support women from black and ethnic minority backgrounds in the UK and equip them with the skills to build a career in the tech industry. They run different practical skills workshops and events which in the past have included visits to a Microsoft store, Uber, and Pivotal. They open doors for communications, networking and future career prospects for those in the minority. They also have a handy range of resources designed to help you get into the career you want. From CV writing advice to industry insights, they are all free of charge.

Featured image via Unsplash.

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