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15 Instantly Helpful Tools and Resources for Designers and Agencies (Updated for 2022 )

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Experienced web designers are always on the lookout for tools or resources that will (1) introduce them to the latest design trends, (2) enable them to incorporate features and functionalities that will make their products more competitive, (3) allow them to improve their workflows or all the above.

Apply one or more of these new design tools and resources. Then you could realize anything from incremental to game-changing improvements. The better the tool or resource, the more you are apt to realize your investment.

The 15 tools and website design resources selected for this article are the best in their respective categories. The degree of improvement you can realize when using one or more of them may depend on your own business needs. Or on the actual needs and wants of your clients as opposed to what you are currently able to deliver.

Browse the list, and you should be able to put your finger on one or more of these products or services. They could lead to improvement in one or more areas of your work. Look closer, and you might come across a genuine game-changer.

Happy shopping!

1. Be – The Biggest WordPress and Portfolio WordPress Theme

If your website design activities are proving to be exercises in tediousness, or you’re tired of working around a design tool’s limitations, you need BeTheme.

BeTheme can be a game-changer in that it gives you the flexibility to design what you want. Be makes building a complex high-performance website quick, smooth, and easy.

  • BeTheme’s 650+ customizable pre-built websites are designed to get your website-building project off to a rapid start. They are responsive, UX-ready, importable with a single click, and incorporate the latest design trends.
  • You’ll love working with the recently launched BeBuilder, the fastest and most flexible page builder for WordPress with which you can import from Be’s pre-built website’s 1000+ pages.
  • There’s an absolute gem of a BeBuilder Woo you can work with to create your shop or single product layouts.
  • BeTheme features a wealth of design aids, options, and settings to work with.

BeTheme is Elementor ready and is regularly updated. Click on the banner to find out more about Be’s 40+ powerful core features.

2. Total WordPress Theme

Put Total to work, and 2022 could be a very good year for your website design undertakings.

Total has it all insofar as design aids and options, website-building tools, and design flexibility are concerned regardless of the type or style of website you plan to build:

  • Pick any of Total’s 45+ customizable quick import theme demos, and you are off to a quick start.
  • 90+ section templates, 75+ pre-styled post entry cards, and more than 500 live customer settings give you more design flexibility than you are ever likely to need. 
  • The page builder of choice is an extended version of WPBakery. With it at your fingertips, you can easily drag and drop your way to building precisely the website you have in mind.

Click on the banner to discover everything Total can do for you.

3. LayerSlider

What could LayerSlider do for you to help make 2022 a banner year? Look over any of your past website designs to see if any of them could profit from adding a little spice or pizzazz because that’s what LayerSlider does best. 

LayerSlider is an animation and website-building tool that can be used on any website to transform its look & feel with modern graphics, eye-catching animations, and interactive features. LayerSlider is one of the most established and popular products with millions of active monthly users.

  • LayerSlider has 150+ website, slider, and popup templates. Templates are a great way to learn as well as an ideal starting point for new projects.
  • LayerSlider comes with a very easy-to-use and modern editor interface similar to professional desktop applications. Anyone can use it without prior experience.
  • LayerSlider is not just for sliders. It can also create image galleries, popups, landing pages, animated page blocks, or even full websites.

Click on the banner to see what LayerSlider could do for you.

4. wpDataTables

Most table or chart building table plugins on the market either limit the amount of data that can easily be processed or the types of tables or charts that can be produced. wpDataTables has neither of these limitations.

With the wpDataTables premium WordPress plugin, you can –

  • create responsive, interactive, and frontend editable tables and charts
  • process huge amounts of data from various sources and in various formats
  • highlight or color code key data.

5. Uncode – Creative & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Uncode is a top-selling pixel-perfect creative and WooCommerce theme. More than 80,000 sales have been made to date to freelancers, bloggers, agencies, and small businesses.

Uncode’s key features include –

  • a suped-up Frontend Page Builder.
  • an advanced WooCommerce builder with supporting capabilities that include a Single Product builder and a host of customer-centric design elements and options.
  • a Wireframes Plugin and 550+ section templates.
  • a gallery of inspirational user-created websites.

6. Trafft

With Trafft, you can schedule meetings, events, on-site and virtual appointments, manage staff schedules, send reminders, and accept payments — all from a single platform.

  • Special features include custom domains, coupons, and custom fields.
  • Trafft also manages group bookings and can serve multiple locations.

This game-changer integrates seamlessly with Google Calendar, Google Meet, Outlook Calendar, Apple Calendar, Zoom, and Mailchimp.

7. WHATFONTIS 

WHATFONTIS is a hidden gem in the world of font identifiers that allows you to find a font from your uploaded image in a matter of seconds.

  • Powerful AI algorithms and a database of 850K+ fonts provide the basis for this app’s impressive search capabilities.
  • Positive identification is achieved 90% of the time. Premium support is on hand should AI yield an awkward result.
  • Cursive fonts can be identified once the letters are separated.

8. Mobirise Website Builder Software

Mobirise is fast, easy to use, and the best offline website builder on the market.

  • Mobirise does not tie you to a specific platform; you can edit your site locally and host it wherever you want.
  • Full access to HTML allows you to code.
  • 4,000+ website blocks and 300+ elegant home page templates are guaranteed to make your website-building adventures short and sweet.

The Mobirise website builder is free for both personal and commercial use.

9. GetIllustrations’ Stock Illustrations Bundle

Downloads from this library of premium illustrations can change the way you go about designing your websites, apps, and presentations.

  • GetIllustrations, with its 10,000+ illustrations library, is the biggest of its kind.
  • Featured formats include Vector AI, PNG, Sketch, SVG, Figma, and Adobe XD.

Illustrations you download come with a commercial license and are yours to keep without limitations.

10. Slider Revolution

If you have trouble bridging the gap between what your clients want and what you can provide, Slider Revolution could be exactly what you need to fix the problem.

Slider Revolution is THE cutting-edge WordPress plugin for addressing today’s over-the-top web designs. It features –

  • 200+ awesome website and slider templates.
  • eye-catching WebGL slide animations.
  • 25+ powerful addons.
  • the ability to import dynamic content from social media outlets.

11. Amelia

Amelia offers an automated, highly customizable solution to any business that relies on a manual or semi-automated operation for booking client appointments.

  • Amelia is an excellent choice for beauty, healthcare and fitness, and educational and training enterprises.
  • Clients can make or change appointments online 24/7.
  • Amelia can manage individual and group bookings, events, and employee schedules at multiple locations.
  • Amelia integrates seamlessly with Google Calendar, WooCommerce, and Zoom.

12. 8bio – Link in Bio Tool 

Many social media platforms allow you to include a link that allows followers to visit your website or an important landing page. With 8bio, you can create a link that a visitor can’t resist clicking on.

Your link can – 

  • Present a brief biographical profile of your business or yourself.
  • Feature an image or catchy animated background.
  • Showcase your product or service at no cost.
  • Use your existing domain or a “yourname” .8b.io domain.

13. Essential Grid

The premium Essential Grid WordPress gallery plugin developers assembled a collection of aesthetic, easy-to-customize plug-and-play templates that make creating a breathtaking portfolio gallery a fun and easy task.

  • Your galleries will load lightning fast.
  • They will display perfectly on all devices.
  • You can choose from a variety of layouts and mix and match adjustable grids to get precisely what you want.

14. Pixpa – Portfolio Websites for Designers

Pixpa provides an all-in-one platform from which creatives can manage their online portfolios, blogs, galleries, and eCommerce sites.

  • Choose among Pixpa’s beautiful and mobile-friendly customizable templates and customize them to achieve exactly what you want. 
  • Put Pixpa’s drag and drop website builder into play to tie everything together, exactly as you want.
  • Add content, connect with your custom domain, and into your social profiles, and you are good to go.

15. XStore – Best WordPress WooCommerce Theme for eCommerce

XStore is a feature-packed Envato WooCommerce theme that is incredibly simple to work with has acquired more than 30,000 enthusiastic customers.

  • XStore’s 110+ customizable shops make creating your own shop as easy as can be.
  • XStore integrates seamlessly with the premium Elementor and WPBakery page builders.
  • $510 worth of carefully handpicked “must-have” premium plugins are included.

There are plenty of tools and resources for designers on the market. You could use them to create websites that are a little better than the ones you have already built or are using.

What you should really be looking for is a special design tool or resource. When using it for a small investment could markedly improve both your productivity and your design efforts to make 2022 by far your best year ever.

That’s the reasoning for publishing this selection of top 15 design tools and resources. Selecting one or more could make your day.

 

[- This is a sponsored post on behalf of Be -]

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SAP classée parmi les leaders de la formation informatique aux États-Unis et en Europe par IDC MarketScape

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Nous sommes entrés dans une ère de transformation numérique en accélération constante dans un monde des affaires très concurrentiel, et cela ne devrait qu’augmenter avec le temps.

Chaque entreprise travaille ardemment à la mise à jour de ses processus. Cependant, pour que les entreprises puissent soutenir ces évolutions rapides, leurs collaborateurs doivent constamment affiner leurs compétences pour répondre aux besoins technologiques croissants. Pour rester à la pointe des changements et des enjeux auxquels seront confrontés tous les secteurs d’activité dans les prochaines années, il est essentiel que les employés aient accès à une formation continue et à une évolution de carrière intéressante, pour parvenir à la fois à la rétention des talents essentiels et à une culture d’entreprise de l’innovation continue.

Pour relever ces défis, de nombreuses entreprises et personnes se tournent vers des ressources, des cours et des certifications facilement accessibles sur le site SAP Learning afin de combler leur déficit de compétences. SAP est classée parmi les leaders dans le rapport d’Évaluation des prestataires de formation informatique de l’IDC MarketScape U.S. et MarketScape Europe. Cette recherche porte sur l’analyse des entreprises de formation informatique les plus connues, dotées de portefeuilles de formation adaptés aux entreprises qui envisagent d’importantes initiatives de transformation.

Les formations SAP favorisent l’acquisition de compétences innovantes

Le portefeuille de formations SAP Learning aide à répondre aux besoins de formation individuels et à renforcer les aptitudes technologiques des entreprises. SAP estime que les ressources de formation et de certification sont de plus en plus nécessaires dans l’environnement de travail actuel. Selon le rapport d’Évaluation des prestataires de formation informatique de l’IDC MarketScape U.S. les points forts de l’offre SAP sont les suivants :

  • Les clients apprécient les services de formation supplémentaires.
  • Les clients apprécient l’offre de préparation des tests de certification.
  • Les clients disent qu’ils l’utiliseront plus souvent l’année prochaine.
  • Elle peut aider les clients à personnaliser le contenu ou les parcours.
  • Elle a un point de vue important sur l’utilité de la formation.
  • Elle dispose d’un excellent processus d’actualisation et de mise à jour de son contenu.
  • Elle contient des exemples concrets d’amélioration des processus client.
  • Elle intègre des travaux pratiques dans une bonne partie de son contenu.
  • Elle propose une gamme intéressante de tarification et de packages.
  • Les apprenants apprécient l’utilisation des quiz pour valider les apprentissages.

Prenons l’exemple de Neils Wijsbeek, spécialiste chez Deloitte Consulting B.V. Malgré ses sept années d’expérience des solutions SAP, Wijsbeek continue de se former en permanence et valide ses compétences en passant régulièrement les certifications sur les solutions SAP SuccessFactors. Wijsbeek constate que le fait de continuer à mettre à jour ses certifications est important pour sa carrière et permet de démontrer son expertise de manière très visible. «Le processus de certification, notamment sa préparation, vous oblige à approfondir le contenu et à développer rapidement vos compétences », dit-il. À une époque où il n’a jamais été aussi crucial de rester à l’avant-garde des évolutions dans le secteur numérique, il a également déclaré que le contenu delta obligatoire de la certification SAP exige des utilisateurs qu’ils se forment sur les nouveautés des versions et les derniers développements, ce qui implique un accroissement de l’expertise tant individuelle que de son entreprise auprès des clients.

Notre équipe chez SAP se consacre à la création d’expériences de formation épanouissantes telles que celles de Wijsbeek, qui permettent aux collaborateurs d’approfondir facilement et souvent leurs compétences. Les responsables de recrutement sont actuellement confrontés à des défis de fidélisation des collaborateurs, ce qui limite considérablement la croissance de leurs entreprises. Avec l’avancée rapide des progrès technologiques, les meilleurs talents sont constamment sollicités et débauchés, ce qui crée des ruptures au niveau des compétences et des collaborateurs surchargés de travail. Par exemple, bien que la plupart des entreprises soient devenues multi-cloud, 86 % des professionnels de l’informatique pensent qu’un manque de compétences ralentira les projets Cloud.

Chez SAP Learning, nous veillons à ce que les entreprises puissent facilement transformer et perfectionner leurs compétences, ce qui donne aux collaborateurs des opportunités de développement de leur carrière et participe grandement à leur motivation. Pour aider les entreprises à accomplir cette tâche et rencontrer les besoins des individus à chaque étape de leur parcours d’apprentissage, nous avons lancé un nouveau site SAP Learning qui devient le point d’accès unique et simplifié à l’ensemble des ressources de formation SAP.

 

Formation SAP disponible pour les apprenants quelque soit leur niveau

SAP Learning offre à tous des opportunités de perfectionnement, de reconversion et de validation de compétences SAP. Par exemple, avec notre récente version du site SAP Learning, nous offrons un accès gratuit à plusieurs contenus pour la mise à niveau des compétences sur la plateforme SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), y compris un tout nouveau parcours de formation axé sur le développement d’applications Low-code/No- code. Cela permet de garantir que des apprenants, quelque soit leur niveau, depuis les développeurs débutants jusqu’à ceux qui occupent déjà un poste de développeur confirmé, peuvent facilement acquérir des compétences SAP dans des domaines d’innovation clés et se préparer à une certification SAP gratuitement.

Afin de soutenir l’effort des entreprises pour consolider les compétences d’innovation de leurs employés, SAP fournit les ressources d’apprentissage nécessaires, permettant d’accroître la compétitivité globale de leur business. La mise à disposition de formations et de certifications SAP dans une organisation est devenue un élément essentiel d’atteinte des objectifs stratégiques.

Les solutions SAP Learning aident à valider les compétences et l’expérience SAP des utilisateurs et permettent aux apprenants tout au long de leur vie professionnelle, comme Wijsbeek, de rester à la pointe de l’évolution du secteur et de se présenter, ainsi que leur organisation, comme des leaders de l’innovation. « La façon dont les programmes de formation ont évolué au fil des années permet de trouver très facilement les supports nécessaires, notamment pour maintenir sa certification à jour grâce au contenu delta », explique Wijsbeek.

Alors que SAP Learning continue d’évoluer pour satisfaire les besoins des apprenants partout dans le monde, je suis extrêmement enthousiasmé par le dévouement de notre équipe pour faciliter la progression des compétences et de la carrière des apprenants SAP, alors que nous entamons cette année supplémentaire de transformation de nos formations en mode digital.

En savoir plus sur la valeur et les avantages du développement professionnel.

Jan Meyer est responsable des systèmes de formation pour SAP Learning.

*IDC MarketScape, Évaluation des fournisseurs de formations informatiques États-Unis 2021 (doc. #US47541121, décembre 2021)
**IDC MarketScape : Évaluation des fournisseurs de formation informatique européenne 2021 (doc. #EUR148400521, décembre 2021)

The post SAP classée parmi les leaders de la formation informatique aux États-Unis et en Europe par IDC MarketScape appeared first on SAP France News.

Source de l’article sur sap.com

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4 Tips For Getting Design Proposals Signed Faster

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Creating and sending business proposals can be a lot of work. However, if you have the right tools and knowledge, you can quickly create and send high-converting proposals that your clients will love. 

This article will explain how to create a fantastic business proposal that looks great and gets signed quickly. Although we’re focussed on design, our tips apply to every industry and type of business.

1. Know When to Talk About Yourself

One of the most common mistakes people make is starting the proposal by talking about themselves. 

You might be surprised to know that clients spend the most time on the introduction chapter, so it’s essential to use it right. You need to set the right tone by explaining to your clients how your solution will help them achieve their goals. 

They want to hear the benefits and feel assured that you’re the best choice for them. If you start the proposal by talking about your company and the values you believe in, you’ll lose the attention of your clients. 

In most cases, the clients have already researched you and know the points you make in your PR releases.

Once you explain your process and the time scales, you can introduce your team and talk about the company. Just make sure it’s short and sweet. 

2. Divide Your Proposal into 6 Sections

Sending a one-page proposal will only confuse your clients and won’t incentivize them to reach out. The best way to format your proposal is to create six sections. 

This should include:

  • Introduction
  • Process
  • Timescales
  • Pricing
  • Next steps
  • Terms and Conditions

You need to showcase what their future could look like if they work with you, listing all the benefits as well as explaining the next steps. You need to write down what happens if they don’t agree with some parts of the proposal, what will happen when you reach an agreement, how much they have to pay, and more. 

Be clear on your follow-up process to speed things up. 

3. Use a Dedicated Proposal App

If you’re someone who fires up MS Word and hopes for the best, your proposals probably don’t get a lot of traction. That’s because you’re spending too much time reinventing the wheel. The best jumping-off point for your proposal strategy is choosing the right app. It will help you automate and speed up the whole process. 

Different solutions suit different people, but some of the features you might want include: 

Digital Signatures

The digital signature option helps you get your proposals signed faster and turns your proposals into legally binding documents. This significantly reduces the agreement time since your clients no longer have to print out your documents, scan them and send them back.

Integrated Payment Methods

Speed up your payment process by choosing the proposal software that has a payment option that allows clients to pay as soon as they agree to your terms and conditions. It can significantly decrease the time it takes to get paid. 

Sales Tool Integration

For an even more straightforward sales process, select a proposal tool that has native integrations with your sales CRM and other sales tools. 

Proposal Analytics

Proposal analytics can help you in the follow-up process. They show when your proposal was opened, on which device, and how much time the client spent on each of the sections. 

Content Library

The content library lets you save any part of the content (text, pictures, videos, terms and conditions, pricing table) for easier access in the future—no more copy and pasting huge chunks of text. 

An Easy-To-Use Editor

In order to be able to create any documents with your proposals software, their editor needs to be very easy to use. If the editor requires design experience, look for a better one.

4. Let’s Talk About Price

When it comes to the price section, there are two significant things you need to look out for: the name of the section and the format of your price.

Naming your pricing section pricing, expenses, or something along those lines cheapens your proposals and makes it seem like a regular invoice. Try naming the section ROI or Investment. It will evoke positive feelings with your clients because if they think of working with you as an investment, they will know that a return on investment is a part of the deal. 

The way you format your prices won’t make or break your deal but can help you speed up the proposal process. Firstly, you need to figure out if you’re going to charge by the hour, based on the value of the project, based on the commission, or something else. 

Once you reach a decision, you have to format the prices in an easy-to-understand and short way. Many companies try to upsell their clients at the very start of their business relationship and create proposals with three different packages. 

We believe that the way you present your prices should be the same as the way doctors prescribe medicine. You need to be the authority on your prices and tell the client what type of package fits their needs. If you leave it up to your client to pick the right package, it will just lead to confusion, and you’ll have to do the extra work to explain the difference to them.

Bonus Tips

Web-based business proposals speed up the signing process. If you make your proposals printable, it will lengthen the time your clients take to agree to your terms and sign them. Make sure your proposals are web-based and have a digital signature option. 

Another tip is to send your proposal as quickly as possible. As soon as you meet with your client and hear them out, start working on your proposal. 

Our last tip is to send your proposal at the beginning of the week. If you send it on a Friday, it will negatively impact the time it takes to get your proposal signed.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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IBM et SAP renforcent leur partenariat afin d’aider leurs clients à migrer les applications des solutions SAP® vers le Cloud

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IBM et SAP renforcent leur partenariat afin d’aider leurs clients à migrer les applications des solutions SAP® vers le Cloud

IBM est le premier partenaire à proposer une infrastructure Cloud et des services techniques managés de manière intégrée dans le cadre de l’offre RISE with SAP

 

ARMONK, N.Y. et Walldorf, Allemagne, le 10 février 2022 : IBM (NYSE: IBM) a annoncé aujourd’hui qu’elle s’associait avec SAP (NYSE : SAP) pour fournir une expertise en matière de technologie et de conseil afin de permettre aux clients d’adopter plus facilement une approche Cloud hybride et de migrer les applications critiques des solutions SAP® vers le Cloud pour les secteurs réglementés et non réglementés.

Alors que les clients cherchent à adopter des stratégies de Cloud hybride, la migration des applications qui constituent l’épine dorsale du fonctionnement de leur entreprise nécessite un environnement Cloud hautement sécurisé et fiable. Avec le lancement aujourd’hui de l’option IBM – Premium Supplier pour RISE with SAP, les clients disposeront des outils nécessaires pour accélérer la migration de leurs applications SAP en local vers IBM Cloud, avec des capacités de sécurité de pointe[1].

IBM dévoile également un nouveau programme, BREAKTHROUGH with IBM pour RISE with SAP, un portefeuille de solutions et de services de conseil qui permettent d’accélérer et d’amplifier le passage à SAP S/4HANA® Cloud. Construits sur une plateforme flexible et évolutive, les solutions et services utilisent des processus intelligents pour rationaliser les opérations. Ils offrent un modèle d’engagement qui permet de planifier, d’exécuter et de soutenir la transformation globale de l’entreprise. Les clients ont également la flexibilité et le choix de migrer les applications des solutions SAP vers le Cloud en bénéficiant d’une expertise sectorielle approfondie.

L’annonce faite aujourd’hui qu’IBM devient un premium supplier fait de la compagnie le premier fournisseur Cloud à proposer des services d’infrastructure, de transformation métier et de gestion technique des applications de manière intégrée dans le cadre de RISE with SAP. La désignation d’IBM en tant que premium supplier s’inscrit dans la continuité des efforts de longue date déployés par SAP pour offrir un choix et des options aux clients, en soutenant davantage les clients d’IBM qui préfèrent que leur package RISE with SAP s’exécute sur IBM Cloud.

De plus, la migration vers SAP S/4HANA® sur IBM Cloud à partir de datacenters en local peut potentiellement apporter les avantages suivants, selon une étude d’IDC, sponsorisée par IBM[2] :

  • Retour sur investissement : selon les utilisateurs interrogés, la migration vers SAP S/4HANA® sur IBM Cloud a entraîné une augmentation du chiffre d’affaires pour jusqu’à 90 % des entreprises qui ont effectué la transition.
  • Réduction des coûts : Plus de 80 % des organisations ayant participé à l’étude ont déclaré avoir constaté une réduction des coûts opérationnels.
  • Une productivité accrue : 9 entreprises sur 10 interrogées dans l’étude ont déclaré avoir amélioré leur productivité après avoir migré vers SAP S/4HANA® sur IBM Cloud.

« Nous sommes ravis de faire progresser notre partenariat de longue date avec SAP à travers RISE », a déclaré John Granger, Senior Vice President, IBM Consulting. « Notre engagement commun est de répondre à nos clients, notamment ceux des secteurs hautement réglementés, là où ils en sont dans leur parcours numérique, tout en leur offrant des choix pour migrer ou moderniser leurs applications critiques avec une approche de Cloud hybride. »

« BREAKTHROUGH with IBM est un complément exceptionnel à RISE with SAP, car il jette les bases permettant à nos clients de se lancer dans la transformation de leur entreprise ou de la faire progresser. En outre, il réaffirme la valeur que les clients reconnaissent à RISE with SAP ainsi que l’impact et l’opportunité d’innovation que RISE with SAP offre aux organisations qui migrent vers le Cloud. Je suis convaincu que l’expertise et l’expérience combinées de SAP et d’IBM permettront d’accélérer l’adoption du Cloud et la croissance des activités pour les clients du monde entier », a déclaré Brian Duffy, President of Cloud, SAP.

IBM et SAP ont travaillé avec des centaines de clients dans le monde entier sur des milliers de projets individuels visant à moderniser leurs systèmes et leurs processus métier sur la base d’une approche Cloud hybride ouverte. Parmi les exemples récents, citons Coca-Cola European Partners, Parle Products, Harmont & Blaine, Puravankara Ltd et Virgin Megastore KSA.

Soulignant son engagement envers SAP S/4HANA®, à la fois en tant que client SAP et partenaire commercial depuis 50 ans, IBM a également réalisé un investissement important dans RISE with SAP en engageant la transformation de ses propres applications SAP. IBM est un nouveau Premium Supplier pour l’offre RISE with SAP et utilise le Cloud hybride d’IBM, y compris l’Infrastructure as a Service IBM Power, afin d’améliorer les performances, la disponibilité et la sécurité des déploiements d’éditions privées de SAP S/4HANA® Cloud.

Pour en savoir plus sur le programme BREAKTHROUGH with IBM pour l’offre RISE with SAP : https://www.ibm.com/services/sap/rise-with-sap.

 

À propos d’IBM

IBM est un leader mondial du Cloud hybride et de l’IA, ainsi que des services aux entreprises, qui aide ses clients dans plus de 175 pays à capitaliser sur les connaissances issues de leurs données, à rationaliser leurs processus métier, à réduire leurs coûts et à acquérir un avantage concurrentiel dans leurs secteurs d’activité. Près de 3 000 entités gouvernementales et entreprises dans des domaines d’infrastructures critiques tels que les services financiers, les télécommunications et les soins de santé font confiance à la plateforme Cloud hybride d’IBM et à Red Hat OpenShift pour impacter leurs transformations numériques rapidement, efficacement et en toute sécurité. Les innovations révolutionnaires d’IBM en matière d’IA, d’informatique quantique, de solutions Cloud spécifiques à certains secteurs et de services aux entreprises offrent des options ouvertes et flexibles à nos clients. Tout cela est soutenu par l’engagement légendaire d’IBM en matière de confiance, de transparence, de responsabilité, d’inclusivité et de service.

Pour en savoir plus : www.ibm.com

Les déclarations d’IBM concernant ses orientations et intentions futures sont sujettes à modification ou retrait sans préavis et ne représentent que des buts et des objectifs.

 

À propos de SAP

La stratégie de SAP vise à aider chaque organisation à fonctionner en « entreprise intelligente ». En tant que leader du marché des logiciels d’application d’entreprise, nous aidons les entreprises de toutes tailles et de tous secteurs à opérer au mieux : Les clients de SAP génèrent 87 % du commerce mondial total. Nos technologies de Machine Learning, d’Internet des objets (IoT) et d’analytique avancées aident nos clients à transformer leurs activités en « entreprises intelligentes ». SAP permet aux personnes et aux organisations d’avoir une vision approfondie de leur business et favorise la collaboration afin qu’elles puissent garder une longueur d’avance sur leurs concurrents. Nous simplifions la technologie afin que les entreprises puissent utiliser nos logiciels comme elles le souhaitent – sans interruption. Notre suite d’applications et de services de bout en bout permet aux clients privés et publics de 25 secteurs d’activité dans le monde de fonctionner 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’informations, visitez le site www.sap.com.

[1] Based on IBM Hyper Protect Crypto Service, the only service in the industry built on FIPS 140-2 Level 4-certified hardware. FIPS 140-2 Security Level 4 provides the highest level of security defined in this standard. At this security level, the physical security mechanisms provide a comprehensive envelope of protection around the cryptographic module with the intent of detecting and responding to all unauthorized attempts at physical access.

[2]  IDC White Paper, sponsored by IBM, Business Benefits Possible by Choosing the Right Cloud Provider to Run SAP Workloads. Doc #US47166220, December 2020.

 

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WordPress Website Analysis: Before & After ImageEngine

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WordPress is by far the world’s most popular CMS. Not only does it dominate the CMS market with a 64% market share, but it also powers 39.6% of all websites. It has taken the internet by storm by democratizing the web for all. Now, anyone can build, manage, and host a successful website without needing a college degree or coding expertise.

However, while WordPress is great at managing many technical aspects, it still can’t do everything for you. Built mostly on PHP, there are often concerns regarding how performant WordPress is. And, with performance impacting everything from bounce rates to SEO rankings to conversions, it’s something that should be on your radar too.

If you don’t know it yet, images are one of the main causes of slow-loading websites. In recent years, WordPress has stepped up its efforts to try and help users with image optimization out-of-the-box.

Still, as we’ll show, it’s not a total solution, and there is still plenty you can do to deliver better experiences on your WordPress website through image optimization.

What is WordPress Image Optimization? Why is it Important?

Simply put, image optimization is anything you do to make images load faster on your website pages. Almost all websites that use images can benefit from some form of image optimization, even those using WordPress.

Why?

Well, performance is a hugely significant factor when it comes to the competitiveness of your website today.

Google has also made performance an increasingly important factor when it comes to SEO rankings. In fact, performance is a direct ranking signal that carries significant weight.

Google’s Page Experience Update that went live in 2021 has been the biggest move in that direction yet. Soon, Google might even use visual indicators in SERP results to distinguish high-performing websites from the rest.

In Google’s own words, “These signals measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page and contribute to our ongoing work to ensure people get the most helpful and enjoyable experiences from the web.”

So, Why Should We Target Images For Performance Optimization?

According to Google, images are the largest contributor to page weight. Google has also singled out image optimization specifically as the factor with the most untapped potential for performance optimization.

This problem isn’t going away soon. According to data by the HTTP Archive, there are roughly 967.5 KB bytes of image data on desktop web pages and 866.3 KB of image data on mobile pages. This is an increase of 16.1% and 38.8%, respectively, over the last five years.

Thanks to popular e-commerce tools like Woocommerce, it’s estimated that up to 28% of all online sales happen on WordPress websites.

And don’t forget, images are both a key part of conveying information to the user and integral to the design of your website. If they take significantly longer to load than your text, for example, it will negatively impact the user experience in a variety of ways.

In summary, optimized images help your WordPress website by:

  • Improving user satisfaction.
  • Improving various traffic metrics, like bounce rates, time-on-page, etc.
  • Boosting your SEO rankings.
  • Contributing to higher conversions (and sales).

How Does Image Optimization in WordPress Work?

WordPress is so popular because it’s a CMS (content management system) that allows anyone to build, design, and manage a website without any coding or advanced technical experience. Advanced features can be installed with just a few clicks, thanks to plugins, and you rarely have to touch the code behind your website unless you want to make some unique modifications.

In short, using a CMS like WordPress shields you from many of the day-to-day technicalities of running a website.

WordPress Image Optimization: What It Can Do

As we mentioned, one of the main reasons WordPress is so popular is because it takes care of many of the technical aspects of running a website. With that in mind, many think that WordPress should also automatically take care of image optimization without them having to get involved at all.

Unfortunately, that’s not really the case.

True, WordPress does offer some built-in image optimization. Whenever you upload an image to WordPress, it currently compresses the quality to about 82% of the original (since v4.5).

In v4.4, WordPress also introduced responsive image syntax using the srcset attribute. This creates four breakpoints for each image you upload according to the default WordPress image sizes:

  • 150px square for thumbnails
  • 300px width for medium images
  • 768px max-width for medium_large images
  • 1024px max-width for large images.

Here you can see an example of the actual responsive syntax code generated by WordPress:

<img loading="lazy" src="https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-9" width="610" height="406" srcset="https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-300x200.jpg 300w, https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-768x512.jpg 768w, https://bleedingcosmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/33-1536x1024.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 610px) 100vw, 610px">

Depending on the screen size of the device from which a user visits your webpage, WordPress will let the browser pick the most appropriately sized image. For example, the smallest version for mobile displays or the largest for 4K Retina screens, like those of a Mac.

While this may seem impressive, it’s only a fraction of what can be achieved using a proper image optimization solution, as we’ll show later.

Lastly, WordPress implemented HTML native default lazy loading for all images starting with version 5.5.

So, in short, WordPress offers the following image optimization capabilities baked-in:

  • Quality compression (limited)
  • Responsive syntax (up to 4 breakpoints)
  • Lazy loading

WordPress Image Optimization: What it Cannot Do

There are other issues many have with both the implementation of image compression and responsive syntax as it’s used by WordPress. This leads to some users even purposefully deactivating WordPress’ built-in image optimization so they can fully take control of it themselves.

Here are some of the reasons why:

  • WordPress uses a very basic form of quality compression. It does not use advanced technologies like AI and machine learning algorithms to compress images while maintaining maximum visual quality. It’s also lossy compression, so the quality is lost for good. You can clearly see the difference between an original HD image and the compressed version created by WordPress.
  • WordPress only compresses most images by up to 20%, while advanced image optimization tools can reduce all image sizes intelligently by up to 80%.
  • Responsive syntax can provide significant performance improvements over simply uploading a single HD image to be served on all devices and screens. However, it’s still only limited to a set number of breakpoints (typically 3 or 4). Since it’s not dynamic, a whole spectrum of possible image sizes is not created or used.
  • Responsive syntax code is not scalable and can quickly lead to code that’s bloated, messy, and hard to read.
  • WordPress doesn’t accelerate image delivery by automatically caching and serving them via a global CDN, although this can be done using other tools.

Another important optimization feature that WordPress does not have is auto-conversion to next-gen image file formats. Different image formats offer different performance benefits on different devices. Some formats also enable higher levels of compression while maintaining visual fidelity.

Next-gen formats like WebP, AVIF, and JPEG-2000 are considered to be the most optimal formats on compatible devices. For example, until recently, WebP would be the optimal choice on Chrome browsers, while JPEG-4000 would be optimal on Safari browsers.

However, WordPress will simply serve images in the same formats in which they were originally uploaded to all visitors.

How to Measure the Image Performance of a WordPress Website?

As the undisputed king of search engines, we’ll base most of our performance metrics on guidelines established by Google.

Along with its various performance updates, Google has released a number of guidelines for developers as well as the tools to test and improve their websites according to said guidelines.

Google introduced Core Web Vitals as the primary metrics for measuring a web page’s performance and its effect on the user experience. Thus, Core Web Vitals are referred to as “user-centric performance metrics.” They are an attempt to give developers a testable and quantifiable way to measure an elusive and abstract concept such as “user experience.”

Combined with a number of other factors, Core Web Vitals constitute a major part of the overall page experience signal:

You can find a complete introduction to Core Web Vitals here. However, they currently consist of three main metrics:

  • LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): The time it takes the largest above-the-fold element on your page to load. This is typically a full-sized image or hero section.
  • FID (First Input Delay): The delay from the moment a user first interacts with an element on the page until it becomes responsive.
  • CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): The visual stability with which the elements on a page load.

Here is an illustration of how these metrics are scored:

While these are the three most important metrics to optimize, they are not the only ones. Google still measures other metrics like the FCP (First Contentful Paint), SI (Speed Index), as well as the TTFB (Time to First Byte), TBT (Total Blocking Time), and TTI (Time to Interactive).

A number of these metrics are directly affected by the images used on your web pages. For example, LCP, FCP, and SI are direct indicators of how fast the content of your web page loads and depends on the overall byte size of the page. However, it can also indirectly affect FID by keeping the main thread busy with rendering large amounts of image content or the perceived CLS by delaying the time it takes large images to load.

These metrics apply to all websites, whether they are custom-made or built using a CMS like WordPress.

When using tools like Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights, you’ll also get scored based on other flags Google deems important. Some of them are specific to images, such as properly sizing images and serving images in next-gen formats.

If you only use built-in WordPress image optimization, you’ll get flagged for the following opportunities for improvement:

Some of the audits it will pass, however, are deferring offscreen images (lazy loading) and efficiently coding images (due to compression):

A Better Way to Optimize WordPress Images: ImageEngine

Billions of websites are all vying for prime real estate on Google SERPs, as well as the attention of an increasingly fussy internet-using public. Every inch matters when it comes to giving your website a competitive advantage.

So, how can you eliminate those remaining performance flags and deliver highly optimized images that will keep both your visitors and Google happy?

Sure, you could manually optimize images using software like PhotoShop or GIMP. However, that will take you hours for each new batch of images. Plus, you still won’t benefit from any automated adaptive optimization.

A more reasonable solution in today’s fast-paced climate is to use a tool developed specifically for maximum image optimization: an image CDN like ImageEngine.

ImageEngine is an automated, cloud-based image optimization service using device detection as well as intelligent image compression using the power of AI and machine learning. It can reduce image payloads by up to 80% while maintaining visual quality and accelerating delivery around the world thanks to its CDN with geographically dispersed PoPs.

Why is ImageEngine Image Optimization Better Than WordPress?

When making a head-to-head comparison, here are the reasons why ImageEngine can deliver better performance:

  • Device Detection: ImageEngine features built-in device detection. This means it picks up what device a visitor to your website is using and tailors its optimization strategy to what’s best for that specific device.
  • Client hints: By supporting client hints, ImageEngine has access to even more information regarding the device and browser to make better optimization decisions.
  • Next-gen formats: Based on optimal settings, ImageEngine automatically converts and serves images in next-gen formats like WebP, AVIF, JPEG2000, and MP4 (for GIFs).
  • Save data header: When a Chrome user has save-data mode enabled, ImageEngine will automatically compress images more aggressively to save on data transfer.
  • CDN with dedicated edge servers: ImageEngine will automatically cache and serve your optimized image assets using its global CDN. Each edge server has device awareness built-in to bring down latency and accelerate delivery. You can also choose to prioritize specific regions.

So, the key differentiator is that ImageEngine can tailor optimizing images for what’s optimal for each of your visitors. ImageEngine is particularly good at serving mobile visitors thanks to WURFL device detection, which can dynamically resize images according to most devices and screen sizes in use today. As of now, this is a completely unique capability that none of its competitors offer.

It allows for far better and more fine-tuned optimization than WordPress’ across-the-board approach to compression and responsive syntax.

If you want, you could turn off WordPress responsive syntax and compression, and you would still experience a performance increase using ImageEngine. However, ImageEngine also plays nice with responsive syntax, so it’s not completely necessary unless you want to serve the highest-fidelity/low-byte-size images possible.

How Does ImageEngine Work with WordPress?

The process ImageEngine uses to integrate with WordPress can be broken down into a few easy steps:

  • Sign up for an ImageEngine account: ImageEngine offers three pricing plans depending on the scale and features you need as well as a no-commitment 30-day free trial.
  • Specify your image origin: This tells ImageEngine where to find the original versions of your images. For a WordPress website, you can just use your domain, e.g., https://mywordpresswebsite.com. ImageEngine will then automatically pull the images you’ve uploaded to your WordPress website.

  • Copy the Delivery Address: After you create an account and specify your image origin, ImageEngine will provide you with a Delivery Address. A Delivery Address is your own unique address that will be used in your <img> tags to point back to the ImageEngine service. Delivery Addresses may be on a shared domain (imgeng.in) or customized using a domain that you own. A Delivery Address typically looks something like {random_string}.cdn.imgeng.in. If your images are uploaded to the default WordPress folder /wp-content/uploads/, you can access your optimized images from ImageEngine simply by changing your website domain. For example, by typing {imageengine_domain}.cdn.imgeng.in/wp-content/uploads/myimage.jpg into your browser, you’ll see the optimized version of that image. Just press the copy button next to the Delivery Address and use it in the next step configuring the plugin.

  • Install the ImageEngine Optimizer CDN plugin: The plugin is completely free and can be installed just like any other plugin from the WordPress repository.
  • Configure and enable ImageEngine Plugin in WordPress: Just go to the plugin under “ImageEngine” in the main navigation menu. Then, copy and paste in your ImageEngine “Delivery Address,” tick the “Enabled” checkbox, and click “Save Changes” to enable ImageEngine:

Now, all ImageEngine basically does is replace your WordPress website domain in image URLs with your new ImageEngine Delivery Address. This makes it a simple, lightweight, and non-interfering plugin that works great with most other plugins and themes. It also doesn’t add unnecessary complexity or weight to your WordPress website pages.

ImageEngine vs Built-in WordPress Image Optimization

So, now let’s get down to business by testing the performance improvement you can expect from using ImageEngine to optimize your image assets.

To do this test, we set up a basic WordPress page containing a number of high-quality images. I then used PageSpeed Insights and the Lighthouse Performance Calculator to get the performance scores before and after using ImageEngine.

Importantly, we conducted this test from a mobile-first perspective. Not only has mobile internet traffic surpassed desktop traffic globally, but Google themselves have committed to mobile-first indexing as a result.

Here is a PageSpeed score using the Lighthouse calculator for WordPress with no image optimization:

As we can see, both Core Web Vitals and other important metrics were flagged as “needs improvement.” Specifically, the LCP, FCP, and TBT. In this case, both the LCP and FCP were a high-res featured image at the top of the page.

If we go to the opportunities for improvement highlighted by PageSpeed, we see where the issues come from. We could still save as much as 4.2s of loading time by properly resizing images and a further 2.7s by serving them in next-gen formats:

So, now let’s see how much ImageEngine can improve on that.

The same test run on my WordPress website using ImageEngine got the following results:

As you can see, we now have a 100 PageSpeed score. I saved roughly 2.5s on the SI (~86%) as well as roughly 1.7s on the LCP (~60%). There was also a slight improvement in the FCP.

Not only will you enjoy a stronger page experience signal from Google, but this represents a tangible difference to visitors regarding the speed with which your website loads. That difference will lead to lower bounce rates, increased user satisfaction, and more conversions.

There was also a 53% overall reduction in the total image payload. This is impressive, considering that it’s on top of WordPress’ built-in compression and responsive syntax.

Conclusion

So, as someone with a WordPress website, what can you take away from this?

Well, first of all, WordPress does feature some basic image optimization. And while not perfect, it should help you offer reasonable levels of performance, even if you use a lot of image content.

However, the caveat is that WordPress applies aggressive, across-the-board compression, which will lead to a noticeable reduction in visual quality. If you use WordPress for any type of website where premium quality images are important, this is a concern — for example, as a photography portfolio, exhibition, or image marketplace like Shutterstock.

By using ImageEngine, you can reduce image payloads and accelerate delivery even further without compromising too harshly on visual quality. What’s more, ImageEngine’s adaptive image optimization technology will provide greater improvements to more of your visitors, regardless of what device(s) they use to browse the web.

Whether or not you still want to use WordPress’ built-in optimizations, ImageEngine will deliver significant improvements to your user experience, traffic metrics, and even conversions.

Plus, true to the spirit of WordPress, it’s extremely simple to set up without any advanced configuration. Just sign up for ImageEngine in 3 easy steps, install the plugin, integrate ImageEngine by copy/pasting your image domain, and you’re good to go.

 

[ This is a sponsored post on behalf of ImageEngine ]

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Applying DevOps to API Development for APIOps

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While working on establishing short- and long-term goals with a client, my focus was establishing horizon two and three objectives in the McKinsey Three Horizons Model. 

For those who are not aware of this framework, horizons two and three focus on new and next-generation features and functionality. At the top of my priorities’ list for this project was the adoption of an API gateway.

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How to Use Hand-Drawn Elements in Web Design

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What stands out as an incredible web design project for you? Do you count your creation as a success if it’s modern, minimal, and accessible? Maybe you’re the kind of designer that’s constantly experimenting with the latest dynamic design tools or state-of-the-art technology. Perhaps your websites are vivid, animated, and brimming with unique components?

Sometimes, creating the ideal design means thinking carefully about what you want to accomplish for your client. The purpose of your web creation has a significant impact on the components that you need to consider. For instance, if you’re hoping for a highly emotive and human design, it may be worth combining some of your sleek lines and graphics with hand-drawn elements. 

The Value of Hand-Drawn Graphics in Web Design

Hand-drawn elements are just like the other components of web design; that way may use to express individuality in a cluttered digital environment. In a world where everyone focuses on futuristic and virtual creations, hand-drawn elements can pull attention back to the importance of humanity in your content. 

As web designers, we know that visual components often impact people more than text-based content. Illustrations are highly engaging functional elements that capture audience attention and convey relevant information. 

The main difference between hand-drawn elements and graphics built with vectors and other digital components is that one appears to be more influenced by the human hand than the other. Even if your illustrations are created on a screen, just like any other web design component, it pushes an audience to see something more straightforward, more natural, and authentic. 

For a brand trying to convey innocence and humanity in its personality, hand-drawn design can speak to the part of the human psyche that’s often unappreciated by web design. Perhaps more than any other visual, the content reminds your audience that there’s a human behind the web page. 

The Value of Hand-Drawn Features in Web Design

Any image can have a massive impact on the quality of your web design. Visuals deliver complex information in an easy-to-absorb format. In today’s world of fast-paced browsing, where distractions are everywhere, visuals are a method of capturing attention and delivering value fast. 

However, with hand-drawn elements, you go beyond the basic functionality of images to embrace the emotional side of the content. Benefits include:

  • A memorable experience: Web illustrations are becoming more popular among leading brands like Innocent Smoothies and Dropbox. However, the time that goes into these components means that they’re still scarce. If you want to stand out online, illustrations can help you do that. 
  • Brand personality: One of the most significant benefits of hand-drawn web design is showcasing your brand personality. The blocky lines of imperfect content that go into illustrated images highlight the human nature of your company. So many businesses are keen to look “perfect” today to make the human touch much more inviting. 
  • Differentiation: As mentioned above, hand illustrations are still rare in the digital design landscape. If you’re struggling to find a way to make your brand stand out, this could be it. Although there needs to be meaning behind your design, the result could be a more unique brand if you can convey that meaning properly. 

Tips for Using Hand Drawn Elements in Web Design 

Hand-drawn components, just like any other element of visual web design, demand careful strategy. You don’t want to overwhelm your websites with these sketches, or you could end up damaging the user experience in the process. 

As you work on your web designs, pulling hand-drawn elements into the mix, think about how you can use every illustration to accomplish a crucial goal. For instance:

Create Separation

Hand-drawn design components can mix and match with other visual elements on your website. They work perfectly alongside videos and photos and help to highlight critical points. 

On the Lunchbox website, the company uses hand-drawn elements. This helps make the site stand out, and it provides additional context for customers scanning the website for crucial details.

Engage Your Audience

Sometimes, hand-drawn elements are all about connecting with end-users on a deeper, more emotional level. One of the best ways to do this is to make your hand-drawn elements fun and interactive pieces in the design landscape. 

One excellent example of this is in the Stained Glass music video here. This interactive game combines an exciting web design trend with creative interactive components so that users can transform the web experience into something unique to them.

Highlight Headers with Typography

Sometimes, the best hand-drawn elements aren’t full illustrations or images. Hand-drawn or doodle-like typography can also give depth to a brand image and website design. 

Typography styles that mimic natural, genuine handwriting are excellent for capturing the audience’s attention. These captivating components remind the customer of the human being behind the brand while not detracting from the elegance of the website. 

This example of hand-drawn typography from the Tradewinds hotel shows how designers can use script fonts to immediately capture customer attention. Notice that the font is still easy to read from a distance, so it’s not reducing clarity. 

Set the Mood

Depending on the company that you’re designing for, your website creation choices can have a massive impact on the emotional resonance that the brand has with its audience. Hand-drawn elements allow websites to often take on a more playful tone. They can give any project a touch of innocence and friendliness that’s hard to accomplish elsewhere. 

A child-like aesthetic with bright colors and bulky fonts combines with hand-drawn elements on the Le Puzz website. This is an excellent example of how web designers can use hand-drawn elements to convey a mood of creativity and fun.

Animated Elements

Finally, if you want to combine the unique nuances of hand-drawn design with the modern components of what’s possible in the digital world today, why not add some animation. Animated elements combined with illustrations can help to bring a website to life. 

In the Kinetic.com website, the animated illustrated components help to highlight the punk-rock nature of the fanzine. It’s essential to ensure that you don’t go too over-the-top with your animations here. Remember that too many animations can quickly slow down a website and harm user-friendliness.

Finishing Thoughts on Hand-Drawn Elements

Hand-drawn elements have a lot to offer to the web-design world. 

Even if you’re not the best artist yourself, you can still simulate hand-drawn components in your web design by using the right tools and capabilities online. 

Although these features won’t fit well into every environment, they can be perfect for businesses that want to show their human side in today’s highly digitized world. Hand-drawn components, perhaps more than any other web design feature, showcase the innocence and creativity of the artists that often exist behind portfolio pages and startup brands. 

Could you experiment with hand-drawn design in your next project?

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20 Best New Websites, January 2022

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So here we are, in a brand spanking new year—time for looking forward with fresh ideas and renewed hope for the year ahead. We are kicking off 2022 with a mixed bag and, we hope, something for everyone.

Whether you’re looking for inspiration to update your site or a fresh approach to work for a new client or want to spend a little while browsing around some corners of the internet you might not usually, welcome to the first collection of the year. Enjoy!

Justice Reskill 

Justice Reskill offers a learning platform and support for people who have been through the justice system. Information is presented clearly in a positive, uplifting tone, emphasized by a bright color scheme and friendly type.

TBD Post 

TBD Post’s site is fuss-free, clean, and pleasant to navigate. Work is well presented, in an organized way, with just the right amount of supplementary information.

Speedy 

Speedy is an online business bank, and this is a pretty standard, slick fin-tech site for the most part. The added extra is that the five versions of the site–with the same content in each–have different color accents based on the flag of the specific country listed.

Nuka 

This site for Nuka eternal stationery is a beautifully simple single page. The use of handwritten type in places adds an intimacy while emphasizing the nature of the products.

Omono 

This site for online business management app Omono presents a lot of information clearly, and with a calmness projected by the use of blues and greys and subtle animation.

Pienso 

A combination of bold type, a slightly tweaked red, green, and blue color scheme, and on-scroll animations makes this site for Pienso pop.

Maison Margiela 

Maison Margiela fully embraces the digital alternative to a live catwalk with this blend of single video and edited clips.

Marie O’Shepherd 

This portfolio site for book designer and art director Marie O’Shepherd takes a minimal approach and allows the work to take center stage.

Angry Ventures

Angry Ventures add personality and humor to their site to draw the user in and entertain, while their actual portfolio is only available on request.

Chapter One 

Chapter One’s site has light and dark theme options and some engaging animated graphics.

Vesti il Futuro 

Vesti il Futuro for Mani Tese uses comic book-style interactive graphics to raise awareness of issues surrounding the environment and fast fashion.

Gazelle No.1 

Some scroll-activated video enlivens this single-page site for Gazelle’s No.1 model.

TROA 

This site for creative agency Troa is an excellent example of the effectiveness of a monochrome color scheme, and there are some pleasing transitions too.

BDCC 

BDCC’s site has a bold, slightly jumbled feel that works really well. The falling lozenge menu items are a nice feature.

Mekanism

This is a great example of a stylish website for an agency portraying itself as well-established and super polished.

Redbrick 

Redbrick’s site has a youthful, vibrant feel with colors that change to match the product branding.

Accounting Box 

This site for Accounting Box makes good use of split-screen swapping from a vertical split on desktop to a horizontal split on mobile. The animations are pleasing too.

François-Joseph Graf 

The design for François-Joseph Graf’s site does the right thing by getting out of the way to avoid competing with the rather stunning products on show.

Monsta Cats 

Monsta Cats is a site dedicated to community focussed NFTs. The site is suitably anarchic and fun to browse.

Bien Fondé 

And finally, some customizable good wishes for the year ahead from digital agency Bien Fondé.

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How to Get Started with the MVP Workflow

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Few things are more important to a web designer or developer’s chances of success than having the proper workflow. The term “workflow” applies to the set of standardized steps you or your company uses to create, test, and deploy designs or products.

Over the years, as development processes have evolved, so too have the workflows experts use to bring their ideas to life. The MVP workflow, or “Minimum Viable Product” strategy, is one of the most popular options in 2022.

Here’s what you need to know about the MVP workflow and how it differs from some of the other standard workflows developers may be used to.

What is the Designer/Developer Workflow?

As mentioned above, the designer/developer workflow is a series of steps used by experts in the web design world to achieve a creative goal. The process includes the steps taken to start a project, evolve it, and finish it. Since software is never developed without tools, the technology you’ll access throughout the development process is also considered in most workflows.

An example of a standard development workflow might look like this:

  • Scaffolding: This is the stage wherein you start your new web project, creating a git repo, downloading libraries, preparing file structures, and completing other tasks to make sure your product is ready to roll out into the world.
  • Develop: This is where you’ll spend most of your time writing code for your application or website. The development process may include various specific tools and support from other staff members.
  • Test: In this stage, you examine the functionality of your code to determine if everything works as it should. If there are errors or issues, you can go back and develop fixes to the potential problems. Your code may go through the development/test process several times before you can move to the next stage.
  • Integrate: This is when you merge the code for your part of the development process with the rest of the team. You can also integrate your code into websites and existing apps at this point. If you’re working solo, you can skip this process.
  • Optimize: You prepare all your assets for use on a production server during the optimization stage. Files are generally optimized to ensure your visitors can view your site easily or access your applications with ease.
  • Deploy: In the deployment stage, developers push code and assets up into the server and allow for changes to be viewed by the public.

What is MVP? (Minimum Viable Product)

Now you know what a developer workflow looks like, you can begin to assess the concept of the “MVP” workflow. The term “MVP” stands for Minimum Viable Product.

The idea of “Minimum Viable Product” applies to a range of industries, from education to healthcare and government entities. This term comes from lean start-up practices and focuses heavily on the value of learning and changing during the development process.

When you adapt your workflow to focus on an MVP, you’re essentially adjusting your focus to a point where you can create a stripped-back version of something new – like an app or a website. The MVP is built just with the core features (the minimum), so you can bring the idea to market and test it as quickly as possible.

For instance, if your goal were to create an attractive new website for a client, an MVP would focus on implementing the crucial initial tools, and nothing else. While you may create checkout pages, product pages, and other aspects of the site, you wouldn’t populate it with content or start experimenting with bonus widgets and apps.

So, how does this offer a better alternative to the standard workflow?

Simply put, an MVP workflow is quick, agile, and easy. The idea is you can validate key concepts with speed, fail quickly, and learn just as fast. Rather than having to build an entire app and almost start over from scratch every time you find an error, you can race through the iteration and development process.

MVP workflows are also highly appealing to start-ups and entrepreneurs hoping to validate ideas without a massive amount of upfront investment.

Examples of MVP Workflows

Still confused? The easiest way to understand how an MVP workflow works is to look at an example.

Let’s start with a conceptual example. Say you were building a voice transcription service for businesses. The desired features of this product might include the ability to download transcription, translate them into different languages, and integrate them into AI analytics tools.

However, using the MVP approach, you wouldn’t try to accomplish all of your goals with your software at once. Instead, you’d focus on something simple first – like the ability to download the transcripts. Once you confirm you can do that, you can start a new workflow for the next most important feature for the app.

One excellent example of a company with an MVP approach is Airbnb. The entrepreneurs behind this unicorn company, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, didn’t have a lot of cash to build a business with at first. They had to use their own apartment to validate the idea of creating a website where people could share their available “space” in a home or apartment with the public.

To begin, Airbnb only created a very basic website, published photos of their property, and waited to see the results. After discovering people were genuinely interested in renting another person’s home, the company was able to begin experimenting with new ideas to make a site where people could list their properties for travelers.

The Pros and Cons of an MVP Workflow

There are a lot of benefits to the MVP workflow – particularly when it comes to gaining agility and developing new products quickly. However, there are downsides too.

Pros

  • With an MVP approach, you can maximize your learning opportunities and create a more innovative, successful product at speed. You get to test every step of the way.
  • You release iterations or versions of your product quickly, which means you discover problems faster, allowing you to quickly solve these issues.
  • You build on the benefits of customer fans, “evangelists” in the marketplace who are keen to help your product or service grow.
  • An MVP gives you more freedom to try out unique ideas and “risks” you might otherwise avoid with a traditional workflow.
  • Because you’re focusing on creating only the “minimum viable product,” you don’t have to spend a fortune on initially setting up your workflows.

Cons

  • Agile work with an MVP flow requires a lot of effort in collecting constant feedback from customers and releasing iterations.
  • You’ll need to dedicate yourself to releasing many small and frequent product releases on a tight schedule.
  • You might have to revise the functionality of your product or app a number of times.

Creating Your MVP Workflow

If you believe an MVP workflow might be effective for you, the first step is defining your “Minimum Viable Product.” The app, website, or product you design needs to align with your team’s strategic goals, so think about what your company is trying to achieve at this moment – before you get started. If you have limited resources, or specific purposes, like improving your reputation as a reliable company, now might not be the right time to develop a new MVP.

Ask what purpose your minimum viable product will serve and what kind of market you’re going to be targeting. You’ll need to know your target customer to help you test the quality and performance of each iteration of your MVP. Once you know what your ideal “product” is, ask yourself what the most important features will be.

You can base these decisions on things like:

  • User research
  • Competitive analysis
  • Feedback from your audience

For example, if you’re producing an AI chatbot that helps companies to sort through customer inquiries, the most important “initial feature” may be the ability to integrate that bot into existing websites and apps owned by the company.

MVP Approach Guidelines

Once you have your hierarchy of most valuable features for your minimum viable product, you can translate this into an action plan for development. Remember, although you’re focusing on the “minimum” in development, your product still needs to be “viable.” In other words, it still needs to allow your customer to achieve a specific goal.

  • Review your features: Reviewing your prioritized product requirements and the minimum level of functionality you can deliver with each of these “features.” You need to ensure you’re still providing value to your customer with anything you produce.
  • Build your solution: Build your minimum set of features for the product or service. Remember to build only what is required. You can use methodologies like the agile or waterfall method to help guide your team during this process.
  • Validate your solution: Release your offering into the market, and ensure you have tools in place to gather feedback from early adopters. Use beta programs, focus groups, and market interviews to understand how your solution works for your customers and where you can improve on your current offer.
  • Release new iterations: Based on what you learn from your target audience, release improvements to your product quickly. Use your validation strategies to collect information from your audience with each release.
  • Review again: Go back to your product requirements and desired features and start the process over again, this time focusing on the next most valuable functionality. Over time, the value of your minimum viable product will increase.

Using the MVP Workflow Approach

While the MVP workflow approach might not be the right solution for every development or design team, it can work very effectively in the right circumstances. The MVP approach doesn’t minimize the importance of understanding market problems and delivering value. Instead, the focus is on delivering quick value that gradually increases and evolves over time.

As many developers and designers know, the most useful form of product validation in most cases is real-world validation. When your customers have had an opportunity to use a product on a day-to-day basis, they can provide much more effective feedback.

Just keep in mind that committing to the MVP approach also means changing your workflow and committing to iterations – otherwise, other features may never be completed. You’ll need to be willing to work quickly and in small bursts without getting too heavily caught up in one feature or functionality.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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