Articles

Learning how to design an MVP webpage or website could be one of the best things you can do as a site creator in today’s digital world.

In a fast-paced landscape, where customer preferences and technology are constantly changing, most companies don’t have time to dedicate months or years to each web project. The longer you take to complete your website, the more likely your creation will be outdated by the time you hit “publish.” That’s why countless creators are beginning to take a different approach.

To avoid wasting time, money, and effort on something that doesn’t deliver a significant return on investment, designers are now building “Minimum Viable Products,” or “MVPs.”

Here’s what you need to know about creating your MVP webpage.

What is MVP Web Design?

Typically, the “MVP” development process is most common in the app or software creation world. It refers to when a developer builds the simplest version of a technology capable of achieving specific goals. For instance, if a company wanted to create an ecommerce app, they would design a simple tool capable of listing products, enabling payments, and tracking orders.

After launching the MVP product, the company or developer would check to ensure it had the right impact on the target market and generated positive results. Using feedback and analytics, the developer would then begin to add new features one at a time.

MVP design aims to ensure you’re developing the best, most valuable product for your audience while getting your solution to market as quickly as possible.

The same strategy in MVP app and software design can also apply to website creation. Rather than building a highly complicated website with multiple features straightaway, the designer would focus on creating a single page equipped with the essential elements.

For instance, instead of building an entire site for your online course, you may develop a single-page website where customers can learn about the system, sign up, and pay for their membership. The great thing about an MVP web page is it allows companies to start advertising their solution, product, or service quickly, with the minimum initial investment.

How to Create an MVP Web Page

Creating an MVP web page is similar to designing any Minimum Viable Product. Throughout the project, the focus will be on keeping the development process simple while collecting as much feedback as possible.

Here’s how you’d get started with an MVP web page.

Step 1: Planning

Planning is an important stage in any web design project. It’s particularly crucial in the MVP landscape, where you need to define the most critical features of your webpage or website to ensure it’s “viable” for your needs. The initial planning stage can sometimes be the lengthiest part of the process, depending on the amount of research you need to do.

For the most part, web designers and companies will begin by conducting market research. This means examining crucial concepts intended to drive your strategy, such as:

  • Your target audience: Who are you trying to target with this web page, and what will they need from your site? A user persona can be helpful if you don’t already have one.
  • Competitors: Who are your main competitors in this space, and what do their web pages offer? Which features do you need to replicate or avoid?
  • Goal setting: What is the main objective of this web page? What do you need it to do, and what might it need to accomplish in the future?

The key to MVP web page planning is ensuring you look holistically at your project without thinking too far ahead. The site you create should be capable of scaling and expanding in the future, but it shouldn’t have too many features from day one.

Step 2: Creating Your Feature List

Once you’ve done your research and formed the foundations of your plan, it’s time to list all the features your MVP web page needs to have. Unfortunately, this is where the process can get a little complicated. It’s easy to start adding capabilities and components that aren’t necessary to make your site more exciting or competitive.

As worrying as it can feel to release a very basic web page, remember your focus is on rapid growth and development. With this in mind, concentrate on narrowing your feature lists down into:

  • Initial must-have capabilities: First, decide what your web page can’t thrive without. If the primary goal of your page is to sell software subscriptions, then you’ll need to implement tools for collecting member information and payments.
  • Next stage functionality: Consider the features you might add once you’ve confirmed your webpage is effective. This will allow you to ensure you’re creating a platform that can expand to suit future needs.
  • Possible future requirements: You can also list features that might be helpful in the future but don’t necessarily need to be implemented immediately. For instance, if you’re selling an online course, you might create a separate page where people can sign up to learn about future lessons.

Step 3: Finding the Right Software

Next, you’ll need to decide how to build your web page. There are several options available to today’s designers. An open-source solution is usually the best route for designers who need to create something specific from scratch. However, if the factor that makes your solution “viable” is unique, you may need access to code to bring your idea to life.

Alternatively, if you’re building a basic webpage capable of something like collecting customer email addresses or facilitating transactions, you might be able to use an off-the-shelf tool. CMS services for web designers can reduce the work and expense involved in creating a minimum viable product.

For instance, you might use a tool like Wix or Squarespace to edit a pre-existing template and simply drag-and-drop the features you need into the right places. On the other hand, if you’re planning on adding more functionality to your site down the line, it’s worth checking if any builder you will use has the right level of flexibility. Many tools will allow you access to code, advanced features, and essential module-based building functions.

Step 4: Implement Your Analytics

One of the essential parts of an MVP workflow is feedback. When you roll out your MVP, you’ll be looking for insights, guidance, and analytics to help you decide what your next steps are going to be. As a result, MVP workflows are based heavily on experimentation.

This means you’re going to need the right analytical tools in place to track crucial information. You can implement tools for collecting customer feedback directly. It’s also worth having a system in place for tracking metrics like:

  • Conversion rate;
  • Traffic numbers;
  • User behavior;
  • Most used/least used features;
  • Technical site performance;
  • Bounce rate;
  • Average time spent on the page.

While Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools for collecting insights in the MVP website design world, various other options are available. You can even find tools with in-built heatmaps to see how people navigate your site more effectively.

It’s also worth having A/B testing components in place. This will allow you to test the different “new” features you add to your web pages over time and examine how they influence your conversions and support your goals. For example, you can use A/B testing to explore the impact of everything from CTA button colors to webpage copy and offers.

Creating Your MVP Web Page

In the fast-paced web development and design world, the old-fashioned and slow approach to designing web pages is growing increasingly less common. Instead, an MVP strategy may be the best bet for companies looking to go to market faster, collect insights from their target audience, and accelerate growth.

Though getting used to this design strategy initially can be challenging, it can save you significant time, resources, and money in the long term.

 

HTML vector created by vectorjuice – www.freepik.com

Source

The post How to Design an MVP Web Page first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

Web design is often stagnant because designers look at the same work and follow the same trends. Unfortunately, algorithms promote work that is liked, and designers produce content to get likes, which leads to a self-feeding cycle.

We’ve been talking about the dribbblization of design for years, but Behance is just as guilty of promoting and encouraging homogenous design.

It’s not that Dribbble and Behance don’t have value; they are both excellent resources for designers. But they’re victims of their own success, and it’s healthier for them, designers, and the industry if we broaden our sources of design inspiration.

And so, today, we’re presenting this list of the best places to find design inspiration for web designers that aren’t Dribbble or Behance. (OK, you can check them out too, if you really want to!)

Awwwards

Awwwards is the top site for web design inspiration. The best agencies in the world post here, and a ‘Site of the Day’ award is a coveted accolade. So if you’re looking for design inspiration, this should be your first stop.

Admire The Web

Admire The Web is an excellent collection of curated sites. It’s more selective than sites like Awwwards, so you don’t have to dig through so much to find the best web design.

One Page Love

One Page Love is one of the best resources for designers seeking inspiring new ideas. It’s devoted to one-pagers, which means it leans towards apps, tech start-ups, and smaller independent projects.

Godly

Godly is another excellent collection of web design inspiration. Godley uses animated thumbnails, so you can get a sense of a site before you look at it in detail. As such, it’s perfect for animated landing pages.

Hoverstat.es

Hoverstat.es is a collection of curated websites that often finds little gems other sites miss. Unlike most roundups, it doesn’t go into much detail on each site, and new sites are infrequent, but it’s always worth a browse.

Siteinspire

Siteinspire is one of the most established design inspiration sites. The collection is carefully divided into different styles; if you find your own site listed, you can add your contact details.

Land-book

Land-book is a curated collection of the best sites on the web. The site does a great job of presenting screenshots clearly, and the similar sites feature is great for browsing a particular mood.

Savee

Savee is a fantastic site for browsing all kinds of design inspiration. It’s like Pinterest for designers as it leans towards art direction and photography. It’s easy to scan for mood boards.

UIJar

UIJar is a nicely designed collection of hand-picked websites. Unlike most other sites on this list, UIJar also features a collection of branding that’s great for identity designers.

Brutalist Websites

Brutalist Websites is the perfect inspiration site if you’re a fan of the Brutalist design trend. There are plenty of designs that show why Brutalism is so popular right now, but the site itself is probably short-lived.

Minimal Gallery

Minimal Gallery is a collection of sites that embrace minimalism. Like Brutalist Websites, the quality of the collection is very high, but the site’s lifespan is probably short-lived thanks to being tied to one trend.

Ello

Ello is a platform for showcasing excellent design work. It’s solid on illustration and artwork. There’s also a great deal of photography on show. You’ll also find regular opportunities tied to creative briefs.

DeviantArt

DeviantArt is still the largest, and arguably the best, showcase for illustration, with dozens of styles from Anime to classicism. It’s easy to lose a few hours browsing DeviantArt.

Figma Community

Figma Community is a collection of the best work from the Figma community. But you don’t need to be a Figma user to grab some inspiration from the UI work on show.

Lapa

Lapa is a collection of 5000+ landing pages. The collection is headhunted from around the web, so if you only have time to check out one site, Lapa could be a good choice.

Source

The post 15 Inspiring Alternatives to Dribbble & Behance first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

Web2 software engineers have benefitted from design standards, mature programming languages, and vulnerability tools to minimize the risks of an attack. Failure to do so can result in a situation similar to my “Equifax Attack: Only a Matter of Time” publication back in 2017.

Those working in Web3 projects find themselves at an exciting stage. Initiatives like bounties and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) drive new opportunities for these pioneers to explore. Unfortunately, the Web3 landscape is not as mature or defined as earlier phases in the web frontier. Compounding the situation is the risk those challenges impose in a decentralized environment — where exploitation can result in losing a large volume of assets, as well as the time it takes to secure an auditing service for smart contract code and the duration of the audit itself

Source de l’article sur DZONE

The evolution of new technology significantly impacts today’s society and various other industries. While a few developments more or less affect the entire work industry, artificial intelligence (AI) is a relatively new and controversial technology. 

This technology has been advancing steadily in recent years and is now being used in numerous industries. From a business standpoint, it has improved workflow efficiency and manufacturing processes and generated new work opportunities.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

Welcome to our guide to the best new websites this month. If subtle, minimal sites are your thing, either look away now or prepare to have your preconceptions challenged because this month, we are going maximalist.

Lots of elements fill up the screen, lots of color, lots of big fonts, lots of illustration, and plenty of in-your-face personality. This is a tricky style to get right: if elements are not chosen and placed well, the result is simply annoying clutter. If done well, the result can be impactful and memorable.

[And Happy Independence Day to all of our American readers!]

screenagers & the incredible machine

screenagers & the incredible machine’s site puts illustration front and center, creating a look that evokes various mystic ideas. It sounds strange, but it works.

Anna Jóna

This prelaunch teaser site for Anna Jóna café and cinema has an elegant yet modern feel.

Hardpops

This site for Hardpops (alcoholic) ice pops takes its cue from the product flavors, and the bright, fruity colors give it a real zing.

Daniel Spatzek

Daniel Spatzek’s portfolio site takes the rules-are-made-to-be-broken approach. The result has attitude and a nice touch of humor.

Ander Agency

Plenty of color, large type, and illustration make a bold statement for Ander Agency’s single-page site.

Pretty Damn Quick

Colorful illustration on this site for Pretty Damn Quick’s Shopify app creates an impression of friendliness about the company and ease of use of the product itself.

Know Your Beetle

Know Your Beetle is a showcase page for Kaploom creative studio. Color and type combinations make a big impact.

WTFFF

While many of the sites featured here have a sense of fun about them, WTFFF tackles a somber subject: online sexual abuse and harassment. Artwork and audio create an immersive experience in which five young people share their experiences with the aim of helping others.

BelArosa Chalet

Full-screen illustrations with a hint of vintage style create an ideal impression of what future guests can expect from the currently under construction BelArosa Chalet.

Paradam

The color scheme on the Paradam site is on the pastel end of the scale, but there is still lots going on to entrance the eye.

Tilton Group

The scrolling color panels on the Tilton Group site are a thing to behold.

Fresco

Fresco uses a standard layout design, but the colors and quarter-circles instantly lift it.

Museum of Pink Art

Museum of Pink Art is an immersive experience celebrating the color pink. Undoubtedly worth a virtual wander around.

Icons by Menu

OK, this somewhat more minimalist site slipped through the net, but Icons by Menu is so pleasing to look at and use that we had to include it.

GlareDB

With an illustration that could be ideally at home on an Arthur C. Clarke book jacket and that rich, deep red background, this site for Glare DB is a world away from what might be expected.

Alex Beige

While the overall style and accent illustrations are pleasing on Alex Beige’s site, the Our Team section is guaranteed to raise a smile and stick in the user’s mind.

Snickerdoodle

Careful spacing means busy elements (like on scroll animated illustrations) don’t become overwhelming on the Snickerdoodle site.

Grisly’s Cosmic Black

The site for Grisly’s Cosmic Black is fun, bright, and joyful. Plus, it’s nice to see an alcohol site going a bit further than the usual ‘drink responsibly’ and actually providing helpful links.

The Perennial

Not just floorplans and (lots of) images, but virtual walkthroughs too. The Perennial doesn’t feel like a standard office building.

Source

The post 20 Best New Websites, July 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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

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

Advanced CSS Tricks that You Have to Know

Nnneon – SVG Generator for Futuristic-looking Glowing Shapes

The Best New CSS Features for 2022

Avatarg – Generate Beautiful Types of Avatar in One Click

I Just Spent $35,000 on a Domain. Here is Why!

10 Useful CSS Layout Generators (Grid & Flexbox)

Fffuel – A Mighty Collection of SVG Generators

Raindrop.io — All in One Bookmark Manager

My Wonderful HTML Email Workflow

3 Essential Design Trends, July 2022

My Dumbest CSS Mistakes

Source

The post Popular Design News of the Week: June 27, 2022 – July 3, 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

There are a lot of dark, retro vibes trending in website design right now. Although there are still some light projects popping up – including a pastel trend below – a lot of what we are seeing has a quite moody feel.

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

Pastel Color Palettes

Let’s start with the trend with a lighter feel – pastel color palettes. While much of the web is trending toward dark aesthetics, there’s a segment that’s going in the exact opposite direction. Those sites feature soft, pastel color palettes that serve as a balance to all the super dark websites out there.

One thing about this website design trend is that it jumps out because of the stark contrast with all of the dark color palettes out there.

Each of these designs seems to use a pastel color palette as the basis for a background. A blur effect is paired with the colors to use pastels in a way that has a natural feel without appearing too feminine or light.

Robust uses blue and earth tones for a pastel background that feels modern and strong when paired with the hard-edged headline font.

Atmos uses a light pastel theme that takes you through the clouds with blues, and pinks, and purples. The pastel color scheme works well with the content which is airline-themed and makes you feel like you are flying through the sky. The colors are also soft enough to provide an easy reading experience.

Klezma is another design with the same pastel background with graduated color. The peach tones are fairly neutral and give plenty of room to the content.

Fonts with a Distinct Retro Look

Every one of these websites uses a typeface with a similar look and feel. This retro headline style is trending in a major way.

The best way to use this design element is for short words. This typeface design isn’t meant for a lot of words or when readability is a high priority.

This style is all about creating a specific kind of vibe for your website. The typefaces in this trend have a quite retro look and feel with an almost 1960s or ’70s feel to them. The rest of the design mimics this feel as well with colors and surrounding elements that contribute to the overall look.

A couple of common elements here include the use of all capitals font sets and letterforms that include odd shapes and lines.

Sretks not only uses a retro typeface but bends and twists it a bit too to add to the old-school feel. The background color helps add to the groovy vibe.

Barge 166 uses a retro typeface with the same design feel as the other examples but with a sharper, more serif-style edge. It’s easier to read but still carries a retro look and feel. Use a typeface similar to this if you want to capture that retro font style for a trending look while maintaining as much readability as possible. This option works best for multiple lines of words in a large size.

Picky Joe uses a retro typeface with rounded letters and a bit of a tilt to the characters to create a distinct feel. This is definitely a style that has to be used sparingly but can be a fun option, depending on the content of your website design.

Dark “Product” Sites

Dark mode design is probably the biggest design trend of 2022. Everywhere you look, websites are using dark color palettes and styles. Designers are creating more projects with a dark/light toggle so users can control their experience.

This visual concept is carried over to website designs that feature products as well. This is one of the last places the dark aesthetic had not touched. It’s been a bit of an unwritten rule that product images should be on white or light backgrounds to help make them easy to see and inspect digitally.

This design trend bucks that idea and features products on dark backgrounds – some with so little contrast that you almost have a hard time seeing the products. (Maybe these brands are banking on the idea that you already know them or are selling a lifestyle product.)

HQBC sells bike accessories such as glasses and helmets and the site has a sleek look and feel. You know it is cool from the second you land on it. The question though – is there enough visual information with the dark background to help you make a purchase? This design probably works because it only encourages you to find a physical location to make a purchase rather than buy online.

Doggystyle Shop also banks on the idea of you knowing the shopping experience or brand when you arrive. What the design does do though is put products on white backgrounds after you have clicked through far enough to make a commitment to buy. This helps you see the product well one final time before making a purchase. (The challenge is that it is three to four clicks in for the most part.)

FirstFit uses the design trend in a way that’s similar to the first example. They are showing a product, but not actually trying to convert sales on the website. Other links take you to more product information and content – using a lighter background and color scheme – and the dark background with the product serves mostly as a highly visual landing page that will help entice users to learn more. When it comes to dark mode and products, this seems to be the best option for most website designs.

Conclusion

The state of the world around us and our emotions can play hard into websites and other design projects. Some of the darker elements that are popular now may be a reflection of that or it could be more of a lean into dark mode schemes.

Either way, the web has a pretty dark feel right now.

Source

The post 3 Essential Design Trends, July 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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

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

How to Create Simple CSS Grid System

Why are You Running?

15+ VS Code Extensions for Web Developers

10 of the Biggest SEO Mistakes [Infographic]

SVG Loading Animations

AI Pixel Art Human Face

VSLook – Customize the Look of your VSCode

One Line of CSS to Add Basic Dark/light Mode

Basicons – Basic Icons for Product Design & Development

Touch-first Cursor: Round Pointers Vs Mouse Arrows

7 UX Laws You’re Probably Getting Wrong

“Google” Programmers – How One Idiot Hired a Couple More Idiots

Bunny Fonts – Privacy Respecting Drop-in Replacement for Google Fonts

Source

The post Popular Design News of the Week: June 20, 2022 – June 26, 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

The hardest part of designing websites for a living is setting your prices. Setting a fair price for your services is something that nearly all of us struggle with.

If you’re lucky, you’re part of an agency that has experienced design leads who can assess projects objectively. But if you’re a freelancer — or if you’re one of those design leads — you have to set your own rate.

It’s a challenge to find a sweet spot in the market. You want to be competitive or you’ll price yourself out of jobs. But you also want to be able to live the lifestyle you aspire to.

The truth is there is always someone cheaper. There is always someone who believes the ‘exposure’ myth and will do a project for free. You can’t compete on price, and you really shouldn’t try. If you have been competing on price, you are almost certainly undercharging for web design. Where you should compete, is on quality and results.

When you’re no longer competing on price, you can put your rates up.

How Much Do You Charge for Web Design Services?

To find out what most professional designers charge, we’re asking you to answer the following two questions (anonymously).

We’d like to know how much you charge for web design services per hour. (We don’t necessarily recommend you charge by the hour, but with projects varying in scope this is the best way to compare pricing.)

Because the value of the dollar varies a great deal — $1 goes a lot further in Patagonia than it does in Norway — we’d also like to know how much you charge per hour as a percentage of your monthly housing cost (your rent or mortgage).

Remember, most experts in the field agree: No matter how much you’re charging for web design services, you’re probably undercharging. Perhaps it’s time to put your prices up.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

Source

The post Are You Undercharging for Web Design Services? first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot