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Deno vs. Node: A Detailed Comparison

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What is Deno?

Deno a pristine method to compose worker-side JavaScript. It solves many of the problems that Node does. It was created by the same person as Node. It uses the V8 JavaScript engine under the hood but the rest of the runtime is implemented in Rust and Typescript.

What Reason Does Deno Utilize Rust?

Deno may be a safe TypeScript run-time on Chrome V8. It had been initially written in Go and now has been revamped in Rust to remain far away from potential garbage collector issues. Deno is like Node js yet is centered around security. The rationale that Deno made was JavaScript. Significantly more horrendous than having a competitor who understands your thing back to front, Deno was made expressly to fix what Dahl saw due to the crucial weaknesses of NodeJs — including security issues, use of a centralized repository system (npm), and heavy tooling.

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How To Power Through Designer Apathy

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Sometimes you just don’t give a damn anymore. Possibly the only thing worse than designer’s block is designer’s apathy: that sinking feeling you get when you realize that you just don’t care about this particular piece of work anymore is disheartening.

The dread of going back to it is paralyzing.

There are many reasons you can stop caring about your work. Maybe you’ve just done the same thing too many times in a row. Maybe your client is insisting on asking for things you know won’t work for them. Maybe something much more important just happened in your life, and you’ve got bigger things to worry about. You could be discouraged by the apparent ‘sameness’ of bandwagon-hopping designs.

I’ve been not caring about my work ever since I was first asked to pick up my toys

Whatever the reason, we all experience times when we know exactly what we have to do… we just don’t care.

I’m something of an expert on this phenomenon. I’ve been not caring about my work ever since I was first asked to pick up my toys. Worse, I have the attention span of a goldfish, even now.

Web design is different. When I discovered it, it was new, exciting, and I could do it on the computer. I loved it, and I still do. Writing code that makes design happen in a browser window will never get old for me.

But even so, sometimes, a particular project will make me want to throw up my hands in exasperation and play video games ‘til Judgement Day. I’d welcome Skynet with tacos and RPGs.

So what do we do about it? First, answer this question: who is the project for?

For A Client

If the project is for a client, it’s just gotta get done. There’s no way around that. You made a commitment. You’re going to follow through and give it your best possible effort because you’re a professional. Anything less would be wrong.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to just power through with only coffee and misery for company. There are things you can do to make the work easier on yourself. The less miserable you are while you work, the better quality you can deliver.

For Yourself

There are a couple of schools of thought here. The first is that it’s perfectly fine to give up on personal projects when you stop caring. I mean, it’s your free time. Why spend it on something you don’t care about?

On the other hand, is a commitment made to yourself any less important than a commitment made to someone else? Many people seem to be perfectly fine with breaking promises to themselves when they’d never willingly do that to a client. Is that wrong?

I usually buy myself a drink and forgive myself, but it’s worth thinking about.

The deciding factor for me is whether my personal project will have any sort of lasting benefit. If whatever I’m designing, writing, or making counts as a long-term investment in my career or quality of life, then it absolutely has to get done, even when I’m not feeling it. Otherwise, I call it a learning experience and move on.

How To Power Through

So, for whatever reason — whether because you have to, or you want to — you’re gonna power through. Here are five ways to do it in style:

1. Start

The hardest part of doing work you don’t care about is starting. This is when you’ll be tempted to procrastinate until the last minute. Try not to.

2. Switch To A Different Part Of The Project

If you can safely (without causing problems) work on a different aspect of the project for a while, try that. The mere variety, the break from the work in front of you before, can boost your morale.

Indeed, working on a different part of the project can give you ideas of getting the most troubling bits done faster or more easily.

3. Do Something Old In A New Way

This one has its pros and cons.

Pro: You can look at this project as a chance to try out a new grid framework, script, code editor, or another tool of some kind. Injecting the process of discovery into an otherwise boring project can make it a lot more fun and even make you look forward to working on it.

Con: You’ll need to plan for extra hours and use some version control; because bringing a new tool or process into play is almost guaranteed to make something interesting go wrong — when this happens, you probably shouldn’t bill the client for the extra hours spent on StackOverflow.

4) Make Like Aziz Ansari And Treat Yo’self

Celebrate the milestones of your project. Don’t celebrate with video games if you need to get any more work done that day. That can go very wrong. But do celebrate. Reward yourself because you’re doing something difficult.

Have a snack. Give yourself a round of applause. Whatever it takes, make yourself look forward.

5) Outsource It

As a last resort, you can always outsource the project to someone else. Just make sure it’s someone you can trust to deliver the same quality of work you would normally provide yourself. Make sure to check it over before handing it off to a client.

Alternatively, you could just outsource the bits of the work that you don’t like. Either way, this is a risky strategy because whoever you outsource to might experience delays or, ironically, not care about the project.

Conclusion

You can do it! I believe in you. The really, really boring projects can seem like huge sinkholes of sadness, but they don’t last forever.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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3 Effective Ways To Improve Your Site’s Carbon Footprint

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At the dawn of the web-era, there was much focus on how environmentally friendly websites were: we’d chop down fewer trees, ship fewer products, and travel less for business.

And because the web was small, any negative impact it had was relatively small. But the Internet’s no longer small, and neither is the impact it has on the environment. The average website uses 211,000g of CO2 per year, watching a video online outputs an estimated 0.2g of CO2 per second, and a single email can cost 50g of CO2.

In the next four years, the tech industry as a whole may use up to 20% of the world’s electricity and be responsible for 5.5% of global CO2 emissions.

The good news is that because websites are viewed many times, even small improvements can multiply into real change.

1. Reduce Energy Consumption

Through electricity use, the Internet generates around the same CO2 as most major countries. That carbon comes from two sources: the devices we use to access the Internet and the servers that host our data.

Computers heat up, and when they heat up, they slow down. Servers are especially vulnerable and use extraordinary amounts of energy to keep cool and functional, which is why Microsoft keeps throwing servers into the sea.

Make It Faster

The faster your site, the less data is used to serve it, and the less carbon it’s outputting; it’s that simple.

Reduce the Number of Resources Used

Everything you load on your site has an impact. You might think that a tiny PNG is too small to really impact your carbon footprint, but over thousands of page loads, its impact is multiplied. Anything you can do to reduce the number of actual files requested will reduce your carbon output. You can use sites like Ecograder to estimate your own site’s CO2 output.

Optimize Images

If there’s one thing you can do to reduce the size of your site, the amount of data that needs to be sent over the Internet to serve your site, and the resulting speed, it’s optimizing your images.

Nothing reduces a site’s footprint like optimizing images. It’s easy and free to reduce the size of JPGs and PNGs with a service like TinyPNG. Offer WebP to any browser that will accept them; it will boost your Lighthouse score and improve your CO2 usage.

Lazy Load Images

Lazy loading images means images are loaded as they are required; images at the top of a page always load, images further down only load when the user scrolls to them; if the user doesn’t scroll to the bottom of the page, they don’t load, saving you CO2.

Reduce The Amount Of JavaScript You Use

Yes, JavaScript is awesome. Yes, it can be hugely beneficial to UX. And yes, it munches on energy like it’s candy.

When a web page loads, it’s done, the total cost is in. If JavaScript keeps running in the background, redrawing the screen based on user interaction — as is the case with a parallax site — the web page keeps using up energy on the device.

Choose a Sustainable Hosting Company

You can reduce the power needs of a site, but you can’t eliminate them. One simple step is to opt for a hosting company that gets its electricity from sustainable sources such as wind power or solar.

Low←Tech Magazine is powered by a server that runs on solar energy and carries a warning that it may go offline. But it’s possible to host both reliably and sustainably. Many web hosts outsource their actual server management, so they have no control over how those servers are powered, but there are plenty of exceptions that guarantee green web hosting. Google Cloud aims to be the cleanest in the cloud industry. For green web hosting, I always recommend the all-round superb Kualo.

2. Be Inclusive

One of the biggest issues with the EV (Electric Vehicle) movement is that we’re replacing cars earlier than we normally would in a rush to move to “clean” driving.

A new EV certainly outputs less than a gas-powered vehicle when driven the same distance. Combine increased use — because owners think they are driving cleanly — with the fact that a new EV has to be manufactured, the minerals for batteries have to be mined (in horrific conditions), and it then needs to be shipped to you, and EVs are not as friendly as they appear — so go ahead, buy that vintage Porsche it’s probably better for the environment than a Tesla.

Support Legacy Devices

The same issue that applies to cars applies to devices. Every time we rush ahead to support the latest iPhone, we leave older generations behind. A device can and should last longer than two years.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t embrace modern web standards. Technologies like CSS Grid are excellent at reducing markup size and speeding up sites. CSS Grid has been well supported for over four years, and even “legacy” devices can handle it. If you can keep a phone for an extra six months, the environmental cost of that phone is reduced by 20%.

3. Help Users Make Good Choices

More and more people are trying to make good choices. We’re eating a healthier, balanced diet. We’re recycling clothes. We’re traveling by bike, and on foot, instead of by car. People want to do the right thing, and they seek out companies that aid them.

Improve Navigation

Anything that you can do to make your content more findable will mean fewer page loads and therefore consume fewer resources.

By improving your information architecture, improving your search accuracy, and improving on-page signposts like bread crumbs and link text, you help users find content faster.

Feelgood Feedback

When the environmental impact of a user’s actions are quantifiable, let them know. Users who care will appreciate it, and users who don’t will ignore it.

Raileurope.com adds a note to any quotation letting you know how much carbon you’ve saved by traveling by train instead of flying.

Don’t Remove the Shipping Rate

Many ecommerce sites offer free shipping, especially above a certain order value; it’s a good way to encourage higher sales. But absorbing the shipping cost implies that there is no shipping. By highlighting the shipping costs, even if they’re not passed on to the customer, you remind them that there is an environmental cost and a financial cost.

You can absorb the shipping rate without implying there is no cost by adding the shipping and then explicitly deducting it as a discount.

Sustainable Web Design Is Good For Business

The fundamentals of good web design are the fundamentals of sustainable web design.

Make it fast and usable, and you’ll also be making it energy efficient. Make it inclusive, and you’ll help the industry slow the ever-growing tendency to consume. Make it transparent, and you’ll help your users make good choices of their own. All of these things are not only good for the environment, but they also result in improved UX and SEO.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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What Is The Independent Web And Does It Matter In 2021?

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Ten years ago, people began talking about the “Independent Web.” Although we don’t commonly use the term anymore, that doesn’t mean that it’s not still as vital a topic of discussion today as it was a decade ago.

Today, I want to look at where the term came from, what it refers to today, and why it’s something that all of us in business, marketing, and web design should be thinking about.

What Is The Independent Web?

The Independent Web is a term that was coined back in 2010 by John Battelle.

In “Identity and The Independent Web,” Battelle broaches the subject of internet users losing control of their data, privacy, and decision-making to the likes of social media and search engines.

“When we’re ‘on’ Facebook, Google, or Twitter, we’re plugged into an infrastructure that locks onto us, serving us content and commerce in an automated but increasingly sophisticated fashion. Sure, we navigate around, in control of our experience, but the fact is, the choices provided to us as we navigate are increasingly driven by algorithms modeled on the service’s understanding of our identity.”

That’s the Dependent Web.

This is how Battelle explains the Independent Web:

“There is another part of the web, one where I can stroll a bit more at my own pace, and discover new territory, rather than have territory matched to a presumed identity. And that is the land of the Independent Web.”

In 2010, this referred to websites, search engines, and apps where users and their activity were not tracked. But a lot has changed since then, and many websites that were once safe to peruse without interference or manipulation are no longer.

What Happens When the Dependent Web Takes Over?

Nothing good.

I take that back. It’s not fair to make a blanket statement about Dependent Web platforms and sites. Users can certainly benefit from sharing some of their data with them.

Take Facebook, for instance. Since its creation, it’s enabled people to connect with long-lost friends, stay in touch with distant relatives, enable freelance professionals like ourselves to find like-minded communities, etc.

The same goes for websites and apps that track and use visitor data. Consumers are more than willing to share relevant data with companies so long as they benefit from the resulting personalized experiences.

But the Dependent Web also has a darker side. There are many ways that the Dependent Web costs consumers and businesses control over important things like:

Behavior

If you’ve seen The Social Dilemma, then you know that platforms like Facebook and Google profit from selling their users to advertisers.

That’s right. They’re not just selling user data. They’re selling users themselves. If the algorithms can change the way users behave, these platforms and their advertisers get to cash in big time.

Many websites and apps are also guilty of using manipulation to force users to behave how they want them to.

Personal Data

This one is well-known thanks to the GDPR in the EU and the CCPA in California. Despite these initiatives to protect user data and privacy, the exploitation of personal data on the web remains a huge public concern in recent years.

Content and Branding

This isn’t relevant to websites so much as it is to social media platforms and Google.

Dependent Web platforms ultimately dictate who sees your content and when. And while they’re more than happy to benefit from the traffic and engagement this content brings to their platforms, they’re just as happy to censor or pull down content as they please, just as Skillshare did in 2019 when it deleted half of its courses without telling its course creators.

What’s more, while social media and search engines have become the place to market our businesses, some of our branding gets lost when entering such oversaturated environments.

Income

When algorithms get updated, many businesses often feel the negative effects almost immediately.

For example, Facebook updated its algorithm in 2018 to prioritize “meaningful content.” This pushed out organic business content and pulled regular user content to the top of the heap.

This, in turn, forced businesses to have to pay-to-play if they wanted to use Facebook as a viable marketing platform.

Access

The Dependent Web doesn’t just impact individuals’ experiences. It can have far-reaching effects when one company provides a critical service to a large portion of the population.

We saw this happen in November when AWS went down.

It wasn’t just Amazon’s servers that went down, though. It took out apps and sites like:

  • 1Password
  • Adobe Spark
  • Capital Gazette
  • Coinbase
  • Glassdoor
  • Roku
  • The Washington Post

And there’s absolutely nothing that these businesses or their users could do but sit around and wait… because Amazon hosts a substantial portion of the web.

Innovation

When consumers and businesses become dependent on platforms that predominantly control the way we live and work, it’s difficult for us to stand up for the little guys trying to carve out innovative pathways.

And that’s exactly what we see happen time and time again with Big Tech’s buy-and-kill tactics.

As a result, we really lose the option to choose what we use to improve our lives and our businesses. And innovative thinkers lose the ability to bring much-needed changes to the world because Big Tech wants to own the vast majority of data and users.

How Can We Take Back Control From The Dependent Web?

Many things are happening right now that are trying to push consumers and businesses towards a more Independent Web:

Consumer Privacy Protection: GDPR and CCPA empower consumers to control where their data goes and what it’s used for.

Big Tech Regulations: The Senate held tech regulation hearings with Facebook’s and Twitters’s CEOs.

Public Awareness Initiatives: Films like The Social Dilemma bring greater awareness to what’s happening on social media.

Ad Blocker Adoption: Adblocker usage is at an all-time high.

Private Search Engine Usage: Although Google dominates search engine market share, people are starting to use private search engines like Duck Duck Go.

Private Browsing Growth: Over 60% of the global population is aware of what private browsing is (i.e., incognito mode), and roughly 35% use it when surfing the web.

Self-hosted and Open Source CMS Popularity: The IndieWeb community encourages people to move away from Dependent platforms and build their own websites and communities. This is something that Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, talked about back in 2012.

“The Internet needs a strong, independent platform for those of us who don’t want to be at the mercy of someone else’s domain. I like to think that if we didn’t create WordPress something else that looks a lot like it would exist. I think Open Source is kind of like our Bill of Rights. It’s our Constitution. If we’re not true to that, nothing else matters.”

As web designers, this is something that should really speak to you, especially if you’ve ever met a lead or client who didn’t understand why they needed a website when they could just advertise on Facebook or Instagram.

A Decentralized Web: Perhaps the most promising of all these initiatives are Solid and Inrupt, which were launched in 2018 by the creator of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee.

As Berners-Lee explained on the Inrupt blog in 2020:

”The Web was always meant to be a platform for creativity, collaboration, and free invention — but that’s not what we are seeing today. Today, business transformation is hampered by different parts of one’s life being managed by different silos, each of which looks after one vertical slice of life, but where the users and teams can’t get the insight from connecting that data. Meanwhile, that data is exploited by the silo in question, leading to increasing, very reasonable, public skepticism about how personal data is being misused. That in turn has led to increasingly complex data regulations.”

This is something we should all keep a close eye on. Consumers and businesses alike are becoming wary of the Dependent Web.

Who better than the creator of the web to lead us towards the Independent Web where we can protect our data and better control our experience?

 

Featured Image via Pexels.

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Wix Vs WordPress: 3rd Round Knockout

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Over the last fortnight one site builder has gone toe-to-toe with another, as Wix launched a marketing campaign aimed at attracting WordPress users, and instead attracted universal ire.

First, Wix sent out expensive headphones as gifts to key WordPress “influencers” in an attempt to lure them to the platform. Second, they produced a series of adverts that instead of promoting their own product, tried to imply that WordPress is so bad you’ll need mental health counselling to cope with it; it’s been widely frowned upon, but am I alone in thinking they’re not a million miles away from Apple’s anti-Windows adverts? No, I’m not.

Then, Wix made an attempt to go viral with an uncomfortable video in which a character portraying “WordPress” releases a “secret” message warning the community of “fake news” supposedly due to be released by Wix. The language and the styling is clear: WordPress is unhip daddio.

Unlike WordPress, Wix is a publicly owned company, it has an obligation to its shareholders to maximize its revenue. Had Wix targeted WordPress’ many failings, that would have been fair game. Had they gone after Shopify, or Webflow, or Squarespace, or one of the many other site builders on the market no one would have blinked an eye. Wix’s error wasn’t going after WordPress, or even the tactics used to do so, Wix’s mistake was in attacking the very community it was attempting to court.

I’m not a big fan of WordPress. I’ve built around a dozen sites in it over the years and we’ve never got along, WordPress and I. But I am a big fan of the ethos of WordPress; who doesn’t love free, open source software, built by volunteers?

The holy grail of marketing is transforming customers into evangelists — individuals who will bare their chests, paint their face with woad, and charge headlong onto social media at the merest hint of a perceived slight. You can’t buy them. It’s a loyalty that has to be cultivated over years, and requires more give than take. WordPress has those evangelists, people who see their careers in web design as intertwined with the CMS. No amount of free headphones is going to convert them to a closed system like Wix.

The irony is that Wix’s approach stemmed from the WordPress community itself. If it is going to celebrate “powering 40% of the Web” then it has to expect to make itself a target. If you’re an antelope, you don’t douse yourself in bbq sauce and strut around the waterhole where the lions like to hang out.

If the row rumbles on, it will eventually end in an apology and a promise from Wix to “do better.” But the truth is, all Wix did was confuse a community of people trying to build websites, with a competing business.

This time next year, Wix will still be recovering from the damage to its reputation, and WordPress will be telling us it powers 110% of the Web.

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Get Ready For Next Month’s Google Shakeup

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Google has been talking about the Core Web Vitals tool and the Page Experience Update for about a year now.

With the update scheduled to roll out in May 2021, now is the time to make sure your websites are prepared for it. It’s taking a lot of the best practices Google has recommended over the years and making them an official part of the search algorithm, so not taking this seriously could negatively impact your sites’ rankings.

Today, we’re going to look at everything Google has told us about the update and how to use the Core Web Vitals tool to ensure your site rankings don’t drop once it rolls out.

What We Know About the Google Page Experience Update

Google first told us about the page experience update back in May 2020. Here’s what we know about the upcoming update:

Google’s Search Algorithm Will Change in May 2021

Although there’s no specific day given, we do know that the page experience update will go live sometime in May 2021.

The Goal is to Reduce Friction on the Web

It’s not as though user experience is something that designers and developers overlook when building websites. Heck, there’s an entire disciple of UX design dedicated to it.

That said, Google hasn’t taken too hard line of an approach in enforcing its page experience suggestions, like mobile-first design, removing intrusive pop-ups, or improving page speed. With this update, though, Google is now telling every site owner that performance, accessibility, technical best practices, and SEO must be built into their websites.

Of course, the goal isn’t to create more work on your side of things. Google believes that by encouraging developers to build better web experiences that consumers will experience less friction and businesses will be more profitable as a result.

The Update Will Include Older Signals

According to Google, the page experience update is going to combine a bunch of older signals with the new Core Web Vitals:

The Core Web Vitals tool will now merge all of that data we once had to gather from various Google apps. That’ll make it more convenient for designers and developers to improve the on-page experience across a variety of areas.

The Page Experience Algorithm Will Change Over Time

Per Google:

Because we continue to work on identifying and measuring aspects of page experience, we plan to incorporate more page experience signals on a yearly basis to both further align with evolving user expectations and increase the aspects of user experience that we can measure.

So, don’t expect this to be a one-and-done thing. You’ll have to rely on the Core Web Vitals tool, and pay close attention to updates out of Google, to ensure your sites are keeping up with Google’s page experience standards.

Your Other Google Apps Have Already Been Updated with Core Web Vitals

If you hadn’t noticed, Google has already updated its other apps in anticipation of the page experience update.

Google PageSpeed Insights, Search Console, and Lighthouse all have Core Web Vitals data in them.

Here’s an example of how Lighthouse’s report on the Amazon website now looks:

By including these metrics within the tools you’re already using, you don’t necessarily have to add the Core Web Vitals tool to your growing toolbox. That said, there are some really valuable reports in there, so I’ll show you why you may want to add it anyway.

Google’s Top Stories Will Be Affected

In the past when someone did a news-related search on Google, they’d see “Top Stories” results like this one:

Until now, the only pages shown here were AMP-enabled ones. 

Once the page experience update goes live, though, the AMP requirement is going away. So long as a page meets the page experience criteria along with Google News content policies, it can now rank in this section.

Google Search Results May Show a Page Experience Indicator

In the Top Stories example above, notice the AMP indicator I highlighted in yellow. Google is thinking about adding something similar to any search result that fulfills its page experience criteria.

While I think a small, eye-catching icon might draw a little more attention from Google users, I’m not sure if it’ll be that big of a deal to them. People working in this industry certainly know what that lightning bolt means, and we’ll also be the ones who recognize the page experience indicator, but I’m not convinced it’ll matter to users. 

That said, this is something Google is thinking about rolling about, so it’s something to be aware of. At the very least, you can consider it a badge of honor when showing your websites to clients and prospects who want to see what you can do for them.

Content Is Still More Important Than Page Experience

Even if a website checks off all the page experience boxes, there’s no guarantee that it’ll start to rank better than websites that haven’t. The quality and value of the content on the page still matters greatly.

Using Core Web Vitals to Measure Page Experience

Alright, so let’s take a look at this Core Web Vitals tool. Here’s what the tool looks like when you enter the “Measure” tab:

It’s like most other Google analyzer tools. You enter the URL you want to audit and let the tool run. The results then spit out something that looks like this:

Core Web Vitals are graded on four categories:

  1. Performance measures the loading speed, interactivity, and stability of the page.
  2. Best Practices focus on the technical aspects of the page, including things like having an SSL certificate and making sure images fit within the parameters of the mobile screen.
  3. SEO checks on the typical SEO signals like metadata, structured data, and so on.
  4. Accessibility reports any issues with visitors not being able to see or access parts of the page.

If you scroll down just a little bit on the page, there’s more data available. It mainly has to deal with the technical stuff, like page speeds and unoptimized code:

Now, this isn’t really anything new. We can get this data about load time, interactivity, and content stability from Google’s other apps.

The real value is in the report, which you can access up top next to the date of your audit.

Open the report and you’ll find specific suggestions and pro tips to optimize each part of the page experience, like this SEO report:

Just like other Google tools, this one can teach you a lot about what makes one site more rankable than another. So, make sure you update your web design strategy going forward to integrate all of these ranking signals.

While you’ll have to do annual audits on your sites to see how much Google has changed the page experience signals, you’ll create less work for yourself if this baseline set of criteria are met with every site you build.

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4 Body Language Mistakes and How to Fix Them

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Our Self-presentation skills far supersede our verbal communication
We speak more through our bodies than our words. The posture we assume, the expression on our face, hand gestures, and our eye movement conveys far more than we would like to expose.
A subtle smile in a meeting can indicate a willingness to engage in a dialogue, while a stern look can instantly kill the conversation. Constantly checking the phone or looking at the watch can signal disengagement, while focusing on the other person signals interest.
Rolling our eyes expresses distrust or disgust in another person’s idea or behavior, while our eyes light up when we are genuinely curious about others. Keeping head down while walking in the hallway shows a lack of presence while acknowledging people passing by through a simple nod creates warmth. A firm handshake to begin an interview can exude confidence and power, while a limp handshake can reveal nervousness and weakness.
These non-verbal cues form a part of our body language that speaks even when we are silent, revealing how we are thinking and feeling in the moment.
Olivia Fox Cabane who has lectured at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, MIT, and the United Nations says:

In the scope of human evolution, language is a relatively recent invention. But we’ve been interacting well before this through nonverbal modes of communication. As a result, nonverbal communication is hardwired into our brains, much deeper than the more recent language-processing abilities. This is why nonverbal communication has a far greater impact.

She then points out ‘Without our realizing it, our bodies send out thousands of signals every minute. Just like our breath and heartbeat, these signals are part of the millions of bodily functions controlled not by our conscious mind but by our subconscious mind.’
Understanding the power of our body language and the role it plays in workplace communication and collaboration can bring us together by adopting positive communication styles as opposed to setting us apart through bridges of misunderstanding.

Importance of Body Language in Communication

Our body language plays a key role in impression management, the art of influencing how we are perceived by others.
A positive body language can show our enthusiasm to contribute, confidence in our abilities, being comfortable in taking on challenges, passion to drive results, and present to recognize future demands. It can open a world of new possibilities.
A negative body language can send strong signals of our resistance to contribute, doubt of our abilities, uneasiness to take on challenges, indifferent and uncaring attitude towards outcomes, and disconnected from reality to be able to handle future potential. It can close doors to success and growth.
Maya Angelou said, ‘People may not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel.’
Since our emotions drive a large part of our decision-making, guess who will get the attention when a new project or a position opens up — a person who exhibited confidence in their body language or someone who looked like a nervous wreck?
Intelligence and brilliance are not enough to be successful at work. Our self-presentation skills far supersede our verbal communication.

The way you carry yourself is a source of personal power — the kind of power that is the key to presence. It’s the key that allows you to unlock yourself—your abilities, your creativity, your courage, and even your generosity. It doesn’t give you skills or talents you don’t have; it helps you to share the ones you do have. It doesn’t make you smarter or better informed; it makes you more resilient and open. It doesn’t change who you are; it allows you to be who you are. — Amy Cuddy

What happens when what we say is not in alignment with what we believe? We can lie through our words, but our bodies will reveal the truth. The non-verbal cues that we send through our body speak stronger than words.
Consider this. Someone approaches you with advice on a new strategy. Instead of expressing your true opinion, you simply nod in agreement. But, the tension around your eyes, the tone of your voice, and many other non-verbal cues can make the other person uncomfortable and leave them feeling unsure of your advice with the decision to never trust you again.
The idea is not to be inauthentic through your body language but to be aware of its implications. 
Research shows that we form impressions about others within a few minutes of meeting them and then our confirmation bias guides us in picking data that confirms our point of view. Anything that strengthens our belief system is readily accepted and that which contradicts it is rejected.
Being aware of the role our body language plays in forming this impression can help us twist the outcome of an interview in our favor.
For someone in a leadership position, body language is extremely important since people in an organization mimic not only the way leaders talk but also pick on their non-verbal cues.
A leader with positive body language appears approachable, open to feedback and shows a willingness to change while a leader with negative body language appears inaccessible, closed to feedback, and arrogant to adapt and change with the future demands.
Amy Cuddy asks, ‘Our non-verbals govern how others think and feel about us, but do our non-verbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves?’
Absolutely. Mastering the art of non-verbal communication not only leads to better communication with others, but it benefits us too. Presenting our best self forward by adopting positive body language enables us to be the creator of our future as opposed to being a victim of other’s perceptions. It leads to more opportunities for growth with higher chances of success.

4 Body Language Mistakes and How to Fix Them

1. Mind Is Not Attuned to The Body

When our mind is not in congruence with our body, we may try to portray a state which is in conflict with our inner self by controlling our posture and expression on our face, but sooner or later this incongruence will show up in our body language.
A positive body language cannot keep up with the negative mental state — what goes up in our mind will show up in our body. Without our realization, these ‘microexpressions’ will be noticeable to the people around us.

Our body language expresses our mental state whether we like it or not. Our facial expressions, voice posture, and all the other components of body language reflect our mental and emotional condition every second. Because we don’t control this flow consciously, whatever is in our head will show up in our body language — Olivia Fox Cabane

How to Align Our Mind and Body:

Research shows that our mind cannot distinguish imagination from reality. So, whatever our mind believes, our body will project.
We can bring out the desired body language by catching ourselves in those moments of negative mental states — disagreement, insecurity, angst, frustration, anxiety, criticism, and self-doubt, and choosing to get into a positive one.

  1. When you need to project confidence, seek inspiration.
  2. When you feel angst due to a disagreement, ask yourself ‘What can I learn from the other person?’ and ‘How are my biases causing me to be closed-minded?’
  3. When all you can see is negativity, choose to ask ‘What’s the one positive thing I can think about this situation.’
  4. When self-doubt consumes you, tell yourself ‘I need to let go of my fears to create a better version of myself.’
  5. When you exaggerate a negative outcome, ask yourself ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ and ‘Is it really that bad or am I making up stories?’
Adopting a positive frame of reference and moving from a problem to a solution mindset can help us shift gears from a negative internal state to a positive one.

2. We Do Not Make a Commitment to Be Present

‘Being present—paying attention to what’s going on rather than being caught up in your thoughts — can yield immense rewards. When you exhibit presence, those around you feel listened to, respected, and valued,’ explains Olivia Fox Cabane.
When we are not engaged in a conversation, consumed in our own thoughts, and pretend to listen, it clearly shows up in the non-verbal signals we send to the other person.
We may start fidgeting with our phone or laptop showing signs of distraction, look here and there instead of making eye contact signaling we are not interested in what they have to say and may even shift too many times in our position out of discomfort.
Without our awareness, our body language will convey disrespect and distrust to the other person.
How to Be Present:

You must commit to a conversation, even the brief ones, or walk away. If you’re too distracted, admit that to both yourself and the other person. Be present or be gone. — Celeste Headlee 

It’s more polite to walk away from a conversation that doesn’t interest you than pretend to be present.
Once you decide to participate, you first need to convince and tell yourself that you want to be present. Say ‘I choose to be present,’ and then adopt body language that aligns with it — look at the other person with enthusiasm, lean just a little to build interest, and try to grasp what the other person intends to say.
You may occasionally drift away, but by choosing to be mentally present, you can bring your mind back to the conversation. Active listening though difficult is the most effective form of non-verbal communication that requires continuous practice and training of the mind.

3. We Ignore Context

When we talk to someone, their perception of us is based on the context of the meeting, their expectations, and their own personal and cultural filters.
Without recognizing that people operate within a certain context, we may send non-verbal signals that conflict with their values, contradicts their mental state, or even violates their sense of self.
How to Apply Context:
When engaged in a difficult conversation, without empathizing with how the other person might be feeling in the moment, we may appear cold, unemotional, and downright rude. By adopting kindness and warmth in our body language, we can convey the right message without necessarily making them feel bad.
When someone is passed up for a promotion, showing an attitude of indifference without understanding the value it holds in their life can make them resent you. Body language that shows presence and concern by giving them an opportunity to express their feelings can build better relationships.
When a co-worker is grieving a personal loss, you may appear too intrusive in your body language when all they need is space to let the feelings subside. It could be a personal preference or a cultural nuance, but without understanding their context you may actually do more harm than good.
When dealing with difficult people, your body language may switch to a fight-or-flight response. But, if you take a moment to analyze the situation without being at the effect of a fundamental attribution error, you may understand the rationale behind their behavior.
Every situation is unique. We need to project the right body language for each person by taking their context and personal filters into account.

4. We Tell a Conflicting Story

We may believe that we are highly approachable, but others may find us unapproachable. We may also think that we are open-minded, while others may find us biased. We may assume that we provide a psychologically safe environment to our people, but our employees may be terrified to make mistakes.
Now, it’s easy to say that ‘it’s just them, not me. I have already communicated to them multiple times.’ But really, is that the true story? Your intention may be far from the reality of your situation.    

Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We add meaning to the action we observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment — is that good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion. — Kerry Patterson

When our body language doesn’t match our words, people pick up on our non-verbal signals — the sign of contempt on our face when someone makes a mistake, pacing back and forth when conveying bad news, showing nervousness by fidgeting when asking for feedback, rolling eyes when we disagree, making hand gestures that signal blame and so on.
So, while you may communicate one thing with your words, your body may speak the opposite. And when people get confusing signals, they tend to go with what they observed and not what they heard.
How to Tell the Right Story:
Bring your body language in sync with the message you wish to convey. People find it easy to trust a person when their body language reflects their words.
When asking for feedback, look the person in the eye and don’t be distracted. When someone makes a mistake, show curiosity in your face to enable them to learn from their mistakes. When telling people to feel comfortable to approach you, make open arm-hand gestures. When communicating bad news, be intense but show confidence in your ability to make things right by looking at people with passion and hope.
People spend a lot of time perfecting their speech without verifying what their speech is conveying through their body. When it comes to making the right impression, don’t just speak through your words, make your body language count too.

Summary

Master the art of non-verbal communication in the workplace by:

  1. Tuning to a positive state of mind: Be self-aware of your negative mental states and choose to get into a positive one.
  2. Committing to being present: Practice active listening and engage fully in the conversation instead of being simply present.
  3. Taking context into account: Connect with the other person by taking their values, mental state, and sense of self into account.
  4. Telling the right story: Bring your body in sync with the message you wish to convey.
Previously published here.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

3 Essential Design Trends, April 2021

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The best thing about writing about website design trends each month is looking at all the great sites that are being developed. Designers are stretching creatively and exploring new techniques and ways of doing things all the time.

It’s refreshing and inspiring. This month, some of those trends include a style that nods to brutalism, slide scrolling that’s interesting and fresh, and animated typography.

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

1. Almost Brutalism

Brutalism can be a lot to handle and only really works for certain types of projects. That being said, some of the elements of brutalism can be the foundation for an interesting aesthetic.

So, it’s not surprising that an “almost brutalism” trend has emerged.

Designers are working with some of the design elements – slab fonts, simple color schemes with a lot of contrast, twitchy animation, mono typefaces, and overall design patterns that are almost over-simplified.

The result is a striking design that isn’t so harsh that it turns users away. It’s the right combination of brutalism and usability to create something with a harder-edge feel that people understand.

Good Garms uses a typewriter-style typeface, simple patterns, and one of the most streamlined designs you might find for an ecommerce store. It’s effective and makes you look because it is different.

Dockyard Social uses an unexpected color combination with high contrast, sharp shapes, and design elements, and bold slab typography to grab your attention right away. The theme continues on the scroll with new color combinations with equally brutal design elements. It feels a little tight and uncomfortable in places but still highly usable – exactly what almost-brutalism intends to do.

ZN Studio uses the same big, bold type elements as the previous example with a twitchy-style animation to draw you into the design. The entire design uses clever animation effects with a brutal aesthetic to keep you scrolling.

 

 

2. Beautiful Slide Scrolling

You can argue the value – or lack thereof – of website sliders as long as you want to. The reality, though, is that, for the most part, they are clunky and get in the way of the content. It’s a lazy option that keeps you from having to make a content choice.

Not with these beautiful slide-scrolling website designs.

Each of these designs uses side-scrolling as a design asset. Here’s the trick that makes it work: Slide scrolling isn’t a “feature” above a bunch of other content. It is how the content is featured.

These examples show you how to use the trend well and should get you excited about slide (or side) scrolling.

Eduardo del Fraile uses a side scroll to show different projects in his portfolio. In addition to scroll, each element also has a simple and beautiful animation that allows you to see each product he has designed. Everything about the scrolling motion is intuitive, and the site never scrolls vertically, which is where many side scrollers go wrong.

Jo Ash Sakula uses a similar concept for the side scroll here but with different design elements. The bold card elements are striking in terms of color, contrast, and design. You know the scroll will move horizontally because a third element sneaks into your field of vision on the right side. It’s simple, clean, and highly usable.

Crimea is interesting because it has an “almost brutalism” style design and uses a side-scrolling pattern. The design is bold and almost overwhelming, but the scroll works to tell a nice story with visuals and content.

 

 

3. Typography Animations

Web typography can make or break a design from font choice to size and color to animation, every detail with text elements matters.

This trend explores and pushes the boundaries of animation with text elements in website design. And it is so tricky. The difference between an amazing result and a design fail is a thin line that can be quite subjective.

Each of these examples does something unique with text and animation together to create just the right feel. The flow for each is seamless and text elements – while incorporating movement – maintain readability.

Visages Du Rhone has two layers of animation. The first happens as the words come onto the screen as the color and fade change within the letters. The second is a subtle hover state with a fluid feel for the letters that match the design’s underwater theme. What’s special about the typography animation is that it happens without distorting the letters, something many other liquid text animations do.

Poolhouse uses transparent letters with movement in a layer behind the words. What’s very neat here is the additional filtering so that the background motion still works while maintaining the integrity of each letterform. Again, the focus on keeping text readable is what sets this design apart and makes it trend-worthy.

Komnata takes a wholly different approach with letters that float and look like balloons. The motion mimics what you would expect from an element that looks and feels like something in the real world. The user doesn’t have to do anything for this motion to take place. The animation might be even more effective if the scroll and pointer did not have a tail that “draws” on the screen as a distracting element.

 

 

Conclusion

The good thing about looking at variations of different trends is that you can see the practical application and apply it to your projects. While you might not move to a full sliding scroll on your website homepage, you could use that concept in another part of the design.

Experiment, have fun and draw inspiration from trending website designs.

Source

The post 3 Essential Design Trends, April 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot