Features and Asset Management Capabilities

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Source de l’article sur sap.com

28 mai 2021/par Service comm.

Intégrer l’impact social au cœur de l’entreprise

Actualités, ERP & Applications, SAP

En s’associant à des entreprises sociales, les grandes firmes peuvent accélérer leur croissance tout en s’assurant que leurs opérations ont un impact positif sur le plan humanitaire et environnemental.

Le monde des affaires n’a jamais été aussi rude. Alors que la planète connaît de multiples crises (pandémie mondiale, injustice sociale, surconsommation des ressources et changement climatique), les grandes firmes doivent repenser leur stratégie de création de valeur. Dans toutes les régions du monde et tous les secteurs d’activité, les entreprises doivent mettre en place de nouvelles initiatives, au-delà de leur mission et de leurs activités de base, pour contribuer à un monde plus prospère, équitable et durable.

Les entreprises qui y parviendront trouveront le juste équilibre. Aujourd’hui plus que jamais, les employés cherchent à s’épanouir dans leur travail et à évoluer dans un environnement orienté vers la diversité et l’intégration. Le développement durable, tourné vers l’avenir et axé sur les solutions, attire les talents et renforce l’engagement. Simultanément, les entreprises cherchent à renforcer leur agilité, leur résilience et leur capacité d’innovation pour créer de la valeur à long terme.

« Les investisseurs évaluent de plus en plus les entreprises à l’aune de leur impact sur la société et l’environnement. »

Chez SAP, nous ne faisons pas de distinction. Notre approche consiste à évoluer de manière globale et à aligner nos objectifs. Notre principe fondateur consiste à placer les objectifs communs et les valeurs partagées au cœur de l’activité, tout en exploitant les technologies numériques. Cette puissante combinaison inspire, implique et attire les talents, en stimulant par là même l’innovation, l’agilité et la résilience.

Les collaborateurs inspirés et les prouesses technologiques ouvrent la voie au changement positif et au développement, comme le partenariat avec les entreprises sociales.

Les entreprises sociales sont des sociétés ordinaires à but lucratif, qui poursuivent une mission humanitaire ou environnementale. Lorsqu’elles réalisent des bénéfices, elles en reversent une part significative au profit de cette mission. Les entreprises sociales représentent une ressource largement sous-exploitée par les grandes firmes, qui doivent répondre aux attentes en constante évolution des consommateurs, des employés et des investisseurs. En établissant un partenariat avec une entreprise sociale ou en achetant ses produits ou services, ces sociétés peuvent en effet transformer une activité de base comme l’acquisition de biens et de services en stratégie de croissance durable, tout en renforçant le sentiment d’appartenance des collaborateurs et la fidélité des clients.

Priorité à l’impact social

Les consommateurs attendent des entreprises qu’elles aient à la fois un impact économique et social. C’est ce qui ressort de l’évolution spectaculaire des comportements d’achat. Selon le NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, la hausse des ventes de biens de consommation emballés enregistrée entre 2013 et 2018 est due à 50 % aux produits commercialisés sur le marché durable.

En outre, de plus en plus d’employés attendent de leur entreprise qu’elle promeuve des solutions aux défis mondiaux. Les candidats les plus performants recherchent aujourd’hui des entreprises qui soutiennent des initiatives ayant un impact social et qui leur permettent de mettre leurs compétences non seulement au service du chiffre d’affaires et du résultat net, mais aussi de la « ligne verte » de croissance durable.

Les investisseurs évaluent de plus en plus les entreprises à l’aune de leur impact sur la société et l’environnement, et les répercussions financières sont réelles. Les questions environnementales et sociales sont à l’origine de 25 % de l’argent investi aux États-Unis. À l’échelle mondiale, 23 000 millions de dollars sont aujourd’hui alloués à des fonds engagés dans le cadre d’investissements responsables.

Les entreprises sociales œuvrent depuis des décennies à la mise en place de modèles d’entreprise plus durables et inclusifs. Souvent en sous-effectif, à la poursuite de missions, elles sont fortement affectées par la pandémie mondiale. Ce contexte offre aux grandes firmes une opportunité de taille : soutenir ces entreprises vitales en pleine croissance et protéger ainsi des années d’innovation et de création de valeur.

Le secteur des entreprises sociales est estimé à 12 000 millions de dollars à l’échelle mondiale et pourrait créer 380 millions d’emplois d’ici 2030. Un soutien significatif et un partenariat avec les entreprises sociales permettraient d’intégrer le changement social et des missions humanitaires plus ciblées dans les activités de base.

Plateforme SAP One Billion Lives

L’un des principes de SAP One Billion Lives est de trouver comment les entreprises pourrait mieux se développer. L’ambition de SAP One Billion Lives d’avoir un impact positif sur un milliard d’individus repose en partie sur le soutien aux entrepreneurs sociaux.

En interne, SAP One Billion Lives aide les employés qui conçoivent et développent un portefeuille de projets durables de valeur partagée. Ces projets se proposent de contribuer à la résolution des plus grands défis de notre planète en exploitant ce que SAP a de meilleur à offrir : ses collaborateurs, ses technologies, ses écosystèmes et ses ressources.

« Les entreprises sociales sont des sociétés ordinaires à but lucratif, qui poursuivent une mission humanitaire ou environnementale. »

Guidés par leur cœur et leur expertise, et étayés par les ressources SAP, nos employés ont su créer des activités qui ont contribué à l’établissement de protocoles de traitement contre le cancer plus efficaces en Inde, qui ont amélioré les actions de secours aux sinistrés dans le monde, qui ont rendu possible la création d’une chaîne logistique durable et qui ont permis de lutter contre le travail des enfants dans les mines de cobalt. Face à la pandémie mondiale, SAP One Billion Lives s’est également attaché à relever les défis de la COVID-19, depuis l’apport d’une réponse humanitaire jusqu’à une meilleure gestion des groupes affectés à différents stades sur le lieu de travail.

Exploiter les achats solidaires

SAP One Billion Lives mise sur l’intégration des entreprises sociales dans l’économie mondiale par le biais de nouvelles pratiques d’approvisionnement et d’un soutien aux entrepreneurs sociaux. La mission externe de la plateforme consiste notamment à vanter les bienfaits, réels et inhérents, du soutien aux entreprises sociales.

Les achats solidaires constituent l’un des moyens les plus simples pour une grande firme de renforcer considérablement sa contribution à un monde plus durable et plus équitable. Les éléments fondamentaux d’une entreprise peuvent sembler universels, qu’il s’agisse de services marketing, de café ou de papier. Il existe des entreprises sociales qui peuvent répondre à ces besoins et à bien d’autres encore. La valeur augmente et les dépenses restent les mêmes. SAP a consacré 2,5 % de ses dépenses réductibles au Royaume-Uni pour soutenir les entreprises sociales et nous prévoyons non seulement d’augmenter ce chiffre de manière significative, mais aussi de développer le programme à l’échelle mondiale.

SAP Ariba Network, le plus grand réseau de commerce interentreprises au monde, qui traite plus de 3 000 millions de dollars de transactions par an, a établi un partenariat avec Social Enterprise UK. SAP a intégré les membres de Social Enterprise UK au service d’une mission sur le réseau Ariba, mettant ainsi en contact de nombreuses entreprises sociales avec des grandes firmes du monde entier désireuses de dépenser autrement.

« Les entreprises sociales œuvrent depuis des décennies à la mise en place de modèles d’entreprise plus durables et inclusifs. »

SAP estime que nous avons un rôle essentiel à jouer. Nous pouvons favoriser la création de valeur plus ciblée pour nos clients et nos communautés en les aidant à fonctionner de manière durable, à innover et à nouer des partenariats pour créer un monde plus équitable.

SAP défend les trois thèmes exposés dans le premier article de cette série. Les défis auxquels nous sommes confrontés aujourd’hui ne sont pas indépendants, mais plutôt interdépendants. Nous sommes profondément convaincus que les entreprises les plus performantes de demain rechercheront le bénéfice, la résilience et la durabilité à parts égales. La formule est claire : servir un objectif et renforcer la croissance.

Publié en anglais sur The New Economy

The post Intégrer l’impact social au cœur de l’entreprise appeared first on SAP France News.

27 mai 2021/par Service comm.

Start Using a Smart DAM and Image Optimization Stack

Asset management and website performance optimization are two of those unavoidable headaches faced by every website owner.

A digital asset management (DAM) platform can provide centralized asset repositories with intuitive dashboards to help you manage assets. On the other hand, an image CDN can help you get rid of that messy responsive syntax and provide dynamic asset optimization with huge performance boosts.

The problem is that website performance has become such a competitive factor that DAMs with other priorities tend to fall short. On the other hand, specialized image CDNs don’t solve the problems associated with image management, particularly within organizations.

With that in mind, I propose solving these problems for good by putting together image management and optimization stack using ImageEngine and Cloudinary. Instead of being a comparison between these two tools, this article describes the benefits of using them to complement each other.

Features and Asset Management Capabilities

As a DAM, Cloudinary provides you with a visual interface to store, manage, and edit your image and video assets. In that way, it’s not much different from any other professional image managing software such as Adobe Bridge, except that it’s an online, browser-based service.

Using the Media Library, you can upload, delete, and organize images in folders, for example. The visual image editor allows you to make advanced transformations and image touch-ups and see the results instantaneously using tools like sliders, dropdowns, etc. You can even chain transformations together for multi-layered effects.

Cloudinary also allows you to manipulate images and videos this way using their URL-based API.

Cloudinary has additional auxiliary features that make asset management easier (especially in organizations), such as backups, role-based multi-user admin, and feature extensions via third-party integrations and add-ons.

This is something most image CDNs don’t provide. Instead, they allow you to access and transform images using URL manipulation. Transformations are usually made using string-based parameters or directives. A serverless, headless DAM, if you will.

However, the advantage of using a dedicated image CDN like ImageEngine, is that it can usually provide enhanced asset optimization. ImageEngine, for example, is an intelligent image CDN that uses WURFL device detection to finely read the context an image is accessed from (device model, PPI, OS, browser, resolution, etc.) and then chooses the optimal image for that configuration.

This frees up website owners from having to do any additional optimization. This business logic is also built-in to all of their global PoP servers, and ImageEngine specifically delivers cache-hit ratios close to 100%. The following performance section will illustrate the difference this can make in practice.

Check out the key differences between ImageEngine and Cloudinary. And, for a deeper insight, see the comparison with other similar CDNs, like imgix and Cloudflare

Performance

Just to cover our bases and prove that this is an effective asset management and optimization stack, I’m also going to affirm it using a Lighthouse performance audit. Here is a quick summary of the results:

For this test, I built a web page with a tonne of images with overly large file sizes. In this first Lighthouse audit, I didn’t apply any optimization to the images. Here’s the result:

As you can see, we had some major problems when it came to the loading time of our assets. Overall, the page took more than 10 seconds to load. One of Google’s crucial user-centric performance metrics, LCP, scored a miserable 7.5s. Lighthouse suggested that some of the main problems encountered were the asset file size, inefficient cache policies, using non-optimal image formats, and improperly sized images.

Both Cloudinary and ImageEngine are supposed to address all of these factors with their auto image optimization. In the next audit, I used the same page and content but served my images via Cloudinary:

As you can see, there is improvement in most factors. FCP is now in the green, and both the Speed index and LCP times have almost halved. Even TTI and CLS improved slightly. That being said, it’s still nowhere near optimal, and we’re still falling short of the all-important 3-second loading time ceiling.

So, finally, let’s do another Lighthouse audit – this time using ImageEngine on top of Cloudinary. Here are the results:

With ImageEngine, I finally scored in the green with 95. All the metrics that have to do with the sheer speed at which image content loads improved. The Speed Index and LCP, which is the most important, improved dramatically. CLS scored worse, but this typically varies from test to test.

You can find another and more extensive breakdown of the performance and pricing comparison here.

Transformations, Bandwidth Utilization, and Cost

Cloudinary’s pricing plans work on a credit-based system. Starting with the free account, you get 25 credits/month. Each credit can be used for 1,000 transformations, 1 GB of storage, or 1 GB of net viewing bandwidth. The other two packages cost $99 for 225 credits and $249 for 600 credits, respectively.

You should plan to generate a minimum of 5 transformations per image. In effect, that limits you to around 200 images with the free plan, excluding whatever manual transformations you make.

ImageEngine’s Basic plan costs $49 and provides you with 100 GB of Smart Bytes. Smart Bytes are based on optimized image content and translate to roughly 400-500 GB of raw images.

So, with Cloudinary, you have to compromise between bandwidth and storage usage as well as the number of transformations you can make. Transformations for Cloudinary are counted as they are dynamically generated on-demand.

However, if you use ImageEngine for optimization, you can switch off Cloudinary’s auto-optimization. When a new image variant is needed, it will be generated and delivered via ImageEngine. Considering variant count isn’t limited by ImageEngine, this will drastically cut down on the number of credits you’ll need to spend on transformations.

Effectively, that means you could use the bulk of your Cloudinary credits purely for storage and specific transformations. For example, advanced cropping, applying effects, or color adjustments. These are, after all, the main functions of a DAM.

With this setup, ImageEngine’s Basic plan and Cloudinary’s free plan should be adequate for most websites, saving around $50 a month.

How to Implement Cloudinary with ImageEngine

Signing up for Both Services

As it will house all of your image assets, the logical place to start would be to sign up with Cloudinary.

Create a (free) account, and make sure to take note of your “cloud name” during the setup wizard. This will be the name of your designated storage location on the Cloudinary platform and is usually a garbled string like di2zgnxh0 by default. However, you can change this to something more meaningful.

Once you’ve signed up, you can start uploading your image assets and creating different versions/transformations of them. Setting up Cloudinary integration on a CMS, like WordPress, is usually straightforward. Just indicate the CMS you’ll be using, copy the API key, install the plugin, and activate it.

Next, sign up for a free trial with ImageEngine. There will also be a short setup wizard during which you will:

Provide ImageEngine with the website where your images will be delivered.
Supply your image origin (in this case, your Cloudinary web folder). For now, you can only add the Cloudinary, e.g., res.cloudinary.com.
Get your ImageEngine image-serving domain, e.g., {randomstring}.cdn.imgeng.in

When in your ImageEngine dashboard, you’ll see this domain listed under “Engines” as well as an entry for Cloudinary under “Origins.” Edit the latter and under “Advanced,” add your Cloudinary folder to the “PATH” field.

That’s it, you should now be able to store and manage images via Cloudinary and serve them via the ImageEngine CDN.

Dynamically Loading Specific Image Variants

Let’s take a look at a use case for loading different transformations of individual images on your site. This example will showcase how you can use Cloudinary’s advanced image editing tools to transform images while still reaping the optimization rewards of using ImageEngine as your image CDN.

A popular practice today is to use rounded images for team, client, or profile portraits. Using Cloudinary, you can load this transformation using the following URL:

https://res.cloudinary.com/myimages/image/upload/w_400,h_400,c_crop,g_face,r_max/w_200/profile.jpg

This will resize the image to 400 by 400px, focus on the face, and apply the maximum amount of radial cropping around it – to a width of 200px.

The same image can then be accessed via your ImageEngine delivery engine simply by swapping out the domain:

https://images.myimageengine.com.imgeng.in/image/upload/w_400,h_400,c_crop,g_face,r_max/w_200/profile.jpg

NOTE: I added my Cloudinary folder designation (“myimages”) as the path to my image origin. With that config, I don’t need to include it every time I use the image URL.

For example, you can set up the origin like this:

And, then under advanced:

If I specifically wanted to load the profile picture in WebP format (for transparency support, for example), I could add the ImageEngine directive f_webp:

https://images.myimageengine.com.imgeng.in/image/upload/w_400,h_400,c_crop,g_face,r_max/w_200/?imgeng=/f_webp/profile.jpg

ImageEngine and Cloudinary – The Wrap Up

Both ImageEngine and Cloudinary are superb platforms that can make managing image and video assets easier and improve your website maintenance. However, both services have their specialty in which they outperform each other.

For ImageEngine, it’s delivering blisteringly fast image loading times in next-gen formats and with a minimal loss of visual quality.

For Cloudinary, it’s providing a visual interface to organize, store, and edit your image and video assets.

As a further incentive, letting each of these services handle what they’re best at can lead to lowering your long-term operating costs.

[– This is a sponsored post on behalf of ImageEngine –]

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Source de l’article sur sap.com

26 mai 2021/par Service comm.

SAP conclut avec succès la roadmap finance de SCOR

Actualités, ERP & Applications, SAP

Après avoir mis SAP HANA au cœur du SI financier de SCOR, SAP annonce que son client a finalisé avec succès sa roadmap finance. Annoncée en 2015, cette dernière permet aux différents métiers de la finance de SCOR de répondre sereinement aux objectifs des années à venir. La raison d’être du projet : être au service des métiers pour soutenir l’excellence opérationnelle du domaine finance.

Quatrième réassureur mondial, SCOR offre à ses clients une gamme innovante et diversifiée de solutions et de services pour le contrôle et la gestion des risques via une assise financière solide. Fidèle à sa devise « l’Art et la Science du Risque », le Groupe met son expertise reconnue au sein du secteur et ses solutions financières de pointe au service du bien-être et de la résilience des populations.

Répondre à de nombreux enjeux business et numérique pour évoluer technologiquement

SCOR concrétise sa roadmap 2015-2020 avec la conversion vers S/4HANA opérée en Juillet 2020, point d’orgue d’une ambition métier supportée par SAP HANA visant à mettre en place une plateforme financière unique et intégrée pour l’ensemble des besoins de la Finance.

Ce plan sur 5 ans a permis la mise en place des axes suivants :

Le passage des portfolio Analytics (SAP BW) et EPM (SAP BFC) sur une instance SAP HANA unique
La migration du General Ledger (ECC) sur S/4HANA;
La création et le développement de la Reporting Factory, s’appuyant sur un catalogue analytique en temps réel et réconcilié « by design » par une consolidation très précise grâce à 3 outils SAP intégrés :
- Analysis For Office (AO) pour l’analyse et la manipulation des données
- SAP Analysis Cloud (SAC) pour le dashborading
- Disclosure Management (DM) pour le reporting statique
La digitalisation et la robotisation des processus Finance au sein du Groupe

Un déploiement prenant en considération tous les paramètres, coûts, délais et qualité grâce à l’expertise consolidée métier, projets et systèmes du SAP Competency Center de SCOR dirigé par François Bossard, qui s’est vu être complétée par le déploiement sur une instance unique de la gestion de la trésorerie (SAP TRM), de la communication bancaire (SAP BCM), de la gestion budgétaire (SAP eBPC) et de la sécurisation du cycle de développement (Solution Manager).

SCOR est désormais doté d’un avantage concurrentiel indéniable pour les 3 prochaines années dans le domaine de la Finance en termes d’innovations technologiques. Sa plateforme est complètement intégrée et dotée d’interfaces répondant en temps réel voire en streaming, un niveau d’intégration que de nombreux acteurs commencent tout juste à entrevoir. Ces avancées sont dues à un concept fonctionnel clé : la réconciliation « by design » de l’ensemble des domaines de la finance au sein d’une plateforme unifiée.

« SCOR posait il y a 10 ans les bases d’une vision rationnalisée de son système d’information financier en migrant l’ensemble de ses comptabilités dans SAP. Ces cinq dernières années, il nous paraissait naturel de faire fructifier cet acquis via une roadmap de développement ambitieuse, associant enrichissements fonctionnels et innovations technologiques pour en tirer tous les bénéfices, optimisant nos processus financiers et nos capacités analytiques. Grâce à ces acquis et à une migration fluide vers S/4HANA réalisée en quelques mois, nous pouvons compter sur une plateforme financière performante qui est en mesure d’encaisser les impacts des prochaines échéances d’évolution règlementaire IFRS9 et IFSR17 », précise Marc Philippe, Directeur des Systèmes d’Information du Groupe SCOR.

Une implémentation réussie pour aller plus loin dans l’excellence opérationnelle

Déployée en juillet 2020, SAP S/4HANA, montre déjà de nombreux bénéfices : des économies sur de nombreux projets, des gains de temps pour mieux redéployer les ressources, la mise en place de process plus intégrés, plus automatisés, plus simples et plus informés pour permettre aux équipes de se concentrer sur leur valeur ajoutée et ainsi libérer du temps aux collaborateurs pour se concentrer sur l’opérationnel. Cette nouvelle étape répond à une logique stratégique sur le moyen long-terme. En effet, elle permet de se rapprocher tactiquement de la roadmap SAP, d’avoir toujours un œil sur l’innovation, d’aller encore plus loin dans l’excellence opérationnelle ou encore de se rapprocher davantage de la réalité comptable tout en abordant de manière plus sereine les challenges normatifs de l’industrie pour les 3 prochaines années.

A l’initiative et à la direction de cette roadmap, y compris la conversion vers S/4HANA venant la conclure, Marc Henry, Head of Finance Projects, Systems, Processes and Controls du Groupe SCOR, précise que « S/4HANA nous permet de construire et développer IFRS9 et IFRS17 sur la nouvelle plateforme sans avoir à faire de migration par la suite. La solution nous permet aussi de développer de nouvelles fonctionnalités clés comme l’ajout de devises, de ledger, de GAAPs et d’aller encore plus loin dans l’intégration du domaine de la finance ».

La solution SAP Analytics Cloud permet de déployer un ensemble de best practices, de capitaliser sur l’ensemble des efforts consentis sur HANA et de s’inscrire comme early-adopter de la roadmap de SAP pour assurer une co-innovation et un partage constant avec toutes les parties prenantes. La solution fournit également au top management des données en temps réel leur permettant d’avoir un avis fiable et factuel sur plusieurs process comme la santé financière de leur division dans le cadre d’un projet ou encore sur le pilotage de KPIs plus globaux. Enfin, SAC permet de rendre les utilisateurs de la solution plus indépendants afin d’être davantage sur l’accompagnement et la certification de la donnée plutôt que sur sa production par les équipes métier.

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (eBPC) a offert à SCOR la possibilité d’adapter ses plans de planification, de budgétisation, de prévision pour améliorer l’ensemble du processus budgétaire du Groupe. La solution a également permis d’entrevoir des gains additionnels au regard de la roadmap SAP et de son intégration avec d’autres outils déjà existants comme SAP Analytics Cloud Planning. L’objectif : accélérer les cycles budgétaires et de clôture financière, et renforcer l’expérience utilisateur.

« Après le succès de la première implémentation avec SAP, nous souhaitions poursuivre la collaboration. Nous avons pu mettre en place une plate-forme mondiale intégrée, dotée d’une base de données unique disponible en temps réel. SCOR a pu capitaliser sur tout le travail effectué précédemment, avoir un seul point d’accès pour la donnée Finance et rendre certains modules plus flexibles. Nous sommes très fiers d’être une vitrine pour SAP qui nous offre de réels bénéfices opérationnels à court terme », ajoute Marc Henry.

A 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 : 77 % des transactions commerciales mondiales entrent en contact avec un système SAP®. 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.

Contacts presse :

Daniel MARGATO, Directeur Communication : 06 64 25 38 08 – daniel.margato@sap.com
Pauline BARRIERE : 06.13.73.93.11 – presse-sap@publicisconsultants.com
SAP Press Room; press@sap.com

The post SAP conclut avec succès la roadmap finance de SCOR appeared first on SAP France News.

26 mai 2021/par Service comm.

20 Best New Websites, May 2021

This month we have several examples of brutalism used to good effect as a foil to showcase products and/or work. By contrast, at the other end of the scale, we have brands who have chosen to go more of an immersive experience route, using full-screen images, sound, animation, and even VR.

Both are valid approaches, depending on the content. The former tends to work better as a backdrop for artwork, photography, and artisanal craft goods — acting as a virtual gallery space — while the latter is better for consumer goods and experiences, particularly food, drink, and accommodation.

There is, of course, a whole range in between these extremes, and we’ve got that covered too. Enjoy!

Grainne Morton

A simple layout, soft pastel colors, and clear navigation provide an excellent backdrop for Grainne Morton’s handmade jewelry creations.

Gage Hotel

Good photography and a heritage-inspired color scheme give the Gage Hotel’s site a luxury feel.

Tejidos Roca

Tejidos Roca is a fabric manufacturer, and the design of their site uses a circle motif to bring rolls of fabric to mind.

La Passation Synerghetic 2021

Synerghetic is part of the Junior Enterprises Europe scheme – a network of businesses run by students. This year they are not holding the usual handover ceremony, so Synerghetic created this rather fun little digital celebration instead.

Redwood Empire

For Earth Month, Redwood Empire Whiskey has created a microsite promoting a competition styled to match their bottle labels.

Gabriel Cuallado

This site focusing on Spanish photographer Gabriel Cullado’s life and work features some great transitions and good use of horizontal scrolling.

Ombia Studio

In Ombia Studio’s site, atmospheric photographs stand out in a minimal layout. There is a sense of almost gallery curation here.

Headup

Headup uses a pleasing color scheme and geometric graphics to create a welcoming but businesslike approach.

the Figo

Spherical curves and line animations create interest in this site for boutique hotel, the Figo.

Boon Market

Boon Market is about promoting a toxin-free and waste-free lifestyle, and their site reflects this with its use of simple type and soft colors.

Unspoken Agreement

Unspoken Agreement’s website has a quietly confident feel, with clean lines and some pleasing type.

hnst

Another brutalist-inspired design here, but the use of bright red makes it fresh in hnst’s take on the style.

InteriorLAB

Part minimalist, part glossy magazine, InteriorLAB have succeeded in making the simple feel luxurious.

Bowmore Experience

Bowmore has opted for immersive video and visually beautiful images to present their limited-edition Timeless whisky range.

Oly Sheet

There is a slightly old-school start-up feel to Oly Sheet’s website, but it is still appealing with fresh, spring colors and well-organized content.

Aalto University

Aalto University has provided a pretty in-depth tour of its campus here. The navigation is clear, and the information is presented in ideal-sized chunks — enough detail, but not too much at once.

Wisr

Wisr features a Heath Robinson style machine that ‘runs’ as the user scrolls down the page. It provides a bit of interest (no pun intended) to the not very exciting subject of personal loans.

Rudl und Schwarm

Bright colors, cute, but not too cutesy, illustration, some nice scrolling, and transition effects are used really well on Rudl und Schwarm. And it’s got bees; bees are good.

Dr. Maul

This site for Dr. T. Maul manages to take orthodontistry past the usual image of uncomfortable wiring, elastic bands, and ‘train tracks and make it seem just a little more glamorous.

My Drink

There is a slightly vintage feel to this site for My Drink with its cocktail illustration. The blue text on grey is soothing without being bland.

Bonus Site: Imperial Style Guide

And finally not new, but a bonus in honor of May 4th, the Imperial style guide. Well, the Web would get boring if it was serious all the time.

The post 20 Best New Websites, May 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

24 mai 2021/par Service comm.

Popular Design News of the Week: May 17 2021 – May 23, 2021

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!

25 Ridiculously Impressive HTML5 Canvas Experiments

Elder.js, The New Kid On The Block

Glassmorphism CSS Generator

How to Optimize Site Performance

Tint: A Better Color Picker

See Google’s Expressive New Design Language

svg-loader: A Different Way to Work With External SVG

How To Create, Edit And Animate SVGs All In One Place With SVGator 3.0

3 Questions for a Monthly Self-Evaluation

UI vs UX Design: Which Career Is For You?

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

23 mai 2021/par Service comm.

How to Use GitBook for Technical Documentation

Intermine, where I was tasked with creating new user training documentation. For this project, I entirely rewrote the Intermine user documentation — which included images, code snippets, tables, mathematical formulas, and more — using GitBook. This guide will share my experience creating technical documentation using GitBook and act as a de-facto quick-start guide to GitBook.

What is GitBook?

GitBook is a collaborative documentation tool that allows anyone to document anything—such as products and APIs—and share knowledge through a user-friendly online platform. According to GitBook, “GitBook is a flexible platform for all kinds of content and collaboration.” It provides a single unified workspace for different users to create, manage and share content without using multiple tools. For example:

Source de l’article sur DZONE

22 mai 2021/par Service comm.

Poll: Will You Adopt Google’s Material You?

This week at I/O, Google unveiled the latest version of its Material Design design system, Material You.

Initially presented as an upgrade for Android 12, Material You is the biggest revision to Material Design since its launch in 2014 and will be rolling out across all Google products in the coming year.

Material You is an adaptable system that takes the building blocks of Material Design — the spacing and component approach — and skins it to allow a more personal design language, albeit a distinctly Google personal design language.

Google isn’t shy about its intention to define what constitutes good UI design, even if its efforts have so far fallen short of its ambition. Material You potentially leads us back to that undesirable state where every new site looks like a Google clone. The more cynical might suggest that Google actually does perceive all websites as Google products — a view that’s not entirely without merit given the source of most web traffic — so a homogenous approach is warranted.

Material You will certainly make its way into web design. Expect a rash of Material You ‘updates’ to popular themes and site builders that will consist mainly of pastel color palettes.

Hopefully, two major benefits of Material You will not be overlooked: firstly, Material You introduces far more emotion than Material Design allowed; secondly, Material You is flexible enough to ensure accessible design is harder to ignore.

Fundamentally, Material You is still Material Design. The basic approach remains, but it’s less rigidly enforced. Think of it less as a rulebook and more as a disapproving parent who, despite their better judgment, is willing to let you make your own mistakes.

Material Design has looked dated for a few years now, and it’s possible that Material You is just Google hoping to nail down a trend that’s escaping them. But it’s equally possible that Material You is a step closer to what Material Design was meant to be: an invisible design system that feels natural to all seven billion individuals on the planet.

The post Poll: Will You Adopt Google’s Material You? first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

21 mai 2021/par Service comm.

6 Ways Parallax Still Works in 2021

Parallax is a term that is applied loosely and frequently in the world of web design. As a trend, it has been popular and unpopular in equal measures for some time. However, it’s still one of the most valuable tools for animation in the digital world.

Parallax creates an illusion of depth when scrolling, a timeless effect that still has lots of value in the web design world.

Sure, parallax has its issues, from problems with usability, to concerns with mobile responsivity — but it’s also an interesting way to make a website stand out when done correctly.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the ways that parallax scrolling still works in 2021…

1. Parallax Tells A Story

Let’s start simple.

One of the most effective ways to use parallax scrolling in the modern age is to tell a story. Today’s consumers want to have an emotional connection with the brands they buy from – now more than ever. Five years ago, studies showed that around 80% of customers want brands to tell stories, and that trend remains consistent to this day.

In the age of digital consumerism, where people can’t get to know a company in person through face-to-face interactions with its salespeople, companies need new ways to connect with their clients. Telling brand-driven stories is a way to highlight that your company is more than just a faceless entity – it’s something with real soul.

Let’s look at the “Recap After Use” website, a portfolio belonging to the innovative Louie Sellers. This website showcases Louie’s skills with attention-grabbing visuals, including a parallax animation that makes it looks like Louie is drawing the page as you scroll through it.

This is the kind of exceptional animation that makes parallax scrolling more compelling. The animation isn’t there to make a visual difference to the page – it tells you something more about the person behind the website and what they can do.

2. Parallax Increases Website Visit Times

If a website effectively tells a story with parallax animation, you can also bet that’s going to keep customers or readers on a page for longer. Reducing bounce rate by increasing engagement is one of the main goals of any web designer. (Bounce rates, of course, refer to the percentage of site visitors that hit the back button after just seeing the first page of your website.)

While some people argue that parallax websites can hurt your SEO rankings if they slow down your site, there’s also the argument that the lack of a visually engaging page can harm SEO. Bounce rates drag down your ranking and make it harder to get audience attention.

A parallax animation that tells a story and engages your audience through carefully delivered information is a great way to keep people around – even just for a little longer than usual. For instance, if you check out Alex Dram’s portfolio page here, you’ll see several shapes coming together during the parallax scrolling animation.

The shapes merge to tell a story about the visual experiences that Alex can create for customers. It’s a way to draw the eye and connect with the viewer without just writing about what you do through text.

3. Parallax Develops Credibility

There’s a reason why both examples of parallax scrolling we’ve looked at so far are from creative portfolios. Parallax scrolling, with its excellent storytelling capabilities, is great for demonstrating your credibility as a digital expert. Basically, it’s a version of “showing” and not “telling” customers about your skills.

You can tell someone that you know how to use tricky techniques like parallax animation correctly, but they’re less likely to believe you that way. If you can show that you have the skills to create something amazing, that’s more engaging.

The OK Alpha team is a great company to reference when it comes to sensational design. This company seems to always be on the cutting edge of the latest trends, whether it’s bold typography or bright colors. To add to the impact of their website, the company has combined parallax effects into the mix to make everything more immersive as you scroll.

This is a beautiful example of how companies in the design landscape can use techniques like parallax scrolling to show what they’re capable of.

4. Parallax Makes Information More Fun

Most of us are naturally visual learners. We like to consume information in a way that’s refreshingly eye-catching and attractive. That’s why visual content generally earns more social shares and attention than written content. With parallax scrolling, companies that want to deliver valuable information and educational content to their audience can do so effectively.

Rather than just scrolling through a page and seeing lots of text, your customers can see images and graphs come to life alongside the blocks of text they’re reading. It’s like adding video demonstrations next to a textbook to help people better understand what they’re reading about.

Look at the Web Design and Art History microsite from Webflow as an example. The company wants you to understand how web design and art have evolved over the years, but it doesn’t want to deliver that information in a boring format. The bright graphics and parallax animation work together to give you a more contextual, meaningful experience.

5. Parallax Replicates Another Medium

What if you could remind someone of their experience when reading a book or watching a video while telling them about a video or a novel? Parallax scrolling and animation can help with that. It’s a way of making your website feel like a video presentation or slideshow without the added components of implementing video players into your back end.

Parallax scrolling also has another slight benefit over a standard video-based website. On a website that uses a video for a background, the video often plays automatically. This means that your visitors can’t control how quickly the video plays.

On the other hand, parallax animations driven by scrolling action allow your customer to collect information at a pace that suits them. Take a look at the Story of the Goonies website, for instance. This stunning parallax site introduces you to the details you need to know about the movie in a way that makes it feel like the intro to a film.

The great thing about the parallax on this site is that the slow video-style design also gives you a dose of nostalgia – which ties in perfectly with the movie.

6. Parallax Is More Memorable

What’s the main reason any designer does anything special to a website? To make it stand out, of course. Web design is all about conveying the unique essence of a brand, business, or entity in a way that’s going to make that client unforgettable. Although parallax isn’t as novel as it once was, it can still be a way to make your site stand out – if it’s used correctly.

The key to success with parallax scrolling for memorability is making it smart. The layout needs to feel simple and intuitive. Everything needs to work well together, from the lightly shifting font to the various parallax effects that work together to draw the viewer’s eye (and attention).

A great example comes from Jomor Design – another designer with a portfolio that really grabs your focus from the first second. The layout is beautifully done, with plenty of mini moments for engagement and interactions throughout. As you scroll through the site, you get a better idea of what the designer is all about. The little moments of animation make the whole experience so much more memorable.

When your site is more memorable and engaging than that of your competition, you can drive many major benefits for your brand, including an improved bounce rate.

What To Remember When Using Parallax

Parallax is just like any other design technique. There are ways you can do it wonderfully, which engage and delight your audience. However, there are also a lot of areas where you can easily go wrong. When using any design element, the main thing to remember is that the primary focus should always be your users’ experiences. Parallax shouldn’t just be a way to show off your design knowledge. It’s just another feature that you can use to create an amazing website.

Remember that user experience and visual appeal need to work perfectly together for parallax to work. If scrolling through the page is practically impossible for people on a mobile device, then you’re not going to get the results you want. If it’s difficult to take in the message you’re trying to send because the content is moving too quickly, again, your users will suffer.

Remember the following tips:

Simple is better: Reduce the amount of content and visual elements on your page whenever you can. The less information there is to capture your customer’s attention, the less likely it is that you’re going to end up with a problem.
Compress file sizes: Make sure that you’re not reducing the speed of your website by creating a huge single page with tons of high-quality images. You’re going to need to use the smallest possible file sizes.
Check responsiveness: Make sure that the parallax effect works just as well on your smartphone or tablet as it would on a desktop. As more people move their browsing experiences into their palms, you can’t afford to ignore responsivity.
Find the “wow”: Look at these examples of parallax websites. Every one stands out because it does something special with the scrolling effect. If you’re going to be using this strategy with your website, you need to make sure it’s worth the effort. Don’t just follow the same guidelines as everything else. Find the idea that’s going to make people take notice.

The post 6 Ways Parallax Still Works in 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.