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3 Easy Ways to Use Emotion in Web Design

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As human beings, we like to think that we’re rational creatures.

We tell ourselves that we make our decisions based on fact and logic. However, that’s rarely the full truth. As much as we try to make choices guided by rationality, the truth is that we’re often highly emotional people, driven by the way that things make us feel.

So, what does that mean for a website designer?

Though designing a functional and logical website is important, it’s crucial not to forget about the emotional impact of each interaction that your customer has with the sites that you build.

Sites that don’t elicit any kind of emotional response aren’t just boring; they’re forgettable.

A forgettable website is poison to any website designer’s portfolio.

That’s why we’re going to introduce you to some easy ways to use emotion in your designs this year.

Getting to the Bottom of Emotion in Web Design

First, you need to understand the part that emotion plays in user decisions.

Don Norman’s book Emotional Design says that there are many things that designers can do to make their designs more emotional. Even something as simple as focusing on the aesthetic impact of your website can make it more likely that you’ll reach your audience on an emotional level.

One important thing to remember about emotional design, is that it’s not just about making your customers feel good. Emotion can be both positive and negative. Sometimes negative emotion is more impactful than positive feelings – it all depends on the kind of site you’re trying to create.

A website selling health products to customers needs to make that audience feel comfortable and confident that they’re buying a trustworthy item. However, it may also need to trigger small feelings of worry or concern in the audience about what might happen if they don’t buy.

Knowing how to walk that balance between positive and negative feelings is how a designer takes a simple website design and turns it into something incredible.

So, where do you get started?

Step 1: Use Visual Elements to Trigger Emotion

Visual elements are one of the easiest points to get started with when you’re designing for emotion. That’s because visuals are fantastic at drawing out feelings.

An animation can create an emotional connection with your audience by helping them to understand how your product works or making them laugh when they land on your page. A genuine photograph of your team working together can inspire trust and feelings of affinity.

One of the most common visual elements used to trigger emotion is color.

Shades like blue and green in the digital design world are more likely to drive feelings of calmness and comfort. On the other hand, red and yellow often encourage feelings of enthusiasm and happiness.

The way that you use color can make a massive difference to how users feel when they arrive on a website. For instance, the Barclay’s website would have been pretty boring if it was just a basic black and white screen. However, a banking site can’t afford to go over the top with animations or illustrations in most cases, as this can detract from its professional image.

Adding small patches of blue in a way that complements the brand’s color palette is a great way to generate feelings of trust. Combined with the image of a genuine real-life person, and calm tones, the bank instantly presents itself as something approachable and honest.

At the same time, the clear hierarchical layout of the bank’s website, with an easy-to-follow navigation bar, easy-to-read font, and clear headings and buttons comfort the customer. Users get exactly what they expect when they come to a financial website, and that makes users feel as though they’re in the right place.

Step 2: Create Engaging and Emotional Interactions

Visual elements are a great way to embed emotion into digital design. However, they’re just the first step. The emotional aspects of your web design choices should also appear throughout the interactions that customers have with the website.

A good interaction on a website or app needs to be simple and straightforward enough that users feel comfortable taking the next step in their journey. However, it also needs to drive the right emotional response from users too.

For instance, when you sign up for a free account trial from Box.com, you don’t just get a form full of information that you need to fill out.

Next to the form, you also get information about what you’re signing up for, complete with small checks next to each of the free features you’re getting. This helps to put the customer’s mind at ease and remind them that they’re in the right place.

The use of a box, including discount information next to the sign-up form also helps to make the interaction more emotional, by reminding customers that they’re getting something for free.

Every time a customer interacts with a website, there’s another opportunity to engage them on an emotional level. On the Firebox website, when a customer adds something to their cart, there’s a small animation on the cart icon that informs them that something is waiting for them.

When they click through to the checkout, they get instant information, including what they can do to “gift wrap” their item, and buttons showing the various payment options available.

Whenever you’re designing a page for a website, whether it’s the checkout page, a product page, or something else entirely, think about the interaction that the visitor is having at that moment. How can you ensure that each customer feels more comfortable, delighted, informed, or engaged?

Step 3: Leverage Microcopy and Detail to Express Emotions

Visuals are an excellent way to express emotions.

However, they’re not the only option.

As a designer, you’ll need to think about how you can combine web design with the use of microcopy to connect with customers on a deeper level.

Rather than drawing attention to tedious, dull, or impersonal instructions, notifications, and error messages on a site, how you can you make sure that everything on the website delivers the same emotional impact?

The simple addition of a tiny illustration is enough to provide a much more emotional experience to customers. Compelling micro copy and illustrations on 404 pages can also strengthen the connections that customers have with the sites they visit.

Just look at how Google added a dinosaur game to the page that customers are sent to when they don’t have an internet connection.

The right micro copy and interactions can instantly transform even a negative experience, like not being able to connect to the internet, into something emotionally engaging and positive.

When it comes to making an emotional connection between your customer and their end users, web designers need to remember that often the smallest details can make the biggest differences. Little extra features, like implementing a way for customers to have fun when their internet connections aren’t working, are the things that make websites more memorable from an emotional perspective.

Don’t Choose Emotion Over Functionality

Although emotional impact can be an essential aspect of a fantastic website design, it’s important not to get carried away. Adding too much to a website in the form of little extra graphics and unique interactions could end up weighing down a site and making it slow to load.

Although it’s valuable to think about how every interaction an end-user has with a website will make them feel, it’s important not to overlook the basics of web design when you’re at it. You’ll still need to ensure that the finishing design is easy to use, engaging, and attractive.

Pay attention to the basics of user experience design, and make sure that the extra emotional elements you’re infusing into your sites aren’t going to damage the experience that end-users get.

If you can get the blend right between emotional impact and functionality, then you could create the kind of website that audiences will never forget.

It pays to implement emotion into your design portfolio.

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4 Creative Ways to Design a Festive Website

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The holidays are fast approaching. But that doesn’t mean it’s too late to get a new website online or to make your existing one look festive for the holiday season.

When it comes to decking the halls of your website with a little festive cheer, how do you do this without spending loads of money and time on it?

You’re in luck. BeTheme has a variety of pre-built websites to help you do just that. Not only that, but you can use these festive websites for a variety of occasions, like:

  • Hanukkah
  • Kwanzaa
  • Christmas
  • Boxing Day
  • New Year’s

You could also just use one of these sites to make your website feel more seasonal as the temperatures get colder and the snow starts to fall. (If that’s what your winter wonderland looks like!)

Let’s have a look at 4 ways you can bring a little seasonal or holiday cheer to your visitors with a festive website from BeTheme:

Tip #1: Use a Page Builder That Makes it Easy to Swap in Festive Content

Unless you’re running a business like the Christmas Tree Shops, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have holiday imagery up all year long.

The only problem, though, is that it can be a real pain having to go in, find a new theme, and then redesign your site around it… For only a month or two.

That issue is easily resolved with BeTheme, which comes with over 600 pre-built websites and two page builders — Muffin and Elementor.

Because there are so many pre-built sites available, you can easily switch to a non-festive website once the holiday season is over.

In order to swap out this design with a festive website, you’d first have to reset your theme (which Be provides instructions on how to do). Then, install the new site you want to use.

Like BeXmas:

And if you only want, say, a new hero image in the top of your website, you can cherry-pick which parts of the pre-built site you install.

Tip #2: Effortlessly Switch From One Holiday to the Next

Let’s be honest, the winter holiday season can feel a little nuts — not just because your business has to keep up with the change of pace, but because your website has to keep in step with what’s going on.

So, let’s say you have an ecommerce site that changes frequently for upcoming sales, holidays, events, and so on. For this, you could use the BeMall pre-built site (all year long, mind you):

As you can see, it currently has a Black Friday message on the homepage. It’s not uncommon to have to transition from Black Friday or Cyber Monday into the December holidays.

Here’s how you might do that:

The update can be as minor or major as you want. So long as you use graphics and content that stay on-brand, you can easily swap out as much of your imagery as you like.

Tip #3: Use Small Animations to Bring the Holidays to Life

Holidays should be a time to lift spirits. Having a website that’s able to satisfy your customers’ needs during the holiday season will certainly help.

You might also want to think about adding small animations to your design, too.

The animations themselves don’t have to be festive, but you can use them to call attention to holiday-themed content. Take, for instance, BeParty:

You don’t need to have champagne bottles popping or streamers flying across the screen to get your point across.

This animation gives the New Year’s party balloons a gentle and natural feeling of bobbing up and down. An attention to a detail this small is sure to bring a smile to your visitors’ faces.

Tip #4: A Little Hint of Seasonal Flavor Can Go a Long Way

Holiday celebrations aren’t always big blowouts. Unless your entire business is going all-in on the holidays (or it’s a totally holiday-themed business), there’s no reason your site should have to go all out either.

Sometimes a more understated approach is best.

In that case, you’d keep your normal branded elements, imagery, and content in place on the website. But to make it feel a little more festive, you could infuse your site (at the very least, the homepage) with slight seasonal or festive touches.

For instance, let’s say you’ve built a website for a popular ski resort. Your website might look like the BeSnowpark site does normally:

The main draw of the resort is skiing, so it wouldn’t make much sense to change the graphics. However, you could do something like this:

It’s a small enough change, but the gift emoji and bigger lettering in the green button might inspire loyal snowbirds as well as first-time visitors to more quickly book their much-needed holiday getaway.

Get Your Festive Website for Christmas, New Year’s, and More

There are many science-backed reasons why a festive website is a good idea.

Holiday decorations, in general, stir up positive feelings of nostalgia for many people. They can also help alleviate some of the stress that’s built up over the course of the year:

What’s more, holiday decorations can visually signal to others that you’re friendly and accessible, even if they don’t know you.

Sounds exactly like how you want visitors and prospects to feel, right?

As you can see, there are many ways to decorate your website for the holidays. To do it quickly and affordably — and not completely turn your regular website upside-down — a BeTheme pre-built site is the way to go.

 

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

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Leveraging CloudAMQP Within My Heroku-Based SaaS Solution

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In the « Using Heroku to Quickly Build a Multi-Tenant SaaS Product » article, I documented the foundation for a new SaaS solution that I am building (initially for my sister-in-law) — utilizing the Heroku ecosystem. Using Heroku allowed me to deploy the app quickly, without having to worry about infrastructure, DevOps, scalability when the app gets popular, etc. The « Integrating Twilio Into My SaaS Solution In Heroku » publication provided an example of how easy it is to create a Twilio instance and integrate the solution into my Fitness-based SaaS solution. This current journey has resulted in a feature set that both trainers and their clients have been able to enjoy.

This article is going to focus on invoicing clients for services that have been performed and will utilize messaging solutions within the Heroku ecosystem. The goals of the invoice process are as follows:

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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The Latest Research for Web Designers, December 2020

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2020 has been an interesting year, to say the least. And although I’m sure many of you can’t wait until the calendar flips ahead to 2021, it doesn’t look as though we’re going to be able to say goodbye to 2020 so easily. Many of the changes we’ve had to make this year are now expected to stay with us — a least for the following year.

The latest research gives us some hints about what’s to come.

If you want to start preparing for 2021 now, then these reports and surveys from organizations like 99designs, Upwork, Content Marketing Institute, and McKinsey & Company are a must-read:

1. 99designs Reports on the Common Challenges Freelancers Faced in 2020

I don’t want to make 99designs’s Design Without Borders 2020 report sound like it’s all doom-and-gloom. Because it’s not.

That said, 2020 has been a rough year and it would be irresponsible for me not to acknowledge the challenges that all of us freelancers have encountered this year. This report is one of the few I’ve found that includes data on the major challenges freelancers have dealt with this year, including:

  • 36% have struggled to maintain a steady flow of work or a stable client base;
  • 27% had clients who cut their business budgets and, consequently, their freelancers’ workloads;
  • 26% had at least one project cancelled or indefinitely paused;
  • 22% have been ghosted by at least one client.

Beyond working more hours and hustling to find new clients all the time, what else can freelancers do to weather a business disruptor like COVID-19? There are a number of things.

For starters, it would be really helpful to have a crisis management plan for your finances. It would also be beneficial to refocus your efforts on finding clients who pay for the value you provide and not for the hours you spend building websites. Clients who see the value in what you do will be less likely to ghost or drop you at the first sign of trouble.

2. Upwork’s Survey Reveals Educational Opportunities for Freelancers

Upwork commissioned Edelman Intelligence to put together its very first Freelance Forward survey. The goal of the ensuing report was to shed light on the state of freelancing, how the pandemic has changed it, and what we can expect in the future as a result.

One of the data sets I think web designers should pay close attention to is this:

According to this survey, freelancers only spend about 52% of their time on billable work.

Now, one of the reasons why entrepreneurs and enterprise companies make so much money is because tasks are relegated to different team members. For instance, if a design agency owner is good at building relationships with prospects, they’re going to spend time on sales calls and managing social media. The day-to-day admin tasks would then get offloaded to virtual assistants and billable project work would go to designers, developers, writers, and so on.

But as a freelancer, you don’t have the ability to delegate and scale when you’re working solo.

Rather than burn yourself out trying to handle all these things yourself, the report suggests there’s something else you can do:

Although freelancers recognize how important soft skills and business skills are, the first data set suggests that not enough attention might be paid to them.

What I suggest is that you take a look at the division of your work hours. If you’re spending less than half of your time on billable work, it might be a good idea to strengthen your non-design skills. That way, things like marketing, contract preparation, and client management won’t consume so much of your time in the future and you can bill more.

3. CMI’s Annual Report Reveals Profitable Opportunities for Web Designers

Content Marketing Institute’s annual B2B Content Marketing Report is, once again, chock full of useful tidbits about the state of content marketing.

While a lot of the data is focused around marketing organizations and how they’ve pivoted during the pandemic, I thought this bit of info would be really helpful for web designers:

For those of you who design B2B websites, take note of where these companies plan to invest in 2021. If 2020 has been particularly hard on you, or you simply want to expand your horizons, there are some other opportunities worth jumping into:

B2B Marketing Investment => Web Designer Opportunity
Content creation => Blog graphic design, infographic design, and schema markup creation
Website enhancements => Website redesign, website audits
Content distribution => Social media ad design, Google ad design, schema markup creation
Getting to know audiences better => UX research, UX design
Customer experience => Chatbot/live chat development, support portal creation

4. McKinsey B2B Analysis Suggests That Digital Is Here to Stay

For those of you who’ve worked for a B2B sales organization before, you know how important in-person interactions are to them. It’s not as though they can just sell their products or services online the way B2C ecommerce companies can. The key to B2B success is through customer (and partner) relationship building.

Prior to 2020, this meant lots of in-person meetings, phone calls, and emails. But something has changed this year, on both sides of the fence.

This chart from McKinsey suggests that digital relationship building and customer service aren’t just a temporary solution for COVID-19. B2B decision-makers are coming around to the idea that this is going to be their “next normal” (as McKinsey refers to it).

These new “go-to-market models” include the following:

  1. Talk to prospects, customers, and partners via video calls;
  2. Digital self-service options for customers who prefer the DIY method.

As a web designer, you can help your B2B clients level up their efforts to achieve this next normal.

For starters, you can integrate scheduling into their websites. This’ll empower prospects to schedule video meetings (for demos, discovery calls, etc.) with your clients’ sales teams.

Another thing you can do is build out self-service elements like live chat or chatbots, FAQs pages, knowledgebases, and support portals. As consumers become more confident with doing business online, these self-service options will make a world of difference in their experience with brands.

Wrap-Up

I know, I know. 2020 sucked. But at least we have a good amount of research and experience that gives us a much clearer idea of what we’re getting ourselves into with the coming year. (At least, I hope so.)

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Branding 101: How to Get Your Design Business Online

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You’ve named your business. You’ve sorted out the visual branding piece. Now, it’s time to get your business online so you can start making money.

In this post, we’re going to look at where your web design business needs to set up shop online and how to get it up and running quickly.

Step 1: Set Up Your Website

As a web designer or developer, having a website is non-negotiable.

Not only does a website provide prospective clients with all the information they need about you, it can help you automate many of those annoying tasks that get in the way of your actual paid work.

So, let’s start here:

Buy Your Domain Name

If you haven’t done so already, use the business name generator exercise to come up with a domain name. You then have a couple of options for buying it.

To Do:

  • Buy it from a domain name provider like GoDaddy or Domain.com;
  • Or buy it from your web hosting company;
  • Check the next step to see which option makes the most sense for you.

Choose a CMS

Use the same CMS as the one you’ll use to build your clients’ sites. That way, clients don’t wonder why you’d use something like Squarespace for your site, but then recommend WordPress for theirs, for example.

To Do:

  • If you use a self-hosted CMS (like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla), hold on this until you purchase your web hosting;
  • If you use a hosted CMS (like Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify), you won’t need to do the next step. Instead, just sign up for your website builder and buy your domain name now.

Buy Your Web Hosting

If you’re wondering what the difference is between the various types of web hosting, read this post.

Basically, this is what you’re looking for:

  • A hosting company with a good reputation that provides expert and timely support;
  • An affordable starter plan — either shared or cloud hosting;
  • Server locations near you (at the very least, in the same country as you);
  • Top-notch security features at the server level as well as the physical hosting facility;
  • Caching and other speed optimizations built into the server and on-site equipment;
  • Compatibility with your CMS (look for one-click install, too).

Also, look for add-ons like SSL certificates, CDNs, and, of course, a free domain name.

To Do:

  • Sign up for the hosting plan you want along with your domain name and SSL certificate (this is a must for SEO);
  • Install your CMS from the control panel once you’re ready to go.

Build Your Website

Ultimately, you have two goals here:

  1. To build a website that convinces prospective clients that you’re the real deal;
  2. To build a website that prospects would want for themselves.

So, there’s no need to go crazy with outlandish features or futuristic animations and design. Keep it simple. Keep it neat. And give prospects an honest portrayal of who you are, and what you can do for them.

Design It

The first thing to do is take all that work you did to create your visual branding and use it to design your website.

If you’re building a WordPress website, consider starting with one of these multipurpose themes.

Build Out the Pages You Need

A theme will automatically create the pages you need (most of them, anyway). If you’re not sure which ones to start with, these are the ones your prospects are going to be looking for:

You may also want to add separate pages for Testimonials and Case Studies once you’ve accumulated enough of them to show off. For now, you can include samples of your work in the Portfolio page and testimonials on the Home page.

Fill in the Content

Even if writing isn’t your strong suit, that’s okay. So long as the content you write for your site is free of spelling and grammar errors, your prospective clients are going to focus on what you’re telling them, not on how proficient a writer you are.

That said, if you’re nervous about this piece of your website, here are some tips to help you out:

1. Be concise, it’s not just minimal design that goes over well with modern audiences. Minimal copy does, too.

2. Be transparent. Tell prospects what exactly they can expect when they work with you and why your web design services are going to be different from the competition.

3. Consumers don’t trust companies that use meaningless buzzwords and make empty claims. Instead, focus on writing about the real and very competitive skills you have. According to research from NIDO Student, these are the skills employers look for when hiring a designer:

4. Let your images tell some of the story for you. Just make sure you use (or create) images that will impress your audience.

5. After you’ve written your content, take a step back and tackle the structure and formatting from a designer’s POV.

6. Before you hit the “Publish” button, run your copy through Hemingway Editor to ensure your content is error-free.

Add the Right Features

When I talk about features, I’m referring to anything outside the main design and content on your website. These are usually sales and marketing tools like:

  • Chatbot/live chat
  • Contact forms
  • Pop-ups or notification banners
  • Discovery call scheduler
  • Cookies consent notice

Only add the features you absolutely need. In other words, the features that will automate the marketing and sales tasks you’d otherwise have to manage on your own.

Step 2: Optimize Your Website for Search Engines

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a very important part of the work you do to get your business online. Here’s why:

After you launch your business and website, the next thing you’re going to focus on is getting clients. This can take a lot of work as you pore over the following resources for referrals and leads:

  • Your existing contact list (i.e. family, friends, old employers, colleagues, etc.);
  • Freelance job boards;
  • Industry-specific job boards;
  • Social media posts, pages, and groups;
  • Google search results for “we’re hiring”;
  • And so on…

And when you’re not busy cold-emailing prospective clients or talking to them on the phone, you’re probably going to be working on your business’ processes. Running a business is very time-consuming.

So, what happens when you finally start working on website projects? It’s not like the client search ends there. It’s an ongoing thing. Which is why your website needs to be optimized for search.

Once your site gets indexed by Google and starts to generate authority, your pages will rank better and the increased visibility will start generating leads without you having to actively make the first move.

SEO is a huge topic, so I’m not going to cover it here. However, the links below will do a good job of guiding you towards your next steps.

To Do:

Step 3: Get Active on Social Media

Your website is going to play a lot of roles:

  • Digital business card;
  • Authority builder;
  • Marketing vehicle;
  • Sales platform;
  • Content marketer.

But there’s one very critical thing it can’t do and that’s directly converse with your audience and grow your network. This is why you need to spend time building out your social media once your website is good to go.

As for which social media platforms to use (as there are way too many), here are my thoughts:

Become an authority on Twitter.

Twitter is a good place to share daily thoughts and interesting content you’ve found on the web.

Get discovered on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is useful because it’s another place to get noticed by potential employers, so make sure your relevant work experience and portfolio are up-to-date.

Connect with other creatives on Facebook.

It’s really hard to get noticed on Facebook unless you pay to play. Instead, use it to find groups that you can turn to for support, referrals, and brainstorming.

Share your work on Dribbble.

While you could use Instagram or Pinterest to show off your work, you might get more traction on a design-specific platform like Dribbble. Serve as inspiration for others and potentially get discovered by prospects looking for designers there.

Down the line you might decide to expand your business into recurring revenue opportunities like online courses. In that case, a platform like YouTube would be great. For now, focus your efforts on the main ones above.

To Do:

  • Create your social media accounts;
  • Brand them to match your website — both the visual component as well as the bio;
  • Start sharing content on a regular basis. You can automate sharing with a social media management tool, but remember to log in at least a couple times a week so you can engage with others, too;
  • Be careful not to commit these social media faux pas.

Wrap-Up

I realize this is a ton of information to throw at you. However, if you want to get your new business online and for it to succeed, you need to maximize the opportunities that are available to you.

I hope this three-part guide to starting a new business has been helpful. If you have any questions on the tips provided along the way, let me know in the comments.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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How To Test PDF Files Using Selenium Automation?

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PDF documents are small-sized, highly secure files. Almost all businesses use PDFs for processing their files. The reason being a distinguishing feature of maintaining format regardless of the tool used to access PDF files. It’s no surprise that all our invoices, official documents, contractual documents, boarding pass, bank statements, etc. are usually in PDF format.

Even as developers, we come across scenarios when a PDF file needs to be verified or used to locate certain parts of data. You can either do this manually given that you have loads of time to spare or you opt for automation testing. When it comes to handling tricky components of such files using automation, it might seem a bit too tricky. But that’s not the case. Selenium test automation can make it really easy to test PDF file formats.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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What Is File Integrity Monitoring and How Does It Work?

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With the world changing rapidly the data and the system that controls the data are also changing. At the beginning of the Internet and WWW, the data used to be stored on one’s personal machine, and it was accessed by only the person owning the device.

But now, with thousands of companies working with millions of employees and billions of terabytes of data, it is necessary to control and monitor who is going to access the data and who is going to made changes in it.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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8 Awesome Black Friday 2020 Deals for Designers (Up to 94% Off!)

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If you’re interested in a sneak peek of this year’s best Black Friday deals, stick around. You’ll find a few web designers’ favorites, including a stellar deal or two.

This year, more than a few of the popular retail outlets are shifting away from the traditional “camp out all night and bust open the doors when the store opens” shopping model. You might just prefer this less chaotic, ecommerce approach.

All of us are trying to adjust to what may eventually become a “new normal”. We may not like some aspects of this new normal, but there are bright spots as well.

More shoppers are likely going to shop online because of the coronavirus. That means you don’t have to fight the crowds while desperately attempting to socially distance. The shelves aren’t as apt to go bare, and shopping is easy, convenient, and safe.

1. Slider Revolution

You will find the Slider Revolution plugin incorporated in a host of WordPress theme tools and products. This premium plugin can in fact boast of more than 7 million users around the globe.

What you may not be aware of is that it is much more than just a WordPress slider. With it in your web design toolbox, you can in fact create just about anything you can imagine.

Expect to find:

  • A stunning selection of elements including sliders and carousels;
  • Attention-getting hero sections designed to make your home pages really stand out;
  • Single-page websites with layouts unlike anything you’ve seen before;
  • Modular structuring that allows you to rearrange and reuse sections however you choose and the ability to mix and match modules with any WordPress content;
  • Add-ons whose cutting edge features push the boundaries of web design possibilities.

There’s more of course. To celebrate Black Friday and Cyber Monday you can NOW get any Slider Revolution subscription plan or one-time payment at a 33% discount.

Just click on the banner and use the BLACKFRIDAY code at checkout.

2. Amelia

When done manually, booking and managing appointments can be tedious and subject to mistakes and errors. Amelia provides an automated booking process that is oh-so easy to work with and is error free; just what you need to help you acquire more happy customers.

Key features of Amelia’s fully responsive design include:

  • A dashboard system that enables you to track approved and pending appointments, booking changes, and revenue;
  • Zoom Integration, Google Calendar, and Outlook Calendar sync;
  • The ability to accept and easily manage recurring appointments that customers can schedule;
  • Front-end customer and employee appointment and event managing and backend appointment adding, editing, and rescheduling;
  • Email notifications for pending and approved appointments and events.

And much more that will save you loads of energy and a ton of time. Give Amelia a try, and if you like what you see (and you will), take advantage of the 30% Black Friday discount.

3. wpDataTables

wpDataTables 3.0, with its fresh, new look, gives you a host of different ways to generate attractive, customizable, and responsive tables and charts, and a host of different ways to present them.

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4. TheGem – Creative Multi-Purpose High-Performance WordPress Theme

In TheGem, the ultimate WordPress multipurpose toolbox, you will find:

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5. Mobirise Website Builder

Creating a Google-friendly can take time, unless you have Mobirise at your fingertips, in which case you have a number of helpful tools to speed things up.

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6. Get Illustrations

Get Illustrations offers royalty free and landing page Illustrations ready to drag and drop into your web design. You’ll have access to:

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7. XStore | Responsive Multi-Purpose WooCommerce WordPress Theme

For anyone planning on creating an eCommerce store, the XStore name says it all. Key features you’ll find in this powerful and flexible WooCommerce theme include:

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[– This is a sponsored post –]

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Implement a Distributed Database to Your Java Application

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Brief Description

Interference is a simple java framework that enables you to run a distributed database service within your java application, using a JPA-like interface and annotations.

The basic unit of the interference service is a node — in fact, it is a java application, inside which a service instance is running.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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20 Freshest Web Designs, November 2020

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As we approach our first winter holiday season since the pandemic set in, the world could feel like a very scary place; there is a great deal of uncertainty about the future for businesses, for young people in education, for jobs, for travel. Celebrations are certainly going to be a lot quieter this year.

And yet, the web is far from showing doom and gloom. We’re seeing confidence and positivity in designs across the board. As businesses and people adapt to the demands of social distancing and WFH, we’re seeing a focus on simplifying, appreciating quality over quantity, taking better care of ourselves and our world, and making the most of our time. And this is reflected through design in a variety of ways: visually minimal style, pared down content, fresh colors, statement type, great photography, illustration.

There is confidence in abundance on the web. Enjoy…

Mammut Expedition Baikal

Mammut make outdoor clothing and equipment, and this microsite is for its Eiger Extreme collection. Stunning photographs of Swiss speed climber Dani Arnold climbing at Lake Baikal in Siberia are cleverly interspersed with details of the company’s products he can be seen wearing, along with links to buy. It feels natural, rather than forced.

Wavering Stripes

This a beautifully made site highlighting the experiences of people held in immigration detention centers in the US. The illustrations belie the grimness of the stories told — on the landing page there is a warning as to the nature of the content.

Juan Mora

Proof that holding pages don’t have to be boring, this ‘under construction’ site for interface designer Juan Mora is a far cry from the warning-barrier and stick-figures-at-work gifs of the web’s early days.

Cafecrema

Cafecrema’s simple, one page site creates the atmosphere of 1950s coffee shops through its illustration style, a jazz soundtrack, and a very mid-century modern color palette.

A N Other

Perfume brand A. N Other prioritises quality ingredients and materials, simplicity, craftsmanship, and the environment. Its website captures this perfectly, and invokes a sense of luxury as the result.

Puddle Sound

Puddle is an architectural and interior design company, who also do product and furniture design. For a Tokyo hotel project they created a vacuum tube amplifier, that is the subject of this site. It is as simple as can be with only the barest essential information, and with all attention focused on the product shots.

Hous

Hous Luxe Woningen are a Dutch company who build luxury homes. The high quality images, muted color scheme and generous use of white space in its website reflects this sense of luxury perfectly.

Who Cares?

Who Cares? is an interactive game designed to raise public awareness of endangered animal species. The illustration style is very pleasing, and there are some lovely little details in the animation and sound.

Ugly

This site for sparkling water company Ugly, uses bold, cartoonish typography and illustrated characters to add a lot of character to, well, water.

Glyphs

Glyphs font editor version 3 was released on 16th November. The accompanying site has a fresh feel, mainly due to its striking color scheme. The on scroll animation showcasing variable fonts is a nice touch.

Ruler Agency

Ruler Digital Agency uses color only in the images of work on its own site. Everything else is grayscale, even the images, which can be a really effective technique when it is used well, as it is here.

Zoë Pepper

Zoë Pepper is a collective of freelance brand strategists who work with early stage startups. The site is minimal without feeling empty, and utilises quirky illustration and scrolling animation to good effect.

Karst

Karst make notebooks using paper made from stone, and woodless pencils. Its site has a simple, clean feel with a muted, neutral color scheme that complements the colors of its notebook covers.

London Alley

London Alley is a production company who concentrate on music videos and advertising. Its site is simple and striking with plenty of video, and effective use of split screen.

LoveSeen

LoveSeen makes false eyelashes, and nothing else. The site has a fun, inclusive feel — more girl(and boy)friends together than glossy, high fashion magazine. It’s appealing and persuasive.

Chartogne-Taillet

This site for wine-growers Chartogne-Taillet uses illustration and an animated, ‘hand’ drawn map to create a sense of heritage, appropriate for a family with a long history of making wine in the Champagne region. It is reminiscent of a label on a good bottle of wine.

Refusi Studio

Refusi Studio is a design agency from Italy. This portfolio site is simple, with strong colors and big, statement typography. And a giant cartoon eye.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow is an interactive project from the National Film Board of Canada. It uses tweets to trace emotional ‘waves’ throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Boost

Boost is a gummy (chew) vitamin supplement for the immune system. Big type, big graphics and lots of orange and purple — the colors associated with vitamin C and antioxidants — make vitamins cool.

Philiber

Philiber is a meal delivery subscription service, available in urban centers in Quebec. The site is clean and modern, with a comforting color scheme and a nice mix of photography and flat style illustrations.

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