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Approche fonctionnelle de la manipulation de chaînes en Java

Approche fonctionnelle de la manipulation de chaînes en Java

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La manipulation de chaînes en Java peut être abordée de manière fonctionnelle grâce aux nombreuses fonctionnalités offertes par le langage. Découvrons ensemble cette approche !

Les dernières mises à jour de Java ont vu la classe String subir une série d’ajouts méthodologiques significatifs. Certaines méthodes donnent maintenant des instances de la classe Stream, tandis que certaines sont des fonctions d’ordre supérieur. L’intention derrière l’incorporation de ces méthodes est d’offrir une approche simplifiée pour gérer les chaînes de caractères d’une manière orientée flux. 

La gestion des chaînes de caractères d’une manière orientée flux présente l’avantage de simplifier le code et d’améliorer l’expressivité. Cela rend plus facile l’application d’opérations telles que le filtrage, le mappage, la réduction et plus encore.

Testing is an important part of the development process, and it is essential to ensure that the code is functioning as expected. With the new methods, testing strings has become more efficient and straightforward. Developers no longer need to write complex code to test strings, as the new methods can be used to perform the same operations in a more concise manner. 

Dans les dernières mises à jour de Java, la classe String a subi une série d’ajouts de méthodes significatives. Certaines méthodes donnent maintenant des instances de la classe Stream, tandis que certaines sont des fonctions à haut niveau. L’intention derrière l’incorporation de ces méthodes est d’offrir une approche simplifiée pour manipuler les chaînes de caractères d’une manière orientée flux. 

La gestion des chaînes de caractères d’une manière orientée flux présente l’avantage de simplifier le code et d’améliorer l’expressivité. Cela permet d’appliquer plus facilement des opérations telles que le filtrage, le mappage, la réduction et bien plus encore.

Le test est une partie importante du processus de développement et il est essentiel de s’assurer que le code fonctionne comme prévu. Avec les nouvelles méthodes, le test des chaînes de caractères est devenu plus efficace et plus simple. Les développeurs n’ont plus besoin d’écrire du code complexe pour tester les chaînes de caractères, car les nouvelles méthodes peuvent être utilisées pour effectuer les mêmes opérations de manière plus concise. 

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Filtres de Bloom : filtrage de données efficace avec applications pratiques.

Filtres de Bloom : filtrage de données efficace avec applications pratiques.

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Les Filtres de Bloom sont une méthode de filtrage de données très efficace qui offre des applications pratiques variées. Découvrez comment elle peut vous aider !

Comprendre les filtres Bloom

Application dans le monde réel

Les filtres Bloom sont largement utilisés dans le monde réel pour des applications telles que la vérification de l’identité, la détection de spam et la vérification de la sécurité. Par exemple, lorsque vous vous connectez à un site Web, le serveur peut utiliser un filtre Bloom pour vérifier si votre adresse IP est autorisée à accéder au site. Les filtres Bloom sont également utilisés pour le codage, car ils peuvent être utilisés pour détecter les erreurs dans les données transmises. Les filtres Bloom peuvent également être utilisés pour le traitement des données, car ils peuvent être utilisés pour filtrer les données non pertinentes.

Exemple pratique

Pour illustrer le fonctionnement des filtres Bloom, prenons l’exemple d’un système qui stocke des informations sur les clients. Pour cela, nous allons créer un filtre Bloom avec m = 10 et k = 3. Nous allons ensuite ajouter les informations sur les clients à notre filtre Bloom en utilisant les trois fonctions de hachage. Pour vérifier si un client est présent dans le système, nous allons utiliser les mêmes fonctions de hachage et vérifier si toutes les positions correspondantes sont définies sur 1. Si c’est le cas, alors nous pouvons en conclure que le client est présent dans le système. Sinon, nous pouvons en conclure que le client n’est pas présent.

Conclusion

Les filtres Bloom sont des structures de données probabilistes qui permettent de tester efficacement l’appartenance d’un élément à un ensemble. Ils filtrent efficacement les éléments indésirables des vastes ensembles de données tout en maintenant une faible probabilité de faux positifs. Les filtres Bloom sont largement utilisés dans divers domaines tels que les bases de données, le cache, le réseau et bien plus encore. Dans cet article, nous avons exploré le concept des filtres Bloom, leur fonctionnement et illustré leur fonctionnement avec un exemple pratique. Les filtres Bloom sont particulièrement utiles pour le codage car ils peuvent être utilisés pour détecter les erreurs dans les données transmises.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Marco Codes Live: Gavin King et Hibernate 6.3 [Vidéo]

Marco Codes Live: Gavin King et Hibernate 6.3 [Vidéo]

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Découvrez la vidéo de Marco Codes Live avec Gavin King et Hibernate 6.3! Une occasion unique d’en apprendre plus sur la dernière version de Hibernate.

Dans la vidéo ci-dessous, nous couvrirons la nouvelle version de Hibernate 6.3.

We’ll also look at the architecture of Hibernate 6.3 and how it fits into the larger Java ecosystem.

Dans la vidéo ci-dessous, nous couvrirons la nouvelle version Hibernate 6.3.

Avec ses capacités de traitement des annotations, il offre des approches alternatives aux frameworks tels que Spring Data JPA, et nous explorerons ces approches avec un peu de codage en direct.

Nous examinerons également l’architecture de Hibernate 6.3 et sa place dans le plus grand écosystème Java.

Hibernate 6.3 est une version très puissante et pratique qui offre des fonctionnalités supplémentaires par rapport à ses versions précédentes. Il intègre des technologies telles que Java Persistence API (JPA), Java Transaction API (JTA) et Java Database Connectivity (JDBC). Ces technologies sont très utiles pour le développement d’applications web et mobiles. De plus, Hibernate 6.3 offre une architecture modulaire et extensible qui permet aux développeurs de créer des applications plus flexibles et robustes.

Hibernate 6.3 est également livré avec une série d’outils et de bibliothèques qui aident les développeurs à créer des applications plus efficaces et à améliorer leur productivité. Les outils incluent des moteurs de recherche, des moteurs de mapping, des moteurs de validation et des moteurs de génération de code. Ces outils peuvent être utilisés pour créer des applications plus performantes et plus faciles à maintenir.

Enfin, Hibernate 6.3 offre une architecture extensible qui permet aux développeurs d’ajouter des fonctionnalités supplémentaires à leurs applications. Les développeurs peuvent ajouter des modules supplémentaires pour améliorer la performance et la fonctionnalité de leurs applications. Les développeurs peuvent également ajouter des plugins pour ajouter des fonctionnalités supplémentaires à leurs applications.

En résumé, Hibernate 6.3 est une version puissante et pratique qui offre une architecture modulaire et extensible qui permet aux développeurs de créer des applications plus flexibles et robustes. Il offre également une série d’outils et de bibliothèques qui aident les développeurs à créer des applications plus efficaces et à améliorer leur productivité. Enfin, il offre une architecture extensible qui permet aux développeurs d’ajouter des fonctionnalités supplémentaires à leurs applications.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Chasse au trésor Agile-DevOps : réaliser la transition DevOps

Chasse au trésor Agile-DevOps : réaliser la transition DevOps

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avec succès

La chasse au trésor Agile-DevOps est une méthodologie innovante qui permet aux organisations de réaliser la transition DevOps avec succès. Découvrez comment!

Les flux de valeur ont été un principe central de la pensée Lean depuis des décennies, à commencer par Toyota et le mouvement Lean Manufacturing, et sont désormais largement adoptés dans tous les secteurs. Malgré cela, de nombreuses entreprises doivent encore exploiter pleinement le potentiel des flux de valeur pour provoquer un changement organisationnel et atteindre une plus grande efficacité et efficience. Au lieu de cela, elles peuvent se concentrer uniquement sur des métriques telles que la vitesse d’équipe ou la vitesse du pipeline de production, en manquant le tableau plus large du système de bout en bout.

Dans le développement de produits modernes, la compréhension des flux de valeur est cruciale pour optimiser nos modes de travail et fournir de la valeur aux clients. En cartographiant le chemin vers la valeur, nous pouvons obtenir une visibilité sur nos processus et identifier les domaines d’amélioration, tels que les goulots d’étranglement du déploiement du code ou les incompatibilités entre les personnels et les rôles.

L’architecture des flux de valeur a été un principe central de la pensée Lean depuis des décennies, à partir de Toyota et du mouvement Lean Manufacturing, et est maintenant largement adoptée dans tous les secteurs. Malgré cela, de nombreuses entreprises doivent encore exploiter pleinement le potentiel des flux de valeur pour stimuler le changement organisationnel et atteindre une plus grande efficacité et efficience. Au lieu de cela, ils peuvent se concentrer uniquement sur des métriques telles que la vitesse d’équipe ou la vitesse du pipeline de production, en manquant le tableau d’ensemble du système de bout en bout.

Dans le développement de produits modernes, comprendre les flux de valeur est essentiel pour optimiser nos modes de travail et livrer de la valeur aux clients. En cartographiant le chemin vers la valeur, nous pouvons obtenir une visibilité sur nos processus et identifier les domaines d’amélioration, tels que les goulots d’étranglement du déploiement du code ou les incompatibilités entre le personnel et les rôles.

En outre, en comprenant les flux de valeur, nous pouvons mieux aligner les équipes et les processus sur l’objectif de livrer de la valeur à nos clients. Nous pouvons également identifier les points d’accélération et les points de friction dans le système et prendre des mesures pour améliorer la qualité et la rapidité des livraisons. Enfin, en surveillant les flux de valeur, nous pouvons mieux comprendre comment les changements apportés à l’architecture affectent la capacité de l’organisation à livrer de la valeur à ses clients.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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21 Best CRM Software

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The best CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software solutions help sales teams streamline critical processes to improve productivity, track customer interactions and gain actionable insights to deliver a personalized experience to sell smarter, shorten the sales cycle and drive better retention rates.

This article reviews the 21 best CRM software to help you streamline your searches. We’ll cover the key features, user experience, pricing plans, strengths, and weaknesses. So, let’s get to it.

1. Salesforce Sales Cloud CRM

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a cloud-based customer relationship management solution that supports large sales teams and every customer touchpoint.

Over 150,000 companies, including world-leading brands like IBM, NBCUniversal, and Sonos, use the CRM system to streamline workflow automation. 

Key Features

Project Management — The software natively integrates with Slack, allowing you to seamlessly manage your Salesforce tasks in one central location and collaborate remotely with colleagues, customers, and partners in real-time. 

Sales Forecasting — Salesforce can estimate your future sales revenue using your current and historical pipeline data. Again, integrating with apps like revVana helps you gain better revenue insights.

Flexible and Scalable — This CRM software helps small businesses and enterprises meet their growing needs without sacrificing performance. Salesforce CRM is entirely cloud-based, supports over 8,700 integrations, and has an open API, making it highly extensible.

User Experience

Setting up an account only takes three steps.

The dashboard is clean and straightforward, making it easy to use. You can click the modules on the navigation menu to use its features. Additionally, the CRM software displays information in graphs, pie charts, and tables in an easy-to-understand way.

Salesforce Sales Cloud has a robust knowledge base to hit the ground running immediately.

Pricing

Salesforce offers four subscription plans, billed annually:

  • Essential $25 per user per month
  • Professional $75 per user per month
  • Enterprise $150 per user per month
  • Unlimited $300 per user per month

Strengths

  • It’s fully cloud-based (you don’t need to install anything)
  • 30-day free trial
  • Customer relations management automation
  • Supports over 8,000 integrations and apps
  • Multilingual and multi-currency support
  • Open API
  • Leads management and business intelligence tools
  • Round-the-clock support
  • Multiple appointment scheduling
  • Mass emailing capability

Weaknesses

  • It doesn’t support live chat
  • Not suitable for on-premise deployment

2. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is one of our top options for the best CRM software today. The cloud-based solution helps marketers set up their pipelines, track progress in real-time and automate routine tasks. Over 100,000 companies in 179 countries use the software.

Key Features

Real-Time Alerts — Pipedrive has a built-in reminder that keeps you posted on all your sales activities so you don’t miss a follow-up.

Reporting — The CRM provides detailed reports on pipeline performance. With this insight, you can measure your progress against your business goals.

Revenue Forecasting — The software can forecast your sales volume and revenue using your pipeline data. It automatically updates the estimate when a lead’s status changes.

Leads Capture — Pipedrive has a customizable web form that helps you capture leads for your pipeline. Also, you can segment the leads for personalized communications.

User Experience

Pipedrive is user-friendly. New users will be able to get the hang of it quickly. Also, the CRM software has a robust help center to help users set up and customize their accounts.

It features a visual pipeline that lets you see your sales strategies and process and update a lead status by dragging and dropping it. Additionally, it presents reports in easy-to-understand ways.

The software offers live chat and round-the-clock email support for quick resolutions. 

Pricing

Pipedrive offers four plans, billed monthly and annually.

  • Essential $11.90 per user per month
  • Advanced $24.90 per user per month
  • Professional $49.90 per user per month
  • Enterprise $74.90 per user per month

Strengths

  • Faster deal closing
  • Omnichannel lead generation
  • Efficient customer relationship management
  • Free trial (no credit card required)
  • Goal setup and tracking
  • Sales forecast
  • Over 350 integrations
  • 14-days free trial
  • API support
  • Real-time support

Weaknesses

  • No free plan
  • The dashboard could feel overwhelming

3. Oracle Netsuite CRM

Oracle NetSuite Customer Relationship Management software promises to deliver the real-time data you need to manage interactions with potential customers, existing customers, and suppliers, deliver exceptional customer experiences and drive sales.

Over 32,000 customers use Oracle NetSuite products.

Key Features

Sales Force Automation — NetSuite CRM SFA unifies your sales processes and provides unprecedented insights into every aspect of your customer relationship to supercharge your sales performance.

Marketing Workflow — You can create and launch targeted marketing campaigns to grow your leads pool. Also, the CRM lets you segment your leads to deliver a personalized experience, shortening the sales cycle.

Customer Service Management — NetSuite automates customer service management, allowing users to focus on other pressing day-to-day activities. For example, it can review the status of submitted tickets and reply with follow-up communications.

Partnership Relationship Management — NetSuite CRM is not just a customer relationship management software. Instead, the platform is a complete business management tool that helps you manage relationships with partners, share real-time information, and maintain control over partner-focused sales processes.

User Experience

This CRM could be more beginner-friendly if not for its many features and advanced functionalities. However, the software offers a search feature to help users find things faster. Another user experience challenge is Netsuite’s time-demanding customization.

Plus, some users have reported crashes and downtime.

Besides these challenges, NetSuite has an excellent user interface that makes it exciting. Also, it offers live chat support, helpful resources, and a comprehensive knowledge base.

Pricing 

NetSuite charges an annual license fee but doesn’t provide any pricing plans. You must contact their customer support to learn about the deployment needs of their CRM systems.

Strengths

  • A centralized data source that gives users unprecedented visibility into their sales process
  • Salesforce, marketing, and customer service automation
  • Partner relationship management
  • Advanced reporting and analytics
  • Great user interface
  • Sales forecasting
  • Mobile 

Weaknesses

  • No monthly subscription plans
  • Not-too-great user experience
  • Expensive compared to other CRM solutions

4. Zoho CRM  

Over 250,000 businesses worldwide use Zoho CRM software solutions. It helps management, marketing, support, and sales teams address their customer relationship management and omnichannel engagement needs.

The platform empowers users to deliver personalized experiences and drive sales through multiple channels.

Key Features

Sales Force Automation — You can create workflows to reduce manual data entry, eliminate redundancies and automate repetitive sales, marketing, and customer service functions. 

Journey Orchestration — Zoho CRM lets users create personalized customer journeys and track each prospect’s path to identify delays or loopholes and optimize the sales process.

Omnichannel — With the Zoho CRM software, you can engage and track customer interactions across multiple channels, including email, social media, phone, and the self-service channel. 

Sales Enablement — Zoho CRM enables frictionless sales processes. You can generate quotes, invoices, and orders within the CRM software. Also, it lets you set up partner portals to grow your business and manage relationships with stakeholders.

User Experience

The Zoho CRM dashboard is clean, straightforward, and user-friendly. So, you can use all of its features as a first-time CRM user.

For example, the software lays the module tabs above the fold at the top bar, making them easily accessible. The reports are also less overwhelming as you can drill into the report you want to see, one at a time.

Zoho CRM offers webinars, tutorials, free eBooks, and documentation for easy setup and customization. No live chat support.

Pricing

Zoho CRM offers four subscription plans billed monthly and annually:

  • Standard $18 per user per month
  • Professional $30 per user per month
  • Enterprise $45 per user per month
  • Ultimate $55 per user per month

Strengths

  • Mobile
  • Marketing and sales automation
  • Advanced template and layout customization
  • Insightful reporting and analytics
  • Team collaboration
  • Support customer self-service portal
  • Predictive sales and intelligence
  • Voice assistant
  • Multilingual and multi-currency support
  • App marketplace with several third-party developers
  • REST API support
  • Activity reminders and sticky notes
  • 15-days free trial

Weaknesses

  • No live chat support
  • Limited native marketing automation (needs extensions)

5. HubSpot CRM 

HubSpot CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management solution for salespeople, marketers, customer service agents, operations managers, and business owners. Top global brands like Atlassian, Doordash, and Wistia use the HubSpot CRM software.

Key Features

Multiple Hub — HubSpot CRM offers five hubs—marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and Operations—that lets you pay for your needs. In addition, you can integrate up to five hubs into a single CRM to streamline your business processes. 

Email Marketing — The software has a built-in email marketing capability for targeted campaigns to your audience. In addition, you can create customized emails with the intuitive drag-and-drop editor.

Lead Generation — With the built-in lead-capturing forms, ad management tools, and landing pages, you can generate leads online, feed them directly into the CRM and convert them to customers.

Customer Support Portal — You’ll get a customer support portal to manage customer services and support requests, minimizing the burden on your customer service team. With the portal, you can also set up your knowledge base.

SEO Advisor — The SEO Advisor provides actionable SEO tips which can help you rank essential keywords on Google search results. It comes in handy when creating blog posts or developing landing or website pages.

User Experience

You can set up HubSpot CRM quickly and get it running immediately.

The CRM is easy to use and has an excellent user interface. You can customize your dashboard to quickly view your sales pipeline all in one place to enhance your user experience. Also, HubSpot presents its reports in an easy-to-understand way.

It also integrates seamlessly with other tools. In addition, HubSpot offers onboarding services and multiple support channels—phone, email, live chat, and online community.

Pricing

HubSpot offers a free version but with limited access to its tools. You can extend its functionality based on your needs by subscribing to a plan in the appropriate hub.

Marketing Hub

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $800 per month
  • Enterprise $3,600 per month

Sales Hub

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $450 per month
  • Enterprise $1,200 per month

Customer Service Hub

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $450 per month
  • Enterprise $1,200 per month

CMS Hub

  • Starter $23 per month
  • Professional $360 per month
  • Enterprise $1,200 per month

Operations Hub

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $720 per month
  • Enterprise $32,000 per month

Strengths

  • Powerful collaborative tool, Integrating marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and operations in a single CRM solution.
  • A free version
  • User-friendly and intuitive
  • Large CRM database
  • Sales and marketing workflow
  • Insightful reporting and analytics
  • Lead management 
  • Seamless third-party integration
  • Social posting from the CRM
  • Meeting scheduling
  • Mobile app

Weaknesses

  • Limited features that could push to acquire other HubSpot licenses
  • HubSpot licenses are on the high side.

6. Freshworks

Freshsales is a sales CRM software that promises to help you gain a 360-degree view of your customers, deliver personalized engagement, shorten the sales cycle and accelerate revenue with context-driven sales. Brands like Klarna, Blue Nile, and PharmEasy use the CRM system.

Key Features

Lead Generation and Scoring — Freshwok offers CRM tools to help you run personalized campaigns and generate leads from your website visitors. You can also score the leads based on their engagement level.

Deal Management — Freshworks provides a birds-eye view of the deals in your pipeline, making it easy to prioritize and work on them immediately. You can also collaborate with multiple salespersons on the same deal., 

Workflow Automation —The software’s built-in workflow automation lets users automate repetitive tasks to save and boost the sales force’s productivity. You can quickly create automation with the pre-set templates.

AI-Powered Insights —Freshworks’ algorithm, Freddy AI, does the heavy lifting so that you can focus on only deals that convert. Additionally, it delivers AI-powered insights that help you drive faster deal closure. 

Omnichannel — The software enables users to reach customers on their preferred channel without exiting the CRM software. For instance, you can connect with your contacts via email, phone, live chat, WhatsApp, SMS, and Zoom.

User Experience

You can set up an account in three simple steps and connect your email account to the CRM software.

The dashboard is clean and less overwhelming. As a result, you are likely to crack the software at first use without facing many challenges. Also, you can import your sales data and start using the CRM tools immediately without starting from scratch.

You can use the FAQ, help center, or live chat for quick resolutions when you run into issues.

Pricing

Freshworks offers the best free CRM software with basic features—ideal for beginner users. In addition, you can subscribe to a paid plan to access more tools.

  • Growth $15 per user per month
  • Pro $39 per user per month
  • Enterprise $69 per user per month

Strengths

  • Email marketing within the CRM software
  • AI-powered deal insights
  • Built-in lead generation capability
  • Seamless sales process automation
  • Multilingual and multi-currency support
  • Territory management
  • Omnichannel customer engagement
  • Over 30 reports
  • A free plan
  • Mobile app
  • 21 days free trial of the highest tier plan
  • Provides a 360-degree view of the business
  • AI-based leads scoring
  • Pipeline visualization

Weaknesses

  • Hard-to-reach support
  • Limited third-party integrations

7. Monday

Monday CRM software is one of the best CRM software in the industry. Over 125,000 businesses use it to generate leads from multiple sources, qualify them in a central location, and track and manage all aspects of the sales cycle, from pre-sales to post-sales, all in one place.

Key Features

Email Tracking — With Monday, you can centralize your email communications and track essential email metrics to learn when to reach out, saving you time on cold leads. It also lets you create personalized emails with built-in templates.

Sales Process Automation — You don’t have to waste time on repetitive sales processes. It’s one of the best CRM software for automating your workflows, enabling you to focus on essential things. For instance, it can assign leads to sales reps, notifies you when a prospect opens an email, and more.

Leads Capturing — You can feed your sales pipeline with steady streams of qualified leads collected from multiple sources, qualify them on the CRM, and automatically score them based on pre-set criteria.

Post-Sales Management — Monday’s post-sales management capability lets you continuously manage customer relationships and drive after-sales customer satisfaction to boost customer retention.

User Experience

You can quickly sign up with Gmail and set up your account in a few more steps.

You can sell your sales pipeline and customer journey at a glance. Also, the user interface is excellent, and the software presents information in ways anyone can quickly grasp. In addition, it has a desktop notification feature that keeps you updated on your sales activities in real-time.

Users can customize their dashboards to see only the things they like. Unfortunately, the support doesn’t provide live chat support; however, it tries to compensate for this with a robust help center and round-the-clock email support.

Pricing

Monday offers a free plan for its CRM software and four premium subscription plans.

  • Basic $10 per month
  • Standard $14 per month
  • Pro $24 per month
  • Enterprise (custom package)

Strengths

  • Free and custom plans
  • Workflow automation
  • Email tracking and centralized communication
  • Pipeline visualization
  • Customizable reporting dashboard
  • Built-in lead management (capturing and auto-scoring)
  • Post-sales customer relationship management
  • Third-party integrations
  • Mobile app
  • Online community and robust help center

Weaknesses

  • Limited native marketing automation
  • No live chat support

8. Keap

Keap is one of the leading sales CRM solutions that cater to small businesses. The software promises to help them grow their leads, improve revenue and drive customer retention through enhanced customer relationship management and marketing workflows.

Key Features

Email and Text Marketing — It’s the right CRM software for small businesses seeking to bring email and SMS marketing into their marketing mix and manage them in one place. They can quickly create email and SMS campaigns with built-in templates and send them to their segmented lists.

Sales and Marketing Automation — With Keap, small business sales teams can automate critical sales and marketing processes to deliver a personalized experience to customers and drive targeted business growth while saving valuable time and human resources. 

Lead Capturing — You can acquire and track leads at every touchpoint. This CRM software comes with CRM tools for capturing leads like landing pages, dedicated sales funnels, forms, and appointment schedulers, which you leverage to generate consistent leads. 

eCommerce — Keap supports payment processors like Stripe, PayPal, and Wepay, allowing you to send and receive payments within your CRM software. The platform has facilitated over $2.6 billion in online sales since its launch.

User Experience

Keap promises a 14-day free trial. But I need help accessing the feature after signing up; the offer is only available to randomly selected businesses.

If the software can deliver on its promises, it will be great for the user experience. 

Pricing

Keap offers three subscription plans, billed monthly and yearly.

  • Pro $129 per month
  • Max $199 per month
  • Max Classic (custom plan)

Strengths

  • A referral program that pays up to 30% commission
  • A high-reaching user community
  • Knowledge base and help center
  • Native payment platform
  • Built-in email and SMS marketing
  • Advanced automation
  • Expert assistance

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • Limited subscription plan
  • Expensive annual packages
  • The free trial is often unavailable
  • unreliable

9. Sage

Sage integrates sales, marketing, and service modules to deliver world-class customer relationship management software.

It’s one of the best CRM software in the market. With this solution, you can gain valuable insights into where your business stands to make better business decisions.

Key Features

Service Module — This module brings customer service management functionality within the CRM, enabling you to deliver an exceptional experience to prospects and customers, nurture them into long-term relationships and generate repeat businesses.

Sales Modules — With this module, you can automate your sales processes to accelerate sales performance and boost productivity. The company’s customer data shows that sales reps using this feature improved productivity by up to 40%.

Marketing Module — You can plan and run omnichannel, targeted marketing campaigns within the CRM and optimize campaigns to deliver more results with the built-in insightful reports.

User Experience

Sage doesn’t offer its pricing plans upfront. Also, you can’t sign up online. Instead, you’ll need to leave your business information online and wait for their support team to call, which might take time to come.

The user interface is excellent, but the CRM software integrates with only limited applications. In addition, real-time case resolution still needs to be improved. However, the software offers a community forum.

Pricing

Sage doesn’t have public pricing information. 

However, the software license could cost approximately $600 annually for each user. In addition, one-time initial implementation and related services could take the total cost to about $8,000. 

Strengths

  • Single modules to fully Integrated solution
  • Powerful real-time insights 
  • Team collaboration
  • Sales and marketing automation
  • Customer service management

Weaknesses

  • No straightforward signup
  • No subscription plan
  • Limited integration

10. Insightly CRM

Insightly is a popular CRM tool developed to help businesses streamline their processes, collaborate across teams, and integrate all the applications they need to drive sustainable growth.

Over 25,000 companies, including Bloomberg, Bosch, and Sanofi, use the platform, making it one of the best CRM software platforms today.

Key Features

Relationship Mapping — You can link your customer data to existing contacts to map and understand how your customers relate. This feature helps you get a high-definition picture of your customers.

Marketing  — Insightly’s unified marketing platform enables marketing teams to build sales pipelines, attract and engage ideal customers with intelligent and segmented campaigns and automate marketing processes to grow the business faster.

Sales  — You can centralize your customer data in one place, managing leads and spotting and prioritizing those most likely to convert. You can also create and send emails within Insightly and automate your workflows.

Service  — Insightly empowers customer service teams to solve customer challenges more effortlessly. You can receive customer support tickets in one place, quickly share information across the organization and receive actionable insights to improve customer experience.

Integrations  — You can connect all the tools you need to grow your business and manage them under one app. Also, Insightly’s AppConnect supports this CRM’s users in building custom integrations and workflows.

User Experience

Insightly has a clean design with a user-friendly interface. 

Some users complained that it could be challenging to grasp all its possibilities fully. However, it features a knowledge base, videos, and tutorials that could bring you up to speed as quickly as possible. The platform also offers live chat support.

The filters and bulk email could be better.

Pricing

Insightly’s CRM systems come in three plans, billed annually:

  • Plus, $29 per month
  • Professional $49 per month
  • Enterprise $99 per month

Strengths

  • Custom integration and workflow builder
  • Project management and team collaboration
  • Sales and marketing automation
  • Module for customer service teams
  • Scalable CRM
  • Live chat support
  • Free trial
  • Low-entry cost
  • Mobile app
  • Customer relationship mapping

Weaknesses

  • Annual billing
  • Learning curve

11. SugarCRM

SugarCRM is one of the best CRM platforms in the market. It delivers CRM solutions that help companies gain a comprehensive high-definition view of their customers in the past, present, and future to enable predictability, boost situational awareness and reach new levels of business performance. 

Key Features

Predictive Forecasting — SugarCRM leverages historical and real-time data from multiple points to identify issues, root causes, and opportunities and deliver actionable sales insights. In addition, it offers automatic alerts for fast response.

Sales and Marketing Automation — You can automate anything with SugarCRM, from data collection, leads routing, and quote approval to leads scoring and marketing to deliver meaningful buying experiences, shorten the sales cycle, and drive revenue.

Customer Service Management —SugarCRM native customer service management support enables you to deliver a personalized, positive experience to customers at every touchpoint. In addition, the software automates critical processes to reduce the burden on your customer support team. 

User Experience

SugarCRM has a solid user interface.

However, you must pay for at least three users before you sign up for any plan, making the software expensive. Also, the CRM software offers a more complex signup process. You’ll need to fill out an online form to contact support.

SugarCRM has a user community and resource center that can help you quickly set up your account and learn how to make the most of the CRM software. Also, phone support is available in four languages.

Pricing

SugarCRM has four monthly plans, billed annually and requiring a minimum of three users.

  • Market $1000 per month/user
  • Sell $45 per month/user
  • Serve $80 per month/user
  • Enterprise $85 per month/user

Strengths

  • AI-Powered prediction
  • Full situational awareness
  • Sentiment assessment
  • Powerful automation and workflow
  • The built-in customer service solution
  • On-premises deployment
  • Omnichannel customer engagement

Weaknesses

  • No complimentary or trial plan
  • Lacks a mobile app
  • Expensive plan

12. NetHunt

NetHunt is one of the best CRM platforms built for Gmail and Google Workspace users, designed to help them manage leads, nurture prospects, and stay on top of their sales performances. The solution also plays well with LinkedIn and eight other tools.

Key Features

Data Organization  — With NetHunt, you can organize your business data effectively and productively. Also, the solution organizes your deals and sales pipelines in an easy-to-understand manner, providing insights into what works and doesn’t.

Sales Force Automation  — Using this sales CRM means your sales team won’t have to waste time on repetitive tasks. Instead, the solution automates key sales processes like leads capturing and nurturing, contact updates, and others so they can focus on other things.

Centralized Communication  — You can centralize your business communications, regardless of your customer’s preferred channel, whether social media, email, telephone, messenger, or live chat, and manage everything on the go under one app roof.  

User Experience

You can create an account in three clicks. The interface is clean and user-friendly. You can quickly update your deals by dragging and dropping them and visualize your pipeline to see your entire sales process and performance at a glance.

Also, you can set up workflows and integrations in a few minutes. Both processes are intuitive and might not require any learning curve. In addition, NetHunt has a help center and offers live chat support.

Pricing

NetHunt is available via four subscription plans, billed monthly and annually.

  • Basic $24 per month
  • Business $48 per month
  • Advanced $96 per month
  • Custom plan

Strengths

  • Zapier integration
  • Advanced data organization and visualization
  • Workflow automation
  • Omnichannel communication
  • Mobile apple
  • Live chat and phone support
  • Code-free web form for leads capture
  • Low-entry fee
  • Free trial and custom plan
  • Chrome browser extension
  • Open API
  • Cancel anytime

Weaknesses

  • Available only to Gmail and Google Workplace users
  • Limited integration options
  • Limited marketing automation 

13. FreeAgent

FreeAgent CRM helps teams collaborate more effectively to get things done. The software promises to help users track their progress in real-time and gain actionable insights to optimize their performance. Over 1,000 businesses worldwide use the platform.

Key Features

All-In-One Solution — With FreeAgent CRM, you won’t need to open multiple browser tabs to get your job done. Instead, you get everything done in one place. You can also automate repetitive tasks to get more done in less time. 

Workflow Optimization — You can streamline business processes to complete more work efficiently. The CRM tool can help you organize and prioritize deals so you can focus on those most likely to move the needles for your business.

Code-Free Customization — FreeAgent code-free customization enables you to set your account to meet your business’s unique needs. The software also integrates with other apps, making it highly extensible.

User Experience

FreeAgent CRM is easy to use and has a visually appealing user interface. The software enables complete funnel visualization and presents reports in ways anyone can understand.

You can quickly connect with the company’s in-house CRM experts to set up and customize your account to explore its full possibilities. The solution also offers live chat and helpful resources.

Pricing

FreeAgent offers “Unlimited Users” and “Per User” pricing packages with different plans, billed monthly and annually. The Per User package has three plans.

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $90 per month
  • Enterprise $120 per month

Strengths

  • Highly extensible
  • All-in-one solution
  • Fully cloud-based
  • Code-free customization
  • Workflow automation
  • Full funnel visualization
  • Customer service management
  • Third-party integrations
  • Live chat support
  • Custom app
  • ISO 27001 compliant

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • Poor search and filter

14. Creatio CRM

Creatio CRM is one of the best CRM software used by small and medium-sized businesses in over 100 countries to automate end-to-end customer journeys with no code. You can purchase separate modules or deploy the software as a unified CRM tool. 

Key Features

Marketing Creatio — With this module, you can automate your marketing campaigns, lead management, and deliver personalized omnichannel communication to boost business revenue and drive customer retention.

Sales Creatio — Creatio supports sales teams to collaborate across boards and automate mission-critical sales processes to get more things done. The software also provides a 360-degree view of customer journeys to personalize their experience.

Service Creatio — You can automate and manage customer service workflows on Creatio to save the support team valuable time and deliver an enhanced, personalized experience to customers. The software uses AI to streamline the handling of service cases.

Studio Creatio — Creatio’s no-code UI builder helps non-technical users build business applications and processes with maximum freedom using easy-to-use drag-and-drop visual design tools.

User Experience

The analytics and reporting are insightful, and you can quickly visualize the data in a few clicks.

The software’s no-code capability means you can complete projects that usually take months or even days. In addition, support is multilingual, so you’ll always get assistance whenever the need arises in your preferred language. 

Also, the platform has helpful resources for quick self-help.

Pricing

Creatio has different subscription packages for each module (Creatio). 

The monthly sales and service modules subscriptions range between $25 and $60, while Marketing Creatio goes for a $1,000 to $100,000 yearly fee. You’ll need to contact support to understand the cost of deploying its unified CRM solutions.

Strengths

  • Cost Calculator
  • Cloud and on-site deployment
  • 360-degree customer view
  • Unlimited no-code customization
  • End-to-end workflow automation
  • Real-time analytics
  • Trial plan
  • Custom plan

Weaknesses

  • Expensive plan
  • No mobile app

15. Close

Close is a cloud CRM solution for remote salespeople. As one of the best CRM software in the industry, it makes team onboarding a breeze, automates and analyzes workflows, and helps you grow revenue quickly. It also integrates well with some of your tools, bringing your software stack to one place.

Key Features

Calling — Close has built-in call software to help you reach more people effortlessly and double your call volume and velocity. With the predictive dialer, you can call multiple numbers at once, and the software automatically routes answered calls to available reps.

Video — Close natively support Zoom, enabling remote selling with videos. The software can connect your Zoom account and sync your previous recordings with the CRM software. It also alerts you five minutes before every meeting, and you can add notes during the meeting for context.

Call Coaching — With Close, you can train your sales team, no matter where they are, all within the CRM without needing to invest in expensive online training tools.

Workflow Automation — The CRM solution offers in-app email and calls automation that can simplify your workflow and help you get more work done. Also, you can save and share winning templates with team members to boost the reach rate and close deals faster.

User Experience

Close is an easy-to-use CRM software for busy salespeople with no learning curve. 

You can quickly create an account, set up your workflow sequences, and immediately put the CRM to work. The software also has dynamic smart views that let you prioritize your leads and quickly find what you need.

Close offers free migration and support, so you can get assistance whenever needed. However, it might not be real-time since the software doesn’t offer live chat.

Pricing

Close offers four subscription plans billed monthly and annually.

  • Starter $25 per month
  • Basic $59 per month
  • Professional $89 per month
  • Business $129

Strengths

  • Remote selling
  • Power and predictive dialer
  • Built-in email and SMS marketing
  • Powerful reporting insights
  • Free trial, migration, and support
  • Sales force automation
  • Phone and email support
  • Pipeline visualization

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • No live chat support

16. Nutshell

Nutshell is an all-in-one B2B CRM software designed to help teams manage contacts and leads, sell smarter and gain valuable insights to track performance and optimize the sales process. Over 30,000 sales and marketing professionals use the software to streamline their workflow.

Key Features

Pipeline Management — Like most CRM, you can visualize your customer’s journey at a glance. With this feature, you can view, manage and prioritize leads for a faster closing.

Sales Automation — From lead assignments to scoring, task reminders, and more, Nutshell automates these tasks at the snap of a finger, allowing your team to focus on actual closing. 

Email Marketing Campaigns— Nutshell helps you send targeted, beautifully designed marketing emails. You can save time with the built-in template and see who engages with the email in real time. 

Leads Capturing  — The CRM has a native web form to capture leads and feed them directly to your pipeline. In addition, you can embed the form on your website to generate leads from web visitors.

User Experience

Nutshell reporting is top-notch, with an excellent interface. 

However, some users complained the email builder is subpar and could need improvement. Also, it offers limited customization.

Besides these, the software is excellent for quickly connecting all your software tools and accessing them in one place. The company doesn’t charge for customer support, and they can help you migrate your data to hit the ground running immediately.

The CRM offers several helpful resources to help you resolve issues and put the software to full use. 

Pricing

Nutshell offers two plans, billed monthly and annually. Here’s the cost per user per month:

  • Nutshell $19
  • Nutshell PRO $49
  • Nutshell Marketing (custom plan)

Strengths

  • Open API
  • Mobile apps
  • Free Migration
  • Sales force  automation
  • Leads generation
  • Pipeline visualization
  • Email marketing campaigns
  • Sales forecasting
  • Dependable support 
  • Custom marketing plan

Weaknesses

  • No live chat

17. Nimble

Nimble is one of the best CRM software for small and midsize businesses, used by over 140,000 professionals. Also, world-leading brands like UpWork, GoDaddy, and Flexjobs use the platform. 

Key Features

Nimble Prospector — With Nimble, you can efficiently prospect leads on any social site, website, or cloud application and connect with them in less time. The prospector is available as a browser extension, making it readily available.

Relationship Management — The software helps users manage customer contact details, automate key business processes, enable social listening and gain valuable business intelligence to deliver superior customer experience.

Email Marketing — The built-in email campaign management functionality means you won’t need to switch tabs or need third-party services to engage customers via personalized emails and track your progress.

Smarter Actions — Nimble provides actionable business and customer intelligence to take more intelligent actions to gain complete control of your sales process. For example, you can visualize your sales funnel, gain social insights to prepare for meetings, and discover engagement opportunities.

User Experience

You’ll likely start your Nimble experience by importing a CSV file of your existing contact database; thankfully, the software makes this process very straightforward. Also, the CRM makes importing and syncing data with other apps seamless.

Additionally, Nimble’s “Today Page” feature provides an overview of all your upcoming activities, deals, and engagement opportunities from social mentions and essential contacts to reach out to, making prioritizing more effortless.

The software has a support center and a live chat for quick assistance.

Pricing

Nimble offers only one subscription plan—Nimble Business, available for $25 monthly for a user. However, you’ll pay only $19 if you opt for the annual plan.

Strengths

  • App Marketplace
  • Native leads prospector
  • Browser extension
  • Activity tracking and team tasks management
  • Built-in calendar
  • Pipeline management
  • 360-degree view of customers and leads
  • Marketing automation
  • Contact management
  • Live chat
  • Business and customer intelligence
  • Office 365 and Google Workspace integration
  • Low entry fee
  • Social listening and mentions

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • Limited subscription plan

18. MailChimp

Mailchimp is not just an email service provider. It’s also one of the best CRM software for small businesses. With this solution, you can build better customer relationships and sell to them more creatively. In addition, the CRM is scalable and can support your business growth and needs.

Key Features

Contact Management — Whether importing an existing contact database or building from scratch, MailChimp helps you manage them all from one location. Also, you can create or use the built-in segments to organize your contacts.

Email Marketing — Email marketing and campaign management are probably MailChimp’s best selling point and are natively supported in the CRM, meaning you can run effective email campaigns. Also, it comes with pre-built email templates, and you can run A/B tests in-app.

Behavioral Targeting and Personalization — MailChimp can predict customers buying behaviors, enabling you to segment your contact effortlessly to launch campaigns that feel like a one-on-one conversation at the right time or deliver personalized product recommendations. 

User Experience

You’ll only need to fill out three fields to sign up. However, it would have been better if users could create accounts automatically with their Gmail. It’ll save you the stress of logging into your email to activate the MailChimp account.

Mailchimp’s user interface is excellent, with many white spaces, but I don’t find the yellow background and black font colors easy on the eyes while signing up. Also, the software can integrate neatly with other tools, so you can easily manage your stack in one place.

MailChimp support is excellent, and case resolution is always fast.

Pricing

MailChimp CRM offers free, and three paid plans.

  • Premium $350 per month
  • Standard $20 per month
  • Essentials $13 per month

Strengths

  • Highly scalable
  • Mobile app
  • Predictive segmentation and behavioral targeting
  • Holistic audience view
  • Live chat support
  • Seamless contact management
  • Actionable customer insight
  • Free plan
  • Low-priced starting plan
  • Extensive third-party integrations

Weaknesses

  • Limited native Salesforce automation

19. Apptivo

Apptivo is a CRM software used by over 200,000 businesses, including Sephora, UNAIDS, Exult, and Los Angeles Times. The solution simplifies customer relationship management so sales and marketing teams can be more efficient and close deals effortlessly.

Key Features

Win and Loss Analysis — You can track the sales opportunities your sales team prospected and analyze the employees that contributed to winning the opportunity. Additionally, the app can help you analyze lost opportunities and the reasons behind them.

Territory management — You can quickly delineate and manage your sales territories to boost team collaboration, improve sales efficiency, and maximize territorial benefits. With the built-in assignment rules, you can automatically segment leads based on territories.  

Sales Planning — With Apptivo, you’re sure you won’t be tracking your sales targets with spreadsheets. Instead, the software comes with a sales planning app to measure your team members’ KPIs and implement scalable sales processes to facilitate faster deal closing.

User Experience

Apptivo has an excellent user interface.

But new users might need help navigating the software. Also, the customization and app integrations are not a walk in the park. 

However, the CRM system offers an extensive knowledge base for self-help. 

Pricing

Apptivo offers three subscription plans.

  • Lite $10 per month
  • Premium $15 per month
  • Ultimate $25 per month

Strengths

  • Project management
  • Integrated CRM software
  • Activity tracking
  • Performance analysis
  • Pipeline visualization
  • Contact Marketing
  • Email campaigns
  • Leads management
  • Salesforce automation
  • Sales planning
  • Territory management
  • 30-day free trial
  • Mobile apps

Weaknesses

  • Hard customization
  • No real-human live chat

20. Act! CRM

Act! is a cloud-based CRM software designed for small and midsize businesses to manage customer relationships and sell better seamlessly. The CRM system has been in play for over 35 years, powering over 800,000 users worldwide.

Key Features

Marketing Automation — Using Act! means you won’t need to spend much hiring and maintaining an in-house marketing team. Instead, this CRM software can handle most of your crucial marketing processes effectively.

Sales Pipeline Management — With Act! built-in sales pipeline management, you can automate your sales tasks and maintain a 360-degree view of your customers and their journey to close deals faster.

Activity Management — Act! helps you stay on top of all the happenings around you, including critical projects, enabling you to prioritize and stay more productive.

User Experience

Act! offers a user-friendly interface and intuitive customization. 

However, some users complained that each new update tends to drag the software backward. Additionally, you might need help setting up custom reports and dashboards. 

Also, I can’t vouch for their support. You might struggle to reach them whenever the need arises. However, there is an extensive resource you can always fall back on for self-help.

Pricing

Act! offers two plans billed annually.

  • Act! Premium Desktop $37.50 per user per month
  • Act! Premium Cloud $40 per user per month

Users opting for the Premium Cloud plan pay an additional $10 monthly for desktop sync.

Strengths

  • Sales and marketing automation
  • Customer management
  • Sales pipeline visualization
  • Activity tracking
  • Advanced reporting capabilities
  • 14-day free trial
  • Live chat support
  • Flexibility and Extensibility
  • Cloud and on-premises deployment

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • Limited pricing plans
  • Annual billing

21. Agile CRM

Agile CRM is one of the best CRM services in the market. It promises to help you sell and market like Fortune 500 companies. In addition, the software packs several core CRM features like sales enablement, marketing automation, and customer service.

Key Features

Sales — The CRM system can help your sales teams manage their contacts in one place, track deals to keep the sales process on track, and automate sales calls. The CRM system also lets you manage appointments and gamify sales.

Marketing — Agile CRM has an intuitive drag-and-drop builder to set up a marketing workflow and build landing pages in minutes. It also extends its CRM capabilities with social media, email, and SMS features for multichannel marketing campaigns. 

Service — The software streamlines your customer service management so that your support can focus on only tasks that matter. It also allows you to provide pre-formatted replies for faster and more consistent responses.

User Experience

Agile CRM has a clean and intuitive dashboard. Using the features doesn’t require any learning curve. Also, the CRM software displays information in an easy-to-understand way.

The customer relationship management software has a robust knowledge base. Also, you can schedule a chat with any of their specialists within a few minutes.

Pricing

AgileCRM has free CRM software alongside three premium packages, billed monthly, yearly, and bi-annually. If you go for the bi-annual plans, you’ll pay the following:

  • Starter $8.99 per user per month
  • Regular $29.99 per user per month
  • Enterprise $47.99 per user per month

Strengths

  • Free plans with ten users
  • Yearly and bi-annual subscription plans
  • Lead management
  • Appointment scheduling
  • Two-way telephony
  • Contact management
  • Email and SMS marketing
  • Marketing automation with exit intent.
  • Social monitoring
  • Project management
  • Landing page builders
  • Chrome extension
  • Post-call automation
  • Push notification

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • No live chat support

Choosing the Best CRM Software

The right CRM software providers for your business would offer you the best customer relationship management and engagement solutions. So, consider only CRM software vendors that offer you business solutions to meet your specific needs within your budget and integrate seamlessly with all your business tools.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

Source

The post 21 Best CRM Software first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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Data Lineage Is Broken — Here Are 5 Ways to Fix It

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Data lineage isn’t new, but automation has finally made it accessible and scalable—to a certain extent. 

In the old days (way back in the mid-2010s), lineage happened through a lot of manual work. This involved identifying data assets, tracking them to their ingestion sources, documenting those sources, mapping the path of data as it moved through various pipelines and stages of transformation, and pinpointing where the data was served up in dashboards and reports. 

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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The UX of Maps in Web Design

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Maps are a fascinating method for delivering content. At their best, they can create an intuitive way of presenting information and interacting with it. This is the advantage that digital maps, through mobile apps and websites, have over print maps and images where no interactivity is possible.

But it’s important to understand that more data ≠ better experiences. We all now have so much data available to us through multiple services that, arguably, the greatest challenge isn’t sourcing information but filtering it out. We can only handle so much information input before we become overloaded. This issue risks being omnipresent with maps. There are so many potential points of interest on a map that it’s essential to be clear about what needs to be exposed to users.

Also, UX design, map design, and user interface are all critical. While maps can be a powerful way of drawing people in, if end-users feel that you didn’t even consider the visual design, they’ll ‘bounce off’ your site or app in moments.

Common Use Cases

When are maps useful, and what problems do they solve? Let’s dive right into the most common use cases for maps used in web design.

Navigation and Direction

Like Google Maps shows, navigation and direction are arguably the classic case study for interactive maps. You are in one place and need to get to another. You can enter your destination, your current location, and the map will present suggestions for getting there. You can select the method of travel and adjust desired departure or arrival times. But you need to understand first what functionality your users need. How these options are exposed to users is a critical piece of UX design.

Also, if users are searching for options such as somewhere to eat, it’s not so straightforward. Then, how your map handles panning in real-time as users swipe around a city is going to be a big issue.

Showing Relationships and Trends Geographically

This is something that you’ll see in every election in any western country. We’re all used to seeing maps that give us a state-of-play for which state or seat is held by which party. Then, we might see projections based on voter intentions and projected voting swings deriving from that. Then, exit poll data can be projected with the map updated on an ongoing basis until the final result is confirmed.

The capability to do this is essential because if a static map were used, it’d be out of date any time a new poll was released. Also, voting intentions can change over a campaign, so such maps need to be dynamic. Of course, such maps are only as accurate as the available data, as the US 2016 election map showed.

Show Points of Interest

As mentioned previously, there’s a lot of data that can be exposed to map users. However, that doesn’t automatically mean that it should be. Usability is key. For example, when you look at a map, you’ll typically first see key points of interest. Which points of interest are going to be presented to you can vary.

One variant is zoom level. If your map is currently showing an entire city, the level of detail the map presents is deliberately limited. You’ll see districts, large roads, or geographic features such as rivers. If more detailed information were presented, users on mobile devices, in particular, would be overwhelmed. Even at this level, you’ll notice typography differences. These can include the city name being in bold or the names of different areas in capital letters. So the level of detail is coupled with the scale of the map. Zooming in a few notches will expose significant points of interest, such as museums. Zooming in to specific districts will reveal restaurants, coffee shops, and universities. This visual hierarchy is a critical way of managing the exposed level of information.

But information is still being abstracted away. It’s not until you tap on the museum that you’ll see information on opening hours and busy times. This is also typically presented with user photos and reviews. Context is also taken into account, so you’ll start to see local hotels and restaurants. So it’s not just individual points of interest that are important, but the connections between them.

6 Tips For Improving Interactive Maps

What are the challenges of creating effective maps, and how do people address the data overload problem? We’ll answer this question and go over the must-know aspects of map creation.

1. Ensure Security and Brand Trust

GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation. This is a critically important European law that extends a wide range of legal protection to European citizens regarding personal data. It’s not possible here to cover the full extent of the law, but here are some quick key points:

  • Consent is required for the processing of personal data; it cannot be assumed
  • You need to have a retention policy for information that’s capable of identifying people

Be aware that the latter doesn’t just cover commercial purposes. Research students have to submit GDPR forms that address what kind of data they’re sourcing and how they’ll be retaining it.

But the most crucial context is commercial. If a business suffers a data breach, it can be fined up to 20 million euros or 4% of annual worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year, whichever is greater. Therefore, any business storing data that could identify their customers will need to assess risk and compliance. Remember: it’s 4% of worldwide turnover, not EU turnover.

Also, anything of your business that you expose to your customers or users is an extension of your brand. Therefore, you need to assess your maps for brand compliance too. If you have primary brand colors and your map doesn’t abide by them, that’s a very poor look. Source the color hex codes directly from your brand team and involve them in design.

2. Use the Appropriate Type of Map

It’s also important to consider what type of map is most appropriate for your use case. Think carefully about what your users need, what you’re trying to communicate, what information you need to present, and how best to present it.

For example, points of interest style maps in a tourist app will be way more helpful than heat maps: people want to know where something is, key data like opening hours, and how to get there. A heat map showing the number of visitors to each attraction or area of a city is unlikely to be useful to tourists. However, it could be useful to the attractions themselves to map their visitors by heat map over time. This could help larger museums chart which exhibits are most popular.

Transport for London is charting passenger movement on the London Underground by detecting when a device with Wi-Fi comes into range and then passes out of range. They’re using this to understand overall user journeys and movements within individual stations to better manage disruptions.

3. Avoid Pop-Ups

It should go without saying by now that auto pop-ups are despised. It doesn’t matter what they’re doing or what they’re offering; an unwanted pop-up can only get in the way. The level of impact is even greater on a phone where pop-ups take up even more screen space.

Given this, many users close them without even reading them. So if you’re using pop-ups, don’t kid yourself. You’re likely just irritating users and increasing the likelihood that they’ll ‘bounce off’ or uninstall.

4. Avoid Auto-Geolocation

Auto-geolocation sounds incredibly convenient but can result in some real problems. For example, if there are any bugs with auto-geolocation, you could get false results. If someone connects through public building Wi-Fi, you could get false results. If they’re connecting through a VPN then, unless you get the user’s IP address and check if it’s the exit portal of a VPN, you could get false results.

The problem is most significant with mobile maps. If a map user is looking at a points of interest map, they likely have a specific and immediate use. This means it’s in their best to get the most accurate results possible. So why not just ask them?

Precision and Accuracy

These terms have specific meanings in geolocation. ‘Precision’ is the exactness of the data. ‘Accuracy’ is how closely the information on a map matches the real world. So you want precision and accuracy to be spot on, or data risks losing value. This applies not just to the gathering of data but to the representation of it. For example, if you have street-level data but your maps don’t present individual streets, then any representation of data on that map is likely to have poor accuracy. That map might succeed in abstracting irrelevant information but presenting an imprecise and inaccurate view.

5. Avoid Map Legends as Much as Possible

In many cases, primarily points-of-interest maps, they’re just not needed anymore. An essential part of user experience design isn’t just visual hierarchy but information hierarchy. You can mouse over on a desktop or laptop to get the essentials of a location, e.g., the museum’s name and its opening hours. On a mobile device, you can tap on that location to get the essentials, and you can tap on another location to move on; you don’t even have to press back. Given that, a legend would get in the way. So this simple piece of information design solves information overload issues.

As with all rules, there are exceptions. A good one is a heat map where a density of what’s being measured needs to be communicated. It doesn’t matter what the data is; it just needs to be something where mapping provides greater insight, especially if it informs decision-making. Sales is an excellent example for a national or multinational company. Of course, weather forecasting can make use of literal heat maps.

6. Accessibility Compliance

Not everyone has perfect eyesight. Even if someone has excellent vision, they could still be colorblind (8% of men and 0.5% of women are). Given that, take the W3C’s accessibility standards into account and treat them as a baseline or minimum barrier to entry for compliance. You shouldn’t feel good about the possibility of excluding 8% of your potential audience or customers. Ensure you keep your UX designers involved and don’t shy away from creating senior-friendly web designs.

Put simply: imagine if you could appeal to a new demographic that’s not catered to. If your competitors ignore them, you could give them a real reason to choose you instead by taking some straightforward steps. If your competitors are catering to them, you also need to. If you don’t, you’re just giving potential customers a big reason to ignore you.

Conclusions

The key takeaway is that there’s far more to creating good maps than just good cartography. That can be critical, too, though this may vary depending on the use case.

This will be a team effort because your map will involve data sets, design decisions, and, yes, cartography. You’re going to need to involve brand and IT too. So think about design principles and development methodologies.

First and foremost, what are your users’ needs? If you haven’t done any user research or taken the time to understand the customer journey, are you adding anything or getting in the way? It’s easy to see the department that requested the map as stakeholders, but you should probably view your users as stakeholders too.

This sounds complex, but as you hopefully now appreciate, a map is probably more complicated than you thought.

 

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50 Best Websites of 2021

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2021 has been both memorable and instantly forgettable. Pop stars were freed from modern-day servitude, some people tried to overthrow democracy, and we all vacationed at home.

Despite the weirdness of the times, the web kept growing, kept changing, and kept on pushing boundaries. We saw a wealth of new sites launch or relaunch with significant updates.

Here are the 50 best sites launched on the web this year. Enjoy!

Crusta C

In April, seafood company Crusta C cleverly used the simple logomark ‘C’ to apply a cutout video effect.

Slow

Slow is a collective of creatives aiming to implement slow movement principles. Its site reflects those aims, creating a sense of calm and deliberation.

hnst

2021 saw tons of brutalist-inspired design. hnst’s take on the style works thanks to the bright red in place of the standard black.

Marram

This site for boutique hotel Marram uses a soft color palette to create an impression of soft golden light and calm.

Levitate

In July, we loved this site for running-blade brand Levitate. The site is clean and light, with a sense of inherent motion in the photography.

Niarra Travel

There’s some beautiful photography on this site for eco-conscious, bespoke travel agency Niarra Travel.

Plunt.co

The core of this site for Plúnt is a combination chooser which feels pleasingly reminiscent of an animal flipbook.

Moth Drinks

Moth makes classic cocktails in a can. The striking black and white graphics and masking effects for its holding page stunned us back in March.

Seed

Selling supplements is hard; people are understandably skeptical. So this site for Seed packs in research and scientific information and avoids the hard-sell.

Wavemaker

Another excellent portfolio site in 2021, this time for creative media agency Wavemaker. The site is uber-confident while still being playful.

Wild Souls

Wild Souls makes nut butters, tahini, and other Greek delicacies. Its site is colorful and warm, and the site typography is soft and appealing.

JUST Egg

JUST Egg produces egg-like food from plant material. The huge photography and bold typography do a great job of making a new concept appealing.

Aalto University

One of the most popular designs of 2021 was Aalto University’s site with its in-depth campus tour. The simple navigation inspired several imitators.

Wisr

Scroll interactions were big in 2021, and Wisr features a Heath Robinson-style machine that ‘runs’ as the user scrolls down the page.

Cevitxef

This site for Cevitxef ceviche restaurant in Bilbao does a great job of making us hungry. Drama is created by oversized text, heavily-styled photography, and lots of movement.

On

The best digital agencies keep their own sites simple, like this site for On digital technology studio that uses black on light blue and adds infinite scrolling.

Acayaba + Rosenberg

We found Acayaba + Rosenberg’s use of architectural photography and subtle scrolling a pleasing browsing experience.

Madre

This site for home linen company Madre uses extraordinary fine-art style still-life photography to enrich a very simple site.

Hyperframe

“Show, don’t tell” is a well-worn mantra. Hyperframe’s site implements it by demonstrating the product’s major selling point on scroll.

Gemini

This exceptional WebGL experiment was built to show what’s possible in the technology. Have a play with the car; it’s a ground-breaking demo.

Felt

In 2021, collaborative mapping tool Felt launched in private beta. Its excellent site does a great job of creating interest while doubling as a recruitment notice.

imNativ

Not every project is exciting, but this excellent site for imNativ uses macro photography to great effect to promote upholstery fabric.

Websmith Studio

Excellently named Websmith Studio uses color to highlight, and the noise effect applied to the background adds subtle interest.

Singita

High-quality photography and a terracotta-based color scheme create an inviting ambiance for Singita, an African eco-tourism and conservation brand.

Fluff

A fullscreen background behind a mobile view for desktop? It sounds like a horrible idea, but this site for cosmetics brand Fluff pulls it off.

Chiwawa

This great site for Chiwawa cantina features wrestling masks, skeletons, and tone-on-tone color to create a lively and distinctly Mexican site.

Nothing

This site for Nothing’s ear(1) earbuds is packed with confidence. Appropriately, it looks even better on mobile.

Chérie Healey

Lots of experts have tried to tell us how to live our lives in the last couple of years, but Chérie Healey’s site manages to stay on the right side of positive without slipping into clichés.

Wayfinder

Wayfinder, a game about our connection to nature using generative code, AI, machine learning, and data mining, could not have been more 2021 if it tried.

Green Angel Syndicate

Not too many investment groups are thought of as ethical, but Green Angel Syndicate specializes in funding companies fighting climate change.

Tether

As the days got darker in the Northern hemisphere, we were wowed by this site for Tether, a cycle safety system using video and illustration to explain its clever approach to bike safety.

Patricia Urquiola

Back in January, we loved the new site for Patricia Urquiola design studio, thanks to its bright, bold colors that we thought inspired confidence.

Headup

Headup’s businesslike approach is created thanks to a pleasing color palette and geometric graphics.

Redwood Empire

For Earth Day on April 22nd, Redwood Empire Whiskey created a microsite promoting a competition styled to match their bottle labels.

GT Super

The one-pager for GT Super has a certain drama in keeping with the font itself and allows you to play around with the size, weight, and style.

Planet of Lana

Due for release in 2022, Planet of Lana is a game from Wishfully Studios, and its teaser page launched back in June has kept us intrigued ever since.

The Longest Road Out

This charming site for The Longest Road Out is a travel map and journal based on the creators’ road trip around Britain, Ireland, and the outlying islands.

Made Thought

Made Thought has a bold aesthetic and approach that explains its outstanding client list.

Miti Navi

Miti Navi makes extraordinary sailing boats. We were attracted to how its site presented a luxury product in an original way.

La Nouvelle

Another powerful digital design agency site was La Nouvelle’s, which used a combination of contrasting and complementary color combinations to catch the eye.

Caleño

Caleño makes non-alcoholic distilled spirits. They relaunched their website in March with bright, joyful colors that reflect the character of the brand.

Capsul’in — Aluminium

This demo site for a coffee pod manufacturer isn’t a site as such, but it demonstrates that even in 2022, there’s room for parallax scrolling.

How Many Plants

Everyone needs a few more houseplants, and How Many Plants is a great guide to how to own and look after them. The illustration style is friendly but efficient.

How & How

One of the most approachable design agency sites of 2021 was How & How’s. It keeps things light and clean, and effective.

The Hiring Chain

Part of a campaign encouraging businesses to employ talented people with Down Syndrome, The Hiring Chain website dispels myths with clearly presented facts.

Virgile Guinard

Back in February, we couldn’t get enough of photographer Virgile Guinard’s portfolio site. Blocks of color pulled from each image hide the image allowing you to focus on one image at a time.

Studio Nanna Lagerman

Studio Nanna Lagermann’s site excels at creating a sense of space and calm. The color palette is soft and neutral. The type is large but clean and sophisticated.

GOOD Meat

Veganism is a growing trend, and one of the sites promoting it with gorgeous colors is this site for lab ‘grown’ meat.

Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce

This one-page site for Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce is big and bold. Click almost anywhere, and two bottles of sauce go into your cart.

Ebb Dunedin

The site bucks the trend for luxury hotel design and instead is styled to complement its interiors. We could have done with time at this boutique hotel in 2021, maybe next year…

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Creative Problem Solving for UX Designers

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It’s normal to pull up sharp in front of a problem; after all, if there was a known solution, it wouldn’t be a problem. But knowing that it’s normal, doesn’t make encountering problems any less frustrating. So how do we avoid sitting in front of a UX problem for hours, achieving nothing?

That’s what creative problem solving is all about.

In this post, we’ll explore creative problem solving, and how it can help you as a UX designer. Then we’ll analyze how you can solve UX problems in a few, easy-to-remember steps. By the end of this article, you’ll have all the tips you need for UX problem-solving.

What is Creative Problem Solving?

Creative problem solving is a term developed by Alex Osborn, the founder of the Creative Education Foundation. In a nutshell, this term is about overcoming challenges in our work lives through innovative solutions. But, of course, such solutions vary by profession.

For UX designers, creative problem solving is about solving UX problems with efficient tactics, that work. And that’s precisely why UX problem solving is so essential because following a specific method can help us avoid getting stuck.

Whether you are a newbie or an experienced designer, you are probably focused on projects that require you to solve problems. If you have never had a problem before, you must be a superhero; for us mere mortals, here are the steps we need to follow to solve a UX problem:

UX Problem Solving in 5 Easy Steps

Delivering a great UX solution is influenced by two key parameters: user research and creative problem-solving. Suppose you have done your user research and are currently looking for an original solution to a problem. In this case, the methodology below will be handy:

1. Identify the UX Problem

I know this may sound obvious, but think about it. How many times have we lost days because we didn’t identify the real problem? If you are solving the wrong problem, it does not matter if your solution is original and innovative.

That’s why the first thing you need to do is think about the problem. Ask yourself what the real problem is, and then get to work solving it. Identifying the problem may take some time, but it will prove beneficial to your project in the long run.

2. Clarify the UX Problem

Now that you have identified the UX problem, it’s time to demystify it. In this step, you could create a user journey plan. It does not have to be perfect; some low-fidelity sketches are more than enough.

Set a timer and start visualizing your solution on paper. Remember, sketching is not about perfection or fine details. Once you have created a customer journey you are happy with, it’s time to move on to the next step.

3. Use Analytics

UX design isn’t about design per se. It’s also about numbers and data. This is why analytics are critical to UX problem-solving. Once you have gathered some data from users and competitors, it’s time to create patterns. This will help you better understand the problem and change your drafts accordingly.

Numbers and data alone can help you a lot if you combine them with an original idea. However, facts alone are not enough, and your original story will not be compelling without them. So what’s better than combining them?

4. Use Your Feedback

So you have come up with an innovative solution to the UX problem. You have successfully combined this idea with essential data. Unfortunately, your work is not yet done. 

The next step is equally important. Once you have polished your ideas, you should share them with colleagues and/or customers.

It’s not easy to get feedback for your UX mapping, but it’s very constructive and will ultimately make you a better designer.

5. Solve the Problem

The last step is also the most fun. Once you have listened to people’s feedback, you can redesign your original solution. Then you are just one step away from solving the UX problem. Now it’s time to digitally redesign your idea.

This is the step where fine details matter. Creating a high-fidelity wireframe is not easy, but most UX designers have the knowledge and tools to get it done.

UX Problem Solving: Useful Tips and Tricks

Be Methodical

In my opinion, this is the most useful tip when it comes to UX problem-solving. You do not always have to be in a hurry. In the early stages of a project, try not to get distracted by other problems. Focus on finding the real problem.

Once you are sure you have found it, you can move on to finding the best solution. Then move on to the next step and so on. It becomes clear that being methodical is a brilliant tactic.

UX Problem Solving is All about the Ecosystem

UX problem solving is not about fine details. So try to care less about the design and more about the ecosystem you want to create. That will help you gather all the data you need, from user opinions to analytics.

Low-Fidelity vs. High-Fidelity Wireframes

Starting with sketches and low-fidelity wireframes is a brilliant thing to do. Whenever I have tried to start a project directly with high-fidelity wireframes, I have gotten bogged down in details.

For this reason, pen and paper should be your best friends in UX problem-solving. Sketches help you explore different approaches and get the feedback you need.

Explore Different Tools/Approaches

When it comes to solving a UX problem, there is usually one efficient solution. But that is not always the case. In most cases, we have to consider different alternatives and identify more than one critical interaction.

For this reason, feedback is also crucial for UX problem-solving. Your colleagues and customers will help you find the best method. Try to accept criticism and be open when listening to feedback. This way, you will ensure that you will find the best possible solution.

Wrap Up

Solving a UX problem is not easy. However, if you identify the real problem and illustrate different approaches, you will be on the right track. Also, do not neglect to use the data and feedback you collect. The more tools you have in hand, the better UX designer you will be.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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5 Simple Steps To Effective Wireframing

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Wireframes are a powerful tool, especially for UX designers; whether you are developing a new app, a website, or anything else, the initial steps of any project can be tackled with this robust approach.

There are many occasions when we get stuck or overwhelmed for hours in front of a new project. This is where creating wireframes can be beneficial. A wireframe is nothing more than a diagram of your ideas for the flow of a project.

This post will analyze what wireframes are, and why they are so crucial for user mapping. Then, we will reveal the steps you need to follow to create an efficient wireframe. Let’s dive in…

What Is A Wireframe?

In a few words, a wireframe is a drawing created in the early stages of a UX project. Wireframes are a brilliant and effortless way to create a blueprint for the structure of a page.

In such a drawing, you can include valuable information about the UI and UX of the page you want to design.

You can think of wireframing as a process of visualizing the initial ideas you have about a project. It does not matter if you are comfortable with drawing; you can design wireframes on paper or digitally.

In either case, drawing a wireframe is not about your artistic skills. Instead, wireframes are about structuring your project and identifying the fundamental interactions you want to build out.

Why Is Wireframing Important For UX Designers? 

If you are an experienced UX designer, you have already come across concepts like user mapping and user journeys. Mapping the entire user experience is crucial. And that’s the main reason why wireframing is a must for a UX project.

Since you need to provide a top-notch user experience, wireframing is a great way to ensure this from the earliest stages of your design. But what is the process you need to follow when designing wireframes?

And how can you ensure that your wireframes are efficient? Let’s find out…

Creating An Effective Wireframe In 5 Simple Steps

Creating a good wireframe will allow you to construct your project. You will think it through, prioritize some fundamental interactions and consider alternatives.

1. Research

Although this is not a wireframing step per se, it is critical to the efficiency of your wireframes. How can you start drafting without doing user research? Well, you can not. That’s why the first thing you need to do is analyze your project.

All you have to do is seek similar products/services and check them out. Look at what your competitors are doing right and what they are doing wrong. This way, you will be ready for the next step.

2. Create Personas

You have already selected the best practices and ruled out other guidelines you believe will not be effective on this project. Now it’s time to think about user flow: How many screens will you put on a page? Where are users coming from, and where do you want them to go after reading this page?

By mapping your user flow, you can create a user persona. Then all you have to do is figure out what information to include. 

Mapping the information correctly is crucial because it will help you ensure that users do not get frustrated or overwhelmed when they visit your final page.

Once you do that, you are good to go. 

3. Start Sketching

It’s time to reach for your fine pen, pencil, eraser, and paper. Visualizing your ideas needs to be quick and efficient. Try to avoid fine details because this step is not about creating a high-fidelity wireframe on paper. 

All you need to do here is sketch out basic features and formats.

Since most of us designers are perfectionists, you can use a timer. Set the timer to 4-5 minutes and force yourself to finish the wireframe by that time. Repeat this step until you have created a few wireframes with which you are happy.

Finally, expand and polish your favorite mockups for a few minutes and prepare for the hard part.

4. Ask for Feedback

There is nothing more important than feedback when it comes to wireframing. Discuss your project with your colleagues. Just let them know how each mockup helps you with the project and what idea it visualizes.

Try to sincerely listen to what they have to say about your designs. Once you have gathered all the information and advice, start modifying the wireframe accordingly.

5. Add Details and Create Prototypes

It’s been a long road, but you are now at the point where you feel most comfortable as a UX designer: prototyping. Plenty of software (Adobe XD, Framer, Proto.io, etc.) can help you with this step. 

Start by turning your low-fidelity sketch into a high-quality prototype. Once you are happy with the result, test your prototype’s screens and see if the result serves the user flow. Platforms like UsabilityHub and Prott can help you with this.

Valuable Tips to Keep in Mind While Creating a Wireframe

Keep your Wireframes Simple: Creating a wireframe is not about fine details; try to manage the time you spend on it well. All you need is a clear and simple visualization of your page. You will have all the time you need for prototyping.

Don’t Worry About Your Artistic Skills: Anyone can draw. It’s as simple as that. You do not have to be an artist to create a clear wireframe to help you visualize your ideas. Be confident and make sure you include all the information you need.

Always Think of the User Personas You Created: Creating a wireframe is a smart way to ensure that the page you create meets the user’s needs. Therefore, you should always keep in mind what users will do when they open this page and whether it meets their needs and goals.

The Bottom Line

Creating a wireframe is not as difficult as you might think. All you need to do is research, find out what users need from this page, and create a map. By following these simple steps, you’ll ensure that the wireframes you design deliver a top-notch user experience.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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