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50 Best Websites of 2020

2020 has been one of the most memorable years in our history. Few of us have been alive long enough to experience a more turbulent time. But throughout the year, we saw design respond to challenging events with positivity, color, and a desire to elevate those people and projects working to make the world better.

As we head into 2021, there’s no denying that 2020 has changed our outlook on life and marked a major turning point in web design trends.

Here’s a collection of the websites we loved the most this year. Enjoy!

Looks Like You Need Iceland

On Looks Like You Need Iceland, you are invited to record a scream, which will then be broadcast into the Icelandic wilderness. It’s meant as a form of therapy. The idea is that you will one day visit Iceland in person. That might still be some way off for most of us, but we could certainly use a good therapeutic scream.

Black Lives Matter

Across 2020 there were major protests around the world in support of Black Lives Matter. The movement’s website is a central hub for news, resources, and civil rights information in 38 countries.

2º Earth

2ºC Earth takes the user to 5 locations worldwide and shows what will happen there if global temperatures rise by 2ºc. Sound is used really well here to create an immersive experience, along with some beautiful photography.

Github

Along with some new features announced earlier this month, GitHub has a glossy new homepage. It has a clean feel, with some nice scrolling animation and sparing but effective use of illustration.

I Weigh Community

Political and social initiatives were big in 2020, and non-profit activism initiative I Weigh Community is the brainchild of actress Jameela Jamil. It’s devoted to radical inclusivity, communicated with bold, expressive graphics.

UNREAL

Back in January, we clicked around UNREAL’s site for hours, enjoying the sharp transitions. The Swiss agency produced a wonderfully chaotic love letter to web animation.

Delassus

Delassus grows fruit, from citrus to avocados. The Moroccan company employs a cornucopia of 3D design to make its site bold, fun, and practical.

Lynn Fisher

We loved everything about Lynn Fisher’s site back in May. The homepage illustration was awesome. It was a humorous approach to RWD that we really appreciated. The site has since changed, with tons more to explore.

Minervo

The Minervo site feels distinctly Latin, with the hot pinks and sun-blasted desaturation feeling suitably South American. We love the cropping on the custom typeface.

Babord

Norwegians have an almost mystical connection with the sea, which is evident in the site for Babord, a Norwegian seafood supplier. We loved the brand font too.

Calexo

Calexo makes THC-infused beverages, and back in April, we loved the color and positivity of the site. The animated hamburger menu was a hit too.

Moooi

Moooi’s site layers illustration with a maximal effect that makes you feel like you’re chasing a white rabbit. There are tons of great UI details here, especially the bar that reveals the product videos.

Blind Barber Anniversary

The Blind Barber celebrates 10 years of success with this microsite. A deconstructed grid and an entirely black and white design, but with color photos, create energy and a sense of joy.

Zand Harirchi Architects

Zand Harirchi is an architecture firm based in Tehran, Iran. Its site features subtle references to architecture, like the delightful thumbnails reminiscent of small windows.

WFN

The WFN (Women’s Funding Network) is an international alliance supporting women’s foundations and gender justice funders. The sophisticated color palette and clean type are both confident and feminine.

Nathan Taylor

We loved exploring Nathan Taylor’s playful site all the way back in January. The different lighting modes were a firm favorite.

Käthe Kollwitz Memorial

A tribute to the life and work of Käthe Kollwitz, an Expressionist printmaker. There’s a catalog of her work, presented alongside large type and splashy color transitions.

Emotive Feels

Emotive Feels is a design manifesto from the Emotive Brand agency that illustrates an A–Z of potential brand emotions with simple animations that we likened to a Blue Note release.

A. N Other

A.N Other’s site for perfume highlights quality ingredients, materials, simplicity, craftsmanship, and the environment; in the process, it cleverly invokes a sense of luxury.

Playtype

Danish type foundry Playtype’s site fits its name perfectly. The playful site with bright blocks of color and the occasional animation shows off some pretty nice typefaces.

Feijoo Montenegro

All-text sites are always a thrill, and back in June, we were treated to this simple one-pager by Feijoo. Details like the numerals being replaced by words are delightful.

Wavering Stripes

Although this site’s subject matter is harrowing, it is presented in a very beautiful, thoughtful manner.

The Oyster & Fish House

Sophisticated typography, the wave textures, the nostalgic feel of the photography, and even the cookie notice’s on-brand styling all show attention to detail, which gives this site its appeal.

Who Cares

Find and ‘photograph’ the endangered species to learn about them in this delightfully illustrated game.

Curbed

When Curbed came under the umbrella of New York magazine earlier this year, it got a makeover. Neon highlights and a distorted grid give an edge to the classic magazine layout.

Yolélé

The carousel of fonio (it’s a West African grain) products on Yolélé’s landing page is a good example of horizontal scrolling that works well. There are some great page transitions too.

Pantheone Audio

Pantheone Audio’s site employs elegant scrolling to enable seamless navigation of an extremely luxurious site, underpinned by a complex grid.

Aelfie

Bright color, an irregular grid, illustrations, and a display type that feels almost hand-drawn perfectly captures the aesthetic of this NY-based home furnishing brand.

Highcourt

This site for private membership leisure club Highcourt uses subtle background color changes and simple line illustrations to create a sense of calm. Black and white are softened to dark blue and ivory, and gentle animation adds interest.

Kate Jackling

Kate Jackling’s site takes a step back and allows the content to bask in the glow of attention, placing her photography at center stage.

Treaty

While there is less hustle and bustle outside than we were used to pre-pandemic, we could certainly all use some calm. Treaty’s site for CBD oils reflects that calm with a combination of video, whitespace, and botanical drawings.

Ukrainian Railroad Ladies

Ukrainian Railroad Ladies is a book of photographs of women, and some men, who work on the Ukrainian railways. The site is basic, even brutalist, but it has charm, and the photographer’s fascination with his subject comes through.

Year & Day

Year & Day is an ecommerce site that sells tableware, from glassware to ceramics. The colorful collection is designed to complement different types of food, and the site’s color scheme reflects that perfectly.

Juan Mora

Juan Mora’s ‘under construction’ holding page has probably been crafted with more care than many full-blown sites. This showcase cleverly manages to demonstrate its subject’s skills without showing a single piece of work.

Lucciano’s

Lucciano’s homepage hero video alone will have your mouth watering for some of their gelato. Much of the appeal of food is visual, and the photography here does not disappoint. Circular text boxes in ice cream colors complement the product shots nicely.

Bored Solutions

Back in April, we were already a little weary of lockdown — if only we’d known how long it would last! The amazing color blobbing of bored.solutions was the ideal distraction.

Grand Matter

Grand Matter is an artist agency representing illustrators. There is a wealth of talent on show here and a broad enough range of styles to keep the web interesting for a good while.

Dunderville

This site for Dunderville motion design studio features a paper fold detail, which adds tactility to the virtual. Some superb type and vector animations showcase an impressive portfolio.

Album Colors of the Year

Album Colors has taken the covers from 150 albums released this year and arranged them by dominant color. The hex code for each color is provided if you want to copy it.

Mammut Expedition Baikal

Mammut uses stunning photography and a strong narrative to present its Eiger Extreme outdoor clothing. Longing for the great outdoors will either be alleviated or exacerbated by this one.

808303

808303.studio is a virtual Roland TR-808 drum machine and TB 303 bass synthesizer. You can program, record, and share your very own 80s techno masterpiece.

Bliss

Humor can be hard to get right, especially when you want to be taken seriously at the same time. Here, it works, and the result is a memorable site, oozing with confidence.

Jazz Keys

Type your message into Jazz Keys, and you’ll hear it in sound. You can send the message to anyone and let them hear your words — the web lives for side-projects like this.

Érika Moreira

The fabulous, simple site for Sao Paulo-based Érika Moreira has some awesome big type and creative case studies. It’s an excellent example of a non-visual portfolio.

G.F Smith

Earlier this year, the site for leading paper supplier G.F Smith got a redesign. It is a simpler design than the previous site and keeps the visual focus on the products and the colors.

Abbotsford Convent

Abbotsford Convent is a creative arts venue in Melbourne, Australia, based in a former convent. The UI for its site blends architectural forms to acknowledge the building’s heritage.

Waka Waka

Waka Waka designs and builds wooden furniture. The mid-century typography and the noise textures transport the site to the last century’s radical graphic design. There’s some clever disruption to the typical thumbnail approach.

Cone

Sites advertising apps always seem to want to box the design into a hastily de-branded mock-up. Cone takes a daringly refreshing approach by depicting a more expansive mobile experience.

Ride Out

Amsterdam’s Ride Out bike store teases the content with an intriguingly masked video. Plus, we love the wheel-inspired spinning links.

Puddle Sound

This site is a model of minimalism. Beautiful photographs and very little text, there is nothing to distract from the product on display.

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7 UX Principles to Apply to Your SEO

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User experience is one of the most important aspects of web design, but many experts overlook that UX doesn’t just apply to web pages. User experience as a concept encompasses all aspects of end-user interaction with a company.

That means you need to discover the right UX strategies for everything from your homepage to your email marketing and even your listings on Google.

Today, we’re going to explore some of how you can apply UX principles to your client’s image on search engines.

Why Your Search Engine Listing Matters

Let’s start with the basics: 89% of customers start their purchasing process with a search engine. That means that whether you’re creating a portfolio to sell your services or building a website for a client, the first connection a customer has with your design isn’t on the homepage.

Most of the time, you’re driving a specific experience for an end-user before you even realize it. Before you can wow an audience with a beautiful site design or an amazing CTA offer, you need to convince them to click on your Google link.

When you invest in user experience, you think carefully about the journey that an end-user goes through when interacting with a brand. This often means considering things like the user’s intent, their needs, and their pain points.

Those same principles apply to create an impressive search engine listing.

UX on a website is all about giving your audience what they need in an informed, and strategic manner; UX in the search engine results works the same way.

How to Make Your Search Listing Stand Out with UX

So, how do you begin to apply the principles of UX to your Google Search results?

It’s much easier than you’d think.

Step 1: Show Immediate Value

Delivering an excellent experience on a website often means providing end-users with the information they need as quickly as possible. Imagine designing a landing page; you wouldn’t want your audience to scroll forever to find what they need. Instead, you’d make sure that the value of the page was immediately obvious.

When creating an image for your search engine listing, you’ll need to take the same approach. This often means thinking carefully about two things: your headline and your meta description.

Around 8 out of 10 users say that they’ll click a title if it’s compelling. That means that before you do anything else to improve your SEO strategy, you need to make sure that your web page’s title is going to grab your audience’s attention.

The best titles deliver instant value. These titles tell the audience exactly what they’re going to get when they click onto the page. The promise drives action, while clarity highlights the informed nature of the brand.

The great thing about using an excellent title for a page is that it doesn’t matter where you’re ranked on the search results. Whether you’re number 2 or number 5, your customers will click if they find something they want.

It’s just like using a CTA on a landing page. Make sure your titles are:

  • Informative — show your audience value immediately;
  • Optimized for mobile — remember, your audience might not see your full title on some screens; this means that you need to make the initial words count;
  • Easy to read — keep it short, simple, and clear, speak the end-users’ language.

Step 2: Build Trust with Your URLs

Trust factors are another essential part of good UX.

When you’re designing a website for a new brand, you know that it’s your job to make visitors feel at ease. Even in today’s digital world, many customers won’t feel comfortable giving their money or details to a new company.

Within the website that you design, you can implement trust symbols, reviews, and testimonials to enhance brand credibility. On search engines, it all starts with your URL.

Search-friendly URLs that highlight the nature of the page will put your audience’s mind at ease. When they click on a page about “What is SEO” in the SERPs, they want to see an URL that matches, not a bunch of numbers and symbols

Use search-friendly permalink structures to make your listing seem more authoritative. This will increase the chances of your customer clicking through to a page and make them more likely to share the link with friends.

Once you decide on a link structure, make sure that it stays consistent throughout the entire site. If a link doesn’t appear to match the rest of the URLs that your audience sees for your website, they may think they’re on the wrong page. That increases your bounce rate.

Step 3: Be Informative with Your Meta Description

To deliver excellent UX on a website, you ensure that your visitor can find all of the answers to their most pressing questions as quickly as possible. This includes providing the right information on each page and using the correct navigational structure to support a visitor’s journey.

In the SERPs, you can deliver that same informative experience with a meta description. Although meta descriptions often get ignored, they can provide a lot of value and help you or your client make the right first impression.

To master your meta descriptions:

  • Use the full 160 characters — make the most of your meta description by providing as much useful information as you can within that small space;
  • Include a CTA — just as CTAs help to guide customers through the pages on a website, they can assist with pulling in clicks on the SERPS; a call to action like “read about the” or “click here” makes sense when you’re boosting your search image;
  • Focus on value — concentrate on providing your customers with an insight into what’s in it for them if they click on your listing.

Don’t forget that adding keywords to your meta description is often helpful too. Keywords will boost your chances of a higher ranking, but they’ll also show your audience that they’re looking at the right result.

Step 4: Draw the Eye with Rich Snippets

You’ve probably noticed that the search engine result pages have changed quite a bit in the last couple of years. As Google strives to make results more relevant and informative, we’ve seen the rise of things like rich snippets. Rich snippets are excellent for telling your audience where to look.

On a website, you would use design elements, like contrasting colors and animation, to pull your audience’s attention to a specific space. On search engines, rich snippets can drive the same outcomes. The difference is that instead of telling a visitor what to do next on a page, you’re telling them to click on your site, not a competitor’s.

When Google introduced rich snippets, it wanted to provide administrators with a way of showcasing their best content. Rich snippets are most commonly used today on product pages and contact pages because they can show off reviews.

Install a rich snippet plugin into your site if you’re a WordPress user or your client is. When you enter the content that you need into the website, use the drop-down menu in your Rich snippet tool to configure the snippet.

Ideally, you’ll want to aim for the full, rich snippet if you want to stand out at the top of the search results. Most featured snippets have both text and an image. It would help if you aimed to access both of these by writing great content and combining it with a relevant image.

Step 5: Provide Diversity (Take Up More of the Results)

As a website designer or developer, you’ll know that different people on a website will often be drawn to different things. Some of your visitors might immediately see a set of bullet-points and use them to search for the answer to their question. Other visitors will want pictures or videos to guide them. So, how do you deliver that kind of diversity in the SERPS?

The easiest option is to aim to take up more of the search result pages. Google now delivers a bunch of different ways for customers to get the answers they crave. When you search for “How to use Google my Business” on Google, you’ll see links to blogs, as well as a list of YouTube Videos and the “People Also Ask” section.

Making sure that you or a client has different content ranking pieces for the same keywords can significantly improve the experience any customer has on the search engines. Often, the process of spreading your image out across the SERPs is as simple as creating some different kinds of content.

To access the video’s benefits, ask your client to create YouTube videos for some of their most commonly asked questions or most covered topics. If you’re helping with SEO marketing for your client, then make sure they have an FAQ page or a way of answering questions quickly and concisely on articles, so they’re more likely to appear in “People Also Ask”:

Step 6: Add Authority with Google My Business

Speaking of Google My Business, that’s another excellent tool that’s perfect for improving UX in the search results. GMB is a free tool provided by Google. It allows business owners to manage how information appears in the search results.

With this service, you can manage a company’s position on Google maps, the Knowledge Graph, and online reviews. Establishing a company’s location is one of the most important things you can do to help audiences quickly find a business. Remember, half of the customers that do a local search on a smartphone end up visiting the store within the same day.

Start by setting up the Google Business listing for yourself or your client. All you need to do is hit the “Start Now” button and fill out every relevant field offered by Google. The more information you can add to Google My Business, the more your listing will stand out. Make sure you:

  • Choose a category for a business, like “Grocery store”;
  • Load up high-quality and high-resolution images;
  • Ensure your information matches on every platform;
  • Use a local number for contact;
  • Encourage reviews to give your listing a five-star rating.

Taking advantage of a Google My Business listing will ensure that your audience has all the information they need to make an informed decision about your company before they click through to the site. This means that you or your client get more warm leads and fewer people stumbling onto your website that might not want to buy from you.

Step 7: Use Structured Data Markup to Answer Questions

If you’re already using things like rich snippets in your Google listings, you should also have a structured schema markup plan. Schema markup on Google tells the search engines what your data means. This means that you can add extra information to your listings that will guide your customers more accurately to the support they need.

Providing additional schema markup information to your listings gives them an extra finishing touch to ensure that they stand out from the competition. You might add something like a “product price” to a product page or information about the product’s availability.

Alternatively, you could provide the people who see a search result with other options. This could be an excellent option if you’re concerned that some of the people who might come across your listing might need slightly different information. For instance, you can ask Google to list other pages along with your search results that customers can “jump to” if they need additional insights.

Baking structured data into your design process when you’re working on a website does several positive things. It makes the search engine’s job easier so that you can ensure that you or your client ranks higher. Additionally, it means that your web listings will be more thorough and useful.

Since UX is all about giving your audience the best possible experience with a brand, that starts with making sure they get the information they need in the search results.

Constantly Improve and Experiment

Remember, as you begin to embed UX elements into your search engine listings, it’s important to be aware of relevant evolutions. Ultimately, the needs of any audience can change very rapidly. Paying attention to your customers and what kind of links they click on the most will provide you with lots of valuable data. You can use things like Google analytics to A/B test things like titles, pictures, featured snippets, and other things that may affect UX.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that the Google search algorithms are always changing. Running split tests on different pages will give you an insight into what your customers want. However, you’ll need to keep an eye on the latest documentation about Google Search if you want to avoid falling behind the competition.

Like most exceptional UX aspects, mastering your SERP position isn’t a set it and forget it strategy. You’ll need to constantly expand your knowledge if you want to show clients that you can combine UX and SEO effectively.

It’s easy to forget that there’s more to UX than making your buttons clickable on mobile devices or ensuring that scrolling feels smooth. For a designer or developer to deliver wonderful UX for a brand, they need to consider every interaction that a company and customer have. Most of the time, this means starting with the way a website appears when it’s listed on the search engines. Getting your SEO listing right doesn’t just boost your chances of a good ranking. This strategy also improves your reputation with your audience and delivers more meaningful moments in the buyer journey.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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Twilio Vs. MirrorFly: Who Is the Future of Real-Time Communication?

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Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the corporate business world to network with associates and communicate with potential clients using online communication tools. Hence, given the current market conditions – having a functional and efficient communication system has become the need of the hour. Due to which platforms offering text, voice, and video chat features must ensure they offer enterprise-level models. These platforms must be customizable and scalable. It is also important for the communication platform to be of a certain standard that supports a huge number of users with minimal latency rates. Nevertheless, with multiple options in the market, it can be difficult to choose the right real-time communication platform.

Twilio

So, what is Twilio? Twilio is one of the top-rated cloud communication platforms in the market that uses a PaaS model. Twilio offers developers tools or software-based platforms to integrate voice, video, or messaging into any mobile app. Twilio is basically a developer’s platform, which means that this platform cannot be used by a marketer or a non-developer. Twilio as a communication platform provides a powerful API system for phone services offering companies to make and receive phone calls and send and receive text messages instantly.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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5 Ways to Boost Engagement With Animation

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Animation is a fun and interesting way to bring life to a website. Used correctly, it can capture audience attention, make your website more engaging, and even improve your chances of delivering conversions for your clients.

Unfortunately, like many things in the web design world, it’s also easy to get too carried away with animation. As professional designers and developers, it’s up to us to find the line between making the most of animation on our website projects and creating a site that’s overwhelmed with too much activity.

Fortunately, by the time you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll have a deeper insight into how you can use animation in web design, without going too over the top.

Introducing Animation in Web Design

Animations are virtually everywhere on the web today.

In the past, when designers first discovered that they could embed movement into their websites, the amount of animation we saw was often higher than it needed to be. It wasn’t uncommon to find some websites running entirely on Flash, where every element could be animated.

Fortunately, the trends of modern web design have left those practices behind. These days, it’s a lot more common to make animation a part of the overall user experience, rather than focusing on them as a centerpiece attraction. For instance, you’ve probably noticed plenty of animated sliders showing off pictures in a gallery, or transition animations when people hover over a button.

Since it’s entirely possible to construct an entire website with no animations at all, the key to creating an engaging website today is making sure that every animation you use serves a specific purpose. Your animations should make a website more attractive, easier to use, and better for navigation. Add too many, and you could even risk slowing down a site.

So, where does it make sense to use animation for web design?

1. Loading Animations

One of the best ways to use animations in a website is to distract and delight users as a page loads. You can use the animation to deliver a unique experience, or even just highlight the playful nature of your brand. For instance, just check out this classic load animation called “Tightrope.”

You can also use things like particle animations to capture a customer’s attention and help your visitors relax when they visit a website. Particle animations can be interactive or non-interactive, and they’re a great way to stop visitors from feeling frustrated when a page takes too long to load.

A website by Edan Kwan called “Particle Love” shows you exactly what kind of experience you can create with real-time animations.

The more you can delight visitors with experiences that keep them engaged while the information they need is loading, the less likely people will be to hit the “back” button.

2. Microinteraction Animations

Microinteractions are quick and simple animations that come with specific use cases. Usually, this animation works to provide visual feedback and information when you interact with a specific element.

For instance, this microinteraction design from Colin Garven encourages users to enter their email address and password into a login field:

Ideally, the best way to use microinteractions is to make them as subtle as possible. These tools aren’t here to steal the spotlight from other information on the page. However, they can sometimes encourage your viewers to take the next stage in their conversion journey.

Animated microinteractions can be as complex or as basic as you choose. For instance, you could use them when:

  • Highlighting if a feature is switched on or off;
  • Letting users know when actions were successful (like sending a message in a contact form);
  • Showcasing important information, like prices on a table;
  • Animating icons on your site to encourage action;
  • Depending on your experience with animations, you can even find themes and plugins that come with options already built-in.

3. Dynamic Backgrounds

An animated background can be an excellent way to make your website stand out from the crowd. However, it’s important to remember that excessive animation has a habit of making your site slower and more clunky than it needs to be.

The animated background on the mystaticself.com website is fantastic for introducing customers to new information with a handy dynamic menu.

Often, the only reason that you should create your own dynamic background for a website, is if it’s going to improve your customer’s experience in some way.

Remember, ensure that the animations that you’re using on your website aren’t going to make any aspect of your site more difficult to use. Animated backgrounds need to offer a compliment to your existing website, rather than distracting customers from what they want to do.

Before you go all-in with your background animations, focus on animating small sections of an image, one piece at a time. You can also animate components with very small motions too.

4. Reveal Hidden Messages

Another excellent way to use animation in web design is to harness it for showcasing important information. For instance, a navigation menu is an important component in your website design, but it can also take up a lot of valuable space.

In some cases, a hidden menu that appears when a customer scrolls over a small box or icon could make a lot of sense. You can also think about animated drop-down menus if you’re working with a website that has a large number of pages.

Check out this fun example of an animated CSS3 menu:

The sections change color and move as you hover over them, making it easier to see exactly where you’re clicking.

It’s up to you exactly how creative you want to be when you’re playing with animated menus. The easiest option is often just to have a component that changes color or shape with a hover effect. However, you can also expose hidden menus and extra information too.

For instance, with some websites, you can create pictures that turn over to show information on the other side. That means that you could create an about page with pictures of team members, which flip to show biography information.

Just make sure that everything works smoothly, both on desktop and mobile.

5. Try Carousels

Finally, we come to perhaps the simplest and most popular way of using animation in web design. Carousels are a common component of almost every theme on the web today. They’re great for showing off useful information, such as what a website has to offer, or which deals are available.

When creating a carousel, you can either give your users control over how quickly an image transitions, or you can implement automatic movement. On the heathfield.co.uk website, the designer has added buttons to let you flip backwards and forwards between photos, while also ensuring that the animation is automatic.

Without the animation to show you the pictures sliding into space, the transitions between each picture would be instant – which is a little more jarring for viewers.

Sliders are such a common component of web design today that customers almost expect to see them on many websites. That means that you can enjoy a very effective experience if you want to avoid doing anything too dramatic with your websites.

You can use sliders for everything from showing off products, to displaying testimonials from customers and more. It’s a great way to compress a lot of useful information into one small space on a site.

Use Website Animation Carefully

The most important thing for most designers to remember with animation and web design is that it’s entirely possible to have too much of a good thing. When it comes to creating amazing designs for your clients, you can take advantage of animation to encourage more engagement and a unique experience. However, you shouldn’t allow yourself to go too over the top.

Rather than animating every aspect of a page to constantly grab visitor attention, think about how you can make the visitor experience more compelling with the right animation choices. If an entire page of animation on the background isn’t right for your target audience, perhaps custom animations on a navigation bar or a slider would be a good option instead.

At the same time, remember to make the most of the latest technologies on the market for adding animation to web design. A good combination of CSS3, JavaScript, and HTML5 often makes it easier to create more immersive, high-quality animations that users can interact with on desktop and mobile alike.

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Popular Design News of the Week: December 7, 2020 – December 13, 2020

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Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.

Web Typography Rules: What You Need to Know

 

How Microsoft Crushed Slack

 

Graphic Design Trends for Social Media in 2021

 

UX Christmas

 

Traxr – Monitor Links with 100% Accuracy

 

Hexometer 2.0: Monitor Website Issues and Performance Actively

 

Designing Data Science Tools at Spotify

 

Cow Pilot – The Deadline Driven To-Do List

 

Roy – A Simple & Delightful Color Picker for Designers

 

5 New SEO Tools for Marketers

 

21 Unique Web Design Trends for 2021

 

Newsletter Spy – A Database of 20,000+ Substack Newsletters

 

Visme 2.0 – All-in-one Design Platform

 

2020 Year in Review

 

How to Build a Web App: Key Steps for Starters

 

How to Create a Style Guide to Enhance your Brand’s UX

 

WordPress 5.6: New Features, Changes, and What Else to Expect

 

The Dos and Don’ts of Creating your Product Roadmap

 

Pantone Reveals Two Choices for its Colour of the Year 2021

 

Headlime 2.0 – Professional Marketing Copy for Anyone

 

Design for Sales: 10 Creative UI Designs for Ecommerce

 

How to Build a Strong Mobile App Brand

 

10 New Rules of Design

 

Remake 2.0: Make Web Apps with Just HTML and CSS

 

A Step-by-step Guide to Designing a New Feature for a Popular Product

 

Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.

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How to Prioritize Speed with a Mobile-First Design

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By the end of the year, the number of global smartphone users is expected to reach 3.5 billion. That’s a significant 9.3% increase over the last 12 months.

In a world where everyone is constantly connected to their mobile devices, it makes sense that web developers and designers would need to consider new rules for how they create engaging experiences. After all, most of us find browsing from our smartphones to be much more convenient than sitting down at a laptop each day.

With a little luck, you’re already taking steps to mobile optimize your website but standards are changing all the time. To make sure your website is up to scratch, here’s your guide to prioritizing your site for mobile, ready for the new year.

Understanding Mobile-First Design

The first step in updating your web design and development principles, is understanding the concept of mobile first design, and how it’s changed.

With a responsive website, you create something that adjusts to the screen size of any device; with a mobile-first site, you’re focusing first-and-foremost on the user experience that people get when they’re on mobile, taking that as your starting point, and building from there. Instead of building your website for the desktop and using mobile as an afterthought, you start with a consideration of mobile.

Even Google is highlighting the demand for this process lately, with the mobile-first indexing algorithm. If you can’t design for mobile-first, then you could risk your clients being unable to rise up the search engine ranks.

So, how do you get started?

1. Start With the Right Tools

Web developers and designers are nothing without a great toolkit.

The good news is that there are solutions out there that can help you to master the right skills for a mobile-focused user experience. For instance, Skeleton is excellent for small-scale projects that require fluid grids and minimal compiling.

Alternatively, Bootstrap can offer a one-size-fits-all solution for the front-end development for mobile devices. There’s a default grid system available, plenty of components, and JavaScript plugins to work with.

With the right tools, you can minimize and prioritize the content that’s most valuable for your website projects. This is crucial for maximizing website speed and creating clarity when it comes to content and imagery.

For instance, check out the ESPN website; it’s split into very easy-to-follow categories of content that are perfect for scrolling on a smartphone. The grid of videos makes it feel like you’re using a tool like YouTube.

2. Prioritize Mobile-First Elements

Once you have the right tools to assist you, it’s time to begin building your mobile-first website from the ground up. Rather than jumping straight into considerations of the latest design trends, it’s important to start with the foundations.

For instance, navigation within a mobile page is usually hidden under a hamburger button. However, you can take this concept to the next level too. For example, the Shojin mobile website only demonstrates the most important website options within the navigation bar to avoid overwhelming users.

The key here is to keep things as simple as possible, without restricting what your audience can do when they visit your website. Although you want to keep the number of interactive elements on your site small, you also need to ensure that those elements are easy to find and use.

All buttons and CTAs should be clear and tappable. Fonts need to be large enough to read from any screen, and your navigation system needs to be 100% simple, without slowing anything down.

On average, we recommend making all clickable elements at least 48 pixels in height.

3. Use Responsive Imagery and SVGs

Images are a crucial part of any website. They add context and appeal to your design. However, they can also seriously slow down your website if you’re not careful.

Remember, different devices have different demands when it comes to imagery. A desktop page may need a 1200px wide image, while a mobile-only needs the image to be 400px wide at most. The old way of making your images work was to load a large resolution image and use the same file on every platform. Unfortunately, this slows downloading time significantly.

Instead, it’s better to have at least two different versions of the same image for your mobile and desktop solutions. You can also consider SVG.

SVGs are incredibly scalable – more so than bitmaps. With SVG, you can ensure any icon or graphic continues to look sharp and clickable across all devices. Because these files are often smaller, your site loads quicker too! Hubspot is great at using SVGs.

Intricate illustrations are a massive component of HubSpot’s brand. If those images were saved as PNGs or other alternative files, then they would take forever to load. Because they’re all SVGs, you can enjoy the same consistent experience across desktop and mobile.

4. Get the Typography Right

It’s not just the big graphics and images that make a huge difference to your website when it comes to mobile-first design. You also need to think about the legibility and clarity of your website across all devices and platforms. If people can’t read the value proposition of the company that you’re designing for, you’re going to have a major problem.

Focus on making your content as easy to read as possible. Look into the typefaces that seem most appealing on a range of devices.

Remember to balance the body and heading font sizes for the device size too. You’ll need to ensure that the experience feels consistent and smooth as your users scroll through each page. Just take a look at the mobile version of the IMPACT website, for instance.

The headings aren’t as huge as they are on the desktop version of the website, and they’re displayed below, rather than above the featured image. However, this helps to give a more immediately eye-catching and structured experience to mobile users.

There’s even a handy “Search Engine Optimization” tag included, that users can click on if they want to find more related articles.

When it comes to typography, remember that it’s not just size and clarity that matter, but how things are structured throughout your website too. Your type should naturally guide your visitors along the page.

5. Master Available Device Features

Finally, on smartphones, you can accomplish a range of amazing things that you might not be able to do when using a desktop device. Your users can make calls, open apps, send messages, and more, all from within their mobile browser. They can also move their smartphone around a room, taking advantage of concepts like AR and VR.

Taking advantage of the unique capabilities that smartphone design can offer gives you a chance to get unique with your user experience.

Making the most of the mobile experience can be much simpler than you’d think. For instance, on a desktop site, you could list your phone number on a contact page. On a mobile site, the number can begin a call when clicked. You can also take the same approach with email addresses, and social media icons too.

Depending on how experimental you feel, there’s also plenty of opportunities to go above and beyond with your mobile features. You may decide to create a mobile app version of a website that your customers can download onto their phones.

Alternatively, you can look into things like AR technology. This could allow your users to practice placing items of furniture that they may be thinking of buying from an online retailer into their house, so they can see how well they work with their other interior design choices.

Making the Most of Mobile-First Design

Ultimately, having a responsive website that works on both mobile and desktop devices is mandatory in the modern world. However, going above and beyond with mobile-first design is a great way to get ahead of the game.

If you can focus on building a website that puts the experiences of mobile users first, then you can create something that’s much more likely to grab audience attention and deliver amazing experiences.

If nothing else, showing your clients that you have what it takes to design for mobile is an excellent way to ensure that you can gain as many new project opportunities as possible.

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Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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Popular Design News of the Week: November 30, 2020 – December 6, 2020

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Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.

Sidekick Browser – The Fastest Browser Built for Work

 

Why is Apple’s M1 Chip so Fast?

 

Two Color Combinations – A Curated Collection of 164 Two-color Palette Combinations

 

5 Tips to Build a Stunning Website that Stands Out from the Crowd

 

10+ Bootstrap Newsletters

 

Text Fish – Get Just Text

 

Ecommerce Website Designs: 27 Best Online Shops and Why They Work

 

SpaceHey – MySpace Reborn

 

State of CSS – 2020

 

5 Overlooked Mobile Experience Design Best Practices

 

Modern Blackletter Inspired Fonts and their Use in Web Design

 

Internxt Drive – Secure & Private Cloud Storage Service

 

Spline – 3D for the Web (Preview Release)

 

Nots – A Free Beautifully Designed Note-taking App for your Desktop

 

Google Play’s Best of 2020

 

Beacon – Run SQL Commands in Slack

 

Designing for the New Reality: Getting Rid of Pre-COVID Assumptions

 

Undoing the Toxic Dogmatism of Digital Design

 

Color Theory: A Beginner’s Guide for Designers

 

Atkinson Hyperlegible Font

 

11 Tips for Creating a Usable Website Contact Page

 

The 7 Secrets to a Great Conversation

 

Checklist Generator – Create Checklists for Free and Host Them Wherever You Want

 

Empathetic Design: The First Stage of Design Thinking

 

Handy Guide to Networking for UX Designers

 

Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.

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SAP lance SAP Upscale Commerce pour permettre aux PME de créer rapidement leur boutique en ligne

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Levallois, le 25 novembre 2020 – SAP France annonce aujourd’hui la disponibilité d’une nouvelle plateforme e-commerce, nouvelle génération, destinée aux PME souhaitant développer rapidement un site e‑commerce : SAP Upscale Commerce. La solution permet de déployer rapidement des vitrines intelligentes sur mobile et sur le web pour chercher de nouveaux revenus et créer de nouvelles expériences clients.

« SAP Upscale Commerce apporte une solution efficace pour les petites et moyennes structures dans un environnement social et économique bousculé par une crise sanitaire. Une ou deux semaines maximum suffisent pour mettre en ligne un site e-commerce pensé pour un usage mobile et omni-canal. Avec cette solution, nous souhaitons accompagner les PME dans leur transformation numérique dans une période critique », explique Lahcen Binoumar, Directeur des Ventes PME, SAP France.

Flexibilité et rapidité : deux attributs essentiels de la solution SAP Upscale Commerce.

Partant du constat que les consommateurs accordent de plus en plus d’importances aux expériences simples de consommation et s’attendent à pouvoir faire leurs achats sur tous leurs appareils ou canaux, SAP a développé une plate-forme agile qui permet aux marques et aux commerces de créer des expériences d’achat simples, rapides et à moindre coût.

La solution SAP Upscale Commerce, solution en mode SaaS, permet à ses utilisateurs de lancer des nouveaux produits, tester des marchés et boutiques éphémères grâce à des applications optimisées et intuitives pouvant combiner des achats en ligne et en magasin pour des expériences d’achat multicanales. SAP Upscale Commerce bénéficie d’une gestion avancée grâce à l’Intelligence Artificielle permettant aux clients de profiter d’une expérience d’achat unique et engageante tout en maximisant la rentabilité et les ventes pour la marque ou le détaillant. La solution offre un « mobigramme » : une vitrine personnelle alimentée par l’intelligence artificielle qui optimise dynamiquement l’assortiment de produits pour chaque visiteur.

Les principaux avantages sont :

  • La création et le déploiement de boutique en quelques clics, sans code.
  • Une approche de commerce multi-canal pour offrir une expérience contextuelle, personnalisée et transparente, et ainsi maximiser les profits.
  • Une expérience de boutique connectée au back-office, tout en testant de nouveaux concepts de commerce rapidement, à moindre coût.

 

Une expérience optimisée permettant de réaliser des profits.

La solution est construite à l’aide de la technologie cloud-native sur une architecture de micro-services pilotés par API. Cette configuration permet une grande flexibilité dans son déploiement et une adaptabilité à tous les environnements. Ainsi, elle peut être autonome, déployée comme une extension complémentaire avec d’autres solutions existantes, via son propre système de gestion de commande ou encore par un système de gestion de commande existant. SAP Upscale Commerce permet de réduire le temps de déploiement sur le marché et le coût total de possession, et de proposer des expériences d’achat à profit optimisé grâce à :

  • Un déploiement rapide et sans code pour proposer des expériences d’achat réussies.
  • Un environnement SaaS multi-tenant, toujours en service et continuellement mis à jour.
  • Une technologie intégrée permettant un merchandising intelligent, une personnalisation, une gestion des commandes distribuées et la vente en continu.

 

SAP Upscale Commerce : un accompagnement sur-mesure en période de crise sanitaire.

SAP accompagne depuis des années les PME, les startups dans leurs développements et s’intéresse particulièrement à l’impact de la crise sanitaire tant sur ses collaborateurs que sur l’expérience utilisateur**. Pour chaque étape du parcours, SAP met à disposition une assistance technologique à distance et un portail en libre-service composé d’experts sectoriels, de consultants et d’ingénieurs support afin d’offrir à l’utilisateur un plan de soutien et des supports complets, des stratégies d’innovation et de connaissances techniques et sectorielles approfondies. De plus, les utilisateurs se concentrent sur leurs métiers et la relation client grâce à la gestion du centre de données réalisée par SAP.

** Etude retail, Odoxa x SAP,  Customer Data Platform

The post SAP lance SAP Upscale Commerce pour permettre aux PME de créer rapidement leur boutique en ligne appeared first on SAP France News.

Source de l’article sur sap.com

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How to Design a Contact Page That Drives Engagement

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How can your customer reach you? If a client arrives on your website after searching on Google, what can they do to take the next step in a relationship with your brand, without buying anything?

One of the primary aims of any website is to drive conversions. However, it usually takes between 5 and 8 touchpoints to generate a viable sales lead. People don’t want to convert straight away.

Since building a relationship with customers is crucial to success, it makes sense that the contact page would be an essential part of driving results. Unfortunately, a lot of website owners pay virtually no attention to that page. They ask their designer to create a page with their address and phone number on – and that’s it.

What many business owners don’t realize, is that the contact page is the door to deeper, more lucrative relationships with potential prospects. The design of this essential website element needs to be fantastic to drive results.

So, where do you start?

Defining a Well-Designed Contact Page

Let’s start with the basics, what makes a great contact page?

The complete answer to that question depends on the target audience. Some customers will want to see fun and friendly contact pages, complete with social media sharing buttons. Others will want to see a map that shows them exactly how to reach an office or business.

There are a few golden rules to keep in mind, of course. Contact pages should be:

  • Easy to find: Don’t hide the link to the contact page on the website footer. Make it easy for customers to find out how they can get in touch.
  • Simple: Don’t put too much content on this page or it will overwhelm your audience. Just let them know where they can go to get answers to various questions.
  • Professional: Even if you have a friendly brand personality, your contact form still needs to be grammatically correct and well-designed to show a professional edge.
  • Convenient: Make your phone number clickable so customers can use it on Skype. The same can apply for your email address. Provide easy access to social media profiles, and if you have a contact form – keep it short and sweet.
  • Informative: Include all of your contact information in the same place. This may include your address, a map to your location, social media pages, email addresses, and even forums.
  • Accurate: Ensure that the information on your contact page matches the information listed elsewhere. Check directories and Google my Business listings to be sure.
  • Attractive: Yes, a contact page needs to look good too. Plenty of white space will make essential information stand out. A good layout will guide the eye through the page.
  • Consistent: Make sure the contact form on your website matches the brand personality that appears on all of your other pages.

Take a look at the Tune Contact page:

It’s beautifully laid out, with clear information that’s easy to read. The company shows exactly why customers might want to get in touch and how they can reach out. As you scroll through the page, you’ll find additional office locations, email addresses for different teams (sales and support), and links to social media accounts too.

How to Drive Engagement on a Contact Us Page

A good contact page needs to look fantastic, showcase the company’s personality, and capture audience attention. However, there’s a big difference between a contact page that gets the job done, and one that convinces your audience they have to connect with you.

Here are some excellent ways to make your contact us page stand out.

Step 1: Using Color Correctly

Color and color psychology have a massive impact on user experience.

Studies constantly demonstrate the conversion powers of having the right shades on certain pages throughout your website. For instance, changing a CTA button from red to green can increase click-through rates by 27%.

However, every audience is different. The colors that drive engagement on a contact page for your company will depend on your target customer. A/B testing color palettes that match your brand personality is a good way to get started.

One interesting example of colors that make the right impact on a Contact Us page comes from Hubspot. Here, the brand maintains it’s brand color (orange), but it also introduces some new shades that convey trustworthiness and professionalism.

Blue is the most calming and credible color for any brand, The gradient that Hubspot uses here blends perfectly with its brand identity, allowing for a stunning contact page, with CTA buttons that still stand out.

Experiment with colors that can generate the right emotional response from your audience, but don’t ignore the golden rules of color in web design. You still need to showcase your brand identity, and you still need a way of making crucial information stand out.

Step 2: Humanizing the Customer Service Team

Some of the customers that arrive at a contact page are interested in your product or inspired by the potential of your service. Other customers will be looking for assistance because they’re frustrated with something or stressed out.

If you’ve ever had a problem with a product and wanted to reach out to the brand about it, you’ve probably noticed how annoying it is to find a blank contact page with nothing but an email address. The lack of effort and humanity in the contact page is enough to convince you that you probably won’t get a response.

But what if you add some happy smiling faces to the page?

Research indicates that brains are fine-tuned to recognize and appreciate human faces. Having a picture of your customer service team, or just any human being on your contact page makes you instantly more approachable. Your customers start to feel like they’re reaching out to a person – not an empty website.

Look at how engaging and personalized this contact page from Amber McCue looks:

Although you can show any human face on your contact page and potentially get results, showing your actual agents will be more likely to drive positive results. It’s a great way to showcase the authenticity and humanity of your team.

Step 3: Making it Easy to Find

A surprisingly large amount of the time, companies shove their contact information into the footer of their website, forcing customers to spend forever looking for them. However, your audience might not want to spend an age searching for your details if they’re in a hurry to get answers.

Stowing a contact page in a footer is also a problem for those visiting your website via mobile, as they might not be able to see all your footer details and links as well.

A Contact Us page doesn’t have to be a massive part of your website navigation if you don’t want it to be. However, it should be one of the first things your audience can see. Putting the information on the header of your website, or even sticking it to the top of the page as your users scroll is very helpful.

Zendesk makes it easy for customers to get in touch in multiple ways. First, the Contact section of the website is clear at the top of the page. Secondly, if you start scrolling through the Zendesk website, a “Get Help” button pops up, so you don’t have to scroll back to find assistance:

Remember, aside from making sure that your contact page appears in the right part of your website, it’s also worth ensuring that it’s easy to understand. Don’t use unusual terms like “Chat”, or “Chill with us”. Stick to tried-and-true options like Help, Contact, or Support.

Step 4: Making the Experience Relevant

There’s a reason why it’s practically impossible to find a one-size-fits-all contact page.

It’s because different customers need different things from your brand.

Some customers will be looking for the answer to a question; others will want to discuss something with your sales team. That’s why many companies are using adaptive contact pages that can change to suit the situation.

For instance, you may start by asking customers what they need help with. Zapier takes this approach with its Contact page:

By asking the client what they need straight away, Zapier can make sure that the visitor finds the right information, and the right number or email address for the appropriate agent. You can even scroll down the help page and look for something in the available help centre, using the search bar. Or you can click on View our experts to hire a Zapier pro.

Creating a dynamic and customized experience like this does a few things. First, it ensures that the customer will reach the right person to help them first-time around. This reduces the number of inappropriate calls your employees have to deal with, and the number of transfers.

Secondly, you deliver a better experience overall for your client, because they don’t have to repeat their issue to multiple people or start a massive email thread. They get the support they need immediately.

Dynamic contact pages can even save you some money and time. If clients decide to solve an issue themselves, using your resources, that’s great for your busy agents.

Step 5: Direct People to the Right Place

The central focus of your contact us page needs to be the available contact options. Centralizing the contact options on a page is an excellent way to make sure that they get the right amount of attention. Centralizing also means that your customers can spend less time searching for the contact details that they need, which is great for usability.

The Melonfree.com website uses a contact us form that’s centralized to immediately pull attention to the customer’s options for getting help.

Centralization isn’t the only way of using design principles to guide visitors on a contact page. According to Ray Hyman and Edmund Hick, increasing the number of choices on a page often increases the time it takes for people to make a decision.

When it comes to connecting with a brand, the right option for each customer will depend on the person and the situation they’re trying to overcome. For instance, a customer that needs to reset their password will probably be able to get the solution they need from an FAQ page.

On the other hand, someone who needs help using a new feature might need the guidance of a professional. To help guide customers to the right solution, Basecamp gives customers a variety of steps to follow to get the right solution fast.

The main purpose of the contact page is to help customers get the right answer with an informative form. However, there are unobtrusive alternative options available too. If all you’re looking for is a way to help yourself fix a problem, you can click on the help guides link before you ever scroll down to the form.

Step 6: Support the Contact Team Too

The best contact us pages aren’t just a great way to improve customer experience. Well-designed solutions also help the customer service team to save time and stay productive.

One of the primary metrics that companies consider when evaluating the success of a service team, is the number of replies required before an issue is resolved. However, if the initial question from a customer doesn’t contain enough information, this number often increases.

Using the design of the contact form to access the right information helps with:

  • Automatically routing people to the right team member: Companies can set up segmentation rules that automatically send certain emails to different employees based on keywords. You might have questions that go to the sales team, and separate queries that you direct straight to the customer service team.
  • Show appropriate support options and FAQs: Remember to give the audience a chance to help themselves before they reach out for extra support. Links to an FAQ page or self-service options can really reduce the pressure on a team. Some companies even add automated chatbots to the mix to help with self-service.
  • Prompt for extra context: Although not every customer will take advantage of an opportunity to add extra information to a form, some will. Adding a box to your contact form for “anything we need to know?” is a great way to generate more information. Ban.do includes a simple “question” box where customers can add as much detail as they like. An option to add screen shots or documents might be a nice touch too.

Building Your Own Contact Us Page

Every customer has their own specific set of needs. The right contact page for another business might not be the right one for you. That’s why it’s so important to take some time getting to know your customers and speaking to your support team.

When you’re planning your contact page, it helps to ask yourself some basic questions about what you want to achieve. For instance:

  • What kind of channels will our customers want to use to connect with us? Look at things like social media messaging, email, or phone calls. If you’ve got a relatively tech-savvy audience, then they might want to use things like instant messaging with chat bots too.
  • How can we direct clients to the appropriate channels in as little time as possible? Having a system in place to automatically route your customers to the right agent will reduce the time to resolution for your customers. The faster you solve problems, the better your reputation becomes.
  • What can we do to set customer expectations and build confidence before they speak to us? Designing a professional-looking contact page will increase customer confidence, while an FAQ section shows that you’re ready to answer common questions.
  • How can we showcase a unique brand personality without making the page complicated? Everything from using distinct brand colors on a contact page, to adding images and illustrations reminds customers that they’re in the right place.
  • What can we do to reduce the friction points in a customer’s path to contact? Avoid adding too many input options to a contact form and ensure that it’s easy to reach out when your clients have a problem.

Understanding exactly what your audience needs from you, and what they’re looking for when they come to your team for help reduces the effort involved for your client when they reach out for help. Remember, today’s digitally-savvy customers expect their interactions with companies to be as streamlined and simple as possible.

Make the Most of Your Contact Page

Contact pages are frequently an afterthought in the website design process. However, they’re one of the most valuable tools your company has. With a good contact page, you ensure that your customers can always reach you when they have problems. What’s more, you boost your chances of people wanting to reach out to the sales team too!

Good luck creating a contact page that encourages engagement from your target audience. Don’t forget to track your results from each design, and A/B test for optimization.

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