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How CentOS Became 2020’s Final Victim

If you were paying close attention to your IT department around the 8th of December, you might have heard some quiet sobbing and the occasional wail of, “Why? Why?! WHY?!” Now, it was the year 2020, so this might have seemed normal to you, but it’s actually something of a problem that could affect your business: CentOS is pretty much dead.

For the non-total-nerds among us, here’s the skinny: CentOS is a Linux-based operating system, typically used on servers. CentOS has been incredibly popular, and quite a few businesses run on it. But now, that’s changing.

CentOS is a Linux-based operating system, typically used on servers…But now, that’s changing

CentOS used to be released in thoroughly tested versions, the latest being CentOS 8. CentOS 8 was released in September of 2019 and was supposed to be supported for ten years. Now, it’s been decided that CentOS will no longer have versioned releases, opting for a rolling-release style of updates. That means there’ll be one version that constantly gets new software.

That’s cool in theory, but it means the operating system will be less stable overall. Essentially, it’s going to be used as a development branch of / testing ground for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and is no longer its own OS. If you have CentOS-based servers, you should migrate to another OS sooner rather than later.

And I just got my own CentOS-based VPS set up the way I wanted it.

Wait, What Does Red Hat Have To Do With This?

Here’s the short, short version of the history of CentOS: Red Hat (an OS developer) has two Linux distributions of its own and has had for a long time. There’s the free and community-focused Fedora and the business-focused highly expensive Red Hat Enterprise Linux (AKA RHEL).

Funny story: RHEL, despite its expensive licenses, is still mostly made from open source code, which anyone can access and use. And it’s a good OS, particularly for people who like stability.

In 2004, some smart people took all the open-source parts of RHEL and made a brand new, nearly identical operating system with it: the Community Enterprise Operating System, or CentOS. Basically, people could download and use an enterprise-level server OS for free. All the documentation for RHEL was compatible, and you could get support from the community.

It was the perfect alternative for anyone who didn’t have the budget for expensive software licenses.

In 2014, Red Hat offered to partner with the CentOS community. The idea was basically this: “It’s pretty much the same software. If our company and your community work together, both our products will be better! We make our money from enterprise customers, anyway.”

Most importantly, with Red Hat doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of updates and support, the CentOS community could focus on growing in other ways.

Red Hat pinky swore [citation needed] that they were in this for the long haul, and CentOS did continue to flourish. You know, until 2020.

Well, So Much For Pinky Swearing

Red Hat must have eventually decided that having a popular free version of its own enterprise software and managing it themselves no less — wasn’t that good for business. So they all but shut the project down.

Well, technically, they just changed how it operated. Instead of producing tested, production-ready versions, CentOS is merely a testing ground for RHEL. It is no longer, in my opinion, a good option for anyone who wants to run a stable server.

Current and Future CentOS Alternatives

So if you jumped on the CentOS 8 bandwagon, what should you put on your physical and virtual servers now? Well, you’ve got options.

Debian / Ubuntu

For those who don’t mind going to a very different kind of Linux, Debian has been the picture of OS stability and sysadmin-friendliness for a long time. If you want more frequent software updates, the Debian-based Ubuntu Server is popular and pretty good.

Oracle Linux

Yes, that Oracle has a RHEL-compatible Linux distribution of its own. But it’s not a clone, exactly. I mean, this is Oracle. It’s set up to use their tools and ecosystem, so I hope you like Oracle products. But hey, the OS itself is free!

ClearOS

ClearOS is another RHEL-compatible OS that’s mostly doing its own thing, though I’m not entirely sure what that thing is. Does the company have some deal with Hewlett-Packard? Anyway, they do have a free community edition and paid editions for home and business use.

The CloudLinux RHEL Fork

This is an upcoming release from the makers of CloudLinuxOS. It looks like they intend to load the new RHEL-based OS with some of their own tools, such as reboot-less server update tech. The first release is intended to be a more or less drop-in replacement for CentOS 8.

Rocky Linux

So the community that made and loved CentOS in the first place is, to say the least, ticked. They are so ticked that Greg Kurtzer (a co-founder of CentOS) has decided to do it all over again by making Rocky Linux and keep it in the community this time.

Again, the goal is to make a re-build of RHEL, a drop-in replacement for CentOS (at least for now). Eventually, the goal is to migrate from CentOS to Rocky Linux as easy as using a single, one-line command. The ETA for initial release isn’t quite set in stone, but I can personally vouch for how hard the community is working.

[See, full disclosure here… after writing this article, I joined the Rocky Linux documentation team.]

So Yeah, You Have Options

Some are out now, and others will be soon. Again, CentOS 8 will be supported until the end of 2021. CentOS 7, weirdly, will be supported until June 2024.

Migration shouldn’t be too complicated. Still, a pain in the rear that we have to do this at all, though.

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Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

8 janvier 2021/par Service comm.

9 Easy Ways to Deal With Difficult Clients

Actualités, Actualités

Naturally, there are bad clients out there, but 90% of the time, it’s not really the client who is at fault. Poor communication, a lack of setting expectations, and a failure to qualify clients beforehand is usually the problem.

If you’re dealing with a problematic client, there’s usually not a lot you can do to ‘fix’ things — you should focus on finishing the project as well as you can. However, what you can do is ensure this situation never arises again.

We’ve been taught that the customer is always right. But to be honest, that’s not always the case. It’s your job as a designer and brand consultant to help your client grow their business. Because of that, you may think you have to make every idea a client has — but if these ideas do not serve their business and their brand, you have to speak up! Remember that you were hired for a reason, and that reason is that you can help them build their brand, not because you can design anything they think of.

So, to avoid the ‘difficult’ client scenario, here are a few things you can do.

1. Be Selective With Your Clients

Figure out who your ideal client is and determine that you will only work with them. Ideal clients are usually people who understand you and respect you and your expertise. A client who hires you because they know what you have to offer (i.e., working towards their business goals) will be more receptive to what you present to them — they will also be more receptive when you push back ideas.

you have to be willing to decline projects

Your ideal client is not someone who wants to dictate the whole process to you (clients who already have an idea in their head and want you to make it into reality for them).

This means you have to be willing to decline projects. This can be super difficult — saying no to a paying client always is — but the mental toll of working for a non-ideal client is never worth the money!

Be selective with your clients and ensure you are on the same page before accepting any projects. To work only with your ideal client, you can have a method of qualifying them ahead of time. Some people use questionnaires; others sit down and have a chat with potential clients. If they meet your requirements, that’s great. If not, then let them know it might not be the best fit for both of you. You can also refer them to another freelance designer, who you know would be glad to have their work.

2. Remember: You are NOT an Employee

People usually become freelancers because they have a set of skills that doesn’t tie them down to one employer — you may have even developed this skill set deliberately to avoid being stuck in one office, working for one company!

So don’t forget that you are not an employee. Your clients don’t get to send you to non-productive meetings, have you in the office at certain times, or dictate any other part of your working life to you. As a freelancer, you work for yourself — don’t get caught up in the idea you are ‘employed’ by your clients.

If your client starts acting like an employer, you need to gently remind them that you are a freelancer. They chose to work with you because of your skills and talents, and as long as you deliver it on time and budget, they can’t complain about how you do it!

3. Have a Specific Scope of Work

One of the most frustrating parts of freelancing is over-demanding clients: it happens to us all, but it happens because we let it happen!

When you start a project, define exactly what you will and won’t do as part of a contract. Then, if the client wants more than you said you would give, you can refer them to the scope document and offer the additional work at an extra fee.

Documentation saves you a lot of hassle!

Having a fixed scope for all your work will free you from the ‘demanding client’ problem. Before you start working for them, sit down with them and ask them exactly what they want from your design. That way, you know exactly what you should do and what you should not do. You can then document the services you will provide and get a written confirmation from them. Clients will sometimes forget what they told you before — which is why having written documents to show them is useful.

If they ask for additional services, you can update the document stating these changes and send them a copy. Documentation saves you a lot of hassle! It’s your responsibility to be organized and professional at the end of the day, even with over-demanding clients. Always treat them kindly — never be rude, as this will cause them to give you a bad review and hurt you in the end. Act like a professional from the start, and your clients will treat you as such.

4. Document Agreements

You may find yourself with a client who is forever changing their mind or forgetting the details — so make sure all your agreements with them are documented, and both of you have copies. Just like the scope of work documents, you can refer to these agreements in the future, and it will resolve any issues you have.

5. Set Clear Expectations

You need to set clear expectations both before and after someone becomes your client — tell them what they can expect in the project and what is included and what’s not included. Remember that your time is valuable: you cannot work indefinitely, so it is okay to set limitations in a project. One way to do this is to offer two rounds of revisions on a project. This is more than enough to come out with a design a client is happy with. Most clients will understand these limitations as long as you communicate them from the get-go.

6. Set Benchmarks

Rather than taking your design brief from the client and going off on your own to design everything, set some project milestones or benchmarks. Don’t be that designer who goes radio-silent until the final design is presented (we know, creatives like the idea of the ‘big reveal,’ but remember this is business, and communication is key!).

Benchmarks are important for a few reasons. Firstly, presenting the final design may sometimes work out, but other times, the client doesn’t like it or the direction they had in mind. Secondly, it saves you time – you don’t need to design a whole project only to have to go back and revise it all!

creatives like the idea of the ‘big reveal,’ but remember this is business, and communication is key!

Plan regular check-ins with your client, include them in the process, and ensure you are on the right track.

Take a branding project, for example. You can present to your client two or three logo concepts, providing them with options. This decreases the number of times a client is unhappy with the project’s direction because they can choose which one they want. Remember to make each design unique, rather than just a small variation of the other. Think of them as three different directions to explore with your client, and take it from there.

Ensure each concept you provide is top of your game, too — that way, whatever your client chooses, it will be a great design. Imagine you make two okay concepts and one great concept, and your client chooses the weakest design!

7. Don’t Take Offence

Imagine the scene: you go to a meeting with your client to talk about the final design. You arrive, and as well as your normal contact, the CFO is present at the meeting. They take one look at your design and decide it doesn’t work.

Don’t get mad! For a start, you don’t know if the CFO has the final say on the design, and even if they do, you have an agreed scope of work, and this is now an opportunity to move the goalposts (for a fee) and renegotiate the scope of work. Look at this as an opportunity, not as a setback!

Also, remember that you can’t please everyone all the time. Not everyone will love your designs, and it’s not a personal attack.

8. Match Your Client’s Energy

Think before you open your mouth — communication is crucial in the freelancing world, and you need to be on par with your clients’ energy and vocabulary. Imagine you have just agreed on a project with a new client, and after the meeting, they say, “I cannot wait for you to knock this logo out of the park!” And you reply hesitantly, “I’ll do what I can.”

This has already made your client doubt you, and that’s a red flag. Now your client may leave the meeting wondering if they chose the right designer for the job. What you and your body language need to say is, “Hell, yes! We’re going to knock this logo out of the park!”

This is why matching a client’s energy is so important. If they are aggressive in articulating themselves, you should be, too; obviously within limits — always be professional, but don’t be afraid to sound excited and confident!

9. Be Honest With Yourself

Sometimes, you don’t get on with someone. It happens. We can’t be best friends with all of our clients! If there’s a personality conflict that’s causing problems, it can be impossible to resolve. You may want to have someone else handle the client relationship or transfer the project to another freelancer.

being afraid will never get you anywhere as a freelancer

What makes being a freelancer great is that you actually have all the power — you can fire a client if it’s really not working for you. An employee cannot fire his or her boss. If the relationship between you and your client has turned sour, you hate the work, and it’s causing you too many headaches, you can get rid of them. No one can make you work for someone!

Even if your client represents a huge chunk of your income, don’t be afraid to fire them. There are always more clients — being afraid will never get you anywhere as a freelancer. You also need to remember that your quality of life is just as important as your income! One cannot exist without the other — there’s no point in having a huge paycheck if your sanity is suffering due to it.

Conclusion

‘Difficult’ clients in freelancing do exist, but a lot of the time, you’ll discover they could have been avoided if you, the designer, took a few key steps.

You should always be selective with your clients and ensure they fit your ‘ideal client’ model; if they don’t, you can gently refuse their project and send them on to another designer who is a better fit.

When you do start working with a client, remember they are just that, a client. They are not your boss or employer, and you are a freelancer. They don’t get to dictate your working hours or appearance in meetings. They agreed to work with you, for your skills and talents, as long as you deliver quality work on time, they don’t get to tell you what to do.

Always have a scope of work in a written contract and set expectations before you begin. This saves you hassle later when a client becomes overly demanding. Along the design process, document all agreements in paper and have benchmarks wherein you check-in with your clients.

Finally, take care with how you handle your clients in person – don’t take offense if they don’t like a design, match their energy, so they have no room to doubt you, and if it really just isn’t working due to a personality conflict, remember you are free to leave!

Featured image via Pexels.

Source

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

25 décembre 2020/par Service comm.

Big / Bug Data: Analyzing the Apache Flink Source Code

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

Applications used in the field of Big Data process huge amounts of information, and this often happens in real time. Naturally, such applications must be highly reliable so that no error in the code can interfere with data processing. To achieve high reliability, one needs to keep a wary eye on the code quality of projects developed for this area. The PVS-Studio static analyzer is one of the solutions to this problem. Today, the Apache Flink project developed by the Apache Software Foundation, one of the leaders in the Big Data software market, was chosen as a test subject for the analyzer.

So, what is Apache Flink? It is an open-source framework for distributed processing of large amounts of data. It was developed as an alternative to Hadoop MapReduce in 2010 at the Technical University of Berlin. The framework is based on the distributed execution engine for batch and streaming data processing applications. This engine is written in Java and Scala. Today, Apache Flink can be used in projects written using Java, Scala, Python, and even SQL.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

22 décembre 2020/par Service comm.

Exciting New Tools for Designers, December 2020

Actualités, Actualités

Jumpstart your next design project or speed up a workflow with some of these new tools and resources. With so many new tools being developed all the time, you are almost certain to find something that can help you with projects.

Here’s what new for designers this month.

Everypixel Patterns

Everypixel Patterns solves a common design problem: Creating seamless patterns with graphic editors is such a long and exhausting process. That’s why some people choose to get patterns from stock websites but that can be a challenge too (and difficult to search). This tool makes getting patterns less time-consuming. It includes a gallery of well-designed content, which you can customize and edit as needed.

Multiavatar

Multiavatar is a free and open-source multicultural avatar maker. Type something in the input field and generate one of 12 billion avatars. (Everything is randomly generated and free to use.)

Lobe

Lobe is a machine learning app from Microsoft that helps you create and train models. Start by showing the app examples of what you want it to learn and it will train a model for you. The tool is pretty easy to understand and you don’t need or experience or code knowledge to use it and you can train an app for free on your computer.

Laser Cat

Laser Cat is a silly and fun Google Chrome extension that adds a cartoon cat to your browser that allows you to zap away anything you want to remove in the browser window. It’s light and fun. Go play!

Pattern Collect

Pattern Collect is a curated gallery of patterns by various designs and illustrators. You can download patterns for use in projects or submit your own to share with the design community. The library is searchable and you can get new patterns via email if you subscribe.

FarbVelo

FarbVelo is a color palette generator that shows a new and random scheme with every refresh. The color choices are fresh and could work for a variety of projects, too.

CSS Clip Path Editor

CSS Clip Path Editor is a cool little pen by Mads Stoumann that puts an image inside of almost any clip path you can imagine. There are presets to choose from or you can adjust the settings and paths to create your own image shape.

Responsive & Configurable SVG Waves

Responsive & Configurable SVG Waves is a soothing pen by Jhey. Change the background and wave elements for a simple and cool animation in SVG.

Veed

Veed lets you host, edit, and deliver videos in the cloud using a REST API. It works on any browser, device, and bandwidth, and keeps your website light, even when delivering heavy video content.

Overlay

Overlay is a plugin for Figma or Sketch that transforms components and symbols into clean and reusable React, Vue, or HTML code. The benefit? Use it to create more consistent websites and design systems more quickly and in a pixel-perfect manner.

List.js

List.js is a library for adding search, sort, filters, and flexibility to tables, lists, and other HTML elements. It is built so that it will work on existing HTML and be invisible. Plus, it is simple to install and use.

What Are Design Tokens?

Design tokens are a “hot term” says Andy Bell. So, he wrote an explainer that breaks down what they are and how they might look in a standard data format like JSON. Read the explainer and you’ll be able to identify design tokens and understand them.

SVG Path Editor

SVG Path Editor makes it easy to manipulate paths for any SVG element. The grid – if you choose to use it – helps edits stay symmetrical and easy to manage.

Operator Lookup

Operator Lookup is a practical and fun tool. Enter a JavaScript operator in the search box to learn more about what it does. (You can also choose from a “keyboard” of options.) Thanks for the tutorial, Josh W. Comeau.

Beacon

Beacon is a tool designed to help you write, run, and share SQL in Slack. It makes collaboration easy so you can work on and run queries, debug, and resolve issues all in a single platform.

Plaiceholder

Plaiceholder transforms your images into lightweight placeholders using pure CSS or SVG.

Machine Translation

Machine Translation is available as Cloud API, on-premise translation server, and SDK that can be easily integrated into lots of business cases. Both solutions work with 110 languages.

Draggable Blend Generator

Draggable Blend Generator does just what the name implies. Change the blend mode of a background and foreground using a draggable tool so that you can see the changes in real time. Just enter the URL of a background image or pattern and color swatch and you are ready to go.

Jam Wand

Jam Wand is a “magic wand” for making changes on your website, starting with copy. Click on any text, edit it, and submit the change to GitHub to be merged into the code. Copy changes as easy as click, type, and click again. (This tool is still in beta.)

Boost UI Kit

Boost UI Kit is a collection of elements and components that will help you finish website design projects using a bright and airy style. It works with Figma for easy integration.

Romanizer

Romanizer is a fun game that tests your knowledge of Roman numerals. With two modes – a randomizer and a challenge you can participate in – you’ll learn to convert numbers visually in minutes.

Itmeo Market

Itmeo Market is a new online graphics marketplace with exclusive and ready-to-use templates for a variety of projects. Templates include elements for logos, UI kits, graphic elements, Instagram templates, landing pages, and more. (This is a paid/subscription-based resource.)

Bellmoco Handcola

Bellmoco Handcola is a beautiful decorative typeface with fun swashes and serifs. The free version is for personal use only.

Bondie

Bondie is a handmade brush typeface with fills in many of the letterforms. It contains 106 characters and is free for personal use.

Bovino

Bovino has multiple weights that can work for display or body text. The modern serif is free for personal use.

Estilistica

Estilistica is a thin modern style sans serif with smooth lines and a vertical profile. It is best suited for display use and is free for personal use.

Source

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

14 décembre 2020/par Service comm.

How to Prioritize Speed with a Mobile-First Design

Actualités, Actualités

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.

Source

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

9 décembre 2020/par Service comm.

Answers to 5 Kubernetes CKAD Practice Questions

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

While doing some work with Kubernetes (K8s) and studying for the CKAD exam, I came across a page on Matthew Palmer’s website entitled “Practice Exam for Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Certification” and which contains five practice questions, which I’ll go over here. If you see a problem with anything I’ve done below, including inefficient solutions, please let me know in the comments.

We will focus on not just showing a possible solution to each problem but also verifying our work.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

8 décembre 2020/par Service comm.

4 Creative Ways to Design a Festive Website

Actualités, Actualités

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

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

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

Hanukkah
Kwanzaa
Christmas
Boxing Day
New Year’s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like BeXmas:

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s how you might do that:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes a more understated approach is best.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

1 décembre 2020/par Service comm.

Top New CMS Plugins, November 2020

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Since there are so many CMS plugins out there, it can be overwhelming to choose the best ones for your website. We’ve done the research for you; this list contains the top new CMS plugins for November 2020. You’ll find useful plugins for WordPress, Craft, Shopify, and Joomla.

Let’s get started…

WordPress

404 Page Editor

404 Page Editor is a simple WordPress plugin that helps you add custom text to the default 404 page on your website. The plugin comes with seasonal and industry-related 404 templates. One useful feature of the plugin is that it backups your current 404 page before changing it. So you can restore the backup page anytime you choose. The plugin duplicates your current 404.php page to wp-content/uploads/404-page-editor/ so you can easily find it. You can also change the text on the plugin to fit your local dialect.

UnusedCSS Power-Up

Most WordPress themes and plugins load their CSS in the wrong areas of your website. This can slow down your site. A slow website will reduce user experience and lead to increased bounce rates.

UnusedCSS will help reduce the size of your website’s CSS files by up to 95%. The best part is that the plugin works automatically. It will remove any unused CSS when visitors view any page on your website. UnusedCSS will automatically reduce your website’s load times by reducing your CSS files and page size. The plugin also optimizes the performance of other WordPress plugins and extensions. UnusedCSS also works with WooCommerce themes and plugins.

Simple Redirects

Simple Redirects is a WordPress plugin that helps you to automatically redirect requests to another page on your site or any other place on the web. The plugin allows you to easily redirect users from your old web pages to new pages using 301 or 302 redirects. You don’t have to worry about losing backlinks or page rank. Any incoming links to the old web page will be automatically passed along to the new page. The page rank on the old page is also transferred to the new page. The plugin is useful when migrating a WordPress site when don’t want to retain the URL structure.

HTML Validation

HTML Validation plugin helps you identify any HTML validation errors on your website. The plugin works automatically in the background of your website and will send you regular reports. There is a progress bar on the report screen to show you the progress of the scan. The plugin uses WordPress Cron to scan the content of your website. There is also an option for the plugin to automatically fix any HTML validation issues on your website. You can also choose to fix the issues manually.

Just Highlight

Just Highlight is a simple WordPress plugin that helps you highlight text in your posts or pages. You can use this plugin to highlight any portion of the page you want to draw the reader’s attention to. You can highlight the background of the page and also add animation to the highlighted text. In the WordPress admin area, you can change the speed and color of the animation. The plugin is compatible with Gutenberg, and the WordPress classic editor.

DeviantArt Embed

DeviantArt Embed is a simple plugin that helps you embed any work from Deviant Art into a post. The plugin provides a block for the WordPress block editor so you can easily embed the image. It uses a DeviantArt oEmbed API to pull the images and their descriptions, and creates an embedded image.

Static Optimizer

Static Optimizer is a static file optimization plugin that serves and optimizes static files on your website. The plugin will help you increase your website speed by automatically compressing your static files. It is easy to set up, you just need an API key to get started. Other useful features that the plugin offers include automatic JS and CSS minification, automatic image optimization, and processing of responsive images. You don’t have to worry about losing your files if their server is down. The plugin automatically backs up your files and will load your original files when their servers are down (either because of an upgrade, maintenance, or outage). By default, only images are compressed when you activate the plugin; you can also choose to optimize fonts, CSS, and JS files.

RankBear

RankBear is a keyword rank tracker plugin that helps you analyze your SEO efforts. With RankBear, you can track the keywords for each of the posts and pages on your site. While the plugin has a paid plan, you can track up to five keywords for free. On the free plan, you will receive weekly reports on each keyword you are tracking. You can search for the rank and volume of a keyword in every location supported by the Google search engine. RankBear is a lightweight software-as-a-service plugin hosted by Amazon Cloud Services. The plugin also offers the option to download the keyword reports to CSV.

Table of Contents Block

Table of Contents Block is a plugin that allows you to easily create a Table of Contents for your WordPress posts. The plugin is lightweight and will automatically add a Table of Content in your website’s posts and pages. You can select the heading tags you want to add to the Table of Content. It also has a dedicated support team to assist you. The plugin works fine with all standard WordPress themes.

Markease For WooCommerce

Markeaze is an all-in-one communication plugin that allows you to add live chat to your online stores. The plugin will help you improve your customer service by decreasing your response times. With the plugin, you can collect your visitor’s contact information via a widget. This feature is useful in building a subscriber database. You can also use the plugin to track customer behavior on your site, inform customers about new products, help customers with active orders, and collect customer feedback. You can also use the auto-reply function to answer commonly asked questions.

Craft CMS

Image Toolbox

Image Toolbox is a Craft CMS plugin that offers image-related tools for your templates. The plugin will automatically create a WebP variant of the images you upload. It also has a fallback for browsers that do not support WebP images. Other useful features the plugin offers include automatic creation of placeholder images and generation of responsive images with multiple variants. The plugin also supports Imager-X (or old Imager).

Element Panel

Element Panel plugin allows you to add elements and an eager-loading panel to the debug toolbar. This feature will help you benchmark your templates in Craft CMS. For elements, the panel has a dashboard that shows how many elements are populated. It also shows how many elements are duplicates. The plugin also shows you how many eager-loading elements are detected. Duplicate elements are grouped by field name.

Shopify

VStore Shoppable Videos

VStore Shoppable Videos is a Shopify plugin that allows your customers to shop directly from your videos. The plugin allows you to embed your products into any video. Since videos have a high engagement rate, this plugin will significantly improve your store’s conversion rates.

ProofMotion Video Testimonials

ProofMotion Video Testimonials plugin helps you to easily collect video testimonials. The plugin sends an automated email or SMS requests to customers asking for their satisfaction feedback after making a purchase. The responses are analyzed to determine whether the customer had a negative or positive experience. Customers that offer negative feedback are sent to customer care to help them with the problem they encountered. Happy customers are prompted to make video testimonials of their positive shopping experience. ProofMotion guides the customer through the interview so they can give the best testimonial. They also offer an on-site widget so you can easily share your testimonials.

Real ID

Real ID is a Shopify plugin that allows you to verify customers’ real identity using a photo ID and facial biometrics. The plugin is perfect for orders that have an age restriction, verifying flagged fraud goods, and selling expensive goods. Real ID will help you identify whether a government-issued-ID is fake during fulfilment. All the customer needs to do is take a selfie on their phone. This way, even if a customer has access to a stolen physical ID, they won’t still be able to make any purchase. The plugin can verify documents such as passports, visas, national IDs, driver licenses, and more. Real ID will help you handle GDPR compliance. The plugin is available in hundreds of countries around the world.

Joomla

Accessibility

Accessibility is a Joomla plugin that allows your website visitors to easily access your website content. The plugin will remove any barrier between the visitor and your Joomla site. There is no coding required and you can customize the plugin directly from the module manager. The plugin has a useful feature called Dyslexic Readability; this feature allows your visitors to set the entire document font to a dyslexic-friendly font. Visitors can also grayscale the page, resize the fonts, and resize the word space. From the backend module, you can add any custom CSS and JS. The plugin is also available in 12 different languages.

Reading Time

Reading Time is a simple plugin that will help you easily show the reading time of your Joomla articles. The plugin is easy to set up and does not require any coding. You can customize every parameter, including the text, in minutes. You can also choose to exclude categories, articles, and menu items. Reading Time also allows you to easily add custom CSS code from the plugin parameters.

Featured image via Pexels.

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Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

20 novembre 2020/par Service comm.

10 Reasons Your WordPress Site Will Get Hacked (and How to Stop It)

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A hacked WordPress site is as damaging as having your home burgled. It can completely shatter your peace of mind and adversely impact your online business.

Why do hackers target WordPress sites? The answer is relatively simple: WordPress is the single biggest platform for website creation these days, so there’s a larger base to attack; this attracts the attention of online criminals.

So, how can a hack impact your website?

Depending on the type of attack, your website could suffer any of the following:

It could be defaced completely;
It could load or operate very slowly on any device;
It could completely crash and malfunction;
It could display the dreadful “White Screen of Death”;
Its incoming visitors could be redirected to other suspicious websites;
It could lose all your valuable customer data.

This list is not exhaustive but you get the idea.

Now that we know how a successful hack can impact your website and online business, let us look at the top 10 reasons behind WP hacks and prevent them.

1. An Insecure Web Host

Like any website, WordPress is hosted on a web host or server. Unfortunately, most site owners do not pay much attention to the web host they select and choose the cheapest they can find. For example, it is more affordable to host a website on a shared hosting plan — one that shares its server resources with many other websites like yours.

This can make your site vulnerable to hackers as a successful hack into any website on the shared server. A single hacked site can consume the overall server bandwidth and impact all the other sites’ performance.

The only way to fix this problem is to opt for a reliable host and a virtual or dedicated server.

Pro tip: If you’re already using a shared hosting plan, check with your hosts if they offer VPS hosting and make the switch.

2. Use of Weak Passwords

Weak passwords are the main reason behind successful brute force attacks that target your account. Even to this day, users continue to use weak and common passwords like “password” or “123456”; if you’re one of them, your website could land in trouble!

Guessing weak passwords allows hackers to enter the admin accounts where they can inflict the maximum damage.

How do you fix this problem? Simple, ensure all your account users (including admin users) configure strong passwords for their login credentials. With at least 8 characters, passwords must be a mix of upper- and lower-case alphabets, numbers, and symbols.

For added safety, install a password management tool that can automatically generate and store strong passwords.

Pro tip: You can use a plugin to reset passwords for all your users.

3. An Outdated WP Version

Outdated software is among the most common reasons why websites get hacked. Despite being free to download, most site users defer updating their site to the latest version, for fears of updates causing their site to crash.

Hackers take advantage of any vulnerability or bug in an older version and cause issues like SQL Injections, WP-VCD Malware, SEO Spam & other major issues like website redirecting to another site.

How do you solve this problem? When you see a notification about an update on your dashboard, update your site as soon as possible.

Pro tip: If you are worried about updates crashing your live website, you can first test the updates on a staging site.

4. Outdated WP Plugins and Themes

Similar to the previous point, hackers also take advantage of outdated, unused, or abandoned plugins and themes installed on websites. With over 55,000 plugins and themes that are available, it is easy to install a plugin or theme, even from unsafe or untrusted websites.

Plus, many users do not update their installed plugins/themes to the latest version or do not find the updated version. This makes it easier for hackers to do their job & infect sites.

How do you avoid this problem? As with the core WP version, update each of your installed plugins/themes on your site regularly. Take stock of all the unused ones and remove them or replace them with better alternatives.

You can update your plugins/themes from your hosting account.

Pro tip: We suggest setting aside time every week to run updates. Test them on a staging site and then update your site.

5. Common Admin Usernames

In addition to weak passwords, users also create common usernames that are easy to guess.

This includes common usernames for admin users like – “admin”, “admin1”, or “admin123”. Common admin usernames make it easier for hackers to get into admin accounts and control backend files in your WP installation.

How do you avoid this problem? If you are using any such usernames that are easy to guess, change them immediately to a unique username. The easiest way of doing it is through your hosting account’s user management tool, by deleting the previous admin user and creating a new admin user with a unique username.

As the first step, change the default username of your admin user and limit users who have administrator privileges.

Pro tip: WordPress has 6 different user roles with limited permissions. Only grant admin access to users who really need it.

6. Use of Nulled Plugins/Themes

Coming back to the importance of plugins/themes, users have access to many websites that sell nulled or pirated copies of popular and paid plugins and themes. While these are free to use, they are often riddled with malware. They can compromise your website’s overall security and make it easier for hackers to exploit.

Being a pirated copy, nulled plugins/themes do not have any available updates from its development team, hence will not have any security fixes.

How do you fix this problem? Simple, for a start, only download original plugins and themes from trusted websites and marketplaces.

Pro tip: If you don’t wish to pay for paid or premium plugins and themes, opt for a free version of the same tools that will have limited features but are still safer to use than the nulled version.

7. Unprotected Access to wp-admin Folder

To take control of your site, hackers often try to break into and control your wp-admin folder in your installation. As the website owner, you must take measures to protect your wp-admin directory.

How can you protect your wp-admin folder? First, restrict the number of users having access to this critical folder. Additionally, apply for password protection as an added layer of security for access to the wp-admin folder. You can do this using the “Password Protection Directories” feature of the cPanel in your web host account.

Pro tip: Besides these fixes, you can also implement Two Factor Authentication (or 2FA) protection for all your admin accounts.

8. Non-SSL Website

You can easily migrate your HTTP website to HTTPS by installing an SSL certificate on your site. SSL (or Secure Socket Layer) is a secure mode of encrypting any data transmission between your web server and the client browser.

Without this encryption, hackers can intercept the data and steal it. Plus, a non-secure website can have many negative implications for your business – lower SEO ranking, loss of customer trust, or a drop in incoming traffic.

How do you fix this problem? You can quickly obtain an SSL certificate from your hosting company or SSL providers. It encrypts all data that is sent from and received by your website.

Pro tip: You can get a free SSL certificate from places like Let’s Encrypt, but these provide limit protection that will only be sufficient for a starter site or small site.

9. No Firewall Protection

Lack of firewall protection is another common reason why hackers can bypass website security measures and infiltrate the backend resources. Firewalls are the last line of defence against hackers and work like the security alarm installed on your house. Firewalls monitor web requests coming from various IP addresses, including the suspicious (or bad) ones.

They can identify and block requests that are known to be malicious in the past, thus preventing easy access for hackers to your website domain. Web application firewalls can thwart various attacks, including brute force attacks, XSS, and SQL injections.

Pro tip: A firewall provides much-needed security and is your first line of defence. But it’s important to also have a malware scanner installed.

10. Lack of WordPress Hardening Measures

Typically, hackers target the most vulnerable areas or weaknesses within a WP installation, to illegally access or damage the website. The WordPress team has identified these vulnerable areas and has devised a list of 12 hardening measures recommended for every website.

A few of these include:

Disabling the File Editor;
Preventing PHP execution in untrusted folders;
Changing the security keys;
Disallowing plugin installations;
Automatic logout of inactive users;

How do you implement these hardening measures? While some steps are easy to understand, others require the technical expertise of how WordPress works.

Pro tip: You can implement hardening measures on your own. However, some measures require technical expertise so in these cases, it’s much easier and safer to use a plugin.

Featured image via Pexels.

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Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

13 novembre 2020/par Service comm.

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.

Source

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

11 novembre 2020/par Service comm.