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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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Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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3 Essential Design Trends, November 2020

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As we turn the corner into the final part of the year, many of the new websites and redesigns that we see during much of the rest of the year tend to slow down. Many businesses are focusing on fourth quarter and holiday sales.

With that being said, there are plenty of holiday flourishes already showing up on many websites. But there are still a few trends that don’t have a holiday theme.

Here’s what’s trending in design this month.

1. Beautiful Connectivity

Web elements that merge and flow into one another can be difficult to design but the payoff is totally worthwhile. This website design trend exemplifies connected elements in a way that’s beautiful and mesmerizing.

You can accomplish it with static elements or interactivity; the common theme is that design parts enter the space of one another and merge in ways that are seamless and visually interesting.

The thing that makes it exceptionally tricky is responsiveness. To ensure that pieces work well at all sizes when they overlap or encroach on the space of one another takes a lot of planning and testing.

Here are a few examples of projects that do it well – and each one does it in a different way.

Kirk Whayman’s website uses a floating ice cube over simple lettering. The interactivity is spot on here with hover actions that allow you to move the block with the letters refracting in an expected manner. (It would be easy to play with it all day.) But the coolest interaction happens when you “break it” (click on the cube). The elements continue to merge and interact in a new and different way.

Kikk Festival uses animations and giant scrollable illustrations and plenty of elements that overlap within the space. What’s neat is that everything on this canvas seems to touch everything else. The staircase design encourages scrolling and lettering and smaller animated elements all connect to the steps in the sky motif.

Multi Options Nursing takes a totally different approach. It uses a static split screen with a photo on the right side that merges into a round graphic element. It takes two not-s-interesting images and makes something out of them. The design carries this theme below the scroll as well and this style of image presentation carries a nice visual weight without feeling heavy.

2. Almost Brutalism

Brutalism just seems to keep coming back around. For those that love this trend, it keeps evolving as well.

The latest styles of brutalism are a little less mono but still pretty sharp with harsh lines, questionable type readability, and a lot going on in a compressed space. These projects also seem to be embracing color and alternative font choices more readily.

Fledge uses a split screen – still a dominant trend two years running – with a blue that’s almost too bright with an almost white offset color. The text is big and smooshed into the space tightly. Depending on the breakpoint, you might not even get the whole phrase on the left side. The design challenge is what are you supposed to do here? There are some hover animation cues, but they aren’t very direct.

Loeven Morcel’s design has hints of brutalism and elements of elegance. What makes this design skew toward the brutal side is use of space and typography. Like the previous example, it falls into the territory of “what should I do here” with some concerns about readability. Most of these issues are resolved on the scroll if you move beyond the homepage.

Szymon Michalczyl’s site is another that is close to brutal in style but has an element of sleekness that doesn’t quite carry it over the edge. The simple framework has that brutalist feel but the use of simple, clean fonts with plenty of space pulls it back into a more mainstream design scheme.

3. Beige Everything

Is a shade of beige the color of the year for 2020? Or is it just how we all feel?

Beige backgrounds are everywhere, making this one of those design trends that you can’t miss. The good news is that designers are playing with different shades of beige as well as warm and cool variations. Beige on its own can take on some of the color from accent hues and imagery, so that’s important to keep in mind when using this in the background.

The other variable is how saturated to make beige coloring. Most designs are using some of the more muted options while mostly playing with the levels of green and red. But darker beiges are also an option.

Simon Daufresne uses a beige that is the color that comes to mind when you think beige. It’s simple, a hint reddish, and is used with black only to maintain true color.

Discovered Wildfoods uses a more neutral feeling beige with a more green undertone (or is that color feel coming from other design elements). The neutral and natural color fits the brand and association this website is trying to create.

Aebele Interiors also uses a more traditional beige but with a bold mustard accent that makes the color feel exceptionally warm. What’s nice about this color combination is that in small sizes the mustard colored-type almost falls into the beige background, but at larger sizes seems to almost jump off the screen. It’s an interesting color juxtaposition.

Conclusion

Personally, this month’s trends are a mixed bag. I love the lines and interactivity of the beautifully connected examples. It shows that elements can cross and work together well.

On the flip side, brutalism and beige just aren’t my style. But apparently, they appeal to a lot of people based on the number of projects using these styles. What do you think? I’d love to know how you feel about these trends. Let me know on Twitter.

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Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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AccessiBe Review 2020: Solving Web Accessibility with AI and Scalability

Web accessibility is important for two reasons:

  1. Being ADA & WCAG compliant is required by law (we’ll explain this further) so if your website isn’t compliant, you can get sued.
  2. It allows people with disabilities to browse your website, which increases your potential audience and it is the decent thing to do.

In this accessiBe review, we’ll cover:

How Does accessiBe Work

accessiBe is an automated solution that combines two applications to achieve full compliance.

Foreground application: the accessibility interface. This is the accessibility menu that allows users with disabilities to adjust the various UI and design elements on your website so it meets their unique needs.

Background application: proprietary AI technology that’s responsible for the ‘heavy lifting’, screen-reader, and keyboard navigation optimization.

The combination of these two applications is unique for accessiBe for a few reasons. While most available accessibility solutions offer just one of the two or rely on manual remediation, accessiBe checks both boxes and does it in a fully automated way.

Additionally, and most importantly, accessiBe continuously scans your website, every 24 hours, identifying and fixing new accessibility issues as they arise. Websites are dynamic – meaning, keep updating constantly with new content, pages, images and so on; being ADA and WCAG compliant is an ongoing concern, not a one-time fix.

How to Install and Setup accessiBe

You install accessiBe by inserting a single line of code on your website.

From your end, that’s all it takes.

The first thing that happens is that the accessibility interface appears on your website. The menu is available via the accessibility icon (that also appears automatically.)

Source: accessiBe website

Next, the AI application scans and analyzes your website for accessibility issues and compatibility with screen-readers and keyboard navigation requirements and fixes them. This automated process takes 48 hours.

Once the initial 48 hours have elapsed, your website is compliant.

From here on, accessiBe automatically scans your website every 24 hours to identify and fix new accessibility issues as they arise due to website updates.

Why Ongoing Compliance is Important

We’ve mentioned this already, but it’s important to stress this point.

Whether you have an e-commerce website or a company website, you keep updating and changing your website; new items go up for sale, new videos and content pieces are added. Every addition or removal from your website has the potential of creating accessibility gaps (like missing alt text for images.)

By continuously scanning and fixing your website, accessiBe ensures that you stay compliant. An accessibility audit remediates your website for the specific point in time the audit took place. Meaning, you’ll need to audit your website periodically to remain compliant, which is a costly affair. With accessiBe you don’t need to worry about this.

accessiBe Front End Features – The Accessibility Interface

The accessiBe accessibility interface (the menu that is available for users) is installed automatically on your website once you insert the line of code. Let’s look at the various features that are available for people with disabilities.

Accessibility Profiles Explained

First, it allows you to choose from a pre-defined set of profiles optimized for various disability needs:

When one of the profiles is selected, the required adjustments are instantly applied to your entire website.

For example, The ADHD Friendly Profile creates a reading mark that follows your mouse movements that diminish distractions and allows better focus:

The Cognitive Disability Profile frames all the elements in bounding boxes and adds an ‘reading cursor’ that acts as your mouse to allow enhanced orientation:

Each of the predefined profiles includes a suite of features that target the unique accessibility needs of the disability; the Epilepsy Safe Profile prevents videos from playing automatically, dims all the colors on your website and eliminates flashing and blinking animations; the Visually Impaired Profile enhances all your website’s visuals, enlarges all fonts to allow most visual impairments conditions (degrading eyesight, tunnel vision, cataract, glaucoma and more) to be able to browse your website with ease.

The last two profiles, Blind Users and Keyboard Navigation, work in unison. They allow blind and motor-impaired individuals to browse and use your website as they are used to, through screen-readers and keyboard functionality, respectively.

Two things need to be mentioned here:

  1. Blind individuals have screen-readers installed on their computers in the OS-level, meaning, on the hard drive of the computer. They use them to navigate the internet by having the software read for them every text that appears on the screen. As can be seen in the screenshot above, the Blind User profile is ‘launched’ automatically once accessiBe detects that the user is using a screen-reader. This is a crucial functionality since obviously blind users aren’t able to locate the accessibility icon.
  2. The same goes for individuals that are using the keyboard instead of a mouse to navigate the web, both the motor-impaired and the blind. accessiBe detects and automatically enables keyboard navigation on your website.

On top of the predefined accessibility profiles, accessiBe’s interface allows for further adjustments that can be controlled specifically to allow a personalized browsing experience according to the user’s needs. Let’s look at these adjustments.

Accessibility Content Adjustments Explained

The content adjustments allow you to control every aspect of the written content on your website. The menu looks like this:

Each of these elements allows for granular control of the way content, or text, is presented. From altering the entire website’s text to a readable, sans-serif font that is easier to follow, to highlighting titles and links, to adjusting font size, the spacing between lines and letters and using a text magnifier that follows your cursor on the screen.

Here’s how it looks with Highlight Titles and Highlight Links turned on:

You can see all the links are highlighted with an orange bounding box while all titles are highlighted with a blue bounding box.

Accessibility Color Adjustments Explained

The color adjustments allows users to control every aspect of the color scheme on the website:

From adjusting contrast and saturation, to switching the entire website to a monochrome color scheme, to adjusting textual elements and background colors. Let’s look at a few examples.

Here’s a side-by-side of default appearance and the Dark Contrast adjustment turned on:

And here’s how it looks with the Monochrome adjustment turned on:

Accessibility Orientation Adjustments Explained

The orientation adjustments allow full control of ‘distractions’ that make it hard for individuals with epilepsy, ADHD, and cognitive disability to browse the web:

As such, the orientation adjustments allow users to mute sound, hide images, stop animations and additional ‘focus’ features such as an enlarged cursor and reading assistance that highlights the text being read.

Here’s how the Remove Images adjustment works:

accessiBe Back End Features

Unlike ‘accessibility plugins’ (more on that later) accessiBe provides a comprehensive back end treatment to your website – automated, AI-powered analysis of compatibility with accessibility requirements and fixing of the elements that need adjustment.

It should be noted that 70% of the WCAG compliance requirements deal with screen-reader and keyboard navigation compatibility and all these requirements are not answered by installing an accessibility interface widget that merely makes UI and design adjustments.

For example, an accessibility widget will enable you to enlarge the font on your website, to adjust the saturation or to highlight links, but it won’t enable a blind individual to differentiate between a shopping cart icon and a checkout icon, nor will it enable a motor impaired individual to easily navigate a menu.

This is a crucial consideration to make when choosing a web accessibility solution. Being WCAG compliant is a YES / NO situation. Your website is either compliant or it’s not, there is no middle ground here.

accessiBe’s back end features come to solve and answer all these compatibility issues that enable full screen-reader and keyboard navigation functionalities.

Screen Reader Compatibility Explained

Screen Reader is a software for blind individuals to use computers and browse the web. As the name suggests, the software reads aloud what is seen on the screen for blind individuals.

The screen reader software is installed on the computer. But in order for it to work with websites, the website needs to be compatible with the software. To achieve compatibility with screen reader software, WCAG requires that a website should adhere to a set of attributes called Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) that are installed within the website’s code, allowing it to ‘communicate’ with the screen reader.

Let’s take social icons as an example. We are all familiar with those icons – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – they are instantly recognizable for us visually. A screen reader software doesn’t actually ‘see’ elements on the screen, rather it scans the website’s code to understand what appears on the screen. As such, a Facebook icon code simply says ‘link’ and has the URL that directs the user when clicking the link.

So with a website that isn’t compatible with a screen reader, that doesn’t have ARIA tags implemented, the screen reader will read to the blind person “link” for the Facebook icon; not very helpful, is it?

When ARIA tags are implemented, additional information is added to the Facebook icon – and any other visual link on the website – that describes what is the link. So the screen reader will read to the blind person “Facebook link”.

It’s not difficult to imagine the scope and effort of the work needed in order to implement ARIA tags on your entire website.

Keyboard Navigation Compatibility Explained

Keyboard navigation means that motor-impaired individuals are using their computers only through their keyboard, rather than a mouse. Scrolling, clicking links and menu buttons, opening and closing tabs – everything is done using designated keys.

There are many issues relating to keyboard navigation as today’s websites are highly complex, layered with content elements, and react dynamically to user behavior. Any element of the website must be compatible to allow full keyboard navigation.

Let’s look at a popup as an example.

Popups can be triggered for a variety of reasons. For mouse users, it is a simple occurrence; you can bring the cursor to the area of the popup, click on one of the fields to input details or click the X to close the popup.

But how do you handle the popup using only the keyboard? How do you differentiate between ‘regular’ functionalities of the website and that of the popup? How do you ‘shift the focus’ of the keystrokes to a layered element? You need to allow unique keystrokes to operate the popup, keystrokes that are activated only when a popup appears.

It’s one example of the many challenges making your website compatible with keyboard navigation. The list of WCAG requirements for compatibility with keyboard navigation is a long one, and understandably so as it needs to enable motor-impaired individuals to navigate your website with the same ease as the rest of us using a mouse.

How accessiBe’s Background Processing Achieves Screen Reader and Keyboard Navigation Compatibility

Without getting too technical, what accessiBe does is scan the entire code of your website and adds keyboard functionalities and ARIA tags to various elements on your website directly. It won’t interfere with your site’s code, but rather add an additional ‘layer’.

accessiBe’s AI ‘learned’ all of ARIA’s tags and keyboard functionalities required by WCAG and when scanning your website’s code implements all the required adjustments to achieve full compliance.

How accessiBe Makes Menus Accessible

Menus are a good example for understanding what the accessiBe background processing does and the benefits it provides.

We recognize menus on websites instantly, because we saw thousands and thousands of them. We know how they look, we know what their functionality is, and we know where to hover and click in order to reach the various pages of the website.

But if you remember, we said that screen readers don’t ‘look’ at the screen, but rather scan the site’s code to understand structure, identify links and read them aloud with all the text that appears on the page.

So menus are coded as a list structure, because in a way they are. A screen reader will announce a menu as a list, which might be confusing for a blind user. Additionally, many menus have drop-down sub-menus, accessible via a hover or by clicking a little triangle. Without proper ARIA tagging, a screen reader will miss the sub-menu.

What accessiBe does is adding readable tags for every element in the menu so a screen reader will recognize and announce each element properly. The ‘list’ code structure will get a “menu” tag, and the sub-menu will get a tag for ‘sub-menu’, thus allowing the blind individual to utilize the full functionality of the website.

Additionally, accessiBe alternates the tags on-the-fly while the site is being browsed. Once a sub-menu has been opened, a tag that says “sub-menu open” will be added to indicate to the screen reader what has happened, and will be changed with the tag “sub-menu close” once the sub-menu has been closed.

Image Recognition

One of the key elements of accessibility compliance with screen readers is to provide accurate alternative descriptions for images, known as alt text.

accessiBe utilizes various image, object and character recognition technologies (OCR and Iris) to provide highly descriptive and accurate depictions of images displayed on the website. Without adding screen-reader compatible alt tags to images a blind individual would simply not be aware of the existence of images, and miss out on the information usually displayed on images.

Let’s look at the following banner images from an e-commerce website:

As you can see, valuable information is communicated via the images – sales and discounts – the kind of information any shopper would want to know.

This is the descriptive text that accessiBe’s AI assigned to these images, completely automated with no human intervention (from left to right):

  • Image contains: shopping,  shorts, woman, ashion; image text: extra 50% off shorts
  • Image contains: shopping, red top, woman, jeans, fashion; image text: 50% off bottoms
  • Image contains: shopping, blue jumpsuit, woman, fashion, bed, ; image text: 50% off jumpsuits & rompers
  • Image contains: shopping, shoes, ocean, woman, fashion; image text: 50% off shoes

Again, doing this kind of work for the hundreds to thousands of images that are displayed on every e-commerce website requires a lot of time and effort. accessiBe achieves this in a completely automated way, and every image added to your website instantly gets its alt text.

Comparison of accessiBe with Accessibility Plugins

There are many web accessibility plugins out there. They offer a ‘quick fix’ for ADA and WCAG compliance – add an accessibility menu and you’re done.

As tempting as it may sound, the distinction between an accessibility menu and being fully compliant must be made.

As we’ve mentioned earlier, there are two parallel tasks that need to handle in order to achieve ADA and WCAG compliance:

  • Front end – UI and design adjustments, achieved by the Accessibility Interface (the visible menu for content, font, color and orientation adjustments)
  • Back end – screen-reader and keyboard navigation compatibility, achieved by implementing ARIA tags and further code adjustments

Reminder: 70% of accessibility compliance requirements deal with back end adjustments, meaning, screen-readers, and keyboard navigation compatibility.

Accessibility plugins, whether free or paid, only answer the front-end requirements. Meaning, after installing an accessibility plugin, you are just 30% compliant. Since accessibility compliance is not a scale (you don’t ‘get points’ for making it halfway through) you’ll need to turn to an additional provider to do the back end work.

accessiBe, on the other hand, provides a full accessibility compliance solution, covering both UI and design requirements through the accessibility interface AND screen-reader and keyboard navigation compatibility requirements through it’s automated AI technology that analyzes and makes adjustments in the code-level of the website.

Benefits of Using accessiBe Over Accessibility Plugins

  • Achieving complete accessibility compliance
  • Dealing with a single provider, rather than two or more
  • Cost-efficiency (manual audit and remediation service are expensive)
  • Complete compatibility with screen-readers and keyboard navigation
  • Enabling true accessibility to individuals with disabilities

Comparison of accessiBe with Manual Accessibility Services

Manual accessibility services can help you achieve full accessibility compliance, but it comes with two major disclaimers:

  1. You’ll still need an additional solution for an accessibility interface, which the service companies don’t provide
  2. The compliance achieved is for the point in time the audit and remediation were performed. Let’s explain this point further.

Companies that offer a manual accessibility service assign a team of accessibility experts to do an audit of your website. The result of this audit is a lengthy document detailing all the accessibility faults that your website has. It is a valuable document as it gives you a precise depiction of what needs to be fixed in order to achieve compliance.

From here there are two possible paths:

You can either take the audit results to your development team and have them remediate your website accordingly.

Or, some of the service companies offer a remediation service, meaning, they’ll assign their own engineers to manually make the necessary changes in your website. Needless to say this extra service isn’t given for free.

In both cases, you are looking at a process that takes weeks if not months (depending on the number of pages your website has.)

Additionally, since it is a manual process done by experts, it comes with a hefty price tag.

But most importantly, the audit and remediation hold for the time they were done. Unless you have a 100% static website, meaning, you do not make any changes to your website – never add or remove products, never update content – the ‘effect’ of the audit and remediation fades away with time.

Since the process was manual, any changes you make to your website must be handled manually accessibility-wise. You added a new banner with a link to items on sale, you’ll need to go into the code and add ARIA tags. You added a new image, you’ll need to go into the code and add alt text compatible with screen-readers. And so on.

Some of the manual accessibility service companies offer maintenance services as well. They will periodically audit your website (manually) and provide a remediation document that will need to be implemented (manually) either by your development team or by theirs for an additional cost.

These costs add up. Having your website audited and remediated for compliance on an ongoing basis takes time, effort, and money. But you don’t have a choice. Being ADA and WCAG compliant is an ongoing task, since websites are dynamic and being updated regularly.

accessiBe, on the other hand, offers a 100% automated and ongoing compliance solution. The initial audit and remediation process is carried out – with no human intervention – in 48 hours (compared to weeks or months by a manual provider). Then, your website is scanned every 24 hours to identify and fix accessibility issues using accessiBe AI technology. Meaning, compliance maintenance is constantly carried out ‘in the background’ keeping you ADA & WCAG compliant at all times.

Which brings us to another crucial point regarding manual accessibility services. They make it extremely hard for you to scale up. Every business has a constant aim to grow, but with a manual accessibility service, scalability becomes a pain point. The more you grow the more time, effort and money you need to put in to remain compliant. You want to add another section to your website, you want to launch an additional website? Using a manual accessibility service will hold you back. You’ll need to account for additional time before going live to manually enable accessibility and additional funds. For fast-moving companies, time becomes a serious burden.

Since accessiBe offers an automated and ongoing accessibility solution, scalability is not an issue.

Benefits of Using accessiBe Over Manual Accessibility Services

  • Time-efficient
  • Cost-effective
  • 100% automated
  • Ongoing compliance
  • Infinite scale
  • Single provider for full compliance (front end and back end)

How to Check Your Web Accessibility Compliance Level

Before you get started on your path to being ADA & WCAG compliant it’s important to understand the current state of accessibility your website provides.

Obviously, if you’ve never taken any steps to make your website accessible to individuals with disabilities, there’s no need for this – your website isn’t accessible in any way.

This is actually highly important if you have taken steps to make your website accessible, like for example, installing one of the accessibility plugins. You might be under the impression that by doing so your website is both compliant and accessible to individuals with disabilities.

There’s a simple and quick way to face the accessibility reality.

accessiBe offers a free, automated compliance audit tool available online named aCe. It uses accessiBe AI technology to scan your site, detect accessibility issues and provide quite a detailed report on the various elements that impact your website’s accessibility, and those include:

  • General score
  • Clickables
  • Titles
  • Orientation
  • Menus
  • Graphics
  • Forms
  • Documents
  • Readability
  • Carousels
  • Tables

Each of these elements is given a score and some explanations to the specific issues that need attention within the context of these elements.

In addition to gaining a compliance audit with the remediation steps needed to be taken in order to fix these issues, aCe gives you a very clear idea of where you stand and what needs your attention in order to achieve compliance.

We gave it a try. We ran a website that has installed one of the accessibility plugins (which was recognized, by name, by the aCe audit tool) and the results cement the point that these plugins aren’t comprehensive enough of a solution for true ADA & WCAG compliance.

Here are the results:

As can be expected, the UI and design side got relatively high scores, due to the accessibility plugin installed on the website, but anything that has to do with back end compatibility with screen readers and keyboard navigation got a failing score.

Conclusion

accessiBe is an automated and comprehensive web accessibility solution that achieves ongoing compliance with ADA and WCAG regulations for your website.

It offers a unique combination of front end and back end compatibility, meaning, it provides an end-to-end solution for both user-facing accessibility interface, and compatibility with screen readers and keyboard navigation.

The solution offered by accessiBe is a no-touch, no-code, continuous compliance utilizing proprietary AI technology that audits and remediates your website.

It is by far one of the most affordable web accessibility solutions, starting at $490 for websites with up to 1,000 unique pages.

When compared to accessibility plugins, accessiBe’s offering is robust and comprehensive, delivering full compliance that plugins aren’t able to.

When compared to accessibility manual services, accessiBe offers a speedy and automated audit and remediation process compared to the lengthy, manual and highly expensive offering of the service companies. Additionally, accessiBe, unlike accessibility manual services, delivers ongoing compliance and the ability to scale with ease and speed.

The combination of AI-based audit and remediation, the most comprehensive accessibility interface on the market, ongoing compliance, scalability, and a highly affordable plan makes accessiBe stand out from the competition by offering a unique end-to-end solution for achieving ADA and WCAG compliance in a fast and simple way.

Featured image via Unsplash.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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How to Install Red Hat Process Automation Manager 7.8

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Time for another update on installing the Red Hat Process Automation Manager with my easy install project.

Installing the latest process automation tooling for your development projects in just minutes on your very own machine has never been easier.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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IBM et SAP annoncent de nouvelles offres pour aider les entreprises dans leur approche Intelligent Enterprise

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L’initiative « Evolution Partnership » vise à fournir de nouvelles solutions sectorielles intelligentes offrant des processus de bout en bout qui aident les entreprises à accélérer la modernisation des systèmes et des flux de travail.

ARMONK, N.Y., et WALLDORF — IBM (NYSE : IBM) et SAP SE (NYSE : SAP) annoncent la prochaine évolution de leur partenariat, avec des projets visant à développer plusieurs nouvelles offres créées pour permettre aux entreprises de piloter leur activité par les données et leur offrir un parcours plus prédictible.

Plus de 400 entreprises ont modernisé leurs systèmes et leurs processus d’entreprise grâce au partenariat de transformation digitale d’IBM et de SAP. Alors que la pandémie de COVID-19 continue d’avoir des répercussions importantes sur de nombreux secteurs à travers le monde, les organisations s’aperçoivent qu’elles ont besoin de l’agilité nécessaire pour s’adapter de manière fluide à l’évolution des conditions de marché et à la demande des clients.

« L’avenir à court et à long terme des organisations est défini par leur capacité à répondre de manière proactive aux conditions de marché actuelles, difficiles et sans précédent », a déclaré Adaire Fox-Martin, membre du Conseil d’administration de SAP SE. « Les entreprises acquièrent un avantage concurrentiel en débloquant les données en amont et en aval de leur chaîne de valeur, ce qui leur permet de découvrir de nouvelles opportunités de revenus et de créer des expériences exceptionnelles pour leurs clients et leurs collaborateurs, tout en raccourcissant les délais pour créer de la valeur. Le partenariat de SAP avec IBM réunit la puissance d’applications intelligentes et l’expertise technologique pour permettre aux entreprises de créer de la valeur plus rapidement et d’injecter les transformations nécessaires au soutien de leur activité aujourd’hui et demain. Ce partenariat sera utile à nos clients sur le marché et au niveau de leur bilan. »

La prochaine évolution du partenariat entre IBM et SAP vise à créer de la valeur plus rapidement via la transformation des entreprises, à accélérer l’innovation sectorielle grâce à des offres de données à valeur ajoutée spécifiques à chaque secteur, à dynamiser l’expérience client et collaborateur et à leur offrir une flexibilité et un choix ultimes pour exécuter leurs charges de travail dans des environnements de cloud hybride.

« Pour être compétitives dans un monde bouleversé en profondeur et en évolution rapide, les entreprises doivent être capables de remodeler leur organisation pour créer des processus métiers efficaces et automatisés, en appliquant des technologies avancées pour transformer les processus statiques et cloisonnés en flux de travail agiles et intelligents », a déclaré Mark Foster, senior vice president d’IBM Services. « Les nouvelles solutions dévoilées aujourd’hui marquent une nouvelle étape dans le partenariat entre IBM et SAP qui dure depuis 48 ans tandis que nous aidons nos clients à accélérer leur parcours pour devenir des entreprises cognitives. Notre collaboration avec SAP est conçue pour aider nos clients à accélérer la prise de décisions et à créer des expériences plus significatives pour leurs clients et leurs collaborateurs. »

Cette nouvelle collaboration entre IBM et SAP fournira des solutions conçues pour débloquer une nouvelle valeur pour les clients :

Réinventer les flux de travail avec des processus de bout en bout sectoriels intelligents

Annoncé la semaine dernière, l’Industry Cloud de SAP propose des solutions verticales innovantes pour favoriser une transformation rentable et une croissance durable. Pour répondre à la demande du marché en matière d’innovation sectorielle, IBM et SAP ont commencé à définir et à fournir conjointement des solutions basées sur le cloud avec des flux de travail sectoriels intelligents de bout en bout pour permettre aux clients de prendre des décisions commerciales basées sur les données. La première offre portera sur les processus métiers LTO (Lead-To-Order) et Plan-To-Manufacture pour le secteur des machines et composants industriels, afin d’aider les fabricants industriels à réinventer les processus de flux de travail afin d’accroître la productivité et la satisfaction des clients. IBM et SAP ont fait équipe avec les principales entreprises du secteur des machines et composants industriels pour concevoir et développer les capacités futures. En tant que partenaire de développement du service SAP Model Company, IBM travaille également avec SAP au développement d’un service SAP Model Company for Telecommunications qui aidera les fournisseurs de télécommunications à transformer leurs processus de contact avec la clientèle et de back-office, ainsi qu’à optimiser au maximum le rendement de leurs investissements dans la 5G.

Flexibilité grâce aux solutions de cloud hybride

Selon une enquête récente de l’ASUG (Americas’ SAP Users’ Group), une majorité des personnes interrogées ont déclaré qu’elles utilisent ou prévoient d’utiliser SAP S/4HANA dans un modèle de cloud hybride. Les entreprises continuent à faire évoluer rapidement leurs modèles économiques et à reconfigurer leurs processus afin de mieux accompagner leurs clients et répondre aux nouvelles demandes du marché. Beaucoup se tournent vers une stratégie de cloud hybride pour une approche « Intelligent Enterprise ». Afin de donner aux clients la flexibilité nécessaire pour exécuter les charges de travail dans l’environnement cloud le plus optimal, IBM, Red Hat et SAP collaboreront pour apporter les services gérés de SAP sur site en validant les déploiements privés de SAP Cloud Platform et les services de support connexes sur Red Hat OpenShift. Cette solution, actuellement proposée à certains clients pionniers, devrait permettre aux clients de créer des extensions side-by-side avec la sécurité souhaitée, une exigence essentielle pour les clients des secteurs réglementés.

Réimaginer les expériences des clients et des collaborateurs

Avec Internet, les smartphones et les réseaux sociaux, il n’a jamais été aussi facile pour les clients et les collaborateurs de partager leurs observations sur la qualité de leurs expériences avec les entreprises, les produits, les responsables ou les services partagés. L’étude Global C-Suite d’IBM a révélé que 82 % des chefs d’entreprise croient fermement que les données contribuent à créer un avantage stratégique, en consolidant la confiance des clients et en augmentant les profits. Pour aider les entreprises à accroître la valeur à partir des données, IBM et SAP prévoient de fournir des technologies et des services en s’appuyant sur le portefeuille de SAP Customer Experience et les solutions de gestion de l’expérience de SAP (Qualtrics) pour permettre aux clients de fournir une expérience omnicanal de nouvelle génération et de mesurer et améliorer l’efficacité des expériences des parties prenantes. Cette collaboration est conçue pour contribuer à la fidélisation des clients, à l’engagement des clients et des collaborateurs et à la qualité des marques et des produits dans de nombreux secteurs. IBM prévoit d’intégrer l’utilisation des solutions de gestion de l’expérience de SAP dans la réalisation des projets, dans le cadre de la gestion du changement organisationnel d’IBM, afin d’offrir aux clients une expérience de projet différenciée et optimisée.

Automatisation des processus pour accélérer la transformation

IBM et SAP travaillent ensemble à la mise en place de l’IBM Accelerated Move Center, une usine de migration de nouvelle génération conçue pour automatiser et accélérer encore plus la démarche « Intelligent Enterprise » et donner aux clients plus de prévisibilité sur leur transition vers SAP S/4HANA. Cette nouvelle offre sera une approche d’intégration toute prête qui utilise des modèles sectoriels de base préconfigurés et exploite des outils d’automatisation et de configuration créés en collaboration avec IBM Research.

Ces nouvelles offres seront basées sur l’Intelligent Suite de SAP et les solutions Industry Cloud de SAP. Elles permettront aux clients de bénéficier des technologies de SAP et d’IBM telles que l’IA, l’apprentissage automatique, l’automatisation et l’analytique. Ces offres s’appuieront sur la nouvelle plateforme d’évolution d’IBM, qui offre une vue unique sur les solutions IBM et une préconfiguration de ses Industry Impact Solutions, et qui interagit avec la plateforme technologique d’entreprise de SAP. Celai permet aux entreprises de créer des aperçus avancés, d’intégrer des capacités et de créer, étendre et améliorer les applications SAP. Cette combinaison vise à aider les clients à bénéficier plus efficacement de « l’intelligent Suite » de SAP, à migrer vers le cloud, à transformer les données en valeur commerciale et à utiliser les technologies émergentes pour soutenir les flux de travail intelligents.

Conditions et détails des accords définitifs à finaliser.

À propos de IBM

Pour plus d’informations sur IBM Services, rendez-vous sur https://www.ibm.com/services.
Pour plus d’informations sur les services SAP d’IBM, rendez-vous sur https://www.ibm.com/services/sap.

Les déclarations concernant l’orientation et les intentions futures d’IBM peuvent être modifiées ou retirées sans préavis, et ne représentent que des buts et des objectifs.

À propos de SAP

SAP est le leader du marché des applications d’entreprise : 77% des transactions financières mondiales passent par un système SAP. L’entreprise accompagne les organisations de toute taille et de tout secteur à mieux opérer. Nos technologies de machine learning, d’Internet des objets (IoT), d’analytique avancée et de gestion de l’expérience aident nos clients à transformer leur activité en « entreprise intelligente ». SAP dote les professionnels d’une vision approfondie sur leur activité et favorise la collaboration pour garder une longueur d’avance sur leurs concurrents. Pour les entreprises, nous simplifions la technologie afin qu’elles puissent utiliser nos logiciels comme elles le souhaitent, sans interruption. Notre suite d’applications de bout en bout et nos services permettent à plus de 440 000 clients d’opérer de manière rentable, de s’adapter en permanence et de faire la différence. Avec son réseau mondial de clients, partenaires, employés et leaders d’opinion, SAP aide le monde à mieux fonctionner et à améliorer la vie de chacun. Pour plus d’information, visitez le site www.sap.com

Contacts presse :

Daniel Margato, Directeur Communication : 06 64 25 38 08 – daniel.margato@sap.com
Sylvain Drillon : 06 44 71 35 68 – presse-sap@publicisconsultants.com

SAP News Center. Suivez SAP sur Twitter : @SAPNews.

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Source de l’article sur sap.com

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