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5 Tips for Designing Great Website Navigation

Navigation is one of the most essential elements of a website.

It provides a high-level overview of what visitors will find there (which also happens to be good for SEO). It helps visitors orient themselves so they can get around the site quickly. Plus, it enables them to take quick action like visiting their cart or searching the site.

As a web designer, you have to make sure the website navigation is designed so that visitors can get the most from it.

Today, we’re going to look at five things to keep in mind when you’re designing website navigation. We’ll include examples from BeTheme so you can see what these best practices look like.

How to Design Great Website Navigation (With Examples)

It’s easy to take the website navigation for granted. So long as it appears at the top of the site, contains the links to your most important pages, and is uncluttered, that’s all you need to worry about as a designer. Right?

Not really.

Because navigation has such an important job to play, it has to be designed with care. Here’s what you need to know:

Tip #1: Make the Logo Prominent

The logo is essentially the digital face of a company. Not only does it represent them on their website, but it also represents them on other platforms — social media, online forums, email signatures, and so on.

Because of this, the logo plays a vital role in building brand recognition, trust, and loyalty.

To maximize the brand-building powers of the logo, it needs to be correctly placed, sized, and spaced in the header of the website. Here are some general rules to follow:

1. Link: Link the logo to the Home page.

2. Placement: Place it in the top-left corner whenever possible (according to research from NNG). If you want to place it in the center, make sure there’s a Home link in the top-left corner.

The BeBaker 3 pre-built site uses this alternative logo placement:

3. Size: Size it so that every detail is easy to see and read. The ideal sizes are 250px x 100px for rectangular logos and 160px x 160px for square ones, though it all depends on how much room you want to give your navigation links to breathe.

For instance, the BeDentist 4 logo is 166px x 60px:

Making the logo any bigger than that without increasing the font size of the header would create too much space around the navigation. So, it’s a bit of a game of balance. If you go with a bigger logo, make sure it doesn’t create so much space that your links drown in it.

Tip #2: Make the Header Sticky

Websites often have a lot to share with visitors. So as not to overwhelm them with content that reads like pages from a book or magazine, we design them in sections and with plentiful white space in between.

As such, web pages can grow quite long.

That’s not the problem, though. So long as the information shared is relevant, visitors will gladly comb through it. The issue is the effort required to scroll back to the top when they’re done — especially if they’re viewing the site on a smartphone.

The sticky header offers a solution to this problem. It doesn’t just stick to the top of the page, either. Watch how the title on the BePizza 5 one-page site transforms:

As the visitor scrolls down the page, the uniquely designed navigation bar shrinks up. Although it’s much smaller, it’s still usable.

As an alternative, you can use sticky left-aligned navigation as the Cottage 2 pre-built site does:

The logo is still in a good spot, the navigation links remain visible at all times, and it doesn’t take away too much space from the main content.

Tip #3: Highlight the Current Page the Visitor Is On

Even if you’re designing a smaller website, it’s always helpful to let visitors know what page they’re looking at.

The top of the page may provide clues as to where they are, but a visible marker in the navigation would offer a quicker reference point. And the more quickly they figure out where they are, the faster they can visit unexplored areas of the site.

There are several ways to highlight a visitor’s location in the navigation. It depends on what your branding and design style calls for.

With BeTheme, you have plenty of options. For instance, you can see here in the Be Ebook 3 navigation that the text color changes from black to blue for the current page:

Another way to add a subtle highlight to the navigation would be to place a colored line beneath the current page.

The Nursing Home pre-built site, on the other hand, uses a more prominent highlight style:

For a site targeted at older users, placing a block of color around the current page links makes a lot of sense as it’ll be impossible to miss.

Tip #4: Only Use Recognizable Icons

Iconography can be a useful element in web design. Usually, we pair it with text labels to visually communicate or explain what the particular point is about. However, we can also use icons as standalone elements in place of text labels.

Designers have to be careful when using standalone icons in the navigation, though. There are only a couple dozen icons that are universally recognizable — most of which have no place in the navigation.

The ones you can place up there can more or less be found in the BeDietShop pre-built site:

There are four navigation icons here:

User profile for account settings
Heart for likes or favorites
Shopping bag for the cart/bag page
Magnifying glass for search

There are some other icons you use in the navigation, but they tend to be on more specialized sites (like ecommerce and international).

Icons can provide a tremendous navigational shortcut. Just be careful which ones you use. If the majority, if not all, of your visitors, know what they are, it could make your navigation harder to use.

Tip #5: Organize Mega Menus, So They’re Easy to Peruse

Larger websites, in general, can take some time to organize. The website navigation needs to reflect this careful system of organization, too.

The mega menu has long been the navigation design used on websites with more than a dozen links and numerous levels of pages. And it’s effective, just so long as it’s well-organized.

To organize a mega menu, you can use design tactics similar to the ones you’d use to organize your web pages:

Bolded headers
Columns for related pages
Images to highlight important pages

You can see some of these tactics used in the Betheme Store mega menu:

The headers and columns make it easier for visitors to scan through the various categories and pages available.

If a mega menu feels too cumbersome for your site, that’s okay. Websites with thousands of pages might be difficult to keep organized, even with a mega menu structure.

As an alternative, you can design a more traditional single-level navigation and then turn the search page into a navigational tool through the use of filters and sorting as BeClothingstore does:

This type of website “navigation” can reduce the overwhelm or anxiety people feel when too many options are displayed at once.

Make Navigation Work for Your Visitors with BeTheme

Without website navigation, visitors would have a lot of work to find pathways to the other information and conversion points on your site. That said, putting a row of navigation links at the top (or on the side) of your site isn’t enough.

Take time to design your navigation so that it improves the discovery of your content and speeds up visitor movement around your site.

The easiest way to get great-looking and highly usable navigation up and running is to start with one of BeTheme’s pre-built sites. Not only are they built using the best practices mentioned above, but they’re also customizable, so you can mix-and-match styles and make them totally your own!

This is a sponsored post on behalf of BeTheme

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2 novembre 2021/par Service comm.

3 Essential Design Trends, November 2021

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As the year begins to wind down, there are still plenty of new and evolving website design trends going strong. Much of what you’ll see this month carries over from things we’ve been seeing all year but with fresh touches.

From peek-a-boo designs with neat animated elements to vertical bars to brutalist blocks, there are a lot of highly usable trends to work with.

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

Peek-a-Boo with Animation

Designers have been experimenting with cut-out and layering elements with animation for some time, which has evolved into full peek-a-boo styles with a lot of visual interest.

How each design comes together is a little different. Some have the animation in the back, others in the front, and some include text as part of the style. There’s almost no set of actual rules to how to make this design trend work.

Each of the examples below does it somewhat differently with varying degrees of success. The commonality here is that it is almost one of those visuals that you either see and love or hate.

Jatco Insurance is the most stunning example here, with a bold color choice and a peek-a-book element inside the oversized “J.” The overall effect is soothing and interesting and naturally draws the user across the screen from the top left to the background video layer. The small tagline, “Individual attention you deserve,” is perfectly placed.

Liron Moran Interiors takes a different approach with the peek-a-boo concept with the letters peeking out from behind an image. The animation is restricted to a hover and scroll effect that adds a liquid element to the image as well as changes to the image and color background. The challenge here is in readability. More of the words show on wider screens, but is it enough?

Melon Fashion also layers text and animated effects for a neat peek-a-book style that almost seems cut out from the background. The overall look appears to have three layers: background video, middle layer for the yellow color block, and text on top. The opacity of text elements with the peeking video is interesting and well pulled together without sacrificing too much readability.

Vertical Bars

Vertical color bars are a design element that keeps popping up in different ways. Designers can use it as a standalone element or container for content, such as navigation or other click actions.

Vertical elements are helpful because they can help create a more consistent and unified user experience from desktop to mobile screens. This shape can also be somewhat disruptive because you don’t see it featured that often. (Although with this style trending that might become less true over time.)

New Classrooms uses a vertical color bar on the left to help you move through the design. The color actually changes as each slide progresses on the homepage.

Serving uses multiple vertical bars as links to different content entry points. Clickability is emphasized with a change from a red overlay to a full-color image. The navigation is also tucked inside a white bar on the left side of the screen with a hamburger menu therein.

TechnoAlpin goes with a skinny vertical navigation menu on the right side of the screen. The icons with menu elements make navigation highly visual and intuitive. The color, which significantly contrasts with the rest of the design, also helps.

Brutalist Blocks

Not many people thought brutalism would stick around when it started trending. Elements of brutalism keep sneaking in, though, although they are much less stark and harsh than some of those original trending website designs.

This version of brutalism focuses on block elements that contain images or text and often click to other pages in the design. The blocks themselves are essentially the buttons that help you navigate to additional content.

The critical question about this design technique is whether this click action is intuitive enough. Will users interact without buttons?

The answer likely depends on your audience base, but if you opt for a style like this, it is essential to keep a close eye on analytics to ensure that users know and understand how to engage.

Milli Agency might be the most intuitive example of the brutalist blocks trend. The homepage is essentially a giant navigation menu. Each block changes from white to yellow on hover and expands, further encouraging clicks.

Sick Agency uses brutalist blocks with experimental typefaces and bold color for an in-your-face design. You can’t help but look at all the different things happening here. The biggest question might be, where should you focus and click next? The cursor provides some visual cues, but it’s not quite as intuitive as you might want it to be.

Mawo mixes brutalist blocks with a big blue cursor to help users click through the design to see more clothing options. Even the images here have a rather stark feel, which isn’t typical for e-commerce. Every block element above the scroll on the homepage includes a click action from the navigation blocks across the top to the “Shop Women” and “Shop Men” images. Further, the blue cursor dot helps show where users can click, and text buttons change to blue on hover as well.

Conclusion

Most of the examples here show trends as homepage elements, but you aren’t limited to that application. Try some of these techniques on landing pages or interior pages that you want to add a little something special to.

This can be an excellent way to test the design and see if your users like the style and know-how to interact with it. If it works, then you can extend the aesthetic to more of the design.

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1 novembre 2021/par Service comm.

3 Essential Design Trends, October 2021

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Design trends on top of design trends. This theme of this month’s collection is trends that seem to build on each other. These examples use multiple trends listed here: hero typography, round buttons, and big branding.

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

1. Hero Typography

Big, bold, and even unusual typography choices are the norm right now for hero headers in website design. The thread in this design trend is that type options seem to break all the rules – and it doesn’t matter.

These hero typography styles are often dramatically oversized, use unusual or nontraditional type styles, and break at least one common rule of typography. The trick is to do these things while creating a visual that still works.

For the most part, that means the typographic element is the dominant art, although not always. The examples below each take a different approach and can give you an idea if you love this website design trend or not.

Eighty uses oversized type elements with almost nothing else above the fold. The rule-breaking happens on the fourth line of text with a scrolling series of serif words. The two typefaces don’t seem to match and have a stark contrast. There’s also the sneaky registered trademark icon that’s spinning next to the brand name. (Another trend – big branding – that we dive into more below.)

Miranda Biondi uses super large text to grab attention – and a lot of it. The design also sneaks the contact and social media links in an unusual location, creating an odd text wrap that pushes the image. You can see the broken “rules” there. Overall, it is very attention-getting but a little difficult to read.

Humain’s homepage is rooted in a font choice that’s pretty unexpected. The all-caps serif is thin and complex. It’s not exceptionally easy to read, although it is beautiful. There’s a second level of hidden text that you can discover with hover and the brighter sphere.

2. Round Buttons

Buttons have been mostly rectangular for a while. Some have hints of rounded edges, but nothing as distinct as the circular buttons that are growing in popularity.

Round buttons are having a moment from major call to action click elements, to timeline navigation or secondary actions.

What’s nice about this trend is that simply the change from a rectangle to a circle is enough to make you look at the element because it is different from what you might expect. The challenge is ensuring that users understand the interactive quality of circles in these instances.

When using a nontraditional element such as this, it is important to include common cues so that users know what to do with round buttons. This might include tooltips, hover actions, shadows, or tiny animations that draw users to the designs.

Salesgroup uses small hover animations on the circular buttons. It further emphasizes it with a circlular button for the cookie notice that pops up on the screen.

Jan Jansen uses a big circular button, the only thing to click on the screen, and a hover state to imply functionality.

Earth Eclipsed uses a series of different circular click elements to facilitate understanding. Sometimes just the lack of another button style is enough to show that circles are for clicking.

3. Big Branding

After a long time of subtle, rather small corner branding for websites, big branding is in.

This design trend features logos – most commonly logotypes – that are almost uncomfortably large on the homepage. They can be in the traditional top-left location or almost anywhere on the screen.

The trick is to integrate branding with the rest of the design not to feel garish. This can be rather difficult to pull off and seems to be one of those things that people either love or hate when they see it.

Here’s how three different websites are doing it:

The 50th anniversary logo is a timed solution with big branding. It creates emphasis on the historical aspect of the train. Not only does the logo appear large on the homepage, but there’s also a loading animation as well.

Kunst Architects Associated uses a very large brand representation in the middle of the hero slider. The giant type element brings your eye into the design for sure and is re-emphasized by the company name in the left sidebar. The trick here is the balance between brand and other information in that valuable homepage space.

Hyer might use one of the biggest corner logotypes you’ll find. There’s no second-guessing what website you are on. The longer-term question is, does the big lettering imprint more on your memory so that you come back to the website later when you need the products or services offered? That’s a hard question to answer, but one that might be worth debate for design teams considering a visual outline such as this one.

Conclusion

There’s a risk when it comes to layering trends in a single design. If they don’t take off, the design can look dated fast, and there’s a lot of work to remove multiple trendy visuals from the project.

But when trends take off, they can work wonders. So it will be interesting to look back in a few months and see which of these trends is still making waves.

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4 octobre 2021/par Service comm.

The Pros and Cons of Tailwind CSS

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As a utility-first CSS framework, Tailwind has rapidly become popular among developers. With its fast styling process and the freedom it offers when designing a website, it’s really no wonder why.

But how can you make sure this is the right CSS framework for your upcoming development projects? In this blog post, you’ll learn what Tailwind is, and how it differs from other frameworks like Bootstrap, or Foundation.

In addition, we will highlight the main advantages and disadvantages of the framework. By the end, you will be able to make an honest and objective assessment as to whether Tailwind is the right framework for you. So without further ado, let us dive deeper into it.

What is Tailwind CSS?

First released in May 2019, Tailwind CSS is a front-end CSS framework. It is currently at version 2.2. Since its release, Tailwind has created quite a following. More than 260k developers have used it to enhance their design systems.

Stats like these make Tailwind one of the most popular CSS frameworks on the market, and all in less than two years. There are many reasons for this. Primarily, because its features make it the ideal choice for a wide variety of projects. Tellingly, most developers prefer it to create React projects.

The main difference between Tailwind and its competitors is that it gives developers complete control over the styling of a web application. So, is it the right CSS framework for you? To answer this question, let us take a look at Tailwind’s advantages and disadvantages.

Tailwind CSS: Pros and Cons

Tailwind CSS: Advantages

1. Control Over Styling

Tailwind is a unique CSS framework when it comes to styling web applications, meaning that Tailwind does not have a default theme that you have to use like other CSS frameworks.

For example, you can give each project a different look even if you use the same elements (color palette, size, etc.). Therefore, it’s one of the few CSS frameworks that is not opinionated on how you should style your project.

2. Faster CSS Styling Process

There is no faster framework than Tailwind when it comes to styling HTML. As a result, you can easily create good-looking layouts by styling elements directly. This is possible because Tailwind offers thousands of built-in classes that do not require you to create designs from scratch.

Therefore, you do not have to write CSS rules yourself. These CSS classes are the main reason why building and styling with Tailwind is so fast.

3. Responsiveness and Security

With Tailwind’s pre-built classes, you can design the layout directly in an HTML file. This makes it a very responsive, mobile-friendly CSS framework. Apart from that, Tailwind has proven to be a stable framework since its initial release.

The framework was developed by top-notch engineers, which is why bugs and breaks are rare.

4. Additional Features

Tailwind CSS works in the front end of a website. For this reason, it is reasonable for developers to demand ultimate responsiveness. Well, Tailwind provides the ability to create responsive themes for your web applications and remove all unused CSS classes. With PurgeCSS, Tailwind helps you keep your final CSS as small as possible.

Tailwind CSS: Disadvantages

1. Styling and HTML are Mixed

Because you do not have to write CSS rules yourself, Tailwind works differently than most CSS frameworks. While this is great for those unfamiliar with CSS, it also means that Tailwind mixes style rules in with your HTML files.

This goes against the principle of the “separation of concerns.” Many developers prefer to separate page structure and style, claiming that classes make the Tailwind markup process verbose.

2. It Takes Time to Learn

Because of the built-in classes, Tailwind CSS is quite learning-intensive. Even for experienced developers, it can be a challenge to learn how to use and fully utilize the pre-built classes. But, of course, as with any other development task, practice makes perfect.

However, if you are confident and quick when it comes to writing CSS classes, Tailwind may not be the best choice for you. Even if that’s true, Tailwind generally makes CSS styling faster in the long run.

3. Lack of Important Components

Unlike Bulma and Bootstrap, Tailwind does not have many significant styling components. Unfortunately, this means you have to manually add features like headers, buttons, and navigation bars for web apps.

This is not a significant drawback, as experienced developers can implement these features quickly. However, you will need to spend some time doing so.

4. Documentation

Although Tailwind CSS has made great strides when it comes to adding guides and video tutorials, it still lags behind competitors like Bootstrap. Of course, you can always contact the developers if you have a problem.

However, keep in mind that this may take some time. For this reason, you may need to customize the framework to your needs manually.

Is Tailwind Worth Trying?

In a few words, working with Tailwind is quite different from other CSS frameworks. We have identified its main advantages and disadvantages. Based on these features, we can easily say that Tailwind is:

An excellent solution for developers familiar with CSS who want to speed up the creation and design process in the long run.
Not such a good idea if you are not familiar with CSS or do not want to spend time learning a new CSS framework.

It becomes clear that it all depends on your personal needs and preferences. However, if saving time on CSS styling is a priority for you, you should definitely give Tailwind a try.

Regardless of whether you choose to use Tailwind or not, it’s evident that many developers use it for good reasons. Since it offers a faster styling process and is a responsive and stable framework, it’s here to stay.

Tailwind can help you save time and change the way you design websites, and so taking the time to test it out is worthwhile.

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24 septembre 2021/par Service comm.

Design Faster & Smarter with BeTheme’s 3 Builders & 600+ Pre-Built Sites

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The WordPress themes and plugins you choose for your clients’ sites don’t just impact how the interface looks or how well it works. They also impact your ability to build them.

The point in using WordPress themes and plugins is to make your life easier, not to create more work for yourself or limit what you’re able to do. If you’ve struggled to find WordPress tools you can rely on from job to job, BeTheme might just be the total package you’ve been looking for.

BeTheme has it all:

A backend builder
A frontend builder
A WooCommerce builder
600+ pre-built websites

There’s nothing extra to pay with BeTheme. One fee gets you all the tools you need to easily build professional-grade websites for your clients.

Get to Know BeTheme’s All-In-One WordPress Solution

Want to see how the BeTheme powerhouse works? Check it out:

1. Build and Manage the Backend With Muffin Builder 3

Let’s be honest, WordPress page builder plugins leave something to be desired. While they all have their strengths, it’s hard to find one that offers different tools for how you want to work.

Many of them offer a visual drag-and-drop builder, leaving designers with little flexibility in how they build websites. With BeTheme, you don’t have to compromise.

Muffin Builder 3 is the intuitive backend editor that gives you full control. And if you want to code it all by hand? You can. If you’d prefer to tap into BeTheme’s wide array of templates, pre-built sections, and predefined settings? You can do that as well.

What’s more, the backend builder makes it easy to add sliders to your website, optimize your pages for search, and more.

2. Design and Perfect Your Site on the Frontend with Muffin Live Builder

One of the reasons why drag-and-drop website builders have become so popular in recent years is because they empower everyone — from the DIY business owner to the professional web designer — to build websites visually. There’s just one problem:

While it’s great that developers both inside and outside of the WordPress ecosystem are creating these intuitive builders, they sometimes come at a cost.

One thing that tends to get sacrificed is speed. Because they take the editing out of the WordPress dashboard and onto the frontend of the website, many of them can take a while to load. (Some of them are known for stalling out on occasion, too.)

Another thing that gets sacrificed is how much you’re allowed to customize. You either have to design your website with the features and settings available from your page builder plugin or you have to do all the work inside of WordPress.

Muffin Live Builder doesn’t suffer from these issues.

For starters, the visual builder is lightweight, so it won’t keep you waiting around for pages to load or changes to reflect on the frontend.

Also, you don’t have to choose which builder you want to use. If you want to primarily build sites with the backend editor and then perfect the designs on the frontend, you can. With BeTheme, you don’t have to pick-and-choose which editor you want to use.

3. Create Great Looking Monetized Sites with the Muffin Woo Builder

Many page builders are built for one purpose: To help WordPress users visually design websites so they can see their work reflected on the site in real-time.

That said, many page builder plugins haven’t accounted for the ecommerce piece.

Users can design and customize the regular pages on their websites with the visual builder, like the Home, About, and Contact pages. However, their ecommerce pages — Shop, Products, Cart, Checkout, and more — have to be managed through WooCommerce’s interface.

WooCommerce is a great ecommerce plugin. However, it’s not ideal having to design different parts of your site with different tools.

Be now has a solution for this: Muffin Woo Builder.

The Muffin Woo Builder allows designers to build their own single product and shop templates instead of just customizing the default ones provided by WooCommerce or the theme.

It also gives you design editing capabilities that no other page builder plugin can. For example:

Create design rules for your ecommerce pages
Choose from 11 product gallery styles
Switch between Shop and Catalogue mode
Set custom variation swatches
Show or hide the cart button
Add a sidebar
Configure settings for how product images render
Enable a Wishlist
Pick and choose which icons appear in the header

If you want this level of control over the layout and look of your ecommerce pages, you have to install other plugins or custom-code those changes into the backend. So, this is definitely a unique feature amongst page builders.

4. Instantly Design an Attractive Website With One of 600+ Pre-Built Sites

BeTheme isn’t just the fastest WordPress builder because it’s lightweight or because there are various builder options that allow you to work the way that’s best for you.

BeTheme also comes jam-packed with 600+ pre-built websites, with new ones released every week.

When you install a pre-built site, BeTheme is going to do a number of things for you:

Install all the specific plugins you need for the site
Load a fully designed and fully functioning website into your WordPress installation
Add placeholder content and imagery throughout so you can easily swap in your own

That’s going to save you a lot of time. Think about the cost savings, too. You get access to more than 600 pre-built websites without having to pay anything extra for them.

Is BeTheme the total design package? You bet it is!

It can’t be overstated what a game-changer BeTheme is for WordPress designers. Two page builders, one WooCommerce builder, and 600+ pre-built sites all rolled into one?

Everything you need to design high-quality websites is baked in.

That’s something you rarely see in any product or service, let alone in WordPress.

If you’re ready to say “Goodbye!” to page builder plugins and transform the way you work, get the BeTheme powerhouse now.

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14 septembre 2021/par Service comm.

The Mind-Bendingly Difficult Material Design Quiz

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Material Design is Google’s design language for creating digital experiences.

Initially developed in 2014, Material Design is a subset of flat design, or minimal UI design, while also flirting with skeuomorphism with its rules for surfaces and interaction. The latest iteration of Material Design, Material You was unveiled in May 2021 and is expected to redefine the language significantly.

With so many agencies and in-house teams adopting Material Design, understanding its prescriptive styles has become essential knowledge for web designers.

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27 août 2021/par Service comm.

Quick Ways to Make a Webpage More Scannable

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In the information age, time is a valuable commodity and something people don’t want to spend too much of. As a result, the average visitor only reads about 20% of the content of a page.

For web designers and developers, that means a few things: first, you need to ensure that the web pages you create are as engaging as possible; secondly, you need to find a way of making the critical information on any page stand out; thirdly, every modern designer needs to create assets that are easy for today’s fast-paced customers to use.

Making websites more scannable is how you do your part as a designer to ensure that the customers who come to a page get the quick and convenient experiences they need.

So, how do designers embrace scannability?

Designing for Scannability: An Introduction

At first glance, the concept of creating a website for scannability is strange.

Most designers start their projects with the aim of making customers stay on a page for as long as possible. So it’s odd to think that you would want to make it simple for end-users to skip from one page to another on a website in a matter of seconds.

However, scannability isn’t just about delivering information and getting users off a page. When sites are scannable, they make it quicker and easier for customers to slide down the purchasing funnel. A quicker and more convenient customer journey leads to a stronger user experience and more conversions.

Look at Netflix, for instance. It doesn’t give interested users a ton of information on its homepage. Instead, the key USPs of the product are laid out bright and bold in the middle of the screen, along with one simple call to action: Get Started.

Designing for scannability means making it easy for users on a page to glance at a screen and instantly access all the information they need to take the next step in their buyer journey.

There’s no needless scrolling or wondering what to do next.

According to analyst Jacob Nielsen, scannability is essential because people look for specific things on every page they visit.

Customers don’t read through web pages word by word. Instead, they scan through the content, plucking information out that serves their requirements.

Questions to Ask When Designing for Scannability

So, how do you know if your web pages are scannable?

Start by asking the following questions:

What’s the intent of the people who arrive on this page?
What kind of information needs to be conveyed instantly?
Can the visitor see the next step in their journey immediately?

For instance, when someone arrives on the Evernote homepage, you can assume that they want to:

Find out about Evernote
Learn how to sign up
Jump to other pages to find out about features, and contact details

That’s why the designer behind the Evernote website placed an immediate piece of useful information at the top of the page: “Tame your work, organize your life” tells customers exactly what the entire product is all about. The brief paragraph of information underneath can provide a few more details if customers need it, then there’s an immediate call to action: Sign up for free.

Not only does the call to action tell users what to do next, but it tells them the most important information they need straight away: it’s free.

Scannable pages like this are useful because:

They help users complete their tasks quicker: Whether you want to sign up or learn more about the product, everything you need is available instantly, with no scrolling required.
The bounce rate is reduced. Customers don’t get confused and hit the back button. That’s good for your client’s SEO and their bottom line.
The website looks and feels more credible: Because customers get all the answers to their questions immediately, they’re more likely to trust the website.

So, what are some of the best things you can do to make your sites as scannable as possible?

Use Visual Hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is a way of organizing the content on your website in a way that adheres to how people use the website. For instance, if you land on a blog page, you expect to see the headline first, maybe some information about the writer, and any other essential information, followed by the body content.

Although it’s tempting for designers to try and surprise users with new visual strategies, the best way to make your content more scannable is to give end-users precisely what they expect.

If you’re not sure what a page should look like, try checking out the competition.

One of the most obvious visual hierarchy rules is that the main navigation should always go at the top of the page.

Customers will expect to look at the top of the page to find navigation. They don’t want to have to scroll through your website, searching for a way to get to another page. If you want to make it as easy as possible for end-users to jump from one page to another, you can pin the navigation bar to the page so that it stays with users as they scroll.

Maintain Negative Space

White space, negative space, or whatever you call it – is the part of your design that’s left empty.

White space is crucial because it gives all of the objects on your page some much-needed breathing room. Without enough negative space on your pages, it’s impossible to embrace scannability because there’s too much information for a customer to take in at once.

For instance, notice how there are big gaps of space between every element on a Forbes website post. A proper amount of negative space on your site ensures that users can quickly take in chunks of information and use that information to decide what to do next.

To ensure there’s enough negative space on your website pages, ask yourself what the key elements visitors will notice when they come to a website. The essential items should be:

A title or header to confirm that the user is in the right place
A CTA that shows your user what to do next
A navigation header or menu
Critical information includes an introduction to what a page is about or an excerpt from the blog post they’re about to read.
A visual component: A picture or image that gives context to the page.

Anything else can usually be removed. So, for instance, if Forbes wanted to make the page above more scannable, they could easily remove the ads and social media sharing buttons.

Make the Next Step Obvious

Every page on a website exists in a hierarchy within the customer journey.

A homepage leads customers to product pages, which leads to a checkout page, which connects to a thank-you page that sends the visitor back to another product page, and so on.

When designing for scannability, it’s crucial to make the next step in the journey as obvious as possible. Usually, this means placing the call to action “above the fold,” where the customer can see it immediately.

Ideally, scannable pages should have just one CTA. This will stop your audience members from being confused or overwhelmed by choice.

However, if you’ve got multiple CTAs, think about the average customer’s journey and what they’ll want access to first.

If those buttons don’t appeal to the customer, they can scroll a little further and see other “next step” options, like shopping for “self-isolation essentials” or browsing other popular product categories:

Test Every Page

Testing for scannability means examining every page and making sure that it’s as easy as possible for customers to move through the buying process as fast as they want to.

Visit each page you design in a buyer journey and ask how quickly it would take end-users to get from point A to point B and beyond. Here are some of the common issues that might slow the customer’s journey and harm scannability:

Readability: Is the font legible? Is it large enough to read on all screens, including mobile devices? Legibility in the design world measures how quickly and intuitively your users can distinguish what’s going on any page. Remember that the color of the background, the amount of negative space around copy blocks, and even font pairing can impact the readability of the content. Show your pages to multiple people and time how long it takes for them to grasp the message that you’re trying to convey.
Fluff: Fluff and extra features can make your pages more intriguing, but they can also slow users down. For instance, one picture at the top of a blog page can add context to the article. A slideshow of pictures stops the customer from progressing and keeps them stuck at the top of the page for longer.
Words instead of numbers: According to Nielsen, eye-tracking studies show that numerals often stop the wandering eye. Numbers are compact and more regularly associated with statistics and facts, so they’re more likely to grab attention. If you want to get important points across to end users fast, use numbers, not words.

Creating Scannable Pages

Scannability is becoming an increasingly important concept in today’s busy landscape.

Now that more customers are browsing websites from their smartphones or checking out products on the move, designers need to think more carefully about adjusting to this agile environment.

Scannable pages that move visitors along the buying cycle and into the next stage of the funnel will deliver better results for your clients, and therefore better outcomes for you.

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18 août 2021/par Service comm.

How to Work for Free Without Wrecking Your Career

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Choosing to work for free, pro bono, gratis, without charge is something that most of us find ourselves doing at one time or another. Whether we’re filling a hole in our portfolio, there’s a friend or relative we feel beholden to, or because there’s an opportunity to aid a cause we value.

Recently, I agreed to take on some work, free of charge, for a charity whose goals I share. Because it’s a cause I believe in, I enjoyed the idea of being able to contribute in a more meaningful way than donating money. But my initial goodwill rapidly diminished as the project spiraled out of control, leaving me resenting the time I spent on it.

No one should feel obliged to give away their time for free, but if you do choose to, there are rules you can apply to ensure that everything runs smoothly and you’re left with a positive experience.

1. Be Specific in What You’re Donating

The most obvious problem with working pro bono is that there is no correlation between cost and value.

Budget reins in project ambitions in a regular designer-client relationship; the more you ask for, the more it costs. Everyone encounters clients who want an ecommerce store “just like Amazon,” only to then rapidly downscale their plans when the actual development cost of a site on that scale is made clear.

working pro bono…there is no correlation between cost and value

But when there is no development budget, ambitions quickly escalate. Clients do not necessarily understand the work involved, and if they’re not footing the bill, there’s no incentive to learn.

As the professional, you need to guide them. Set limits on what you’re expecting to donate, and use that to frame what is reasonably achievable.

“I’m donating 40 hours of my time, which normally costs $3000.” Or, “I’m donating my SEO package, which is enough to meet your initial goals as discussed.” They are both perfectly fine.

The purpose is not to highlight your generosity; it’s to establish clear boundaries to prevent scope creep.

2. They’re Not Doing You a Favour

Any client who suggests that their project will be good for your portfolio or gain you “exposure” knows they’re underpaying you. When you hear it from a pro bono client, walk away immediately.

The client needs to understand you are donating your expertise, not because you need to, not because you’re expecting something in return, but because you’re an awesome human being who wants to make the world a little better.

A client who thinks you’re getting something out of the arrangement does not understand your commercial value and will treat you as a novice. Your evidence will become guesses, your decisions will become suggestions, and the client will have little faith in the project outcome.

Clients, whether paying or not, need guidance. If they don’t respect you and believe in your guidance, they will start to cast around for other opinions to the detriment of the project outcome and your relationship.

This brings us neatly on to…

3. Everyone’s an Expert

Q. What’s the difference between an amateur and a professional? A. Professionals get paid.

You’re not getting paid, so in the client’s eyes, you’re now an amateur. Hey, guess what? Their 12-year-old daughter is an amateur too, and her views are now equally valid.

When you’re working pro bono, you can expect a lot of “help.” You’ll find that someone’s niece is planning to major in graphic design…when she graduates high school…in four years. You’ll find that someone’s partner has a hiking blog, read an SEO article, and is happy to “give it a try.” You may even find that the client themselves fancies a career switch to web design and doesn’t think it looks too hard.

Shut that **** down immediately. Smile, be gracious. Explain that, of course, you’re happy for contributions, and then avoid them like the coronavirus.

You’re donating a professional service that you’ve spent years developing, and you’re donating it to a cause that you value. You’re not there to increase someone’s chance of getting into college or to distract someone from their boring day job. If you do want to mentor people, there are places you can do that.

Everyone Actually Is An Expert

The nature of pro bono work is that more often than not, the people involved actually are experts. The simple truth is that people who aren’t experts in something tend to be in low-paying employment and are too busy trying not to be in low-paying employment to donate their time.

Like you, the people volunteering their time are doing so because they can afford to. For example, you may find that the organization’s head of accounts spends Monday–Friday as a tax advisor; the head of outreach is a project manager at a construction firm; the head of safeguarding is a school teacher.

People bring transferable skills to pro bono roles. Be sensitive to the fact that just as you are an expert in your professional context, so may they be. Simply not being an expert in design does not make them an idiot.

4. Do Not Foot the Bill

It’s tempting to simply donate everything to do with the project: the domain name’s going to cost $10? Well, it’s only $10; hosting’s $5/month? Well, it’s not too arduous to set up a small space on your own server.

imparting your experience sets the organization up for future success

However, when you give everything away, the client doesn’t understand the cost or value they’re receiving. As a professional, it’s part of your job to educate the client on the costs of a project like this; imparting your experience sets the organization up for future success.

Be clear at the start of the project that the client will be responsible for all expenses.

If you wish to — and you should not feel obliged — you are always free to make a financial donation equivalent to the expenses.

5. Stick to Office Hours

When you agree to do pro bono design work, the chances are that you know the person or organization you’re doing the work for. There’s almost always a personal connection of some kind, which means that the person or organization doesn’t see you in the professional context that normal clients see.

All good clients will respect the fact that you don’t answer emails on a Sunday morning. Not so the charity client. Not only will the charity client assume that you’re available outside of office hours, they may even think they are doing you a favor by not disturbing you during your regular office hours.

It’s important that you find some downtime outside of work to live your life. If you don’t want your evening out with friends to descend into an impromptu planning meeting (you don’t), set clear boundaries about when and how you’re prepared to work on the project.

Unless you’re self-employed, you can’t donate time when you should be working; what you can do is append pro bono work to your paid employment — do an hour after work, on weekday evenings, for example.

If you are literally doing this in your spare time, then allocate a specific time slot, such as a Saturday afternoon, and stick to it.

7. Stick to the Plan, and the Deadline

It is a universal truth that projects run better when there’s a structured approach. It doesn’t matter if it’s lean, agile, waterfall, or whatever you want to dub it. What matters is that you have a plan that works for you and is suitable for the project goals.

A structured approach, especially one that includes a timeline, will combat most disruptions. On the project I was working on recently, I was preparing for final sign-off when one volunteer announced it was time to “start thinking about what pages we need on the site.”

Discipline is crucial in pro bono work because different stakeholders will have different levels of commitment; some people will be full-time volunteers, others will be donating an hour per week. What matters is that the project that you are responsible for runs on your schedule.

8. You Have Zero Availability

Non-profits tend to talk to one another. When your friends and family see what you’ve done for Joe’s startup, they will start having ideas of their own. The client you’re completed the project for will have other projects lined up. When you aren’t charging, there’s no shortage of clients.

be prepared to say, “no,” at some point

Before you agree to do any pro bono work at all, be prepared to say “no,” at some point.

The simplest way out is to say you have zero availability: you’re already booked up with paying work, or your boss has let you know she needs you for overtime next month.

Don’t feel bad about it. It’s probably true. There are only so many hours in the day, and even if you do have some time to spare, doesn’t your partner, dog, or social life deserve some attention?

There’s No Profit In Non-Profits

Working for free is not transactional. It probably won’t benefit your portfolio. It definitely won’t lead to paying work. Any skills or experience you acquire probably won’t be transferable. (It might give you the topic for a blog post.)

If the work were meant to benefit you, it would be called personalis bono.

Nevertheless, many of us will find ourselves agreeing to do pro bono work, either out of obligation or idealism. It’s not something to shy away from; changing the world — whether for a group or an individual — is a noble pursuit.

The key is that while you will not profit, neither should you suffer a loss. Volunteering your time, skills, and experience should be a sustainable process. One that you will not come to regret.

Featured image via Unsplash.

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16 août 2021/par Service comm.

3 Essential Design Trends, August 2021

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Sometimes the designs that make the most impact do a lot of unexpected things and break some of the most tried and true rules of visual theory.

Sometimes these design elements work brilliantly, and other times they are fleeting or fall flat. This month all of the examples here seem to break some conventional design rules. Here’s what’s trending in design this month…

1. Alternative Homepage Image/Video Crops

This trend breaks some traditional standards and is pretty refreshing – alternative homepage crops for images and video.

The full screen or 16:9 aspect ratio is out the window with vertical and square options that prove you can do more with your photo collection.

What’s great about this trend is that it’s super attention-getting because of the interesting use of space and imagery. Almost any design without the full-width hero header will grab your attention because it is different. These examples prove that point, and each design does it differently.

Now here’s the challenge: You have to make sure that this style has a solid fallback for mobile so that the result is equally impressive.

Janmaat Fotografie does a great job accounting for interesting photo shapes and flips the script on mobile. (Rather than what you might expect with text then photos because of the desktop placement, the photo stack uses the same shape and layering and is above the text on mobile.) The result is phenomenal.

N3 uses a very vertical image in an almost split-screen style design. It’s a sharp contrast to many of the other split screens we are accustomed to with an equal divide. The distinct shape of the image is interesting and intriguing. It’s definitely not a shape we see in website design frequently.

Bounce uses a similar split-screen effect in the opposite manner as the example above, with the tall, vertical space as an “empty” area and the right side filled with a square video. The shapes help push and pull your eyes across the screen to look at all of the elements and take in the overall design. It’s one of those ideas that if you only talked about it, you might talk yourself out of it, but here, it’s pretty striking.

2. On-Screen “Stickers”

Stickers are a design trend that has made its way from social media to website design.

These website stickers break design rules because they cover content or seem to be put on the canvas haphazardly. And that’s why they are so attention-getting!

The benefit to these stickers is that they can highlight specific items or content or help focus a call to action.

Friesday uses stickers in conjunction with hover effects to keep users interacting with the design. Multiple stickers can even pop onto the screen in the same location. The animation is simple and fun and feels like a digital sticker book.

August Eighth uses a center sticker as a call to action. It’s a true focal point in the center of the screen with an almost three-dimensional effect that lifts it off the background video. It’s a borderline dark pattern since the only way to get the box off the screen is to click through to the shopping part of the website.

EasyGreen has a bright yellow sticker in the bottom corner that feels almost like the sticker on a piece of fruit. This style and placement work well for the content and product featured. It’s bringing the digital and real-world a little closer with this design element.

3. Breaking Design “Rules”

The third trend this month is kind of a catch-all for general rule-breaking. While the other trends show certain design elements that aren’t the norm, each of these examples really tosses everything you traditionally think about design out the window. (And that’s ok.)

The trick to a rule-breaking design is that it has to be focused and simple enough to keep users interested and provide intuitive elements that tell them how to interact with the design. It’s a delicate balance.

Here’s how these sites do just that.

Supercontinent has a lot going on. At least four typefaces on the screen at a time, movement (using different shapes and aspect ratios), overlapping elements, hidden navigation, and you may even find a few more broken rules if you look closely. And somehow, it still works.

What’s pulling this design together is a key unbroken rule – the chaos is rooted in a grid system that keeps it all somewhat organized. Plus, there’s plenty of white space to keep elements from feeling crowded and overwhelming.

Source of Plastic Waste combines elements in unexpected ways. There’s no real navigation; the site is just a continuous scroll. That’s a big website usability rule broken right out of the gate. There are other design elements as well, from the “header”/logo moving to the top right corner to the almost over-designed transparent box for text elements. There are a lot of scroll elements and actions happening and layers of text on text in some of the screens.

But here’s the thing about this design. As many rules as it breaks, the story is interesting enough to keep you scrolling. The question is, how long and how far do you go without getting lost or confused.

The Debris of Attention is designed to show “bad design” with elements that are frustrating and annoying on websites. The gamified design allows you to hover on each element to remove it and clean up the design.

While this site breaks the rules on purpose, it is still an experiment in how long a user will hang on with so many visual effects happening at once.

Conclusion

While most of the time, people think about “breaking the rules” as a bad thing, that’s not always true in the design space. Sometimes breaking the rules can result in an unexpected delight.

The challenge is to make sure that when you break the rules, the design is still usable, functional, and understandable. If so, you’ve found a winning combination.

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2 août 2021/par Service comm.

Poll: The Ethical Dilemma at the Heart of GitHub’s Copilot

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On June 29th, GitHub announced Copilot, an AI-powered auto-complete for programmers, prompting a debate about the ethics of borrowed code.

GitHub is one of the biggest code repositories on the Internet. It hosts billions of lines of code, creating an unparalleled dataset with which to train a coding AI. And that is exactly what OpenAI, via GitHub, thanks to its owners Microsoft has done — training Copilot using public repositories.

The chances are you haven’t tried Copilot yet, because it’s still invite-only via a VSCode plugin. People who have, are reporting that it’s a stunning tool, with a few limitations; it transforms coders from writers to editors because when code is inserted for you, you still have to read it to make sure it’s what you intended.

Some developers have cried “foul” at what they see as over-reach by a corporation unafraid of copyright infringement when long-term profits are on offer. There have also been reports of Copilot spilling private data, such as API keys. If, however, as GitHub states, the tool has been trained on publicly available code, the real question is: which genius saved an API key to a public repository.

GitHub’s defense has been that it has only trained Copilot on public code and that training AI on public datasets is considered “fair use” in the industry because any other approach is prohibitively expensive. However, as reported by The Verge, there is a growing question of what constitutes “fair use”; the TLDR being that if an application is commercial, then any work product is potentially derivative.

If a judge rules that Copilot’s code is derivative, then any code created with the tool is, by definition, derivative. Thus, we could conceivably reach the point at which a humans.txt file is required to credit everyone who deserves kudos for a site or app. It seems far-fetched, but we’re talking about a world in which restaurants serve tepid coffee for fear of litigation.

There are plenty of idealists (a group to which I could easily be accused of belonging) that nurture a soft-spot for the open-source, community-driven web. And of course, it’s true to say that many who walk the halls (or at least log into the Slack) of Microsoft, OpenAI, and GitHub are of the same inclination, contributing generously to open-source projects, mentoring, blogging, and offering a leg-up to other coders.

When I first learnt to code HTML, step one, before hello World! was view > developer > view source. Most human developers have been actively encouraged to look at other people’s code to understand the best way to achieve something — after all, that’s how web standards emerged.

Some individuals are perhaps owed credit for their work. One example is Robert Penner, whose work on easing functions inspired a generation of Actionscript/JavaScript coders. Penner published his functions online for free, under the MIT license; he also wrote a book which taught me, among other things, that a while loop beats a for loop, a lesson I use every day — I’d like to think the royalties bought him a small Caribbean island (or at least a vacation on one).

There is an important distinction between posting code online and publishing code examples in a book, namely that the latter is expected to be protected. Where Copilot is on questionable ground is that the AI is not a searchable database of functions, it’s code derived from specific problems. On the surface, it appears that anything Copilot produces must be derivative.

I don’t have a public GitHub repository, so OpenAI learned nothing from me. But let’s say I did. Let’s say I had posted a JavaScript-powered animation from which Copilot garnered some of its understanding. Does Microsoft owe me a fraction of its profits? Do I in turn owe Penner a fraction of mine? Does Penner owe Adobe (who bought Macromedia)? Does Adobe owe Brendan Eich (the creator of JavaScript)? Does Eich owe James Gosling (creator of Java), if not for the syntax, then for the name? And while we’re at it, which OS was Gosling using back in the mid-90s to compile his code — I doubt it was named after a fruit.

If this seems farcical, it’s because it is. But it’s a real problem created by the fact that technology is moving faster than the law. Intellectual property rights defined before the advent of the home computer cannot possibly define an AI-driven future.

Featured image uses images via Max Chen and Michael Dziedzic.

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9 juillet 2021/par Service comm.