OroCRM is a customer relationship management software. It is a simple and low-cost CRM system ideal for small and medium-sized enterprises.
OroCRM is an integrated CRM, marketing automation, and live chat platform that helps marketers build genuine relationships with their prospects and customers. It has all the features to create, manage, measure, and optimize customer journeys. OroCRM streamlines the management of large amounts of data to provide accurate insights for better decision-making.
The central principle of cloud engineering is adopting software engineering practices. Refactoring is a technique for making changes to code that improve maintainability, enhance performance, scalability, and security without changing its external behavior. In DevOps, refactoring often occurs with modern applications; however, we can apply those same techniques to cloud infrastructure with infrastructure as code.
Refactoring results in many advantages. First and foremost, the code is more readable and easier to understand for other team members –this aids in maintainability and well-organized code, providing a solid foundation for future releases. Overall, if done well, refactoring reduces complexity which makes future changes more efficient.
User Experience (UX) design and User Interface (UI) design are two terms people sometimes mistakenly use interchangeably. While aspects of each are interconnected, there are distinct differences between UI/UX design.
According to Internet Live Stats, there are over 1.9 billion websites, but not all are active at the same time. No matter how you slice it, there’s a lot of competition to grab and keep user attention. Good UX is just part of the equation. For a genuinely stellar site, you must also offer an excellent interface.
Learning the ins and outs of good UI and UX requires a bit of knowledge of how the two differ and what works. Although they weave in and out of the same design, they are different.
UI is the functionality of the design and what users see. How do they interact with various elements? UX is more the way things come together — both visual and interactive features — to create a feel for the user. You can certainly see why people confuse the two as they both apply to interacting with a website or app.
Top design firms often have team members specializing in each discipline. However, UX designers are also aware of UI, and UI designers are also mindful of UX. How can you ensure you’re offering excellent UI/UX design while covering the full spectrum of requirements for each?
Good UX design increases conversion rates by 400% or more. The site visitor walks away feeling understood and not frustrated. What are some of the most important aspects of good UX design?
What is the hierarchy of your site? What is the first thing the user sees when they pull it up? How do they navigate from one page to the next? A well-designed website classifies different aspects of the page, and new content naturally falls into the appropriate category as it grows.
When creating a structure for your site, think about how it might expand in the next five years. You want the hierarchy to work from day one, but you also want to think through significant shifts in the content you might see down the road.
Even your navigational hierarchy should accommodate new areas easily. Plan for the unexpected, so you know how to work it into the overall design when you must.
You have a few seconds to make an excellent impression on your site visitors. Take the time to make sure your design functions and is visually appealing. Your color palette should work, images should be crisp and relevant, and typography should be readable and engaging.
Step back from your computer and look at your design from a distance. Does anything stand out that isn’t pleasing to the eye? Get feedback from visitors about what they like and dislike. Since the focus is on user experience, your best source of constructive criticism is from your target audience. Listen to their concerns and ideas.
Most experts agree that users want an element of interactivity on sites and apps. People want to know you hear them and get a response. Some ideas include adding a live chat option to your site or engaging in SMS customer support.
Put yourself in their shoes. A customer may visit your site for the first time, having never heard of your brand. They have no reason to trust you or that you’ll follow through on your promises. Potential leads may have a few questions before parting with their hard-earned dollars.
Adding various ways to communicate shows them you’ll be there should they have a problem. It’s much easier to trust a company when you know you can phone, engage in live chat or shoot off an email and get an almost immediate response.
Excellent UX is intuitive. You should add calls to action (CTAs) and images pointing the user where they should go next. You can use graphics of arrows, people looking or pointing toward the next step, words, or CTA buttons.
Get feedback on how clear the directions are and tweak them as needed. The user should never have to stop and ponder what to do next. Everything on the page should guide them toward the ultimate goal.
Every industry has complicated data that is difficult for non-experts to understand. Part of good UX is breaking down complex information and sharing it in a simplified way.
One example might be the registration process. Instead of just showing text, a good UX designer would number the steps. Visualizations help add to understanding.
User Interface impacts UX and involves how the design works. The UI designer thinks through visitor expectations and then creates an interface that isn’t frustrating. UI works within the framework of a website to develop functional features. User experience isn’t the complete focus of UI, but it does tie into the planning phases. What are some elements of good UI design?
For a design to have good UI, it must perform as expected. Have you ever clicked on a button, and nothing happened? Determine how you want things to work and the minimum acceptable standards for your site.
For example, what happens when someone clicks on a link or button? How does the user know their action created the expected result? Consistency is crucial to how a site performs.
While UX designers look at the emotional impact of various colors, UI designers look at whether the shades match branding and how well the different ones contrast for readability and usability. UI/UX design often bridges a single designer’s work, so the employee ensures everything works as intended, both emotionally and functionally.
You may work with another designer to make the site aesthetically pleasing while also tapping into the emotions driving users. For example, some people love blue, so a blue button can have positive results.
UX and UI designers utilize split testing to see which users respond best to. Then, make adjustments as indicated by how site visitors respond.
According to the Interaction Design Foundation, people can only retain around five things in their short-term memory. Designers should work with recognition instead, as users tend to rely on cues to find what they need.
UI designers may develop an intuitive navigation system and then use the same cues on every page, such as placement, color, and language. Users can then recognize the system without having to memorize it.
Your job is to ensure errors are kept to a minimum when designing a website or app. One of the most significant parts of a designer’s job is testing and retesting.
Think about all the potential problems a user might run into, such as broken links, images not showing, or incomplete actions. How can you keep those problems from occurring in the first place?
Error prevention is particularly vital when designing software as a service (SaaS) or apps. Users grow frustrated quickly and will find another solution rather than troubleshooting an issue. You’re much better off avoiding the error in the first place.
You’ve likely already figured out how closely UX and UI entwine to create a usable experience. The UX designer pays attention to function and interactivity, and the UI designer thinks through how the interface looks.
UX pays attention to the flow of the website and where users start, go next and end up. On the other end, UI figures out how the elements look to the viewer and where everything is placed.
The UX team may decide to add an extra button to the page. The UI team must determine where to place it, if any sizing needs must occur, and how it impacts usability on desktop and mobile devices.
Although each has a different function, user experience and user interface must work together to create a usable site the target audience responds to. You can’t have excellent UX without excellent UI, and vice versa. The best designers consider both and implement them to their fullest potential.
Featured image via Pexels.
The post What’s the Difference Between Good UI and Good UX? first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
You’ve heard of the supply chain, but what about the software supply chain?
Unlike the standard supply chain that you often hear about in the news, this week’s episode of Dev Interrupted dives into the supply chain responsible for holding together the systems that companies, orgs and governments depend upon.
The words risk, threat, and vulnerability are often confused or used interchangeably when reading about computer security, so let’s first clarify the terminology:
A typical implementation of a chatbot user interface:
The XSS vulnerability is in the second step — when entering text including malicious Javascript code, the XSS attack is fulfilled when the web browser is running the injected code:
<script>alert(document.cookie)</script>
For exploiting an XSS vulnerability the attacker has to trick the victim to send malicious input text. It can be done through one of the following ways:
Few things are more important to a web designer or developer’s chances of success than having the proper workflow. The term “workflow” applies to the set of standardized steps you or your company uses to create, test, and deploy designs or products.
Over the years, as development processes have evolved, so too have the workflows experts use to bring their ideas to life. The MVP workflow, or “Minimum Viable Product” strategy, is one of the most popular options in 2022.
Here’s what you need to know about the MVP workflow and how it differs from some of the other standard workflows developers may be used to.
As mentioned above, the designer/developer workflow is a series of steps used by experts in the web design world to achieve a creative goal. The process includes the steps taken to start a project, evolve it, and finish it. Since software is never developed without tools, the technology you’ll access throughout the development process is also considered in most workflows.
An example of a standard development workflow might look like this:
Now you know what a developer workflow looks like, you can begin to assess the concept of the “MVP” workflow. The term “MVP” stands for Minimum Viable Product.
The idea of “Minimum Viable Product” applies to a range of industries, from education to healthcare and government entities. This term comes from lean start-up practices and focuses heavily on the value of learning and changing during the development process.
When you adapt your workflow to focus on an MVP, you’re essentially adjusting your focus to a point where you can create a stripped-back version of something new – like an app or a website. The MVP is built just with the core features (the minimum), so you can bring the idea to market and test it as quickly as possible.
For instance, if your goal were to create an attractive new website for a client, an MVP would focus on implementing the crucial initial tools, and nothing else. While you may create checkout pages, product pages, and other aspects of the site, you wouldn’t populate it with content or start experimenting with bonus widgets and apps.
So, how does this offer a better alternative to the standard workflow?
Simply put, an MVP workflow is quick, agile, and easy. The idea is you can validate key concepts with speed, fail quickly, and learn just as fast. Rather than having to build an entire app and almost start over from scratch every time you find an error, you can race through the iteration and development process.
MVP workflows are also highly appealing to start-ups and entrepreneurs hoping to validate ideas without a massive amount of upfront investment.
Still confused? The easiest way to understand how an MVP workflow works is to look at an example.
Let’s start with a conceptual example. Say you were building a voice transcription service for businesses. The desired features of this product might include the ability to download transcription, translate them into different languages, and integrate them into AI analytics tools.
However, using the MVP approach, you wouldn’t try to accomplish all of your goals with your software at once. Instead, you’d focus on something simple first – like the ability to download the transcripts. Once you confirm you can do that, you can start a new workflow for the next most important feature for the app.
One excellent example of a company with an MVP approach is Airbnb. The entrepreneurs behind this unicorn company, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, didn’t have a lot of cash to build a business with at first. They had to use their own apartment to validate the idea of creating a website where people could share their available “space” in a home or apartment with the public.
To begin, Airbnb only created a very basic website, published photos of their property, and waited to see the results. After discovering people were genuinely interested in renting another person’s home, the company was able to begin experimenting with new ideas to make a site where people could list their properties for travelers.
There are a lot of benefits to the MVP workflow – particularly when it comes to gaining agility and developing new products quickly. However, there are downsides too.
Pros
Cons
If you believe an MVP workflow might be effective for you, the first step is defining your “Minimum Viable Product.” The app, website, or product you design needs to align with your team’s strategic goals, so think about what your company is trying to achieve at this moment – before you get started. If you have limited resources, or specific purposes, like improving your reputation as a reliable company, now might not be the right time to develop a new MVP.
Ask what purpose your minimum viable product will serve and what kind of market you’re going to be targeting. You’ll need to know your target customer to help you test the quality and performance of each iteration of your MVP. Once you know what your ideal “product” is, ask yourself what the most important features will be.
You can base these decisions on things like:
For example, if you’re producing an AI chatbot that helps companies to sort through customer inquiries, the most important “initial feature” may be the ability to integrate that bot into existing websites and apps owned by the company.
Once you have your hierarchy of most valuable features for your minimum viable product, you can translate this into an action plan for development. Remember, although you’re focusing on the “minimum” in development, your product still needs to be “viable.” In other words, it still needs to allow your customer to achieve a specific goal.
While the MVP workflow approach might not be the right solution for every development or design team, it can work very effectively in the right circumstances. The MVP approach doesn’t minimize the importance of understanding market problems and delivering value. Instead, the focus is on delivering quick value that gradually increases and evolves over time.
As many developers and designers know, the most useful form of product validation in most cases is real-world validation. When your customers have had an opportunity to use a product on a day-to-day basis, they can provide much more effective feedback.
Just keep in mind that committing to the MVP approach also means changing your workflow and committing to iterations – otherwise, other features may never be completed. You’ll need to be willing to work quickly and in small bursts without getting too heavily caught up in one feature or functionality.
Featured image via Pexels.
The post How to Get Started with the MVP Workflow first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
This is the first piece in a series on developing XR applications and experiences using Oracle. Specifically, I will show applications running with the following:
Throughout the blog, I will reference a corresponding workshop video found at https://youtu.be/MBaQ8ohI80E.
There was a point at which I was very close to losing my business, and I didn’t realize how close.
I wasn’t always a good planner, and I didn’t plan to start an agency. One day I was a freelance graphic designer, my job list grew, I hired some help, and suddenly I was managing a team.
There isn’t a guidebook for new business owners, you have to learn on the job, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. We expanded rapidly from two to four people, then seven, and suddenly we hit 16 employees in just 18 months. It was pretty scary and felt like driving on the freeway without brakes. A client shared a story that they were turning over $20m, and the owner was only taking home $30k. It felt like where I was headed. At that point, I could easily have lost it all.
I took a hard look at the numbers and realized that we were barely breaking even, let alone profitable. That needed to change to stabilize the business and regain control of my operations. The change wasn’t easy, and there were some hard lessons, but 11 years later, with a strong local team and 40+ awards for our work, I’m thankful for that wake-up call.
There are other people in my position struggling with the same issues I faced, so I’d like to share the four key things I did that helped turn things around and move us from surviving to thriving.
I wanted to do it all, and as the business owner, it was hard to turn down a new client. Our instincts are to help, and declining opportunities feels wrong. In our industry, digital agencies, especially web design agencies, try to cover all bases from marketing, SEO, adwords, design, photography, and coding. Everyone wants to be a one-stop shop for clients. I used to be that person: I would wash your car and shine your shoes if I could.
Do not give in to that fear.
When you’re a generalist, you spread yourself too thin. I know: a decade ago, we were offering dozens of services outside of the web design realm: packaging, branding, copywriting, sticker design, SEO, hosting, analytics, you name it, we provided it. We used over seven different CMS for our projects. If a client wanted it, we tried to offer it, no matter how unsuitable it was for us.
On the surface, we fulfilled our projects, and our clients were always thrilled with the results. But below the surface, our operations were dissolving into a mess. Our eyes weren’t on the prize; we were always chasing after each little job for cash. It took too much time to learn new skills. When I looked at our timesheets and deducted the unbillable hours, our projects would hardly break even.
What hurt us even further is that with diversifying, we had to manage multiple workflows, software, and systems: Sketch, Illustrator, Photoshop, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Google Analytics, Final Cut Pro, etc. It was expensive with minimal return. It was like an Olympic swimmer signing up for a swimming-diving-ice-skating club when their passion is swimming.
So I took a step back. I boiled it down to what we enjoyed and excelled at. Ask yourself: for what do you want to be known? For us, it was psychology-driven, conversion-focused web design. This was the service our team had the most skills in and collectively could give the best value to our clients. Once I’d figured that out, it was easy to eliminate those other services and specialize.
You can niche down by service or industry and be the specialist in what you offer.
The first red flag that my business was in trouble was when I said to my accountant, “I feel like my business is doing great.” He replied, “I don’t care how you feel. The facts are in the numbers. Show me your accounts, and I’ll tell you if you’re actually doing well.” As an intuition-driven guy, it was a real eye-opener; I’d only ever relied on gut instinct.
At one point, we had a ton of work coming in, so I hired a few juniors to help the rest of the team. The team grew to 16, and the vibes in the studio were great, but the numbers weren’t. Instead of increasing efficiency, projects took 40 hours longer than they should have done. Why? The seniors and mid-level designers were taking time out to train the juniors! Reassessing the team showed me I needed to hire experienced staff, so projects ran on time and budget. It was a hard decision but a necessary one to keep us afloat.
The crucial numbers for any design agency are your timesheets, where bottlenecks lie, how much you’re spending, how long a project takes; these determine your actual margins. Setting up quantitative software like Toggl, Gantt, and Asana were a game-changer for us. They gave our project management real purpose and potential. Knowing the average hours our primary type of project took made it easy to give clients realistic deadlines, anticipate the need for fresh hiring, and know when our plates were full. You do not want to bite off more than you can chew.
You can’t please everyone, and frankly, you shouldn’t be trying to. One type of bait won’t attract every kind of fish. First, identify the type of fish you want to catch, the pond where this type of fish lives, and finally, bait your hook with something that type of fish can’t resist.
Your sales team should be able to identify them instantly, and all you then need to do is streamline your team, process, and systems towards being the best fit for them.
There are many different marketing avenues you can go down, but go down too many, and it becomes a tangled web of confused messaging.
Remember, just because your competitors are doing it does not mean it’s the most effective approach for your target market.
There are really only inbound and outbound types of strategies, and it’s a great idea to list out the pros and cons (and the ROI of each) concerning your target market. Or, you can approach marketing based on your existing skillset — for example, if you detest being in front of a camera and don’t want to do video marketing, then just don’t do it.
Identify what works for you, and then be consistent. Consistency is the secret to a successful marketing strategy.
The post How I Saved My Design Agency & Tripled My Profits first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
Think of a world where you don’t need a separate testing environment, where you can test everything in production and capture valuable data that helps you improve along the way. The secret ingredient: feature flags.
Features flags is a software engineering technique that lets developers integrate code constantly into the main trunk. It involves shipping incomplete features into production, which remain dormant until ready. Feature flags also take part in software delivery; when the feature is complete, the code can be activated at the flick of a switch.
Réduire l’empreinte carbone d’un produit nécessite une vision de bout en bout de son cycle de vie. Pour cela, il est nécessaire de casser la barrière IT existant entre la conception et la supply chain. SAP et Siemens proposent des intégrations avancées entre PLM et ERP. Avec Atos, ils s’allient pour aider les industriels à relever le défi climatique.
Les industriels sont confrontés à un triple défi : proposer des produits toujours plus complexes, dans des délais toujours plus serrés, tout en réduisant leur empreinte carbone. Le bilan de la COP26 de Glasgow est sans appel : constater la réalité du changement climatique ne suffit plus, il faut agir. Histoire de compliquer la situation, la raréfaction des matières premières s’ajoute aujourd’hui à l’urgence climatique.
Le sujet de l’empreinte carbone est crucial pour trois raisons principales :
« L’Union Européenne veut réduire ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre de 55% en 2030 et vise la neutralité carbone en 2050. 2030, d’un point de vue industriel, c’est presque aujourd’hui, constate Denis Goudstikker, Teamcenter Business development Executive chez Siemens Digital Industry Software. À ce jour, un tiers des entreprises se sont fixé un objectif zéro émission, mais seulement 9% de ces entreprises ont réellement lancé des actions en vue de les réduire. »
Pour qu’un produit ait un impact environnemental minimal, il faut l’optimiser de bout en bout, de la conception à la production en passant par son utilisation et son recyclage. « La plupart des entreprises se concentrent uniquement sur les émissions liées à leur activité, explique Olivier Everaert, Head of Green PLM chez Atos. Elles ne prennent pas en compte l’ensemble du cycle de vie du produit et de sa chaîne de valeur, ce qui mène à des résultats sous-optimaux. Il faut penser en termes de réseau, où tous tendent vers un but commun, du fournisseur de matière première à l’industriel… et jusqu’au consommateur. »
« La réduction des impacts environnementaux commence dès la conception du produit, enchaîne Bruno Hemery, Head of Siemens partnership, SAP France. Elle se poursuit avec les approvisionnements (matières premières, emballage, etc.). Puis lors de la fabrication : produire mieux permettra d’avoir moins de rebuts en bout de chaîne et de consommer moins d’énergie. La logistique peut aussi être optimisée, en regroupant par exemple les approvisionnements de plusieurs fournisseurs (parfois concurrents) devant livrer un même client. Il faut également être capable de mieux connaître l’usage des produits, ce qui permettra de les améliorer au fil des versions. Enfin, d’autres éléments sont à prendre en compte, comme le recyclage et l’économie circulaire. »
Les actions en faveur de l’environnement ne sont pas forcément des investissements coûteux. Réduire la quantité de déchets générée lors de la production se traduit ainsi par une diminution des besoins en matière première et donc un abaissement des coûts de revient.
Pouvoir prendre en charge l’ensemble du cycle de vie d’un produit nécessite de casser une barrière dans le système d’information de l’entreprise, celle séparant la conception, pré carré du PLM, et les fonctions finance, achat, production, vente, prises en charge par l’ERP. « Il faut décloisonner ces deux mondes, afin de mettre en place une continuité numérique, confirme Bruno Hemery. L’information pourra ainsi circuler dans les deux sens, la conception influant sur la supply chain et – partie innovante – la supply chain et l’usage du produit pouvant influer plus directement sur la conception. La continuité numérique permet également de s’assurer que l’information est identique des deux côtés. »
Le partenariat annoncé le 14 juillet 2020 entre SAP et Siemens vise à donner corps à ce concept de continuité numérique. Il s’est traduit par la livraison de nouvelles intégrations entre les offres de Siemens et de SAP. « Cette intégration fine entre nos deux plateformes donne une compréhension de l’ensemble du cycle de vie d’un produit permettant de s’assurer dès sa conception que l’on va dans la bonne direction, tout en restant compétitifs. La clé de la réussite est d’être capable d’amener des processus vertueux et compétitifs, » résume Denis Goudstikker.
Par ailleurs, la réduction de l’empreinte carbone passe souvent par de l’innovation. C’est le cas par exemple lorsqu’un constructeur automobile adopte des motorisations électriques ou à hydrogène. « La continuité numérique permet de créer des conditions favorables à l’adoption d’innovations, tout en maîtrisant le risque et en préservant la compétitivité de l’organisation, poursuit Denis Goudstikker. C’est un environnement qui permet de se préparer à n’importe quel scénario. »
Atos sait diagnostiquer la chaîne de valeur des entreprises, afin de les aider à mettre en place une supply chain durable. Chaîne de valeur dont la visibilité et la transparence seront assurées par la mise en place d’une continuité numérique. La grande majorité des entreprises restent toutefois au début de cette transformation. Atos propose des ateliers pédagogiques gratuits leur permettant de mieux comprendre les applications pratiques de cette approche.
« Nous présentons une vingtaine de cas d’usages qui couvrent l’ensemble du cycle de vie d’un produit et nous montrons quelle est leur contribution sur l’empreinte carbone, détaille Olivier Everaert. Lors du premier atelier, les participants sont invités à nous faire remonter leur avis sur ces cas d’usage. Sont-ils applicables à leurs métiers ? Semblent-ils valables ? Peuvent-ils être améliorés ? Le second atelier permet de faire une plongée sur quelques cas d’usage sélectionnés, puis de discuter avec les participants de leur feuille de route de transformation. »
Ces ateliers d’idéation mettent l’accent sur le codéveloppement des cas d’usages et la cocréation des trajectoires de transformation des entreprises. Un premier brainstorming avant le passage à l’action…
The post SAP, Siemens et Atos : la continuité numérique comme réponse au défi climatique appeared first on SAP France News.
