Articles

BitCode – Blockchain for HTTP Lambda Invocations

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BitCoin is basically a digital ledger system, allowing for keeping transactions based upon cryptographic signatures in a decentralised database, ensuring the transaction was initiated by the person owning the private key. From a philosophical point of view, it’s simply authentication and authorisation based upon a private asymmetric key, period! What if I told you the same idea could easily be transferred to code in general. As in, keeping a ledger of invocations towards some HTTP endpoint, where the client decides what code the server should execute? The obvious example can be found below.

Plain Text

 

x
1 

transfer.money

2 

   to-account:1234567890

You’d have to be pretty stupid to not see the use case for the above snippet, especially considering it’s arguably (probably) the foundation of Revolut, a FinTech company, threatening to driver every single European bank out of business these days.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Why AI & Automation Are Actually Friends to Design

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Artificial intelligence. Just hearing the phrase has been a trigger for many in the technology world since that creepy Haley Joel Osment film circa 2001. But more recently, artificial intelligence and machine learning strike fear into the hearts of skilled workers for an entirely different reason: job security, or lack thereof.

Smart-home devices, streaming services, self-checkouts, even Google searches are ways that artificial intelligence has seeped into everyday life, exemplifying the abilities of computers and machines to master both simple and complex tasks. In some instances, these technological advancements make our lives easier, but for some people, their proliferation has meant job loss and skill replacement. There’s no wonder that when artificial intelligence starts being mentioned along with web design and site creation, the spidey senses of designers all over the world start tingling.

designers think outside the box, something that AI just can’t do

But let’s get real about what AI and automation really mean for designers for a second. Talented designers with busy schedules should view these advancements as virtual assistants. For some small businesses on a limited budget, the websites that artificial intelligence can pump out might be fine…for a while. However, as businesses grow, change, require updating and customization to adapt to their customer base, the expertise of creative and talented designers will always be needed. Even the best AI that we see today is limited by evaluating, replicating, and revising what already exists. It may be able to mix 1,000 different color schemes into 10 million potential combinations, but great designers think outside the box, something that AI just can’t do.

In fact, rather than being scared of automation, designers ought to embrace automation and artificial intelligence as a way to unleash their creative thinking. Delegate repetitive, straightforward tasks to the right software, and suddenly you have time to bring your best ideas to the table and push the boundaries of your own innovation. 

Where AI has Failed in Design

The ultimate goal of artificial intelligence and automation in design work is a grand vision that has yet to be realised.

Consider the case of The Grid, which began as a crowdfunding campaign in 2014. The “revolutionary” product posed itself as an artificial intelligence solution for building thoughtfully, yet automatically, designed websites in five minutes. Research “Reviews of the Grid” in any search engine and you’ll be met with scathing criticism with only some small praise sprinkled in. Most of the initial users cite underwhelming results, the feeling of being duped by the Grid’s marketing tactics, nonsensical placement of text, and ultimately, the Grid being a complete waste of money for the resulting product. Even at the low cost of $100, compared to hiring a talented designer, most users felt their investment was wasted.

For the AI capabilities that exist now, most small business owners, or those looking to put together a simple website, are better off using drag and drop site builders (Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, etc) that have been around for ages. Even so, there are plenty of businesses still willing to hire designers to take this simple task off their plate due to a lack of technical expertise or lack of time. And let’s be honest, are there even enough talented (keyword here!) designers out there to keep up with the millions of websites created every year, without each one working themselves to death? 

Where Automation Shines for Designers

Fortunately for good designers, it appears for now that the days of artificial intelligence completely taking over their jobs is a fantasy. However, what AI and automation do offer designers is a solid starting point for success, eliminating much of the lower-level grunt work that most designers would rather skip anyway.

Even well-received AI website builders like Firedrop still require a basic eye for design and specialised knowledge to produce truly unique, high-converting, and user-friendly websites. Tools and practices that designers should adopt are the artificial intelligence and automation resources that will help them do their jobs better, faster, and leave them with more time to focus on project elements that AI cannot accomplish on its own.

Bridging the Gap Between Designers and Developers

Well-established brands are likely to already have design systems in place that guide the creation of new elements across their digital profiles whether on social media, various mobile apps, or different sections of a website. But even in large corporations — excepting those who have perfected the process — there’s often a breakdown between a designer’s vision and resulting product from the developers. It stems from the basic difference in how they each approach their work and the limitations of the systems they use.

While component libraries — or even full design systems for that matter — won’t reconcile every question, they provide both developers and designers a source of truth to work from that both parties can understand. Design collaboration tools like Invision and Visme, specifically, keep designers and developers on the same page with automated version saving and code-friendly workflows.  

Understanding the Consumer

I don’t suggest using artificial intelligence to produce content for your site

Digging into and understanding the behaviours and habits of site users is a relatively new component of site design, but offers invaluable insights. Tools like HotJar, Mouseflow, or Smartlook make it simple to see holes or leaks in your conversion funnels, detect which page elements users are interacting with, and which they’re not interested in to refine the look and feel of a page for maximum conversions. Even though these tools provide the data, it still takes a keen eye and understanding of design to implement the right changes to improve site performance.

Site content is another way that artificial intelligence has the potential to improve our understanding of customer behaviour and improve site performance for individual users. I don’t suggest using artificial intelligence to produce content for your site, no matter how much the results have improved. However, static landing pages or a single set of further reading recommendations are unlikely to appeal to the majority of site visitors. Artificial intelligence tools like CliClap and Personyze instantly collect and analyse consumer data to provide dynamic, personalised experiences that drive more leads and encourage conversions. Creative designers will also learn from this data to improve customer experience with other pages or elements throughout the site.

Removing Distracting, Time-Sucking Administrative Tasks

Because “artificial intelligence” has become a term with such negative connotations, we often overlook the simple way that AI actually makes our work lives better and easier. Machine learning in email filtering is a great example of this. Consider a simple interface like a Gmail inbox. We have the option to mark certain senders as spam or as important, and our inbox learns that type of communication is and isn’t useful to the user. Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, and more all take cues from the user behaviour of liking a certain song, artists, or genre of music to build customised playlists. There are a myriad of ways that artificial intelligence and its branches of disciplines merge with our everyday lives. 

Some of the most useful automations for business, and especially for designers, are related to the administrative tasks that frequently take time away or distract from more pressing projects. A perfect example of automation that can relieve stress and cut down on mindless work is an email autoresponder. I’ve always found that having time blocked off in my calendar to tackle complex or important projects helps me to focus on the task at hand and be more efficient. In order to more effectively block out my time, closing my email and setting an autoresponder to reply to all incoming emails serves two purposes: 

  1. Lets those trying to get in touch with me know that I only check my email at certain times of the day and that my response may not be immediate — tempering their expectations of when they might hear from me.
  2. Relieves my personal stress of being tethered to my inbox, splitting my focus, and also saves the time of having to initially respond to each email individually. 

This is just one simple way to use automation in your email, although there are many others to explore.

While Zapier isn’t the only workflow automation service on the market, it’s probably the most well known. Workflow automation reduces time spent on mind-numbing, repetitive tasks and helps designers connect apps that might not natively work together. Do you keep a task list in Todoist? Set up a Zap, then create a task in Todoist anytime someone mentions you on Asana or assigns you a task in Trello.

This is especially helpful for freelance designers who work with multiple clients across various project management platforms. The potential for automation to relieve unnecessary mental overhead for designers is nearly limitless.

Don’t be Afraid of AI, Embrace It

The bottom line of this brief overview of artificial intelligence and automation in design is that this emerging technology isn’t something designers should be scared of. In fact, it’s something to welcome with open arms because ultimately it can make our jobs, and our lives, better. Leave the monotonous tasks of collecting and analysing huge amounts of data or administrative minutiae to the machines; they can handle it.

Save the interesting, creative, abstract work for the talented designers who can turn AI recommendations into unique and intuitive digital experiences. Making the relationship between artificial intelligence and design symbiotic will yield the best results for every entity involved: the business, the AI, and yes, even the designer.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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Exciting New Tools for Designers, September 2020

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It’s fun to see new website design tools that reflect current times and the state of the world. That’s very true this month with new databases devoted to diversity and women in technology, as well and resources to make your design life easier.

Here’s what’s new for designers and developers this month:

Ztext.js

Ztext.js is an easy to implement, three-dimensional typography tool for the web that works with any font you want to use. With the popularity of 3D effects and animation, this tool has a lot of practical applications. Everything you need, including documentation, is available from developer Bennett Feely on his website and GitHub. (It’s free but you can show appreciation with a donation if you like it.)

Gradient Magic

Gradient Magic is a free gallery of fun and interesting CSS gradients. You can sort through a random selection or by category of color to find just the right gradient for your project. Some of them would make really neat backgrounds or image overlays.

Impossible Checkbox

Impossible Checkbox is a fun little divot that you’ll want to play with and emulate. Click or tap the slider to activate and a nifty little friend pops up. Now here’s the fun part: You can’t leave it checked, and take note of the changing expression of the checkbox character.

Diversify Tech

Diversify Tech isn’t your average job board; it is a collection of resources – and opportunities – for underrepresented people in technology. It includes a weekly roundup and everything from scholarships, to events, to jobs, to speaking opportunities.

Women in Tech

Women in Tech is a list of apps made by women. The apps are ranked and chosen based on upvotes and is a good resource if you want to help support women-owned projects. Search or submit an app for inclusion.

Devello Studio

Devello Studio is a tool that allows you to write code in the cloud. You don’t have to install anything and no matter where you are, just can open a project in-browser, and continue development where you had left off last time. Plus, it works with GitHub support built right in.

Hustl

Hustl is a premium Mac app that allows you to create time-lapse videos of your screen. Use it to show off work or projects or create a cool video for your portfolio. Plus you can use it to capture just one active app so you don’t have to do a lot of editing later.

FeedBaxley

FeedBaxley is a user feedback tool that helps you (and users) figure out what’s frustrating before it becomes a real issue. You can customize everything to match your brand and set it up with copy and paste tools. Feedback integrates with Slack, making it easy for you to analyze information with a team.

BestTime

BestTime launched a major update with a new tool that makes it possible to analyze visitor peaks of public business (cafe, gym, etc) for whole areas. Using the heatmap API you can find businesses at popular times, locations, or by business type.

Pixeltrue

Pixeltrue is a new collection of free SVG illustrations and Lottie animations in a trendy style. They are available for commercial and personal use and add a bit of whimsical delight to website projects. (The error illustrations are particularly fun.)

Previewed

Previewed has tons of cool and realistic mockups that you can use to create the perfect setting for digital projects. You can find mockups for a variety of devices and cool panoramas that work perfectly for elements such as app store previews.

Alt Text Overlay Bookmarklet

The Alt Text Overlay Bookmarklet solves a common problem: It shows what images use alt text and what that text is. The tool was created by Christian Heilmann and he’s put it on GitHub for you to play with and test.

MergeURL

MergeURL allows you to merge and shorten up to five links. Enter the links and mergeurl.com/o/xxxxx, for example, will open all the URLs associated with that link. The tool is free to use and you don’t have to register to use the service.

Infinity Search

Infinity Search is a new search engine that lets you look for things privately and efficiently. Search the web, images, or videos. Here’s a little about how it works: “While we retrieve results from other search engines like Bing and Wikipedia, we also have our own indexes of links that are displayed in our search results. We are actively working on improving these indexes and they will only get better.”

Blade UI Kit

Blade UI Kit is a set of renderless components to use in Laravel Blade Views. It’s built for the tall stack and is completely open source. It includes 26 components and you can contribute as well.

Trusted News

Trusted News is a Google Chrome extension that uses AI to assist in evaluating the quality of the online content. In its first release, it scores the objectivity for a selected article, testing whether it is written from a neutral perspective as opposed to a subjective one.

BaseDash

BaseDash allows you to edit production data without coding. You can make changes to the database with the ease of a spreadsheet. This tool makes it easy to find and edit information in a hurry. It works with all major databases including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Amazon Redshirt, Microsoft SQL Server, and more.

Email2Go

Email2Go is a service that helps you create email templates and test them on dozens of physical devices and applications. It’s free right now while it is in early release.

Iconscout Converter

The Iconscout Converter allows you to convert icons and images from one file format to another for free. Convert SVG, PNG, JPG, and PDF with a single click.

Shape 2

Shape 2 is a massive collection of 5,000+ unique icons and illustrations with a full-blown web editor. Customize colors, stroke width, size and full variations that can export to SVG, PDF, PNG, GIF, and React. This is a premium tool and includes a discounted release price for now.

Aestetico

Aestetico is a beautiful sans serif that includes a massive family with 54 styles. This premium typeface is highly readable and has modern lines and curves that make it a great option for a variety of uses.

Arcades

Arcades is a modern display font with a retro, 1980s-style vibe. It includes regular and italic styles.

Brimington

Brimington is a handwriting style typeface with rough strokes and smooth curves. It includes a set of 227 characters and 219 glyphs in a readable design.

California Signature

California Signature is a typeface duo with a slab serif and handwriting style that are perfectly paired. The thick and thin options provide a yin and yang effect.

Eastblue

Eastblue is a script typeface with long swashes and interesting curves. It includes a solid character set and is free for personal use only.

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Introduction to PDO Extension: How to Use PDO for Different Databases

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In this article, we will talk about what a PDO is, why is it necessary, and how to work with it.
Let’s start with the fact that for a long time php-programmers have been discussing the fate of the native functions to work with the database: mysql_connect, mysql_query, and others. The fact is that in upcoming versions of PHP data will be erased, these functions will go "Obsolete". Thus PHP developers should force on other tools to work with the database.
Currently, there are two alternatives solutions; mysqli extension and expansion of PDO. In this article, we will discuss PDO.
PDO – PHP Data Objects – is a layer that offers a versatile way to work with multiple databases.
This layer has several advantages:
  • PDO allows you to work with different databases, such as: MYSQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL and many others.
  • PDO allows you to work with a prepared statement
Now let’s talk about all this in more detail.

Connecting to a Database Using PDO

Before you start working with PDO, you must make sure that you have the correct extension – php_pdo_mysql.dll. This can be verified through the function phpinfo(). If everything is okay, you are good to go.
First we need to connect to the database:
PHP

  

xxxxxxxxxx
1

15

 

1 

/ / MuSQL

2 









 3 




   $Database = new PDO ("mysql: host = $ host; dbname = $Databasename", $username, $password); 








 4 












 5 




/ / PostgreSQL








 6 












 7 




   $Database = new PDO ("pgsql: host = $ host; dbname = $Databasename", $username, $password);








 8 












 9 




/ / MS SQL








 10 












 11 




   $Database = new PDO ("mssql: host = $ host; dbname = $Databasename", $username, $password); 








 12 












 13 




/ / SQLite








 14 












 15 




   $Database = new PDO ("sqlite: my / database / path / database.db");














 




 
















 As you can see from the example, each database connection string is slightly different from each other



 You should always use try/catch when you are trying to connect to the unit, so that on exception we do not disclosed any data to the user.









 PHP 


   






  




 






 




 


 














xxxxxxxxxx




 1 






 


 




   










 1 




try {








 2 




   $Database = new PDO ("mysql: host = $ host; dbname = $Databasename", $username, $password); 








 3 




} 








 4 




catch (PDOException $ e) { 








 5 




   echo "Unable to connect to database"; 








 6 




}














 




 
















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	Real-Time Stock Data Using Marketplace’s API				
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 In this time of global economic turmoil, it’s more important than it’s ever been that your financial decisions are based on accurate, up-to-date, market information.


In a world where stock price is a key confidence marker, the businesses that attract attention, secure investment, and grow, are the ones that can demonstrate their value in a wider market.


Up to now, displaying accurate market pricing has been prohibitively expensive, needing direct access to a huge dataset, and the code to mine it. So we’re delighted to introduce marketstack, a real-time market data API that’s reliable, simple to integrate with your site or app, is lightning fast, and includes a free-forever plan.


What is marketstack?


marketstack is a REST API that allows you to access stock data for public companies at 72 global exchanges including the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq, the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and the London Stock Exchange.


marketstack delivers real-time market data, accurate to a single minute, ensuring that the information you base your decisions on, and the information you pass on to your customers, is always up to date.


There are more than 125,000 stock tickers, from over 50 different countries; you can query stocks, or over 75 different market indices; intraday market data is included, meaning you can monitor trades that close at the end of the day; you can even retrieve data about time-zones and international currencies.


Why Choose marketstack


marketstack uses cutting-edge technology to deliver market data in an easy-to-integrate JSON format, which is lightweight and incredibly easy to dig into.


Requests are made via a simple HTTP GET call, and all requests are run through bank-quality 256-bit HTTPS encryption. Whatever code stack you’re using, whether it’s PHP, Python, Node, or plain old JavaScript, marketstack provides comprehensive documentation to get your team up to speed in mere minutes.


The highly reliable cloud infrastructure can handle anything from a few dozen requests per year, all the way up to millions of requests per day. Regardless of the scale of your project, marketstack is robust and flexible enough to handle it.


It’s Not Just About Money


marketstack isn’t just about the bulls and bears of markets, in the tech sector specifically, stock price is an indicator of wider business trends and performance.


When Apple became the first US company to reach a $2 trillion valuation, not only was its stock price central to the story, but it indicated a trend in the tech giant’s dominance that went beyond cold hard cash.


When an eccentric billionaire makes outrageous, and ill-judged comments, and tanks his company’s valuation, the fluctuations in stock price are a big part of the story.


Beyond the spin of politicians, the market index of different exchanges is an indication of what analysts with in-depth knowledge really think during an election campaign.


With over 30 years of historical data, marketstack is a history of business, particularly the burgeoning tech sector, and makes that history available with a simple to use API.


marketstack’s Rock Solid API


marketstack’s API is built on top of apilayer technology, one of the most respected, and trusted API providers in the world, with a huge amount of experience delivering data reliably. Millions of API requests can be run through the API hourly, and it still has almost 100% uptime.


Any API is only as good as the data it supplies, and marketstack’s data is supplied by numerous high-authority providers around the globe, resulting in unprecedented accuracy.


As a result, marketstack is trusted by over 30,000 companies — including Microsoft, Amazon, Uber, and Credit Suisse — and 80+ universities.


Getting Started with marketstack


marketstack is entirely free for up to 1000 requests per month, with access to 1 year of historical data, as well as end-of-day data. No credit card is required to get started, and you’ll never be billed. This is the perfect option for simple integrations, or developers working on proof-of-concept builds. What we really like about marketstack is that the free package is genuinely usable. It’s not just a trial version that presses you into upgrading.


For anyone who needs more comprehensive data, packages that include market indices, technical support, and commercial use permissions, start at $9.99 per month, or just $7.99 per month when billed annually.


Head over the marketstack today to claim your free API key, and get started.


 


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


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	8 Easy Ways To Ruin Your User Onboarding				
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 To understand why user onboarding is such an indispensable tool, we need to empathize with the people using our products; we all come from different backgrounds and cultures, we make different assumptions, and we see the world differently.


User onboarding helps mitigate these differences by making your product’s learning curve less steep.


However, companies often make unfortunate mistakes that hinder user experience and cause frustration. In today’s article, we’ll take a look at eight ways companies ruin their products’ onboarding process.


Let’s dive right in, shall we?


1. No User Onboarding at all


As a part of the team that created a product, you’ve probably spent hundreds of hours going over its features and the most minute detail. Naturally, you know the product like the back of your hand. The user does not.




Naturally, you know the product like the back of your hand. The user does not




We may believe that the app we’ve worked on is straightforward and that user onboarding is probably overkill — but that’s almost never the case. Guiding our users through a product will help with retention, conversion, and their overall satisfaction.


However, there are very rare cases when you can do without user onboarding, here are a few:


    

  • Your product is too straightforward to cause any confusion;
    • 

  • Your product has a formulaic structure, similar to that of other products’ in your category, i.e., social media or e-commerce;
    • 

  • Your product relies heavily on Google or iOS design guidelines with common design patterns;
    • 

  • Your product is too complex (enterprise or business-oriented) — in such cases, users need special training, rather than just an onboarding;
    • 



2. Assuming That Users “Get It”


 One of the vital UX mottos we should always be mindful of is that “we are not our users.” When onboarding them, we always need to assume that they’re at square one. We should communicate with them as if they have no prior knowledge of our product, its terminology, and the way it works.


Providing freshly-registered users with highly contextual information will most likely confuse them. As a result, this will render your attempts to create a helpful onboarding process useless.  


3. Onboarding Users on a Single Touchpoint




it’s tempting to brainstorm which features should make it into the onboarding, then design and code them; that’s a very bad idea




The main problem with the previous point is that it’s too contextual for new users. However, providing no context altogether can be problematic as well. This is commonly found in onboarding processes that focus on a single touchpoint while leaving out the rest of the product.


By choosing to inform users of our product’s features, we force them to detour from their “normal” course of action. This comes at the cost of the user’s frustration.


Since we’re asking people to pay this price, it’s best to provide them with information that will also help them navigate the entire product. As a result, this will decrease the number of times we’ll have to distract them from their ordinary flow.


4. Forcing Users Through Onboarding


We’ve previously mentioned that we mustn’t assume that users have any background knowledge about our products.


The opposite argument can be made — experienced users don’t need a basic onboarding process. It will most likely frustrate them, and it won’t provide them with any real value. Also, forcing users through this process will most likely take the onboarding frustration to a whole other level.


This is why it’s essential that we allow them to skip the parts they don’t find useful. This way, we’ll address the knowledge gaps of the people who really want it and need it.


5. Onboarding Based Purely on Assumptions


This is yet another point that’s implicit in “we are not our users”. Oftentimes, it’s tempting to brainstorm which features should make it into the onboarding, then design and code them; that’s a very bad idea.


Here’s what every designer should do instead:


    

  • Do user interviews: You should conduct these before having anything designed; user interviews will help you shortlist and prioritize features in terms of their significance, so that the onboarding is focused around the features that matter most.
    • 

  • Do usability testing: Once you have a good idea of what features your users consider most important, design onboarding that reflects that; having completed your design, make sure to conduct at least 5 usability testing sessions with users, so that you can make sure that your design works.
    • 



6. Just Letting Users Quit


While we shouldn’t force people to go through onboarding, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t nudge them in the right direction.




find that sweet spot between being front of mind and annoying




People choose not to onboard for many reasons, but showing them around will benefit both parties. Therefore, it’s never wrong to remind them that they can always resume onboarding via email or push notifications (unless you’re too pushy). Make sure to find that sweet spot between being front of mind and annoying. 


Similarly, these two mediums are a great way to deliver valuable information as well.


Here’s a great example of an onboarding email from InVision:




And here’s a clever notification from TripPlanner:




Source: clevertap.com


7. Asking For Too Much Information


We need to always be mindful of the fact that the product’s spokesperson should act as a guide during onboarding. Its goal at the very beginning is to build trust.




We can ask for small favors when we’ve built a solid and lasting relationship




Not only is asking for too much information from the get-go unproductive, but it will also undermine the trust that the user already gave us.


It’s best to abstain from asking freshly-registered users for their credit card information. Nearly 100% of businesses care about profits — and there’s no shame in it. However, today’s most successful companies make money by providing users with value. So it’s best to stimulate users to share their financial data in subtler ways while focusing on customer experience.


The same can be said about subjecting the people using your service to extensive questionnaires. At the first steps of our interaction, it’s all about giving and gaining trust. We can ask for small favors when we’ve built a solid and lasting relationship.


8. Onboarding for the Sake of Onboarding


While there are dozens of reasons why you should guide your users through your product, it needs to be done well. A pointless onboarding process that doesn’t provide users with value is more frustrating than the lack thereof.


Onboarding can be a bit frustrating at times. Pointless onboarding will just raise eyebrows. It will slow users down and disengage them, which is exactly the opposite of what we want.


Conclusion


The process of introducing your users to your product is one of the factors that will define its success.


A critical aspect of user onboarding that we need to always take into account is value. Is this detour from our user’s ordinary course of action valuable to them? Will this improve their experience with the product?


Onboarding demands careful and continuous tailoring. Once perfected, this process will help you win new users’ hearts and help you build brand loyalty.


 


Featured image via Unsplash.


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	Exciting New Tools for Designers, August 2020				
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 The common theme in this month’s collection of new tools and resources is “things that help you show off your work.” Many of these tools are made to help you better web products or apps or showcase designs with others.


Here’s what new for designers this month.


Naturaltts


Naturaltts is an online text to speech converter, that allows you to download an mp3 recording. The tool has more than 60 voices to choose from in six languages. There’s a free plan for personal use (based on characters converted) and affordable paid plans for higher volumes and commercial users. One application of this tool is voiceover for videos or tutorials.




Handz


Handz is a library of hands with different gestures in three-dimensional shapes. The collection includes 12 gestures with nine skin colors, and three different sleeve types. Put all that together and you have 320 potential combinations that you can use for projects. The library is completely free and works in a variety of formats with different tools.




Isoflow


Isoflow allows you to create isometric diagrams for presentations and illustrations with ease. You can edit and then export diagrams for print or website use, thanks to vector rendering.




Device Shots


Device Shots is a small web app that helps you generate a high-resolution device mockup using a screenshot of your website or mobile application. It supports almost every device type you can think of and resizes for social media platforms.




Barchartrace


Barchartrace is a simple MIT open source bar chart generator. Use it to create some of the animated charts you see on social media. Just insert your information (upload via CSV file), choose animation settings, and go.




Zettlr Markdown Editor


Zettlr is a free and open source markdown editor for Mac OS. Zettlr supports simple notations, references, includes a dark mode, and tagging. It’s made for note takers who need a tool to amp up their projects, and is used primarily in higher education.




CSS Leaning Card Effect


The CSS Leaning Card Effect replicates the bookshelf feel you get when rectangles lean with a shadow against planes. Lynn Fisher does it in the pen with code that you can see and work on with your own images.




Lemon.io


Lemon.io is a tool that matches you with freelance developers to get projects moving more quickly. You are guaranteed a match in 24 hours and there is no risk if the match doesn’t work out. Just tell Lemon.io what you need and the algorithm will match you with a dev from the database. Prices for development through the platform start at $35 per hour.




Papercups


Papercups is a customer messaging tool that lets you chat in real-time. The customizable widget works with your favorite tools, such as Slack and Gmail, and is free to use. Chat apps are one of the most in-demand website features right now.




CSS Click to Animate Gif


Christian Heilmann has created a great guide/experiment in pure CSS that adds a play button on top of animated GIFs so that users can control the motion. He developed the concept because GIFs can get overwhelming and annoying. Learn how he did it and see it in action.




3D Book Image Generator


Here’s another little bit of CSS magic with a 3D Book Image Generator. Just input your image and set some specifications and get a 3D book cover image that you can use in projects. (There’s also an accompanying tutorial if you want to learn how to generate the CSS on your own.)




Luckysheet


Luckysheet is an online spreadsheet – it’s a lot like Microsoft Excel – with powerful data functions and tools. It’s user-friendly and open source. It even has quite a few built-in mathematical formulas and supports various table types.




RevKit


RevKit is a design system UI kit that works with Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD. It includes plenty of organized components that you can pop right into designs to help get them started faster. It also includes a style guide, elements, and form controls. The download is free.




Card


Card allows you to store social media profiles, websites, and files in a customized profile. Share it in one click. Replace awkward contact exchange and multiple usernames with a simple QR code or link.




Scale Nucleus


Scale Nucleus helps visualize data, curate interesting slices within your dataset, review and manage annotations, and measure and debug model performance. This tool claims to be “the right way” to develop ML models.




Previewed


Previewed is a mockup generator to create beautiful promotional graphics for your app. Browse a variety of templates, pick one, customize, and download your design to show off.




NSFW Filter


NSFW Filter is a browser extension that blocks images that aren’t safe for work. The best part is that it runs locally in-browser and doesn’t access any of your data. Plus, it saves you from on-the-job embarrassment.




ColorFlick for Dribbble


ColorFlick for Dribbble is another browser extension that makes it easy to copy hex codes from the tool to your clipboard with ease. You can also create palettes you can share from your favorite shots using Coolors.




Tabler Icons


Tabler Icons is a collection of more than 550 SVG icons that you can customize. Change the color, size, or stroke width with on-screen controls and then click to copy the icons you want to use. It’s that simple!




Teenyicons


Teenyicons might be some of the cutest icons out there. This collection includes minimal 1px icons in outline or solid fills. And there are plenty of icons to choose from. Adjust the size and grab the ones that you need for projects.




Basicons


Basicons is a set of simple icons for product design and development. Plus, they are updated weekly.




Chozy Mermaid


Chozy Mermaid is a super funky novelty typeface to close out summer. The characters feature beach themes within slab characters. It might be hard to find an application for this one, but it is too fun not to share.




Dotuku


Dotuku is a dingbats font with a back to school theme. The limited character set features filled and outline styles that are perfect for classrooms.




Margin


Margin is a fun retro style typeface with a 1970s vibe. It’s a “chubby serif” with 60 characters and 58 glyphs.




Rollanda


Rollanda is a signature-style script with a thicker weight and rough stroke. The character set is pretty robust.




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	Case Study: 8 Design Tips That Increased My Ecommerce Conversions By 42% 				
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 When it comes to increasing sales for your ecommerce store, there are 3 levers you can pull: You can increase your average order value; You can increase the amount of traffic to your site; You can increase your conversion rate.


While all of the above are important, the cheapest, most effective way to grow your sales is by improving your conversion rate.


For most online stores, low conversion rates are typically the result of a poor design or a bad user experience. Your visitors may not resonate with the look and feel of your website or they may have problems finding the information they need in order to make a purchase.


In this post, I will walk you through the exact steps I took to increase my desktop conversion rate by 46% and my mobile conversion rate by 39% with my last site redesign. I will also show you how you can apply these same design principles to optimize the conversion rate for your own online store.


Even if your ecommerce business is already performing well, this post will help you achieve even better results.


What Is Considered A Good Ecommerce Conversion Rate? 


Monitoring your conversion rate is crucial to building a profitable ecommerce business. And most analytics tools can help you measure this data out of the box.


Your conversion rate is calculated by simply dividing the number of desired actions by the number of website visitors in a given period. For example, if your website is getting 50 conversions for every 5,000 visitors, your conversion rate is 1%.


Depending on the specific type of online business you run, your conversions may include online sales, email signups, add to carts, or any other KPI you wish to measure. But in the case of an ecommerce store, your primary focus should be your purchase conversion rate.


On average, ecommerce stores have a purchase conversion rate of 1% – 2%. What’s more, experts say a good conversion rate is anywhere from 2% to 5%. This should be your baseline as you measure your online store’s success.


The Conversion Results of My Last Site Redesign


Before we dive into the nitty gritty details of how I improved my conversion rate, here are my overall results and exactly how I conducted my experiment.


First off, I run Bumblebee Linens, an ecommerce store that sells handkerchiefs online.


Because my site gets a ton of traffic from content pages that do not directly convert to sales, I measured my conversion rate based on my most predictable traffic sources.


As a result, all of my conversion data was taken from targeted PPC ad traffic sources like Google Shopping and Google Adwords. After all, my Google ads traffic is very steady and always converts at a consistent percentage.


Before I redesigned my site, the conversion rate for my ecommerce store hovered at around 3% which is above average. But the look and feel of the site was dated and desperately needed a refresh. Overall, the entire redesign took approximately 7 weeks and cost me roughly $1840.


Here are the conversion results from my updated design compared to the original:


    

  • Desktop conversion rates increased by 46%
    • 

  • Mobile conversion rates increased by 26% 
    • 

  • Tablet conversion rates increased by 32% 
    • 



The remainder of this post will highlight the specific elements of the redesign that contributed to these increases. (Note: I made all of my redesign changes live simultaneously so it’s difficult to determine which specific optimization contributed the most gains.)


8 Ecommerce Design Tips To Optimize Your Conversion Rate


If your ecommerce store is not performing as well as it should, there are many aspects of the user experience that could be negatively impacting sales. Even a seemingly innocuous design choice like your font size or the color of your buttons can have a significant impact on your overall conversion rate.


If you want to systematically improve the conversion rate for your ecommerce store, you should follow these 8 design steps.


1. Use A Consistent and Complementary Color Scheme 




Use color.adobe.com to choose complementary colors when redesigning your website.


A well chosen color scheme can instantly attract a customer’s attention, evoke emotion, and drive users to take action. After all, how a customer feels about your website can be the deciding factor between completing checkout or bouncing from your shop.


A well designed ecommerce store should utilize at least 3 complementary colors that are consistently applied across every page of your website.


If you don’t have a good eye for color, you can use a free tool like color.adobe.com which will help you mix and match different colors that go well together.


For my site redesign, I wanted a modern feel so I chose teal, hot pink, and yellow for my color palette.


I also assigned each color a specific purpose on my site:


    

  • Teal was applied to give the site a bright, overall color for a young and hip feel;
    • 

  • Yellow was used to draw attention to marketing elements like free shipping and special offers;
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  • Hot Pink was used for all action buttons on the site.
    • 





Overall, every single page of your ecommerce store should have 1 main call to action (using a bright color like hot pink) that guides a customer closer towards checkout.


For example on my front page, the hot pink button “Shop Our Personalized Collection” pops out of the page and catches a user’s attention right away. We want visitors to shop our personalized collection because our personalized products are the highest margin products in our store.


2. Simplify Your Navigation 


Is your menu too complicated? Is your navbar taking up too much screen real estate?


A good rule of thumb for an ecommerce store is to minimize the number of clicks for a customer to add to cart. As a result, you should avoid nesting your product categories in more than 1 level of hierarchy.


If you have too many categories in your shop to display all at once, choose your best selling categories for your main menu and lump your less trafficked categories in a separate tab.


For my store, I decided to use a top-level, hover style drop-down menu as shown in the photo below.




Top-level navigation is one way to organize and display your product categories.


My old design utilized left hand style navigation which took up too much screen real estate. And freeing up the extra space allowed me to blow up my category and product images by 300%. With my new navigation menu, every visitor can add to cart in just three clicks: One click to find a product category; One click to view the product description; One click to add to cart.


Once you’ve designed your menu, pretend that you are a customer and try to shop on your site. Is the content easy to read? Do the important elements pop out? Can you find the information you need right away? Analyzing your site from a customer’s perspective will help you improve your users’ shopping experience.


3. Display Trust Factors On Every Page 




Free shipping, easy returns, and trust are crucial to driving conversions. 


Trust is the most important value you must establish with your customer.


Unless you’re Amazon or a big box store, people have likely never heard of your brand and you have to reassure them that it’s safe to buy from your store.


Due to Amazon’s influence in the ecommerce space, most customers look for 3 things when shopping at an online boutique for the first time:


    

  • Fast and free shipping;
    • 

  • Easy returns;
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  • A way to reach customer support.
    • 



Displaying your phone number and email address is very important! Adding your store hours also helps to make your site look legit to new visitors. If you don’t have a recognizable brand, customers will want to know that they can reach a real human in case of problems or questions.


In the above image, you’ll notice that I placed my trust factors in the header, so they can be seen above the fold on every single page. We’ve also been featured on the Today show and a bunch of magazines. So I made sure to display this social proof on the bottom of every page.




Don’t hesitate to flaunt your achievements to reinforce trust. 


In addition, customer testimonials provide social proof and credibility to your website. As a result, it’s important to regularly reach out to happy customers for testimonials and endorsements. On our redesigned site, you’ll find the testimonials section right below our press mentions.




Testimonials lend social proof and credibility to your website.


Remember, to generate conversions as an unknown store or brand, you first have to gain your customers’ trust. Make it easy for them to contact you or get a full refund if anything goes wrong with their purchase. By showing a genuine concern for customer satisfaction, you’ll be able to build a solid reputation over time.


4. Emphasize Your Unique Value Proposition


Users spend an average of 5.59 seconds looking at your website’s written content. And in those 5.59 seconds, you must capture their interest or else they’ll bounce from your page. Right off the bat, you must convey to a user exactly what you sell and why they should buy from your store over a competitor.


What’s more, every single page on your site should communicate your unique value proposition. A unique value proposition is a concise statement that describes what makes your business special and outlines what your store does better than anyone else. The best way to show off your unique value proposition is to use an eye-catching image alongside compelling copy.


For example, here’s the first thing a user sees on my home page above the fold:




Right away, a user is shown a large image of one of our best selling personalized handkerchiefs. And right beside that image is a clear and concise value proposition, followed by a call to action to shop in our store.


Displaying your value proposition should not be limited to your home page. We also include our unique value proposition on every category page as well. Overall, you should include your value proposition on every landing page on your website.




5. Optimize The Visual Hierarchy Of Your Product Pages 


Every page on your site should have a single objective. And for your product pages, your goal is to get a customer to add to cart.


When designing a product page, you must apply a logical visual hierarchy to your design. A visual hierarchy is the order in which a user processes information on a page and in the case of a product page, there must be a clear path to your add to cart button with as few distractions as possible.


Here’s a screenshot of my old product page:




As you can see, my old product page is overwhelming. All of the design elements try to grab your attention at the same time and there are many different calls to action that blend together. To improve my product descriptions, I freshened up the color scheme and enlarged my product image by 266%. I also changed the placement of the buttons in a more logical flow.


Here’s what the redesigned product page looks like today:




By adjusting the size, color, contrast, and alignment of the page elements, I now force the customer to process my product information in a set path that leads directly to my primary call to action. For example, the hot pink color draws attention to the “Add to Cart” button over the “Reviews” button. Also, by applying a blue text color and teal background, I reassure customers that shopping with us is safe and risk free.


Overall, rearranging the design elements this way nearly doubled my add to cart percentage.


6. Simplify Your Checkout Process 


With our old site design, we would regularly receive feedback from confused customers who weren’t sure if they needed an account to purchase our products.


Here’s what our old checkout page looked like:




As you can see, there are too many choices. After all, a customer doesn’t need 3 ways to checkout and the choices are a little overwhelming.


Here’s what the checkout page looks like now:




Instead of offering 3 separate options for checkout, I consolidated them all into one and added a separate Paypal option (more on this later). First off, less than 6% of customers create an account so there was no reason to offer account creation as a separate option. Furthermore, displaying a login form was causing more headaches than it was worth because the majority of customers don’t even have an account. As a result, I decided to hide the form altogether by default.


Overall, when you are designing your checkout process, keep these optimization principles in mind.


Principle #1: Remove all unnecessary elements from the page. Don’t make the customer think and hide all elements that are not frequently used.


Principle #2: Display trust logos to assure customers of a secure checkout. In the image above, you’ll find trust logos on the right-hand side of the checkout page.


7. Optimize The Checkout Process For Mobile Users


4 out of 10 mobile users abandon their carts if they have a hard time entering their personal information. People don’t like entering their contact and credit card information using a tiny keyboard. What’s more, small buttons and too many form fields drive away mobile users. 79% of smartphone users shop online with their mobile devices, which is why you should optimize for mobile.


These days, a responsive design is par for the course but you can still screw things up if you are not careful. Here’s what my checkout process looks like on a desktop:




And here’s how the checkout page looks on a mobile device:




On mobile, the user’s cart contents are collapsed so it doesn’t occupy the entire screen. Overall, here were the mobile optimizations I made to checkout:


Optimization #1: Keep Your Checkout Form Short And Sweet


A mobile user should be able to tap buttons on your checkout page without accidentally hitting another option. Also, the buttons should be large enough to tap on a mobile device.


Given the smaller screen size of a mobile phone, keep your checkout form short and sweet with no extraneous options. Also, make sure you turn off autocorrect for your form fields. Otherwise, your phone’s autocorrect feature may frustrate users when they try to enter their address. In fact, we once had a customer get so frustrated trying to type in their city on their iPhone that they called us up and complained in frustration.




To fix this, you simply need to add the following tag to all of your text input fields.


<input type="text" name="name" autocorrect="off">


And to reduce frustration, you should also turn off auto-capitalization and auto-complete by adding auto-capitalization=”off” and auto-complete=”off” to all of your forms as well:


<input type="text" name="name" autocorrect="off" auto-capitalization="off" auto-complete="off">


In addition, for phone number entry, you should always display a numeric keypad as opposed to a regular keyboard:




Optimization #2: Automatically Import Your Customer Data If Possible


The less information mobile users have to enter in, the better. Payment options like Paypal Express and Amazon Payments can simplify the checkout process. These third-party payment processors automatically fill out a customer’s billing and shipping information which reduces typing and increases conversion rates.


To offer a more convenient checkout, I implemented PayPal One Touch, which alone increased my mobile conversion rates by 31%.


Here’s a quick tip when implementing Paypal: Make sure you display the Paypal button early in the checkout process before a user has entered in their information. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of importing their information! In the first step of my checkout process, I explain each payment option in depth.


These simple changes made a huge difference in my conversion rate. And the number of PayPal users on my site nearly doubled from 13% to 23%!


8. Add A Sense Of Urgency


Most customers like to window shop and the best way to get a visitor to take action is to create a sense of urgency.


Whenever I run a sale, a big yellow countdown timer is displayed on every page of the website.


Note: It’s important to note that we only utilize this timer when there is actually a sale going on. Otherwise, you risk desensitizing your customers or losing trust.




In addition, I also display a countdown timer on the checkout page to create a sense of urgency to complete the payment process:




These extra design elements force a customer to take action sooner rather than later.


Final thoughts


Optimizing your conversion rate is an ongoing process. And testing your results is the only way to track your improvement.


Never go with your gut and always listen to the data. After all, sometimes an ugly site can out-convert a beautiful one.


Regardless, the design tips I demonstrated above will give you a solid foundation to start with. From there, you can further improve your website and optimize your conversion rate through repeated testing and tweaks. Good luck!


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	SOLID code, the Silver Bullet				
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SOLID is one of those words we developers throw around us, implying some deeper meaning, hopefully helping us to create better software systems. It should be second hand nature to all (OO) developers, but unfortunately is often misunderstood, or used to defend a decision, based upon flawed logic. Hence, in this article, I will try to "dumb it down" and use analogies for each of its 5 items, in an attempt at making it more easily understood, to avoid confusion.


Single Responsibility Principle


The "S" I’m solid implies that each class should only do one thing. It often helps to break down your flow into verbs to make sure you follow this principle. For instance, imagine you have a task scheduler, that should implement the ability to create tasks for execution at some point into the future. Maybe you want it to have the ability to persist tasks, in case the process is recycled, without dropping tasks. Imagine Hangfire here as an example. Well, ask yourself how many verbs you have in the above feature requirement, and then try to group them into related actions. I could find the following.


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