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Introduction

In the field of app testing, QA managers and other senior testing professionals must implement different test management approaches such as test monitoring and control to ensure that the test suite runs smoothly. These essential management strategies are required by the managers to track and align the test progress for optimal accuracy and efficiency.

What Is Test Monitoring?

Test monitoring is a test execution process in which all testing activities and efforts are evaluated to:

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Introduction

The Internet is inevitable in the current time. It is everywhere, and the entire world depends on it to function, perform day-to-day activities and stay connected with people from different corners. Gone are the days when testers only chose to create websites for selected browsers and hardly faced issues maintaining a website on a few browsers. As the technology matured, many significant players entered the browser market. Even the users evolved, became tech-savvy, and improved their browsing habits. Now was a time when businesses were in critical need of cross-browser testing and responsive testing to stay ahead of the competition. Cross-browser testing focuses on the website’s overall functionality; responsive web testing verifies the look and feel of the web application. Cross-browser testing deals with the analysis of the web browsers that their users use, and responsive testing deals with the devices where the company’s user base visits the websites. Let us shed some light and understand cross-browser and responsive testing in detail.

What Is Cross Browser Testing?

We all know that testing cross-browser compatibility of websites « is of utmost importance. It helps understand how stable your web application is across various technologies, browsers, operating systems, and devices. The adoption of cross-browser testing is to provide a better user experience irrespective of which browser-OS-device combination your users use to access your website. In cross-browser testing, the testers generally validate the web application’s functionality and ensure its user-friendliness and performance are up to the mark across the web browsers. Businesses can also take the help of cloud-based automated cross-browser testing tools to have access to a wide range of real devices to test their web and mobile applications. Different browser engines render websites differently; even the version of each browser causes the code uniquely. It means the code behind the websites is read differently by every browser. So, various cross-browser testing strategies are critical for website accessibility. It is how different browsers render a web page:

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Most of us are concerned about our public image, right? It matters a lot how people see and think of us. Export the same sentiment to a brand instead of a person. That’s what brand reputation is all about!  

Yes, it’s that simple – the public’s perception of a brand constitutes its brand reputation. And since the internet plays a significant role in public perception nowadays, a brand’s online reputation essentially drives brand perception.

If we come at it from a slightly different angle, it’s the sum of all ideas and emotions a customer or client associates with a brand while interacting with it at any stage. It includes everything, from what kind of customer services they get when purchasing goods or services to after-sales services the company provides. Reputation management is usually done via social media, emails, and online chats.

(Remember, you shouldn’t confine brand reputation only to a brand’s customers or end-users. It includes all stakeholders’ opinions of a brand. It can be anyone from customers to retailers and shippers to manufacturers.)

In short, brand reputation is the most vital intangible asset for any organization striving to make it big in today’s cutthroat market.

What’s The Importance Of A Strong Brand Reputation For Today’s Businesses?

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that nothing affects every stage of the marketing and sales funnel, like a brand’s reputation. Whether it’s awareness, interest, evaluation, commitment, sales, or reputation, a strong brand reputation will only supplement it.

Recent research reveals that about 94% of consumers say that their likelihood of frequenting a business increases if it has positive reviews. Conversely, 92% say that their chance of patronizing a business decreases if it has negative reviews.

Now, let’s look at various factors that make working on your brand reputation important.

Market Trust

Strengthening brand reputation earns your business the trust factor, making your brand a more viable choice for existing and prospective customers. It helps them place their faith in you, believing that your brand is here to thrive and fulfill any promises it makes.

Moreover, it’s a fact that people prefer buying goods and services from a brand that enjoys a solid reputation, especially if people in their social circle use its products.  

Higher Sales

You can’t be far from the truth if you believe brand reputation only yields intangible business gains. It lends you tangible improvements as well, most importantly, in the form of higher sales volume, which translates as higher profits.

All this can’t be achieved without the push from a strong brand reputation, helping the brand carve a niche for itself amongst tough competition.

Customer Loyalty

When a brand succeeds in earning a higher trust level and a positive reputation, the customers are more likely to remain loyal. And, will continue to buy products and services from it, refuting various incentives by the competition, such as discount packages & low prices.

Customer loyalty also leads a brand to a host of other fringe benefits, i.e., demanding a premium price after some time.

Competitive Edge

One thing is for sure, the level of competition in the market is always going to soar higher and higher. And it’s almost impossible for a business to make its way through it without a competitive edge. That’s where a positive brand reputation can make a business’s life easier.

Having the edge over the competition means your potential for catching new customers increases exponentially, helping your brand claim more of the market share.

Word of Mouth

Happy customers remain one of the most significant assets of a brand, especially in this digital era. They serve as brand ambassadors, and if they’re happy and satisfied, they’ll pass the word on, advocating for the brand for free.

It not only leads to increased brand awareness in the market, but it also paves the way for a business to improve its sales and profit margins over time.

What Are The Best Strategies For Managing Your Brand’s Reputation Online?

We’ll keep our focus on the ones proven to be the most effective, starting with:

Staying Ahead of The Curve

Being proactive is among the primary requisites for today’s brand managers. They should be thinking ahead of their competitors and the target audience. While branding online, the margin of error is relatively low, and any slipup can lead to a ripple effect in nullifying the brand’s positive image.

The best way to cope with such a situation is to embrace the mistake quickly and be upbeat enough to resolve the issue immediately rather than have a wait-and-see attitude.

Be Specific About The Deliverables

Social media has played a phenomenal role in educating today’s customers, making them very intelligent and demanding at the same time. It has opened up infinite mediums and channels to get alternatives for almost everything.

That’s why brands need to be very specific in delivery time and after-sales services to avoid earning themselves a bad name in the market. Most experts recommend the “under promise and over deliver” approach to avoid disappointing your customers.

Establish Yourself as An Authority

If you have complete faith in your offerings as a business, knowing that you’re the best in the market, you better be loud and clear about it. It will help you catch immediate attention from your target audience, increasing your brand awareness and your potential to bag more sales and revenue.

Let’s talk about the quality of the product as an example. If you believe that the quality of your product is the unique selling prospect, you must let people know about it. Flaunt this factor with full force, vigor, and authority.

It will help you establish your brand in the market as an authority, and your target market will start looking up to you for the best and the latest on it.

Be Consistent and Assertive

As they say, consistency is the key. If you do it right, your brand reputation will go beyond the lifespan of your brand. People will relate to your brand positively even after your business shuts down.

However, this demands the next level of consistency from your business. You have to make sure you deliver your best in all aspects of branding your business, from the quality of the products and services to the level of customer service you offer.

It doesn’t work well if you outperform your competition by miles for the first time and then step back from delivering those high service standards. You roll your sleeves up and get to compete yourself if you believe you’re outdoing your competition so well.

Deliver on Your Promises

You cannot overstate the significance of delivering on your promises if you want to make the most of your brand reputation. Nothing brands your business better than a bunch of happy and satisfied customers.

And, delivering on your promises consistently is the least of what you need to do to win over your customers to the level they turn into your unofficial brand ambassadors.

Value Feedback

It would be best if you realign your thinking this way. 

Who are you producing your products/services for? Your clients/customers, of course!

What if it’s not working well for them?

Redo your product/service to the requirements and likings of your customers. Otherwise, your business will earn you nothing but a bad name in the market.

You have to realize the importance of listening to your customers, gathering customers’ opinions about what’s not working for them and what areas they would like to see improved. 

Learn to accept and respect your customers’ grievances, praises, issues, tips, or any feedback they give you about your product or service.

You’ll upscale your brand’s reputation considerably if you start doing this.

How Can Influencer Marketing Help You Grow Your Brand’s Reach

Influencer marketing is the concept of branding your business through influential people and opinion leaders in the industry rather than engaging your business directly in doing so. They also brand indirectly, setting a practical example rather than advocating verbally for it.

Research reveals that 94% of marketers using influencer marketing find it highly effective, potentially increasing the ROI 11% times higher than conventional marketing.

Brands that indulge in influencer marketing associate themselves with influential personalities resonating with their message, driving it across their target market in a manner that a large number of people develop an affiliation toward it.

Influencer campaigns help brands tap into an existing community comprising their influencer’s dedicated followers, compelling them to tilt toward a brand they use. Most of us have observed how renowned YouTubers, Tiktokers, and bloggers proactively advertise different brands to their followers.

The increased penetration of a rapidly growing number of social media platforms also helps the influencers garner a solid following and significantly impact the communities that follow them.

They are like a part of the family for their followers, who value their opinion and try to imitate them in what they do and how they do it.

Conclusion

With the competition getting steeper every passing day, earning the trust and business of your target market is becoming a challenging task for most companies. It makes branding even more imperative.

Make a great customer experience your top priority, also keeping a focus on the customer and employee retention and customer feedback to establish yourself as a customer-centric brand. 

Though it might take some time, it will surely help you grab your target market’s attention and respect in the long run. Once you achieve that, you’ll see sales and profits soaring accordingly.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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You might have noticed that resources comprising some Azure services such as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) span multiple resource groups by default. In some cases, you might intentionally want to segregate resources such as disks and network interfaces from VMs by placing them in different resource groups for better management. A common problem arising from the resource spread is that you might find it challenging to delete multiple resources and resource groups to entirely remove a service from a subscription.

We can solve the problem by using resource tags to associate resources and resource groups to a service. Tags are key-value pairs that can be applied to your Azure resources, resource groups, and subscriptions. Of course, you can use tags for many other purposes apart from resource management. The Azure docs website has a detailed guide on the various resource naming and tagging strategies and patterns.

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The email channel is known for multiple advantages. It is convenient to implement practically, offers many options, and has a fantastic ROI of up to 4200%.

But we also face problems, the most disappointing of which is people ignore emails, not performing the desired action, or worst of all unsubscribing. Why does it happen?

The web is constantly progressing. It offers many tools like modern HTML template builders, ESP services, and other digital assistants that help us at all stages. But even the best tools are not enough; the secret of success still rests with us.

In this post we’ll cover the 7 cardinal sins of email marketing, to help you avoid them.

1. Being Too Late

I can define this mistake as probably the worst. It’s worse than broken links, incorrect dates, or prices. Even more harmful than ugly design.

We lose a lot when postponing email strategy implementation. Beginners often focus all their attention on the content, social media activities, SEO issues… All that is important, right. But ignoring email campaigns is a hard fail.

Thousands of visitors never come again to your website. In other words, they leave the very first levels of the marketing funnel. While regular emailing keeps them engaged and prevents churn.

So delays here are only profitable for competitors. Don’t wait until you collect “enough” contacts. Start as soon as possible. 

Frequency matters too. Don’t bomb people with emails; it annoys and causes unsubscribes. Email frequency is an individual parameter depending on many factors.

2. Disregarding Clients’ Expectations

A fundamental axiom: people unsubscribe when emails are irrelevant. The same goes for neglected expectations. Even the best content with next-gen features won’t save the situation.

I mentioned the email frequency a bit above. Notice that if you announce the weekly emails but send them every day, this is an example of ignoring expectations. Be honest with readers.

Another typical issue is off-topic. If your subscribers are waiting for content related to smartphones, send them newsletters about smartphones, not dresses or domestic turtles :)

But in some cases, getting off-topic can be good. It all depends on the target audience, actual situation, and communication style. 

3. Bad Segmentation 

Once again, relevance is vital. So we must avoid generic emails. Instead, especially if your contact list is extensive enough, apply all the possible parameters: age, gender, location, customers history, etc.

Where to get the respective data? A typical solution is to use update preferences forms in emails or on the website. Let clients choose the topics that are interesting for them.

Use surveys, sign-in forms, AI-based techniques of segmentation… Smart algorithms are great helpers that track clients’ behavior and then process the data for segmentation purposes. 

The better we know our subscribers, the deeper we segment the contact list. It allows sending precisely targeted newsletters to respective segments.

4. Insufficient Personalization 

As Hubspot stats say, personalized emails’ open rate is 26% higher, and their click-through rate is 14% better. But even besides index data, poor personalization is just nonsense today.

Clients are looking for content that matches their preferences, so marketers have to consider these expectations. Segmentation and dynamic range are essential here, but they are not the only techniques.

Everything is much more sophisticated here, in addition to personalized subjects and content. Another solution is to generate recommendations that include the previously browsed products.

AI-powered automation comes to help. Machines will upgrade the classical personalization to the next level called hyper-personalization.

5. Underestimating Mobile-Friendliness 

It’s simply unacceptable to send non-responsive emails today. With so many people opening email on different devices, this is a huge fail.

The modern world is full of gadgets and devices. Email has been opened on smartphones more frequently than on desktop PCs and notebooks in recent years. Up to 70% of readers will read messages on mobiles very soon. No wonder that responsivity turned into a mobile priority.

Regarding layout and design, there are no problems: modern template editors are featured with automated responsivity. But mobile-first means not only layout/design adjustment for mobiles, full-width buttons, or larger fonts. We have to work with content too. Don’t overwrite text remember that recipients read inbox emails on the run. 

Just imagine yourself reading emails in the cafe or cab. And ask yourself: is everything convenient? Would you take the desired action on the run?

6. Non-Professional Approach 

People are quite skeptical of new brands. We need to do our best to attract them. So everything must be done professionally.

The best solution: be a perfectionist. If newsletters look amateurish, they are likely to repel.  

Being amateurish will also ruin your brand identity and reduce customers’ trust. Pay close attention to design, stick to your corporate style, analyze each detail in the context of overall harmony.

7. Overlooking Tests and Improvements 

Testing is vital. Before sending an email campaign, check it via Litmus or Email on Acid to be sure that message looks just as planned. These tools allow testing email rendering by +90 combinations of email clients, devices, and OS.

Knowledge is power. Always try and test your marketing strategies. Are you satisfied with your actual performance? Run A/B tests and focus on the most significant wins and failures. 

Summing Up

Of course, threats are not limited to these seven failures. The last piece of advice: never ignore trends. 

Accessibility? Don’t forget about clients with special requirements. Get whitelisted and incorporate these technologies in your campaigns.

And constantly strive for perfection. With this doctrine, you’ll win!

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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This is an article from DZone’s 2021 Kubernetes and the Enterprise Trend Report.

For more:

Read the Report

In the modern technology landscape, Kubernetes is a widely adopted platform that enables organizations to deploy and manage applications at scale. The container orchestration platform simplifies infrastructure provisioning for microservice-based applications, which empowers efficient workload management through modularity. Kubernetes supports various deployment resources to help implement CI/CD pipelines using updates and versioning. While Kubernetes offers rolling updates as the default deployment strategy, several use cases require a non-conventional approach to deploying or updating cluster services. 

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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.

What is the Designer/Developer Workflow?

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:

  • Scaffolding: This is the stage wherein you start your new web project, creating a git repo, downloading libraries, preparing file structures, and completing other tasks to make sure your product is ready to roll out into the world.
  • Develop: This is where you’ll spend most of your time writing code for your application or website. The development process may include various specific tools and support from other staff members.
  • Test: In this stage, you examine the functionality of your code to determine if everything works as it should. If there are errors or issues, you can go back and develop fixes to the potential problems. Your code may go through the development/test process several times before you can move to the next stage.
  • Integrate: This is when you merge the code for your part of the development process with the rest of the team. You can also integrate your code into websites and existing apps at this point. If you’re working solo, you can skip this process.
  • Optimize: You prepare all your assets for use on a production server during the optimization stage. Files are generally optimized to ensure your visitors can view your site easily or access your applications with ease.
  • Deploy: In the deployment stage, developers push code and assets up into the server and allow for changes to be viewed by the public.

What is MVP? (Minimum Viable Product)

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.

Examples of MVP Workflows

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.

The Pros and Cons of an MVP Workflow

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

  • With an MVP approach, you can maximize your learning opportunities and create a more innovative, successful product at speed. You get to test every step of the way.
  • You release iterations or versions of your product quickly, which means you discover problems faster, allowing you to quickly solve these issues.
  • You build on the benefits of customer fans, “evangelists” in the marketplace who are keen to help your product or service grow.
  • An MVP gives you more freedom to try out unique ideas and “risks” you might otherwise avoid with a traditional workflow.
  • Because you’re focusing on creating only the “minimum viable product,” you don’t have to spend a fortune on initially setting up your workflows.

Cons

  • Agile work with an MVP flow requires a lot of effort in collecting constant feedback from customers and releasing iterations.
  • You’ll need to dedicate yourself to releasing many small and frequent product releases on a tight schedule.
  • You might have to revise the functionality of your product or app a number of times.

Creating Your MVP Workflow

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:

  • User research
  • Competitive analysis
  • Feedback from your audience

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.

MVP Approach Guidelines

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.

  • Review your features: Reviewing your prioritized product requirements and the minimum level of functionality you can deliver with each of these “features.” You need to ensure you’re still providing value to your customer with anything you produce.
  • Build your solution: Build your minimum set of features for the product or service. Remember to build only what is required. You can use methodologies like the agile or waterfall method to help guide your team during this process.
  • Validate your solution: Release your offering into the market, and ensure you have tools in place to gather feedback from early adopters. Use beta programs, focus groups, and market interviews to understand how your solution works for your customers and where you can improve on your current offer.
  • Release new iterations: Based on what you learn from your target audience, release improvements to your product quickly. Use your validation strategies to collect information from your audience with each release.
  • Review again: Go back to your product requirements and desired features and start the process over again, this time focusing on the next most valuable functionality. Over time, the value of your minimum viable product will increase.

Using the MVP Workflow Approach

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.

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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.

1. Don’t Diversify Your Services

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.

2. Know Your Numbers

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.

3. Become The Best Fit For Your Target Market

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.

4. Double Down On Marketing That Works

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.

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There are a lot of factors that contribute to a better user experience on a website. Pages need to load quickly to give users peace of mind and efficiency. Navigation must be clear and straightforward, with direct pathways for visitors to follow when finding your contact pages, blog posts, and products. Your colors need to work seamlessly together while providing just enough contrast in the areas that need it most.

Excellent user experience needs to be considered for every part of your website that acts as a touchpoint with a potential customer or user.

One of the most significant touchpoints of all is your forms.

All websites need some form of interactive content to thrive. Users need to be able to do something with the site, whether it’s looking for information with a search bar, contacting a team for a quote, making a booking, or completing a purchase. Forms power the majority of the interactive activities available on websites.

If you know how to master great UX on a form, you can contribute to more meaningful interactions between your brands and their customers. But not all web forms are the same. Here are some of the top types of forms you need to master and how you can optimize them.

The “Opt-In” Form

The Opt-in Form is probably the best-known form in the digital landscape. It’s essentially a form that asks visitors to “opt-in” to a specific offer. Sometimes, this means signing up for a webinar; other times, it’ll be agreeing to an email newsletter or a regular series of blog updates.

Opt-in forms grab attention quickly and ask for something specific from the audience. For instance, this example from HuffPost encourages visitors to “Subscribe to the Morning Email.”

Opt-in forms are all about generating action.

Sometimes, they’re placed at the bottom of a landing page after a company has had a chance to explain precisely what they’re offering. Other times, you’ll find the opt-in form situated on a sidebar of a website, constantly enticing people to “sign up” if they like what they see on a blog post or article.

It’s also common for opt-in forms to appear as pop-ups and exit pop-ups on modern websites. For example, a brightly colored opt-in form that promises an immediate benefit to a customer could encourage them to hand over their details before they abandon your website.

How to Design a Great Opt-In Form

So what kind of best practices go into an excellent opt-in form?

  • Start with simplicity: If you’re asking your visitors to do something, don’t overwhelm them with too big of a request straight away. Keep the form short and simple, so it doesn’t seem like too much extra work for the visitor. Something like “Subscribe to our newsletter” should ask for nothing more than an email. 
  • Highlight the benefits: Most customers won’t want to give you a place in their inbox or the opportunity to interact with them further unless you can offer something in return. Even if you’re asking for something small, like an email address, let the customer know what’s in it for them. In the HuffPost example above, the company highlights that you can wake up to the day’s “most important news.” 
  • Give the visitor the power: Let your visitor know they’re in control here. They want to see that they’re getting exactly what they need from you in exchange for their contact details. This means reassuring them that their email address won’t be used for spam, like H&B Sensors does here: 

The Contact Form 

The Contact Form is another crucial part of building an effective UX for your website – but it’s also an element that web designers and business owners often overlook. When customers decide they want to learn more about a business, they need a quick and easy way to get in touch.

Contact forms need to be easy to find and use on any website. Usually, your user will expect to see a link to the contact form situated somewhere at the bottom of your webpage. It might be called “Contact Us” or “Customer Support.” Avoid anything that would go over the user’s head.

Aside from being easy to track down, your contact form also needs to reassure an audience that they’re making the right decision by getting in touch. Therefore, the content needs to be short, sweet, and authoritative—highlight why the user might contact your company and how they can do so.

Avoid any unnecessary information in the contact form. For example, you don’t need to know your client’s age and their job to answer a question about where their nearest physical branch is. Keep form fields to the point, or you’ll chase customers away.

How to Design a Great Contact Form

Design something personalized but straightforward to make the most of your contact form. Use features like smart content and conditional logic, if possible, to adapt the page to the user’s needs. Dynamic content is becoming increasingly valuable these days. Other best practices include:

  • Set the right expectations: Let your customers know how active you are and how quickly they can expect to hear back from you. Imagery and the right fonts can also set expectations about the kind of communication your audience can expect. For example, this contact page from the Marvel app is fun and playful, like the company itself:

  • Provide multiple options: If your customer doesn’t want to use your contact form, give them another way to get in touch. Ensure the contact page includes information like where to find you on social media and your professional phone number. 
  • Simplify things on your end: To ensure that you can contact your audience as quickly as possible, allow your customers to choose a specific subject that their query is connected to. Allowing them to choose “Sales” or “Order issues” means you can automatically direct the message to the right team member on the back-end. 

The Online Payment Form 

Sometimes, when your customers have seen what you have to offer and they’ve checked out the competition, they decide to go ahead with their purchase. To facilitate this, you’re going to need an online payment form. Online forms ensure that your customers can safely enter their credit or debit card details to purchase whatever you have to offer.

Most payment processing companies like PayPal, Square, and Stripe come with payment forms included, so you can easily embed them into a website in minutes. However, there’s always the option to customize those payment forms.

For instance, ideally, you’ll need a payment form that keeps your customer on the same page, so they don’t have to log into another browser to make their purchase. The fewer transitions your client has to make, the safer they’ll feel.

How to Design a Great Payment Form

When designing any payment form, simplicity and security are the two most important factors. Your customer should be able to enter their information quickly and easily and get through the transaction process without worrying about their details.

Remember to:

  • Keep it simple: The fewer fields the visitor has to fill out, the better. Customers still feel uncomfortable sharing personal information and payment details online. Make the experience as painless as possible. If your client already has an account with your business, you might create a system that automatically fills some of the fields, such as their email address, name, and billing address. 
  • Offer the right integrations: The proper payment forms will integrate with the payment services your customers prefer to use. Options include PayPal, Stripe, Square, Verified by Visa, and Mastercard. Get a developer to integrate the right APIs with your form to give your customers the broadest range of options. 
  • Ensure security: Give customers peace of mind by providing as much security evidence as possible. An SSL certificate that places the padlock on the top of the browser next to the URL is a great way to make customers feel more secure. Integrating verification options so your customers can avoid fraud issues is another significant step. Sometimes just putting logos from the card types you accept on the page will make a customer feel more secure. 

Support Forms

Some companies bundle the contact form and the support form together. Others have a separate support form to get their queries routed directly to the people most capable of helping them. If you want to take the second route, it might be a good idea to design a “help” section on your website where you can locate the support form.

The “Help” section on a site often appears alongside other links on the footer. For instance, it could appear alongside “About” links and “Contact” options. Here’s an example of Hubspot’s Customer Support options:

The best customer support pages come with various ways for clients to help themselves and find answers to their most pressing questions. For example, you might have a search bar where your audience can search for the answers to their queries or a knowledge base full of helpful blogs.

Hubspot allows users to choose between a blog, knowledge base, academy training center, community forum, developer discussion board, and assistance from a certified partner.

How to Design a Great Customer Support Form

Designing a good customer support form is about getting your audience the information they need as quickly as possible. Once again, you’ll need to stick to as few form fields as possible here to avoid angering an already frustrated customer. Also, remember to:

  • Ask for the right information: Find out what the query is about by giving the customer a drop-box menu full of possible topics to choose from. If you need a product reference number or something similar, ask for that at the top of the form, then allow the customer to provide extra information about their query underneath. 
  • Set expectations: Let your customers know when they can expect to get a response to their concerns and provide them with advice on what to do next. For instance, you could invite them to check out your knowledge base while they wait for a response. 
  • Keep it simple: Avoid using technical jargon on your support request forms. Be direct in your requests for summaries of the issue at hand, contact information, and other supplemental data. 

Customer Feedback Forms

According to Microsoft, around 96% of customers say that customer service is crucial in determining their loyalty to a specific brand. Another 52% of global customers believe that companies need to respond to the feedback provided by customers.

To ensure your customer service strategies are on-par with what your customers expect, you need to get feedback from your audience. That’s where a feedback form comes in. Customer feedback forms often appear after a client has finished purchasing on the “thank you” screen. They may also occur after a customer has completed a service interaction online.

Here’s an example of an Apple feedback form:

How to Design a Great Customer Feedback Form

By leaving you feedback, your customer is doing you a massive favor. They’re giving you a chance to learn from your mistakes and improve the service you can give next time around. Feedback is one of the best tools for any business that wants to grow and thrive.

If you want your customers to use your feedback forms, you’ll need to make them as simple as possible. Your customers don’t have time to waste on a complex form.

  • Don’t make any fields mandatory: Don’t stop your customers from submitting a form unless they’ve completed every field. Allow them to enter the information they consider to be the most important, and that’s it. You can even fill some of the form out for your customer, if possible, by entering their name and email address if they’re already a member of your site.
  • Make it mobile responsive: Remember there are around 3.5 billion smartphone users worldwide. You can’t afford to lose feedback because your form isn’t responsive. Every form should look and feel incredible on any device. 
  • Include a rating option: If your customers don’t have much to say about your service, or they’re not wordsmiths, they might prefer a rating option instead. A one-to-five rating system that allows your customer to judge your product or service on a scale of poor to wonderful is a great way to gain quick information. Check out the Uber Engineering example here:

Though you can pre-enter some information on a feedback form to make your customer’s life easier, don’t overstep your bounds. Adding your customer’s email address to the form is fine if they’re already a customer with you. Pre-selecting the “very satisfied” rating above would look presumptuous.

Top Tips to Improve Every Form Design

The online form is an essential part of any web design project, but it’s also frequently overlooked. Unfortunately, without a good set of forms, your customers will struggle to interact with your company in a meaningful way.

When creating any form, remember:

  • Reduce friction: Reduce the friction for your customers by asking as few questions as possible. The less your customer has to answer, the better. If you can pre-populate forms with information like your customer’s name and email address, this could help. 
  • Keep it simple: Make sure that the form is clean and easy to use. Your customers shouldn’t be confused about where to click or how to submit their information. A single-column design is often better than a multi-column option.
  • Be clear in error messages: Don’t just tell your visitors that something has gone wrong. Let them know what they need to do to submit the form successfully. If possible, use inline validation with real-time feedback to let your audience know that you recognize the information they’ve submitted.
  • Keep data secure: Make sure your audience feels safe by letting them know how you will use this information and why you’re asking for it. If you’re asking for an email address, make the benefits of entering that information clear. 
  • Make fields optional: Allow your audience to add more information to a form if they want to – but don’t demand it. Give some freedom to the visitor. 

The better your forms are, the more effective your interactions with customers will be. Remember, it’s not just the face-to-face interactions that your customers judge when making decisions about your business and whether to trust you. Today’s digital world has prompted a new demand for more meaningful virtual experiences.

Your form could be the first interaction you have with a client, whether it’s a contact form, a booking form, or something else entirely. Get that right, and you can improve your chances of your customers coming back to interact with you again later.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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According to Klipfolio research, users spend on average 52 seconds on a webpage. With minimal time to impress, you must consider how to best help your consumers understand what your product or service does and why they should care about it. It’s not enough to describe your value – great landing pages will go the extra step and show this as well.

One powerful method to do this is by providing a real-life, responsive teaser to show what your product looks like, how it works, and what value it can create. This means incorporating specific elements from your functional, responsive product into the landing page. However, this should be a “mini-product experience” that users can experiment with rather than a freemium version of your product. If done well, the dynamics will pay off in captivating users for longer, increasing their consideration time, and driving your conversion rate as a result.

Building more dynamic landing pages through product experience can change the game completely. These are some strategies to consider.

“Ask & Alter” for Greater Personalization

“Ask & alter” is valuable for services with multiple potential value propositions for different audiences. The simple fix here is to have a pop-up box that asks the visitor which profile they are (and alternatively a few more questions). You can then trigger the page to alter according to their input, ensuring a more customized experience and increasing their chance of conversion. By doing this, you’re taking the onus off the consumer to figure out what’s relevant to them, eliminating any potential confusion.

A great example of this is the Penn Foster University website. It has a developed UX optimized for organizations, high school degree seekers, and upskillers alike. Each has an entirely different, carefully designed interface, matching the diverse needs of visitors. For example, while a high schooler might enjoy browsing the career pathways section, an upskiller is likely to search specific career fields. Such distinction is key to consider, as intentional and strategic user experience can raise conversion rates by as much as 400%.

Real-Time Demos to Hook the User

Real-time demos mean that you take a full instance or version of your product that is clickable and responsive and embed it into the flow of your landing page. This way, the user can get a quick “test drive,” and you easily communicate the value that would otherwise be abstract or difficult for the user to imagine or even visualize. Additionally, users always want to know how a product could personally impact them, and live demos offer them a hands-on experience.

Companies incorporating live demos have proven the power to engage a user’s curiosity and create a strong link with their products or services. Notion, for instance, uses a “templates” section with pre-built pages that can be easily opened and browsed through without needing to register or download anything. This product’s beauty lies in the simplicity and efficiency it offers, rather than overwhelming a user with a self-promotional copy. Even a simple live demo like that can help build considerable trust in the product and encourage users to make a high-value purchase.

Calculators Provide Value

Despite their simplicity, calculators can increase audience engagement by 38%. Their main benefit is undoubtedly providing a personalized solution to users’ actual needs and expectations. ROI and savings calculators can be particularly interesting, especially when they speak of value that isn’t easy to calculate or when the user wouldn’t intuitively know that there are savings to be had by using a particular product.

Butter Payment, uses this tool very effectively. As its customers necessarily don’t know they have an involuntary churn problem that is worth solving for, it uses a calculator on its site to demonstrate the problem and enumerate the value-add to potential customers.

HubSpot, too, has mastered the tool: Its Ad ROI Calculator visually presents the results that its software can bring. Then, HubSpot’s interactive website grader directs the user towards its comprehensive marketing offerings. It is this graphic visualization that companies must adopt to communicate real value.

The Charm of Experiential Interaction

Interactive design is said to drive the responsiveness and real-time interaction of a site through the roof. By incorporating an interactive or experiential page, even if it’s not directly on your landing page, you can craft a unique experience aimed at leaving a lasting, meaningful impression of your product or service.

Calm’s “Do Nothing for two minutes” is a simple yet effective way to show users the value of meditation in their daily life and lead them to download the app.

But it works great for consumer products, too: Nike’s Digital Foot Measurement tool is another excellent feature, allowing users to “try shoes on” with their cameras and scan their feet for the right measurement through AR.

Videos are Attention Magnets

Considering that viewers absorb some 95% of the message while watching videos, compared to only 10% when reading text, there’s no reason why you should avoid incorporating videos into your landing pages. Beyond that, videos can be incredibly straightforward: Insert a graphic illustration or real imagery to explain the product, show the step-by-step process, and convey value with raw, unfiltered footage.

Calendly, for example, has various videos on its landing page, including a 56-second, upbeat, colorful clip showing how simple it is to get started with the product.

Guiding GIFs to Visualize Product Features

As small animations, GIFs represent the perfect middle ground between images and videos. They allow you to show users the value your product adds, providing an engaging glimpse into the actual interface. The small scope of GIFs is both a limitation and a benefit: You can only show a particular feature of your product but can also focus on triggering an exact user emotion.

Grammarly, a grammar correction tool, relies on GIFs to give users a taste of their UX. With a quick overview of the product’s functionality across popular platforms, including email and social media, users can see exactly how the product can make their everyday lives easier. And by incorporating GIFs into the right side of the landing page, the scrolling experience of the user isn’t disrupted.

Interactive product experiences can both entertain and tackle pain points, adding dynamics to an otherwise static page. Particularly when customizing based on user attributes, the key benefit of these features is that the users engaging with them are likely the same people interested in the paid product. To ensure that the product experience doesn’t directly compete with the primary offering, clearly differentiate it and guide the user towards a direct call to action.

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