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Exciting New Tools For Designers, October 2021

There are some spook-tacular finds in this month’s October collection of resources and tools for designers and developers. From interesting tools that can help in the design process to boo-tiful typefaces, there’s something for everyone here.

Here’s what is new for designers this month…

Atropos

Atropos is a lightweight, open-source JavaScript library to create touch-friendly, three-dimensional hover effects. The results are stunning and have a nice parallax style. Everything is highly configurable and customizable. It’s available for JavaScript, React, and Vue.js and has zero dependencies.

CSS Gradient Editor

CSS Gradient Editor helps you create the perfect gradient style – you can start from presets – that you can use in projects. Design a background, fill, or almost any other gradient element you might need, make adjustments or customizations, and then get the CSS with one click so you can use it right away.

Octopus.do

Octopus.do is a fast visual sitemap builder that lets you work in real-time using the content brick method. Share and collaborate in real-time and there’s no signup required to use it.

Pirsch Analytics

Pirsch Analytics is a privacy-friendly, open-source alternative to Google Analytics — lightweight, cookie-free, and easily integrated into any website or directly into your backend. It includes filters to see metrics in the way you want and light and dark modes.

Basic Pattern Repository

Basic Pattern Repository is a collection of simple SVG patterns for projects. Everything is rooted in a simple style to help push projects along quicker. You can get it via GitHub or as a Figma Library.

Blobr

Blobr is a way to get a branded API portal, manage access, and monitor usage all in one place. Customize everything to fit your brand and the tool grows as you do with the ability to increase or change capacity. Plus, it is easy to set up and free to use.

HEXplorer

HEXplorer helps you better understand something you use all the time – HEX colors. This pen by Rob DiMarzo shows how the values for different colors come together to provide greater comprehension when it comes to this color format.

CCCreate

CCCreate is a curated collection of tools and resources for web creators. It includes some tools that have been around for a while as well as some newbies. Everything is grouped and sorted by type of resources – color, icons, type, layouts, animation, shapes, docs, and miscellaneous so you can find what you are looking for faster.

Glass

Glass is a photo-sharing app for photographers. It’s a social network of sorts that lets you share images with the greater photography community without “likes.” Just great images.

Revolt

Revolt is a chat app that’s still in beta and designed for easy communication without having to download apps. It’s an open-source project that is customizable and with an intuitive and recognizable interface. The thing that’s different about this app is that it is built on a privacy-first model.

Doodle Ipsum

Doodle Ipsum is the illustrated version of placeholder elements. Customize your doodles, grab the code, and use them on your web prototypes, landing pages, or no-code tools.

Mechanic

Mechanic is an open-source framework that helps you create custom, web-based tools that export design assets in your browser. The best part is you can try it right on screen using the “poster generator.” If you like what you see, there’s plenty of documentation to help you along the way.

Medio Website Template

Medio is an agency-style website design template for Bootstrap 5. The layout is perfect for a design agency or marketing group but can be adjusted for almost any multi-purpose design. The free template includes a minimal design and includes features such as parallax, popup video, and more.

Tutorial: Simplifying Form Styles with Accent Color

This tutorial is a life-saver when it comes to using and understanding the new CSS accent-color property. This quick lesson will help make your life easier and is simple to use. It starts with setting an accent-color property on the root element and then applying it.

Houdini.how

Houdini.how is a worklet library that is full of CSS and code examples to help you work smarter. See how different elements look cross-browser and learn to adjust the code and put them together in just the way you want. Houdini is a set of low-level APIs that exposes parts of the CSS engine, giving developers the power to extend CSS by hooking into the styling and layout process of a browser’s rendering engine.

Chainstarters

Chainstarters is a powerful, rapid, Web3-enabled platform for software developers. It eliminates the burden of setting up and maintaining a secure and scalable infrastructure, allowing you to focus on creating amazing technology.

Web Vitals Robot

Web Vitals Robot is a search optimization tool that monitors SEO metrics for you – so you can prevent your business from disappearing from Google.

Searchable

Searchable is a unified search tool that looks at local, cloud storage, and apps to find the files you are looking for. It returns results in a jiffy with previews so you don’t have to open every file to find what you are looking for.

Athlone

Athlone is a fun serif with lots of personality. The free demo version includes a limited character set for personal use only and the full version has everything you need for fun display or branding with this typeface.

Capitana

Capitana is a Geometric Sans typeface with humanistic proportions and open apertures. This means that all shapes are constructed from basic forms, the circle, triangle, and square, and are designed according to the classic proportions of the Roman Antiqua. Distinct ascenders and pointed apexes with deep overshoot give it a cool beauty and classic elegance. It includes 784 characters per style in nine weights from Thin to Black, it offers both light and extremely heavy weights for striking headlines.

Colours

Colours is a funky script with just enough texture to keep it interesting. The free version includes a partial character set and is for personal use only.

Flexible

Flexible is a variable typeface that includes 18 styles in the family. It’s made for creativity and display use. This typeface is made for experimenting because there are so many things you can do with this single family.

Singo Sans Serif

Singo Sans Serif is a simple and strong typeface that would make an excellent display option. The free version is for personal use only. Fun fact: Singo means Lion in Indonesia, which is where the name of this strong font comes from.

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The post Exciting New Tools For Designers, October 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

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11 octobre 2021/par Service comm.

7 Essential Design Tips for a Killer “About Us” Page

Actualités, Actualités

Creating an incredible brand experience for an end-user is about more than just designing the right home page or lining up a series of great product pages.

Effective website design conveys crucial information about a company, through everything from font styles, to image choices. Nowhere is this representation of brand identity more important than on the about page.

People frequently confuse the about page with the contact page or fail to leverage it correctly simply because they don’t know what to say. However, creating an about page that speaks to an audience can be immensely powerful.

What is an About Page?

The first step in designing a great about page is understanding the purpose of the space. This isn’t just a page on a website explaining what a company does.

The about page is an introduction to a company’s story, its brand essence, and personality.

Done correctly, this page will demonstrate a crucial sense of affinity between a business and its customers. It will highlight values that resonate with a customer and make it easier for clients to trust businesses.

The Yellow Leaf hammocks company starts its about page with a video.

As you scroll through the interactive site, you discover new elements of the company’s tale, including what prompted the birth of the business to begin with and the brand’s mission.

Yellow Leaf lets its visitors know what the company is all about by using authentic images of real people to external content and bold quotes.

There are even snippets from customer case studies for social proof.

About pages are relevant because they give customers a way to build a real human connection with a business. Harvard professors say that 95% of purchasing decisions are emotional; we don’t buy things just because we need them. Instead, we look for companies that we feel connections with to solve problems.

Using an about page to convey an attitude, personality, or just what makes a business special is how designers can ensure that end-users will care more about the business.

How to Make an About Page Stand Out

So, how do you make an about page stand out?

Since every company is different, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for everything. However, there are a few essential steps to consider as you move through the design process.

Here are some pro tips for successfully attracting attention with the about page…

Step 1: Decide What to Include

It’s tempting to assume that a complicated about page will lead to a stronger relationship between a brand and its customers. After all, the longer the story, the more the customer knows about the company – right?

While it’s essential to include plenty of valuable information in an about page, it’s also worth remembering that today’s customers are short on time. They don’t want to spend hours scrolling through one part of a website. Instead, they want access to quick, convenient snippets of information.

The Joseph Payton about page is effective because it cuts the story down into bite-sized chunks. Each piece of information highlights valuable insights for the customer. Plus, hand-drawn images and animations make the experience feel like you’re getting to know Joe on a deeper level.

Before you begin designing, ask yourself:

How much text does the page need? How much space does there need to be for copy? How can you spread the content out in a visually engaging way?
What sections should the page include? For example, does there need to be a link to the contact us page or a contact form somewhere?
How does the page connect to the rest of the website? For example, can you link to things like case studies and reviews with quotes to tie more of the website together?

Step 2: Make the Mission Statement Clear

In a world where emotion influences buyer behavior, clients and customers want to buy from companies they believe in. It’s not enough to have the right product or price point anymore. People want to know that they have a human connection with a business.

On some about pages, it’s difficult to pinpoint the real mission of the company. It seems like you have to scroll through endless paragraphs of text to make your own assumptions about what matters to the company. However, a well-designed about page puts this crucial info front and center.

For instance, on the Apptopia about us page, the subheading tells you everything you need to know about the brand. This heading instantly tells the audience whether it’s worth reading on to find out more.

The best about us pages often include a lot more than just a single sentence of text. But it’s worth pinpointing some of the essential details from these pages and drawing extra attention to them. A larger font or a different font color could be perfect for this purpose.

Alternatively, if it’s difficult to refine the company’s mission down into one message, it might be worth creating a whole segment at the top of the page dedicated to this information. That’s what the Toms shoe company does.

Step 3: Invest in the Right Trust Elements

People aren’t always sure who they can trust these days.

There are millions of websites out there and billions of companies. Not all of them are going to appeal to every customer. Since an about page is all about making a crucial human connection between a business and its client, it’s important to implement as much trust as possible.

The good news is that there are many trust elements you can embed into an about page to make it more reputable. Star ratings taken straight from companies like Trusted Reviews and Google are a great way to show that a company is already impressing its followers.

Quotes plucked from your customers or segments of case studies that you can place throughout the About Page copy is another great way to show your authenticity.

You could even take the same approach as Aja Frost here and embed genuine data and graphs into the about page.

One particularly helpful way to make a website’s about page more trustworthy without eating up too much space is to implement trust stickers. Badges that show all the right groups and regulators approve a company are a great start.

Even showcasing the logos of companies that the business worked for before on a slideshow could be an excellent opportunity to add depth to their authority.

Step 4: Convey Brand Personality

Brand personality is reflected in the tone of voice that a company uses for its content. You can see a company’s personality in the choice of colors it has on its website. It’s in the fonts that convey a message, and the videos, images, and other unique strategies that each business uses.

Although a brand personality needs to shine through in everything the company does, it’s imperative on the about page. This is the environment where a customer is getting to know a business for the first time. As a result, the consumer should instantly recognize what kind of brand archetype they’re working with.

Take a look at the Eight Hour Day about page, for instance. The first thing you see is a picture of two people laughing. That means you instantly get a sense of friendliness.

As you scroll through the page, you’re greeted by friendly, informal copy combined with bright colors and snippets of useful information. Everything feels comfortable and reassuring.

When you reach the bottom of the page, you find a bunch of data that makes the company seem more trustworthy. There are links to its social media pages and a partial client list showcasing brands like JCPenny, Wired, and Purina.

Using the right combination of font, copy, and imagery, this About page tells you exactly what to expect before you begin interacting with the company.

Step 5: Take Visitors on a Journey Through Time

Showing customers where a business is going with things like brand mission statements and values are great. However, it’s also worth giving people an insight into where a brand has already been.

Many of today’s shoppers aren’t comfortable buying from brands that haven’t spent much time in their chosen industry. They want to see that the people they’re working with have experience, heritage, and plenty of background knowledge.

What better way to demonstrate all of these things than with a timeline of accomplishments? Here’s an example of how Marshall showcases its history by mentioning various crucial historical milestones.

A timeline of events doesn’t have to be this complex, however. If you don’t want to overwhelm visitors with a wall of text, an actual timeline that offers quick and easy insights into what the business has done over the years could be a better option.

Another option could be to have a few key statements from the company’s timeline, then link out to a separate “History” page for people who want to find out more.

Step 6: Show the Human Side

People don’t buy from businesses; they buy from other people.

An about page isn’t just a chance to show customers what a company does. It’s also an introduction to the people behind that organization. Showcasing the team members that contributed to the growth and continued development makes that organization more attractive.

Obviously, if there are hundreds or thousands of employees in a team, you might not be able to mention them all on an about page. However, the page should generally include some insights into the c-suite and significant members of staff.

A selection of company photos is a good way to introduce your team. However, you can consider other options too. For instance, to maintain their unique brand, the Tunnel Bear team designed to draw their own bear icons that represented their personalities.

The design is adorable, and it’s a wonderful way to showcase what makes the company so unique. At the same time, using this kind of illustration means you can avoid the hassle of trying to get all of your business photos to look consistent.

Step 7: Show Values with Visuals

Finally, as we’ve mentioned frequently throughout this guide, an about page is an essential place to showcase the values of your business. These are the core principles that guide you in everything that you do. They help tell customers what matters most to you and prevent you from moving in the wrong direction.

However, you’re not restricted to highlighting your values through copy and nothing else. You can also introduce customers to the things that matter most to you through visuals too. Graphics or illustrations that highlight important aspects of your business are a great way to share information without relying too heavily on text.

Videos are another brilliant option, particularly if you have a lot to say but not a lot of time to say it in. That’s what Ben & Jerrys does.

You can also find a stream of “issues” the company cares about on the website too. This means that people can get more information on things like Democracy, Racial Justice, Fair trading, and what Ben & Jerry’s is doing about all of those things.

Visual elements like this are a great way to give an about page more pizazz. Plus, they appeal to people who want to learn about your company but don’t want to spend forever reading through the text.

Create Better About Pages

An about page shouldn’t be an afterthought.

It’s a crucial part of showcasing a company’s unique style and personality. Used correctly, these pages convey crucial information about everything a business stands for.

Use the tips above to give more meaning to your about page design, and remember to pay attention to how much your traffic and conversions evolve with every update you make. A better about page could even help you to drive more conversions.

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The post 7 Essential Design Tips for a Killer “About Us” Page first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

25 août 2021/par Service comm.

Designing UI for the Voice Era

Actualités, Actualités

The world of web design is incredibly dynamic. Every year, new trends and opportunities emerge, primarily driven by the arrival of modern technology.

In recent years, we’ve seen various updates to the web design landscape, such as the arrival of AR and VR solutions for making mixed media. Video content has increased in quality, while the demand for inclusivity and usability has transformed the way that we build everything from websites to apps.

Yet, for the most part, web design trends have continued to focus on the visual.

When we hear the word “interface,” we often think of the graphical user interface – the ultimate way to connect users with sites. However, now we have a new, more natural way for customers to interact with their digital tools… The era of voice is here.

Designing for the Age of Voice

The technology sector has made incredible progress in the development of things like Automated Speech Recognition and Natural Language Understanding.

Thanks to updates in the way that machines process and understand human language, voice recognition accuracy is now at 90% and above. More than ever before, users can speak to a smart assistant, speaker, or phone-based application, and get the results that they’re looking for without error.

The simplicity of communicating with technology via voice means that users have adopted this technology at an incredible pace. Half of all searches will be made with voice by the end of this year.

We’re standing on the edge of a fundamental shift in the way that we interact with computers and critical tools. As designers and developers, we need to be ready to embrace this new medium.

With that in mind, here’s what designers need to think about when designing for voice UI.

1. Decide How to Experiment with Voice

There are various steps involved in making a website more “conversational.” One of the first steps for any designer or developer is to think about the kind of voice-based interactions they’re going to enable for an app or website.

For instance, rather than embedding voice technology into a website, you might decide to create a separate Amazon Alexa “Skill” for devices like the Echo. Companies like Capital One have already invested in this technology so that users can ask their smart speaker about their balance, rather than opening a laptop and logging into the site.

To determine what kind of voice experiences you should be creating for your client, work with them on a customer journey map. Using this map of interactions that the customer has with your client on a regular basis, you can highlight areas where voice interactions might fit into the user flow.

For instance, if customers are constantly asking questions about a brand or its service, an FAQ page that’s equipped with a bot that can respond to voice queries could be an excellent choice.

UI design should always solve problems. Examining the frictions and frustrations that your client’s end-users encounter during their journey will help you to decide which direction to take with your voice UI experience.

2. Examine the Anatomy of Voice Commands

Before designers can create a dialog flow for their voice UI, they need to understand how voice commands work. The key to success in a successful design for voice is understanding the objective of the interaction. A voice consists of three crucial factors for designers to consider:

Intent: Intent represents the subject and context of the voice command. A high utility interaction involves a request for a specific task. For instance, your users might request that your app gives them a list of five-star hotels in a specific area. Designing for these requests is often straightforward because what the voice algorithm needs to do is clear. However, low-utility requests can be harder to decipher, such as “hotels near me,” because there’s less specificity for the bot to work with.
Utterance: Utterance refers to how a user phrases a command. For instance, in the case of looking for five-star hotels in Amsterdam, the customer might say “show me hotels,” or they might ask for “places to stay”. Designers must consider every variation of an utterance for their voice command UI.
Optional variables: This refers to the extra filters that your voice UI needs to be aware of. In the case of five-star hotels in Amsterdam, the descriptor “five stars” is optional. The optional input needs to overwrite default values and bring more detail to the search.

SideChef, for instance, is a voice-activated recipe app that offers narrated guidance to users and allows customers to search for recipes based on their specific needs. The app comes with a wide range of variables built-in, allowing users to customize their searches according to descriptors like “vegetarian” or “quick” meals.

3. Learn How to Prototype with Dialog Flows

Learning how to leverage a complex UI strategy like VUI takes time and practice. Prototyping designers will often have to think like scriptwriters, designing various dialog flows to suit the different needs of customers, and the numerous interactions they might face.

Dialog flows will outline:

Keywords that lead to the interaction
Branches that represent where the conversation might lead
Example dialogs for the user and the voice assistant.

Practicing your dialog flows with scripts that illustrate the back-and-forth between the voice assistant and user will help designers and developers to understand the various nuances that can appear in a customer to robot interaction.

Remember, while a crucial part of good voice UI design is keeping the communication conversational and straightforward, you will need to ensure that there is a dialog flow in place for every discussion that may occur between end-users and their apps, website, or digital tools. Users don’t want to feel overloaded and overwhelmed, but they need to ensure that they can complete their tasks too.

Consider the voice-based game RuneScape: One Piercing Note, for instance.

The developers behind this app allowed players to speak with other in-game characters and use commands like “pull the lever” or “open the chest.” In designing the playable components of the game, the designers needed to think about every possible interaction that a player might have with different parts of the story while ensuring that users didn’t stray off track.

A Few Tips for Voice UI Design

Voice UI design can be very complex, mainly if you’ve never created something using voice as your only input before. However, once you get used to creating dialog flows, the whole process starts to feel a lot easier.

As you’re designing, remember to:

Always confirm when a task is complete: When designing a checkout flow for an eCommerce page, one of the most crucial screens for a designer is the confirmation page. It shows the customer that the transaction has successfully been completed and stops them from worrying whether they’ve done the right thing. The same concept applies to Voice UI design. If your client’s end-user asks a voice-activated app to book an appointment with their therapist, for instance, they want to know that the appointment has been successfully booked and added to their calendar. Determine how you’re going to deliver the peace of mind your customers need.
Create a strong strategy for errors: Designers and developers are still in the very early stages of experimentation with voice UI. This means that there’s a good chance that something could go wrong with your applications and tools from time to time. Having a strong error strategy in place is crucial. Always design a dialog flow scenario that allows the assistant to respond if they don’t understand a request, or don’t hear anything at all. You can also implement analytics into these situations to identify misinterpretations and improve usability in the future.
Add extra layers of security: Various Voice UI solutions like Google Assistant and Alexa can now recognize individual voices. This is a kind of biometric security that’s similar to face or touch ID. As voice recognition continues to improve, it’s essential to ensure that you’re adhering to the latest guidelines in security. Additional authentication may be required for some companies. For instance, passwords, face recognition, or fingerprints might be needed for things that require payments and transactions. For instance, the Duer voice assistant uses face recognition to both approve payments, and make meal recommendations based on previous purchases.

Are You Ready for the Voice UI Revolution?

Voice-based user interfaces are here to stay.

In the years to come, the chances are that developers and designers will need to learn how to use voice more consistently as part of their interface strategies.

The good news is that although voice takes some getting used to as a design tool, it’s easy enough to make sure that your projects are moving in the right direction. Just like any other kind of design, implementing voice means thinking about whether the interactions and experiences that you’re delivering to end-users are seamless, effective, and valuable.

Succeeding in voice UI isn’t just about adding the capacity for voice into your designs. It’s a matter of learning how to make user’s lives easier with the power of voice.

Featured image via Unsplash.

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13 août 2021/par Service comm.

Leveraging OLAP for Advanced Analytics on Your Data Warehouse With SSAS

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) is used to create high-level aggregated views of data, allowing users to quickly create dynamic reports and dashboards to centralize business measurable values like Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

In this article, we’ll cover how a user continued their analytics in SSAS after transferring terabytes of data into a Snowflake data warehouse.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

12 août 2021/par Service comm.

Making Your Mark: 6 Tips for Infusing Brand Essence into Your Website

Actualités, Actualités

What makes a company special? There are hundreds of organizations out there selling fast food, but only one McDonalds. You’ve probably stumbled across dozens of technology companies too, but none of them inspire the same kind of loyalty and commitment as Apple. So why do people fall in love with some companies more than others?

Most of the time, it comes down to one thing: brand essence. Your brand essence, or brand identity, represents all of the unique components of your business that separate it from the competition. It’s not just about your logo or the brand colors you choose for your website. Your brand essence entails all of the visual assets you use and those less tangible concepts like brand values and personality.

When your customers decide which companies to buy from, they’re not just looking for another dime-a-dozen venture with the cheapest products. Instead, your audience wants to buy from a business that they feel connected with. That’s where your brand comes in.

Infusing brand essence into your website helps give your digital presence that extra touch that differentiates you from other similar companies.

So, how do you get started?

What is Brand Essence?

Your brand essence is a collection of core characteristics responsible for defining your brand. More than just a single asset, your essence encompasses everything from your unique tone of voice, from your brand image, your message, and even what you stand for.

More than just a single asset, your essence encompasses everything

When you’re trying to boost your chances of sales, a brand essence helps build a kind of affinity with your customers. Your clients see aspects of your character that they can relate to, such as a modern and playful image or a commitment to sustainable practices. It’s that affinity that convinces your customer to choose your company instead of your competition time after time.

Your website is one of the first places that your customer will visit when looking for answers. They might happen across your site when searching for a key phrase on Google or stumble onto it from social media. When they arrive on your product or home page, everything there should help them make an immediate emotional connection.

The only problem?

It’s challenging to portray a unique brand identity through a standard website template. If your site looks the same as a dozen other online stores, how can you convince your customers that you’re better?

Why Your Website Needs Brand Essence

First impressions are a big deal.

In a perfect world, your visitors would land on your website and instantly fall in love with what they find there. So everything from the unique design of your homepage to the pictures on your product pages should delight and impress your audience.

Unfortunately, if just one element is wrong, then you could also make the wrong impression entirely on your customers too. Adding elements of brand essence to your site will:

Build trust with your audience: Your brand should be a consistent component of everything your business does, from selling products to interacting with customers. When your consumers land on your website, everything from your logo to your chosen colors should remind them of who you are and what you stand for. This consistency will lead to better credibility for your business.
Make you stand out: How many other companies just like yours are on the internet today? Your brand essence helps to differentiate you as special by showing what’s truly unique about you. It’s a chance to remind your audience of your values and make them forget all about your competitors.
Create an emotional connection: Brand essence that shows off your unique values, mission, and personality will help create an emotional link with your audience. Remember, people fall in love with the human characteristics behind your brand!

Easy Ways to Add Brand Essence to your Website

Since there are so many elements that add up to a strong brand essence, there are also a variety of ways you can add your brand to your website. Whether it’s using specific colors to elicit an emotional response from your fans or adding your unique tone of voice into content, there’s no shortage of ways to show off what makes you special.

1. Use Your Brand Colors Carefully

Brand colors are an important part of your brand essence. Walk into Target, and the bright shades of red will instantly energize you. Likewise, when you see a McDonalds, that golden arch logo might instantly remind you of joy and nourishment.

Color psychology plays a significant role in every brand asset you create, from the packaging you choose for your products to the shades in your logo. With that in mind, you should be using your colors effectively on your website too. Stick with the same selection of shades in every digital environment online.

For instance, the Knotty Knickers company uses different shades of pink and white to convey feelings of femininity and comfort. Not only is the website packed with this color, but the company also follows through with similar shades on its social media pages too.

Everything from the highlights on the Knotty Kickers Insta to the decorations in their images feature the soft tones of pink that make the company recognizable.

Remember, consistent use of color is psychologically proven to help improve recognition by up to 80%. So let your colors shine through.

2. Know Your Type

Your colors are just one component of your brand essence.

Fonts and typography are other components that your customers use to recognize and understand your business. There are many different styles of font, and new ones appear all the time. However, your company should have a specific selection of fonts that it uses everywhere.

If you have a typeface logo, then you might have one specific kind of font for this, like Original Stitch’s logo here:

On top of that, you may also use one font for the “heading” text on your website and something slightly different for the body text. Your heading and body text need to be extremely clear and easy to read on any device if you want to appeal to your target audience.

However, there’s more to getting your fonts right than choosing something legible. The fonts you pick need to say something about your company and what it stands for. For example, the modern sans-serif font of Original Stitch’s website conveys a sense of forward-thinking cleanliness and style.

The fonts feel trendy and informal, perfect for a luxury fashion company. Alternatively, a serif font like Garamond might look more formal and professional. So what do you want your customers to think and feel when they see your typography?

3. Know Your Images

Stock images look out-of-touch, cliché, and fake. If you cover your website in images like that, then you’re not going to earn the respect of your customers. Instead, it’s up to you to ensure that every graphic on your website conveys the sentiment and personality of your brand.

Bringing your brand essence into your website design means thinking about how you can convey your values in every element of that site. From the photos of your team that show the real humans behind your products and services to the pictures that you use on your product pages, choose your graphics wisely. If you have dedicated brand colors, you can even include these in your photos.

Of course, the most valuable graphic on your website should always be your logo. This is the thing that you need to include on all of your website pages to ensure that your audience knows who they’re shopping with. So ensure that no matter how much visual content you have on your page, your logo still stands out.

Firebox places its logo at the top of the page in the middle of your line of sight, no matter where you go on the website. This ensures that the logo is the thing that instantly grabs attention and reminds consumers of where they are.

Remember to ensure that each of the images you do include in your website is surrounded by plenty of white space so that your customers can see them properly too.

4. Use the Right Tone of Voice

It’s easy to get stuck focusing on things like logos and colors when you’re trying to make your brand essence shine through in your website. However, one of the most common things that your customer will recognize you by is your tone of voice.

Your brand tone of voice is what gives the content you share online personality and depth. It can come through in the kind of words you use, including slang and colloquialisms. In addition, you can add humor to your voice (if it’s appropriate) and even include emojis if that makes sense for your brand.

With formal words, you can make sure that you come across as reliable, dependable, and sophisticated. With informal words, you’re more likely to convince your audience that you’re friendly and relatable. Sticking with the Firebox example, look at how the company writes its product descriptions.

Everything from the length of the sentences to the humor in the tone of voice helps to convey something unique about the brand.

Like all of the elements that bring your brand essence into your website, your tone of voice must remain consistent wherever your customers see it. Make sure that your customer service agents know how to use your voice in chat with customers and that you include that personality on social media too.

5. Focus on Your Message

The tone of voice and personality that you showcase in your website and content is crucial to driving success for your business. However, under all of that, the most important thing to do is ensure you’re sending the right message. In other words, what do you want your customers to think and feel when they land on your website?

If your whole message is that you can make great skincare easy to obtain without asking people to compromise on animal safety, this should be the first thing that comes across when someone arrives on your homepage. That’s why Lush combines clean, simple web pages with credibility-boosting badges that tell customers everything they need to know instantly.

Ensuring that your message can come across correctly means learning how to use all the different brand assets you rely on consistently and effectively. Everything from the colors on your website to how you place trust badges along the bottom of every page makes a difference to how significant and believable your message is.

Notably, when you know what your core message is, it’s important to repeat it. That means that you don’t just talk about what your ideals and values are on your homepage. You also include references to your message on every product page and the “About” page too. Lush has an entire “ethical charter” on its website, where you can learn more about its activities.

Having a similar component included within your web design could be an excellent way to confirm what your most crucial considerations are for your customers.

6. Never Copy the Competition

Exploring other website designs and ideas created by your competitors is one of the easiest ways to get inspiration. Competitive analysis gives you an insight into the trends and design strategies that are more likely to work for your target audience. It’s also an opportunity for you to learn from your competitors’ wrongs and what they’re doing right.

However, it would be best if you never allowed your initial research and exploration to go too far. In other words, when you see something great that your competitor is doing, don’t just copy and paste it onto your own website. This is more likely to remind your customers of the other company and send them to that brand than it is to improve your reputation.

Instead, focus on making your website unique to you. If you’re having trouble with this, then start by looking at your About page. How would you describe your background and your mission as a business to someone who has never heard of you before? What makes your company different from all of the other organizations out there?

Take the unique features that you rave about on your About page and the personality you try to convey through your employees and bring it into the rest of your website design. The whole point of bringing brand essence into your web design strategy is that it helps to differentiate you from the other companies out there.

It’s a good idea to protect any assets that other people might try to steal from you too. Copyrighting your logo, your name, and other essential components of your brand will stop people in your industry from treading on your toes too much.

Make the Most of Your Brand Essence

Your website is one of the most valuable tools that you’ll have as a brand. It’s an opportunity for you to share your products and services with the world, capture the attention of your target audience, and potentially make sales too. However, it’s important not to forget that your website is also a chance for you to demonstrate what your brand is truly all about.

Through your brand essence, you can share the unique values and messages that make your company special. But, more importantly, you can use those components to build a deeper relationship with your audience – the kind of connection that leads to dedicated repeat customers and brand loyalty. People connect with other people – after all, not just faceless corporations.

Once you’ve identified your brand essence, the next step is to make sure that you know how to connect with your customers consistently. Every aspect of your website, application, social media pages, and anything else you make for your business sends the same message.

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22 juillet 2021/par Service comm.

I Love Typography Launches Font Store

Actualités, Actualités

There is no shortage of places to buy fonts online, but the quality of what is on offer is variable, and the way of searching catalogs has remained largely unchanged since the first stores appeared decades ago.

I Love Typography — a popular source of news about typography and type design since 2007 — has stepped into the marketplace, starting by inviting some of the world’s top designers to contribute to its new store, resulting in 40 foundries joining the project and 15 new type families available at launch.

ILT’s boldest move is to step away from the traditionally shallow type categories and attempt to devise a system that drills down into the nuances of type design, all to aid discovery.

The approach is named CEDARS+, which is a method of describing the formal characteristics of a (mainly Latin) typeface based on the characteristics of the marks if made by a writing tool such as a pen or chisel.

CEDARS+ can be broken down as follows:

Contrast: the difference between the thickest and the thinnest strokes in a character. Permissible values range from ‘none’ through ‘medium’ to ‘extreme.’
Energy: the visual energy in the letterform. Values range from ‘calm’ to ‘lively’ and ‘very high.’
Details: with several sub-categories, details is a catch-all category that covers aspects such as how strokes end and intersect.
Axis: the angle at which the tool would be held to create the form. Axis uses degrees, with 90 degrees being a vertical axis.
Rhythm: covers both the tightness or looseness of letters varying from ‘very tight’ to ‘very loose, and the difference in width between the narrow and wide letters varying from ‘highly regular’ to ‘highly irregular.’
Structure: another catch-all category that covers the structure of loops with values such as ‘triangular’ and ‘oval,’ and the general construction, which can be ‘formal,’ ‘cursive,’ ‘organic,’ ‘layered,’ ‘stencil,’ or ‘modular.’
+: the plus covers several characteristics that don’t fit neatly into an acronym, including the shape of crossbars, and single or double storey ‘a’s and ‘g’s.

With a way to browse font families that is based on the feel of the design, rather than popularity (or alphabetical order!) ILT hopes to expose lesser-known designs and designers, and to encourage more creative typography on the web.

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30 juin 2021/par Service comm.

3 Ways to Design More Inclusively

Actualités, Actualités

Inclusive design is often mistaken for accessibility, or even used as an interchangeable term, which is a good indication that most designers don’t know what it means.

Accessibility is a process that seeks to mitigate issues in a design that is not sufficiently universal; inclusive design increases the universality of the design. In real-world terms, an accessible building may replace its front steps with a ramp; an inclusive building is constructed at the same level as the sidewalk.

Accessibility is concerned with objective, measurable improvements. It’s a UI concern. Inclusive design is subjective, more difficult to measure, and is a UX concern. By designing inclusively, we extend our designs to the widest possible user group and contribute to a better society. Here are three ways to get started.

1. You’re the Edge Case

When designing, it’s normal to assume that we are normal. After all, we are the center of our experience of the world. Everything from our preferences to our empathy stems from our individual place in time and space.

When we use the term “edge case,” what we’re referring to is a minority experience, a way of using our design that is uncommon or distinct from our own expectations.

But what would happen if we treat ourselves as the edge case? What if all of the experiences that we deem to be minority experiences are actually the core, common user experience of our design?

If we start from the position that we are the one out-of-step with the design, that most people will not think or act as we do, then we’re eliminating thousands of biased decisions about how our design should be.

Draw From Life

It has always surprised me that in Europe’s dark ages — ranging from the decline of the Roman empire to the Proto-Renaissance — it didn’t occur to anyone to draw from life. Artists drew things the way they thought they should look, which is why so many Byzantine icons of the infant Jesus look like a middle-aged blonde man that has been shrunk.

It’s important to draw from real life as much as possible. That means abandoning personas — which are by definition under-representative and frequently loaded with bias — and engaging with actual users. Most of all, it means taking a step back and opening your eyes.

2. Stop Making Inclusive Design Part of Your Practice

Inclusive design cannot be a part of your practice; it’s an all-encompassing attitude. Your design practice must be inclusive. At least, it should aspire to be…

As human beings, we are biased—all of us. The reason for that is that bias — be it racism, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, or anything else — is cultural. And we all exist within society. We’re all bombarded with information that reinforces those biases every day.

Accept that you have biases and that your biases will pull your design work away from the inclusive solution you aspire to. But equally, accept that by acknowledging your biases you’re limiting the influence they have over your decision-making.

Do Not Require Users to Self-Identify

It’s divisive and abusive to partition users into groups, especially when the act of doing so perpetuates bias.

One of the most encouraging developments of the last decade has been the introduction of the answer “prefer not to say” in response to personal questions about race, gender, status, and so forth. But if “prefer not to say” is a valid option, in other words if you don’t actually need to know, then why ask at all?

Beware Occam’s Razor

Occam’s Razor is an often misquoted idea that (to paraphrase) states that when making a decision, the one with the least assumptions is the correct choice.

The problem is that Occam’s Razor implies that there is a ‘correct’ decision. But in fact, inclusive design benefits most from a flexible UI and a high tolerance for deviation.

If you can identify the assumptions in a design decision sufficiently to count them, then you’re best served by testing, not comparing, those assumptions.

3. Design Flexibility Into Everything

There is no such thing as a “natural normal,” but there is “perceived normal.” Much of our behavior is governed by the experiences we’ve had since we were very young. Despite existing somewhere on a scale of ability and preference, most of us have inched towards what we have been told is a “normal” range all our lives.

However, it is a physiological fact that every characteristic exists somewhere on a spectrum. There are no black and whites; it’s all grey.

When we design a site or app, we tend to silo certain characteristics into one. Someone who is visually impaired is treated to the same ‘solution’ as someone who is blind, even though visual impairment can range from screen reflections on a sunny day to someone who was born without optic nerves.

There are people who have lost their sight through degeneration or accident and will be able to make visual connections based on remembered visuals. Other people have never seen anything and their conscious mental process isn’t figurative at all.

To accommodate the full gamut of possible interactions with our design, we need to design to a scale, not with absolute values. This means thinking less about set colors and sizes and more in terms of contrast and scale.

Avoid Communicating in Color

Few areas are more indicative of a spectrum of experiences than color.

Color is instantly problematic for designers because quite apart from color blindness, color has deeply personal associations.

Over the last couple of decades, it’s been repeatedly proven that it is contrast, not hue, that increases engagement. Green does not always mean go; red does not always mean stop.

Color involves so many biases and assumptions that it’s simply better to work with contrast than select the ‘right’ hue.

Bigger Typography (Sometimes)

In the first draft of this article, I wrote that increasing the scale of your typography was always good.

My rationale was that some users will benefit from larger type, and zero users will be hindered by it. But that’s not true. Larger type means fewer lines per viewport, which means more scrolling; not a problem for some users, but potentially an issue for those with motor control issues.

That was one of my biases right there.

Congratulations, You’re Now An Inclusive Designer

Good design is self-aware in origin and unselfconscious in execution.

Inclusive design isn’t about enabling access for everyone; it’s about designing for a user experience that is welcoming and respectful. Every one of your users should feel not just enabled but validated.

Inclusive design isn’t a series of items on a checklist; it’s an ideal, like harmony or beauty, that we may struggle to achieve but that we should strive for nonetheless.

Image via Pexels.

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16 juin 2021/par Service comm.

Leadership Is About Growth, Not Brilliance

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

Does it ever cross your mind that praise can be negative? I guess not. After all, it looks harmless and seems to be quite effective. Conventional wisdom says that if you praise people, they are motivated to do better.

People who have been praised throughout their life by their well-meaning parents, friends, and teachers for their talent and smartness or those who have experienced extreme focus on talent and smartness throughout their childhood learn to value only intelligence. No wonder when these people enter the workforce, they continue to seek approval and demand praise every step of the way.

Every opportunity is a measure of their intelligence — do I look smart, how will I be judged, what if others find my ideas dumb. With a single-minded focus on validating themselves, all their actions are rooted in establishing their worth. Every mistake hurts their reputation and every failure is a reflection of their competence. They care less about learning and more about proving themselves. Their sense of morality sometimes takes a hit as they resort to brutal behaviors — demeaning others by yelling, insulting, controlling, or taking undue credit — all in an attempt to boost their self-esteem.

Carol Dweck, professor of Psychology at Stanford University summarised this unfortunate reality from Morgan McCall’s book High Flyers:

People often like the things that work against their growth. . . . People like to use their strengths . . . to achieve quick, dramatic results, even if . . . they aren’t developing the new skills they will need later on. People like to believe they are as good as everyone says . . . and not take their weaknesses as seriously as they might. People don’t like to hear bad news or get criticism. . . . There is tremendous risk . . . in leaving what one does well to attempt to master something new.

What Do Organizations Do with Such People?

They feed and promote this mindset. They praise people for their brilliant ideas conveying the message “we value talent and smartness.” They shower people with rewards and bonuses for their achievements communicating to everyone else around “all we care about is success.”

What happens when these people take on a leadership role? Their mindset of valuing brilliance above everything else amplifies leading to disastrous results. History is full of leadership fiascos with great promises that turned out to be the biggest disasters. This article from Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker is as valid now as it was 18 years ago. Describing the talent mindset at Enron and the consultants at McKinsey who wandered the hallways at the company’s headquarters, he points out “They were there looking for people who had the talent to think outside the box. It never occurred to them that, if everyone had to think outside the box, maybe it was the box that needed fixing.”

He also talks about the impact of an environment that values innate talent and what happens when times get tough and that self-image is threatened “They have difficulty with the consequences. They will not take the remedial course. They will not stand up to investors and the public and admit that they were wrong. They’d sooner lie.”

Really, is praising people for their intelligence and achievements the only way to develop people who will be the leaders of tomorrow? Is there a better way out?

What if we praised people for their hard work, for their ability to persist despite failures and setbacks, for taking initiatives to build new skills, for standing up to their mistakes, for believing in their growth, and implementing the right strategies to overcome their shortcomings. What does this kind of praise tell them?

It tells them the value of effort in building abilities. It teaches them the importance of implementing the right strategies to solve problems. It encourages them to seek help to make progress on their task. It creates a passion for learning that’s not driven by the need to look smart, but with a desire to cultivate skills, to stretch themselves to grow.

When these people take on leadership positions, this mindset guides them to put the well-being of the company and its people before their own needs, to place value on teamwork over individual accomplishment, and to foster growth and development of their people.

As growth-minded leaders, they start with a belief in human potential and development — both their own and other people’s. Instead of using the company as a vehicle for their greatness, they use it as an engine of growth — for themselves, the employees, and the company as a whole.
– Carol Dweck

Unlike leaders who pull their companies down with their focus on brilliance, these leaders lead their companies into greatness and gratitude filled in their own hearts and those of the people around them.

Choose your praise carefully as you will see the tremendous benefits in praising for growth over brilliance.

When Leaders Focus on Brilliance

They live in a world of personal greatness and entitlement, vie for labels, and will do anything to boost their image. Instead of building a long-lasting company, they spend time and money on enhancing their image.

With the constant need for validation, they use people in the company to feed their egos and showcase their superiority. Everything is about pleasing the boss. They surround themselves with people who boost their self-esteem. Agreement earns them admiration and disagreement is an attack on their intelligence. Instead of hearing people out, they punish dissent and shut people down.

They pounce at the less talented for their lack of intelligence and find those who are more talented than they are as threatening. They mistreat employees, yell, insult, control and abuse them into their way of doing things. They feel better about themselves by making other people feel worse. Employees worry about being judged all the time. When people are ridiculed for mistakes, they soon learn to keep their heads down, stop putting their critical thinking skills to use, and give in to groupthink.

Their belief in their superiority blinds them to see reality. They turn a blind eye to complaints, ignore warning signs, and fire people who tell them what they don’t want to hear. Their decision-making criteria are based on what would make them look good as opposed to what’s good for the company long term.

What happens when a leader refuses to confront the brutal facts? “The minute a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts.
– Jim Collins

Since success and failure are a part of their identity — success means they are smart and failure means they are not — they find excuses and blame others for failures instead of taking personal responsibility. Instead of investing in the future growth of their company, they play safe with fear of failure, become less responsive to challenges from competition, go with what’s tried and tested, and refuse to take risks. Why take up the challenge that can hurt their reputation? On the other extreme, they may not shy away from crossing ethical boundaries to beat the competition at all costs. Success is what they are after and it doesn’t matter how they get it.

With more focus on talent and less on potential, they do not invest in mentoring and coaching employees. Instead of putting practices in place to develop employees and help them collaborate together, they make them compete against each other.

Carol Dweck sums up their brilliant mindset “My genius not only defines and validates me. It defines and validates the company. It is what creates value. My genius is profit. Wow!”

When Leaders Focus on Growth

They operate with a learning mode. They don’t claim to be genius but promise to invest in development, their own development, and the development of their people. The drive and enthusiasm to grow their companies make them adopt long-term strategies over short-term tactics. They aren’t in the game to boost their ego or establish their self-esteem. It’s the pure joy of shaping the future of their company that excites and motivates them. More than prestige, they are in it for the challenge.

They understand that the path to success goes through failure. Why lose the opportunity that can drive their future growth? So instead of hiding behind their failures, they face them head-on. Failures don’t define their competence, they are glaring moments of self-reflection. They are opportunities to build skills, explore possibilities, experiment, and invest in the promise of a better future.

They lead with vulnerability. They accept mistakes to shift the focus in the organization from hiding mistakes to finding solutions. When they don’t know something, instead of pretending to hide their ignorance, they say “I don’t know”. These three powerful words show humility and self-confidence. To make decisions, they invite others to share their opinion which promotes the culture of constructive criticism. Since they do not connect their identity to their opinion, more value is placed on seeking the right answers which require open disagreements and championing flexibility of opinion over their sense of righteousness.

Difficult situations make them uncomfortable, no doubt. Instead of letting their discomfort get in the way of meaningful conversations, they embrace it. They choose to look past their discomfort in the value that these discussions provide — saving a lot of time that can be wasted due to stress and anxiety that comes from misalignment of expectations and lack of clarity of purpose.

They are tough but compassionate. They do not shy away from giving critical feedback while also challenging the people in their organization to step outside their comfort zone. They empower people to make decisions with the right channels of feedback to assist in better decision-making in the organization.

Leaders with the growth mindset operate with what Lou Gerstner, who turned IBM’s fortunes around by saving it from near bankruptcy said “Hierarchy means very little to me. Let’s put together in meetings the people who can help solve a problem, regardless of position.” Not blinded by reality, they focus on finding solutions that will push their company forward. This requires keeping an open eye to change in market trends, identifying and investing in future growth areas, and taking calculated risks.

With a focus on potential and growth, they invest in identifying and building future skills of the organization — skills that will be useful during difficult circumstances giving them an advantage over the competition. They foster productivity through coaching and mentoring, place value on teamwork by encouraging collaboration and defining shared measures of success.

Warren Bennis, a scholar, author, and widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies, writes in Organizing Genius:

Leaders are people who believe so passionately that they can seduce other people into sharing their dream.

His most admirable view on leadership says:

Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organisation. When that happens people feel centred and that gives their work meaning.

What kind of leaders think like this — those focused on brilliance or the ones driven by growth?

Previously published here.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

5 juin 2021/par Service comm.

4 Body Language Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

Our Self-presentation skills far supersede our verbal communication

We speak more through our bodies than our words. The posture we assume, the expression on our face, hand gestures, and our eye movement conveys far more than we would like to expose.

A subtle smile in a meeting can indicate a willingness to engage in a dialogue, while a stern look can instantly kill the conversation. Constantly checking the phone or looking at the watch can signal disengagement, while focusing on the other person signals interest.

Rolling our eyes expresses distrust or disgust in another person’s idea or behavior, while our eyes light up when we are genuinely curious about others. Keeping head down while walking in the hallway shows a lack of presence while acknowledging people passing by through a simple nod creates warmth. A firm handshake to begin an interview can exude confidence and power, while a limp handshake can reveal nervousness and weakness.

These non-verbal cues form a part of our body language that speaks even when we are silent, revealing how we are thinking and feeling in the moment.

Olivia Fox Cabane who has lectured at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, MIT, and the United Nations says:

In the scope of human evolution, language is a relatively recent invention. But we’ve been interacting well before this through nonverbal modes of communication. As a result, nonverbal communication is hardwired into our brains, much deeper than the more recent language-processing abilities. This is why nonverbal communication has a far greater impact.

She then points out ‘Without our realizing it, our bodies send out thousands of signals every minute. Just like our breath and heartbeat, these signals are part of the millions of bodily functions controlled not by our conscious mind but by our subconscious mind.’

Understanding the power of our body language and the role it plays in workplace communication and collaboration can bring us together by adopting positive communication styles as opposed to setting us apart through bridges of misunderstanding.

Importance of Body Language in Communication

Our body language plays a key role in impression management, the art of influencing how we are perceived by others.

A positive body language can show our enthusiasm to contribute, confidence in our abilities, being comfortable in taking on challenges, passion to drive results, and present to recognize future demands. It can open a world of new possibilities.

A negative body language can send strong signals of our resistance to contribute, doubt of our abilities, uneasiness to take on challenges, indifferent and uncaring attitude towards outcomes, and disconnected from reality to be able to handle future potential. It can close doors to success and growth.

Maya Angelou said, ‘People may not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel.’

Since our emotions drive a large part of our decision-making, guess who will get the attention when a new project or a position opens up — a person who exhibited confidence in their body language or someone who looked like a nervous wreck?

Intelligence and brilliance are not enough to be successful at work. Our self-presentation skills far supersede our verbal communication.

The way you carry yourself is a source of personal power — the kind of power that is the key to presence. It’s the key that allows you to unlock yourself—your abilities, your creativity, your courage, and even your generosity. It doesn’t give you skills or talents you don’t have; it helps you to share the ones you do have. It doesn’t make you smarter or better informed; it makes you more resilient and open. It doesn’t change who you are; it allows you to be who you are. — Amy Cuddy

What happens when what we say is not in alignment with what we believe? We can lie through our words, but our bodies will reveal the truth. The non-verbal cues that we send through our body speak stronger than words.

Consider this. Someone approaches you with advice on a new strategy. Instead of expressing your true opinion, you simply nod in agreement. But, the tension around your eyes, the tone of your voice, and many other non-verbal cues can make the other person uncomfortable and leave them feeling unsure of your advice with the decision to never trust you again.

The idea is not to be inauthentic through your body language but to be aware of its implications.

Research shows that we form impressions about others within a few minutes of meeting them and then our confirmation bias guides us in picking data that confirms our point of view. Anything that strengthens our belief system is readily accepted and that which contradicts it is rejected.

Being aware of the role our body language plays in forming this impression can help us twist the outcome of an interview in our favor.

For someone in a leadership position, body language is extremely important since people in an organization mimic not only the way leaders talk but also pick on their non-verbal cues.

A leader with positive body language appears approachable, open to feedback and shows a willingness to change while a leader with negative body language appears inaccessible, closed to feedback, and arrogant to adapt and change with the future demands.

Amy Cuddy asks, ‘Our non-verbals govern how others think and feel about us, but do our non-verbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves?’

Absolutely. Mastering the art of non-verbal communication not only leads to better communication with others, but it benefits us too. Presenting our best self forward by adopting positive body language enables us to be the creator of our future as opposed to being a victim of other’s perceptions. It leads to more opportunities for growth with higher chances of success.

4 Body Language Mistakes and How to Fix Them

1. Mind Is Not Attuned to The Body

When our mind is not in congruence with our body, we may try to portray a state which is in conflict with our inner self by controlling our posture and expression on our face, but sooner or later this incongruence will show up in our body language.

A positive body language cannot keep up with the negative mental state — what goes up in our mind will show up in our body. Without our realization, these ‘microexpressions’ will be noticeable to the people around us.

Our body language expresses our mental state whether we like it or not. Our facial expressions, voice posture, and all the other components of body language reflect our mental and emotional condition every second. Because we don’t control this flow consciously, whatever is in our head will show up in our body language — Olivia Fox Cabane

How to Align Our Mind and Body:

Research shows that our mind cannot distinguish imagination from reality. So, whatever our mind believes, our body will project.

We can bring out the desired body language by catching ourselves in those moments of negative mental states — disagreement, insecurity, angst, frustration, anxiety, criticism, and self-doubt, and choosing to get into a positive one.

When you need to project confidence, seek inspiration.
When you feel angst due to a disagreement, ask yourself ‘What can I learn from the other person?’ and ‘How are my biases causing me to be closed-minded?’
When all you can see is negativity, choose to ask ‘What’s the one positive thing I can think about this situation.’
When self-doubt consumes you, tell yourself ‘I need to let go of my fears to create a better version of myself.’
When you exaggerate a negative outcome, ask yourself ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ and ‘Is it really that bad or am I making up stories?’

Adopting a positive frame of reference and moving from a problem to a solution mindset can help us shift gears from a negative internal state to a positive one.

2. We Do Not Make a Commitment to Be Present

‘Being present—paying attention to what’s going on rather than being caught up in your thoughts — can yield immense rewards. When you exhibit presence, those around you feel listened to, respected, and valued,’ explains Olivia Fox Cabane.

When we are not engaged in a conversation, consumed in our own thoughts, and pretend to listen, it clearly shows up in the non-verbal signals we send to the other person.

We may start fidgeting with our phone or laptop showing signs of distraction, look here and there instead of making eye contact signaling we are not interested in what they have to say and may even shift too many times in our position out of discomfort.

Without our awareness, our body language will convey disrespect and distrust to the other person.

How to Be Present:

You must commit to a conversation, even the brief ones, or walk away. If you’re too distracted, admit that to both yourself and the other person. Be present or be gone. — Celeste Headlee

It’s more polite to walk away from a conversation that doesn’t interest you than pretend to be present.

Once you decide to participate, you first need to convince and tell yourself that you want to be present. Say ‘I choose to be present,’ and then adopt body language that aligns with it — look at the other person with enthusiasm, lean just a little to build interest, and try to grasp what the other person intends to say.

You may occasionally drift away, but by choosing to be mentally present, you can bring your mind back to the conversation. Active listening though difficult is the most effective form of non-verbal communication that requires continuous practice and training of the mind.

3. We Ignore Context

When we talk to someone, their perception of us is based on the context of the meeting, their expectations, and their own personal and cultural filters.

Without recognizing that people operate within a certain context, we may send non-verbal signals that conflict with their values, contradicts their mental state, or even violates their sense of self.

How to Apply Context:

When engaged in a difficult conversation, without empathizing with how the other person might be feeling in the moment, we may appear cold, unemotional, and downright rude. By adopting kindness and warmth in our body language, we can convey the right message without necessarily making them feel bad.

When someone is passed up for a promotion, showing an attitude of indifference without understanding the value it holds in their life can make them resent you. Body language that shows presence and concern by giving them an opportunity to express their feelings can build better relationships.

When a co-worker is grieving a personal loss, you may appear too intrusive in your body language when all they need is space to let the feelings subside. It could be a personal preference or a cultural nuance, but without understanding their context you may actually do more harm than good.

When dealing with difficult people, your body language may switch to a fight-or-flight response. But, if you take a moment to analyze the situation without being at the effect of a fundamental attribution error, you may understand the rationale behind their behavior.

Every situation is unique. We need to project the right body language for each person by taking their context and personal filters into account.

4. We Tell a Conflicting Story

We may believe that we are highly approachable, but others may find us unapproachable. We may also think that we are open-minded, while others may find us biased. We may assume that we provide a psychologically safe environment to our people, but our employees may be terrified to make mistakes.

Now, it’s easy to say that ‘it’s just them, not me. I have already communicated to them multiple times.’ But really, is that the true story? Your intention may be far from the reality of your situation.

Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We add meaning to the action we observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment — is that good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion. — Kerry Patterson

When our body language doesn’t match our words, people pick up on our non-verbal signals — the sign of contempt on our face when someone makes a mistake, pacing back and forth when conveying bad news, showing nervousness by fidgeting when asking for feedback, rolling eyes when we disagree, making hand gestures that signal blame and so on.

So, while you may communicate one thing with your words, your body may speak the opposite. And when people get confusing signals, they tend to go with what they observed and not what they heard.

How to Tell the Right Story:

Bring your body language in sync with the message you wish to convey. People find it easy to trust a person when their body language reflects their words.

When asking for feedback, look the person in the eye and don’t be distracted. When someone makes a mistake, show curiosity in your face to enable them to learn from their mistakes. When telling people to feel comfortable to approach you, make open arm-hand gestures. When communicating bad news, be intense but show confidence in your ability to make things right by looking at people with passion and hope.

People spend a lot of time perfecting their speech without verifying what their speech is conveying through their body. When it comes to making the right impression, don’t just speak through your words, make your body language count too.

Summary

Master the art of non-verbal communication in the workplace by:

Tuning to a positive state of mind: Be self-aware of your negative mental states and choose to get into a positive one.
Committing to being present: Practice active listening and engage fully in the conversation instead of being simply present.
Taking context into account: Connect with the other person by taking their values, mental state, and sense of self into account.
Telling the right story: Bring your body in sync with the message you wish to convey.

Previously published here.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

9 avril 2021/par Service comm.

Poll: Is It Time to Merge Browser Engines Into a Browser Protocol?

Actualités, Actualités

We tend not to think about it, but the Internet has a physical dimension. It’s a complex network of wires, cables, servers, and technical odds and ends — if you really want to, you can track it down; doing so is particularly easy on small islands because there tends to be a single cable tethering the region to the wider world.

Those physical cables run all the way to your building, and although an ISP manages them, they are normally rented from public bodies as part of your national infrastructure.

Beyond the physical, international bodies govern protocols like ARP, IEEE, HTTP, NTP, FTP, and others, which control how data is transmitted through the network and keep everything playing nice.

Then, at the other end of the equation, there’s your device. It may be a phone, a tablet, a notebook, a desktop. It’s probably several of these. And because it’s your device, everything on it feels like yours. We tend to think of it as our method of accessing the Internet instead of being part of the Internet — in reality, it’s both.

On your device, the software you use to access the Internet is your browser. For 65% of people, that’s Chrome. Even if you’re reading this on Edge, it’s created with the Blink engine, an extension of Chromium, which is the basis for Chrome. In fact, almost every browser is built using a variation of Chromium, except those on Apple devices that require Apple’s own WebKit to be used instead.

Chromium is ostensibly open-source. WebKit is not, but both are geared towards their primary contributors’ business goals; neither Chromium nor WebKit will make a change that negatively impacts Alphabet or Apple.

Your browser is just a copy of a pre-compiled set of source files sat in a Git repo somewhere. You may have installed a few plugins in your browser. You may have bookmarked a few pages. You’ve probably moved it to your dock or your home screen. Those features are just nice add-ons for the GUI; what really matters is what decisions are made about how to render web technologies.

Imagine a world in which every single car used the same mid-range Ford engine. Add in a stereo, and paint it any color you like, you can even pick your own tires, but under the hood, it has to be that mid-range Ford engine. And the only justification is that it’s too much work to create an alternative.

The 2020s are going to be a time of enormous change. You can smell the panic in traditional banking sectors every time Cryptocurrency is mentioned. Real estate billionaires are desperately trying to get us back into offices we don’t want to return to. And yes, I’m sorry, but the climate crisis is looming, and it will force our hand. The values of a whole generation have been rapidly reassessed. Innovation and the potential for innovation are rife, except, ironically, on the Internet, where we’re still chugging away with the mid-range Ford engine under the hood.

The web has reached the point at which the browser engines we choose define real-world infrastructure. There’s a fork in the road: either browser engines are part of an infrastructure that should be rationalized into a single browser protocol, or alternative browser engines need to be nurtured, encouraged, and accessible by choice.

Featured image via Pexels.

Source

The post Poll: Is It Time to Merge Browser Engines Into a Browser Protocol? first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

11 mars 2021/par Service comm.