Pixotri Technologies: 2015-03-15

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Effective UX and UI Tools and Resources for Web Designers

What has been working for you in the past may not be entirely appropriate for your next web or app design project. If this is the case, there are a number of new tools regularly appearing on the market that are capable of making your design efforts faster, easier and better.

A number of the top-rated UX and UI tools are listed below, as are several online resources that can prove useful in testing your IU design’s performance and usability. This list also includes some UI resources that you will find handy. Keep on reading and find out which are some of the most effective tools and resources available.

Proto.io

If you’ve ever wanted to see how your final product will look like, long before your project is ready to wrap up, Proto.io might be just the tool for you. This versatile tool takes rapid prototyping to the next level. Its UI library, which is one of the most realistic and comprehensive libraries of its type on the market today, makes static mockups and hotspot prototypes look primitive.

With this tool at your disposal, you will seldom if ever need to write a single line of code. You create your prototype by applying multiple touch and mouse events, in combination with Proto.io’s drag and drop functionality, to any UI element you are working with. Since Proto.io works on your web browser there is no need for constant downloading, and when a prototype is ready to be tested, you can do so on a real device to assess its look, feel and usability, while sharing your design with other project members. It doesn’t get much easier.

Pidoco

Pidoco’s drag and drop functionality makes creating clickable wireframes quick and easy. You can test your interactive prototypes on real devices, and simulate the look and feel of a real app. You can trigger simulated reactions by clicking, touch gestures, keyboard entries, or device motion. These features alone may be reason enough to add Pidoco to your toolkit.

Pidoco also enables you to display your designs in the form of customized design templates that can be positioned on global layers. When you make a change to any layer, your change automatically displays on all pages containing that layer, thereby avoiding potential version control headaches. Pidoco’s UX features are also extremely easy to use. They enable you to share your prototypes and attendant information with others, collect feedback, edit in real time, and track issues, while simultaneously gathering feedback history and maintaining version control.

Vonn Mobile Material Design UI Kit

Building a mobile material design app need not be a painstakingly slow and difficult process. Stunning Android apps can be created quickly and easily using the Vonn Mobile Material Design UI Kit by Visual Hierarchy. Material Design, Google’s design vision for the future, features bold colors, informative animations, and flat elements to create new and fresh interfaces. Vonn has made it a point to make their UI kit fully compatible with Google’s guidelines, and as a result it is proving to be a real time saver for the app designer.

Included with this kit are 100 1920 x 1080 pixel, drag and drop UI templates. The templates can be opened with Adobe Photoshop CS5+, and since they have been logically placed in 9 categories, it is easy to select just the right one to create a stunning app your clients or customers are certain to appreciate.

Firefly

Inadequate project management can definitely hurt a developer’s ability to deliver a quality product on time and within budget. Firefly can be exactly the UX and project management tool you need to keep your project on track, especially when you are engaged in rapid prototyping.

You can upload everything from app designs and UI ideas to entire webpages for review and annotation, and you can fully depend on this tool’s version control capability to effectively manage multiple design versions. Information captured on Firefly is accessible through any browser, making it a useful and valuable tool for a widely disbursed project team.

InVision

InVision brings to the table the ability to rapidly and easily convert static screens into clickable, interactive prototypes, complete with transitions and animations, making it a highly useful tool in a design-driven environment. This is one of the easiest-to-use rapid prototyping platforms on the market today.

Using a drag and drop process to create a prototype is nothing new, but InVision has somehow managed to make building prototypes as easy and straightforward as it gets. The tool’s UX capabilities, including presentations, feedback, and task management in real time, are also impressive.

AppCooker

Now you can build and share beautiful iPhone and iPad wireframes that will impress your clients, while saving time and money in the process. AppCooker makes it possible.

There are 5 key tools in AppCooker that enables it to make the UI design process so quick and easy; a map idea tool, a mockup tool, icon design and pricing tools, and an app store helper tool. AppCooker may well be the ultimate tool for iOS, especially when time is tight and expectations are high.

Form by RelativeWave

Form, by RelativeWave and Google, skips a step. Instead of building your prototype on a separate tool, and uploading it to a device for user testing, Form lets you build a custom native prototype directly on the device, where it has access to the device’s cameras and other sensors.

Coding is not required, Form prototypes can be run in real time on multiple devices, and you can update your prototype on the fly without restarting.

Composite

If you have been searching for the ultimate iPhone app prototyping tool for Photoshop, Composite could be precisely what you have been looking for. With this handy tool at your disposal, you can create interactive prototypes featuring picture perfect rendering, native animations, elements that stay fixed while scrolling, and virtually any other feature you would expect from a real iPhone app.

Ace iOS 8 Mobile UI Kit

The Ace iOS 8 Mobile UI Kit makes prototyping smooth and easy. The secret lies in the way it has been organized, and it is ready to use right out of the box. Features include the Google family of fonts and the ability to produce screens in all Retina HD 4.7 sizes.

You have access to more than 100 different icons, more than 300 UI elements, and a total of 75 .PSD templates, conveniently arranged in 8 categories. This Ace kit has more than enough features to enable you to create stunning apps that will perform flawlessly on iPhone 6.

Marvelapp

Marvel is free, fast, and easy. All you have to do is connect to your Dropbox account, create an interactive prototype in minutes with Marvel, and use Dropbox syncing to iterate and update your design without having to lift a finger.

You can quickly and easily share your ideas and test your designs with others through your Dropbox account. Creating and sharing interactive prototypes doesn’t get much easier than this.

ClickTale

If you are curious as to how users or customers are responding to your app or website, ClickTale will tell you what is working and what is not. This toolkit, which is available in both desktop and mobile versions, tests the efficiency and performance of your design.

Its findings are presented in a combination of heat maps, link analytics, and reports. If you wish, you can drill down to individual customer responses.

HeatData

HeatData lets you see how customers are interacting with your overall app or mobile website design. You can even drill down to review activities on individual pages. HeatData is also is a time machine.

Its Date Picker feature enables you to travel back in time to track the impact of changes you made to your app or mobile website. Platform-specific views enable you to compare and contrast activities on customers’ iPhones, iPads, and Android Smartphones.

Notism

Notism is a prototyping and collaboration tool whose true strength lies in its unique collaboration capabilities. Notism makes sharing your design efforts with team members remarkably easy, and it allows you to streamline the design process from start to finish.

You can share notes, sketches, and images, annotate them on the fly, and do it all on video, a powerful feature that sets Notism apart as a useful and valuable UI and UX tool.

PowerMockup

PowerMockup is a wireframing and storyboarding tool. One of its more convenient features is it allows you to create prototypes right in PowerPoint. Creating a prototype is not much more difficult than creating a presentation, but the real value of PowerMockup lies in the fact that its use allows users and non-technical stakeholders to keep fully abreast of the design process, and gives them the ability to visualize the design’s outcome early on.

PickFu

PickFu is a digital polling and feedback resource. When you submit a question you would like users of your app or mobile website to respond to, PickFu will conduct an unbiased user-poll and gather the answers.

You can let PickFu select the appropriate demographics, or you can do so yourself. This is a handy resource to have available when you are iterating your design and looking for user feedback.

Conclusion

The tools featured here are among the more highly-rated UI and UX tools you will find on the market today. Several online tools for assessing UI performance and usability are also included. If you do not see something you believe should be included, or if you would like to share your thoughts on this list, please leave your comments below.

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Pixotri technology is a creative house developing quality web designs, E-Commerce solution. SEO services and Gaming development .

Contact us for your web design requirements info@pixotritechnologies.com Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

Webmasters gain new security powers in latest Bing update

For over a year now, Microsoft has doubled down in its efforts to appeal to businesses. This has been achieved through the addition of many business and enterprise friendly features to its existing services, such as Windows Phone, in the hopes that adoption rates will increase.

Being as important as it is, it was only a matter of time before Bing became part of this train of improvement, and indeed it already has been. This continues in the latest update to the service, which will enhance its appeal to Webmasters greatly.

With the new "Track Certificates" feature, certificates requested by browsers as they visit websites can be tracked through Bing Webmaster services. These requests can then be flagged and dealt with if deemed suspicious, allowing the webmaster a greater deal of security than was possible previously.

Reported certificates are passed onto Microsoft, where they are then dealt with accordingly. This new feature is available under the Webmaster tool section titled "Security".Digital marketing helps you to find yourself in first place among the other competitors.

We help you to strategically plan and execute your,product and services through our online platforms.

Pixotri technology is a creative house developing quality web designs, E-Commerce solution. SEO services and Gaming development .

Contact us for your web design requirements info@pixotritechnologies.co m Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

Watch Out, Brands: The Controversial .Sucks Domain Is Almost Here

Early registration begins later this month, but brands that want to register their trademarked names before the general public will pay a hefty price.

Among the 500+ new, generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that have been approved, few have generated as much concern and consternation as. sucks.

Before he left office, US Senator Jay Rockefeller told ICANN — the international organization that manages the internet’s domain name system — that the domain has “little or no public interest value” and called it “little more than a predatory shakedown scheme” aimed at getting businesses to spend big money on defensive domain registrations. When early reports spread about what it might cost a trademark holder to protect itself with a. sucks domain, domain industry insiders called shockingit and. crap.

Controversy or not, .sucks is almost here. A company called Momentous won ICANN’s auction last November via its subsidiary, Vox Populi, giving it the right to operate the. sucks gTLD. The early registration period — “sunrise” is the official term — starts on March 30th and general availability begins on June 1st.

What are brands to do? And what will the impact be on trademark protection and reputation management? We turned to some experts for thoughts on that. First, a look at the controversy surrounding this new domain.

Vox Populi is positioning the new gTLD as a platform for conversation. Its website declares that the domain “is designed to help consumers find their voices and allow companies to find the value in criticism.” In a phone interview with Marketing Land, Vox Populi CEO John Berard repeated that mantra, saying that the company sees “an opportunity for an increased back and forth between brands and consumers.”

Whatever consternation the video may (or may not) create, it has a way to go before it reaches the level of controversy over the pricing that Vox Populi has set for. sucks.

Companies that want to protect their names in this new gTLD may suffer severe sticker shock when they see the suggested pricing.

(screenshot from nic.sucks website)

Later this year, consumers will be able to buy a. sucks domain for $10 per year via a “consumer advocate subsidy.” Any consumers that get a domain at that price will have to redirect it to a discussion forum that will live on the everything.sucks domain. Consumers that want to run their own website using. sucks will pay $249 per year for a standard registration, unless Vox Populi has labeled the domain “premium” — those may cost more.

Meanwhile — and this is where the real controversy comes in — companies that are registered with the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) will have to pay $2,500 per domain during the sunrise period, and the same amount every year they renew their domain(s).

“The pricing is a little complicated. It’s not easily discernible,” says Michael Berkens, editor of the domain industry website TheDomains.com.

It’s worse than complicated, says Rick Schwartz, one of the domain industry’s most successful entrepreneurs. “The entire extension is based on brand extortion,” he told Marketing Land via e-mail, echoing Senator Rockefeller’s comments.

Domain industry veteran Ron Sheridan, the former business development director for Domain Sponsor and Oversee.net, agrees with Schwartz. “I can think of no other way to label it than what it is: plain and simple economic extortion,” he told us, also via e-mail.

Vox Populi deflects the accusations. Berard says the price is reflective of the value of the domain. “If you look at it as just another domain, you’re missing the point,” he says. Berard also says the $2500 price isn’t an attempt to discourage brands from registering. sucks domains. “Our intention is not to discourage brands from registering domains. Our goal is to get people [and brands] to use these. If we priced them at a buck, people would register a lot of domains and put them in the drawer.”

Vox Populi will have policies in place that won’t allow employees to register company names at the $10 per year rate. “I have no idea how they’ll enforce such a thing,” Berkens says. “Big companies have thousands of employees.”

Berard says the company will have a verification system in place for everyone that wants to register domains as a consumer, and he doesn’t think companies will try to skirt its rules. “If a brand was to do that and get found out, it would be very embarrassing for them.”

While Vox Populi sees. sucks as a platform for conversation, brands will probably only be interested in. sucks for defensive purposes — i.e., as a way to protect their trademarked names by registering domains before the general public can.

Should they?

Sheridan thinks they should. “The practical reality for big brands,” he says, “is as soon as one of their brands goes live on a. sucks domain, the social media blowback and associated negative PR will create a financial impact far and away larger than the $2,500 worst case scenario if they [register the domain] early and preemptively.”

Not everyone agrees. Andy Beal, CEO of the branding and reputation management agencyReputation Refinery, told us via e-mail that he doesn’t think most companies need to worry about.sucks. “The $2500 yearly price tag isn’t worth the investment when you consider that, for $10, a detractor can register YourBrandSucks.com and have the same impact,” he says. “When was the last time you read about a negative domain causing a reputation issue for a company? A negative tweet, Yelp review, or blog post can do far more damage.”

Legal Front: Consumers vs. Brands

There are also legal issues to think about. Consumers that have registered domains that match or are similar to trademarked terms often lose those domains if the trademark owner files a challenge.

“Some companies might just file a UDRP [Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy challenge] or go right into Federal Court and seek damages depending on use and motivation,” Schwartz says.

But “use” is a key point. In the US legal system, criticism is generally allowed under fair use law — that’s why websites with domains like paypalsucks.com and uhaul-sucks.com are owned by consumers and allowed to operate.

The. sucks gTLD “could be the hardest one to take away” via legal challenge, says Berkens — who’s also a lawyer. “If they actually put up a website [using. sucks], the consumer is probably going to win.”

It appears that. sucks is something of a minefield for big brands. We contacted almost 10 well-known consumer brands last week for their thoughts on the new domain and to ask if they plan to register any. sucks names; none answered our questions, even when we offered anonymity.

Schwartz says he thinks some brands will ignore. sucks simply because most consumers won’t even know it exists. “The majority of the 350 extensions that have already been released in the past 12 months [are] not even known by the public and may never be known.”

The bigger question, Berkens says, is whether. sucks is even necessary. He points out that angry consumers can already register “sucks”-style domains with .com, like the Paypal and U-Haul examples mentioned above, or with another gTLD. And he thinks big brands will be turned off by the pricing for this new gTLD.

“I’m guessing trademark owners are not going to pay $2,500 per year for each domain,” Berkens says. “I don’t think [Vox Populi] will get the defensive registrations. I don’t think trademark owners are going to play.”

But playing is exactly what one creative branding agency executive suggests companies do. Adam Padilla of New York City-based BrandFire thinks brands could actually have fun with the new gTLD.

“I can certainly see an edgy, socially-driven, promotional campaign centering around a. sucksdomain with matching hashtag and hilarious viral video embedded,” he told Marketing Land via e-mail. “Badbreath.sucks for a chewing gum company, boringfood.sucks for a fast food concern … the possibilities are endless.”

Pixotri technology is a creative house developing quality web designs, E-Commerce solution. SEO services and Gaming development .

http://marketingland.com/controversial-sucks-domain-almost-here-121505#.VQ1C9iwxUxQ.googleplus

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz

Today I spotted a possible large Google update starting out that may or may not be Panda related. Google said we should expect a doorway page algorithm update, they’ve already updated their guidelines.

Google’s mobile friendly algorithm is said to be more visible than Panda, which is big - although we don’t know exactly how big it will be. MozCast and SearchMetrics tools are also preparing for the mobile algorithm update.

Don’t forget that Android apps with App Indexing already benefit from this algorithm update. Google AdWords made some of the AdWords data fresher and faster. Google AdWords also updated the top movers report.

Can you turn a transactional or informational query into a brand query on Google? Google Maps reduced their phone support hours.

Did you try the Google Feud game? Finally, the Wall Street Journal published leaked FTC documents on the Google FTC probe, showing how evil they are - maybe. That was this past week in search at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background.

We employ a variety of proven recommended techniques to increase your chance for top rankings.These include optimizing your website's page,content,and structure to drive traffic to your site for specific keyword research.

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https://www.seroundtable.com/video-03-20-2015-20030.html

Friday, March 20, 2015

Google to Improve Doorways Algorithm for Better Search Results

Google is looking to enhance users' search experience with an improved algorithm for doorway pages.

Doorway pages or sites are multiple, similar pages in user search results, all of which go to the same destination. So while these can help marketers maximize their search footprint for ranking purposes, they detract from a user's search experience.

"To improve the quality of search results for our users, we'll soon launch a ranking adjustment to better address these types of pages," Google said in a statement, adding that this change may heavily influence sites with large and well-established doorway campaigns.

To examine if your site will be considered as a "doorway page" by Google, it suggests you refer to the following questions:

Is the purpose to optimize for search engines and funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site, or are they an integral part of your site's user experience?
Are the pages intended to rank on generic terms yet the content presented on the page is very specific?
Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?
Are these pages made solely for drawing affiliate traffic and sending users along without creating unique value in content or functionality?
Do these pages exist as an "island"? Are they difficult or impossible to navigate to from other parts of your site? Are links to such pages from other pages within the site or network of sites created just for search engines?

Pixotri technology is a creative house developing quality web designs, E-Commerce solution. SEO services and Gaming development

Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com