Showing posts with label web design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web design. Show all posts
Friday, December 11, 2015
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Monday, October 26, 2015
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Spotify has an all new design, focused on finding the perfect playlist
At an event today in New York, Spotify unveiled that it has an all-new design for its mobile apps.
The new Spotify learns from what you’re doing and where you’re going during the day and offers more relevant suggestions. In a timeline view you’ll get suggestions of podcasts, individual songs, playlists and videos that change throughout the day.
It also worked to understand how people listen to music when running and now automatically analyzes your running pace using the iPhone’s accelerometer to find the perfect playlist.
As your pace changes between tracks, Spotify will adjust in real-time and play you an appropriate track.
Spotify also announced that it’s adding original video to its service so that you can watch content from creators like Vice, Comedy Central, Twit.TV and more from right inside the app.
You can see what it’ll look like in action on an iPhone in the gallery below. For now, the update is iOS only.
Spotify says the new Now experience will begin rolling out today to iPhone users in the UK, US, Germany and Sweden – with more countries and other devices in the future. The new running feature is rolling out separately from today for iPhone users in every country.
WEB DESIGN
We are a professional web design company with an experienced team of creative professionals. We create outstanding designs for Websites. Our team is adept at implementing the latest web standards and programming techniques.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.email- info@pixotritechnologies.com Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com
New Web trends: immersive interaction design
The wheel of progress is changing what we think of as “new” or “old,” and users can easily scorn the sites and apps they loved only a few months ago. But for every door that technology closes, a new one is opened.
Below we’ve collected some of the modern IxD techniques that users are flocking to. Some are genuinely new, while others are just new takes on old ideas. Either way, they’ll help you stay ahead of the curve…and the crushing wheel of progress.
1. Animation & Transitions
When it comes to interaction design, one of the most popular concepts is animation and animated effects. Animation can include anything from a cool hover state effect to a full-screen cartoon that plays in the background.
Animations may not be new to interaction design, but their popularity is really only possible thanks to developments in HTML5, Javascript, and CSS. While they were once considered an aesthetic luxury (“Wow, the icon bounces!”) during the age of Flash, they are now becoming a functional necessity (“Ugh, the icon doesn’t do anything except bounce?!”).
Aside from the visual appeal, animations more importantly transition users between states of content. Transitions are the glue holding together all animated effects. How does the user get from one state to the next? What does each different state ask or tell the user to do? A smooth transition allows the animation to unravel in a way that communicates both points effortlessly.
When used well, animation provides context for the design by helping users know how to interact with it. (Remember, when it comes to interaction, some newer technologies and interaction patterns may feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar or evolve over time.) Animations are also a smart tactic for delightfully distracting users during longer load times, keeping them engaged in what would otherwise be a frustrating experience.
Animation and animated transitions can be an obvious solution for some design frameworks. As described in Interaction Design Best Practices, the five primary functions of animation include:
Animated notifications
Revealing information
Highlighting content
Collapsing forms and menus
Scrolling, especially for one-page websites
When it comes to transitions, seamless film-like animation is the key to illusion.
Users are accustomed to television-style, high definition and pixel-perfect design. Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston’s outline of the 12 principles of animation still hold true today and should be the basis for designing all animation techniques and transitions well into the future.
2. Interactive Narrative (“Webgraphics”)
While social media sharing made the popularity of infographics skyrocket as a visual information medium, “webgraphics” are the interactive design equivalent. Even though the webgraphic format isn’t seen on every corner of the web, we’ve learned plenty of interaction design lessons from the medium.
While both graphic formats follow the same idea, webgraphics use tools such as HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery to deliver an interactive experience through color, type and slick animations.
Webgraphics, a term that Venture Beat coined in 2013, typically asks users to perform an action en route to getting access to the full story. This action can be as simple as a click or more involving requests such as typing in words or touching an image on the screen.
The real power of webgraphics lies in their effortless integration into the user path. Unlike an infographic, you can design the webgraphic to create a “site within a site” experience that has completely immerses the user and serves up relevant links and forms along the way for more persuasive conversion.
For example, Safety on the Slopes (above), is just what an interactive webgraphic should be. The website combines information, mapping, video, facts and numbers to help users understand the dangers of winter sports in a way that might otherwise feel like a boring lecture.
Granted, there’s no calls to action or subtle hints for additional actions, but that could certainly be implemented. For example, imagine if an outdoor sport retailer created this site as part of a seasonal campaign – you could embed a few relevant products for potential hazards or link out to product categories.
We understand that not everyone has the resources to build a standalone interactive infographic (whether in their site or as a standalone URL), but you certainly apply some of its techniques to make any website feel more immersive.
House of Borel (above), a luxury fashion brand, certainly feels more like an interactive story than a traditional website. You can see elements of interactive infographics at play here: videos triggered by scroll, an experience that “unfolds” and guides you through different chapters, and a much heavier focus on visual narrative over hierarchical navigation. The treatment certainly makes sense for an elegant brand that wants you to feel the lifestyle first before revealing its products.
3. Micro Interactions
A micro interaction is a momentary event that completes a single task, such as the ding of an alarm in an iPhone to notify users. Logging in to your online banking portal and even liking content on a site like Facebook are just some of the micro interactions that define the details of experience design.
As a website and app user, you probably take part in hundreds of daily micro interactions, all of which add up to one cohesive user experience. Arguably the smallest interactive elements of a design, micro interactions are some of the most vital (in fact, FastCo Design even calls it the future of design).
Consider, for instance, how quickly you would abandon a website if you could not set a username and password in only a few clicks or if the push notifications from your favorite news site appeared too frequently.
Whether for a blog or a global e-commerce site, these small interactions serve a variety of core functions to almost every website:
Accomplish a task – This includes simple action such as logging in, adding a status update or setting an alarm.
Connecting elements – Syncing two points creates a micro interaction between two devices or websites, whether that’s from multiplayer games/apps that sync from device to device or simple Bluetooth earbuds for your smartphone.
Making an adjustment – Any change to a website setting (such as muting the volume on an app or turning down the volume on a music player) and the corresponding visual (and audio) feedback constitutes a micro action. Some of these are so small users perform many of the actions without any thought, which is why micro interactions must be carefully designed to provide just enough feedback without feeling intrusive.
Change in state – Turning a website, or function therein, off or on changes the state and completes a small action.
Unique data interaction – This refers to getting an in-time bit of data, such as checking the weather or traffic in your area, as result of a direct action such as opening an app or checking a website with location tools.
An action initiates every one of the actions above; the user does something in a website or app to start the process (even if it continues after the initial step). This follows a pattern of call-to-action from a user, rules for engagement as determined by the interface (what will happen and how), feedback from the user (did it work or not) and patterns or loops (does the action happen once or repeat on a schedule).
Every one of these tiny pieces is part of the design plan when it comes to interaction. To learn more about micro interactions, we highly recommend checking out the site of Dan Saffer who coined the term.
4. Layering Effects
Creating an engaging interactive experience is not about adding a single effect to your website design. It is a planned effort that requires layered design techniques and careful thought for user flow and habits.
By combining effects like parallax, long scroll, background video, etc., your design is both visually intriguing and inviting to users. The trick is not to go overboard – and there is a fine line between a careful hierarchy of user interactions and a chaotic mess.
Below, we’ll examine three sites that do a great job of layering effects to create an immersive interactive experience.
i. AIGA 100 Years of Design
The 100 Years of Design website, designed to celebrate the history of design as an art form, uses a variety of techniques and trends, from scrolling actions to a hamburger menu to user-submitted visuals. Each new screen includes information (scroll down), animation to support the concepts, and cues for moving to the next element (whether through navigation or using on-screen cues).
ii. Eventbrite Seat Designer
Used by event planners everywhere for ticket sales, the Eventbrite interface offers phenomenal tools for users to create custom seating charts for specific venues or events, something that was once unique to large venues. With a few clicks on the template, users can easily create a custom arrangement.
The interface uses an almost-flat design style with bright colors, easy menus and smooth-loading transitions.
iii. Sonoran’s Valley
The site features a game-like experience where users input specific information to take part in a digital journey. The site is layered with phenomenal animation and video effects while using a standard hamburger style navigation. The main screen starts with a minimal-style aesthetic but opens into a wide-screen video experience. (You could play with this site for hours on end.)
Thinking Beyond the Present
These may be the cutting edge practices of today, but how long before these same groundbreaking techniques makes users roll their eyes?
One of the best ways to stay ahead is to think ahead. Looking at how user needs are evolving, we can confidently – but not assuredly – predict what will be popular in the future.
Many people consider wearables as the next “Wild West” of interaction design. When it comes to wearable interaction, the design will probably shift to more subtle tactile patterns that might be less visual. Vibrations from a watch might be the preferred method of notification, rather than a large image or sound on the screen.
Across all mediums, interaction will likely become more television-like as storytelling remains a core aspect of digital design.
While you always want to ensure the design helps users accomplish their goals, it’s very likely that the user choices will be presented as part of a larger narrative on the site. It’s not a tactic that’s appropriate for every site (e.g., ecommerce, banking), but it will definitely play a more prominent role in the content flow for highly visual sites. We’ve seen this already with the emergence of video backgrounds as a common web design technique. As a visual medium, the line between screen devices – TVs, computers and phones – will blur even more.
Interaction design, while primarily visual when we think about websites, will continue to combine visuals with environmental factors. Vibrations, sounds and forced actions will become more common, especially for user-controlled elements such as websites or apps designed for mobile or wearable devices.
While a lot of future-planning is merely guesswork, the fundamentals of our users will, more-or-less stay the same. Users will, predictably, always enjoy interactivity and engagement – the only thing that changes is the avenues available to offer this to them.
To learn more about mastering the art of modern interaction design, check out the free e-book The Curated Collection of Design Techniques: Animations & Interactions. The book teaches with 42 examples of some of the best web interactive designs and includes a hand-curated list of 20 helpful tools to get started.
WEB DESIGN
We are a professional web design company with an experienced team of creative professionals. We create outstanding designs for Websites. Our team is adept at implementing the latest web standards and programming techniques.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 email- info@pixotritechnologies.com Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Pinterest’s Plans To Build Its International Playbook
On April 1st, Pinterest’s country manager in Japan Naoki Sadakuni got some of the engineering support he’d wanted for a while.
Five team members from Pinterest’s headquarters arrived to the company’s Tokyo office in an experiment the company is running called “Jumpstart.” It’s Pinterest’s first run at shipping a small team from the company’s home base in San Francisco to a remote office, and telling them to basically figure out how to make Pinterest better for that country.
“We pick the places we pick because they’re mature markets, they’re countries that lead their region culturally” Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp said. “[The jumpstart team has] 3 months to do whatever they want to to the Japanese product, and the bigger the change, the better. The plan is really develop a playbook to grow internationally. As much as their goal is to increase growth, we want to get more insight on how we should grow internationally.”
Starting with Tokyo, Pinterest is hoping that it will learn enough to start building a playbook for other regions and other remote offices — like Paris or London. (Pinterest is actually doing well in France, Sharp said, though he would not divulge any numbers.)
The team is diverse, consisting of engineers, product, and design employees from Pinterest’s headquarters. The team of five is hand-picked from the company’s more than 500 employees, considered strong candidates and self-starters. That’ll be important for the remote office, because there’s a 16-hour time difference, and they’ll basically be on an island for the next three months.
“This isn’t a junket to hang out in Japan for 90 days. We know what we’d love to see — we want them to bend of the curve. This is a huge opportunity, this is a privilege. We ask them, ‘do you understand this is the case?’ We’ll take care of you, can you help us figure out what we need to be doing in Japan from a product perspective.”
There’s a reason for the diverse group Pinterest sent to Japan. The company is not solely an engineering company, like many in Silicon Valley, Sharp said. It is instead a sort of intersection of designers, product people and engineers, influenced by CEO Ben Silbermann’s more logical nature and Sharp’s design-heavy background from his time at Facebook. That will be important going forward, including internationally, because Pinterest is centered around attracting users that are looking to post things that represent some kind of creative expression.
But with fresh blood, the team, which recently moved to a new office (that was designed based on a board that employees pinned things to naturally), is hoping to figure out how to customize the app in such a way that will make it even more palatable to Japanese users. The company, Lopp said, is not looking to simply increase its performance by just a few basis points.
“I was dreaming about having engineers, and it finally happened,” Sadakuni said. “I’m super, super happy about that. I clearly see a great dynamic between the local team and jumpstart team — sometimes the jumpstart team has questions about the insight of japan, and the local people love giving these insights, and vice versa.”
The jumpstart team is well aware of the pressure that’s on them. Every day, the team peels a day off a calendar that marks how many days they have to produce some significant results for the company, and takes a photo of it.
It’s about a month and a half in, and so far the results look good, Lopp said. The team has started experiments with a new discovery tab in its iOS app, a page of uniquely curated content that local users can see on the search tab before browsing categories. Pinterest has a new onboarding experience tailored to Japanese users and a new discovery experience. The company’s monthly active users in Japan have more than doubled in the past year, and today international usage accounts for 40% of Pinterest’s users.
Jumpstart is still an experiment. It’s one of many that Pinterest is constantly running in order to figure out how to grow into its status as a multi-billion dollar company and continue to drive its business. That might be a little easier in Japan than other regions. There is a lot of cultural overlap, Sadakuni said. For example, Japanese culture highly values food — from presentation to taste — and recipes are one of Pinterest’s strongest categories. Japanese culture also values very niche topics that people value very deeply, another area that Pinterest specializes in with its interests feature.
There are a number of ways Pinterest is exploring to customize the experience for Japanese users. The first time user experience is critical, but so are the results that come up on searches, and which interests users discover. In the end, Pinterest is a discovery engine, and what Japanese users are looking for may be different from what domestic users are seeking.
The playbook will of course differ from country to country, but Pinterest is hoping to figure out the fundamentals with its new jumpstart program. “If we get to 90 days and say here’s the playbook, that’s winning,” Lopp said. “I would love metrics to be moving, of course that’d be a great business outcome, but I need to build a scalable machine here.”
The importance of Pinterest’s expansion into international markets can’t really be understated. While the domestic opportunity is still massive, the rest of the planet’s 7 billion-ish population exists outside the United States. Facebook’s user base is mostly international, and for the most part, that’s where the largest opportunity for any company expanding lies.
“We don’t talk about numbers at all, but we should probably start doing that,” Sharp said. “When I look out in the future, the majority of our users will be outside of the U.S. It’s a lot of people outside the U.S.”
With a stronger flow of users — and more engagement in different regions — comes a better business. If users pin more things and come to the app and site more often, that’s more eyeballs it can present to advertisers, which will allow the company to generate even more revenue. Pinterest can then re-invest that in new experiments (perhaps more jumpstart teams) and continue to grow the company.
Pinterest is also a gold mine for advertisers because it is very forward-facing. Its user base comes to Pinterest for inspiration, whether that’s for a meal they plan to cook in the evening or how they are planning to design a living room. Capturing that intent, for which there is a large hole in the advertising world, represents a massive value proposition for brands. Pinterest’s user base represents one that fits the whole advertising spectrum, from increasing brand awareness (referred to as the top of the funnel) to getting a user to act on something, like downloading an app or buying a product.
And of course, Sharp isn’t shy about saying that all of this helps with employee retention at the five year-old company.
“I’m definitely getting some lift out of that from morale perspective, it’s exciting,” Lopp said. “[Pinterest employees] especially like the idea of maybe doing it in other countries like Germany or France. That’s not a primary motivator, but I’m sure the folks over there are really happy about being in Japan.”
WEB DESIGN
We are a professional web design company with an experienced team of creative professionals. We create outstanding designs for Websites. Our team is adept at implementing the latest web standards and programming techniques.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 email- info@pixotritechnologies.com Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com
Why web design is losing its soul
As responsive design becomes the norm, designers have developed a reliance on boxes and grids, argues Noah Stokes.
About a year and a half ago, I had seen enough. A tweet came through my stream and like so many others at the time, it was a link to a hot, new, amazing Responsive Web Design site.
"Oh, I love an amazing design," I thought, so I clicked. What I saw was a design casualty: boxes and grids everywhere. This was the 'amazing' new design? To me it looked like every other #RWD out there.
So I did what most people would do; I composed a tweet. "I hate #RWD."
That may not come off right, I thought. So I did a little re-composing. "I really hate #RWD."
Where's the magic gone?
That's more like it. It's blasphemy, right? RWD is the future of web development. The thing was, to me, the web was losing its magic. And I blamed RWD. In order for me to explain why, we have to go back to the web of the early 2000s.
In those days, websites called K10K, CSS Zen Garden, Stylegala and 2advanced were some of the biggest sources of website design inspiration out there. Stylegala would feature a Site of the Month that, for me, was like Christmas morning to a six year old.
I would spend hours exploring these sites, studying all the wonderful details; all the passion the designer had put into creating it.
Beauty in the intangible
Back to my tweet. I had enough wits about me to completely rewrite it to something less trolly and more politically correct. "I feel like responsive design has sucked the soul out of website design. Everything is boxes and grids. Where has all the creativity gone?"
Away it went. Someone created a branch around it that went on to get close to 15,000 views. A lot of folks (rightly so) were asking me to define what a 'soul' was.
This all goes back to my earlier references to K10K, Stylegala and so on. Those websites featured designs that were so unique, so full of thoughtfulness at every turn. My early exposure to web design was full of soul. So I would say: a soul is the intangible details of a design.
Stand-out sites
You've seen sites like this. Sites that stand out from the others. What sets those apart? To the untrained eye, they look like any other site, but to those of us that love design, these sites have a soul. I miss them. Why don't we see many of them around any more? I think I have a pretty good idea why.
Last year, Elliot Jay Stocks wrote an article called 'Why have today's designers stopped dreaming?' In it, he said:
"You click the website link and the assets begin to load. The page is a gigantic photo, filling the entirety of the viewport. In the photo is a group of people ... the product is just about visible on the screen of one of their iPhones. Overlaid on top of this photo is a brief sentence that introduces the product in a not-really-saying-anything-in-particular sort of way, set in a sans-serif typeface ...
"You're gently transitioned further down the page and the large, cheerful photo remains in place, without scrolling, until it's obscured by the main content area that appears from below ... You scroll a little further down the page and small diagrams begin to animate themselves as they enter the viewport.
"Then ... you notice that a semi-transparent menu has slunk into view and attached itself to the top of the page. It stays there as you scroll through the product descriptions, the giant bands of flat colours and the well-lit photos of the support team pulling their best 'fun' faces."
Sound like a website you've seen before? Trends come with the business, and they can be something to embrace. I love what Stocks goes on to say though – just because we have this style that is very minimal and subdued doesn't mean that we shouldn’t push ourselves as designers to create beautiful experiences online.
The RWD wrench
What about RWD? There's no doubt that RWD takes longer to develop than those old fixed-width sites of my past. Chris Cashdollar of Happy Cog wrote a great article about how RWD has kind of thrown a wrench.
With established patterns, it can become habitual to look at a design and break it apart in our minds, working out how we are going to do the markup for it. We do that based on our past experiences with similar designs – and sometimes when a design challenge comes along we get stuck because it doesn't fit inside the established patterns we know so well.
Push yourself to think outside that box. If you understand the fundamentals of the position property in CSS then you can literally do anything. If you don't yet fully understand it, or need a refresher, I wrote an article that may help.
RWD is the future, no doubt, and some of us are just now getting our feet beneath us. I'm excited to see what we build as we continue to learn and master responsive development. Even more so, I'm excited to see some of you bring some soul to your work, and bring some magic back to the web.
WEB DESIGN
We are a professional web design company with an experienced team of creative professionals. We create outstanding designs for Websites. Our team is adept at implementing the latest web standards and programming techniques.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 email- info@pixotritechnologies.com Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Popcorn Time-like pirate movie streaming comes to the web (for now)
Popcorn Time's less-than-legit movie streaming has been available on lots of devices, but the web? Not so much. However, some enterprising developers have seen fit to make that happen in an unofficial capacity.
Meet Popcorn in Your Browser, a simple torrent-based video service you can use in any web browser. As with above-board subscription services like Netflix, all you do is search for the title you want and start watching.
It's awfully convenient if you're an avid movie bootlegger. However, it's also awfully likely to disappear -- if PIYB's web host hasn't already received a flood of copyright takedown notices, it probably will soon. That won't stop others from hosting the code, of course, but we have a hunch that this will merely be a brief vision of what Popcorn Time could be if it wasn't tied to native apps.
WEB DESIGN
We are a professional web design company with an experienced team of creative professionals. We create outstanding designs for Websites. Our team is adept at implementing the latest web standards and programming techniques.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 email- info@pixotritechnologies.com Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com
Friday, May 15, 2015
Top Web Design Services Rankings Named by bestwebdesignagencies.com for May 2015
NAPLES, FL, May 15, 2015 (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- The one hundred best web design companies have been named by bestwebdesignagencies.com for the month of May 2015. Each month of a team of researchers
The central goal of bestwebdesignagencies.com is to assist clients in looking for strong companies based on established standards created by the independent research team. The resulting standards are used to uncover which solutions produce the best experience for clients in mobile development.
The 100 best web design companies for May 2015 are:
1-
2- WebiMax
3- Netmark.com
4- VJG Interactive
5- Web Talent Marketing
6- Leverage Marketing
7- Web Full Circle
8- The Creative Momentum
9- Bruce Clay
10- Moonstone Interactive, Inc.
11-
12- SearchPro Systems
13- Websites
14-
15-
16- ATAK Interactive
17- 15miles
18- Holbi.co.uk
19- 2 WEB DESIGN
20- Pure Imagination
21- 61designstreet.com
22- 2 Fish Group
23- Studio 7 Designs
24- 70plus2 creative design
25- 2ndLAW Media
26-
27- 123triad.net
28- Web Designer Express Pro
29- Pear Logic
30- 39WebDesigns
31- Daddy Design
32- Off-Road Studios
33- NeboWeb
34- Volusion
35- Wevio
36- PINT
37- Scopelink
38- Project6 Design
39- Hudson Horizons
40- USA Web Solutions
41- NFINITY Web Solutions
42- Nowspeed
43- ESolz Technologies
44- Ydeveloper
45- Clikzy Creative
46- MoreVisibility
47-
48- Nautech IT Solutions
49- Clicksor.com
50- STI SEO Services
51-
52- 3PRIME
53- 20/20 Creatives
54- A3 IT Solutions
55- Team Web USA
56- Local Results
57- Mainstreethost
58- Saathiva Creations
59- High Rank Websites
60- CMS Advertising Group
61- Infoscaler Technologies
62- Envisionext
63- 64clicks
64- Comet Conversion
65- WebPromoExpert
66-
67- Fusion92
68- AceFlex
69- SEO Impressions
70- AffiliateCrew
71- EchoPoint Marketing Partners
72- 3.7 DESIGNS
73- DreamSoft
74- Local Plus Marketing
75- Fishpunt Design Studio
76- SEO Content Lab Pvt. Ltd
77- Get Local
78-
79- Corporate Conversions
80- Absolute Web Services
81- Konoozi
82- W3trends
83- Hire Website Designer
84- Click & Go Solutions.com
85- Incredible Marketing
86- 7SEO
87- A to Z Net Ventures
88-
89- Genesis Web Designs
90- Didit.com
91- BeyondROI
92- David Williams
93- Apollo Online
94- 21st Century Technologies
95- Adaptivity Pro
96- Comtech
97- Cazarin Interactive
98- 76Fix Web Development
99- 2 WEB DESIGN
100- 1Digital Agency
These agencies are tested in order to determine which produce the top overall web design solution. This is achieved through the use of a set of investigation criteria consisting of five verticals of evaluation used to benchmark and compare agencies based on the most integral aspects of these solutions. The five verticals of investigation used during this process include
ABOUT bestwebdesignagencies.com
bestwebdesignagencies.com is a producer of web design rankings. The key ambition of bestwebdesignagencies.com is to establish and publish those individuals or firms offering best web design solutions available. Web design firms are put through a rigorous evaluation to ensure the ratings contain the absolute best firms the web design industry has to offer.
WEB DESIGN
We are a professional web design company with an experienced team of creative professionals. We create outstanding designs for Websites. Our team is adept at implementing the latest web standards and programming techniques
Contact us for your web design requirements email- info@pixotritechnologies.com Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8
Want To Win Fights With Your Web Designer? Use These CRO Tactics
When should you take off the gloves and have a dustup with your designer? Columnist Jeremy Smith shows you how to make your CRO case in a powerful way.
Normally, I’m a pretty peaceful person. But sometimes there are things worth fighting for.
When conversion optimization faces off with other forces in the digital marketing world, sparks will fly.
As conversion rate optimization pros (CROs), we need to understand that we are the spear tip of Web marketing. Design is important. Social media is enormous. SEO is essential. UX is critical. Content marketing is imperative. All those things are clutch. But when it comes down to it, conversion optimization is what makes the whole effort turn into money.
Every aspect of marketing is entirely useless unless it produces conversions.
And that’s why some things are worth fighting for. In particular, I want to focus on several aspects of Web design, and how they aid or conflict with conversion optimization.
A Word About Web Design, And How It Applies To Conversion Optimization
First, allow me to set the stage for the discussion that will follow.
What does Web design have to do with conversion optimization?
The answer is, a whole lot. Web design forms the entire landscape where conversion optimization takes place. If the user can’t understand, use, view, operate or experience a website, then the user can’t convert, period.
Crappy design means crappy conversion rates.
For example…
I’m positive that this design is going to get amazing conversion rates, but only after 99 percent of users claw their eyeballs out with their fingernails.
But CROs aren’t designers. How do we handle the importance of design in the conversion optimization space?
Like the proverbial T-shaped marketer, a conversion optimizer should have some familiarity with Web design. If a CRO and a designer happen to sit next to each other on a subway, they should have a few things to talk about.
Should a CRO know how to create a wireframe or whip out a mockup in Photoshop? Nah . But should a CRO understand the basic limitations, processes and tools of Web design? Yes.
How much power does a CRO have?
This brings up an important question. Is it truly the CRO’s place to boss people around like this?
Yes and no. A CRO doesn’t need to be bossy. Why? Because the CRO has data to back up his points. One can be persuasive without being bossy. The CRO can communicate using authoritative information, not with anger or force .
In other words, CROs don’t operate on behalf of their own power. A CRO is someone who can show the designer the results of the split test: why A is not working, and why B is better.
The CRO should understand human behavior and psychology to explain to the copywriter why headline A is superior to headline B. The CRO should be able to communicate the basics of mobile conversion principles to a UX designer who is redesigning the mobile checkout.
The CRO holds immense sway in his or her organization, because he or she can assess how all the disciplines together are impacting revenue.
Remember what I told you about CROs being the spear tip of marketing? It’s true. A conversion optimizer fills a critical function where it really matters. For that reason, the CRO should have the ability to make calls on things as important as Web design.
Now, let’s get into those things that you should be willing to fight with your designer about.
1. Make Incremental Design Tweaks, Not Huge Sweeping Changes
[Stay tuned, because I’m going to clarify this point with a completely contradictory one coming up next! Yeah, I’m tricky like that.]
One of the core truths about conversion optimization is that it relies on continual improvement. That’s the whole premise of split testing. You take a single element — let’s say the image on your landing page — and produce two versions to see which one improves conversions.
When image A wins the test, what do you do? Swap out the headline, move the button, change the form fields, and rearrange the bullet points, right?
No! You change the freaking picture to the one that got the best results. You don’t touch anything else!
Split testing shows you which single element is doing better.
Split testing does not give you license to change the whole website.
Designers need to understand this, and you need to enforce it. A designer’s dissatisfaction with a Web design is not his or her excuse to go changing around the whole website. “Creative license” has its place, but if it messes with the exacting science of conversion optimization, then you need to snatch that license away.
For example, if I were the CRO for Treehouse (which I’m not), then I would look at this website, and think to myself…
What would I not do?
I would not tell the designer to change the color scheme to fuchsia.
I would not tell the designer to add a picture of an attractive person.
I would not tell the designer to put all the course choices above the fold.
I would not tell the designer to add a video.
I would start small, improve carefully , and gradually make this website better.
Most of the time, conversion optimization deals in micro-changes, not mega-changes. Designers must understand that conversion optimization is all about making systematic and small changes.
2. Make Huge Sweeping Changes, Not Teeny Designs
[This is the point in the article at which I totally contradict the above point.]
There are times when the whole website needs to be redesigned.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
For example, let’s pretend that Arngren.net called me and needed some help optimizing their website.
I visit their website.
I gasp, grab my heart, and drop dead.
(Or, more realistically, I simply pass out, and my loved ones come in, close the computer, take me to the ICU, and help me recover on bed rest and viewing therapy.)
What would I propose as the CRO for such a site? I would propose radical, sweeping, earthshaking , outright, revolutionary, shocking and totalitarian change.
This can be a tough conversation when you’re standing face-to-face with a designer. He designed this. He poured his life into it. He loves it. He has become attached to it.
And now you’re proposing that he ditch it and start all over again?!
Tough.
When should you suggest incremental changes versus demand sweeping changes?
How do you know when it’s time to tear it down and start from scratch with a redesign? I hate to rely on simplistic answers, but you just know.
I mean, seriously, the above website? You simply know.
Other times, it’s hard to tell. For example, I’ve always thought that Salesforce’s landing pages were downright horrific.
But maybe, after rigorous testing and thorough analysis, this is the best possible landing page on the planet for its product and user base.
It just depends.
There is no simple test that can tell you when to demand sweeping change versus making incremental adjustments. However, I can give you several pointers.
Know the user.
The user gets to decide what’s best. This is the underlying principle of testing, and it is the theory which guides conversion optimizers. Know the user, understand where they are coming from, assess their awareness, and comprehend usability before you make a decision.
Know the history.
Maybe the site has already undergone lengthy redesigns, multivariate testing, and expensive optimization to get it where it is. Or, maybe, the company doesn’t have a clue. Find out before deciding.
I’ve worked with clients who are operating vintage 1980 CMSes . I’ve had people who weren’t allowed to change a single pixel without permission from the CEO and the unanimous support of the 200 board members, an act of the Sudanese Congress, approval by the Italian and Russian mafia leadership (and their spouses), and a UN executive committee agreement (slight exaggeration). Sometimes, you have to work within the constraints of technology and the limitations of politics.
Know the goals/KPIs.
A company’s goals determine the direction of your conversion optimization work.
If the goal of a website is to shock users into thinking “CRAPPIEST WEBSITE EVER,” then don’t touch a thing. If, however, the goal is to sell a widget, get a newsletter sign-up, or have a visitor read an article, then this fact will guide your decision.
3. The Designer Should Follow Your Basic Advice, Not His Webby Dream
Here’s something I’ve learned about designers. They have dreams. They sometimes have topknots and tattoos. They want to win awards. They innovate. They are artists. They are restless souls.
[/Offensive Stereotyping]
So what happens when the dream collides with the anal number-crunching CRO?
I hyperbolize , but I speak words of wisdom.
When it comes to the basic design and construction of a webpage , you should make conversion recommendations to the design process.
Conversion optimization involves a holistic perspective of every area of the digital experience. Design is part of this experience — a very significant part. Although there are certain “design best practices,” these should mesh with a conversion optimization strategy.
One important principle to keep in mind is the familiarity principle, also known as the mere-exposure effect.
This principle states that the more you are exposed to a certain thing, the more you like that thing. For example, the more often you see a person, the more attractive they become to you.
WEB DESIGN
We are a professional web design company with an experienced team of creative professionals. We create outstanding designs for Websites. Our team is adept at implementing the latest web standards and programming techniques. 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 email- info@pixotritechnologies.com Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com
1 SIMPLE TRICK THAT WILL BOOST YOUR WEBSITE CONVERSIONS
Websites these days are taking hero images to the next level, embracing mega-images that fill whole screens. Sites ranging from ecommerce stores, to political sites, to Google Analytics itself are all using this device.
Huge images certainly deliver a visual impact, but that’s not why site owners love them; mega-images consistently deliver higher conversion rates.
Whether it’s a website dealing exclusively in sales, or one that’s just looking for sign-ups and site-visitor information, increased image sizes have been positively correlated with increased conversions. Naturally this has gotten the attention of big brands and e-commerce sites alike. It’s not about making things look cool, it’s a design decision aimed at making more money…
MAKE YOUR IMAGES BIGGER
Marketers have known for several years that using images, particularly images of humans, gives a site a conversion rate boost. Some well-known brands are now starting to catch up to this reality. By using mega-images, big brands are reasoning that they can improve the already good results of using high-quality images on their sites.
McDonald’s’ homepage shows off new menu items with huge images, but they go further on the product pages: to display the juicy tastiness of its burgers, the site displays them life-size.
On its homepage Walmart uses mega-images in its slideshow that introduces shoppers to various categories and sales on its website. These mega-images are useful because they grab the attention of site visitors to whatever specific offer or sale the company has going on at the moment.
.jpg)
This Google Analytics page is the best example of one of the most prominent brands ever switching over to this design approach. For each type of specific Analytics product — be it premium or for mobile — the company uses a distinct mega-image that also doubles as a clever testimonial from a real user of the service.
.jpg)
As you can see, mega-images today have a strong foothold in the design world, and it’s not just because they look special or different. There’s some strong data to back up the claim that they boost conversions…
HIGHRISE GETS MASSIVE SIGN-UP INCREASES
.jpg)
When the company decided to use a mega-image on its variation page, things drastically improved. While the original design simply featured a series of modest images, the variation was dominated by one feature above all else: a humongous mega-image that took up the entire background of the landing page.
This variation featuring the mega-image ended up out-performing the original landing page’s conversions by a stunning 102%! Talk about a remarkable change.
To be fair, while the mega-image page wasn’t the only design element that was changed — other changes included less info about the company and different colors — but it was by far the most striking.
Even a big brand like Dell can endeavor to do so much better when it comes to site conversions. An old Dell landing page already had some of the best practices of optimization in place, such as easy-to-read bullet points and a short, simple form. However, the image on the old landing page was small and didn’t really grab site visitors’ attention. The company wanted to increase lead generation since there’s always bigger and better.
When Dell redesigned the landing page, it opted for a drastic redesign that featured a humongous, background mega image. By making this mega image the background of the entire page, Dell succeeded in making it one of the more prominent elements of the page. The results? The new landing page enjoyed a 36% increase in leads and a 27% drop in bounce rates.
MALL.CZ INCREASE PRODUCT IMAGE SIZES WITH SUCCESSFUL OUTCOMES
Chances are that you’ve never heard of Mall. cz (unless you live in the Czech Republic). Mall. cz is the 2nd-largest e-commerce retailer in the Czech Republic, and it benefited from increasing the image sizes of its products. While not exactly mega-images proper , this case study proves that even a small increase in image sizes is good for a business’ bottomline .
.jpg)
The original version of product pages on the site featured smaller product images that were often overshadowed by intrusive text that made pages seem too cluttered. The company decided that it should experiment with bigger images; so its redesign centered around blowing up the products’ image sizes while hiding the text.
After some experimentation, it was determined that small increases in image size boosted conversions by almost 10%! That’s an impressive boost to the conversation rate, all thanks to increasing the size of the site’s product images.
.jpg)
BIGGER IS BETTER
It‘s an old cliché that clients always ask for their logo to be bigger, but trials by leading companies with huge research budgets, demonstrate that when it comes to images, bigger is most definitely better.
To be sure, it’s not just a matter of aesthetics. When you blow up images to the size of mega images, you’re also ensuring that your site visitors get to explore every small detail of your product, announcement or testimonial. In this way, mega images are also very functional and practical, as they make it easy for site visitors to see exactly what they’re trying to buy or sign up to.
We’ve all shied away from large images since the rise of the mobile web, and the potential for slow download speeds, persuaded us to err on the side of caution. However, it’s clear that far from hindering a site, increasing image size actually improves conversions; if you can make your images mega-images, taking up as much of the screen as possible, you’ll maximise your conversions.
WEB DESIGN
We are a professional web design company with an experienced team of creative professionals. We create outstanding designs for Websites. Our team is adept at implementing the latest web standards and programming techniques. 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 email-info@pixotritechnologies.com Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)