Web Development

How to create a 2021-ready website?

December 29, 2018 John Wells 0

Here we stand at the dawn of yet another year. 2021 saw the birth of some new trends, while some trends disappeared altogether. Although this holds true for every industry, here we are concerned with the ever-evolving world of the Internet where things change constantly.  Even as we talk about it right now, new innovations are happening in the online industry. Chula Vista Web design, which is a natural extension of the Internet marketing, or also known as digital marketing is experiencing a revolution of sorts and the coming year will see the culmination of some cool web design trends.

Web design is the most important aspect of a website. Just like everyone having a business, however small or big, needs a website, similarly every website needs good web design. But what exactly makes web design important?

Why do you want to care about web design?

A good web design is as important as having a website itself. Think about it. What is the purpose of your website?

It might be conversion or brand awareness or maybe it is just pure information that you want to provide through the website.

Whatever might be the intention, your efforts should be on providing the visitors with quick and easy access to what they came looking for. And this is why good web design matters. Whenever a visitor comes to your website he already knows what he is there for and the landing page should be able to present him with all that without him even requiring scrolling. A good design facilitates a similar end result creating a loyal fan following or customer base.

Things that you might consider including in your web design in 2021

With the evolution of technology, there are certain necessary amendments required to keep websites relevant and consumer friendly. The emergence of mobile is the biggest game changer that has transformed the web design industry in the last few years.  As more people use smartphones and other mobile devices like tablets for accessing the web, designers are adopting new techniques and trends for meeting the new challenges. If you are a website owner, here are some of the changes that you also might consider including in the coming year:

Infinite scrolling:

Infinite scrolling is one of the most acclaimed techniques in the world of web design, and yet we are still far away from witnessing widespread adoption of it in websites.  Also known as endless scrolling or continuous scrolling, the technique auto loads the content of second page when the user reaches at the bottom of the page so that it is not necessary to look for pagination buttons to go to the next part.  From the current notable examples, Facebook Newsfeed uses it. This scrolling was also a feature of Apple’s iBook 3.0 where the reader could easily go through a bestseller using vertical scrolling.

Handwritten fonts & Flat design:

In the age of social media, adding a personal touch to every communication is the latest fad. Its obvious advantage is the feeling that it comes directly from a person and not a computer or robotic device. Such personalization has always been welcomed in the world of signage and sign companies.

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that 2019 was the year of flat design. When a whole operating system (Windows 8) is modeled on the principles of flat design, you can easily predict the importance and the bright future associated with it. Apple went flat with its iOS7 which featured a complete flat design overhaul and it has quickly crept into website design. The benefits are more than just visual appeal. It also boosts the existing performance level.

Responsive mobile design:

Much has already been said about the importance of responsive design. Mobile traffic now accounts for more than one-third of the total website traffic and it’s only going to increase in 2019. Earlier mobile-specific websites were created to address these consumers, which needed a separate design team, server space and maintenance costs. However, with responsive design, it all boiled down to sticking to specific CSS and HTML5 codes so as to make a site react as per the screen size on which it is being viewed. Not only does it reduce the expenses of maintaining a separate website, it also lends it a professional aura. 2019 will make RWD the de facto standard rather than an anomaly in website designing.

Creative Restraints: Why They Are Not Necessarily Bad

November 26, 2018 John Wells 0

It freaks you out when you get interrupted by your senior designer just when you are about to do some awesome things with Photoshop. Yeah, this is a part of a website designer’s life. Every day we have to deal with extreme pressure, not to mention chasing insane target, and yet, people expect us to be creative 24×7 as if we are some sort of Martians. Well, we are not whining all the time. Work pressure is something normal with any creative work and definitely, we are not against this; rather what makes our job all the more difficult is the designing constraints. There are so many creative constraints in web design that make it tough for a designer to come up with something truly inspiring.

But constraints are not necessarily bad. They may look liked barbed wires restraining your movements and your creative freedom but in reality, they are not. They are the best tools for creativity. They challenge you and get the best out of you by pitting you in a position where you can let your creative part go wild. And because of these constraints, you will be trying to do new things and continue making experiments with the design part unless and until you come up with something aesthetically pleasing.

What these restrictions are?

Restrictions vary project wise. But there are certain restrictions that we have to encounter in almost all projects irrespective of their nature and clients’ specifications. Following are some basic constraints that trouble almost all web designers irrespective of the project scope –

*  Timeline
*  Preferences of the client
*  Expectation of the Customer
*  Browser restrictions
*  Screen Size restrictions
*  Our own personal preference
*  Our inability to work on certain platforms
*  Software restrictions

However, no matter how long this list of these restrictions may appear, these restrictions are not necessarily a bad thing. These restrictions will put you in a challenging position and thereby instigating you to rise above adversaries and deliver your best.

Too Much Freedom is certainly not A Great Thing

Freedom is all we desire. But in some cases, too much freedom can lead to trouble especially when you are in a creative domain. Chances are that when you are given unbridled freedom; you might get yourself lost in its vastness or vagueness. For say, if the client only says that he needs a great design and nothing else, will you be able to come up with anything? Definitely not, because the client has failed to specify in clear English, what he actually wants. So, if he has given some sort of specification like what he wants in the design and what he does not want, it will be easier for you to come up with something creative.

In short, restrictions help you stay focused and do our job the best way possible; without these restrictions, you will not be able to concentrate and waste your precise time on things that may not be related to the project. Here are the following benefits of restrictions that even the strongest supporters of freedom and democracy cannot rule out:

*  Making it easier to take quick decision
*  It helps us focus on things we are assigned with
*  Increases precision
*  It draws out our best

Take you out of our comfort Zone

Designing a website with a subtle touch of creativity is certainly not an easy feat. Now, staying creative 24×7 is super tough and definitely not something for the faint-hearted. So, the easiest way to stay creative is to eliminate the unwanted distractions that come thick and fast whenever you hit the work desk. The best way you can eliminate these distractions is by imposing self restrictions. These restrictions will not let you go wild while designing templates and speed up the process. And you may never know these restrictions may help you rise above everything and excel in your field.

You can even try new things like. You can impose a few more restrictions in a designing project apart from all those already set by the client just to challenge yourself a bit. You may never know you might be able to come up with something more interesting and awesome that you might have imaged ever. You can try any of these followings and I hope, it will get you out of your comfort zone:

*  Using only standard web fonts
*  Using only illustrator and no Photoshop
*  No images above the fold

When you will be imposing restrictions like these, you will be entrusted with the responsibility of doing something great with the available resources. And because of the limitation of resources, you will have to do something extraordinary with the available options and probably, this will lead to the birth of something awesome.

So, hopefully, you have come to realize the importance of restrictions in a creative process.

 

Ultimate guide to impressive and flat design

October 9, 2018 John Wells 0

It can be very much stated that the bygone years have been the years of flat design. All have been busy trying different levels of flat design and trust us, flat design is ever trending and seems to continue doing so. If you are also one of them who is ready to get started but are unsure about how you would go about it, we are there to help you explore them out right away.

If you are interested in swimming out a bit deeper and test out the flat design waters, here we go.

Flat design

So what is flat design? It is actually something that has the ability to trick and help the designers create a three-dimensional or even a realistic effect. This is one style that is often characterized by the minimalistic look and the muted and bold colors. Flat designs use typography that is simple along with simple icons and buttons. These often include drop shadows, artificial textures, and gradients.

Flat design can be held responsible for bringing back the emphasis on the minimalist design and have contributed in changing the attitude of the designers who have not been using the flat style techniques. They have returned back to the simple and the most basic typography. The emphasis is more on the sharp shapes and lines.

User interface kits

They are simply one of the best and greatest ways to get started on the flat design projects. When you are looking for trends, these kits can help you save time. A lot of user interface kits are available in PSD file formats and can be edited, provided you feel comfortable with the software. The options are growing with time and in the time to come, you will get plenty of them.

Don’t focus too much on the color while you choose one among the kits. A lot of kits are known to use colors that can be termed as ‘usable’ but the color scheme can be changed with just a few clicks. Pay attention to the saturation and contrast.

Metro UI kit

It is one of the brighter, beautiful and colorful kits that one can put into use. These have simple typography, attractive and colorful blocks and lot more interesting elements. It rules the usability factor when it comes to colors and style. This is also one kit that includes the chart, menus, icons, calendar, stats, and the search elements.

Polaris UI

These have a good range of panels and buttons and contain some of the exclusive features in the flat design. These kits include plenty of elements so enjoy and have fun.

LIL UI kit

These have so many interesting elements and matched pieces and are definitely a treat for all who are willing to put them into use. These do include almost 18 categories of elements. Vector kit in this is known to be customizable and it was specifically designed keeping the visual consistency and simplicity in mind.

Erste UI

These contain a good number of basic elements such as the menus, media player and the social login buttons. Colors are one of the important and crucial characteristics of the flat design and are known to put primary hues palettes into use.

Flat UI kit

These kits contain a huge number of elements right from the interesting navigation to the drop-down menus and ecommerce modules to the social sharing tools and a lot more. With this kit at service, you are up for getting spoiled.

Featherweight UI

It is a simple UI kit that includes simple icons, photo scroll, menus, and scroll widgets. It has the capability of playing more retro color allowing people to choose from one of their favorite themes out there. Even though the kit is not that large, you can still expect it to be elegant in terms of style and substance.

Vertical infinity

It is by the CSS author and also retina-ready. It should also be added that it is one of the biggest free kits that are available in the current time. It is highly manageable and actually includes plenty of other features such as the drop-down menus, widget formation and social icons and a lot more. It has a style that can actually be called “basic” without actually incorporating loads of extras. The good thing with these is that these can be easily used in almost any kind of application.

You can also grab the easily available free icons and most of the kits are available for almost free. A lot of those icons are specifically designed keeping the mobile device applications in mind. On the other hand, these icons can also serve plenty of other purposes and can go on to making some of the great and really amazing website buttons. While you are choosing them, make sure that you look for kits that do contain icons in different size options good enough to meet your requirements. However, when used too large, they can also lead to loss of quality.

 

Can Drupal be the right choice for mobile / web application development?

August 12, 2018 John Wells 0

Developing websites and applications for the mobile audience is quite different from developing the same for the desktop/laptop/tablet users. Whether you’re building a website/application for yourself or your clients, you need to be aware of this thin line of difference between developing for mobile audience and for the laptop/desktop customers. Increasing customer loyalty and adding revenue have always been the sole reasons behind website/web app development. As an alert entrepreneur, you need to opt for a web development platform that renders you the flexibility of meeting both these reasons with excellence. With a wide range of web-based content management systems available in the web market, choosing the right one is a tedious job.

Drupal is one of the most renowned web development platforms used for building simple as well as complex websites and web applications. The question here is whether Drupal can serve as the right software for building mobile websites and web applications? Well, this blog is an answer to this question which often arises in the minds of people who’ve loved Drupal for developing desktop websites/web apps but are quite dicy about using it for building mobile responsive website/web applications.

Drupal- Offering a nice separation between content and presentation

Every good website needs to have well-streamlined content. In addition to this, there must be a nice separation between content and presentation. Drupal comes with modules/extensions that allow you to have full control over the content and its presentation for both standards as well as mobile websites. If you surf the internet, you’ll come across a large number of mobile modules that allow you to have a stable version of your website that runs flawlessly on both desktops/laptops as well as smartphones. 

Drupal- Offering flexibility of serving multiple domains via a single site

Every website owner wants to have a unique domain for standard as well as the mobile version of his/her portal. Drupal comes with the flexibility of serving different domains from the same site: Domain Access. The webmaster just needs to enable Domain Access for receiving two separate versions of the website. After receiving the versions, he/she can easily set different themes for each of them, followed by customizing the same to suit the preferences of site visitors. And that’s not all, there are tons of other Drupal modules that can well be integrated with Domain Access for rendering options that can ensure the effective functioning of your website/web application.

Drupal encompasses reduced deployment time

One of the distinct advantages of using Drupal for building a mobile app is the reduced deployment time. Since the developed mobile app already has a companion Drupal site for traditional web browsers, you can expect it to reach a larger audience within a short span of time. The best part of Drupal powered mobile apps is that you need not worry about their compatibility with the traditional web browsers. The mobile responsive themes of these Drupal apps allow you to stay worry-free about building a native app that’s compatible with the older web browsers. The web version of the respective Drupal app is readily available just by requesting the specific URL.

Once you’re familiar with the target mobile browsers, integrating mobile features into the Drupal site becomes simple and can be easily performed with the help of following modules:

  • Browscap– This is a module that will assist you in detecting the browser type.
  • Mobile Tools– This module helps you with browser detection, redirection to mobile site and theme switching that’s based on the device type.
  • Mobile Plugin– This is a handy module for detecting the device and performing image scaling.
  • WURFL– This is a module that detects mobile device capabilities.
  • Mobile jQuery Theme– This is a theming module that utilizes jQuery Mobile framework for theming.
  • Mobile– This is yet another theming module that can be used as a custom theme base.
  • Fusion Mobile– This is a Fusion Core sub-theme that’s targeted for mobile users.

Buzz around Drupal and mobile is getting bigger and better

Considering all the aforementioned factors, it’s quite simple to say that the buzz around Drupal and mobile is getting better with each passing day. It’s hard to imagine a single day wherein developers will be building apps using the mobile IDEs. Whether it’s about making code edits to a module file or committing codes via your phone, Drupal has built-in features that allow you to perform all this and much more.

Conclusion

From everything mentioned above, it’s quite clear that Drupal has the potential to contain your content, user management, business logic, and search functionality. With the never-ending demand for mobile apps development, the usage of Drupal will definitely witness an incredible amount of popularity.

 

Top 15 most talked-about web design trends

August 5, 2018 John Wells 0

Designing a website is a work of art and it requires complete knowledge of the latest tools, trends, and techniques. There have been new design trends coming in limelight from time to time and this changing trend has been there to attract and influence website visitors in a positive manner. As we move further with the latest design technologies, the web today is changing dynamically with vibrant updates. New website designs are aimed at easing the access of information, networking with social contacts and accomplishment of other tasks. Out of all the trending designs of the year, these 15 designs have gained a top spot among various other design techniques.

The introduction of CSS3 and HTML5 has completely changed the whole design approach in a progressive manner, designers got the much-needed momentum to try out and explore various new design techniques purely using CSS and HTML.

Here is a collection of top 15 most talked-about web design trends to watch for!

Responsive Single-Page Designs

The trend of responsive web layouts has been there for some time and is there for a prime motto of creating a single design matching all the devices available. However, designing websites on a single page is the latest trend followed nowadays. The combination of the responsive design of a single page website is trending a lot among the designers of today.

Retina Display Support

Devices with retina displays have been already introduced to the consumers that are capable of displaying high-resolution media. So, the latest trend follows with creating high-resolution retina-display compatible web pages.

Fixed Header Bars & Mobile Navigation

Making navigation easy has been the prime task of all the web designers. Following this concern, fixed header bars have been introduced at the top of a web page that is visible continuously at the top of the web page to provide easy access. Also, mobile navigation links are gaining popularity that provides ease of navigation to the user while navigating through the site.

Fullscreen Backgrounds & Typography

The idea of full-screen backgrounds and attractive typography is a brilliant attention grabber for visitors. A proper fitting provides a pleasing design to the viewers giving an extra edge to the website design.

Transparent Elements

CSS3 provides advanced properties for adding transparency to web page elements. This transparency provides a lively look to the web page design and is trending a lot.

Simple and Minimal Landing Page

The latest idea for selling products online is to keep the website simple and focus on a minimalist view for core focus on the product.

QR Codes

Barcodes have been replaced by Quick Response (QR) codes. These codes have evolved to catch up with the fast response needs. These codes have found a place on websites to provide quick access to coded data.

Illustrative Web pages

Illustrations are a better way of capturing the attention of a visitor. Creating illustrative web pages requires artistic and creative skills to create appealing designs.

Infinite Scrolling

The idea of infinite scrolling has been over the internet for some time, but it is now that this design has gained a spot in trending designs.

Featured Homepages & Sliding Panels

An example of illustrated webpages lies in featured homepages describing the website and regularly sliding panels highlighting products at the top of the page.

Animations & Circular Elements

Animations are an excellent approach to holding the attention of the visitor to the website. Animated effects are used to graphically describe a particular product/service for which the website has been built. While, the use of circles for description purposes is an easy, clean and compatible with every layout.

Vertical Navigation

Vertical navigation panels have not been a famous design for various web sites. While many creative designers have attracted other designers to this view by creating some elegant designs and has put this design into the latest trends.

Social Media Badges

The success of a website depends primarily on the marketing of a website. Marketing through social media is becoming a vital component of successful marketing of a website. Almost all the online social communities have their own badges for sharing on different websites that can be pinned at any place in a layout over an article or a blog. These badges help a reader quickly share the content of a website on popular social networking websites.

Deep Box Shadows

Deep shadowed boxes are trending in web designs today, where the shadows of boxes infused with the modern designs of a website provide an attractive effect. This effect gives an amazing look to the website without reducing the aesthetic value of the website. The implementation of this design seemed to be difficult before because of the need for long and difficult codes of Javascript or some other elements. With the introduction of CSS, this design can be created with simple script code.

Blurred Backgrounds

The use of a blurred background adds to the depth of a website and enhances the visual interest of the viewer. This design helps to grab the attention of the viewer towards the main content or visual elements of a website. These designs also translate easily to mobile versions of websites without compromising on the impact of the design. The background added is not meant to provide any message to the viewer; rather, it is there to provide a viewpoint that the content visible clearly holds more significance.

All these designs have gained a high popularity among designers and have been proved very successful in attracting a huge number of visitors. The user interface is the first preference for the design of a website that is created today, which these designing trends aim to provide to the user. A lot of examples can be found over the internet with the implementation of these latest design trends.

 

How to design your website to increase conversions

July 7, 2018 John Wells 0

Attracting traffic to your website is just part of the story. Obviously, it’s important that people visit your site, but it does not really help if the traffic does not lead to an increase in conversions. You need to ensure that people who visit your website go on to buy your products, or pay for your service. This is the only way you are going to increase profits and help your business to grow.

There are actions you can take which is more likely that traffic will convert into sales. Let’s take a look at some of the most important things to consider when you are designing your website.

Make the buyer journey simple

No-one wants life to be complicated. When people are buying online, they want the whole process to be easy to navigate and complete. If you have a sign-up process, do not make it too lengthy. You only really need to know a person’s full name and email address from the outset; asking lots of other questions will put people off. It’s often a good idea to give people the option of purchasing as a guest, without the need to register. This is popular with busy people who are looking to make a quick purchase.

Keep information clear and concise

Think about what you would want to know about your brand that would make you want to make a purchase. Make sure the information you provide is to the point and tells people what you can do for them.   If you have additional information, that could be useful, consider creating an online brochure or magazine. Doing this means that people can access the additional information if they choose to, but it does not detract from the direct message of your home page.

Consider different payment methods

Not everyone wants to use a bank card or a credit card online. If you stick to allowing only these payment methods, you are not going to optimize your conversion potential. Online wallets, such as PayPal, are popular with many people as they provide a secure and simple way to make purchases online. It’s a good idea to allow visitors to your website to use alternative payment methods. Conversely, you should not provide so many options that the process becomes unwieldy and puts people off completing their purchases.

Show alternative products

When people are shopping for a product on your website, take the opportunity to provide suggestions about other products they may be interested in. You can do this while they are browsing or when they are actually making a purchase. People are often attracted by a product that can accompany an item they are buying. There is also the chance that someone has decided against purchasing a certain item, but decides that the alternative you suggest is just right for them.

Make sure calls to action are prominent

Calls to action need to be created carefully. You do not want people to feel as though you are being too invasive, but you need to be clear as to the action they should take. It’s often a good idea to include a call to action on each page. Make sure they are prominent and included in the early part of your content.

Include relevant and real testimonials

People tend to follow the example of others when it comes to making a purchase or using a service. This is why including honest testimonials on your website can be such a useful tool. If you receive an email from a customer, complimenting you on your service, ask for their permission to use it as a testimonial. You can also create testimonials by using a well-crafted feedback form. Think about the questions you need to ask in order to get the information you need. Always remember to ask permission before you use any customer comments.

Use video to demonstrate your product

People often like to see how a product works, before they make a purchase. This is why including an instructional video on your website is often a good idea. Remember to keep videos to the point, so that people will be more inclined to watch. If you need help with your marketing videos, speak to an expert in marketing online. They can give you the benefit of their experience and expertise.

Your website should be designed with conversion in mind. As you can see from the points we have included, you need to show people what you can do for them, make all of your information clear, and make the buying process as simple as possible.

 

5 important tips to improve your website performance

May 30, 2018 John Wells 0

Website has become a major tool for modern day business promotion, marketing, and brand building strategies. New customers are being targeted through Internet marketing, social media, and online advertising very effectively. Potential Customers are everywhere in the world, and social media provides an opportunity to go online and find new business quickly.

In order to stand firm and to make their business base stronger, business start-ups should definitely have a quality website in place. Online identity is equally important to companies and individual entrepreneurs who are looking to make their ideas famous and want to be heard. New business strategies define their success pace, but the promotional package starts with the website. Online marketing, social media, etc won’t work without a good website.

It’s essential to have a web presence to seal a success in rapidly growing challenging world today. It shall come to the website owner to keep all major tune-ups and aspects in mind about improving the website performance. Website owner needs to learn knowledge continuously about website performance and improvements which can help Search Engine Optimization and user experience.

5 Tips to Improve your Website Performance

Given below are 5 important tips which can help you improve your website’s overall performance.

1. Make the Modern Design

The website design should definitely be an important thing. In the traditional advertising field, usually advertising companies try to focus on the graphics design and try to make ads attracting eyes. It doesn’t mean banner ads would start talking to anyone, but it certainly means the quality and innovation should be touching height.

2. Creativity in the Graphics

Good design and creative UI improves a website’s visibility and social media reputation. When people like any website’s appearance and graphics, it tends them to share with their family and friends. In blogging, when a visitor reaches on the blog, (s)he starts looking the design of the blog before jumping to the content of the blog, so creative graphics of a website also helps in keeping the visitors.

3. Lightweight pages for SEO

SEO experts believe to make web pages light and simple. E.G. some website owners don’t restrict to use images, but extra large images with heavy size pictures will definitely slow down the page load speed which gives the signal to the search engines that send the visitor to the website about this lacking point. Instead of heavy pages, if a website owner speeds up page loading, it would help website ranking in the search engines. Complex coding and DB queries also make complications for a website. SEO experts usually avoid the use of JavaScript and Action Script in order to achieve lightweight website development.

4. Detailed Text Content for explanation

Text content is the most part of a website. Text-based content helps search engines read the content and index the website in result of the better search engine ranking. Bloggers give importance to both images and text content. The most important thing on a blog is content which includes text and images of the articles.

5. High-Quality Website Host

Web hosting is another important factor of a quality site. If a website is not hosted on a high-quality web hosting, it will never perform up to the mark. The most painful thing about bad web host is that search engines would identify those websites with low-quality website hosting by crawling to them and find out by low-quality web hosting servers. Web hosting should be chosen with care in order to achieve the best results of a website.

 

Using An Appropriate Coloring System While Designing Your Website

10 fresh highly useful free web design tools

February 17, 2018 John Wells 0

Web designing has become a very vital part of any business or service. You have to create your own website to boost up your product sales. In the previous decades, people have to rely on only the professionals in web designing to get their new website design done. They have charged more than the nominal fees for it as they were the only option for designing your website. However, nowadays we have so many facilities for creating a new website. Many ready-made tools and software are available to make you more convenient in the process of web designing. Therefore, you can now come up with your own, a highly professional and an appealing website without the influence of any professional web designers using the various free high-quality website designing tools and downloads.

You have so many such tools available online. However, you may face a little dilemma in selecting the right tool for the right task, as the options are not limited and new tools are being released in vast numbers each day. Therefore, this article comes as an inspiration to help you in finding some awesome and fresh tools that can help your web design job. Listed below are the top nine web building tools that can be useful to you.

Yeoman 1.0 – Modern workflows for modern web apps

Yeoman is an open source project which defines an opinionated stack for web application development. It includes a golden bundle of tools and frameworks, provided with documentation and authority. The aim is to help developers quickly build beautiful web applications.

Viewport Resizer

Viewport resizer is a browser-based tool and bookmarklet to test any website’s responsiveness. You just have to save the bookmarklet, go to the page you want to test the responsiveness, and click on your created bookmarklet and check the page in all kinds of screen resolutions.

Typicons

Typicons are free-to-use vector icons embedded in a web font kit for easy use in your UI, whether it be on the web or in a native application. Typicons save space and time by pairing a vector icon to a character, just like Webdings or Windings. Then, using the CSS3 pseudo-selector:: before, the appropriate characters are bound to their respective classes (eliminating the need to remember the correct index of each icon).

BootMetro

A simple and complete web UI framework to create web apps with Windows 8 Metro user interface. Flexible HTML, CSS, and Javascript for web apps that want to use the “Windows 8 App Store” style, without the need to run on Windows 8.

Proto

Proto helps you knock up quick responsive layout concepts by providing a set of predefined CSS classes. All that’s needed to get going is the proto.scss file and some basic HTML.

Photon CSS 3D Lighting Engine

Photon is a JavaScript library that adds simple lighting effects to DOM elements in 3D space. It’s rather processor-intensive, so please use responsibly.

Foundation

Foundation by ZURB is the most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world.

Fontello

Easy way to create a custom icon font for your site. Select images from a large collection, and make a webfont pack with one click.

Subtle Patterns

Free high-quality backgrounds or patterns for your next web design project.

Stylo

The idea of stylo is to let people design basic web apps using a Fireworks like user interface, ultimately exporting the finished design as CSS.

 

Must have free android apps for web designers and developers

January 31, 2018 John Wells 0

Android is a Linux-based operating system developed mainly for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Android is an open-source operating system owned by Google. What makes android special is the community support. Android has the support of a large developer community who writes applications. Android applications are used to extend the basic functionality. As of October 2012, there were approximately 700,000 android apps available in the app market, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from Google Play, Android’s primary app store, was more than 25 billion.

With these powerful apps, people can now perform almost all things on the go, which were previously possible only with computers. As far as web designers are concerned, they can now perform so many web design related things on the move using an Android powered device. That is the power of Android apps.

Here in this post, we have collected more than 5 best and useful android applications for web designers and developers. You can download the application from the play store,.

WM FTP Client

WM FTP Client is an FTP client developed with WinDev Mobile edited by PC SOFT.
This application will allow you to easily interact with an FTP server from your smartphone or your tablet.
You will be able to, among other things, rename, delete, download and send some files.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Edit and share photos virtually anywhere. Touch to crop, rotate, adjust color, and add artistic effects. Access all your photos and videos directly from your free Photoshop.com account. Quickly share with family and friends. Requires SD card. By downloading you agree to the Terms of Use at www.photoshop.com/misc/terms.html

DroidEdit (free code editor)

DroidEdit is a text and source code editor (similar to Notepad++ or gedit) for android tablets and phones with the following features:

– Syntax Highlighting for several languages (C, C++, C#, Java, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, Ruby, Lua, LaTeX, SQL, …)

Color Pal

Easily find color palettes and schemes for any design project. Whether you’re a web designer or just looking to paint your son’s room, you’ll find some of the best color palettes/schemes available.

Google Analytics

The Google Analytics app shows what is new and what is important on your Google Analytics profiles. See real-time statistics, customizable dashboards and intelligence events on your phone.

 

WebRank SEO

One of the Best SEO App in the Market.

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Mobile UX dissection – The right approach to deliver remarkable user experiences

January 7, 2018 John Wells 0

With an amazing population leveraging mobile technology to the fullest, the need for delivering the finest mobile experiences has become vital. As an app developer, you can make sure that your mobile experience meets the end users’ expectations in the best possible manner. For this, a possible strategy is to identify the potential problems that can hamper the performance of your mobile application. With a detailed diagnosis of your app’s UX, you can even gather brilliant insights on redesigning the applications for enhanced functioning.

So, keep on reading this blog to get a clear idea about mobile UX scrutiny which will save you from receiving bad reviews for your application.

Why and when to perform an evaluation of Mobile UX?

It is vital for you to be familiar with the difference between app testing and mobile UX diagnosis. Unlike the case of app testing, performing a mobile UX diagnostic will unwind a number of issues related to the usability of the application. If you too are planning to conduct mobile UX diagnostic, then the best time to do it is during the app design and development phase. Here, you can ensure that your app is in compliance with the practices and guidelines that need to be followed for developing high-end mobile applications. Although UX Diagnosis can be done by a single annotator, the process can be handled best when undertaken by multiple annotators hailing from different backgrounds and possessing unique expertise.

Now, let me walk you through the 4 Steps that are involved in the evaluation of mobile UX

Step 1 – Identifying end users and specific scenarios

As a mobile UX evaluator, you need to be sure about the target audience for your app. Also, you should step into the end users’ shoes and check out all the possibilities available with the mobile application. You need to seek answers to questions including: Which devices are being used by the target users? Which operating system version is being used by the target users? What is the main competition for the mobile app?

Step 2 – Perform the app UX analysis

If you have appointed a team for conducting the mobile UX diagnosis, then ensure that each team member is being allotted an individual work on different aspects as explained below:

Adherence to 80/20 rule

As per the 80/20 rule, a whopping 80% of app users prefer using just 20% of its functionality. You need to check out whether the vital 20% functionality incorporated within the app is intuitive or not. The results attained thereafter would allow you to cut down unwanted features right away.

Rapid Competitive Benchmarking

Well, Rapid Competitive Benchmarking is basically a process where you can compare your mobile UX with multiple competitors that offer similar functionality. Here, you can make a note of all the areas where your competitors are offering a better user experience. 

Reviewing the app’s overall UX feedback

The process of reviewing the overall UX feedback involves documenting the way users install your app, the cross-platform experience, the cross-device experience, reviews received by your app in multiple app stores and comments/feedback of users received via email.

Step 3 – Organize a Team Review session

Once your team is done with analyzing app UX, it is time for you to organize a team review session. This collaboration of all team members would enable you to compare and validate individual findings. You can ask one of the evaluators to facilitate the discussion, enabling others to verify whether they have come across similar issues or not. Finally, you should identify all possible solutions for the problems and jot down the same in the form of a consolidated list. If possible, you can even invite experienced app designers for reviewing your team discussion. Doing this would allow you to explore areas for further improvement.

Step 4 – Use a slide presentation for problems and feasible recommendations pertaining to app UX

Although a spreadsheet is a handy technique of reporting issues and solutions; choosing the visual way is perhaps a lot more impressive. Hence, you can indulge in creating powerpoint slides for summarizing your journey of diagnosing the mobile UX. Dedicating one slide to one problem will make it simpler for you to plan the re-design in a stress-free way. Plus, you can even incorporate the use of callouts and screen-shots for adding understandability to your app UX evaluation project. Grouping less severe problems together will allow you to address each one with an equal amount of attention.

Conclusion

Mobile user experience can make or break the reputation of your app. If you have just started with designing an app or already have one live, conducting a planned UX analysis will always work in your favor. I hope the overview presented above would have motivated you to gear up with Mobile UX analysis. By focusing on individual UX elements, you can effectively create a pleasing experience for the targeted app users.