Post pobrano z: 3 tools that make Wix perfect for building business websites

Wix is without a doubt the most famous website building tool nowadays. It has millions of users for a good reason, it’s a powerful tool that makes website creation very accessible to anyone who knows how to use a computer. One of the reasons for Wix’s success is that all their tools can be used by both professionals and amateurs and that they can help you build business sites. They showed it again with their logo maker, which is an incredible addition to their business tools. In this post, we look at a few of the more recent additions made by Wix to their website creation arsenal and look at the advantages of each.

1. The Wix Logo Maker

Branding is much more than just a logo, it’s a process that involves coherent visual efforts to give a strong and unique identity to your company. However, no company will have decent branding without having a good business logo.

If you don’t have the budget for a graphic design, you will need to find a way to design your own logo. For that, you will need to find the right kind of tool. The Wix Logo Maker is perfect for this kind of task. Unlike many design tools that allow you to design a wide range of visuals, Wix’s tool was built with logo design in mind.

The main advantage of this tool is the simplicity of use. No learning curve is needed, you can get started immediately. Simply enter your business name, add a tagline if you want and follow the process. Wix Logo Maker will try to get a better grasp of your taste by showing you some logo inspiration, then it will make some proposal. If you find a logo that you find nearly suitable, you can then process to edit it will the logo editor that allows you to change shapes, colors, sizes, and positioning.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, this tool produces professional files that you can use beyond your website. The logo can be exported as an SVG file that can be used at any size for print.

2. Wix Artificial Intelligence Design (ADI)

The “traditional” Wix editor was already known for its simplicity, I’ve seen many friends with no web dev background start using it in a matter of minutes. Most companies would have stopped their efforts there, but Wix took it one step further and built a new editor based on artificial intelligence.

If you are a user, you can choose to start using the Wix ADI editor from your admin interface. Just like for the logo making tool, the Wix ADI will assist you in non-technical ways, making it even easier to create a web design that has exactly the look-and-feel need for the type of messages you want to convey. In short, the Wix ADI will not only make your website look better and more efficient, it will also make the creation process much quicker.

3. Wix Code

As usual, Wix also thought of people who want to take their website even further when releasing new tools. Wix Code is their latest addition in order to make novices and developers happy by allowing them to extend the functionalities of the website on their own. In your admin panel, you can activate this wonderful feature by going to Wix Editor > Code > Developers Tools.

Wix Code was built for all users, novices and advanced users. It gives you the chance to add features otherwise unavailable using the available tools or by coding them yourself. This way, you can create dynamic pages with more user interaction, build forms that interact with the database easily, or add custom interactions that make the user experience better. Databases are probably one of the key features of Wix Code, as they can make you save a lot of time. We should also not forget to mention an important functionality, the possibility for developers to use the Wix API to take advantage of the website builder’s power.

You will also be pleased to know that Wix provides in-depth documentation on the usage of Wix Code, as well as video tutorials to learn how it works to finally take advantage of user data.

Bonus: the Wix App Market

The App Market is an ecosystem that allows developers to offer extra features that not all websites will need. It is incredibly powerful as it basically gives you the chance to build anything you could dream of with Wix. Whether you want to handle events on your website, add a booking system to it or add a chat for support, it is possible, thanks to the App Market. Some tool are free and some are paid, but the paid ones are definitely worth the money. Among the tools, you will also find some powerful marketing and automation tools that are already included into the Wix ecosystem, making implementation very fast and easy.

Post pobrano z: Awesome Tools and Resources for Designers You Need to Try in 2018

When it comes to web design trends and technologies, the only constant is change. Those much sought after comfort zones usually don’t stay that way all that long. It’s hard to keep up with those competitors who always address new technologies.

It’s not always that way of course. Most designers often find themselves scrambling to keep up with the times. There’s good news, however. Technologies change and create new challenges. Then, the new tools and resources generally come into play.  They aim to meet and overcome those challenges.

Maybe this is a good time for you to take stock of your tools and resources. See where pursuing some updates or tools might be in order.

This list of 15 of 2018’s best tools and resources should help you get started.

1. Mason

Requirements, like technologies, also have a habit of changing, and much more often. Getting a software product out the door can bring with it enough problems. When requirements change, or updates are needed, whether during design and development or during maintenance, it means even more work. In the latter case changes sometimes require repetitive deployment cycles.

Mason is a software design, development, maintenance, and collaboration tool that will enable you to avoid facing these repetitive deployment cycles and help speed up the design/development process as well.

Mason, with its wealth of software product design features, enables you to build, edit, and manage your products from a single platform. It’s pre-packaged building blocks address common requirements and are continuously updated.

What Mason does differently is to allow others, including end users, to make changes, even after your product has been signed off and deployed. Thanks to Mason’s login and user registration security features, you maintain complete control over what happens. Approved individuals can make maintenance changes or updates without having to repeat the deployment cycle.

2. Mobirise

The ability to create mobile-friendly websites has become practically mandatory for themes and web designers alike. Most WordPress themes advertise mobile friendly, device friendly, or responsive as one of these features, and for good reason. Mobirise on the other hand is a free website builder that was created with mobile devices in mind.

Mobirise can be used for personal or commercial use, free and without restrictions. Since it is an offline app, you’re not tied down to the theme, you have total control over your website or mobile app design, and you can host it wherever and however you choose to.

This is a great tool for anyone who works on multiple small projects such as small websites, promo sites, portfolios, or landing pages. It has all the features and design elements you’re likely to need, and no coding is necessary.

3. Elementor

Elementor is a feature-rich, open source frontend website builder that can justifiably claim to be the best page-building tool on the market. The numbers would seem to bear that out as more than 900,000 users have signed up to use Elementor in just under 2 years. Signing up is not at all complicated since Elementor is yours to use for free.

Part of Elementor’s popularity is no doubt due to its superior workflow features, its menu and visual form builders, custom CSS and superior integrations. Ease of use and excellent performance are other key factors.

This page-building machine is only going to get better, given what has been added in the latest release, Elementor 2.0. Features include new eCommerce page-building capabilities, enhanced WooCommerce shop product pages, single post page builders, and more. Several of these new features have already been released, with the remaining features to follow throughout 2018.

4. A2’s Fully Managed WordPress Hosting

A2’s managed WordPress hosting features can easily be customized to fit your exact needs. Not only will you get the hosting experience you want and need, but you’ll get it for much less than you would typically pay elsewhere.

A2 Hosting’s servers are blazing fast, and services include automated backups and WordPress updates, free CDN, and excellent customer support.

5. Goodiewebsite

Goodiewebsite is a development agency that’s been in business since 2006. Their specialty is smaller websites (1 to 10 page) and simple WordPress websites. The Goodiewebsite staff can help you with your design work as well as your coding needs.

You can always expect Goodiewebsite’s cost effective services to be accomplished reliably and professionally.

6. monday.com

This high-performance team management tool will serve you equally well whether your team consists of yourself and one other, or of several thousand individuals dispersed around the globe. monday.com offers an excellent opportunity to dispense with multiple spreadsheets displaying project status and expenses and planning and strategy exercises done on whiteboards.

Lengthy and all-too frequent meetings can be minimized, if not avoided. monday.com is easy to use, it promotes team transparency and can empower team members.

7. Houzez

In addition to providing various listings options, advanced property search capabilities, and payment options, Houzez has added a custom fields builder and search composer to make it easier for individuals and agencies alike to administrate the real estate marketplace, coordinate activities among agents, and accept submissions; all within the confines of their business model.

Additionally, Houzez provides a great level of customer support.

8. The Hanger

If establishing a modern-classic shop is your objective, or that of your client’s, your best approach would be to use a modern-classic specialized WordPress theme to get you there. The Hanger is easy to set up and use.

You can build a high-quality online shop in no time at all, while customizing it to fit your client’s brand or the brands of the merchandise.

9. LayerSlider

LayerSlider is a responsive, multipurpose animation platform from which you can create everything from slideshows and sliders, to image galleries, landing pages, and even complete websites. LayerSlider’s builder is drag and drop with no coding required. It is supported by a large hand-crafted template library and a whole host of design elements.

Detailed documentation comes with the package and you can expect top-notch customer support.

10. Uncode – Creative Multiuse WordPress Theme

The saying that all good things take time isn’t always true. With Uncode, you can build an awesome portfolio to showcase your work in a few short hours. You don’t have to start from scratch, and there’s no coding involved.

Uncode makes it easy and its new features like Shape Dividers, Slides Scroll and a powerful Gallery Manager make it even easier – and fun as well.

11. WhatFontis.com

Trying to locate a font that you simply cannot do without, but you don’t know its name can be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack; which is the reason to add WhatFontis.com to your toolkit.

It’s simply a matter of submitting an image and letting WhatFontis.com search its 450,000 font database with its AI search tool. You can usually expect your answer in less than a minute.

12. FFonts.net

If you build multiple websites for multiple clients you’re likely to need a variety of font types or styles in the process. If that’s the case, FFonts.net’s directory of 75,000 free fonts will serve you well.

The fonts have been judiciously categorized to save you time, and when you find the font you need, or a font style of interest, you can use it in a string of text to see how it will appear in actual use.

13. Fluid UI

You can put Fluid UI’s prototyping capabilities to good use to speed up your design workflow and enhance team collaboration by creating colorful and informative interactive prototypes, wireframes, or mockups.

Fluid UI enables you and your team to collaborate via chat or video in real time from both desktops and mobile devices. Built-in design components for desktop, Android, and iOS prototyping applications come with the package.

14. Pixpa

Designed for creative professionals, Pixpa delivers pixel-perfect portfolio websites, features a built-in eCommerce store to get you up and running in record time, and also offers client proofing and blogging tools to make the package complete.

You can do everything from one platform, powered by Pixpa’s best in class hosting and 24×7 support, instead of having to rely on multiple tools or resources to showcase your work. Get started for free with the 15-day trial.

15. wpDataTables

Trying to condense huge volumes of complex data to present in a table or chart can be a scary proposition; even more so if a table is to be interactive, responsive, and editable. wpDataTables can do all these things, and quickly.

This #1 WordPress table and chart-building plugin has become so popular, and made it so easy to build colorful, informative tables and charts, that more than a few designers have switched to WordPress for the opportunity to use it.

Conclusion

Changing technologies can take a toll on design workflow time and team collaboration. Website hosting and even product deployment can also be affected. This is the case if the tools and resources you’re using aren’t up to the task.

The tools and resources listed here were chosen to help you update your design toolkit. Picking one or more should be more than enough to brighten your day, and that of your team’s and your clients’.

Post pobrano z: Crutches reinvented

Some products seem to have been designed the same way forever. Take crutches for example, it seems that one guy buit it one way and everybody thought it couldn’t be improved and kept producing new crutches with the same designs over and over. Of course, there were some minor formal changes in terms of design, but the functionalities didn’t evolve much.

The people at Mobility Designed didn’t take crutch-assisted mobility for granted and decided to give it their own twist. The results are stunning, the M+D crutches allow for better mobility, hands-free usage, and other cool features that you can see in the video above.

Post pobrano z: 5 Reasons Why You Should Launch a Print-on-Demand T-Shirt Business

Have you ever dreamed of starting your own business?

You might think that it’s out of your reach, but it is not, because with 21st century technologies pretty much anyone can start a business.

Selling print-on-demand t-shirts is one of the easiest ways to get started with dropshipping. Here are 5 reasons why you should do it…

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

What is print-on-demand?

Dropshipping is a business model where the seller runs the store and markets and sells the products while the manufacturer produces and stores said products and ships them to customers.

Print-on-demand is a form of dropshipping that allows you to create a unique design, print it on products (it can be anything from t-shirts to mugs), and sell those products to the customers through your online store.

T-shirt are the most popular print-on-demand item. After all, everyone needs them, and people love wearing apparel with cool designs! You can sell print on demand t-shirts with Printify.

Why should you launch your print-on-demand t-shirt business?

Okay, so now that you know what print-on-demand business is, the question is why should you start one?

• Low-risk. There’s pretty much no risk involved in dropshipping because the product only gets made when the customer has paid for it. You only pay the fulfillment company a percentage from each product that you actually sell.
• Low-investment. You only need a little bit of money to get started with print-on-demand t-shirts. You will have to pay for a domain name, for a Shopify account, and for Facebook ads, but that’s pretty much it (unless, of course, you are not artistically inclined and can’t create the designs yourself, because then you’ll also have to pay for design). You can get started with less than $100!
• Work from anywhere. All you need to run a print-on-demand t-shirt business is a computer and an Internet connection. Yes, this means that you can work from home, but that’s not all! “Home” can be anywhere. Buenos Aires, Paris, Tokyo… You can travel the world while making money!

Photo by Kevin Schmid on Unsplash

• Set your own hours. Do you know that the standard 9-5 workday was meant for factory workers doing mindless repetitive work? It simply doesn’t work well for people who are in cognitively demanding occupations. Some of us produce our best work early in the morning, meanwhile some of us produce our best work late at night, so how does it make sense for everyone to work the same hours? It doesn’t! However, running your own business allows you to set your own schedule, and be much productive!
• Make decent money! Yes, jobs might be less risky than running a business (although even that is highly questionable in the current economy), but they also have a salary ceiling that you won’t be able to surpass no matter what you do. Meanwhile, when you run your own business, you don’t have this problem, because you can grow your revenue as much as you want. Moreover, you can also sell your business for 20x-30x the monthly revenue, which is a lot of money. Can you imagine a life where you don’t have to worry about money anymore? Well, if you can manage to build a successful busines, it could become your reality!

So let’s recap. A print-on-demand t-shirt business is low-risk, low-investment opportunity that, if everything works out, could provide you with a life where you can travel the world, work wherever and whenever you want, and make a lot of money. The question is… What are you waiting for?

Photo by Lost Co on Unsplash

Conclusion

It’s great that you are excited about print-on-demand t-shirts, but keep in mind that this excitement will fade, and there will be times when you will want to quit. After all, it takes a lot of hard work to get a business off the ground, and you probably won’t be able to replace the income from your job in less than a year. Can you persevere for that long?

Are you okay with your 9-5 office job, 4 weeks vacation every year, and your current salary? If so, then there’s probably not much point launching your own business, because if you don’t want it badly enough you are not going to last.

However, if you are sick and tired of your current situation, then by all means, commit to entrepreneurship. No one can change your life but you!

Post pobrano z: Trove, a wearable cryptocurrency wallet that secures your assets

If I write the words “cryptocurrency wallet”, you will probably think of something digital like an app, but not of a physical product. This is because most wallets are software-based, but not all, their are also some hardware-wallets out there.

Benjamin Hubert, a designer at the Layer Agency, recently launched his own hardware wallet. However, unlike most of these physical wallets, he added a design touch to it. Although still at prototype stage, Trove, a cryptocurrency wallet in the form of a storage coin, is pretty impressive. It is claimed that the coin is unloseable and unhackable. The storage goes with a smartphone app that makes transactions safe and easy.

However, the most stunning feature is the wearable part. The device that goes with the storage coin has a key feature that makes it much more secure: it comes with an electrocardiogram sensor that will open access to the device (or not) when you press it against your skin.

Post pobrano z: Alphabet topography

Synoptic Office has released a creative font that was built using topographic-like lines to make each letter come out. It’s already pretty cool in terms of craft and visual results, but the project is more than just an artsy stunt.

For each letter, the elevation of the topographic lines varies according to the number of time the letter is statistically used in the English language. This gives you a typographic and topographic landscape of the English alphabet, an interesting and artistic example of data visualization done right.

Post pobrano z: The most important tools for the remote worker

Whether you are an employee who occasionally works from home, a stay-at-home freelancer, or you just work on your train rides to your office, you probably have been confronted often to the challenge of remote work. Actually, with the tools available nowadays, remote working is not so much of a challenge as it used to be.

On the organisational side, you need to be disciplined and focused to be able to work remotely, but you also need the tools for it. Here is a quick overview of the tools that will help you to be productive away from the office.

Messaging

Skype

You probably already use this messaging and video conference app, but it’s still worth a mention in this post as an unmissable communication tool. Lesser known great features are the ability to share your screen, which is pretty cool when working remotely, and the possibility to set a timer on calls for support-related work. You can download it from the official site if you didn’t install it yet.

Slack

Often described as an advanced group chat app, Slack is actually much more than this. It makes teamwork possible and improves your workflows tremendously. Download it here.

Workplace

Workplace by Facebook has been pushed by the social media giant, the app is a kind of group version of Messenger, with some features specifically designed for work. It has the big advantage on using an interface and tools that most users will already be familiar with for file sharing or calling. Try it here.

Project management & Notes

Trello

Trello is an online project management tool that will simplify your life by keeping everything your team needs in one place, as well as giving you the big picture on your project, or allowing you to get into details on a specific point. It’s extremely user-friendly with a drag-and-drop interface, and the least you could say is that it’s feature-rich with the possibility to add checklists, tags, images, videos, limit dates, and so on… You should definitively give it a try.

Evernote

Evernote is an online note taking app that gives you tremendous powers and allows you to focus better on your projects. Although this app is more known for its single user features, it has some cool business functionalities that allow for better group work. Check it out here.

Productivity & Collaboration

Dropbox

Everybody already knows Dropbox, this folder that syncs in the cloud and allows for very easy large files sharing. Dropbox is useful for remote work in two ways: for one, it gives you the possibility to share folders and files with your team, for two, it allows for syncing your files accross several computers. If you are not using it yet, you should try it.

Google Drive

Google Drive is a bit like Dropbox, but more oriented to collaboration on documents. Whether you need to work on text files, spreadsheets or presentations, you can do so by intervening directly into the document. Every change will be attributed to its author, so it’s very easy to see who changed what and approve it or not. It also includes useful commenting features. If you have a Google Account, you can start using it right away here.

CodePen

This tool targets specifically developers and designers. Codepen is a social development app to share code and show off your work. You can also use the version of the app for team and enjoy cool features that will make your shared dev easier. Try it here.

i done this

This online app is a to-do list for teams that greatly improves productivity. It provides daily check-ins and powerful progress reports (probably the most useful feature). Check it out here.

Security

ExpressVPN

I’ve mostly used ExpressVPN when I was working in China, but some company require that you use a VPN when connecting to the company server (and they are right to require that). If the VPN is not imposed by the company and you can choose the one you’d like to work with, I’d suggest ExpressVPN.

Passbolt

Passbolt is a free and open-source group password management tool. Free is if you choose to use the community edition, for a cloud version, you’ll have to pay a fee. It is well worth it if your company values security, as it is extensible and built on open security standards. Try it now for free.

Post pobrano z: Visualizing archetypes: an infographic about heroes archetypes

As designers, we work mostly with form, color, and typography to express meanings and communicate ideas, messages, or concepts. Writers also have some core tools that they use for storytelling. Archetypes are one of these tools.

First described by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, archetypes are symbolic images recognized in the collective unconscious of all people. Using archetype characters in storytelling is a more subtle way for writers to use symbols and expressing ideas without explicitly writing those ideas.

The infographic

Published on Point Park University, a detailed infographic has been making the rounds on the Internet. It takes the most common characters a hero usually meets in an adventure and details it in a short text and a great illustration.

The Illustrations

In the detailed presentation of the infographic, you can discover the illustrations one-by-one by hovering each archetype image. In a clever twist, each archetype is presented as a tarot character, making each illustration a tarot card. The cards are simple vector illustrations that use the world surrounding each character to represent each archetype. Each card’s color scheme was carefully studied to match the universe we could imagine for each archetype. The use of tarot card was very clever, as it is one of the best examples of archetype use in design.

The archetypes

The archetypes presented are the following: the Hero, the Herald, the Mentor, the Threshold Guardian, the Shapeshifter, the Ally, the Trickster, and the Shadow. Discover each archetype’s description in the infographic below or in this detailed article.

Post pobrano z: Is Interactive Email the Future of Inboxes?

The interaction between your brand and its customer is the lifeblood of any business. Without setting up proper channels to bridge the gap between you and your audience, you may as well kiss your business goodbye.

Keeping an open line of communication is vital to the success of your online business. This reason is precisely why email marketing is one of the best channels for this purpose. Not only can you build better relationships with your current subscribers but you can also convert them into loyal customers!

However, you need to keep up with the different email marketing trends so you can make the most out of your strategy. One of the more recent and interesting trends in this discipline is interactive email. It doubles down on the concept of what makes email great, thus helping you increase your engagement levels and conversion rate!

In this post, learn the value that interactive email brings to your business and concrete examples of interactive email at work to help you come up with ideas of your own for your business.

Why the need for interactive email

Email marketing is a very dynamic practice. With lots of innovation going around in this space, you need to be sharp, vigilant, and on your toes should you want to make the most out of your email campaigns.

The fact of the matter is that what works now in email marketing may not be as effective sooner than you think. Every company and brand is observing the latest practices on how to get more subscribers and increase their CTRs from their campaigns.

Therefore, the latest tactics and technology lose their novelty faster than you’d think because people are quick to adapt to them. If you’re not susceptible to change, then you might as well count yourself out from the game – email will always evolve to provide people with better ways to interact with your content.

Speaking of interaction, interactive email is somewhat of a game-changer in the strictest sense. This type of email has been around for years but not a lot of brands have implemented it as extensively. If there’s an innovation in email marketing that you need to capitalize on, then it’s got to be interactive email.

The key is “interaction”

If you’re not familiar with interactive email, then think of the usual emails that you receive from brands. There are good reasons why you subscribe and remain subscribed to their email lists such as persuasive copy, clear message, and others. However, wouldn’t it be nice if the email looks just as great as its content?

There’s nothing wrong with how brands design their emails, but there’s only so much you can do with it. What if there’s an image carousel or animated images like a GIF in the email? With a host of other potential elements you can add, you can create more
compelling emails that you can test and benchmark to help you engage and interact with your subscribers even more!

With interactive email, you don’t have to imagine. You can design your emails like you would a website. You can add menu hamburger menus, videos, and even payment gateways in your emails. And those are just some of the possible elements you can add!

Interactive email examples

Instead of telling you how to use interactive email for your business, it’s better to just show you! Below are examples of how companies used interactive email to great effect:

• Allen Edmonds – The brand used geo-targeting to provide subscribers with weather forecast through email. It also recommended products that users need to purchase according to the weather that day.
• The New York Times – To drive more subscribers to their publication, the brand created an email that makes use of an animated GIF as its heading. The headline reads, “Give the Truth. Give the Facts. Give the Times.”
• Pret – To promote its Smoothie and Frappe campaign, Pret launched an email campaign using animation as well. However, instead of GIF, the brand used CSS animated sprites to create the visuals of pouring a smoothie or frappe on a plastic cup every time the user clicks on the available flavors.
• TrendyMinds – The brand sent out an email promoting their latest content by way of a game. To unlock the content, subscribers must click on the colors in correct order.

Email marketing is always on the cusp of the future and interactive email is proof of that claim. With the technological advancements from companies like Campaign Monitor, the ability to create engaging and interactive messages is now upon us. There’s no need to send static, text-based email message now that you have a more compelling way to display your content to people via email.

It’s up to you to adapt with the times and include interactive emails in your strategy before it’s too late. Hopefully, the tips and examples above should have convinced you to take this route now.

Post pobrano z: 12 UX Design Tips For Your Website

Imagine you get a piece of white paper on one hand and on the other you get all the rainbow colors in a pallet. Now you can start playing… This is how I feel when I am designing a website from scratch, when I can play with layouts and colors in the website builder to create my website masterpiece.

But, at the same time, I remind myself that the creative part of the process needs to include my customers. The way it should be done is by thinking about their experiences in the buying process of a product or service, or just when reading my blog.

In this blog post, I will help you understand what matters the most in UX (User Experience). And at the end, the answer to all the following questions will be yes!

• Anyone who comes to my website understands what my business is about (especially if it’s their first time)?
• Is it easy to navigate?
• My customers find everything they need?

Let’s start:

1. Design for the users – Know your target audience
   • Why are you making this site? Skip the temptation to dive into the website builder tools without first thinking about your main objective for the website. Remember why you are making it and what must be included.
   • Who is your audience? This is the second natural question that comes into play and one of the most important. Define your audience (age range, locations, preferences, etc.) and adjust all your website content to satisfy them.
   • What do you want visitors to do / take away when they land on your site? Is it an impression? Is it a feeling? Is it something more tangible such as e-book? You should consider passing something onto them as a way to establish a relationship and turn them into recurring visitors.
   • Are you creating the site for a client? If so, what are the client’s goals? If the website on the table is for a client, put yourself on their shoes and make it just as you would make yours. Think and plan all the little aspects and ask them any questions in order to take into consideration all their goals.

2. Say more with less – simple design elements. How many seconds users have to pay attention? Make sure they do not have to stay 100% focused to be able to understand your website. If it’s too messy or too hard to get the message, they will just leave. With all the entertaining messages we constantly get through ads, signs, sounds, emails, and so on, we tend to have shorter attention span. Do not fall into the fallacy of building a messy website and you will have better chances of succeeding.
3. Consistency – very important. Start with a nice introduction but remember to follow-up with content that matches the initial message. Build up on the tone smoothly and you will be able to present everything you want in the right time and with the right words. Stick to this strategy even if you like to be aggressive with content. It is better to go one step at a time not to sounds confusing or messy. It is human nature to avoid messy things, places and guess what? Websites too. We will avoid incomprehensive, inconsistent websites. Period.
4. Color scheme – we have all visited websites that looked like a carnival of colors. There are web designers (or con artists) out there that are really masters at throwing around all sorts of red, yellow, blue and green. Do they really think it’s cool? I guess so…Let’s admit: at least they exist to make us laugh. Those kinds of websites are so funny! However, getting back to business, it’s hard to really see companies with funky websites as reliable. I have certainly never seen reliable companies with funky color schemes on their websites.
5. Fonts – same thing applies here. There are thousands of fonts out there nowadays, we know. There are some that are very impressive, cool, fancy, elaborate… We know that too. It’s very tempting to browse through all the varieties of fonts you can find. And it’s even more tempting to try them out. But save yourself some time to play with them later. A website is not a place for that. Avoid using many types of fonts. Think about your logo, general appearance of your website and try to maintain your fonts consistent with your color schemes, brand identity and content.
6. Images and videos – this part can really make it or break it. To make it, use high quality images and videos only. There are countless smartphones out there that shoot very good pictures and videos. You certainly have one you can use. If you have a camera, even better. Make sure all the visual content you put into your website is good in terms of brightness, focus and angle. The visuals will play a major role in reinforcing your messages throughout the website. Ultimately, they will prevail with the impression you are passing onto your visitors. I have a golden rule that I use to determine if the files are ok to upload to my websites: if I would see it on YouTube or on the TV and think it’s bad quality, beyond acceptable, I don’t use it.
7. White space – a good musician knows a pause is just like any other musical note and should be used wisely within the harmony of a song. However, a musician usually is not silent for a long period of time, otherwise that’s not actually playing music. It is basically the same thing when it comes to websites. Avoid leaving blank spaces around your website but know when to use it to give users a break and to make the website better, aesthetically speaking.
8. Navigation bar – where do you click when you want to go to the “beginning” of a website? The homepage button. Where is it? On the navigation bar. Where do look when you want to find a contact page? On the navigation bar. You get the point… The go-to place when looking for pages on any given website is the navigation bar. So keep it simple and organized. This ensures users will find everything they are looking for. The better the navigation bar, the better experience, the better impression, the better revenues…
9. Cover the basics – mobile usability, site speed, security, reliability. Everything has a start. And these four key elements are the solid basis for a good user experience. Starting from mobile, users want to be able to see the full content of a website when navigating on their phones and tablets. They want to be able to click on every link, image and video with the tip of their fingers. Secondly, people want pages to open at the very moment they click a link, so site speed is very important for their experience. Last but not least, security and reliability are indispensible. You can pass on a trustworthy image by following the branding aspects discussed above. Needless to say, the easiest way to have all the above accomplished without moving a finger is by making your websites here on SITE123.
10. Call to Action or short CTA – and before they leave your website, get them to take some kind of action. Yes, take advantage of them already being on your website and get them to do something that establishes or strengthens the connection between you and them. That can be by asking them to share something, to download something, or even by selling them something. There are many possibilities and you can use your imagination and knowledge of your visitors to choose what the best for your website is.

How to keep improving?

11. Collect data about your users. Science has been doing it forever and all the other areas of life have been mimicking it since the beginning of the modern age. The use of data is simply amazing to better understand your users and to foresee how you can improve your website/business in order to enhance user experience. There are plenty of tools you can use to collect and analyze data about your users. On our plugin manager and app market you can find tools that allow you to see all sorts of data. Everything from how many visitors you get to what kinds of things they search for on the internet. Enjoy!
12. Respond to live chat or to your customers’ emails – this will give you first-hand experience when customers are confused. It is like a direct source of feedback in this sense. If visitors get confused with something on your website, they can instantly reach you to ask a question. Now you understand more about their experience and also have the chance of developing the conversation with them.

Conclusion

When you start by thinking about your main objective for the website, you are on the right path. Then, it’s just a matter of putting your customers in the center of everything and build the website around them. In the end, they are the ones giving you the money, visibility or whatever you are getting from your website/business.

The key to succeeding is in considering all the key aspects. Think about your logo, general appearance and try to maintain your fonts consistent with your color schemes. Step by step you can build and represent your brand identity. With the attention to use blank spaces wisely, and providing a solid navigation bar and contact channel, it will be easy to excel in user experience.

Now that you master the magic of user experience, it’s time to create a website!