Post pobrano z: Nine key questions to ask mobile app developers to help you choose the right one for the job

The use of smartphones has made the need for apps to be on the increase. In fact if your business doesn’t have an app it’s possible that you’re losing customers. Technology has made life easier and patronizing a company that’s lagging behind in app development is one of the hardest things to do right now. I’d rather go with a company whose services can be accessible through their app. Everyone wants the easy way out, and if you’re not thinking app, you’re obviously not ready to win customers over. Having a good app is a plus to your company, which means you need to employ the services of a good web developer. There are lots of competitions out there when it comes to choosing a good web developer for your business. But here are nine key questions to ask the mobile app developers that’ll help you choose the company for the job.

Where can I find the apps you’ve developed?

One thing I love about app development companies is that their jobs are not far-fetched. By just a click you can access the apps your potential developers have created or collaborated in their creations. A good app company won’t even let you ask this question, a serious company would have shown you samples of their jobs and where their apps can be found.

May I have the list of your current and past clients?

This question is necessary to validate the answer to the first one. You don’t just believe that a company created something by mere asking, you need another company they’ve worked for to confirm their claims. Your verification shouldn’t only be about app creation but about everything you’d like to know about their services. In an email interview, Jamie Buck the co-founder of Payday loans UK, said “When in search of the right app developer, it’s not enough to see the apps they’ve developed, there’s a great need to reach out to their clients to find out their customer experience”.

What’s your pay?

This should be the next point to be discussed after you’ve confirmed the developer is up to the task. Find out if he/she can work within your budget.

What kind of smartphone do you use?

This question is necessary because the answer will let you know how knowledgeable a mobile web developer is about a particular mobile platform. If the developer is claiming to be a guru in developing apps on iPhone, then person should be using an iPhone. It is also applicable to blackberry and android.

How can my app make money?

If your goal for developing the app is to make money, then this question is necessary. The knowledge of this will help the developer add money making features in the app. You can either make it pay-per-download or free. Whatever your decision is between the two, make sure they are well clarified by the developer.

How do we communicate during the process?

How well you communicate during the development process determines how great the app will turn out. It’s expedient to enquire means of communication to ensure thorough follow up. Does the person prefer calling or video conferencing? Whatever his/her means of communication maybe, it should be convenient for you.

What kind of unique features can you create?

No matter how well designed your app is, if its features aren’t useful and very innovative it won’t catch customers’ attention. Find out the versatility of your developer and how well he/she can add features.

Who will own the app?

It’s okay to assume that you’re the owner of the app since you’re the one paying for it. But better it is to have a well written contract agreement with the developer. You guys should either sign “Work made for hire” or “Copyright assignment” contract that states you won everything related to the app.

Will my mobile app be submitted to app stores?

You ought to know if your app will be submitted to app store. This is the last step after you must have approved the beta-tested version of your app. The app submission process usually takes long.

Post pobrano z: Five mistakes to avoid when building your mobile app

Mobile app is one of the most popular words in recent times. This is due to the fact that companies and customers are embracing the idea of having services and products at their fingertips. And just like how these apps succeed, that’s how the way some fail as well. There are mistakes to avoid if you want your app to become a success and not the opposite.

We’ll be looking at five mistakes to avoid when building your mobile app.

Building multiple platforms app at a go

The competition in app building is so stiff that you would rarely see an app that doesn’t have competitions. There are over a million apps on both Apple App and Google Play Store, so it is necessary to take time in building one platform than trying to focus on many platforms.

You tend to get excited over how good your app turned out and become tempted to launch it on multiple platforms, don’t fall for it. It’s advisable that you kick off on a single platform first and see how it goes. Doing this aids in making your minimum value product (MVP) available in the app store on time.

It’s a new app and you’ll agree that there are likely to be changes, launching on multiple platforms will make introduction of changes costly. You can’t effect a change in Apple App store and not do same in Google Play Store. Starting off on iOS isn’t a bad idea. Remember you test the depth of a river with both feet.

 Having too many features

It’s always advisable to launch an app only with its core features. It’s the first time people are getting to use the app, give them a great user experience; which can be achieved by the ability to do more with less features in your app.

In the quest of building your app with its core features, do not for any reason build an app hastily. The reason why taking your time is good, is because in apps there are rarely second chances. Once your app has been written off by customers it will take only a miracle to come back bigger.

Skimming on user experience

Mobile app users are one of the most impatient people to come across. In the sense that 26% of apps are only opened once and never to be used again; if customers are finding it difficult in navigating through your app, it’s definitely bound to fail. Jim Rizzoli the co-founder of Zerobounce an online email verifier, in an emailed interview said that “Anything you create that has to do with people in the recent times must appeal to people to them at the very launch; even though you will still have to improve on it later. Your goal is capture their interest at first.”

They need to have a self-describing and not only intuitive experience when using your app. It’s expedient to get right your user experience before launching that app. There’s no room for second impression in the mobile app business. It’s either you get it right and keep improving, than to hurriedly build what won’t last.

Not incorporating analytics

Not including analytics is like running a business without records. It’s dangerous right?  Yeah. That’s the same way not incorporating analytics in your mobile app is dangerous. Analytics are used in measuring the progress of your app. With them you get to know your retention rate, engagement, average time spent within the app, daily active users, etc. The knowledge gotten through these analytics are to assist you in making necessary changes in the app.

Marketing after submitting App

You shouldn’t wait for the app to be launched in App store before marketing. It’s okay to start marketing as the app within two to four weeks before it goes live. You can send a pitch of your app to authors on tech sites to write about your app. Apps do not sell themselves, that’s why it is very much necessary to define your audience before launching.

Post pobrano z: An impressive cake designed with the help of algorithms

What happens when a talented designer, architect, and 3D artist combines her passion for baking cakes with her professional skills? The answer is in pictures in this post, with one of the latest creations by Dinara Kasko, a designer gone pastry artist.

Thanks to the power of the Internet, this Ukrainian housewife mashed up her passion with her professional background and now gives cake-creation workshops all around the world. See the video at the end of this post to see more about the making-off of this cake.

Post pobrano z: 5 cool ideas to give a new life to everyday items by repurposing them

Recycling is a way to stop the waste, it makes sure that the products you throw will come back to life in another form. However, there is a way to recycle your everyday items by yourself, especially if you are a designer.

1. Vintage Tennis Rackets turned into Mirrors

The shape of a tennis racket looks like a mirror frame, so why not just take this literally and just create a mirror with your old tennis rackets?

2. The Bath Tub Couch

These old vintage bathtubs look great when used for their primary functionality already, but they even look better when repurposed into couches.

3. An Old Dresser turned into an Awesome Gardening Planter

Turning a furniture into a planter doesn’t only give it a new life, it makes grow new life.

4. The Beer Chandelier

Using the word chandelier usually connotates a classy item for lightening your interior, not exactly something you’d imagine to be built with old beer bottles. However, if you look at the image under, you can see that it can work pretty well.

5. The Bathroom Bike

A great way to decorated a bathroom, include your old bike into the interior design of the room.

As a conclusion, the examples shown here should be convincing enough for us to always try to find a clever and practical solution before throwing anything.

Post pobrano z: 10 Award Winning Industrial Designs

Every year, A’ Design Award reward excellency in design from all over the world. In the 2017 edition, many great designers submitted their work in almost every possible field of design you could imagine. However, it did catch my eye that the entries in the industrial design category seemed to be really outstanding. In this post we share some of the great work we saw, and you can enter the competition for a chance to be featured in 2018.

1. Qoobi One

Wireless Tube Pre Amp by Matvey Evstigneev.

2. Bebe

Images of Bebe by Ajay Choudhary.

3. Less Door Handle

Less Door Handle by Azam Eskandari.

4. Polycom RealPresence Trio

Polycom RealPresence Trio Smart Conference Phone by Pip Tompkin Design.

5. Nest Speakers

Nest Speaker Nesting Speaker by Donita Viktoria Salazar.

6. 3D Printable Prosthetic

Illume 3D Printable Prosthetic by Cliff Shin.

7. BenjiLock

BENJILOCK Fingerprint Padlock by BenjiLock Llc.

8. Shell Homage Hangers

Shell Homage Hangers by Rania Elkalla.

9. Formon Core

Formon Core Desktop 3D Printer by Rron Cena.

10. Ergonomic Salon Hair Dryer

Salon Hair Dryer by Mojtaba Hosseini.

Post pobrano z: A collection of fake programming covers

As web designers and developers, we have all been guilty of taking shortcuts when it comes to building websites or apps. For that reason, we usually try to hide a little when looking at these fake programming covers that make fun of our own shortcomings. These are part of a “fake programming books” meme that consists of taking the famous O’Reilly cover style, with a main color, the title in a box of that color, and a line-based black and white drawing of an animal.

I already knew of the “Copying and Pasting from Stack Overflow” cover, which you can find at the end of this post, but googling it opened a whole new world of giggles for me.

This is how 99.9% support people work after asking you if your computer is plugged in.

Why comment when you can just write regular spaghetti code like everyone else?

Welcome to a world of learning by doing.

The easy way to get away from responsibility, blaming the user.

This one is not only for developers or designers, but for anyone who has an office job.

Next step is “Z-Index: 100000000000 !important”, we’ve all done this!

This is how more than half of the Internet works, copying and pasting code from Stack Overflow.

Post pobrano z: The Benefits of Open-Source software for Web Design

People often stay away from open source software because of the perceived risk that comes with code anyone can inspect. It’s a logical argument, but it’s not necessarily a good reason to not use open source. Open source coders are always looking for security flaws and finding ways to fix them so they can make a name for themselves in the world of coding. And coders flock to open source software because they can build upon an existing framework without having to deal with roadblocks thrown up by a major name developer. In fact, many major websites are built on open source software primarily due to the fact that there’s no need to get around trademarked code.

Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla are all major software platforms used by millions and are all created from open source code. In fact, WordPress is the most downloaded content management system on the market. WordPress became popular because it’s easy to use, has countless free plug-ins, and thousands of templates both free and paid. Joomla and Drupal are also content management systems and have features that are similar to WordPress.

All of these open source software systems are popular for various reasons; the least of which is that they’re free or almost free. They come with developer support to help users get past issues, are easy to use, and users can make the platforms fit their needs with little effort. Read on to the infographic below to learn more about these popular platforms and how they’re here to stay.

Post pobrano z: What’s Trendy in 2017. Top 15 Flagship Themes

What’s Trendy in 2017. Top 15 Flagship Themes

No matter if you are going to update the already launched web resource or bring a new project to the web, you are likely to be looking for trendy and stylish solutions that will help your resource shine. In the showcase that we share below, you can find the 15 most popular and trending flagship themes from TemplateMonster compatible with the latest versions of the world-known platforms. So, if you run a website on WordPress, Joomla, HTML5, Magento, OpenCart or PrestaShop, you are likely to find a design that matches your preferences.

The inventory of ready-made themes from TemplateMonster counts more than 26,000 for various purposes. More and more often you can notice multipurpose templates being added to the marketplace. The demand on such themes grows at a fast rate. Fit-it-all designs come loaded with every piece of functionality suited to enhance the visual appeal of a site and make it more powerful from the inside.

The themes that we will discuss here include various features and are suited for different purposes. However, all of them have special peculiarities in common. All of them are developed as per the latest web tendencies. All of them are well-documented and feature free 24/7support. You can personalize their layouts on your own or ask experts from TM Service Center for help.

Post pobrano z: How Social Media Marketing Can Power Forward Your Startup

Starting a business has never been easy, let alone getting people to start buying from your store. It requires pumping in of time, money and resources. Effective marketing will also play a huge role to help you get around this problem. Luckily, the social media platform comes in to save the day especially for small businesses with low capital. You can choose to hire a SEO company that has multiple success stories managing other similar businesses. Social media marketing can help startups in the following ways:

Generation of quality leads

You will need a cot effective way through which you can sell your business. The social media platform offers you a large number of followers who are always searching for products or services on the platform. With your social media marketing campaign, you will be able to generate quality leads that may be converted into buying customers with ease.

Social engagement

It helps to increase engagement on social media. When Google is indexing websites, it also considers the social engagement aspect. What are people saying about your social media? How often do they talk about your business? All this will be considered when it comes to ranking and thus social media marketing is a must-have strategy when it comes to growing your startup.

Ability to build a community

A community for your business is as good as your customers. If you have a large following for your blogs or website, then you are in a better position to build a strong brand. This is what social media marketing gives you. With over 1 billion subscribers on Facebook only, you will have more to go around with. It only takes a reliable SEO company with experience on social media marketing to help you build that community for your business.

Help to drive traffic to your site

Traffic to your site is what you want if you want to increase sales. It helps you to attract the right people who are searching for the products or services you provide. When sharing content on social media, you also have to include quality SEO for better ranking on search engines. Outsource to a reputable SEO company to help you choose the right keywords to optimize into your content before you share it on social media for your followers.

Increases brand awareness

Your business brand is the heart of the success of your startup. If you execute it in the right way, you are bound to succeed. Social media marketing is the best way through which you can achieve brand loyalty among your followers. The more you engage with them own the social platform the more they will associate with your brand. This will increase awareness.

Increases press mentions

Once you get into the social scene you have a ready market to brand your business. All you need to do is to know how to tap into your market. The more your brand grows on social media, the high the possibility of getting press mentions. This will drive a lot of traffic to your site. You will however need to hire an expert in the same to help communicate your brand message to your target audience.face

Post pobrano z: Design deals for the week

Every week, we’ll give you an overview of the best deals for designers, make sure you don’t miss any by subscribing to our deals feed. You can also follow the recently launched website Type Deals if you are looking for free fonts or font deals.

10+ Best-Selling Premium Fonts

Make room in your typeface toolbox! It’s time to grab this sweet deal full of more than 10 premium best-selling font families. From Charlie to Sweetie to Sharpeye Type, you’ll get a wonderful variety of fun, curvy fonts that will work perfectly with your latest designs. Use them on everything from T-shirts to logos.

$14 instead of $114 – Get it now!

80 Beautiful, Liquid Style Brushes

Want to add a bit of motion to your designs? Consider a Fast Style approach using this collection of 80 Liquid Style Brushes. These brushes feature a modern-yet-retro digital style that creates round-ended lines giving off an almost dripping appearance. Use the handy reference guide to quickly choose the right brush to whip up a clean illustration or icon.

$9 instead of $15 – Get it now!

Over 1,300 SVG Cut Files & Razberry Font

Looking to add some unique graphics or sayings to your latest design project? Then check out this huge giveaway from lovesvg.com! You’ll get over 1,300 scalable vector graphics full of everything from adorable owls to caffeine-fueled phrases. A bonus Razberry font full of 18 more SVGs is the perfect cherry on top of this super designer sundae.

$15 instead of $3000 – Get it now!

120+ Unique, Premium Typefaces – 31 Font Families

It’s time to fall into a fantastic font sale! This Autumn Font Sale is overloaded with more than 120 gorgeous typefaces, culled from 31 different font families. You’ll be privy to a wide variety of styles ranging from vintage to cartoony, not to mention a slew of extras like alternates. No matter your latest project, you’re bound to find the perfect font in this collection.

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