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Best Practices And Tools For Effective Remote Collaboration (UX/UI Designers)

Since the pandemic, many teams have started working remotely. Today, distributed teams have become common. However, many still struggle to collaborate effectively while working remotely with product designers, developers, and other stakeholders. The key to effective remote collaboration for UI/UX designers is to keep their team short, follow the best practices, and choose the right remote collaboration tools. But before getting to that, let’s learn what you should avoid when working with a remote team.

Things to Avoid for Effective Remote Collaboration

1. Never Specify the Entire Design

Avoid sharing the whole product design at once and ask for feedback. If you work on the design solely and present it at once, that’s not collaborative. It’s a process, and every member involved must get a say and approve of what goes in the design.

2. Prioritizing Business Objectives

You will get nothing out of prioritizing your business objectives over the users’ needs. Your goal should be to help users solve the problem they’re facing. Help them with the right solutions, and you'll hit your business goals eventually.

3. Putting Thought into The Product After Design

This is the worst practice for designing and developing a product. You can’t simply decide to build a product called X, make it look pretty and simple to use, leaving the thought behind it for later. A lot of research and planning goes into a product design to make it successful.

4. Neglect or Downgrade The Role of Design

Design should be equal to product, marketing, and engineering, rather than report into any of those functions.

5. Binding Conversations

Always make room for frequent healthy discussions, brainstorming sessions, or rituals where all the members get an opportunity to think outside of the box and share their ideas. You’ll be glad about what those discussions bring to the table.

6. Dismissing Challenging Questions

Don't ignore designers or other team members when they ask great questions about an initiative. It’s best to take the time to clarify what you're trying to accomplish and why. Help them discover the answers to the challenging questions to avoid mistakes and inferior results later.

Best Practices for Effective Remote Collaboration for UI/UX Designers

Now that you know what to avoid to collaborate effectively with your distributed team, let’s look at some of the best practices you must follow.

1. Keep Your Team Small

Small teams with up to 8 to 10 members are easy to manage, communicate and work with. It makes the process slicker, easy to assign roles, track who is working on what, and everyone knows when and where to get more involved.

2. Choose a Central Collaboration Hub

Often, there are members in a distributed UX team that work across different geographies and time zones. Plus, within an enterprise organization, you must also communicate with other stakeholders. Therefore, UI/UX teams must utilize remote collaboration tools at their disposal effectively. You must choose a collaboration platform like Slack or Trello to communicate, store files, assign roles and track progress. If everything related to the project stays on one central platform, it will be easier to get it done.

Think of it as your virtual desk. Everything work-related stays there, even when you’re not available. If another member has to deliver a message or share any files with you, they leave it on your desk, and you respond to it when you return. Nothing goes missing, you don’t have to use multiple platforms to communicate with your team, and you can get things done on time.

3. Conduct Workshops

UI/UX workshops have always been an effective way to collaborate and better understand the product. They help you to get to know your team members in a fun and informative manner. You can conduct various types of workshops depending on the product you’re working on and the requirements at hand. Some common workshops regarding product design are organized to develop solutions, decide features, create customer journey maps, wireframing, design, navigation, etc.

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#ux #ui #UXdesign #UXdesigner

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How to Design an App That You Can Develop on a No-Code Platform?

Got a brilliant idea that can be turned into an application? Then you’re in the right place. This blog will walk you through some easy steps to develop an application on a no-code platform. Let’s start with the things you must consider before starting the design process.

Things to Consider Before Designing an App

1. Idea

There are over 3 million applications on Google Play Store and 2.22 million applications on App Store at the moment. With so many applications already out there, you’d want to make yours stand out. And for that, you need a brilliant idea. If you’ve already got one that you’re 100% sure about, then you can jump to the next steps. But if you’re still brainstorming, here’s how you can figure it out:

1. Twist the Existing Ideas: One way is to combine various elements of existing applications to come up with a new idea. Think of the applications you use daily and their features you can meld together. Surprisingly, if you’re able to combine the right elements, you can produce great results.

2. Solution to a Problem: Is there a problem staring you right in the face? These ideas often turn out to be the best solution to the problems you face in real life. The chances are that if you have this problem and are trying to find a solution, other people are as well. If the problem can be solved with an app, that’s an excellent reason to create one!

3. Better Version of an Existing App: Have you used an application and ever thought, “it could be so much better if I add this feature”? If yes, this creative spark of yours could be a perfect app idea. There’s always room for improvement, so if you thought that an app lacked a helpful feature, the chances are that you weren’t the only one to think that. If the original app author isn’t constantly updating and improving the app, then there’s an opportunity for you to create an even better app.

2. Validate Your Idea

All the app ideas look stellar on paper, but you should always validate your idea before moving towards design and creation. Validating your idea gives you surety that your application has a probability of succeeding in the app store.

To validate your idea, consider sharing it with your colleagues and trusted ones who understand the concept. Let them find as many flaws as they can. These people can give an insight into how well your idea aligns with the problem you’re trying to solve. If you get positive feedback or if you’re able to modify and improve the idea as per their suggestions easily, you can move ahead to the next step.

3. Conduct Market Research

Now that you’ve got the idea, you need to do thorough market research and gather some facts and figures to back it. Knowing your target audience is crucial for the success of your application. Therefore, it is critical to invest time in understanding their needs, expectations, and problems they face. Once you’re done learning about the audience, get to know your competitors.

Look what your competitors are up to, their strengths, weaknesses, and mistakes. Explore various business models, industry trends, and new features. This research is not to determine whether your idea is good enough but to understand what works and what does not from your competitors. Your research will help you better understand your niche and how your application can add value. Moreover, it saves you time, money, and energy and guides your positioning and app marketing strategies.

4. List the Objectives

It is imperative to understand why you want to design the app. Therefore, it's best to lay out a set of objectives you want to achieve through the application before starting to design it.

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What is a UX Audit, and Why Should You Conduct One?

Do you feel disappointed when your website users browse all the way through to the checkout without converting? Don’t you want to figure out what stopped them from hitting the purchase or subscribe button? Or, probably, you used to have stable sales, but suddenly your growth slowed down, and so did your engagement level. So, don’t you feel like you should find out the reason for this digital decay? This is where a UX audit comes in.

In this blog, you will learn everything about a UX audit, why, and how to conduct one. Let’s dive in. What is a UX Audit?

A UX audit is a process of uncovering the usability issues through thorough research and analysis. The aim or ultimate goal here is to mark the critical gaps in the user journey that stop the users from taking the actions they’re supposed to.

However, it doesn't end here. An effective user experience audit helps figure out the usability problems and helps businesses with recommendations on developing a more seamless user journey. This practice positively impacts customer engagement and increases conversions.

UX audit is invaluable for both startups and already established mature companies. If you feel that your product is not delivering the expected customer experience, you can’t just wait for the problem to evaporate the other day magically. The more time you spend doing nothing to find out the issue, the more profit you lose.

A UX site audit can help you answer some very crucial questions like

What is working and what is not?

What metrics are collected?

What metrics should be collected?

What does data indicate about the users’ needs?

What frictions do users frequently experience during their journey on your site?

How do these frictions impact and influence the users’ behaviors?

At which do the users leave your website?

Now that you understand what a UX Audit is, let's check out what happens during a UX Audit.

What Happens During a UX Audit?

You can conduct a UX Audit using various methods, tools, and metrics that help you identify the cause of your website’s underperformance. Here are the most important ones:

Review of business objectives

Review of user objectives

Customer care data

Conversion metrics

Sales data

Traffic and engagement insights

Usability heuristics

Compliance with UX standards

Mental modeling

Wireframing & Prototyping

UX Best Practices

Often people confuse UX audit with usability testing. However, they are different. The major difference between the two is the direction of information flow. A usability audit brings up problems from a set of pre-established goals, whereas testing points out the issues from user actions. Therefore, if the auditor does not have access to fundamental metrics, they may use usability testing while conducting an audit. But they will also combine the results with data gathered over the longer term and weigh them against industry standards and product goals.

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#ux #UXdesign #uxaudit #UXdesigner

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UI vs UX Design: The Differences

A few well-known debates in the design world are never quite settled. One such significant debate is the difference between UI vs UX design. While countless analogies explain how these two concepts work hand in hand, presenting a definitive answer has been challenging. But if you're new to the design world, understanding how and when to use these terms is essential.

In this blog, you'll learn all there is to know about UI and UX design, from their definitions to the key differences and how they fit together.

What is UI vs UX Design?

UI refers to the term "User Interface" design, while UX stands for "User Experience." Both these design concepts are crucial to a product and work closely together. However, despite their professional relationship, their roles are quite different. They refer to various aspects of the design discipline and product development process. But before we jump to the difference between UI and UX design, let's understand what each term means individually.

What is UI Design?

User Interface (UI) design is all about creating interfaces with the sole focus on graphic representation and user interactivity. The goal is to build an interface that is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. The word "interface" is the access point where a user interacts with software or application, a website, or a digital device.

UI design is about exploring the ways of interaction and behavior of the users with a product to create an interface that best adapts to their needs. It mainly involves taking note of the design elements involved in creating a product, for example, images and other media, graphics, buttons, menu bars, or footers. These elements affect the users' interaction with the application, so it should be planned accordingly. It is a must to ensure that every visual element feels united, both aesthetically and in purpose.

You can check out some great UI design examples here.

What is UX Design?

User Experience (UX) design is the process of creating products that deliver valuable experiences to the users. User Experience includes all aspects of the users' interaction with the brand, its services, and its products. User Experience determines how the application operates and how easy or difficult it is for the users to interact with the final product.

UX design involves creating meaningful experiences through the integration of various elements of marketing, branding, engineering, design, and usability into a product. Designing a user experience requires extensive user research to understand the users' sentiments, mindset, behavior, and goals. This information is then used to build the product.

For a better understanding, check out some awesome UX design examples here.

The Key Differences Between UI and UX Design

While the design concepts work closely, there are some major differences between UI and UX design. Let's understand them with help of the tasks involved while designing a UI and UX.

Tasks Involved in UI Design

Look and Feel of the Product

Design Research: Research is vital to gather information about the users', competitors', and the latest design trends, help find inspiration, and create interfaces that meet user expectations.

Design Visuals: Designing the visuals involves creating a product layout using all the visual elements, including colors, fonts, icons, buttons, and more.

Graphic Development: It is essential to strike the right balance between usability and consistent brand identity, which can be established by working hand in hand with the marketing or creative team. Therefore, UI design is closely related to graphic design.

Design Systems: While designing a UI, ensuring product and brand consistency is crucial. In that case, style guides, libraries, and components that detail how each element should look help a ton.

Responsive and Interactive Design

Responsiveness: UI design helps create responsive interfaces that adjust smoothly to all devices, platforms, and screen sizes, be it form or functioning.

Interactivity: UI design involves determining which animations and transitions or other interactive elements to use for an interactive interface.

Prototyping: A prototype is an essential part of UI design. It showcases every UI element and its interaction in real-time. It helps test how the product will finally look, feel and work.

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#ui #ux #UXdesign #UIdesign

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What to Look for in a Website Builder?

Today, having a visually appealing and functional website for your brand has become a necessity. It’s the face of your business and how people perceive it. A website helps you promote and sell products and services, enables you to stand out among your competitors, retains old customers, attracts new ones, and builds trust.

Now, as intimidating as building a website may seem; first, there are website builders available today that make it a piece of cake. There is a wide variety of website builders out there that can help you build a compelling website in minutes. But how do you decide which is the best suitable option for your brand?

Worry no more. In this blog, you will discover 9 things that you must consider when selecting a website builder.

9 Things to Look for in a Website Builder

1. Ease of Use

A website builder must ease the process of building a website. When looking for a website builder, consider the ease of use. Check whether you’re able to access its features and perform actions efficiently. Another thing that eases the process of building a website is a simple interface and editor, either drag and drop or a WYSIWYG editor. With a drag and drop functionality, you can quickly move things around easily through your mouse, which doesn't require any prior experience or learning a new skill.

2. No Requirement for Technical Skills

You’re probably looking for a website builder because you don’t want to get involved in the complexity of coding, programming, or technical skills. A website builder doesn’t require you to have any of these skills; they even relieve you of the stress of making your website actually appear online. The website builder takes care of all the technical stuff for you. In fact, many website builders also provide domain name registration services along with the necessary steps to link your website to your domain name, so you don't have to worry about that.

3. eCommerce Capabilities

People are more accustomed to online shopping nowadays, which means eCommerce capabilities are an essential feature to look for in a website builder. Though you might not be selling any kind of product or service online at the moment, you must look for eCommerce features that can help scale your business in the long run.

4. Templates and Customization Options

The best website builder always gives ample customizable templates. Moreover, many website builders often offer industry and niche-specific templates. Website templates always make your work easy. All you need to do is select the best suitable template/theme as per your brand personality and adjust a few things accordingly. This saves you the time to build a website from scratch.

5. Social Shareability

Once your website is up and running, you would want to promote it to increase its reach and traffic. Also, you would probably want the visitors who like your website to share it ahead too. But how do they do that easily? Copy-pasting the link everywhere can be annoying; hence, look for social media share features in a website builder for a small business. This allows you and your visitors to share your website on social media platforms with just a single touch.

6. Responsiveness

73.1% of web designers believe that a non-responsive design is one of the top reasons why visitors leave a website. Considering that billions of people are using the internet on their mobiles, it’s essential that your website is optimized for both smaller screen sizes and desktops.

7. SEO Tools

Getting people to find and land on your website can be a challenge when so many others are already present on the internet. A website builder with necessary SEO features can give you a little head start to optimize your website’s pages for better visibility in the search engines.

It allows you to add relevant keywords to each URL, meta description, and image tags to communicate to Google what your website is about to include you in searches for that term. A good website builder will make this an easy task.

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#web design #WEB #web development #website

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Necessary Elements Of A Great Website

One of the most important elements of a brand’s online presence is its website. However, having a website is not enough. Elements of a website like a layout, user experience, and design play a vital role in the way users perceive a company.

Are you thinking about what you can do to make an ideal website? Or, what are the keys to a good website? Well, it requires both web designers and developers to put in their efforts to develop an engaging website.

Is this sounding like a lot of pressure on you? Well, need not worry anymore. If you are planning to design a website, be sure to include the following 5 important website elements.

1. Website Design & Layout

A striking website design & layout improves user experience effectively. Here's a list of elements of a website layout & design to include while designing a site:

Colors: Colors produce a variety of emotions in website visitors, so it is ideal to use the right colors. Further, colors highlight important website sections and affect how users feel about your site.

Images: Always use high-quality images to offer a quality user experience. Moreover, images are a great trigger that is used to draw visitors in and make them engage with your content.

Typography: It’s better to stick to a few font styles than to use a lot of fonts. Further, a single font adds to a classic design that is appealing and easy to read when displayed.

Space: Let your web design breathe. Avoid stuffing too many elements on your website. It has to be evenly designed with a little space between two or more elements. By doing so, you can deliver information that your users understand, enjoy and appreciate.

2. Interactive

Making a website interactive can benefit you in several ways. An interactive website connects with your audience quickly, improves your website’s personalization, decreases the bounce rate and promotes sharing, etc. Moreover, building a dynamic website can be a great investment of time, effort, and money, but the payoff for an interactive website is worth it. Have a look at the interactive website elements listed below:

Page Speed: All the weighty elements can lower the page loading time. Users today expect a web page to load within three seconds. So, make sure that your webpage loads fast. Increasing the page speed by 1 second increases the conversion rate by 2%.

Search Bar: Adding a search bar promotes users to search and interact with your site. It further allows users to find content faster than the navigation menu.

Internal Links: Having internal links on your website allows users to move from one page to another and thereby increases the user time on your website.

3. Call To Action

“Call To Action” is a vital part of your website advertisement that allows users to purchase your products, and services, give you their contact details, and a lot more. So, let your users know what you want them to do by adding a CTA button. Add a CTA button with the desired action. For example:

Add CTA with “Download” or “Subscribe,” if you are running a report or a newsletter.

Add “Buy Now,” “Order Now” or “Shop Now” if you have an online eCommerce store.

“Find Out How To…” if you want users to learn more information.

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#web design #web development #website #webdesign

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Is Website Maintenance Critical For Small Business?

Having a website is an opportunity for every small business owner to make a better online impression and build credibility. Further, the website does not end with its development. Every site needs proper attention, regular updates, website support and maintenance.

Unfortunately, there are many small business owners who do not pay much attention to their website maintenance part. If you are a small business owner, whose motive is to acquire more clients and earn profits, having a fully-updated website is a must for you. In this article, you will learn about the importance of having a website maintenance schedule.

Here’s a list of 4 important points to show the importance of website maintenance for small businesses.

1. Top-Class Security

Having a website maintenance checklist is the best way to make a website secure. Small business owners should pay attention to website support and maintenance to save their sites from being hacked. Make sure every plugin installed on your site is updated. You can either check for updates yourself or approach a professional for website maintenance packages.

2. Improves Site Traffic

One of the important motives of a small business website is to have a good search ranking. For better ranking results, you need to ensure the site is up to date and has no duplicate pages or broken links. All this can be checked with regular website support and maintenance. Further, it is ideal for small business owners to outsource an SEO expert having the best website maintenance practices.

3. Customer Engagement

A better user experience is one of the most critical aspects of a small business website. However, this will happen when the website visitors are kept engaged with the latest business information, schedules for upcoming events or products, newsletters, blogs, etc. Again, following a website maintenance schedule can ensure a better visitor experience as well as boost your business image online.

4. Easy Website Backups

Timely website maintenance helps in restoring deleted data easily. Moreover, it is important to have your site backed up at all times. Adding daily or monthly backups to your website maintenance schedule can help you regain the accidentally deleted data with a click of a button. In other words, by adding regular backups to the website support and maintenance plan, you can save your online business reputation by re-accessing the erased data quickly.

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#web design #website #web development #WEB #webdesign

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Designing A User-Friendly Form

User friendly forms offer you an easy and secure way to collect data you need in an automated way. With the right web form design, you can easily process fully responsive forms that will collect and store data quickly. Forms are now used everywhere- from subscriptions, registration, feedback, transactions, and checkouts. Moreover, 74% of companies use online forms for lead generation, with nearly 49.7% stating their web forms are the highest lead generation conversion tool.

Similar to your favorite website, a multi step form UX design must be easy to use, share correct information a user needs, help them make the right decision, and offer solutions for a particular challenge or concern. Therefore, developers must pay close attention to improving their web form designs.

In this blog, you will gain information on easy-to-follow ways to design a user-friendly form.

1. Order the Form Logically

A form is simply a conversation between two parties- your app and the user. Since it is a two-way communication- it must be logical. You must frame the UX form in a logical way as per the user’s perspective, not the database logic or the app. Order choices are an intuitive course (such as First Name, Last Name, Email, Address, City, and so on). If no order is possible, try to place the questions alphabetically. One of the best form design examples includes neglecting unnecessary questions to minimize user effort and increase completion rates.

Moreover, a user may not feel comfortable answering too much personal information and may skip the form. Therefore, avoid asking personal or any sensitive questions in your web form design. However, if you wish to have the user’s personal information, you can make those questions optional, so that the user can leave them if he/she does not feel comfortable.

2. Avoid Duplicate Fields

Many a time, forms ask users to repeat the email or/and password multiple times. This in turn makes the user irritated and he/she may discontinue filling out the form. Previously, twice filling of specific user information was made to minimize typing errors. But now, the user uses the copy and paste option wherever the same information is asked twice. Therefore, it is better to cross-check and make user-friendly forms without repeating fields.

3. Design Single Column Form

A web form design should be simple. ‘Modern-day users are always in a hurry’- considering this statement, you should skip complex, long, and time-consuming forms. A single column presents a one-line perspective: from beginning to the end. A multi-column web form design, in contrast, creates a zig-zag pattern to the user’s eye, and this further increases the filling time.

However, designing a one-column web form does not mean you can put all fields in a single column and make your user scroll the form a lot. Rather, if possible, try to fit some fields together. If still, the form is getting long, you can switch to a multi step form design.

Below are the benefits of multi step form designs:

Users like doing things step-wise, so a multi-step web form gets immediately familiar.

The multi-step form is less-pressuring than the lengthy web forms with a variety of questions.

The user gets motivated as he/she fills out the step-by-step section that gives a progressive effect.

4. Use Less Typing-Based Questions

Users prefer ticking the choices rather than filling in the type boxes. Moreover, typing makes the form filling process slow especially on mobile devices with limited screen space. So, it’s better to design a multi step form UX with easy-to-fill or tick options. If possible, you may use automated and pre-fill features for user data, so that users can easily complete the form without any typing issues.

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#landing pages #landingpagetips #ui #ux #UIdesign #UXdesign

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5 Website Maintenance Tasks You Need To Do At Least Every Month

Website support and maintenance is a regular process of checking your website for errors and keeping it updated. 89% of users move to a competitor's website after a poor scrolling experience. Therefore, there is a strong need to perform some website maintenance duties at least once a month.

Are you thinking about which important website maintenance checklist you need to follow for better online performance? If so, this article is right for you! Website maintenance on a monthly basis includes monitoring website analytics, checking the website’s loading speed and performing security checks. Do read the article till the end to know about the most crucial website maintenance tasks and ways to do them correctly.

Here are the 5 best website support and maintenance tasks to keep in mind:

1. View The Website on Different Devices and Browsers

As browsers and plugins are updated regularly, they cause trouble with your website look and functions in different browsers and devices. Further, maintaining a website that is mobile-friendly increases the conversion rate. As you never know what browser or device your next customer will use to check your website, you should include reviewing the site on different devices in your monthly website maintenance checklist.

You can check the website look on your tablet, laptop, or smartphone. Further, try to use separate browsers on each device. By doing so, you can ensure all the website pages and links are working as they are supposed to.

2. Monitor Your Page Loading Speed

A minimal loading time of 1-5 seconds makes the user feel in control and stress-free. However, if your page loading time is 10 seconds or more, the user loses attention and is unlikely to visit again. A perfect example of maintaining a good page running speed is Yahoo! Yahoo lowered its page loading time by 0.4 seconds and saw traffic rise by 9%.

Adding words, links, images, and products to your website can slow down your page load time. So, during monthly website support and maintenance, do check your page speed and try to reduce it as much as possible!

3. Update The Content

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing favor websites that build trust. So, if your website is full of informative, unique, and interesting content, then it will be awarded in the Search Engine Result Pages.

Having up to date and fresh content is an important website maintenance message that can help you grow in the long run. During your monthly website maintenance, you can check, review your content, add internal links, and update new services, products, articles, etc. You can also review spam comments and delete them.

4. Make Your Website Secure

Never let any door open for website hackers. You can make your website secure by increasing protection to keep the bugs and hackers away. Monthly security upgrades and software updates are necessary to keep the site protected as well as secure.

Moreover, you can easily address security issues if you monitor and update your site regularly. To make your site secure try installing SSL (Secure Sockets Layer certificate). Make your passcodes unbreakable- abcd123 won’t work! Moreover, run monthly backups and use anti-malware software to scan for malicious attacks.

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#web design #web development #webdesign #WEB #website

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How To Manage Your ROI In Brand Assets?

It is essential to update your branding assets from time to time as per the trends. But do you know how much you need to invest in each and how to manage the Return On Investments on each of your brand assets? This blog will walk you through a few well-known examples of digital brand assets and how to manage ROI on them. But before we get to that, let’s understand brand ROI?

What is Brand ROI?

A strong brand attracts customers who may be willing to pay more and buy more often at a lower cost per acquisition. Your brand’s purpose usually boosts brand awareness and ROI while also boosting other marketing and brand efforts. A clear and robust brand purpose can yield compelling business results and brand association. Brand awareness brings you and your audience together through the packaging and the essence of your brand, the memorable brand experience, and the stories your customers tell about your product or service.

Whether created through business meetings, website visits, company representatives, logos, taglines, jingles, messaging, customer services, and other brand assets, the brand ROI can significantly help your business. Strong brand ROI can result in frequent word-of-mouth recommendations, increased brand reach and awareness, traffic, sales conversions, improved reputation, and business growth.

What Are Branding Assets?

Brand assets are elements, such as your brand logo, color scheme, packaging, jingle, or fonts, that help people identify your brand. These elements become branding assets only when customers can easily associate them with your brand. If any of these elements lead your audience to a different but similar brand, it is not considered an asset. Here is a brand assets list:

Company Name

Logo

Jingles

Color Schemes

Slogan

Packaging

Sound

How to Manage ROI in Brand Assets?

Here are three ways to effectively manage and increase ROI on your branding assets:

1. Involve Relevant Stakeholders

It is crucial to involve the concerned stakeholders when investing in a brand asset. They help and give you the right advice on how to present it, whether the asset needs any modifications, how much to invest, how it will benefit in the long run. When creating a new brand asset, involve all relevant stakeholders on board with the investment it will take to create one. It depends on the situation you're starting from. Relevant stakeholders usually include but are not limited to the board of directors, employees, management, business partners, and your customers.

2. Track Performance of Your Brand Assets

When it comes to optimizing and increasing your brand ROI, taking decisions based on gut and intuition does no good. You need solid data that you can rely on. If you don’t track the performance of your digital assets, i.e., typography, logo, typeface, ad creatives, color palettes, ad copy, images of products, etc., you wouldn’t know which branding assets and marketing initiatives aren’t effective. Suppose there is an ad creative you’ve been using in your marketing strategies; it is crucial you understand how well it is doing or not working at all in the real world.

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#Branding #Brand Identity #Brand Strategy #brand

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5 Signs Your Website Is Due For A Redesign

As no website is perfect, there is a never-ending need of redesigning your website. When you make small or major changes in your website design, it sometimes leads to massive benefits for your company. Though redesigning your website is not as easy as it seems.

A website redesign does not always mean modifying the entire website, but also minor changes that can add to a better user experience. Moreover, the best part is the feeling of having a brand-new presence online at the end of the redesigning process. In this blog, you will get information on major reasons to know “when” and “why” to redesign your website.

Below are 5 compelling reasons to help you know exactly when redesigning your website is needed:

1. Website Not Meeting Your Expectations

Do you think your website isn’t meeting your expectations? It can be a poor scrolling experience, “Click to buy” or “Click to subscribe” icons are not sufficiently visible. On the other hand, your website has an excellent-looking design yet the results are not satisfying.

To correct this issue, start analyzing the conversion rate. For this, monitor the user behavior on the website and try to detect the points where they stop and leave. Also, check if there is a website with a similar design as yours, or if the pages are properly linked. Well, if you find any of these issues, it's high time to reset your website redesign goals.

2. Receiving Complaints From Clients/Users

If the question “why redesign your website?” is popping up in your mind; then try having close contact with your client support team to help you know the problems with your website. Through customer care support, you can easily know what your website users or clients have a view of your online presence. You may get reviews like-

Your website is difficult to use on mobile

The product tracking option is not responding

Clients cannot find you online

As the customer is one of the most important elements in any business, catering to their needs efficiently should be your priority. So, you must redesign your website according to your customers’ needs and expectations and reviews.

3. Website is Failing to Build Credibility

In this era, when there is strong competition and every company is trying to compete with another, everything relies on how credible your business is. Moreover, companies invest a lot in their websites to build credibility online.

Additionally, if your website is outdated and not credible enough, then it needs good website redesign steps. One of the best ways to build credibility online is to add logos of companies on your site that are your clients.

4. Your’s is a Slow-Processing Website

Is your website running slow? It generally means that your site is not well-developed or the hosting service that you are using is slow. If this is the issue, you should start redesigning your website. Today, website visitors want fast responses & results.

To check your website’s speed, use the free online tool- GTmetrix. Moreover, a slow-processing site can make you lose visitors, and hence it will negatively affect the SEO too. Irrespective of how interactive the website is, if its loading speed is low, it will have a high bounce rate.

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#web design #webdesign #web development

[redalkemi]

What Makes A Good One Page Website Design?

For users it is easy to explore a one page website template, especially on mobile or tablet devices. Want to know “What is a one page website?” Well, a one-pager website is a website in which entire content is available on the same webpage. Basically, it has no extra pages like ‘About Us’ or ‘Services’ page.

To make a good one page website design, one must include attractive visuals, keeping in mind user experience is not disturbed. Furthermore, an ideal one page website template is one that provides a clear and fast reader experience, smooth scrolling, and must be all device friendly. Are you looking for ways to make the best single-page business website? If so, this article is perfect for you. Do read the blog till the end to create the perfect one page website template ever.

Here’s a list of 6 easy to follow ways of designing an amazing single-page website:

1. Choose the Right Font & Color

Forget the days when bold and huge fonts were used. Minimal use of colors and fonts is in trend these days. To design a one page business website, try going with lighter shades and formal-looking fonts. The color you choose must complement the background. Furthermore, keep in mind that many displays can distort the shades, leaving a neon tone look. These sorts of colors are well perceived by the eyes. Some one page website examples are:

Use blue and white colors for business websites.

Green and black or red and black for gaming website.

‘Open Sans’ font gives a neutral look whereas ‘Game Over’ is the most used font for gaming-related designs.

2. Make Quality Scrolling Experience

Designers must pay attention to scrolling quality. Aside from top to bottom scrolling, you can also add automatic ways that land the user directly to the middle or bottom of the page. Furthermore, you can also try out the parallax scrolling effect. It makes the background image move slower as compared to the front elements. Additionally, you can replace vertical scrolling with a horizontal one.

3. Make It Mobile Friendly

50% of website traffic comes from mobile users. So, if you are designing a one page website template, make sure it is mobile-friendly. While making web pages through readymade WordPress or CMS platforms, you may have to face a lot of issues with the mobile version. So, another choice is to design a good one page business website from scratch. By doing so, you can make an adaptive template that will scale automatically with a better mobile user experience.

4.  Add Multimedia

One of the best options to tell what your brand offers is by using visuals on your one-page website. Irrespective of how perfect your content is, if your website has lengthy text - it is a boring site. So, to make it interesting, try using multimedia. In addition to text, add videos, photos, and sliders to attract readers. Further, users tend to spend more time on websites with videos, thus increasing your website’s screen time. Whereas, with slideshows, you can show multiple photos in a quick time frame.

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#web design #website #web development

[redalkemi]

When To Redesign Your Website?

When you search for something on Google, it will show you the websites that are up-to-date, clean, and secure. These are the top three factors the search engine looks for in a website page to share with its searchers. If you find out that your website isn’t performing well or its search rankings have dipped, it’s time for redesigning your website.

There can be various other factors that contribute to your website's declined performance and search ranking. Here are six reasons why you should consider redesigning your website.

Why Redesign Your Website?

1. Rebranding

If your website doesn’t have a consistent look and feel, you have recently changed your logo, have new visuals in mind to keep up with the trends, or you’ve recently modified your company vision, consider these as essential factors for redesigning your website. If your company has grown significantly in the past few years, you must review and implement brand guidelines and styles to your website. This includes deciding on the relevant color palette, typography, button styles, iconography, pictures, etc.

2. High Bounce Rate

Have you been noting a high bounce rate of your website? Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that leave your website after visiting one page. The average bounce rate is considered to be between 41 to 55 percent. If the bounce rate of your website lies below this range, then you need not worry. However, if it’s higher, it equals a poor user experience, meaning the visitors aren’t having a positive experience while using your website. Hence, it’s time you plan to redesign your website.

3. Drive More Traffic

No matter how effective, attractive, and modern your website design is, it will make no difference if it does not reach the right people and get good traffic. And to drive more traffic, you need to implement one of the most crucial website redesign steps, i.e., optimize it for search results. Statistics show that 77% of internet users read blogs. So, making blogging a part of your content strategy can definitely help you drive more traffic. Start with implementing essential SEO techniques, i.e., keyword research, adding engaging images, videos, meta descriptions, title tags, and backlinks, and updating old blog posts to improve their performance.

4. Optimize for Mobile Users

Nearly 80% of users used a mobile device to search the internet in 2019. Given the popularity of mobile search, search engines have started building experiences around it. Nowadays, when you Google something on your phone, it’ll give you search results for the most mobile-friendly pages first. This indicates the dire need to redesign and optimize your website for mobile devices and desktops. You can also go for a responsive design that uses proportional units of measurement and a dynamic layout that automatically adapts to the device on which your website is being viewed.

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#web design #website #webdevelopment #webdesign

[redalkemi]

Getting A Website Built For The First Time? Here's What To Keep In Mind

Are you planning to start or already have a small business? If yes, you need to get a website built to promote your business online and reach a wider audience. Building a website for the first time may seem daunting at the time, as the internet is a competitive marketplace, and you might not be coding-savvy or be aware of HTML and CSS. Fortunately, many website builders are available today that can help you build a fully-functional, rich, and responsive website with little or no prior experience.

Whichever website builder you choose, it will be easier to build a website from scratch if you have a plan from start to finish and a list of essential things you should keep in mind before starting. To help you out, here is a list of 8 things you should consider when building a website for the first time.

8 Things to Keep in Mind When Building a Website for The First Time

1. Competitive Research

When you are set to build a website for the first time, you’ll find a lot of competition in the marketplace. Before you start building your website, one of the best practices is to spend some time exploring the websites of your competitors.

Take a note of all the elements and features that you liked or disliked the most. This will also help you get an idea of what is working the most in the industry and get inspiration to create something new that can help you stand out.

2. Website Wireframe

The best way to create a website is to prepare a wireframe first. Before you dive straight into building your website, it’s better to have a visual representation of what your website will look like. This is a critical practice as it helps you determine your website's best layout and flow.

Note how many key pages and subpages does your website need? Either use a pen and paper or go for a wireframe app like Figma to draw out a sitemap and layouts for each of your website pages. Using a wireframe app, you can easily reposition elements as your thoughts evolve.

3. Website Builder or CMS

When it comes to building a website for the first time, you have two options to choose from. You can use a CMS like WordPress, which is generally more flexible but has a steeper learning curve. Or choose to have a website built with the best website builder like Wix or Squarespace, which offers less flexibility but is easy to operate and helps build a dynamic, responsive website quickly.

Whichever of the two you choose, make sure to compare the best available options. If you decide to go for a website builder, make sure it has all the necessary elements and features you wish to include in your website. Also, consider whether you want a website builder for a specific type of site or a market like that for eCommerce.

4. Minimalism

Complicated, cluttered, and difficult to navigate website designs never do well in the market. Today, users prefer websites with fewer elements that provide information that is quick and easy to read. So, go for a minimalist, elegant, and timeless design. Use minimal elements and use whitespace to avoid a cluttered, busy look. Choose simple, plain fonts that are easy to read on any device.

Simplicity doesn’t mean your website has to be plain and boring. So, do not refrain from trying out different designs and discover what works the best for you. All you need to do is make sure that you are able to provide a crisp and clean user experience.

#web design #website #web development #WEB

[redalkemi]

6 UI/UX Design Concepts Every Client Should Know About

Eight seconds. That is the average attention span of an internet user, but what does it have to do with your business? It is the time that has the potential to make or break your brand. But how? It is the delightful and accessible user experience that helps you win the consumers’ trust, ensuring they use your products/services, especially when they have several alternatives for your offered products/services.

Unfortunately, many businesses underestimate this, paying the price in the form of loss in user engagement and website traffic. The solution to this problem? Deep understanding of the UX design fundamentals and UI design principles.

Imagine sitting in a business meeting discussing website/app development; the designer starts asking you questions about UI design principles that you know very little about. Are you confused about what and how to answer? If yes, don't be. This article provides you with a better knowledge of UI/UX design concepts to make it easier for you to be involved in the design process of your product/service. Let's start from the basics.

What is UI design?

The user interface is all about appearance, focussing on the app's look and interaction with the users. The UI design process involves designing the product according to the consumers' needs & choices.

What is UX design?

User experience as the phrase indicates, is all about the experience. UX design is an approach towards enhancing the overall experience of the users that emphasizes customer satisfaction when they interact with the application or website.

Given are some main factors of the design process that you must have an adequate understanding of:

1. Interaction Design

It is a psychological concept depicting how users interact with digital products and services. Interaction design pushes the limitations of mere functionality by creating an engaging user experience. This particular UI design concept involves interactions with the elements such as aesthetics, graphics, colors, fonts, icons, motions, sounds, space, and more.

Affordances & Signifiers, Learnability, Usability, Feedback & Response Timing, and Goal-driven design are the five main things you might want to consider to understand the interaction between the user and your products/ services.

2. Information Architecture

Without a good information architecture, there is no logical and effective user experience. Information architecture refers to the division of content on websites and applications so that it is easily understood. It also means structuring your content and applications such that the user can locate and access all of the features your product has to offer.

3. Usability

Along with the look and appeal, functionality and accessibility are the significant components when it comes to the user-friendliness of the designs. A well-designed product is efficiently accessible by users of all abilities.

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#ui #uiux #uiuxdesign #ux #UXdesign

[redalkemi]

Managing Your Marketing Collateral From Start To Finish: Part 2

No matter how reputed your brand is, it is important to keep reaching out to different audiences. This is where appropriate marketing collateral comes in. Targeting different audiences using the right marketing collateral ideas helps generate leads, promote new products and campaigns, attract new customers and re-engage existing ones.

But, do you know the type of marketing collateral you need to promote your brand? If not, you don’t have to worry about it. In our previous blog, you learned how to manage marketing collateral. An essential part of marketing collateral management is to try and figure out which collaterals work for your brand and align them accordingly.

So, now it’s time to create a marketing collateral checklist to achieve your promotion goals. But before diving into the marketing collateral’s list, let’s understand the purpose of creating marketing collateral.

The Purpose of Various Marketing Collateral

Different marketing collaterals serve different purposes for various audience segments. Each one of them is targeted towards a specific audience, serves a particular purpose, and is expected to yield specific results. One of the marketing collateral examples is blog posts. They are the best source for those who want to learn more about your products or those looking for some product or industry-related information. On the other hand, emails are a more direct approach for promotions, asking customers to take a specific action.

You must try various collaterals and track the response on each one of them. Then you can formulate a marketing collateral’s list that favors your brand. You must keep updating this list from time to time as per the changing trends and the audiences’ responses.

All the marketing collaterals will collectively support your marketing and sales efforts. Suppose your audience knows your brand but is unsure about using your product or service, in such a case, marketing collateral will help clear their doubts, confusion and gain trust, focusing on converting them into qualified leads.

Marketing Collateral Checklist

Here is a list of the top 5 marketing collateral ideas and examples:

1. Landing Pages

Landing pages are stand-alone website pages that are campaign centric. This is where your audience lands when they click on an online advertisement. Landing pages usually have a form to be filled out, asking for their general information, including their name, contact details, and other details as per the product or services. These act as a cover for the pages they link to as per the campaign they’re created for.

Although landing pages are used for different purposes, they’re typically used to collect information for lead generation. This involves prospects filling out a form in exchange for downloading a content piece, signing up for a service, or staying on the company’s mailing list.

You can create multiple landing pages that serve specific purposes for different campaigns. Moreover, by asking your prospects to provide the necessary information, you can personalize the content for your audience.

2. Blogs

Blogs are one of the most popular marketing collateral ideas to reach a wider audience and attract new customers. Blogs not only educate your audience but also include CTA to persuade readers to take a specific action or ask them to check out your products, services, or other blog posts.

Blogs are a hub for providing answers to the questions that people are searching for. They effectively drive traffic to your website and help build brand awareness. Moreover, they are especially great for awareness stage marketing as they educate prospects, address their problems, help them find a solution, and build brand awareness simultaneously.

3. White Papers

White papers are in-depth content pieces on technical subjects, often used to project and position yourself as a thought leader in a specific industry or an area of expertise. Although they are similar in length to ebooks, they are written more technically rather than in an entertaining style. They provide practical and valuable facts, not just opinions. They are considered the most commonly shared form of marketing collateral, with 89% of respondents passing them along to others. Hence, they are also called advanced problem-solving guides.

You can include white papers in your marketing collateral checklist if you want to provide the best solution to a particular problem your audience is facing. This encourages people to come back and also become customers.

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#marketing #digital marketing #marketing collateral #marketing collaterals

[redalkemi]

What Makes A Good Landing Page Design?

According to B2B landing page experts, the average conversion rate for landing pages is 9.7% across all industries. Landing pages drive the visitor to a particular action. Their main objective is to generate leads. Does that mean landing pages are prime opportunities to convert your website’s visitors into leads? Well, yes!

Your offer may be outstanding and your blogs might be perfectly informative and optimized blogs, but without a creative landing page design, your business becomes most likely to suffer. Is making the best landing page design difficult? No, but there are certain aspects like content, visuals and colors that should be adequately informative and stand out.

While creating a landing page design, keep these 5 landing page design ideas in mind.

1. Keep The Design Simple and Concise

Following a minimalist design and retaining visual simplicity is crucial because it expands visitor attention. To make your design simple and concise:

Maintain sufficient whitespace so that it directs visitors to calls to action (CTAs) by detaching them from other elements.

Create contrast by showing elements such that they stand out.

Keep up with the design flow by positioning elements such that the user keeps reading.

According to a 2018 Microsoft study, a human’s average attention span is only eight seconds. You should focus on showing how your brand can help users through simple and plain language. Shopify's trial landing page is one of the best landing page examples as it keeps it simple for sellers.

2. Use Attention-grabbing Visuals

Generally, people process images more quickly, compared to text. So, including images on your landing page supports your purpose.

Here are a few suggestions on how to use visuals effectively:

Images, particularly a banner or header image, should be attention-grabbing and augment your offerings visually.

You can also embed a video as the visual element. 87% of marketers say videos have helped them increase traffic. For instance, Talkspace’s landing page game is on point.

Last but obviously not the least: your visuals should be responsive on mobile devices as well. As per researchers, above 50% of web traffic is now mobile, which will keep on growing further.

3. Use Appropriate Colors

Colors have a big impact on our psychology. A relevant color combination enhances the user interface and helps manage their behavior, which ultimately increases landing page conversions.

Here are a few suggestions on how to use colors effectively:

Understand the use of high and low colors that create high contrast, which is directly linked to the copy’s readability.

Create a color combination that has compatible colors and complementary/contrasting colors. For instance, Landbot’s landing page keeps the visitors engaged through its colors.

Perceive colors on the basis of psychology and marketing. Use colors that convey the right message as per the product or service. (For example, yellow is the color that conveys happiness and warmth. Therefore, its use is most appropriate for food-related products, such as McDonald’s).

Don’t forget color symbolism when targeting different demographics. Different cultures interpret colors differently. What works for one might not work for the other.

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#landing pages #landingpage #landingpagetips