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How to Choose the Right Web Development Firm for Your Startup?

How to Choose the Right Web Development Firm for Your Startup?

by | Sep 14, 2022 | Development

Do you know there are more than 26,905 Web Design Services businesses in the US alone? 

The development of a website is a complex process that requires expertise in various disciplines. Not only do you need to conceptualize the structure and content of the website, but you also need to ensure that it is technically sound and compatible with the latest technological standards. 

These requirements can be difficult to meet if you try to develop and host your website on your own, which is why many businesses hire web developers. 

Moreover, there are thousands of web development firms out there, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. So how do you choose the right one?

Web Development Firm For Your Startup

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Determining the Needs of Your Website

 To determine the needs of your website, you need to check out the following:

 

  • Your business goals. How do you want to grow? What are your objectives? What are the milestones for each year? Etc.
  • Your target audience. Who is going to use it, and how does it fit into their lives? For example, if you have a bakery, then there is an expectation on behalf of users that they’ll be able to find photos of pastries or cakes on your site so that they can choose something tasty.If this isn’t possible yet due to technical constraints, then at least give them some idea of what kind of offerings you have with some descriptions and recommendations as per previous orders made by other customers at other businesses similar in nature.
  • Competitors’ websites & marketing strategies – You should know who else does this same thing. Observe their websites and ensure your web design looks better than theirs. So that when someone comes across one particular competitor’s website through Google search results, they don’t go ahead. Instead, they should prefer visiting yours because it looks better than others.

Be Clear About What You Want And Don’t Want

This may sound obvious, but it’s amazing how many clients don’t have a clear picture of their goals and objectives before they talk to web developers. In order to get the best results for your company, you need to know your 

  • Budget, 
  • Timeline, 
  • Benefits sought from the development firm, 
  • Competitors’ websites (and how yours should differ),
  • Target audience

List all requirements and expectations in writing before you meet with any prospective firms. The more detailed your description will be, the better the chances for everyone involved to understand each other’s needs effectively.

Once you’ve narrowed down your list and made some initial evaluations, take time to consider your budget before making an informed decision about which web design firm is best suited for your startup. You should also consider how much money will be needed overall – as well as what percentage this might represent out of your total spend per month on marketing.

Competency of Web Developers

Competency of Web Developers

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You need to ask your prospective web development firm about their experience with the technologies you want to use.

  • Do they have any experience with the technologies you plan on using?
  • What kind of training do they offer? How often is it updated?
  • How many developers are qualified in each language/framework needed by your startup? Do they have enough people on our team who know these languages/frameworks well enough for work effectively together, or will we need more training time than expected?

It is important that your chosen web development company can communicate clearly and concisely throughout the entire project lifecycle. A good communication process will help ensure that everyone involved understands what needs doing, how long it will take, and what resources are available (or not).

It’s also worth asking how often updates happen within the organization. If there isn’t much turnover or updates then you consider working with another team of talented employees.

Don’t Forget About Team Members

Some agencies are small enough that only one person will be handling business development. Others may have multiple people responsible for sales/marketing and business development executives – who would also serve as managers on projects. Top website development agencies’ managers are assigned with only a given project at a time to offer their best performance and efforts. They provide feedback along the way throughout various stages such as wireframing/prototyping until launch date or even beyond launch date depending on how long it takes until sales goals are met.

Observe The Technical Capabilities of the Firm

Observe The Technical Capabilities of the Firm

The most important thing to know before selecting a web development firm is their technical capabilities. This means asking questions about the specific software and tools that the company uses. Asking these questions will help you determine if they are capable of delivering the kind of technology you need for your startup to succeed.

If a firm has been in business for many years, then it is more likely that they have worked with companies similar to yours in terms of size and scope. This gives them valuable experience with projects like yours and makes them more qualified than newer firms that may not have as much expertise or experience in this area yet.

You should also ask about how many developers work at each company so that you can compare apples-to-apples when making comparisons between firms or deciding which one would be best suited for your needs

Look Through Their Testimonials And Reviews

While it is always good to have a wide pool of potential firms to review, you should not solely rely on the list provided by the agency itself. It is important to look through the testimonials and reviews of past clients. Websites like Clutch can help you with genuine testimonials of clients of any agency.

In addition to looking at what they say about the web development firm, you should also find out how they rated their experience with other aspects of working with that agency such as:

Communication – Is there clear communication between all parties? Do they respond quickly when contacted?

Delivery – How long does it take for them to deliver your project or product? Are there any delays in getting updates on progress or changes being made along the way? This can be frustrating if these things are not communicated properly.

Quality – What was the quality standard for this project or product, compared with other products/projects from other similar firms?  How satisfied were their clients overall with this aspect from start until completion dates, including any problems/issues which might have occurred during development or delivery stages?

The Communication Strategies and Policies

The Communication Strategies and Policies

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Before you begin, it’s important to have a clear idea of ​how you will communicate with your web development team. Find answers to –

  • What are their working hours? 
  • How often are they available for support?
  • Are there specific times when they close for the day, or for holidays?

These questions may seem basic and obvious, but it’s important to remember that everyone has different needs and styles in terms of communicating.

Tip: The best way to understand how communication works between yourself and a web design company will usually come through trial and error. So, don’t worry if things don’t go smoothly every step of the way.

Integration with Third-party Software and Services

This is an important part that you need to consider when choosing the right web development firm for your startup. If the company doesn’t have any experience in integrating with third-party software and services, then it will not be able to provide you with a complete solution. Here are some of the examples:

  • MailChimp
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Analytics

Make sure that your web developer has worked on similar projects before and knows how they work!

Lifecycle Support

Lifecycle support is an important part of the process. It involves maintenance, support and development. A good web development firm will help you in all stages of your website’s lifecycle—from planning to deployment, from design to maintenance and even after it goes live.

If you don’t have your own team yet or are looking for a partner who can handle everything from design to development, make sure that you choose a web development company with extensive experience in implementing e-commerce solutions; one that knows how important it is to develop robust solutions which work seamlessly across multiple platforms (mobile apps).

Budgetary Constraints

Before you start looking for a web development company, it is important to have a clear idea of your budget. The right firm should be able to work within your budgetary constraints and help you achieve the results you want without compromising on quality. It is always better to be prepared rather than get into a bidding war that ends up costing too much.

It’s tempting for startups to overspend on their website, especially if they are offering high-end services or products. However, this can prove disastrous if the business doesn’t generate enough revenue from its website traffic or sales leads generated via its online presence. You need to be realistic about your budget and ensure that there are no hidden costs involved in getting what you want from your website design company.

Take Your Time

Compile a list of web design companies that fit the criteria you are looking for. Make sure to include the number of years they have been in business and their experience, as well as any awards or achievements. Set up interviews with each company so that you can get a feel for the team’s personality and work style, along with what kind of results they’ve achieved for other businesses like yours.

You have to find a web design firm that has the right expertise and experience to handle your project. It should have a portfolio of work that you like, but even more importantly, it should have a track record of delivering great work. You also want to find a web design firm that has a good reputation in the industry.

Final Advice

There are many things to think about when choosing a web development firm. You need to consider the needs of your website, the competency of your web developers, and the technical capabilities of each company you’re considering. You also want to make sure that all communication with them is handled professionally, as well as whether they are capable of integrating third-party software into their design and development process. 

Finally, it’s important that you get some assurances from them regarding lifecycle support after launch—especially if your startup grows quickly over time!

While these factors can be difficult to consider in isolation (after all, how can one know exactly what their needs will be?), it’s still very important for every business owner or entrepreneur who wants their technology partner to be successful on every level imaginable.

To sum up…

From what we’ve seen, finding a reliable web development firm is not always easy. There are many things to consider, and there are a lot of firms out there that might be incompatible with your particular needs. But if you do your research, find out what the firm’s own experts have to say about their work, and make sure they can integrate third-party services seamlessly into their work for you—you should have no problem finding a great fit for your business.

 

App Marketing – Why You Need it And How to Do it

App Marketing – Why You Need it And How to Do it

by | Mar 1, 2022 | Development, Marketing Services

Did you know that mobile applications revenue is estimated to be over $935 billion by 2023?

App Marketing

Today, if you have a business website, you must have an app. But only having one is of no use. You must know how to make it reach your audience. For that, you need app marketing.

A few years ago, we saw the boom of mobile apps emerge. And as always, all the companies jumped into the trend. Today, the Apple app store and the Android app store are brimming with millions of apps.

However, most apps are launched without any app marketing strategy. That is why they fail to mark their presence and go unnoticed.

This article will tell you everything on why you need app marketing and how to launch your app with a professional app marketing approach.

Building a house starts from the foundations. So, first, you need to understand –

What is App Marketing?

Currently, there are millions of applications for all kinds of devices and all kinds of audiences. All companies want their mobile application to stand out among all the Apps that compete for the consumer’s attention.

To get to the top of the list of similar apps in the app store and get the most attention for your app, you need to implement a number of creative marketing strategies like App Store Optimization, Social Media Campaigns, etc. This process is called app marketing.

In simple words, app marketing is putting efforts into promoting your application so that it reaches a maximum number of people and they download it.

Why Do You Need App Marketing Strategies?

App Marketing Strategies

We use apps in our day-to-day lives – for booking a cab, ordering food, groceries, and chit-chatting with friends. So have you ever wondered why apps like WhatsApp have become a part of our daily lives? In addition to its awesome functionalities and innovation, the application has a solid app marketing strategy.

Of course, marketing strategies for mobile applications are important. Without it, your target audience will never be aware of your application and the benefits it offers. So, no matter how good your application is, it will never yield the results you want without implementing app marketing strategies.

How to Market Your Application?

Today, applications are everywhere. They are so much in use that the app development market is growing by leaps and bounds. By the end of 2022, daily time spent in mobile apps is predicted to increase to 227 minutes a day, which is 12 minutes more than in 2020.

When we think of marketing strategies for apps, we imagine ads, slogans, and big campaigns, right? But it is important to understand that there is a whole process. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to develop an app marketing approach:

Step 1 Analysis And Planning

Marketing planning for apps starts long before they are released, right after the idea for the app is developed. This happens because it is necessary to know the target audience, carry out a market study and understand the scenario that surrounds the central idea.

Approach your audience and understand what really catches their attention. Remember, you are creating an application to assist people in solving a problem. For example, Zomato offers the solution to avoid the hassle of going to your favorite restaurant to enjoy the food you love.

Also, remember that you will be competing with many apps in the same category. Therefore, a valuable tip for setting direction in-app marketing planning is to study the following questions:

  • How many competitors will you have to face?
  • What are the biggest mistakes and successes of these companies?
  • How do users rate these competitors?

With all this information in hand, you will have enough background and data to put your action plan on paper.

Step 2 Create a Persona

With the data collected in the previous step, we can develop the ideal client persona for the application. The idea is to create a persona that is exactly the user your brand needs, with such precise details as name, location, age, preferences, etc.

Keep this tip in mind: the persona is based on real data, not guesswork.

Knowing exactly who this customer is will give you a clearer signal of where you should be targeting app marketing. In fact, this step is of great importance in all the other steps. After all, the focus of your application is the users, right?

Step 3 Set the Stage for the Launch

Set the Stage for the Launch

However, it is worth mentioning that marketing planning for apps can vary depending on the audience and niche of the app. Still, in general, it is essential to include:

  • App marketing tactics to be used at each stage
  • Detailed budget and categorized by the tactic
  • Channels, tools, and technologies to be used in-app marketing
  • Total budget

If your company is not yet known online, now is the time to introduce yourself to your target audience. According to a study conducted by Hubspot, 90% of consumers research the Internet, looking for and comparing brands, products, and services.

This means that the probability that your potential user will search for your application before downloading it is very high.

Companies that already have other contact channels, such as blogs, websites, social networks, are one step ahead. They can even use these media to introduce the app topic and solutions or to ask for feedback.

However, if you don’t already have any of these channels, create them before putting your app to the test. For the success of your launch, it is essential that the user can find information about the application online. This improves trust in the solutions offered, builds engagement, and increases the chances of the user downloading your app.

Two important tips: start blogging and invest in content marketing. Through this, the company can talk about users’ doubts, explain the solutions offered and promote the application.

This app marketing tactic has shown very positive results for businesses. This way, you can inform customers who often didn’t realize that they need your app, motivating them to try it out.

Step 4 Implement Outreach Tactics

In the fourth stage of app marketing development, the company should start promoting the app and choose which marketing actions to implement.

Today it is very common to use influencers, press releases, paid ads on social media, and on major search engines like Google. First, however, you must consider:

  • The channels through which your target audience travels,
  • The people who are a reference for them,
  • The routines that are part of their daily lives.

For that, the planning that we described in the first step can be a great ally. An extra piece of advice: use geolocation to make the correct approach at the moment when your client is most willing to receive it.

Another strategy worth investing in is App Store Optimization (ASO), the SEO for app stores. Typically, this step occurs at the application launch. There are agencies that provide this service. It is in your best interest to hire them.

Step 5 Monitor and Make Changes in Your Strategies

Nowadays, marketing has so much power of reach in the digital universe. However, if you don’t monitor your app marketing strategies, it can aggressively impact download chances.
So stick to the testing schedule and carefully monitor user perceptions of app marketing. In this way, the probability of avoiding problematic situations is much greater.

Things To Note When Promoting Your Mobile Application

Promoting Your Mobile Application

If you’re developing or have an app, some of these promotion strategies might help you.

Choose The Right Name

A good name can do most of the marketing work for you, as it will be easier to share and talk about. In addition, a catchy name is easier to remember and recommend and could lead to more accurate search results.

Do Not Share Just Any Image

When you’re ready to start sharing images of your app, make sure the photography is very good and high quality. It must be convincing enough that someone wants to learn more about your app and download it.

Start Collecting Emails

You should start collecting email addresses the moment you start creating your App. Your first subscribers can be your email contacts. You need to let them know when your App will finally be released, and they will be able to spread the word about your new app and its features much faster than your marketing team.

Talk About Your App Before its Launch

Start looking for forums and online groups that are relevant and talk about the launch of your new App. You should not reveal too much information, but enough to create expectations and hype for your app for your customers.

Socialize

You can not ignore the importance of social networks. Share the next release of your App with your contacts, and try to get them to share it too. You can take advantage of sponsored stories on Facebook to promote your app. Low-budget social ads can lead to higher profitability and more app downloads when handled well.

Get Found

Nobody wants to create an App so that it is invisible to search engines. Spend time and invest in Search engine and App Store optimization. Focus on the keywords that your target audience is searching for.

Create Promotional Media Mix

The media mix is ​​probably one of the things that you should not forget to promote your App. Your media mix is ​​a set of promotional materials for your App, including general information about the App, features statistics, benefits, graphics of key executives, photos, and other high-resolution images of logos and products.

Create Videos

Get the most out of YouTube. First, create an explanatory video of your product to create expectations for your future downloaders. Then, when your App is finally released, create a demo video and make it available to your customers on your website and YouTube. Bloggers like to add a video when reviewing a new app.

Take App Reviews

There are hundreds of mobile app review sites that you can contact to consider reviewing your app. If the opinions are good, they will make the sales of your App grow like foam. Advice: App reviewers and bloggers love the media mix because it makes their job easier. Make it easy for them to share what your App has to offer.

Communicate Through Infographics

You can create infographics that inform your target audience about the features of your App. Infographics work great on Pinterest, Visual.ly, and other image-focused sites. Choose a topic related to your application and break it down for your audience. In addition to promoting your product, you will be creating valuable information for your future customers.

Measure And Track Results

The most important thing about any marketing campaign is to measure its results. You should measure and track all strategies to know what works and focus on the strategies that are getting the downloads. Especially if you are just starting out in marketing, it is very important that you pay attention to these numbers.

Build a Great App, People Will Talk About it

This is the most important tip to work on when creating a mobile app. If you build a great app that actually solves a problem, people will download it, bloggers will review it, and users will talk about it endlessly. This is marketing.

Last Tip: GeoMarketing

Did you know that geolocation is strongly related to app marketing? In fact, it is such an interesting combo that today, we use the term Geomarketing. Of course, it is not only useful for applications, but also for websites blogs, among others. The idea is to use location data to get to know the potential customer better, accompany them in online interactions, and offer the best solutions at the ideal time.

Final Takeaways

It is imperative to invest time and resources in App marketing as much as you invest in app development. Both app development and app marketing rely on each other to sustain. Be it an application or website, without marketing, they won’t help you achieve your goals.

Do you have an App? Do you want to promote it?

Let us help you with the right marketing strategy. Book a free consultation today!

Using Heat Maps to Improve Your Website’s UX in 2022

by | Dec 3, 2021 | Development, Tips

For a second, imagine a hypothetical situation. You are helping your friend move out of a maze. He can see you but can’t hear you. Now, what will you do? Ofcourse, You will try to give him signs towards the end. Right?

There is a somewhat similar case with heatmaps and UX. Heatmaps help you identify UX obstacles that keep your friends (visitors) away from performing their end goals on your website. They offer precise customer-centric data, with which you can boost your website UX and convert visitors into leads.

In this article, you will learn:

  • What are heatmaps?
  • What are the most common types of heatmaps?
  • How to boost your website UX using heatmaps?

Let’s jump right in.

What are Heatmaps?

Have you ever played a video game? If yes, then you must have seen an image like this:

What are Heatmaps

This is a heatmap. Heatmaps are the visual representations of information about an area. The information and area vary depending on the goal of the heatmap.

In our case, the area is the website, and the information is – where users interact more, less, and none. It visualizes the data, which indicates how the site users interact on a page. To do this, it uses a simple color code: red for hot areas – areas that attract the reader’s interest, and blue for cold areas – neglected areas.

Simply put, the heatmaps of your website help you understand the course of your users on your web pages. They allow you to see:

  • Where they click
  • How far they scroll your pages
  • What they are looking at
  • What they ignore

Different types of heatmaps serve these different purposes.

FUN FACT: Parisian urban planning engineers were the first to use heatmaps. They used different colours to mark city maps to make statistical data clearer and more understandable.

What Are The Types of Heatmaps?

There are essentially three types of heatmaps. They are:

  • Click tracking heatmaps
  • Scroll maps
  • Mouse tracking heatmaps

Let’s study all three in detail, after which we are going to learn how heatmaps can be used to improve UX. Let’s start with the types first:

Click Heatmaps

Click maps or click tracking heatmaps are the most commonly used heat maps. Click map is used to record the information about – ‘where your visitors have You don’t know, but your webpage may have a lackluster copy, a not-so-good image, or any other issue. clicked after reaching your landing page.’ Here’s an illustration that helps you understand the Click heat map more easily and better.

Click heatmaps

In the above image, you can see red spots on various areas. This is because the map uses different colours to display the clicking pattern. The red spots are the areas where the visitors have clicked the most. And as the number of clicks goes down, the colour of the spots becomes lighter.

It helps website owners determine whether their visitors are clicking on the areas they want them to or not. The number of clicks should be highest only on the CTA buttons of your landing page. If that’s not the case, you need to make your call to action buttons more attractive, easily accessible, and engaging enough for the visitors to click on them.

Scroll Maps

Like Click heat maps record the visitors’ clicks, Scroll maps record the scrolling behavior of the visitors.

This heat map tracks and shows how far users scroll your page and where they leave scrolling. It divides the web page into folds for better understanding. A fold is how much a webpage appears at once on the visitor’s screen (without scrolling below). Therefore, the scrolling heat map is widely used for long web pages with a lot of content.

The information it provides is very helpful. It helps you to check:

  • Where did your visitors lose interest, and why?
  • Whether users are missing your CTA because they’re positioned too low?
  • Do you need to change the position of CTA?

Moreover, this scroll map helps to see if a web page’s length supports user experience or not. Here’s a good example of a scroll map:

Scroll Maps

The primary role of a scroll map is to figure out the areas of your page where users are abandoning the reading process. Using the information derived from this heat map, you can determine why the visitors are only scrolling through a certain point of your page and then perform AB testing to verify those reasons.

You don’t know if your webpage has a lacklustre copy, any image, or any other issue that’s turning your visitors off. But using scroll maps, you can figure out those issues and resolve them as soon as possible. As a result, it will increase your user engagement rate and thus your web sites’ UX.

Mouse Tracking Heat Maps

Mouse tracking or Mouse maps are the third most common type of heat maps. As the name indicates, the mouse heatmap shows the mouse movement of the visitors after landing on your webpage.

It reveals some interesting points on the way users read and navigate your webpage. However, there is one slight drawback with this heat map. You cannot completely rely on mouse movements. It’s not always like where the visitors are moving their cursor is where they are actually looking at.

So, just because if a visitor’s cursor stays on heading for 3 to 4 minutes, it does not mean they were reading it. Therefore, questions arise on the reliability of the mouse map data.

Google’s Doctor Anne did a research on the accuracy of this heat map. And here’s what she found:

  • Only 6% of the total visitors showed a direct correlation between their eye movement and mouse movement. This means 94% of visitors did not correlate.
  • 10% of visitors hovered over a specific page element while reading the rest of the content on that webpage.
  • 19% of the visitors showed a horizontal correlation between their eye moment and mouse movement.

Here’s how a mouse map looks like:

Mouse Tracking Heat Maps

Now, as you are familiar with the primary types of heatmaps, it’s time to share what you have been waiting for:

How to Use Heatmaps to Improve UX?

Heatmaps clearly tell a lot about your visitors’ movements on your websites. But how can you use the heat map’s data to boost your website’s UX? Below we have explained a few expert ways to serve this purpose:

Perform A/B Website Design Testing With Heatmaps

Using heat maps, you can understand your design’s usability. This helps you know which version of your web design will work best for your website. Heatmaps also give you insights into sub-optimal screens in your web design. For example, it tells:

  • Whether visitors are scrolling upwards or downwards,
  • They are reaching to call to action button or not;
  • Which area of your webpage they are spending most of their time on.

Depending on the movement patterns of their cursors, you will learn whether visitors are spending more time with real engagement or out of confusion. Using all this data, you can create multiple designs and do this:

  • First, perform AB testing of your designs using heatmaps.
  • After that, pick the one that performs the best and continue optimizing it.

Performing AB testing using heat maps lets you see whether the visitors navigate straight to what they are looking for or if they get off-track. Even a single-second response delay in your design can dramatically impact the UX and cause a 7% reduction in conversions.

Learn Which CTA Button Gets Most Clicks

The performance of your call-to-action buttons is a crucial aspect of improving UX. Heatmaps help you evaluate it. With heatmaps, you can check which CTAs are getting clicks and which are ignored. Once you are aware of this data, you can adjust the CTAs accordingly to improve their performance. For example, if a CTA is being ignored by your visitors, you can try placing it in the most-clicked areas. That’s how you can improve the UX fast and efficiently.

Heatmap Highlights Items in Your Website That Creates Friction

88% of people do not return to a website if they have a bad user experience.

Have you ever visited a tough-to-navigate and confusing website? If yes, then you are already aware of the struggles of internet users. Do you want to offer the same inconvenience to your visitors?

Thankfully, using a heatmap, you can determine the spots in your website where visitors are facing troubles. Once you discover such areas, you can work on them to improve your UX. This way, you can use heat maps efficiently to offer your visitors clear navigation.

Use Heatmaps With UX Tools

Heatmap data is unquestionably amazing and gives plenty of insights. However, there’s a way to get more out of it – combine your heatmap with other UX design tools. Below are the best three duos:

Traditional Analytics + Heatmaps

Traditional analytics tools such as Google Analytics will provide you with plenty of quantitative data points. For example, bounce rates, traffic sources, and page views. However, these data points alone are not enough to improve your UX. When you combine Google Analytics with heatmap-provided insights, you’ll discover where your webpage is lacking and the solution to it.

Got a webpage with a good amount of traffic but a low conversion rate? Use a heatmap and Google analytics to figure out what’s making visitors leave. A combination of these amazing tools will help you improve your UX in a better way. Some examples are:

Session Replay + Heatmaps

Session replay is an amazing tool that lets you view your visitors’ activities. It shows all the actions of a visitor across multiple pages. Instead of guessing about scrolling and clicking, you use the combination of both these tools. They will help you find what your users are actually looking for. According to which you can make changes in your web pages, enhancing the UX.

On-page Feedback + Heat Maps

Numerical or quantitative data is highly important to make decisions about the UX. However, many people make the mistake of overlooking the value of this information. Try combining on-page feedback with heatmaps to get more detailed insights. Here’s what you need to do:

First, use a heatmap to determine the issues in your web page designs. Then to be sure about your chances, ask your visitors for UX feedback on each webpage.

According to BrightLocal, 72% of customers are more likely to write a review if a business asks for it.

Feedbacks will help you learn all things your visitors find missing on your page. You will know if the areas you wanted to update deserve changes or not. Once you know that, you can work on making the desired changes to make navigation easy. And if they are successfully reaching the right place without navigation, it means your navigation is efficient, and so does your UX.

However, remember that website feedback does not need to be distracting to the visitors. A non-intrusive, simple, and decent one-line question pole is all that’s required to kick-start your UX improvement.

That’s it. You are all set to leverage the power of heatmaps to give the best possible UX to your web guests. If you need any help, feel free to

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7 Most Useful UI & UX Trends For 2022

by | Nov 11, 2021 | Development, Tips, Web design

Do you know if you invest 1$ in UX, you get 9,900% ROI?

UI and UX are key concepts in digital marketing, but they are still unclear to many. And even those who know these concepts are unaware of the current UI and UX trends favored by internet users.

This post is helpful to all of them. Things we will cover:

  • What is UI Design?
  • What is UX Design?
  • The Difference Between UI and UX Design
  • UI and UX trends 2022
  • Examples to understand how to implement these trends.

Let’s dive in.

What is UI Design?

The term UI Design ( User Interface Design ) refers to the design of a user interface. It is a key element taken into account in the process of creating a website. UI design includes all the graphic and textual elements that allow interaction between the user and the website.

It comprises all interactive and clickable items, such as the site navigation bar, buttons or links, text colors, and styles.
The main purpose of UI design is to offer a fluid and intuitive navigation to the user so that the user’s experience becomes as smooth as possible.

“A good UI is intuitive, easy to understand, and attractive. It encourages Internet users to continue their website navigation and to visit back to the site more often.”

What is UX Design?

UX – User experience relates to the experience of users on a website. It is quite similar to UI but goes further in the process. The user is at the heart of all design strategies. UX ensures that the website design is pleasant and easy to use for the user. Its main motive is to make usage of websites comfortable and satisfying for internet users.

Some of the important elements of the user experience are:

  • Credibility of the website: company’s real identification, genuine reviews, no errors, etc.
  • Website’s appearance and efficiency: consistency in design, placement of elements, etc.
  • Easy to find the information sought: internal search engine, content categories, etc.
  • Ease of use: for example, a smooth ordering process for an online store
  • Responsive Website Design: The ability to adapt to the different gadgets: mobile, tablet, laptop, large screens, etc.

The Difference Between UI and UX Design

Do not confuse UX design and UI design. UX Design takes care of how users feel about a product, UI design focuses on its design.

UI and UX Design Difference

UI Design

To put it simply: UI design = design of the user interface.

UI Design focuses on the aesthetic aspect of the interface. It uses technical skills to shape the visual elements of an app or website when designing them. So, it mainly deals with the graphic environment of a product/service, such as the font, the colors, the typography, the flow of images, the organization of the structure, etc.

Its role is to visually or significantly improve an interface – to make interactions more pleasant.

UX design

UX design relates to the feeling and satisfaction of the end-user in interaction with the website/application. Its goal is to guarantee the user a positive impression throughout their browsing. It helps to understand and anticipate user needs. Also, it helps to create a pleasant interface, intuitive and accessible to your target.

UI Design

UI and UX Trends for 2022

1. Dark Mode

Most people favor websites/applications in dark mode. It is becoming immensely popular. Social networks were the first to offer this mode and make it popular with millions of Internet users. Twitter since 2016, Instagram since 2019, and, more recently, Facebook since 2020.

Operating systems have also given in to the call of dark mode: Windows 10 includes a native dark theme, just like macOS since 2018.

Benefits this mode offers

Energy-Saving:

Your device’s screen is one of the most power-hungry components. Dark mode saves energy savings, especially if you have an OLED screen. This is because dark-colored pixels consume less power than light-colored pixels, about 20% less.

“Google performed tests using YouTube in dark mode and found power savings of between 14% and 60% (depending on screen brightness).”

Enhance Text:

Dark colors enhance bright light colors. So your text in bright light colors becomes more catchy and easier to read. Moreover, dark mode makes it easier to read content in low light. It also produces less blue light than classic mode.

Eye- Friendly:

Dark Mode reduces eye fatigue by simplifying the hierarchy of content and minimizing visual distractions. It, therefore, helps prevent headaches or dry eyes to a certain extent during prolonged use of a screen. This helps reduce the negative impact of screens on the sleep cycle.

Some Dos and Don’ts About Dark Mode

Where should we use it?

For applications/websites focused on entertainment (Netflix, YouTube, Spotify)
On an interface that is used all day long (messaging, intranet)
For a site that needs to bring out an image of luxury.
On websites that need to play on emotions (for example, to bring out a feeling of intrigue and mystery.

Where shouldn’t you use it?

For interfaces heavily loaded with text.
On websites with numerous forms.
For sites with a design that is too complex (set of textures or range of colors).
Websites that have many different types of content displayed at the same time on the screen (text, images, video, tables, etc.).

Key Examples of Dark Mode

Examples of Dark Mode

2. Create Unique Animation illustration

Have you ever clicked a button multiple times, just because you liked the animation it caused? Every three out of five people prefer doing so, including me.
With advancements in technology, designers can now integrate quality animations without worrying about the loading speed of the web pages. That’s why now the UX process includes animated UI graphic creation.

The Benefits of UI Animation Concepts

Makes Interaction Attracting And Fun:

It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine how many words it can be worth when it comes to life – animation. Using animation will allow you to present your brand in a fun way. Moreover, with animation, you can avoid long texts on your interfaces that often bore visitors.

Guides Visitors:

Animations also act as guides during navigation. It facilitates the presentation of your site or your application. They draw visitors’ attention to the next step in the navigation. Or to the various steps to follow.

Highlight Your CTAs:

Animation allows you to highlight your most important CTAs effectively. It is a good way to perfectly highlight the action to be performed. In addition, it ensures that the message you wanted to convey went well.

Provoke Interaction:

Our eyes always turn to light, movement, and sound. If you stare at an almost deserted landscape, the slightest movement will inevitably catch your eye, and you will more easily distinguish it from the rest. That’s how animation guides the user’s gaze to important points on the journey. A highlighted text, an image displayed gradually, will create an offset with the context/background and allow the desired element to be highlighted.

Pro Tip: Here’s a detailed guide on how to use animations.

Some key examples of Animation Integration

Animation Integration 1

Animation Integration

3. Advanced Micro-Interactions

According to Dan Saffer, creator of the term, the definition of a micro-interaction is:

“Small moments during which the user and the interface interact. “.

Microinteractions

A micro-interaction is a creative, short, and simple event integrated into a web or mobile interface to give it a dynamic touch and stimulate user empathy. This feature is used to:

  • Explain to the user the action to be performed.
  • Inform the user about errors that may occur during the interaction.
  • Guide the user in an intuitive way during his interaction with the interface.
  • Attract the user’s attention.
  • Reward the user.
  • Provide an entertaining environment while the customer waits for the system to accomplish a task.

A micro-interaction is integrated into the interface design and has three main characteristics:

  • A trigger such as a hover, a click, a scroll, or even a page display that generates an action;
  • Rules that define what happens, such as zoom, a shade, or appearance;
  • The feedback to inform the user of what is happening or where they are in a process;
  • Loops and modes, like a system, repetition, or cancellation action.

Importance of Microinteractions

The micro-interactions play a critical role in your user interfaces. They stimulate the user’s emotions to personalize their interaction with the interface. These objects entertain the user and bring more life to the UX experience. As a result, micro-interaction helps to enhance the link between the user and the product.

Common Examples of Micro-Interactions

  • Scrollbar
  • Digital alarm
  • Pull-to-refresh animation
  • A loader with a progress indicator
  • Swipe animation
  • An animated Call To Action button
  • Animated emoticons in social networks, etc.
  • Email notification

The best-known example is the thumbs-up of Facebook Messenger:

Facebook Messenger

4. Artificial Intelligence

Harry West, Director of Frog Design, says:

“Artificial intelligence is no longer a technology of the future. It is the present.”

Artificial intelligence is developing more and more in our daily life. For example, we have all been targeted by advertisements on search engines (Bing, Google), in mailboxes (Gmail Outlook), or even on social networks (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter). All because of AI.

Moreover, brands are considering how to further improve customer experience. The AI ​​will be able to automate tasks thanks to predictive analyzes.

For example, chatbots on most websites allow users to get quick answers to their queries. The improvement of these bots will make it possible to advise better, which contributes to UX and also boosts conversions.

Artificial Intelligence

AI Components to focus on in UX

  • Voice Search
  • Chatbots
  • Automation of tasks
  • Personalization
  • Advanced Visual Effects

You can read about these in detail in this UXmatter blog.

5. Scroll-Triggered Animation

In today’s highly competitive market, if you want to grow your business – you need to meet the changing expectations, behaviors, and interests of your audience. Scroll-triggered animation is a popular way to boost website interactions by improving the user’s interests.

Basically, it’s a technique to animate major elements of your website like – graphics, videos, photos, texts – giving them life as the user scrolls down a page. Scroll animations grab the user’s attention more easily – making your website appear more interesting, dynamic, and feel alive.

What Does It Look Like

The scroll-triggered animation has three main categories:

1. Moving The Background And Foreground – Also Known As The “Parallax” Animation:  Parallax animation adds a sense of scale to a website. Combining multiple backgrounds offers an illusion of depth and directional navigation.

2. Animation Of The Elements When Comes Into View:  When an element of a webpage comes into view, they start animating. For example, sliding texts, vibrating text, exploded view, self-filling graphs, etc.

3. The Scroll Triggered Video:  A scroll-triggered video is a better and more visually exciting method than over-animated texts. With it, visitors can control the playback of the video as they scroll through your website.

Why Use it?

  • It makes it easier for you to grab your user’s attention to specific areas of your website. For example, infographics, special offers, call to actions.
  • Scroll-triggered animation also boosts user engagement by offering visitors an active user experience.
  • It also affects the loading time of your web pages. Instead of waiting for the whole webpage to load, the scroll animation enables the loading of only those elements that are needed.
  • Scrolling animations prevent the visitors from getting lost in your website, by making the navigation extremely streamlined.

6. Voice User Interface

Voice user interface VUI is a trend that has been dominating since the starting of 2021. Here are some stats that reflect the popularity of voice interface –

“Around 122.7 million Americans will be using the voice search interface till the end of 2021″

Voice user interface guides users and helps them navigate through complex digital products reducing the substantial assistance from other features like screens.

In fact, by the end of 2020, 30% of the total Google searches were projected to be made without screens (using VUI).

The most significant benefit of using VUI is – “it eliminates the need for a graphical user interface, and improves the user experience of your app or website. Let’s discuss more such benefits of the voice user interface trends.

Benefits Of Voice User Interface

  • VUI makes multitasking easier. Users just need to command the request, while doing whatever they want, and it will be processed automatically.
  • The users will feel more engaged with your website as their navigation will be easier. All they need to do is command and that’s it.
  • It also helps you improve the speed recognition skills of your website – it impacts SEO positively.
  • And many more.

7. Glass Morphism

.This trend is based on the effect, which we are sure you will be aware of, “background blur”. It creates a “through the glass” look and feel on the elements of your website. In other words, it makes your elements appear glass-looking translucent by providing them with a well-defined hierarchy.

This trend was introduced in Windows Vista first and then later in iOS7. Moreover, the new macOS update which is also called macOS Big Sur also implemented this style. If you want to get to know about this effect more deeply and practically, you can try out this tool “Glassmorphism Generator ”.

 

Wish To Integrate The Above Trends On Your Website?

“Discuss With Our Experts”

A Brief Introduction to Coroutines With Example

by | Dec 31, 2020 | Development, Tips

Software engineers have to address some problems that are common within an application under development. They use design patterns such as Singleton and various other design patterns. Similarly, there are design patterns for concurrency as well. Coroutines is one such design pattern used in Android development. This design pattern is for simplification of code that is executed asynchronously. Coroutines were introduced in Kotlin in version 1.3. They are based on concepts from other programming languages. 

There can be multiple tasks (threads) running at the same time on Android. An app becomes unresponsive when a long-running task blocks the main task. Coroutines help in managing such long-running tasks. Over 50% of Android developers enjoy increased productivity with coroutines. This design pattern facilitates cleaner and concise code.


Coroutines 

The word ‘Coroutines’ is a combination of ‘Co’ and ‘Routines’. Here:

  • Co means cooperation   
  • Routines means functions

Coroutines means cooperation between functions. 

Coroutines functions

Consider the following code as an example. In this code, we use two functions including functionA and functionB.   

functionA as below:

fun functionA(case: Int) {

    when (case) {

        1 -> {

            taskA1()

            functionB(1)

        }

        2 -> {

            taskA2()

            functionB(2)

        }

        3 -> {

            taskA3()

            functionB(3)

        }

        4 -> {

            taskA4()

            functionB(4)

        }

    }

}

And functionB as below:

fun functionB(case: Int) {

    when (case) {

        1 -> {

            taskB1()

            functionA(2)

        }

        2 -> {

            taskB2()

            functionA(3)

        }

        3 -> {

            taskB3()

            functionA(4)

        }

        4 -> {

            taskB4()

        }

    }

}

Call the functionA as functionA(1). The functionA will execute taskA1 and functionB gets control for the execution of the taskB1. After the completion of the taskB1, the functionB will give control to the functionA for the execution of taskA2 and so on.   

As you can see in the code that both functions cooperate. Kotlin coroutines makes this cooperation easy without using when or switch case as you can see in the given example. 

This example shows that coroutines make multitasking much easier. Both the threads and coroutines are multitasking. The difference is that coroutines are controlled by the developer and threads are managed by the operating system. Developers use coroutines to execute a few lines of code. 

The cooperative nature of functions makes this framework written over actual threading light and yet powerful. Coroutines are lightweight and faster threads. They don’t require context switching as they don’t map on the native thread.

Features 

App developers are recommended to use coroutines for asynchronous programming. The following are key features:

ey features:    

  • Lightweight   

The support for suspension allows you to run multiple coroutines on single thread. Suspension does not block a thread on which coroutine is running. This supports multiple concurrent operations and at the same time, saves memory.

  • Built-in Support for Cancellation   

It automatically propagates cancellation through the running coroutine hierarchy. 

  • Fewer Memory Leaks

It allows running operations within a scope using structured concurrency. 

  • Jetpack Integration

Extensions included in Jetpack libraries provide full support for coroutines. You can also use coroutine scope provided by some libraries for structured concurrency.

Let’s understand this with a real life example.

Imagine you have to parse data from 100 sites. It requires making a call for each of the 100 sites. After you receive the response, you do something with the data received from 100 sites. You can start 20 threads with multithreading in a pool. Each thread uses memory, sends a request before sleeping. After finishing, some threads return to the pool and make another call before sleeping only. As you can see, you are making all 100 calls simultaneously in one thread. 


Dependency Info 

You need to add the following dependency to the build.gradle file of the app to use coroutines in an app under development: 

dependencies {

    implementation ‘org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.3.9’

}

What’s New in Bootstrap 5 Alpha

What’s New in Bootstrap 5 Alpha

by | Aug 31, 2020 | Development, Tips

What’s New in Bootstrap 5 Alpha 

Bootstrap is a CSS framework that makes responsive web and mobile development fast and easy. Bootstrap provides you with HTML and CSS based templates for forms, typography, tables, buttons, modals, navigation, image carousels and more. In this article, we will explore the latest Bootstrap 5 alpha version.

 

Modified grid system 

The grid system is one of the main attractions of Bootstrap. This system is made more capable in Bootstrap 5 alpha version. It comes with an extra extra large grid (xxl). This version has .g* utilities in the place of .gutter classes. You will also find Vertical spacing classes.

code

Let’s see an example.
As you can see in the image, g-4 is spacing of 20px (1.5rem) from all side. You can also use .gy* and .gx* to give it specifically for horizontal and vertical.
.gy* is for vertical gutter spacing
.gx* is for horizontal gutter spacing
Columns are not position:relative by default anymore. The new grid system has replaced form layout options. Bootstrap 5 alpha container comes with 6 breaking points.
Xs <= 576px
Sm >= 576px
Md >= 768px
Lg >= 992px
Xl >= 1200px
Xxl >= 1440px
The grid system is greatly enhanced.

Column
Column
Column
Column

Updated forms

The Forms Section is a separate section in Bootstrap 5 alpha. All form controls are redesigned and deduped. Form controls are now fully custom. Every radio, checkbox, file, select, range etc come with a custom appearance. You can unify the behaviour and style of form controls across browsers and operating systems.

settings

Customizing docs

 

Many libraries have been created based on Bootstrap. The latest version provides more support to extend Bootstrap, thanks to the new Customization Section. This section comes with more code snippets and content to build on top of source Sass files of Bootstrap. You also get an npm starter project.

 

CSS custom properties

 

Before Bootstrap 5 alpha, a limited set of root variables for fonts and colours had CSS custom properties. In the Bootstrap 5 version, you get them in components and layout options also.

 

No More jQuery

The largest change in the latest version is no jQuery. It is replaced with Vanilla JavaScript.

 

Responsive Font Size

Font size and margin padding are automatically adjusted across device and viewport sizes.
Eg: .class {
Padding : rfs(2rem);
}
It no longer supports Internet Explorer. There are many new icons added to Boostrap 5. However, you will not find any social media icons.

Following are the classes removed and added:
Classes Added:

 

  • row-cols-auto
  • g-*
  • gy-*
  • gx-*

Classes Removed

 

  • Form-row
  • Card-deck
  • Form-inline
  • List line

 

The latest version of Bootstrap 5 brings utilities API:

Angular MVVM architecture