Find out how web standards and best practices can improve everything you do as a designer. Learn how to build projects that are standards compliant!
Online privacy is a hot topic.
There’s a delicate balance between providing personalized user experiences and asking for (or gleaning) too much information. It can be hard to strike just the right chord.
Then there are regulations to think about, depending on where you and your users may live.
What best practices can designers put in place to ensure that they are designing for a safer web?
There’s an art to crafting the perfect email newsletter design.
It’s a combination of visual presentation and just the right words. It’s delivering quality content in a way that resonates with subscribers and generates opens so that your messages avoid the spam box.
A few email design best practices can help you find inbox success and generate greater conversions for this type of targeted messaging.
And if you need some help, each of the email design examples here is available as a downloadable template.
With so many factors contributing to search engine optimization and rank, there’s almost too many things to do. A strong domain authority can help you establish a better presence online with search and it starts with optimizations you can make on your website.
Before you get too excited, remember that boosting search rankings is a long-game, and domain authority is just one piece of the puzzle. But it can be quite relevant and is a part of website best practices.
Domain authority and SEO have a symbiotic relationship and boosting one is also good for the other. Here are five methods you can deploy.
When it comes to UX, how often do you connect it to privacy?
It’s a big part of the design process. From connected apps to e-commerce to forms, data collection is happening all the time. Users are accustomed to it and generally ok with these practices unless something goes wrong.
It’s your job to include privacy checkpoints and best practices in the design architecture of every website project. Not only will these protections help users, but they can help you feel better about the digital products and services you provide.
It’s a no-brainer for most designers that you plan a project based on a certain target audience. It might be for people who like soda or buy video games or have an affinity for athletic shoes.
But another consideration can often be overlooked – designing for different generational segments. Age can impact how people use websites, apps, and mobile devices. Generational differences can affect your design scheme, accessibility plan, and even the language and colors in the design.
If you haven’t thought about these differences, now is the time to start. With wider website audiences all the time, designing for different generations can help your project be more successful for more people.
Is your design for everyone? We talk a lot about creating with an audience in mind, but it’s important to understand that audience can identify in several ways.
Now more than ever before, it is important to create designs and visuals that are inclusive of that entire audience segment. An inclusive aesthetic will make users feel like they are part of the design and that a company, organization, or product is for them.
Inclusivity is more than just accessibility. It’s a combination of function and visual design that creates something that people identify with and want to be a part of.
It’s time to check yourself and your designs, put aside your biases and take a hard look at projects to ensure they are as all-encompassing as they can be. Let’s get started.
It seems like the world of the web – and web design – is changing every few days. Trends, new techniques and users who demand more are driving this change. And we all have to stay on top of it to remain relevant.
Today, we are going to look at 10 phrases that you need to add to your vocabulary right now.
Each of these words or phrases relates to user experience, and in essence are part of the design process. Without further ado, let’s get started!
There’s an old business model that many business strategists live by—the 3 Cs. It’s a reminder to focus on the company, customers and competitors. Many small businesses and websites also use this model. But for designers, the three Cs are a little different.
When creating user interfaces, you should focus on color, contrast, and content. These three elements are the foundation of good design. But each is a little more complex than it might seem from the surface. Here’s how to think about–and incorporate–the three Cs of user interfaces into your design projects.
2018 will be the year of SVG. The image file format has been growing in popularity and usage steadily over the last few years, but 2018 is when it will really break through.
You have the combination of users with high-resolution displays and the need for a lightning fast load time to thank. And while the switch to SVG might sound like a big deal; it’s not.
SVG is easy to use and implement, and you don’t really have to change existing files; just add new images as SVG. Here’s everything you need to be in the know when it comes to SVG.
Everyone wants more website traffic, right? But are you doing all the little things that help boost search engine ranking with every new image upload or content update?
Creating the right habits from the start will keep your website in tip-top shape and hopefully result in bonus points from the Google algorithm.
The good news is that this list is packed with actionable, everyday tips. Start with a solid website framework and then employ these techniques with every update to get on the path to creating great SEO habits that won’t be tough to maintain.
Have you been putting off the move to HTTPS for your website? Even if this chore hasn’t yet made its way to the top of your to-do list, you should probably consider doing it sooner rather than later.
When a web giant such as Google makes a suggestion, website owners tend to listen. And that’s the case with HTTPS, which does get priority in search rankings and indexing. But that’s not the only reason to move your website to HTTPS.
Is your website slow? Be honest. Could it be faster? Users demand websites that load quickly and continue to deliver content without lag. If your website falls the least bit behind in meeting this demand users could abandon your site (and they might never return).
Today, we’re going to look at ways to make sure your website interface is built for speed, so you never have to worry about page load times again.