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Archive for November, 2015

App Turns Your Words Into 3D Art

November 30th, 2015 No comments
3D-Art-App

Designers have a tendency to think visually. This is not a strength shared by “non-creatives”, which can sometimes be a greater challenge than the design itself. At times, it seems impossible for other to visualize the design in your head, even after a detail explanation or presenting it in a design pitch. Well, there is now…an app for that.

WordsEye is a unique app that allows you to “type a picture”. The app allows you to “turn your words into art, visual opinion, greetings, single-panel cartoons, and more”. It uses a combination of the same technology used for 3D rendering images and speech tagging to pull information from a database of word and linguistic knowledge called, “Semantic Representation.”

“Enabling a new form of creative expression is our primary thrust, but we see strong applications in education, mobile messaging, VR, and gaming,” –Gary Zamchicks, WordsEye’s CEO.

The app is available for both mobile and web and is fully supported on a powerful cloud infrastructure which means there is no need to install or download any additional software or plugins. View a demo of the app and learn more detail visit WordEye.com. Share your thoughts on use in the comments below.

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Google+ Goes Responsive: The Challenges and Solutions

November 30th, 2015 No comments
Google-Goes-Responsive

Google, with their latest redesign of Google+ featured a fully responsive design. With it came many successes, they hit their goal of never downloading over 60K of HTML, Javascript or CSS at one time. Such successes were driven by the challenges presented in the original version(s) of Google+ and required unique solutions. Going from two different version of the Google+ website (designed for old browsers) to one, couldn’t have been easy.

Google recently shared on their Google Developers showcase section their case study on making Google+ completely responsive.

The Challenges

  • Having two version of the site, meant double implementation which resulted in duplicate code
  • Developing for multiple experiences, blurred the lines between desktop and mobile
  • The added feature made the desktop version slow and heavy, with an weight of about 5MB
  • Slow and unstable networks
  • Support for legacy browsers kept developers from relying on JavaScript
  • Lack of interactive features


Google is great at setting the example for revolutionary web development, and sharing their experiences for others to benefit from. Visit the Google developers site to read the solutions Google came up with and how they managed to focus on responsive design.

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UN Study Finds App-based Hookups Causing Teen HIV Epidemic

November 30th, 2015 No comments
Dating-Apps

The latest UN Study reports that apps meant for dating have been linked to an rise in HIV spread among teens in the Asia-Pacific area. Due to the social stigmas of the area, the hookups via dating Apps has become especially popular among gay males; who can meet and date without fear of being criminalized.

“While global HIV infections are falling, the number of adolescents aged 10-19 officially living with HIV in Asia and the Pacific has grown to more than 220,000, with the unofficial number expected to be much higher.” – Unicef

UN Study HIV

By facilitating casual sex, the dating apps have given teens a chance to meet and date individuals faster and easier than ever before. Due to the lack of sex education and STD Testing in the area the infection among app users looking for casual sex is spreading quickly. It only takes one person infected with HIV to potential spread and affect many lives.

Un Study HIV 2
The UN does not state that the software is to blame. However, they do believe dating app developers could play a great role in the solution by educating its users about spreading sexually transmitted diseases and promoting responsible behaviour.

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Sponsor: Syncano – a serverless architecture to help you build apps more efficiently

November 30th, 2015 No comments

Syncano is all about giving creative freedom to the front end developer. Here are a few ways Syncano can make it easier to build apps:

  • Run your own code (Python, Ruby, JavaScript, etc) without setting up any servers.
  • Build your own microservices. A “CodeBox” is a script you can run on our servers, that you can communicate with, that can do things that are too expensive to do on mobile/front end (e.g. use a third-party API, process an image, etc).
  • Back end modules like OAuth, real-time communication, and more. So your time is better spent solving problems for your customers.

Try it free for six months and let us know what you think!

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Sponsor: Syncano – a serverless architecture to help you build apps more efficiently is a post from CSS-Tricks

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Sponsor: Syncano – a serverless architecture to help you build apps more efficiently

November 30th, 2015 No comments

Syncano is all about giving creative freedom to the front end developer. Here are a few ways Syncano can make it easier to build apps:

  • Run your own code (Python, Ruby, JavaScript, etc) without setting up any servers.
  • Build your own microservices. A “CodeBox” is a script you can run on our servers, that you can communicate with, that can do things that are too expensive to do on mobile/front end (e.g. use a third-party API, process an image, etc).
  • Back end modules like OAuth, real-time communication, and more. So your time is better spent solving problems for your customers.

Try it free for six months and let us know what you think!


Sponsor: Syncano – a serverless architecture to help you build apps more efficiently is a post from CSS-Tricks

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ICYMI: Weekly Ledger 3

November 30th, 2015 No comments
Weekly-Ledger-Icon

Weekly-Ledger

In case you missed it: last week’s top web design news compiled by web designers for web designers only on WebDesignLedger.com.

This Week in Web Design

Web Design Inspiration: Pricing Tables – Web Design Ledger
Pricing tables are an essential part of most websites selling a service or subscription.
Here are a couple examples of modern designs, essential layout and animations styles.

Design Trends To Look For In 2016
Here are a couple trends to keep in minds for a simple and worthwhile user-experience.
animation

Web Design Elements That Should Be Optimized To Create A Lasting Impression
Web design will either attract and capture potential buyers or send them scampering looking for alternative products and services elsewhere.

The Latest Statistics Proving the Validity of UX Design
it is difficult to imagine the benefits of UX prior to applying UX. There is no better example than the following stats. Here is a brief on the impressive findings rounded up by Jozef Toth, Senior Designer at Cameron & Wilding.

Flat Web Design: The Beginner’s Guide
Business owners and the website designer are focusing more on user-centric website designs which are digitally aesthetic.

10 Great Sites for UI Design Patterns
If you are looking for a design that solves a problem that has been solved inside a different application before; then the template for your wheel is probably already out there.

UI design

5 Easy tips for instantly improving your writing (and why that’s important)
I’ll agree you don’t have to be amazing, but I’ll also argue that poor writing skills hurt your chances of success. (And isn’t the deck stacked against us enough some days?!)

Generate shortlisted for design conference award
We’re overjoyed to see that they’ve shortlisted our web design event, Generate Conference for their Creative Market Awards 2015.

Read More at ICYMI: Weekly Ledger 3

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I’m personally responsible for every bug on every website

November 30th, 2015 No comments

Sorry the website I just sent you the link to wasn’t looking right on your phone. I checked it out too and the layout was pretty jacked up. I personally caused that, as I’m solely responsible for each and every website on the internet. My bad, everybody.

A special guest post by Jimmy Allweber.

Remember that site I shared the other day about that cool hot sauce club I joined? If it was hard to navigate on your Nebulous Plexus 6700 you can blame me directly. I was the site owner, project manager, designer, and developer on that project.

You know how there was a scrolling performance bug on that article about “introversion and the holidays” I posted? That was me. I was in that code base and crapped up that code on accident. Your best bet is to tweet me directly about things like that. Be a little smug about it too so I know it’s important. That’ll be our little code.

If the fonts aren’t loading on ESPN.com, take note that it was me who caused that. Shoot me a note at jimmy@your-beck-and-call.com and I’ll fix it ASAP.

Did you have trouble selecting the correct country from the drop down when checking out on Crate and Barrel’s site? I admit I was just being lazy there. Didn’t even cross browser test once. I’m a Chrome on Mac Desktop guy. That’s all I care about when I build each and every website that exists.

Here’s one thing I would avoid: telling the company themselves. They deal with the customers, I’m more of the webmaster. Skip the middleman and come right to me.

As long as I’m giving advice… Be vague. After all, since all websites are mine, it’s really on me to investigate and wrap my head around your problems. Don’t make it easy for me.

Here’s a template you can use:

“Broken.”

I’ll make the reduced test case myself. That’s what I’m paid to do by all the companies on Earth.

By telling me about these bugs directly, you’re not just ensuring that the bug is seen and dealt with by the very person who can fix it (me), you’re skipping the line and saving everyone time. Remember not to tell me the exact link though. I should have a pretty good mental sitemap of the 14.58 billion URLs out there. If I can’t infer it, it’s my chance to brush up.

You and I are close, right? Don’t hold back on the constructive criticism like “Ugh. No.” or “Do you not even care about user experience you moronic self righteous inbred sack of garbage? You are the sticky key on my keyboard. You are the burnt out pixel on the jumbotron. You’re the sponsored tweet at a funeral.”

I wonder if you have any thoughts on how much Arial I tend to use throughout the internet? Hit me up on that too, because I literally designed it and installed it on every known computer.


I’m personally responsible for every bug on every website is a post from CSS-Tricks

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Cyber Monday Deals for Web Designers

November 30th, 2015 No comments
Cybr-monday

Cyber-Monday-Deals-WDL

Visual Hierarchy

Visual Hierarchy an online store that offers a variety of resources for designers is sharing a special deal with Web Design Ledger readers. They are offering a variety of beautifully designed resources like UI kits, icons, and fonts at the minimal price of $8 each for Black Friday & Cyber Monday!

  • Great for fast design and prototyping on websites, mobile apps and print design projects (logos, clothing, banners, posters, identity design, promotional products etc.)
  • Save money on hundreds of designs through this special offer, stock up this Black Friday and design modern websites and mobile layouts.

If you are searching for Mockups, we offer them at a reduced price ranging from 50% to 66% off mockups and UI layout kits. Hurry to get the best deals of the season, get yours before the Black Friday & Cyber Monday deal ends!

DealFuel

WDL-dealfuel (1)

DealFuel is daily deals site for web professionals. It’s an awesome place where you will find deals related to web design and development, SEO and marketing, software and tools and much more. Not only this, you will find a whole bunch of freebies which everyone is bound to fall in love with.
DealFuel is the place where you will find discounts that you won’t find anywhere. Apart from that they regularly give out coupons that gives even more discount.
For this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, they are giving a special discount of 15% on all their deals.
Details
Coupon Code: DFBLACK2015
Validity: Till 6th Dec 2015
Link: http://dealfuel.com
If you want special discounts, subscribe to their newsletter.

Photowhoa

WDL-photowhoa (1)

PhotoWhoa has curated products to improve your photography. It has got something for every genre of photographer. You will find actions from PhotoShop actions from Seasalt, tutorials from Trey Ratcliff, Dan Hostettler, Nick Saglimbeni, ebooks from Andrew Gibson, Andy Lim and much more. From Fashion, Portraits, Street and Landscape, this site has it all. Grab some awesome deals at Photowhoa.com.
Black Friday / Cyber Monday Offer
15% Discount offer on all Deals
Coupon Code PWBACK2015
Offer valid from 23 November 2015 to 7th December 2015
Link: https://photowhoa.com/deals/

Cyberchimps

WDL-cyberchimps (1)

With over 5 million downloads and 11 million websites launched using a CyberChimps theme, CyberChimps is aptly referred to as one of the pioneers in Responsive WordPress Themes. Its most popular plan is CyberChimps Club, a $97 membership that gives you access to all its 24 current themes and new themes as well. At least 2 New Themes are released every month – so you get real value for your money.
Black Friday / Cyber Monday Offer
30% Discount offer on all Themes & CyberChimps Club
Coupon Code – BFWDL30
Offer Valid from 23 November 2015 To 7th December, 2015
Link – http://cyberchimps.com/pricing/

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Looking for the Best Cyber Monday Deals for Designers?

November 30th, 2015 No comments
cmfeat

Whoever thought up Cyber Monday must have been tired of waiting in long for the stores to open. Now, you can shop at your leisure. You don’t have to wait in line or try to elbow your way from one place to the next. We’re making it even easier by showing you who has the best Cyber Monday Deals, and what those deals are.

Whether you’re looking for a special plugin, a prototyping tool, a WordPress theme, or a service that’s an improvement over your present one, you’ll find something here. Pour another cup of coffee and enjoy Cyber Monday!

XPRS website builder

A good place to start is to see what Cyber Monday has in store for you in the line of premium website design tools. You don’t find them offered at a discount very often, but IM Creator is offering their XPRS Site Builder Commercial plan at a cool 50% discount – only $3.98/month. That’s a bargain you seldom come across for a top-of-the-line design tool.

The XPRS package comes with a hefty selection of innovative and attractive templates, covering almost every niche you can think of, including blogs, shops, portfolios, resume sites and more. Keeping in line with an integral eCommerce theme, XPRS sites are always responsive, so you’ll be able to keep in constant touch with the mobile shopping crowd.

The XPRS web design approach is somewhat atypical, yet slowly emerging in all other website builders, in that it uses stripes with different goal and layout to each, as opposed to a drag and drop approach, and there is no need for coding. Those who use it say it’s a better way to build a website.

Dreamstime Stock Photos

Great savings are yours when you purchase a Dreamstime stock photo credit or subscription package at a 50% discount. Once you visit their website and sign up, you might be tempted to spend the rest of Cyber Monday browsing among their selections of stock photos, video footage, and vector images. You will be impressed. It will be a pleasant way to spend a little time before getting back to your shopping list.

Dreamstime’s inventory is 15 years in the making. At last count it featured over 37 million professional images. You only have to look at a few to see the care the editors have taken in selecting images of the highest quality. You might even choose Dreamstime as your single source for stock images from here on out.

Proto.io

We wanted to make sure we included something in our list for the website and app prototyping specialist. Since Proto.io has such a great reputation, and their Cyber Monday special involves a 30% discount, it was a no brainer to include it in this list of best bargains for web designers.

Proto.io is a web application, so your purchase involves signing up for an account. This prototyping tool features a nice selection of built in widget libraries, there is a player app for iOS and Android. Proto.io allows you to create high-fidelity prototypes without any need for coding, you can easily share your prototypes with others, and test them on actual mobile devices. Proto.io also supports most mobile gestures and transitions. There is in fact an awful lot for mobile designers to like. After signing up for a free trial, pick a paid plan and apply the coupon code: CYBERMONDAY2015

Visual Hierarchy Market

Let’s make a quick switch from a single product offering to a marketplace that features a range of valuable and affordable website products. Visual Hierarchy Market is celebrating Cyber Monday by giving visitors an opportunity to pick up all their premium UI Kits, icons and fonts for $8 each. Visual Hierarchy is a well-known brand in the web design world, so you’ll be forgiven if you feel like a kid in a candy store while visiting their online store. Not every item is marked down 90%, but you should do well. Don’t pass this one up.

Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes is another highly-recognized brand name. This provider of many of the higher quality themes on the market is holding their biggest sale ever on Cyber Monday, and offering a 25% discount on every one of their themes. This includes Divi, their popular flagship theme. Elegant Theme’s member base is 307,000 strong, many of whom signed up after having viewed one of the live demos. Visit their website and do the same. Divi will be an excellent choice, but take your time. An opportunity to purchase a premium WordPress theme at a 25% discount does not come along very often.

Designmodo Shop and Market

Designmoto features a number of website design tools to pick and choose from, including Qards, Slides Framework, Startup Framework, and Designmodo market products. These innovative design tools are marked down 60%, so you may want to take a little extra time to look for something you need that you can purchase at a very affordable price. Their website is packed with informative blogs and design tutorials. If you are in a hurry to do more shopping, we suggest bookmarking the website so you can browse through them at a later time.

Huge Bundle With Amazingly Cool Fonts

The Holiday Season is upon us. This is a good time to add some pizzazz to a website, or to anything that would benefit by using a cleverly handcrafted font. Visual Heirarchy’s Huge Bundle with Amazingly Cool Fonts is just the ticket, especially with a Cyber Monday $342 markdown. Their 51 handcrafted fonts in 26 font families normally cost $370, but they for can be yours for a mere $28. Stop relying on boldface, italics, or big red letters to liven up your website pages. Handcrafted fonts do a much better job, and they also add a touch of class.

XHTMLized

If a web design conversion service is on your shopping list, we suggest looking into what XHTMLized has to offer. This Australian-based firm converts website designs to HTML5/CSS3 code, and they are offering a 5% discount for Cyber Monday shoppers.

They specialize in converting Sketch, PSD, and Illustrator designs, but they are well equipped to handle most other design platforms as well. You needn’t worry about encountering any time zone issues. This serious web development studio has expert design developers placed at several locations, giving it a global outreach.

Pixeno

We’ve added one more premium website design service to our list. Pixeno provides a premium hosting service, which they offer at 27% CyberMonday discount – for life! Even if your present hosting service is doing a reasonable good job, Pixeno’s high-performance, multinational platform is still worth looking into. They are promoting it as the web hosting platform of the future which just happens to be up and running for you today. It has a 94% customer approval rating and a lifetime discount is hard to beat.

Themify 40% Off Cyber Monday Sale & iPad Giveaway

Themify offers a quality selection of WordPress themes and plugins that they are selling at a 40% Cyber Monday discount. You can apply this discount to one or more of their individual products, or apply the discount to a Club Membership. Do the math, and you may find that by signing up for a membership can result in even greater savings. Their best deal is a Lifetime Master Club membership which can be yours at a $100 discount. Visit Themify’s website and enter their Black Friday contest. You might come away winning a free iPad mini.

You should find anything and everything you’ll be shopping for by visiting one or more of these ten best web design product and service providers. The discounts offered are as good, and in most instances better, than you’ll find elsewhere. The products are top quality, as are the services offered.

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How to design UX for millennials

November 30th, 2015 No comments

Ah, millennials. They’re coming of age and are estimated to have annual purchasing power of more than $200 billion by 2017. That’s very significant, especially when you factor in e-commerce purchases right from the Web.

So it’s no surprise that some in the design community are also turning their attention to specifically figuring out how to design for millennials. Millennials have been raised on, and with tech, giving them a unique status compared to older generations like the Gen Xers and the Baby Boomers. Accordingly, design considerations should be unique to this generation, simply because they, like other generations, do things their own way.

Designers would do well for their clients and careers to focus on giving this demographic what they want and expect as they’re browsing a site.

Here are some vital factors to keep in mind when designing for millennial users.

Rule #1: make it mobile

Designers who want to please and attract the millennial users have to design with the mobile-first approach, as in making sure that their websites display properly and seamlessly on mobile devices. This is because stats show that more than 80% of millennials, those between the ages of 18 and 34, own a smartphone. Compare that to older demographics like 35- to 54-year-olds, where 68% own smartphones, and those 55 and up, where just 40% own a smartphone.

Since millennials spend a lot of time on mobile devices, it’s a best practice to put mobile design first to draw them in.

So what constitutes good mobile-design habits? These practices do:

  • keep the core content of the desktop site and mobile site the same to avoid confusing users;
  • optimize for mobile even if the core content stays the same, which includes making the user experience very tap- and swipe-friendly;
  • define your grid and breakpoints appropriately for the mobile experience;
  • ensure that mobile pages load quickly to keep users from leaving the site;
  • limit the layers of navigation to keep users engaged with the site.

PayPal is a site that understands this well. When you compare its mobile site to the desktop version, you immediately notice that the core content is the same, the mobile site loads fast, and there are just two layers of navigation on the mobile site.

Rule #2: emphasize the user experience

It follows naturally that the user experience of your mobile site has to be top-notch if it’s going attract and then retain millennials. After all, with so many other sites out there, millennials—who are not the most patient bunch—will just go to another site if the site you built is slow, has glitches, or just makes it really hard for them to navigate.

Since millennials spend so much time on their mobile phones, you’ve got to give them a second-to-none user experience. Failure to do so means that conversions and dollars will go from your client’s pocket to another site’s owner whose designer has built a site with better UX.

The first thing that millennial users care deeply about is finding what they want quickly and easily, so simplify your site navigation! This means cutting unnecessary navigation elements from the desktop version and using a hamburger menu to save space.

Beyond this, it also means designing for unavoidable interruptions, whether due to real life or from other prompts on the millennial’s smartphone. Millennials can look at mobile sites or apps while standing in line to a concert, or be distracted by something else while on your mobile site, like when their phone rings.

To ensure that they can jump back to your site and efficiently use it, keep design minimalist and basic, giving them just what they need to accomplish tasks, whether that’s buying something or browsing news stories. By doing this, you also reduce their cognitive load, making it likelier that they’ll be able to finish what they were doing and complete a mobile page goal.

IMDB’s mobile site exemplifies this UX focus. Navigating the site on your mobile phone is very intuitive, with links to movies, actors and TVs easy to find, click on and return to after any distraction takes you away from the site. Its page layouts are also highly usable, making it likely that millennials will be able to find what they’re looking for with no hassle, wherever they are.

Rule #3: enable self-service solutions on your site

Millennials are into instant gratification because they were raised with tech, so much so that they expect customer service to be as easy as sending a tweet or clicking a call to action button. Surveys show that, in keeping with this being-in-control theme, millennials want customer service solutions to increasingly be self-service approaches.

This means no calling a number to wade through a long phone menu to eventually talk to a live person, nor does it mean live chat or sending customer service an email! It means empowering millennials to solve customer service issues on their own directly on a site, cutting out the hassle of dealing with another person.

So how can you design this self-service aspect into your clients’ sites?

Include copious resources like highly active and regularly monitored community and discussion forums as well as a page exclusively dedicated to FAQs, self-help tutorials and troubleshooting tips. Your millennial users will definitely appreciate being able to solve issues on their own much faster than having to wait around for a customer service rep to help them out.

A great example of a site that does this excellently is Zendesk. Its support page is crammed with self-service options, everything from a community forum that encourages users to ask questions, to a thorough knowledge base where the basics of using Zendesk are posted in an easy-to-read format. Millennials surely appreciate such efficiency, control and resources that are always available at their fingertips whenever they need them.

Millennials appreciate these design touches

You have to know how millennials behave on the Web to design for them effectively. This goes for your e-commerce efforts as well as just having millennials return to the same site and look at it as a trusted and enjoyable resource time and again.

It’s not difficult to understand the millennial user experience—all you have to do is look what device they use most, and it happens to be mobile. Armed with this knowledge, your design focus should be on mobile first for the millennial generation. At any rate, designing with mobile as a priority is a best practice of web design these days as more people in general shop, read, and do research on mobile!

So to snag your clients a piece of that whopping $200 billion pie of millennial spending power, it’s in your best interest as a designer to adopt these rules on your next design project.

LAST DAY! Black Friday Bundle: 10 Creative Products for your Designer Toolkit – only $27!

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