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Archive for June, 2022

Bunny Fonts

June 30th, 2022 No comments

Bunny Fonts bills itself as the “privacy-first web font platform designed to put privacy back into the internet.”According to its FAQ:

With a zero-tracking and no-logging policy, Bunny Fonts helps you stay fully GDPR compliant and puts your user’s personal data into their own hands.

Hard for my mind not to go straight to Google Fonts. Bunny Fonts even says they are a drop-in replacement for Google Fonts. It offers the same open source fonts and holds the same API structure used by Google Fonts.

Now, I’m no GDPR expert but the possibility of Google collecting data through its Fonts API is hardly unsurprising or even unexpected. I was curious to check out Google’s privacy statement for Fonts:

The Google Fonts API logs the details of the HTTP request, which includes the timestamp, requested URL, and all HTTP headers (including referrer and user agent string) provided in connection with the use of our CSS API.

IP addresses are not logged.

Comparing that to what Bunny Fonts says in its FAQ:

When using Bunny Fonts, no personal data or logs are stored. All the requests are processed completely anonymously.

Or perhaps more thoroughly explained on the bunny.net GDPR statement:

In most cases, the data held and collected by bunny.net does not contain any user identifiable data. In some cases, which depend on how you are using bunny.net and how your website is structured, personal data may be collected from your users. Such information includes hosting user uploaded content as well as personal data that might be transmitted in the URL, User-Agent or Referer headers of the HTTP protocol.

Sounds pretty similar, right? Well, it may not have been that similar earlier this year when a German court ruled that embedded Google Fonts violated GDPR compliance. It appears that one line in the Google Fonts privacy statement about IP addresses came after the ruling, once the API scrubbed them from collected data.

So, do you need to ditch Google Fonts to be GDPR compliant? I would imagine not if IP addresses were the sole concern, but I’ll leave that for folks who know the rules to comment on that.

But if you are concerned about Google Font’s GDPR compliance, I guess Bunny Fonts is worth a look! And seeing that it’s powered by bunny.net’s CDN services, you should get pretty comparable performance marks.

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Bunny Fonts originally published on CSS-Tricks. You should get the newsletter.

Categories: Designing, Others Tags:

How to Make a Great Delivery App in 2022: The Do’s and Don’ts

June 30th, 2022 No comments

In recent years, food delivery apps have seen quite a rise: mainly due to the pandemic but also because almost all areas of our lives have moved to mobile. But despite the astonishing demand for such apps, very few actually reach the bar in terms of quality and user satisfaction.

There are still many apps with poor UI, confusing navigation, or limited payment options. So what features does a good food delivery app have and how do you make one as great as Uber Eats?

The state of on-demand food delivery in numbers: an overview

Before dissecting a good food delivery app and understanding what it’s made of, let’s look at some numbers first. According to the Business of Apps report, the most interesting insights on the on-demand food delivery are as follows:

  • Top food delivery apps are Uber Eats, Just Eat, Grubhub, and Deliveroo.
  • China is the #1 country by food delivery revenue ($27.3 billion), followed by the US ($22.4 billion) and Europe ($9.2 billion).
  • The food delivery industry is projected to grow by $320 billion by 2029 while in 2022, it’s approximately $140 billion.

Even though Uber Eats is not the sole leader in the market, it is often called the staple of food delivery apps. There are several reasons for that, such as a great user interface, an option of a scheduled delivery, various deals and promotions, transparent and timely payments for drivers, and many more. No wonder there are already Uber Eats clones out there in the market, trying to outperform Uber by offering almost-the-same functionality. And while there is no universal recipe for success, there are certain features that are considered a must for any food delivery app and are expected by customers.

Note: When talking about the functionality of a food delivery app, the first thing that comes to mind is customer functionality such as a search option or an option to leave a review. However, there are three user groups: customers, drivers, and restaurants, and all three have to be satisfied with the app.

6 do’s of a great delivery app

Below we list down the main features that modern users expect from a good food delivery application. Even though they can be called core features, some apps still miss them which, in turn, impacts their revenue and position in the market.

1. Do implement real-time GPS tracking 

When it comes to food delivery, customers prefer knowing at what approximate time they will receive their order. And while there may be a certain time period stated, an option to track the order via GPS instantly boosts the user experience. In this way, customers will be able to see where exactly the delivery is and how far it is from them.

In addition, GPS tracking is highly helpful for drivers too. Not only does it help determine the precise customer’s location but it can also provide the shortest route from the restaurant to the destination. And the best part of this plan is that you don’t have to develop a solution from scratch since the most popular online maps (i.e. Google Maps) can be easily integrated into your app.

2. Do provide easy filtering and search

Delivery apps usually offer quite a vast number of available restaurants to order from and it’s critical that a user can easily navigate and filter them. While the filtering and search options are available in all delivery apps, sometimes they are poorly executed and bring confusion instead of assistance.

When thinking about the restaurant navigation and search, consider the following practices:

  • Make sure that search categories are visible and clear;
  • Provide personal recommendations based on the user’s past activity;
  • Do not overload the navigation with too many categories;
  • Make sure the checkout is user-friendly and users can easily manage it (i.e. remove dishes, instantly see the price).

3. Do integrate a map

In addition to being able to track the order, customers also need to know where a restaurant is located (i.e. to order a takeout near their apartment). Hence, a good delivery app needs an integrated map that shows the locations of restaurants and allows both customers and drivers to see the restaurant location.

The integration of Google Maps or a similar solution significantly reduces the heat when it comes to busy delivery hours. This, in turn, improves customer satisfaction and helps drivers find the stated destination easily.

4. Do provide an option to schedule an order

This feature is among the ones that made Uber Eats so successful since Uber was the one introducing it. An option of order scheduling allows customers to make orders in advance and schedule them for a certain day and time as well as make repetitive orders at one time. As for the restaurants, this feature allows them to do better planning of their workload and prepare orders more efficiently. Needless to say, this is another significant factor that contributes to a great user experience and helps restaurants avoid order overload.

5. Do provide a simple checkout

In any software product, checkout is an area where users stumble the most since it is often poorly designed or not thought out well enough. When it comes to food ordering, the best practices to follow are:

  • Provide multiple and simple payment options (credit/debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay);
  • Allow guest checkout without the need to create a user profile;
  • Allow guests to manage their order (i.e. remove, add, replace items) during the checkout;
  • Enable filling in user contacts and delivery addresses by default for faster checkout.

6. Do offer relevant promotions and loyalty programs

Personalization has become a must and something that users expect by default from any service or product. On-demand food delivery is no exception and if you want to retain users and provide them with the ultimate user experience, you’ll have to incorporate personalization in your app.

In terms of food delivery, personalization comes in the form of relevant offers (based on the user’s activity and most recent orders), discounts, and loyalty programs. Since personalization plays such an important role, many app developers offer restaurants advanced options to set up promotions and discounts to boost revenue and attract customers at the same time.

4 don’ts of a great delivery app

From what we discussed above, it’s clear that a good food delivery app is heavily focused on user experience and ease of use. Now let’s talk about what can be done wrong in terms of its functionality and what bottlenecks can ruin the user experience.

1. Do not 100% limit access to the app

 We get it – in busy hours, your app may get so overloaded that neither restaurants nor drivers are able to take new orders. In such cases some apps (i.e. Glovo) limit access to the app and do not allow users to enter it by putting a “Sorry, we are experiencing a high load right now” message on the screen.

But what if users don’t want delivery but want to order a takeaway or simply scroll through a menu to make an order later? By not allowing to use the app, you are greatly reducing user satisfaction and risking losing customers in favor of your competitors.

Tip: instead of limiting access, you can limit certain options (i.e. delivery) but allow users to still search through restaurants and order takeaway. As well, you can offer them an alternative or an incentive as an excuse for making them wait.

2. Do not overuse push notifications

Push notifications are a great way to notify users about discounts, special offers, or their order status. However, if you use push notifications too much, this may annoy or confuse users – and we don’t need to say how it will negatively impact their perception of your app.

Instead of notifying users about everything, you can offer them to set up notifications to choose what kind of information they want to receive. While such notifications as order status may be set up as default ones, others (i.e. discounts, new menu items, etc.) should be set up by the user according to their preferences.

3. Do not ignore user support

Seems like nothing can go wrong with ordering food but quite often, customers want to inquire something about their order, drivers may have unexpected issues, or restaurants need to clarify certain details. In all these cases, 24/7 customer service is a must.

Unfortunately, not many delivery apps provide efficient user support which is another factor that negatively affects user experience. The simplest thing that one can do is integrate a chatbot or an in-app messenger so users can always reach the representative and get the needed information. And obviously, both drivers and restaurants should have no problem with contacting the delivery service by any preferred method.

4. Do not overload the app with features

This point is applicable to any application but when it comes to food ordering, feature overload becomes an especially critical issue. Considering the number of core functions to interact with, any extra features will become more of a burden than a help. This, in turn, might distract users and discourage them from further interaction with the app.

Tip: if you suspect your app to be complex to understand from the first time but do not want to remove any features, invest some time into designing a user-friendly onboarding process. In this way, you’ll retain the functionality but will also help users navigate it.

Summing up

In the era of digitization, user-centricity has become the gold standard and on-demand delivery apps have to follow it in order to remain competitive. But in addition to intuitive and user-friendly design, do not forget about the app’s performance and its load-handling abilities in particular. After all, nothing is worse than an app freezing right at the moment when a starving user orders his favorite meal – and if such a mistake is made, it will be incredibly hard to fix it. Hence, when designing a delivery application, choose your software provider carefully and make sure their portfolio features similar projects so they know how to handle the most common requests when it comes to enabling a smooth delivery process.

The post How to Make a Great Delivery App in 2022: The Do’s and Don’ts appeared first on noupe.

Categories: Others Tags:

How to Make a Great Delivery App in 2022: The Do’s and Don’ts

June 30th, 2022 No comments

In recent years, food delivery apps have seen quite a rise: mainly due to the pandemic but also because almost all areas of our lives have moved to mobile. But despite the astonishing demand for such apps, very few actually reach the bar in terms of quality and user satisfaction.

There are still many apps with poor UI, confusing navigation, or limited payment options. So what features does a good food delivery app have and how do you make one as great as Uber Eats?

The state of on-demand food delivery in numbers: an overview

Before dissecting a good food delivery app and understanding what it’s made of, let’s look at some numbers first. According to the Business of Apps report, the most interesting insights on the on-demand food delivery are as follows:

  • Top food delivery apps are Uber Eats, Just Eat, Grubhub, and Deliveroo.
  • China is the #1 country by food delivery revenue ($27.3 billion), followed by the US ($22.4 billion) and Europe ($9.2 billion).
  • The food delivery industry is projected to grow by $320 billion by 2029 while in 2022, it’s approximately $140 billion.

Even though Uber Eats is not the sole leader in the market, it is often called the staple of food delivery apps. There are several reasons for that, such as a great user interface, an option of a scheduled delivery, various deals and promotions, transparent and timely payments for drivers, and many more. No wonder there are already Uber Eats clones out there in the market, trying to outperform Uber by offering almost-the-same functionality. And while there is no universal recipe for success, there are certain features that are considered a must for any food delivery app and are expected by customers.

Note: When talking about the functionality of a food delivery app, the first thing that comes to mind is customer functionality such as a search option or an option to leave a review. However, there are three user groups: customers, drivers, and restaurants, and all three have to be satisfied with the app.

6 do’s of a great delivery app

Below we list down the main features that modern users expect from a good food delivery application. Even though they can be called core features, some apps still miss them which, in turn, impacts their revenue and position in the market.

1. Do implement real-time GPS tracking 

When it comes to food delivery, customers prefer knowing at what approximate time they will receive their order. And while there may be a certain time period stated, an option to track the order via GPS instantly boosts the user experience. In this way, customers will be able to see where exactly the delivery is and how far it is from them.

In addition, GPS tracking is highly helpful for drivers too. Not only does it help determine the precise customer’s location but it can also provide the shortest route from the restaurant to the destination. And the best part of this plan is that you don’t have to develop a solution from scratch since the most popular online maps (i.e. Google Maps) can be easily integrated into your app.

2. Do provide easy filtering and search

Delivery apps usually offer quite a vast number of available restaurants to order from and it’s critical that a user can easily navigate and filter them. While the filtering and search options are available in all delivery apps, sometimes they are poorly executed and bring confusion instead of assistance.

When thinking about the restaurant navigation and search, consider the following practices:

  • Make sure that search categories are visible and clear;
  • Provide personal recommendations based on the user’s past activity;
  • Do not overload the navigation with too many categories;
  • Make sure the checkout is user-friendly and users can easily manage it (i.e. remove dishes, instantly see the price).

3. Do integrate a map

In addition to being able to track the order, customers also need to know where a restaurant is located (i.e. to order a takeout near their apartment). Hence, a good delivery app needs an integrated map that shows the locations of restaurants and allows both customers and drivers to see the restaurant location.

The integration of Google Maps or a similar solution significantly reduces the heat when it comes to busy delivery hours. This, in turn, improves customer satisfaction and helps drivers find the stated destination easily.

4. Do provide an option to schedule an order

This feature is among the ones that made Uber Eats so successful since Uber was the one introducing it. An option of order scheduling allows customers to make orders in advance and schedule them for a certain day and time as well as make repetitive orders at one time. As for the restaurants, this feature allows them to do better planning of their workload and prepare orders more efficiently. Needless to say, this is another significant factor that contributes to a great user experience and helps restaurants avoid order overload.

5. Do provide a simple checkout

In any software product, checkout is an area where users stumble the most since it is often poorly designed or not thought out well enough. When it comes to food ordering, the best practices to follow are:

  • Provide multiple and simple payment options (credit/debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay);
  • Allow guest checkout without the need to create a user profile;
  • Allow guests to manage their order (i.e. remove, add, replace items) during the checkout;
  • Enable filling in user contacts and delivery addresses by default for faster checkout.

6. Do offer relevant promotions and loyalty programs

Personalization has become a must and something that users expect by default from any service or product. On-demand food delivery is no exception and if you want to retain users and provide them with the ultimate user experience, you’ll have to incorporate personalization in your app.

In terms of food delivery, personalization comes in the form of relevant offers (based on the user’s activity and most recent orders), discounts, and loyalty programs. Since personalization plays such an important role, many app developers offer restaurants advanced options to set up promotions and discounts to boost revenue and attract customers at the same time.

4 don’ts of a great delivery app

From what we discussed above, it’s clear that a good food delivery app is heavily focused on user experience and ease of use. Now let’s talk about what can be done wrong in terms of its functionality and what bottlenecks can ruin the user experience.

1. Do not 100% limit access to the app

 We get it – in busy hours, your app may get so overloaded that neither restaurants nor drivers are able to take new orders. In such cases some apps (i.e. Glovo) limit access to the app and do not allow users to enter it by putting a “Sorry, we are experiencing a high load right now” message on the screen.

But what if users don’t want delivery but want to order a takeaway or simply scroll through a menu to make an order later? By not allowing to use the app, you are greatly reducing user satisfaction and risking losing customers in favor of your competitors.

Tip: instead of limiting access, you can limit certain options (i.e. delivery) but allow users to still search through restaurants and order takeaway. As well, you can offer them an alternative or an incentive as an excuse for making them wait.

2. Do not overuse push notifications

Push notifications are a great way to notify users about discounts, special offers, or their order status. However, if you use push notifications too much, this may annoy or confuse users – and we don’t need to say how it will negatively impact their perception of your app.

Instead of notifying users about everything, you can offer them to set up notifications to choose what kind of information they want to receive. While such notifications as order status may be set up as default ones, others (i.e. discounts, new menu items, etc.) should be set up by the user according to their preferences.

3. Do not ignore user support

Seems like nothing can go wrong with ordering food but quite often, customers want to inquire something about their order, drivers may have unexpected issues, or restaurants need to clarify certain details. In all these cases, 24/7 customer service is a must.

Unfortunately, not many delivery apps provide efficient user support which is another factor that negatively affects user experience. The simplest thing that one can do is integrate a chatbot or an in-app messenger so users can always reach the representative and get the needed information. And obviously, both drivers and restaurants should have no problem with contacting the delivery service by any preferred method.

4. Do not overload the app with features

This point is applicable to any application but when it comes to food ordering, feature overload becomes an especially critical issue. Considering the number of core functions to interact with, any extra features will become more of a burden than a help. This, in turn, might distract users and discourage them from further interaction with the app.

Tip: if you suspect your app to be complex to understand from the first time but do not want to remove any features, invest some time into designing a user-friendly onboarding process. In this way, you’ll retain the functionality but will also help users navigate it.

Summing up

In the era of digitization, user-centricity has become the gold standard and on-demand delivery apps have to follow it in order to remain competitive. But in addition to intuitive and user-friendly design, do not forget about the app’s performance and its load-handling abilities in particular. After all, nothing is worse than an app freezing right at the moment when a starving user orders his favorite meal – and if such a mistake is made, it will be incredibly hard to fix it. Hence, when designing a delivery application, choose your software provider carefully and make sure their portfolio features similar projects so they know how to handle the most common requests when it comes to enabling a smooth delivery process.

The post How to Make a Great Delivery App in 2022: The Do’s and Don’ts appeared first on noupe.

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Creative Ways To Repurpose Content

June 30th, 2022 No comments

Finding new ideas for your blog or social media posts is one of the most difficult aspects of content marketing. Sometimes you feel it naturally; it can be difficult to think of new ideas.

Your next article or update might be right in your existing content library. You could even find new ideas by content repurposing.

You can extend the life of your content by reusing it.This also allows you to reach more people. You can reach a wider audience by repurposing existing content. Not everyone likes reading blog posts. Some people prefer to learn new things through audio or video content. A casual viewer of your YouTube channel may be more interested in learning if you provide the same content online.

There are many possibilities.

What is content repurposing?

Repurposing content is like recycling old work. Instead of creating new ideas and reinventing the wheel, you expand on existing ones or rework them to present them differently.

Your existing content can be adapted to suit another format. This allows you to explore new marketing channels and reach new audiences. You can convert a blog post to a short video, making it more appropriate for social media.

Written content can be repurposed into video, or footage from video content can be reused in more video content. Avoid presenting information in the same way as before.

It will stay fresh by being presented differently every time.

Are you unsure where to start? These are seven easy and creative ways to reuse your content.

1. Micro-content on social media

While social media is growing, it is becoming increasingly difficult to be unique in this space. You must create engaging micro-content to attract new audiences and keep existing ones engaged.

Micro-content is easier to understand, more digestible, and, most importantly, easy to share. You can turn blog posts into Instagram carousels or use quotes from podcasts to create graphic quote cards.

You can make memes from the most popular topics. But you can go further with your micro-content by adding video filters to make your GIFs and videos stand out.

One example is Simar Glossy- Women Designer Suit Manufacture

2. Turn it into a video

Video is one of the most consumed content types. It’s becoming an increasingly important and effective way to spread the word about your company and offer.

Video is a great way to create engaging content, whether creating a video for sales, a storytelling advertisement, an explainer video, or a short social media post.

The latest video marketing statistics show that including video on landing pages can increase your conversion rate to 80%. 64% of consumers purchase after watching branded videos on Facebook.

Video doesn’t have other benefits, like helping customers understand the product. 72% of consumers prefer to learn more about a product or service via video.

You should make your content video. Turning blog posts into explainer videos or making podcast episodes into videos where your guests and hosts speak live, video can make a big difference in your marketing.

In this example, Learnyst repurposes Teach Online and Earn Money video into a blog post:

3. Turn blog posts into podcasts

You can turn a blog post that contains the content you want to expand on into a podcast episode. Podcasts are a great way to share “dry” and “difficult” content in an easy-to-understand format. A podcast episode could feature a complete guide you have written, with many sections.

Podcasts are also easier to access. Podcasts are more accessible than blogs. This could increase the reach of your content.

Podcast episodes (or a series thereof) allow you to expand on information and give examples you gleaned from the post in a conversational style. You can also share any new information you have found. You can also promote the podcast through email and social media.

4. Convert it into an infographic

Can you recall the information you provided in paragraph after paragraph of text? Perhaps this can be used to create a digestible infographic.

Infographics make it easy to present large amounts of information in an easily understood format. Visual cues, design best practices, and simple copy all work together to ensure you give a lot of information in a small space.

Infographics can also be shared widely. Customers and audiences will often share infographics with compelling content via social media. This results in greater reach and more leads, and maybe even sales.

You can settle for smaller, more concise infographics or go all out and create massive infographics that combine more information.

5. Update old blog posts with new information

Blog owners should make it a priority to update blog posts. You don’t need to lose a lot of good content from the past. You can find valuable posts in your blog archives by looking through them.

It is also time-saving to update blog posts. It doesn’t take long to update a blog post. Most of the content is already published. You need to make sure the information is current.

Distribution is as simple as stating in the title that the post was updated with new information. This draws readers looking for updated data, and those who have enjoyed the previous post will be able to refresh their memory. Our complete guide will help you choose the best posts to update if you don’t have one.

6. Create a slide deck

You can make a slide deck or presentation if you have done any longer content, such as a blog article or podcast episode. Because they include interactive elements such as images and GIFs, decks are easier to consume and more creative. Decks can be made into slideshows or videos!

This is an example of a strategy in action.

Let’s say you have a blog that lists 15 trends in digital marketing. You might have many sources and examples of these trends. These trends could also be used to help you understand what they might mean for your business.

To repurpose the content, select the most important pieces of information and arrange them on slides. To make your points more effective, you can create slides with compelling statistics and quotes or animated charts and graphs.

After you are done creating your slide deck, upload it onto a website like Slideshare or Google Slides. These apps offer embedded options that allow you to embed your slides onto landing pages and blog posts.

7. Combine your blog posts into an ebook

Are you a prolific blogger with many blog posts on a topic that can be combined to make an incredible ebook? This strategy works well if you have a huge pillar blog post that your audience can download as an ebook.

This strategy is effective because not everyone who reads your blog posts about a particular topic will be interested in every post. You can then compile them all together to create an ebook that can be shared or downloaded.

If you have several blog posts on influencer marketing, gather all these insights and compile them into an influencer market guide. This guide is free to download from your website.

Users who land on any blog that discusses influencer marketing strategies will see a call to action inviting them to download the entire guide. You can promote this ebook to increase its reach via any social media platform or marketing channel.

This makes it a great lead magnet idea. It can nurture your audience, turn them into warm leads, and show your expertise in your niche. You will also need a CMS such as WordPress to manage and plan your content. To find the best WordPress hosting option and successfully implement it, make a quick WordPress Hosting Comparison.

 

Recap

Content creators can save a lot of time by repurposing their content. This great hack can help you increase your SEO and reach. Thinking ahead about your repurposing options may be a good idea before creating a new article or blog post. A single story can lead you to many pieces of content.

Repurposing should not be difficult if you are focused on adding value to the original content.

The post Creative Ways To Repurpose Content appeared first on noupe.

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Text-overflow: ellipsis considered harmful

June 30th, 2022 No comments

Eric Eggert:

There are a few legitimate use cases for this technique. For example, you might have a table with titles and descriptions. To preserve more space for the title, you constrain the description to one line on small viewports to the one-line and you repeat the description on the detail page for this item.

However, I often see it used on items like buttons or even form labels to make them look nicer(?) or when aligning them vertically. But once you change the viewport or resize the text, the end of the text disappears.

I think “… if used in certain situations” belongs there, but it certainly makes for a better blog post title without it. As Eric says, there are legitimate use cases for truncating text. Maybe only a few, but legitimate nonetheless.

The ultimate goal is to prevent “losing” data, something that can certainly happen in CSS. Text that inadvertently overflows a container is lost in the sense that it’s simply not there. And if that text is simply not there, users will miss it, even if it is the best and most well-crafted call to action ever published to the web.

Eric points out that there is no way to make the text truncated by text-overflow: ellipsis visible. Once it’s gone, it’s gone (although screen readers seem to announce it). It’s practically lost data. You might be OK with that. That’s cool as long as you know what’s happening and it’s intended.

But here’s what Eric says that made me want to share this:

Don’t constrain the content to fit your design, make your CSS flexible to handle longer words gracefully.

Again, you might want to conform content to the design. But I’d probably argue, like Eric, that the design should adapt to the content rather than the other way around. I have a hard time recalling any situation where the text on a page is unimportant or without purpose to the extent that I’d be cool cutting if off at any arbitrary point determined by a CSS property. Maybe an archive of blog posts where each post shows an excerpt of the post content before truncating, but that’s not exactly a use case for text-overflow: ellipse.

CSS has the tools to make a flexible design that accounts for varying lengths of text. So maybe err on the side of writing defensive CSS… CSS that anticipates issues and knows how to gracefully handle different content scenarios. text-overflow: ellipsis might be part of your CSS arsenal for that. But it might also be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Worth asking whether losing that data is worth the cost of what that content is supposed to do before giving giving it a haircut.

While we’re talking about truncating text…

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Text-overflow: ellipsis considered harmful originally published on CSS-Tricks. You should get the newsletter.

Categories: Designing, Others Tags:

Advantages of Independent Penetration Testing Services for your Business

June 30th, 2022 No comments

When it comes to penetration testing for businesses, many owners feel overwhelmed.

It’s a complex and technical process, and there are so many providers to choose from. How do you know which provider is right for your business? And more importantly, how can you be sure that the pentest will be conducted effectively and provide value? In this article, we will discuss the advantages of independent penetration testing services.

What is penetration testing?

Penetration testing, also known as pentesting or ethical hacking, is the process of simulating attacks on a computer system to find security vulnerabilities. Pentesters use a variety of tools and techniques to identify weaknesses in systems and determine how well they would withstand a real-life attack.

Why is penetration testing important for businesses?

There are many reasons why penetration testing is important for businesses. First and foremost, it helps to identify security vulnerabilities in systems before attackers can exploit them. By finding and fixing these weaknesses, businesses can prevent costly data breaches and other cyber incidents. Additionally, penetration testing can help organizations to improve their overall security posture and better understand their risks.

What is Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS)?

PTaaS is a type of independent penetration testing service that helps businesses to assess their security risks and find vulnerabilities in their systems. PTaaS providers offer a wide range of services, including network assessments, web application tests, wireless security tests, and more.

5 Upsides of hiring an independent penetration testing service

Hiring a penetration testing service to conduct a security testing of your website, network, application or physical devices takes a lot off your plates. Sine independent penetration testing services have specially equipped people with specific security skills, the entire process goes smoothly.

Here are some advantages of independent penetration testing services:

  • You can focus on your business: When you hire an independent pentesting service, you can focus on running your business while the pentesters handle the testing. This way, you can be sure that the job will be done correctly and efficiently.
  • Independent penetration testers are unbiased: One advantage of independent pentesting services is that the testers are unbiased. They are not affiliated with any particular vendor or product, so they can provide an objective assessment of your security risks.
  • Independent penetration testers have experience: Another advantage of independent pentesting services is that the testers have a lot of experience. They know how to find and exploit vulnerabilities in systems, and they can provide valuable insights into your security posture.
  • Independent pentesting services are cost-effective: Hiring an independent pentesting service is often more cost-effective than hiring an in-house team or using a managed service. This is because independent pentesters typically have lower overhead costs and can offer discounts for bulk testing services.
  • You get what you pay for: When you hire an independent pentesting service, you can be sure that you are getting a quality service. The testers will have the skills and experience needed to conduct a thorough assessment of your system’s security.

What to look for in a Pentest service provider?

Now that you know the advantages of independent pentesting services, you may be wondering how to choose the right provider. There are a few things to keep in mind when selecting a pentest service provider, including:

  • The size and scope of your organization: Make sure to choose a provider that is experienced in working with organizations of your size and scope.
  • Your budget: Choose a provider that fits within your budget.
  • Your needs: Make sure to choose a provider that offers the services you need.
  • The provider’s reputation: Make sure to research the provider and read independent reviews to get an idea of their reputation.

When selecting a pentest service provider, it is important to consider the size and scope of your organization, your budget, and your specific needs. You should also research the provider and read independent reviews to get an idea of their reputation.

Final thoughts

Independent penetration testing services can offer a number of advantages for businesses, including unbiased testing, experience, and cost-effectiveness. Most important it takes away the headache of spiraling through a hundred different processes and techniques and having to deal with the recurrent cost of keeping a security team on board.

If you are a small or mid-size business looking for a pentest, getting an independent penetration testing provider is pretty much your only option.

The post Advantages of Independent Penetration Testing Services for your Business appeared first on noupe.

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The Complete Guide To Personalized Marketing

June 29th, 2022 No comments

Personalized marketing is when you attune your marketing efforts based on customer data. This data can be anything from the first and last name to purchase intent, concerns, and history.

Personalized marketing has revolutionized the way businesses market their product and service to their audience. It brings value to people’s lives, spiking the sales graph for brands and businesses. So it’s a win-win situation for both the company and the consumer.

Even big companies do this for their campaigns. They do so because it gives them great results and ROI for their marketing initiatives. If these multinational businesses do this, it’s a good idea to incorporate this strategy and learn from a top resource on digital marketing.

This article aims to explain every nook and cranny of personalized marketing. By the end of this 5-minute read, you will know the impact of personalized marketing on our lives. And how you can integrate this into your marketing strategy to benefit your business.

What Is Personalized Marketing?

Have you ever encountered a business that knows what you’re going through? Or did you see an ad online that you closely relate to? Chances are, you were one of the target markets of those marketing materials. And if you could associate yourself with the ad, their marketing strategy worked.

That is what personalized marketing does to your audience, market, or particular demographic. This style of advertising leverages personalization in your marketing materials. The details of your marketing content are tailored to a specific audience and address the issues or real-time problems of a particular segment in your market.

Personalized marketing has become popular because more people demand it from businesses. Once the people have experienced what it felt like, they want to feel more of it.

To objectively see the demand for personalization, here are some statistics to back it up.

Accenture reported that 91% of consumers are likelier to shop with businesses that offer them relevant content. This shows that the right product recommendations can increase the chances of shopping with you.

Salesforce mentioned that 66% of consumers expect companies to understand their individual needs. This statement proves that a generalized way of marketing isn’t as effective as before. The consumer mindset has already developed, and they demand more personalization from businesses.

A striking piece of data from Statista showed that 90% of consumers in the US find the idea of personalization appealing. If that figure is accurate, almost all businesses should start incorporating this into their strategies. There’s no reason for them not to try this out.

Given the high positive demand for personalized marketing, it’s no secret why more and more businesses are doing this. However, not every company out there is doing this right. A wrong way of doing this can bring a loss of clients and a negative ROI.

To help you go on the right track of using personalization in your marketing, read up on the next section of this article.

Know These 6 Tips To Correctly Do Personalized Marketing

You’d agree that knowing your customer’s first and last name is essential. But with the dynamically changing strategies, personalized marketing is going beyond that. It’s actually about understanding what your targeted consumers need, merging with a way to convey the message that your business is the solution.

To help you achieve this, take note of the things below:

1. Leverage Your Customer Data

The foundation of personalized marketing is laid on customer data. The best marketing professionals and strategists emphasize gathering relevant data if you want to scale. Excellent digital marketing courses will teach you that customer data will help you build a solid foundation for your content and campaigns.

Consumer behavior has always been the most important detail for target marketing. With every click, it has become easier to gather data about individual customers, their interests, hobbies, purchase history, buying behavior, and more.

You’ll be able to get this information if you’ve practiced data management and collecting customer data throughout the years of your operation. However, it’s not too late to begin if you haven’t started with this yet. There is a lot of marketing automation software that aids marketing teams in doing this. For example, many businesses use lead scoring software to gain insight into their clients’ needs and categorize them appropriately.

For your personalization efforts, you can use questionnaires, surveys, and feedback forms to capture personal data on the internet. A customer will happily fill out a survey form if a reward in return entices him. This reward can be in any form– a voucher, a first buy discount, free shipping, or more.

This initiative will help you get more data in a shorter time frame.

2. Understand Your Customer’s Needs

Hoarding data will be a complete waste of marketing efforts, capital, and efficiency if you do not extract consumer behavior from it. When you have access to a rich set of data, you have the privilege to understand your customers’ trending needs deeply. After gaining insights from the data, create a marketing strategy based on those findings to target your audience.

Doing this doesn’t just apply to B2C; it also works for B2B companies, which is why the demand for custom software development, tailored services, personalized packages, and B2B data providers have been on the rise in these recent years.

It is a two-way road. While you are on the lookout for your target market, at the same time, the customers expect businesses to know what they need. The market you’re currently serving expects you to know what products or services are fit for them.

So this is where it gets crucial: you have to dig deeper into your niche and find the specs of your audience’s needs. Having a general idea about the needs of your target audience and personalized marketing usually don’t go harmoniously.

Planning a better-personalized marketing strategy will not be a piece of cake but will be much more rewarding for every aspect of your business. May it be sales, return on investments, customer relationships, or personalized marketing campaigns.

3. Personalize Every Stage Of The Customer Journey

The first rule of business is convincing the customer that you are their best friend. Now that you know what they want, you pledge to provide them with whatever best you can. Limiting personalization to marketing is not the solution. You have to be vigilant in meeting these individual requirements at every stage. And remember that consistency is the name of the game. That is how you bring your business into the running.

You can integrate CRM automation, email marketing tools and deploy other content marketing strategies to help make this process a lot simpler. Personalized live chat and chatbots, such as those offered by ThriveDesk, allow businesses to personalize their offerings and build their brand reputation.

As a customer, my requirement would be reading content, browsing, and experiencing products that would hit home. A personalized experience is what every consumer demands. And this is what makes them want to go back and do business with you again.

By creating helpful and relevant content, recommending the right products to them, and giving out convenient payment options, you are setting your business apart from the rest. Doing this allows you to have personalized every touchpoint that your customers do with your business.

4. Present In An Engaging Way

Consider customer engagement as absolutely necessary. Having the best data set and knowing what your customers want is not enough. In the competitive space of business and marketing, everyone is trying to get the attention of one another. And this is what you are supposed to do. This helps in building consumer-brand relations.

When a consumer engages, meaningful things happen. Engaging content pushes the consumer through the funnel and hence promotes conversions. Your content should be creative and eye-catching.

Engaging content blended with personalization boosts the brand experience. Increased loyalty, trust-building, and improved customer experience enhance the conversion and sales speed.

A great way to use personalization in an engaging manner that most businesses overlook would be through exit-intent popups.

5. Be Where Your Customers Are

This is an element that some businesses miss out on. They have created excellent social media marketing content but only distributed it on the wrong channel. For personalized marketing to be effective, it needs to be seen by people.

Are you questioning your marketing techniques because all you see is stagnancy? You have set up an engaging online store on Shopify or Wix, collected all the relevant data, your content is engaging enough, and your marketing strategy is top-notch. But you are still unable to reach your clientele.

You start wondering what you are missing out on. Your content and your strategies will not be prolific if you are on the wrong channel. Remember: the message of your content has to reach the right people for it to be effective.

Should you be on social media? If so, which one? Do you get more traction with email campaigns? Or do you have more engagements on forums?

Find out where your market is, then spend your focus there. Now the next step is how to know where they spend most of their time?

This is where we go back in the loop. And hence we again emphasize that data collection is the foundation of any great marketing strategy.

6. Improve Marketing Content

Don’t rest on your laurels when you’ve gotten everything down to a tee and have attained your desired marketing analytics behind your personalized marketing content. Always think of ways how you can improve.

Evolving at every step will keep you in the running. Don’t be misguided into thinking that your work is done if you feel like you have reached the pinnacle. Keep looking for ways to get better. Set bigger goals and status for your business.

Always go back to the drawing board and brainstorm with your team on how you can change and strive with the dynamically changing world and mindsets. In the end, all you want is to build better relationships with your customers, new and existing.

For enhanced productivity, your marketing team should always look for new strategies. This is how fresh and great marketing ideas are made.

See How You Can Benefit From Personalized Marketing

Irrelevant information can waste energy and time for both customers and the business. Personalized marketing hits the bull’s eye 99% of the time. It brings immeasurable value to the company as well as the customer.

Here are some of the top benefits of personalized marketing:

1. Better Engagement

The first target personalized marketing aims at is grabbing an individual’s attention. And this results in better engagement eventually. If you are presenting your customer with something that wows them, needless to say, it will grab their attention.

This will help bridge the gap between your customer and your brand. Identifying customers’ needs and then giving them what they want will help improve customer interaction with your brand.

It can even be enough for them to follow your call to action. The next thing you know, they will be checking your website, signing up for a list, or even purchasing a product right then and there.

2. Higher Conversions

Are you there for your customer at the right time and place? One-on-one marketing provides easy solutions to customers because you hit them with just what they are looking for at the right time.

When potential customers realize that you understand what they’re going through and provide the solution, most won’t hesitate to try your business out.

Personalization isn’t just focused on content. It can also be integrated into your processes. This results in aiding the increase of higher conversion rates.

3. Improved Customer Experience

Offering personalization will significantly improve the user experience. Once you provide the products, services, and content that meet their needs, their opinion of your business automatically improves.

Considering the statistics about personalized experiences, it is evident that consumers demand personalization strategies from companies. And if you offer such an experience, you increase the chance of making them do more business with you. Personalization helps businesses in reducing cart abandonment rates, better customer journey, increased customer satisfaction, and many more.

4. Customer Retention

Retaining persisting customers is equally important to your business as bringing new ones. Most businesses face low customer retention. It’s also a factor that some companies overlook. You must understand that it’s not all about converting prospects into paying customers. Your focus should also be on retaining those customers to make them loyal advocates of your brand.

One of the major benefits of consistent personalization is an improved customer retention rate. Consumers tend to stay with a business that understands their needs and provides solutions to their problems.

Once you can transfer a customer to a loyal advocate, you can also receive a ton of benefits. These are people that are going to defend your brand from critics. These are the same people who will give you free marketing via word of mouth and positive reviews.

5. Better Customer Relationships

Personalized experience leads to customer retention, eventually building better relationships with your nurtured customers. These entities are connected in a loop.

Customer relationships are an aspect of business that significantly helps with scalability and higher revenue. So connecting with your customers and building a relationship with them is as important as the product you are selling. This is why strengthening customer relationships should be a top priority for businesses.

Personalization makes you an expert on your target market trends. You get to know your audience deeper, which helps you build a foundation for creating a great customer relationship. And this requires marketing and customer experience teams to work together in a symphony.

For this, you can use team collaboration software which aids in the optimization of content and your approach toward the market. You’ll have a better strategy in getting their attention, providing what they want, and recommending things they’ll be interested in.

All of these things help in building customer rapport. When a customer feels that you treat them as more than just a paying customer, their customer loyalty goes to your business.

Best Examples Personalization Marketing

To inspire you to integrate this marketing strategy into your operations, below are different personalization marketing campaigns done exceptionally by various businesses. Grab inspiration, ideas, and motivation from these examples.

1. Coca-Cola

We all know the most basic form of personalization is addressing your customers’ names, but Coca-Cola took this simple idea into a massive global campaign. Their “Share a Coke” campaign started in 2011, wherein they printed different popular names on their Coke bottles and cans.

It seemed like a regular campaign at first, but it started getting traction as more customers wanted to get the name of their family, friends, and themselves. Coca-Cola said the campaign’s purpose was “to create a more personal relationship with consumers and inspire shared moments of happiness.”

The soft drinks giant used personalization and tied such a strategy with its mission: to bring memories and happiness to its consumers. You, too, can do the same – combine your mission and personalization strategy to create a unique campaign.

2. Spotify

Spotify leverages user data in its marketing strategy. They have several campaigns that make users want to use their application more often because it gives out a more tailored experience.

Other than their year-end campaign( #spotifywrapped), where they show the most played songs and podcasts their users listen to (which was a viral hit), they now also have an #OnlyYou campaign that shows your unique listening taste partnered with a musical astrology reading.

3. Nike

Nike has consistently been recognized for authentic, personalized, and heartfelt ad campaigns. This personalization always makes them capture an audience who can relate and those who start connecting to the brand. So Nike isn’t new to personalization. Their aim is robust community engagement.

Their highly inspirational campaigns with real-life heroes induce inspiration in their audience. Nike is great at converting people because of its excellent storytelling ability while adding personalization to the mix.

Nike’s just launched a new app that offers personalized content and rewards for committed fans. They tackle challenges and issues head-on, but they always make their marketing messages relatable to their audience. That is why they “just do it.”

Conclusion

Personalized marketing is the secret sauce to thriving businesses in the world today. However, incorporating this marketing strategy and finding success is not as simple as you might think. You will face challenges, but with enough perseverance and brainstorming, you can surpass them and successfully create a great campaign.

Remember, this marketing approach can be a hit or a miss. The first step to making it a success is relevant data collection followed by judicious implementation. This isn’t an overnight activity that you can do. It requires months of diligence in the right direction with the proper guidance. And you can gain valuable insights into this guidance via the content marketing strategies outlined in this article. But remember, once you start rolling, there is no looking back.

Source

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Help Shape the Future of CSS-Tricks!

June 28th, 2022 No comments

Hey, so it’s been a minute since we announced that CSS-Tricks is now part of the DigitalOcean family. Things are pretty much business as usual and hopefully it feels that way to you, too. Now that we’re getting settled, we’re eager to start poking at the future of this site.

What sort of things are we poking at? Well, that’s where you come in. You see, there’s no shortage of ideas for CSS-Tricks, but we only want to work on things that continue to make CSS-Tricks one of the spots you come to time and again for all things front-end (including actual CSS tricks).

So, we put together a short little survey for you. Nothing crazy, just a few questions to help us vet those ideas and ultimately shape the future of CSS-Tricks.

Thanks so much for your help! And while I have you, thanks for continuing to hang with us. In the seven years I’ve been working here at CSS-Tricks, I know this site wouldn’t even be here today without y’all. Here’s to the future of CSS-Tricks and learning together!

CSS-Tricks Newsletter

Oh, and one more update for all of you who miss the newsletter: it will be back! But we had to drop a ton of you off the list (seriously, like 80% of all subscribers) to be compliant with legal stuff that’s over my head. No worries, though, because you can re-subscribe right down here with your email address.


Help Shape the Future of CSS-Tricks! originally published on CSS-Tricks. You should get the newsletter.

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SFMC Automation Best Practices to Beat the Competitive Bottleneck in Email Marketing

June 27th, 2022 No comments

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a technically challenging software to use. You need to be a jack of multiple trades to use it to its maximum potential. You need to visualize intricate workflows clearly, accurately score and grade the leads, create effective segmentation and personalization strategies, and keep testing at regular intervals. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. You need to handle so many other things to implement marketing automation using SFMC. 

Here are some of the best practices that will allow you to stay ahead of the curve while using SFMC:

1. Take baby steps

Implementing large, complex processes from the get-go can be overwhelming for an average marketer. So, you must take baby steps and start with the activities that bring the biggest results through the smallest effort. At the outset, automate the repetitive tasks in the workflow. Choose low-effort, low-risk, and high-returns tasks that will not hamper your ongoing operations. 

2. Understand the flow thoroughly

Try to understand the entire process rather than automating any individual point within the process. Document and map the complete workflow. Then, identify the opportunities for automation. This will help ensure that you can build effective solutions that perfectly match the existing processes. It will also help you meet the program goals. 

3. Avoid giving in to the temptation to try out advanced features

Salesforce Marketing Cloud keeps adding new functionalities in the tool every now and then. For example: It is quite likely that Einstein Send Time Optimization will eliminate send times based on anecdotal logic instead of data. 

While it can be tempting to be the early adopters and start using them right away, it is advisable to focus on the current goals and processes you have chalked out. It might also lead to spoiling the entire project and cost you exorbitantly. Therefore, the best bet is to stay focused on the existing features and task at hand. You can always try out the new features after successful completion of that project. 

4. Use journey settings as business requirements

Always consult the business stakeholders and get them to review the settings before activation. For instance: Discuss with the decision makers how they want to configure contact entry mode — No re-entry, re-entry anytime, or re-entry only after exiting. 

5. Employ watertight customer segmentation strategies

Define a powerful customer segmentation strategy by finding answers to questions like:

  1. Most significant actions to identify how a customer engages with your brand
  2. Actions or behavior that qualify someone as an engaged customer
  3. Opportunities to upsell to “somewhat” engaged customer or get them excited about a new feature or product launch

After identifying the segments, you must find the data within your organization or get together with an analytics team to plan the data architecture strategy by defining the customer aggregations. 

Take into consideration whether you will be able to find a resource with SQL skills while defining the data strategy. Such resources can create custom segments inside the Marketing Cloud with the data. It is advisable to have access to this skill set. However, there are drag and drop tools such as DESelect using which users without SQL skills can also execute complex segmentations. 

6. Carry out IP warming

If you are a new user looking forward to sending more than 100k emails per month, carry out IP warming to establish a favorable sender reputation. 

Here’s how to carry out IP warming correctly:

Source

7. Utilize the power of Content Detective

Content Detective is a tool within SFMC Email Studio that allows you to keep the messages out of the subscriber’s spam folders. They recognize phrases that can trigger the spam filters and help in curbing deliverability issues. 

8. Take help of Subscriber Preview 

Subscriber Preview allows you to steer clear of any personalization blunders in email. Imagine someone receiving an email saying “Hey {Fname}”. With the help of the Subscriber Preview feature, you can check how an email will look like for a particular subscriber. As a best practice, identify the testing personas to make sure that your personalization is on point. You can do this through live or real subscriber data or with the help of ‘dummy’ test data that cover all the scenarios. 

9. Use Journey Builder’s test feature

The test mode along with a data extension enables you to view the simulated paths through the customer’s journey without the need to send messages to them or affecting tracking or reporting. It emulates random and decision split activities while ignoring wait times and contact entry settings. You will be able to get an exact view of the entire journey workflow without waiting. Once the test is complete, you will see the contact’s expected path on the journey canvas. This feature goes a long way in saving time. You no longer need to wait for 2-3 weeks to figure out whether it is configured correctly. 

10. Invest in a deliverability monitoring tool

A deliverability monitoring tool like Inbox Monster allows you to carry out unlimited inbox placement tests and elaborate deliverability analytics. It can be easily integrated with SFMC and you will get a complete suite of professional services and collaboration tools. It will also help you avoid getting blacklisted. Such tools make sure that you abide by the email sending best practices and stay away from spam traps.

11. Take the minimalistic approach

The key is to keep even the most advanced campaigns simple. With the help of Journey Builder, you can create elaborate multi-step campaigns that have several activities on the canvas. However, it is recommended that you keep it simple for the best functionality. Just because a feature exists does not mean you have to use it. When you create a complex campaign, you will find it tough to manage, maintain, and debug it. So, the bottom line is to create it as minimalistic as possible. Follow the “crawl, walk, run” approach and gradually advance to marketing automation maturity. 

12. Always follow the generic best practices

Just because you are using a powerful and advanced tool like SFMC, you cannot do away with the best practices. You have to create engaging content, keep it brief and specific, and create actionable CTAs that immediately draw attention. Also, keep the image to text ratio at 20:80 to avoid any deliverability issues. 

Wrapping Up

SFMC is a robust marketing automation tool that can open up new conversion opportunities and drive faster business growth, if used correctly. Through these tips, you will surely be able to propel sales and achieve unmatched results from your campaigns. 

For more insights, visit the insightful infographic created by the folks at Email Uplers: Salesforce Marketing Automation best practices from 11 global SFMC experts

The post SFMC Automation Best Practices to Beat the Competitive Bottleneck in Email Marketing appeared first on noupe.

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3 Essential Design Trends, July 2022

June 27th, 2022 No comments

There are a lot of dark, retro vibes trending in website design right now. Although there are still some light projects popping up – including a pastel trend below – a lot of what we are seeing has a quite moody feel.

Here’s what’s trending in design this month.

Pastel Color Palettes

Let’s start with the trend with a lighter feel – pastel color palettes. While much of the web is trending toward dark aesthetics, there’s a segment that’s going in the exact opposite direction. Those sites feature soft, pastel color palettes that serve as a balance to all the super dark websites out there.

One thing about this website design trend is that it jumps out because of the stark contrast with all of the dark color palettes out there.

Each of these designs seems to use a pastel color palette as the basis for a background. A blur effect is paired with the colors to use pastels in a way that has a natural feel without appearing too feminine or light.

Robust uses blue and earth tones for a pastel background that feels modern and strong when paired with the hard-edged headline font.

Atmos uses a light pastel theme that takes you through the clouds with blues, and pinks, and purples. The pastel color scheme works well with the content which is airline-themed and makes you feel like you are flying through the sky. The colors are also soft enough to provide an easy reading experience.

Klezma is another design with the same pastel background with graduated color. The peach tones are fairly neutral and give plenty of room to the content.

Fonts with a Distinct Retro Look

Every one of these websites uses a typeface with a similar look and feel. This retro headline style is trending in a major way.

The best way to use this design element is for short words. This typeface design isn’t meant for a lot of words or when readability is a high priority.

This style is all about creating a specific kind of vibe for your website. The typefaces in this trend have a quite retro look and feel with an almost 1960s or ’70s feel to them. The rest of the design mimics this feel as well with colors and surrounding elements that contribute to the overall look.

A couple of common elements here include the use of all capitals font sets and letterforms that include odd shapes and lines.

Sretks not only uses a retro typeface but bends and twists it a bit too to add to the old-school feel. The background color helps add to the groovy vibe.

Barge 166 uses a retro typeface with the same design feel as the other examples but with a sharper, more serif-style edge. It’s easier to read but still carries a retro look and feel. Use a typeface similar to this if you want to capture that retro font style for a trending look while maintaining as much readability as possible. This option works best for multiple lines of words in a large size.

Picky Joe uses a retro typeface with rounded letters and a bit of a tilt to the characters to create a distinct feel. This is definitely a style that has to be used sparingly but can be a fun option, depending on the content of your website design.

Dark “Product” Sites

Dark mode design is probably the biggest design trend of 2022. Everywhere you look, websites are using dark color palettes and styles. Designers are creating more projects with a dark/light toggle so users can control their experience.

This visual concept is carried over to website designs that feature products as well. This is one of the last places the dark aesthetic had not touched. It’s been a bit of an unwritten rule that product images should be on white or light backgrounds to help make them easy to see and inspect digitally.

This design trend bucks that idea and features products on dark backgrounds – some with so little contrast that you almost have a hard time seeing the products. (Maybe these brands are banking on the idea that you already know them or are selling a lifestyle product.)

HQBC sells bike accessories such as glasses and helmets and the site has a sleek look and feel. You know it is cool from the second you land on it. The question though – is there enough visual information with the dark background to help you make a purchase? This design probably works because it only encourages you to find a physical location to make a purchase rather than buy online.

Doggystyle Shop also banks on the idea of you knowing the shopping experience or brand when you arrive. What the design does do though is put products on white backgrounds after you have clicked through far enough to make a commitment to buy. This helps you see the product well one final time before making a purchase. (The challenge is that it is three to four clicks in for the most part.)

FirstFit uses the design trend in a way that’s similar to the first example. They are showing a product, but not actually trying to convert sales on the website. Other links take you to more product information and content – using a lighter background and color scheme – and the dark background with the product serves mostly as a highly visual landing page that will help entice users to learn more. When it comes to dark mode and products, this seems to be the best option for most website designs.

Conclusion

The state of the world around us and our emotions can play hard into websites and other design projects. Some of the darker elements that are popular now may be a reflection of that or it could be more of a lean into dark mode schemes.

Either way, the web has a pretty dark feel right now.

Source

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