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Simple Tips for Designing a Browserless Web

Posted on by Mario

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Browserless web is best known as communication over the World Wide Web between programs rather than between people and the server programs at Web sites. Many people believe that in the future, program-to-program communication will be more popular, as it will generate more traffic than browser-to-Web site communication. Even though browser-to-Web site communication is program-to-program – the browser is a client program and the Web server is a server program on behalf of a Web site – this new program-to-program communication does not involve an interactive user. Application that orders fulfillment is likely candidates for the browser less Web.

Of course, there are also some pros and contras on the topic of native versus web experiences. Many are comparing its reliability and speed with the native app experience. Therefore, in this article, we will explain how to design and develop progressive web applications (PWAs) in brief, so that many can experience a browserless web. Hopefully, this article would be beneficial for web developers or web designers who want to create a more engaging web.

  • Instant Page Transitions

It’s an open secret that users do not want to wait. Therefore, you have to be able to get in and around an app quickly without making them wait for your content to load in each interaction.

Solved with PWA

In order to pass the Lighthouse checklist for a PWA, one must follow certain performance-enhancing guidelines. Then, the content will be cached behind the scenes and to make you feel like there is no loading event, content should be cached behind the scenes.

  • Perceived Performance

You might be surprised by knowing that the level of stress caused by mobile delays is pretty much the same as watching a horror movie. Therefore, a good app should not let their users wait for their content. Other thing like elements appearing asynchronously as the app loads should also be avoided.

Solved with PWA

With the “Add to Homescreen” PWA launch transition, you can have a visual bridge between loading and loaded content. This shows how “preloaded states” can increase the perception of speed and seamlessness. Through a well-designed PWA, you can mimic the end state of the page and by using lazy-loading to deprioritize elements that are out of view; you can make the initial loading seem faster.

  • Works Offline

People, who prefer to download native apps, mostly want to use the apps without constantly relying on an Internet connection in order for the apps to function properly.

Solved with PWA

To solve this problem, the page content will be cached behind the scenes, allowing it to be accessed where there would, otherwise be a lag  in the browsing experience, such as when entering a tunnel while driving.

  • Back Button

Android provides a back button through the device which makes some people think there is no need to replace the browser’s back functionality. In fact, most apps choose to offer a back button in the header as an “up” action that navigates within the hierarchical relationship between pages.

Solution

The only possible solution for this problem is to place the menu button in the top left with a back button once the user progresses past the initial page. It will be validated once we put this pattern in front of users. Once participants had progressed through the initial home page, you can ask them to navigate to a new section.

 Can We Use it in the Real World?

Of course you will need “Add to Homescreen” to develop into an accepted group of patterns. To get some best practices about browserless web, you can read the following practices:

Sticky Headers, Persistent Actions

With this sticker, visitors can understand about the importance of learning ability when introducing new patterns.  In fact, the main purpose of this sticker is to ensure that users can easily find crucial global actions.

Prompt Intelligently

As it is said that PWA’s will get full control when they want to prompt users, this makes “Add to Homescreen” installation increase.

Stress and Test

One of the most important validation processes is to do the stress test in multiple applications. This is because, in most cases, the pattern stood up well to the latest brand. For example, the Lancome’s PWA contains many calls to action, which, as a result, can help in identifying overflow menu as a great opportunity to simplify its user interface, while offering exclusives program.

Conclusion

Many believe that “Add to Homescreen” will offer users to a next level experience, which is more engaging and converting user. This is because, a more modern, app-like web can have more positive effects on engagements, as it meets user expectations of performance and design.

The only way to meet those expectations is by combining PWA performance enhancements with intuitive design patterns in navigation and app-like user experience.

5 Crucial Web Design Tips for a Professional Site

Posted on by Mario

Design requires a good taste of art; therefore, in order to succeed, one cannot compel their styles to users. In fact, a website designer needs to know what kind of styles that can fit to any website’s user experience and functionality at their first glance. This is where the challenge comes as how will we understand each person style. There are at least 5 crucial design tips that you can follow in order to create a professional site that may fit to general users.  Here they are.

Keep your Homepage Minimalistic and Free of Clutter

Have you ever noticed that instead of reading every word on a website, we quickly scan pages, picking out keywords and sentences? Concerningthis behavior, it’s better to approach users through their emotion than word count. Therefore, when users are less likely to look at your site, that means, you have provided a good explanation about what is able to process and evaluate. Even though text in calls to action is still necessary, to make users  feel easier in understanding what you want them to do, you’d better break them up with larger subheadings and legible paragraphs. Besides, you can also use images or icons as another way to communicate your point without the need of having too many words.

Design with Visual Hierarchy in Mind

As a designer, your job is not only creating a beautiful design, but you also have to arrange content in a clear manner. This is because we have lesser time to grab someone’s attention and explain them about your site. By establishing a clear hierarchy to your information, readers will automatically follow the plot you have created for them. For Further accentuation, you can apply color, contrast, size and spacing. These elements will also highlight the drawing attention on your page and making sure that it’s always intentional.

Furthermore, you can also use strips as one of the best designs for creating a strong visual hierarchy. In addition, strips will also help organize your website into clear, digestible pieces of content.

Create Easily Readable Website Content

One of the main characteristics of website users is that they don’t want to put much effort in understanding what you want to convey. Therefore, it is important to assess your content “readability” as it will measure how easy people will recognize words, sentences, and phrases. If your content readability is good, users will be able to efficiently scan your site and take in the information in the text without much effort.

If you want to improve your website readability, you can follow these steps:

  • A good Contrast

To have a good readability, your text and its background should have sufficient contrast so that it will be clear to see. The main idea is never sacrifice readability for creativity.

  • Be wise in choosing a font

In the early times, websites used small fonts, but over time, many people realize that it is difficult for people to read 12pt fonts when a screen is 24 inches from someone’s face. Now many designers prefer to use 16pt as a font standard. However, the number might be different, depending on which font you’re using, as some fonts have so many details that make it more difficult to read. In fact, there are some fonts that are actually suitable for online readers, such as Times New Roman, and many others. Avoid using script fonts that have so many cool fancy curves and stuff, but this font will hurt your visitors’ eyes.

  • Be Careful with Using too Many Fonts

It is better to use three or less fonts rather than use more than three different typefaces throughout a single website, as using too many fonts will risk the overall effects look cluttered. So, make sure you make the fonts look harmonious instead of cluttered.

Create an Easy to Navigate Site

Bear in mind that a designer should create a design that helps visitors. Therefore, do not send your visitors into a wild forest where they don’t have anywhere to go. A site which is equipped with a solid navigation helps search engines index your content while improving the viewers’ experience.

Here are some tips for creating good navigations’ experience:

  • Link your logo to your homepage; it is a traditional way to save your visitors some precious clicks.
  • Place your menu on the top or in the header of your website and structured according to the importance of each section.
  • You can apply some vertical navigation, such as anchor menu; this will work best on your site, especially if your site is of the long scrolling variety.
  • Don’t ignore your footer even though it is probably the last thing to be seen on your site since you can put so many information on it, such as placing links, a shortened version of your menu, social icons and additional important links that your visitors may need.

Stay Mobile Friendly

Since everybody is going mobile, it is important to design a website which is mobile friendly. A mobile friendly design should enable visitors to access your website on the go. Furthermore, the main key to design for mobile users is to put your position in the position of the user, and test out every page of user action and button.

By carefully applying the tips above, you can produce website designs that are not only beautiful but also functional. So, make sure you remember the tips above when designing for a website. However, if you find any difficulties while designing for your website, you can ask web designers to help you build a better design.

How to Create a Design that Satisfies

Posted on by Mario

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Believe it or not, working as a designer or web designer will require you to know your users and motivate them. You might think that designers sound like phycology, but this is actually important for designers to acknowledge a little knowledge of phycology, especially about motivation and how to apply a good motivation in their design, since by utilizing good motivation on your design, you will provide strong reasons for users to take an action for buying your product. Take a look further on how motivation can really affect your design, such as follows.

What is Motivation?

Motivation is famously known as something that can encourage people. It gives motives, needs or wants that drive behavior and explain why people do something. In design, motivation is also needed; it could help designers see the direct way to make the product correspondent to users’ expectations and solve user’s problems. However, before your product can help users, first you have to create a product that can motivate users to try it.

There are two types of motivation that we know, extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation:

Extrinsic motivation

These motives come from outer sources, such as family, professional environment, competitions, contests, etc. In most cases, people who have extrinsic motivation are usually seeking of reward, such as money, prizes, diplomas, certificates, trophies, medals, praise, support, recognition, or the desire to compete with others. As a designer, we can discover users’ extrinsic motives through research for UX designers. Once we know their extrinsic motivation, we can create a design that can stimulate them.

Intrinsic motivation

Oppositely, intrinsic motivations come from inner sources, such as the need of self-improvement. This type of motivation is stronger than extrinsic motivation. If you can nail this motivation from a user, it will become a significant factor for retaining users. Therefore, it is important to get to know more about target audience at the stage of user research; in this way, designers can discover what their motives are and what kind of designs that will work for the specific users.

Knowing the types of motivation will surely help designers in creating a design that will attract and serve users best. In fact, this knowledge is necessary for UI/UX designers for several reasons, such as follows:

  • Building navigation and call-to-action elements that can truly engage to users and motivate them to take action.
  • Designing better layouts that can demonstrate key benefits or rewards.
  • Creating a process that can motivate users to try the product and test its functions.
  • Presenting aesthetic satisfaction so that users feel comfortable with your product.
  • Providing the copy that can stimulate users through describing the benefits and achievements of your product.
  • Encourage users to share their experience via various social networks; this can be a powerful extrinsic motive for other people nowadays.

Now that you know motivation is terribly important in design, by understanding users’ motivation, you can build the right design that can reach many users. So, don’t forget to analyze your users’ motivation before designing for them.