SixRevisions
Helping Your Clients Build an Effective Mobile Strategy
It can be a challenge convincing clients to add new strategies to their existing Web presence.
In a perfect world, a client would simply say, "You’re the expert. You know what’s best. Do whatever needs to be done to make it happen!" But, unfortunately, it just doesn’t work like that.
Granted, we shouldn’t expect smart business managers to implement every new thing just because we tell them it’s a good idea. That wouldn’t be cost effective. But what if you know in your gut that the future of a client’s business may be at stake?
With Google executives saying things like "I believe that in 3 years desktop computers will be irrelevant…" and studies by Gartner stating that "Websites not formatted for the smaller screen will become a market barrier…" the Mobile Web is one of your gut instincts you want your clients to follow. And follow now!
In a state of desperate urgency, you may be tempted to place all diplomacy aside, and just tell it to them straight, perhaps even reminding them of those other times they put off your advice. I like to call this the "Timeline of Lost Opportunities" tactic.
You may very well have clients who respond to that type of pressure, but more likely, you will need to ease your clients into the idea of a full-on Mobile Web strategy.
Below is a plan that can help. I’ve even included graphics in each step since, as the old adage goes, "A picture is worth a thousand different ways of pleading with one’s clients." (Or something like that.)
Step 1: Show Them the MoneyThe Mobile Web is upon us, whether we like it or not. People are using mobile devices to search, shop and click through on ads at unprecedented rates. And rates that are only expected to grow. Presenting numbers like those shown above, as well as information on how their competitors may already be capitalizing on the Mobile Web, can get your clients listening.
Step 2: Show Them What Their Customers ExpectMobile device users search the Internet as often as they use apps, so having a mobile-ready website is important. Mobile consumers know what they want from a website, and typically take action once they get there. It’s important that your clients understand that their customers have different expectations of what a mobile website does and provides compared to their existing website. Mobile conversion rates can be impressive, but only if a website caters to the expectations of this mobile audience.
Step 3: Outline Best Practices and Give Them ChoicesOnce you’ve shown your clients how people use mobile devices, it should become more apparent that they need a mobile version of their website. Mobile website solutions need not be complicated or expensive. Show your clients some options, such as responsive web design or going with a dedicated mobile-optimized version of the site (along with the pros and cons of each) while emphasizing mobile website best practices.
Step 4: Help Them Decide Whether They Need a Mobile AppMobile app usage is impressive, but while people do spend a lot of time using mobile apps, most of that time is spent on games and social networking. So does your client really need a mobile app? You can help them decide by weighing the pros and cons of mobile app development, and presenting ways they can optimize their mobile website as an alternative.
Step 5: Explain the Marketplace and Mobile App NuancesA good mobile app strategy should analyze current marketplace trends and weigh the pros and cons of developing native apps versus web apps. Be sure to explain how the mobile marketplace works as well as the difference between native and web apps. This can help your clients make more informed decisions.
Step 6: Show Them Options and Give Them ChoicesMobile app solutions vary in price and complexity. Outline options for your client that include using HTML5 or one of the many do-it-yourself mobile app tools available today. Make your recommendations based on the client’s present and future needs.
Step 7: Introduce Other Mobile Marketing TacticsThe Mobile Web is more than just websites and apps. From QR codes to augmented reality, there are a host of tactics and tools you can implement to help your clients promote their business on the Mobile Web. Help your clients understand the importance of mobile-optimized landing pages. When they are marketing to a mobile audience, it is imperative that clients ultimately send potential customers to landing pages and other sources compatible with the customer’s mobile device.
The goal should be to educate your clients on the "hows" and "whys" of the Mobile Web and to help them understand their options. This approach can ultimately help them make informed decisions as they consider your recommendations.
This article is based on the book, The Bootstrapper’s Guide to the Mobile Web. The graphics used in this article are part of a sharable infographic available at TheBootstrappersGuide.com, where you’ll also find free mobile website, mobile app, and other mobile strategy worksheets.
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Categories: Web Design
10 Excellent Online Payment Systems
In this article, we’ll be reviewing my top 10 online payment systems for accepting payments on the Web. While many of the companies on this list have been available to online merchants for years, many are also now getting into new areas of online payments such as social commerce and in-store online card reader systems.
A Quick Primer on Online Payment SystemsBefore getting started, here are just a few things to know about online payment systems.
- ACH payments are electronic credit and debit transfers, allowing customers to make payments from their bank accounts for utilities, mortgage loans, and other types of bills. ACH stands for Automated Clearing House and most payment processors offer ACH payment options to their customers, especially for monthly- and subscription-based transactions. Most payment solutions use ACH to send money (minus fees) to their customers.
- A merchant account is a bank account that allows a customer to receive payments through credit or debit cards. Merchant providers are required to obey regulations established by card associations. Many processors (such as the ones listed below) act as both the merchant account as well as the payment gateway.
- A payment gateway allows merchants to securely pass credit card information between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment processor. The payment gateway is the middleman between the merchant and their sponsoring bank.
- A payment processor is the company that a merchant uses to handle credit card transactions. Payment processors implement anti-fraud measures to ensure that both the front-facing customer and the merchant are protected.
- PCI compliance is when a merchant or payment gateway sets their payment environment up in a way that meets the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PCI DSS standard was created by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council to increase security of cardholder data and to reduce fraud.
What follows are 10 excellent online payment systems.
1. Authorize.NetAuthorize.Net is the Internet’s most widely used payment gateway. With a user base of over 300,000 merchants, Authorize.Net has been the go-to method for e-commerce sites that need a gateway to accepting payments. Widely used e-commerce platforms such as Magento, Volusion and X-Cart are designed to accept payments using Authorize.Net easier.
Pricing: Authorize.Net has a $99 setup fee, costs $10 per month and takes a $0.25 per-transaction fee. Source: Authorize.Net pricing
2. PayPalPayPal is the world’s most widely used payment acquirer, processing over $4 billion in payments in 2011. PayPal payments are made using a user’s existing account or with a credit card. Money can be sent directly to an email address, thus prompting the users to sign up for a new PayPal account. In addition to taking payments, PayPal also allows its users to send money through the service, which is a feature that only a few payment solutions provide.
Pricing: PayPal takes 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction and has no setup or monthly fees. Source: PayPal merchant fees
3. Google CheckoutGoogle Checkout is Google’s answer to PayPal. Google Checkout allows users to pay for goods and services through an account connected to their Google profile. The major benefit that Google Checkout has over the competition is that millions of Internet users use Google for other services, making a purchase through Checkout a simpler process.
Pricing: Google Checkout fees start at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for sales less than $3,000. The percentage they take goes down depending on monthly sales volume. Source: Google Checkout fees
4. Amazon PaymentsAmazon Payments allows its users to receive money using its API (and to send money out via ACH). Popular crowdfunding site Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments.
Pricing: Amazon Payments fees start at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for payments over $10 (the percentage they take is less for larger transactions). For payments under $10, the fee is 5.0% + $0.05 per transaction. Source: Amazon Payments fees
5. DwollaDwolla is a direct competitor to PayPal. One of the newcomers in the third-party payments space, the company is processing over $1 million per day. Setting up Dwolla payments is similar to PayPal, although Dwolla doesn’t have the same name recognition as their competition.
Pricing: There are no fees for transactions less than $10. For transactions over $10, Dwolla charges $0.25 per transaction. Source: Dwolla fees
6. StripeStripe provides an excellent payment solution for web developers who would like to integrate a payment system into their projects using Stripe’s robust API. By bypassing the traditional sign up process, Stripe acts as a merchant account for its providers, handling all PCI compliance and merchant approvals.
Pricing: Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction with no setup or monthly fees. Source: Stripe: pricing
7. BraintreeBraintree is an online payment gateway and merchant account solution known for working with popular tech startups such as Airbnb and LivingSocial.
Pricing: Braintree has a $35 monthly fee (with a $75 monthly minimum). Transaction fees start at 2.29% + $0.30 per transaction for qualified cards. Source: Pricing – Braintree
8. Samurai by FeeFightersSamurai is a payment gateway and merchant account solution. The company’s main product, FeeFighters, is a tool to help merchants compare rates for merchant accounts. Samurai was developed as a direct competitor to Braintree and other gateway/merchant solutions and offers customers a payment gateway or a gateway/merchant account package.
Pricing: For their gateway/merchant solution, Samurai takes 2.3% of all sales volume, costs $25 per month and charges a $0.30 fee per transaction. Source: Samurai by FeeFighters pricing
9. WePayWePay is a payment processor that allows Internet merchants to accept credit cards and bank account payments online. WePay seems to be focused on the individual user, and has recently added e-store pages to their service to help their customers conveniently take in payments (e.g. event tickets, products, donations and so forth) through their service.
Pricing: WePay charges a 3.5% transaction fee (with a $0.50 minimum) for credit card transactions and $0.50 for bank payments, with no setup or monthly costs. Source: WePay fees
10. 2Checkout2Checkout is another payment processor that combines a merchant account and payment gateway into one, allowing customers to receive credit card payments as well as PayPal payments. The company offers international payments, shopping cart stores as well as a recurring billing feature.
Pricing: 3.99% (if you apply by May 1, 2012), a $0.45 transaction fee and $10.99 monthly service fee. Pricing and fees – 2Checkout
Other Noteworthy Payment SystemsHere are other online payment systems I think you should also check out:
- Serve (by American Express)
- V.me (by Visa)
- clearXchange (by Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo)
These two payment services allow merchants to accept credit card payments directly through their mobile devices, making it possible for devices such as the iPhone, the iPad and Android smartphones to act as a mobile point of sale (POS) checkout system.
ConclusionThere are plenty of online payment systems out there that you can use to conduct e-commerce activities. Choose one that’s in line with your business objectives.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of online payment systems. If your favorite online payment system isn’t on the list, please share it with us in the comments and discuss why you choose it over other online payment systems.
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Categories: Web Design
Ultra Sleek Accordion Slider: Free PSD Template
This exclusive freebie on Six Revisions, brought to you by www.bestpsdfreebies.com, is a design mockup of an accordion slider that can be used to display content. It comes in 3 variations. Each slider variation has a unique texture design with a hover effect on the 3rd slider tab. This freebie comes in 3 separate and neatly organized PSD files that allow for endless customizable options.
PreviewsHere are the 3 accordion sliders:
Slider 1 Slider 2 Slider 3 LicenseFeel free to use this accordion slider for personal or commercial projects. If you would like to share this accordion slider, help us spread the word by linking back to this web page. Thank you!
Download- ultrasleek_accordion_slider_freebie (7.5 MB, ZIP)
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Categories: Web Design
5 Reasons Why Metaphors Can Improve the User Experience
There are many ways to experience the world around us. Especially offline, we can make use of our different senses to collect information, interpret our environment and make judgments.
On the Web, however, our senses are more limited. As designers, we need to present information carefully to make sure our users think, feel and do the right thing.
A great way to help your users understand abstract content, create a sense of familiarity, trigger emotions, draw attention and motivate action are metaphors.
"The way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor."
- Lakoff and Johnson
In their frequently cited book, Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson demonstrate the important role of metaphors in our language and in our everyday lives. Our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, which means that we use metaphors to reason and understand the world.
Let’s look at how you can use metaphors to add to the user experience on your website. Below are five reasons why metaphors can improve the user experience.
1. Metaphors Can Put Abstract Concepts in Concrete TermsMetaphors are a great tool to help your users understand abstract or unfamiliar content. By linking abstract information to a concrete concept, it becomes easier for people to understand the information.
Let’s start off with the most basic and common use of metaphors on the Web: Icons. These little symbols help users grasp a concept quickly. Icons usually refer to something that we know from the physical world and that we can somehow relate to an abstract concept on the Web.
For example, on the site Startups, This Is How Design Works, you can see how a light bulb icon is used to denote the word "innovation", a wrench icon to refer to making a product useful (utility), and a paintbrush icon to represent the word "aesthetic":
Metaphors can be used creatively to explain complex or uncommon concepts. For example, take a look at Huw Wilkins’s 404 error page on his blog:
Many Web users don’t know what a 404 error is, and generic 404 error pages may be intimidating to them. Instead of giving a technical explanation of why the requested page is not available, the user gets a humorous image of a running ninja who stole the page being requested.
Metaphors can also be used to explain a process. Datashift shows an imaginary machine that turns different social media icons into statistics that can be displayed on your screen:
Of course, the machine isn’t real and the process is way more abstract than what’s displayed in the image, but it becomes very clear what kind of service they offer.
2. Metaphors Create FamiliarityWe love to recognize things. Whenever we can’t recognize something, our brain tries its best to make sense of whatever we’re looking at. (That’s why Gestalt principles can be applied to our design work.)
In his article Brains Agree: The Case for Website Usability Guidelines, Todd Follansbee explains that we use patterns to get an idea of what to expect. Recognizing mental patterns helps us to accept and understand the unfamiliar.
The user interface of Paper, a drawing app for the iPad, makes use of a sketchbook metaphor to create familiarity:
The app is designed to look and work like a sketchbook. You can easily bring sketches onto paper, choose between different pens and colors, flip through the pages and show your creations to friends by sharing them on social media. By applying familiar features to a digital tool, interactions become very intuitive and easy to learn.
Everyone knows knock-knock jokes, right? The people from Knock Knock Factory use the positive associations linked to the words for the image of their company.
Not only does the name promise us that they’re a down-to-earth company, it also sounds familiar. Even someone who has never heard of the agency before will most likely have some fun and positive memories that stem from the company’s name.
3. Metaphors Can Trigger EmotionsYou can use metaphors to trigger emotions. Emotions not only make your design appealing to people, but also more effective, pleasurable and memorable.
As mentioned before, icons help us grasp abstract concepts. However, if exaggerated and designed with personality, like on the site of Eye Bridge, they can also trigger emotions:
While we associate the abstract icon of a coffee cup with a certain meaning or function, a detailed picture makes us think of yummy, hot coffee at the same time.
The Roambi app works with a metaphor to trigger emotions as part of their marketing strategy:
Of course, a business doesn’t have a pulse and taking a pulse into your hand is not physically possible either. However, the idea of doing so anyways is very attractive.
As a side note, great references for emotional design are Don Norman and Aarron Walter, who both focus on the additional value we can add to a website when we consider human emotions.
4. Metaphors Can Draw the Attention of UsersNumerous techniques can make certain elements of a web design more distinctive than others, and the use of metaphors is among them. Metaphors can be used to draw attention to a website in general or to very specific elements within a web page. Things we recognize draw our attention, just like when we recognize familiar faces in a big crowd of unfamiliar people.
For example, we associate nametags with events and social gatherings, such as conferences and workshops. A nametag means that you are a registered member, a paying attendee, or entitled to things people without a nametag are not entitled to. So a nametag metaphor was used in the following login web form concept by Meng To to make an otherwise plain web form more attractive:
Flourish decided to use a tree illustration to explain what they do, along with the tagline "We plant Web sites that flourish in the harshest climates." They show a big flourishing tree in the middle of a desert to denote the power of their services. The illustration and metaphor is eye-catching and memorable.
5. Metaphors Can Motivate Users into ActionAnother interesting aspect of metaphors is that they can influence people’s actions. By translating interactions that we know from the real world to the Web, we can also transfer our knowledge to the screen. This way, metaphors can be very engaging and actionable because we intuitively know what to do.
The Cascade Brewery Co website offers a very engaging metaphor for their navigation menu:
Users can brew their own content by adding different proportions of content categories. It is quite creative how this navigation menu grabs your attention and makes you check out the content just to see what happens if you change the brewing proportions.
Another great way to trigger users to register for beta access is this countdown clock on Minute Race:
There is no indication of what happens if the time has run out, but still, I felt a strong urge to register as quickly as possible. Also, making it sound like a competition adds to my motivation to register immediately.
ConclusionMetaphors can be a powerful tool for improving the user experience. Metaphors can:
- explain abstract or complex concepts
- create a sense of familiarity
- trigger emotions
- draw attention to your site or certain components of it
- motivate users to take action
How do you use metaphors in your designs? Have you seen other great examples of how metaphors are used on the Web?
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Categories: Web Design
30 Minimalist Portfolio Website Designs for Inspiration
There seems to be a recent trend whereby creatives are aesthetically stripping down their online portfolios to their bare essentials. (UK-based web designer/web developer Kean Richmond recently discussed this trend in an article about "undesign", and the possible reasons why this trend is becoming widespread.)
In this showcase, you’ll get to see 30 great examples of minimalist portfolio sites for your inspiration.
1. Eleven Made 2. Jessica Caldwell 3. Buero Buero 4. Thuy Truc 5. Igor Zagnienski 6. DB Works 7. Andy Mangold 8. Alexander Munk 9. Mickaël Larchevêque 10. Fuzzco 11. Claire Coullon 12. Irving & Co 13. Ignacio Macri 14. Face. Works. 15. Kyle Thacker 16. Nemeth Interactive 17. Sam Dallyn 18. Manual 19. Yaron Schoen 20. The Touch Agency 21. Neuarmy 22. Jean-philippe Gams 23. Float Left 24. HAUS 25. Socket Studios 26. Carbure 27. Aquiesdonde 28. Paul Robert Lloyd 29. zync 30. Kenneth Cachia Related Content- 40 Beautiful Examples of Minimalism in Web Design
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Categories: Web Design
“Undesign” Your Portfolio Website
Even the most ineffective, unattractive or simple of man-made objects have been designed in some way. The same is true for the Web: Even the most hideous of websites are created by someone who has consciously made decisions into its design.
For web design professionals, it’s normal to put a lot of work into a design, using research, analysis and their expertise to form a design to delight and engage. This process is not quick and while many of us spend hours crafting websites for clients, our own website goes wanting.
It’s in this situation that the process of undesign is growing.
Undesign 101I associate "undesign" with websites where the design and content is scaled back to the bare necessities, allowing for the quick implementation of a simple yet professional design.
So far, only a small group of designers have adopted such an approach, so how undesign is defined in the future will inevitably change as more of us experiment with it.
Looking at an undesigned website, it may appear to be an application of minimalism to its extreme.
Eleven Made, portfolio of NYC-based web and brand identity designer Ryan Paonessa.
Though an undesigned website can be identified by what you can (or can’t) see, it’s also about the process and the choices made by the designer that defines it.
Why Undesign?Let’s discuss some of the pros of creating an undesigned site.
Easier to Create and ChangeDesigners typically redesign their website for one of two reasons. Firstly, their site no longer fulfills the objectives they wish it to. Secondly, they wish to change the design because they’ve grown bored of it.
No matter the reason, many full-time designers find it difficult to devote much time to changing the design of their website. To create a design and then deploy it is no quick task and, with so much else going on, it can be hard to find the time to speedily make the redesign happen.
By scaling back the complexity of the design, and the scale of the website as a whole, a once lengthy process can become much shorter, with the workload greatly reduced.
Easier to Make ResponsiveResponsive design is still in its early days. This has, to a certain extent, made undesign a more desirable option as the rich interfaces we once created are even more complex to achieve when trying to make a responsive website.
Mark Boulton’s website has a responsive layout.
With responsive design seen as a must for any designer’s new website, the time that can be devoted to the design itself is further reduced and thus the design is more undesigned than it may have been without the addition of making it responsive.
When You Don’t Need to Show OffFor some designers, their work and reputation are so well known within the community that they don’t need an elaborate web design to impress potential clients.
Max Voltar is the site of well-known designer Tim Van Damme.
Some other reasons for going the undesign route are:
- You’re a full-time designer: A designer that works full-time for an agency may only need a site as a repository for thoughts and their personal work.
- You have a high volume of clients: A designer can be booked up with so much work that they are no longer actively looking to be hired by more clients. So their site, like a full-time designer, is not essential in gaining work.
- You have a strong portfolio: A designer may feel their portfolio is strong enough to speak for itself without the need to utilize their own site as an extension of their portfolio.
The way you design your website can be viewed as an extension of your work portfolio, a way to show off your personality and skills. The design flourishes we add to our sites are the products which sit in the window showing, the type of designer we have become and the level of our skills.
So why would you employ a stripped back design in your portfolio site if you want to display your design capabilities? A professional is able to recognize a well-crafted, well-thought-out minimal design against something that’s just hastily put together. But for most clients, the distinction isn’t always obvious.
Instead, a client viewing an undesigned website might see a website that may appear to contain no show of exceptional skill and a website that lacks personality and any element of uniqueness.
As a design style, undesign is not like the rest. Undesign will, at least for the time being, may only ever find a home on the website of a web professional. The reason undesign might not be suitable for client work is that it’s difficult to find a client open-minded enough to consider such a stripped-down design approach.
Undesign could find its way on personal websites, but non-designers are more likely to be attracted to more complex designs.
Examples of Undesigned WebsitesFor inspiration, here are some more examples of undesigned portfolio sites.
Stuff & Nonsense (Andy Clarke)
Just Another Trend?The idea of undesign seems to be so new to the community that it could just become yet another trend that disappears in a year or two. The fact that high-profile designers like Elliot Jay Stocks, Mark Boulton and Tim Van Damme have adopted such an approach for their own sites will most certainly lead to others considering the same approach for their website.
A trend in web design is something that many designers grow quickly excited about but, by over-adoption or on questioning the reasons behind its use, soon falls out of favor. Think of the glossy "Web 2.0" look or faux coffee rings that came and went. The reasons behind using these styles and effects in our designs, in many circumstances, were weak at best.
Though time will inevitably dictate whether undesign sticks around for the long haul, I don’t think it can ever be considered as just a trend as I believe that it will always be a style that designers can adopt in situations where time is at a premium.
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Categories: Web Design
Announcement: Winners of Credits on Stockfresh
In a recent giveaway, we announced that we’d give away 100 credits on Stockfresh (with a value of $79.99) to three lucky participants. The winners would be awarded credits that they can use to download royalty-free stock photos and vector illustrations on the Stockfresh site. In this post, you’ll find out who the winners are.
The WinnersHere are the three winners of 100 credits on Stockfresh.
On behalf of the Six Revisions community, I’d like to congratulate the winners of this giveaway! The winners should have already received an email from Stockfresh containing information about their prize.
SQL query displaying the 3 winners that were selected at random.
About StockfreshStockfresh is a new stock photo agency by the original founders of the popular stock.xchng and Stockxpert sites. They currently have over 1,200,000 images online, and the collection is growing rapidly.
See some of their offerings through the most popular images page or the newest images page.
Follow Stockfresh on Twitter and Facebook.
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Categories: Web Design
Announcement: Winners of SliderWall Licenses
We recently held a giveaway of licenses to SliderWall, a premium jQuery plugin for creating many types of sliders for content such as images, videos, text and more. In this post, you’ll see the five lucky Six Revisions readers who’ve participated and have won the giveaway.
The WinnersHere are the five winners of 1-domain commercial licenses (worth $99) to SliderWall.
Congratulations to all five winners! You should’ve already received an email from us containing instructions on how to claim your prize.
Editor’s note: The SQL query screenshot originally posted here was erroneous, and so we had to take it down to avoid confusion.
About SliderWallSliderWall is created using modern HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript standards. It can be used to create all types of content sliders, from dynamic feeds to image sliders.
Find some awesome demos of SliderWall in action on their Examples page.
Download SliderWall for free! SliderWall provides a non-commercial free download that you can use on sites that don’t generate any income. Go to the SliderWall Free Download page to start your free download.
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Categories: Web Design
Mobile UI Design Patterns: 10+ Sites for Inspiration
User interface design patterns are solutions to common design challenges, such as navigating around an app, listing data or providing feedback to users.
Mobile apps and sites have unique UI design requirements because, compared to their desktop counterparts, they’re used in smaller screens and, at least with today’s modern mobile devices, rely on fingers instead of a keyboard and mouse as input mechanisms.
Whether you’re designing a mobile app UI for the first time or in need of specific design solutions, these mobile UI design pattern resources will surely help!
1. Mobile UI PatternsMobile UI Patterns is a great site to visit to see common mobile UI design patterns such as activity feeds and notifications. The patterns are organized into 20 categories so that you can easily find what you’re looking for.
2. Inspired UIInspired UI is an excellent mobile UI design pattern gallery with over 1,000 screenshots of real mobile apps. Design patterns featured in the site include sign up pages and check-in user interfaces.
3. lovely uiThis site features common mobile app user interface elements such as buttons, lists and popovers. lovely ui was created by NYC-based interactive designer Diana Frurip.
4. Mobile Design Pattern GalleryThis design pattern gallery is a supplement to UX designer Theresa Neil’s mobile design pattern book published by O’Reilly Media. This gallery features an anti-patterns section featuring UI design techniques to avoid. You can also view the design patterns on Flickr.
5. pttrnsOver 30 mobile UI design patterns (e.g. splashscreens and walkthroughs) are featured on pttrns, a gallery site with large screenshots and a clean interface. The site is by Robin Raszka (founder of popular iOS development firm Tapmates) and chemiX.
6. Patterns of DesignThis site seeks to present notable mobile app UI patterns from exceptional iPhone and iPad apps. Patterns of Design is by Will Simons, a freelance UX designer and project manager.
7. 4ourth Mobile Design Pattern LibraryThis wiki resource is a general reference guide to mobile UI design patterns. It discusses a wide array of design patterns such as slideshows and pagination, to advertising within your mobile app.
8. Android UI Design PatternsThis blog by German technologist/developer/Android user Juhani Lehtimaki publishes posts that cover Android UI design patterns. In each post, a design pattern is discussed and relevant screenshots from mobile apps are included.
9. android pttrnsandroid pttrns, inspired by pttrns (featured above), is a gallery of Android app UI design patterns. It currently only has a few patterns, such as action bar and tab bar.
10. Official Developer Documentation of Mobile Operating SystemsMobile OS manufacturers typically have official docs geared for professionals developing for their platform. These docs often include guides on UI design patterns.
- For Android, check out Android Design’s Pattern section.
- For iOS app designers, see iOS Human Interface Guidelines in the iOS Developer Library.
- Designing for Nokia phones? Head over to Nokia Wiki’s Mobile Design Patterns.
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Categories: Web Design
Designing Landing Pages That Work
Having knowledge on how to create an effective landing page can increase the number of site visitors that take the desired action of the web page. Lets discuss factors and considerations that can lead to a better landing page design.
What is a Landing Page?Before we begin our discussion, it’s worth quickly defining what a landing page is.
- From a web development/technical standpoint: A landing page consists of the same basic elements as any other web page (HTML, CSS, content copy, images, videos, etc.)
- From a business standpoint: It’s a web page that asks users to perform a specific task such as purchasing something or subscribing to an email mailing list.
- From a user standpoint: It’s a page they see after clicking on a hyperlink on another site (Google searches, a URL contained in a tweet, banner ad, etc).
Three popular reasons for creating a landing page are:
- Get people to sign up (whether it’s for an account, a newsletter, etc.)
- Sell a specific product in a specific situation (like a sale or a promotion)
- Get people to download and install software
Let’s talk about important components and factors of a good landing page design.
Call to ActionA call to action clearly asks and compels the user to take a specific, desired action. An example of a call to action is "Subscribe to our mailing list". Oftentimes the call to action requires the user to click on a web page element (such as a hyperlink or a button) or to fill out a web form.
Tips:
- Be clear. Be direct by succinctly stating what action the user should take and what the result of the action will be.
- Limit the number of call to actions. By only having a few call to actions, you can focus on getting the user to take the preferred action you want as quickly as possible.
- Use buttons for actions requiring a click. Buttons are conventional UI controls that users will know is clickable. Additionally, when designed well, it can draw attention to your call to action.
- Have supporting information ready and close by. Users need to be compelled to take action, make sure you have things on the landing page that encourage them to perform your desired action.
The landing page of Square is a perfect example of a good call to action. (The call to action is to sign up for a Square account.) They clearly state that they would like you to sign up and, as a reward, they will give you a free Square Card Reader.
HeadlineAn effective landing page has to have a power headline. The headline sends the main message of what to expect in the landing page and it lets the visitor know that they’re in the right place.
Headlines have only one task: to entice the site visitor to stay on the landing page. That’s the main goal to have in mind.
When crafting your headline, ask yourself: Is this headline interesting enough and does it make the visitor want to keep reading?
Tips:
- Keep your headline short and direct. Don’t waste the user’s time, give the user an idea of what they can achieve on the landing page as quickly as possible.
- Design to grab the viewer’s attention. Use a large font and place your headline prominently on the page. The headline should be at the top of the web page, where Internet users expect it to be.
- Consider using relevant keywords. Use keywords and phrases that a search engine user might use to find your page. Use an HTML heading element (such as <h1> or <h2>) to help search engines index the content of the page better.
The Shopify landing page displays a good headline. The copy is short and gives the reader a quick overview of what the service is. It’s designed using a big font and is placed in a prominent location so that it quickly grabs the user’s attention. The use of the key phrase "online store" in the headline may help in Shopify’s SEO efforts.
SimplicityLanding pages should be simple. If the landing page is too complex, the site visitor might be discouraged to remain on the page. The more complex landing pages are, the smaller the chance users will go through with the desired action. The message needs to be clear and only the essential stuff should be included.
Tips:
- Every element on the page should encourage the user to take your desired action. Use the concept of Reductionism to help you eliminate needless items and copy.
- Have only one primary call to action. Keep your landing page’s objective simple. Pick a task you would like the user to take, such as downloading your software or signing up for your mailing list, and limit it to just that. Any additional call to action should reinforce your primary call to action.
- Use ample amounts of whitespace. If things are too cramped together, it might visually intimidate the site visitor.
The Dropbox landing page is very simple. It has a logo, a video and a call to action button. The primary call to action is to download the software. The secondary call to action, "Watch a video", supports the primary call to action by showing you some information on why you would want to download and use Dropbox.
Eye FlowTo make sure that the visitor encounters all the landing page elements that will help them make a decision to take your desired call to action, the eye flow should be well-thought-out.
Good eye flow makes the consumption of the information being shared in the page quicker for the site visitor and ensures that they end up seeing your desired call-to-action.
Tips:
- Arrange web page components in a logical visual hierarchy. Determine the order in which you want the viewer to look, and design your web page to support that order. To learn more about visual hierarchy, read the following guides: "Working with Visual Weight in Your Designs", "Creating Focal Points in Your Web Design" and "Using Power Structure and Gestalt for Visual Hierarchy".
- Use graphical elements to your advantage. Arrows, icons and attractive images can help direct the eyes of users towards an area of a web page.
- Use high-contrast foreground colors on certain web page components. If an element has a bright color relative to its background and surrounding elements, it’s likely to garner attention.
The Let’s Do This! website, which asks site visitors to donate to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization, presents a good example of how to direct users towards your call to action. The web page is laid out logically so that you can see the primary call to action right away. Using arrows points your eyes to the call to the "Donate" button. The button and the surrounding arrows have high-contrast colors compared to the dark gray background, making sure it stands out.
RelevanceEvery visitor comes to your landing page from a specific source. The landing page has to be relevant to that source. For example, if your ad says that by clicking on it, the user can buy iPads for half the price, then your landing page better be selling iPads for half the price. Relevance is key.
Tips:
- Consider creating landing pages for each marketing campaign. For example, if you have a Facebook marketing campaign, create a landing page that caters to Facebook users.
- Customize the landing page depending on the source. Add special content, discount codes and call to actions depending on what site the user is coming from.
Internet users don’t like taking risk, that’s obvious. We are often concerned about security, privacy and of being scammed.
Tips:
- Offer a compelling guarantee. For example, if you would like the user to buy a product, consider giving them a way to recover their money if they are unsatisfied with their purchase.
- Anticipate any concerns that the user may have and address them. Before taking an action, users may want to know more about the result of that action. These concerns are often related to cost, time and security.
- Offer a free trial (if possible). For example, if the landing page’s goal is to ask users to subscribe to one of your paid plans, consider allowing users to try it before they need to provide credit card information.
Squarespace displays good examples of reducing the risk to signing up and using their web service. By clearly telling users that no credit card is required, that the signup process only takes 30 seconds, and that there isn’t any permanent commitment, they have successfully addressed concerns related to cost, time and security.
ScarcityOne way of designing landing pages that work is by creating a sense of scarcity. If the user feels that the product might run out of stock or that the discounted price might end soon, they may be compelled not to procrastinate and take action now.
Tips:
- Use convincing copy that conveys a sense of urgency. For example, clearly stating that the special discounted price will end soon might urge users to purchase your product now.
- Provide dynamic information that conveys scarcity. For instance, if you’re only selling 100 units, on your landing page, display how many units are left whenever someone purchases a unit.
On Mighty Deals, they display a countdown of how long until a deal expires. This may prompt site visitors to buy a deal immediately.
Trust ElementsThere are many ways to provide users with reassurance that taking the action being solicited from your landing page is safe and secure.
One way is to provide social proof. Social proof can be in the form of displaying tweets about a product, testimonials from previous buyers, and positive reviews on third-party/non-affiliated sites such as review sites and blogs.
Other ways include displaying certificates and badges from third-party companies.
Tips:
- Provide social proof data from reputable and well-known web services. For example, displaying the number of Facebook Likes is a good way to show social proof.
- Locate trust elements close to the call to action. It’s important that the user is able to see these trust elements around your call to action.
- Be honest. It goes without saying: Don’t publish fake testimonials and bloated social media follower counts.
On the FreshBooks landing page, you can see three trust elements: (1) The number of people using their web service, (2) quotes from reputable and well-known sites such as the New York Times and (3) their privacy certification.
ConclusionThe design of landing pages is crucial in prompting users to take your desired action. By following the simple tips mentioned above, you’ll be well on your way to creating effective landing pages.
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- Use the 80-20 Rule to Increase Your Website’s Effectiveness
- A Look into Registration Buttons in Web Design
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Categories: Web Design
Top 10 Free Online Blogging Platforms
A blog is a great way to express your thoughts, create a web presence for your company and provide content to Internet users.
If you’re planning to create a blog, but don’t wish to get into the hassles of hosting, developing and deploying it yourself, consider creating a blog at any of the free blogging platforms mentioned below. Such services offer a plethora of features and generally come with both free as well as paid plans.
Let’s look at the top 10 most popular online blog-publishing services.
1. WordPress.comWordPress.com is perhaps the most feature-rich blogging service out there. It uses the popular open source web software WordPress, and offers many features in its free version — traffic stats, anti-spam filters, SEO, gorgeous themes and more.
If you choose to use WordPress.com, you’ll be in good company, as many popular blogs — including CNN’s Political Ticker, People Magazine’s Style Watch and Flickr — are on this platform.
If you need more than what the free version offers, you can opt for their premium features that include custom domains, upgraded web hosting resources and more.
Whether you’re an expert blogger or a beginner, this ultimate blogging platform is a safe bet.
2. Blog.comBlog.com is another popular WordPress-powered blogging platform.
Just like other services, it has its own share of pros and cons. For a start, it offers many beautiful premium themes in its free accounts, as well as advanced plugins that one can expect only on a self-hosted blog. However, on the downside, the free service displays more ads as compared to WordPress.com. (But you can opt for paid upgrades to remove the advertisements.)
The free storage space offered on Blog.com is 2GB in the basic plan, which is less compared to 3GB that WordPress.com gives its users.
3. BloggerGoogle Blogger is a well-known blogging service that offers many features to its users. For example, Blogger comes with a Template Designer user interface that lets you tweak your blog’s appearance as much as you want. (However, the templates provided are, in my opinion, no match compared to WordPress themes.)
When it comes to ease of use, most beginners prefer Blogger as it offers a no-nonsense interface for administering your blog and top-notch integration with their Google account. Another great thing about Blogger is that it offers certain great features for free that you normally need to pay for in other blog-publishing services, most noteworthy being the ability to set up custom domains without paying a cent.
4. TypePad MicroTypePad Micro is another free blog-publishing service. The interface is easy to use, and you can import/export content from many other blogging platforms.
However, in terms of add-ons and themes offered, TypePad Micro won’t satisfy even the most basic blogger. The cheapest paid plan begins at $8.95 per month and comes with additional themes, custom domain mapping, as well as technical support.
In an age where almost all blogging services are offering numerous features in their free versions, TypePad Micro seems to be lagging behind.
5. JuxJux is an innovative service that lets you easily share content online. Conventionally speaking, it’s not a blogging service like the ones previously mentioned, however, it has a lot of the same functionalities. Rather, Jux lets you create your own microblogging site for sharing your content.
By default, Jux templates don’t have the native sidebars and other widgets that are common to most blogs. Instead, Jux provides a clean (and beautiful) approach to blogging. Simply create an account, and then start sharing your content.
While Jux does seem amazing and has excellent support for mobile devices, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. For instance, if you’re planning to create a more conventional blog, opting for WordPress might be a better option. On the other hand, if you’re leaning more towards visual content, such as photos and artwork, Jux may just amaze you with its features.
6. TumblrTumblr is a popular and feature-packed microblogging platform. It comes with many outstanding and interesting features such as audio blogging (for sharing your music, for example), free custom domains, hundreds of amazing blogging themes and more.
Furthermore, you can sync your Tumblr account with Facebook and/or Twitter so that you can update your social media feeds in a single location. Yet another awesome feature is the ability to create community-powered group blogs. Tumblr also offers support for many third-party apps such as Google Analytics and Feedburner.
7. Posterous SpacesPosterous Spaces is an excellent online blog-publishing service that is similar to Tumblr.
Posterous Spaces has excellent privacy and viewing features so that you can easily control who can see what on your Posterous Spaces site. It’s designed to allow its users to post content quickly and as hassle-free as possible, so it has loads of features included to facilitate this, such as free mobile apps for iOS and Android smartphones so you can update your blog on the go and a simple, well-designed user interface.
Using Posterous Spaces means you’ll be in good company; popular tech startups like MailChimp, TweetDeck and Airbnb leverage Posterous as their company blog.
8. BlogeteryBlogetery is a WordPress-powered online blogging service that offers a modest set of features. Free accounts get nearly 140 themes, custom domain mapping and roughly 40 plugins to choose from.
On Blogetery, ads are displayed on all free blogs, but if you wish to upgrade, you can opt for the paid plan that will cost you $3.50 per month and will give you additional themes, plugins, email support, 5GB of additional storage space, the ability to remove ads, etc.
9. WeeblyWeebly offers more than just blogging — it’s a fully featured website builder! Weebly’s blog manager features a drag-and-drop interface, support for image galleries, slideshows, video/audio, maps, etc. Additionally, you can opt for their Designer Platform that lets you build websites for your client, thereby effectively using Weebly as a content management system.
10. LiveJournalLiveJournal (often abbreviated as LJ) offers blogging with a touch of social networking to it. You can participate in polls, create networks and interact with other LJ users alongside your blog.
With that said, the features, compared to other similar blogging services, are nothing to brag about. Their collection of template is decent, and plugins/extensions are pretty basic in nature.
Other Online Blogging PlatformsHere are other blogging platforms that didn’t make our top 10 list that you still may wish to check out:
- Blogsome, freeblogit and Blog Dive are other WordPress-powered blogging platforms.
- Thoughts.com is a service similar to Tumblr and Posterous.
- Blog.co.uk seems to have a wonderful community, but appears to put a lot of ads on your blog.
- MyBlogSite looks interesting but seems to lack in features when compared to other options.
- Aeonity offers free blog hosting but it looks like a dated service.
There are numerous blogging services out there, and choosing a specific one is more of a matter of personal taste and needs.
For the security and success of your blog, I recommend sticking to online blogging services that are well known and reputable.
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- Important Features All Blogs Should Really Have
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Categories: Web Design
Giveaway: 5 SliderWall jQuery Image Slider Licenses
We’ve teamed up with the creators of SliderWall, a powerful premium jQuery image slider, to give 5 lucky Six Revisions readers licenses that allows them to use this wonderful tool commercially and on one domain. Continue reading this post to discover how you can win a SliderWall license.
** Update: Giveaway Period Has Ended ** About SliderWallSliderWall is created using modern HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript standards. It can be used to create all types of content sliders, from dynamic feeds to image sliders.
The jQuery slider features several templates that you can easily customize from a single CSS file. But customize is an understatement; with a bit of creativity and experience you can modify the original templates to make them truly unique.
Find some awesome demos of SliderWall in action on their Examples page.
Download SliderWall for Free!SliderWall provides a non-commercial free download that you can use on sites that generate no income.
Go to the SliderWall Free Download page to start your free download.
** Update: Giveaway Period Has Ended ** How to WinTo win, simply answer the following question:
- How would you use SliderWall if you won?
This giveaway ends on Tuesday, March 20, 2012, after which the comments section on this post will be closed and you will no longer be able to leave a comment. Please leave a valid email address when filling out the comment form so that we can contact you if you’ve won. Please only comment once. The winners will be randomly selected using a similar method as previous Six Revisions giveaways. The winners will be announced on a separate post. You are advised to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you can be quickly notified when the winners announcement post has been published. Please note that comments are moderated and so your comment may not show up right away. Please note that comments that do not follow the instructions on how to win (described above) may not be published, or may be removed later on.
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Categories: Web Design
Giveaway: 100 Stock Photo Credits at Stockfresh
** Update: Giveaway Period Has Ended **
Stockfresh, a site where you can buy royalty-free stock photos and vectors, has teamed up with us to give away 3 stock photo accounts preloaded with 100 credits (worth $79.99 each). Read on to see how you can be one of the 3 lucky winners.
About StockfreshStockfresh is a new stock photo agency by the original founders of the popular stock.xchng and Stockxpert sites.
Stockfresh has some of the best photographers on board, so you’ll definitely find awesome images and graphics to purchase there.
Stockfresh’s goal is to provide high-quality stock photos and graphics at affordable prices through a hassle-free, clean user interface.
They take pride in the fact that they pay contributors with commissions that are among the highest in the industry, so if you shop with them, your money goes to the right place: the hardworking artists, photographers and designers who deserve it.
Currently they have over 1,200,000 images online and the collection is growing rapidly.
See some of their offerings through the most popular images page or the newest images page.
Follow Stockfresh on Twitter and Facebook.
** Update: Giveaway Period Has Ended ** How to WinTo win a Stockfresh account preloaded with 100 credits, follow the steps outlined below.
Step 1Browse the Stockfresh site’s collection of royalty-free images and vectors. Try looking at the popular categories page, most popular images page and/or new images page.
Step 2In the comments below, answer the following question:
- Which resource would you download first if you won 100 credits? Provide the URL in your comment.
This giveaway ends on Tuesday, March 20, 2012, after which the comments section on this post will be closed and you will no longer be able to leave a comment. Please leave a valid email address when filling out the comment form so that we can contact you if you have won. Please only comment once. The winners will be randomly selected using a similar method as previous Six Revisions giveaways. The winners will be announced on a separate post. You are advised to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you can be quickly notified when the winners announcement post has been published. Please note that comments are moderated and so your comment may not show up right away. Please note that comments that do not follow the instructions on how to win (described above) may not be published, or may be removed later on.
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Categories: Web Design
The Elements of a Clean Web Design
Clean, simple web designs have become a popular trend. This article will cover the subject through a two-part discussion. First, we’ll talk about a few traits that clean designs tend to have in common. Secondly, I’ll share some tricks and techniques that can be helpful when trying to achieve a clean design.
Common Traits of a Clean Web DesignLet’s start by looking at some fundamental characteristics of clean web designs.
Solid Web Page Layout StructureIf you take a few minutes to browse sites that might fall into the "clean" category, I’d be willing to bet they all have one thing in common: a well-thought-out grid that the designer is really putting to work.
For anyone not familiar with designing with a grid, just imagine that each comp starts with an invisible structure of columns and rows, and that structure drives the scale and placement of the elements in the composition. This grid creates a sense of order by helping designers establish hierarchy, rhythm and consistency.
Pixel Dreams is designed in a grid using the popular 960 Grid System.
A solid grid layout structure provides order and unity. For instance, Creative Review has several page layouts for certain types of content, however, the browsing experience is continuous because they all share the same underlying framework.
When a site has a lot of content to display, such as an online magazine or a newspaper site, achieving a clean design aesthetic can be more difficult. But sites like The Guardian, a British newspaper, show that it’s possible with a well-thought-out layout grid.
If all their content were plopped onto the page without a solid structure, the front page would definitely be a mess. However, by using their grid as a starting point and relying on rules and white space to establish hierarchy, the robust content feels far from overwhelming. Every pixel of margin and every rule was tweaked until it was "just right," and all that effort resulted in a layout that feels effortless.
Here are two resources that will help you learn more about designing on a grid:
Good TypographyIt seems that good typography often centers around doing more with less, and when it comes to getting that "squeaky clean" feel in your designs, restraint is key.
When too many typefaces are used, they compete with one another, making a design appear disjointed and disorderly.
If you do a quick survey of well-designed sites, you’ll probably find they rely on one or two typefaces, and then vary size, case, color and weight to establish a clear typographic hierarchy.
This approach creates a sense of consistency and refinement that can be seen on sites such as The New York Times and The Mavenist.
The New York Times
The Mavenist
In both examples above, there are no more than two typefaces in the style sheets, yet the designers have established clear hierarchies by using those typefaces to their fullest.
Good typography is best displayed in the details. Leading, the spaces between lines of text, can help make content easy to read and pleasing to the eye. When there’s just enough space, the reader’s eye can easily return from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. In web design, leading can be adjusted through the line-height CSS property.
The optimal ratio of type size to leading often depends on the typeface, color and width of the text block.
Additionally, letter-spacing, the space between letters, can allow the letterforms to breathe a bit.
Here are some resources related to web typography:
- A Basic Look at Typography in Web Design
- CSS Typography: The Basics
- CSS Typography: Techniques and Best Practices
- CSS Typography: Examples and Tools
In print design, color is often limited by necessity. A budget may allow for only a two-color poster, and so the designer is forced to work within those constraints.
That’s never the case with websites, though, since most modern computer monitors can display millions of colors.
However, cleanly-designed sites seem to trend toward limited color palettes. From what I’ve seen, these sites often use core grays and one color. The color is earmarked for the most important elements (like links and headers), a trick that not only enhances usability but also helps to visually unite elements throughout the site.
A1 rolls this direction, using a bluish green and gray color palette.
Meanwhile, the fine folks at Fuzzco take it all the way down to a single color: red.
Clean designs that successfully push beyond one- or two-color palettes often do so by using color sparingly and by using neutral colors to break things up. Solo is a great example of this.
Just like the connection between typeface and message, it’s not all about picking colors that look good. Stronger designs incorporate palettes that set a visual tone which echoes the site’s content.
For example, bright, complementary colors make sense for Notologist because of the nature of the site.
Consistent ImageryDoes it bother you when the style of imagery (photography, illustrations, charts, etc.) shifts from page to page throughout a site? Me too.
Making sure these visually prominent elements are stylistically in harmony is a pretty powerful trick when it comes to creating a site with a clean appearance.
For example, IBM’s Smarter Planet campaign touched on dozens of topics. Throughout the related print and interactive materials, illustrations and charts that share geometrical frameworks, bold strokes and saturated colors help tie the campaign’s materials and topics together.
And over on Protein, you’ll notice that even though the photography for the profiles comes out of different shoots, there is a carefully produced similarity across the images in terms of composition, depth of field and quality of light. Consistency across these often-prominent elements helps viewers look past individual pieces and see the sites as a whole.
Obviously, there are instances where it just isn’t practical to produce all the imagery in the same style. News sites and blogs can’t throw out a great image that enhances a story just because it doesn’t fit with others.
And sometimes clients don’t have budgets to produce new charts and illustrations, so the designer is forced to make existing assets work. I’ve noticed that in these cases the use of graphic elements around the imagery, such as borders, can help inconsistent imagery feel a bit more uniform.
Tips for Achieving Clean DesignsWhat follows are a few tips for producing clean web designs.
Start Complex, Then SimplifyPutting things on the page is part of the design process. In my experience, one of the traps designers can easily fall into when they set out to create something "simple" is becoming afraid to add anything to the page. The resulting designs are usually pretty bland because the process didn’t allow for exploration (and those "happy design accidents" we all love).
To avoid this problem, I find that it’s helpful to "start complex, then simplify."
In the early phases of the design, don’t limit what you put on the page. Explore different layers of content and try out different design elements. Then, once that design feels like it could be close to complete, start to simplify.
Ask yourself, "what doesn’t really need to be here?" If dropping a design element (like a rule or texture) seems to make the page fall apart, keep it around. But, if that’s not the case, ditch it.
We’ve all heard the adage that 20% ends up doing 80% of the work. We’re just applying that theory to design by identifying the elements that are doing the heavy lifting in our layouts. (Read more about this subject: Reductionism in Web Design.)
It may even be worth bringing in someone who’s more detached from the design for an outside opinion on what should stay and what should go. If you can’t give a more solid defense for why something should be on the page other than "it’s cool" or "they do it on this other site," then remove it.
Ultimately, you’ll be left with the ingredients that will give you the strongest design. Once you get there, a little bit of fine-tuning should leave you with a strong, uncluttered design.
Tweak, and Tweak Some MoreI’ve been told that I tend to "beat my page designs into submission." Honestly, I take that as a compliment.
To me, a design is never really "finished" and can always be pushed further. Seriously, just ask any designer or student who has had the unfortunate luck of working with me. I’m guessing it’s not all that fun when I ask them to try another shade of green for the twelfth time.
As we explored earlier, that "clean" feel is the product of all the aspects of the design — composition, hierarchy, palette and typography — working harmoniously. If you’re like me, making that happen means a lot of time spent tweaking: adding a point of line-spacing here, removing 2px of margin there, trying #ddd instead of #eee for the dotted rules, etc. These may seem like inconsequential adjustments, but when it comes to getting all the elements in a composition to work together, a single pixel can make a big difference.
So, tweak, and then tweak some more. One tweak will lead to another, and sometimes what you uncover will lead you to fork your designs or backtrack.
Making something look clean and cohesive is a process that takes time and persistence (and, generally, a lot of coffee).
But, if you stick with it, all the details will eventually fall into place and the design will become cohesive.
Don’t Miss the Big PictureIn my previous life as a "mostly print designer," printing and pinning up your layouts was a daily ritual. The firm’s walls were saturated with everything from annual reports to logo explorations.
But something funny happened when I started to focus on web design — I stopped printing. It was almost like I decided that because the project would never see a press, it never needed to see paper.
After a long spell of blank walls (and subsequent blocks of frustration with how my projects were coming together), it hit me. The beauty of printing and pinning was seeing the big picture.
I was missing my chance to evaluate the system as a whole, shore up throughlines, and find opportunities to simplify.
Flipping through layers in Illustrator or Photoshop just doesn’t offer the same perspective as seeing all the comps side by side.
So, my suggestion is to print, pin and repeat. It’ll help you identify inconsistencies and find opportunities to synchronize your layouts, all of which will result in a cleaner design. (Sorry trees.)
ConclusionWhether you’re well-versed in the creation of "clean" design or looking to move in that direction, respect for imagination followed by attention to detail will go a long way.
As I said early on, an organic but intentional process — not standards and rulebooks — will come in most handy. Of course, each designer has moments of magic throughout his or her individual process.
So, if you have any tips and tricks you tend to use to strengthen your layouts, or examples of "clean" design you love, please feel free to add them below so we can keep the discussion going.
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Categories: Web Design
Announcement: Winners of Mindomo Subscriptions
Last month, we posted a giveaway of 10 Premium Account subscriptions to Mindomo, a mind-mapping app for collaborative brainstorming. In this post, we announce the 10 lucky winners.
The WinnersHere are the 10 lucky Six Revisions readers who’ve won themselves a Premium Account subscription to Mindomo.
- Natalia
- Brad
- Lewis Sellers
- Kevin
- Patricio
- Tony Gines
- bead
- Karl Fitzgerald
- Brinton
- Paramaguru Manickavasagam
Congratulations to all the winners! The winners should have already received an email from the folks at Mindomo containing information about their prize.
SQL query displaying the 10 winners that were selected at random.
About MindomoMindomo is a simple mind-mapping application that can be used individually or in groups for creative idea generation, gathering project requirements, building quick site-maps and simple project management.
Try Mindomo for free! Mindomo has a free account with a limited number of maps so you can evaluate their tool. Sign up now.
About the Author
Categories: Web Design
Announcement: Winners of Custom Flyers from Next Day Flyers
In January, we held a giveaway of two sets of 100 custom flyers (with free shipping anywhere in the continental U.S.) from our friends at Next Day Flyers, who offers flyer printing as one of their many available services. In this post, we announce the two lucky Six Revisions readers who have won.
The WinnersHere are the two winners of a set of 100 custom flyers from Next Day Flyers.
I would like to congratulate our two winners! They should have already received an email from Next Day Flyers containing information about their prize.
SQL query result that selected two winners randomly.
About Next Day FlyersNext Day Flyers is an offset printing company offering an array of printed materials such as flyers, business cards, postcards, brochures, tickets and more. They’ve been in business for 13 years and have over 100,000 satisfied customers.
Follow them on Twitter, join them on Facebook and check out their company blog.
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Categories: Web Design
Getting the Most Out of QR Codes Using URI Schemes
Lately, everyone has been talking about the potential of the QR code. It has become the Internet’s equivalent of traditional barcodes (like those you’d find on physical goods at your favorite retail store).
Someone can take a quick snapshot of a QR code with their smartphone and immediately have a website up and loaded, so we could print QR codes on paper and physical goods such as business cards, magazine ads and posters in order to lead people to our site.
But, more often than not, web developers don’t use QR codes to their fullest potential.
In this article, we’ll discuss a technique that will unlock the full potential of QR codes through URI schemes.
How QR Codes Work in a NutshellLet’s learn how the QR code mechanism actually works. QR codes, at their core, are specially generated images that work like barcodes.
Certain commands (known as responses) are built in, and when a QR code is captured by a camera (usually one on a smartphone or tablet), the image of the QR code is processed and then the built-in response is carried out.
A common QR code response is to open a certain website in a web browser on the device that captures the QR code.
QR codes look like the above and contain information that can be captured by a camera and interpreted by a smartphone, tablet or computer.
QR-Code ReadersThis is where things get interesting. QR-code readers — the apps that scan the codes and perform the actions — are not equal when it comes to functionality. Some are able to recognize QR codes and do all sorts of amazing things, and others can simply open URLs or display text.
Most smartphones have the same set of basic features (address book, calendar, texting functionality, alerts and Internet browsing), and a good QR-code reader can cater to all of those.
With low-functionality apps in the mix, though, URL-opening is likely the only reliable function that we can expect most QR-code readers will have.
Here’s a list of features that QR-code readers are generally equipped with:
- Displaying text
- Setting up system alerts
- Adding events to calendars
- Opening URLs in a browser
- Collecting contact information (including vCards)
- Sending email
- Sending text messages (SMS)
- Geolocation
- Calling other phones
- Connecting to WiFi
Since browsers can already launch default email clients via a simple mailto URL (browsers have supported URI schemes like these for years), could the same technique be used to offer in-app functionality for other products that have non-native URI schemes and that a QR reader wouldn’t support by default?
The answer is yes!
If the application supported the scheme, and if the user had the app the QR represented installed, it would work beautifully — and it wouldn’t matter which QR-code-reader was used.
The PossibilitiesHere’s a list of some cool things that are possible:
- Launching native Apple apps (Mail, Phone, FaceTime, Text, Map, YouTube and iTunes)
- Running JavaScript bookmarklets
- Opening certain IM clients (Skype, AIM, MSN, GTalk, ICQ and Yahoo)
- Opening special applications (IRC tools, feed readers, FTP clients and SVN repositories)
- Opening any application that registers a URI scheme when it installs on a platform
What makes this particular technique so amazing is that it doesn’t rely on the QR-code reader being very advanced; all it needs is for the app creator (be it Skype, Evernote or Angry Birds) you want to launch and interface with to use the system development API to register a URI scheme.
In the case of Apple, it’s the Cocoa Touch OpenURL method of the shared UIApplication object, and for other platforms (like Android), there will be an equivalent somewhere in the documentation.
From scanner to browser to application — the possibilities are endless!
Below is a list of some common non-http URI schemes:
Application URI Scheme or Protocol Query Strings Default e-mail application mailto:<email>?query Subject CC BCC Body Default phone application tel:<number> N/A Default SMS application sms:<number> N/A Chat Room client irc://<url>:query port channel password Syndication feed reader feed:<url> N/A Apple FaceTime facetime:<number> N/A Skype client skype:<username|number>?query add call chat sendfile userinfo Google Talk client gtalk:query?<email> chat call Windows Live Messenger client msnim:query?<email> add chat voice video Yahoo! Messenger client ymsgr:query?<email|number> sendim addfriend sendfile call callPhone chat im customstatus getimv AOL Instant Messenger client aim:query?<username> goim goaway addbuddyWhat does this mean for us? As it stands, there are actually quite a number of applications for the desktop (as well as mobile), which already use URI schemes.
Take Skype, for instance. Do you want people to be able to capture a QR code that causes their phones to call you via Skype on their handsets? That can be done (at least on iOS) right now.
It can also be used to run several native apps, launch JavaScript bookmarklets (perhaps including apps that run within browsers) and access the usual FTP and IRC protocols (if associated with something).
Here are some useful links for developers:
Now that you know a bit more about QR codes and have gotten a brief overview of things you need to know to get started, I’ll outline the steps to the technique below.
Note: The technique I’ll be describing below can even be used to execute JavaScript code, so under the wrong set of code-writing fingers, this could be exploited.
Step 1: Choose the Response You Want to PerformFirst, decide what you’d like the QR code to accomplish. Obviously, you can use the regular QR-code generator stuff — like sending text messages to phones or sending emails — but let’s try something trickier.
We’ll create a Skype QR code that will automatically launch the app and make a voice call to a Skype contact. (This will only work if the user that scans the QR code has Skype installed).
Step 2: Create a URL Using a URL-shortening ServiceMany QR-code generators suffer from a particular problem: if you try to put a mailto or other non-http link into them, they sometimes think that an error occurred (this also affects some reader apps).
This, of course, won’t get our Skype launcher anywhere near being cross-QR-code-reader-compatible, so we need another solution — and, luckily, a common one exists that can help get this URL into the browser (and help web developers monitor click stats too)!
We’re going to use a URL-shortening service. These services are rarely fussy about what you insert into them, and they push out well-formed URLs with the HTTP header required for best-possible compatibility (most QR readers know how to open basic URLs).
A URL-shortening service such as TinyURL will turn that unconventional URL into a generally acceptable one.
For this QR, we’ll call the Skype contact named echo123 — this contact is the free voice-quality testing contact that Skype offers.
For our URL-shortening service, I’ll use TinyURL, but you can use one of the many other URL-shortening services out there such as bitly, is.gd and so on.
Just enter your chosen URI scheme into the shortener.
This is the result of my TinyURL link conversion:
URL skype:echo123?call To http://tinyurl.com/echo123skypeIf you click on the URL above, you might see something like the following (if you’re using Google Chrome on Windows):
Step 3: Generate the QR CodeNow take that generated URL — which will actually work if you have the desktop version of Skype installed for Windows or Mac — and generate a working QR code from it.
Check that the shortened URL works in your web browser; the link should launch Skype.
There is an abundance of choice when it comes to ways of generating QR codes; free tools exist all over the Web.
Below are a couple of free generators:
After you’ve generated your QR code, test it. Download one of the available applications for your mobile device (if you don’t already have one) and take a snapshot of the QR code you’ve produced.
Below are some free QR-reader products for mobile platforms:
- Scan (iOS)
- QR Droid (Android)
- QR Code Scanner Pro (Blackberry)
What should happen, if you followed the instructions correctly and if you’ve got the Skype app installed, is this:
- Your QR code will be identified by the QR reader app
- The QR reader app will notice that the QR code contains a URL (thus it will skip the compatibility quirks of the readers)
- The TinyURL link will open in the default browser
- It will redirect to the Skype-call URI scheme and launch Skype
Pretty amazing stuff for one clever image!
The only thing left to do with your wonderful creation is to upload it to the Web (as I have with the finished example below). I recommend, as a best practice, that you consider providing a link to the URL being snapped in the QR image itself (for desktop users).
Beyond that, you could spruce up your QR codes with a bit of color or some limited artwork if you’re feeling extra creative.
The Finished QR CodeThe above QR code will call echo123 on Skype if you have the app installed.
ConclusionThe power of this technique rests in the opportunity it gives designers and developers. A URI scheme exists between app developers and the browsers that support them (luckily, that’s all of them!).
Using a simple redirect (provided by you or a third party) and these already existing and well-supported features, you can launch applications, interact via query codes, execute JavaScript and do all sorts of wonderfully creative things.
QR codes are being increasingly adopted and have never been more widely used. With this single technique you can break past most existing limitations.
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