In the world of web UI design for interfaces, paying attention to the smallest details is crucial. We would like to give some Mobile Interface Design Tips, which should help you to avoid certain common mistakes. Experienced designers can sometimes overlook aspects of design that can have a significant impact. This blog aims to highlight seven mistakes in mobile interface design. Emphasizes why ignoring these UI issues can be harmful.

1. Prioritizing Style Over Substance

Mistake: Many designers prioritize appeal at the expense of functionality. An app that looks great but is not user-friendly will struggle to retain users.

Solution: Find a balance between elements and usability. Ensure that your design enhances the user experience, than hindering it.

2. Ignoring Fingers and Thumbs

Mistake:Mobile devices are often used on the go, which can add to the difficulty of precise tapping. Larger, well-spaced targets accommodate this variability in usage contexts, making the app more reliable and easier to use, even when the user is in motion or in less-than-ideal conditions (like under direct sunlight or in a crowded space).  Designing for touch screens requires a different approach than designing for mouse-based interactions. On mobile devices, users rely on their fingers to navigate, which are significantly less precise than mouse pointers. Designers sometimes overlook this aspect, resulting in touch targets (like buttons and links) that are too small or too close together, making them challenging to tap accurately. This issue can lead to user frustration, as it increases the likelihood of erroneous inputs and makes the app feel less responsive and intuitive.

Solution: Create to tap targets. Make sure buttons and interactive elements are comfortably sized for finger tapping.

3. Overlooking Load Times

Mistake: In the visually driven world of mobile apps, designers often employ high-resolution graphics and intricate animations to catch the user’s eye. However, this visual appeal comes at a cost. Heavy graphics and animations can significantly increase the load time of an application or a website. Mobile users, accustomed to instant access, find slow-loading interfaces frustrating. This frustration not only impacts the user experience but also contributes to higher bounce rates as users are more likely to abandon a site that doesn’t load quickly.

Solution: Optimize images and animations to ensure load times. Keep in mind the limitations of users mobile data usage.

4. Neglecting Accessibility

Mistake: Failing to consider users with disabilities can limit your app’s reach and usability.

Solution: Incorporate accessibility features such as screen readers, voice commands, and adjustable text sizes.

5. Disregarding Feedback Systems

Mistake: Another critical aspect is providing feedback for user actions. Without it users can become confused and unsure if the app is responding.

Solution: To overcome this issue, implementing haptic feedback for user interactions will provide acknowledgment of their actions.

6. Cluttering the Interface

Mistake: In an effort to provide as much information and functionality as possible, designers sometimes overload mobile interfaces with excessive content and elements. This practice, often referred to as ‘screen clutter,’ can overwhelm users, making the app difficult to navigate and use. The small screen real estate of mobile devices exacerbates this issue, as too many elements compete for the user’s attention.

Solution: So, Embrace minimalism. Keep the content concise. To the point, while effectively utilizing whitespace to create an uncluttered interface.

7. Inconsistent Design Across Platforms

Mistake: In our multi-device world, users often interact with applications across various platforms, such as smartphones, tablets, and desktops. When UI elements are inconsistent across these platforms, it can lead to user confusion. Inconsistencies might be in the form of different layouts, contrasting color schemes, varying fonts, or disparate navigation patterns. This inconsistency can disrupt the user’s intuitive understanding of the application, making it harder to navigate and use effectively on different devices.

Solution: Maintain design consistency across all platforms. Utilize responsive design principles to ensure a seamless experience on any device.

Conclusion

If designers overlook these factors in the design of mobile user interfaces, it can negatively impact the user experience. Ultimately hinder the success of the app. However, by addressing these issues, designers have the opportunity to improve the usability, accessibility and overall attractiveness of applications. It’s important to remember that, in mobile interface design it’s not, about creating appealing designs but also ensuring they function exceptionally well for all users.

Do you require help in improving your website’s Mobile interface?

We at Macronimous can help you with our expert UI/UX team support.

Feel free to inquire us today for a no-obligation design Consulting.

contact now

The post Mobile Interface Design Tips for 2024: Avoid these 7 UI mistakes first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

As a new website owner, it is crucial to familiarize yourself with the various tools and services offered by Google. These tools can help you gain valuable insights into your website’s performance, improve search engine visibility, optimize user experience, and enhance your overall online presence. In this blog post, we will provide a short introduction to some of the essential Google tools that every new website owner should know and care for. We’ll also guide you through the signup process and explain how to add websites or code to get started. Let’s dive in!

Five Essential Google Tools:

Google Analytics 4:

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a powerful web analytics tool that enables you to track and analyze user behavior on your website. It provides valuable insights into visitor demographics, traffic sources, popular content, user engagement, and more. By understanding these metrics, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your website’s performance, optimize marketing campaigns, and enhance user experience.

• Sign up process:

  • Visit the Google Analytics website (analytics.google.com) and sign in with your Google account.
  • Click on “Start Measuring” and follow the prompts to set up a new Google Analytics 4 property.
  • Provide the required information about your website and agree to the terms of service.
  • Copy the tracking code snippet provided by Google.

• Add code to the website:

  • Paste the tracking code snippet immediately before the closing </head> tag of every page you want to track on your website.
  • Save and publish the changes to your website.

Google Search Console:

Google Search Console is a free service that helps you monitor your website’s presence in Google Search results. It provides valuable information about indexing issues, search traffic, keyword performance, and backlink data. By using Search Console, you can identify and resolve potential issues that may affect your website’s visibility on Google, improve your search rankings, and optimize your site for better organic traffic.

• Sign up process:

  • Visit the Google Search Console website (search.google.com/search-console) and sign in with your Google account.
  • Click on “Start now” and enter the URL of your website.
  • Choose a verification method (HTML file upload, HTML tag, Google Analytics, or Google Tag Manager) and follow the instructions to verify ownership.

• Add website:

  • After verification, click on “Add a property” and enter your website’s URL.
  • Follow the instructions to verify ownership of the website.
  • Once verified, you can access various tools and reports within Google Search Console to monitor and optimize your website’s performance.

Google Tag Manager:

Google Tag Manager (GTM) simplifies the process of managing website tags and tracking codes. It allows you to implement and update various tracking codes, such as Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and more, without manually editing your website’s code. With GTM, you can streamline your tracking efforts, improve website performance, and gain better control over your marketing and analytics tools.

• Sign up process:

  • Visit the Google Tag Manager website (tagmanager.google.com) and sign in with your Google account.
  • Click on “Create Account” and provide the required information to set up your account.

• Add code to the website:

  • Follow the instructions provided by Google Tag Manager to create a new container.
  • Copy the container code snippet provided by Google.
  • Paste the container code snippet immediately after the opening <body> tag of every page on your website.
  • Save and publish the changes to your website.
  • Use the Google Tag Manager interface to add various tracking codes and tags to your website without modifying the code directly.

Google Optimize A/B Testing:

Google Optimize is a powerful testing and personalization platform that allows you to conduct A/B tests and optimize your website’s user experience. With Optimize, you can create multiple versions of a webpage, test different elements such as headlines, images, layouts, and analyze which variations perform better. This data-driven approach helps you make informed decisions to enhance conversions, engagement, and overall website performance. Many people miss this in their list of Essential Google Tools.

• Sign up process:

  • Visit the Google Optimize website (optimize.google.com) and sign in with your Google account.
  • Click on “Get started” and follow the prompts to create a new Google Optimize account.

Add code to the website:

• • After creating your account, follow the instructions provided by Google Optimize to set up a new container.
  • Copy the container code snippet provided by Google Optimize.
  • Paste the container code snippet immediately after the opening <head> tag of every page you want to test.
  • Save and publish the changes to your website.
  • Use the Google Optimize interface to create experiments, set up variations, and track the performance of your A/B tests.

Google My Business:

Google My Business is another essential Google Tool for local businesses to manage their online presence on Google. By creating and optimizing your business profile, you can appear in Google Maps and local search results, enabling potential customers to find you easily. Google My Business provides features to update business information, manage customer reviews, post updates, and track user engagement, making it essential for local SEO and attracting local customers.

• Sign up process:

  • Visit the Google My Business website (google.com/business) and sign in with your Google account.
  • Click on “Manage now” and follow the prompts to create a new Google My Business listing for your business.
  • Provide the required information about your business, including name, address, phone number, and website.
  • Verify your business ownership through a verification method provided by Google.

These are just a few of the essential Google tools that new website owners should know and care for. By leveraging the insights and functionalities offered by these tools, you can optimize your website’s performance, improve search engine visibility, enhance user experience, and ultimately achieve your online goals. Take the time to explore these tools, familiarize yourself with their features, and start harnessing the power of Google for your website’s success.

If you are a website owner who is not familiar with the technical aspects of these Google tools, don’t worry! Our SEO team can check help with this. Feel free to contact us.

The post Essential Google Tools for New Website Owners: A Comprehensive Guide first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

The global average broadband internet speed is now over 11Mbps. That means web pages load fast. So, Google should not worry about slow loading webpages. But, Google is not giving up its page speed measurements. In fact, page speed is one of the key factors in SEO.

The reason is, though the Internet Is Faster, however, Websites aren’t. And, Today’s websites aren’t that much faster than they were 10 years ago as we may think. This is what the continuous surveys from Httparchive.org show. Here is a blog from Nielsen Norman group’s article, that explains it.

As a web designer, your SEO team members are counting on you to build a site that not only looks great but also meets all of Google’s Web Vitals requirements.

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Want to learn more about Web Vitals and why it’s so important? We’ve gathered together the facts on Google’s new Web Vitals, how it can affect your design, and what to do about it.

Keep reading for more tips on Google Web Vitals for your site. Your SEO team will thank you!

What is Google Web Vitals?

Google’s Chromium Blog has recently introduced Web Vitals. This is a new program that is meant to provide tips on meeting essential metrics for a healthy site.

Google is constantly figuring out new ways to improve the user experience online via desktop and mobile devices. This is why they have created Web Vitals which is an initiative to share how to build a website that will deliver the best user experience possible. 

It’s important to note that Google may use Web Vitals standards as a further SEO ranking metric. That means your website could be penalized if it doesn’t meet all of Google’s Web Vitals expectations.

Good News! You Can Help

How do you make sure your website will meet the Web Vitals’ qualifications? Let’s start with the basic metrics that Google has created.

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)

According to Google, this metric determines the load speed of the largest content element on your page. For example, a large image or video that takes additional time to load.

This also includes an element with a background image loaded via the “url(.).” function as opposed to a CSS gradient.

Google ranks a load speed of 2.5 seconds or faster as “Good” and 4.0 seconds or slower as poor. 

FID (First Input Delay)

The FID metric determines the responsiveness of your website. This determines the experience of the website for users interacting with each page. Simply put, how long does it take a page on your site to load after a user clicks on it?

Pages with a 100ms FID or faster are ranked as “Good” whereas anything higher than 300ms will be rated “Poor.” 

Google has determined using data that tracks user experience, that a “Poor” ranking for FID means your site is not reacting quickly enough to a user’s clicks.

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)

When you load pages in a website and the layout shifts around, it can make it difficult to use and lead to negative user experience.

The CLS metric measures your site’s visual stability then ranks it from 0.0-0.1 for “Good” and 0.25 or more as “Poor.” A zero score means no shifting is taking place and 1 represents Google’s standards of too much shifting.

If any of the above metrics lie somewhere in-between, they are considered “Needs Improvement.”

How Can You Rate Your Site?

As a graphic designer, the layout you use, imagery, graphics, and navigation, all have an effect on its Web Vitals. You may be wondering how your current website’s design ranks on Google’s scale.

It’s easy to track your website’s Web Vitals by using tools such as Google’s Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, ChromeDevTools, Chrome UX Report and the Web Vitals Extension.

Utilize the Tools

The Core Web Vitals report allows you to see how your pages are performing and fix poor user experiences. This report uses the Chrome User Experience Report metrics which uses real user experience metrics across the public web. 

You are able to view the results of the Chrome UX Report via the PageSpeed Insights and Public Google Big Query project.

The Web Vitals extension will give you a quick and easy way to see how your site ranks for the three key metrics (LCP, FID, and CLS) described above. Simply download the extension onto Google Chrome and you can view live results.

Data Doesn’t Lie

Even if you feel that your website will meet these standards, it’s important that you check to be sure. Google provides these multiple ways to easily figure out exactly how your pages rank.

Google is the leading search engine online. The majority of your website’s leads are most likely finding your company through Google. Meeting Google’s standards is the only way to continue to show up high on search results.

How Can You Improve Your Site?

Once you figure out what pages are being ranked poorly, you may be wondering where to start? Google recommends starting with the lowest-ranked pages and begins by fixing these pages first.

There are many ways to improve your site’s performance including using AMP. This tool is recommended by Google to increase the speed and performance of your site. It will prevent things like ads from blocking the execution of the main page.

For some issues, you may need to work with your web developer along with your SEO team in order to fix it. A good general practice is to reduce your page sizes. Less than 500KB is recommended for a page and all its resources.

You can use the PageSpeed Insights tool to get suggestions for how to make slow pages faster. Google has listed the Tools to measure Core Web Vitals, such as Lighthouse, PageSpeed Insights, Chrome DevTools, Search Console, web.dev’s measure tool, the Web Vitals Chrome extension, and  Chrome UX Report API for developers.

Sometimes fixing one page will also improve other pages on your website. It may seem like a big project to tackle but the speed of your site will directly affect your user’s experience. So it’s a necessary part of the web design process.

As you make changes to your pages, use the validation tool in Core Web Vitals to be sure that the error has been completely fixed. 

Ready, Set, Google!

Your work as a web designer is extremely important to upholding Google Web Vitals’ standards. As your website continues to grow, it’s important to be aware of its performance and user experience.

Your SEO team can’t build a stellar site without your help. That’s why understanding Google Web Vitals is imperative to the success of your site. We know the technical side of Google can get complex so we hope this guide will help you to get started!

Need help improving your website design or responsiveness? Check out our services to hire professionals!

Update: In a more recent blog, Google announced that it is bringing page experience to Google search too. According to Google, the page experience signals in ranking will roll out in May 2021. The new page experience signals combine Core Web Vitals with our existing search signals including mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. We at Macronimous have covered mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, and HTTPS-security in the past. We will cover intrusive interstitial guidelines soon in this blog.

The post What Should Web Designers Learn About the New Google Web Vitals? first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

Mobile-first websites

According to UXPin, Mobile-first design strategy is designing for the smallest screen first and working your way up to bigger screens. Google announced its indexing strategy The various ways in which people have been accessing the internet have changed drastically over the years. Statistics suggest that around 68 million around the world come from mobile devices every hour.  

In an update, Google announced majority of the sites are ready to go for mobile-first indexing. Google says, 70% of the sites shown in Google’s search results have already shifted over.

What is a mobile-first website? 

Mobile-first is a strategy which goes in favour of the staggering statistics which suggest that people prefer accessing sites through mobile browsers. According to this, they design a website for the smallest mobile device possible first. 

The developers then scale upwards to adapt the website to relatively larger dimensions like a desktop. 

Why mobile-first strategy is important for SEO?

Google mobile-first indexing means that its algorithms will look for the mobile version of the website for indexing and ranking. This will help their primary user group – mobile users. 

What may interest you is that a mobile-first design is basically a content-first approach. A mobile screen crams you up for space. Attracting audience attention within these parameters is a challenge. Hence you need to focus on content a lot 

How to achieve Mobile-first design? 

First, you have to create a content inventory – a basic excel sheet map of all the things you would want on your final layout. 

Second, you got to figure out compatibility. A uniform and seamless experience needs to be provided from each element on the page (for both desktop and mobile version)

Also, check Google’s best practices for Mobile-first websites. OR- Feel free to contact our experts for a free mobile-first design consulting.

Then, go with the smallest possible dimension you can work with. Orient your layout to those specifications and upscale thereon. 

Carry out steps like validating robots.txt, checking the server log files, and keeping track of the indexation status. Also, avoid the use of mobile interstitials and too much animation in the site. 

Write to us if you like to get free consulting on Mobile-first design or make your site mobile-first.

The post How to achieve Mobile-first design first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

If you are interested in ringing in the New Year with better web design and app development, you need to be sure that progressive web apps are central to your strategy.

This is the new web of your app development, as referenced by the fact that companies that embrace these techniques have enjoyed load times decreased by 12 percent and conversion rates greater than 80 percent.

Knowing that this form of web development works and is on the rise, you need to have some quality tips in your back pocket.

To this end, read on to learn more about these progressive web apps and why they will be incredibly useful to you.

Progressive Web Apps Enhance The User Experience

User experience is everything when it comes to progressive web apps.

Customers need mobile apps that are intuitive and easy to use, which is where progressive apps shine. These apps are crafted using data and studies that maximize the user experience, letting people navigate more efficiently.

The foundational principles of these apps revolve around more uptime, instantaneous loading, engaging interphase, and reliability.

This form of web development will reach new levels in 2018 because web users demand more speed than ever. In fact, people will leave your site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, according to studies.

In the real world, 3 seconds is no time at all. By boosting this experience, you’re also boosting your brand and reputation.

When you focus on progressive apps, you’ll start to see your subscriber base soar, which is great for business.

Software Upgrades Are Happening Faster And Faster

In 2018, you can develop expect to see more progressive apps, because upgrades are becoming necessary much faster.

People expect software modifications quicker than ever in order to get rid of the kinks and bugs.

Streamlining your app updates will allow you to improve the overall user experience. This alone makes the technique worth it.

You Will Get Better ROI On Your SEO

Never underestimate the fact that this web development is crucial for search engine optimization.

You’ll be able to get better ROI for your search engine optimization when you create progressive web apps that matter.

Make sure that you are measuring your ROI based on important factors, such as an increase in traffic, user engagement and user conversion. Hire a web designer that understands SEO principles so that you’re able to get the absolute most out of each piece of marketing that you provide.

Touch Base With Us For Your Web Design Needs

Without questions, these points exemplify why progressive apps will be a huge trend in 2018 and in the future. It’s about that time to shut it down for the holidays, so make sure to hold these thoughts in the back of your head going into the New Year.

If you need some help in this regard, our renowned web design company is happy to help you out.

Macrominous has been around for more than 15 years and has a stellar reputation around the web.

Contact us if you have questions.

The post Is 2018 Going to Be the Year of Progressive Web Apps? first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

4 CSS Preprocessors for Your Web Development

A big advantage of a CSS pre-processor is the value you can add to your client during the web development project. :

1. Sass

As a mature, highly stable, dynamic, and powerful CSS extension, Sass plays a significant role in web development projects. You can work with all the CSS libraries as Sass is compatible with every CSS version.

2. Less

Apart from its powerful interface, Less comes with a stunning feature. The preprocessor is compatible as well as backward-compatible with CSS. Quite naturally, web developers won’t find it difficult to learn ‘Less’ and can always fall back on Vanilla CSS for reference. The fact that differentiates ‘Less’ from the rest of the preprocessors is the presence of unique features. Since it makes CSS more extendable, themeable, and maintainable by integrating features that allow functions, mixins, and variables, ‘Less’ is one of the most popular CSS extensions used by numerous web developers. Installing ‘Less’ is a cakewalk and you can do it quite easily.

3. Stylus

The preprocessor supports both – regular CSS development style along with indented syntax, and that is what makes it special! You just need Node.Js to install Stylus. Yes, it’s that easy! It is clean, minimal syntax makes coding a breeze. Its own coding framework, Nib provides developers access for crossing browser support mixins for Stylus.

4. Crush

Inspired by standards and equipped with a range of powerful features, Crush is a unique aid for web development. The preprocessor comes with auto-prefixing features which help you make the most of the CSS platform. From properties, functions, rules, and vendor prefixes, every component undergoes an auto-generation process. That ensures three crucial benefits for web developers. Firstly, they can achieve clean coding. Secondly, they can achieve cross-browser support, and thirdly, code maintenance becomes easier than ever! So, it’s high time to have a crush on ‘Crush’!

These preprocessors will prepare the ground for a successful web development project for you.

The post 4 CSS Preprocessors for Your Web Development first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

Accelerated Mobile pages

It hasn’t been unknown that Google is leaning heavily towards providing a better mobile experience for quite some time now. Case in point – In April 2015′ algorithm update that considers mobile friendliness as one of the ranking signals. Another update rolled out in October 2015 saw Google come up with Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP. This open source project has the support of Google, WordPress, Twitter, and LinkedIn, among 30 other publishers and developers.

What is it mean for you?

At the heart of the initiative is to help the mobile user get a better reading and browsing experience, with pages that are fast to load and thus achieve optimized mobile web performance. The AMP HTML is a more mobile efficient version of HTML. This development framework is geared to let developers create web pages that are light and fast. There are 3 main parts worth considering

1. AMP HTML – The technical standards have been altered to exclude certain tags and limits some functionality. For instance, programming interstitials (ads that come up during page download) will be a thing of the past.
2. AMP JavaScript – AMP doesn’t allow third party JavaScript
3. AMT CDN – This optional element will implement caching and bring in further performance improvement

Tips for AMPing your website

1. Keep two versions of the web page – a standard page and an AMP version of the same page
2. Be ready to rewrite certain portions of the code to conform to AMP norms – for instance, only < 50kb CSS is permitted in AMP
3. Image handling is the one substantial change you need to look out for. Check out the new amp-img element that needs to be used.
4. Video handling too needs special treatment with help of amp-video and amp-youtube
5. If your website or blog is built on WordPress, things could be pretty easy, as you can install WordPress AMP Plugin. This will create an AMP version of your website, that could be accessible by another URL with a /amp/ in the rear. (Eg. https://www.macronimous.com/blog/be-mean-and-lean-in-web-app-development-build-apps-with-mean-stack/)

What is the latest on AMP?

As of Feb 2016, Google has already added AMP listings to its mobile search results. Google has put up a demo here of how fast the mobile search and reading experience will be. For developers and SEO experts, this news means that they need to start incorporating AMP into the website development, so that mobile rankings do not drop for their clients.

Though Google’s John Mueller says that at the moment AMP is not considered as an SEO signal. However, we can expect Google to announce this, if not now, but later.

Related articles across the web

• What Are Accelerated Mobile Pages and Should Your Website Implement AMP?
• Google Adds AMP Data To Search Analytics
• AMP Remove unused CSS (New)

The post ‘AMP’lify your mobile website with Accelerated Mobile Pages – AMP first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

“Now is the time to prioritize responsive design in your budget” – Forbes.com
“With a 55% increase in smartphone subscriptions in 2012 alone, responsive web design is the future of online marketing….” – Moz.com
“We shouldn’t be designing for mobile (specifically). Those experiences should work on all devices…”  Larry Page, Co-Founder, Google.

When I wrote a blog on RWD during November 2012, I mentioned that it would be a long term solution in which companies need to invest on it. When Ethan Marcotte of A List Apart coined the work Responsive Web Design (RWD), he also mentioned that the Mobile browsing was expected to outpace desktop-based access within three to five years based on the study from Morgan Stanley and Mediapost. Ever since its inception in 2010, Responsive Web Design has turned out to be an epiphany of sorts. It has heralded the new mobile-first era that is the dominant trend currently.

The RWD philosophy and practices are increasingly being embraced by businesses who want to target the growing mobile and tablet segment. Here we look at some perspectives from design/development experts and their take on what Responsive Web Design holds for the future of web design.

Brandon Downing at Adage Technologies believes that RWD works wonders when applied correctly. It renders uniform code base that works well across any user or any medium of consumption. Also future changes, updates or revisions become cost efficient. Designers need to worry about just one program/set of code rather than a bunch of codes separately developed for different devices. As for the question of when to go responsive or when to go mobile-only, he advocates progressing as per client needs. If the client requires short-term and cheaper solution, then a mobile-optimized website is a good fit. Responsive design is more for a long term yet more expensive proposition and hence needs careful consideration to ensure that the efforts align to the business need.

 Luke Wroblewski, a digital product leader, believes that designers and end clients need to know when responsive design would serve their needs and when separate sites for separate devices would be a feasible option. He puts forward a few guidelines towards this decision-making process.

Responsive web design is a slightly challenging process that optimizes all content and third-party links across a multitude of device and screen sizes. It provides long-term benefits – one that adheres to the current pack of devices as well as future ones. Go for this approach if –

1. There is minimal access to server-side solutions
2. Layout adjustments need to be carried out across different screen sizes
3. Complete optimization to a particular device is not needed

Device-driven experience comes in when separate interfaces are designed for a separate class of devices. They usually require a distinct front-end design and device detection. Use this approach if

1. Enhanced server-side device detection is needed
2. Separate user experience is needed from different class of devices
3. Complete and maximum optimization to a particular device is essential

Brad Frost and Tim Kadlec of CreativeBloq have an interesting take on keeping RWD as the de-facto design option by web designers.  Brad Frost propagates going responsive by default. However, designers need to ensure that clients clearly understand the difference between responsive and mobile optimized design. This way they can have a factual understanding and help make a better decision about which approach to looking  for. Looking at the current context, a vast majority of sites would perform well with the responsive design and a minuscule number of businesses will need a separate mobile optimized website.

On the other hand, Tim Kadlec feels that growing device diversity is the chief reason to go responsive in today’s times. He believes that server-side scripting too can be handled with responsive elements within a website, albeit with careful planning.

Jay Schwartz of IdeaWorks Studios Inc. supports using responsive design in websites. It works well with grid-based templates. He also advises thinking out of the box with designs that look amazing both on the desktop and on mobile. This is a key challenge that his company looks to address with clients. He advises injecting mobile-centric experience within RWD with options such as –

1. Call-to-actions designed specifically for mobile
2. Do away with load inducing images
3. Hide non-critical text elements.
4. Eliminate long form filling through mobile

Guardian UK – A Real-life Scenario Now that we have had a look at the views different experts hold about Responsive Web Design, let’s examine a real life scenario where a business moved from desktop website to responsive website. Amidst declining sales of print newspapers, the Guardian UK decided to go responsive. Matt Andrews the web developer at Guardian takes us through the steps and the results Guardian achieved with this transition.  

The problem statement the UK news websites received a steady increase in web traffic since May 2011. This meant that most of the readers were moving from print medium to digital medium. While they initially launched a mobile version of the traditional website, this led to problems and prompted Matt and his team to go explore the path of responsive. Some of the problems that led to this shift was –

1. Challenges stemming from dependency on external support for periodic updates
2. Maintenance work on numerous templates and elements became a hassle
3. With around 25% of the Guardian’s subscribers now using mobile for content consumption the reality was too evident to ignore – go responsive or lose customer base

The solution construct

1. The mix of old browsers (25%) and modern browsers (75%) makes it necessary to go the responsive way without burdening the users to download polyfills or JS codes
2. The design team started off by determining what was absolutely essential on mobile while non-critical elements bootstrapped using AJAX
3. They also considered limited resources of mobile by enabled local storage in the form of base-64 encoded strings of web font for future use. They embedded navigation timing API for modern browsers to render pages and content as per the network speed of the user.
4. In a refreshing move, they focused on personalizing based on user preference rather than on device or hardware configuration
5. All external dependencies too were brought in line to their mobile strategy. They also enforced ‘one blocking call per page’ functionality so that the rest of the content / navigation remains undisturbed in case of problems with one image or gallery
6. Since the ability of the site depends on user preference and technology (both of which undergo constant change), the newspaper did not work towards releasing all updates at one go, as they feel that this is an evolving endeavor and will keep undergoing updates in the near future.
7. Also, before actual publishing, a comprehensive and meticulous beta testing was done to gauge server loads and user experience feedback. This means that the go-live day was smooth and free from glitches or nasty surprises.

The result Constant monitoring has reported a boost in a number of page views and visits to the responsive site that were launched in December 2012.  Since this period, it has regularly breached the 15+ million hits in terms of page views. Enough said. If you own one of those websites, which still needed responsiveness or mobile friendliness this is the right time for investing in making it screen friendly. Leave your feedback if you have your opinion on why or why not RWD. We at Macronimous, have started designing Responsive Web Design from our Indian office since late 2012, and delivered over 80 Responsive websites using Custom CSS frameworks, and popular frameworks like Bootstrap, Less, Zurb etc. If you are interested in our services, Or if you like to build your website responsive, contact us for a reasonable quote and continuous support. 

The post What experts say about Responsive Web Design and why? first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

Photoshop is a photo editing tool, But it has become the first choice for web designers and Mobile UI designers.  As a UI designer, you would have come across the three critical tasks that you face every day with Photoshop .

1. Creating layouts
2. Converting it into CSS and
3. Presenting it to the client for review.

Though there are inbuilt features that come with Photoshop to help the designer work quickly, creative designers always want to do the best and they look for new things within Photoshop. This is where plugins become very important to make their life easier, creative and time-saving. Here are the 10 hand-picked plugins that you would love to try and use.

Photoshop was  not originally created by Adobe but by the brothers, Thomas and John Knoll In 1987.

1.     CSS3PS  (Cost: Free)

CSS3PS is a free cloud-based Photoshop plugin that converts PSD layers to CSS3. It supports multiple layers selection, text layers, size, stroke, border radius, gradient overlay, inner glow, and many of the key elements that every Photoshop designer uses frequently.

It can easily convert the Photoshop elements into CSS box-shadow, CSS border, CSS width and height properties etc. Text Layers is supported with CSS font-family, ext-shadow etc.

Since the plugin is cloud based, every aspect of rendering is rapid and has a waiting time of just 5 seconds.

2.     Webzap (Cost: $19/$99) 

[Update 2018: WebZap is no longer available] 

WebZap provides additional tools and functionalities for web developers to build easy mockup and user Interface workflows that you can share with your clients quickly. You can create layouts in no time, text layouts with ‘lorem ipsem..’ text in text boxes are readily available for this. You can also build UI with colors, styles and custom shapes etc.

WebZap helps you to create styling the text for any web page demo in Photoshop quickly. When you are ready with the mockup screens, using WebZap you can create a professional presentation that helps to impress your clients.

You may like to check some git repositories for the older version of this plugin.

3.     Retinize (Cost: Free)

Retinize helps you to prepare your site designs for iOS or other OS optimized for Retina display websites – one for slicing selected layer/group only, and the second action is for slicing the selected layer/group

 4.       Photoshop wireframe kit (Cost: Free)

  This is a simple wireframe kit developed by Rafal Tomal of Copyblogger Media. Using this, you can easily build web design mockups with all the design elements within Photoshop. You can set pixel dimension and layers, with a bit of learning. You can also download the PSD, drag and drop the elements that you require in your mockup PSDs easily.

This is a great piece of tool that Photoshop users would enjoy working with. The tool also saves time by showing mockups to customers before building the actual design which could easily help you avoid misalignment with customer expectations.

5.     GuideGuide  (Cost: Free)

GuideGuide Photoshop extension helps you to build pixel accurate columns, rows, midpoints, and baselines within your design.

6.     Cut & Slice me   (Cost: Free)

Cut & Slice me for CS6 helps you to export your assets to different devices in seconds. You can export it in png format by trimming the pixels that you do not require or fixing the size. The developer of this plugin, Danile, offers it for free.

7.     WebFont plugin  (Cost: Free)

Trying to access web fonts and manage them? Then this plugin is an easy way to use several WebINK and Google web fonts in Photoshop which you might require from time to time. It works in CS5 to CC. The plugin is free, but there is a catch. You would need to buy their Suitcase Fusion 5 in order to use the plugin effectively.

You can try the 30-day trial and if you find it good, you can get this font management tool for $100, from Extensis, the company that also developed WebFont plugin.

Update 2018: Please note, this plugin has been moved as a font management service by its creators Extensis, and no longer available as a plugin.

8.     Breezy  (Cost: Free)

Multilayer export feature is a delight to designers. This free extension empowers Photoshop with the same and as a result, you can easily export multiple graphic elements from any Photoshop file. You should try this too.

9.      Blendme (Cost – Free)

This plugin is a time saver. Without leaving your Photoshop or Illustrator you can quickly search any graphics assets, icon packs etc and include them within your design by simply dragging and dropping.

 10. Ink – (Cost – Free)

Do not leave your client or team member to blink when they look at your designs. This plugin Ink helps you to leave necessary detail about the mockups you design by adding notes about the layers you created, typography, effects, and shapes etc. Make others feel comfortable handling the mockups you make with Ink.

Related articles across the web

• The Making of a Responsive CSS Framework
• Download Creative Photoshop Tools – Awesome Design Bundle
• CI and Landing Page for international conference
• Adobe MAX 2016: Featured Speakers for Photography & Creative Imaging

The post 10 Photoshop plugins to make your UI design life easy (remove links 7 & 8) first appeared on Macronimous Blog.

In this Presentation, Chris Coyier is trying to arrive at a decent answer. We would like it to be shared on our blog too.
You can see Chris shared some useful links at the end, unfortunately, they aren’t clickable. But Don’t worry, we have given them below as links that you can enjoy.

CSS, HTML, and Web programming resources: 

CSS-Tricks
http://www.css-tricks.com

CSS Wizardry
http://www.csswizardry.com

Smashing Magazine
http://www.smashingmagazine.com

BRICSS
http://www.bricss.net

Cognition
http://cognition.happycog.com

24 Ways
http://www.24ways.org

NetTuts+
http://net.tutsplus.com

Codrops
http://www.tympanus.com/codrops

Web Platform
http://blog.webplatform.org

Individual who share their thoughts and learning:  

Paul Irish
http://www.paulirish.com

Zoe Gillenwater
http://www.zomigi.com

Jeremy Keith
http://www.adactio.com

Estelle Weyl
http://estelle.github.com

Nicolas Zakas
http://www.nczonline.net

Ryan Seddon
http://www.thecssninja.com

Nicole Sullivan
http://www.stubbornella.org/

Dave Rupert
http://www.daverupert.com

Tab Atkins
http://www.xanthir.com

Christian Heilman
http://www.christianheilmann.com

ShopTalk
http://www.shoptalkshow.com

Rails Casts
http://www.railscasts.com

The Web Ahead
https://thewebahead.net/topic/css

Non-Breaking Space
http://www.nonbreakingspace.tv

This Developer’s Life
http://www.thisdeveloperslife.com

The East Wing
http://www.theeastwing.net

Build Podcast
http://www.build-podcast.com

BizCraft
http://www.unmatchedstyle.com/bizcraft

Tech Twitters: 

Elijah Manor
@elijahmanor

Lea Verou
@leaverou

Mike Taylor
@miketaylr

Divya Manian
@divya

Ethan Marcotte
@rwd

Ben Alman
@cowboy

David Walsh
@davidwalshblog

Scott Jehl
@scottjehl

Jeff Starr
@perishable

Mat Marquis
@wilto

Simon
@simurai

Hakim El Hattab
@hakimel

What  we recommend:

Cat The code

@catswhocode 

Not but not least:

@macronimous

Weekly doses: 

Web Design Weekly
http://www.web-design-weekly.com

CSS Weekly
http://www.css-weekly.com

JavaScript Weekly
http://www.javascriptweekly.com

HTML5 Weekly
http://www.html5weekly.com

RWD Weekly
http://www.responsivedesignweekly.com

The post How to keep up with Web technology? Overcoming the challenges with learning first appeared on Macronimous Blog.