Content Marketing Strategy - #infographic

Content marketing is an umbrella term covering a set of strategies, techniques and tactics to fulfill business and customer goals by using content across the customer life cycle and the business functions in a consistent, integrated and continuous way. Content marketing is not about advertising...

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by Web Desk via Digital Information World

100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

In November, we’re taking a close look at how psychology and neuroscience help us design for people.

Getting close to our users is essential in our line of work. The experience they have with a designed product or service is profoundly impacted by what we know—or don’t know—about them.

Research is an important piece of the puzzle. But so is understanding underlying behaviours, so we can analyse our findings and suggest solutions in light of how people think.

You might have guessed from the title that we’ve taken inspiration from Susan Weinschenk’s excellent book 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People. This is an incredibly useful resource that we recommend every UX designer have in their library.

Read reviews and find out more about 100 Things »

How psychology and neuroscience fill the gaps

We’re all told that researching with our users is paramount to being a good UX designer. We conduct the research, and even manage to undertake some analysis and find patterns.

But then we hit a wall.  

There’s a big gap between knowing an issue or a set of unwanted behaviours and being able to design your way out of it. This is where understanding how to apply design principles based on psychology and neuroscience help suggest a starting point for a workable solution.

How can you get involved?

Framed around Susan’s book, this month we’ll explore questions like:

• How does the human brain work?
• How might we use these insights to create better designs?
• What examples do we have of this being used well, or perhaps abused?

How do you use psychology and neuroscience principles in your work? We want to know, and there are many ways you can the conversation:

• Tweet us! We’ll share our favourite quotes and tips using #100things
• Follow us on Instagram for quotes, design tips and more
• Join the conversation in the UX Mastery forums
• Read along with us in bookclub
• Chat with us in our Ask the UXperts Slack channel. We have an exciting guest lined up – stay tuned for details!

The post 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People appeared first on UX Mastery.

by Natassja Hoogstad Hay via UX Mastery

How to Install Your New Font in a Few Easy Steps - #infographic

There are many different types of fonts that can be used. The most common font types are TrueType (.ttf) and OpenType (.otf). Both the TrueType font format and OpenType font format can be used on both Macintosh and Windows. Their primary benefit is that it offers a high level of control for the...

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by Web Desk via Digital Information World

File Upload with Preview

A simple file-upload utility that shows a preview of the uploaded image. Written in pure JavaScript. No dependencies. Works well with Bootstrap 4 or without a framework.

by via jQuery-Plugins.net RSS Feed

Buying on a budget? Here’s all the best tech accessories you can snag for $20 or less

A good accessory should complement or enhance the functionality of the main product. Whether it's a printer working with a computer, or an Apple Pencil with an iPad Pro, the two should work in lockstep to give you a better experience. But accessories get expensive, some can run well into the...

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by Web Desk via Digital Information World

Your First PHP Code

The following is a short extract from our new book, PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja, 6th Edition, written by Tom Butler and Kevin Yank. It's the ultimate beginner's guide to PHP. SitePoint Premium members get access with their membership, or you can buy a copy in stores worldwide.

Now that you have your virtual server up and running, it’s time to write your first PHP script. PHP is a server-side language. This concept may be a little difficult to grasp, especially if you’ve only ever designed websites using client-side languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

A server-side language is similar to JavaScript in that it allows you to embed little programs (scripts) into the HTML code of a web page. When executed, these programs give you greater control over what appears in the browser window than HTML alone can provide. The key difference between JavaScript and PHP is the stage of loading the web page at which these embedded programs are executed.

Client-side languages like JavaScript are read and executed by the web browser after downloading the web page (embedded programs and all) from the web server. In contrast, server-side languages like PHP are run by the web server, before sending the web page to the browser. Whereas client-side languages give you control over how a page behaves once it’s displayed by the browser, server-side languages let you generate customized pages on the fly before they’re even sent to the browser.

Once the web server has executed the PHP code embedded in a web page, the result takes the place of the PHP code in the page. All the browser sees is standard HTML code when it receives the page, hence the name “server-side language.” Let’s look at simple example of some PHP that generates a random number between 1 and 10 and then displays it on the screen:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8">
        <title>Random Number</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <p>Generating a random number between 1 and 10:
            <?php

            echo rand(1, 10);

            ?>
        </p>
    </body>
</html>
                  

Most of this is plain HTML. Only the line between <?php and ?> is PHP code. <?php marks the start of an embedded PHP script and ?> marks its end. The web server is asked to interpret everything between these two delimiters and convert it to regular HTML code before it sends the web page to the requesting browser. If you right-click inside your browser and choose View Source (the text may be different depending on the browser you’re using) you can see that the browser is presented with the following:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8">
        <title>Random Number</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <p>Generating a random number between 1 and 10:
            5
        </p>
    </body>
</html>
            

Notice that all signs of the PHP code have disappeared. In its place the output of the script has appeared, and it looks just like standard HTML. This example demonstrates several advantages of server-side scripting …

• No browser compatibility issues. PHP scripts are interpreted by the web server alone, so there’s no need to worry about whether the language features you’re using are supported by the visitor’s browser.
• Access to server-side resources. In the example above, we placed a random number generated by the web server into the web page. If we had inserted the number using JavaScript, the number would be generated in the browser and someone could potentially amend the code to insert a specific number. Granted, there are more impressive examples of the exploitation of server-side resources, such as inserting content pulled out of a MySQL database.
• Reduced load on the client. JavaScript can delay the display of a web page significantly (especially on mobile devices!) as the browser must run the script before it can display the web page. With server-side code, this burden is passed to the web server, which you can make as beefy as your application requires (and your wallet can afford).
• Choice. When writing code that’s run in the browser, the browser has to understand how to run the code given to it. All modern browsers understand HTML, CSS and JavaScript. To write some code that’s run in the browser, you must use one of these languages. By running code on the server that generates HTML, you have a choice of many languages—one of which is PHP.

Basic Syntax and Statements

PHP syntax will be very familiar to anyone with an understanding of JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Objective-C, Java, Perl, or any other C-derived language. But if these languages are unfamiliar to you, or if you’re new to programming in general, there’s no need to worry about it.

Continue reading %Your First PHP Code%

by Tom Butler via SitePoint

Designing Form Layout: Color

The following is a short extract from our book, Designing UX: Forms, written by Jessica Enders. It's the ultimate guide to form design, a key part of effective UX design. SitePoint Premium members get access with their membership, or you can buy a copy in stores worldwide.

Currently, our form doesn’t have much color at all:

At this stage, the only color on the form is the logo and the red asterisks indicating questions that require an answer.

In terms of this part of the design, we’re on the right track. I’ll explain why.

Often, using color in an attempt to make a form “fun” or “interesting” can actually make the user experience worse:

This very colorful form is more scary and confusing than fun.

Some colors can even hurt people:

The fluorescent colors in this form may be hard for some people to look at.

Be Very Careful with Color

Human beings are incredibly sensitive to color. Our brains process it without us even realizing, and we can’t help noticing differences.

In our forms, we can use this feature of human biology to our advantage. Reserve color for things that need it, so they stand out in some way.

Here are some parts of a form that may benefit from color:

Buttons:

Key messages, like errors:

Links:

Progress indicators:

Headings:

Form backgrounds:

Branding, like logos and standard headers, may also use color:

You may have noticed that I didn’t include the red asterisk of required field indicators (*) in the list of things that may use color. This is because I don’t recommend the use of red asterisks to indicate required fields. See “Required Versus Optional Fields” below for more information.

Notice also how each of the examples above uses very little color overall. The more color you use, the less it succeeds in making things stand out:

This form uses color on almost every element, meaning none of them stand out.

What Colors Should You Use?

Usually, your organization will have a palette of colors that you can refer to. Like my form design business, Enders Bank has a teal green as its main color, as you can see in the logo in the image below. Let’s use that color to make the primary action button on our form distinctive:

Our form now has all the color it needs.

Color Blindness

Estimates vary, but it’s likely that 4–10% of your web form’s users will have some deficiency in their ability to perceive color (typically—but inaccurately—called color blindness). The most common form of color blindness is red–green, where distinguishing between these two colors is difficult.

Continue reading %Designing Form Layout: Color%

by Jessica Enders via SitePoint

10 Inspirational Quotes From Billionaire Entrepreneur Bill Gates [Video]

Here 10 Inspiring Bill Gates Quotes for you, so you could get motivation from one of the Best Tech Billionaire's Success story.

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by Irfan Ahmad via Digital Information World

Stateful vs. Stateless Functional Components in React

50 Superb Inspirational Quotes From Literature - #infographic

It takes real talent to combine eloquence and sagacity, not to mention courage to dish it out to all who will listen. So then, who better to take advice from than famous authors? Whip-smart, erudite and well-mannered visionaries, some of these souls spent a lifetime picking apart human characters,...

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by Web Desk via Digital Information World

FedEx SoundTrack

Turn your tracking number into a visualized soundtrack to witness the incredible infrastructure behind your delivery through a custom piece of music based on your shipping details.
by via Awwwards - Sites of the day

TypeScript for Beginners, Part 5: Generics

How to Use Autoplay Video in Your Pinterest Ads

Do you advertise on Pinterest? Wondering how to add video to your promoted pins? Autoplay video pins aren’t yet commonly used so adding them to your Pinterest marketing now will help you stand out in a sea of still images. In this article, you’ll discover how to create promoted video pins that autoplay on Pinterest. [...]

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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

by Ana Gotter via

19 Science-Backed Hacks to Improve Productivity - #Infographic

We all reach that point in the day where we start to get tired, distracted, and mentally drained. Often, we try to power through it because there is so much to do. But the key to ultimate productivity isn’t working longer hours, it’s working smarter. There are many factors that impact your...

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by Web Desk via Digital Information World

Marvin Kutscha

Spacious One Page portfolio redesign for designer and Art Director, Marvin Kutscha. Great reference to keeping impressum/legal text within a One Pager and delivering it elegantly in an off-canvas content area. (I’ve reduced the portfolio items in the long-scrolling screenshot for load time purposes)

Full Review | Direct Link

by Rob Hope @robhope via One Page Love