Cantor Fine Art

We reinvented online art sales, by giving the artist a podium, and the art a context and a story.
by via Awwwards - Sites of the day

Push.js : Cross-browser JavaScript Push Notifications

Push is the fastest way to get up and running with Javascript desktop notifications. A fairly new addition to the official specification, the Notification API allows modern browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and IE 9+ to push notifications to a user’s desktop. Push acts as a cross-browser solution to this API, falling back to use older implementations if the user’s browser does not support the new API.

The post Push.js : Cross-browser JavaScript Push Notifications appeared first on jQuery Rain.

by Admin via jQuery Rain

Switchable : jQuery iPhone Style Switch Buttons

Switchable  is a replaces checkbox by beautiful iphone style switch buttons.

The post Switchable : jQuery iPhone Style Switch Buttons appeared first on jQuery Rain.

by Admin via jQuery Rain

Winning the battle between design and analytics

Remember when web design was just about the design? We used whatever rudimentary tools we had to create a mostly informational, brochureware site, and just hoped people would find it. We had no analytics — no way of knowing if people were visiting, how long they were sticking around, and we certainly couldn’t track conversions. We just focused on making it pretty.

Thankfully, times have changed, and we now have a valuable window to see insights. By integrating Google Analytics into our websites, we can keep track of all kinds of information about our users’ behaviour. This information helps guide our decisions to make sure our websites and landing pages are operating at optimum levels.

But what happens when a design-level decision thwarts those efforts?

In this article, I’ll take a close look at four of the most common website design decisions that can send your analytics into a tailspin. More importantly, I’ll give you my tips on how to correct them before the damage is done.

Email capture

One of the most valuable conversions on a non-ecommerce site is collecting visitors’ email addresses. These are essentially “hot leads” we (or our clients) can market to later. It may seem like a no-brainer-time-saver to connect your website to your email provider account so that new subscribers go into your list automatically. But this can come at a cost.

Effective email capture from quicksprout.com

The problem

If you direct visitors away from your site after an email signup, you can’t use a destination goal within Google Analytics. To track email signups, normally you’d specify a goal URL, but when users leave your site, you can’t track that conversion. As far as Google knows, your visitor just bounced.

In addition to the Analytics issue, sending subscribers to a third party page is a lost opportunity from a marketing perspective. If subscribers leave your website, you lose an opportunity to make other offers and keep them in your sales funnel.

The workaround

A better option is to keep the whole email capture process within your own website environment. Some email programs are fully customisable and can be configured to add users to your list without taking them away from your website. If your email service can’t do this, it’s still worth the effort to manually import new subscribers to your list, so you keep visitors on your site and track conversions.

The form submission

Another common conversion goal is a successful form submission. I consider this the main goal of my own site, in fact. The whole purpose of my site is to entice prospective web design clients to get in touch with me to schedule a free consultation. It’s a very valuable conversion, and one that I definitely want to keep track of.

The problem

Think about what happens when you fill out a web form and click that little “submit” button. You wait for some kind of feedback that tells you it was received. Usually this takes the form of a “thank you” message. Some websites decide that it’s good enough to simply replace the form with a thank you pop-up. But this can impact your goal tracking.

The workaround

Instead, best practice is to route your visitors to a dedicated “thank you” page. Then you can use that URL as a destination goal within Analytics. It’s a very simple way to track how many people actually fill out your form, letting you know how well your current strategy is converting.

Another advantage to a dedicated page is that you can use it as more than just a simple thank you. You can populate that page with additional content and navigational cues to keep visitors engaged, and on your site.

In the example below, you can see the website owner uses this opportunity to lead visitors further into his funnel, with a new call-to-action.

Image source: jamesgrandstaff.com

The one-pager

There is a huge trend happening right now with one-page, long-scrolling websites. Typically, clicking navigation items results in an auto scroll down to that particular section, rather than opening a new page.

As a less extreme example, your site could have multiple pages, but several sections on each page. In either case, multiple elements coexist together. Maybe some content is hidden in tabs, maybe in modal windows that pop-up when triggered.

A lot of designers gravitate toward this type of site based on pure aesthetics. I get it, they look gorgeous, but is that a good enough reason?

The problem

Analytics works using Javascript, which means it’s triggered only once on a page, as the page loads. So if your page combines more than one section or topic, it won’t pick up any insights about which part of that page your visitors were interested in.

This is a problem if you are trying to refine your site’s content based on user preferences and behaviour.

For example, let’s say you offer five different services, and they are all listed on the same page. You can make it look as pretty as you like, but since they are all on the same page, Analytics can’t tell you which service people were interested in when they landed on that page.

This makes it hard to tweak your offerings based on what’s most popular with your visitors.

The workaround

A better option is to break your content up further, and create separate pages for each section, service, or piece of individual content. They can all be linked from that master page, but this way, you can see within Analytics exactly which pages get the most views.

In the example below, you can see that each of this company’s service offerings has its own dedicated page, making it easy for them to tell what exactly is most popular with their audience.

Image source: panaceatek.com

This can come in handy when you’re making decisions about what to highlight, demote, or scrap altogether.

The blog

You may not realise it, but where you choose to place your blog can make a big impact on how you can track the performance of individual posts. There are three options, but only one I recommend.

The problem

Some companies host their blog on a separate website, for example, ABCcompany.com might host their blog on ABCcompanyBlog.com. This is a problem for several reasons:

• Analytics for the separate domain won’t show a clear picture of how they relate to the main site. Certain data, such as time on site, traffic sources, and bounce rates would appear worse for both sites, because Google Analytics would account for time spent on each site separately.
• Search engine rankings could also be affected, since domain authority, backlinks, and other ranking signals are now diluted between two different domains.

Locating a blog on a subdomain (blog.ABCcompany.com) also comes with its own problem: it’s hard to track the performance of individual posts. You can’t filter for all blog content since the “relative URL” doesn’t show what’s blog content and what isn’t. Using the Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages filter will only turn up results for the search term “blog” if that term comes after the .com.

The workaround

It’s best practice to host your blog within your main site (ABCcompany.com/blog.). Now, your performance-tracking problem goes away. If you’d like to see how individual posts are performing against each other, you can filter for them in the All Pages report by simply searching the term “blog”. Since each post automatically has the word “blog” after the .com, (ABCcompany.com/blog/PostTitle) they will all appear in one place, allowing you to compare posts against each other for popularity.

Image Source: megalytic.com

Analytics and design can still play nicely

While the design of a website is certainly important, there are times when even a visually pleasing design decision can have a negative impact on the backend. But with a bit of pre-planning, and having clear, measurable goals, you can sidestep these problems before it’s too late.

After all, having a beautiful site isn’t worth much if you can’t track its progress. It’s only by keeping tabs on what’s working, (and what isn’t) that you can start to make informed decisions that really matter for your clients. The rest is just window-dressing.

The post Winning the battle between design and analytics appeared first on UX Mastery.

by Wes McDowell via UX Mastery

How To Create A Successful YouTube Channel - Infographic

YouTube is no longer just a website to share and watch videos on, it's an industry full of fame, celebrities, careers and awards. It has made rich people out of the girls and guys next door. Who says you can't be one of them! Take a look at this infographic-guide, created by WeAreTop10, on how to turn your dreams into reality.

by Irfan Ahmad via Digital Information World

4 Steps to Boosting Conversions with Prioritized Navigation

A well-conceived navigation strategy can make or break any website. When done right, you lay out a path you want site visitors to take, leading to a sale, lead generation, or a successful form submission.

When done wrong, you are essentially allowing your visitors wander aimlessly. There's a chance they will find your target, but probably not. Why chance it?

Good UX should never treat conversions so casually - it should take users by the hand, and provide intuitive cues that they can pick up on. That way, they know where to find what they need, while giving into what you wanted all along - a conversion.

In this article, I'm going to walk you through a simple strategy you can use on just about any site to boost its conversion rate.

When used properly, you can deliver clients a website that will not only look great but will actually help them succeed at their business goals.

In other words, you'll be their hero.

Step 1: Adopt a Landing Page Strategy

Knowing what we know about online marketing in 2016, every website should be using landing pages as a part of its conversion strategy. If you are applying this to a redesign, this step doesn't require you to eliminate existing pages, but rather add to what you have.

The idea is that you build self-contained pages that have all of the necessary information required to properly convince a visitor to convert. The number of landing pages will vary, depending on the business and its goals. For simplicity's sake, let's use your own portfolio website as an example.

Let's say you offer both web design and logo design as services. In addition to your simple portfolio pages which show your work, you would want to build two new landing pages - one for each service. On each landing page, you might include portfolio highlights, some convincing sales copy, a bulleted list of benefits you can provide, customer testimonials, and a clear call-to-action (CTA.)

The reason for these landing pages is this: You don't want your visitors to have to click around from page to page. Give them everything they need in one place. This will result in a much more focused sales funnel, and you don't risk losing them along the way.

Step 2: Highlight Your "Money" Pages

In addition to your new landing pages, are there any pages that you think are necessary to the conversion process? Maybe an entire page of testimonials perhaps? Or a list of your other services?

If this is the case, then you have a few options:

Contextual Links

Placing links within the body copy of your landing pages can be a great way of leading site visitors through a pre-chosen path. Let's say you have a few case studies on your landing page. You might want to offer them a look at more of them through a contextual link underneath the case study examples.

Image Source: http://ift.tt/17x0CVl

Limited Header Navigation

Another way to go is to choose your top two or three pages and link to them through a pared-down header navigation bar. Following the same portfolio site example, you might want to include links to both of your landing pages within the header, allowing visitors to toggle back and forth between your different offerings.

Image Source: http://revlocal.com

Ideally, you would want to make this header bar "sticky," so that it stays in place as users scroll down the page.

Step 3: De-emphasize Everything Else

Have you ever heard of "decision fatigue?" It is basically the concept that says people given too many options are less likely to take any action at all. There was a famous study illustrating this concept with jam.

Researchers lined a small shelf at a grocery store with five varieties of jam. Passersby would stop to look at the selection and most who stopped selected one. Later that day, they added more options, until there were thirty jams to choose from. People would stop to look, feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices, then keep walking.

This isn't what we want on a website. When you give visitors too many navigational choices, they may not see a clear path, and bounce. Here's how to fix it:

All other pages should not be presented as primary options. They will be designated as secondary navigation.

It is up to you how you want to handle this secondary navigation. You can either place it in another, less important position on the page, (such as just above the footer,) or you may choose to store it in a hidden drawer menu, accessible by a menu button.

Yes, I know this is a hotly contested debate between UX-perts. Many of them hate the idea of hidden navigation for the extra barrier it creates. But remember: your landing pages and your primary navigation items should be enough to entice a conversion. The secondary pages are only there for those who choose to seek them out.

By eliminating the less important options, (or at least de-emphasizing them,) people will have a much clearer path in front of them, which is good user experience by any measure.

Step 4: Place Your CTA Button

A clear, strong CTA is the entire purpose of a website.

Following our same portfolio site example, suppose your end goal is to get your prospective clients to fill out a form in order to schedule a consultation with you. Once you have that part figured out, you'll want to put it in a place of honor, where it will most likely be seen.

In addition to strategically placing it within the body of your landing pages, I recommend placing it in the main header navigation as well.

But in order to make it stand out from your other two or three navigation options, you should style it as a button. This gives it a bit more visual punch, especially if it is a bright pop of color that stands out against the rest of the content on your site.

Img Source: http://ift.tt/1WVtYEr

Continue reading %4 Steps to Boosting Conversions with Prioritized Navigation%

by Wes McDowell via SitePoint

Jump Start Sass: Architecture in Sass

The following is a short extract from our recent book, Jump Start Sass, available for free to SitePoint Premium members. Print copies are sold in stores worldwide, or you can order them here. We hope you enjoy this extract and find it useful.

Architecture has always been one of the major pain points in CSS development. Without any variables, control directives, macros, or object inheritance, CSS code tends to be long and repetitive—a single ever-growing file. While it’s technically possible to split plain CSS into multiple files that reference each other with @import, the additional HTTP requests make that a poor solution. As you’ve seen, Sass has an answer for every piece of the architecture puzzle—but what’s the best way to put it all together?

Ask ten experts, and you’ll receive ten different answers—most of them involving (or aided by) Sass. OOCSS, SMACSS, Atomic Design, ITCSS, and BEM are all popular systems for CSS architecture, but there are many more. If you’re using a front-end framework such as Bootstrap or Foundation, there might be some architectural opinions already built in.

These are all solid systems, none of which were designed with your project in mind. CSS architecture is hard, so it’s a mistake to trust any one-size-fits-all solution. There is no “right” answer that works for every team on every project. We’d recommend learning them all, and then mashing together the best parts to create a system that works well for you.

Let’s start with a broad discussion of the building blocks, and then look at the ways we can fit them together.

Multiple Files and Folders

Breaking your code into multiple files is one key advantage to using a preprocessor, and forms the basis of any architecture. With Sass, there’s no harm in breaking your code into the smallest logical units and organizing it into multiple files and folders. We recommend taking full advantage of it.

Sass has bestowed new power on the CSS @import rule, allowing you to combine Sass and CSS files during compilation so they can be sent to the browser as one single file. This is the only place where Sass has stepped on the toes of an existing CSS directive, so it behaves differently in Sass than it did in CSS.

CSS Imports

As mentioned, the CSS @import directive allows you to reference one CSS file from another. Importing is handled by the browser and requires additional HTTP requests—since the importing file has to be parsed before the @import directive is discovered. If you have a chain of files importing each other, those imports will happen in sequence, blocking the document from rendering until all the CSS has loaded. For that reason, most people avoid CSS imports entirely.

Using CSS imports, you can reference another CSS file using relative or absolute paths, even adding a media query rule for conditional imports. Even though Sass provides different functionality under the same at-rule, there are various cases in which Sass will fall back to the vanilla CSS output, such as when:

• an imported file has a .css extension

• a filename begins with http:// or https://

• the filename is a url(..) function

• @import has any media queries

The following will compile to standard CSS imports, even in Sass:

[code language="css"]
@import 'relative/styles.css';
@import 'http://ift.tt/1XKyYLa';
@import url('landscape.css') screen and (orientation: landscape);[/code]

Sass Imports and Partials

Sass imports look similar to CSS imports, but the imported files are compiled into one single output file, as though their contents (including variables, mixins, functions, and placeholders) were copied and pasted into place before compilation. This type of Sass import will only work on files with .sass or .scss extensions, but you can leave the extension off when importing (as long as there are no similarly named files). In fact, we recommend dropping the extension whenever you can, for simplicity. It’s also possible to import multiple files in one command, or import files into a nested context:

Continue reading %Jump Start Sass: Architecture in Sass%

by Miriam Suzanne via SitePoint