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The Top 10 Business Analysis Skills for 2012

2012-05-14T06:00:00Z

SAS Business Analytics Series 2012

2012-04-14T10:04:25Z

21 Mart 2012 tarihinde Swissotel The Bosphorus’da, SAS Business Analytics Series 2012 gerçekleşti. Geçen sene olduğu gibi bu senede organizasyona ekip olarak katıldık. 2011 yılında yapılan organizasyonda Genel Müdür Yardımcımız tarafından “Bir Başarı Hikayesi” olarak yaptığımız çalışma sunulmuştu. Bu sene sadece dinlemeye gittik. Her ne kadar Perakende sektörü için çok doyurucu olmasa da güzel bir organizasyon oldu.
Ünlü futurist Mike Walsh‘ın da konuşmacı olarak katıldığı organizasyonda, farklı sektörlerden yüzlerce dinleyici vardı. Geçtiğimiz sene salonlarda büyük boşluklar var iken bu sene yüksek katılımcıdan dolayı bazı oturumlarda yer sıkıntısı çekildi. Bizim sektörden (Moda Perakendesi) ben bu sene çok fazla kişi göremedim. O yüzden çok fazla sosyalleşemediğimizi de eklemek isterim Organizasyon boyunca Twitter üzerinden #SASBAS hashtag’i ile atılan tweetler bir ekran ile kullanıcılara gösterildi. Aynı zamanda @SasTurkey ile de organizasyon hakkında bilgilendirme Tweetleri atıldı. Habertürk de canlı yayında organizasyona bağlandı. Geçen sene ile bu sene kıyaslandığı zaman artık Türkiye’de Analitik konulara, Sosyal Medyaya önem verildiğini sadece bu organizasyona bakarak bile söyleyebiliriz.

Bu sene öne çıkan konular, Sosyal Medya, Big Data, Dijital Gelecek, Analitik Çözümlerdi.

Organizasyon Tanıtım Yazısından

Sosyal Medya ne gibi fırsatlar sunuyor?
Dijital gelecek sizi ve işinizi nasıl değiştirecek?
Analitik çözümler rekabeti nasıl yönetiyor?
İş kararlarını Büyük Veri nasıl etkileyecek?

Neden Katılmalı?

Analitiğin , şirketinizi nasıl değiştirip, karar almanızı hızlandıracağını keşfedeceksiniz.
Entegre pazarlama yönetimi, risk yönetimi, veri yönetimi ve İş analitik uygulamaları ve son trendleri dinleyeceksiniz.
Bankacılık, sigorta, perakende, telekom, enerji gibi farklı sektörlerin SAS çözümlerinden yararlandığını göreceksiniz.
En yeni SAS çözümlerimizle ilgili örnek uygulamaları ve demo sunumlarını izleyeceksiniz.

Öne Çıkan Konuşmacılar

Mike Walsh, Futurist & authority on emerging markets
Shekhar Iyer, General Manager,SAS EMEA ve Asya Pasifik Center of Excellence Genel Müdürü

Öğleden önceki programa iş dolayısıyla katılamadık. Öğleden sonra gerçekleştirilen oturumlara katılabildik. İlk olarak EreTeam tarafından sunulan Başarılı Talep Tahminleme Modelleri sunumunu dinledik. Tahmin ile içli dışlı olduğumuz için bu sunum bizi çok tatmin etmedi. Sanki üniversitede Üretim Planlama dersinde Tahmin konusunu işliyormuşuz gibi hissettim. Bu oturumdan sonra Tahminsel modelleme ile geleceğe dönük fırsatları keşfedin konulu sunuma katıldık. Sunumun ilk kısmını SAS’dan Pelin Özbozkurt PhD. yaptı. Ardından Yapı Kredi Bankası örnek bir uygulama sunumu yaptı. Pelin Hanım’ın sunumu hem çok faydalı hem de eğlenceliydi. Hangi sektörden olursanız olun bir şeyler öğrenebileceğiniz bir sunumdu. Özellikle aşağıda yer alan bazı sunum notları, yol haritası niteliğindedir.

Bu sunumun ardından Social Media Analytics başlıklı sunuma girip ING Bank‘ın Sosyal Medya’da kullandığı Analitik yöntemler konusunda bilgi sahibi olduk. Son olarak Akbank tarafından sunulan Marketing Optimization başlıklısunuma katılıp günü noktaladık. Şirkete geri dönmemiz gerektiği için son oturumlara katılamadık.

Sonuç olarak, SAS Türkiye‘ye böyle bir organizasyon düzenlediği için teşekkür ediyorum. Swissotel The Bosphorus’a ve çalışanlarına da güleryüzlü hizmetleri ve güzel yemekleri için teşekkür etmek istiyorum. Güzel bir gün geçirdik. Seneye tekrar bu organizasyonda görüşmek üzere. Belki konuşmacı olarak katılırım kim bilir

Şirketime bu organizasyona katılma konusunda gösterdiği hassasiyet ve ulaşım konusunda gerekli kolaylığı sağladığı için de teşekkür ederim.

BA as Creative Leader: What’s All the Fuss About?

2012-04-03T04:00:00Z

ERP ile Aşkınız Bitti mi?

2012-04-11T06:00:21Z

ERP Projelerine başlanırken büyük umutlar vardır. Artık her bilgi tek bir yerde olacak, tüm süreçler kontrol altına alınacak, farklı departmanlardan uyumsuz raporlar gelmeyecektir. Tıpkı yeni başlayan aşklar gibidir. Pembe panjurlu bir evde, çiçekler içinde, sağlıklı ve mutlu çocuklarla devam edecek bir evliliğin hayali gibi…

Nasıl evililikte bir arada yaşamanın getirdiği zorluklar, giderek farklılaşan istekler ve beklentiler, değişen yaşam görüşleri, büyüyen çocukların sorumlulukları evliliği tehdit altına alıyorsa, ERP yazılımlarının sürekli kontrol edilmesi gereken performansları, sürüm yükseltmelerin maliyeti ve süresi, kullanıcılardan gelen farklı taleplerin birbiri ile uyumsuzluğu, değişen iş süreçlerine makul süre ve maliyet içinde uyum sağlayamama gibi nedenlerle ERP’ye olan aşkınız, sevginiz ve inancınız da tehdit altına girer. Cicim ayları biter, bir de bakmışsınız gene aynı noktadasınız. Birden fazla uygulama, birbirini tutmayan raporlar, kontrol edilemeyen ancak sorun olunca geçmişe yönelik hatanın kaynağını bulmaya çalışarak geçirilen verimsiz saatler…

mstr

ERP Aşkı ile İlgili Gerçekler

Yapılan bir araştırmada ERP aşkı ile ilgili bazı gerçekler bir kere daha onaylandı;

ERP yazılımının başarısı süreç sorumluları ve kullanıcılar tarafından farklı algılanmakta. Genelde bu iki tip kullanıcının memnuniyetleri ters orantılı. Ya biri çok memnun ya da diğeri. Her ikisinin de memnun olmadığı durumlar ise oldukça fazla…
Çoğu şirket ERP yazılım başarısını somut rakamlarla ifade edecek şekilde bir takip yapmıyor. ERP daha çok operasyonel bir araç olarak görülüyor, oysa iyi kurgulanmış ve hem yöneticilere hem çalışanlara kolaylık sağlayacak bir ERPnin rekabette sağlayacağı avantaj gözardı ediliyor.
ERP projesinde yer almış ve kendi görüşleri dahilinde sistemi kurgulatmış anahtar kullanıcılar ERP’den en memnun kişiler olarak öne çıkıyor. Memnuniyet sıralamasında ikinci olarak muhasebe ve finans departmanları geliyor. Pek çok işlemi kendileri yapmaktan kurtulan departmanların verimliliği artıyor.
Entegre sistemlerin doğası gereği, değişiklik istekleri daha geç devreye alınmakta.
Piyasaya hakim yazılımları tercih eden firmalar, çoğunlukla bu yazılımların belirlediği süreçlerin içine girmeye çalışlıyorlar. Bu da kullanıcıların işini zorlaştırabiliyor.

mstr

Evliliğinizi Uzatacak Öneriler

Nasıl evlilik danışmanları, çiftler arasındaki aşkı uzun süreli kılmak için önerilerde bulunuyorlarsa, ERPniz ile daha mutlu olabilmeniz için bizimde önerilerimiz var.

Kullanıcılarınızı yöneticiler; işlerini yapmak için operasyonel bilgiye ihtiyacı olanlar, süreç sahipleri ve yoğun veri girişi yapanlar diye 4 profile ayırın. Her dört profilin ihtiyaçlarının dengeli bir şekilde karşılanmasını sağlayın.
ERP kullanımın getireceği faydaları ilk günden takip edin. ERP’ye başlarken önemli metrikleri belirleyin ve sayısal olarak ifade edin. ERP kullanımı sonrasında bu metrikleri takip etmeye devam ederek, beklenen faydanın gerçekleştiğinden emin olun. Gerçekleşmiyorsa en kısa zamanda gerekli önlemleri alın.
Mobil kullanım ve kiralama metodlarına yakın olun. Kiralama ihtiyaç duyduğunuz bazı fonksiyonaliteleri hızlıca sunmak için bazı detay alanlarda size yardımcı olabilir. Giderek kiralama seçeneği ile sunulacak ek fonksiyonaliteler artacak. Şu anda bile çevrenizde sandığınızdan daha fazla çözüm olabilir.
Esneklikten taviz vermeyin: ERPniz işinizin gelişmesine engel teşkil etmemeli. ERP tedarikçiniz sizin geliştirme isteklerinize cevap verebilmeli. Çoğu zaman tedarikçinizin sürüm politikası sizi etkiler. Ancak kontorlü siz ele alın tedraikçinizin sürüm politikası değil, si,zin iş ihtiyaçalrınız değişklikleri planlamalı. ERP startejinizi ve bulunduğunuz yeri dönemsel kontroller ile üst yönetim ile tartışın. Sürüm bekleyecek değil, kendinizin de geliştirme iyileştirme yapabileceğiniz ürünleri tercih edin. Değişimin katkısı büyük olacaksa, yatırım yapmaktan kaçınmayın.
Basitleştirin: Çoğu sistem kullanıcısı, kullanmakta oldukları ekranları ve fonksiyonaliteyi değiştirme isteğindendir. İmkanları olsa herşeyi baştan yazmak isteyeceklerdir. Sistemi az kullanacak ama mutlaka kullanmak zorunda olan kullanıcı tipleri için alternatif kullanımları destekleyen ürünleri tercih edin. Örneğin masraf girişi, satınalma talep isteği vb. gibi kullanımlar için hızlı ekranlar geliştirebileceğiniz, mobil cihazlardan da çalıştırabileceğiniz, böylece kullanıcının en rahat hissettiği ortamda çalışmasını destekleyen ürünleri tercih edin.
Raporların Ulaşılmak İstenen Yer Olduğunu Unutmayın : ERP projelerinin ilk ve ana amacı canlı kullanıma zamanında geçmek ve sistem açıldığında süreçlerin tıkanmadan devam etmesini sağlamaktır. İş süreçlerine çok fazla yoğunlaşılır. Oysa ERP kullanıma alınmasının önemli sebeplerinden biri de biriken verinin analizi ile yöneticilere karar vermede destek olacak analiz ve raporlardır. ERP ile birlikte İş Zekası ve Kurumsal Performans Yönetimi stratejilerini mutlaka gözden geçirmek gerekir. ERP uygulamasının bu alandaki ihtiyaçları karşılayacak altyapıyı sağlaması gerekir. Eğer ERP ürününüz İş Zekası ve Performans Yönetimi için ayrı yatırım yapmanıza gerek bırakmıyor ve bu konuları da kendi iç yapısında çözüyorsa, bu büyük bir avantajdır.
Çelişki Hep Var Olacak: Herkesi Her Zaman Memnun Edemezsiniz… ERP geçişi sırasında bazı kullanıcılar işlerini daha zor yapar hale gelebilirler, veri girişi uzun zaman alabilir, daha fazla veri girmek zorunda kalabilirler. Ancak bu fazladan girilen bilgiler, şirkete daha fazla fayda sağlayabilir. ERP projesini bir dönemlik yapılıp biten bir olgu gibi görmemek ve sürekli gelişimi için çaba göstermek gerekir. Periyodik toplantılar ile vakti zamanında alınan kararların gözden geçirilmesi, fayda sağlanabilecek yeni alanların keşfedilmesi, geçmiş zamanda bazı kullanıcılara yüklenmiş ek işlerin kaldırlıp kaldırılmayacağının tartışılması gerekir. Böylece ERP durağan değil sürekli gelişen bir sistem olabilir.

mstr

Sonuç

Yöneticiler, şirketlerinde ERP aşkının erimeye başladığını hissettiklerinde hemen harekete geçmelidirler. Bir ERP sisteminin yaşam döngüsü boyunca başarı faktörleri ölçülmeye devam edilmelidir. Takip etmenizi önerdiğimiz ve kriterde değişiklik hissedildiğinde gerekli önlemler alınmalıdır. Genelde önerdiğimiz başarı kriterleri ise:

Proje toplam Maliyeti: İlk kurulum ve sonrasındaki dnaışmanlık,donanım ve bakım maliyetleri
ERP sonrası düşen maliyetler: muhasebe raporlaması için azalan süreler, sipariş girişindeki hızlanma, depo faaliyetlerinde artan verimlilik, aynı zamanda yapılan sevkiyat miktarında artış ,azalan müşteri iadeleri, azalan hatalı üretimler vb.
Ek yatrımdan kazanılanlar: ERP varlığı sayesinde ek yatırım yapılmaya gerek kalmayan alanlar.
Pazar payınız: Pazar payınızda diğer pek çok nedene bağlı olarak değişim gözlenebilir ancak ERP sayesinde daha kolaylaşan tedarik ve sevkiyat süreçleri ile yeni girilen
Kontrol altına alınan ya da düşürülen riskler: Son kullanım tarih kontrolü, tehlikeli madde yönetimi vb.
Denetlenebilirlik: Denetim açısından uyulamsı gereken kurallara uyum için gerekli yatırımlar
Rekabet Avantajı: Rakiplerin sunamadığı hizmet ve bilgilerin oranı
Gelir artışı: Devreye alınan hem ürün hem süreç alanlarındaki yenilikler.
Şirketin ana süreçlerinde geçen ortalama süre: Ortalama satınalma isteği ile kapanması arasındaki süre, müşteriden sipariş alımı ile sevkiaytı arasında geçen süre vb.

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Konu hakkında daha detay bilgi almak için microsoft.com/turkiye/dynamics/erp/ adresinden her zaman Microsoft Dynamics ekibine başvurabilirsiniz.

A’dan Z’ye İnfografik Nasıl Hazırlanır? [Dosya]

2012-03-29T14:42:25Z

Günde kaç tane infografik ile karşılaştığınızı hiç düşündünüz mü?

Yeni fenomen Pinterest başta olmak üzere sosyal medyada her gün yüzlerce infografik paylaşılıyor. Artık markalar da haber siteleri de, kısacası birinin açıklayacağı bir şeyler varsa herkes her şeyi infografikle açıklıyor.

Bilmeyenler için tekrar edelim; infografik bilginin grafikle sunulması. İnfografiğin bu kadar sevilmesinin ve popüler olmasının da sebepleri var tabii:

Görsel anlatım her zaman daha kolay algılanabilir, anlaşılabilir
Akılda daha kolay kalır
Eğlencelidir, konuyu sıkıcılıktan uzaklaştırır.

Bu üç unsurun yanı sıra bir de insanların görselliğe, daha da önemlisi estetiğe olan zaafı var…

İnfografik söz konusu olduğunda ne tasarımın iyiliğinden ne de bilgilerin doyuruculuğundan ve doğruluğundan vazgeçilemiyor. Her iş gibi bu da maharet gerektiriyor tabii. Bakmakla görmek arasındaki fark en çok ‘iyi bir infografik nasıl yapılır?’ sorusunda gösteriyor kendini. Peki “İYİ” bir infografik nasıl hazırlanır? Türkiye’de yayınlanan infografikler nasıl daha iyi olur? İşin ana fikri doğru bilgi + yalın bi görsellik. Yazması kolay, yapması zor…

Tiffany Farrant-Gonzalez, JESS3 Senior Designer

Yüksek miktarda datayı ya da karmaşık olabilecek bilgileri aktarabilmek/anlatabilmek adına infografikler son derece kullanışlı. İnfografikler, normalde bir makaleye baktığınızda gözünüzden kaçan rakamları ve önemli rakamsal verileri son derece iyi bir şekilde farkedilebilir kılabilir. Bu anlamda hem eğitim, hem gazetecilik hem de sunumlar için son derece önemli. İnsanlar görsel yaratıklardır. Bir fotoğraf binlerce kelimeyi tek seferde anlatabiliyor ne de olsa, değil mi?

İnfografikler hem eğitim, hem gazetecilik hem de sunumlar için son derece önemli. İnsanlar görsel yaratıklardır. Bir fotoğraf binlerce kelimeyi tek seferde anlatabiliyor ne de olsa, değil mi?

İy bir infografik hazırlamak için dikkat edilmesi gerekenler:

1. İyi bir hikaye ve mesaj

Öncelikle anlatacak bir hikayeniz olmalı. İyi bir hikaye olmadan infografik sadece rakamların görsel olarak sunulmasından ibaret olur. İnsanların ilgisini çekecek bir hikaye ile başlayan infografikler, kişileri daha çok içine çeker ve insanlar devamına da bakmak/okumak isterler.

2. Önce data, sonra tasarım

İnfografik hazırlamak istediğinizde direkt işe tasarımla başlamak son derece çekici gelebilir.Fakat iyi bir infografik hazırlamak için öncelikli konu elinizdeki verilerin/dataların yapısına bakmaktır. İşiniz font ya da renk seçmekle sınırlı değil burada çünkü. Planlanmış, iyi bir data yapısını belirledikten sonra işin grafik tasarım kısmını düşünmenizde fayda var. İyi bir infografik, iyi anlatılmış bir hikayeden ve kusursuz tasarımın birleşiminden/dengesinden oluşur.

3. Grafik ve tablo çöplüğüne düşmeyin

İnfografiği hazırlarken yarattığınız her tasarımın/çizginin hikayeyi destekleyen ve anlatımını kolaylaştıran bir şekilde olduğundan emin olun. Veriler hikayesini anlatabilsin. Tasarımınız grafik ve tablo çöplüğüne dönmesin.

4. Basit ve temel grafikleri kullanın

Basit ve temel grafiklerin bu kadar sene boyunca kullanılmasının bir sebebi var: İşe yarıyorlar. Ayrıca son derece etkili görselleştirme araçları. Eğer hikayeyi anlatmak için bar ya da pasta dilim şema kullanabiliyosanız kullanın. Bir infografiği olması gerekenden daha karışık bir görselliğe sokmanın gereği yok.

5. Bırakın rakamlar kendileri konuşsun

Kötü bir infografik okuyucuyu yanlış yönlendiren ve büyük resmi görmesini sağlayacak şekilde bilgilendirmeyen infografiklerdir. En sık yapılan yanlışlardan ikisi, bu gösterişli chart’ların ardında bilgilerin anlaşılması güç bir hal alması ve hikayenin sadece bir yönünün vurgulanması. Harika bir infografiğein anahtarı transparanlıktır. Veirlerinizi saklamayın, bırakın konuşsunlar ve hikayelerini anlatsınlar.

Jeff Goertzen, Grafik ve Tasarım Danışmanı (jeffgoertzen.com)

Infografiklerin bu kadar sevilmesinin sebebi görsel anlatımları ile insanların birşeyi daha kolay anlayabilmesi. Bu ‘görsel anlatım’ eğitici, bilgilendirici ve hatta eğlendirici olabilir.

İnfografik hazırlamak genelde takım işidir. İyi bir infografik için anahtar noktalar:

Fikir — Hangi grafik tarzı okuyucunun ilgisini daha çok çeker, hangisi hikayeyi daha çok betimler / geliştirir? Bu konuda iyi bir fikriniz olması gerekir.
Planlama — Tasarımı önceden planlayın. İyi bir tasarım yapabilmek için yeterli vakti ayrımanız gerek.
Bilgi – İyi ve kuvvetli bir bilgi yoksa hiçbir grafik – istediği kadar estetik olsun – iyi bir infografik yaratamaz. Bilginin doğruluğu da son derece önemli.
Görsellik — Görsel seviyesi yüksek bir tasarım buradaki elzem konulardan biri. Çok karışık ve komplike bir tasarım yapmayın. Elit, doğru stilde, ilgi çekici ve anlaşılır bir tasarım yapın.
Editleme — Grafik tasarım ne kadar iyi olursa olsun, eğer editoryal anlamda hatalar varsa güvenilirliğinizi kaybedebilirsiniz. İnfografiğinizin iyi editlendiğinden emin olun.

Erman Akdeniz, infopik.com Kurucu & Editör

Türkiye’de infografik henüz sadece küçük ve/ama değerli bir kitle tarafından tanınıyor. Türkiye’de kurumsal anlamda infografik kullanımı yetersiz ve henüz infografiklerin getirdiği fırsatlar tam anlamıyla bilinmemektedir. Bundaki en önemli neden ise henüz Türkçe infografiklerin yeterince yaygınlaşamaması ve infografiklerin büyük çoğunluğunun İngilizce olması. Buna rağmen infografiklerin çok sevildiğini söyleyebiliriz. Bunun en büyük nedeni ise tasarımsal çekiciliğin, bilgi edinmeyi kolaylaştırması ve sosyal medyada infografiklerin çok daha fazla paylaşılabilir olması.

İnfografikleri sadece görsel özellikleriyle değerlendirmemek gerekir. Her geçen gün bilginin ve pazarlama araştırmalarının daha da önemli hale geldiği, verileri anlamlandırarak doğru strateji geliştirmenin sonuca doğrudan etki ettiği gerçeğinden yola çıktığımızda, üzerinde birçok veri barındıran infografiklerin analizi ve doğru değerlendirilmesi çok daha önemlidir.

İyi bir infografik olması için arkasında iyi bir araştırma, doğru veriler ve verileri doğru yansıtan tasarımsal detaylar gerekir. Bütün bunları barındıran infografiklerin, dijital ortama da doğru kanallarla ve destekleyici mesajlarla sunulması gerekir.

Bilgilerin kaynağı, güncelliği sorgulanmalı

İnfografik görsel olmasıyla avantajlıdır. İyi bir infografik, tasarımcısının kabiliyetiyle şekillenir ancak burada tasarımcıyı da yönlendirmek gerekir. Okuyucu bir çırpıda verilmek istenen mesajı alabilmelidir. Bu amaçla tasarımcının infografikte öne çıkan veriyi, doğru tasarımla vurgulaması gerekir. Her infografik bir sonucu savunur ve okuyucunun da bu sonucu desteklemesi beklenir. Bu açıdan infografik hazırlarken yapmış olduğunuz araştırma sonuçlarından elde edilen verilerin infografik üzerinde anlamlı tasarımlarla eşleştirilmesi gerekir. İnfografikler bir araştırma sonucunu yansıtır ve üzerlerinde birçok bilgi barındırırlar. Bu bilgilerin kaynağı, güncelliği sorgulanmalıdır. Okuyucu olarak infografiklerden en iyi şekilde yararlanmak için infografik üzerindeki bilgiyi anlamlandırma ve yorum geliştirme yoluna gitmek gerekir.

Genel itibariyle infografiklerin konusu ve tasarımı iyiyse o infografik iyidir algısı var ama bu doğru bir yaklaşım değil. İyi bir infografik olması için arkasında iyi bir araştırma, doğru veriler ve verileri doğru yansıtan tasarımsal detaylar gerekir. Bütün bunları barındıran infografiklerin, dijital ortama da doğru kanallarla ve destekleyici mesajlarla sunulması gerekir.

Murat Arlı, DUDU İstanbul Kreatif Direktörü

Grafik anlatımın da bir dil olduğunu düşünürsek, bunu çok iyi bilen ve kullanan bir halk olduğumuzu söyleyemem. Aslında çok geniş kapsamlı değerlendirilmesi gereken bu konu için şunu belirtmek istiyorum; tasarımcılar olarak maalesef bizim ürettiğimiz ve kullandığımız grafik motifler çok da estetik kategoride değerlendirilmiyor. Açıkçası bilginin işlenmesi çok zor olduğu için üretilenden fazlası da talep edilmiyor. Belki biraz daha bekleyip iyi örnekleri ve doğuracağı olumlu sonuçları görmek gerek. Bu, hem infografik kültürümüzün gelişmesinde hem de tasarımcılarımızın bu örnekler ışığında, bu kültürü daha rahat aktarabilecek işler yapmasında etkili olacak.

Londra, NY metro şemaları öyle iyi ki saygı duymamak elde değil. Fincan üstünden T-shirt’e, çanta üstünden defter kapağına kadar her şeyde bu lekenin çekiciliğine kapılıyor insan. Tabii bu ikonik grafiklerin 80 yıl önce yapıldığını da unutmayalım. 1972 Münih Olimpiyatları’nın piktogramlarını da bu alanın kilometre taşları arasında gösterebilirim. Bu ikisi benim en değerli bulduğum örnekler.

Bir infografik tasarımcısı değilim ama bu işin püf noktaları da iyi bir tasarımcının yapması gerekenlerle aynı. Konunun içeriği ve dikkat çekiciliği önemli noktalar. Sadelik, ölçülendirme, yeterli derecede metin kullanımı, uygunluk ve en önemlisi işin estetiği bir infografiğin öne çıkan detayları. Aklıma ilk gelen grafik anlatım metro istasyonlarını gösterenler oluyor. Londra, NY metro şemaları öyle iyi ki gerçekten saygı duymamak elde değil. Fincan üstünden tshirt’e, çanta üstünden defter kapağına kadar her şeyde bu lekenin çekiciliğine kapılıyor insan. Tabii bu ikonik grafiklerin 80 yıl önce yapıldığını da unutmayalım. 1972 Münih Olimpiyatları’nın piktogramlarını da bu alanın kilometre taşları arasında gösterebilirim. Bu ikisi benim en değerli bulduğum örnekler.

Nedim Caner Üstün, Dekatlon Buzz Kreatif Grup Koordinatoru

Türkiye için konuştuğumuzda şunu biliyoruz: Tüketici tarafında yazı okumak işimize gelmiyor. Her şeyi video ile tüketen bir toplumuz. Üretici tarafındaysa videonun üretim maliyeti ve zahmetinin yanında, yayılımında kalitenin ve branding’in korunması ile ilgili sorun yaşanıyor. Tam da bu noktada, içeriği hem üreten hem de tüketen açısından çok kolay ulaşılabilir bir orta nokta olarak imdada yetişti infografikler. Nispeten kolay üretilebilir ve kolay tüketilebilir ürünler bunlar. Şimdilerde infografiklerin interaktif örneklerini de görmeye başladık, ki aslında bu, hem içerik hem de görsel olarak tüketicinin ihtiyacına daha da yaklaşarak gelişeceğinin güzel bir işareti.

“Sorun doğru bilgi üretebilen kurumların infografik hazırlamaya, infografik hazırlayabilen kurumlarınsa doğru bilgi üretmeye yeterliliklerinin olmamasıydı”

Kalite açısından baktığımızdaysa format ve görsel düzenleme olarak global standartta işler çıkıyor. Ancak içerikte halen “bilgiyi tüketen” tarafta olmanın getirdiği bir pasiflik mevcut. Genel olarak, tüm resmi içermeyen; bir araştırma sonucunu yansıtmaktan ziyade bir konuyu, bir problemi, bir pazarı tek oyuncu tarafından anlatan; o oyuncunun kendi datalarıyla ortaya çıkardığı, kaynak belirtilmeyen; dolayısıyla meşruluğu ve tüketici açısından işe yararlığı şüpheli işlerden bahsediyorduk yakın zamana kadar. Asıl sorun doğru bilgi üretebilen kurumların infografik hazırlamaya, infografik hazırlayabilen kurumlarınsa doğru bilgi üretmeye yeterliliklerinin olmamasıydı. Yeni yeni bu ikisinin ortak çalışmaları sevindirici sonuçlar çıkarıyor. Bu trendin devam etmesiyle, görsel olarak yakalanan standartların içerik olarak da yakalanacağını göreceğiz.

Yapılması gereken…

Öncelikle yapılması gereken “Ne için yapıyorum?” sorusuyla başlayıp doğru içeriği, eksik bırakmadan ya da fazla kaçırmadan infografiğe dahil etmek; yani işin “info” tarafını doğru oturtmak. İçerikle ilgili bilgi parçaları mesajı bir taraftan sağlamlaştırırken, diğer taraftan konuya ilişkin yeni katmanlar getirebilmeli. “İnfo” kısmında önemli bir diğer noktaysa, içeriğe üreticiyle ilgili özel bir manifesto olarak değil, ilgili alanda geniş bir bakış açısı sunarak konuyla ilgili tüketiciyi aydınlatmak amaçlı yaklaşmak. “Grafik” tarafındaysa iş, “Vurgulamaya çalıştığım bilgiyi/fikri en az zahmetle verebildim mi?” sorusunu cevaplamış olabilmekte. Bu konuda tüketici açısından “en az zahmet”, konuyla ilgili esprili bir hikaye yaratabilmek ve bu hikayeyle tutarlı görsel dil kullanmakla yakalanabiliyor.

Derya Aydemir, Gri Creative Agency Art Direktör

Her geçen gün giderek daha fazla bilgi var ve bu bilgiyi algılayıp özümsemek için daha az zamanla karşı karşıyayız. İş sözcüklerin tekeline kalsa zor olacak. İşte bu noktada infografikler daha da önem kazanıyor. Soyut olan bilgi, görsel olarak temsil edildiğinde algılanması ve hafızadaki verilerle bağlantılar kurularak yorumlanması daha kolaydır. İçeriği çözümleyip sadeleştirerek yaratıcı bir görsel tasarım çerçevesinde sunan infografikler, mesajınızı en hızlı ve anlaşılır şekilde iletmek açısından etkindirler.

“Öncelikle iyi bir infografiğin ilk bakışta neyle ilgili olduğuna dair fikir vermesi ve ilgi çekici olması gerekir. Farklı ve yaratıcı görsel yaklaşımlar grafiğe odaklanma noktasında avantaj getirecektir. Bunu yaparken mesajın farklı yorumlara ve yanlış anlamalara yer bırakmayacak netlikte verildiğinden emin olunmalıdır”

Başarılı bir görselleştirme için…

Öncelikle iyi bir infografiğin ilk bakışta neyle ilgili olduğuna dair fikir vermesi ve ilgi çekici olması gerekir. Farklı ve yaratıcı görsel yaklaşımlar grafiğe odaklanma noktasında avantaj getirecektir. Bunu yaparken mesajın farklı yorumlara ve yanlış anlamalara yer bırakmayacak netlikte verildiğinden emin olunmalıdır. İçeriğin doğru organizasyonu bir diğer önemli konu. Veriler iyi analiz edilerek önem derecelerine göre ayrıştırılmış, anlamlarına göre ilişkilendirilmiş ve görsel kodlamayla da bu organizasyon desteklenmiş olmalıdır. Bu noktada renk, tipografi ve ikonlar gibi grafik ögelerin doğru ve dengeli kullanımı devreye girer. Doğru görsel kodlama ile kullanıcı nereye odaklanacağını ve bilgi akışını hangi sırada okuması gerektiğini rahatlıkla anlayabilir.

Son zamanlarda, özellikle de sabırsız ve zamansız web kullanıcılarının ihtiyaçları doğrultusunda kaliteli infographiclerin örneklerini daha çok görüyoruz. Bir çok site, öne çıkarmak istediği içerikleri infographic formatında hazırlayıp kullanıcılarıyla paylaşıyor. Peki neden bu örneklerin çoğu yurt dışından? Sanırım bunun temel nedenleri toplumun genel görsel algı seviyesi ve daha kaliteli görsel iletişime olan taleple ilgili. Infografiklerin verileri iletmedeki başarısı tasarımcının ortaya koyduğu iş kadar izleyicilerin bunu algılama kapasitesi ile de ilgilidir. Soyut sembollerin anlaşılması belli bir görsel tecrübe ve eğitim gerektirir. Evrenselleşmiş ve sık sık karşımıza çıkan bazı ikonlar herkes tarafından kolaylıkla anlaşılabilir. Tasarımcılar olarak dünya trendlerinden kopmadan daha kaliteli görsel ürünler ortaya koydukça ve toplum olarak bu nitelikli görsellere maruz kaldıkça diğer pek çok konuda olduğu gibi infografiklerde de giderek daha iyi örnekler çıkaracağımıza inanıyorum.

6 Tips to Stay Focused on Project Deadlines

2012-03-24T10:00:28Z

Staying focused on your goals may be difficult at times as a freelancer. Not having a nine-to-five job, selecting your own clients, setting your own rates and deadlines and also doing PR work for yourself is quite different than being a full-time employee in a web design agency, where many of the things above are done by different individuals or departments. One of the most difficult things I encountered when I started as a freelancer was staying focused on the deadlines. And not only keeping my focus, but also meeting the deadline and delivering the project on time – at the end of the day, this is one of the most important things alongside the quality of your work.

You can do this by following some of these techniques. It is not physics, chemistry or math. They’re all easy to follow, therefore I think you should give them a try if you struggle with keeping yourself on schedule. As this has something to do with personal and time management, and not with the field we work in, it suits both designers and developers.

1. Be a perfectionist

Designers and developers usually need to hold perfectionism at bay, as we are creative individuals. All artists in the world have a tendency to try reaching for perfectionism. You need to know when your piece of work still needs more polishing, or when it is done. Wasting time with improving something that can’t be improved will not make help you manage your time.

Image by tom1.

Looking objectively at your projects is the solution to this. Also, it has something to do with the initial planning process. If you’ve done it right, there is no reason to go back and add something. Just because you found a cool new feature on the internet halfway through the development process doesn’t mean you have to integrate it. There is always the next project and it is probably too late to integrate something new in a current project.

If you always look for that perfect design (nothing wrong with this, by the way) you will find yourself spending more time analyzing then actually finishing the project. This needs to be worked out, as the client expects you to finish your work on time. Getting your personal feelings in the way of your work is also something you should avoid doing, as feelings have nothing to do with the business.

2. Pre-defined time for each task

This is what project managers are good at: Planning and defining time spans for each phase of a project, you need to have a solid plan in place in order to be successful.

A solid plan means working on a specific task one at a time. This will ensure you stay fully focused on the one task you have to do and therefore finish earlier or at least in time. Beginning with a typical routine is likely to wake you up in the morning or help you relax in the afternoon, therefore place them in the beginning or in the end of your work plan. Checking e-mails, Facebook, Twitter or your RSS feed are potential good routines for such times.

Image by Michael Dales.

I am sure most of us work best when we can focus 100% on the specific task in front of us. I am also sure about the fact that the ones who can’t always reach deadlines are good at undergoing the routines mentioned above all the time. This is not good because it interrupts your workflow and concentration and slows you down. Not letting yourself get distracted is where you should begin. If you feel staying focused is one of your issues, then concentrate on working only!

Taking breaks is something recommended because none of us can work for eight hours straight. Take a 15 minutes break every two hours or a five minute break every hour and this will likely keep you fresh. Don’t forget about eating and drinking during these breaks, as a hungry person will never have enough energy to work.

3. Have a daily plan

If you work on a freelance project, you are likely to be working on your own, so you don’t depend on anybody else. This means you can have your own schedule, as nobody will influence it. Have a daily plan all the time. Break it into small tasks and, at the end of the day, see what was good and what was not. It isn’t always easy to plan ahead, but you can use this to see where it goes wrong for you. You may even notice after keeping track of your program that you are very unproductive during a certain time span.

Having a daily plan is also good for your confidence. Keeping a close eye on every phase of a project will likely make you feel better at the end of each day. Most of us break projects into larger tasks and only feel accomplished once per week, or who knows how seldom. If you manage to do something every day (and keep track of it) you will feel accomplished more often.

While planning, you can also think of keeping something out on purpose. It is always better to finish more than planned at the end of the day, then to finish less. Therefore many freelancers are in a bad mood at the end of the day. When planning to finish a lot of work and not everything is done by the end of the day, there is a feeling of disappointment. This can’t happen if, before going to sleep, you notice you are a step further down the road than expected few hours before. This will also make you feel better the second day and will probably make you look forward to further developments.

4. Work breakdown structure

Having a to-do list might work well for small projects, but once you start working on a larger scale, small lists might not be so effective.

Image by bluegum.

The work breakdown structure (WBS) is something I learned about during my first year as a student. Breaking down more complex projects into smaller phases is a popular project management concept. If you have lists with large, complicated activities, checking them off at the end of the day is not likely to happen, therefore you need to break the work down into smaller bits. Having sub-lists with smaller tasks will be more rewarding for you at the end of the day.

Breaking work into smaller phases might feel uncomfortable in the beginning, but it is very rewarding in the end. The main reason behind this is to make you feel better about the project and the work you’ve completed and to make you look forward to finish it and check it off the list.

5. Larger scale management

Besides the small to-do lists and the WBS you do quite often, having a detailed monthly schedule is also recommended. Planning in advance can’t go wrong when you think of it very well. Scheduling routines is very easy with online tools such as Google Calendar, therefore trying this out for a project is something you should consider. Now I am not saying this will work for everybody, but being organized is the first step into learning how to better manage your time.

6. Reward yourself

This is something I didn’t try myself, but one of my co-workers recommended it to me. He has a reward for himself at the end of each week. It makes him look forward to reaching his goals and to the next week. Now don’t think he goes to Hawaii every weekend. His rewards are different, from small things like watching an extra hour of TV to playing video games, going out or surfing the web without having to work at the same time, to bigger things like taking a weekend off once in a while. He finds a different reward every time and keeps his work life challenging.

My friend also told me that if he finishes a task earlier than planned, he rewards himself again. Many of us try to complete the project faster, but he doesn’t. When I asked him what he does then, he answered:

“I have a strong schedule, I think about it a lot before submitting it to the client. If I finish a smaller task earlier, I take the rest of the day off. I deserve it! I never work more than planned, however I am also always on time with my work, so I never have to work more than planned either. The secret behind this is the amount of hours I put into planning and creating schedules.”

Bottom line

Being able to focus better on deadlines is something all of us are capable of; we just need to make the effort. Whenever I write an article on this topic or give someone some advice, I end up with the same conclusion: it is impossible to be good at maintaining your schedule if you are not organized.

Being organized is where everything starts. It is helpful for all of us because otherwise it is a tough job to keep track of all the things we are in charge of. For individuals that do not have a fixed schedule from nine to five, self-discipline is the only way to success.

Until next time, how easy is it for you to focus on deadlines? Have you ever had problems with delivering on time, or is this something you need to improve?

Should designers do personal projects?

2012-01-17T09:23:45Z

As creatives, most times we feel like we can do it all, or we are put in a position to do it all. We typically take on a ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ mentality, that can either help or harm us.

For some odd reason, there seems to be a discrepancy of sorts when it comes to doing the work for ourselves. Some designers feel like of course we should take on that Jack-of-all-trades mindset, while others just feel like it makes sense to pass the work off and let someone else do it.

The truth is, they’re both great ideas but vary depending on your situation. How creative are you? What is your skill set? What kind of things stress you out? All these questions should be taken into consideration when determining whether or not designers should do their own personal projects.

Keep in mind, that for the purposes of this argument, we will say that a personal project is any type of work that contributes to yourself and your services. For example, we are talking about business cards, websites, etc.

Yes, do personal projects

Doing your own work can be extremely beneficial, especially if you are in a place where your client work is slow or you are just starting out and need some things to keep you occupied. Doing your own personal work from start to finish can sometimes be much more fun than client work and can teach you a lot about yourself and your style. Keep reading to find out some reasons why designers work on their own projects.

Beginner’s luck

If you are at the very beginning of your design career, it’s kind of hard to offer services to others, especially if you are lacking the proper portfolio. Most times folks aren’t going to give you a chance if they don’t know you or know your work. The best way to counterattack this to make your first client yourself.

Let’s say for example, you are a graphic designer who would like to offer their services to the public. Well, to start off, you feel like you need to print up some business cards because you’d like to give them to some friends, family, and colleagues. That’s a great idea, but if you don’t have any work to show for, how are they going to know your work? Take the time out to really create your own business card and whatever other pieces you feel like you need to offer your services. There’s no need to run and grab a template if you can do it yourself.

As we are talking about personal projects essentially for your services and for promotional purposes, don’t forget that it’s okay to create conceptual art and put it in your portfolio. There’s this preconceived notion that all work in your portfolio has to be paid client work, but that is a falsehood. It’s okay to create a mock up, or some sort of conceptual art to let your viewers see what you are capable of. Whether you are a beginner or not, if there is a new technique you want to try out and show off, make something up. It’s totally fine to add imaginative work to your portfolio. It could quite possibly be the work that gets you in with a client!

Growth and technique

Doing personal projects really buys you time inside of whatever program it is that you may use. No matter your how good you think you are or how good others think you may be, it’s always great to have practice under your belt. Being involved with your personal projects allows you the opportunity to grow and be solid in your craft and allows you to become more familiar with techniques.

One thing that is extremely important to designers of all types, is their workflow. You may be an awesome web designer, but you don’t want it to be a pain in the butt to get done what it is that you need to get done. Personal projects help you figure out your workflow better because when you’re working on your own things, (hopefully) you aren’t as strict on yourself and you feel more free to create (than say, if you had a big near-deadline client). With your client work you want to try to be neat and color inside the lines—hopefully you loosen the reins a bit when it comes to your own creative projects.

Growth in whatever you do is necessary. Developing your technique and your workflow inside your programs of choice is absolutely necessary to the success of what you’re doing.

Experimentation

Along with practicing and streamlining your workflow, you want to be able to experiment on some things. Experimentation, along with practice, really helps you figure out new techniques and helps you come up with your own style. Most times with commissioned projects, we aren’t as prone to experiment, but with our own personal projects, experimentation should be heavily utilized and looked forward to.

Depending on your target audience, the work you end up doing could be extremely repetitive. You may be known for the way you put together really clean, minimalistic web designs. There’s no foul there, but it’s nice to be able to step outside of yourself if necessary—if not to add a skill, then to be able to have a general knowledge of said skill.

You may also have a skill set that is closely related to another—there may be times where you are asked to carry out those tasks by a client. Now it’s all up to you whether or not you want to increase your skills, but it is good to be able to experiment and research so that you have some clue about related skillsets. As a strict graphic designer myself, I don’t know a ton about web development, but I have experimented enough to know what works and what may not work. I have enough knowledge to know, if I can’t do the task, I can point you in the right direction. This is what experimentation can do for you.

Added personal touch

What I think is most important about doing your own projects is the personal touch and flavor that’s put on it. Yes, you can tell someone your style and the things that you like but no one can really portray it and put it down as best as you can (especially if you have the ability to do so). Most times, the work that is done for yourself is and can be the first that people see of you. Are you okay with that first impression being work someone else has done for you?

It also makes sense that if you are known for a specific talent to carry out that specific talent for yourself. For example, if you are known for developing great WordPress themes and such, when you need your own website, make it a WordPress site and develop your own theme. That acts as a free advertisement and folks can know and understand how great you really are. If you were to outsource your website and a client wants a site much like yours, they’re more than likely going to skip out on you and hire the company that worked for you.

If you are in a position where you want people to under your vision and your brand, it’s probably best that you do as much of your own work as possible. Quite frankly, when you outsource, most times you end up being lumped together with other clients that are doing similar things and then you lose your personality and what makes you different. You never want to risk losing that by not doing your own personal projects.

No, don’t do personal projects

There are some designers who feel like personal projects should be done by a third party. Much like doing your personal projects, there are some benefits to not doing your own work. When you think about outsourcing your personal projects, it’s best to take into consideration your business strategy, your common stressors, and much more. Again, below are some reasons why some designers choose to employ others and let them do the dirty work.

The small things

Simply put, giving the smaller tasks to a third party can really decrease your workload and your stress levels. You can focus on work you feel needs to be done (things close to deadlines, really big clients, etc.) and pass off smaller tasks, such as business cards and brochures, to others.

Of course, this is all with the assumption that you’ve already handled the larger tasks, such as the website, the logo, etc. What is really popular is to hire these third parties to make updates and changes as you move further along with your brand. It can get to be a bit much to update every single thing yourself, especially when it may be hard to find time—or it’s easily forgotten because it’s just not that huge of a task; however, it must be done. If your personal projects seem to always need updates and changes, you may want to think about outsourcing.

Time is limited

Some of us aren’t beginners and some of us are actually swamped with tons of commissioned work. Depending on your business and your strategy, focusing on this type of work may be all you want to do. If that’s the case, you may only have the option to have a third party help out with your personal projects.

There are times when after you feel like you’ve really gotten to a place of some success, sometimes you might want to re-brand. The projects you did for yourself when you just started are no longer representative of you, or you feel like your business is going in a different direction. Re-branding (especially visually) is extremely important if what you had and where you are going are two different things. Just imagine, if you are a web designer who did dynamic websites, but wants to change to focus on mobile responsiveness, there may be some visual re-branding you want to do.

If your time is limited and wrapped up by your clients, it’s probably best that you bite the bullet and outsource. You want to find a way to manage your time and your projects as best as possible.

You don’t know how

No matter how much you try to fake the funk on some things, when it’s time to actually sit down and create something you have no clue how to do it—or it just may not be of the quality you want it to be. We talked about how it’s nice be familiar with different skillsets, but most times, if you don’t have it, then you don’t have it. And you should be familiar enough with the skillset to know when it is time to reach out to someone else.

For example, as a designer you may want to create a promotional video for yourself. You have a nice digital camera that shoots in high def, and you even have iMovie or Final Cut, but perhaps that’s not quite what you had in mind. You know you want multiple angles and camera tricks and all types of fancy stuff—so it sounds like you may want to outsource.

What you don’t want to do is stress yourself out by trying to learn a completely new skill while trying to create something you know you want to use. It’s a great way to learn but it’s also one of the quickest ways to get stressed—you have to determine if that’s worth it, especially if you have a pile of client work to do and you’re trying to squeeze years worth of knowledge into a small personal project.

A different outlook

It’s easy to get caught in the act of using the same techniques, same programs, and same workflow that you use constantly. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being efficient but there is an issue when all your work begins to look and feel the same. There is a fine line between having a style and having the same base, just changing a thing or two. If you feel like all your work is looking pretty much the same, you may want to call on an outside opinion.

Even if you are creating work that does not look different, it is good to have a different opinion. Many times, it’s hard for us to step outside of our roles and see the much bigger picture. Having an outsider’s opinion can go far, not just by the look and design of things but also in helping you figure some things out with your brand and services. Outsourcing your work doesn’t have to just be about giving someone else your workload, but it can also be a partnership that helps move your personal visions further.

Which one?

Both of these ‘methods’ sound so simple, but the truth is, a lot of designers make a bunch of mistakes by choosing to outsource or not to outsource. I don’t believe you have to stick to one method because both are appropriate depending on your situation and strategy, but it is important you use the right one at the right time.

Doing your personal projects is completely up to you and your capabilities, but if you are a designer of any sort and have some sort of general knowledge, you should definitely have some sort of hand in your personal projects. I’m not just talking about telling someone what you want to do, but actually doing something and being a large part of the creative process.

Ultimately, with whatever work you are doing, you don’t want to stress or burn yourself out. If that means you have to pass some work along to someone else, do that. You want to make sure you take as much care of your creativity as possible.

Kendra Gaines is a freelance designer from Virginia, USA. Connect with her.

Do you prefer to work on all your personal projects or not? When have you outsourced?

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N-Dimensional Thinking: How To Get More Out Of Your Daily To-Dos

2011-08-26T00:00:00Z

Is it possible to tackle your to-do list in 3-D? We explain how to expand dull, repetitive tasks into an opportunity for growth and learning.

Fix Broken Meetings With Better Invites

2011-08-31T00:00:00Z

Are you ready to banish mediocre meetings? Start by telling your participants what's at stake, and why you need their unique skills.

30+ Most Useful Web Development Frameworks

2011-09-19T18:28:23Z

Web development framework is especially created to help you boost the performance and efficiency of your web applications, web services and website development task. A large number of frameworks are equipped with fascinating features such as templates and session management and database access libraries. In fact, when you take resort to web development frameworks, you [...]

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175+ free vintage and retro psd web design elements

2011-09-20T07:00:28Z

In the design trends for 2011 article published by WebDesignShock, we mentioned that vintage was dead and only retro fonts will survive the New Year. However, as it was back then, vintage still has a great impact on web design. That’s why today we present an incredible collection with more than 175 vintage and retro elements featuring icon sets, fonts, themes, templates, textures, patterns, backgrounds and brushes, all of them fully downloadable in PSD or AI formats for you to implement in your websites.. So, without further ado, let’s go back to the past!

Continue reading: 175+ free vintage and retro psd web design elements

Why Success Always Starts With Failure

2011-08-28T00:00:00Z

The ego is the enemy of innovation. Economist Tim Harford explains why a complex world demands that we accept our mistakes and adapt rapidly.

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Web Designer?

2011-08-20T10:00:15Z

Being a web designer, whether it’s freelancing or working in house, is a difficult job. There are a lot more skills needed than just knowing how to code a web site. If you’ve ever considered becoming a web designer, continue reading to see some of the skills needed to compete in the job and freelance web design market. Some of the skills might surprise you.

Writing Skills

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Your writing and editing skills should be excellent. This skill is important if you want to become a truly effective web designer. The skills with graphics, Photoshop, HTML, CSS etc are not enough, trust me. Your writing is what appeals to the customers when they first visit your site. This helps open a communication channel between you and the client. Don’t worry about using fancy words, you just need to have the writing skills to explain to the customers what you can do for them.

Still if you can use some fancy words, that can make the communication more effective. It’s just like designing a web page. A web page will be more appealing if you make it so. The more effective your words, the more impressive your portfolio and project will be.

Apart from having good writing skills, your writing should also be fast, because the faster you can type, the faster you’ll be able to code, and the faster you will be able to reply to emails. This will help you finish your tasks before the deadline and impress the client.

Unique Style

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You must have your own style. To stand out from all the other web designers out there, including the freelancers and the companies, you must have something that no one has. And to be different from others you must simply have your own style. This makes it easy for the customers to recognize that your work is indeed different from others. The important factor in having your own style is having a distinct signature, because I have seen many web designers with the same style, in one way or other.

Social Media Marketing

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Your social media marketing skills also play a role these days because of the trend of marketing turning from offline to online. Due to the change in technology, after having a grip over the computers, printers and other necessary equipments, you need to know all the social media sites and about their usage. This is because most of the online businesses share their products and news on the social sites like Facebook, Twitter and other sites. This skill proves to be very effective because of the high usage of users on those sites, and so you can use them for your marketing.

Communication Skills

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Your communication skills should be strong. It’s very important in every part of every business. As a web designer you must be able to communicate, not just in writing, but also verbally and visually. Along with it, the listening part plays an important role too. You should be a good listener and listen attentively to your clients so that you can make them feel that you always try to understand them well and give the impression that you can give them tips.

Management Skills

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Project management skills is something that can make you stand out. These includes managing resources, planning a project, and executing a project. Customer satisfaction mainly depends on your management skills which can help customers avoid headaches.

Knowledge About HTML & CSS

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HTML & CSS is a must have skill for a web designer, I know this should be obvious but I know some web designers merely come up with the idea and outsource the actual coding. They might sometimes put their signature on and it won’t leave a good impression on your client if they have a code related issue and you can’t answer it immediately. XHTML and CSS are not that hard to learn and are actually the most important tools in web designing, so you need to understand the usability and accessibility of HTML & CSS.

Business Sense

You must have some business sense. Freelancers might ignore this area, but trust me, even if you are self-employed, you need to know business basics. It will help you make decisions about how to approach your projects, or how to better help your client be successful. This area is not that complicated, because it’s just common sense that you must need to understand what your client is telling you, whether that client is an individual or a company.

Creative Thinking

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Creative thinking is a very crucial skill you should have so your clients to come to you more often. You should always be thinking out of the box and trying to be more creative in your designs. This way you can develop your own style and create a great project and increase your number of clients.

Survive Being a Team Player

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You should be a team player. Sometimes you are just part of a project team and not the lead. This is a good opportunity sometimes to polish your skills working on the one task you are appointed to. The appreciation that you get from the whole team is something that will keep you motivated. Occasionally you won’t like a teammate that much and it can become a hindrance to your work and you should always try to ignore or resolve the problem. You can also face a time when the whole workload is on you and the team expects you to overcome it. That is the time when you have to be calm and prove that you can be a team player and can be counted on.

SEO Skills

You must know the basics of SEO. Optimising your web pages for search engines is indeed a vital element in web design. This is because your project doesn’t have to end with the completion of the web design, you can make yourself stand out (and some more money) if you know what you’re doing with SEO.

Time Management

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You should be able to manage time effectively. Every project has a deadline and you have to be conscious of the amount of time things take you, and always try to finish your work before the deadline, so as to have the time to re-check everything and correct any errors. Completing the task before the deadline leaves a good impression upon the client, and it is a good thing for you in the long-term.

Problem Solver

You should be able to solve problems. Projects are never without their problems and indeed you will encounter some. You need to be able to overcome any problem you encounter. The client doesn’t care what problems you may face while completing their project, so learn to face all the problems and solve them.

Through today’s post, we have mentioned some of the essential skills that you must have. So start judging yourself with respect to these, and be realistic and true to yourself, because polishing these skills will make you go far in your career.

Sunucu ve Yazılım Araçları Web Seminerleri

2011-08-24T07:00:24Z

Ağustos ve Aralık Ayları Arasında Gerçekleşecek Olan Ücretsiz Web Seminerlerimize Davetlisiniz!

Yıl boyunca ayda bir kere gerçekleştireceğimiz herkesin katılımına açık web seminerlerimizin önümüzdeki dönem programını hazırladık.

İlkini 25 Ağustos’ta gerçekleştireceğimiz web seminerlerimize aşağıdaki linkler üzerinden katılabilirsiniz.

1. Microsoft HP Akıllı Veri Ambarı Çözümleri: Microsoft ve HP işbirliğinin veri yönetimi çözümlerini nasıl etkilediği, 2011 yılında markete sunduğumuz etkin araçlar ve referans mimarisi konularına genel olarak değinilecek bu Web seminerinde, Microsoft ve HP işbirliğinin beklenenden çok daha uygun maliyetlerle müşterilerine sağladığı avantajlar üzerinde durulacaktır.

25 Ağustos 2011 / 10:00-11:00 / Önder Yıldırım

2. M icrosoft İş Zekası: Daha önceleri iş zekası çözümlerini maliyetli ve karmaşık bulan birçok organizasyon, günümüzde Microsoft İş Zekası Çözüm Ailesi’nin gelişmiş, kullanımı kolay ve güçlü bileşenleri ile hem maliyet hem kolay yönetilebilirlik ve kullanabilirlik avantajını yaşamaktadırlar. Tüm bu iş zekası hizmetleri ve Microsoft Office ürünlerinin yakın entegrasyonu daha verimli bir yapının ve karar verme aşamasında daha etkili yeni bir bilgi çalışanı jenerasyonun ortaya çıkmasını sağlamıştır.

21 Eylül 2011 / 10:00-11:00 / Esin Yılmaz

3. SQL Server Konsolidasyonunun Faydaları Nelerdir? : SQL Server konsolidasyonu ile ekonomik ve operasyonel maliyetleri düşürmek ve kurum içi hızlı yanıtlar, çözümler sunmak mümkündür. Şirket bünyesinde birçok sunucu kullanmak yerine, pekiştirilmiş tek bir donanım kullanmak hem mali giderleri azaltmak ve operasyonel maliyetleri düşürmek hem de performans ve hızı artırmak açısından avantaj sunmaktadır. Bu Web seminerinde Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 konsolidasyonun sağladığı avantajlar incelenecektir.

26 Ekim 2011 / 10:00-11:00 / Vadihan Yalçın

4. SQL Server Denali ile Gelen Yenilikler: Bu Web seminerinde SQL Server kod adı Denali ile gelen yönetimsel yenilikler ve kurulumla ilgili yenilikler konuları üzerinde durulacaktır. Güvenlik yenilikleri, programsal yenilikler ve yüksek uygulanabilirlik yenilikleri başlıkları paylaşılacaktır.

16 Kasım 2011 / 10:00-11:00 / Sibel Nal

5. İş Kritik Uygulamalar için SQL Server Denali: Yüksek süreklilik konusunda SQL Server Denali ile gelen SQL Server AlwaysOn özelliği ile iş kritik uygulamalar için daha yüksek erişilebilirlik sunulacaktır. Data Warehouse ortamları için geliştirilen Column-Based Query Accelerator özelliği de iş kritik uygulamalar için büyük performans kazancı sağlayacaktır. Ayrıca, ‘Crescent‘ kod adlı proje Web tabanlı, ileri düzeyde analitik performans sunan raporlama aracı iş zekası alanındaki en büyük yeniliklerden biri olarak sunulacaktır. Web seminerimizde bu temel özelliklerin yanı sıra, Performance Tuning açısından katkı sağlayacak DMV’ler ile gelen yeniliklerden de bahsedilecektir.

21 Aralık 2011 / 10:00-11:00 / Işıl Efe

A 5-Step Checklist for Mobile Website Design

2011-08-27T10:00:37Z

As the number of people browsing the web from mobile devices increases, the demand for websites that respond to those devices surges. And still there are websites that aren’t equipped with the tools necessary to respond to those changes, whether it be lack of information or just not having the time or money to upgrade. The process of optimizing your website for a mobile device isn’t actually as hard as it seems, but knowing the steps in creating an effective mobile website can be the difference between success and failure. In this article I will walk you through five fundamental checkpoints to keep in mind in the creation of your mobile website. Feel free to leave comments if you feel I’ve missed important steps, or wish to touch upon any of them.

Choose the Right Markup

In short, markup will make the content readable by mobile browsers. In the creation of your mobile website, it’s important to choose one markup language and stick to it. Explore your customer’s needs in choosing the right one that best fits their demands. How do you go about choosing the right language for your user? Here are the basic languages below, along with their key benefits/limitations.

WML

WML (wireless markup language) is one language used to make sites mobile-ready.

Sites providing email service, sports scores, and a calendar service are the one’s that can benefit the most from having WML

WML is used by legacy systems or sites targeting users with low-end phones such as the Nokia.

If your customer uses a basic, affordable phone such as the Nokia, WML is the best markup language for you.

XHTML

XHTML is the computer language designed specifically for mobile phones.
Most phone-browsers support this language, and has become the predominate language of the web.
XHTML-MP is a modularization of XHTML, and is basically indistinguishable from it.
If you’re designing for an advanced device such as the iPhone, XHTML is preferred over XHTML-MP.

In deciding between the two, access your site’s analytics to see which devices your visitors are using.

Knowing Your Device

Aside from markup languages, mobile phones differ greatly in rendering capabilities across browsers. Just as with IE6, Safari, and Firefox have extreme differences, mobile phones are a whole different device you have to account for. And since there’s so many shapes and sizes on the market, it makes the task even more cumbersome.

Common screen sizes are 128 x 160, 320 x 480, 176 x 220, 240 x 320
Although many people have their website adjust automatically for hand-held devices, others create a mobile website from scratch. Web services such as Mobify make this possible.
This is usually the best method, as you can create a customized site geared specifically towards mobile users, while allowing traditional web visitors to access your full site.
To avoid user frustration, include links in your website’s footer to the mobile version of your site, and vice-versa. This way visitors know both are available, easing the stress of the unknown.

Scaling Down Your Website

A common tactic for those designing for the mobile web is to simply scale down their existing site to fit the parameters of a mobile device. This practice is counterproductive, as the mobile user is visiting your site to access specific information as quickly as possible. Also remember that many mobile devices use touch-screen technology so designing your UI around it is worthwhile. In determining what to include on your mobile website, consider the following:

Remove any copy that is not important for the mobile visitor

Reduce the amount of navigation items to only those your mobile visitor needs to access on the go.

Increase the size of your text to a readable level, links are recommended to be 32 pixels to account for the human fingertip.

Design UI elements large. Mobile users tab and drag so you must accommodate to their fingertips.

Optimize blog posts using pagination to make skimming and reading more natural.

Remove unnecessary animations or images as they will load down the loading time of the website.

When applicable, Media Queries can be used to scale an image properly across all browsing devices.

Usability

Enhance your mobile websites usability by including only pertinent information that a mobile user needs while on the go. You have to keep in mind that browsing a website through a mobile device presents its own challenges. And while phones such as the iPhone and Android have made great strides in enhancing the web usability for its customers, not all phones make the task easy. Here are some tips to keep in mind regarding usability for mobile websites:

Older phones aren’t able to scroll left and right, leaving the user unable to browse a full website.
If your website requires a lot of tabbing and clicking, navigating it on a mobile phone becomes a challenge.
In creating your mobile website, focus on the primary features that mobile users are likely looking for. Such features could be contact information and store locators.
As mentioned previously, links should be around 32 pixels to account for the human fingertip. Contact forms should also fit the viewport.
Test your Website. Your layout may look great in one device, but slightly different in another. Online emulators allow you to see what your site will look like on different devices.

Adding Your Mobile Website

There are few different ways for adding a mobile version of your site to your domain. For instance you can create a subdomain from your primary domain that houses your mobile site. For instance, mobile.yoursite.com and yoursite.mobi. In any case many viewers still reach the primary domain when typing in your url. In this case you can:

Route traffic to your site depending on the viewer’s browsing agent. If they visit yoursitename.com, they can automatically be redirected to mobile.yoursite.com, for instance.

Conclusion

In this article I’ve discussed key checkpoints to keep in mind in the creation of your mobile website. As the web expands, so does the devices and technology used to access it. Gone are the days where we had to worry about how our site renders in Internet Explorer. These new advances in technology presents more opportunities to appreciate and gain the most from the web. It’s our job to make this as easy as possible for those who wish to get on board.

Developing Visual Rhythm in Web Design

2011-08-19T12:19:43Z

Think about the driving, repeating intervals of drum beats in the song ‘When the Levee Breaks’ by Led Zeppelin — if you haven’t heard it… shame on you, now go listen to it so we can continue… Bonzo’s drum beat represents what a perfect rhythm is — where music notes follow each other in time, in an expected pattern of repetition. Simply put, rhythm in music or even design is just predictable repetitions.

In design, rhythm is created by simply repeating elements in predictable patterns. This repetition is a natural thing that occurs everywhere in our world. As people, we are driven everyday by predictable, timed events. The sun comes up every day and sets every day, the seasons cycle in predictable patterns every year, and we all know that the World Cup happens every four years. Rhythm in design is just re-creating that, re-creating these predictable timed patterns, creating a sub-conscience relationship with ourselves and creating comfort or familiarity.

Visual Rhythm

There are many ways to create visual rhythm, but there are three main ways to achieve it:

Regular Rhythm
Progressive Rhythm
Flowing Rhythm

I’ll go into each one in more depth below, but each of these methods are simple patterns. A regular pattern just repeats elements in timed or predictable intervals. The progressive pattern repeats elements but changes in size or color to create progressive steps. Flowing patterns are organic or natural feeling patterns that create movement.

Developing a regular rhythm

Regular rhythm is a repeating pattern of timed intervals, but this doesn’t necessarily have to be boring or repetitive. When I take my daughter for a walk in her bright pink Princess Cozy Coupe car, the rhythm of the wheels clicking through the seams in the sidewalk always put her to sleep. It’s this regular rhythm, the timed intervals between each piece of concrete that relaxes her enough to lull her to sleep, but if the intervals were longer or shorter she may not fall asleep as easily.

When constructing a regular rhythm visually, there are many variables that you can play with in order to achieve a rhythm that you want. When repeating elements, you can alter the distance between elements making the overall interval bigger or longer, or you could even make the actual elements larger or smaller and there by creating a different rhythmic feel, faster or slower. The size and position of elements in a repeated, regular pattern can drastically change the presentation of those elements.

Examples of regular rhythm in web design

http://thelitpub.com/

http://www.giftrocket.com/

http://www.tenbytwenty.com/

Developing a progressive rhythm

Progressive rhythm is a pattern of elements that change slightly over time to create a progressive sequence of steps. For all of you Tool fans out there, the song ‘Forty Six and Two’ is a great example of progressive rhythm. The melodic intervals repeat constantly through the song but as the song plays, each interval changes slightly in volume, speed and melodic balance. Although the main melody repeats throughout the song, these slight changes build up to the powerful, loud crescendo of a conclusion.

The easiest way to achieve visual progressive rhythm is to alter the size and color of the repeated elements and let the visual hierarchy of the elements determine the crescendo — the focus of your design. Progressive rhythm is great for adding visual excitement and a great tool for directing the user to a specific location of a design.

Example of progressive rhythm in web design

http://www.aw-digital.com

http://www.luccaco.com/

http://nizoapp.com/

Developing flowing rhythm

Flowing rhythm is generally an organic or natural movement in a design that is most often used to create visual movement. The best analogy for representing a flowing rhythm is the stripes on a Zebra or Tiger. Each stripe is repeated throughout, but each stripe is also unique in its form. Another form of flowing rhythm plays on the space between the elements instead of the elements themselves where the elements are actually the same, but the way you move from one element the other alters creating a sort of path.

Example of flowing rhythm in web design

http://www.ufo.lt/

http://www.girleffect.org/

http://www.flairbuilder.com/

Take control of the rhythm

Adding unique interest and excitement to your web designs can be hard to accomplish, but adding some rhythm to the design is a quick and easy way to do this. Visual rhythm, just like Bonzo’s drumming in ‘When the Levee Breaks’, can be the back bone, anchor and driving force in design. Every design has rhythm even if you didn’t plan for it, so taking control of it will allow you to sharpen and polish off those web designs.

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30 Greatest Online Project Management and Collaboration Tools For Easy Communication!

2011-08-14T10:00:39Z

Project management and collaboration skills play a major role in every business and often the outcome of a project is highly affected by the initial planning and monitoring stages of a project. Project management is especially important for small and flexible businesses where all the work is based on a few people who have to communicate and develop the workflow. Globalization has made collaboration even more essential since many modern businesses like web design agencies don’t even have a constant address – people all around the world are working from their home.

Web-based project management and collaboration tools are the top choice of hundreds of entrepreneurs and thousands of small and medium size businesses. These tools will maximize your productivity, organization, and help you keep on top of your projects effortlessly. Keep track of your projects, manage your workers, set milestones, schedule your work, upload your files, send invoices, sync with your mobile – all of these features and more make these apps almost necessary.

Continue reading if you’re looking for your first project management app or just seeking to check out alternatives. With a lot to choose from it might be frustrating to find the right app for you. This article presents some of the best project management and collaboration tools out there. There are also tools for brainstorming ideas, hosting conversations and even managing a newsroom. Each of them share common general features, however each of them also has something unique to offer. Most of these tools come with a fixed monthly price, some of them you’ll have to pay for per user and month. Also a trial period is available with most of them so you’ll have the chance to examine and check out if it’s the right choice. Each description contains brief features the service offers as well as the pricing plans.

1. Teambox

Teambox is voted the best online project collaboration software for project managers, contractors, freelancers and teams. Teambox is the pioneer in joining social collaboration tools with online project management. It’s mission is to change the way people work by making it easier and more fun to get things done.

Features:

Teambox Projects consist of conversations, task lists, pages and file storage.
Share ideas, files, images and video. Discuss details and solve problems, stay alert thanks to email notifications.
Simple, fast and linear task creation. Add due dates and task owners in seconds. Quickly see what is getting done.
All of your important documents and media in one place. File storage that is simple and linear.
Various communication options. RSS, Email, Mobile Access and Web interfaces are just the beginning of how you can communicate.

Pricing:

Free: $0/month
Personal : $12/month
Basic: $29/month
Professional : $99/month

2. Projecturf

Projecturf is the Web-based project management app that helps individuals and businesses manage projects, people, and tasks. A project can be big or small, personal or business. Once a project is created, you add team members to the project who gain instant access to it via the Web. Within a project, there are tons of features and functions that can be done, such as creating and managing tasks, events on the calendar, and discussions; uploading and storing designs and documents; and analyzing project data using the Dashboard activity history and reporting.

Features:

Projecturf keeps you up-to-date on all your projects and stores everything in one place, that is always accessible, secure, and backed up.
Upload your own logo, create your own custom URL, change the colors, and tailor our app to suit your needs.
Projecturf uses the highest level of security available on all accounts at all times.
Pay only for your consumption. Pricing charts are built on project amount per month. Unlimited users, unlimited storage.

Pricing:

20 projects: $39.99/month
40 projects: $69.99/month
70 projects: $99.99/month
100 projects: $119.99/month

3. Apollo

Apollo is project and contact management done right. Using Apollo, you will realize that it’s built to help you get things done, quickly and efficiently. With Apollo, you will always know where your projects, your contacts and your life are at and you will feel on top of everything — regardless of how hectic your schedule is.

Features:

Keep everything under control – use the overview to keep track of what’s going on across all of your projects, calendars and personal tasks.
Start interactive timers – with interactive timers, you can start a timer and keep track of how long you are spending on a task.
See your project’s activity – in the activity screen you can see who did what on your project and who is allowed to access it.
Set your milestones – you can assign a task list to a milestone, to divide your project into stages and throw a party when you complete a full stage.

Pricing:

Basic: $23/month
Plus: $48/month
Premium: $96/month
Max: $148/month

4. Basecamp

Basecamp is the top choice for entrepreneurs, freelancers, small businesses, and groups inside big organizations. Projects go well when people talk to each other, discuss issues openly, and communicate clearly. Basecamp is focused on making this easy.

Features:

No more messy email threads. Post messages to Basecamp instead.
Easily share files, documents, images, and designs with your clients or team.
Assign to-dos with deadlines. Making to-do lists and adding to-do items literally just takes seconds.
Templates jump start your project. Instead of creating new projects from scratch every time, use Basecamp project templates to set up standardized projects ahead of time.

Pricing:

Plus: $49/month
Premium: $99/month
Max: $149/month

5. Huddle

Huddle is the world’s leading cloud-based collaboration platform, used by 90,000 businesses and government organizations in more than 180 countries.

Features:

Online file storage – Huddle encrypts all data exchanged with the server to industry standard levels as well as authenticating the server itself to the user.
Discussions – quickly start discussions with team members and keep all conversations and comments in one central place.
Tasks & files – immediately track deadlines and milestones for your projects. Attach files to specific tasks.
Permissions – set granular permissions against each workspace or folder, controlling who can view specific items.

Pricing:

$15/per user and month

6. Lighthouse

Lighthouse will simplify your workflow so you can do the job you were hired to do. Collaborate effortlessly on projects. Whether you’re a team of 5 or studio of 50, Lighthouse will help you keep track of your project development with ease.

Features:

Keep up with your project on the go – no matter where you are, we have the tools to keep you up to date on your project.
We’ll organize. You work – Lighthouse has given you all the tools you need to organize your tickets – custom states, a powerful tagging system, an advanced search, saved searches (we call them ticket bins), and a mass editing tool.
Setting your project goals – milestones help you group your tickets in timely releases.
Plays well with others – thanks to Lighthouse’s robust API, there are already dozens of useful services that integrate with Lighthouse.

Pricing:

Bronze: $25/month
Silver: $50/month
Gold: $100/month

7. Goplan

Goplan lets you keep track of your projects and collaborate with your colleagues securely through an intuitive user interface. Goplan was developed to scratch developers own itch – they needed a better tool to manage our projects, communicate with clients, and organize our personal lives. Goplan has become a consumer-facing product ever since then.

Features:

Everything in its right place – the Goplan dashboard gives you an overview of everything that’s happening with your company and your projects.
Task management – organize your projects into tasks and milestones. Tasks can have any number of sub-tasks, with sub-tasks of their own.
Issue tracking – if you’re running a software project, you’re probably aware of the notion of tickets and issue tracking. Tickets capture project defects, which can then prioritized and filtered.
File management – upload files and documents directly to Goplan and have all your projects assets in one secure place.

Pricing:

Startup: $10/month
Professional: $35/month
Unlimited: $80/month

8. Action Method

Action Method by Behance is a task-management methodology designed to help creative thinkers push their ideas forward. Based on the power of capturing and managing tasks you need to complete, Action Method ensures ideas are executed. From beautifully designed paper products, to Action Method Online, to Action Method for iPhone, this system of products works together to maximize productivity, organization, and accountability.

Features:

Capture Action Steps – action Steps are tasks that need to be completed. Each Action Step should start with a verb: “Call Y,” “Follow up with X,” “Buy a gift for Z.”
Delegate tasks – you can delegate Action Steps to anyone with an email address. Once an Action Step is delegated, you can monitor its progress.
Manage projects – all of your items in Action Method online are organized by project. A project could be a client, a project at work, a party you’re planning.
Sync with mobile – automatically sync with your mobile device to manage your tasks wherever you are. No wifi required.

Pricing:

Introductory: free
Premium: $12/month

9. Rule.fm

Rule – one application to make your business simply productive. People, CRM, Projects, Documents and more- all interacting and coexisting with total transparency online in an activity stream — so you can finally manage your business under one rule.

Features:

The stream – know what’s happening in your business up to the moment. View, filter and collaborate on all activity for all Rule assets.
Projects – simple, powerful, collaborative. Your Milestones, Tasks, Time Tracking, Project Calendar, Documents & Discussions come together to make project management what it should be.
Docs – get busy sharing folders and files with multi-file upload and group/individual sharing and permissions.
CRM – from the pipeline to your bottom line – manage customer relationships and the deal flow (sales cycle) process with the Rule CRM – integrated with your other valuable Rule assets.

Pricing:

they’re prompting a free account however their TOS says that Rule.fm has 4 paid pricing plans

10. Freedcamp

Freedcamp offers unlimited user and unlimited project solution for everyone, completely free, forever. By offering an amazing web application Freedcamp believes there will finally be a standard in project management.

Features:

The dashboard is where you can get your morning cup of information about projects, important tasks, and recent activity.
Discussions provide a forum-like experience, allowing you to create entries in a simple format. Use it to discuss ideas, give suggestions, and collaborate on the important things in life.
Milestones are a great way to keep your projects on track. Set dates for each milestone in your project and then try to complete it by the due date.
Keeping track of time is a fundamental part of project management. This is where you can keep a record of the amount of time you’ve spent on a specific task.

Pricing:

completely free

11. Onehub Workspaces

Onehub makes large file sharing easy. Secure, fast and easy to use file sharing for any size business. Manage projects, share files and collaborate with others. With Workspaces and Transfers products Onehub has solutions to help growing businesses work more efficiently by improving communication and information sharing.

Features:

Online Workspaces – organize your files by team, project, client or file type — it’s up to you.
Content management – workspaces is a simple and secure way to manage your documents, media and content online.
Secure sharing – share your Workspaces, folders or files with unlimited users on every plan, no per user fees.
Real-time chat – the ideal way to collaborate with your team in real-time. See who is online in your workspace.

Pricing:

Free: $0
Personal: $29/month
Team: $99/month
Enterprise: $499/month

12. So1o

Keep on top of your projects with So1o. Intelligently track how much time you’ve spent and what you’ve spent it on. See how many days to deadline, what you’ve quoted and how close a project is to completion. Beautifully designed graphs show a visual breakdown of your project.

Features:

Dashboard – the hub of the solo experience. The dashboard allows you to easily keep track of the day-to-day things that really matter.
Projects – keep on top of your projects with Solo. Intelligently track how much time you’ve spent and what you’ve spent it on.
Diary – manage deadlines, milestones , meetings, tasks and todo’s all in one place.
Invoicing – electronically send invoices directly to your clients, Solo lets you know when they’re due to be paid, are overdue or need to be sent.

Pricing:

$10/month

13. Worketc

WORKetc combines CRM, project management, billing, sales, support and more with a powerful automation engine to help take your small business to the next level.

Features:

Manage your entire customer lifecycle in one application, and easily reference any part of that lifecycle through detailed contact histories.
Save time and effort by automatically converting sales leads into projects, duplicating existing projects, or using project templates.
For recurring bills, use a list of products and attach these to customers and invoices. Set up shipping, local taxes, offer discounts, and manage commissions.
Setting up reminders and to-dos across your business is as simple as a few clicks, and these can take the form of e-mail or RSS, so you can always be up to date even when you’re on the go.

Pricing:

$39/per user and month (discount for more users)

14. ProWorkFlow

ProWorkflow is the top project management software currently helping thousands of customers globally to optimize their business processes, manage staff resources, track projects, tasks and time and keep on top of it all.

Features:

Web-based technology allows you to manage your company remotely.
Get organized with the project manager & assign tasks to employees.
The task manager allows you to create task lists for each employee, and see activity in real-time.
Gain knowledge on company performance using the reports manager.

Pricing:

Standard: €10/per user and month
Professional: €20/per user and month
Advanced: €30/per user and month

15. activeCollab

activeCollab is a project management and collaboration tool that installs on your server or local network. activeCollab gives you full control over your files and communications, with unlimited users, unlimited projects, and unlimited storage space – it grows with your company, with no monthly fees.

Features:

Keep projects on track – activeCollab provides platform for planning, progress tracking and communication.
Collaborate – work with your associates and clients, assign tasks, share files, get notified when something happens, discuss and comment.
Email notifications – activeCollab sends you an email when something important happens.
Be in control – install activeCollab on your server and invite people to work with you.

Pricing:

Small Biz: $249
Corporate: $499

16. Teamwork PM

Teamwork Project Manager is an easy-to-use online teamwork & project management software application that helps managers, staff and clients work together more productively online.

Features:

Assign tasks to keep on top of everything – with Teamwork, you can assign tasks to staff, co-workers and contractors in seconds.
Never miss a milestone again – with Teamwork, you can add Project Milestones to keep everybody on the project informed about key dates and goals.
Project management – Teamwork allows you to take a birds eye view of all your projects and visualize your overall schedule.
Track every hour – Teamwork allows you to track the time you spend on every project allowing you to keep projects on-cost and efficiently bill your clients.

Pricing

Personal: $12/month
Business 1: $24/month
Business 2: $49/month
Corporate: $99/month
Enterprise: $149/month

17. Conceptboard

Conceptboard offers real time teamwork on thoughts and documents which you can share and discuss with your colleagues, customers & friends. Conceptboard is a great work space for your ideas, documents and pictures. It’s very intuitive and makes online collaboration easy as pie.

Features:

Use your own files – edit your documents as if they were printed. Highlight, underline and more with just one click.
Get things done on the iPad – Conceptboard is optimized for the iPad. There is no app you need to download, it works just fine in the browser.
Comment without the fuss – opinions, ideas, thoughts – comment directly on the object of discussion.
Work live with your team – discuss drafts, make decisions and produce results. Work cooperatively on your boards in real time

Pricing:

Basic: free
Professional: $8/per user and month
Enterprise: $25/per user and month

p>18. Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects is an online project management software with collaboration and bug tracking that allows project teams to collaborate and get work done faster. Planning and Tracking helps you keep your project on schedule. Collaboration helps improve the communication within the team and keep everyone on the same page.

Features:

With Zoho Projects planning your projects becomes a snap. Use milestones to organize projects, set dependency for your tasks, assign ownership and priorities.
The bug tracker combines a clean interface to organize bugs with custom workflows, business rules and fix bugs which makes bug tracking painless and simple.
Record your working hours. Export data and generate reports quickly with time-sheets.
Create files directly on the browser without having to install any additional software. Tag files with labels and keep track of changes with the version history.

Pricing:

Express: $20/month
Premium: $35/month
Enterprise: $80/month

19. Teamlab

TeamLab is a web-based platform for business collaboration and project management. It has been developed by Ascensio System Limited, a fast-growing company that offers IT-solutions for personal and corporate use.

Features:

Project management – build teams and assign tasks. Schedule project milestones, track project activity and generate reports.
Business collaboration – create posts in blogs and forums, view employee details. Share photos, bookmarks and Wiki pages.
Time tracking – save information on time spent for a certain project task. Add details to the work done and generate time-tracking reports.
Mobile full version – access your portal from Android or iOS mobile phone. Keep track of team and project activities regardless of your location.

Pricing:

SaaS, Open-Source, AMI: free

20. DeskAway

DeskAway is a web-based project collaboration software that provides teams a central location to easily organize, manage and track their projects & work. DeskAway is carefully hand-crafted by a small team of developers and designers. Each feature is custom-made to give you the ease of use and power to help you grow your business.

Features:

Go green – DeskAway will have all your project stuff in a central location – project plans, reports, to-do’s, notes etc. This way you and your team are less likely to hit the print button. Save the trees and help conserve energy.
Less email clutter – once you start using DeskAway, you will automatically have less email clutter in your inbox and no problems finding old project information.
You control who sees what information – DeskAway’s permission-control system is built with the idea that not everyone should know and see everything.
Nothing to download or install – since DeskAway is an on-demand business software delivered on the Internet, there is nothing to install, compile or configure.

Pricing:

Professional: $35/month
Plus: $49/month
Power: $99/month

21. Producteev

Working on a Product Launch? Got a Team? Producteev is a dead simple, fast, smart Task Management platform connected to your daily communication services.

Features:

Multiple team support – manage multiple teams with Producteev using simple, built-in features.
Filters and reports – easily generate useful reports on project and team activity.
Overview – see a real-time overview of what’s been accomplished and what should be done next for each team and project with integrated activity feeds, timelines, and alerts.
Producteev Academy – turn task management into a social game. The Academy is a built-in, fun competition to see who can get the most done.

Pricing:

Free: $0
Plus: $5/month
Premium: $20/month
Platinum: $30/month

22. Kapost

Kapost is an online newsroom for web publishing also used by 1stwebdesigner. Kapost handles the entire content production process: from pitch to payment and everything in between. Enable your editorial team to focus on audience and content, not administrative tasks. Easily scale your set of contributors.

Features:

Kapost moves the content production process on to its online workflow: from pitches & story ideas, to assignments & editorial calendars, to drafts & publishing, and into performance and payment tracking.
Kapost enables the entire production workflow to be moved online. In Kapost, anyone can create Story Ideas, which can be closed or approved and assigned.
Track the performance of your content in terms of page views, uniques, re-tweets, FB Likes, etc.
Easily automate the tracking of the payment of your contributors. Kapost handles the calculation and reporting of payments.

Pricing:

Starter: free
Standard: $8/month
Plus: $15/month (coming soon)

23. Campfire

Campfire is a web-based group chat tool that lets you set up password-protected chat rooms in just seconds. Invite a client, colleague, or vendor to chat, collaborate, and make decisions. Link to a room on your intranet for internal communications.

Features:

Basecamp integration – use Campfire with Basecamp, the leading web-based project collaboration tool.
Live image previews – upload a GIF, JPG, or PNG, and it shows up right in the chat room.
Conference calling – invite your chat room to a voice conference call with a single click.
Jump back in time – read past chat transcripts anytime you want. Campfire keeps a history.

Pricing:

Basic: $12/month
Plus: $24/month
Premium: $49/month
Max: $99/month

24. Socialcast

Socialcast is an enterprise collaboration platform that unites your company’s people, data, and applications in real-time. Socialcast’s software creates a flexible, simple, data-rich collaborative space where employees can find information from applications, systems, and people across the enterprise.

Features:

Activity Streams are the future of enterprise collaboration, uniting people, data, and applications in real-time in a central, accessible, virtual interface.
Contribute to an evolving hub of company information with every note, question, and document shared.
Social Business Intelligence is a suite of analytics that provides real-time feedback and actionable insights into the employees, topics, and information-sharing occurring in your Socialcast community.
User Roles enables community administrators to grant people access to social tools such as Reach, Social Business Analytics and External Contributors, providing people with the resources and information they need to get work done faster.

Pricing:

Basic: free
Enterprise: contact the service

25. Flowdock

Flowdock creates a bridge between conversation and knowledge management. You don’t have to use clumsy tools like instant messaging, IRC or email for group conversation on one hand, and wikis, ticketing systems etc for knowledge management on the other. With Flowdock, you can reduce your ways to a light-weight, effortless process, where the conversation flows and the barrier of creating knowledge is diminished.

Features:

Real-time group chat – Flowdock’s efficient real-time group chat saves you time and helps your team get answers right away.
Easy file sharing & storage – upload mockups, images, code snippets, presentations or other documents to Flowdock and share them with others instantly.
Bring your systems together – Flowdock integrates your wikis, project management tools, customer feedback, Twitter feeds and much more into one simple feed.
Constant brainstorm – with Flowdock, recording ideas or gathering knowledge is just as easy as chatting. Just jot down the idea in the chat, tag it and it’s immediately saved and shared with the team.

Pricing:

Team: $19/month
Unit: $39/month
Department: $79/month
Division: $159/month

26. Thoughtboxes

Whether you want to brainstorm ideas for your next big project or you just want to keep track of tasks, Thoughtboxes makes it fun and easy. With a single click, you can share your thoughts with anyone, or collaborate privately with your friends, family, and co-workers.

27. Peers.me

Peers.me offers hosted conversations to keep everyone involved in an easy way. By using Peers.me for group communication your email inbox stays clean. No fancy stuff, Peers.me is all about communication. And Peers.me is free up to 10 users.

28. BrixHQ

BrixHQ makes online agile project management and collaboration easy and cost effective.

Features:

Dashboard – the Dashboard gives you a visual snapshot of where your projects are at via; The Wall, Gantt Chart, My Tasks and Graphs.
The wall – visualize all your projects and tasks on the wall.
Gantt Chart – the Gantt Chart gives you a graphical representation of your tasks and where they are all at.
Reports – reporting is part of all projects; use some flexible reports to ensure your needs are met

Pricing:

Up to 10 users: $19.99/month
Up to 100 users: $99.99/month
100 Plus: $199.99/month

29. Podio

Podio is an online platform with a new take on work and how it gets done. It gives people more power than they’ve ever had before to do everyday work better, smarter and in their own way. Podio is used by a variety of teams and organizations for a wide range of purposes. For the first time ever you can create your own work tools and shape the way you work.

Features:

Project Management

Discover the easy way to run projects – smple yet fully flexible. Enjoy successfully finished projects.
Product development – boost your development process. Stay on top of customizable workflows. Leverage team power to create great products.
CRM & lead management – stay on top of all your business relations. Fully customizable to close more deals and know your customers better.
Event management – all you need to organize great events. Easily keep track of budgets, participants and your team’s tasks.

Pricing:

Up to 10 users: free
$4/per user and month

30. Scadaplan

Scadaplan is a project management and collaboration tool for small and middle groups. There are many similar programs can be found across the internet, which consist of functions like Tasks, Deadlines, Calendars, Comments, etc. The Scadaplan team has tried using dozen of similar programs, working in the design and development industry for 9 years. This is why they have decided to develop something of their own and to let the people use their product.

Features:

Create, track and collaborate – it takes seconds to create, assign and name your task. Every task has built-in timer to log work time and plan your goals.
Plan and analyze – with Scadaplan calendar you’ll see the whole picture of your team. Besides today’s everyone`s tasks, you can see future work and analyze past projects.
Never miss a thing – being used to Like-facebook notifications, you will be able to be aware of all updates and actions with necessary tasks.

Pricing:

Microbe: $9.99/month
Lab: $29.99/month
Factory: $49.99/month

Web Development Tools, Elements and Techniques

2011-08-11T10:00:23Z

When I was starting out as a web developer, I had to face some struggles when finding solutions to some of my problems. I had to learn and try new things but there weren’t as many tutorials as there are today. The best alternative was to learn and study from the work of others, analyzing their process and work methods.

These days, it seems like a new tutorial appears every minute, but personally I believe that looking at actual implemented solutions is still a powerful way to learn, and you also have many tools and methods at your disposal which can help you see and figure out how your favourite websites were built. Everything you need to know and learn is right in front of you and at your disposal.

Web Development Tools and Extensions

The traditional view source code option was not enough for a good code inspection. It became very important for a web developer to have a toolbox that could provide him with a set of possibilities specifically made for code analysis and inspection within a web browser. Those tools are called Developer Tools and are usually installed by default or as an extension/plugin, working directly from the browser itself. With the developer tools you can see all the source code of a webpage as you did before with the traditional View Source Code option, but with way more options and functionality than before. You can inspect, edit, watch live results and much more.

Google Chrome (Developer Tools) / Safari (Developer Tools)

You may be wondering why am I including Chrome Developer Tools and Safari Developer Tools together, well that’s because they belong together. The Developer Tools is part of the Webkit open source project which means Safari and Google Chrome share the same code base, they even share the same layout.

So let’s start with Chrome, my new favourite. Google Chrome’s Developer Tools is very recent compared with others like Firebug (Firefox), but it’s growing fast and getting better and better with each new version.

The same obviously applies to Safari.

“The Google Chrome Developer Tools provide an integrated environment for debugging, optimizing, and understanding a web application, or website, running in Google Chrome. The developer tools are developed partly through the WebKit open source project, where the tools are called Web Inspector.”

“All of Safari’s powerful developer tools are easily accessible from the Develop menu. The Develop menu contains a wealth of tools that you can use for web page manipulation and debugging.”

For a better understanding, you can check the links below.

Google Chrome Developer Tools

Safari Developer Tools

Firefox (Firebug)

With Firefox the smart solution for a web developer is definitely Firebug, one of the most popular Firefox extensions out there. Although the Webkit Developer Tools is growing at a really fast pace, Firebug is probably the most complete and mature tool you can have for web development and code analysis.

“Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.”

Firebug‘s interface and work process is extremely similar to Chrome’s Developer Tools (or vice-versa).

Firebug

Opera (Opera DragonFly)

This is Opera’s gem for code analysis and inspection. It’s surprisingly powerful and personally I would put it in third place right behind Google Chrome’s Developer Tools. The downside is definitely the aesthetics but its features and cross-device compatibility places Dragonfly among the best.

“A full suite of tools are ready at your disposal. Debug JavaScript, view the DOM, monitor network traffic, preview resources, edit colors and a whole lot more. If you are a developer, or a designer, Opera Dragonfly has the tools to keep you covered.”

For more information, check the link below.

Opera Dragonly

Internet Explorer (Developer Tools)

Yes, Internet Explorer has one too. Although the interface looks a bit old and not as good as other solutions since it lacks some functionality, it can be almost as good as the competition.

“The Microsoft Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar provides a variety of tools for quickly creating, understanding, and troubleshooting Web pages.”

You can learn more about it at the link below.

Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar

How To

Check a website font

With real text (not an image of text), the first and easiest way is by using Developer Tools / Firebug, so if you have it just select the text, inspect element and you should immediately see on the right side the font or font-family property which tells you the font that’s being used. Another way to do it is by using an extension/plugin for this purpose. There are probably similar plugins for other browsers like Chrome, but if you’re using Firefox, you have a great add-on called Context Font. With Context Font all you need to do is select the text (again, needs to be real text and not an image), right-click on it and you will immediately get the font and size used.

If the font you’re looking for is being used as an image, you have only one way to do it. One of the many places you can do this is myfonts.com. Upload your font and follow the steps.

Good luck!

Check the box model of an element

The box model represents the visual structure of the elements of a webpage using the corresponding properties like width, height, margin, padding and border, according to the visual formatting model. It’s possible to check the box model of any page and element using Developer Tools or Firebug. In order to do that, you just need to inspect the desired element and select Metrics on the right side of the Developer Tools panel. With Firebug, you need to select Layout (not Metrics).

Copy all text content of an element with Developer Tools

This one is a popular trick which is achieved by using the Developer Tools console. So let’s say you would like to copy this article’s text without the need of having to select all the content with your cursor (particularly useful on very long pages with too much text). To do that, inspect any element on this article page and look for the text container’s name from which you would like to copy the text (which in this case is called articlesContainer), now go to the console option and write the following command: copy ( articlesContainer.innerText ). Now paste the text anywhere you want and you are done! You’ve just copied the text inside our articlesContainer which corresponds to our main article text.

Bookmarklets

Min

MIN is a bookmarklet that will strip any decoration from a site. All color, borders and backgrounds are removed instantly, helping you identify the successful and unsuccessful uses of typography and layout.

Website

Design

Design is a suite of web-design and development assistive tools which can be utilized on any web-page. Encompassing utilities for grid layout, measurement and alignment, Design is a uniquely powerful JavaScript bookmarklet.

Website

Favelet Suite

When invoked, a div element will appear in the top left corner of your browser window with a list of all the favelets included. Simply click the link you want to invoke the favelet. An “info” icon is available to take you to the favelets information page on slayeroffice. Included in the suite: Color List, Document Tree Chart*, HTML Attribute Viewer, HTTP Header Viewer, Hidden Field, Modifier, JavaScript Object Tree*, MODIv2, Mouseover DOM, Inspector, Object Dimensions, Page Info, Remove Children, Resize Fonts, Ruler**, Show Source, Style Sheet Tweak*, Style Sheet Viewer*.

Website

W3C Markup Validators

Quick markup validations of any web document.

Website

Things Web Designers Do That People Love

2011-08-10T10:00:05Z

Web designers and web developers often wonder what kind of things they should do so that their audience will love them. Today we will talk about those little things that create a big impact on people throughout the internet.

As an avid internet user myself, I usually remember a website (even if it has a very difficult domain name) that gave an impact to me. Like the way how every elements are laid out in harmony, the simplicity or complexity (in a good way), and many more.

What are we waiting for? I’ll start with a few things and I hope you’ll add more in the comments!

Good Navigation

A good web designer understands that visiting a new website may be confusing at first, because it’s a new layout and the new visitor will not automatically know where to find things. The same is true when you visit a new friend’s home, you don’t know initially where the john is or where to sit and relax.

A good web designer is a good host to his guests, that’s why they will need to guide the visitors’ eyes like they are giving a tutorial on how to use the website, only it is actually without telling them. It’s the mark of a good web designer to place elements where the visitors will expect them to be, or create an attention getter. For example, the Login and Register links are usually at the top right corner of the website, below it is the search function. An example of a good attention getter are Call-to-action buttons which tells the visitor/audience what the button is about.

I’ve recently discussed the difference between using a horizontal and vertical navigation for websites. That applies here, obviously, because there will be people who would prefer to have all navigation at the top, laid horizontally.

One particular website that I love is Net Tuts+. The color scheme is simple, there’s a lot of space to breathe and navigation is simple – all of the important things you need to use to navigate the site are at the top.

Familiar Setting

While it is perfectly normal to experiment and show the world your creation, it is not really a good thing especially if you are aiming for mainstream. Take for example websites with vertical navigation. There hare websites that hit the correct spot, but such a design is not really accepted widely.

A good web designer knows when to provide their audience new things, such as art-directed designs for blog posts. They also understand that, while unique is good, it will be bad to deviate too much from the accepted standards.

Key elements such as the navigation should be placed where the visitor will expect it to be.

Flexible Design

This might be the hardest and most stressful part of designing, making sure that your design is not messed up on different browsers and machines. One problem about new designers is that they tend to not take notice of the fonts they use, if the other users have it or not, or if it runs on a Mac and others.

Since we all have our preference with internet browsers, it is the duty of web designers to make sure that their design appear correct on my Chrome, on your Firefox, and on old Nan’s IE6.

We need to address this question here: is it a requirement that websites should look the same for every browser?

Useful article for CSS/HTML effects for people worrying about cross-browser compatibility. And yes, you’ll see good ol’ IE.

Redesign for Comfort

A good web designer does not redesign a website to give its users great discomfort, they redesign a website to make it easier to use, even for new comers. This is where some big websites failed in the past, websites like Digg and the Gawker network suffered major losses in their users because of their redesign. Whether it’s because of the redesign not being good or the hive mind at work, it’s still a great stab on them.

I’m proud to include 1stwebdesigner here. I’m pretty sure that 99% of our loyal readers and frequent visitors liked the redesign. I was actually ecstatic to see this website change from the dark blue background and small thumbnails, and a little compact front page, to what you see now.

I think you all will agree that 1stwebdesigner today is much cleaner than before. I can’t tell if it’s a good thing for certain, but the removal of tabs just after the post made the front page easier to look at.

Going back, if there’s an oath that web designers should take when redesigning a website, it should mention that they need to make things comfortable for the users, not complex.

Any of you redesigned your website? Now is the perfect time to boast your redesign by posting image links on the comments, before and after. You can take a “before” snapshot using the Internet Archive.

Listens to Feedback

Once a website goes live what owners usually do is ask people what they think about the design and functionality. You can easily spot a great web designer and web developer when they actually listen to the people and apply necessary changes when the argument is valid. People love talking to web designers and developers especially when they get the feeling of “being on the same plane,” when they respond to the people. Again, 1stwebdesigner did this when the announcement (see page 1 of comments) was made about the new design. People came flocking in and gave Dainis their suggestions. One was the size (570px by 300px) of thumbnails for the Further Readings, now changed to 150×150.

Small Things

In my previous article (Ancient Web Design Practices that Beginners Should Avoid) I mentioned that the worst thing a designer could do is to not learn new things and just settle for what they already know. That they need to follow suit as technology advances for the comfort of their users.

Things like learning CSS and jQuery can mean a lot to the users, especially when it’s functionality and usability we’re talking about. Take for example major commenting systems. Three years ago you will need to refresh the webpage to see if a new comment has been posted, now you don’t have to. The same goes for Twitter and Facebook, the ease of access is there, it’s a little thing that all of us love.

Another important factor to consider on your designs is negative space, often called white space. It is often overlooked because of the thought that every nook and cranny of the website should be filled with something. Wrong. The effective use of negative space gives a sense of relaxation to the visitors, erasing the feeling of being packed in a tight space. Negative space communicate

What else?

I’m pretty sure there’s still a lot of things out there that can make visitors/audience/users fall in love with your design, so why not share them here if you know one? I’m certain that other web designers and developers will find your tips useful!

Crescent ile Nasıl Rapor Hazırlarım?

2011-08-03T07:00:04Z

SQL Server Denali konusundaki yeniliklerden bahsederken hep dile getirdiğimiz Crescent Projesi ile ilgili demoyu sizlerle paylaşmak istiyoruz.

Crescent, web tabanlı bir raporlama aracı. Crescent ile amacımız, kullanıcıların iş yaşamlarında raporlama ihtiyaçlarını kendi yetkileri doğrultusunda sıkıntısız ve keyifli bir ara yüz sistemi ile hazırlayabilmeleri.

Bütün bunları nasıl yapabileceğinizi ise uygulamalı olarak buradan takip edip, deneyimleyebilirsiniz!