PixelPros Creative Design Studio

How to Use Social Networking Sites to Promote Your Brand

noreply@blogger.com (InnovateIQ Prompts) — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 22:24:00 +0000

The key to using social networking sites to boost your business is to keep in mind that your social networking presence must be an extension of your business' brand. The beauty of social networking sites is that they permit prospects to build a more casual connection with you.

The main social networking sites that any business person ought to be signed up to are Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn. Soaring usage of social media is creating an interesting dynamic in the marketplace by creating a dramatic shift in power to the customer. Social Media helps build a brand image and also in constant touch with the customers to keep the image intact.

Watch this How To video to learn more about using Social Media for promotion.

10 Web Predictions for 2014

noreply@blogger.com (InnovateIQ Prompts) — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 21:23:00 +0000

Happy New Year! 2014 is a fresh start for the web and developers everywhere. My 2013 predictions were reasonably accurate so let’s see if I can communicate with the spirits (it’s always easier after a few whiskeys…)

1. 2014 is the year of the smart phone

Yes, you and your friends have the latest Apple iPhone 5s or Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini phone. However, sales of smart phones only started to exceed those of feature phones during the middle of 2013 and they’re experiencing massive growth in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.
It’s long been predicted that phone-based web use will eventually exceed desktops. I’m not wholly convinced since people tend to use more web sites and applications for longer when they’re on a PC. Mobile access currently accounts for one in five web visits — by the end of 2014 it will exceed one in four.

2. HTML5 web apps will go mainstream

An increasing number of native mobile app developers will switch to HTML5. The reasons include:

HTML5 apps are cross-platform and (should be) cheaper to develop.
Responsive Web Design techniques allow us to target multiple devices with different screen sizes.
The technology is improving rapidly and we now have access to native functionality such as offline capabilities, camera, microphone, sound, accelerometer, geo-location, vibration, battery and more.
There are no bizarre policy restrictions or extortionate charges imposed by an app store.

HTML5 won’t overtake native apps — fast action games or programs with app store-dependent revenue models will still be produced. But the benefits of HTML5 will become increasingly clear.
I also hope to see W3C-Recommended packaged web app standard and perhaps an official store, but 2014 is a little too soon for vendor agreement.

3. Client-side Flash, Silverlight and Java will die

Perhaps that’s a little harsh, but the three most-used browser plug-ins will largely become irrelevant as developers switch to HTML5. The advertising industry will continue to use Flash for a little while longer but click-throughs and revenues will fall as mobile access increases.

4. IE12 will be released

OK, this is an easy win. The development time between subsequent versions of IE has dropped dramatically over the years to around twelve months. I would expect IE12 to appear in October but hope Microsoft can deliver earlier — there are fewer essential features to add.

5. The browser market will be dominated by IE and Chrome

The desktop browser market has become a two-horse race between IE and Chrome. When one gains, the other loses ground.
Firefox may drop a little, but should remain above 15% throughout the year. Safari will hold steady at a little under 10%. It’s (somewhat artificially) propped up by the success of the iPad, but the devices will remain popular during 2014. As for Opera…

6. Opera usage will fall

Opera (desktop edition) usage has been hovering around 1.2% market share for many years. The switch to Google’s Blink rendering engine was a sound business decision, although I’m slightly surprised they didn’t choose Webkit — that could have permitted a better presence on the iPhone.
Unfortunately, Opera 15+ has disappointed Opera users and two thirds are yet to upgrade from version 12. It’s a good browser but doesn’t have the features which attracted people to the previous editions. Unless Opera can restore that functionality, their browser is too similar to Chrome. Why use it?
Opera Mobile is the best feature phone browser but, as mentioned, sales are falling. It’ll remain popular for a little longer but the desktop version’s market share will fall below 1% at some point during 2014. Whether it can recover will depend on the company’s ability to differentiate the browser.

7. Microsoft will abandon or re-brand Windows RT

Microsoft has a history of confusing the market. Few people understand the difference between Windows RT and Windows or a Surface and Surface Pro — how do non-technical buyers cope?
Windows RT is a good tablet OS but it’s not Windows. The Surface tablets have received generally good reviews but sales have been disappointing. I suspect Microsoft will make another revision and perhaps drop the ‘Windows’ name from their tablet range.

8. A responsive image standard won’t be available!

I’m hoping to be proved wrong, but I doubt a usable responsive image technology will become available in 2014. There’s still disagreement about the best way forward, the proposed srcset is ugly and there’s little hope all vendors will implement a standard solution before the end of the year.
The problem may eventually disappear. When every device has a Retina-like high-density display, it may be practical to serve a single image. But we’re not there yet and bandwidth limitations are a major restriction. Talking of which…

9. Page weight will steady or drop

The year-on-year 30%+ increase in page weight is ridiculous. You may care, but few developers worry when their pages exceed 1.7Mb. And that’s an average — half of all websites have a greater total.
I hope we’ve reached the summit of stupidity. The reasons:

There are only so many frivolous fonts, widgets, libraries and images you can add to a page.
HTML5 and better browsers should result in slimmer pages. CSS3 and consistent APIs lessen the need for JavaScript libraries. Webfont icons and SVGs can be a better option than numerous bitmap images.
Advertisers are switching from Flash to lightweight HTML5 and CSS3.
Automated build processes can remove redundant code then concatenate and minify files.
Obese pages have a negative impact on your SEO efforts.
The expanding mobile sector has stricter processing and bandwidth limits. It will improve, but not at the rate pages are growing. (Admittedly, 30% per year is lower than Moore’s law but that doesn’t apply to mobile network capacities). Will clients be happy when they realize one in four web users aren’t waiting to view their overweight home page?

That said, perhaps website importance will diminish…

10. A renewed interest in machine-readable data feeds

In my recent article The Rise of Web Bots and Fall in Human Traffic I discussed a future where intelligent bots collate and repackage information for easier consumption. The growth of small-screen computing devices and hardware such as Google glasses makes this increasingly likely.
Machine-readable data feeds, microdata, microformats and REST URLs have always been practical SEO techniques but they’re rarely adopted outside search engines. That will change as devices start to present information in more interesting ways. In essence, the web could become a massive back-end database for systems which can answer complex questions. Of course, it can still be browsed like we do today but there would be less reason to visit individual sites.
2014 is possibly too ambitious but it could mark the start of a new phase in web development.
All the best for the New Year!
Published January 1, 2014 by Craig Buckler
Craig is a Director of OptimalWorks Ltd, a UK consultancy dedicated to building award-winning websites implementing standards, accessibility, SEO, and best-practice techniques.

What Makes a Great Designer?

noreply@blogger.com (InnovateIQ Prompts) — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 21:06:00 +0000

What Makes A Great Designer? It’s the beginning of a brand new year. This signifies for many a time to change habits and behaviors and attempt to be a better person. It’s a time where people like to re-evaluate their lifestyles and try to remove the gunk. It’s a time where people become motivated to be better at whatever they do.

As designers, we are no different. Some of us want to start a business or dive deep into the life of full-time freelancing. Some of us want to seek recognition for our work and some of us just want to learn a new skill. Whatever it may be, we are all motivated and trying to figure out ways to go from good to great.

Being a great designer requires some creative thinking. There’s a lot of talented individuals out there, but that’s not the only thing that makes one designer better than the other. Greatness is something that begins with the mind and is cultivated through practice. To get you started on your new you this new year, here are a few steps you should try in order to reach greatness this year.

1. Show up

As designers, it’s easy to get complacent and lazy. There are times when we will have weeks of little to no work. However, it’s smart to continue to be productive and look for new routes of success. Learn a new skill. Jump ahead on a project. Find a mentor and take them out to coffee. Always keep moving.
Even if there is lots of work to do, you show up by being consistent. It can be your style, your customer service or your quality of work — whatever it is just show up and be great.

2. Learn one new thing a month

About a year ago, life started to get a little mundane for me. As a freelancer who worked from home, that was really easy to do. I decided I wanted to learn some new things about branding, learn how to code and learn how to use new software. I took all these tasks on at once. That was a bad idea.

It was overwhelming because these things take time. Aside from learning, I still had to raise three children and run a household. I was busy and it showed in the quality of my work. Things stopped going as well and clients started to get cranky. I finally had to give everything else a rest and focus on one thing at a time. Now, that was a much better idea.

It’s obviously easier to focus on one extracurricular thing than 4 of at once. As a “microwave” society, we always want to do things as quickly as possible, however that’s not always the right way. In one month, you can focus on learning how to code and be solid enough on that to use that in practice. Giving other things your time just divides your attention.

And if you’re anything like me, when you learn something new you get absolutely enthralled in it. By learning one thing a month, you’re allowed to dive deep in one thing rather than scratching the surface. Plus, you end up learning 12 new things in a year!

3. Be unique in your execution

Everyone wants to stand out from the crowd (or at least you should want to). We want to be the most creative people we can be. However, it’s really easy to be influenced by things that are seen as the norm. For example, if I ask you what a business site looks like, there’s a chance you’ll show me a 3 column site with a horizontal navigation bar, a large header of some sort and a footer. But why?

Probably because that’s what everyone else is doing. And that’s a fair answer. However, in order to be great, I believe we have to break the rules or break outside of the norm. It’s our execution that allows us to stand out.

Let me clear: be unique in your execution, not your approach. When you try to do the latter, that’s when things become complicated. You never want your message to be complicated. You want to create a business website — that is the task. Don’t approach it by trying to reinvent the wheel because that causes lots of problems (unless you know exactly what you’re doing).

4. Take risks

Taking risks piggy-backs off the idea that you should be unique in your execution. But I’d take that one step further and tell you to take risks in nearly everything you do. I find it’s easier to take risks and be bold and then bring yourself in from there. It’s a bit hard to inch out into boldness because you never really know what’s bold and what isn’t.

For example, I used to be the designer that was really passive with clients. Whatever they wanted, I would do it with no back talk. I thought that was the way to be until I realized I had a low retention rate. I vowed from then on that I wanted to be more honest with them because why not? So I did it. And they loved it. And they stuck around and even referred me to others.

It’s something about being honest and being yourself that’s fulfilling and that other people can respect. Do you like talking to a robot when you need to call customer service? Of course not. No one does. It’s the same kind of concept. Take risks and leave a part of yourself wherever you go.

5. Be inspired by everything

When it’s time to make a booklet, most people will look at other booklets for inspiration. When it’s time to make a website, most will look at other websites. It makes sense, but I believe this is a fatal flaw of designers who are striving to be great. It kind of related back to being influenced in our executions.

It is extremely important to be inspired by everything. Clothing, product designs and even architecture have helped influence some of my favorite designs. It’s much more fun and rewarding to try to take something you can tough and format it to be a website or poster.

Inspiration is not confined to the type of work we do. Inspiration is found everywhere. It’s up to use to turn it into what we want it to be.

Conclusion

While these tips help, there’s no right or wrong path to success and there’s no right or wrong path to greatness, either. Anyone who has made up their mind to be great or successful eventually stumbles there one day. The biggest key to making a change is making up your mind and following through on your promises. Best of luck to a prosperous new year!

Published January 10th, 2014 by Kendra Gaines