ruttl Blog

Website Mockup: The Role of Website Feedback Tools

Tue, 27 May 2025 06:08:18 GMT

Launching a successful website goes far beyond designing an aesthetically pleasing interface. The path from concept to conversion must be strategically planned to meet both user needs and business objectives. At the very beginning of that path lies a critical stage: the website mockup. A website mockup is not just a visual preview; it is the canvas on which structure, usability, and brand messaging take shape. It’s also the perfect moment to gather actionable feedback that will shape a user-centric final product.

Website mockups serve as the bridge between wireframes and full-fledged prototypes. They often include a visual representation of layout, color schemes, and typography, making them ideal for stakeholder reviews. Yet, many teams fail to optimize this stage due to poor feedback mechanisms. Disjointed emails, unclear screenshots, and delayed communication can turn what should be a smooth design process into a frustrating back-and-forth. This is where website feedback tools play a role.

By integrating structured feedback tools into your mockup review process, teams can ensure that input is timely, contextual, and easy to act upon. These tools help clarify visual commentary, centralize feedback, and build greater collaboration between designers, developers, and decision-makers. In this blog, we explore the importance of website mockups, the common issues in collecting feedback, and how feedback tools can elevate your design workflow.

What Is a Website Mockup?

A website mockup is a high-fidelity visual representation of a web page layout. Unlike wireframes, which focus on structure and functionality, mockups showcase design elements such as colors, fonts, images, and spacing. They provide stakeholders with a more realistic glimpse of what the final product will look like.

Mockups are typically static and don’t include interactive elements. However, their high visual fidelity makes them ideal for assessing the website’s look and feel. This stage allows teams to test aesthetic alignment, check consistency with brand guidelines, and spot visual issues before developers begin building the live site. Since mockups are often shared with clients, they also serve as a communication tool that helps identify any gaps between creative ideas and technical execution.

Getting feedback on your website mockup is crucial because it sets the tone for what follows. If visual or structural problems aren’t addressed early, they can become expensive to fix down the line.

The Importance of Feedback During the Mockup Phase

Feedback during the mockup phase is essential for building a website that meets user expectations and business goals. This stage allows teams to make changes before development begins, saving time, effort, and costs associated with rework. It also provides an opportunity to refine the user journey, ensuring that key design elements like navigation, CTAs, and layout choices support desired user behavior.

The mockup stage is also the most accessible time for stakeholders to contribute. Once the design enters development, changes are not only more complex, they're also more resource-intensive. Involving stakeholders early ensures that marketing messages are aligned, brand identity is accurately reflected, and user needs are addressed.

However, for feedback to be valuable, it must be specific, actionable, and contextual. Vague comments like "this feels off" can cause confusion and multiple rounds of revisions. Feedback tools ensure that reviewers can pinpoint exactly what they’re referring to and explain their concerns clearly. This visual context improves communication and accelerates decision-making.

Common Challenges in Collecting Mockup Feedback

Despite its importance, collecting useful feedback on website mockups can be surprisingly difficult. One of the biggest challenges is a lack of clarity. When stakeholders submit feedback via email or chat without visual references, designers are left guessing which element is being discussed. This leads to misunderstandings, wasted time, and revisions that don’t solve the original issue.

Another issue is feedback fragmentation. Input from different team members often arrives via multiple channels, emails, Slack messages, and meeting notes, making it difficult to consolidate and prioritize. Without a single source, comments can get lost or contradicted, causing delays and misalignment.

Timing is also a critical factor. Delayed feedback means lost momentum and can impact project timelines. On the other hand, rushed feedback without proper context may overlook key usability or branding issues. These inefficiencies can snowball into larger problems during development and launch.

Finally, feedback often lacks hierarchy. When everyone’s input is treated with equal urgency, teams may struggle to distinguish between critical issues and subjective opinions. This dilutes focus and delays progress, particularly in projects with tight deadlines or limited resources.

How Website Feedback Tools Solve These Problems

Website feedback tools are designed to solve the very issues at hand concerning traditional feedback collection methods. These platforms allow stakeholders to comment directly on design elements within the mockup, providing precise visual context. Instead of describing an issue, reviewers can click on the specific section they’re referring to and leave a comment or question.

This visual feedback system eliminates confusion and unnecessary delays. Designers no longer have to decipher vague descriptions because the comment is built into the visual context itself. Most tools also allow tagging teammates, assigning tasks, and marking items as resolved, turning feedback into an organized, trackable workflow.

Another benefit is centralization. All feedback lives in one place, attached to the relevant version of the mockup. This eliminates the chaos of scattered emails and chat threads. It also makes it easier to review past comments, track design decisions, and ensure consistency.

Tools like Ruttl take it a step further by supporting live previews, responsive views, and even video comments. This means stakeholders can leave more detailed feedback, and designers can visualize how the mockup performs across devices. Integrations with tools like Slack, Trello, and Jira also streamline task management, making it easy to move from feedback to action without breaking your workflow.

Enhancing Collaboration Between Teams

Website mockups are inherently collaborative. Designers, developers, content creators, marketers, and clients all have a stake in the final product. Feedback tools act as a shared workspace where these roles can come together, contribute ideas, and align on direction. By allowing everyone to see the same version of the mockup and interact with it directly, feedback tools reduce miscommunication and build trust. Real-time updates and notifications keep the conversation active, and version control ensures that no feedback gets applied to an outdated design. Everyone knows what’s been approved, what’s in progress, and what still needs attention.

For remote teams, this is especially valuable. With stakeholders often spread across time zones and departments, collaboration becomes essential. Feedback tools make it possible to review and respond to comments at any time, keeping momentum high and decision-making flexible.

Clients and non-designers might feel intimidated giving feedback on a visual product. Tools that allow easy commenting, emoji reactions, or guided prompts help them feel more comfortable participating. As a result, the design benefits from a broader range of perspectives.

Imagine a marketing agency designing a new homepage for a fashion retailer. The team creates a detailed mockup, including brand-aligned typography, product highlight sections, and seasonal banners. They send the mockup via email to the client team for review. The response? A thread of replies with vague comments like "make it more modern" or "this section feels empty." Designers spend hours deciphering the feedback and guessing what changes to make. Multiple revisions later, the client still isn’t satisfied, and the timeline is now at risk.

Now imagine the same scenario, but with a feedback tool like Ruttl. The client opens the mockup in a live preview, clicks directly on the banner section, and leaves a comment. In another comment, they tag the copywriter with a suggestion to adjust the headline. The design team reviews all feedback in one dashboard, makes updates, and re-uploads the revised mockup. No guesswork, no missed comments, no time lost.

This approach not only saves time but also builds stronger relationships with clients. They feel heard, understood, and included in the creative process.

Best Practices for Gathering Feedback on Website Mockups

To make the most of your feedback process, it’s important to establish clear expectations and workflows from the start. Begin by explaining to stakeholders what kind of feedback you’re looking for. Encourage them to focus on structure, clarity, and alignment with goals, rather than personal preferences.

Provide guidance on how to use the feedback tool. A brief walkthrough or tutorial can go a long way in making stakeholders feel confident using it. Set realistic deadlines for submitting feedback to avoid last-minute changes that derail the schedule.

Another best practice is to review feedback collaboratively. Host a quick meeting to go through the top comments and prioritize them together. This ensures everyone is aligned before moving forward and helps avoid unnecessary revisions.

Finally, don’t forget to close the loop. Let stakeholders know when their feedback has been addressed and implemented. This builds trust and reinforces the value of their input.

Wrapping up

A website mockup is more than a design milestone, it’s a strategic checkpoint that sets the foundation for your digital product. Gathering feedback during this phase is essential to building a user-centered, brand-aligned, and conversion-driven website. But traditional feedback methods are often inefficient and error-prone.

Website feedback tools revolutionize the way teams review mockups by making the process faster, clearer, and more collaborative. By providing contextual, centralized, and actionable input, these tools ensure that your mockup evolves into a fully-realized, high-performing website. If you want to streamline your design workflow, reduce revisions, and get everyone on the same page, it’s time to integrate a tool like Ruttl into your process. Ruttl empowers teams to comment on live websites and mockups, make instant edits, and collaborate across devices, all in real time.

The path to a great website begins with a great mockup. And great mockups thrive on great feedback. Let Ruttl be your team’s secret weapon in turning ideas into pixel-perfect reality.

Three Types of Employees That Guarantee Success

Tue, 27 May 2025 06:04:57 GMT

If you’ve ever flown on a Southwest Airlines flight, you probably paid a little more attention to the safety announcements than usual. Southwest’s announcements are personal and comedic, a touch that originated with a single proactive employee named Martha ‘Marty’ Cobbs. By going above and beyond to brighten her customers’ day, it’s estimated that Cobbs has added $140M each year in customer loyalty.

I call employees such as Cobbs 120%ers, because they exceed expectations in every project. Building a team made up of these employees can significantly contribute to success. In customer-facing roles like those of Cobbs, it translates to customer loyalty and huge brand recognition. Internally, 120%ers can drive productivity and innovation to new heights. As a manager, these are the people I want on my team.

3 Types of Employees

Throughout my managerial career, I’ve found that employees generally fit into one of three categories. I call them 50%ers, 80%ers and 120%ers, because of what they give back to a company.

The 50%er: 50%ers are the quintessential underachiever. When a manager hands over a project, this employee returns it at 50-60% of the ideal outcome. 50%ers are rarely around for long and their career is going to struggle, but with a 50%er on the team, so is your startup.
The 80%er: With an 80%er, when a manager hands out a project, it’s returned to 75-100% of the ideal. Personally, I think 80%ers are the most dangerous for a startup. They’ll scrape through appraisals and have a solid career, and as a manager or founder you might settle for these employees — but you could be getting much more.
The 120%er: The switch from 80% to 120% is an exponential shift for any employee. This person takes on a project, thinks about it deeply, and can return it better than was initially envisioned. For ambitious founders and dedicated managers, 120% should be the goal for your employees, and they will become the linchpin of your growth.

While it’s a simple concept, spotting the 50, 80, and 120%ers in your workforce, or during your recruiting process, can have a seismic impact on your team’s productivity. By recruiting 120%ers and building a work culture that gets the absolute best out of your employees, everything from customer satisfaction to productivity can soar.

Recruiting 120%ers

There are two ways to build a team of 120%ers, and managers should combine both strategies to get the best from their employees. Firstly, tailor your recruitment process to spot 120%ers and make the best possible hire.

1) Seeing a Candidate’s Potential: Your interview process should be designed to understand a candidate’s performance. Ask open-ended, behavioral questions about times they went above and beyond in a past role, and inquire about their outside interests. I’ve found that when employees are invested in hobbies or working on a side hustle, they tend to bring that passion and energy into work.

2) Hiring for a Cultural Fit: Recognize that the best employee only thrives in the right environment. Use your interview process to determine whether new hires are going to gel with the rest of the team and whether their attitudes and beliefs align with your work culture. For example, is collaboration a central value for your organisation, or are employees expected to thrive working independently? Turning Your Team into 120%ers

As a believer in nurture over nature, I don’t think any employee is destined to be either a 50%er or a 120%er. In my experience, high-achieving employees aren’t born, they’re moulded in the right environment. Building the right startup culture lets you get the most out of your team.

1) Placing shared values at the heart of your corporate culture gives your workforce an emotional connection to your business’s goals. When employees are just working for a paycheck, they become, at best, 80%ers, surviving the work environment with “just enough”. But when there’s an underlying vision and a shared passion, your team will never be satisfied unless they’ve given their all.

2) A culture that promotes creativity, innovation, and independence will breed 120%ers because employees are empowered to go beyond the brief. As a manager, you can’t envision every opportunity that might arise for a more efficient or productive project outcome, and when your culture values creative problem-solving, employees step up.

3) Define outcomes as more than just box-ticking exercises. By defining the success or failure of a project in qualitative as well as quantitive ways, for example, by asking “what did we learn” and “what can we do differently in the future”, employees won’t stop working when they hit targets, metrics, or milestones. They’ll know there’s more to discover even when goals have been met, ensuring projects are returned with greater breadth and scope than initially expected.

When every team member is giving 120%, the impact compounds across your startup. You’ll have coders like Rodrigo Schmidt, who was integral in fixing issues with Facebook’s early chat feature, representatives like Cobbs with her profound impact on Southwest’s customer loyalty, and a sales team like Chevrolet salesman Joe Girard who sent personalized greeting cards to over 150,000 customers.

Conclusion

A team of 120%ers will go above and beyond expectations, but that doesn’t mean the manager’s role takes a backseat. It’s crucial to foster the right environment for these employees to thrive in, and provide appropriate feedback to ensure workers keep giving their all.

While promoting independence and responsibility, managers should ensure that the achievements of 120%ers are never taken for granted. Recognize, appreciate and remunerate your over-achievers, and facilitate career development for these employees with continuous learning and growth opportunities, such as AI training when new tools are released.

Every business should be looking to get the most out of its employees, but in lean startups or early-stage development, a team of 120%ers will create exponential gains for your new business, being more creative, innovative and productive. What’s more, these workers will become the foundation of a work culture that strives for excellence.

How User Flow Can Improve Your UX Design

Mon, 05 May 2025 07:23:44 GMT

Designing a website that delivers a smooth user experience requires more than just visually appealing pages or functional interfaces. The key to an effective UX design lies in the understanding of how users interact with your site from the moment they land on a page to when they complete a desired action. This sequence of steps, better known as the "user flow," plays a critical role in determining whether visitors engage meaningfully or abandon the site out of confusion or frustration. By visualizing, analyzing, and refining user flow, designers and developers can drastically improve the way users navigate their digital experiences.

As businesses and brands grow increasingly reliant on their digital presence, there’s an increasing need for intuitive and seamless online experiences. User flow mapping enables teams to step into the shoes of their users, analyze their experience, identify friction points, and adapt the design accordingly. When integrated into feedback platforms, this approach becomes even more powerful, allowing real-time insights, collaboration, and implementing improvements that align with both business goals and user expectations.

This blog explores the concept of user flow in depth and demonstrates how mapping it can significantly enhance UX design.

What Is User Flow?

User flow refers to the path a user takes through a website or application to complete a specific task. It encompasses the series of steps and decisions a user encounters while navigating from the entry point to the final conversion or interaction. Whether it's making a purchase, signing up, or accessing a specific resource, every website is designed around certain user journeys. These flows are not always linear and can vary based on user behavior, content hierarchy, and site structure.

In essence, a well-optimized user flow should feel intuitive, predictable, and effortless. When users can move seamlessly from one step to the next without confusion or cognitive overload, they’re more likely to complete their goals and return. On the flip side, poor user flow design results in higher bounce rates, lower conversion, and user dissatisfaction. Mapping user flow helps teams understand where users drop off, what paths are most successful, and how the experience can be altered to user intent.

The Role of User Flow

User experience design is all about how users feel while interacting with a product. It’s not just about the aesthetics but about functionality, clarity, and ease. User flow contributes directly to these aspects by laying the foundation of how information is organized and how users progress through tasks. If the user journey is too complex or not aligned with the user’s expectations, even the most beautifully designed interface will fail to retain attention.

By analyzing user flow, UX designers can determine which parts of the website are working effectively and which areas need improvement. For example, if users frequently abandon the checkout page, it could indicate a problem in the payment process or a lack of clarity about pricing. This insight allows designers to redesign that segment, reducing friction and improving conversions. Through consistent evaluation of user flow, designers can iteratively refine navigation menus, CTA placements, content structure, and more, leading to an increased user-centric and efficient design.

What Are the Benefits of Creating User Flows?

Creating user flows offers numerous advantages that directly impact the usability and effectiveness of a website or application. At its core, a user flow helps designers and developers visualize how users move through a digital product to complete specific tasks. This clarity brings immediate benefits by aligning design decisions with user goals. Instead of designing screens in isolation, teams can understand how each element fits into the broader journey, reducing friction and ensuring continuity in navigation.

One of the most important benefits of user flows is their ability to expose usability issues early in the design process. By mapping out the steps a user must take to reach a goal, teams can spot any unnecessary steps, confusing layouts, or potential drop-off points before they become costly errors in development. This leads to more streamlined experiences and significantly improves conversion rates.

User flows also promote better collaboration across departments. With a visual map of the user’s journey, designers, developers, marketers, and product managers can all work from a shared understanding. This alignment reduces miscommunication, speeds up approvals, and ensures that user needs are the main priority of every decision. User flows help stakeholders evaluate whether the website structure supports business goals such as lead generation, sales, or user retention.

From a strategic standpoint, user flows simplify testing. They serve as a baseline to measure how users behave, enabling teams to compare real data against expected flows and make decisions accordingly. Over time, this leads to a more data-informed and user-centered design process.

How to Create User Flows in Just a Few Easy Steps

Creating user flows doesn’t have to be complex. With the right approach and tools, teams can map effective flows in just a few simple steps that lay the foundation for great UX design. First, start by defining the user’s goal. Whether it’s signing up, purchasing a product, or finding a specific piece of information, every user flow should begin with a clear end-point in mind. Understanding what the user aims to achieve allows you to frame the entire journey around that objective.

Second, identify the entry points. Ask yourself where users begin their journey. This could be a homepage, a social media link, or a landing page from an ad campaign. Mapping these touchpoints helps you understand the user’s mindset and expectations when they arrive on your site.

Next, outline the steps needed to reach the goal. These are the screens, actions, and decision points the user encounters along the way. Include every click, form field, dropdown, and navigation option they interact with. This helps create a complete journey flow that considers all the possible paths a user might take.

Then, visualize the user flow using diagrams or digital tools. Tools like Figma, Miro, or other free online mapping tools allow you to lay out flows visually, connecting screens and actions with arrows and annotations. A visual format makes it easier for teams to discuss, critique, and refine the journey.

Finally, the testing phase. Share the user flow with stakeholders, gather feedback, and adjust the flow based on what you learn. You can even compare it to real user behavior data from session recordings to see if the flow aligns with actual usage. Continuous improvement is key to ensuring your user flow remains effective as your product evolves.

Identifying and Fixing UX Bottlenecks

One of the most valuable aspects of user flow mapping is its ability to expose friction points in the user journey. These are the moments where users become confused, lose interest, or abandon the task altogether. They may result from poor navigation, time-consuming processes, unclear instructions, inconsistent design, or performance issues.

By creating user flow maps, teams can pinpoint these issues in real time. For instance, session replay features allow teams to watch user behavior and notice repeated patterns of abandonment or hesitation. Heatmaps can reveal which areas of a page get the most attention and which are completely ignored. For example, a CTA button buried below a dropdown menu that's hard to find might be obvious to the internal team, but user flow mapping reveals how real users struggle with it.

Once identified, these issues can be addressed through design tweaks, copy adjustments, or functionality improvements. Tracking the post-change user flow helps validate whether the solution worked or if further iteration is needed. Over time, this cycle of observation, feedback, and refinement leads to a smoother, more intuitive experience that keeps users engaged.

Onboarding and First-Time User Experience

First impressions matter, especially in digital experiences. A user’s first visit to your website or app will determine whether they come back, convert, or churn. User flow mapping plays a key role in shaping this critical moment. By mapping how new users navigate, where they stumble, and what they engage with most, designers can optimize onboarding flows to be easy and engaging.

For example, a complex registration form may prevent users from signing up. But user flow data can show exactly where users abandon the process. Based on this, the form can be simplified, split into smaller steps, or restructured with progress indicators. Similarly, an introductory tour that most users skip might be made more interactive or placed later in the journey when the user is more invested.

Supporting A/B Testing and Design Validation

User flow mapping is a powerful complement to A/B testing. While A/B testing allows teams to experiment with variations of a webpage or feature, user flow mapping helps interpret why one version performs better than another. It displays the behavioral context behind clicks, conversions, and drop-offs.

For instance, if version A of a landing page results in higher conversions, user flow analysis might reveal that the layout in version A made it easier for users to find information quickly. This insight can guide further optimizations and inform best practices across other parts of the site.

After rolling out a redesign, teams can observe how users interact with the updated interface in real time. Any unexpected behaviors, such as users navigating back and forth repeatedly or ignoring a key CTA, can signal areas that need improvement.

By pairing user flow analysis with testing and validation efforts, UX teams ensure that decisions are not just data-driven but also grounded in user behavior and experience. This minimizes churn rates, accelerates improvement, and leads to designs that resonate more deeply with users.

Aligning Business Goals with User Needs

An often-overlooked benefit of user flow mapping is its ability to align user experience with business objectives. Every website has key conversion goals, whether it’s generating leads, increasing purchases, or encouraging newsletter signups. User flows provide a clear lens into how users interact with these conversion paths and where potential breakdowns occur.

Tools that support user flow mapping allow teams to monitor these journeys in the context of real business metrics. When users consistently drop off before a purchase, for example, it might signal issues with pricing visibility, trust signals, or product detail clarity. These insights can inform both design and content strategies.

Moreover, clear visualization of user flows helps cross-functional teams, marketing, sales, and product teams to collaborate more effectively. It becomes easier to justify UX changes when there’s visual evidence of user struggle, and teams can prioritize updates that have a direct impact on the business. When UX is closely tied to outcomes, design becomes not just a support function but a strategic influence on growth.

Wrapping up

User flow is not just a diagram, it’s the backbone of user experience. Understanding how visitors move through your website, where they hesitate, and what drives them to act (or leave) is essential to designing journeys that feel intuitive, helpful, and engaging. By leveraging website feedback tools to map and refine user flows, teams can uncover deeper insights, reduce friction, and build experiences that truly serve both users and business goals.

When incorporated thoughtfully into the design process, user flow mapping transforms scattered teams into a clear strategy. It empowers teams to design with empathy, create with purpose, and deliver digital experiences that work for everyone. As the demand for seamless UX continues to grow, investing in user flow mapping isn’t just helpful essential.

Ruttl simplifies the feedback process by allowing teams to comment, edit, and share insights directly on live websites. No more endless email threads or disjointed review sessions. With Ruttl, your entire team, including designers, developers, and stakeholders, can provide contextual feedback in one workspace. You can also preview how those changes will appear across over 15 different digital devices, ensuring a responsive and seamless experience on every screen.

Whether you're editing a landing page or resolving UX gaps highlighted by user flow mapping, Ruttl helps turn ideas into actions faster, clearer, and more collaboratively. Let Ruttl be the bridge between your ideas and your execution.

What Is an Annotation? Creating Actionable Feedback

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 07:37:34 GMT

The industry of design and development faces numerous challenges. One of the biggest challenges is to move a project from a mere concept to successful execution. These projects involve many levels of stakeholders, like clients, designers, developers, and project heads, each having their own understanding and dreams with the concept at hand. Thus, to visually understand these differences and execute the concept successfully, communication becomes key.

Vague instructions, abstract suggestions, and unorganized feedback loops can lead to unexpected delays, frustrated teams, and results that don't meet set expectations. Here is where an understanding of “what is an annotation?” is required to speed up the feedback loop and communicate efficiently. Annotations turn ambiguous feedback into well-structured, organized, and clear actionable suggestions.

This blog aims to deepen your understanding of “what is an annotation?’ and suggest the required feedback tools that can make the annotation process even easier, such as how Ruttl makes annotations more actionable than ever before.

What is an Annotation and How Does it Impact Website Feedback?

Suppose you're wondering what is an annotation. In that case, it refers to any sort of visual indicator, such as notes, comments, or highlights, added directly on a webpage, image, or document to provide feedback, instructions, or clarification. Annotations are used extensively across industries to communicate edits or suggest design changes. Here's how you can add comments to your live websites with ease using our tool ruttl

In the context of websites, annotations provide feedback on specific elements of a design or layout. Suppose, when a project manager wants a button moved, instead of writing a generic email, they can place a note exactly on that button using a tool like Ruttl.

This visual association removes confusion, streamlines feedback, and eliminates unnecessary revisions. Annotations may also be used in the context of documents, especially when discussing what is an annotation, where users mark specific areas within a PDF with comments or highlights to provide detailed feedback. Whether it’s a digital design or a document, annotations ensure that feedback is organised and easy to interpret.

Traditional Feedback Methods

Traditional feedback systems are often rejected because they are disconnected from the content they address. Emails, screenshots, and chats are poor mediums for visual communication. A comment like “center this section more” doesn’t carry any visual reference, leading the recipient to guess which section is being discussed. This often results in back-and-forth clarification, wasted time, and growing frustration among the team.

Traditional feedback is also spread across platforms, which makes it harder to organize input or track accountability. Important feedback may get buried in long threads or forgotten after a call. On the other hand, annotations provide clear, organized feedback, which helps maintain project clarity and ease.

Improving Collaboration and Efficiency

Annotations serve as a shared visual comment across team members, creating clarity where visual context is necessary. When a designer receives feedback through annotations, they can immediately see what needs to be changed and why. This improves the speed and quality of revisions and ensures everyone is on the same page.

The ability to annotate live designs means teams no longer need to set up lengthy calls or screen recordings to explain issues. Tools like Ruttl allow multiple stakeholders to leave comments on the same element, respond to each other, and resolve issues without ever leaving the platform.

This collaboration is especially convenient for remote teams operating across time zones. Annotations simplify feedback by enabling even non-technical clients to easily participate. A marketing lead or business owner doesn’t need to understand CSS to suggest spacing changes, they can simply browse, click, and comment.

What Makes Annotation a Strong Tool?

The strength of annotations lies in their specificity. They are not just about pointing out issues, they transform mere observations into actionable changes. Rather than saying “this doesn’t look good,” annotations enable the commenter to specify. This actionable clarity speeds development and avoids repetitive, unorganized feedback loops. The best annotation platforms allow for tagging team members, tracking revisions, assigning priority, and even linking to additional documents or briefs.

This integration with workflow tools makes annotations a critical part of the development process. They ensure that feedback isn't just received, but processed and implemented with precise accuracy. In web design and even document editing, there exists a need to ensure that change requests are tied directly to content and visually marked for immediate reference. Which is why understanding what is an annotation is necessary for smooth development.

Examples of Tools That Streamline Website Feedback

When it comes to transforming feedback into actionable tasks, annotation tools have become crucial for modern teams. Among the wide array of solutions, Ruttl stands out as an all-in-one platform built to simplify both websites, videos, images, and even PDF feedback workflows. Whether you're reviewing a complex website prototype or a dense PDF proposal, Ruttl makes it possible to annotate, collaborate, and finalize changes faster and with greater organization, leading to clear communication within teams.

Ruttl’s annotation tool is an efficient online solution designed for organised real-time collaboration. Users can instantly upload any PDF document or website and begin leaving annotations, highlights, and comments without the need to download any sort of additional software. It's fast, structured, and built for teams working remotely across time zones and industries.

Where Ruttl differs from the rest is in its seamless experience for both static and dynamic content. For live websites, users can annotate directly on the staging or production version of the page, whether it’s fixing layout inconsistencies, editing UI text, or pointing out functionality issues. The platform also supports responsive views, allowing feedback on over 15 different devices, including mobile and tablet layouts as well.

Key Features of Ruttl include:

Quick Upload & Instant Annotation: Upload images, videos, websites, or documents and start annotating right away with no lag or delays.
Website Edits & Live Feedback: You can make on-page text edits and leave visual feedback directly on live sites.
Video Comments: Communicate and caption feedback with screen-recorded video comments for clarity that text alone can’t deliver.
Task Assignment & Tagging: Convert annotations into tasks by tagging team members and setting actionable follow-ups.
Version Control: Keep track of all file versions, access historical comments, and review design changes across feedback chains.
Tool Integrations: Connect effortlessly with Slack, Trello, Asana, Jira, and other workflow tools to manage projects without jumping between platforms.

Pros:

Supports both textual and video feedback, catering to different communication styles needed for different projects.
Real-time updates and notifications ensure no feedback goes unnoticed.
Suitable for both technical teams (developers, designers) and non-technical stakeholders (clients, marketers).

While tools like Figma and Adobe XD are excellent for design prototypes, and platforms like MarkUp.io focus heavily on static documents, Ruttl offers the rare ability to unify both website and document annotation in one powerful interface. Compared to BugHerd, which is great for bug tracking with technical metadata, Ruttl provides a more visually accessible experience for all roles across the project spectrum.

Whether you’re polishing a landing page before launch, collaborating on pitch decks, or finalizing legal agreements in PDF, Ruttl ensures your feedback process is not just well-communicated, but turned into progress.

Why Choose Ruttl?

Let’s consider how annotations transformed the workflow for various agencies that work with global big-shot clients. Before using a tool such as Ruttl, teams traditionally relied on emails and screenshots to collect client feedback. An extremely time-consuming process filled with communication barriers.

This leads to multiple rounds of unclear revisions, client frustration, and delayed outputs. Once Ruttl is implemented, teams can enable their clients to annotate directly on the live staging sites, providing them with a space for clear communication along with visual contexts. Suddenly, feedback is no longer a game of broken communication, it has become exact, visual, and organised. Issues are resolved faster, misunderstandings drop quickly, and version control has improved significantly. A team can save a lot of their project turnaround time and expect higher satisfaction from both their clients and internal designers. These results aren’t just empty promises. Many teams that have adopted annotation-first feedback experience similar gains in efficiency, communication, and delivery quality.

Integrating Annotations into Workflow

Annotations are an ideal fit for all kinds of workspaces. They help visualize tasks, make user stories tangible, and improve sprint retrospectives. By visually documenting feedback during sprint reviews, annotations allow product owners and QA testers to provide input without the need for extensive verbal explanations.

Many annotation tools now integrate directly into platforms like Jira or Trello, allowing developers to link tasks to specific visual comments. For teams using Ruttl, annotations can be exported as tasks and organized by priority or page section. This creates a direct link between design feedback and development action. Instead of documenting issues separately, teams can rely on annotations as part of their daily stand-up or development flow. They become part of a continuous improvement loop that is visible, interactive, and easily managed.

But as powerful as annotations are, they can become problematic if not managed properly. Leaving too many overlapping comments can clutter the interface and confuse users. Feedback should be clear, consolidated, and purposeful.

Another common mistake is vague annotations. Comments like "fix this" or "change" offer little actionable insight. It’s important to frame feedback with intent, using annotations to point out not just what needs changing but also the why behind it. This helps not only in changing this particular aspect but also in understanding what the client's intent or mindset behind it is.
Setting a feedback protocol, such as who reviews what, when to annotate, and how to resolve comments, can also prevent annotation overload. Assigning roles, prioritizing comments, and cleaning up resolved notes regularly ensures that annotations remain a helpful tool rather than a chaotic distraction.

Wrapping Up

In our fast-paced digital industries, the ability to communicate changes clearly and quickly is critical. That’s why annotations have become a need across the web design and development landscape. They transform feedback from vague suggestions into specific, contextual, and actionable instructions. Whether you're marking up a prototype, leaving feedback on a live site, or exploring what is an annotation for your documents, annotations are the key to making collaboration efficient and outcomes successful.

At Ruttl, we’ve created a platform that empowers teams to annotate faster, collaborate smarter, and ship better websites. It’s more than just a tool, it’s a workspace where feedback becomes progress. With features like live website editing, mobile previews, client tagging, and real-time sync, Ruttl is redefining what an annotation is and how impactful it can be. Ready to make your feedback actionable? Try Ruttl and experience the future of website feedback, which is visual, precise, and built for teams that want to move fast.

Static And Dynamic Website - What's Right For You?

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 11:04:35 GMT

In a time when digital experiences define how users perceive a brand, it becomes necessary to set a powerful website, which plays a major role in shaping this perception. From building a personal brand to major e-commerce platforms, one of the most crucial decisions to make early on is whether to create a static or dynamic website. Thus, understanding the clear difference between a static and dynamic website is beneficial in decision-making according to your needs.

This blog aims to help you decide strategically when choosing between the two. Static websites are those that serve stable content to all users, while dynamic websites differ in content depending on users’ behavior and status, allowing it to change with different users. While this difference between a static and dynamic website might seem very straightforward, it creates an impact on the development, performance, maintenance, as well as the user's experience.

What is a Static Website?

A static website consists of individual HTML files that are pre-built and served directly to the user’s browser exactly as they are stored. When you visit a static website, the content you see is not generated or altered on the fly, instead, it's prewritten and delivered quickly, just like retrieving a file from a folder. Static websites typically include HTML, CSS, and sometimes JavaScript to enhance visual elements or basic interactivity. They are also faster when it comes to loading the site, as there's no back-end processing, and what you see is exactly what the developer created.

Its simplicity is what makes it strong, as it does not require server-side scripting or database queries, the site speed is quick, and it tends to have fewer vulnerabilities. This makes for an excellent choice for small-scale websites that don’t need constant content updates like personal portfolios, landing pages, and documentation sites. Modern static site generators such as Jekyll, Hugo, and Gatsby even provide developers with templates and markdown files, making it even easier to manage content.

As there's no need for server-side execution, static sites can be hosted on inexpensive or free platforms such as GitHub with no backend configuration needed. In this way, static websites are an ideal pick for freelancers or small businesses, and start-ups with a tight budget. While these benefits seem attractive, static websites also have their own downsides. Let’s try to compare its pros and cons.

Advantages of Static Websites

Exceptional Speed and Performance

One of the biggest advantages of static websites is their incredible speed. As static pages are pre-rendered and do not require any server-side processing, they load almost instantaneously. This performance is especially important in a world where users expect quick experiences without any delays and where Google rewards quick load times with better search engine rankings. For informational pages, portfolios, or marketing sites, the improved load speed leads to reduced bounce rates and better user engagement.

High-Level Security

Static websites are inherently more secure because there’s minimal server interaction and no reliance on databases. With no backend to exploit, the risk of vulnerabilities and risks such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting is significantly reduced. This makes static websites an ideal choice for users and organizations who are particularly concerned about security or who lack the resources to actively manage and monitor more complex server configurations. Low Hosting Costs and Simple Deployment Another benefit of static websites is how inexpensive and straightforward they are to render. As they don’t require backend infrastructure, they can be deployed on basic file servers or even free hosting services. This affordability, combined with the ease of deployment, makes static websites especially appealing to small businesses, startups, and independent creators who want to go live quickly without dealing with complicated development issues.

Disadvantages of Static Websites

Limited Scalability for Content Management

One of the major downsides of static websites is the difficulty in managing large volumes of content. Each time you want to update a page, you need to manually modify the HTML or regenerate the site using a static site generator. As the number of pages grows, maintaining and updating the content can become extremely tedious, time-consuming, and prone to human error, particularly for non-technical users or teams that need to update the site frequently.

Lack of User Interactivity and Personalization

Static websites are not built to handle complex user interactions or dynamic content delivery. They don’t support features like user dashboards, shopping carts, or personalized content. While some workarounds exist using JavaScript and third-party APIs, implementing these often adds unnecessary complexity and breaks the simplicity that makes static sites appealing in the first place. For businesses that require a tailored user experience, static sites are not an ideal choice.

Difficulty in Integrating Advanced Functionalities

Integrating advanced features, such as real-time data, comment sections, form handling, or search functionality, can be challenging in a static site environment. These often require additional layers of scripting or reliance on third-party tools, which can complicate the overall development process. While possible, it defeats the straightforwardness and minimalism that static websites are meant to offer, making it less practical for highly functional or feature-dense web projects.

What is a Dynamic Website?

In contrast, a dynamic website is built using server-side languages such as PHP, Python, Ruby, or Node.js and typically connects to a database. Each time a user visits a dynamic website, the content is generated in real time based on the request, user profile, or other variables. Think of websites like Facebook, Amazon, or Netflix, where each user views content that is uniquely tailored to them. This is made possible by a backend system that continuously processes data, retrieves information from databases, and renders pages accordingly.

Dynamic websites are inherently more complex to develop and maintain because they involve back-end logic, database management, and often APIs or third-party integrations. However, this complexity brings with it advantages of flexibility and power, which set it apart from static websites. With a dynamic website, you can implement features like user authentication, shopping carts, comment sections, real-time updates, dashboards, and much more. Content management systems (CMS) allow non-developers to manage dynamic websites with relative ease.

One of the primary advantages of dynamic websites is their scalability. Since content is not hardcoded, changes can be made centrally and reflected across the entire site instantly. This makes it easier for large organizations to manage hundreds or thousands of pages with minimal effort. Dynamic sites are also ideal for SaaS platforms, e-commerce stores, and community forums where constant interaction and content updates are integral for a satisfactory user experience. That said, dynamic websites typically require more resources in terms of hosting and security. Because they involve executing code on the server, they can be vulnerable to attacks if not properly secured. They may also load more slowly than static sites due to the processing involved, although modern caching and Content Delivery Network (CDN) strategies can weaken these issues to a large extent.

Advantages of Dynamic Websites

Personalized and Interactive User Experience

One of the biggest differences between a static and dynamic website is the personalization that can be seen within dynamic websites, where interactive content is tailored to each user. By connecting to a database and using server-side scripting, dynamic sites can present different information based on user behavior, preferences, login status, or actions taken on the site. This makes them ideal for platforms that require user accounts, recommendation engines, dashboards, or content that updates in real time. Whether it’s showing a user their purchase history, a personalized homepage, or targeted products, a dynamic website supports an interactive and more engaging experience.

Efficient Content Management

Dynamic websites are far more scalable when it comes to managing content. Since they’re typically powered by a content management system (CMS) like WordPress or a custom backend, updating content can be done through an interface without touching the code. This allows multiple team members to create, edit, and organize content efficiently. For websites that grow over time or need regular updates, such as blogs, news outlets, SaaS platforms, or e-commerce stores, this flexibility is advantageous and ensures consistency across hundreds or thousands of pages.

Greater Functionality and Integration Possibilities

Dynamic websites open the door to a wide range of advanced features that static sites struggle to support. From checkouts and user registration systems to search filters, comment sections, data visualizations, and third-party API integrations, dynamic websites can be built to handle almost any interaction. This makes them ideal for complex projects where functionality and feature depth are key. The ability to integrate with payment gateways, CRM systems, analytics platforms, or cloud-based tools ensures that dynamic sites can grow alongside your business needs.

Disadvantages of Dynamic Websites

Slower Load Times

As dynamic websites rely on server-side processing as well as database queries to fetch and generate content in real time, they generally load more slowly than static websites. Each user request requires computation and resource allocation, which can lead to longer page load times if not properly optimized. While caching and content delivery networks (CDNs) can help alleviate this, the initial build is inherently more demanding and may affect user experience, especially for mobile or low-bandwidth users.

Increased Security Risks

With added complexity comes added vulnerability. Dynamic websites are more susceptible to a range of cyber threats, including SQL injections, cross-site scripting, and authentication-related breaches. Since user data and back-end logic are constantly interacting with the server and databases, it's crucial to execute proper validation, secure frameworks, regular updates, and server monitoring. These security considerations demand ongoing effort and technical expertise, which may not be feasible for all teams or budget levels.

Higher Development and Maintenance Costs

Building and maintaining a dynamic website typically requires more resources, both human as well as financial. You’ll often need a team that includes front-end developers, back-end developers, database administrators, and content managers., On top of that, the use of CMS platforms or custom-built systems requires regular updates, plugin management, performance monitoring, and security patching. These ongoing responsibilities translate into higher costs, making dynamic websites less accessible for individuals or small teams looking for a quick and inexpensive solution.

Comparing Static and Dynamic Websites: Key Differences

The most fundamental difference between a static and dynamic website lies in how content is served. Static websites deliver the same content to every visitor, while dynamic websites customize the content based on user input or behavior. This impacts not only how the website is built but also how it functions, performs, and evolves over time. In terms of development time and cost, static websites are generally quicker and cheaper to build. Since there’s no need for back-end logic or databases, developers can focus purely on design and content structure. On the other hand, dynamic websites often require a longer development period, involvement from multiple specialists, and regular maintenance to ensure everything functions as intended.

Performance is another key area of difference. Static websites tend to load faster, while for dynamic websites, server response time and database queries can sometimes slow things down, especially under high traffic. However, modern web development practices such as server-side rendering, static site generation from dynamic data, and the use of content delivery networks (CDNs) are blurring this line and enabling hybrid solutions.

When it comes to updating content, static websites require manual changes to the source code or markdown files. Dynamic websites excel in this area because updates are made through a CMS interface and reflected instantly across the site. For teams that need to publish new content frequently, a dynamic structure offers far greater efficiency.

Lastly, search engine optimization (SEO) behaves slightly differently across both types. Static websites, due to their fast load times and clean markup, often have an edge in performance-based ranking factors. Dynamic sites may require more effort to ensure proper indexing, especially when content is generated through JavaScript. However, tools like server-side rendering and pre-rendering for SPAs (Single Page Applications) are mitigating those challenges effectively.

Choosing the Right Option for Your Needs

The choice between a static and dynamic website should depend entirely on your specific goals, audience, budget, and long-term vision. If your primary need is a fast, secure, and cost-effective web presence and you do not mind limited interactivity, a static website may be your best bet. These work perfectly for a brochure site, personal portfolio, or event landing page. It offers excellent performance and simplicity, which are crucial for quick deployments. On the other hand, if your site needs to support frequent content updates, user authentication, search functionality, or any level of personalization, then a dynamic website is the way to go. Especially when it comes to online marketplaces, media platforms, and businesses that aim to scale rapidly, having the ability to update and manage content dynamically is necessary.

It’s also worth noting that the line between a static and dynamic website is becoming increasingly blurred with modern development frameworks. Ultimately, the decision isn’t about just choosing a site structure, it’s about aligning your choice with your product’s needs and technical capabilities.

Enhancing Your Website with the Right Tools

Whichever you choose between a static and dynamic website, one thing that remains common is the need for clarity, collaboration, and precision during the design and development process. Regardless of your site’s structure, ensuring smooth feedback loops and clear communication between designers, developers, and stakeholders is essential to launch and maintain a successful web presence. That’s where our tool Ruttl can make all the difference.

Ruttl is a powerful visual feedback and collaboration platform that allows teams to comment directly on live websites, share precise feedback, and manage edits effortlessly. Whether you're reviewing a static landing page or a complex dynamic dashboard, Ruttl helps eliminate ambiguity and streamline your workflow from concept to production.

In a fast-evolving web environment, making the right decisions backed by the right tools can set you apart. So, as you weigh the pros and cons of static and dynamic websites, remember, it's not just about building a site, but building an experience. Choose wisely, collaborate seamlessly, and deliver boldly.

Top Free Collab Software for Seamless Remote Work

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 13:09:29 GMT

Collaboration is a word often synonymous with success. In the world of design, where ideas are our currency, the ability to work well with others translates to innovative and impactful projects. But how do we make sure that our communication stays clear and focused during the creative process?

The answer lies in team collaboration software. These simple but powerful aids act as bridges that allow designers, clients, and stakeholders to share their thoughts in a way that help minimize misunderstandings. You can use a free collab software to transform abstract ideas into tangible changes and refine concepts with clear direction.

It doesn’t matter if you have a lot of experience as a designer or you’re part of a team seeking to improve communication, a design collaboration software can enhance your creative process. They empower all voices, streamline the flow of ideas, and foster the kind of collaboration that creates exceptional design.

In this article, we’ll discuss free collab software and the top ones currently available in the market for free.

Why Do You Need an Online Collaboration Software?

Amid the need for faster, efficient, and iterative designs, the design process can be full with miscommunication and delays. Traditional methods of feedback, like long email chains or static screenshots, can hinder efficient progress and lead to frustrating back-and-forth. That's where online free collab software revolutionize how we work on design projects. Here's why:

1. Streamlined Communication

A dedicated platform replaces messy email threads and phone calls. The remote team can collaborate in a centralized space, directly linked to the design elements in question. An online free collab software also allow you to comment and continue discussions for context and clarity.

2. Accelerated Iterations

No more waiting for annotated screenshots or explanatory emails. Real-time visual feedback means designers can instantly understand a change request and implement it, shortening the feedback loop and driving faster progress.

3. Version Control and Transparency

Avoid the dreaded "finalfinalv2.psd" file chaos. Many free collab software provide version control so that everyone sees the latest design version and can track changes. This prevents wasted effort on outdated versions and builds trust between team members.

4. Inclusivity and Empowerment

Free collab software encourage participation from all stakeholders, whether they're highly technical or not. The ability to provide visual feedback lowers the barrier to entry and ensures everyone's voice is heard.

Top Online Collaboration Softwares in 2024

With so many free collab software tools on the market, finding the perfect fit for your team can be overwhelming. We'll look at their unique strengths so you can choose the best platform.

1. ruttl

ruttl is a powerful online platform built specifically to bring clarity and efficiency to the design process. It's a place where designers, developers, clients, and other stakeholders can share feedback and make changes seamlessly on live websites and apps. Think of it as a digital whiteboard for your web projects, where ideas get communicated visually and everyone stays on the same page.

Top Features

Direct Website Feedback: Leave comments and annotations directly on live websites and app prototypes. This eliminates guesswork and makes sure feedback is super clear.
Live CSS Editing: Want to tweak that spacing or change a color? Do it yourself with ruttl's CSS editor. This lets you show exactly what you mean instead of just describing it.
Video Annotation: Give timed feedback and draw directly on videos to explain complex animations or motion design changes.
Bug Tracking: Found a bug? Report it directly within ruttl. This makes it easy to pinpoint and fix issues quickly.
Integrations: Connect ruttl with 3000+ apps through Zapier for a seamless workflow.

2. FigJam

FigJam is, a free collab software that can fuel your design team's brainstorming and ideation process. It's like a virtual space where sticky notes, sketches, diagrams, and ideas can flow freely. You can use it to tackle early-stage concepts, run design sprints, or simply map out user flows. The tool fosters creative collaboration in a fun and intuitive way.

Top Features

Flexible Whiteboard: Enhance your creativity with shapes, sticky notes, drawing tools, and more on an infinite canvas.
Templates: Kickstart your sessions with pre-made templates for brainstorming, mind-mapping, and other design activities.
Live Collaboration: See what your team members are doing in real-time to create a sense of shared ownership.
Fun Extras: Emoji reactions, stickers, and a timer bring a bit of playfulness to your work sessions.
Figma Integration: Seamlessly move between FigJam's free-flowing ideas to structured designs within Figma's design environment

3. Miro

Miro is an online whiteboard platform designed to support a wide range of collaborative activities. You can use it for brainstorming and ideation to project planning, agile workflows, and remote workshops. Miro offers a vast digital canvas and a rich library of tools and templates making it a highly useful free collab software.

Top Features

Infinite Canvas: Work with an expansive whiteboard space that can accommodate complex projects and ideas.
Visual Tools: Utilize sticky notes, shapes, arrows, diagrams, mind maps, and more to organize your thoughts and collaborate visually.
Templates: Browse a wide selection of pre-designed templates for various use cases and save setup time.
Sharing tools: Share screen and presentations directly from Miro. The tool also offers embedded video, chat and commenting features.
Integrations: Connect Miro with your favorite productivity tools like Slack, Jira, Google Drive, and others.

4. Slack

Slack is a powerful messaging and communication platform designed to streamline workplace collaboration through its free collab software features. It's organized into channels, which are essentially focused chat rooms for specific teams, projects, or topics. Within these channels, team members can share messages, files, code snippets, and seamlessly integrate with other tools and services.

Top Features

Channel-Based Organization: Keep discussions focused and organized by topic or team.
Real-time Messaging: Send instant messages for quick communication and questions.
File Sharing: Easily send and receive files directly within conversations.
Search: The powerful search function lets you find past conversations and relevant documents quickly.
Voice and Video Calls: Make one-on-one or group calls directly within Slack.
Integrations: Connect with countless productivity apps, CRMs, design tools, and more to streamline your workflow.

Wrapping Up

Choosing the right free collab software will help you boost your team's design process. All of it boils down to your specific needs.

Many popular software programs offer robust free plans that are excellent for smaller teams or those starting to experiment with digital collaboration. These free versions allows you to explore features and see if it's a good fit before upgrading to a paid subscription.

If you want to streamline your design feedback process with precise comments and live edits directly on websites or apps, ruttl is the perfect free collab software to pick. Its intuitive interface and focus on visual collaboration ensure smooth and efficient collaboration between designers, developers, and clients perfect for remote teams. Sign up for on ruttl to use our free collab software today and speed up your workflow while delivering exceptional design projects.

The Ultimate Website Editing Checklist for 2025

Tue, 28 May 2024 06:54:32 GMT

Hitting "publish" on a new webpage or major update is exciting, but there's a nagging fear... Did you miss something? Little mistakes can seriously impact website visitors.

Before launching the next update, take a moment and follow a website editing checklist. When roughly 88% of online consumers won't return to a site after a frustrating experience, it’s important to be careful.

A website editing checklist guides you through essential checks for:

Accuracy: Outdated information, broken links, and typos damage your credibility.
Visuals: Poor image quality, strange formatting, and misaligned elements detract from your message.
Functionality: Visitors become frustrated if forms don't submit or navigation fails.

This article will provide a comprehensive website editing checklist that covers everything from content review to technical testing. Use this checklist to create a polished, professional website with a positive user experience.

Top Reasons Why You Need a Website Editing Checklist

Think of a website design checklist as your blueprint for a successful build. Here's why it's so valuable:

Keeps you organized: You must understand that building a website involves lots of moving parts. A checklist helps ensure your team stays on track and that nothing of significance gets overlooked.
Simplifies teamwork: It helps your team understand their responsibilities and work towards the same goals, whether they’re working solo or with others.
Catches problems early: Are you aware that a checklist helps you spot potential issues before your site goes live? It can save you from several headaches and even prevent you from potentially embarrassing yourself.
Creates a better experience for visitors: Whenever you use a checklist, you have to ascertain everything is in the right place and working correctly, your visitors will prefer a smooth, user-friendly website.
Streamlines updates for existing websites: Even after launch, changes are necessary. A checklist helps you provide streamlined updates, especially when you edit websites with no coding experience that simplifies the editing process.

Ready to build your website edit checklist? Let's see how to create a winning one that leads to a successful website launch.

The Ultimate Website Editing Checklist

A website represents your brand and provides information to visitors. You need an editing checklist to provide a consistently effective user experience when you edit a website online. With this checklist, you can maintain a user-friendly, informative, and well-optimized website that fulfills your business objectives.

1. Content

Do you know up-to-date, relevant content is important to user engagement and search engine rankings? A content analysis keeps your website messaging fresh and aligned with your goals. Here’s what you need to check in terms of content:

Accuracy: Verify all facts, figures, and product/service details for correctness.
Relevance: Assess if your content aligns with current audience needs and interests. Update or rework content as necessary.
Clarity & Tone: It is recommended to keep your writing style consistent, clear, and aligned with your brand voice.
Grammar, Spelling, and Readability: Proofreading is vital for credibility. Utilize tools like Grammarly as needed. Consider using tools to assess readability levels.
Calls to Action (CTAs): Are your CTAs clear, compelling, and placed strategically? Are they compelling your visitors to take the right action (for instance, adding the product to the cart, subscribing to your channel, etc.)?

2. Visuals

Your website's visual describes who you are, what you do, and your organization’s vision. To build a unique brand presence and reputation, you must use high-quality graphics to capture visitors’ attention, appeal to them with your unique aesthetic style, and provide a user experience they crave. However, you have to refrain from using visuals that are slow to load or don't align with your brand, as a survey reported that 39% of people will stop engaging with a website when images won't load or the loading time is too long. You should check these before you proceed:

Quality: People might say otherwise, but looks matter! So, always double-check that images and videos should be high-resolution and free from blurriness.
Optimization: While high-quality visuals appeal to visitors, never forget to compress images for fast page loading speeds. Use descriptive filenames and alt-text for SEO.
Relevance: Evaluate whether any visuals need updates to reflect changes in products, services, or branding
Placement & Arrangement: Check if visuals are well-placed and complement text effectively.
Branding: Do the visuals align strongly with your overall brand identity (colors, fonts, style)?

3. Functionality

A seamless user experience helps you keep the visitors on your site. It requires you to make sure all navigational elements and functions work correctly. So, evaluate all the elements given below:

Links: Test all internal and external links for broken links or incorrect destinations.
Forms: Verify that users can submit forms correctly and that any confirmation messages or autoresponders work as intended.
Search Bar: Be mindful of testing the accuracy and functionality of the search bar if you have an on-site search function on your website.
Cross-Browser/ Device Compatibility: Nowadays, users prefer to use multiple devices or browsers. Therefore, you must cross-check that your website renders properly on every browser (Eg. Chrome, Edge, Firefox, etc.) and device (Eg. Desktop, mobile, tablet).
Mobile Responsiveness: Nowadays, the majority of people on the internet are coming from mobile, so it is crucial to ensure mobile responsiveness. You should specifically include multiple tests for looks and functions on various screen sizes and mobile operating systems (Android, iOS).

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Do you know what SEO is? Well, it holds the key to your website’s ranking and visibility in SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages), and directing organic traffic to your website. So, it is highly recommended to optimize your site for search engines and evaluate SEO elements regularly to maintain strong rankings.

Keywords: You must integrate target keywords naturally into your content, titles, and meta descriptions.
Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: An ideal title tag and meta description should be engaging, clear, and include all relevant keywords.
Header Tags (H1, H2, etc.): Header tags make it easier for users to figure out and understand your content. Accordingly, always use structured headers to improve content organization and readability for search engines.
Image Alt Text: Search Engines can’t rank what they can’t understand! Add descriptive alt text to enable search engines to understand your images.
Site Structure: A complex website structure makes it challenging for search engines to crawl and index your content. Don’t forget to interlink and structure your website logically using the SEO best practices.

5. Accessibility

We believe that an inclusive web design can help ensure your content is accessible to every visitor, including those with disabilities. So, don’t forget to make sure you focus on these elements to create an inclusive design:

Color Contrast: Verify sufficient contrast for users with visual impairments.
Alternative Text: Add meaningful alt-text descriptions to all images.
Keyboard Navigation: Test your site's navigation without a mouse.
Screen Readers Compatibility: We suggest you use tools to identify and diagnose areas inaccessible by screen readers.
Captions and Transcripts: It is always a good practice to use captions for videos and transcripts for audio content, it helps you reach and cater to a wider audience.

Additional Sections

Performance: Your checklist should include website speed testing using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights. Aim for fast, efficient loading times.
Security: A secure website can ensure trust in the visitor's mind. We suggest that you check for SSL certificates, regular software updates, and vulnerability scans to assure your website’s safety.
Legal Compliance: Lastly, don’t forget to check for any relevant legal requirements for your website and industry, such as privacy policies (GDPR compliance) and terms of use.

How to Enhance Website Checklist?

Prioritization: While all items are important, consider indicating "high priority", "medium priority", and "low priority" sections to focus on the most critical aspects.
Assignment: If working with a team, consider a column to assign specific tasks to individuals.

Conclusion

A website editing checklist is your final safety net before hitting publish when you edit a web page online. It will play a vital role in protecting your reputation and ensuring that every update enhances your website rather than detracting from it.

Regardless of who you are, whether a solo creator, a start-up, or an MNC, this checklist will guide you in building a professional, user-friendly website that supports your business goals and delivers the quality experience your visitors yearn for.

SEO and Web Design: What Designers Need to Know

Thu, 16 May 2024 09:00:51 GMT

While designers and SEO experts are united in their focus on addressing user experience and user intent when designing a website, there are some areas where they don’t always see eye to eye. These include labeling for users vs. labeling for search engines and consolidation of content vs. expansion of content.

Is there a way to address the needs of both sides while creating the best possible user outcome? Absolutely. This guide will help web designers consider the implications of search engine optimization (SEO) when building a website.

Why Is SEO Important in Web Design?

Image source: Envato Elements

SEO and web design are essential for user experience. Optimizing visual elements for search is a key consideration for SEO specialists during design projects, alongside information architecture and taxonomy. SEO should, therefore, be part of the product design process from start to finish.

1. SEO in Web Design Increases Organic Traffic

SEO in web design can increase organic traffic by optimizing a website's design and architecture, this way, search engines will find it easier to crawl and index the content.

Optimizing your website for search means that your content is more likely to appear at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) when users search for phrases, questions, or keywords related to your products and content. This increases your brand's visibility and attracts new potential customers to your site.

Additionally, SEO web design helps improve the website's user experience, which leads to better engagement and potentially more conversions.

2. SEO in Web Design Attracts High-intent Traffic

SEO in web design attracts high-intent traffic because it enables you to optimize your content to rank for keywords and phrases that address specific questions that users are looking for when they’re searching for the solution that your product or services offer.

Suppose your website's content is relevant and provides the exact answer to a user query. In that case, it will be more likely to appear in the main search results for that query, increasing the chances of the user clicking on the result and visiting your website. Users are more likely to click on the top results on Google rather than browsing beyond the first page of results, so you can capitalize on the search engine's effort to match user search intent to the most relevant and targeted search results.

3. SEO in Web Design Improves the User Experience

Web design and SEO can improve the user experience in several ways. Let’s go over some of them:

Skilled SEO experts and web designers collaborate to ensure a website is user-friendly across devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones by using usability testing tools. Creating a responsive design can make it easier for users to access a website and navigate its content, leading to a better overall user experience across devices.

When optimizing a website for page speed, you ensure that it loads quickly, which can enhance the user experience because it reduces the time it takes to access the content the user seeks.

By considering user experience as part of the overall SEO strategy, businesses can ensure that their website delivers a practical and enjoyable user experience that encourages people to stay longer, visit more pages, and return often. This can help increase the site's visibility in search engines and drive more traffic, as user experience is a ranking factor for Google.

4. SEO in Web Design Can Increase ROI

SEO can significantly impact a website's overall ROI by increasing its visibility and driving high-quality leads. According to Forbes, one of the key benefits of SEO is that it boosts a website's credibility by ranking high on (SERPs), leading to increased trust and engagement with potential customers.

Credibility and improved rankings can also increase brand awareness and market share and generate more leads and sales.

Optimization can improve the user experience. It makes it easier to navigate, increasing engagement and reducing bounce rates.

As Botify suggests, SEO can inform and improve nearly every other marketing effort, making it an essential component of any digital marketing strategy. This diagram reveals how the SEO funnel relates to customer experience:

Source: Botify

To measure SEO's ROI, start by calculating the business value of all SEO activities compared to their cost. You can achieve this by tracking website traffic and leads and attributing sales to SEO efforts.

Note that you’ll need proper conversion tracking in Google Analytics to get the ROI calculations.

Once you’ve set up your tracking and get the value of conversions, you’ll see SEO in web design can help increase a website's overall ROI by driving high-quality traffic, boosting credibility, and improving the user experience.

What Do SEO Experts Care About in a Web Design Project?

You can strategically design a website with SEO in mind, improving its SERP visibility. This will drive more traffic to your site and contribute to your business's revenue.

Designing a website with SEO in mind involves several key steps:

Conducting keyword research: They identify the keywords and questions that the target audience uses to search for things related to the business. These keywords are then used to optimize your content, meta descriptions, and URLs.
Creating a sitemap: Develop a sitemap that outlines the structure of your website. This can help your website's overall visibility in search results.

Source: Envato Elements

Optimizing on-page elements: Optimize your website's on-page elements, such as page titles, meta descriptions, header tags, and image alt tags, to include keywords and provide context to search engines.
Creating high-quality content: Create relevant, valuable content for your target audience and include keywords with intent. This can improve your website's search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your site.
Following Google’s EEAT Guidelines: EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) are Google’s parameters for evaluating your content’s quality.
Improving page speed: Optimize your website's page speed to ensure it loads quickly on both desktop and mobile devices. This enhances the user experience and increases the chance of users staying longer exploring your website.
Building high-quality backlinks: Build high-quality backlinks from reputable websites to improve your website's authority and search engine rankings. You want to ensure those websites have high domain authority (DA) or domain rating (DR).

How SEO and UX Design Can Improve Website’s Navigation

SEO and UX design are connected because they both focus on improving a website's user experience. The first one optimizes a website's content and structure to rank higher and drive more traffic to the site. At the same time, UX design focuses on creating a positive user experience by making the website easy to use, visually attractive, and engaging.

When SEO and good UX design combine, they deliver a website that ranks well in search engines and provides a positive user experience that encourages users to stay longer, visit more pages, and return often. Additionally, when done correctly, both contribute to improving navigation.

Here are some tips to help you understand how users move through the website:

Examine Google Analytics User Flow. This means analyzing the User Flow section within the Audience segment to see a movement's behavior and what users prefer to visit.
Investigate internal navigational links. Learn about what users expect to see but need help finding. Use Site Search in Google Analytics to examine user search terms.
Analyze user interaction using a heat map. Heat maps visually represent user behavior on your website and allow you to review how users behave differently on desktop and mobile.
Discover your top linked pages. Using Google Search Console’s Links section, you can get a report on the frequency of links among your internal site pages. Remember that linking internally benefits precedence on your website, improving your SEO results.

In summary, SEO and UX design are connected because they both focus on improving the user experience and navigation on a website. Combined, they can deliver a website that ranks well in search engine results and enable a positive user experience that encourages engagement and repeat visits.

How to Ensure Your Website Is SEO-friendly

Besides putting into action the steps for content search engine optimization, these are some key steps to ensure your website is SEO-friendly:

Optimize your website's meta tags, titles, and descriptions to include keywords and give search engines context.
Ensure your website's URL structure is clear and concise and includes relevant keywords where appropriate.
Use alt tags to describe the images that appear your website. This is quick way to help search engines understand your site's content.
Ensure your website is responsive, which can impact your search engine rankings.
Improve your website's page speed by optimizing images and reducing the size of files where possible.
Use internal links to enable search engines to understand your website’s structure and how different pages relate to each other.
Periodically update your site’s content to keep it relevant. This will increase your audience's engagement.

Wrap Up

Optimizing a website's page speed reduces the time it takes to load pages, improving its search engine rankings. Also, creating high-quality content that is easy to read can improve the user experience and increase the site's visibility in search engines since the algorithms recognize this content as valuable for readers.

Follow these actions and keep them in mind throughout your design process so your website will be SEO-friendly and optimized for search engines. When focusing on SEO as well as good design, you can improve your website's visibility in search results, attract more traffic, and increase your business's revenue.

Beyond the Basics: Bug Report Template for Complex Issues

Mon, 13 May 2024 09:32:07 GMT

Think about the difference between a basic and complex bug. A basic bug might be a typo in a button label – it's obvious and easy to fix. Complex bugs, though, are trickier. They might only happen under specific conditions, involve multiple parts of the software, or cause confusing symptoms.

For these complex issues, a standard bug report isn't enough. Developers need more clues and context to pinpoint the problem. That's where an advanced bug report template comes in. It's like giving your developers a powerful searchlight to cut through the complexity. You can save them time and ensure the right fix gets implemented.

If you want to understand how an advanced bug report template can help you, read on!

Why Do You Need an Advanced Bug Report Template

Detailed bug reports are always important, but an advanced template becomes essential for complex software issues. It's the difference between providing a vague problem description and handing your developers a roadmap. Here's why:

Faster and More Accurate Fixes: A detailed report gives developers the data to reproduce the bug and understand the root cause. This eliminates guesswork and time-consuming back-and-forth communication.
Identifying Tricky and Unpredictable Bugs: Some bugs are sneaky and only appear under particular conditions. An advanced template helps you capture every detail of the environment and user actions, so these hard-to-find problems can be replicated and squashed.
Improved Developer-Tester Collaboration: A well-structured template keeps everyone on the same page. Developers understand the exact problem, and testers can provide the right information from the start.
Better Understanding of Impact: Complex bugs can have ripple effects. An advanced report lets you describe the severity and scope of the issue. You can understand how it directly impacts the user experience. This helps prioritize fixes effectively.

The Advanced Bug Report Template

This advanced template gives you the maximum information to track down and fix complex problems efficiently.

It's divided into six key sections:

Essential Information: Basic details to identify the bug and its severity.
Detailed Description: Steps to reproduce the issue and the expected vs. actual behavior.
Environment: Specifications of all hardware and software involved.
Supporting Materials: Screenshots, videos, and technical logs.
Additional Context: Helps developers grasp the bug's frequency, impacts, and any related problems.
Status and Updates: Track the bug's lifecycle and enable collaboration.

Essential Information

Bug Title: Short, clear, and specific (e.g., "Login Form - Incorrect Error Message for Invalid Password")

Unique Bug ID: Automatically generated for tracking.

Date/Time Reported: When the bug was first discovered.

Reporter Name: Your name or identifier.

Severity:

Critical (Blocks core functionality)
High (Major impact on usability)
Medium
Low (Minor issue)

Priority:

Urgent (Needs immediate fix)
High
Medium
Low

Detailed Description

Summary: A concise explanation of the problem.

Steps to Reproduce: Clear steps a developer can follow to consistently recreate the bug.

Expected Result: Describe the intended correct behavior of the system.

Actual Result: Describe what the system actually does, including any specific error messages.

Environment

Operating System: (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, etc.). Include specific versions.

Browser: (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, etc.) and version.

Device: (If applicable: Desktop, laptop, specific smartphone/tablet model, etc.).

Screen Resolution: (If relevant to the bug).

Relevant Software: List other potentially conflicting software or required plugins.

Supporting Materials

Screenshots: Capture the unexpected behavior clearly.

Video Recordings: Show the exact steps and issue (especially for hard-to-reproduce bugs).

Console Logs/Network Traces: (For more technical analysis by developers).

Additional Context (Optional but helpful)

Frequency: How often the bug occurs (always, sometimes, etc.).

Workaround: Any temporary solutions, if found.

Impact on User Experience: How heavily this bug disrupts the user's workflow.

Related Bugs: Links to other reports potentially connected to this issue.

Status and Updates

Status: (New, Open, Assigned, In Progress, Resolved, Closed, etc.). Track life cycle.

Assignee: Developer responsible for fixing it.

Comments: Notes from testers/developers for collaboration and updates.

How to Use the Advanced Bug Report Template in ruttl

ruttl's bug-tracking tool streamlines finding, reporting, and fixing errors on your website or app. You can leverage the advanced bug report template within the platform to provide your development team with the maximum detail needed to resolve issues quickly. Here's the process:

Install the ruttl plugin: Add the ruttl code snippet to your website to enable the visual commenting interface.
Activate and Report: Click the ruttl pill on your live site. Report bugs directly on the page with comments and mirror the sections of your advanced template (description, steps to reproduce, etc.). Screenshots and videos are automatically captured.
Track and Collaborate: Each bug report becomes a ticket on your ruttl dashboard. Assign developers, set priorities and deadlines, and use the built-in chat for real-time team discussions.
Integrate with Jira and More (optional): Connect ruttl with popular tools like Jira, Trello, Asana, and others to sync updates with your existing workflow.

Here are the key benefits of using ruttl's bug tracking:

Clear and Contextual: Report bugs precisely where they occur on your website.
Enhanced Reporting: Follow the advanced template structure for detailed bug reports that speed up resolution.
Collaborative Workflow: Assign tasks, track progress, and communicate directly on bug tickets.
Mobile Compatible: Collect and report bugs directly on your mobile app.
Save Time: Replace lengthy back-and-forth emails and vague descriptions with visual, actionable reports.

Wrapping Up

Adopting an advanced bug report template might feel like a bit of extra work initially. But consider this: the time you spend providing clear and comprehensive bug reports is time you save on frustrating miscommunications, endless email threads, and delayed fixes.

Complex bugs drain resources and leave both your team and users unhappy. An advanced template transforms bug reporting from a source of headaches into a powerful tool that helps you deliver a smooth, error-free experience for everyone.

2. Invision

InVision is a tool that helps improve user experiences through interactive designs. It's perfect for design teams wanting an easy-to-use interface. InVision makes controlling the design process straightforward. It turns wireframes and designs into interactive mockups, ensuring users enjoy great experiences.

Key Features

Digital Whiteboard: Sketch ideas and collaborate in real time.
Animated Reactions: Add fun and engagement to feedback.
Collaboration Tools: Work together smoothly on designs.

3. Bounce

Bounce is a straightforward tool for web page reviews, ideal for teams looking to share and collaborate on website feedback. You just need to enter a URL and capture a screenshot of the page or upload an image file. Adding notes and comments to particular sections is effortless. Bounce facilitates sharing through a link as it emphasizes targeted feedback for web pages.

Key Features

User-Friendly Interface: Easy to navigate and use.
Quick Feedback: Fast note and comment addition on web pages.
No Installation: Access directly online without installing software.
Free: Available at no cost.

4. Figma

Figma is a versatile design tool tailored for UI/UX design and prototyping. It streamlines the way teams collaborate on creating and refining designs. Real-time collaboration allows team members to work together seamlessly, no matter their location or device. Figma offers complete project transparency. It simplifies the workflow and enhances the efficiency, consistency, and accuracy of the design process.

Key Features

Real-Time Editing and Commenting: Facilitates instant collaboration on designs.
Version History: Tracks changes and revisions for easy reference.
Prototyping Capabilities: Allows for the creation of interactive prototypes.
Dev Mode: Go faster and easily from design to development mode.
Scale Design and Development: Supports scaling projects efficiently.

5. Marker.io

Marker.io is a design feedback tool that directly transfers feedback from your website to your project management tools. It eliminates the hassle with a widget that allows clients to easily report issues in three steps, automatically including all relevant technical data for developers.

Key Features

Simple 3-Step Feedback Process: Report issues directly from the website.
Automatic Technical Data Attachment: Includes URL, browser, OS info, and more.
Screenshot Annotations and Markup: Offers arrows, text, shapes, blur, and emojis for clear feedback.
2-Way Integrations: Syncs with popular PM tools like Asana, Jira, and Trello.

Wrapping Up

Now, you have a solid option for collecting website feedback. When selecting the right tool, keep two things in mind.

First, consider how the tool integrates with your current workflow. Ease of use and integration can significantly impact your team's efficiency.
Second, consider the tool's ability to adapt to various web platforms.

ruttl stands out in both aspects. It offers seamless integration with numerous web technologies and simplifies the feedback process. This makes ruttl a compelling choice for your website feedback needs. Sign up for free and see what more you can do with ruttl.

Web design trends to keep an eye on in 2024

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:20:42 GMT

What if your website still looked like it belonged on the older websites?

Web design has come a long way from the days of heavy textures and 3D effects. Today, the field is all about sleek, user-friendly interfaces that cater to modern user needs. As we venture into 2024, staying ahead with the latest trends is more important than ever.

In the early 2010s, a significant shift occurred in web design with the rise of mobile devices and responsive design. This era marked the beginning of flat design's prominence. Flat design set aside the excessive textures and gradients that had been popular. It embraced minimalism and featured bold colors and simple typography. But now, some other trend might take over.

Understanding this shift is essential as we look forward to what 2024 holds for web design. Expect to see innovations that enhance user interaction and improve accessibility. You can keep up with these trends to make your website look modern and meet the changing user expectations.

Top Web Design Trends in 2024

Let’s see the latest web design trends that will dominate this year and the years to come.

1. Artificial Intelligence in Design

Source

AI is everywhere. The rise of ChatGPT gave prominence to the use of AI tools. Now, we see many existing tools incorporating AI into their offerings.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the power to automate complex processes and enhance creativity. AI tools in design help streamline workflow and allow designers to focus more on creative aspects. They can automatically generate design elements, suggest improvements, and create layouts based on user data. This results in faster production times and more personalized user experiences.

AI can automatically adjust colors for better contrast, resize text for readability, and predict user needs based on interaction patterns. Moreover, AI-driven analytics provide insights into how users engage with a site. It enables designers to make informed decisions to enhance usability and aesthetics.

AI design tools can reduce the time and money needed to create a website. They can enhance web design by offering unique, personalized experiences by understanding user behavior and preferences. These tools are especially useful for people with big ideas needing help with the design work.

2. Skeuomorphism

Source

Skeuomorphism is a design approach where digital elements look like their real-world counterparts. For example, a digital notepad might have a design that resembles a real paper notepad, complete with textures that look like paper and leather. This style makes digital interfaces feel familiar and easy to use by mimicking physical objects.

This style was very popular because it helped new users understand how to interact with digital technologies by relating them to everyday objects they already knew. However, as users have become more tech-savvy, the trend in web design has shifted towards simpler, more minimalistic designs focusing on usability and clean aesthetics.

Despite this shift, skeuomorphism remains an important part of design history. It illustrates how user interface design adapts to its users' changing familiarity and comfort levels.

3. Ultra-minimalism

Source

Ultra-minimalism is a design style that emphasizes extreme simplicity. It uses very few elements to create a clean, clear look. This approach focuses on essential features and removes any unnecessary details.

Colors are often neutral or monochromatic. Typography is straightforward for better readability. Space plays a crucial role. Ample white space makes the overall design calming and easy to navigate.

Ultra-minimalism suits modern tastes that favor functionality and efficiency. This style can make websites appear more professional and sophisticated. It also improves user experience by making interactions simpler and more direct.

As technology advances and user preferences evolve, ultra-minimalism continues to gain popularity. It appeals to users who appreciate design that combines aesthetics with practicality.

4. Microinteractions

Source

Microinteractions are small, functional animations or effects in a design that enhance user experience and provide feedback. For example, when a user likes a post on social media, a small animation of a heart popping might appear. This confirms the action visually and adds a touch of delight.

These subtle details make the user's journey through a website or app more engaging and intuitive.

Microinteractions guide users through interactions, subtly rewarding them and reducing errors by confirming completed actions. They help in making digital environments feel more human and responsive.

You can focus on these details to create a more immersive and interactive experience that encourages users to continue engaging with the site or app.

5. Gamification

Source

Gamification is the technique of applying game-like elements in non-game contexts to boost engagement and motivation. This approach uses rewards, challenges, and competitions to make mundane tasks more interesting and enjoyable.

For example, Duolingo offers points, streaks, and rewards to encourage users to achieve their workout goals.

Incorporating gamification into websites, apps, and business processes can bring numerous benefits. It makes the experience more interactive and fun, which can increase user participation and loyalty. Gamification can also drive desired behaviors from users, such as completing tasks or learning new skills.

You can tap into the natural human love for games to create more engaging, motivating, and effective environments.

6. Glassmorphism

Source

Glassmorphism is a trend in web design characterized by a frosted glass effect, where elements have a semi-transparent background with a subtle blur effect on anything behind them. This style mimics the look of glass, giving the design a sense of depth and layering. Elements often appear light and float above the rest, with sharp contrasts in colors and vivid backgrounds to enhance visibility and aesthetic appeal.

Apple's macOS Big Sur operating system incorporates the frosted glass effect. This design feature adds a modern and sleek appearance to the interface. It enhances both aesthetic appeal and usability.

Glassmorphism in design includes a modern, sleek look that can make interfaces appear more innovative and engaging. This style helps to organize content hierarchically. It enhances usability while providing a visually stimulating experience that stands out from more traditional designs.

Wrapping Up

And that’s it. Leverage these new web design trends to make your design relevant and fresh. You must also prioritize user-friendliness. Make your website easy to navigate and accessible to all users. Focus on creating a seamless experience that guides visitors effortlessly through your content. Regularly test your design with real users to gather feedback and make necessary adjustments. Also consider staying updated with web design blogs to stay informed about the latest industry trends, techniques, and best practices. These blogs often provide valuable insights, tips, and tutorials that can help you refine your design skills and stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

As you center the user's needs, your website looks modern and functions effectively. This way, your website will meet the expectations of modern users.

Improving Usability through Website Annotation

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 10:09:16 GMT

When you think about improving your website, consider the impact user feedback can have. It comes directly from those who navigate and use your site.

Let’s say visitors struggle to find information on your website. They may suggest adding a search function. Implementing their suggestion can dramatically enhance user experience. Such an update can make your site more navigable and efficient. It will allow users to find what they need quickly. This simple update can transform how users interact with your site.

This is just one example. Suppose users don’t like a button, an image, the text. The possibilities are endless when it comes to the findings that you can get from user feedback.

Acting on specific feedback ensures your website better serves its audience. It shifts the user experience from frustrating to seamless. Visitors become more likely to return when they know their input leads to positive changes.

And that’s what website annotation helps you achieve with ease. In this article, we’ll talk about how you can leverage website annotation to enhance website usability with user-generated feedback.

Let’s start with the basics.

Why Do You Need To Improve Website Usability

Improving website usability is crucial for any online presence. Users expect easy navigation, fast loading times, and intuitive interfaces. They may leave when a website fails to meet these expectations. It may reduce engagement and potential revenue. The process involves refining the site's layout, enhancing accessibility, and ensuring clear and useful content.

The need for usability improvements arises from the desire to provide a seamless user experience. This means ensuring the website is accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. It includes optimizing page speed, making navigation intuitive, and ensuring content is relevant and easy to understand. The goal is to remove any barriers that could frustrate or confuse users.

User-generated feedback plays an essential role in this process. It offers direct insights into users' experiences and highlights areas needing improvement. Feedback can reveal issues with navigation, content clarity, or accessibility that might not be evident from analytics alone.

Website annotation tool allow users to pinpoint specific elements of a site and provide contextual comments. This direct form of feedback can help you understand how real users interact with the site and what changes can significantly impact usability.

Understanding Website Annotation

Website annotation represents a dynamic way for users to interact with web content. It lets users directly offer insights, comments, and suggestions on the webpage. This interactive layer transforms the web from a static information medium into a collaborative space. It enriches the user experience and provides valuable feedback for website owners and content creators.

Website annotation allows users to add notes, comments, or highlights to specific parts of a webpage. These annotations can be visible to the user who made them, a selected group of users, or all visitors to the site, depending on the settings chosen by the website administrator. This capability enables a direct form of feedback contextual and specific to the content it references.

Features of Website Annotation

Text Comments: Users can attach textual notes to specific sections or elements of a webpage. This is particularly useful for providing detailed feedback, asking questions, or offering suggestions.
Highlighting: Highlighting text or elements on a page allows users to draw attention to specific parts of the content. This makes it easier for website owners to see what users find important, confusing, or worth discussing.
Inline Replies: Many annotation tools support inline replies that enable a conversation directly on the webpage. This feature facilitates a dialogue between the website team and its audience or among the users.
Multimedia Support: Some advanced website annotation tools allow users to add multimedia elements, such as images or videos, as part of their feedback. This can be particularly helpful for conveying complex ideas or pointing out visual issues on the site.
Privacy Settings: Website annotation tools often provide various privacy settings. They allow public, private, or restricted annotations to certain groups. This flexibility supports a range of use cases, from open community feedback to internal team collaboration.
Integration with Analytics and Feedback Management: Many website annotation tools can be integrated with website analytics and feedback management systems. This integration allows for a streamlined process of collecting, analyzing, and acting on user feedback.

Why do you need Website Annotation?

Website annotation tools empower users to provide direct, contextual feedback that significantly enhances a website's usability and overall quality. As a website owner and developer, this feedback can help you identify usability issues, understand user needs, and prioritize improvements. Annotations offer a unique insight into how users interact with the site, their challenges, and what changes could improve their experience.

Implementing Annotation for Feedback Collection

Integrating website annotation tools into a website can transform how feedback is collected and managed. Website annotation tools like ruttl offer a streamlined process for designers, developers, and stakeholders to communicate directly on the web pages. This approach enhances clarity, efficiency, and productivity in web development and design projects.

Let's explore the steps to integrate annotation tools into a website:

1. Choose the Right Annotation Tool

Choosing the right Website Annotation Tool is key to comprehensive feedback collection.Consider choosing ruttl, this tool allows users to annotate web pages, edit CSS elements, and share precise design feedback directly on the live website.

2. Create an Account and Set Up a Project

Sign up and log into your account. With ruttl, you can create a new project and add your website's URL. This initiates the annotation environment where you can begin adding comments and feedback.

3. Invite Team Members, Stakeholders and Users to Collaborate

ruttl offers the ability to collaborate. Invite your team members, developers, stakeholders, and users to the project. This ensures everyone involved can view, add, or respond to annotations.

4. Integrate with Your Workflow

Website annotation tools like ruttl offer integrations with popular project management and communication tools like Slack, Trello, Jira, and Asana. This ensures you can easily track and manage feedback and tasks within your existing workflow.

Best Practices for Encouraging Feedback Through Annotation

Feedback is crucial for the success of any project. Website annotation tools offer a seamless way for teams and clients to share their thoughts. They simplify the process to make it more interactive and efficient.

Let’s look at the best practices for leveraging website annotation tools like ruttl for feedback collection. You must implement these strategies to enhance project outcomes and user satisfaction.

1. Educate the Users and Clients on Annotation Benefits

Effective use of website annotation tools starts with understanding their value. It's essential to demonstrate to your team and clients how these tools facilitate direct, specific feedback that can impact project outcomes.

You can leverage training sessions and tutorials to highlight website annotation's efficiency in communication and problem-solving capabilities. This foundational knowledge encourages active participation from all parties involved.

2. Simplify Access with Guest Comments

You can fully realize the power of feedback when you remove the barriers to provide it. ruttl's guest comment feature is a prime example of this principle in action.

Allowing clients and stakeholders to leave comments without needing an account opens the door to more frequent and candid feedback. This inclusivity enriches the project with diverse insights and streamlines the feedback process. This makes it more user-friendly for occasional contributors.

3. Leverage Tags and Assignments for Clarity

Organization enhances the effectiveness of feedback. If you categorize feedback with tags and assign comments as tasks to specific team members, you ensure that no piece of advice falls through the cracks. This system promotes accountability and helps in tracking progress in addressing feedback. It also simplifies navigating the feedback for later review. You can focus on specific aspects of the project as needed later on.

4. Establish a Feedback Loop

A feedback loop reinforces the value of contributions from the users. Regular updates on feedback status, discussions on resolutions, and notifications about changes made in response to comments demonstrate a commitment to collaboration. This practice keeps the project on track and fosters a culture of continuous improvement, where every piece of feedback is seen as an opportunity to enhance the project.

5. Encourage Constructive Feedback

Quality feedback drives better outcomes. Encouraging users to provide specific, constructive comments helps identify issues and potential improvements.

It’s helpful to guide users in providing effective feedback, such as focusing on specific features or aspects of the design and explaining why a change might be beneficial. This leads to actionable insights that can directly influence the project's success.

6. Offer Multiple Feedback Options

Different users may prefer different methods of providing feedback. ruttl acknowledges this by offering options for both text comments and video recordings. This flexibility helps users choose the feedback mode they are most comfortable with. It could increase the quantity and quality of the feedback received. It also accommodates different types of feedback that might be better expressed visually or verbally.

7. Integrate Feedback with Other Tools

Integrating website annotation feedback into the broader project management ecosystem streamlines workflows and ensures that feedback is acted upon promptly. When you link tools like ruttl with Slack, Trello, Jira, and Asana, your team can maintain a central repository of tasks and updates. This makes it easier to track progress and collaborate easier. This integration also helps you prioritize feedback based on project timelines and resource availability.

8. Celebrate Feedback Contributions

Recognizing and celebrating the efforts of those who provide valuable feedback cultivates a positive, collaborative environment. You must highlight specific instances where feedback led to improvements that can motivate further contributions and reinforce the value of the website annotation process.

Celebrations can be as simple as acknowledging user contributions or more formal rewards for particularly insightful feedback. This recognition encourages a sense of ownership and pride among all stakeholders in the project’s success.

How to Manage and Respond to Annotated Feedback

Managing annotated feedback effectively is key to the success of any digital project. Website annotation tools offer direct communication between clients, designers, and developers. Use the four strategies below to efficiently manage and respond to feedback to meet the project goals and provide a better user experience.

1. Prioritize Feedback

Understanding the significance of each piece of feedback requires a keen assessment of how each comment impacts the project goals, its influence on user experience, and the technical feasibility of implementing changes.

You can categorize feedback based on urgency and importance. It’ll help the team allocate resources more effectively to promptly address critical issues. This strategic prioritization streamlines workflow and significantly boosts the project's chances of achieving its intended outcomes with maximum efficiency.

2. Communicate Clearly and Promptly

The basis of effective feedback management is transparent and timely communication. Acknowledging each piece of feedback builds a foundation of trust and collaboration among all stakeholders involved.

You can provide clear, realistic timelines for when your team will address the issues. It’ll help you manage expectations and reduce potential frustrations. This approach keeps stakeholders engaged and promotes a positive and collaborative working environment.

3. Iterate and Use Version Control

The dynamic nature of digital projects necessitates continuous iteration and improvement. Leveraging version control capabilities within website annotation tools can be incredibly beneficial.

Creating multiple versions of a website or digital product can help your team document the changes, track iterations over time, and review how your team incorporated feedback into each version. This simplifies the review process and highlights the project's evolution. It shows the team's responsiveness to feedback and their commitment to excellence.

4. Encourage Ongoing Feedback

Creating a culture of continuous feedback is essential for the sustained success of any project. Encouraging users to provide ongoing comments, even after you address initial issues, can uncover new insights and opportunities for improvement.

The iterative process refines the project and strengthens the collaborative bond between users, clients, designers, and developers. It ensures that the project continually evolves to meet user needs and expectations.

Challenges and Solutions in Annotation-Based Feedback

Annotation-based feedback holds much value in the collaborative ecosystem of digital product development. However, this process is not without its challenges. You must address these challenges with effective solutions and strategies to maintain project efficiency and stakeholder satisfaction.

Have a look at these common challenges and how you can tackle them.

Common Challenges

High Volume of Feedback: A common challenge is the overwhelming volume of annotations, which can lead to important feedback getting lost or delayed responses.
Relevance of Feedback: Not all feedback may be relevant or constructive. It may lead to potential distractions and misdirection in the project’s focus.
Moderation and Clarity: You may find it challenging to ensure that users clearly articulate feedback and that your team appropriately moderates it to maintain a constructive environment.

Solutions and Strategies

Implement a Structured Process

You must implement a structured process to collect, review, and act on annotations to manage high volumes of feedback. This includes setting clear guidelines for feedback, such as specifying areas of focus, which can help prioritize and address comments more efficiently.

Enhance Relevance Through Guidelines

Establishing clear guidelines for providing feedback can significantly enhance its relevance. Encourage users to be specific in their annotations. They must focus on actionable insights rather than general commentary. This ensures that the feedback collected directly contributes to project improvement.

Utilize Moderation

You can add relevant team members to filter out and moderate the comments to maintain the clarity and constructiveness of feedback. It ensures that feedback remains focused and productive. This role can involve clarifying vague comments, merging duplicate feedback, and filtering out irrelevant or unconstructive annotations.

Foster a Culture of Constructive Feedback

Creating an environment that values constructive feedback is essential. Encouraging users to provide clear, actionable, and respectful feedback fosters a more productive and positive collaboration. Regular training sessions and guidelines can help in cultivating this culture.

Wrapping Up

Boosting website usability with user-generated feedback ensures a site meets the needs of its users. This approach identifies areas for improvement directly from those who navigate and interact with the site daily.

Tools like website annotation offer a practical method for collecting this invaluable feedback. They enable precise, contextual insights to guide enhancements that make websites more intuitive, accessible, and engaging. Three key takeaways from what we discussed include:

User-generated feedback is crucial for identifying usability issues.
Website annotation tools facilitate direct, actionable insights.
Continuous feedback loops lead to iterative improvements and help enhance user satisfaction.

ruttl stands out as a powerful tool for website annotation, enabling teams to gather and manage feedback efficiently. Its user-friendly interface allows for quick annotations directly on web pages. It simplifies the user and developers' feedback process. Incorporate ruttl into your feedback process to streamline communication, prioritize changes, and deliver a more user-centric website experience.

Tips for Writing Professional Emails with Examples

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 07:01:02 GMT

Email is the most effective and preferable channel for professional communication. Businesses and clients take the help of email for corporate communication. Considering the professional importance of this communication channel, articulating emails featuring professional content is a significant part of communication skills.

The chances of survival of any professional or business person without mastering email writing skills are quite minimal. Hence, it is necessary to learn the skill of email articulation inside and out to ensure effective corporate communication.

This article will help you with some useful and practical tips for writing professional emails with examples.

1. Rectify Grammar Errors

Flawless and error-free writing is crucial for effective communication in professional emails. A well-written and grammatically correct email reflects professionalism and competency. Therefore, you must write professional emails with correct grammar and follow language rules.

Human proofreading may overlook some common errors and missed punctuations that may negatively impact your recipients. Grammar checker online can accurately detect all the mistakes in grammar and spelling that have been overlooked.

Using a grammar check online quickly scans, detects, and rectifies grammatical errors in your emails. It improves your professional email writing by suggesting correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, and tone of voice.

Email Example without Grammar Check

“Please find the copy of your requested report PDF file is 12 MB, so be sure to consider uploading or downloading.”

Email Example with Grammar Check “Please find the attached copy of your requested report. The PDF file is 12 MB, so be sure to consider uploading or downloading.”

2. Write a Straightforward and Catchy Subject

An email subject is a concise and informative sentence that conveys to your recipient what your email is about. Most recipients decide whether to open and respond to an email based on the subject line.

For a professional email, write a strong, to-the-point, and informative subject that compels the reader to open it. Your subject must reflect what should be expected in your email body in less than 10 words.

Avoid using clickbait tactics and irrelevant subjects just to let the recipient open your email, as it turns out against you. Moreover, never greet or put salutations in the subject line; use it for the purpose it is meant to be. You can also include your recipient’s name to get readers’ attention.

Formal Email Subject Example

Subject: Yearly profit report | Includes profits and losses
Subject: Request your presence at
Subject: Update: New Maternity Policy

Informal Email Subject Example

Subject: Hobs and Co. Annual Dinner @ | Let’s dine in up!
Subject: Brian, your presence is requested @
Subject: [Reminder] You forgot to complete the survey | Will Take 2 Minutes

3. Start with Proper Greetings

Considering that the first impression is the last impression approach, you have to start with appropriate greetings when writing professional emails. The greetings encompass two components: the salutations and the email's opening sentence.

The greetings and opening sentences must be coherent with the rest of your email and depend upon whom you are addressing. For instance, if you are using an informal tone for the recipient you are professionally familiar with, you should address them using ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello.’

If you didn’t know the recipient in person, you must begin salutations with ‘Dear.’ If you know the recipient, you can also use their preferred gender pronouns in formal emails. However, avoid using gender-specific titles in the greetings if you aren’t sure about them.

Formal Email Greetings

Dear Mr. John,
Dear Mrs. Smith,
Dear Dr. Finch

Informal Email Greetings

Hi Mr. Peterson,
Hello Natalie,
Dear colleagues

4. End with a Professional Signature

Just as the opening sentences of your email should be professional to build a positive impression, your email ending note should also include a professional sign-off. You can include a proper ending note and your official description as the signature.

Use appropriate sign-off notes relevant to your email and recipient, like ‘sincerely’ and ‘best wishes or regards’ for formal and ‘yours truly’ for informal professional emails. After that, use your email signature that specifies your name, job title, and company.

Moreover, your company’s website and social media links can also be included in the email signatures. Avoid using company details if you are sending emails within your company or to a colleague.

__Informal Email Sign-off __

Talk soon, Natalie David
Cheers, Morris Alfred.
See you.

Formal Email Sign-off

All the best, best regards, Kind regards, or Regards, Philips Thomson, Media Marketing Manager, Brinson Inc.
Thanks, Thank you, or Sincerely, Philips Thomson, Ph: +1 111 222 333 Email: philips@example.com Website: www. example.com

Conclusion

The article above guided you with actionable and helpful tips for writing professional emails. It describes how to format a professional email by including a catchy subject line, using appropriate greetings and salutations, and signing off using ending notes and signatures. But more than that, you must go beyond layout and formatting and write emails with precise language and grammar. If you lack proofreading or editing skills, you can get assistance from tools and various chrome extensions, which can transform your crafted emails into professional and error-free writing.

11 Best Image Annotation Tools for 2024

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:08:44 GMT

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to manually label thousands of images for your project? You know the drill: endless hours looking at screens, second-guessing every tag, and facing the fear of mistakes that could throw off your entire analysis.

It's a real headache. You spend more time guessing than making progress, whether trying to align your team's vision or ensuring every detail matches the client's expectations.

Here's where image annotation tools step in. These tools transform the tedious labeling task into a breeze and make your workflow smoother than ever. With the right image annotation software, you can say goodbye to the grunt work and hello to precision and efficiency.

This guide will cover how these tools can supercharge your projects and the top 11 image annotation tools for 2024. So, let's dive.

What are Image Annotation Tools?

Image annotation helps you refine your visual projects before they hit the market. It closely examines visuals, offers targeted feedback, and suggests necessary tweaks. This process ensures that every design element resonates well with the intended message and audience expectations.

Traditionally, teams might rely on back-and-forth emails or real-time chats, which, while effective, often lead to misunderstandings and delays. Modern image annotation tools have come out as a solution. They offer a streamlined, user-friendly platform for asynchronous collaboration. These tools allow for direct and on-image feedback.

Benefits of Image Annotation Tools

Image annotation tools are simplifying how you handle images. They make complex tasks such as review and feedback surprisingly simple. Here's why they're a big deal:

Enhances machine learning models: They feed AI systems accurate data. It boosts their ability to recognize and classify objects.
Streamlines workflow: These tools save time and effort by making spotting and labeling images easy.
Increases data accuracy: With precise tagging, they help you detect and categorize the objects in images.
Facilitates team collaboration: Everyone can contribute and access annotated images. This makes project management smoother.
Improves project outcomes: By clarifying what each image represents, these tools help fine-tune the final product to get high-quality results.

So, whether you're developing the next big AI project or refining design details, image annotation tools are your go-to for making work less of a headache and more of a breeze.

How to Select The Right Annotation Tool

The right annotation tool can help you save time and do the work in the right manner. Here are the essential criteria to consider when selecting an annotation tool:

1. Usability

First up, usability is your starting line. The ideal tool feels intuitive from the get-go and has an easy-to-navigate interface. You want something that doesn't bury its best features under complex menus or requires endless hours of training. To access usability, consider these factors:

Opt for tools with intuitive and easy-to-navigate interfaces.
Ensure the tool offers essential features like various annotation types and batch processing.
Look for tools with capabilities that enable real-time feedback and teamwork.

2. Features

Moving on to features, the range and depth of features determine how well they can handle your specific tasks. Versatility is key. You need everything from a rich palette of annotation types to customization options. Ensure the tool supports a wide range of image formats. You must opt for solutions that can grow with your project.

3. Integration Capabilities

Integration capabilities ensure your annotation tool integrates smoothly into the ecosystem of tools you already use. It should work nicely with other software and offer API access when you need to automate processes. A good tool must provide cloud storage options for easy access to data, no matter where you are.

4. Pricing

Last but not least, pricing often holds the final say. Look beyond the sticker price for transparent pricing models that lay all cards on the table. Scalable plans that grow with your needs ensure your tool can keep pace as your project expands. Always test the free trials or demos to see whether the tool fits your project before fully committing.

Top 11 Image Annotation Tools for 2024

With many options available, our list of the top 11 image annotation tools aims to guide you through the best solutions. Each tool offers unique features tailored to meet different needs, from simple label assignments to complex object detection.

1. ruttl

ruttl is a comprehensive tool designed to streamline the feedback process for image, PDF, and website projects. It allows team members to annotate images by offering a real-time collaboration platform. Its comprehensive suite caters to every feedback need under one roof. It's designed to enhance collaboration across product, marketing, sales, and support teams to make revenue growth more straightforward and efficient.

Key Features

Bug tracking: Identify and manage website issues with an integrated system.
Mobile app annotations: Provide feedback on mobile apps within Ruttl.
Mobile support: Report issues directly from mobile devices.
Guest access: Clients comment without needing accounts.
CSS inspection and editing: Inspect and modify CSS for quick changes.

Pros
The user-friendly interface simplifies the learning curve.
Active collaboration features shorten the review cycle and boost team productivity.
You can tailor customizable workflows to meet the specific needs of each project.
Comprehensive customer support is available.

Cons
Dependence on a stable internet connection for access.

Pricing

Ruttl offers a Free plan for primary use. Pro plans at $4/month per user for more features. Team plans at $30/month per user.

2. Ziflow

Ziflow streamlines the creative review and approval process. This tool simplifies the management of high workloads and maintains brand compliance for teams. It supports creative content, from images and PDFs to videos and websites.

Key Features

Easily compare changes across versions.
Tailor workflows for any project complexity.
SOC2 compliance guarantees data protection.
Seamlessly connects with 1,000+ tools and apps.

Pros
Offers detailed markup and commenting for precision in feedback.
Simplifies tracking of changes across project iterations.
Facilitates easy adoption.

Cons
Some users may find the extensive features overwhelming at the outset.

Pricing

Ziflow offers a free plan for individuals and small teams. For more advanced features, plans start at $199/month and scale up to cater to enterprise-level requirements with custom pricing.

3. V7 Labs

V7 Labs is an image annotation software that stands out for its focus on speed and efficiency. Thanks to its integration of generative AI and intuitive user interface, it allows you to annotate images up to 10 times faster than traditional methods. What truly sets V7 apart is its comprehensive support across various industries.

Key Features

Generates annotations with a single click.
Automates and streamlines annotation projects.
Streamlines development, saving time.
Work with any file format.

Pros
Supports various model types for comprehensive training.
Detailed editing features for image manipulation.
Support for multiple image types.

Cons
Lacks advanced collaboration features for larger teams.

Pricing

V7 Labs starts with a free plan for primary use. For more advanced features and increased capacity, they offer customized business solutions.

4. Figma

Figma's "Annotate it plugin redefines how you add annotations to images and designs. It streamlines the process by allowing you to quickly select frames and automatically generate annotations. This tool supports individual frame selection, visibility toggles, and smart formatting with Markdown. You can rename frames, reorder annotations, and customize marker sizes and colors.

Key Features

Engage with dynamic tools for prototyping and animation.
Simplify developer collaboration with inspect mode.
Establish customizable design systems through shared libraries.
Access comprehensive support for plugins and widgets.

Pros
Robust version control and design history tracking.
Efficient asset management with shared libraries.
Cross-platform accessibility for design on the go.

Cons
Performance may lag with huge files or complex projects.

Pricing

Figma offers plans for teams of every size: A free starter plan, a Professional Plan at $12/month per editor, and an Organization Plan at $45/month per editor

5. Filestage

Filestage is a sleek platform where you and your team can annotate real-time designs. Whether commenting, drawing, or highlighting text, Filestage ensures every piece of feedback is tied to your visuals. Beyond marking up images, Filestage offers project workflow management that ensures that every file, version, and comment is accessible.

Key Features

Unlimited file sharing and version history streamline project management.
Flexible file sharing accommodates a wide range of content types.
Integrated review reminders and notifications keep projects on track.
Unique verified approvals enhance compliance and accountability.

Pros
Intuitive annotation tools enhance communication clarity.
Flexible file sharing accommodates various content types.
Live comment management keeps discussions organized.

Cons
Advanced collaboration features like live video feedback are not available.

Pricing

Filestage plans start at $49/month for the Basic plan; it scales up to $249/month for the Professional plan. For large enterprises' custom solutions, contact them for pricing.

6. Unitlab

Unitlab Annotate turbocharges your annotation process. It makes it 15x faster with auto-annotation tools while ensuring top-notch accuracy through collaborative efforts. Offering on-premises solutions and a direct line to expert annotators, Unitlab provides your projects are efficient, secure, and highly customized to your needs.

Key Features

Covers a comprehensive overview of project metrics and annotator contributions.
Ensures secure access with customizable user permissions.
Supports a broad spectrum of file formats for comprehensive project coverage.
Automates repetitive tasks and saves time.

Pros
Adapts to project demands to ensure consistent performance during volume spikes.
Enhances annotator performance through AI feedback loops.
Handles various data types, from images to complex 3D models.

Cons
Setting up custom models and workflows can be complex without technical expertise.

Pricing

Unitlab offers a Free forever tier. Paid plans begin at $39 per month and have more advanced features.

7. Scale AI

Scale AI streamlines the journey from raw images to high-quality training data for machine learning models. This advanced platform employs a blend of artificial intelligence and human expertise. It provides exceptional object detection, classification, and text recognition accuracy across various applications.

Key Features

A comprehensive system to monitor and ensure data accuracy.
Offers detailed annotations with various geometrical options.
Quickly adapts to changes in taxonomy for project flexibility.
Accepts a wide range of image files, enhancing project versatility

Pros
Tailor tasks to specific project needs with dynamic configurations.
Advanced ML and human reviews guarantee high-quality annotations.
Efficiently handles large volumes of data without compromising quality.
Ensures data integrity with strict security protocols.

Cons
Mainly caters to high-volume, enterprise-level projects, sidelining smaller teams or projects.

Pricing

Scale AI offers customized pricing tailored to the scope of your enterprise project. For detailed pricing, get a demo or consultation.

8. Roboflow

Roboflow distinguishes itself by blending intuitive design with powerful AI-assisted capabilities. It lets you annotate, manage, and enhance datasets quickly and efficiently. Whether for small projects or enterprise-level deployments, Roboflow's flexible environment adapts to any task's unique demands and pushes the boundaries of ML and computer vision.

Key Features

Provides flexible export settings to meet specific model requirements.
Offers real-time updates on project status and annotator performance.
Use shortcuts and pre-trained models for rapid image marking.
Streamlined permissions for effective team dynamics.

Pros
Automates data flow into and out of Roboflow.
Enhances datasets with automated transformations and improves model robustness.
Access to a vibrant community for sharing insights, tips, and best practices.

Cons
Being cloud-based, it requires a stable internet connection for seamless operation.

Pricing

Beyond the free public plan, Roboflow offers a tiered pricing structure starting at $249/month for advanced features and scalability options.

9. RectLabel

RectLabel excels with its offline functionality that provides a secure environment. With this tool, you can annotate images without the concern of data privacy breaches. Unique to RectLabel is the ability to label polygons with holes and cubic bezier curves. This feature caters to the nuanced needs of projects requiring detailed annotations around complex shapes.

Key Features

Beyond standard shapes, draw cubic bezier curves and lines.
Customize objects, attributes, hotkeys, and more for a tailored annotation experience.
Generate indexed color and grayscale images for segmentation tasks.
Enhance your dataset with built-in image augmentation tools.

Pros
Enables labeling of critical points with a skeleton.
Utilize cutting-edge models to label polygons and pixels.
Easily search through object, attribute, and image names.

Cons
Each device needs its license, which can increase costs for teams.

Pricing

RectLabel offers an untimed free trial, with monthly and yearly subscriptions for continued use. RectLabel Pro is available for a one-time purchase.

10. ReviewStudio

ReviewStudio's cutting-edge approach to online proofing transcends traditional methods. It provides clear and contextual feedback on creative content. Unique features like side-by-side comparison with synced navigation and a different highlighter set it apart. They offer an intuitive experience for meticulous review processes. This platform allows you to effectively communicate the details so that every project meets its mark excellently.

Key Features

Adjustable comment visibility for internal and external stakeholders.
Efficient task assignment and management within projects.
Trigger-based workflows to automate review stages.
Integrated comment threads to centralize discussion.

Pros
Streamlines project management by tracking tasks and resolutions within the platform.
Keeps project evolution transparent with consolidated versioning and easy access to historical changes.
Supports over 100 file formats.

Cons
Fewer third-party integrations compared to competitors.

Pricing

ReviewStudio offers tiered pricing plans to accommodate different team sizes and project demands, starting with a free trial to explore full features without commitment.

11. MarkUp.io

With over 30 file types, MarkUp.io provides precise feedback on designs, PDFs, videos, and more. Its ability to reduce review cycles by 80% sets it apart. It brings teams closer to their best work faster and with less hassle. Plus, the Chrome extension simplifies marking up from your browser.

Key Features

Instant markups from your browser with an extension.
Invite infinite guests without registration.
Unique support for 30+ file types.
Effortless folder sharing with unlimited access.

Pros
Enhance feedback with video explanations using seamless Loom integration.
Access relevant feedback instantly with the ability to search through comments.
Simplify the review collection by sharing via email or links.

Cons
Limited support for specific file formats beyond the 30 supported types.

Pricing

Markup.io offers three plans: Free, Pro at $25 per month, and Enterprise with custom pricing.

Conclusion

Choosing the right image annotation tool is critical to enhance your design review process in 2024. Each tool we've explored brings unique strengths and caters to different needs.

Whether you prioritize real-time collaboration, intuitive markup capabilities, or comprehensive version control, there's a solution to streamline your project's approval cycle.

Choose ruttl if you want to accelerate feedback loops and integrate it seamlessly with your team's existing workflow. Remember that the goal is to simplify communication, eliminate misunderstandings, and ensure that creative visions align perfectly with project objectives. And ruttl has everything that you need from an image annotation tool.

Top 11 Free PDF Annotation Tools: Your Ultimate Guide

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 15:36:05 GMT

Working on a document without the right tools feels like navigating without a map. Without them, you might be lost in endless email threads or confusing document versions.

Online PDF annotators bring clarity and efficiency to document review processes. They guide you through and turn a jumble of pages into a structured, understandable map.

Imagine marking up a document quickly, adding comments directly where needed, and sharing those insights instantly with your team or clients on the go. This is what a PDF annotator helps you with. This streamlined approach saves you valuable time and enhances collaboration.

This guide highlights everything you need about online PDF annotators and features the top 11 free PDF annotation tools.

PDF Annotation: An Overview

PDF annotation allows you to add comments and notes directly onto PDF documents. This functionality enhances document review and collaboration by enabling highlights, underlines, and strikeouts.

These tools allow you to insert shapes or sticky notes for additional context. They are ideal for academic, professional, or personal use. This feature facilitates detailed feedback and collaborative editing without physical document handling.

With PDF annotation tools, engaging with and responding to text becomes a more interactive and productive experience. You can save annotations within the document to streamline the review process and improve efficiency.

Benefits of Using a PDF Annotation Tool

PDF annotation tools transform how you interact with PDFs. They offer various benefits catering to professionals, students, and anyone in between. Here’s how it benefits you:

Save time: Annotating directly on a PDF reduces the need to print or switch between applications. It streamlines reviewing documents and keeps valuable hours.
Enhance collaboration: You can seamlessly share and comment on documents with your team. This capability speeds up the review process and ensures everyone is on the same page.
Improve comprehension and retention: Marking essential points and making notes directly on the document aids in understanding and remembering critical information. This helps in learning and decision-making.
Organize feedback: Keeping all annotations in one place makes tracking changes, comments, and suggestions easy. This organization helps you manage complex projects or studies.
Increase accessibility: With cloud-based annotation tools, your documents and notes are accessible from anywhere. It enables you to work without physical boundaries.

Features to Look for in Free PDF Annotation Tools

Choosing the right free PDF annotation tool can make a big difference in your work with documents. You want a tool that meets your basic needs and enhances your workflow. Here are the key features to look for:

User-friendly interface: The tool should come with an intuitive interface. A clean layout makes finding and using annotation features a breeze. You shouldn't waste time figuring out how to highlight a sentence or add a note.
Variety of annotation options: Look for a tool that offer a range of options, like highlighting, underlining, and adding sticky notes. This variety allows for more precise and meaningful annotations for different needs and preferences.
Compatibility with multiple platforms: Whether you use Windows, macOS, Linux, or prefer online tools, the annotation tool should work seamlessly across platforms. This compatibility ensures you can access and annotate your PDFs no matter what device you use.
Support for collaboration features: If you work in a team, features like sharing and commenting on documents are crucial. They enable real-time collaboration. You must be able to use the tool to gather feedback and make decisions together quickly.
Security aspects: The tool must prioritize your data protection and privacy. Look for features like secure sharing and encryption to keep your documents safe from unauthorized access.

Top 11 Free PDF Annotation Tools to Elevate Your Document Workflow

Here are the top 11 free PDF annotation tools to help you streamline your document workflow and enhance collaboration and efficiency across your projects.

1. ruttl

ruttl's PDF annotator tool is an efficient online platform for swiftly annotating and marking PDF files. You can instantly upload any PDF document and start adding comments, annotations, and markup. Its specialty lies in the tool's swift speed and its collaborative features.

Whether you're working on design projects, business documents, or educational materials, Ruttl enhances your productivity and streamlines your workflow.

Key Features

Quick upload and annotation: You can upload PDF documents and start annotating immediately.
Video Comments: Supports adding video comments for more detailed feedback.
Seamless integration: Connect with Slack, Trello, Asana, and more.
Multiple versions: You can add and access different versions of files, including all comments.

Pros

Textual and video comments cater to diverse feedback preferences.
Tagging and task assignments simplify project management.
Real-time chat and notifications keep team members updated.

Cons
Performance may vary based on the browser used.

2. PDF-XChange Editor

PDF-XChange Editor is famous for its lightweight nature and wide array of features, even in its free version. The tool combines the flexibility of document editing with the power of annotation. Its integration with cloud services like SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive, and MS Office 365 simplifies the workflow by allowing direct opening and conversion of documents from the cloud into PDF format.

It supports various annotation formats, including text boxes, hyperlinks, and audio files, catering to diverse user needs.

Key Features

OCR functionality to Convert scanned documents into searchable and editable text.
Create and edit PDF forms and enhance user interaction.
Easily spot differences between PDF documents.
Users can easily split or merge PDF documents.

Pros
Switch between ribbon and classic modes for ease of use.
Opens documents from cloud services for a seamless workflow.
Offers advanced features in evaluation mode, rare in free tools.

Cons

It is primarily designed for Windows. The tool limits cross-platform use.

3. Foxit Reader

Foxit Reader stands out for its blend of advanced features within a user-friendly environment. This tool caters to both professionals and casual users alike. Its emphasis on security, along with its rich annotation capabilities, sets it apart.

Beyond PDF editing, Foxit integrates with popular cloud storage and CMS for enhanced productivity. It also offers tutorials and resources to maximize its utility.

Key Features

Offers everything from comments and highlights to shapes and stamps.
Offers solutions for automated document processing at a high scale.
Makes data collection and distribution seamless. Embeds images, videos, and links directly into PDFs.

Pros

Balances sophisticated functionality with ease of use.
Works with various document types.
Offers smooth check-in/check-out of PDF files on SharePoint servers.

Cons

It may consume more system resources than more straightforward PDF viewers.

4. Annotate

Annotate seamlessly blends security and compliance with innovative document collaboration features. It supports every stage of the document lifecycle, from initial creation to final approval. It simplifies working together on documents in small or large teams.

With Annotate, verifying the accuracy of documents and securing necessary approvals is streamlined through its workflow feature.

Key Features

Offers a variety of annotation tools for detailed feedback and clarity.
You can create notes within documents, assign them, and resolve issues swiftly.
Automatically monitors and logs document changes to ensure industry standards and regulations compliance.
Integrates easily with existing systems.

Pros

Simplifies document management by organizing documents in an intuitive structure.
Boosts productivity with tools designed for efficient document review and approval.
Provides robust security measures to protect sensitive information.

Cons

Integration with particular legacy systems could pose challenges.

5. Wondershare PDFelement

Wondershare PDFelement brings a fresh approach to PDF annotation. It offers a suite of powerful tools that go beyond basic markup capabilities. This tool is for those who seek to fill out forms, leave detailed comments, proofread documents, and more—all within a user-friendly interface.

Wondershare PDFelement stands out for its balance of advanced features and simplicity and is accessible to users of all skill levels.

Key Features

Enables you to highlight, underline, and strike through text for precise feedback.
Offers creative ways to draw attention to specific areas of a document.
Measuring tools: Unique to PDFelement, you have measuring tools for precise document editing and planning.
A variety of ready-made and customizable stamps for quick annotation.

Pros

The intuitive interface makes navigation and document annotation straightforward.
Versatile annotation tools cater to various review and feedback needs.
Custom stamps and measuring tools add a unique touch to document handling.

Cons

It could be resource-intensive on older computers.

6. Okular

Okular seamlessly merges speed, versatility, and a feature-packed environment. It empowers you to dive into various formats, from PDFs, comics, and EPub books to images and Markdown documents. It is the first document viewer to be awarded the Blue Angel award for its resource and energy efficiency dedication.

Its annotation capabilities are particularly noteworthy. It allows adding inline and popup notes, highlighting text, and personalizing documents with your text inputs. With Okular, you're engaging with your documents more innovatively and eco-friendly.

Key Features

Enhance documents with notes, highlights, and custom text. Copy text, tables, and images with precision.
View, verify, and sign PDFs securely.
The first document viewer recognized for energy efficiency and resource conservation.

Pros

Unmatched versatility in document types.
Elevate your review process with inline and popup notes and personalized text additions.
Allows you to view, verify, and sign PDFs tamper-proofly.

Cons

New users might find its vast options overwhelming.

7. Sejda

Sejda is a comprehensive tool for annotating, signing, and collaborating on PDFs. It sets itself apart with its seamless integration across multiple platforms. It ensures you can work from anywhere, on any device.

With Sejda, the hassle of managing multiple email attachments and versions disappears. It replaces it with a unified workflow that enhances productivity and simplifies collaboration.

Key Features

Edit and sign PDFs directly in your browser without installing software.
Files are encrypted and automatically deleted after 2 hours.
Offers comprehensive tools for text, images, hyperlinks, and annotations within PDFs.
Supports adding page numbers, compressing, merging, and even converting PDFs to various formats.

Pros

Easily access PDFs from Dropbox or Google Drive for editing and annotating.
Work offline with the same extensive features by using Sejda Desktop.
Create signatures by typing, drawing, or uploading an image, providing flexibility in document signing.

Cons

Offline editing requires Sejda Desktop, which is not free.

8. Xodo

Xodo is a versatile and user-friendly PDF annotator tool. What sets Xodo apart is its emphasis on simplicity and efficiency. Whether you're a student marking up lecture notes or a professional handling essential documents, Xodo caters to your needs without the complexity often found in similar tools.

Its ability to work across multiple platforms means you can start your work on one device and finish on another seamlessly.

Key Features

Use Xodo on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS.
Quick file handling saves time for more critical tasks.
Easy download and sharing options for annotated PDFs.
The tool lets you download the annotated PDF immediately to your device.

Pros

Perfect for anyone looking to annotate PDFs without a steep learning curve.
Whether on a phone, tablet, or computer, Xodo works flawlessly. It offers swift file processing and allows for quick annotations.

Cons

All features necessitate having the app or using the web platform.

9. Pastel

Pastel is a comprehensive solution that keeps your projects on track and your teams in sync. With its unique features and straightforward approach, it transforms the tedious task of revisions into a swift and collaborative effort.

Whether you're working on design files, wireframes, or PDF documents, Pastel ensures that your feedback loop is as efficient as your creative process.

Key Features

Clients and team members can start leaving feedback with a simple click and type.
Automatically creates bug tickets in Trello, Asana, Jira, and more.
Capture essential details like screen resolution and browser type.
Pastel updates annotations to the latest version of your document, keeping everyone in the loop.

Pros

It cuts review times in half and makes clients and colleagues happier.
Automatically update to the latest version of your PDF within the review cycle.
Enables clients and teams to click anywhere on a PDF and type feedback immediately.

Cons

Primarily focused on digital work, which may not suit all project types.

10. Lumin PDF Editor

Lumin PDF Editor lets you comment, highlight, and draw on documents from any device. Its seamless integration with Google and Dropbox ensures your work syncs in real time. It saves automatically for a hassle-free experience.

Lumin makes document annotation accessible to everyone, whether you're drafting a report, completing homework, or filling out forms.

Key Features

Real-time sync with Google.
Automatic save and sync.
eSign feature to create a unique eSignature for documents.
Combine documents or extract important pages easily with merge and split options.

Pros

Provides access to a wide range of templates for various purposes.
Includes features to make PDFs more accessible to users with disabilities.
your document viewing experience with different modes.

Cons

Advanced features require a subscription, which might not suit all budgets.

11. AvePDF

AvePDF allows you to annotate PDFs directly from your browsers. This tool eliminates the need for downloads or installations. Focusing on security, it ensures that all documents are encrypted and automatically deleted from servers. You get peace of mind for sensitive information.

Moreover, AvePDF guarantees automatically deleting all documents from their servers 30 minutes after processing. You also get an option to delete your files immediately after use manually.

Key Features

Annotate PDFs with web-based access.
Commenting feature to add detailed comments on annotations for thorough review.
Features freehand, connected lines, and polygon ruler tools for precise drawing.
Cloud integration to upload and save documents to cloud storage.

Pros

Download annotated PDFs directly to your computer or save them to cloud storage.
Enables the addition of text boxes and sticky notes directly onto the PDF.
Easily attach comments to any annotation for more in-depth feedback.

Cons

Restricts uploads to 128 MB may not suffice for more significant documents.

Wrapping Up

The importance of PDF annotator tools spans collaboration, education, business, sustainability, and accessibility. These tools offer a variety of features tailored to enhance your productivity and document management. With options ranging from user-friendly interfaces to robust security measures, the perfect tool for your needs is out there.

The 11 tools we discussed provide a solid foundation to choose from. Whether you're annotating for personal study, professional feedback, or team projects, these free solutions ensure your needs are not just met but exceeded.

6 Best chrome extensions for web developers in 2024

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 10:17:46 GMT

As a web developer, you face many challenges in your daily tasks. Coding complexities, debugging issues, and design inconsistencies are just the tip of the iceberg. These hurdles drain energy and time.

This is where Chrome extensions provide a pathway to ease you out. Many extensions simplify coding, streamline debugging, and ensure design precision. They transform challenges into opportunities for efficiency and creativity. With the right extensions, the most difficult tasks become manageable.

To help you, look at the six best Chrome extensions for web developers in 2024. Add them to your luck for enhanced productivity.

Top Chrome extensions for web developers

1. ruttl

ruttl is the best Chrome extension that makes receiving feedback on your design easier. No more complex processes. Just direct, on-site edits and comments.

Let’s say you’re working on a website. You notice something needs a quick fix or an adjustment. Usually, this means going back into the code, making changes, and hoping for the best. ruttl changes this entire process.

With ruttl, you can directly edit and comment on live websites. It's as if you're working directly on the canvas of the web. You can tweak texts, adjust designs, and even modify images in real time. Feedback becomes straightforward. Team members or clients can leave comments directly on the website.

Imagine the time saved. You don’t need to do back-and-forth on emails. No more guessing what "move that bit slightly to the left" means. ruttl brings clarity and efficiency to website revisions.

If you wish to streamline your workflow as a developer or designer, ruttl offers a compelling solution. It bridges the gap between what you see and get.

How to use ruttl’s Chrome extension?

To use ruttl's Chrome extension, follow these simple steps:

Install the Extension: First, go to the Chrome Web Store. Search for "ruttl". Click "Add to Chrome" next to the ruttl extension.
Log In to Your ruttl Account: After installation, click the ruttl extension icon in your browser. Log in using your ruttl account credentials.
Select Project Type: Click on the extension to start a new project. Choose "Web Application" as your project type during creation.
Open Web Apps: In a new tab, open the web application you want to add to your project.
Add to Project: Click on the ruttl extension icon again and add it to your project.

2. CSS viewer for Google Chrome

CSS Viewer is a must-have Chrome extension for web developers and web designers. It's free and incredibly easy to use. This tool simplifies viewing CSS properties for any element on a webpage.

Let’s say you see a button or an image with styling you admire. You wonder, "How did they do that?" CSS Viewer provides the answer in seconds.

This extension is a quick and easy way to understand the CSS behind any web page element. Whether you're learning CSS or need to troubleshoot your website's design, CSS Viewer can help you.

3. Wappalyzer

Wappalyzer is a powerful Chrome extension for anyone curious about the technologies behind websites. This tool acts as a technology profiler. It reveals what's under the hood of any website you visit.

Curious about which CMS a website uses?
Wondering about the frameworks, e-commerce platforms, or JavaScript libraries involved?

Wappalyzer identifies over a thousand technologies across numerous categories. This includes programming languages, analytics tools, marketing solutions, payment processors, CRMs, CDNs, etc.

4. IE Tab

The IE Tab extension for Chrome allows users to view web pages using Internet Explorer within Chrome. This is ideal for sites requiring Java, Silverlight, ActiveX, or Sharepoint. It emulates Internet Explorer versions IE7 through IE11. Windows 11 fully supports this feature even after Internet Explorer's discontinued in February 2023.

Due to Chrome's lack of NPAPI support, IE Tab requires a separate executable, ietabhelper.exe. This change ensures the extension can securely communicate with the Internet Explorer rendering engine.

A few key features of the extension include URL auto-open in IE Tab, Group Policy support, secure IE rendering engine use, and the ability to seamlessly edit Sharepoint documents or use Java, Silverlight, and ActiveX in Chrome. The IE Tab Helper application is secure to help maintain user safety.

5. Awesome Screen Recorder & Screenshot

Awesome Screen Recorder & Screenshot helps you easily capture and record your screen. The tool has over 4 million users worldwide. It combines local and cloud recording, alongside screenshot capabilities, in one package.

It supports video recording with voice, face via webcam, and offers resolutions up to 4K. Post-recording, users can save locally, upload, share instantly, or edit with annotations.

For screenshots, it captures full or selected areas, with options for annotation, blurring, and highlighting. Easy to use, ad-free, and privacy-respecting, it provides quick customer support.

6. ModHeader

ModHeader is your go-to Chrome extension for modifying headers and monitoring page statistics. It lets you easily add, modify, or remove request and response headers. You can customize headers like X-Forwarded-For, Authorization, and more. It also allows you to edit cookies and redirect URLs.

The extension is fast, efficient, and lightweight. You can enable or disable header modification quickly.

ModHeader offers many features to speed up your development. You can leverage the 20+ unique features that the extension offers. It's free, with extra features available through a paid option. It is compatible with Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera.

How to Use and Manage Chrome Extensions

Leveraging Google Chrome extensions can vastly improve a developer's efficiency. Here's a quick rundown on how to use and manage them:

Install: Scout the Chrome Web Store for extensions aimed at developers and install them.
Access: Find your extensions either in the toolbar or under the Extensions menu.
Developer Tools: Use the right-click context menu on web pages to access Chrome's Developer Tools for enhanced debugging.
Configure: Adjust the settings of each extension to fit your specific needs.
Use: Engage tools such as JSON viewers, automatic form fillers, and tools for testing responsive designs.
Testing: Emulate different user agents and screen sizes, which is crucial for thorough cross-browser testing.
Version Control: Utilize extensions that integrate with Git for repository management. -__ Updates:__ Regularly update your extensions to access new features and maintain security.
Security: Only install extensions from reliable sources and be mindful of the permissions they request.
Remove: If you no longer need an extension, you can easily remove it via the Extensions menu.

These steps help you create a streamlined web development process from coding and testing to debugging.

Wrapping Up

In wrapping up, these six Chrome extensions stand out for web developers in 2024. Each offers unique features to enhance productivity and tackle common challenges.

From direct website feedback with ruttl to advanced technology profiling with Wappalyzer, there's a tool for every need. Make sure you use tools that would benefit you.

If you want to further enhance your knowledge, then web design blogs can help you out. Check out ruttl to enhance your knowledge in design and leverage the amazing tool to streamline the feedback process.

Comparing Popular Website Commenting Tool Features

Fri, 15 Mar 2024 09:57:53 GMT

You review a website to explore its features and layout. Suddenly, you stumble upon a design element that seems out of place, or perhaps you have a suggestion that could enhance the user experience.

Normally, you might connect with the team and give them suggestions about the particular elements you want them to improve. But what if you had the power to communicate your thoughts directly to the team behind the website?

This is where website comments serve as bridges between you and website designers. You can share your valuable feedback through comments. This feedback helps in designing better, more user-friendly products.

In this article, we’ll talk about the popular website commenting tools. We explore their features, advantages, and disadvantages to help you choose the tool.

What are Website Commenting Tools?

Website commenting tools facilitate the collection and management of user feedback directly on websites. These tools allow users to leave comments, suggestions, and critiques on specific parts of a website. This feedback can range from design elements and usability to content and functionality.

The core purpose of these tools is to bridge the gap between website visitors and creators. They enable a two-way conversation, where users can provide real-time feedback, and creators can gather insights to improve their products.

These tools are invaluable for web designers, developers, and content creators. They rely on user feedback to iterate and enhance website design and functionality. These tools can help you collect user insights to create more intuitive, engaging, and user-friendly websites.

Top Website Commenting Tools in 2024

Due to the growing competition, there is a need to streamline the website design feedback process. Website commenting tools play a pivotal role in this. They offer efficient platforms for gathering actionable feedback to enhance the collaboration process. Here’s a look into the top 5 website commenting tools.

1. ruttl

ruttl is a leading website commenting tool designed for seamless feedback and collaboration. It is a dynamic platform where teams can review and annotate live websites in real-time.

The platform caters to the nuanced requirements of web developers, designers, and project managers. It makes the iterative process of website enhancement efficient and effective.

Key Features

The video commenting feature enables users to leave comments on website through screen recording.
Real-time website annotation allows users to leave feedback directly on web elements.
Collaborative features enable teams to discuss changes and make decisions swiftly.
ruttl supports a wide range of web projects, from static websites to mobile applications.
The tool integrates with over 3000 apps using Zapier.

Pros

The intuitive interface simplifies the feedback process for all users.
Real-time collaboration boosts productivity and accelerates decision-making.
Comprehensive feedback options enhance the precision of design revisions.
Integration capabilities allow for a smoother workflow with existing project management tools.
Free forever plan for 1 project with unlimited guests.
AI integration to cut through the noise and understand the feedback in quick time.

Cons

Advanced features may require a learning curve for new users.

2. Markup.io

Markup.io is recognized for its straightforward approach to collecting feedback on digital assets. It facilitates clear communication between teams and stakeholders across various project types.

Key Features

Supports 30+ project types
Integration with popular project management tools Chrome extension
File attachment feature in comments

Pros

A user-friendly interface
Versatile feedback capabilities
No limit to collaborator invite
Enhances team collaboration through easy-to-use annotation and commenting tools.

Cons

May lack some advanced features for in-depth website analysis compared to specialized tools.
The focus on simplicity could limit detailed feedback for complex web applications.
Free versions has a limit of 5 markups.

3. Marker.io

Marker.io is a tool designed to enhance website feedback processes. This makes it incredibly efficient for both teams and clients to communicate website issues.

The tool integrates directly into websites as a widget or through a Chrome extension. It aims to streamline the annotation, markup, and bug reporting process with just a few clicks.

Features

Comprehensive annotation and commenting tools like arrows, text and shapes.
One-click bug reporting.
Project management integrations with popular tools like jira, trello, and github.
Attaches crucial information like console logs, browser info, and session replays to each report.
Customizable feedback forms.

Pros

Simplifies communication through centralized feedback and bug reports.
Streamlines the bug tracking and feedback collection process.
Seamlessly fits into existing workflows with popular project management tools.

Cons

Learning curve for new users.
While integrations are a strength, reliance on other project management tools might limit its standalone utility for some teams.
Smaller teams might find the tool costly.

4. Filestage

Filestage offers a comprehensive solution for the review and approval process across various file types, including web pages. It teams to share, review, and approve a web page in one centralized place.

Key Features

Custom workflows and collaborative reviewer groups.
Smart annotation tools.
Analytics that provide insights into the review process.
Notifications and reminders through integration with popular tools.
GDPR compliance and data protection.
Custom triggers and actions.

Pros

Helps streamline review and approval times.
Supports unlimited file sharing and feedback in context to improve communication.
Version history tracking ensures feedback incorporation.
Accessible from anywhere to enhance remote work capabilities.
Invites unlimited reviewers without the need for an account.

Cons

The wide array of features may require an initial learning period for new users.
Customization options could be overwhelming for smaller teams or simpler projects.

5. GoVisually

GoVisually is tailored for creative professionals seeking streamlined project review and approval processes. This platform specializes in facilitating clear, concise feedback across web pages.

Features

Sharing and collaboration.
Precise annotation tools.
Real-time feedback.
Version control.

Pros

User-friendly platform.
Real-time updates and centralized feedback.
Version control and annotation tools ensure feedback is specific and actionable.
Supports a wide range of file types.

Cons

The tool may lack extensive integration capabilities with other design software.
The platform is primarily designed for creative content, which may limit its applicability for more technical or web-based project feedback.

Wrapping Up

While comparing popular website commenting tools, each offers unique features tailored to streamline feedback and collaboration. Choosing the right tool depends on your specific needs, whether for design feedback, client collaboration, or technical bug tracking.

If you need real-time annotation and collaboration capabilities, then ruttl is your best choice. Its intuitive interface and comprehensive feedback features facilitate a seamless exchange of ideas and suggestions directly on the live website. You can streamline the feedback process, enhance productivity, and achieve faster website project iterations.

Bridging Borders: Design Collaboration in Remote Work Era

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 18:02:33 GMT

In recent years, the concept of remote work has revolutionized the workplace. It significantly impacts design teams across the globe. This shift, accelerated by global events like the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to a reevaluation of traditional work models, especially in fields requiring high levels of collaboration, such as design.

The rise of remote work brought with it a set of unique challenges and opportunities for design teams.

On one hand, it allowed for greater flexibility and the possibility to work with talent worldwide, enhancing diversity and creativity. On the other hand, it presented hurdles in communication, project management, and the preservation of team dynamics.

In this article, we’ll explore the dynamics of remote collaboration in design. We’ll provide you with insights into effective tools and practices. We aim to equip designers with knowledge for effective cross-border teamwork.

Challenges in Remote Design Collaboration

Remote design collaboration faces unique challenges. All of these impact the overall effectiveness of remote teamwork.

1. Lack of Real-Time Feedback

One of the primary challenges in remote design collaboration is the absence of real-time feedback. In traditional, in-person settings, immediate responses and discussions can significantly shape the direction of a project.

However, in remote setups, delays in feedback are common. This lag can stall project progress and lead to periods of uncertainty for designers awaiting responses.

NNgroup's research identified several issues with feedback mechanisms. The tools for collecting feedback were found to be inadequate. Respondents also noted delays in receiving feedback. The feedback process was seen as overly formal. Additionally, working in isolation led to a decrease in confidence.

2. Misinterpretation of Typed Feedback

Typed communication, a staple in remote work, often leads to misinterpretations. Without the nuances of tone, facial expressions, and body language, written feedback can be misunderstood. This misunderstanding can cause confusion, alter the intended meaning of feedback, and may lead to design decisions that don't align with the project's goals.

3. Difficulties in Sharing Design Nuances

Conveying the subtleties of design remotely is another significant hurdle. Physical presence allows for a shared understanding of textures, colors, and spatial relationships, often lost in digital communication.

Remote teams struggle to replicate this level of detail and understanding through screens. It impacts the fidelity of design translations and collaborations.

70% of individuals report wasting time due to communication problems within their business. This is an increase from 68% in the previous year. That’s why there’s a need to do something about how designers communicate and share important information.

4. Replicating Informal Conversations

In a traditional office setting, casual, spontaneous conversations often lead to creative ideas and quick problem-solving. In a remote setup, replicating these informal interactions becomes challenging. This lack of casual communication can lead to disconnection within the team. It may hinder the free flow of ideas and quick resolution of minor issues.

5. Maintaining Clear Project Direction

Another challenge in remote design work is ensuring everyone understands project requirements and objectives clearly.

Communication in remote teams is predominantly text-based. It can lead to assumptions or misunderstandings due to lacking context or detail. This can result in unclear project requirements, lack of detail in work sharing, and missing objectives in translation.

These challenges highlight the need for tools and practices to enhance understanding and communication in remote design environments.

Effective Communication Strategies

Effective communication strategies form the backbone of successful remote design collaboration. In this digital environment, how teams communicate can significantly impact the workflow and overall project success. Adopting the right strategies ensures a smooth collaboration process despite the lack of physical interaction.

Emphasize Clear, Detailed Communication

Clear and detailed communication is crucial for remote design teams. It ensures everyone understands project objectives, deadlines, and specific design requirements. Detailed communication minimizes the risk of misunderstandings and keeps the project on track.

Utilize Video Conferencing for Enhanced Interaction

Video conferencing is crucial in bridging the gap created by physical distance. Tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams allow face-to-face interactions. It helps foster stronger relationships and a better understanding of team dynamics.

Video calls enable team members to pick up on non-verbal cues, such as facial expressions and body language, which are vital for comprehensive communication. These digital interactions simulate an in-person experience for building trust and rapport among team members.

Conduct Regular Check-ins for Cohesive Workflows

Regular check-ins and updates maintain workflow cohesion in remote teams. These can include daily stand-ups or weekly team meetings. Regular interactions keep everyone informed about project progress, enable quick resolution of issues, and foster a collaborative environment. Regular updates ensure that the team remains united and focused on common objectives.

Embrace Flexibility and Trust

Embracing flexibility and trust is pivotal in remote design collaboration. You must adopt a results-oriented approach over micromanagement.

Results-Oriented Approach

Focus on Outcomes: Rather than micromanaging every aspect of tasks, focus on the results. This approach allows team members to work in their style for innovation and creativity.
Set Clear Goals: Define clear, measurable objectives. This helps team members understand what they need to achieve, allowing them to plan their work effectively.

Build Trust

Clear Expectations: Establishing clear expectations builds trust. When team members know their expectations, they can work confidently and independently. Recognize Contributions: Acknowledging individual efforts and achievements reinforces trust. It shows team members that their work is valued and essential to success.

Benefits

Enhances Motivation: A results-oriented approach and trust motivate team members. They feel empowered and accountable for their contributions. Promotes Flexibility: This approach allows for flexible work practices, which is crucial in remote settings. Team members can work in ways that best suit their personal circumstances and productivity patterns.

Implement Flexibility and Trust

Regular Check-ins: While maintaining flexibility, regular check-ins ensure everyone is aligned and on track. Feedback Mechanism: Establish a system for constructive feedback. It is crucial for continuous improvement and trust-building.

Navigate Time Zone and Cultural Differences

Navigating time zones and cultural differences is a crucial aspect of remote design collaboration. Here are some strategies to address these challenges:

Managing Time Zone Differences

Designate Overlap Hours: Identify common working hours across different time zones. These overlap hours can be used for essential team meetings and collaborative work sessions. This approach ensures that all team members can interact in real time, at least for a part of the day.
Embrace Flexibility: Encourage team members to have flexible work hours. This flexibility allows individuals to adjust their schedules to accommodate important collaborative moments without disrupting their personal or work-life balance.

-__ Record Meetings for Later Viewing__: For meetings where live participation isn't feasible, record these sessions. Share the recordings with the team so those who couldn't attend can stay informed and provide their input asynchronously.

Overcoming Cultural Differences

Foster Cultural Awareness: Promote a culture of respect and understanding. Encourage team members to educate themselves about each other’s cultures, work practices, and holidays. This understanding forms the basis for effective, respectful collaboration.
Promote Open Dialogue: Create an environment where team members feel comfortable discussing their work style preferences, communication norms, and cultural differences. Transparent conversations help build a collaborative environment based on mutual respect and understanding.
Celebrate Diversity: Acknowledge and celebrate the diverse cultural backgrounds of team members. This can include sharing about national holidays, customs, and traditions during team meetings. It can enhance team bonding and understanding.

Implementing these strategies can help remote design teams effectively navigate the challenges of time zones and cultural differences. It will lead to a more cohesive and productive working environment.

Top Tools for Remote Design Teams

Choosing the right tools is very important for teams that work on design projects from different places. Here are some great tools for these teams:

1. Design Feedback Tool (ruttl)

You need a versatile design feedback and bug tracking tool for website and mobile app development. And ruttl offers an excellent solution for that.

ruttl lets users directly give precise, contextual feedback on live websites and apps through text and video comments.

ruttl's standout feature is its real-time content editing capability, including an innovative AI text generator for effortless editing and rephrasing web content. Additionally, it offers a comprehensive bug-tracking system so that users can report, assign, prioritize, and resolve bugs collaboratively.

ruttl streamlines the feedback process by allowing clients and guests to comment on projects without needing an account for easier collaboration.

Top Features

Precise Design Feedback: Leave text and video comments directly on live websites and apps, pinned to specific elements for accuracy.
Edit Mode: Make live updates to content and images, with the ability to view and inspect CSS changes in real-time.
Bug Tracking: Report and manage bugs directly from the product interface, with seamless integration with productivity tools like Trello, ClickUp, Asana, Zapier, or Jira.
Real-time Content Editing with Generative AI: ruttl offers an innovative AI text generator feature. It allows users to edit and rephrase webpage content effortlessly in real time.

2. Project Management Software (Asana/Trello)

Project management software like Asana or Trello plays a crucial role in remote design collaboration, especially when teams are dispersed geographically. This type of software typically offers a range of features to streamline workflow, enhance communication, and track project progress.

Key Features

Task Assignment and Tracking: Allows managers to assign tasks to team members and track their progress. It ensures accountability and timely completion. Centralized Communication: Facilitates communication related to project updates, feedback, and queries. You can keep all project-related discussions in one place. File Storage and Sharing: Provides a centralized repository for all project documents, designs, and resources. It provides easy access for all team members. Timeline and Deadline Management: Features like Gantt charts or timeline views help visualize project timelines and manage deadlines effectively.

3. Communication Tool (Slack)

Slack is a popular communication platform businesses and teams use for messaging and collaboration. It offers features like direct messaging, group chats, and channels organized by topics or projects.

Slack integrates with various productivity tools to streamline workflows. Its user-friendly interface supports file sharing, video conferencing, and real-time notifications for better team communication and collaboration.

Top Features

Instant Messaging: Facilitates quick, informal communication among team members.
Channel Organization: Allows teams to organize conversations by topic, project, or team.
Integration Capabilities: Works seamlessly with other tools, enhancing overall workflow efficiency.

4. Online Meeting Tool (Microsoft Teams)

Microsoft Teams is a collaboration platform that's part of the Microsoft Office suite. It integrates chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration for enhanced teamwork.

Teams enable users to organize workspaces with tabs, connectors, and bots. This makes the tool adaptable for various project needs. It's especially useful for hosting virtual meetings, document sharing, and real-time team collaboration.

Top Features

Video Conferencing: Offers robust video calling functionality, essential for remote team meetings.
Collaboration Features: Provides file sharing, chat, and collaborative document editing.
Integration with Office 365: Seamlessly connects with other Microsoft Office applications.

Cloud-Based Document Sharing Platforms (Google Drive/Dropbox)

Cloud-based document-sharing platforms, like Google Drive and Dropbox, provide online spaces for storing, sharing, and collaborating on documents and files. They allow multiple users to access and edit documents simultaneously from different locations for real-time collaboration.

These platforms are particularly valuable for teams needing a centralized, accessible repository for their work.

Top Features

File Storage and Sharing: Centralize documents and files in a shared, accessible space.
Real-Time Collaboration: Edit documents simultaneously, providing a platform for dynamic collaboration.
Version Control: Keeps track of document changes and revisions.

Conclusion: Build a Cohesive Remote Design Team

The complexities of remote design collaboration involve a multi-directional approach. Key strategies include:

Foster a Results-Oriented Culture: Focus on outcomes, not micromanagement, to boost autonomy and innovation.
Embrace Flexibility and Trust: Prioritize results over rigid processes to foster innovation and team trust.
Navigate Time Zone and Cultural Differences: Use overlap hours and cultural awareness for inclusive global collaboration.
Leverage Specialized Design Tools: Employ tools like ruttl, slack and Asana for precise design feedback, better communication and project management.

The intersection of these strategies—effective communication tools, specialized software, and a culture of flexibility and trust—creates a cohesive and productive remote design team.

As you embrace technology and maintain transparency, your design teams can overcome barriers, harness their collective creativity, and successfully collaborate across borders.

Humanizing Tech For Empathetic User Experiences

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 10:49:12 GMT

Empathy in technology means creating experiences that understand and respond to human feelings. It's more than just user-friendly design; it's about creating a connection. As technology advances, our interaction with it also changes. Once a tool for specific tasks, technology integrates deeply into our daily lives. This integration calls for a more human-centric approach.

Steve Jobs once said, "Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have faith in people, that they're good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them." This quote highlights the essence of empathetic user experiences. They are about understanding users' needs and resonating with their emotions.

The challenge lies in designing technology that feels less like a machine and more like a companion that recognizes and adapts to our emotions. This need guides us toward more intuitive, responsive, and emotionally aware technological interactions.

So, let's talk more about the need to create empathetic user experiences online.

The Importance of Empathy in User Experience

Empathy in user experience leads to profound psychological impacts. Users feel understood, valued, and connected to the product or service. Microsoft showcases this through its Microsoft Garage program. Employees from any department can develop projects outside their primary job.

Another example is Facebook. They offer flexible work hours, aligning work with lifestyle. This approach makes employees feel respected and understood. The result is a more dedicated workforce that creates empathetic user experiences.

These case studies directly link empathetic policies and increased user satisfaction. Empathy leads to loyalty. Users appreciate products and services that understand their needs and emotions. Empathetic design is not just a nice-to-have. It is essential for building lasting relationships with users.

Understanding User Needs and Emotions

Understanding user emotions is crucial in designing empathetic experiences. User research methods like interviews, surveys, and observations reveal diverse emotional needs across different demographics for inclusive design. You need to remember that emotions are dynamic that change over time. This adds complexity to empathetic design and shows the need for continuous user engagement.

Developing personas helps designers visualize the target audience as real, relatable individuals. However, you must apply personas practically. They should form a part of design decisions as they help designers get emotional insights that translate into meaningful user experiences.

"Everything has a personality: everything sends an emotional signal. Even where this was not the intention of the designer, the people who view the website infer personalities and experience emotions."

— Don Norman, Grand old man of UX design

Empathy maps are vital as they capture what users say, do, think, and feel. They show insights into their emotional worlds.

Says Quadrant: Includes direct user quotes. It reveals their explicit thoughts and verbal expressions from interviews or usability studies.
Thinks Quadrant: Captures the user's internal thoughts and concerns. It focuses on what they might think but not necessarily express openly.
Does Quadrant: Encompasses the user's actions and behaviors. It shows what users physically do while interacting with the product or service.
Feels Quadrant: Reflects the user's emotional state and describes their feelings about their experience, often conveyed through adjectives and contextual sentences.

But, designers must be aware of their limitations. Empathy maps rely on subjective interpretation and should be used alongside other methods to validate emotional understanding.

Incorporating Emotional Design Principles

Incorporating emotional design principles enhances user experience significantly. Here are some key aspects:

Color: Colors evoke emotions. Bright colors can energize, while muted tones often soothe. Choose colors that align with the emotional tone of your product.
Typography: The style of the text affects how users feel. Bold, large fonts can convey strength and confidence. Script fonts often feel personal and intimate.
Imagery: Images trigger emotional responses. Use visuals that reflect the user's desires and aspirations. Align imagery with the overall emotional message of your product.

Crafting narratives that resonate emotionally is crucial. Stories connect users to products on a deeper level. They create a sense of belonging and understanding.

Personalization and customization play a vital role. Tailored experiences make users feel valued and understood. They show that the product or service adapts to their unique needs and preferences. This approach leads to stronger emotional connections and enhanced user satisfaction.

Amazon exemplifies the pinnacle of website personalization. Known for its tailored user experience, Amazon's homepage features personalized recommendations and content based on each customer's unique profile.

With most users having an Amazon account, the company leverages extensive customer data, including name and address, to customize its interface. It finely tunes product recommendations based on visitors' browsing behavior and purchases. This approach ensures that each user's recommendations truly reflect their specific interests.

Technological Empathy in Interaction Design

Technological empathy in interaction design refers to the capability of digital systems to understand and respond to user emotions and needs. It involves designing technology that functions efficiently and connects with users on an emotional level. This approach makes digital interactions feel more natural and human-like.

Integrating AI and machine learning is pivotal in achieving this:

Understanding User Behavior: AI algorithms analyze user data to discern patterns and preferences. This deep understanding aids in creating more empathetic and user-centric designs.
Responsive Design: AI enables design elements to adapt to users' emotional states. For instance, a chatbot might alter its responses based on the user's mood, inferred from their input.
Anticipatory Interfaces: Machine learning helps design interfaces that anticipate user needs. This proactivity results in smoother, more intuitive user experiences, where the system often addresses needs before the user explicitly expresses them.

Incorporating these elements of AI and machine learning in interaction design leads to more empathetic, responsive, and personalized user experiences. This fusion of technology and empathy significantly enhances the user's engagement with digital platforms.

Challenges and Ethical Considerations

Integrating empathy into technology brings significant benefits but presents unique challenges and ethical considerations.

1. Balancing Data Collection for Empathy with User Privacy Concerns

Empathetic technology requires extensive data to understand users. Yet, collecting this data raises privacy concerns. Users often worry about how a company uses and stores their data. A recent report by the Pew Research Center found that 73% of adults are concerned about how companies use their data. Companies must follow transparent data practices to address this and give users control over their data. Opt-in options and transparent privacy policies help companies win users' trust through full disclosure.

2. Addressing Biases in AI Algorithms for Fair and Unbiased Empathy

AI algorithms can inadvertently perpetuate biases that may lead to unfair user experiences. For instance, facial recognition technology has faced criticism for racial biases. To combat this, developers must use diverse data sets and regularly audit AI systems for biases. Implementing ethical guidelines in AI development is crucial to ensure fair and unbiased empathetic responses.

3. Ensuring Transparency and User Consent in Empathetic Technology

Transparency and user consent are paramount in empathetic technology. Users should be aware of how their data informs the technology's responses. For example, if an AI system uses emotional analysis, users must consent to this and understand its implications. Clear communication about the technology's capabilities and limitations is essential for building trust and ensuring ethical use.

Case Studies of Empathetic Design in Action

Empathetic design can transform user experiences. Let's explore some examples and learn from their outcomes.

1. Spotify's Personalized Playlists

Spotify employs algorithms to tailor playlists for individual users. This approach makes users feel understood, as the playlists often reflect their current mood or music preferences. This personal touch has led to higher engagement and user satisfaction.

2. Duolingo's Adaptive Learning

Duolingo adapts to each user's learning pace and style. The app identifies areas where a user struggles and adjusts the difficulty accordingly. This tailored learning experience supports users and motivates them to continue learning.

3. Zara's Augmented Reality Displays

Zara introduced augmented reality displays in its stores that allow customers to see how clothes look on models by scanning a barcode. This immersive experience makes shopping more interactive and engaging to increase customer interest and store visits.

4. Healthcare Chatbots

Some healthcare services use chatbots for initial patient interactions. These chatbots can assess symptoms and provide preliminary advice. However, if not carefully implemented, they can misinterpret patient emotions or needs, potentially causing frustration or misinformation.

From these cases, we see that empathetic design can significantly enhance user experience to increase adoption and satisfaction. However, unsuccessful implementations remind us that understanding and accurately responding to user needs is a delicate balance that requires careful consideration and ongoing refinement.

Empathy in Customer Support and Service Design

Empathy plays a crucial role in customer support and service design. Training customer support teams in empathetic interactions involves teaching active listening, understanding diverse customer perspectives, and responding sensitively. For instance, Ritz-Carlton empowers its employees to spend up to $2,000 per incident to resolve complaints or enhance their stay without manager interference. It shows deep understanding and responsiveness to customer needs.

Incorporating empathy into chatbots and automated customer service is another area of focus. Companies are programming chatbots to recognize and respond to emotional cues and make interactions more human-like. An example is KLM Royal Dutch Airlines' chatbot, which handles over 16,000 weekly customer interactions. It offers timely and personalized responses.

Empathetic service greatly influences customer loyalty and brand perception. According to a study by American Express, customers are willing to spend 17% more with companies that provide excellent service. This increased spending is often a result of feeling valued and understood through empathetic interactions. Such a service retains customers while transforming them into enthusiastic advocates for the brand. This shift in customer behavior underscores the importance of empathy in building solid and loyal customer relationships.

Measuring and Evaluating Empathy in Design

Measuring and evaluating empathy in design helps refine products and services to meet user needs better.

1. Develop Metrics for Assessing Empathetic Impact

Evaluating empathy in design involves creating specific metrics. These metrics help you understand how designs affect users emotionally.

First, consider users' emotional reactions to a design. Are they positive, negative, or neutral? This reaction is crucial.
Next, measure user engagement. How long do users interact with the design? More time often means higher empathy. Gather user feedback. Ask direct questions about their experience. Analyze this feedback for emotional content.
Another critical metric is usability. User-friendly designs usually show higher empathy.
Lastly, observe changes in user behavior. Does the design inspire action or change in attitude? This change indicates a practical, empathetic design.

These metrics offer a comprehensive view of empathetic impact in design.

2. User Testing Methodologies for Evaluating Emotional Responses

User testing helps you evaluate emotional responses to design. It helps understand how real users react emotionally to a product or design. Some methodologies for user testing include:

Surveys and Questionnaires: Simple tools to gauge users' feelings about the design. Questions should be straightforward and focus on emotional responses.
Interviews: One-on-one discussions provide deeper insights into users' emotional reactions. They allow for detailed feedback and understanding of users' experiences.
Observation: Watching how users interact with the design in a natural setting. This method offers unfiltered insights into their emotional responses.
Usability Tests: These tests focus on how users perform tasks using the design. Observing frustrations or satisfaction can reveal emotional impacts.
A/B Testing: Comparing two design versions to see which evokes a better emotional response. This method is data-driven and provides precise results.

You can combine different methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of users' emotional experiences.

3. Iterative Design Based on User Feedback and Emotional Analytics

Designers can use user feedback and emotional analytics for iterative improvements. This process involves making adjustments based on user input and then re-evaluating the design's emotional impact. For instance, a website might alter its layout based on user feedback about its emotional appeal and usability and then conduct further tests to assess the effectiveness of these changes.

Through these methods, designers can ensure that their products resonate with users emotionally. It may lead to more meaningful and satisfying user experiences.

Future Trends in Humanizing Technology

The future of humanizing technology is poised to bring remarkable changes, particularly in how technology understands and interacts with human emotions.

1. Emotional Intelligence in AI

AI is evolving to perform tasks and understand human emotions. Emotional intelligence in AI involves algorithms that can detect and respond to human feelings, leading to more intuitive and helpful interactions. For example, AI in customer service could evolve to detect customer frustration or satisfaction and adapt its responses accordingly.

2. Innovations in Wearables and Biometric Technology for Emotion Sensing

Wearables and biometric technologies are advancing to sense emotional states. Smartwatches could monitor physiological signals such as heart rate or skin temperature to infer emotional states like stress or relaxation. This technology can improve health monitoring, personalize user experiences, and even assist in mental health management.

3. Role of Empathy in the Future of Human-Computer Interaction

Empathy will play a crucial role in the evolution of human-computer interaction. Future interfaces may become more responsive to emotional cues, creating more natural and engaging user experiences. We might see interfaces that adjust content, tone, and interaction style based on the user's emotional state.

Conclusion

The significance of empathy in user experiences is undeniable. It transforms technology from a tool to a relatable companion that understands and responds to our emotional needs. This journey towards more humane and emotionally intelligent technology design is beneficial and essential. It fosters deeper connections between users and technology, enhancing satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty.

As we look forward, the encouragement is clear: to continue innovating and integrating empathy into every aspect of technology design. This shift promises a future where technology not only serves us functionally but also understands and resonates with us on an emotional level.

How Micro interactions Improve User Experience

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 09:36:07 GMT

Microinteractions are the tiny yet mighty touchpoints within user interfaces that shape our digital experiences. It's the click that feels right, the swipe that satisfies, the animation that delights. These small design elements have a notable impact.

Nearly four out of ten users will only engage with a website with good design or content aesthetics. On the other hand, a favorable first impression can enhance overall user satisfaction by as much as 39%. Microinteractions can craft a memorable first impression and entice users to engage further.

These moments hold the user's journey together. They guide them with subtle cues and rewarding interactions that make a digital platform feel intuitive, responsive, and human. They are the difference between a good user experience and a great one.

This blog offers a comprehensive look at microinteractions. We'll guide you through the subtle yet significant impact of microinteractions on users.

Types of Microinteractions

Microinteractions are the core elements that facilitate user engagement within a digital interface. They come in different forms, each serving a unique function in enriching the user experience.

Feedback microinteractions

They are a critical form of communication between the system and the user. The system responds with a visual or auditory cue when a user acts. For example, the satisfying 'ping' when an email is sent or the visual ripple effect when a button is pressed on a touchscreen. These cues confirm to users that their actions have been received and processed, which is essential in creating a smooth user experience.

Control microinteractions

These microinteractions give users power over their interface interactions. These include elements like toggle switches and sliders that respond to user input. They provide immediate control over settings or preferences. Users receive immediate, tangible interaction feedback when sliders move fluidly or switch toggle with a crisp snap. It enhances the sense of direct manipulation of the digital environment.

Emotional microinteractions

They are designed to evoke a feeling or connection with the user. These might be whimsical animations, personalized greetings, or playful sounds that bring a human touch to a digital interaction. For example, when a user "likes" a post on Facebook, the thumb-up icon animates and pops on the screen and provides satisfying visual feedback. This tiny interaction reinforces positive feelings and encourages further engagement on the platform.

Each type of microinteractions plays a critical role in creating a functional and enjoyable user interface. With careful design, microinteractions can foster a deep connection between the user and the technology.

Significance in User Engagement

Microinteractions hold the power to transform a user experience from mundane to delightful. They reduce the disconnect between humans and machines, seamlessly integrating into the interaction flow.

These small design elements serve a dual purpose—they enhance usability while reducing user friction. A sleek animation when a task is completed, or a subtle vibration when an error occurs can guide and reassure users. It can make complex digital interactions feel effortless and intuitive.

The importance of trust in digital interactions cannot be overstated, with 94% of web designers agreeing that a well-designed interface fosters user trust. Moreover, 75% of users form opinions about a company's trustworthiness from its website design.

Microinteractions are critical in this trust-building process. They provide responsive feedback that reassures users their actions have been acknowledged. As a result, users engage longer and have more meaningful interactions with the site.

Consider the 'like' feature on social media platforms—a simple tap yields immediate visual and haptic feedback. It confirms the action and rewards the user, which has been crucial for the platforms' engagement metrics.

Another example is the 'pull-to-refresh' gesture on many mobile apps. This feature offers users an intuitive control mechanism that's both functional and satisfying.

Such thoughtful implementations of microinteractions enhance the immediate user experience and have a measurable impact on user engagement metrics. By encouraging exploration, reducing frustration, and rewarding interactions, microinteractions are indispensable in creating interfaces that users need to use and want to use.

Design Principles for Effective Microinteractions

Designing effective microinteractions is an art that requires adherence to certain principles. These principles ensure that microinteractions enhance the user experience without overwhelming it.

Consistency

Consistency in microinteraction design ensures a coherent and intuitive user experience. Consistent use of visual cues, animations, and feedback mechanisms across the interface helps users learn and predict interactions. It also reduces cognitive load.

For example, if a swipe gesture deletes an item in one part of an app, the same gesture should have similar effects in other parts. This uniformity builds a sense of familiarity and reliability.

Aligning with Brand Identity and User Expectations

Microinteractions should reflect the brand's personality and meet user expectations. If a brand is known for being fun and vibrant, its microinteractions should echo this with lively animations and playful sounds.

On the other hand, a business-oriented application might opt for more subtle and professional interactions. This alignment helps in reinforcing brand identity. It ensures that users feel a connection with the brand through every interaction.

Simplicity and Creativity

The balance between simplicity and creativity is delicate. Microinteractions should be straightforward enough to be understood immediately yet creative and sufficient to delight users. They should serve their purpose without unnecessary complexity.

A loading animation, for example, can be a simple circle or a creative representation of the brand logo. The key is to maintain functionality while also sparking joy and interest.

These principles guide designers in creating microinteractions that are functional and integral to the overall user experience. Designers can create appealing microinteractions by ensuring consistency and aligning them with the brand. They also need to balance simplicity with creativity for user engagement.

Microinteractions in Everyday Apps and Websites

Microinteractions are the subtle features in apps and websites that enhance user experience and interaction. They range from the celebratory animations in project management tools to the intuitive swipe actions in email apps and the expressive emoji reactions on social platforms. Here are some great examples:

Asana's Rewards

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Asana's onboarding checklist transforms routine setup into a rewarding experience. It guides users to customize their workspace. Once the setup is complete, Asana celebrates this achievement with delightful animations of unicorns and other animals. It transforms the task completion into a moment of joy.

Key Takeaways

Gamified checklists can drive user interaction and app exploration.
Celebratory animations add delight and encourage task completion.
Personalization of user experience increases satisfaction and product loyalty.

Other apps could use similar methods to foster user engagement.

Grammarly's Hotspots

Grammarly's use of subtle hotspots during its onboarding process is an insightful illustration of microinteractions at work. These small, flashing icons spark users' curiosity without overwhelming them. They focus attention on critical areas, simplifying the learning curve.

When interacted with, these hotspots reveal additional information. It leads users naturally to the next steps in their journey with the software.

Key Takeaways

Flashing icons attract attention without causing distraction.
Interactive elements pique interest and encourage exploration.
Transparent, incremental information supports user progress.

Incorporating thoughtful microinteractions can significantly improve user experience. They blend instruction with engagement to enhance digital interaction.

Email Swipe Actions

Swipe actions in email applications are a prime example of microinteractions that enrich everyday digital tasks. These actions enable users to archive, delete, or mark emails as read with a quick swipe. They make email management more efficient and enjoyable.

This simple gesture-based control cuts down on the time spent organizing emails. It leverages the intuitive behavior of swiping, which smartphone users have come to understand naturally.

Key Takeaways

Swipe actions simplify email sorting.
Intuitive gestures align with natural user behavior.
Swipe settings can often be customized, catering to individual preferences.

Facebook

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Facebook's emoji reactions are a clever use of microinteractions that enable users to express a range of emotions toward content quickly and easily. Beyond the simple 'like,' these emoji reactions provide a more nuanced way to respond. They enhance user interaction without cluttering the interface. These emojis offer a visual and emotional shorthand that enriches communication and reflects a spectrum of user sentiment.

Key Takeaways

Users can convey complex emotions swiftly.
A more comprehensive array of reactions encourages more frequent interaction.
This feature keeps the interface clean while adding depth to user responses.

The Psychology of Microinteractions

The subtle yet powerful influence of microinteractions on user experience is often underestimated. Here's a deeper look into how these design elements can shape user behavior and perception.

App Abandonment and User Psychology

Microinteractions directly impact the user's initial experience with an app, which can affect the app's abandonment rate. As per stats, 21% of users abandon an app after one use. These numbers highlight the importance of engaging users from the outset.

Creating Responsive Experiences with Microinteractions

App responsiveness exceeds quick loading times; it encompasses the app's ability to acknowledge user interactions. Microinteractions serve this purpose by providing users with immediate feedback. When users feel their actions are instantly recognized, it creates a smoother and more intuitive experience. For instance, visual cues like a button's color change on interaction confirm the user's action without delay.

Emotional Connections Through Thoughtful Design

Microinteractions can also be a bridge to forming an emotional bond between the user and the interface. Thoughtfully crafted microinteractions can make the user feel cared for as if the app understands and anticipates their needs. This emotional investment can turn a mundane task into a delightful experience. It can increase the likelihood of the user returning to the app.

Microintercation's Impact on Onboarding

The onboarding process is where microinteractions can shine brightest. With Day 1 retention rates for Android and iOS apps hovering around 22.6% and 25.6%, respectively, it's clear that the initial user experience is critical. An onboarding sequence that utilizes microinteractions well can reduce the risk of app abandonment by making users feel welcome and guiding them quickly.

Microinteractions are essential in shaping the user experience. They provide feedback, enhance audience engagement, and create an emotional connection, which is crucial for user retention. Designers should understand the psychology of microinteractions to craft experiences that reduce abandonment and boost satisfaction.

Implementing Microinteractions in Different Platforms

Implementing microinteractions requires thoughtful consideration, especially when spanning multiple mobile, web, and desktop platforms.

Mobile App Microinteractions

Microinteractions can significantly enhance the user experience on mobile apps. 51% of smartphone users discover new products or companies through searches. Well-designed microinteractions can improve user engagement—a factor Google's algorithm considers for SEO.

For instance, consider the animated feedback a user receives when adding an item to their cart in a shopping app. This feedback is visually pleasing and confirms the action, encouraging further interaction. This type of positive reinforcement can increase users' time in the app.

Web and Desktop Microinteractions

On web interfaces and desktop applications, microinteractions must be adapted to different user behaviors and expectations. For instance, hover animations can guide users on desktops. It can provide subtle feedback and visual interest.

Take LinkedIn's notification icon, which exhibits a subtle bounce effect when new notifications arrive. This draws the user's attention and provides a satisfying interaction without leaving the current page, promoting continued engagement.

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Cross-Platform Design Considerations

Designing microinteractions for cross-platform use presents both challenges and opportunities. Maintaining consistent functionality and customer feedback across different devices with varying input methods, screen sizes, and capabilities is the main challenge.

A solution is to design microinteractions that are adaptable, such as responsive button animations that work with both touch and mouse clicks. An opportunity in cross-platform design is the ability to collect user feedback from multiple sources. It can inform the refinement of microinteractions for a more unified customer experience.

Implementing microinteractions across different platforms requires an understanding of each platform's nuances and the users' needs.

Measuring the Impact on User Satisfaction

Measuring the impact of microinteractions on user satisfaction hinges on direct feedback and data-driven insights.
User feedback, gathered through surveys and direct user testing sessions, offers qualitative insights into the effectiveness of design elements.
Usability testing explicitly allows designers to observe real-time interactions. It provides a clear picture of where microinteractions succeed or fall short.

To quantitatively assess microinteraction design, key performance indicators such as user engagement time, conversion rates, and app retention rates are invaluable. A rise in these metrics often correlates with well-received intuitive design improvements.

For instance, increased user retention may result from a streamlined checkout process enabled by effective microinteractions.

The design process for microinteractions is iterative. It relies on continuous user response and data analysis to refine the user experience. Designers and developers must be agile and ready to tweak. They must enhance microinteractions based on user data to ensure the continuous improvement of user satisfaction.

Future Trends in Microinteraction Design

The future of microinteraction design is set to be transformed by emerging technologies. These technologies can lead to more intuitive and immersive user experiences.

Influence of Emerging Technologies

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) revolutionize microinteraction design. AR, for example, enables new types of microinteractions that blend the physical and digital worlds. It allows for more natural and intuitive responses to user actions.

Haptic feedback technology is another area that enhances microinteractions by providing tactile responses. It adds another layer of interaction that goes beyond visual cues.

Trends in Microinteraction Design

Anticipated trends in microinteraction design point towards personalization and context-aware interactions. As machine learning algorithms become more sophisticated, microinteractions will likely become more adaptive. This personalization will make user experiences feel more tailored and engaging.

Shaping the Future of User Experience

Microinteractions are now key to refining user experience design. They shape how users feel and interact with technology. As interfaces become more complex and feature-rich, microinteractions simplify interactions and make technology more accessible. The future will likely see responsive yet predictive microinteractions. These will guide users through their digital journeys in an effortless and intuitive way.

The evolution of microinteraction design is poised to make our interactions with technology more engaging, personal, and satisfying.

Conclusion

Microinteractions serve as the subtle yet impactful elements that significantly enhance user engagement. They guide users through tasks and improve their experience. They acknowledge user actions by providing immediate feedback. This keeps users informed and in control.

Designers take note: focusing on these details pays off. Microinteractions turn mundane tasks into enjoyable experiences. For example, a playful loading animation reduces perceived waiting time. A subtle sound confirms a successful action. These elements add personality to your product. They make it more relatable and memorable.

Incorporating microinteractions should serve a purpose: guiding users, preventing errors, or simply bringing joy. This approach can transform user experiences from satisfactory to exceptional.

Using Visuals To Create Strong Graphic Narratives

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 10:56:59 GMT

Imagine a child gazing at a bright, colorful mural. The vibrant hues and shapes create a tale of adventure and discovery. No words are spoken, yet the story unfolds vividly before their eyes. This is the essence of storytelling through visuals.

Visual storytelling is an art that brings narratives to life through imagery that surpasses the need for written or spoken words. Such a story, told through a blend of images, colors, and symbols, engages the imagination to create a universal connection with the audience.

Renowned graphic designer Paula Scher once said, “Good design is about effective communication, not decoration at the expense of legibility.” Her words highlight the essence of graphic narratives. They are not just about looking good. They are about conveying a message clearly and effectively.

Graphic narratives stand out in communication for their ability to simplify complex ideas.

They make stories engaging and memorable.
They connect the storyteller's vision with the audience's imagination.

This storytelling form appears in various media, such as comics, movies, and advertising. Each medium combines storytelling with visual elements. They create unique experiences.

In this article, we’ll discuss visual storytelling in more detail. Each section will talk about the unique aspects that blend to make the complete picture of storytelling through visuals.

So, let’s get started!

The Psychology of Visual Storytelling

Visuals significantly impact storytelling effectiveness. They do more than decorate a story. They become the story. Since the human brain processes images faster than text, it makes visual storytelling a powerful tool. It captures and holds the audience's attention quickly.

Cognitive science reveals interesting facts about visual memory and emotional connection. Images can evoke emotions more directly than words. They can also create stronger memories. It makes visual stories more impactful and memorable.

Visual storytelling plays a crucial role in engaging audiences. It keeps their attention longer. A well-crafted visual narrative can convey complex messages in a simple manner to make them more understandable. This simplicity holds more importance in today’s time.

People often prefer quick, clear visual stories over lengthy texts, and visuals can convey a message at a glance. This makes them more effective in retaining audience attention.

Elements of Compelling Graphic Narratives

Successful graphic narratives begin with thoughtful composition and layout. This involves arranging visual elements harmoniously. It guides the viewer's eye through the story. A well-structured layout captures attention and enhances the story's impact.

A cohesive storytelling experience emerges when text and visuals work together. The text complements the imagery. The visuals reinforce the narrative. This synergy creates a seamless, engaging experience for the viewer. You need the synergy between three important elements to make your visual storytelling set the narrative's tone.

Color: Color influences mood and emotion. Typography: Typography adds personality and emphasis to the text. Images: Through photographs or illustrations, imagery plays a direct role in storytelling.

Each element contributes to the overall feel and message of the narrative.

Sequential Art: The Language of Comics and Graphic Novels

Comics, or "graphic storytelling," uniquely blend words and pictures to tell a story. This medium is distinct in its treatment of time. Unlike film or video, readers of comics have control over the pace. They can read faster or slower or dwell on certain passages. This interactivity sets comics apart from other visual mediums.

Comics share storytelling techniques with film and prose, yet it is its language with a unique system of visual grammar. People often overlook this aspect of comics.

Case studies of iconic graphic novels often reveal the narrative impact and unique storytelling techniques. Two such case studies are:

The Best We Could Do

This graphic novel by Thi Bui delves into themes of displacement and diaspora. It narrates Bui's family's escape from war-torn Vietnam to the United States. The illustrated memoir shows a blend of her upbringing in suburban California and her parents' complicated memories from Vietnam. It vividly depicts her mother and father's childhood amidst the country's upheaval.

This narrative highlights the emotional depth and complexity that graphic novels can convey, particularly regarding personal and historical experiences.

Maus

Art Spiegelman's "Maus" is a seminal work in graphic novels. It focuses on a son’s quest to learn about his father's history as a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust. The novel alternates between two stories: one in the present, featuring interviews with Spiegelman's estranged father, and the other depicting his father’s life during the Holocaust as a graphic novel.

This work is known for its unique narrative technique, where it depicts different races as different animals – Jews as mice, Germans as cats, and Poles as pigs. This method challenges traditional narrative forms and highlights the complexities of race and identity.

"Maus" was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. He became the first graphic novel to receive such an honor. This recognition shows the profound narrative impact that graphic novels can have.

Infographics and Data Storytelling

Infographics transform data into compelling visual stories. They turn numbers and statistics into understandable and engaging visuals. This transformation holds a lot of importance in the information-heavy world.

Infographics play a significant role in simplifying complex or raw information. They use charts, graphs, and imagery to make data more accessible. This simplification helps audiences grasp complicated concepts quickly and easily.

Successful data visualizations often become iconic. "We Feel Fine" by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar is a groundbreaking data visualization. The website actively searches the internet every 10 minutes. It gathers expressions of human emotion from blogs. Then, it displays these emotions in dynamic, visually engaging formats.

Running on Java, this early data story greatly influenced data visualization professionals. It turned a large amount of internet data into a vivid emotional aspect.

Visual Storytelling in Branding and Marketing

Brands use logos, color schemes, and imagery to tell their stories. These elements shape how customers perceive and connect with the brand. Utilizing a logo maker app can streamline the process of creating a visually compelling logo that effectively communicates the brand's narrative and values.

Visual storytelling significantly impacts consumer perceptions. It makes brands relatable and memorable. A well-crafted visual narrative can evoke emotions and create lasting impressions.

Case studies of memorable brand campaigns often highlight the effectiveness of graphic narratives.

Nike's "Just Do It" campaign used striking images of athletes in action with the iconic tagline. These visuals captured the essence of determination and achievement, resonating deeply with audiences. The graphic narrative was key in defining Nike's brand identity as inspiring and motivational.
Apple's "Think Different" ads featured black-and-white portraits of influential figures. These visuals, coupled with the powerful tagline, celebrated creativity and innovation. The campaign's graphic narrative effectively positioned Apple as a brand for creative thinkers and change-makers

These campaigns used powerful visuals and minimal text to convey their brand stories.

Intuitive and Digital Visual Storytelling

With new technologies like Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) gaining traction, we’ll see immersive visual storytelling experiences. It lets storytellers engage audiences in interactive ways, using everything from web interfaces to virtual environments.

Intuitive design principles engage user participation. They make stories more experiential with intuitive navigation and interactive elements. This approach transforms viewers into active participants.

AR and VR technologies create immersive experiences that merge digital and physical worlds. Users step inside stories to form a deep, personal connection with the narrative. These technologies are changing how someone tells and experiences stories.

Cultural and Social Impact of Visual Narratives

Visual narratives hold a mirror to society that reflects and shapes cultural narratives. They capture the essence of a time, place, and people, often conveying deeper truths about society.

Reflection of Cultural Narratives

Visual narratives, like graphic novels and comics, serve as windows into different cultures. They showcase everyday norms, values, and traditions to make the unfamiliar relatable.

For example, Japanese manga often highlights aspects of Japanese culture and societal norms. This helps global audiences understand and appreciate cultural diversity. These narratives offer a unique perspective on the human condition by presenting real-life scenarios. It makes cultural learning engaging and impactful.

Commentary on Social and Political Issues

Visual narratives are powerful tools for discussing social and political issues. They simplify complex topics and make them more approachable. Comics and graphic novels can address inequality, war, and environmental crises.

Art Spiegelman's "Maus," for instance, uses a graphic novel format to explore the horrors of the Holocaust, as we discussed earlier. This approach makes difficult subjects more accessible and encourages dialogue and understanding among readers.

Driving Social Change

Graphic narratives can be catalysts for change. They raise awareness about critical issues like human rights, climate change, and social justice. These narratives can inspire action and influence public opinion by engaging readers emotionally.

For example, Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis" sheds light on the impact of the Iranian Revolution. It invites readers to empathize and reflect. Such narratives have the power to mobilize communities and drive real-world change.

Collaboration in Visual Storytelling

Visual storytelling is inherently interdisciplinary. Projects often require a harmonious blend of skills from writers, artists, and designers.

Each contributor plays a vital role. Writers craft the narrative, artists bring it to life visually, and designers focus on creating a cohesive and engaging final product. You have visual design feedback tools available in the market where all the collaborators can work together to create an excellent final product.

Effective collaboration in this field leads to successful projects that leave lasting impacts.

Take the example of film productions where directors, scriptwriters, and visual effects teams work together. Such collaborations demonstrate the incredible potential of combining diverse talents and perspectives in visual storytelling. This teamwork enhances the creative process and broadens the reach and resonance of the stories told.

Educational Applications of Visual Storytelling

Visual storytelling in education, mainly through graphic narratives, uniquely enhances learning. It makes educational content more engaging and memorable.

Visual Storytelling in Educational Materials and E-Learning

Graphic narratives are increasingly used in educational materials and e-learning platforms. They make learning more interactive and enjoyable. For example, "Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales" is a graphic novel that presents major historical events and figures in an engaging format. This approach makes learning history appealing and accessible to younger audiences.

Enhancing Learning Retention Through Visuals

Visuals in education also help in better retention of information. They simplify complex ideas and foster a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Graphic novels like "American Born Chinese," "Stitches," and "Lunch Lady Series" are used in classrooms to teach various subjects. These books combine art and storytelling to make learning more impactful and enjoyable for students.

Using graphic narratives and visual storytelling in education is not just about making learning fun. It's about creating a more effective and immersive learning experience. These methods tap into the brain's visual and narrative processing strengths. It leads to a more holistic and engaging educational experience.

Ethical Considerations in Visual Storytelling

You must consider ethical considerations to tell your stories responsibly and respectfully. You can shape perceptions and influence opinions as a visual storyteller. With this power comes a responsibility to consider the impact of your narratives.

Representation and Cultural Sensitivity: It's important to represent cultures and groups accurately and respectfully. This avoids perpetuating stereotypes or cultural misappropriation.
Avoid Visual Stereotypes: Stereotypes can lead to misinterpretations and reinforce harmful biases. Ethical storytelling involves avoiding these stereotypes.
Responsibility in Shaping Perceptions: Visual storytellers influence how people see the world. They must know this influence and strive to present balanced and fair narratives.

You play a significant role in how people receive and understand your stories. Your choices can have a lasting impact on audiences and society.

Future Trends in Graphic Narratives

The future of graphic narratives embraces technological innovation and audience engagement. Emerging technologies and interactive storytelling mediums have the power to drive significant changes.

AI and Machine Learning in Visual Storytelling

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning enable you to create dynamic, complex narratives with unique art styles. AI can analyze and learn from existing art, generating new, innovative visual elements. This technology also allows for personalized storytelling, where narratives adapt to individual viewer preferences.

For example, an AI-driven graphic novel might change its storyline based on a reader's previous interactions. It can offer a unique experience to each user.

VR and AR in Interactive Storytelling

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) transform storytelling into interactive experiences. These technologies immerse users in stories to make narratives more engaging and personal.

VR places users directly into story environments. It allows them to explore and interact with the narrative world. AR brings story elements into the real world. It enhances the reading experience with interactive visuals.

For instance, a VR graphic novel could let users explore a fictional city, while an AR comic book might make characters leap off the page into the reader's environment.

Digital Platforms for Storytelling

The digital era offers new storytelling platforms like online comics and graphic novels. These formats provide flexible storytelling methods and a wider audience reach.

Online platforms enable creators to update stories regularly, engage with readers directly, and incorporate multimedia elements like sound and animation. Digital distribution also makes it easier for stories to reach a global audience. It helps break the geographical and language barriers.

This accessibility encourages diverse storytelling where creators from various backgrounds can share their narratives.

Technological integration with creativity will redefine storytelling to meet the demands for immersive and interactive experiences. The future of graphic narratives looks promising, with technology playing a key role in shaping its path.

Conclusion

Visual storytelling holds immense power in communication. It goes beyond words, shaping how we perceive and understand stories. As a designer and storyteller, embrace the visual magic! Let visuals tell tales, evoke emotions, and simplify complexities.

The canvas is yours—paint narratives that captivate and resonate to make every story a vivid, memorable experience. Embrace the art of visual storytelling for impactful communication!

Best Video Annotation Tools for 2025

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 11:04:42 GMT

The video approval and feedback cycle can often feel cumbersome. You shoot a video, send it for review, and then find feedback all over the place that you can't comprehend without help. This is where video annotation tool come into play. These specialized tools are designed to streamline the video feedback process.

Yet, simply having a tool isn't enough. The real magic lies in how fast and efficient these platforms make your workflow. A great video annotation tool speeds up project timelines and enhances collaboration without hiccups.

In this article, we'll guide you through the top video annotation tools of 2025 that excel in all these aspects.

How to Select the Ideal Video Annotation Tool for Your Projects

Choosing the right video annotation tool isn't about picking the one with the best reviews. It's about aligning the tool's features with the specific requirements of your project. This alignment ensures a smoother workflow, greater efficiency, and better collaboration.

Let's see how you can identify and match your needs with the right video annotation tool.

Identify the Purpose

The first step is defining what you'll use the tool for. Is it for personal projects or professional work? Tools designed for enterprise-level projects may offer features you won't need for smaller, personal projects. Likewise, a video annotation tool tailored for casual use may lack the robustness required for professional tasks.

Understanding Size Limitations

Not all video annotation tools support big files. Knowing the maximum project size each tool can handle can help you in the long run. For example, some video annotation tools may limit the size to 1 GB. So, make sure that the tool you choose can comfortably manage your largest projects.

Examining Playback Features

Some video annotation tools have a built-in video player with various functionalities like speed control, zoom, and more. These features can be especially useful for intricate annotation work. Before deciding, verify if the tool's video player offers your needed capabilities.

Device Compatibility

It's essential to think about the devices you'll use to annotate video. Will you use a desktop, tablet, or even a mobile device? Make sure the tool you opt for is compatible with the device or devices you intend to use.

Types of Annotation

Different projects might require different types of annotations. For instance, you might need to make contextual comments or graphic overlays. Make a list of what kinds of annotations you'll likely require. Choose a tool that accommodates these diverse needs for a smoother workflow.

Budget Considerations

While free video annotation tools may be tempting, they often come with limitations. Paid tools usually offer more features and better support. Determine a budget you're comfortable with, but remember, sometimes you get what you pay for. Investing in a more expensive tool may pay off in the long run if it offers the features you need for seamless collaboration.

Fostering Seamless Collaboration

Consider how well the video annotation tool will support collaboration with team members, clients, and other stakeholders. Features like real-time commenting, version control, and integration with other software can significantly impact the efficiency of group projects.

After you've addressed these considerations, you're well-equipped to explore the market and find a tool that aligns with your needs.

Best Video Annotation Tool in 2025

Now, let's talk about the top video annotation tools available. These tools include all the features to make video annotation seamless for you.

1. ruttl

Image Source : ruttl

ruttl is one of the best video annotation tool, favored for its speed and precision. It allows you to upload any MP4 video file and start the annotation process almost instantly.

They designed this video annotation tool with team collaboration in mind to make it easier to share feedback frame-by-frame. Companies like Adobe and Nintendo trust ruttl for their digital projects.

Top Features of ruttl

Frame-Accurate Timestamps: ruttl enables you to add comments with exact timestamps, pinpointing specific frames for attention.
Shape and Free-Hand Annotations: Choose from various shapes or free-hand drawings to highlight areas of interest or concern.
Screen Recording: Record videos directly within ruttl, even capturing your screen and camera simultaneously.
Team Collaboration: Share your project link for easy team access. Collaborate in real-time through chat and comment threads.
Integrated Notifications: Receive instant email or app notifications when the team adds new comments. This feature keep everyone up to date.
Tool Integration: Ruttl integrates with popular project management tools like Slack, Trello, Jira, Asana, ClickUp, or Zapier for a streamlined workflow.

Pricing

Starts at $4/user/month

2. VideoAnt

Image Source: VideoAnt

VideoAnt is a versatile video annotation tool compatible with both mobile and desktop devices. Specializing in web-hosted videos, it offers a unique feature called "Ants," which are your annotated videos. It offers an "Ant Farm" dashboard for authenticated users to manage their collections of Ants.

Top Features of VideoAnt

Organized Ant Farm: Create and manage your annotated videos in a structured way using this video annotation tool.
Export Options: Flexibility to export your annotations in multiple data formats.
Responsive Interface: Provides a user-friendly experience across devices, allowing annotations on web-hosted HTML5 videos.
Secure Sharing: Control who can access your Ants. You determine who can view and who can annotate.

Pricing

No information available

3. Veed.io

Image Source: Veed.io

Veed.io is an all-in-one online video editing platform, but it also it's annotation tool that particularly stands out. Unlike traditional project approval tools, Veed.io is tailored for those deeply involved in video creation and editing.

Top Features of Veed.io

Multiple File Types: Supports a variety of video formats including MP4, MPEG, AVI, and FLV.
Drawing and Text Annotations: Offers an array of design elements. You can add text or drawings directly to your video for enhanced communication or aesthetics.
Project Download: Provides the option to download your annotated video, a handy feature for offline editing or sharing.

Pricing

Starts at $12/user/month

4. Movavi Screen Recorder

Image Source Movavi Screen Recorder

Movavi Screen Recorder can record anything happening on your screen, even if you're not working on it at the moment. It's especially useful for making tutorials, sharing instructions, or capturing online events like video conference calls, lectures, and webinars.

Top Features of Movavi Screen Recorder

Various recording modes: You can simultaneously or separately record your screen, audio, or webcam, giving you maximum flexibility.
On-Screen Drawing Tools: You can use these annotations to add shapes, arrows, or freehand drawings to your videos.
Task Scheduler: Time your recording sessions ahead of time, so you never miss an important event.

Pricing

Starts at $44.95/user/year

5. Wipster

Image Source: Wipster

Wipster focuses on simplifying the video content approval process through collaborative features and asynchronous review capabilities. This platform is particularly useful for video makers who aim for a streamlined review process and actionable feedback.

Top Features of Wipster

Multiple File Types: Accommodates a range of video formats like .mp4, .m4v, .mov, .mpg, .wmv, and .mxf.
Project Review Status: Allows you to track the progress of your project. It offers insights into completion rates and areas that require attention.
Side-by-Side Version Comparison: View two versions of your project simultaneously for easy comparison and more efficient revision.

Pricing

Starts at $19.95/user/month

6. SuperAnnotate

Image Source: SuporAnnotate

SuperAnnotate is a comprehensive cloud-based solution for video annotation. Designed to work with multiple video sources such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Facebook, this tool offers an array of advanced features. It's ideal for professionals who need to add a deeper layer of information to visual content.

Top Features of SuperAnnotate

Advanced Text Editing: This video annotation tool lets you edit text to convey more complex ideas and instructions.
Shape Creation: Add custom shapes to focus attention on specific parts of the video.
Highlight Selection: Use the highlight feature to emphasize critical segments.
Custom Colors: Tailor your annotations with a custom color palette for clarity and visibility of your notes.

Pricing

Get in touch with the team for pricing details

Conclusion

And that's it. We've explored various video annotation tools, each offering unique features to meet different needs. Whether you're a content creator, a marketer, or involved in post-production, there's likely a tool for you.

However, if you're looking for a video annotation tool that combines speed, precision, and collaboration, ruttl clearly stands out. It offers a balanced set of features that can suit various professional requirements. Its frame-accurate timestamps and seamless team collaboration make it an excellent choice for businesses and individuals.

Get started for free and begin your journey of seamless video annotation.

What Is Video Annotation And How To Annotate Video Online

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 10:03:43 GMT

Imagine you're managing a digital project that involves video content. Providing clear, frame-accurate feedback just through emails or messages can be challenging when you want precision and effective collaboration with your team.

That's where the video annotation tool makes its mark. It offers a way to embed feedback directly onto videos so that your feedback is heard and visually understood. No more ambiguity, no more lengthy explanations. Just precise, clear, and constructive annotations where they matter most.

In this article, we'll explore what video annotation is and how you can easily implement it online.

What is Video Annotation?

Video annotation is the process of adding feedback or extra information to a video. This can be in the form of text, shapes, or timestamps. It serves various purposes, such as enhancing viewer engagement, clarifying content, or guiding user action. Here are two examples of how video annotation helps:

Product Tutorials: Video annotation can highlight specific buttons or features in a software tutorial. This helps the team enhance the quality of the product tutorial video for the end user.
Film Editing: During post-production, editors can use video annotations to mark specific scenes that need adjustment. This ensures precise communication between the director and the editing team.

You can find hundreds of other use cases for video annotation, as every video needs refinement. It's a versatile feature that makes videos more interactive and informative.

Benefits of Video Annotation

Video annotation offers multiple benefits, both for creators and viewers:

Reduced Miscommunication

With features like timestamps and shape markups, misunderstandings become less likely. Every annotation is context-specific and tied to a certain part of the video. This way, feedback is always relevant and clear, minimizing the chance of errors or redoing work.

Enhanced Collaboration

Video annotation makes it simpler to work together on media files. Team members can add their feedback directly onto the video. This way, everyone's input is visible, organized, and easy to navigate. It fosters a more collaborative environment.

Efficiency and Speed

Time is of the essence in any project. Video annotation accelerates the review process. Instead of lengthy explanations, quick annotations give instant, understandable feedback. This speeds up revisions and helps meet deadlines.

Integrated Screen Recording

Some tools offer screen recording as part of the annotation process. This feature lets you capture real-time feedback that makes complex points easier to convey. A screen recording can show the issue and the proposed solution all in one go.

Streamlined Workflow

Everything is in one place. Upload the video, annotate it, and share the feedback—all without leaving the platform. This central hub makes managing media files smoother. It makes the video annotation tool crucial for teams dealing with video content.

Steps to Annotate a Video Online

Annotating a video online can be simple and efficient. Here's a guide on how to do it, often in just a few steps:

Select a Video Annotation Tool

Start by choosing an online video annotation platform that suits your needs. Look for features like frame-accurate timestamps, multiple markup options, and collaborative features. ruttl is an example that offers a free version to get started.

Upload Video File

Navigate to the 'Upload' section on your chosen platform. You can upload the video file you wish to annotate here, often in formats like MP4. Make sure you have the video in the correct format and size before uploading.

Review Video Content

Once uploaded, play the video to review its content. This will help you identify the segments where annotations are needed. Most tools offer a play, pause, and skip feature.

Add Annotations

Start adding your annotations. You can click within the video frame to add comments, draw shapes, or even create free-hand annotations. The aim is to offer context, feedback, or additional information at specific timestamps.

Timestamps and Markup

Timestamps are crucial for precise feedback. They allow you to specify the exact moment in the video your annotation refers to. Accurate timestamping prevents confusion and misinterpretation.

Share Project Link

Once the annotations are added, the next step is to share your project with your team or client. Most platforms offer a simple 'Share' button that generates a project link. This makes it easy for others to view, comment, or add annotations.

Review and Revise

As feedback comes in from your team or client, revisit the video. You can make adjustments, add further annotations, or remove existing ones. This iterative process ensures a polished final product.

Export or Download

Once everyone is satisfied, export or download the annotated video. This can be in the same format you uploaded or in a format optimized for specific platforms. Ensure to review the final output before making it live.

These steps make the online video annotation process systematic and collaborative. Each step adds layers of clarity and information to your video project.

Annotate Video in Three Easy Steps With ruttl

Upload Your MP4

Start by uploading an MP4 video file from your device to initiate your Ruttl project for video annotation.

Add Annotations

Click on the video frame where you wish to annotate. Add comments and use shapes to highlight specific areas for feedback.

Share with Team

Easily share your project link with your team. A few clicks give them access to your annotated video for seamless collaboration.

Features of ruttl: Video Annotation Tool

ruttl makes it so easy to provide feedback on videos with better video annotation features that save you time and effort. Here’s an overview of all these features:

Precision in Feedback

ruttl enables pinpoint accuracy with frame-accurate timestamps. Your team will know exactly what needs attention, down to the specific frame.

In-App Recording

ruttl lets you record videos within the platform itself. Share your camera and screen for more nuanced feedback and discussion.

Comment Management

Assign and resolve comments easily. Organize feedback in threads to keep everyone on the same page and avoid miscommunication.

Real-Time Collaboration

Chat live with team members. Share attachments and URLs to clarify points and enhance collaboration.

Stay Informed

Receive instant email notifications for added comments. Stay updated without needing to continuously check the project.

Tool Integration

ruttl integrates with popular productivity apps like Slack, Trello, Asana, and more. Get notified through the tools you already use, streamlining your workflow.

Wrapping Up

Whether you're a web designer aiming to guide user behavior, a team leader wanting clear communication, or an educator making lessons more engaging, video annotation is your tool. It amplifies engagement, ensures precision, and enhances the overall video experience.

ruttl stands out when it comes to reliable and efficient video annotation. Trusted by over 20,000 businesses and professionals, ruttl allows you to annotate videos easily and collaborate with your team seamlessly. Our tool also provides features like frame-accurate timestamps and real-time chat.

So why wait? Create better digital projects with ruttl's video annotation features. Sign up for free and experience the difference it can make.

How to Capture Video Feedback or Screen Record Websites

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:30:05 GMT

Imagine for a moment that a user is engrossed in navigating a new website and comes across a function that isn't performing as it should. They want to give feedback, but words often fall short of expressing the precise issue they encountered.

What if the user could capture the problem in action, provide a voiceover of their thoughts, and share them with the developers for a more effective resolution?

That’s where video feedback fills the void. This revolutionary method provides users with a unique path to communication and equips developers with a clear understanding of the user experience.

Let's understand how to capture video from website, a simple, engaging, and effective tool for enhancing online interactions.

Why is video feedback from websites necessary?

Video feedback is rapidly emerging as the new norm in the world of digital interactions. But what makes it so essential? Here's why video feedback is becoming a game-changer for websites:

1. Improved Communication

Users often struggle to describe technical issues accurately in words. By trying to capture video from website itself offers a straightforward solution with less confusion. It shows exactly what's happening on their screens.

2. Empathetic Understanding

Watching real-time user interaction can be enlightening for developers. It can help them understand user frustrations, confusions, and challenges on a deeper, more empathetic level.

3. Bug Identification

A picture is worth a thousand words; a video is even more. Video feedback provides precise visuals to locate bugs and significantly speeds up the debugging process.

4. User Experience Enhancement

Insights gathered from video feedback can greatly help refine the user interface and user experience, as it shows how users navigate and use the website.

5. Educational Perspective

Video feedback not only serves as feedback but also becomes a learning tool. It allows teams to understand user behaviour and tendencies in real time.

Video Capturing vs Video Recording

When it comes to providing feedback through videos, two terms often come up: Video Capturing and Recording Video. While they might sound synonymous, their application has a key difference.

Video Capturing: To capture video from website often refers to recording the on-screen activity along with the user's voiceover. This is typically done with screen capture using a tool. The users navigate through the website, recording their journey, pinpointing issues, and sharing thoughts verbally as they explore. This real-time narration of the user experience makes video capture a potent feedback tool.
Recording Video: While recording is also a form of capturing content, it traditionally implies creating standalone video content using a separate camera to record the content.

Video capture offers a more immersive, transparent, and actionable way for users to communicate their experiences, issues, and suggestions to developers.

Steps to Capture Video Feedback Using ruttl

Ready to provide video feedback to your team? Here's a simplified guide to help you navigate the process of video capture with ruttl:

1. Get Started:

2. Create a New Project:

Spot the 'add new project' button and give it a click, followed by another click on 'create'.

3. Provide Details:

Now, it's time to name your project. Type in a suitable project name and enter the website URL for which you want to provide feedback.

4. Add Sub-pages:

You have the option to include related sub-pages of the website for comprehensive feedback. If not, simply choose to skip this step.

5. Leave a Video Comment:

Spot the comment icon. Click on it and then touch the specific area on the website you want to address. Notice the 'leave video comment' icon on the right corner. That's your cue to start recording your feedback.

6. Save and Review:

Once you're done recording, hit 'save'. Your recorded feedback will conveniently appear under the comment section on the right side of your screen.

And voila! You've just captured your video feedback on ruttl. It's as simple as it sounds. Now, you're all set to improve the web, one comment at a time!

Capture Video from Website: A Step-by-Step Guide

Capturing a video from a website can seem daunting for your users or testers, especially with the many available tools. Here's a simplified guide on using a third-party screen-sharing tool for the job and how it stacks up against on-site customer feedback software like ruttl.

Using a Screen Share Tool

Learning to record a web video isn't rocket science, but you might need to download screen recorder software or a browser extension first:

Choose a tool: First, visit the website you wish to record and open the screen video recorder app that suits you best. There's a variety available online and even a built-in screen recorder if you're a Mac user.
Check functionality: Now, it's time to choose and test your microphone and camera. Remember to grant permissions for new apps before their maiden use.
Mark the area you want to capture: You generally have three recording options: your entire screen, an application window, or a single tab. A word of advice - recording your entire screen also captures any notifications that pop up. Recording a browser screen might be a safer bet.
Initiate recording: Next, start recording your web video.
Save and share: Finally, save your video. Different apps save to various locations. For instance, Screencastify saves to Google Drive, while Loom saves directly on their website. In the end, you'll have a shareable link to distribute.

After this, refining your video might involve a few more steps, like trimming or adding effects.

Though these steps are fairly simple, asking casual customers to navigate them can seem like a tall order. This is where a dedicated feedback platform like ruttl makes the task significantly easier.

Dedicated Video Capture Tool

Dedicated tools like ruttl make it easy to capture videos with ease. You don’t have to download the tool, give it special permissions, or worry about losing information. Here's how ruttl makes video feedback an effortless task:

Streamlined Approach: ruttl provides an intuitive and organized space to manage your feedback process, with the video capturing feature built right into the platform.
No Extra Downloads: Forget downloading any additional screen recording software or extensions. With ruttl, everything you need is integrated into one system, saving time and effort.
Focused Recording: Unlike traditional tools that might capture unwanted notifications, ruttl focuses on recording specific elements on your website. It ensures that your feedback is targeted and clear.
Easy to Share: Once you have recorded your video on ruttl, you can share it right away, without the need to save and locate files or create shareable links.

ruttl simplifies the process of capturing video feedback and transforms it from a difficult task into a smooth experience. Now, you can enhance the feedback process and focus more on improving your website - with ruttl at your fingertips.

Top-Notch Tools for Capturing Video Feedback from Websites

Getting ready to start your video feedback journey? Let's dive into our carefully curated list of the top tools designed for capturing video feedback from your website:

1. ruttl: Simplified video capture and collaboration

Settle for nothing less than the best with ruttl. This powerful tool is a game-changer when it comes to capturing video feedback. Offering an intuitive interface and seamless user experience, ruttl allows you to record, edit, and share video feedback without any hassle. It’s all about simplicity and efficiency with ruttl!

2. Loom: Seamless Screen Sharing and Recording

Loom is a user-friendly video recording tool, available as a free app or a Chrome extension. Ideal for creating quick, basic videos for sharing with colleagues or students, it allows you to edit within the app and annotate your recordings with time-stamped queries or emojis.

3. Screencastify: Quick Captures and Handy Edits

Screencastify is a Chrome extension that lets you capture and edit videos with ease. Notably, it functions offline and provides additional features like mouse tracking, drawing, and highlighting. Once your video is ready to share, you can monitor viewer engagement and sprinkle in interactive questions.

4. Zight: Go Beyond Video with GIFs and Annotations

Zight (formerly CloudApp) is a versatile downloadable recorder. Along with regular screen recording, it also offers GIF creation and image annotation capabilities. If you're looking to add a splash of creativity to your feedback, CloudApp is your go-to tool.

Give Users the Power of Video Feedback

Capturing video feedback from websites has never been easier with the right tools at your disposal. Choose a tool like ruttl that best aligns with your needs and start revolutionizing the way you receive and implement feedback. Take action today and enrich your website's user experience one video at a time.

What Is Image Annotation: An In-Depth Guide

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:16:21 GMT

Suppose you're building an interactive website with the perfect high-resolution image to showcase your client's brand. You upload it, and voila - an aesthetically pleasing site.

A day later, a visually impaired user tries to navigate your page, and the screen reader stalls, unable to interpret the image. Worse still, a design with errors may further downgrade the quality of your website.

Additionally, as a designer, you might find yourself grappling with client feedback received through screenshots and emails, which can become overwhelming. This is precisely where the real power of image annotation comes into play.

In this blog, we'll delve into what is image annotation and its significance in web development. We'll discuss why image annotation can either make or break the user experience and provide you with the essential steps on how you can easily annotate images online.

What is Image Annotation?

Image annotation is the practice of evaluating static design elements and providing visual feedback. It's an integral part of the design proofing process that occurs before any project gets the green light.

The procedure involves a thorough review of design elements, constructive feedback, and requests for revisions. Creative professionals can either share their drafts for feedback via real-time communication platforms like Slack, Zoom, or email or use dedicated image annotation tools that foster easy asynchronous collaboration.

Sure, one might opt for conventional methods like email or Slack, but it's a path riddled with potential confusion, frustration, and delayed deadlines. This is where the image annotation tool simplifies the process by reducing the need for complex explanations.

You can leave feedback that's easy to understand and implement with just a click on an element that needs alterations.

Types of Image Annotation

There are several types of image annotation methods that can be used for the feedback process in various industries and applications.

Image annotations can be categorized into two broad categories: those primarily used for AI and machine learning applications, and those employed by creative and design professionals for visual content development.

A) Image Annotations for AI and machine learning applications

1. Bounding Box Image Annotations:

Bounding boxes are drawn around objects or regions of interest in an image.
This method is often used for object detection, where each box represents the location and size of an object.

2. Semantic Segmentation:

Labels each pixel in an image with a corresponding class or category, enabling AI models to understand the shapes and boundaries of objects.
Vital for applications like medical image analysis, where precise object delineation is critical.

3. Instance Segmentation:

Similar to semantic segmentation but also distinguishes between individual instances of the same class.
Crucial for scenarios where multiple objects of the same class need to be identified separately, such as counting objects in an image.

4. Key Point Image Annotation:

Used in pose estimation and facial recognition to mark specific points or landmarks on objects or body parts.
Enables AI models to understand and track key features.

5. Text and Language Image Annotations:

Include text labels or descriptions for images, often used in natural language processing (NLP) tasks.
Assist AI models in understanding the content and context of images.

B) Image Annotations for creative and design professionals

1. Text Annotation:

Text is added to an image to provide descriptions, explanations, or labels for various elements.
It is useful for providing textual context alongside visual feedback.

2. Polygon Image Annotation:

Polygons are used to outline irregularly shaped objects or areas in an image.
It provides more precise boundaries than bounding boxes and is useful for segmenting objects with complex shapes.

3. Color Tagging in Image Annotation:

Specific colors are used to tag or highlight certain regions or objects in an image.
This can be helpful for categorizing or prioritizing feedback visually.

4. Freehand Drawing in Image Annotation:

Freehand drawing allows annotators to sketch or draw directly on the image to convey feedback or suggestions.
It offers flexibility in providing feedback.

5. Audio or Video Annotations:

In addition to visual annotations, audio or video comments can be recorded to provide feedback in a multimedia format.
This can be particularly useful for capturing nuanced feedback.

Each of these image annotation methods serves specific purposes and can be chosen based on the nature of the feedback required and the goals of the image annotation project. The selection of the appropriate image annotation method depends on the desired level of detail, accuracy, and context for the feedback process.

Top Benefits of Image Annotation

When it comes to web design, image annotation is not just an additional step in the process - it's a game-changer. The benefits are far-reaching, significantly enhancing communication, efficiency, and the quality of your final product.

Streamlined Communication

Imagine trying to explain visual changes over an email or a phone call. It could get complicated, right? Image annotation brings clarity to such conversations. Pinpointing exact areas in the design helps you leave context-specific feedback. It eliminates guesswork, reduces confusion, and ensures everyone is on the same page.

Enhanced Efficiency

Traditionally, the review and revision process can be tedious and time-consuming. Picture countless email threads, explanations getting lost in translation, and the constant back-and-forth. But with image annotation, the process becomes far more efficient. Direct feedback on the design itself helps to quickly identify and address issues, saving valuable time.

Improved Accuracy

With image annotation, you can provide precise feedback. This level of accuracy in communication minimizes misunderstandings and reduces errors in the revision process. The result? A final design that aligns more closely with your vision.

Better Collaboration

Image annotation is an asset for teamwork. Whether your team is in the same office or scattered across different time zones, image annotation tools enable seamless collaboration. Everyone involved can view the comments, understand the context, and contribute their feedback, fostering a more inclusive and effective collaborative environment.

Simpler Project Management

Image annotation tools often come with project management features. You can track changes, follow up on tasks, and monitor project progress. It's an all-in-one solution that simplifies the entire workflow.

Image Annotation Use Cases

Image annotation is a versatile tool with use cases spanning different domains, professions, and scenarios. Here's how various audiences can benefit from the implementation of image annotation tools.

1. Image Annotation for Designers

Image annotation is a lifeline for designers in today's digital age. Design projects often involve intricate details and specific visual elements that require precise feedback. With image annotation tools, designers can collaborate effectively with clients, project managers, and fellow designers. They receive feedback directly on the image, eliminating the need for lengthy written explanations or vague descriptions.

Use Cases:

Web Design: Designers can use website feedback and image annotation tools to review website layouts, graphics, and user interfaces. Clients can provide feedback on the placement of elements, color schemes, and overall aesthetics.
Graphic Design: In graphic design projects, image annotation tools help pinpoint areas that need revisions, such as logos, typography, and image composition.
UX/UI Design: Designers can create interactive prototypes or wireframes and use image annotation to gather feedback on user experience and interface design. It can highlight areas for improvement in navigation, usability, and interactivity.

2. Image Annotation for Remote Workers

In the era of remote work, image annotation plays a crucial role in maintaining clear and efficient communication. Team members can collaboratively review, comment, and suggest changes to images or design elements in real time, regardless of their location. It streamlines the feedback process, eliminates back-and-forths and confusion, and boosts productivity.

Use Cases:

Virtual Teams: Image annotation fosters collaboration among virtual teams working on graphic design, advertising, or content creation. Team members can provide input and suggestions without the need for physical presence.
Global Collaboration: Organizations with global operations benefit from image annotation to gather input from teams across different time zones. It ensures that design feedback is received and acted upon promptly.
Freelancers and Clients: Freelancers and their clients can use image annotation for effective project management. Clients can leave feedback on design drafts, and freelancers can respond with revisions, all within the annotation tool.

3. Image Annotation for Creative Agencies

Image annotation contributes to the efficiency of creative agencies handling multiple projects simultaneously. It simplifies the process of managing feedback from various clients to ensure everyone's input is organized and easy to access. These tools also come with project management features that help track changes, assign tasks, and monitor project progress.

Use Cases:

Advertising Campaigns: Creative agencies working on advertising campaigns use image annotation to receive client feedback on ad creatives, videos, and promotional materials. Annotations guide the refinement of visuals and messaging.
Branding Projects: Agencies can collaborate with clients on branding initiatives, including logo design, packaging, and brand identity. Image annotation helps refine brand visuals and maintain consistency.
Content Creation: Agencies responsible for content creation, such as blog graphics or social media visuals, use image annotation to ensure that content aligns with the client's brand and messaging.

4. Image Annotation for Design schools

Image annotation also holds great potential in the education sector. Teachers can use it to provide detailed feedback on students' work, pinpointing exactly where improvements are needed. Students, on the other hand, can use these tools to collaboratively work on projects, annotate study materials, or even ask specific questions about digital content. It allows for an interactive, engaging learning experience.

Use Cases:

Digital Assignments: Teachers can use image annotation to grade digital assignments, marking errors or areas of excellence directly on students' work. This provides clear feedback for improvement.
Interactive Learning: Students can use image annotation tools for annotating educational materials to ask questions, make notes, or highlight key points. It encourages active engagement with digital content.
Collaborative Projects: Students working on group projects can use image annotation to discuss ideas, provide feedback on project elements, and create interactive presentations.

These diverse use cases highlight the versatility and value of image annotation tools in improving communication, collaboration, and the overall quality of work across various fields and professions.

Collaborative Image Annotation Workflows

Collaboration is at the heart of successful image annotation workflows. Whether you're part of a creative team, a remote workforce, or a group of students, working together efficiently is key. Here's how collaborative image annotation workflows can make your projects smoother and more productive:

1. Real-Time Collaboration:

Image annotation tools offer real-time collaboration features. Multiple users can simultaneously view and annotate images, providing instant feedback and reducing project turnaround times.

2. Remote Collaboration:

In today's interconnected world, teams often work from different locations. Collaborative image annotation tools bridge geographical gaps, allowing team members to review and annotate images from anywhere with an internet connection.

3. Version Control:

Collaborative workflows often involve multiple iterations of an image. Many image annotation tools enable version control, making it easy to track changes, compare different versions, and revert to previous annotations if needed.

4. Task Assignment:

Assigning tasks within the image annotation process is crucial for effective collaboration. Image annotation tools let you assign specific tasks to team members, ensuring that everyone knows their responsibilities and deadlines.

5. Commenting and Feedback:

Collaboration thrives on effective communication. Collaborative annotation tools facilitate comments and feedback, allowing team members to discuss specific elements and suggest improvements.

6. Client Involvement:

In many projects, clients play a vital role in the review process. Collaborative image annotation tools can include clients in the workflow by allowing guest commenting. Clients can provide feedback without needing an account, simplifying their involvement.

7. Project Management:

Managing the entire annotation process, including tracking changes, monitoring progress, and setting priorities, is easier with integrated project management features. Image annotation tools often offer these capabilities, helping teams stay organized.

Image Annotation Best Practices

To maximize the benefits of image annotation, consider the following best practices:

1. Clear and Specific Feedback:

During the image annotation process, provide feedback that is clear, specific, and actionable. Avoid vague comments and instead pinpoint the exact elements that need attention.

2. Prioritize Feedback:

Prioritize feedback based on its importance and impact on the image annotation project's goals.
Address critical issues first to ensure they are resolved promptly.
Distinguish between essential changes and minor enhancements.

3. Maintain Consistency throughout image annotations:

Establish and adhere to consistent annotation styles and terminology within your team.
Create image annotation guidelines or a style guide to maintain uniformity.
Ensure that all team members are familiar with and follow these guidelines.

4. Contextual Comments:

Provide context for your image annotations to help the recipient understand the reasoning behind the feedback.
Explain why a particular change is necessary and how it aligns with the project's objectives.

5. Version Control and History:

Keep a detailed history of annotations, including who made the annotations and when.
Use version control to track changes over time, enabling easy reference to previous image annotations.

6. Quality Control and Review:

Implement a review process to ensure the accuracy and completeness of image annotations.
Assign team members or reviewers to double-check annotations for errors or inconsistencies.

7. Feedback Ownership and Resolution:

Clearly assign ownership of each image annotation to a team member responsible for addressing it.
Ensure that annotations are marked as resolved or closed once the necessary changes have been made.

8. Effective Communication:

Maintain open and regular communication with team members or clients throughout the image annotation process.
Provide status updates on the progress of annotations and address any questions or concerns promptly.

9. Training and Skill Development in image annotation tools:

Provide training to team members on using the image annotation tool effectively.
Offer guidance on best practices for annotation to help team members improve their skills.

10. Client Collaboration:

If clients are involved in the image annotation process, guide them on how to provide effective feedback.
Foster a collaborative environment that encourages clients to actively participate in the review.

11. Maintain a Positive Tone:

Maintain a positive and constructive tone in your image annotations and feedback.
Focus on improvement rather than criticism to create a productive atmosphere.

By following these detailed best practices and guidelines for image annotation, your team can ensure a smoother workflow, clearer communication, and higher-quality design outcomes. These practices contribute to effective collaboration and help achieve the desired results in your annotation projects.

3 Easy Steps of Image Annotation for Design and Creative Professionals

Image annotation has never been more accessible! Here's a straightforward three-step guide to getting started with image annotations on ruttl:

Step 1: Create a Project

Kick off your annotation journey by logging into your ruttl account. Once you're in, the first step is to create a new project, you will get to choose between 4 project types - website, web apps, bug tracking and PDF/image annotation. Click on the image feedback project, this will be the workspace where you annotate your images or website design. ruttl's intuitive interface makes this process as simple as clicking a button.

Step 2: Add Any Image

The next step is to add the content you want to annotate. All you have to do is upload the image you want to annotate during the project creation stage.

Step 3: Start your image annotations

Now comes the exciting part - the annotation. ruttl lets you annotate any part of the image you've imported. Just click on the element you wish to comment on and start typing your feedback. You can pinpoint specific areas, leave contextual comments, and even suggest revisions.

It's as easy as one, two, and three. With ruttl, image annotation is a breeze, making your design review process more efficient and effective.

Bonus: Do More with ruttl

ruttl is a powerhouse of features designed to streamline your design review and collaboration processes. Alongside our highly regarded image annotation project type in the website feedback tool, here are some additional features cherished by our users that can substantially enhance your projects as well.

1. Annotate Web Pages with Comments

ruttl lets you leave detailed feedback right on live web pages revolutionizing the way you communicate design changes. You can mark up websites with text and annotate webpages with comments or even video recordings to make your feedback more precise and easy to understand.

2. Bug Tracking Project

In addition to web development and image annotation projects, ruttl offers a powerful bug tracking feature. With this tool, you can effortlessly monitor and report bugs on both your websites and mobile applications.
The built-in workflow on your ruttl dashboard streamlines the bug reporting process for web and mobile apps alike, ensuring that issues are addressed promptly and efficiently.

3. PDF Projects

ruttl's PDF review projects are an extension of the image annotation capabilities, providing a versatile platform for annotating, marking up, and collaborating on PDF files of up to 100 MB.
Whether you're reviewing documents, design mockups, or reports, this feature allows you to provide detailed feedback and collaborate seamlessly with your team.

4. View and Inspect CSS

Share precise CSS changes in real-time with your development team using ruttl's CSS inspection feature. You can specify alterations in font size, alignment, margins, paddings, and more, ensuring that your design vision is accurately translated into web elements.

5. Edit Content with AI

Experience the enhanced content editing capabilities in ruttl through AI integration. Now, you have the ability to rephrase and edit web page content in real time using the AI text generator.
This feature empowers you to refine your website's messaging and content effortlessly, ensuring that it resonates effectively with your audience while streamlining the editing process.

6. Tag Your Team Members

To foster effective team collaboration, ruttl lets you tag your teammates in comments, assign them tasks, set deadlines, and mark tasks as resolved once completed. This makes project management a breeze and ensures nothing falls through the cracks.

7. Enable Comments by Guests and Clients

ruttl values your clients' input, which is why it provides the guest commenting feature. With this, your clients can share feedback without having to sign up or log in. All you need to do is send them a shareability link, and they're good to go.

8. Replace Images on Live Website

A unique feature that users love is the ability to replace images on the live website. If you have multiple potential images, you can see how each one looks on your website in real time. It’ll help you finalize the one that fits best.

9. Add and Record Multiple Versions

With ruttl, you can create and keep track of multiple versions of your website. This allows you to easily navigate between different versions with a simple click, maintaining a clear record of all the ongoing activities.

10. Integrate with Needed Tools

Ruttl doesn't work in isolation. You can export important comments to tools like Slack, Trello, ClickUp, Jira, and Asana. This way, you're always up-to-date with crucial feedback, no matter what platform you're using.

Wrapping Up

So, there you have it. Image annotation is a powerful tool that’s essential for various fields, from web design to remote learning. Tools like ruttl and many others provide diverse features to make the process more efficient.

The key is to choose the one that best fits your specific needs and workflow. Streamline your image annotation process and unlock better collaboration.

How Customer Success Can Manage Customer Feedback

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 08:56:16 GMT

Customer feedback has become a valuable asset for companies seeking to improve their products, services, and overall customer experience. One key department responsible for harnessing the power of customer feedback is Customer Success, as the team plays a pivotal role in managing customer feedback to drive product enhancements, refine processes, and foster strong customer relationships. This article explores the importance of customer feedback for Customer Success and delves into strategies for effectively managing this feedback to achieve long-term success.

How Can Your Customer Success Team Best Manage Customer Feedback?

1. Go beyond simple customer support

A study on quiet quitting revealed that “over 56% of CS/CX personnel state that customer support is part of their general responsibilities.”

However, the role of Customer Success (CS) has evolved far beyond traditional customer support. While Customer Support primarily focuses on issue resolution and addressing immediate concerns, Customer Success takes a proactive approach to ensure long-term customer satisfaction, loyalty, and business growth.

One integral aspect of this evolving role is managing customer feedback not to supplant support but to enrich it. By actively collecting, analyzing, and acting upon feedback, CS teams can collaborate with other departments to deliver tangible results, preemptively address issues, and create upselling opportunities that drive both customer satisfaction and business growth. This dynamic approach to feedback management solidifies the role of Customer Success as a key driver of holistic customer satisfaction and organizational success.

2. Launch a Voice of the Customer initiative

By embracing Voice of the Customer (VoC) initiatives, organizations welcome direct customer input. While most businesses gather and act upon client feedback, VoC programs take this a step further by facilitating direct improvements to the product.

Launching a Voice of Customer (VoC) program involves careful planning and execution to gather valuable customer insights. Here’s a short guide on how to successfully launch a VoC program:

Set Clear Objectives: Define the specific goals of your VoC program. Whether improving products, enhancing customer experience, or identifying pain points, clear objectives guide your efforts.
Define Your Target Audience: Identify the segment of customers you want to gather feedback from. Consider factors like demographics, usage patterns, and customer lifecycle stages
Select Your Feedback Channels: Choose the channels through which you’ll collect feedback. These include surveys, emails, website feedback forms, social media, and customer support interactions.
Design Feedback Mechanisms: Develop well-structured surveys and questionnaires that align with your objectives. Craft questions that gather actionable insights and provide a mix of quantitative and qualitative data.
Choose Timing and Frequency: Determine when and how often you’ll collect feedback. This could be after specific interactions, at key touchpoints, or periodically.
Implement Data Collection: Deploy the selected feedback mechanisms across your channels. Utilize technology to automate the process and ensure consistency.
Analyze Feedback: Collect the gathered data and employ analytical tools to extract meaningful insights. Identify trends, patterns, and recurring issues within the feedback.
Prioritize Action Items: Based on the insights, prioritize areas that require immediate attention or improvements. Consider the impact of changes on customer satisfaction and business goals.
Create Action Plans: Develop action plans for each priority area. Assign responsibilities, set timelines, and outline the steps to address the identified issues.
Implement Changes: Execute the action plans, making necessary adjustments to products, services, or processes based on customer feedback.
Communicate Changes: Inform your customers about the changes you’ve made due to their feedback. This not only demonstrates your commitment to their opinions but also fosters transparency.
Monitor Progress: Continuously monitor the impact of your changes. Track key performance indicators (KPIs) related to customer satisfaction and assess the effectiveness of your actions.
Iterate and Improve: Regularly review and refine your VoC program based on feedback and results. Keep evolving your strategies to align with changing customer needs.
Gather Feedback on the VoC Program: Seek feedback from internal teams and stakeholders involved in the program to improve its processes and outcomes.

Launching a VoC program is a dynamic process that requires ongoing commitment. By actively listening to your customers, making data-driven improvements, and consistently iterating your approach, you’ll create a customer-centric culture that drives success and customer loyalty.

3. Conduct extensive research and surveys

Conducting extensive research and surveys is a crucial approach for effectively gathering and managing customer feedback, as structured and quantifiable insights are instrumental in understanding customer sentiments, preferences, and needs. Surveys, in particular, emerge as a powerful tool in this process due to their ability to efficiently collect data from a broad customer base, facilitate organized analysis, and drive informed decision-making.

You can also take customer feedback a step further by conducting RATER surveys that break down customers’ potential concerns according to the five key dimensions of the model (keep in mind that this type of survey is best suited for your most engaged customers or users):

Reliability: Incorporate questions that evaluate customers’ perceptions of the consistency and dependability of your service. Ask about issues related to service interruptions, delays, and accuracy. For instance:

“How often have you experienced delays in our service delivery?”

“Have you encountered any instances of errors or inconsistencies in our service?”

Assurance: Craft questions that gauge customers’ feelings of security, trust, and confidence in your service. Inquire about the professionalism and expertise of your staff and how well your service meets their expectations. For instance:

“Do you feel confident in the knowledge and abilities of our customer support team?”

“To what extent do you trust our service to meet your needs?”

Tangibles: Design questions that explore the physical aspects of your service, such as the appearance of your communication materials. Probe into any concerns related to the visual presentation of your brand. For instance:

“Do you find our website and communication materials user-friendly?”

Empathy: Include questions that assess how well your staff demonstrates caring, understanding, and attentiveness towards customer needs. Seek feedback on the personalized nature of interactions and whether customers feel valued. For instance:

“Did our customer service representatives show genuine concern for your issues?”

“How well did our team understand your specific needs and circumstances?”

Responsiveness: Incorporate questions that delve into customers’ perceptions of how promptly and effectively your service addresses their inquiries, requests, and concerns. Explore any frustrations related to waiting times and timely issue resolution. For instance:

“Were you satisfied with the speed at which we resolved your recent inquiry?”

“Did you feel that our team addressed your concerns in a timely manner?”

4. Create a model for customer feedback management (CFM)

A Customer Feedback Management (CFM) model holds significant importance as it offers a structured framework for businesses to systematically collect, analyze, and leverage customer feedback. By centralizing customer opinions, needs, and concerns, the CFM model enables informed decision-making, identifies trends, and proactively addresses issues. It guides product and service enhancements, measures customer satisfaction, fosters loyalty, and establishes a competitive edge.

Creating a comprehensive model for Customer Feedback Management involves several steps that ensure a structured approach to collecting, analyzing, and acting on customer feedback. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you establish an effective CFM model:

a. Define Objectives Clearly outline the goals of your CFM model. Determine what you aim to achieve through customer feedback – whether it’s product improvement, enhancing customer experience, or identifying trends.

b. Identify Feedback Channels List the various channels through which customers can provide feedback. This includes surveys, feedback forms, customer support interactions, social media, reviews, and more.

c. Design a Feedback Collection Process Create a systematic process for collecting feedback from different channels. Define how feedback will be captured, stored, and categorized. Automate this process as much as possible to streamline data collection. Here’s a quick example for SaaS products.

d. Categorize Feedback Create categories or themes to classify the feedback you receive. This helps in organizing and analyzing feedback effectively. Common categories could include product features, usability, customer service, pricing, and more.

e. Choose Feedback Analysis Tools Select tools that assist in analyzing feedback data. These can include sentiment analysis tools, text analytics software, and data visualization platforms. These tools help extract insights from large volumes of feedback.

f. Establish Feedback Review Team Form a dedicated team responsible for reviewing and analyzing feedback. This team could consist of representatives from customer support, product development, marketing, and other relevant departments.

g. Prioritize Feedback Develop a method to prioritize feedback based on factors such as the frequency of the issue, its impact on customers, and alignment with business objectives.

h. Take Action Translate feedback into actionable steps. Assign responsibilities for addressing specific issues to relevant teams. Regularly update the status of each issue to ensure progress is tracked.

i. Implement Improvements Leverage the insights gained from feedback to make necessary improvements to products, services, and customer experiences.

j. Monitor and Iterate Continuously monitor the impact of changes made based on customer feedback. Iterate the CFM model based on results and evolving customer needs.

k. Close the Loop with Customers Communicate with customers to let them know how their feedback has led to improvements. This reinforces their sense of value and involvement in the process.

l. Gather Feedback on the CFM Process Don’t forget to gather feedback from your internal teams involved in the CFM process. This helps refine the model over time.

m. Training and Awareness Ensure that all employees are aware of the CFM model, its importance, and their roles in contributing to the process.

n. Continuous Improvement: Regularly review and update your CFM model to align with industry best practices and evolving customer expectations.

Creating a model for Customer Feedback Management involves a combination of strategy, technology, and organizational collaboration. By systematically collecting, analyzing, and acting upon customer feedback, CS teams can help enhance their companies’ offerings, build stronger customer relationships, and drive overall growth.

5. Use an extensive toolset for your support interactions

Selecting the right toolset for support interactions is a crucial decision that directly impacts your business’s quality of customer service. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you choose the best toolset for your support interactions:

1. Assess Your Needs: Understand your support requirements. Identify the types of interactions you’ll handle, the channels you’ll use (email, live chat, phone, social media), and the level of automation you need.

2. Define Your Goals: Clarify your objectives for customer support. Are you aiming to improve response times, enhance customer satisfaction, or streamline ticket management? Clearly defined goals will guide your toolset selection.

3. Research Available Tools: Explore the market for customer support tools. Look for helpdesk software (ex.: Zendesk, Freshdesk), live chat platforms (ex.: Intercom, LiveChat), knowledge base systems (ex.: HelpJuice, Confluence), and analytics tools (ex.: Mixpanel, Amplitude). Also, consider user feedback.

4. Scalability and Flexibility: Choose tools that can scale with your business growth. Ensure they offer flexibility to accommodate changing needs and emerging communication channels.

5. Integration Capabilities: Prioritize tools that integrate well with your existing systems, such as CRM, marketing automation, and e-commerce platforms. Integration enhances data flow and provides a holistic view of customer interactions.

6. User-Friendly Interface: Opt for tools that have an intuitive interface and are easy for your support team to use. A user-friendly design reduces training time and boosts efficiency.

7. Customization Options: Look for tools that allow customization to match your brand’s look and feel. Customizable templates, branding options, and chat widgets create a consistent customer experience.

8. Multichannel Support: Choose a toolset that offers support across various channels, enabling customers to reach you through their preferred method. Ensure it supports both traditional channels and emerging platforms.

9. Analytics and Reporting: Prioritize tools that provide detailed analytics and reporting. Insights into response times, resolution rates, and customer satisfaction help you optimize your support strategies.

10. Automation and AI: Consider tools that offer automation and AI features. These can include automated ticket routing, chatbots, and predictive analytics, which enhance efficiency and provide proactive support.

11. Security and Compliance: Ensure the toolset adheres to security protocols and compliance standards, especially if handling sensitive customer data. Look for features like data encryption and GDPR compliance.

12. Customer Feedback Integration: Opt for tools that seamlessly integrate customer feedback collection. This helps you gather customer insights directly and aligns with your Voice of Customer initiatives.

By following these steps, you’ll be better equipped to select a toolset for support interactions that align with your business goals, enhance customer satisfaction, and empower your support team to deliver exceptional service.

6. Promote data governance for accurate customer support results

To ensure the integrity of your Customer Feedback Management (CFM) process, it’s imperative to support feedback with robust data that is well-grounded and validated. This practice not only enhances the health of your CFM but also strengthens your strategies for the future.

Data hygiene forms the cornerstone of a reliable CFM. It involves maintaining accurate, consistent, and up-to-date customer information. By cleansing and standardizing data, you reduce the risk of erroneous feedback infiltrating your analysis. Dirty data, tainted by duplicates, outdated records, or inaccuracies, can skew the interpretation of customer feedback, leading to misguided actions and suboptimal results.

To counter this, implement stringent data hygiene practices, employing automated tools for data cleansing, validation, and deduplication. By establishing a clean data foundation, you fortify your CFM against the potential pitfalls of unverified feedback.

Equally crucial is data governance, a framework that ensures data quality, security, and compliance throughout its lifecycle. Data governance establishes protocols for collecting, managing, and storing customer data, safeguarding its accuracy and reliability.

By implementing data governance policies, you create a structured framework to verify and validate customer feedback against factual data points. This practice transforms customer feedback from anecdotal observations into substantiated insights, thus enhancing the credibility and value of your CFM.

When customer feedback is anchored in verified data, it gains a level of authenticity that empowers decision-makers. Data-backed insights offer a comprehensive understanding of customer sentiments, preferences, and behaviors. This level of granularity enables businesses to spot trends, make precise predictions, and implement impactful changes.

Summing Up

In the realm of Customer Success, managing customer feedback is a strategic process that can drive significant improvements in product quality, customer relationships, and overall business success.

By leveraging customer feedback effectively, companies can not only address immediate concerns but also foster an environment of continuous improvement and innovation. Customer Success teams that prioritize feedback collection, analysis, and action are well-positioned to create lasting customer loyalty and gain a competitive edge in today’s dynamic market.

11 Website Design Best Practices To Follow In 2025

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 11:44:04 GMT

When people think about website design best practices, often the first things that come to mind are flashy visuals, stunning animations, and captivating aesthetics. But in reality, a far more intricate science is behind creating a successful and impactful website.

A study conducted by Stanford University has found that 75% of users make judgments about a company's trustworthiness based on how their website looks. This underscores the notion that website design best practices is much more than just appealing graphics. It's about creating a seamless, intuitive user experience that captures and retains a visitor's attention.

So, you can choose to travel the long road of trial and error where you’ll gradually hone your skills and insights over time. Or, you can take a shortcut and leverage these 11 website design best practices and guidelines to help you create a stunning and responsive web design guide.

So, let’s get started!

Responsive Website Design Best Practices for 2025

1. Mobile-First Design Approach

Embracing the mobile-first design approach is no longer an option but a necessity in our increasingly mobile-dominated world. Since a great amount of web traffic is generated from mobile devices, it's clear that businesses must prioritize mobile user experience in implementing website design best practices. This is why it is one of the top website design best practices to follow.

Mobile-first design involves beginning the design process with mobile devices in mind and scaling up to larger screen sizes. This ensures that the most crucial elements are visible and usable on smaller screens. Designing for smaller screens also forces designers to streamline, simplify and enhance the user experience. This approach was developed as a response to the limitations of the "Desktop-First" strategy. It has now become a fundamental part of the design process.

Here is how you can implement this approach effectively:

Prioritize content
Deliver intuitive navigation
Avoid disruptive pop-ups
Test on real devices under real conditions

With the mobile-first approach, you're not just keeping up with the times; you're making way for a more user-friendly digital future. This makes for an effective stratergy among website design best practices.

2. Create Consistency in Design

Consistency is a critical factor that often defines the difference between a good and a great user experience. It gives users a sense of familiarity and ease to reduce their cognitive load as they navigate through your website.

Consistent design includes maintaining a uniform visual language regarding typography, color scheme, layouts, button styles, and imagery across the site. Inconsistency in these elements can lead to confusion and frustration. It may cause users to bounce off the site.

Take, for example, the Yale School of Art's website. The website's design is understandably experimental as an institution that values creativity and originality. However, the lack of consistency in the layout, fonts, and color palette can make the site feel chaotic and difficult to navigate. The user is often left confused trying to find basic information in this cluttered design. Thus it is necessary to use these website design best practices to ensure the site is user friendly and interactive.

While pushing the boundaries of design is essential, maintaining a consistent design language is crucial in website design best practices for an engaging and user-friendly experience. A user's journey on your website should be smoother than a roller coaster ride. So, while you experiment and innovate, keep your designs consistent.

3. Designing for Accessibility and Inclusion

Web accessibility is about making sure everyone can use your website regardless of any disabilities or limitations. It's an essential aspect of UX design among the website design best practices that often goes overlooked, but it's just as important as aesthetics or functionality.

At its core, web accessibility means designing your website in a way that doesn't exclude anyone. This involves everything from the structure and layout of your site to the visuals and content itself.

The guidelines for web accessibility are outlined by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These guidelines are pretty straightforward. These guidelines on website design best practices recommend that websites be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

To put it in simpler terms:

Perceivable means making sure users are aware of what's on your site.
Operable means that the user can navigate the site in different ways.
Understandable means the content and alerts on the site are clear and easy to comprehend.
Robust means that your website should work seamlessly across different technologies, devices, and browsers.

4. Establish a Clear Visual Hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is a key principle in web design that organizes and ranks design elements. It guides users through the information layout according to their importance. It's about using visual cues to guide the viewer's eye and intuitively lead them through your site's content. It is a key aspect of website design best practices.

Here are some methods to establish a clear visual hierarchy:

Size and Scale: Larger elements attract more attention than smaller ones. Thus, important elements like headings, calls to action, or key images should be bigger to draw users' attention.
Color and Contrast: Vibrant colors and high contrast attract the eye. Use them strategically for key elements you want to highlight.
Spacing: Ample space around an element can make it stand out. This is useful for highlighting specific sections or important calls to action.
Alignment and Position: Our eyes naturally start at the top left of a page and move right, mimicking the pattern of reading. Placing crucial elements along this path can help guide users.
Typography: Different font weights, styles, and spacing (kerning, leading, and tracking) can help distinguish text elements and guide users through the content hierarchy.

You can build a strong visual hierarchy when you think carefully about these design elements. This guides your users smoothly through your content. As a result, implementing such website design best practices leads to your website becomes more friendly and effective for users when you ensure maintaining a clear visual hierarchy to perform website design best practices.

5. Opt for a Conventional Setup

While choosing between the website design best practices it is crucial to remember that web design is about striking the right balance between being unique and meeting user expectations. We all use the internet regularly, and we're used to certain features. These include:

Having the main navigation at the top or left of a page
Placing a logo at the top left or center
Making the logo clickable to return to the homepage
Links and buttons changing when we hover over them
Using a shopping cart icon on online stores to see how many items we have
Buttons for manually changing image sliders

Some designers might want to ignore these standards to be unique. But that's not a good idea. There's still room for creativity while following web standards.

Think of it like architecture. Building rules ensure buildings are safe and comfortable. Architects follow these rules not just because they have to but because they ensure safety and comfort.

The same goes for deciding upon the website design best practices that fit your needs. You can make a memorable website while still meeting user expectations. Users may feel uncomfortable or even frustrated with your site if you don't follow such website design best practices.

6. Maintain Consistent Branding

When you are using these website design best practices, it's important to also maintain consistent branding. Consistent branding helps build recognition and trust among your audience. Here's what you can do to ensure branding consistency:

Logo Use: Ensure your logo is placed consistently across all pages, typically in the header. This helps users identify your brand quickly.
Color Scheme: Stick to a consistent color palette throughout your website that matches your brand's identity. It helps foster a coherent visual experience.
Typography: Consistently use the same fonts across your website. It not only helps with readability but also contributes to brand recognition.
Imagery: The style and quality of the images used should align with your brand's personality. Whether it's product images or blog post headers, maintaining a consistent visual style is key.
Tone of Voice: The language and tone used across your website should reflect your brand's personality. Be it professional, casual, or friendly, consistency is key.

Focusing on these elements is a necessary step while choosing between the website design best practices as it helps you provide a seamless experience for your users while strengthening your brand's identity and recognition.

7. Prioritize Smooth User Experience

Visuals can captivate and engage website visitors, but a truly effective user experience (UX) goes beyond aesthetics. It also encompasses functionality, ease of use, and accessibility which is essential aspect of website design best practices.

As a web designer, when building user flows, consider the following questions:

Does the homepage clearly define the website's purpose?
Is the navigation bar intuitive and easy to use?
Are essential elements like buttons and contact forms readily accessible?
Can a first-time visitor navigate your website with ease?
Is the user journey engaging and enjoyable?
Does the design guide users efficiently toward achieving their goals (like signing up for a free trial)?
Is your website accessible to people with disabilities?

If user testing yields positive answers to these questions, you're on your way to providing a seamless UX and a user-friendly User Interface (UI). This is why website design best practices are necessary in effective user experience.

8. Focus on Copywriting

Conversion copywriting isn't merely about persuading your readers to buy your product. It's an effective tool that influences every stage of the customer journey—from initial awareness to the final purchase decision. Thus it is a key step in applying the website deign best practices.

This style of writing uses action-driven language to educate and motivate simultaneously. You can employ it throughout your website—on the homepage, 'about us' page, blog posts, landing pages, and even the pricing page.

Here's how to excel at conversion copywriting:

Use powerful action verbs that clarify the benefits users will receive (for example, optimize, streamline, boost).
Get to the point quickly—avoid lengthy, irrelevant introductions.
Use an active voice and steer clear of words that denote uncertainty (like 'I think', 'maybe', 'possibly').
Sprinkle your content with questions ('Why?' 'How?' 'What?'). These prompt readers to seek answers in the text and make the content more engaging.
Keep your ultimate goal in mind while writing. For instance, if your goal is to get readers to sign up for your newsletter, your entire copy should gradually lead to that call-to-action (CTA).
Write short sentences and paragraphs using easy-to-understand language to improve readability.

The ultimate measure of your writing efforts is whether visitors are compelled to click your CTA button.

9. Incorporate Effective CTAs (Call to Action)

A crucial yet often overlooked component of website design best practices is the Call to Action (CTA). CTAs guide your visitors toward the intended conversion goal, from signing up for a newsletter to purchasing a product.

Effective CTAs work as the final nudge, inspiring potential customers to take action. A few persuasive examples are:

Get started for free: Direct and offers immediate value.
Talk to our team: Encourages personal interaction.
Sign up for our newsletter: It provides a way to keep your brand top-of-mind.
Book a demo: Allows users to try before they buy.
Schedule a meeting or consultation: Promotes a more in-depth conversation.

With the strategic placement of these compelling CTAs throughout your website, you can create opportunities to establish connections with your potential customers. It’ll enhance your customer base and business growth.

10. Focus on Enhancing Page Speed

No matter how stellar your website design best practices may be, it's crucial to ensure that the components you incorporate do not hinder the page's loading speed in order to follow the website design best practices. When you develop websites to cater to various devices, it's crucial that your code, content, and images are optimized for speed.

So, why does page speed matter so much?

Here's why:

A study by section.io on the impact of page load time revealed that when a page loaded in 2 seconds, visitors viewed 9.6 pages, whereas they only viewed 3.3 pages if the load time was 8 seconds.
A quick website load time can significantly enhance conversion rates thus making for a key point in website design best practices.
According to a statistic by Think with Google, Over half of the users (53%) will abandon a page if a responsive website takes more than 3 seconds to load.

Source

Page load speed also influences your SEO performance. Google monitors user experience and bounce rate closely, so if people spend only a few seconds on your site, Google's algorithm may reduce your site's visibility in search results.

In short, you should prioritize optimizing the loading speed for your site's mobile and desktop versions (and every screen size in between). You can use tools like Google Pagespeed Insights, GT Metrix, or Web Page Test to analyze and improve your site's speed.

11. Incorporate A/B testing & feedback

When your website's bounce rate is climbing, and you're unsure why, turn to ruttl for an expert second opinion. ruttl transforms your website design process into an interactive, collaborative experience.

With ruttl, you simply enter your website’s URL onto the platform and generate an interactive version of your site. Share this with your team members, clients, or other reviewers through a unique shareable link or email invite.

Reviewers can dive straight into your site without needing a separate login. They can provide feedback directly on the design elements, fostering a clear, context-based review process that’s easy to implement. This greatly reduces the friction often associated with feedback emails, allowing everyone to focus on identifying and addressing design concerns efficiently.

Once you've identified problem areas, you can use ruttl's real-time editing feature to make changes and test variations of your website design. You can conduct A/B testing and gather relevant metrics to determine which design variant performs the best.

ruttl aims to make the design feedback and testing process as seamless as possible, facilitating faster, more efficient website design refinement. ruttl's main goal is to integrate your needs of website design best practices through its tools.

Get Started

And there you have it!

Even if you meticulously follow all the web design best practices, you might be caught in a whirlwind of client revisions. It's part of the job, isn't it?

But who says it has to be as complicated as a Rubik's cube?

That's where ruttl steps in!

We've crafted ruttl to make your website review and approval process smoother than a well-oiled machine. Say goodbye to those nerve-racking back-and-forths with clients or your review team. Jump into the world of ruttl and watch as we simplify your web design review process.

Best Illustration Tools for Web Designers in 2023

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 09:37:21 GMT

In the ever-evolving landscape of web content, the significance of illustrations cannot be overstated. These visual elements, including illustrations, infographics, and images, play a pivotal role in enriching the user experience and making content more captivating and easily comprehensible. However, their impact goes beyond mere aesthetics; illustrations possess a unique power to evoke emotions and effectively communicate intricate messages. As we embark on this journey of exploration into various illustration tools, we are bound to unveil the vast potential they hold in transforming mere ideas into compelling works of art.

A well-crafted illustration has the remarkable ability to transcend barriers of language and culture, speaking to audiences on a universal level. Through a clever combination of visual elements, an illustrator can create a narrative that resonates with people from all walks of life. Whether it's a simple sketch or a complex infographic, illustrations bridge the gap between words and emotions, allowing brands and creators to forge deep connections with their viewers. By embracing the realm of illustrations, content creators can open new dimensions of expression and captivate their audience like never before.

Understanding the Power of Illustrations

Before we explore the realm of illustration tools, let's grasp the significance of illustrations in web content. Visual elements such as illustrations, infographics, and images enrich the user experience, making the content more appealing and easy to comprehend. Additionally, visuals have a wonderful capacity for waking up feelings and clearly expressing sophisticated ideas.

1. Adobe Illustrator - The Industry Leader

When it comes to illustration tools, Adobe Illustrator stands tall as the undisputed champion. This powerful software caters to both beginners and seasoned professionals, offering a diverse array of features. You may make masterpieces using the user-friendly interface and a wide range of design options, from straightforward icons to detailed graphics. The use of vectors ensures that your artwork remains scalable and maintains top-notch quality.

2. Affinity Designer - The Rising Star

In recent times, Affinity Designer has emerged as a rising star, gaining significant popularity among illustrators and designers. This robust software boasts an impressive set of tools and functionalities that rival those of Adobe Illustrator. One standout feature is its real-time performance, enabling seamless design without any lags. Furthermore, Affinity Designer is available at an affordable one-time purchase, making it a cost-effective choice for illustrators.

3. Procreate - Unleash Your Creativity on the iPad

For those who prefer creating illustrations on the go, Procreate is a game-changer. This app, exclusively available on the iPad, offers a remarkable drawing and painting experience. With its vast collection of brushes and intuitive interface, Procreate allows you to bring your artistic visions to life with ease. Its ability to handle high-resolution artwork makes it a favorite among illustrators and concept artists.

4. Canva - Simplicity and Versatility Combined

Catering to a broader audience, Canva provides quick and straightforward solutions for both casual users and professionals. It offers a wide range of pre-designed templates, making it easy to create eye-catching illustrations without starting from scratch. Canva's drag-and-drop functionality and extensive library of elements make it an excellent choice for creating social media graphics, blog headers, and presentations.

5. Inkscape - Open-Source Freedom

If you seek a powerful open-source vector graphics editor without any cost, Inkscape is the perfect choice. This software offers a wide range of drawing tools and supports advanced features like alpha blending and node editing. Despite being free, Inkscape delivers professional-grade results, making it an ideal option for those on a budget.

6. Sketch - Focused on User Interface

As its name suggests, Sketch is primarily tailored for user interface and web designers. Its intuitive interface and extensive plugin ecosystem make it a top choice for creating website layouts and app designs. Although Sketch is available only on macOS, it remains an indispensable tool for designers aiming to create pixel-perfect illustrations for web and mobile platforms.

7. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite - A Classic Redefined

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite has been a long-standing competitor in the illustration software market. It offers a comprehensive set of tools for vector illustration, layout, and photo editing. With its recent updates, CorelDRAW has reestablished itself as a formidable contender, providing illustrators with a reliable platform to unleash their creativity.

8. Gravit Designer - A Cross-Platform Marvel

Gravit Designer stands out as a versatile illustration tool that works seamlessly across multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and the web. Its powerful set of features and support for multiple file formats make it an excellent choice for collaborative projects. With Gravit Designer's cloud-based capabilities, sharing and synchronizing work across devices becomes a breeze.

Adding Text to Images

Incorporating text into your visuals can further enhance their impact and message. Many illustration tools, such as Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, and Procreate, offer text editing features that allow you to add meaningful quotes, headings, or descriptions to your artwork. If you are looking for a free option this tool could be helpful!

Besides, utilizing the right fonts, sizes, and placements can help create a harmonious balance between the visual and textual elements, making your content more engaging and shareable.

Conclusion

Illustrations have rightfully become an indispensable part of modern communication, and understanding their significance is paramount in creating captivating and impactful content. Throughout our exploration, we have witnessed the extraordinary capabilities of various illustration tools, each catering to diverse needs and skill levels. From the industry titan, Adobe Illustrator, to the emerging star, Affinity Designer, and the versatile powerhouse, Procreate, these tools offer an array of possibilities for unleashing creativity. Moreover, the simplicity of Canva, the freedom of Inkscape, the UI focus of Sketch, and the redefined classic, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, broaden the horizon even further. Let us not forget the cross-platform marvel, Gravit Designer, which exemplifies collaboration in the digital age.

Regardless of the chosen tool, integrating text with illustrations adds depth and enhances overall impact and engagement. As we embrace this diversity of options, illustrators and designers are empowered to push boundaries and turn imagination into stunning reality. The realm of illustrations is ever-expanding, providing fertile ground for creative minds to flourish, leaving an indelible mark on the canvas of visual storytelling.

Top 22 Web Design Trends in 2024

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 11:13:29 GMT

As we venture into 2023, web design and product design have seen rapid transformations. The past year, 2022, has gifted us with the modernization of innovative web design trends. And they've undoubtedly changed the game.

But now it's time to look forward.

Now, as we step into the second half of 2023, these shifting currents continue to shape the web design landscape. This year, we're witnessing an amalgamation of nostalgia-invoking elements and forward-thinking design principles.

And the beauty of it all? It's not just about aesthetics. It's also about enhancing user experiences, building accessibility, and fostering inclusivity. All with the power of design.

This year is all about making websites more engaging, accessible, and user-centric than ever before. Each trend we explore offers unique opportunities to connect with diverse audiences and cultivate an enriching digital environment.

So, let’s talk about the top 22 web design trends that have started to redefine our digital journey in 2023.

Top 22 web design trends in 2024

1. 3D Elements and Graphics

3D isn't just for blockbuster films anymore. It's a web design trend that's taking 2023 by storm. As screen technology evolves, so does the way we design for it. Enter the world of 3D.

Whether it's a fully immersive 3D layout or subtle 3D elements, this trend adds depth and dimension to your website. The result? A visually stimulating experience that's hard to forget.

The website of Chirpley and the resume of Eric Moreu demonstrate the use of unique 3D elements and perfectly encapsulate this design trend.

However, remember that 3D graphics can be resource-intensive. So optimize for performance to ensure a smooth and enjoyable user experience.

2. The resurgence of Brutalism

2023 is starting off boldly with the brutalism design trend. It's about stripping web design to its most raw and bare elements. As a reaction to the soft and polished look, brutalism is all about rough edges, bold color schemes, and unique typography.

This isn't your average design trend. It's daring. It's in your face. It's unapologetic. The website of Bloomberg is pioneering the brutalism trend, turning heads and challenging norms.

But beware! This trend is a double-edged sword. When done right, it's captivating. But it can be off-putting if overdone. It's all about striking the perfect balance.

3. Dark Mode Design

Dark mode is making a comeback, and it's bigger than ever in 2023. With platforms like LinkedIn, Shopify, and even Apple hopping on the dark mode train, it's not surprising that websites are following suit.

Today, about 4 out of every 5 people use dark mode on their phones. Dark mode is not just a cool aesthetic choice. It also has tangible benefits. It reduces screen glare, saves battery life, and is easier on the eyes—a boon for those night owls who burn the midnight oil.

As an added bonus, it pops out your design elements, giving your site a sleek and modern look.

4. Loaded Animations

Once a forgotten relic of the web's early days, loading animations return in 2023. Thanks to the growing popularity of interactive, animated, and immersive website designs, loading screens resurface as a creative avenue to engage with viewers and embed brand identity.

Waiting for a page to load is universally hated, but loading animations can transform this into an engaging experience.

Take Antonio Segurado's site, for example. His loading animation presents a warm introduction to visitors, showcasing simplicity while providing a welcoming touch. Then there's Cory Runnells's website, crafting a full-fledged narrative. It pulls you into a cityscape with an animated zoom-out, introduces Cory in a superhero avatar, and narrates his expertise via a comic strip.

Loading animations make waiting less of a chore and more of an experience.

5. Microinteractions

microinteractions(//images.ctfassets.net/0qbbph04pomv/3zBwSsqloh5nO8iYksN0ey/c6d598d26eaf9bd5b971b674a527326f/microinteractions.png)

Microinteractions are small, subtle animations or design elements that respond to user actions. They're the unsung heroes of user experience that often go unnoticed when done right but make a huge impact nonetheless.

Microinteractions provide immediate feedback, guide users, and make the web experience more satisfying and intuitive. They can be anything from a subtle button animation to a catchy loading indicator.

In 2023, more websites will incorporate microinteractions to enrich the user experience and promote user engagement. Websites like Stripe and Google have masterfully used microinteractions to enhance their UX.

6. Horizontal Scrolling

Throwing a curveball to traditional vertical scrolling, horizontal scrolling is making waves in 2023. This trend opens up new avenues of creativity, allowing designers to play around with content display and navigation.

Horizontal scrolling can be a powerful design choice when used correctly. It works best with visual-heavy and linear content, like portfolios or photo galleries. The Neverland design agency has presented a full round view of an imaginary artwork that you can see with horizontal scrolling.

However, it's crucial to ensure that horizontal scrolling doesn't disrupt the user experience. Clear cues should be provided so users do not get confused or miss out on important content.

7. Parallax Scrolling Effects

Parallax scrolling continues to captivate web designers in 2023. This technique involves the background moving slower than the foreground, creating a 3D effect as you scroll down the page. This gives your website a sense of depth and makes the user experience more engaging.

When used sparingly, it can lead to truly stunning visuals. However, ensure it doesn't compromise your website's performance or accessibility.

8. Maximalism

Gone are the days when minimalism ruled the web design world. In 2023, Maximalism is taking center stage. It's all about abundance and extravagance—more colors, textures, images, and typefaces.

This trend enables brands to make bold statements and let their personalities shine. But remember, while maximalism encourages 'more', it shouldn't compromise usability. Use this trend with care.

“Digital maximalism is a trend that has evolved and intensified since Covid… all those intense, bottled-up emotions are rushing to the surface in the shape of maximalism and anti-design.”

Moran Kadussi, Content Strategy Lead and Trends Foresight at Wix

Fashion brands like Gucci have embraced maximalism in their web design, creating a loud and memorable digital presence.

9. Grid Lines

2023 sees a rising trend of using grid lines for web design, as they offer a sense of order and simplicity. Grid lines create an aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-digest layout to make websites look modern and futuristic.

The Foundations for a Better Oregon website is a prime example of how effective grid lines can be.

10. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes a splash like no other in the vast sea of tech innovation. Though some fear AI might replace creatives, it opens a universe of new possibilities.

AI tools are becoming game-changers in UX and UI design. One evident manifestation is the chatbot design - a vital tool for 24/7 customer engagement, where visual appeal meets functionality.

AI's influence isn't limited to creating AI-powered elements. It's about harnessing technology to streamline design processes. For instance, AI can swiftly incorporate standard UI components from a design library in prototyping. This dramatically cuts down the time to market.

11. Y2K Inspired Design

The Y2K aesthetic continues to be a popular design trend in 2023, offering a nostalgic vibe. This playful aesthetic is making its way into the web design sphere, with websites incorporating elements of the Y2K style.

Singer and actress Olivia Rodrigo's website provides a perfect example of a Y2K-inspired design.

12. Premium/Gated Content Experiences

2023 sees creators and businesses acknowledging the worth of memberships, premium experiences, and gated content. The wave of Web3, the decentralization of the web, has propagated the idea of more control and monetary benefits through valuable content creation.

Creators are opting for independence, favoring ownership of their content portals. Similarly, businesses eyeing recession resilience are moving towards premium content and gated memberships for an extra income stream from their websites

For instance, WordStream provides various gated content experiences from marketing phrases and words for content writers to Google Ads benchmark reports.

The trend is clear: Own your content, gate it, and drive value from it. The era of memberships and premium experiences is here.

13. Scrapbook Aesthetic

In 2023, we see a resurgence of the scrapbook aesthetic in web design with a modern, interactive twist. This trend involves using images and other elements arranged in a scrapbook-like layout, creating an engaging and nostalgic atmosphere.

The Gucci website showcases this trend beautifully with its interactive, scrapbook-style layout.

14. Gamified Design

Gamified design, adding game-like interactive elements to websites, is one of the top trends of 2023. Websites can incorporate gamification to create unique and memorable user experiences.

Our bug tracking page provides an example of gamified design. The user can play a bug-squashing game before starting out with the product. This creates a fun element to the whole web design.

15. Augmented Reality Experiences

Image sourced from Dribbble

In 2023, the boundary between the physical and digital worlds is blurrier than ever, thanks to Augmented Reality (AR). AR is about integrating digital information with the user's real-world environment, creating an interactive and immersive experience.

Brands use AR to engage with their users creatively and innovatively, from virtual try-ons to interactive product showcases. Dulux, for instance, lets users visualize how the paint would look on their walls and transform their space, before making a purchase.

Although AR technology is still evolving, it holds great potential for enhancing user engagement and conversion rates.

16. Drag interaction

Interactivity has leveled up in 2023, and Drag Interactions lead the way. They deliver an immersive experience where users hold the reins of their journey. This trend takes a leaf out of real-world interactions and translates it into a digital context—allowing users to virtually 'pick up' and 'move' objects on the screen.

This gesture-based interaction amplifies user engagement, especially gaining traction in e-commerce and portfolio sites. A stellar example is the project of a Viennese newspaper Falter, where the audience can travel through different chapters by pulling and dragging the curtain.

What's more? The transition and animations correspond to the drag speed and amplify the sense of control.

17. Structured Typography

Structured Typography emerged as a powerful design trend in 2023, gaining traction among businesses aiming to make bold and impactful homepage statements.

Amid the post-pandemic world where consumers seek stability, structured typography serves as a beacon of strength and assurance. It is characterized by capitalized letters and robust shapes.

A prime illustration of this trend is seen on the Awwwards homepage. The use of structured fonts is impressive, drawing in the visitors' attention to the crucial elements effortlessly. By dictating where the viewer's eyes should land, this design tactic ensures that your key messages don't get lost in the noise.

Structured Typography is more than just a visual play; it's a strategic tool that guides user attention to reinforce your brand's authority and gravitas.

18. Unique cursors

2023 sees a fun throwback to the 90s and early 2000s - the return of unique cursors. This time, however, they're back without the hassle of cursor packs and potential malware.

This is where custom cursors add an engaging twist to the user experience. They can be original icons or dynamic effects that enrich interactivity on your site.

Take the example of Thinkingbox. It features an orange cursor with a shadow effect which cleverly turns into the symbol of an eye as it moves or rests on the videos.

19. Custom typefaces

In the recent wave of text-centric web designs, custom typefaces and handmade lettering emerge as a creative spin-off in 2023.

Designers increasingly craft unique typefaces or lettering for their projects, lending a signature touch and setting them apart. As an evolution of the existing trend, it brings an entirely new layer of originality to the table.

The beauty of this trend lies in its customization - no design rules, no standard styles. It reflects a designer's personal touch, drawing influences from anywhere - be it poster designs, graphic novels, or real-life inspirations.

Tré Seals’ website provides a compelling example. His striking visual impact stems from his original typefaces. The website resembles bold and eye-catching posters and showcases the power of custom typefaces.

20. Metaverse

The metaverse is an interactive digital universe which is marking its impression in web design in 2023. It's more than just a trending topic - it's becoming an integral part of the visual vocabulary in web design.

Every component of the metaverse, from illustrations to cursors, contributes to a unified digital world. It's not just about embedding a 3D element into a webpage anymore. The metaverse-inspired designs are about creating an immersive 3D style for the entire site.

They go beyond aesthetics, incorporating interactive features and animations. It's about making the site more engaging, and alive.

Take Betterverse by Studio Morfar for instance. This blockchain platform uses animated effects and pixelated trees to bring unity to the site content, background, and illustrations. This is how the metaverse infuses life into web design.

21. Customizable Viewing Experience

The shift towards personalization on the web is remarkable. More sites are offering customized viewing experiences, a trend set to flourish in 2023. The thrust is on designing experiences that cater to user preferences and needs.

Website building platforms now empower designers with tools to enable users to customize site features. It is reflective of the growing awareness of accessibility. Features like sound and dark mode enhance user-friendliness for various needs.

People resonate with sites that cater to their tastes and offer interactions and designs they can modify. This trend of customizable viewing experiences evolves from the popularity of interactive features and sites-as-games.

For instance, Sephora allows users to tailor their web experience by setting their beauty preferences and other such details that could affect their decision-making.

22. Cinemagraphs

Motion plays a crucial role in web design trends, with cinemagraphs taking center stage in 2023. Cinemagraphs are high-quality GIFs or videos running in a smooth, ceaseless loop. They infuse life and visual interest into otherwise still pages.

Previously, full-screen loops were prevalent, but this year, expect to witness smaller animations sprinkled throughout complex layouts. These additions effectively attract the reader's eye and foster scrolling. Gallereplay, an online video content provider, exemplifies this application.

Simply put, cinemagraphs can guide a visitor's eye across a page, even within the most intricate layouts. This motion trend will bring a new dimension of interactivity and dynamism to web design.

Conclusion

So there you have it, folks! As we move ahead, it's clear that the web design world will be anything but dull.

We've seen a broad spectrum of styles, from the nostalgic Y2K-inspired design and Scrapbook aesthetics to the orderly Grid Lines and playful Gamified designs.

You don't need to use all of these trends on your website. Pick what fits your brand the best. Once you're done with the web design, it's important to get feedback from your team or your clients. In that case, you can use visual feedback and collaboration tool like ruttl, which allows you to leave comments and edit live websites, apps, PDFs, and more. Sign up today!

Innovation is the name of the game. And with these web design trends, you will surely be on the right track!

Mastering Web Development: 10 Key Trends In 2023

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 11:34:49 GMT

Web development is an ever-evolving field that requires constant adaptation to stay ahead of the curve. As technology advances and user expectations change, developers must embrace new trends to deliver exceptional user experiences.

Here are the top 10 Web development trends to stay ahead of the curve -

1. Responsive Design

Responsive design has become a fundamental aspect of web development. With over half of internet users accessing websites through smartphones and tablets, developers need to ensure that websites adapt seamlessly to various screen sizes and resolutions.

Responsive design allows developers to create fluid layouts, flexible images, and dynamic navigation systems that provide an optimal viewing experience across different devices. By embracing responsive design principles and employing frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation, developers can future-proof their websites and cater to the needs of mobile and desktop users alike.

2. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Progressive Web Apps combine the best of web and mobile app experiences, blurring the line between websites and native applications. PWAs offer users the advantages of offline accessibility, push notifications, and app-like interactions, all within the browser.

With technologies like service workers and web app manifests, developers can create PWAs that function seamlessly across devices and provide a native app-like experience. By embracing PWAs, web developers can bridge the gap between traditional websites and native applications, delivering fast, engaging, and reliable experiences to users.

3. Voice User Interface (VUI)

Voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri have become increasingly popular, revolutionizing the way users interact with technology. Voice User Interfaces (VUI) allow users to interact with websites and applications through voice commands, providing a hands-free and convenient experience.

Integrating voice commands into web development requires the ability to leverage technologies like speech recognition and natural language processing. By incorporating VUI into their projects, developers can cater to the increasing demand for voice-enabled interactions and create more accessible and inclusive websites.

4. Enhancing Website Visuals

Visual appeal plays a crucial role in web development, capturing users' attention and effectively conveying messages. Ensuring captivating and aesthetically aligned visuals on a website is essential.

Collaborating with professionals who specialize in enhancing website visuals can significantly elevate the overall design. By partnering with skilled individuals in this field, web developers can deliver stunning visual experiences that engage users and leave a lasting impression.

5. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Integration

Artificial Intelligence has become a transformative force in many industries, including web development. AI-powered technologies such as chatbots, recommendation engines, and personalized content delivery systems can enhance user experience and streamline website functionality.

By harnessing the power of machine learning and data analysis, developers can create intelligent websites that adapt to individual user preferences, provide personalized recommendations, and automate tasks. Incorporating AI into web development opens up new possibilities for creating dynamic, interactive, and efficient websites.

6. Low-Code/No-Code Development

Low-code and no-code development platforms have gained significant traction, empowering individuals with limited coding experience to create functional websites and applications. These platforms provide visual interfaces, drag-and-drop functionality, and pre-built modules to simplify the development process.

Low-code/no-code tools enable developers to quickly prototype ideas, streamline development cycles, and collaborate with non-technical team members. This allows for faster development and deployment of projects, making it easier for businesses and entrepreneurs to create their digital presence. While low-code/no-code tools have their limitations, they offer an opportunity for web developers to explore new ways of working, focus more on complex and customized development tasks, and better streamline their workflows.

7. Single Page Applications (SPAs)

Unlike traditional multi-page websites, Single Page Applications load content dynamically, allowing users to navigate within the website without page reloads. This is achieved through the use of JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular, or Vue.js.

SPAs offer fast and responsive experiences by fetching data from the server and updating specific portions of the page, resulting in quicker load times and smoother interactions. Additionally, SPAs provide offline capabilities, allowing users to access previously loaded content even without an internet connection. By adopting SPAs, web developers can create highly engaging and functional websites that mimic the fluidity of native applications.

8. Web Accessibility

Web accessibility has become a crucial aspect of web development, focusing on ensuring that websites are usable by individuals with disabilities. Accessible websites accommodate a diverse range of users, including those with visual impairments, hearing impairments, motor disabilities, or cognitive disabilities.

Implementing web accessibility involves adhering to standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which provide recommendations for making websites perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users.

Web developers can integrate accessibility features such as alternative text for images, keyboard navigation, proper heading structure, and color contrast ratios to enhance usability for individuals with disabilities. By prioritizing web accessibility, developers can create inclusive digital experiences and cater to a broader audience.

9. Cybersecurity and Privacy

As technology advances, cybersecurity and user privacy have become critical considerations for web developers. Implementing robust security measures – such as SSL certificates, secure login systems, and encryption protocols – helps safeguard user data and build trust.

Developers also need to stay updated on privacy regulations like the GDPR and CCPA to ensure compliance and protect user privacy rights. By building secure websites, developers can foster trust, safeguard user data, and protect against potential threats.

10. Dark Mode

Dark mode has gained popularity in recent years, offering users an alternative color scheme that uses dark backgrounds with light-colored text and elements. This trend not only provides a visually appealing experience but also offers practical benefits such as reduced eye strain, improved readability, and increased battery life for devices with OLED screens.

Implementing dark mode requires using CSS media queries and incorporating toggle switches to allow users to switch between modes easily. By embracing dark mode, web developers can enhance the aesthetic appeal of their websites and cater to user preferences for a more comfortable browsing experience.

Become an Industry Leader and Help Drive Innovation

To stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of web development, web developers and designers must embrace the latest trends and technologies. By mastering the principles we’ve outlined, developers can create cutting-edge websites that cater to the evolving needs of users.

These trends empower developers to craft engaging, secure, and inclusive digital experiences that resonate with their target audience. By staying adaptable and continuously learning about emerging technologies, developers can establish themselves as leaders in the ever-evolving world of web development and drive innovation in the industry.

What is a Bug Report? A Comprehensive Guide

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 12:31:05 GMT

When we talk about the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words", it usually holds true, except when we're talking about bug reporting in QA and web design.

Sure, a screenshot might show a problem, but without precise context or clear-cut explanations, it could leave your developers scratching their heads instead of fixing issues. It's not just about pointing at a problem; it's about comprehensively articulating what's missing.

That's precisely where bug reports come in. These detailed 'problem portraits' aim to speed up resolution by effectively combining visuals with comprehensive descriptions.

And how do we generate such elaborate reports without breaking a sweat?

Well, that's when bug tracking tools come onto the stage. Not only do these useful tools streamline the QA testing process, but they also simplify the task of gathering feedback from clients.

A bug report is more than a mere objection; it's a powerful tool for efficient communication, improvement, and progress.

Considering how effective bug reports can be for your web design and development endeavors, here's everything you need to know about bug reports.

What is a Bug Report?

A bug report, often known as an issue, or fault report, is a record documenting a software bug in a software development project. It generally provides details about a problem identified with the system or software application.

Without it, developers would find themselves lost in the maze of code, struggling to track down these elusive malfunctions.

Thankfully, beta users and testers can be invaluable in creating detailed bug reports that developers can use to fix software issues.

Each bug report should:

Have a concise, focused narrative dedicated to a single specific bug
Convey a crystal clear message
Paint an accurate picture of the environment
Outlining the user steps necessary to replicate the bug

If these critical pieces of the puzzle are missing, developers will find it impossible to fix the bug.

Crafting an Effective Bug Report

The cornerstone of a good bug report lies in providing developers with all the necessary information. When you're preparing to write a bug report, bear in mind the following key questions:

What issue are you addressing?
How can the developer trace the issue?
Where in the website/app did you stumble upon the issue?
In what environment (browser, device, or OS) did the issue occur?

Keeping these considerations in mind, your bug report should include the following sections:

1. Title or Bug ID

The title of a bug report serves as a quick, easily digestible summary of the issue. It should encapsulate the essence of the problem at a glance, such as "Pixelated text in taglines."

Alternatively, assigning unique bug IDs allows for efficient referencing and tracking. It’s important, especially in large projects where the team may simultaneously discover and deal with multiple bugs.

2. Environment

The term "environment" refers to the specific conditions under which the bug was discovered. Bugs often behave differently depending on various factors, such as:

The device used (e.g., iPhone 11, Samsung Galaxy S21)
The operating system (e.g., Windows 10, iOS 14)
The software version (e.g., Chrome 96.0, Firefox 85.0)
The connection strength (e.g., 4G, Wi-Fi)

Identifying and describing the environment accurately can help developers reproduce the bug and find its cause more effectively.

3. Steps to Reproduce the Bug

This is the 'map' that guides the developer to experience the bug firsthand. You should include a clear, step-by-step description of your actions leading to the bug's discovery. The more precise these steps are, the more likely it is that the developer will be able to reproduce the bug and understand its nature.

4. Expected Outcome

This section describes how the software or application should ideally behave when encountering a bug. It provides important context and clarifies what 'normal' looks like, which helps the developer understand the deviation caused by the bug.

5. Actual Outcome

Here, you detail what happened when the bug occurred.

Did the interface crash?
Was the user action obstructed?
Did an error message pop up?
Was the software unresponsive?

This section highlights the discrepancy between the expected and actual outcomes, providing crucial insight into the bug's impact.

6. Visual Evidence

Visual aids like screenshots and screen recordings serve as tangible proof of the bug and its effects. They provide a direct visual context that can significantly aid in understanding and reproducing the issue. It's much easier to comprehend a problem when you can see it rather than just read about it.

7. Severity and Priority

This is where you indicate the seriousness of the bug and how urgently it needs to be fixed. Severity refers to the bug's impact on the system, while priority is about its importance in the development process. These rankings help the development team prioritize their tasks. It ensures that critical bugs are addressed first and that resources are efficiently allocated.

Following this bug report template can really help developers. Whether you're a tester or a beta tester, this structured approach will facilitate a more efficient debugging process for your team.

Sample bug report in ruttl -

The Benefits of a Good Bug Report

A well-constructed bug report can be a game-changer in the software development process. It offers an array of benefits that streamline the entire development cycle, making it more efficient, effective, and successful.

Here are some of the key benefits that a good bug report brings to the table:

1. Improved Communication

A good bug report serves as a clear and concise line of communication between the testers, developers, and other stakeholders. It provides all the necessary details about the problem in a structured and understandable manner. Thus, it ensures everyone is on the same page regarding the bug's nature, severity, and steps to reproduce it.

2. Efficient Problem Resolution

With detailed steps to reproduce the issue and clear illustrations of the problem, a well-written bug report allows developers to quickly identify and understand the problem. This accelerates the debugging process and helps in quicker resolution, saving valuable time and resources.

3. Prioritization of Tasks

A good bug report indicates the severity and priority of the bug to help the team prioritize their tasks effectively. Critical bugs that heavily impact the user experience can be addressed first, ensuring the development process remains user-centric.

4. Facilitates Learning and Improvement

A good bug report is not just about problem identification; it also contributes to learning and continuous improvement. Teams can analyze bug reports to identify recurring issues, discover areas for improvement, and take preventive measures to reduce similar bugs in the future.

5. Enhances Product Quality

The main goal of a bug report is to improve the quality of the product. The bug report directly contributes to the enhancement of product performance and reliability by identifying and enabling the rectification of bugs. It leads to higher user satisfaction and a better market reputation.

6. Encourages Accountability

With a well-documented report, tracking the progress of bug resolution is easier, encouraging accountability within the team. Every bug has an assigned person who is responsible for its correction. This promotes a culture of ownership and responsibility.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Efficiently Resolving Bug Reports

Here’s a simple, clear, and direct approach to bug reporting. Follow these six steps to help the development team swiftly and efficiently address and rectify software bugs.

Bug Tracking Workflow in ruttl

1. Clarify the Problem

Your bug report should begin by describing the issue for the developers accurately and briefly. A significant number of reports fall short of accurately conveying the bug. Instead, be specific about the bug's behavior, how it arose, and the actions that triggered its appearance. Only then does it qualify as a bug report.

2. Create Separate Reports for Different Bugs

Merging multiple bug issues into one report can create confusion and misunderstandings. Creating individual reports for each bug is preferable, allowing for a more detailed description of each issue, which is a boon for developers tasked with rectifying them.

3. Detail the Reproduction of the Bug

A bug needs to be reproducible; if it doesn't consistently occur, it's likely not a bug. Being able to replicate the issue not only strengthens your report but also aids developers in their efforts to address it.

4. Remain Available Post-Reporting

A bug report doesn't end with its submission. Often, developers may need additional information or clarification from the person who submitted the bug report. Remain available and responsive to ensure your report retains its value and effectiveness.

5. Provide Relevant Error Codes

If an error message or code accompanies the bug, include this in your report. This information can be a valuable help for software developers in identifying and understanding the issue, guiding them towards a swift resolution.

6. Supply Visual Evidence

While written information is crucial, visual evidence can significantly enhance a bug report. Consider adding screen recordings or screenshots to your report to provide a more tangible understanding of the issue.

Good bug report vs. Bad bug report

You may be asking yourself, "What distinguishes a good bug report from a bad one, and why does it seem like there are far more of the latter out there?"

The difference between the two can significantly affect the efficiency and success of any software project.

Let's explore the hallmarks of both good and bad bug reports.

A good bug report

Essential Information: It encapsulates all the necessary details to reproduce and rectify the issue.
Efficient Communication: It is an effective communication channel for both the reporter and the receiver. This way, developers get a quick understanding of the issue.
Quick Resolution: The information provided allows the bug to be resolved promptly.
Directed Appropriately: It is sent directly to the responsible party for swift action.
Structured Filing: It follows a defined method for submission that helps in efficient tracking and resolution.
Fosters Collaboration: It is a foundation for collective problem-solving and enhances team dynamics.

A bad bug report

Lacks Essential Information: It misses crucial details to identify, reproduce, or fix the problem.
Inefficient Communication: The report is wordy and unclear. It wastes time for all parties involved.
Resolution Stalls: The bug never gets resolved due to the lack of clarity and completeness.
No Specific Information: The report lacks specificity, making it harder to understand.
Unstructured Filing: It is submitted haphazardly across different mediums, not adhering to the defined process (For instance, airing bugs on Twitter isn't the best way to get them fixed).
Hampers Collaboration: The lack of a common understanding prevents effective team collaboration or customer engagement.

To sum it up, a bug report is a comprehensive repository of all necessary information required to document, communicate, and resolve problems encountered in software or a website. It should be done efficiently and effectively for productive collaboration and swift resolution.

Bug reports and ruttl: The perfect match

When it comes to streamlining your web design process and bug reporting, ruttl and bug reports go together like peanut butter and jelly. They form the perfect pairing to bring you the ease and efficiency you need.

Imagine this. You're on your way to launching your website but encountering several glitches. Frustrating, right? That's where ruttl steps in.

ruttl is a brilliant visual feedback and collaboration tool. It simplifies and speeds up your web design revisions and bug reporting.

With ruttl, you can:

Report and track bugs efficiently: With ruttl, you can report bugs directly on live products. It eliminates the need for screenshots and Jira tickets.
Streamline bug tracking: Bugs reported on the website are directly added to the ruttl dashboard as tickets, making it easy to prioritize, assign, and set dates for bug resolution.
Collaborate with your team: ruttl sends notifications to your team members about reported bugs, allowing you to assign tasks, set deadlines, and prioritize them easily.
Report bugs on mobile apps: ruttl also allows you to collect bugs directly from your mobile apps in the form of comments.
Integrate with popular tools: You can integrate ruttl with tools such as Slack, Trello, Asana, ClickUp, Jira, or Zapier. This way, you can receive notifications for new tickets through your preferred tools.
Packed with features: Leave text and video comments for context; assign tickets and set deadlines; chat live with your team; stay up to date with notifications; and work on all browsers and mobile devices.
Better than screenshots or Excel sheets: ruttl offers a more efficient, streamlined way of tracking bugs, with the ability to report issues fast, solve them faster, and save time working smarter with your team.

When combined with detailed bug reports, ruttl transforms how your team works. Your developers get the clear, concise information they need. They can pinpoint the problem, reproduce it, and solve it swiftly.

In other words, ruttl takes the guesswork out of bug reports. And who doesn't love that?

So, give ruttl a try. Your web design workflow (and developers) will thank you for it.

Final Words

A bug report serves a critical role in software development. A well-written bug report can significantly streamline the process, leading to swift fixes and a better end product.

However, the process of creating an effective bug report can be overwhelming when you can’t find the bugs effectively.

That's where ruttl can transform how we handle bugs and bug reports. Its intuitive interface makes spotting and annotating issues a breeze. With real-time collaboration and feedback management, ruttl amplifies your team's efficiency.

Combining ruttl with a solid bug report elevates your bug tracking to a whole new level. Why not take the leap and give ruttl a try? Let ruttl simplify the bug-reporting process and take your web design projects from good to great.

Check in on ruttl's pricing. Happy bug hunting!

Everything You Need to Know About Upskilling

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 09:54:37 GMT

It’s 2023, and we are coming across newer technologies and things to grasp on. The digital landscape is constantly changing and if you want to get anywhere in your career then you need to upskill now! Well, many of you might not even be familiar with this new concept that has become more valuable than ever before. If you are lost and don’t know what we are talking about, then continue reading this article and you will have all your answers here!

What is Upskilling?

The process of an employee learning relevant skills to their job and improving them while learning some new ones is known as upskilling. These are the expertise that you need for staying current with your job environment and needs. It serves as a bridge connecting you to emerging skills within your professional field.

Upskilling can be offered to you by your employer, or you can also upskill on your own. It is not that hard. You just need to realize the market demand and look for information and courses related to that. All you need for these online classes would be a steady internet connection and services such as Spectrum Internet can ensure your seamless connectivity while keeping your concerns of dropping connections at bay.

Upskilling is the need of the hour. Since technology is at no rest and we witness the newest and most useful software or devices coming out almost every day, we need to stay at the top of our game at all times. Every individual must ensure that they are irreplaceable and no matter what technology comes out, they do have the necessary skills that would require their presence in the end.

As an employee, you get better skills added to your current ones that make you more equipped to fulfill your tasks rather efficiently. It is all about personal growth in the end.

Why Is It Important to Upskill?

You might be under the impression that you do not need to upskill and that life would go on as it has till now. Well, you cannot be further from being mistaken about this. It has to be your pressing priority, and if you don’t believe us then here’s why you must start thinking about it now.

1. Machines Are Ready to Take Over

You might think that we still have time until we see machines or AI taking over, but that's not really the case. With AI advancing at a rapid speed we must stay prepared and make sure that no matter even with the integration of machines in your job, your skills would still be a requirement for your organization.

For instance, as a content writer, AI writing tools are posing a great threat to the career. But if you acquire relevant skills that would blend well using AI tools, you can make your spot permanent in the market. Even though AI is here to automate most of the work, in the bottom line human presence would stay crucial nonetheless.

2. The World is Going Digital & Your Skills Must Too

Having digital skills has become more important than ever before. Be it related to Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, business analytics, or digital marketing, it is all digital! There is no way anyone can expect to grow in their careers without working on their digital skills. Don't overlook the potential of leveraging online platforms; they not only provide learning opportunities but also avenues for networking and even earning through referral commissions.

Prepare for the future by safeguarding your career! Do not let the constantly advancing technology be a hurdle to your growth, instead use it to your full advantage and make yourself indispensable.

3. Increase in Productivity

Upskilling is all about integrating technology with your existing skillset. This means you can improve your productivity at a great level if you successfully acquire all the relevant skills you need.

Whether bringing in technology for the automation of some repetitive tasks, or some quality checks, it can all become easy for you. This will help you succeed in your work and you can spend some time where your personalized skills are required hands-on.

Well, we see it all as only a win-win situation.

Ending Remarks

The technological landscape is changing constantly and we need to keep up, and sleeping on any opportunity of upskilling would be a grave mistake. Therefore, in order to continue to make yourself invaluable in your field you must upskill and be aware of all the changes happening around you. This will ultimately be beneficial for your career and will contribute to your success.

Mastering Dark Mode Design: A Comprehensive Guide

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 09:45:57 GMT

Dark mode design has emerged as a prominent trend in web design, offering a visually appealing and immersive experience to users. With its growing popularity, web designers need to understand the intricacies of implementing dark mode effectively. This comprehensive guide aims to provide web designers with valuable insights, best practices, and considerations for mastering dark mode design and delivering an exceptional user experience.

Understanding Dark Mode Design

Dark mode refers to a design scheme where the color palette of a website or application is primarily dark, featuring dark backgrounds and lighter text and UI elements. This design approach offers several benefits, including reduced eye strain, improved readability in low-light environments, and energy efficiency on devices with OLED or AMOLED screens.

To decide whether dark mode is suitable for your website, consider your target audience, the context of your content, and the overall brand aesthetic. While dark mode can enhance the visual appeal, it's essential to ensure readability and accessibility are not compromised.

Implementing Dark Mode in Web Design

Implementing dark mode in web design involves various techniques and considerations to ensure a seamless and visually appealing experience for users. In this section, we will explore different methods and tools for enabling dark mode, detecting user preference, dynamically switching between light and dark modes, as well as leveraging CSS frameworks and libraries for efficient implementation.

1. CSS Techniques for Enabling Dark Mode

CSS plays a crucial role in enabling dark mode on websites. Here are some key techniques to implement dark mode using CSS:

CSS Variables: Utilize CSS variables to define color schemes for both light and dark modes. By defining variables for background colors, text colors, and other design elements, you can easily switch between modes by changing the variable values.
Class Switching: Create separate CSS classes for light and dark modes. By toggling these classes dynamically, you can apply different styles based on the user's mode preference.
Prefers-Color-Scheme Media Query: Use the prefers-color-scheme media query to detect the user's preferred color scheme. This media query has values of dark and light and can be applied to specific CSS rules to adjust the design accordingly.

2. Using Media Queries to Detect User Preference

Media queries are a powerful tool to detect user preferences and adapt the design accordingly. In the context of dark mode, media queries can be used to identify if the user prefers a dark or light color scheme.

For example, you can use the following media query to target devices that prefer a dark color scheme:

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) { /* Apply styles for dark mode */ }

By combining this media query with CSS techniques mentioned earlier, you can dynamically switch between light and dark modes based on the user's preference.

Interesting read: How to Edit Websites Like A Pro (With No Coding Experience)

3. Switching Between Light and Dark Mode Dynamically

To provide users with the flexibility to switch between light and dark modes manually, you can implement a toggle switch or a settings option on your website. When users interact with the toggle or settings, you can store their preferences in local storage or cookies.

Upon storing the user's preference, you can apply the corresponding CSS styles to switch the entire website's appearance between light and dark modes. This dynamic switching allows users to choose their preferred mode based on their preferences or environmental conditions.

4. Leveraging CSS Frameworks and Libraries for Efficient Implementation

CSS frameworks and libraries can significantly simplify the process of implementing dark mode in web design. Many popular frameworks, such as Bootstrap and Tailwind CSS, provide built-in support for dark mode.

These frameworks offer predefined classes and components that can be easily applied to enable dark mode on your website. By leveraging these CSS frameworks and libraries, you can save time and effort in implementing dark mode while ensuring consistency and compatibility across different browsers and devices.

Remember to choose a framework or library that aligns with your project requirements and offers extensive documentation and community support.

Best Practices for Dark Mode Design

In this section, we will explore key considerations and recommendations for selecting color schemes, adapting typography, handling images and media, as well as customizing UI elements for dark mode consistency.

1. Selecting Appropriate Color Schemes and Contrast Ratios

Contrast Ratios: Ensure sufficient contrast between text and background colors for improved readability. Use tools like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) contrast ratio calculator to check if your chosen color combinations meet accessibility standards. Aim for a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for regular text and 3:1 for large text.
Subdued Color Palette: Opt for darker hues and muted tones for dark mode color schemes. Avoid overly bright or saturated colors, as they can cause eye strain and visual discomfort in dark environments. Soft grays, deep blues, and muted greens are popular choices for dark-mode designs.
Accents and Highlights: Use contrasting accent colors or highlights sparingly to draw attention to important elements. This can provide visual interest and hierarchy within your dark mode design while maintaining overall coherence.

2. Adapting Typography and Text Styles for Readability

Font Color: Choose lighter shades for text in dark mode to ensure readability. White or light gray text on a dark background often works well. Avoid using pure white for text, as it can create excessive contrast and strain the eyes.
Font Size: Increase the font size slightly in dark mode to compensate for reduced contrast. This adjustment enhances legibility and ensures that the text remains clear and easy to read.
Font Weight: Consider using slightly bolder font weights in dark mode to enhance visibility. Thicker fonts can help counteract the reduced contrast between text and background.

3. Handling Images and Media in Dark Mode

Image Adjustment: Optimize images for dark mode by adjusting brightness, contrast, and saturation. Darken images slightly to ensure they blend harmoniously with the dark background. This ensures a cohesive visual experience throughout the website.
Background Images: If your website uses background images, ensure they are compatible with both light and dark modes. Consider employing a dynamic background image that adjusts based on the selected mode, or choose images that work well in both color schemes.
Icons and Graphics: Update icons and graphics to maintain visibility in dark mode. Ensure that they have adequate contrast against the dark background and consider using lighter variations or outlines to enhance visibility.

4. Customizing UI Elements for Dark Mode Consistency

Buttons and Links: Use distinct colors for buttons and links to make them stand out and encourage interaction. Use contrasting shades or accent colors to ensure visibility and affordance.
Forms and Input Fields: Apply appropriate styling to form elements to ensure they remain visible and usable in dark mode. Use subtle background colors and contrasting border colors to distinguish input fields, checkboxes, and radio buttons.
Navigation and Menus: Enhance visibility and clarity in dark mode navigation menus by using clear, legible text and well-defined icons. Ensure that the active or selected menu items are distinguishable from the rest.

User Experience Considerations for Dark Mode

Dark mode not only impacts the aesthetics of a website but also plays a significant role in user experience. In this section, we will explore important considerations for dark mode.

1. Impact of Dark Mode on Visual Ergonomics and Eye Strain

Dark mode can provide a more comfortable viewing experience, particularly in low-light environments. By reducing the amount of emitted light and minimizing glare, dark mode can help alleviate eye strain and improve visual ergonomics. However, it's crucial to strike the right balance between dark backgrounds and legible content to ensure optimal readability.

2. Adjusting User Interfaces for Seamless Transition Between Modes

To enhance user experience, it's important to ensure seamless transitions between light and dark modes. When implementing dark mode, pay attention to the following elements:

Smooth Transitions: Implement smooth and subtle animations when switching between modes to provide a seamless experience. Sudden and jarring transitions can be disorienting for users.
Consistent Branding: Maintain consistency in branding elements across both light and dark modes. Colors, logos, and visual elements should remain recognizable and aligned with the brand's identity.

3. Providing User Preference Options for Light or Dark Mode

Recognizing that user preferences can vary, it's beneficial to provide users with the ability to choose their preferred mode. Offer a toggle switch or settings option that allows users to switch between light and dark modes according to their preferences or environmental conditions. This flexibility empowers users to customize their browsing experience and increases satisfaction.

4. Testing and Gathering User Feedback for Iterative Improvements

Testing your dark mode design is essential to ensure its effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. Consider the following approaches:

Usability Testing: Conduct usability tests with representative users to gauge their experience with dark mode. Observe their interactions, gather feedback, and make iterative improvements based on their insights.
A/B Testing: Implement A/B tests to compare the performance and user satisfaction between light and dark modes. Analyze metrics such as engagement, conversion rates, and user feedback to determine the impact of dark mode on user behavior.
User Surveys and Feedback: Encourage users to provide feedback on their experience with dark mode. Use surveys, feedback forms, or user feedback tools to collect valuable insights and suggestions for further enhancements.
Use Customizable Previews: To streamline the process of gathering feedback and making design improvements, use a UI mockup tool that offers customizable previews. With the help of a UI mockup tool, you can create interactive prototypes of your dark mode design, allowing users to experience and provide feedback on the actual user interface.

Conclusion

Dark mode has become a popular design trend in web design, providing users with a visually appealing and comfortable browsing experience, especially in low-light environments. Throughout this comprehensive guide, we have explored various aspects of implementing dark mode in web design, including best practices, considerations for user experience, etc.

Mastering dark mode design requires a combination of technical implementation, attention to user experience, and a keen eye for aesthetics. By following best practices, leveraging CSS techniques, using media queries, and providing user preference options, you can create seamless and user-friendly dark mode experiences. Additionally, incorporating UI mockup tools into your design process can help you visualize and iterate on dark mode designs more efficiently.

In conclusion, dark mode design is a powerful tool that can enhance user experience and aesthetics in web design. By implementing the best practices outlined in this guide, considering user preferences, and staying informed about emerging trends, you can master the art of dark mode design and create visually stunning and user-friendly websites that cater to diverse user needs.

Top 19 Design Collaboration Tools of 2025

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 11:28:25 GMT

Great design is rarely a solo effort.

Creating compelling, user-friendly designs calls for the collective creativity of a skilled team. However, as with any collaborative project, it becomes complex to coordinate efforts, share ideas, and provide timely feedback.

Left unmanaged, these complexities can lead to miscommunications, delays, and less cohesive design output. This can then translate into a subpar user experience.

Enter design collaboration software—digital platforms that streamline the design collaboration process by facilitating seamless interaction, real-time feedback, and synchronized work among teams, regardless of location.

Ready to find out more about design collaboration tools and elevate your team's design workflow? Let's explore the top design collaboration tools of 2025!

What are design collaboration tools?

Collaboration tools refers to a category of digital tools and platforms that facilitate collaboration among individuals or teams involved in various aspects of the design process, such as graphic design, web design, product design, architecture, and more. Design collaboration tools are specifically tailored to the needs of designers and creative professionals, providing features and functionalities that streamline the design collaboration workflow.

How to select the best design collaboration tools for your business?

Here are the five main points to consider when selecting a collaboration tool for your business:

1. Identify specific needs for collaboration

Define your team's collaboration requirements, workflow challenges, file types (e.g., graphics, web designs, architectural drawings) and the software used to create them while selecting the design collaboration tools.

2. Set a budget for your software

Determine a budget for your design collaboration tools. Different tools come with varying pricing models, such as per-user licenses, monthly subscriptions, or one-time purchases.

3. Evaluate the features of prospective software

Prioritize essential features like real-time collaboration, integrations, and security while selecting the design collaboration tools.

4. Test the software with trials

Take advantage of free trials or demos offered by software providers to test the design collaboration tools with your team. This hands-on experience will help you understand how well each collaboration software option suits your needs.

5. Consider Integrations required for your collaboration process

Ensure the design collaboration tools integrates with your existing tools and can scale with your team's growth.

19 Best Design Collaboration Tools in 2025

Here are the best design collaboration tools to streamline the design process in 2025.

1. ruttl

ruttl is an innovative design collaboration software that is making a splash in the industry. Its website feedback tool transforms static website and web app designs into interactive prototypes through visual collaboration.

ruttl is crafted to make design collaboration between designers and stakeholders easy, effective, and efficient. It helps speed up the process of website design and development.

Over 20,000 companies use ruttl to save time and money on their design collaboration projects.

ruttl stands out among many other design collaboration tools in the market because it offers unique features such as the ability to edit content, replace assets, and make real-time changes—options that many other tools do not provide.

Top Features

Live Comments: ruttl lets users place comments directly on live websites to facilitate real-time feedback. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and misunderstandings are minimized during the design collaboration process.
Visual Editing, now powered by GPT: With ruttl, users can edit design elements like fonts, colors, and images on live websites, now they can also rephrase web page content in real-time with the AI text generator. This interactive approach helps the design collaboration process by reducing the time taken in back-and-forth exchanges between teams.
Version Control: ruttl provides a visual history of all changes made to the website during design collaboration, for easy tracking and restoration of previous versions if needed.
Collaborative Environment: ruttl allows users to invite team members and clients to review designs and provide feedback. It ensures a smooth and efficient collaborative process.
Guest Sharing: ruttl provides you with the ability to share your projects with clients without the need for them to sign up, This streamlines the design collaboration process, ensuring a seamless experience.
Third-Party Integration: ruttl can smoothly integrate with 3000+ tools and platforms through Zapier. It enhances productivity by allowing users to seamlessly share and manage content across different applications.
Project Type: ruttl empowers you to seamlessly create and evaluate projects on live websites, web apps, PDFs, and images. Additionally, it offers bug-tracking capabilities, allowing you to establish a systematic workflow for efficient project management and design collaboration.
Video Annotation tool (New): Users can now offer feedback on videos using ruttl's innovative video annotation tool. Whether it's commenting directly on videos or annotating with precise shapes for frame-specific feedback, ruttl offers a comprehensive solution for video feedback, making it an efficient design collaboration software.

Rating

5/5 (g2)

2. Figma

Figma is popular among design collaboration tools because it can do so many things.

You can use this design collaboration software to make simple designs, detailed designs, moving images, interactive models, and more. It's like a one-stop shop for design.

Figma stands out in its ability to share your designs just by sending a link. This makes it easy to show your work to anyone. They don't need to have Figma; it's just a way to get online.

You can also use Figma to keep all your design stuff (like backgrounds, icons, fonts, etc.) in one place.

In addition to this, Figma has another design collaboration tool called FigJam. It's like a digital whiteboard for teams. You can use it to come up with new ideas, plan user experiences, or lead team meetings.

Top Features

Variants for organizing components
Bulleted Lists to organize data and emphasize information
Access all accounts on one screen
Effortlessly switch between components
Instantly share project updates within team

Rating

4.7/5 (g2)

3. Trello

Trello is a project management tool that can easily double as a design collaboration tool. It works like a big, shareable to-do list. It uses 'cards' that you can fill with text, pictures, drawings, and mockups. You can arrange these cards in any way you like, to implement efficient design collaboration with your team or clients.

Trello also has a progress tracker and lets you set reminders.

The best part about this design collaboration software is that it comes with a free plan.

Top Features

Kanban board for easy task management and design collaboration
Customizable virtual work boards
Comprehensive digital task cards with attachments
Streamlined, all-in-one project handling

Rating

4.4/5 (g2)

4. Asana

Asana is a well-known project and design collaboration tool, used by many paying and free users around the world.

It lets you look at your work in different ways, make custom work plans, automate tasks that repeat often, keep all your messages in one place, and track how well you're doing with charts.

Asana has many features, making it a good choice for big companies that need robust project management and design collaboration software.

Top Features

Organize work into shared projects and tasks.
Give feedback directly on images or PDFs.
Save projects as templates for repeated use.
Works well with Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
Visualize project deadlines in a Gantt-style view.

Rating

4.3/5 (g2)

5. Invision

InVision is super popular among design collaboration tools for working together on designs with your team. It's used by over 7 million people around the world, even by all the top 100 companies.

What's special about this collaboration software is that it lets you make simple, interactive design models. You can share these models with your team or clients.

This is really useful because it helps everyone see how a website or app will work as you're making it.

Even though you, as a designer, might easily imagine the finished product, remember that this might be hard for people who don't know much about design.

So, by showing them an interactive model, they'll get a better idea of what you're planning to create.

Top features

Vector-based design collaboration
Rapid prototyping
Freehand tool and commenting tool
Third-party integration

Rating

4.4/5 (g2)

6. ClickUp

ClickUp is a cloud-based, adaptable project management and design collaboration tool. It supports all teams and business sizes and helps manage tasks, documents, goals, and deadlines.

The customizable digital platform caters to varying workflows and integrates seamlessly with popular tools like Google Drive, Trello, and Slack.

This design collaboration software has unique features like digital whiteboards, templates for design teams, and in-app documentation and proofing tools to streamline the design collaboration process.

Top Features

Over 15 custom views for varied work display
Whiteboards for mapping out ideas
Auto notifications with Watchers feature
Task assignments and mentions within tasks
Multiple collaboration tools, including file sharing

Rating

4.7/5 (g2)

7. Miro

Miro, which used to be called RealtimeBoard, is like a digital whiteboard that's good for working with others.

This collaboration software lets you make notes and designs, move stuff around, and talk through video calls or online chats right in the app. It also has a bunch of templates that can give you ideas or help start your design collaboration project.

You can also use Miro's online whiteboard for leading design workshops in real time, even when everyone's not in the same place.

Top Features

Create share, work together, and store ideas in a single place
Show your thoughts instantly using sticky notes, pictures, brain maps, videos, drawings, etc.
Easily connects with other applications

Rating

4.8/5 (g2)

8. Notion

When you start a design, you might want to save pictures or links that inspire you. Notion is a collaboration software that's great for collecting these ideas together.

You can store and arrange them on different pages, so you and your team can look back at them anytime you need.

It's like a shared inspiration board that everyone can add to. Some of the top features of this design collaboration tool are listed below.

Top Features

Thousands of free Notion templates available
Multiple integration options
Keep track of design progress with assigned status

Rating

4.7/5 (g2)

9. Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management app that can easily be counted amongst design collaboration tools. It was made by a company called 37Signals, who couldn't find an easy enough tool, so they made their own.

It has everything you need for a design collaboration project, like to-do lists, document sharing, file sharing, and messaging. You can use it online or on a phone app, and they offer a free 30-day trial to test it out.

Top Features

To-do lists to create, assign, and track tasks
Campfires and Pings for real-time group and private chats
Comprehensive reports to provide insights on tasks and team activities
Hill Charts to visualize and track project progress
Enhance communication and details with file and image sharing

Rating

4.1/5 (g2)

10. Mural

Mural is a design collaboration software that lets you gather and organize ideas in a fun way. You can drag and drop pictures, links, and documents onto a big online board. It's great for brainstorming with a team, even if you're not all in the same place.

This design collaboration software works well on an iPad, and changes appear in real-time. You just need to invite people by email or give them a password to join in. If you're new to brainstorming with a team, Mural is a good place to start.

Top Features

Inclusive design collaboration space with sticky notes & text
Infinite, resizable canvas for unlimited flexibility
Flexible permissions to control access levels
Mapping and diagramming for easy visualizations
Integrations with Noun Project, GIPHY, and Unsplash
Option to create & publish custom templates

Rating

4.6/5 (g2)

11. Webflow

Webflow allows you to build websites visually without needing to code, making it a great addition to our design collaboration tools list. You just drag and drop to design your site, and Webflow creates the code for you. You can also add your own code if you want.

Webflow now has team collaboration in two modes: Design mode for building and designing your site and Edit mode for changing your site's content.

Only one person can be in design mode at a time, but others can ask to take over. You can also see what your team members are doing in real time.

Top Features

Design and edit websites without coding
View teammates' real-time project contributions
Share design control with your team for efficient collaboration

Rating

4.4/5 (g2)

12. Balsamiq

Balsamiq is a design collaboration software that helps you make basic sketches of websites and apps for computers, phones, and tablets.

The company thinks of itself as a faster version of drawing with pen and paper. They care more about being quicker than getting every detail perfect.

Because this design collaboration software is easy to use, all kinds of people can use Balsamiq, not just designers. It's also great for business people, coders, and project managers.

It's a really good choice if you're working with folks who might get scared off by more complicated design collaboration tools like Adobe XD or Figma. Balsamiq makes it easy for everyone to get involved in the design process.

Top Features

UI Components & Icons
Interactive Prototypes
Real-time collaboration with unlimited users
User test mode for getting real user feedback

Rating

4.2/5 (g2)

13. Podio

Utilizing Podio, an online design collaboration software, enhances your workflow management. This platform facilitates task organization, delegation to team members, seamless file sharing, feedback collection, and provides project progress visibility, optimizing your design collaboration process.

This collaboration software works well with many other services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Evernote. Plus, it has mobile apps for when you're not at the office. It's all about making work easier and more organized.

Top Features

Organize and schedule tasks with task prioritization and scheduler
Shared Team Calendar for real-time milestones
Store and access all project files using document storage
Manage projects on-the-go with the mobile application

Rating

4.2/5 (g2)

14. Filestage

Filestage is a tool that helps manage reviews, feedback, and approvals, thus making it an apt design collaboration software for design teams.

If you're tired of too many emails, losing track of feedback, or always waiting for approval, Filestage could help.

Filestage makes things neat and tidy. It gives you a place to share designs, collect everyone's comments in one spot, and get your work approved once you've made the changes.

Top Features

Set due-dated review stages, inviting relevant stakeholders
Use in-context comments, visual annotations, and attachments
Convert comments into a task list for clarity
Monitor project progress with the dashboard and reviewer statuses

Rating

4.6/5 (g2)

15. Marvel

Next in our list of design collaboration tools is Marvel, a compelling web-based design platform.

It comes fully equipped with an intuitive interface and handy drag-and-drop tools that streamline the creation of wireframes and interactive prototypes for websites and mobile apps.

Sharing prototypes with collaborators, the design team, and colleagues becomes a breeze with Marvel.

Top Features

Showcase animations and transitions in their prototypes
Team members can comment directly on design prototypes
Code export feature that simplifies the process of sending code to developers
Integration with popular design tools
User testing and analytics

Rating

4.4/5 (g2)

16. ProofHub

ProofHub is a web tool for managing and working together on projects, which can also function as a design collaboration software. It helps you plan, put things in order, and finish projects of any size more quickly.

It has all the necessary tools, like Gantt charts to schedule and keep track of tasks and a tool to make approving and checking designs easier.

You can use it online or as an app on Apple or Android. You can also try it for free for 30 days.

Top Features

Real-time design discussions and brainstorming
Markup tools for design collaboration revisions
Reuse successful design project frameworks
Categorize and organize design tasks effectively

Rating

4.5/5 (g2)

17. GoVisually

GoVisually is a free tool that lets you and your team give feedback on a project. You can mark notes and comments directly on the project. It's easy to use and saves time because you don't have to send lots of emails.

You can choose different ways to mark notes, like circles, rectangles, or freehand. If many people work on the same project, GoVisually uses layers to show who did what. You can also easily upload changes and switch between different project versions, making it a suitable design collaboration software for teams.

Top Features

Upload, annotate and share multiple file types
Unlimited reviewers for easy feedback and approval
Organize and label multiple design revisions
Receive notifications for client feedback
Supports integration with Slack for updates

Rating

4.4/5 (g2)

18. Moqups

Moqups is a design collaboration tool that over 1.5 million people use to share design ideas. It lets you develop ideas, make a quick model, share it, get feedback, make changes, and then pass it on to the coding team.

Moqups is easy to use but also very powerful. It's great for people new to design who want an easier way to share their visual ideas.

Top Features

Comprehensive design collaboration tools
Diverse styles, fonts, and icons
Cloud-based with multi-device support
Icons and stencils at fingertips
Real-time collaboration and integration with other apps

Rating

4.2/5 (g2)

19. Mockplus

Mockplus has a few different design collaboration tools.

Mockplus Classic is a computer app for designing websites and phone apps. It focuses on speed. You can use ready-to-go pieces to work fast, and it also works with Sketch.

Mockplus Cloud - design collaboration software, helps managers, designers, and coders work together.

Mockplus DS is a web app for making and managing design systems. It lets you keep all your design stuff in one place, make sure everyone has the latest version, set up security rules, and more.

You can cover all your collaboration needs by using all three apps, making it a super useful all-in-one solution.

Top Features

Customizable workflow for seamless design collaboration
Direct design spec export from popular design collaboration tools
Page/version comparison for efficient workflow
Intuitive comment and review modes with document references
Seamless integration with Sketch, PS, XD, Figma, and Axure

Rating

4.5/5 (g2)

Final Thoughts

And there you have it! We took you through the best of the best in design collaboration tools. We explored offerings from the feature-packed powerhouses to the more streamlined options and all that lies in between.

These collaboration software are created to help your team work more efficiently and collaboratively, but choosing the one that best fits your needs is an important decision. We hope that our list has helped you in your quest for the perfect design collaboration tool.

However, if you're looking for a design collaboration tool that truly stands out from the crowd, we'd suggest giving ruttl a try. With its unique abilities, it offers a user experience that's hard to beat.

Stay creative, keep innovating, and most importantly, enjoy the process!

Top 4 E-Commerce Trends to Keep You in Business

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 06:04:06 GMT

Banner Image by Igor Miske from Unsplash

E-commerce is always evolving. More recently, it was COVID-19 that pushed online selling and buying to unprecedented levels as the general population had to stay at home for indefinite periods of time—making purchases for essential goods and transacting online became the norm, if not the only viable option at that time.

For any online store or business that relies on sales via the internet, it is a challenge to keep up with the times. We’ve rounded up the top trends in e-commerce that you should look out for to remain competitive and profitable in the many years to come.

Shop ideas to grow your online shop here.

1. Data-Driven Decisions

Getting to know your customers to know what they want is traditionally accomplished by asking them to sign forms, answer surveys online, or via phone. Nowadays, collecting data about customers online is almost effortless or at least doesn’t require manual effort.

Tools and tags that track how they interact with your website (like what they bought last time) are available. AI, machine learning, and related technologies, such as those built into the software, use data to analyze, find patterns and trends, and so on. These are all useful in making decisions and strategies beneficial to your customers and business, such as:

Personalizing the experience of shopping in your online store
optimizing pricing
Improving product listings
Offering product matching, product discovery, and recommendations
Tracking inventory and predicting future demand
Setting up effective marketing and sales campaigns

This role of big data warrants a robust customer data management system. Use only tools that can collect accurate and reliable data or set them up to gather only the information you need. Best of all, you can keep your customer data secure and obtain the necessary consent for collecting or processing certain information.

2. Enriched Mobile Experiences

The term smartphone commerce proves the strong presence of mobile phones as a means to shop online. Mobile retail e-commerce spending in the US reached $387 billion in 2022, according to Statista.

You certainly can’t miss out on the traffic coming from mobile devices or the diversity of mobile buyers, which likely includes your target customers. Add to that the popularity of in-app shopping, with one shopping app alone getting 35 million downloads in the US in 2022, according to another Statista report.

These all point to catering to mobile users and ensuring they’ll only have positive experiences browsing and buying at your e-commerce store. Here are some tips:

Make your site mobile-friendly.
Consider creating a mobile app.
Design your website to be free of distracting elements or less obtrusive like pop–up windows.
Get your site, especially images, to load faster.
Use high-quality product photos that are zoomable without losing their quality.
Consider AR or live shopping for engaging shoppers.

3. Better and More Effective Ads

Photo by Myriam Jessier from Unsplash

Improved website or app experiences for users whom you want to build long-term relationships with extend to spaces on the internet where they’ll see your business, products, or services.

Ads like PPC will remain relevant because of their low barrier to entry, potential return on investment, and measurable results you can stack up against industry benchmarks.

For ads to be really effective in promoting your brand and delivering your message, think of what your customers want to see and go back to what these ads great:

Make ads that are not distracting and annoying, clear, informative, compelling, and clickable. Check policies and standards as set by Google for Google Ads and other online advertising platforms for advertisers.
Place your ads in areas where potential customers will see them: search engines, websites, social media networks, apps, etc.
Define your ads by the messaging, tone, and visuals best representing your brand.
Study the ins and outs of PPC platforms, together with customer data and current trends, to set up campaigns that maximize your ad spend. Work with Google Ads agency that see data as an integral part of the process of producing results with respect to PPC.

4. Organizing Online Events to Engage Customers

It is a crucial strategy in eCommerce for engaging customers and enhancing brand loyalty. These events, including product launches and webinars, provide a platform for direct interaction and knowledge sharing.

Using Signup Forms can help your customers register for the event effortlessly. You can collect participant information and preferences using these forms. However, to maximize effectiveness, ensure the signup form is easily accessible, simple to fill out, and offers incentives for early registration. Follow-up communication based on the signup information can boost attendance, while post-event feedback can improve future events. It can boost a dynamic shopping experience and build a community around your brand. It emphasizes the importance of engaging with your audience throughout the event process.

5. Verified or Verifiable Reviews

Users consume reviews like guides in making purchase decisions by picking up the good and bad of things. This survey says 99.75% of shoppers consult reviews when they shop online. With reviews, shoppers get first-hand information from those who actually bought, saw, and used the product.

It’s also through reviews that people confirm the legitimacy of the online platform and the products they sell, as well as their experiences ordering and contacting customer support. Take for example this review of Temu, an online marketplace known for its low prices.

Because reviews build trust and credibility for your business, it’s all the more important to have authentic reviews on your website as a permanent feature. Encourage customers to leave reviews by asking them nicely via email and making it easy for them to add their reviews.

How Have Others Made It So Far?

For your final tip, study how the big players have done it. The longevity and growth of Amazon and Ebay, both launched in the 1990s, are worth looking into. From their humble beginnings to the present time, they managed to stay afloat during hard times and succeeded through countless trends and competitors.

The intent is not to follow just any trends but to apply what you deem suitable and practicable and modify those in light of your business’s realities. What works for one business may not work for another as resources and markets vary, so it’s imperative to do your due diligence, check what your direct competitors are doing, and be realistic about growth.

Leverage data and technologies to provide personalized services to online shoppers and improve your site’s efficiency. Cater to mobile users as well because they are a force in the e-commerce world. Promote your business through online ads, monitoring and evaluating them for maximum performance. Get your customers to submit reviews to gain valuable feedback and help other customers make informed decisions.

18 Best Customer Feedback Tools of 2023

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 12:01:15 GMT

As a business owner or manager, you understand the importance of gathering customer feedback to improve your products or services and enhance the overall customer experience. In today's digital age, there are many tools available to help you do just that.

But with the ever-evolving landscape of technology, it can be tough to keep up with the latest and greatest customer feedback tools on the market.

In this blog, we'll be exploring the top customer feedback tools to watch out for in 2023.

We'll take a look at their features, benefits, and how they can help your business stay ahead of the competition and meet your customers' needs.

So if you're looking to up your customer feedback game this year, read on!

Here are the best customer feedback tools of 2023

1. ruttl

ruttl, a comprehensive customer feedback tool, offers a range of powerful features including live chat, visual bug reporting, and testimonial collection. With these capabilities, ruttl helps businesses improve their products, boost sales, and strengthen customer relationships. By leveraging real-time feedback, addressing issues promptly, and showcasing positive customer experiences, it enables businesses to enhance their overall performance and increase customer satisfaction.

Top Features

Live chat: Experience the convenience of live chat, allowing you to efficiently handle customer queries and provide personalized support. Even when customers are offline, you can reach out to them via email, ensuring fast and accurate responses to their inquiries.

Bug Reporting: With this feature, ruttl streamlines the bug reporting process, enabling your customers to effortlessly report bugs and issues. You can easily assign them to the relevant team members, establish deadlines, and prioritize them accordingly. This ensures prompt resolution, streamlines bug management, and enhances the overall user experience.

Feature Request Management: The platform enables businesses to collect feature requests from customers, providing insights into the functionalities that would enhance their experience. These requests can be easily sent to project managers, who can assess the impact and feasibility of implementing the suggested features in collaboration with the team.

Testimonial Collection: Building trust and credibility is essential for businesses, and ruttl offers a convenient solution for collecting testimonials. As a user feedback tool, it allows businesses to directly gather text and video testimonials from customers without the need for additional technical resources.

Customer support: ruttl offers commendable customer feedback support on all channels - Slack, email, in-app feedback button, and live chat.

Pricing

In terms of pricing, ruttl offers three plans: Free, Pro, and Team, starting at $7 per month. If you're uncertain whether ruttl is the perfect match for your business, we encourage you to try our free plan before making a commitment.

Rating

4.6/5 (Getapp)

Signup and join 15000+ teams and freelancers that use ruttl daily as their visual feedback and collaboration tool.

2. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey's mission is to empower the voices of people everywhere by giving them a platform to share their opinions. They've built an enterprise-grade platform with specialized market research and customer experience solutions, as well as integrations for numerous business-critical applications. Their products are designed to give organizations of all sizes the power of feedback.

Top Features

Interface: SurveyMonkey's user interface is quick and responsive, making it easy to create surveys of varying complexity. The recommended questions section can be very helpful when writing your first few surveys, though it is only useful for a short time.
Survey templates: With the help of Surveymonkey's example survey templates, you can quickly begin gathering feedback. Discover hundreds of questions from various survey kinds intended to provide reliable findings.
Feedback options: SurveyMonkey provides a variety of ways to collect feedback from users, including surveys, polls, and questionnaires. SurveyMonkey's reports include diagrams and charts to help you understand the results and gain further insight.

Pricing

SurveyMonkey offers three pricing options: Team Advantage, Team Premier, and Enterprise. The Team Advantage plan starts at Rs 1,550 per user per month, the Team Premier plan starts at Rs 3,800 per user per month, and the Enterprise plan is customized to the needs of the business.

Rating

4.6/5 (Getapp)

3. Hotjar

Hotjar is a website analytics and user feedback tool that helps businesses and organizations understand how visitors interact with their websites. It offers a range of features to help businesses and organizations gather insights about user behavior and improve the user experience on their websites.

Top Features

Heatmaps: Hotjar provides tools that allow users to see how visitors interact with their websites, including where they click, how far they scroll, and where they spend the most time. This can help businesses identify areas of their websites that are popular or that may be causing confusion for users.
User recordings: Hotjar allows users to record visitors' interactions with their websites to see exactly how they interact with the site in real-time. This can help businesses identify user behavior patterns and identify areas for improvement.
Feedback tools: Hotjar offers a range of feedback tools, including surveys, polls, and feedback forms, to help businesses gather user insights about their website experience.

Pricing

Pricing for Hotjar varies depending on the specific features and level of support needed. The company offers a range of subscription plans, including a forever-free basic plan and custom enterprise pricing for larger organizations. Prices start at $32 per month for the basic plan.

Rating

4.7/5 (Getapp)

4. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a comprehensive survey software platform that allows businesses and organizations to create, distribute, and analyze surveys. It offers various features to help organizations gather feedback from customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

Top Features

Custom survey creation: Qualtrics allows users to create custom surveys using a variety of question types, including multiple-choice, open-ended, and matrix questions. Surveys can be designed to be mobile-friendly and can be distributed through a variety of channels, including email, web links, and social media.
Advanced analysis and reporting: Qualtrics provides various tools to help users analyze and interpret survey data. Users can create reports and charts to visualize survey results and use advanced statistical analysis tools to uncover insights and trends.
Collaboration and sharing: Qualtrics allows users to share surveys and results with colleagues and collaborators and offers a range of tools to facilitate cooperation and teamwork.

Pricing

Pricing for Qualtrics varies depending on the specific features and level of support needed. The company offers a range of subscription plans, including a free basic plan and custom enterprise pricing for larger organizations. It is worth noting that Qualtrics does not disclose pricing on its website, so interested parties will need to contact the company directly for a quote.

Rating

4.8/5 (Getapp)

5. Platoforms

PlatoForms – the ultimate tool to streamline your document workflow with online fillable PDF forms. Transform static PDFs into dynamic, interactive forms, effortlessly collect data, and stay informed in real-time. Elevate your business with PlatoForms, providing you access to forms anytime, anywhere.

Key Features

Effective Data Gathering: Enhance your data gathering efficiency by allowing subjects to submit survey answers through online PDF forms. Improve surveys and data collection effortlessly with PlatoForms.

Convenient Surveys: Create fillable forms for surveys, gather research data, and execute powerful marketing strategies online. PlatoForms empowers you to make PDFs fillable and conduct surveys seamlessly.

Accurate Data: Convert PDFs to web forms hassle-free and ensure accurate research work with PlatoForms. The platform simplifies the survey process, making precision within your reach.

Send Surveys Anytime: Conduct surveys online effortlessly, reaching a wider set of data prospects. PlatoForms provides shareable and easy fillable forms, expediting your survey research process.

Pricing: PlatoForms offers tailored pricing. All PlatoForms Plans include a free trial, custom domains, and HIPAA compliance. Explore PlatoForms pricing calculator to match your needs efficiently.

Rating

4.8/5 (Capterra)

6. InMoment

InMoment is a customer experience management (CEM) company that provides software and services to help businesses understand and improve their customers' experiences. The company offers a variety of tools and solutions for customer feedback management, customer journey mapping, and customer analytics.

The cloud-native XI Platform has three types of clouds: the customer experience cloud, the employee experience cloud, and the market experience cloud.

Top Features

Get customer insights: The system will help you evaluate your customer's feedback to see what is working for your company and what is hurting it.
Text analytics: The tool provides AI-powered adaptive models that offer unparalleled accuracy and understanding, providing you with the insights you need to make better decisions.
Data management: InMoment provides tools to view your customers' experiences comprehensively.

Pricing

InMoment offers three pricing plans: CoreCX, Enterprise, and Custom. Pricing for InMoment's plans is not publicly disclosed, and interested parties must contact the company directly for a quote.

Rating

4.7/5 (g2)

7. Feedier

Feedier is an experience management solution that allows you to easily collect customer feedback and analyze it in real time through different channels and features, such as NPS, data correlation, and text analysis based on automation. It's ideal for communication management and anonymous feedback.

Top Features

Integrates reviews with rewards: Feedier integrates forms and reviews with rewards to create an ideal system for improving customer relationships. It's an excellent tool for any business that wants to get closer to its customers and understand their needs better.
Centralized feedback: Feedier is the perfect tool for managing all of your direct and indirect feedback. With Feedier, you'll have access to everything you need, all in one place. Plus, you can customize your privacy settings to ensure that only the people you want to see your feedback will be able to do so.
Seamless reporting: Feedier is the best way to measure your KPIs automatically and visually. With Feedier, you can build personalized reports showing exactly what you need to see.
Actionable insights: Feedier gives you the insights you need to change your thoughts about ownership, alerts, and reports. With these insights, you can close the loop and make the changes you need to improve your business.

Pricing

Get in touch with the team to get a custom quote based on your requirements.

Rating

4.7/5 (Getapp)

8. Hubspot Customer Feedback

HubSpot customer feedback is versatile software that can manage most customer-facing processes in one system. With HubSpot, you can carry out social media marketing, customer support, SEO, content management, and web analytics. You can also integrate HubSpot with Salesforce, NetSuite, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and other related software. Choose HubSpot for data enrichment and managing all your forms in one place.

Top Features

Customize surveys: By tailoring your survey to fit your business needs, you'll get a better understanding of what areas you need to focus on to improve. With various question types and customizable templates, you'll be able to create the perfect survey for your business.
Track important KPIs: Use pre-built surveys to measure customer loyalty at each stage of their journey. With Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), and customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys, you can get a gauge of how customers feel about your company.
Automation and routing: With ticket routing, escalation, and task creation, you can take care of customer inquiries with ease and free up your time to focus on other aspects of your business. Use feedback responses to create automated customer marketing emails or internal notifications to keep your team in the loop.
Monitor feedback: You may track performance using Hubspot's built-in feedback dashboards and respond immediately to your discoveries. Send a survey, and then observe as data begins to flood into your dashboard, where you can organize, visualize and analyze it.

Pricing

Hubspot has three pricing plans: starter, professional, and enterprise. The starter plan starts at $45 per month, the professional plan starts at $800 per month, and the enterprise plan starts at $3,600 per month.

Rating

4.3/5 (Getapp)

9. Clarabridge

The Clarabridge solution (now Qualtrics) is designed specifically for customer experience, providing a platform that analyzes every customer interaction to glean actionable insights. The interactive tools of Clarabridge for Customer Experience gather customer feedback, while Clarabridge Engage uses conversation analytics and engagement software to connect with customers and provide them with superior experiences.

Top Features

Review management tool: The platform's ratings and review management tool makes it easy for users to collect and interpret feedback from popular review sites like TripAdvisor, Bazaarvoice, Reevoo, and more.
Chat review: Salesforce Chatter, Jive, and LivePerson are popular chat and collaboration tools. They often discuss topics, track issues, and route actionable items. By analyzing the chat and collaboration content from these platforms, their chat feature helps you stay on top of things and take action quickly.
CX analytics: With AI-based analytical modules, you can measure sentiment, root cause, effort, and emotions. You can also gain comprehensive Voice of the Customer (VoC) from multiple sources like emails, calls, transcripts, chats, ratings, social media, and surveys. And finally, you can monitor crucial metrics in real-time.
Integrations: API support can help you turn unstructured data into actionable insights. You can import information from internal and third-party platforms like Salesforce and Zendesk.

Pricing

Get in touch with the team to get a custom quote based on your requirements.

Rating

4.2/5 (glassdoor)

10. SatisMeter

SatisMeter is a customer feedback and satisfaction platform that helps businesses gather and analyze customer feedback, measure customer satisfaction, and identify areas for improvement using Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT or CES), or Product-market fit surveys on an ongoing basis.

With a thorough breakdown of ratings, insightful commentary, and expanded user data, SatisMeter offers useful insights for your Go-To-Market and Product teams.

Top Features

Customer feedback surveys: SatisMeter allows businesses to create and send customized surveys to their customers to gather feedback on various aspects of the customer experience, such as product or service quality, customer service, and overall satisfaction.
Real-time analysis: SatisMeter provides real-time customer feedback analysis, allowing businesses to track and monitor customer satisfaction over time and identify areas of concern or improvement.
Integration with other tools: SatisMeter can be integrated with other tools and platforms, such as email marketing, customer service, and CRM systems, to provide a comprehensive view of the customer experience.
Advanced reporting:_ SatisMeter offers advanced reporting and analytics capabilities, allowing businesses to understand customer sentiment, identify trends and patterns, and make data-driven decisions.

Pricing

SatisMeter offers a free plan that includes basic features such as customizable surveys, real-time analysis, and integration with other tools. More advanced features and higher levels of support are available for businesses on paid plans, which start at $199 per month.

Rating

4.8/5 (g2)

11. Qualaroo

Qualaroo is a customer feedback and survey software platform that helps businesses and organizations gather customer insights and improve their products and services. It offers a range of features to help businesses and organizations gather customer feedback and analyze the results to identify trends and areas for improvement.

Top Features

Custom survey creation: Design your questions to match your company's aesthetic by customizing the colors, adding your logo, and choosing where the Nudge appears. You can also remove Qualaroo branding and use the Design API for more design options.
Qualaroo SDK: Qualaroo allows you to get feedback from your app users in real-time, so you can address any issues they may be having as soon as possible. Their iOS and Android Native SDK makes it easy to create, design, and target surveys.
Targeted surveys: Qualaroo allows users to target specific groups of customers with surveys using criteria such as location, demographics, and customer behavior. This allows businesses to gather feedback from specific segments of their customer base.

Pricing

Qualaroo offers three main pricing options: essentials, premium, and enterprise. The plans start at $80/month. Qualaroo also offers a free 15 days trial, so you can try out the service before you commit to anything.

Rating

4.7/5 (Getapp)

12. Survicate

If you're looking for a customer feedback tool that can help you collect more insights and deliver a better customer experience, Survicate is a great option. It offers a website, a web app, in-product (in-app) surveys, email and link surveys, and mobile app surveys for Android and iOS. Plus, it has two standalone products:

Feedback Hub for managing customer feedback from different sources in one place Feedback Button for collecting website feedback

Top Features

Survey creation: The survey creation tool is easy to use and has a great logic system. It can also apply custom CSS branding. This makes it an excellent tool for creating surveys.
Customization: Survicate is amazing because it's so customizable. You can change everything from the question types to the disclaimers, edit the web page background, and even add your company logo. The integration process is also super easy and user-friendly.
In-web pop-up: The in-web pop-up has many tools out of the box to segment and targets your audience. You can use these tools to create more personalized and targeted content for your readers, which will help improve your overall conversion rate.
Data results page: The data results page is clear and easy to navigate, and the ability to save graphs as png or pdf. Having all the information in one place is helpful, and I appreciate being able to access it easily. Integrations: Survicate integrates with popular CRMs, marketing automation tools, and web conferencing platforms, making it a versatile tool for any business.

Pricing

Survicate offers four pricing tiers that start at $89 per month for the Feedback Starter plan and go up to $269 per month for the most expensive one.

Rating

4.5/5 (Getapp)

13. Wootric

Since feedback comes from surveys, support tickets, online reviews, and employee engagement data, it can be challenging to manage everything with a robust system. Wootric is a customer experience management system that helps gather feedback to see the big picture, analyze large-scale data, and identify areas for improvement that could lead to increased revenue.

Top Features

Net promoter score: Wootric allows businesses to collect net promoter score feedback through various touch points like in-app or website, email, and SMS. This makes it easier for businesses to communicate with their customers and get their needed information.
Customization: Wootric provides APIs and SDKs to customize the platform to fit your specific requirements fully.
Integrations: Wootric has many integrations that allow it to work with other programs, some of which include Zapier, Salesforce, Hubspot, Intercom, Slack, Zendesk, Gainsight, Totango, mix panel, segment, stitch, Xplenty, and Webhooks.
Multiple survey methods: Wootric allows you to do micro surveys via email, in-app, mobile, SMS, and Intercom Messenger to reach your customers where they are and get the insights you need.

Pricing

Get in touch with the team to get a custom quote based on your requirements.

Rating

4.6/5 (capterra)

14. Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice is a company that provides customer review and rating software for businesses. It allows businesses to collect and display customer reviews and ratings on their websites and other online channels, such as social media and marketplaces.

Top Features

Customer review management: Bazaarvoice allows businesses to manage customer reviews on their website and other online channels. This includes moderation tools for flagging inappropriate or spammy reviews and the ability to respond to customer reviews.
Ratings and review display: Bazaarvoice provides tools for displaying customer ratings and reviews on a business's website and other online channels. This can include widgets for displaying ratings and reviews on product pages, as well as the ability to create review pages and review carousels.
Product Q&A: Bazaarvoice provides a "Product Q&A" feature that allows customers to ask and answer product questions. This can help other customers find product information and make informed purchasing decisions.
Insights and analytics: Bazaarvoice provides insights and tools to help businesses understand customer sentiment and trends in customer feedback. This can include reports on the overall performance of a business's customer reviews and detailed analysis of specific products or categories.
Post scheduling: Bazaarvoice allows you to schedule your posts in advance. With post scheduling, you can also control the order in which your posts are published, and you can even stagger the publication of your posts so that they're spaced out evenly over time. You have one dashboard to schedule posts for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Pricing

Please visit their website or contact their sales team to learn more about their pricing.

Rating

4.3/5 (Getapp)

15. Mopinion

Mopinion is a feedback management tool that helps website and app owners collect and analyze customer feedback data. With Mopinion, you can easily conduct surveys on multiple channels, collect data from various sources, and perform text analysis. This tool is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses.

Top Features

Multiple feedback options: There are many ways to get user feedback, and doing so allows you to monitor actual CX KPIs rather than just NPS, which isn't a true CX indicator.
Ease of use and customizations: With Mopinion, you can easily create and customize forms to your needs.
Integration options: The tool integrates seamlessly with your favorite digital marketing tools, from web analytics and CRM tools to Project Management and A/B Testing.
Feedback for apps: Mopinion's SDKs for iOS and Android make it easy to collect powerful feedback from your native apps. This solution integrates seamlessly with your mobile native user experience, providing a frictionless mobile journey for your users.

Pricing

Mopinion offers two pricing tiers for its feedback tool: Standard, and Enterprise. The Standard plan starts at €259 per month. The Enterprise plan is tailored to the needs of larger organizations and is priced on a per-quote basis.

Rating

4.1/5 (g2)

16. Feedbackify

Feedbackify is an amazing tool that allows you to start an instant feedback process for your site visitors with no registration required. The best part about it is that it leads to vastly lower feedback drop-out because customers can have private conversations with companies- protecting both the brand and customers' privacy.

Top Features

Custom forms: Feedbackify's intuitive drag-and-drop interface lets you add your custom feedback categories.
White label: By uploading your company logo, you can help to reinforce your brand and give your visitors an extra sense of security that they are submitting feedback directly to you.
Feedback dashboard: Use your Feedback Dashboard to stay on top of all feedback you're receiving in real-time.
Multiple filters: Contextual feedback is critical for understanding customer sentiment. The feedback platform provides all the data you need to get a complete picture, including the page the feedback was submitted from, the customer's geographic location, browser, operating system, screen size, and more.

Pricing

Feedbackify offers a 15-day free trial. After the trial period, pricing starts at $19 per month.

Rating

4/5 (cuspera)

17. CustomerSure

Customersure is a customer feedback and satisfaction platform that helps businesses gather and analyze customer feedback, measure customer satisfaction, and identify areas for improvement.

Top Features

Create feedback surveys: Customersure provides the ability to create surveys that are user-friendly and responsive, delivered across email, SMS, web, app, and more. You can use Customersure to track and improve deliverability, engagement, abandonment, and response rates for your surveys.
Make improvements: By viewing feedback history, replying directly, and adding notes, urgent problems can be resolved instantly. You can categorise and prioritise common issues to fix underlying problems in the business. Workflow tracking also ensures feedback is dealt with promptly.
Data insights: Customersure allows you to make more informed decisions about your customer journey and improve retention. You can track important metrics like NPS, CSAT, and Effort Score with advanced filters, reports, and text analysis tools. You can also view trend data over time to see how your performance changes.

Pricing

Customersure offers a free 14-day trial that includes all of its features, after which businesses can choose from a range of paid plans starting at £199 per month. The exact features and pricing options may vary depending on the business's specific needs.

Rating

5/5 (Getapp)

18. UserReport

UserReport is an innovative tool that measures usability and shows you where different kinds of visitors click on your website. It allows users to voice their suggestions and ideas on how you can improve your website through feedback forums.

You can use UserReport to track and record your visitors' demographic information so that you can get a better understanding of your customer segments.

Top Features

Survey widget: Userreport's survey widget allows users to complete a survey or questionnaire on the website or app. These surveys can gather information about the user's experience with the product or service, their needs, preferences, or other relevant information.
Feedback widget: The feedback widget allows users to provide comments, suggestions, or complaints directly to the website or app owner. You can place this widget on various pages of the website or app, and it can be configured to allow users to provide feedback in 60+ languages.
User satisfaction report: After running a Userreport survey, you'll get automated reports based on ten user satisfaction parameters. These reports can provide valuable insights into how users interact with the website or app and help website owners or app developers identify areas for improvement.

Pricing

Get in touch with the team to get a custom quote based on your requirements.

Rating

4.5/5 (Getapp)

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, maximizing customer satisfaction is crucial for the success of any business. Businesses can gather valuable insights from their customers and improve their products and services by using the latest user feedback tools and customer feedback software, such as survey widgets, feedback widgets, and user satisfaction reports.

In 2023, many options are available for businesses looking to improve their customer satisfaction, and it is important to choose the right tool for your needs.

If you are looking for a reliable and effective feedback tool for your website, consider using ruttl. It serves as a comprehensive customer feedback platform. By utilizing this powerful customer feedback tool, businesses can enhance their products and services based on valuable user insights, fostering stronger customer relationships and driving business growth. So don't wait—start maximizing your customer satisfaction today with the help of ruttl, the leading customer feedback collection tool.

15 Bug Report Templates for QA Testing in 2024

Wed, 17 May 2023 11:41:43 GMT

Imagine you're sitting at your desk, sipping on your morning coffee, and ready to tackle another productive day.

But then, your inbox pings with a new bug report from your QA team, and it feels like déjà vu. You can't help but think, "Haven't we fixed this issue before? Why does this keep happening?"

Fret not, fellow developer, for we have the solution to streamline your bug reporting process and make your life much easier.

In the rapidly evolving world of software development, staying ahead of the curve is key to success. While every project and team may be unique, one thing remains constant: the importance of an effective, efficient bug reporting process.

In this blog, we'll share customizable templates designed to improve communication between QA and development teams, reduce confusion, and facilitate faster bug resolution.

Incorporating these templates into your workflow will empower you and your team to tackle issues head-on and ensure the delivery of high-quality software.

So, let's get started!

Before we delve into the actual bug reporting templates, it's essential to establish a strong foundation. The next two sections aim to provide you with a clear understanding of the advantages of using bug report templates and the vital elements every bug reporting template should possess.

8 Advantages of Using a Bug Reporting Template

Using a bug reporting template offers several advantages for teams and individuals working on software development projects. These advantages include:

1. Consistency

A standardized bug reporting template ensures that all team members provide the same level of detail and follow a consistent format when reporting bugs. This consistency makes it easier for everyone to understand, analyze, and resolve reported issues.

2. Improved communication

With a clear and structured template, team members can effectively communicate the necessary information about a bug. This makes it easier for developers and QA testers to understand the problem and reproduce it.

3. Faster bug resolution

When developers provide a comprehensive and organized bug report, they can more quickly identify the root cause of the issue and implement a fix. This reduces the time spent on back-and-forth communication to gather additional information.

4. Comprehensive documentation

A bug reporting template serves as a valuable documentation tool. Team members can track the progress of reported bugs, maintain a history of issues, and identify patterns or trends that may indicate broader problems within the system.

5. Enhanced prioritization

A standardized template often includes a field for priority levels, helping teams prioritize bug fixes according to their severity or impact on the system. This ensures that the most critical issues are addressed first, improving overall system stability and the user experience.

6. Improved team collaboration

With a shared bug reporting template, team members can easily collaborate on identifying, tracking, and resolving issues. This fosters a sense of shared responsibility and encourages teamwork.

7. Increased efficiency

A well-structured bug reporting template streamlines the process, reducing the time spent creating and managing bug reports. This allows team members to focus on more critical tasks, such as developing or improving new features.

8. Better quality control

A standardized template encourages team members to report issues promptly, making reporting and tracking bugs easy. This results in better quality control and a more stable product.

Now, let’s have a clear understanding of the vital elements every bug reporting template should possess.

Bug Reporting Template Essentials

Ensuring these critical components are included in your templates will set the stage for a more effective and efficient QA testing workflow. It will improve communication and collaboration between your QA and development teams. Let's understand the essentials of a bug reporting template:

1. Clear and concise title

A good bug report begins with a clear and concise title that accurately summarizes the issue. This makes it easy for team members to grasp the problem and prioritize it quickly.

2. Detailed description

Providing a detailed description of the bug is crucial. This should include information on what was expected, what actually happened, and any relevant error messages. The description should be detailed enough for anyone unfamiliar with the project to understand the issue.

3. Steps to reproduce

It's important to outline the exact steps required to reproduce the bug, as this will help the development team pinpoint the root cause and implement a fix. Include any prerequisites, such as specific account permissions or settings.

4. Severity and priority

Assigning a severity level (e.g., critical, major, minor, or trivial) and a priority level (e.g., high, medium, or low) helps the development team prioritize bug fixes.

5. Environment and version information

Including information about the environment in which the bug was discovered (e.g., operating system, browser, device) and the software version being tested is crucial to help developers reproduce and resolve the issue.

6. Screenshots, videos, or logs

Visual aids like screenshots or videos can be incredibly helpful in illustrating the bug, while logs can provide valuable insights into what happened behind the scenes. Including these in your bug report can significantly improve the development team's understanding of the issue.

7. Assigned to and reported by

Clearly indicate the person responsible for fixing the bug and who reported it. This helps to ensure accountability and streamline communication.

8. Status and resolution

Keep track of the bug's current status (e.g., open, in progress, resolved, or closed) and its resolution (e.g., fixed, won't fix, duplicate, or not a bug). This helps to maintain transparency and monitor progress throughout the bug's life cycle.

Incorporating these essential elements into your bug reporting templates will create a solid foundation for a more streamlined and effective QA testing workflow.

With this groundwork established, let's explore the 15 bug reporting templates you can easily copy and adapt for your team's unique needs.

15 Bug Reporting Templates for Your QA Testing Workflow

1. ruttl Bug Reporting

ruttl is a powerful visual feedback and collaboration tool designed to help web designers and developers streamline their website review processes.

With ruttl, you can easily leave comments, make suggestions, and collaborate with your team in real time directly on the website you're working on. It simplifies communication and helps ensure your website looks and functions as intended.

To report a bug in ruttl, you can raise a ticket within the platform, providing all the necessary details related to the issue. ruttl's interactive interface allows you to have a conversation with your team members about the bug, facilitating a quicker resolution.

Using ruttl, you can keep all your bug reports, feedback, and related discussions organized in one place. ruttl offers seamless integration with popular project management and communication tools, such as:

Asana
ClickUp
Jira
Slack
Trello
Zapier

These integrations make it easy to keep track of all your reported bugs and avoid duplication. Connecting Ruttl with your preferred tool ensures that your team is always updated on the latest issues and can work efficiently together to resolve them quickly.

2. JIRA Bug Reporting

JIRA is a widely-used ticketing platform that facilitates easy communication and tracking of tickets among team members. It is known for its clearly defined fields and customization options. To create a bug report in JIRA, click on "Create" in the top menu bar.

Here's a summary of the default bug report template in JIRA:

Project: Specify the website or app being tested.
Issue Type: Bug
Summary: Provide a concise title (e.g., "404 error in the landing page").
Components: Indicate the page where the bug occurred (e.g., Homepage)
Description: Include every necessary information like the URL, steps to reproduce, screenshots, priority level, and more.
Labels: Identify the source of the error (e.g., sitemap).
Epic Link: Group related stories that support a common goal (e.g., Mobile Expansion, 2023)
Sprint: Specify the sprint number and business quarter (e.g., Q2, Sprint 3).

3. Trello Bug Reporting

Trello is a project management and collaboration platform that organizes projects into boards. Labeling Trello cards by priority (critical, major, minor, trivial) helps you keep the bug tracking process streamlined.

Key features of this bug tracking template include:

Integrated forms: Obtain all the necessary information for every bug report using our integrated forms, ensuring all required details are provided.
Efficient bug triage: Easily sort through incoming bug reports, confirm reproducibility before beginning work, and set the appropriate priority level.
Task delegation: Assign bug fixing tasks to the right team members directly within Trello.
Comprehensive reports: Generate reports on bug metrics, such as bug count, bug trends, bugs by priority or browser, and time taken to fix bugs based on priority or assigned team member.

You can also set up custom fields to add extra information to your cards. This bug tracking template has several custom fields to help you get started.

Priority: Determine the importance of fixing a bug during the bug triage process.
Source: Identify whether the bug was reported internally or externally, or add other sources if needed.
Browser: Specify the browser in which the bug occurred.
Reporter's Email: Record the email address of the person who reported the bug so they can be informed of the resolution.
Date Reported: Track the duration a bug has been open for. Refer to the Automations section below for automatic population, or consider using the Time in List Power-Up to monitor card durations on the board and their current list.

You can also add custom fields for other relevant information to your bug reports, such as:

Product version
Operating System
Username
Intermittent bug?

Leverage this Trello bug reporting template to streamline your bug tracking process, improve communication within your team, and deliver a higher-quality product.

4. Asana Bug Reporting

Asana is a popular work management platform that is increasingly being used for bug tracking. With this platform, you can create a structured and efficient process to handle bugs and keep your team on track. Asana also provides a video tutorial on how to use their bug tracking template.

Some of the integrated features of using Asana and the bug tracking template include:

Boards: Organize and visualize your bug tracking efforts in a Kanban-style board.
Custom Fields: Define each bug report's priorities, categories, and other relevant details.
Inbox: Centralize bug reports and updates in a single location.
Reporting: Gain insights into bug trends and team progress.

Here's how you can track and report bugs with Asana:

Centralize bug reporting: Streamline bug reports by collecting them in a single place. Use a task template or form to ensure all necessary details are provided.
Assign and schedule fixes: Assign each bug report to a team member, providing all the required information and setting a deadline for resolution.
Prioritize issues: Use custom fields to indicate priority levels for each bug. This helps your team focus on critical issues and promptly address significant problems.
Identify patterns and trends: Employ custom fields to sort bugs by category, enabling you to detect patterns and better understand the issues your team encounters.

5. Monday.com Bug Reporting

If you're struggling with maintaining lists of bugs to be fixed, using spreadsheets to track assignees and statuses, or searching your inbox for the latest updates, Monday.com's bug tracking template is here to help.

Log every bug as it comes in, along with the reporter, the source, and the potential impact on the customer. Use the same template to allocate bug fixes and monitor the progress of the repairs.

Here's how you can use monday.com's bug tracking template:

Pick a template: Choose from their ready-to-use templates to get started.
Customize It: Add action items, reorder them based on priority, and create a tailored plan that fits your needs.
Execute your plan: Assign team members to each action item and monitor your plan's progress at every stage.

Monday.com's bug tracking template features:

Excel Export/Import: Easily export this template to Excel with just one click. Import your Excel spreadsheet effortlessly, converting it into an organized and visually appealing Monday.com board in simple steps.
Conversations: Each bug entry includes a conversation feature, allowing everyone involved to discuss details, share information, ask for help, and collaborate without altering the main dashboard view. Flexible Sorting Options: Use the Kanban view to analyze the sources of your bug - reports. Many bugs reported by alpha & beta testers could signal issues with your in-house testing teams or processes. Additionally, utilize this view to display bugs sorted by customer impact and current status.

6. ClickUp Bug Reporting

ClickUp's bug reporting template helps efficiently manage bug reports, and streamlining issue tracking is crucial for delivering high-quality products. It facilitates seamless collaboration between support, engineering, and product teams.

With a suite of powerful features, the template provides a comprehensive solution for tracking, managing, and resolving bugs and defects, ensuring you can deliver better products faster.

Key Features of the ClickUp Bug Reporting Template:

Bug & Issue Tracking: Centralize and prioritize bugs and issues for a quick resolution.
Customizable Folder Structure: Easily organize and access bug reports.
Tailor-fit Workflows: Customize statuses, fields, and views for streamlined reporting.
Automated Notifications: Stay updated with automatic status change comments.
Custom Intake Forms: Collect necessary data efficiently using customizable forms.
Flexible Views: Choose from 5 view types to best suit your team's needs.
Automation: Automate workflow with 1 free automation prompt.

7. Slack Bug Reporting

Slack is a widely-used messaging app that helps teams talk to each other quickly. Many businesses and people use it, including QA testers.

Bug report templates in Slack let you share problems easily without leaving the app. You won't need to switch between apps to write notes or look for information in your email.

These templates can also help you when talking to your teammates or clients. Plus, you can always find them since they're saved in Slack.

8. Email Bug Reporting

An email bug reporting template streamlines the process of reporting software bugs by providing a standardized format to capture essential information. This template typically includes fields for the bug description, steps to reproduce, expected behavior, observed behavior, screenshots or attachments, and additional notes.

Teams can use email bug reporting templates to communicate and track software issues efficiently, ultimately improving the bug resolution process.

9. Excel Bug Reporting

An Excel bug reporting template is a structured, organized way to document and track software bugs using a spreadsheet format. The template includes columns for essential information such as bug ID, description, steps to reproduce, expected and observed behavior, priority, status, assignee, and any relevant attachments or comments.

An Excel bug reporting template enables teams to manage software issues effectively, providing a clear overview of outstanding bugs, their severity, and progress toward resolution. This helps to streamline the bug resolution process and improve overall software quality.

10. Wrike Bug Reporting

Wrike is a collaborative work management platform that promotes standardization and cross-functional cooperation. To create a bug report in Wrike, capture screenshots, annotate them, and convert them into Wrike tasks with a single click whenever you identify a problem on your website.

11. GitLab Bug Reporting

GitLab is similar to GitHub, with the issue processing status displayed in the right column. Since not all employees will have access to and extensive knowledge of Git repositories, using a user-friendly issue reporting tool that integrates with your Git repository is beneficial.

However, using Gitlab's template to create a new bug report can take a while, especially if you need to report many bugs. If you're testing a product and discover many issues, completing the required information for each bug might take hours.

12. Google Docs Bug Reporting

Using a Google Docs bug reporting template offers a simple and accessible means for team members to communicate issues they encounter with software or applications. This approach enables non-technical personnel to easily report bugs in a familiar format while ensuring all relevant information is included in a structured manner.

However, one primary drawback is the lack of integration with other bug tracking systems, which can result in inefficient management of bug reports. Moreover, as the template relies on manual input, there is an increased potential for human error, leading to inconsistencies or inaccuracies in the reports.

13. PDF Bug Reporting

Reporting bugs in a PDF file is another option for documenting and tracking issues, particularly if your organization requires PDFs for internal communication. While PDFs may not offer the same flexibility as other formats, they can still be used effectively for bug reporting.

We have prepared a PDF template based on the previously mentioned MS Word document for your convenience. Download the PDF bug report template here.

When using a PDF file for bug reporting, it's important to ensure all team members can access the document and easily view or edit it as needed.

14. Notion Bug Reporting

Notion is a handy and flexible tool that helps you sort your ideas, manage projects, and monitor your progress. It's like a digital notebook where you can type, insert images, and format your notes in one spot.

Notion's bug report template is useful for tracking and reporting bugs. It's split into four parts - No Status, Next Up, In-progress, and Completed. You can also classify bugs using subcategories based on the issue you encounter.

However, the template doesn't include all the necessary fields for a thorough bug report. Although it's a good starting point, adding more details to understand the bug you're dealing with is essential.

15. Shortcut Bug Reporting

Shortcut is a collaborative project management software that aims to optimize and improve your current processes. To create a bug report in Shortcut, capture a screenshot, annotate it, and turn it into a new Shortcut task with a single click.

Each of these platforms offers its own bug reporting template to suit different workflows and teams. Make sure to choose a template that aligns with your team's needs and preferences, and consider integrating tools that can streamline the bug reporting process further.

Wrapping Up

Using the templates discussed in this blog will not only enhance your testing efficiency but also ensure that your software delivers the highest quality user experience.

While these templates are invaluable, it's important to remember that the right tool can make all the difference. That's where ruttl comes in, offering exceptional visual feedback capabilities to streamline your bug tracking process. With ruttl, you can seamlessly communicate and resolve issues, making it an indispensable tool for any QA team.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to elevate your bug tracking process. Sign up for ruttl today and experience the difference that visual feedback can make in your QA testing workflow.

Role of Bug Tracking tools in Product Development

Wed, 03 May 2023 10:24:00 GMT

A staggering 66% of software projects fail, and a significant portion of these failures are attributed to poor requirement management, unresolved bugs, and inefficiencies.

As the world increasingly relies on software-driven products, it has become crucial to ensure smooth and reliable performance.

That's where bug tracking software comes in—a key ingredient for successful product development.

Product development is a mix of creativity, innovation, and problem-solving. It includes a series of steps like brainstorming, designing, implementing, and testing, with software development playing a major role. During this busy process, it's easy for errors and flaws to sneak in.

Quickly finding and fixing bugs is extremely important in such a fast-paced environment. Bug tracking software makes the process easier and helps keep product quality high and users happy.

In this article, we'll explore the vital role of bug tracking software and how it strengthens the backbone of successful product development.

So, let's get started!

What is Bug Tracking Software?

Bug tracking software, also known as defect tracking software, is a digital solution that helps software development teams identify, record, and manage product bugs or defects. It streamlines the process of finding and fixing issues, making it easier to maintain high-quality software and ensure user satisfaction.

At its core, bug tracking software is a centralized repository for tracking and managing issues. It allows developers and testers to create bug reports, assign tasks, set priorities, and monitor the progress of bug resolution. It also often includes features such as notifications, collaboration tools, and customizable workflows to enhance team communication and productivity.

Key Features of Effective Bug Tracking Software

The efficacy of bug tracking software can significantly impact the software development process and the overall quality of the end product. To ensure that your bug tracking software optimizes your team's performance, consider the following essential features:

1. Issue creation and management

Effective bug tracking software should provide an intuitive interface for creating and managing issues. This includes the ability to log detailed bug reports, complete with essential information such as bug description, steps to reproduce, affected components, and screenshots or attachments.

The software should also allow for easy updating, modification, and tracking of issues as they progress through different stages of resolution.

2. Prioritization and categorization

Handling multiple bugs and issues simultaneously can be overwhelming for development teams. A robust bug tracking software should offer prioritization and categorization features that help teams focus on the most critical issues first.

The software may involve assigning priority levels (e.g., low, medium, high) and categorizing issues by type (e.g., bugs, enhancements, tasks). This allows teams to allocate resources effectively and systematically address problems.

3. Collaboration and communication tools

Effective communication and collaboration among team members are crucial for successful bug resolution.

A good bug tracking software should include features that facilitate seamless communication, such as notifications, comments, and discussions. This can help keep all stakeholders informed about the latest developments and ensure everyone is on the same page.

Some bug tracking systems offer role-based access controls, allowing for different levels of access and permissions based on each team member's role in the project.

4. Reporting and analytics

Insightful reporting and analytics capabilities are essential for any effective bug tracking software. They enable development teams to understand their project's health better and identify trends or patterns in the reported issues. These insights can inform decision-making, drive improvements, and ultimately enhance the quality of the product.

Look for a bug tracking solution that offers customizable reports and dashboards and the ability to export data for further analysis.

5. Integrations with other development tools

Software development involves a variety of tools and platforms, from version control systems to continuous integration and deployment tools.

Effective bug tracking software should be able to integrate seamlessly with these tools to create a cohesive development environment.

Integrations ensure team members can access all the information they need on a single platform. They eliminate the need to switch between multiple tools and reduce the chances of miscommunication or oversight.

The Importance of Bug Tracking in Product Development

1. Identifying and Prioritizing Issues

Bug tracking software enables development teams to swiftly identify and prioritize issues, ensuring that the most critical problems are addressed first. Teams can sort issues based on severity to allocate resources more effectively. It leads to a smoother development process and a higher-quality end product.

Prioritization helps prevent minor issues from overshadowing more pressing concerns, resulting in a more robust and reliable final product.

2. Streamlining the Bug Resolution Process

An organized bug tracking system simplifies the resolution process and significantly reduces the time spent fixing issues. Clear workflows and readily accessible information empower developers to tackle bugs head-on, minimizing downtime and frustration.

The streamlined process allows teams to maintain their focus on core development tasks, enhancing overall productivity and the quality of their work.

3. Centralized Issue Management

A centralized hub for tracking bugs ensures that all stakeholders have access to up-to-date information on the latest issues. This encourages better communication and collaboration among team members, leading to more effective bug resolution.

Centralized issue management also helps prevent duplicate efforts and miscommunication, making it easier to maintain a cohesive and organized approach to problem-solving.

4. Transparent Progress Tracking

Bug tracking software offers clear visibility into the progress of each issue, allowing team members to monitor bug status and anticipate potential roadblocks. This transparency fosters accountability among team members and helps prevent issues from being overlooked or forgotten.

Tracking progress also enables teams to adapt their strategies and make informed decisions regarding resource allocation and timelines.

5. Delivering a Reliable Product

A well-executed bug tracking process is key to delivering a reliable product. By methodically addressing issues throughout the development cycle, developers can produce a stable and reliable product that meets and exceeds customer expectations. This focus on reliability enhances user satisfaction, fosters trust in the product, and strengthens the brand's reputation in the market.

6. Swiftly Addressing Customer-Reported Issues

When customers report bugs and issues, developers must address these concerns promptly.

Efficient bug tracking software equips developers with the tools to quickly resolve customer-reported problems, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and long-lasting relationships.

Furthermore, responsiveness demonstrates a company's commitment to delivering a high-quality user experience and can lead to positive word-of-mouth and brand loyalty.

7. Improving Developer Productivity

Effective bug tracking enables developers to concentrate on their core tasks without being bogged down by disorganized bug reports.

With a clear and organized system in place, developers can quickly address issues and maintain their focus on other important tasks, ultimately boosting productivity and ensuring the team meets project deadlines. This efficiency also contributes to a more motivated and engaged development team.

8. Promoting a Proactive Approach to Quality Assurance

A proactive approach to quality assurance is essential for delivering a polished final product. Bug tracking encourages teams to identify potential problems early in the development process, allowing them to address issues before they escalate. This proactive mindset leads to a higher quality product and minimizes the risk of post-release problems, creating a more satisfying user experience.

9. Reducing Development Costs and Time to Market

Streamlined bug resolution processes facilitated by bug tracking software can lead to reduced development costs and a shorter time to market.

Teams can quickly identify and resolve issues to avoid extensive rework and costly delays, ensuring the timely release of a quality product. This efficiency benefits the development team and contributes to the company's bottom line.

10. Fostering a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Bug tracking fosters a culture of continuous improvement by providing valuable insights into recurring issues and areas for enhancement.

Teams can learn from past mistakes and refine their development processes to continuously improve product quality and development practices. This improvement ultimately results in a more robust and refined product, boosting user satisfaction and setting the stage for long-term success.

11. Enhancing Cross-Functional Collaboration

Bug tracking software promotes cross-functional collaboration by providing a centralized platform where different teams can discuss, prioritize, and resolve issues.

Team members from development, quality assurance, and product management can use bug tracking software to view and track progress on bugs in real time, offer feedback, and contribute to problem-solving. This leads to faster resolution of issues and improved overall product quality.

12. Facilitating Better Resource Allocation and Planning

Bug tracking software offers valuable insights into bugs' status, severity, and impact on the product. Managers can use this information to make informed decisions about resource allocation, ensuring critical bugs are addressed promptly and efficiently.

Bug tracking systems also help identify patterns and trends in bug occurrences, which can be used to plan future development tasks and allocate resources accordingly. This leads to better prioritization and more effective use of resources.

13. Encouraging Knowledge Sharing and Best Practices

Bug tracking systems maintain a comprehensive record of bugs and their resolutions to serve as a knowledge base for team members. This allows them to learn from past experiences and gain insights into potential issues that may arise in the future.

Additionally, teams can use this shared knowledge to establish the best coding, testing, and problem-solving practices, leading to a more efficient and streamlined development process.

14. Supporting Regulatory Compliance and Audit Requirements

In industries with stringent regulatory compliance and audit requirements, bug tracking software effectively demonstrates adherence to regulations. It maintains detailed records of bug identification, prioritization, and resolution, allowing organizations to readily provide essential documentation during audits.

The software also ensures team members follow required processes and procedures, reducing non-compliance risks. As a result, the audit process is simplified, and product security and reliability are enhanced.

Factors To Consider When Selecting Bug Tracking Software

When selecting bug tracking software, it's important to consider various factors to ensure the chosen solution meets the organization's needs. Some of these factors include:

Team size and structure: The software should accommodate the number of team members and support the organization's structure, including hierarchies and cross-functional collaboration.
Specific project requirements: Consider the project's or industry's unique needs, such as specific workflows or regulatory compliance requirements, to ensure the software aligns with these demands.
Scalability and adaptability: The bug tracking software should be scalable and adaptable to handle changes in team size, project complexity, or technology over time.
Ease of use and onboarding: The software should be user-friendly and intuitive, enabling team members to learn and adopt the system quickly with minimal training.
Customization and flexibility: The software should offer customization options and flexibility in setting up workflows, fields, and priorities to fit the organization's needs and preferences.
Integration with other development tools: The bug tracking software must integrate seamlessly with other tools in the development ecosystem, such as version control systems, continuous integration platforms, and project management solutions.
Reporting and analytics capabilities: Comprehensive reporting and analytics features are essential for providing insights into bug trends, team performance, and overall product quality.
Collaboration and communication features: The software should promote collaboration and communication among team members with real-time notifications, threaded conversations, and file attachments.
Security and data protection: Ensure the chosen bug tracking software adheres to industry-standard security and data protection practices to safeguard sensitive information and maintain compliance with applicable regulations.

ruttl for Bug Tracking

ruttl is a visual feedback and collaboration platform created for designers, developers, and teams to streamline the website/web apps and mobile app review process. It simplifies the communication between stakeholders by allowing them to provide feedback directly on live websites and apps, making it easier to identify and resolve design and development issues.

ruttl's capabilities include pinpointing design inconsistencies, leaving contextual feedback, and tracking revisions in real-time.

Using ruttl for bug tracking involves the following steps:

Step 1: Sign in and Start the Project

Sign up for a ruttl account if you don't have one and log in. Click on "+ Add New Project" to start the new project. Then, select the option between websites/web apps, or mobile apps, and then click on ‘Create’ to proceed.

Step 2: Provide New Project Details

To start a new project, create a unique project name that reflects its purpose. Next, input the website URL you want to analyze for bug tracking. Click 'Continue' to proceed.

Step 3: Choose project management tool integrations (optional)

ruttl offers seamless integration with popular project management tools such as Asana, ClickUp, Trello, and others. Choose the tool you would like to integrate with your project, or if you prefer not to integrate any tools, select 'Create without integration'.

Step 4: Collaborate With Your Team to Identify and Resolve Bugs

Once your live website is launched within ruttl, invite your team members to join the project. They can then comment, identify bugs, and raise tickets to resolve issues. Collaborate with your team in real-time to efficiently track and address website bugs.

Implementing a Bug Tracking System in Your Product Development Process

1. Setting Up the Bug Tracking Tool

Select a bug tracking system that suits your team's requirements and preferences. Consider factors such as team size, project complexity, and integration with other development tools. Once you've chosen the right tool, configure it to align with your project needs, including setting up custom fields, priorities, and access permissions.

2. Training and Onboarding Team Members

Ensure all team members are familiar with the bug tracking system and understand how to use it effectively. Provide training sessions and create documentation to guide them through the tool's features and capabilities. Encourage open communication and address any questions or concerns during the onboarding process.

3. Establishing a Bug Management Workflow

Define a clear and consistent bug management workflow that outlines the process for identifying, reporting, prioritizing, assigning, and resolving bugs. This workflow should cover all aspects of bug tracking, from initial discovery to final resolution, and include guidelines for categorizing and prioritizing issues. Make sure that all team members understand and adhere to this workflow.

4. Continuously Improving Bug Tracking Practices

Regularly evaluate and refine your bug tracking practices to ensure their effectiveness. Gather feedback from team members, identify areas for improvement, and implement changes as needed. Monitor key metrics, such as bug resolution times and overall product quality, to assess the impact of your bug tracking system on your development process.

Conclusion

The importance of bug tracking software in product development cannot be overstated. A well-implemented bug tracking system promotes cross-functional collaboration, improves resource allocation, fosters knowledge sharing, and supports compliance with regulatory requirements.

As your team tackles complex projects, investing in a suitable bug tracking tool becomes essential to ensure smooth workflows, timely resolutions, and higher overall product quality.

Check out ruttl's visual bug tracking tool, which stands out for its ease of use, seamless collaboration features, and direct integration with popular project management tools. Sign up and see how it can elevate your product development process.

Top 11 White Label Tools for Agencies

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 12:55:43 GMT

As an agency owner or someone who works in a digital marketing agency, you understand that every client is unique. This means that every digital marketing campaign, marketing strategy, and all content creation must be personalized to fit the specific goals of each client.

And, that’s where white label tools come into play.

White label tools allow agencies to customize a software solution just for your company. These tools help streamline business processes to increase efficiency and create consistency across the board.

In this article, we'll discuss white label tools, why they are important, and the top 11 white label tools for agencies.

What are white label tools?

White label tools are software that allows businesses to create and manage their own branded versions of products or services. This can include everything from creating a custom logo and branding to adding and configuring features to meet the business's specific needs.

You can use white label tools to create a unique brand identity and to differentiate a business from its competitors. You can also use them to create a more efficient and streamlined workflow by allowing businesses to manage all their branded products and services in one place.

There are a lot of White Label tools for agencies available on the market - but the best ones have one thing in common: they're indistinguishable from products that were custom-built by the agency. In other words, clients should feel like the product was made specifically for them when using a white label tool. This sense of customization and personalization is key to maintaining client satisfaction.

Why do agencies particularly love them?

There are a few key reasons why white label tools are so important for agencies:

Agencies are in a unique position to offer a wide range of services to their clients. By offering a complete suite of tools, agencies can become one-stop shops for their clients' needs. This makes the agency more efficient and allows them to build deeper relationships with its clients.
Second, white label tools give agencies more control over their branding and identity. By using tools branded with their logo and name, agencies can ensure that their clients always associate them with quality and professionalism. This can be a major differentiator in a highly competitive market.
Third, white label tools often come with higher support and service than generic tools. This is because the providers of these tools understand that their success is directly tied to the success of the agencies that use them. As such, they are often willing to go the extra mile to ensure that agencies can get the most out of their products.
Lastly, agencies can avoid creating their own tools from scratch by using a white label tool. This can save a lot of time and money. In addition, white label tools can be customized to meet an agency's specific needs. This makes them more efficient and effective.

Overall, white label tools are an essential part of any agency's arsenal. By offering a wider range of services, more control over branding, and higher levels of support, they can help agencies succeed in today's competitive market.

Features to look out for in white label apps

Some key features of mobile apps should be considered when building your white label app:

App design: Choosing an attractive UX design for your white label app is important. A good-looking app will give customers a positive impression of your business and help them trust you more. This can encourage them to download the app and share it with others.
User experience: A good user experience is essential when creating a white label mobile app. This means providing users with intuitive navigation and ensuring no bugs or glitches in the software code or interface. It helps users easily access information or perform tasks on their devices without hassle.
Customization: You should be able to customize every aspect of your website with this feature, including colors, fonts, and other visual elements such as logos. This makes it easier for you to create a unique experience for each customer using your website or mobile application.
Customer support: When choosing a white label app provider, ensure they offer excellent customer support services so that if anything goes wrong with your site or app, they'll fix it quickly and efficiently.
Security: The security of your data is paramount in white label apps. The provider must guarantee that all data is encrypted and that there is no risk of hacking or leaking sensitive information into the wrong hands at any point during its use.

Top 11 White Label Tools For Agencies

1. Feedback Management: ruttl

ruttl is a white label feedback management tool that allows you to connect with your customers and collect their feedback in real time.

ruttl is the perfect platform for businesses who want to white label and customize their own content creation experience. rutt's simple and intuitive interface makes it easy to brand your content according to your own guidelines and colors. Plus, with ruttl's powerful customization options, you can create a truly unique and branded experience for your agency.

With this user feedback tool, you can get precise and detailed reviews that will help you create the best experience possible for users. You can easily send shareable links to web pages to your team and let them give their honest feedback.

ruttl white labeling features

Custom logo

ruttl allows you to add a custom logo to your application. This is a great way to personalize your account and make it stand out. To add a custom logo, go to the account settings page and upload the image. Once your logo has been uploaded, it will be displayed on your website's pages.

Custom icon

A favicon is a small, usually 1x1 icon that represents a website. It is displayed in the browser's address bar, next to the website's name. ruttl allows you to add a custom favicon to your website. This is a great way to make your website more recognizable.

Custom brand colors

ruttl makes it easy to add your custom brand colors. You can either use the ruttl Color Picker tool to choose from a range of preset colors or enter your hex code to create a unique color scheme for your brand.

Custom domain

A custom domain helps you establish your brand. It's unique to you, and it's how customers will find you online. With ruttl, it's easy to add a custom domain and get your application up and running in no time.

Pricing: Get in touch with the team, as ruttl provides white label options only at custom pricing.

2. Email Marketing: Active Campaign

Email marketing is a tool that can help you grow your agency's revenue by building relationships with clients and closing more deals.

When you're an agency owner, you don't have to do everything yourself—you have a team of experts who can help with everything from setting up campaigns, analyzing their performance, and writing emails. But what if there was ONE thing they could all do together?

That's where ActiveCampaign comes in. It's a simple email marketing tool that helps your team coordinate their efforts while also driving revenue.

With ActiveCampaign, you can:

Create newsletters, analyze data, and track your results all in one place.
Leverage other tools that allow you to create landing pages, form builders, and other features that make it easier for you to build client websites.
Use CRM automation so your team members can focus on their tasks: creating content and driving traffic to client sites.

With ActiveCampaign's white label options, freelancers can manage contacts, lead scoring, deal closing, and task monitoring without manually entering information into separate programs!

The white label marketing solution interfaces with 850+ more online services in addition to WooCommerce, BigCommerce, PayPal, Stripe, Shopify, and Facebook. Gaining useful marketing insights through collecting and analyzing data from diverse sources enables businesses to strengthen client relationships and increase revenue.

Pricing: There’s custom pricing for agencies looking for white label products.

3. Project Management: ProofHub

Proofhub is a project management and collaboration tool that enables teams to manage their projects, communicate with each other, and collaborate on tasks more effectively.

Proofhub is a cloud-based tool that offers a suite of features to help teams work together more efficiently, including project management, task management, file sharing, and more. It helps you decide what others can access. So things are always under your ultimate control.

With Proofhub’s white label capabilities, you can add:

Custom role that allows you to define the access rights according to your business needs and preferences, so things are always organized and managed in the best possible way.
Private task lists that help you keep your tasks private and organized, so no one else has access to them unless they're added by default or specifically invited by the owner. This helps keep things confidential and under control.
IP restriction to make sure only those belonging to the same network have access to the platform - this way nothing gets leaked even if someone tries to hack into your account.

Proofhub shows you a clear agenda for the day with daily updates on tasks and reminders set automatically.

Teams can ensure that every important piece of information is properly located to prevent information gaps. With ProofHub's varied views, various teams can collaborate in a way that best suits their work processes.

The platform allows you to see the status of your projects from a bird's eye view, so you can determine whether your team is moving in the right direction. You have everything you need with ProofHub to remain on schedule, meet deadlines, and accomplish your objectives.

Pricing: White labeling is available with pricing options of $89/month if billed annually.

4. SEO Reporting: SEO power suite

The SEO PowerSuite tool allows you to produce white label SEO reports. In the white label reporting section, you can enter your business name, website address, and email address, and it will set up a report for you with those details.

Here’s everything that you can do with SEO Powersuite tool:

PowerSuite’s software bundle includes Rank Tracker, SEO SpyGlass, LinkAssistant, and WebSite Auditor. They assist you with keyword selection, online content optimization, website and landing page ranking, position tracking, competitor analysis, and keyword selection.
If you're not in the mood to build your own reports from scratch, but still want a white label experience, the SEO PowerSuite has got you covered!

You can create a white label SEO report from scratch using SEO PowerSuite. This software provides customization and design settings to make your reports look professional, including various color schemes for text and background, font sizes and effects, shadows, etc.

Moreover, SEO PowerSuite lets you generate white label reports for customers and store them in separate folders. You can select how you want to deliver the reports; send them via different options:

Email
PDF files
A link to the in-cloud folder

This feature is useful for marketing agencies that handle hundreds of clients simultaneously.

Pricing: White labeling available with an enterprise plan of $499/year.

5. Invoicing & Payment: Invoice Ninja

Invoice Ninja is the leading invoice white label tool on the market. Its clean and user-friendly interface makes creating and sending invoices to your clients easy.

You can also customize the look and feel of your invoices to match your brand. Plus, with its powerful features, you can easily manage your finances and track payments.

Automating your invoicing workflow is easier with InvoiceNinja as it provides useful features such as auto-billing and auto-sending reminder emails. Of course, it isn't truly a platform for marketing.

However, among the company's more than 170,000 customers are marketing agencies. As an open-source platform, Invoice Ninja is backed by a sizable global development community. This unquestionably has a positive impact on its costs.

Pricing: Invoice Ninja offers white labeling for $30/year.

6. Website Builder: Weblium

Weblium is a white label website builder tool that allows you to create beautiful, responsive websites. With Weblium, you can create websites of any type, from personal blogs to corporate sites.

Weblium has over 300+ white label web templates available to choose from, and it takes just a few hours to create custom websites with them. With their AI Supervisor keeping an eye on the design consistency and 200+ blocks adjusting perfectly across all screen sizes (even mobile), it's 3x faster than WordPress—and they guarantee it!

The logic behind building websites with Weblium and WordPress is the same. Any user can create fantastic, user-friendly pages using blocks, columns, and rows, regardless of skill level.

After the website is built, Weblium handles all updates and security concerns. Built-in SEO tools also let you edit page URLs, add meta tags, and provide alt text for photos.

Pricing: Starts at $350.

7. Client Management: manyrequests

manyrequests is a simple CRM tool that helps you manage your clients' requests and organize your team's workload. It's a great tool for agencies because it offers powerful project management features without disrupting your team with too much administrative work.

Here’s what manyrequests offers:

manyrequests helps in managing and organizing client tasks. Tasks can be created and customized, assigned to personnel, given due dates, and have files and information attached to them as they move through different statuses.
manyrequests streamlines customer communication by having a dedicated "discussion" area for each request. This way, you can easily keep track of progress on projects and tasks and collect essential information and files in one place.
With manyrequests, billing is a breeze. They have built-in functionality to help you manage invoices and payments for your customers using Stripe and PayPal.

The software's white-labeling capabilities let you personalize your URL, logo, and theme to great effect. You can make it your own and stand out from the competition.

Pricing: The basic plan starts at $99/month if billed annually. It includes the white label portal.

8. Website PopUps: OptinMonster

Optinmonster is a powerful white label lead capture tool that helps you convert more visitors into subscribers and customers. With OptinMonster, you can create beautiful opt-in forms and popups that are proven to boost conversion rates.

Optinmonster white label tool comes with a wide range of features that allow you to customize your forms and popups to match your brand, website, and conversion goals. Here’s what the app offers.

Create lead capture forms, pop ups, and slide-ins that capture eyeballs
Ability to create target forms based on visitor behavior
Add forms to any website or landing page
Ability to split test forms that helps improve performance
Generate detailed reports

The best thing about Optinmonster is that there’s no coding required when adding forms to any website or landing page. With custom JavaScript, you can target your audience with a variable and convert them into leads and customers. Furthermore, the Optinmonster A/B testing feature will help you improve your firm's performance.

Pricing: Custom branding starts with the Pro Plan or higher, which starts at $22.04/month.

9. Social Media Management: Social Pilot

If you're looking for a social media management tool that will truly be your own, then look no further than SocialPilot.

With SocialPilot's white label options, you can:

Create PDF reports and set collaborative dashboards that help you plan social media content in collaboration with clients.
Manage your social media accounts, including creating and managing groups and monitoring and responding to comments and messages.

SocialPilot's white label features allow you to give your clients a seamless branded experience with a completely customized interface that matches your brand’s image and style.

Pricing: The white label plan starts at $140/month.

10. Company Mention Monitoring: Mention

Mention is a company that provides a white label tool for monitoring mentions. You can use this tool to track and monitor mentions of your brand or company across the web, social media, and other online channels.

You can also use Mention to monitor competitor mentions or track general industry trends. Mention's platform is designed to be easy to use and to provide actionable insights, making it a valuable tool for any business or organization.

Using Mention’s white label capabilities, you have the power to:

Design, personalize, and distribute branded reports to clients
Schedule the delivery of reports
Track specific metrics like total online and social media mentions and create graphs and charts that graphically show your development over time.

Pricing: White label capabilities are only available with a custom yearly plan. You’re required to get in touch with the team to get a custom quote.

11. Workflow Management: Monday.com

Monday.com is a white label workflow management tool that enables businesses to manage their workflows more effectively. It provides a centralized platform for managing workflows and enables businesses to see where bottlenecks are occurring and take corrective action accordingly.

Monday's white label tools are a great way for agencies to keep track of their projects, clients, and branding all in one place. Having your agency's logo on your Monday account makes it easy to stay organized and keeps everything in one central location.

This workflow management tool offers a range of features and integrations that make it an invaluable tool for businesses of all sizes. Some of the features that make Monday.com stand out include the following:

A drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to add, remove, and reorder tasks
The ability to assign tasks to specific team members and set due dates
A variety of views that let you see your project from different angles
Integrations with popular productivity tools like Slack, Google Drive, and Dropbox
A robust search feature that lets you find any task or project quickly

Monday.com is a great choice for businesses looking for a simple yet powerful project management tool

Pricing: Get in touch with the team to get a custom quote.

Conclusion

It ultimately comes down to a single question: do you want to build your tool, or are you looking for a ready-made product that's been polished by the experts?

The benefits of white label tools go beyond just offering your clients a product they can use to accomplish tasks they want to complete; they also help your agency establish itself as a legitimate business.

If you can find the right white label product, your clients will appreciate your efforts, which allows you to charge more and keep your margin higher than if you were using tools without an established brand name.

5 Best Website Builders In 2024

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 07:13:00 GMT

Building a website is the first thing you want to do if you want to expand your business. You can expand your reach, manage your business and cut down on costs because you can manage all transactions and customers online. If you’re selling a product, you cut down on the cost of the physical space required to sell.

However, setting up your own website can be challenging. Hiring people is expensive and you might not even know what you want from it. Lucky for you, you can set up and launch your website all by yourself. You can learn along the way and optimize your website as per your needs.

Keep in mind that your website needs to be aesthetically pleasing. You’re competing with several other websites so creating a website that visitors will remember is essential.

Here are the five best website builders for 2023 and their important features.

1. Wix

According to WebBuildersGuide, Wix is one of the best free website builders available on the market. Let's find out why?

If you can afford a developer or don’t want to do all the work yourself, Wix offers over 100 professionals to help you out. You can get help in website design, promotion, site updates, analytics, and graphic design. If not, you can also use the in-built tools to figure out the process all by yourself.

Features:

Communication with customers has never been easier. You can chat with site visitors and clients can book appointments with you from the website itself.
Mark event dates, sell tickets and check who is RSVPing.
You can connect your Instagram feed and display the pictures and videos and redirect people to your page.
It’s a great choice if you’re in the food industry. Display your menu and customers can place orders and arrange for pick-up and delivery. It also allows online reservations.
Form a community for your site members and generate brand loyalty. You can start forum discussion and connect the customers to one another.

2. Weebly

Create a website for your business and grow exponentially.

Weebly is the best website builder if your aim is to grow. You can not only optimize the website as you grow but the website builder also facilitates growth.

Features:

Are you a novice? Fret not. Avail the planning tools to receive step-by-step guidance on how to build your website.
The e-commerce tools like order management, shipping and payment lets you sell conveniently.
The integrated marketing tools like targeted Facebook ads and automated email ads help you find and expand your customer base.
You also get a sense of community as Weebly frequently organizes in-person events that let you interact with like-minded individuals, network and grow.
You can also go to their blog to get inspired and get tips on your business and website strategy.

3. Squarespace

With the help of Squarespace, you can create your own website with an excellent design in mere minutes. It has pre-existing templates that you can use, and the product management system lets you keep track of prices and stock.

Features:

Use professional portfolio designs. You can present your work to your clients with the help of customizable galleries. Share these files privately by using the password protect feature.
Learn about the source of your traffic so that you can target potential customers effectively. With Squarespace’s website analytics you can see how visitors are navigating through your site, where they’re coming from, and what keywords they’re using.
Go to the Squarespace blog to learn about what is trending and how new entrepreneurs are securing their place in the market.
Go to the forum and introduce your business. Learn about coding and customizations and get tips on how to get started.
Join free webinars to learn the basics and refine your skills.

4. WordPress

Did you know that 42% of the web runs on WordPress. There are various plugins available online that make pretty much any form of business possible on WordPress. You can even create your own plugins, go to external ones to create diverse pages. With WordPress, the opportunities are endless.

Features:

You don’t need any coding. The intuitive drag and drop builder, lets you make your own website just with the mouse.
No matter what you want to do with your website, there is a plug in. This means you can grow rapidly.
Built-in SEO tools and website analytics lets you track your audience and manage them at the tip of your fingers.
Don’t miss out on any updates. Install the application on your phone and keep in touch with your business in real time.
Find a domain that is suited to your business. You can also replace the domain later.

5. SITE123

SITE123 is the easiest website builder software on the web. Be it a fashion apparel store or an online platform to sell arts and books, SITE123 is equipped to handle all your needs.

You can also start a blog and get a free domain name for a year on the purchase of an annual plan.

Features:

Your website will be automatically responsive on desktop, tablets and smartphones.
You get free web hosting with excellent speed and security.
You can have a one page or a multiple page website.
Grow internationally. SITE123 lets you create multi-language websites in a few clicks.
Choose from a variety of free fonts to give your website the look you desire.

Are you still wondering, ‘what is the best website builder?’ Think about which builder is the best for you. The builder that has worked for others may not work for you.

Your choice depends on the aim of your business and your skill set. If you want to grow rapidly, go for WordPress. It lets you use multiple plugins while still maintaining website speed. If you’re a beginner, SITE123 does not have a huge learning curve.

We suggest that before buying any plan, you test the features on these builders and assess what works for you.

Done with building your website? What’s next -

After you create your own website using the aforementioned builders, it's important to test it and get feedback from your team or users. This helps ensure that the website meets the needs of your target audience.

To accomplish this, you can use a website feedback tool like ruttl, which provides a comprehensive suite for all types of visual feedback.

By sharing the project link with your team members, they can review the site and provide their feedback in the form of comments and annotations, allowing you to make necessary changes.

Ready to get started? Sign up today!

Customize Your Sales Demos to Increase Conversions

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 05:55:53 GMT

In today's competitive market, standing out from the crowd and effectively showcasing the value of your product or service is essential for success. One powerful tool at your disposal is the sales demo—a chance to let potential customers experience your offering first-hand.

But what if you could optimize these demos to boost your conversion rates even further? Enter the world of customizing sales demos.

A recent study showed that sales demos tied to a specific pain point could lead to a remarkable 35% increase in conversions compared to generic, one-size-fits-all presentations.

In this blog, we'll explore the art of tailoring your sales demos better to meet your prospects' unique needs and interests. We'll cover why customization is crucial, how to identify your target audience's pain points, and strategies to personalize your demos for maximum impact.

By the end of this post, you'll have the knowledge and tools to create tailored sales demos that resonate with your potential customers and drive higher conversions.

So, let's dive in!

4 Reasons Why Custom Sales Experiences are Important for Sales Teams

In the fast-paced world of sales, one-size-fits-all approaches are rapidly becoming outdated. To stay competitive and increase sales, sales teams must prioritize custom sales experiences tailored to their specific audiences.

By adapting their approach to their prospects' unique needs, preferences, and pain points, sales professionals can forge stronger connections and ultimately drive higher conversion rates.

Here are some reasons why custom sales experiences are vital for sales teams and some examples of how they can lead to success.

1. Enhanced personalization

People prefer personalized experiences, and that includes sales interactions. By customizing sales presentations, sales teams can demonstrate a deep understanding of their prospects' needs and show a genuine interest in solving their problems. This level of personalization fosters trust and makes prospects more likely to buy.

For instance, a software company selling to small and large enterprises should create different demos for each audience segment.

A small business owner might be more interested in ease of use, affordability, and quick implementation.
An enterprise client might prioritize scalability, integration capabilities, and advanced features.

The sales team can demonstrate their commitment to meeting each client's unique needs by addressing these distinct concerns in their respective sales demos.

2. Improved engagement

Custom sales experiences are more engaging and memorable than generic ones. When a sales pitch is tailored to the prospect's industry, company, or role, it resonates deeply and keeps their attention throughout the presentation. Sales teams that invest in crafting personalized demos will find that their prospects are more likely to participate, ask questions, and discuss potential collaboration actively.

Consider a sales team targeting the healthcare sector. By customizing their demos with industry-specific examples, the team can make their presentation more relatable and engaging to healthcare professionals. They can show how their product can streamline patient data management or improve patient outcomes.

3. Shortened sales cycles

Custom sales experiences can also help shorten sales cycles by addressing prospects' concerns more effectively. When a sales demo is tailored to highlight solutions to the prospect's specific pain points, it becomes easier for the prospect to envision the value of the product or service being offered. This can help expedite the decision-making process and ultimately lead to quicker conversions.

For example, a sales team selling a project management tool might encounter prospects with concerns about team collaboration and communication. The sales team can quickly alleviate the prospect's concerns and move the sales process forward by customizing their demo to showcase the tool's features that address these specific challenges.

4. Increased competitive advantage

Custom sales experiences in a crowded marketplace can set a sales team apart from its competitors. By demonstrating a deep understanding of the prospect's business, sales teams can offer tailored solutions that cater to their unique needs.

This approach positions them as valuable partners rather than just other vendors. As a result, this differentiation provides a significant competitive advantage over those relying on more generic sales approaches.

Best Practices for Customizing Sales Demos

There's a fine line between being impressive and being a downer when it comes to sales demos.

You want to wow your prospects with your product and service. But, you also don't want to be so over-the-top that the prospect feels like they're being sold to. The key is to strike the right balance and ensure you're not just pitching features but also showing off what those features mean for their business.

1. Know your audience

The best sales demos are customized to the audience. A good salesperson knows what information and benefits will excite the prospect about your product or service. The same is true for the demo. So, here's what you do:

Research the prospect's industry, company size, and specific challenges.
Be familiar with their competitors and how your product or service can help them gain an edge.
Consider the roles and responsibilities of the individuals attending the demo.

In addition to knowing your audience, you should also know your product. If you don't know everything there is to know about your product, then you won't be able to customize a demo tailored to your prospect's needs.

It's important to remember that some prospects are more technical than others. So, it's important to adjust what you show them accordingly.

2. Personalize for the prospect

A customized demo is one of the best ways to show how your product or service can help your prospect's business. It shows that you've researched their industry and competitors, as well as what success looks like for them.

Use the prospect's company name and logo throughout your presentation to create a sense of ownership.
Incorporate real-life examples and case studies that are relevant to their industry or specific challenges they face.
Customize your demo by highlighting the features and benefits most relevant to the prospect's needs.

By personalizing the demo, you show your audience that you have taken the time to understand their business, which fosters trust and credibility.

3. Highlight the benefits

Your prospect doesn't care about features; they care about results. So focus on benefits instead of features, and use examples and stories to show how the product solves real-world problems.

For example, if you're selling software, don't just walk through the features and functions on the screen. Instead, show how the software can help solve the daily problems your customers experience. A successful sales demo will:

Show how easy it is to use the product
Demonstrate how quickly they can see results
Show them how much money they'll save by using your product or service

This will help your audience envision how your solution can improve their daily operations and contribute to their overall success. By emphasizing the benefits, you can create a stronger value proposition that resonates with your audience and encourages them to take action.

4. Keep it concise

You want to give your prospect enough information so that they can understand what you do and how it benefits them. But you don't want to overwhelm them with details. A concise and focused demo effectively holds your audience's attention and conveys your message.

Avoid overwhelming your prospects with too much information or unnecessary details.
Prioritize the most relevant features and benefits directly addressing your prospect's needs.
Stick to a clear and logical flow, and ensure your presentation is easy to follow.

In a brief 15-minute demo, it's crucial to effectively guide your prospect through the sales process, ensuring they stay on track and avoid distractions. To accomplish this, cover the three stages of the buyer's journey during your demo, helping them navigate their decision-making path efficiently and confidently.

5. Practice well

Preparation is crucial to the success of your customized sales demo. It's an opportunity to show prospects how your product can solve their problems and help them achieve their goals.

Here are ways to practice your sales demos well:

Ensure you know your material inside out and can present it confidently and naturally.
Rehearse your demo several times, adjusting your pacing and tone to keep your audience engaged.
Be prepared for questions and possible objections, and practice your responses to ensure you can address them effectively.

A well-practiced demo will demonstrate your professionalism and expertise, positively impacting your prospects.

6. Use visuals

Visuals are always more memorable than words alone. In fact, studies show that people retain 80% of what they see and only 20% of what they hear. So, using visuals whenever possible during your sales demos makes sense.

Here's how you can use visuals in your sales demos:

Use clear, high-quality images, graphs, and charts to illustrate your points and demonstrate the benefits of your product or service.
Make sure your visuals are relevant to your audience and support the message you're conveying.
Avoid cluttered or overly complex visuals, as they detract from your presentation.

It's important not to rely completely on your prospect's eyeballs; make sure they can see what you're doing on screen as well. This will help them follow along and give them confidence in your recommendations.

7. Address objections

Addressing objections is a critical aspect of a successful sales demo. It is important to anticipate potential concerns your prospects may have and address them proactively throughout the presentation.

Start by demonstrating empathy and understanding toward the prospect's concerns, which helps build trust and rapport.
As you proceed through the demo, incorporate solutions to the anticipated objections within the context of your product or service features. Provide evidence such as case studies, testimonials, or data to support your claims and validate your product's effectiveness in addressing their concerns.
When objections arise during the demo, maintain a positive and solution-oriented attitude. Show your willingness to listen and understand their concerns while offering well-considered responses to alleviate their doubts.

By addressing objections effectively and seamlessly throughout your sales demo, you can demonstrate your commitment to finding solutions for your prospects and increase the likelihood of a successful sale.

How To Create Custom Sales Experiences

ruttl is a powerful design collaboration tool that can create custom sales experiences by allowing users to quickly change text, images, styling, and other design elements.

Here's how sales teams can leverage ruttl to bring their visions to life and create personalized sales presentations that resonate with their audience:

1. Quickly change text, images, and styling

With ruttl's user-friendly interface, sales teams can easily edit the text, swap images, and adjust the styling of their sales presentations to cater to their prospect's unique needs. This level of customization helps ensure that the message being conveyed is relevant and impactful, increasing the likelihood of capturing the prospect's attention and securing a sale.

2. Collaborate in real-time

ruttl's real-time collaboration feature enables sales teams to work together on their presentations, ensuring everyone is on the same page and that the final product is polished and cohesive. This level of teamwork helps create a more compelling sales pitch tailored to the target audience's specific needs and preferences.

3. Collect feedback and iterate

The feedback and annotation tool in ruttl makes it easy for sales teams to collect input from colleagues and stakeholders. You can use the comments and feedback to refine and improve the presentation. It ensures that it accurately addresses the prospect's pain points and showcases the most relevant features and benefits.

4. Version control and history

ruttl's version control feature allows sales teams to easily track changes and revert to previous versions of their presentations. This ensures that important modifications are not lost and provides a clear audit trail of the presentation's evolution, streamlining the design process.

5. Integration with popular design tools

ruttl seamlessly integrates with popular design tools like Sketch, Figma, and Adobe XD through Zapier. It allows sales teams to work within their preferred design environment while leveraging ruttl's powerful collaboration and customization features. This streamlines the design process and improves overall productivity.

Conclusion

Customizing your sales demos is a powerful strategy for increasing conversions and forging stronger connections with your prospects. By personalizing your presentations, addressing specific pain points, and leveraging the benefits of collaboration and real-time feedback, your sales team can create tailored sales experiences that resonate with your target audience and drive success.

The versatility and robust features of ruttl make it an ideal tool for sales teams looking to elevate their sales demos and cater to their prospects' unique needs. From modifying text and images to collaborating in real-time and iterating based on feedback, ruttl empowers sales professionals to create custom sales experiences that leave a lasting impression.

Don't miss the opportunity to improve your sales conversion rates and enhance your overall sales process. Sign up on ruttl and discover how this powerful design collaboration tool can help you create compelling, personalized sales demos that drive results.

How to Edit Websites Like A Pro (With No Coding Experience)

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 07:45:35 GMT

In today's digital age, having a well-designed website is essential for any marketing team. It serves as the online face of your brand and a primary touchpoint for your customers.

According to Blue Corona's survey, 48% of people cited a website's design as the number one factor in deciding the credibility of a business. As such, marketing teams must be able to edit and optimize their websites efficiently.

However, the challenge that marketing teams often face is editing websites without coding experience. Traditionally, website editing required knowledge of HTML, CSS, and other programming languages, making it a daunting task for non-coders.

This article aims to provide a step-by-step guide on how to edit websites like a pro, even without coding experience.

Understanding Website Editing

Although coding is essential to editing a website, non-coders can now edit websites using intuitive tools and platforms that require no coding experience.

Website editing encompasses updating and modifying a website's content and design elements to maintain its relevance, user-friendliness, and overall appeal. It involves various aspects, such as text, images, layout, and coding, to ensure the website remains engaging, visually appealing, and optimized for search engines.

The basics of website editing: text, images, and layout

1. Text

The content on your website plays a critical role in conveying your message, promoting your brand, and engaging your audience.

Effective website editing involves checking and updating the text content for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors and ensuring consistency in tone and style. Additionally, the text should be structured using headings, subheadings, and bullet points to improve readability and provide a clear information hierarchy. For a smoother workflow, you can also take advantage of a paraphrasing tool to explore different wordings and improve content clarity while preserving the intended meaning.

2. Images

Visual elements like images, videos, and graphics can enhance the overall appearance of a website, making it more engaging and appealing to users.

When editing your website, you need to ensure the images are relevant, high-quality, and properly optimized for web use. This includes resizing, compressing, and adding appropriate alt tags to make them accessible and SEO-friendly. Furthermore, maintain a consistent style and format for all images across your site.

3. Layout

The layout of your website should be clean, organized, and easy to navigate. This involves arranging elements logically, using whitespace effectively, and ensuring your site is responsive and mobile-friendly.

Editing your website's layout may involve the following:
Modifying the template or theme.
Adjusting the navigation menu.
Reorganizing content sections to enhance user experience and boost conversions.

The role of coding in website editing

Coding is an integral part of website editing, as it involves working with the underlying code that powers the website's functionality and appearance. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and JavaScript are the most common coding languages in web design and development.

HTML is responsible for the basic structure and content of a web page;
CSS controls the visual presentation and styling;
JavaScript enables interactivity and dynamic content.

Proficiency in these coding languages allows you to make granular changes to your website. You can customize the website's appearance and functionality to suit your needs. For instance, you can adjust the typography, colors, and animations or add interactive features like forms, sliders, and galleries.

How to edit websites without coding experience

Thankfully, you don't need to be an expert coder to edit your website effectively. With the advent of user-friendly content management systems (CMS), website builders, and visual editing tools, individuals with no technical background can create and maintain professional-looking websites.

1. Content management systems (CMS)

Platforms like WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace have made website creation and editing accessible to non-coders. These CMS platforms provide pre-built templates and drag-and-drop editors. A vast library of plugins and add-ons allows users to modify text, images, and layouts without writing any code. With these tools, non-coders can manage and update their websites with ease.

2. Visual editing tools

Tools like ruttl enable non-coders to edit websites directly through their web browsers. ruttl is a visual feedback and collaboration tool that allows users to make real-time edits on live websites without needing any coding knowledge. It simplifies website editing by providing an intuitive interface to adjust text, colors, images, and other design elements.

ruttl streamlines the collaboration process, as team members can leave comments, annotations, and suggestions directly on the website. This makes ruttl an ideal solution for teams working together on website projects.

3. Website builders

Website builders like Weebly, Shopify, and Webflow are another option for non-coders looking to edit websites without coding experience. These platforms offer a range of pre-designed templates and a user-friendly interface that allows users to create and edit web pages using drag-and-drop functionality.

Many website builders also include built-in SEO features, analytics, and integrations with third-party services, making it easier for non-coders to manage and optimize their websites effectively.

4. Plugins and third-party tools

Many CMS platforms and website builders support plugins and third-party tools that can further simplify the website editing process for non-coders.

For example, WordPress users can use visual page builders like Elementor or Divi to design custom layouts, add advanced functionalities, and modify their websites without touching code. These plugins and tools can significantly enhance the capabilities of a website, allowing non-coders to create feature-rich and visually appealing sites.

Edit Websites in 4 Easy Steps (With No Coding Experience)

ruttl is one such tool that simplifies the website editing process for non-coders. It is a visual feedback and collaboration tool designed to help marketing teams edit websites without writing a single line of code.

Here are four easy steps to edit websites using ruttl:

1. Setting up an account and accessing a website for editing

To start, sign up for a ruttl account and log in. Add your website by entering its URL, and ruttl will generate a visual representation of your site, which you can edit directly.

2. Using the commenting feature to provide feedback and collaborate with team members

One of the unique features of ruttl is its ability to facilitate collaboration among team members. You can leave comments on specific website elements, allowing for clear communication and seamless collaboration. This feature helps marketing teams collaborate and make informed decisions on website edits.

3. Editing text, images, and layout using ruttl

With ruttl, editing text, images, and layout is as simple as clicking on the desired element and making changes directly on the visual representation.

For example, you can adjust the font size, style, and color of the text or replace images with new ones by simply uploading them. This intuitive approach to website editing allows non-coders to make changes without any coding experience.

4. Using version control to track changes and revert to previous versions if necessary

ruttl offers version control capabilities, enabling you to track changes and revert to previous versions of your website if needed. This feature benefits marketing teams as it allows them to experiment with different designs and layouts without the risk of losing previous work.

Tips For Effective Website Editing

1. Keeping design and branding consistent

One of the most important factors in creating a successful website is consistency. Your site should look and feel the same from one page to another and from one section to another.

If your site has different colors, fonts, or styles for different sections, then visitors won't be able to find their way around easily. According to a study by Marq (formerly Lucidpress), consistent branding can increase revenue by 20% or more. To achieve this consistency, do the following:

Focus on maintaining a uniform visual language across your website.
Utilize a color palette that reflects your brand identity.
Use typography that aligns with your branding guidelines.
Make sure that images and multimedia elements follow a consistent style.
Create templates for specific content types, such as blog posts or product pages, to ensure they all adhere to the same design principles.

By maintaining design and branding consistency, you create a cohesive user experience and build trust and recognition among your target audience.

Consistency in design elements helps users associate specific visual cues with your brand, increasing brand recall and loyalty. It also ensures that your website looks professional, polished, and purposeful. All this can positively impact users' perception of your brand's credibility and trustworthiness.

2. Prioritizing user experience and navigation

Prioritizing user experience and navigation is essential when you're editing your website. This means that you need to easily access the information you need and find things quickly on your website.

Why?

A Forrester study found that a well-designed UX could improve conversion rates by up to 400%. This means you must ensure your content is well-organized and easy to access, especially if you want them to stay on your site for longer than five minutes.

To enhance UX, you need to ensure that:

Your website's navigation is intuitive and straightforward.
You use clear, descriptive headings and labels to make it easy for users to find what they want.
You avoid cluttering your pages with excessive content or visual elements and focus on a clean, organized layout.

Regularly analyze user behavior and feedback to identify areas for improvement and optimize your website for better user engagement.

To gather user feedback, consider implementing surveys, feedback forms, or even conducting user testing sessions. These methods enable you to collect qualitative data that complements the quantitative data from analytics tools.

Leveraging user behavior analysis and feedback also helps you identify trends and changes in user expectations over time. This ongoing evaluation ensures that your website remains relevant and aligned with your audience's evolving needs, leading to higher user satisfaction and increased brand loyalty.

3. Testing website changes before publishing

You can't fix what you don't know is broken. And that's why it's so important for web developers, designers, and marketing teams to test new designs and changes before going live.

A report by AmazonAWS reveals that 88% of users are less likely to return to a website after a poor experience. So, you must ensure your changes don't negatively impact user experience.

For a better user experience, you can do the following:

Utilize staging environments to test new features, layout modifications, and other updates.
Test for cross-browser compatibility
Verify that your website displays correctly on various devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

A responsive website enhances the user experience and improves your website's search engine rankings, as search engines prioritize mobile-friendly sites.

To effectively check the responsive elements, examine your website's layout and design components on different devices and screen resolutions, such as navigation menus, images, text, and forms. This will help you identify any issues arising from varying screen sizes and orientations.

Consider using browser developer tools like ruttl, which allows you to simulate different screen sizes (mobile and desktop) in your browser. Online tools and services, such as BrowserStack or LambdaTest, enable you to test your website's responsiveness across multiple devices and browsers efficiently.

4. The importance of SEO in website editing

Every day, millions of people utilize search engines to search for information. According to BrightEdge, 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, making optimizing your website for search engines essential.

If you want your website to appear at the top of search results, then you need to ensure it is optimized for search engines.

To optimize your website for search engines, focus on various aspects of SEO, such as on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and technical SEO.

On-page optimization involves creating high-quality, relevant content, using descriptive title tags and meta descriptions, and strategically placing keywords throughout your website. Optimizing your website's images, ensuring proper use of header tags, and creating internal links can enhance on-page SEO.
Off-page optimization focuses on factors external to your website that influence search engine rankings. This includes earning backlinks from reputable websites, engaging in social media marketing, and promoting your content through various online channels.
Technical SEO involves optimizing your website's structure and performance to ensure search engines can crawl, index, and rank your content effectively. This includes addressing site speed, mobile-friendliness, and secure connections (HTTPS).

You'll increase your website's visibility and attract more organic traffic by incorporating SEO into your website editing process.

Conclusion

Editing websites like a pro without coding experience is entirely achievable with the right tools and strategies. By leveraging user-friendly content management systems, visual editing tools, and website builders, even non-coders can create and maintain professional, engaging, and high-quality websites.

By harnessing the power of ruttl, marketing teams can quickly and easily improve their website's look and functionality, resulting in a more engaging and visually appealing online presence. This, in turn, leads to better user experiences, increased conversions, and a stronger brand identity.

So, don't let the lack of coding experience keep you from creating and maintaining a professional, high-performing website. Sign up for free to embrace the convenience and flexibility offered by ruttl and elevate your website editing game to new heights.

The Importance Of Adaptability In Product Journey

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 12:35:42 GMT

It's impossible for creators to figure out the final product placement at the very beginning of their product development journey.

We started ruttl as a website feedback tool with a mission to make the life of designers and developers simple by enabling them to collaborate efficiently.

After spending 2 years in the market we started realizing that after all website feedback is not a huge market since our buyers were limited to agency owners only. This made us skeptical about the overall feedback market potential and we started doubting the line of business we entered into. We even thought of venturing into code editors and design creation tools but later dropped the idea.

After years of observation and discussions with users and understanding their needs, we realized that feedback is not a small market after all. If we somehow manage to make a plugin that can sit on any web-based product then internal QA teams can use it to report bugs on the product. If you have a plugin, you can easily fetch a screenshot of the issue and can send it directly to Jira or Trello with the help of integrations. This opened the huge market of web-based product companies which can then use ruttl on a daily basis for QA and design review.

We then observed that designers and QA share screenshots to slack and WhatsApp while reviewing mobile applications. We ourselves did this while reviewing the Zepto app.

We designed an android based application that can fetch screenshots for you and send them directly to your project management tool.

This gives us confidence over the domain we selected. Also, new developments in technology such as GPT can assist in some collaborative tasks such as generating text, summarizing, and generating ideas. However, GPT cannot replace collaboration entirely, as collaboration involves human interaction, brainstorming, problem-solving, and decision-making processes that require emotional intelligence, creativity, and human experience. Additionally, collaboration often involves nonverbal cues such as body language, which an AI language model may not be able to interpret accurately. Therefore, while GPT can facilitate collaboration, it is not a substitute for human collaboration

With this, we are going all into collaborations and feedback and now target Agencies, Web-based product companies and mobile-based product companies which constitutes a multi-billion dollar industry.

Launching soon on ruttl

Simplify Web Content Writing: A Step-by-Step Guide

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 10:34:55 GMT

As the internet continues to evolve, the importance of high-quality web content has become more apparent than ever. Whether you are a blogger, content marketer, or website owner, creating engaging and informative content is crucial to building a strong online presence.

However, creating effective web content can be challenging, even for experienced writers.

A study by the Nielsen Norman Group found that users often only read about 20% of the content on a web page. This statistic highlights the importance of concise and effective web content that captures the reader's attention from the start.

In this step-by-step guide, we'll explore some of the best practices for simplifying your web content writing process and creating content that resonates with your audience.

Understanding Web Content Writing

Web content writing is the art of crafting written material specifically for websites. This type of writing typically includes blog posts, articles, product descriptions, landing pages, and other types of website content.

The goal of web content writing is to communicate with the target audience in a clear, concise, and engaging manner. It involves using language that is easy to understand, avoiding jargon and complicated terminology.

The Importance of Writing for the Web

With over a billion websites on the internet, the competition for readers' attention is fierce. Writing for the web requires a different approach than other forms of writing, such as academic or creative writing. Effective web content needs to be informative, easy to read, and engaging, all while fitting within the limitations of the web page's design.

One of the primary differences between web writing and other forms of writing is that web content is designed to be scannable. Readers are more likely to skim through web pages than read them in full.

It's essential to use headings, bullet points, and other formatting tools to make your content easy to scan. This allows readers to quickly find the information they seek, increasing the chances that they will stay on the page and engage with your content.

Characteristics of Effective Web Content

Effective web content has several key characteristics that set it apart from other types of writing. These include:

Scannability: As mentioned above, web content must be easy to scan to keep readers engaged. This means using headings, bullet points, and other formatting tools to break your content into bite-sized chunks.
Brevity: Web readers have short attention spans, so keeping your content concise is essential. Stick to one or two main points per paragraph, and aim for a maximum of 300-500 words per page.
Clarity: Clear, concise writing is essential for effective web content. Avoid jargon and technical language, and use plain language that is easy for readers to understand.
Engagement: Web content should be engaging and relevant to your target audience. Use storytelling, humor, and other techniques to keep readers interested and encourage them to share your content.

Tips for Writing Different Types of Web Content

Writing effective web content requires a different approach for different types of content. Below are some tips for writing some of the most common types of web content:

Landing Pages: The purpose of landing pages is to transform individuals who visit them into potential customers or leads. To write an effective landing page, focus on the benefits of your product or service, use persuasive language, and include a clear call to action.
Blog Posts: Blog posts are a great way to engage with your audience and provide value through informative content. To write effective blog posts, choose topics relevant to your target audience, use headings and subheadings to break up your content, and include images and other visual elements to keep readers engaged.
Product Descriptions: Product descriptions should be clear, concise, and highlight the benefits of your product. Use bullet points to make your product features easy to scan, and include images and other visual elements to showcase your product.

Pre-Writing Phase

The pre-writing phase is a crucial step in creating effective web content. It involves identifying your target audience, defining your message and main points, and determining the tone and voice of your content.

1. Identify your target audience and their needs

Before you start writing, it's important to identify your target audience and their needs and wants. This will help you tailor your content to their interests and ensure it resonates with them.

Here are the tips on how to find your target audience for writing web content:

Define your ideal customer by creating a buyer persona based on demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data.
Conduct market research to gather information about your industry, competitors, and target market.
Analyze your website analytics to determine which pages and topics are most popular among your target audience.
Use social media to engage with your audience and better understand their interests, needs, and preferences.
Tailor your web content to better meet your audience's needs and preferences based on the insights you gather from the above steps.

You can use tools like Google Analytics, Google Trends, and social media analytics software to gather data on your audience's demographics and online behavior. This information can help you understand what types of content they are interested in, what keywords they are searching for, and what channels they use to consume content.

2. Define your message and main points

As a web content writer, it's crucial to understand your message and main points before diving into the writing process. This helps to ensure that your content effectively addresses the needs of your target audience and drives them to take the desired action.

In addition to defining your message and main points, it's also essential to consider where your customers are in their customer journey.

The customer journey is the process through which a potential customer moves from being a prospect to a loyal customer. This journey consists of several stages, including awareness, consideration, decision, and retention.

Source

Understanding where your customers are in their journey will help you create content that speaks to their unique needs at each stage.

For example, if your message is to promote a new software product that helps small businesses manage their finances, your main points could include:

Explaining the common financial challenges faced by small businesses (awareness stage)
Describing the key features and benefits of your software product (consideration stage)
Sharing success stories and testimonials from satisfied customers (decision stage)
Offering ongoing support and resources to help customers make the most of your product (retention/loyalty stage)

Once you have a clear understanding of your message, you can then outline the main points you want to convey. These points should support your overall message and provide valuable information to your target audience.

3. Identify the tone and voice for writing your content

The tone and voice of your content will depend on your brand personality and the preferences of your target audience.

Are you trying to be fun, playful, or more serious and professional? What is the tone of your content?
Is the tone of my content appropriate for the subject matter and context in which it will be presented?
How can I balance being informative and authoritative with being relatable and approachable in my content's tone?

To determine the tone and voice of your content, think about your brand values and how you want to be perceived by your audience. You can also look at the tone and voice of your competitors and see what works well for them.

In general, the tone and voice of your content should be consistent across all channels and touchpoints. This will help to establish a strong brand identity and make it easier for your audience to recognize and engage with your content.

By following these tips and taking the time to plan and prepare your content in advance, you can create web content that is targeted, relevant, and effective in driving action from your audience.

Writing Phase

After completing the pre-writing phase, it's time to start writing your web content. Here are some tips for the writing phase:

1. Create an outline or framework for your content

Before you start writing, creating an outline or structure for your content is a good idea. This will help you stay organized and ensure your content is focused and relevant to your target audience.

Your outline should include a clear introduction, main points or sections, and a conclusion or call to action. Each section should have a clear purpose and flow logically from one to the next.

Using wireframes to outline web content also allows for easy modifications and revisions.

Wireframes are a graphical representation of a website's layout, structure, and content hierarchy. They are used to provide a visual outline of a website's design without getting bogged down in the details of colors, fonts, and images.

Since wireframes visually represent the website's structure, it is easy to move content around and experiment with different layouts. This ensures that the final product is optimized for user experience and engagement. Additionally, wireframes can be shared with stakeholders and team members, allowing for visual collaboration and feedback throughout the design process.

2. Start writing using plain language and short paragraphs

When writing for the web, using plain language and short paragraphs is important. This makes your content easier to read and understand, especially on mobile devices.

Use simple words and avoid jargon or technical terms unless necessary for conveying your message. Keep your sentences short and concise, and break up long paragraphs into shorter ones.

3. Utilize headings, subheadings, and bullet points to segment the information

Headings, subheadings, and bullet points help break up your content and make it easier to scan and read. Use descriptive headings and subheadings that indicate what each section is about.

Bullet points highlight key information and make it stand out on the page. Just be sure to use them sparingly and keep each bullet point short and focused.

4. Incorporate keywords and phrases for SEO optimization

Incorporating keywords and phrases into your content can help improve its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). However, using them naturally and organically is important, rather than stuffing them in awkwardly.

Do some research to identify relevant keywords and phrases for your topic, and incorporate them into your content where they make sense. Be sure to use variations of your keywords and phrases throughout your content, including in your headings, subheadings, and meta descriptions.

5. Edit and proofread your content for clarity and readability

Once you have written your content, editing and proofreading it for clarity and readability is essential.

Proofreading: Checking for grammar, spelling, and typos.
Editing: Rewriting sentences that aren't clear or concise enough; checking for consistency throughout the piece; making sure all facts are accurate (and citing sources properly); ensuring proper tone and voice throughout the piece

Read your content out loud to identify any awkward phrasing or unclear sentences. Have someone else read it to provide feedback and catch any errors you may have missed.

Post-Writing Phase

The post-writing phase is just as important as the pre-writing and writing phases when creating effective web content. Here are some tips for the post-writing phase:

1. Get feedback from others using ruttl's collaboration and feedback tools

Getting feedback from others is key to improving your web content and making it as effective as possible. With ruttl's collaboration and feedback tools, you can easily share your content with others and get real-time feedback.

Invite team members, clients, or other stakeholders to review your content and provide feedback using ruttl's commenting and annotation tool. This allows you to identify areas needing improvement and make necessary revisions before finalizing your content.

2. Use ruttl's version control to keep track of changes and revisions

Keeping track of changes and revisions is important for maintaining version control and ensuring that everyone is working on the same version of the content. With ruttl's version control feature, you can easily see changes and revisions made by others and keep track of different versions of your content.

This feature is handy when working with a team or collaborating with others on a project. It helps prevent confusion and ensures everyone is on the same page.

3. Make necessary revisions and finalize your content

After receiving feedback and making necessary revisions, it's time to finalize your content. This involves reviewing your content one final time to ensure it is error-free and meets your desired tone, style, and messaging.

Be sure to proofread your content one last time for clarity and readability, and check for any spelling or grammar errors. Use ruttl's collaboration and feedback tools to get a second opinion from a colleague or stakeholder before finalizing your content.

Once you are satisfied with your content, it's time to publish it on your website or other relevant channels. Be sure to promote your content through social media, email marketing, or other channels to ensure that it reaches your target audience.

Conclusion

Simplifying your web content writing process is essential to creating effective and engaging content for your target audience. Following the step-by-step guide outlined in this blog, you can streamline your writing process and create content that resonates with your readers.

Each step of the process plays a crucial role in producing high-quality web content from the pre-writing phase to the post-writing phase. By leveraging tools like ruttl's collaboration, feedback tools, and version control, you can make the process smoother and more efficient.

So if you're looking to simplify your web content writing process, check out ruttl. Its user-friendly interface and powerful collaboration features make it the perfect tool for anyone looking to take their web content to the next level. Sign up for a free account now.

How To Create A Website Prototype

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 16:56:57 GMT

You know your business, you know your users, and you have some user needs and tasks. Great!

But what's the next step?

You first need to create a website to get your idea out there, right? Yes and no. There are a lot of tools that you can use to show people your idea, but only some of them are engaging. People want to interact with what you offer, which is why they need a website prototype.

A prototype is the earliest form of a product, almost identical to the final product. It is the first building block you need to start your journey of creating something new.

In this blog, we'll walk you through the steps of creating a website prototype that will help you visualize your end product and serve as a guide for development.

What is a website prototype?

A website prototype is a preliminary website model used to test different aspects of the website before it is created. This can include the layout, design, function, and user experience.

A website prototype allows designers to experiment with different layouts and design elements and test the user experience and flow of the website before committing to any design. Prototyping can help identify and resolve potential issues or problems before the website is fully launched, resulting in a more polished and functional final product.

How does a website prototype benefit the development process?

Here are some reasons why a website prototype benefits your website development process:

1. Allows for early testing and feedback

Creating a website prototype early in the development process allows designers and developers to test their ideas and gather feedback from potential users. This can help identify any issues or problems with the design before it is fully developed, saving time and resources in the long run.

2. Helps clarify and refine the design

By creating a physical or digital representation of the product i.e. a website prototype, designers can better understand how it will function and identify any areas that need further clarification or refinement. This can improve the overall quality and usability of the final product.

3. Allows for better communication

A website prototype can be a visual aid to help designers and developers communicate their ideas to others, such as clients or team members. It can also help stakeholders better understand the product's functionality and design, leading to more informed decision-making.

4. Reduces the risk of errors

By testing out ideas and concepts early in the development process, designers and developers can identify and fix any problems before they become major. This can reduce the risk of errors in the final product, leading to a smoother and more successful development process.

5. Speeds up the development process

By identifying and addressing issues early on, a website prototype can speed up the development process and save time in the long run. It can also streamline the development process by providing the team with a clear direction and focus.

Are mockups, wireframes, and prototypes the same thing?

Wireframing, mockups, and prototyping are three different things, but they often need clarification for each other. While all three terms may be used in the design process, they each have unique purposes and features.

Here's a short definition for each term:

Wireframe: A wireframe is a low-fidelity prototype that outlines the structure and layout of a design or product. It is used to map out the user flow and layout of the product without getting into the details of design elements such as colors and fonts.

Mockup: A mockup is a visual representation of a design or product. It’s a high-fidelity, static prototype that showcases the look and feel of the final product. It is used to give stakeholders and team members a clear understanding of the final product.

Prototype: A prototype is a functional design or product model used for testing and validation. It can range from a low-fidelity wireframe to a high-fidelity mockup, depending on the stage of the design process. Prototypes are used to gather feedback and make necessary changes before the final product is developed.

Here's a table that outlines the key differences between wireframes, mockups, and prototypes:

	Wireframe	Mockup	Prototype
Purpose	To outline the basic structure and layout of a user interface	To visualize the design and layout of a user interface.	To test and demonstrate the functionality of a user interface.
Level of Detail	Low	High	High
Visual Appearance	Simple and basic	Detailed and polished	Detailed and polished
Interactivity	None or limited	None or limited	Full
Time and Cost	Quick and low cost	Moderate cost and time	Higher cost and time

Different ways of creating a prototype

There are several ways to create a prototype, depending on the complexity of the product and the resources available. Here are three common approaches:

1. Paper Prototyping

This low-tech method involves creating a physical representation of the product using paper and pencil. This can be a quick and easy way to test ideas and understand how the product will work.

Pros of paper prototype

Low cost method
Quick and easy
Easy to share
Not requirement for special programs or apps

Cons of paper prototype

Limited details
Not iterative
Not scalable
Hard to make changes

2. Prototyping with professional apps

A variety of professional software tools are available for creating prototypes, such as Adobe XD, InVision, and Sketch. These tools often have features and templates to help you create high-fidelity prototypes that resemble the final product.

Pros of using professional apps for prototyping

User-friendly and intuitive
Wide range of features
Create high-fidelity prototypes
Saves time
Editing capabilities

Cons of using professional apps for prototyping

Requires investment
Requires knowledge of using the app
Makes you dependent on the app

3. Prototyping with online tools

There are also a number of online tools that allow you to create prototypes without needing specialized software. Some popular options include Figma, Balsamiq, and Proto.io.

Pros of creating a prototype with online tools

No cost or low cost
Easy to use
Collaborative features

Cons of creating a prototype with online tools

Limited features
Compatibility issues
Requires knowledge to work your way around the tool
May take time to create the prototype

How to create a website prototype in 7 simple steps

Step 1: Define the Scope

Before you begin creating your website prototype, it's important to define the project's scope and determine what you want to accomplish. Some questions to consider include the following:

What is the overall goal of the website or app?
Who is the target audience for the website or app?
What features or functionality do you want to include in the website prototype?
How much time and resources do you have available for the website prototype?

Defining the project's scope will help you determine the appropriate level of detail and functionality for your website prototype and ensure that you stay focused on the most critical aspects of the design.

Step 2: Research

Before you begin creating your website prototype, it's important to research to understand the needs and goals of your target audience, as well as the competitive landscape of the market. Some research activities you may want to consider include:

User research: Conduct interviews or surveys with potential users to understand their needs, goals, and pain points. This can help you identify the key features and functionality that should be included in the prototype.
Market research: Analyze the market to understand the competitive landscape and identify any trends or opportunities that could inform the design of the website prototype.
User personas: Create user personas to represent the different types of users using the website or app. User personas can help you understand the needs and goals of different user groups and ensure that the website prototype is designed to meet their needs.
User journeys: Create user journey maps to understand users' steps as they interact with the website or app. This can help you identify any bottlenecks or areas for improvement in the user experience.

Conducting research will help you create a website prototype that is well-aligned with the needs and goals of your target audience and has a better chance of success in the market.

Step 3: Sketch

Once you have defined the project's scope and conducted research to understand the needs and goals of your target audience, you can begin sketching out your prototype.

Sketching is a useful way to explore and iterate on different ideas and concepts quickly and can help you get a sense of the overall layout and structure of the website prototype.

Here are some steps you can follow to sketch out your prototype:

Start with rough, low-fidelity sketches: Use pencil and paper to quickly sketch your ideas without worrying too much about the details. Focus on the overall layout and structure of the prototype, and don't worry about making the sketches look polished or perfect.
Use sketching templates or grids: To help you create a more structured and organized layout, you can use sketching templates or grids such as the 8-point grid system. These tools can help you create a more balanced and cohesive layout.
Experiment with different layouts: Try different layout options and see what works best for your prototype. Consider the overall flow and hierarchy of the content, and think about how users will navigate through the prototype.
Refine and polish your sketches: Once you have a rough sketch that you are happy with, you can start refining and polishing the design. Add more detail and visual elements to the sketch, and consider making the prototype more visually appealing.

Sketching is an essential step in the prototype development process. It allows you to explore and iterate on different ideas and concepts before moving on to the next stage.

Step 4: Design

Once you have a clear idea of the layout and structure of your website prototype, you can begin designing the prototype's visual elements. This may involve creating mockups or high-fidelity visual designs using a design tool such as Sketch, Adobe XD, or InVision.

While creating the design, keep two important things in mind:

Choose a design style: Decide on the overall look and feel of the website prototype, and choose colors, fonts, and other visual elements that align with the brand and the target audience.
Create a visual hierarchy: Use techniques such as font size, color, and whitespace to create a visual hierarchy that guides users through the prototype and helps them understand the most important information.

Designing the visual elements of the prototype will help you create a polished and visually appealing interface that meets the needs and goals of the user.

Step 5: Feedback

Once you have created a functional website prototype, gathering user feedback is important to identify any issues or areas for improvement.

Since you’ve done the target audience research in the research stage, it’s time to get relevant feedback from that audience.

The process for collecting feedback on your website prototype can look something like this:

Determine what you want to learn: What specific feedback are you looking for? Do you want to know if the prototype is easy to use, meets the user's needs, or if any specific issues need to be addressed? Clearly defining your goals will help you get the most valuable feedback.
Choose a feedback method: There are several ways to gather feedback on a prototype, including user testing, focus groups, surveys, and online feedback tools. Choose the method that best fits your goals and resources.
Analyze the feedback: Once you have gathered feedback, take the time to analyze the results and identify any patterns or trends. Look for common issues or areas of concern, and use this information to inform your next iteration of the prototype.

Gathering feedback helps you find loopholes in your product from the end users' perspective, identify any mistakes, or areas for improvement, and ensure that the final product meets the user's needs.

Step 6: Refinement

Once you have gathered feedback on the website prototype, it's time to make any necessary refinements and improvements.

Refining the design means going through each element in your design and ensuring that it works as expected. This includes testing the interactions between various website elements such as buttons, menus, forms, etc.

Stages of refinement include the following:

Identify areas for improvement: Based on your feedback, identify any areas of the prototype that need to be improved or revised.
Make necessary changes: Make any necessary changes to the prototype to address the issues identified in the feedback. This may involve making changes to the prototype's layout, design, or functionality.
Test again: Once you have made the necessary changes, it's a good idea to test the revised prototype to ensure that the changes have improved the user experience. You can use the same testing methods you used in the initial testing phase to gather feedback on the revised prototype.
Iterate: If necessary, continue to iterate on the prototype until it meets the needs and goals of the user. This may involve repeating the feedback and refinement process multiple times until the prototype is ready for the final product.

Once you've made all these changes, it's time to start working on the final product!

Step 7: Final development

The final development stage is the last step in the process of creating a website prototype. During this stage, all the prototype elements are finalized and brought together into a cohesive whole.

The final development stage includes the following:

Fine-tuning the layout and design: This involves making final adjustments to the layout and design of the prototype, such as adjusting the spacing between elements or tweaking the color scheme.
Adding interactive elements: If the website prototype includes any interactive elements, such as forms or buttons, these should be added and tested to ensure they are functional and user-friendly.
Integrating back-end functionality: If the website prototype includes any back-end functionality, such as a database or server-side processing, this should be implemented and tested.
Making any necessary final adjustments: Based on the testing results, make any necessary final adjustments to the prototype to ensure it is ready for launch.

After the final development stage, the prototype is ready to be launched as a fully functional website.

Technical lingos that you must know

1. Standard UI action terms (verbs)

Standard UI action terms (verbs) refer to a user's actions within a user interface (UI). These terms are typically used to describe the functionality of buttons, links, and other interactive elements.

Here are some common Standard UI action terms (verbs) that are used in user interfaces (UIs):

Click: Action of selecting an element by clicking on it with a mouse or touchpad.
Type: Type is used for all input modalities, including keyboard (typed), touch (typed on mobile), pen/stylus (written), voice (spoken), and others.
Swipe: Dragging an item with a finger or stylus that moves in a single direction without releasing it until the movement stops.
Press: To touch a button or other element that triggers an event. For example, pressing a button on a game controller triggers an action, such as firing a weapon.
Drag: To move something by holding down one point on it while moving another point around on the screen.

2. Standard UI identifier terms (nouns)

Standard UI identifier terms (nouns) refer to the UI elements used to identify and describe specific features or functionality. These terms are often used to name buttons, links, and other interactive elements.

Some common standard UI identifier terms include:

Button: A UI element that allows a user to initiate an action when clicked or tapped.
Field: A UI element that allows a user to enter or select data, such as a text field or a dropdown menu.
Icon: A small visual symbol representing a function or action, such as a trash can icon for deleting an item.
Dialogue/Dialog: A UI element that allows users to interact with the system more conversationally or interactively, such as a chatbot or a voice assistant.
Panel: A UI element that displays information or controls in a separate screen area.
Pane: A UI element that divides the screen into separate areas, typically used to display different types of information or controls. Users can resize and scroll through the pane area.
Tab: A UI element that allows users to navigate between different views or sections of a website or application.
Wizard: A wizard is a UI element that guides a user through a series of steps or processes, typically used for complex or multi-step tasks.

3. Input, output, and helper elements

Input, output, and helper elements are UI elements used to facilitate user interaction with a website or application.

Input elements are UI elements that allow a user to enter or select data, such as text fields, dropdown menus, and checkboxes.
Output elements are UI elements that display information or results to the user based on the input. Output elements include text labels, alerts, or error messages.
Helper elements are UI elements that provide additional context or guidance to the user. They include notifications, breadcrumbs, and progress bars.

Prototyping tools that can help

Many prototyping tools can help with creating prototypes for websites. Some of the popular options include:

InVision: InVision is a prototyping and collaboration tool that allows you to create interactive prototypes of your website designs. It includes a range of design and prototyping features and tools for sharing and collaborating with team members.
Figma: Figma is a cloud-based design and prototyping tool that allows you to create and collaborate on website designs in real time. It includes a range of design and prototyping features and tools for sharing and collaborating with team members.
Adobe XD: Adobe XD is a design and prototyping tool part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite of tools. It allows you to create interactive prototypes of your website designs and includes various design and prototyping features.
Sketch: Sketch is a digital design and prototyping tool for Mac that designers often use to create wireframes, mockups, and high-fidelity prototypes for websites and mobile apps. It includes a range of design and prototyping features and support for plugins and design libraries.
Webflow: Webflow is a platform that allows designers and developers to create and host responsive websites and web applications. It includes a visual editor for designing and building websites and tools for hosting and publishing your finished website.

Overall, many tools can help with prototyping websites, and the best one for you will depend on your specific needs and workflow.

Done with your website prototype? What's next?

Once you have created a website prototype, it is important to test it and gather feedback from users to ensure that it meets the needs and expectations of your target audience. This process, known as "user testing" or "usability testing," can help you identify any bug, issues, or improvements that need to be made to the prototype before it is developed into a final product.

There are a variety of tools and methods that you can use to collect feedback on a prototype, including online surveys, focus groups, and usability testing software.

ruttl is one such tool that can help you gather feedback on your prototype by allowing you to share a link to the prototype with testers, who can then provide feedback through annotations and comments.

Using a tool like ruttl can make collecting and organizing feedback from multiple sources more accessible. It provides tools for organizing and prioritizing feedback, so you can easily identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions about your design.

Here's how you can use ruttl to get feedback on your prototype:

Step 1: Sign up for a ruttl account and create a project. You'll need to provide basic information about your projects, such as their name and the website link.

Step 2: Invite your team or stakeholders to review the prototype. You can do this by sending them an invite link or by entering their email addresses.

Step 3: Collaborate with your team in real time by leaving comments on the prototype and discussing feedback in the chat window.

Step 4: Review and analyze the feedback you receive to make informed decisions about your prototype. ruttl allows you to keep track of feedback with multiple version histories and understand how people interact with your prototype.

Step 5: Make changes to your prototype based on your feedback in Edit mode and repeat the process until you're satisfied with the results.

Conclusion

Creating a website prototype is a crucial step in the design process, as it allows you to test and iterate on your ideas before committing to a final design. By following the steps and tools outlined in this guide, you can easily create a functioning prototype of your website.

Once your prototype is complete, gathering feedback from stakeholders and users is important to ensure that it meets their needs and expectations.

ruttl is a useful tool for this purpose, as it allows you to easily share your prototype with others and gather feedback through annotated comments and suggestions. By using ruttl to gather feedback on your website prototype, you can ensure that your final design is the best.

Top 20 Website Feedback Tools of 2024

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 06:28:23 GMT

Did you know that 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a website after a bad user experience? In today's digital age, website feedback has become essential for businesses to improve their online presence and customer satisfaction.

Without a proper feedback system, it's almost impossible to identify and resolve the issues that hinder user experience on your website. As the importance of website feedback continues to grow, it's essential to have the right tools to measure and analyse it.

In this comprehensive comparison guide, we'll explore the top 20 website feedback tools that you should consider for your business in 2024.

Using these tools, businesses can expect improved website performance, higher customer satisfaction, and increased revenue.

So, whether you're a small business owner or a marketing professional, this guide is a must-read to help you find the perfect website feedback tool for your business.

So, let's get started!

Features to look for in a website feedback tool

When choosing a website feedback tool, there are several features and factors to consider. Here are some important things to look for:

1. User-friendly

The tool should be easy to use, both for you and for your website visitors. Look for a tool that has a simple and intuitive interface that doesn't require extensive technical knowledge.

2. Customization options

Different websites have different needs, so it's important to look for a feedback tool that you can customize to suit your specific requirements. For example, you can choose which questions you ask visitors or to customize the feedback form's design to match your branding.

3. Multiple feedback channels

You can get feedback via email, phone, or text message — and some tools offer all three (and more). The more channels you access, the more people can give their thoughts on your website or app.

4. Real-time notifications

Real-time notifications are an easy way to keep your team updated about new feedback. Not only does this make it easy for everyone to see what is happening on your website, but it also makes it easy for them to respond to issues quickly. This means that you can get more feedback and fix issues faster.

5. Analytics and reporting

It's important to be able to track and analyze the feedback you receive. Look for a tool that provides detailed analytics and reporting features. It'll help you gain insights into your website's strengths and weaknesses.

6. Integrations

It's important to choose a tool that can integrate with other tools and platforms, such as your CRM, communication channels, or project management system. This will help you streamline your feedback management process.

7. Security and privacy

You want to ensure that any data collected by your feedback tool will be safe and secure. Look for features such as SSL encryption and multiple firewalls. You should also ensure that the tool complies with relevant privacy regulations and uses secure encryption to protect user data.

Top 20 Website Feedback Tools for 2024

1. ruttl

ruttl is a collaborative feedback and design communication tool that helps web designers and developers work together efficiently on website projects. With ruttl, you can easily gather and manage feedback from clients, team members, and stakeholders in one place.

Using the activity panel in ruttl, you can conveniently keep track of all the changes, edits, and comments you make to your website. Furthermore, ruttl's unique capability to involve your customers in the feedback process makes it the only solution to reduce web app review time by half. This translates to faster feedback and a better user experience on your website.

In short, ruttl is more than just an alternative; it is the ideal solution to engage your customers in the feedback process.

Top features

Provide Feedback: With ruttl, you can leave comments on specific elements rather than locations. This helps to provide context for your feedback.

Feedback management: Allows businesses to collect and organize customer feedback on web pages, web apps, images, and PDFs.

Collaboration: Provides tools for team members to discuss and collaborate on customer feedback and ideas by simply adding their emails. Clients don't need to sign up to give feedback.

Task management: Offers features for raising tickets, setting deadlines, and tracking progress.

Integration: ruttl offers integration with 3000+ tools with Zapier. You can also integrate slack with ruttl to get instant feedback notifications straight into your slack channel.

Screenshot annotation: Allows users to highlight and annotate screenshots to communicate issues and suggestions better.

Custom branding and white labeling: ruttl offers the ability to fully customize the look and feel of your branded content, including logos, fonts, and color schemes. With ruttl's white labeling capabilities, you can present your branded content giving your clients a seamless and professional experience.

Customer support: ruttl offers commendable customer feedback support on all channels - Slack, email, in-app feedback button, and live chat.

Pricing

ruttl offers a free plan, and the paid plans start at $13/month.

Rating

4.6/5 (Getapp)

Signup and join 14000+ teams and freelancers that use ruttl daily as their website feedback tool.

2. HotJar

Hotjar is a user behaviour analysis tool that helps website owners understand how their visitors interact with their sites. It offers a range of features to achieve this goal, including heatmaps, recordings, surveys, and integrations to share feedback with developers.

Top Features

The Heatmap feature provides a visual representation of where users click and spend their time on a website.
The recording feature allows you to watch live playbacks of users as they navigate your site.
Real-time feedback box where visitors can express their frustrations or suggestions through surveys.
Advanced analytics will help you gain deeper insights into user behavior on your site.

Pricing

Hotjar's pricing starts at $66 per month.

Rating

4.7/5 (Getapp)

3. Zonka Feedback

Zonka Feedback is a website feedback tool that provides real-time feedback and analytics to help website owners understand their visitors' experiences. The tool can be set up in various ways on your website to capture feedback from visitors.

Top Features

Capture leads and feedback with website feedback buttons, website-embedded surveys, feedback popups, and exit intent surveys.
Customize and create the voice of customer surveys, and measure CX metrics with NPS, CES, and CSAT surveys.
Measure feedback and conduct surveys at different touchpoints, including cart abandonment, post-transaction, onboarding, and lead capture.
Trigger surveys based on specific events and interactions on the website.
Get real-time responses and instant alerts

Pricing

Zonka Feedback's pricing starts at $79 per month.

Rating

4.7/5 (g2)

4. UserVoice

UserVoice is a feedback management tool that centralizes feedback from customers and internal teams in one easy-to-navigate portal. The tool provides a streamlined process to identify top ideas for product improvement, filter feedback by user and account segments, and gauge user excitement for upcoming features with a simple upvote/downvote system.

Top Features

Centralized portal for feedback management
Upvote/downvote system to gauge user excitement for upcoming features and identify top ideas
Filter feedback by user and account segments
Integration with other tools
Detailed analytics and reporting

Pricing

UserVoice's pricing starts at $799 per month.

Rating

4.4/5 (g2)

5. Hubspot Survey Tools

Hubspot Survey Tools is a customer feedback platform that helps businesses get insights into their products, services, and customer experiences. The tool is included in the Hubspot Suite, which provides a comprehensive set of marketing, sales, and customer service tools for businesses.

Top Features

Multi-channel online surveys with email or hosted on websites
Customizable survey templates
Integration with other Hubspot tools, such as CRM and marketing automation
Detailed analytics and reporting
Automatic survey follow-ups and reminders to boost response rates and gather more data.

Pricing

Hubspot Survey Tools' pricing starts at $41 per month.

Rating

4.3/5 (Getapp)

6. UserBrain

UserBrain is a user testing tool that allows businesses to capture user sessions and improve their website's user experience and user interface. The tool offers a unique approach to user testing, enabling businesses to set up specific tasks and observe real people interacting with their products.

Top Features

User testing with real people to capture their interactions with your product and improve your website's UX and UI
The ability to set up specific tasks for users to complete
Playback videos of user sessions
Regular delivery of user testing videos of users in your chosen demographic
Easy integration with other tools

Pricing

UserBrain's pricing starts at $69 per month.

Rating

4.3/5 (Getapp)

7. Survey Monkey

SurveyMonkey is a versatile survey platform that provides businesses across industries with the tools to conduct market research, collect customer feedback, and optimize their strategies for maximum return on investment.

Top Features

Advanced surveys with various question types, skip logic and branching to create detailed, customized surveys.
Easy creation and customization of surveys and feedback widgets
AI-powered touchpoint tracking
Integration with other tools
Detailed analytics and reporting

Pricing

SurveyMonkey's pricing starts at $31 per month.

Rating

4.6/5 (Getapp)

8. GetFeedback

GetFeedback is a CX platform that offers a wide range of tools to collect contextual feedback on the customer journey. The platform integrates with popular CRM software such as Salesforce, making it easy to manage feedback and customer data in one place.

Top Features

In-app and SMS surveys to gather feedback at every touchpoint in the customer journey
Real-time notifications allow for timely and effective response
Advanced analytics and reporting
Integration with Salesforce and other popular CRM software
Customizable surveys and feedback forms tailored to your business needs

Pricing

GetFeedback offers custom pricing plans depending on your business needs.

Rating

4.3/5 (g2)

9. Qualaroo

Qualaroo is a website feedback tool that allows you to conduct on-page surveys to specific users as they browse different pages on your site. The tool provides valuable insights into visitor behavior and allows you to send tailored feedback forms at different points in their customer journey.

Features

Provides detailed visitor data, such as their location, demographics, and purchase behavior
Send customized feedback forms to visitors as they navigate your site

Pricing

Qualaroo's pricing starts at $80 per month.

Rating

4.7/5 (Getapp)

10. Typeform

TypeForm is a survey tool that allows businesses to collect valuable feedback and customer insights. Its feedback widget is a quick and easy way to uncover opportunities and determine what works and doesn't. TypeForm offers plugins that support many platforms, making it easy to embed forms on any website. Reports can be easily shared with popular third-party integrations.

Top Features

Customizable surveys and feedback forms
Wide range of question types, including multiple-choice, open-ended, and rating scales
Easy embedding with TypeForm plugins
Reports and analytics that provide valuable insights
Integrations with popular third-party tools

Pricing

TypeForm offers pricing plans starting from $29 per month, with additional features and customization available on higher-tier plans.

Rating

4.5/5 (g2)

11. Mopinion

Mopinion is a website feedback tool that enables users to click on specific elements on a website to provide feedback. It allows testers to demonstrate the issues they encounter easily.

Top Features

Data-rich reports for each form (browser, URL, etc.)
Contextual surveys on the page (e.g., "Did you find the information you were looking for?") Analytics
Integrates with several platforms, including Slack, Google Analytics, WordPress, and Jira.

Pricing

Starts at $229 per month.

Rating

4.1/5 (g2)

12. Feedbackify

Feedbackify is a user-friendly website feedback tool that allows visitors to share suggestions without leaving the site. It enhances customer-centricity and branding by customizing feedback channels with the company logo. Feedbackify prioritizes privacy, offering an instant feedback process that doesn't require registration, minimizing feedback drop-out.

Top Features

Easy creation of custom feedback forms
Option to add categories and your logo
Embeddable feedback button on your website
Collection of customer feedback, including URL, geographic location, and environment info

Pricing

Pricing for Feedbackify starts at $19 per month.

Rating

4/5 (cuspera)

13. Kiyoh

Kiyoh is a website feedback tool that enables businesses to gather, integrate, and share authentic customer reviews on various social media platforms. Its range of features allows it to become an all-in-one solution for businesses.

Top Features

Collects authentic customer reviews that can appear in search engine results and snippets
Allows for personalized invitations via SMS, Facebook, and other social media channels
Comes with a widget for publishing reviews on emails, websites, invoices, and more
Integrates with Integromat, Alumino, and other popular platforms

Pricing

Starts at €24.95/month.

Rating

Unavailable

14. Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice is a website feedback tool that aims to help businesses establish better connections with potential customers, thus increasing the chances of converting them into regular customers. The platform also acquired Influenster to enhance its user-generated content solutions and streamline the product review process.

Top Features

Allows embedding of text-based reviews, photos, and social media posts on your website
Provides integrations with popular tools such as Salesforce, Magneto, Shopify, and Sprinklr
Collects and integrates reviews and visual feedback from various social media platforms into your product
Enables you to conduct sampling campaigns to collect feedback before launching a product
Allows businesses to respond to customer reviews and keep them updated
Offers an in-built Q&A dashboard and in-depth reporting with sentiment analysis

Pricing

Available on request.

Rating

4.2/5 (Getapp)

15. Feefo

Feefo is a comprehensive software suite that aggregates reviews from various platforms. It includes key features like campaign management, feedback analysis, review monitoring, and response management. With a focus on customer reviews, Feefo also provides add-on features like communication management, video content, and predictive analytics.

Top Features

Schedule and send personalized review requests to customers
Set alerts for low NPS score responses
Manage all reviews from several platforms with Feefo Hub
Utilize sentiment analysis to gain valuable insights from reviews
Integrates with BigCommerce, Shopify, Google Analytics, and other platforms

Pricing

Starting at $93 per month

Rating

3.9/5 (shopify)

16. Reevo

Reevoo is a web-based tool that helps businesses manage website content, collect customer reviews, and streamline interactions. It promotes transparent and independent feedback to help customers make informed purchase decisions. Reevoo is used by businesses worldwide to understand customers' buying behavior and build trust.

Top Features

Helps businesses collect both product and seller reviews
Allows reviews to be published on both Google and Facebook
Sends personalized invitations to customers to collect feedback and reviews
Includes an authentication system that ensures only genuine reviews are posted
Provides widgets to show reviews on website pages.

Pricing

Available on request

Rating

4/5 (g2)

17. UseResponse

UseResponse is a website feedback tool designed to collect automatic feedback at critical customer touchpoints, providing contextual information and measuring valuable customer metrics like CES, NPS, and CSAT. The tool offers behavior analysis, survey management, analytics, text analysis, and multi-channel data collection to help you better understand your customers and improve their experience.

Top Features

Provides feedback boards and widgets for websites and mobile apps
Allows customers to post issues, new feature requests, and customer feedback
Enables you to add internal notes to the posted feedback
Provides a centralized inbox that tracks feedback
Helps you ask for feedback from customers with resolved tickets using CSAT surveys
Integrates with Messenger, WeChat, WhatsApp, and Line

Pricing

Starts at $1490/year

Rating

4.7/5 (g2)

18. Sprinklr

Sprinklr is a website feedback tool that offers a complete enterprise Social Media Management System utilizing Cloud technology to help companies optimize, create, and manage social experiences. Its AI engine provides actionable insights that can be used for collaboration and innovation based on real-time customer data.

Top Features

Interprets data from different social channels for market and user research
Connects you with customers on 30+ channels
Supports automating workflows and processes and driving first-contact resolutions
Offers AI-powered CSAT Prediction
Automates CSAT surveys to follow up on customers
Offers integrations with Adobe Analytics, Adobe Experience Manager, Aeris Weather, and Adobe Marketo Engage

Pricing

Available on request

Rating

4.2/5 (GetApp)

19. Userback

Userback is a web-based customer feedback and bug tracking tool that enables companies to collect feedback and bug reports from their customers in a visual and user-friendly way. It allows for real-time collaboration between teams to resolve issues and improve customer satisfaction.

Top Features

Allows customers to provide feedback in the form of annotated screenshots and video recordings
Enables users to submit bug reports by highlighting the issue and adding comments
Integrates with popular project management tools
Conversations linked with screenshots

Pricing

Starts at $14/month

Rating

4.8/5 (GetApp)

20. Usersnap

Usersnap is a visual feedback and bug tracking tool that allows you to capture feedback directly on your website or web application. With Usersnap, you can get contextual feedback from your users and customers, share and collaborate on feedback with your team, and track and resolve issues with ease.

Top Features

Lets you capture screenshots and annotate feedback
Feedback menu and button
Detailed reporting

Pricing

Starts at $15 per month

Rating

4.7/5 (GetApp)

Wrapping Up

Website feedback tools are essential for creating a website that caters to the users' needs and wants. Each of the 20 website feedback tools discussed in this article has unique features that make it suitable for website design and user testing purposes.

Among these tools, ruttl stands out as a user-friendly platform that offers easy collaboration, faster feedback, and time-saving features. If you want to create a better website design and enhance user experience, then ruttl is the perfect tool.

Don't forget to check out our blog section for more information on website design, UI/UX, and other helpful tips for creating a better website.

ruttl Earns GetApp's Category Leaders Recognition

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 13:00:20 GMT

Bug tracking is a crucial aspect of software development, serving as the cornerstone for ensuring the quality and reliability of software applications. Just like how a superhero tracks down the bad guys, bug tracking tracks down those pesky software glitches and eliminates them. Can you imagine trying to save the day without having a sidekick to help you out?

That's why at ruttl, we understood its importance and added a robust bug tracking tool to our platform and now, we are happy to announce that we have been recognized as a leader in the Bug Tracking category by GetApp's Category Leaders Report, a comprehensive resource that assists organizations in selecting the most appropriate software solution. It provides valuable insights to small businesses in their quest to determine the best software product that aligns with their requirements.

This report ranks the top-performing software products in North America based on critical evaluation from end-users in five key areas:

Ease of use
Value for money
Functionality
Customer support
Likelihood to recommend

For more details, check out the research methodology.

With an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5, ruttl has been a top-rated product on GetApp. Our users have made it possible!

Check out what our users have to say about us:

“ruttl is really easy to use, it literally took me less than 5 minutes to get started. It has a clean and simple UI. You can provide video feedback - which makes giving feedback really easy.” – Niel D.

“I have been working with a team of designers on a project for the past few months and we have used the ruttl tool for communication. It allows us to share feedback on our project with each other and the client in a way that is easy to understand for everyone involved. If we have questions about the project, the team is able to answer them quickly and effectively. I love that it is a tool that is easy to use and always available on demand.” – kendra M.

“For any modern agency or freelancer who wishes to offer an extraordinary experience of creating or redesigning a website to its clients, ruttl is the tool that has become essential. Where previously incomprehension or doubts could arise between the professional and the client, thanks to ruttl, all this takes off: ruttl helps the client to be understood, but also helps the professional to imagine the result. to the client. With ruttl, sketches and tests are now easy, without ever wasting time setting them up for real unnecessarily. On top of that, the support team is responsive and attentive to their customers, so I highly recommend it.” – Ludovic C.

If you like the product, consider reviewing us on GetApp.

12 Awesome UX Design Examples To Copy in 2024

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 11:32:00 GMT

User experience can either make or break your relationship with your customers. So, here we are with some of the best user experience (UX) examples.

What is UAT? User Acceptance Testing Explained

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 13:28:10 GMT

You'll gain knowledge about user acceptance testing - what it is, how it works and its different types and also about its challenges and best practices.

14 Awesome UX Design Tools (Graded and Ranked)

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 13:02:36 GMT

At ruttl, we have a team of excellent designers that have helped us filter out the best UX design tools available on the internet. Here's a list.

17 Essential Chrome Extensions for Web Developers in 2024

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:07:02 GMT

Choosing the right Chrome extensions can make a big difference in productivity web developers. Learn about 17 essential Chrome extensions.

Web Application Testing: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

Wed, 07 Sep 2022 04:11:08 GMT

Even if you create the most extravagant web application, there are still chances that it might not work the way you want. And the irony is that most website owners aren't aware of what's going wrong.

Maybe the design is unappealing? Or is the performance of the website bad? Or maybe it's difficult to navigate through? You will never know until you perform complete web application testing.

The internet doesn't give out second chances. Not testing your websites for bugs and errors can lead to 88% of your users churning out of your web application.

Here, the trick is to follow the correct process and use the right tools. This approach has helped our users test over 360 web applications in the last year.

This blog will talk in detail about web application testing, its process, and the best web testing tools that you can use to improve the quality of your web application.

What is web application testing?

A web application is a package of client-side code built on various layers of interdependent modules and core web technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript. And, with each line of code added, the chances of bugs increase.

This is where web application testing helps.

Web application testing is a practice that ensures that the quality of the developed tool is similar to what you intended to build. It tests your web application on performance, operating system compatibility, browser compatibility, security, functionality, user experience, and usability in various environments.

Ideally, website testing is done before launching the product, but it's also helpful in finding errors, bugs, or oversight mistakes that might have gone undiscovered during the development phase.

Testing is a crucial part of software development. Even the slightest change in code can cause unwanted errors.

Benefits of web application testing

Thousands of web applications are built every day. We have reached a point where there is a web app for everything. Users today are particular about the type of application they want to consume and the features they are looking for. An indifference to experience can lead to them churning off.

That's why doing regular web application testing is essential; here are some benefits-

Web applications remove bugs and errors, leading to increased website performance and a high threshold of user load.
Testing saves your business time and money that you might have lost in fixing bugs. According to the Systems Sciences Institute, "The cost of fixing an error found after product release was 4 to 5 times more than one uncovered during design, and up to 100 times more than one identified in the maintenance phase." This highlights the importance of web testing and getting your errors fixed as soon as possible.
Regular web application testing ensures that all web features work smoothly and that your app logic works fine.
Testing helps deliver an error-free website, which is extremely important for a high user experience.
Website testing removes the need to continuously redesign your website. It ensures that your web app's interface remains fresh and up to the mark.

How to do website testing?

A web application is built from thousands of lines of code and requires rigorous testing. If performed manually, it can take days or even months to evaluate the website on all parameters and on different database servers. That's why all QA teams use automation to get testing done faster.

Test automation removes unnecessary routine and repetitive tasks from humans and gets them done by machines. It delivers higher accuracy than manual testing and frees up time and resources that manual testing will cost while getting your website tested by humans.

There are three different levels of web testing-

Level 1: Unit testing

This tests individual units or groups of units of code in a web application. Unit codes are closely tied to software development. Testing these ensures that the piece of code in the software is working as intended.

Level 2: Integration testing

Integration tests check that the code units interact smoothly with external components like databases, REST APIs, and more. It's like testing communication between two parts irrespective of their internal workings for the user. The tester at this level provides the input and tests the output.

Level 3: End-to-end testing

End-to-testing is the final level of testing that encounters problems in the software, user interface, and user interaction with the app. This process is quite extensive and is performed cross-browser and across multiple database servers.

Each level contains various website testing techniques, which we will explain in our next section.

What should I test in web testing?

There are a number of web app tests that you can run to ensure quality website performance -

Functionality testing: This ensures that all features of your website are working fine.
Usability testing: This measures how simple your web application is to use.
Interface testing: This verifies seamless communication between two unique software systems.
Compatibility testing: This checks that your web application works appropriately across various web servers, operating systems, mobile devices, and database servers.
Performance testing: This tests your web application's speed and efficiency in completing processes.
Security Testing: This assesses your web application to discover vulnerabilities and loopholes responsible for data breaches and security attacks.
Crowd testing: This measures the performance of your web application when used by real people.

9 best types of web testing

Now, let's start to understand the various types of web application testing you can implement to make your platform error-free. Some of them can feel a bit technical, but most of them you can do with your team.

1. Functional testing

Functional testing evaluates the web app's functionality on whether the features work. This means testing workflows, looking for broken links, assessing database connections, and ensuring a smooth user interface.

Functionality testing is mainly a black-box testing method that tests the functions of an application without looking into its internal structures or codes. The testing starts with feeding inputs to figure out the errors in the output. The result is crucial in understanding what's going wrong and how you can improve it.

There are four types of functional testing, including-

Sanity testing: It checks whether the output of the process is rational and can possibly be true.
Smoke testing: This tests whether your web application is stable or not.
Regression testing: It ensures that your web app still works well even after updates, code changes, and improvements.
User acceptance testing: This step assesses if all features work as intended for the end user.

How to perform website functionality testing?

Identify the function that needs to be tested.
Create input data based on the function.
Determine the output for the input data according to the function
Execute the test
Measure the difference between the actual and predetermined output You can now make the necessary changes to make the output data similar to what you expected at first.

2. Usability testing

Today's customers demand a flawless website that's easy to use with modern design elements. So, when testing a web application, it's crucial to evaluate both the user interface and the user experience. Usability testing is done by real-time users to observe and discover issues that people familiar with can no longer identify.

There are a number of benefits to website usability testing-

It validates your prototype and gives real users a reaction after using your product.
Usability testing ensures a premium user experience through testing whether the web app works as intended.
It helps identify complex flows that make your web app difficult to use and navigate.
Usability testing helps identify minor errors like broken links, grammatical issues, and site errors that developers might have missed out on.

How to perform usability testing?

Start by identifying the problems you want to focus on, the types of users you want to test, and the questions you want to ask your users.
There are a number of methods to conduct usability testing: remote, in-person, moderated, un-moderated, self-explorative, and comparative. Decide which one you think would salvage your usability requirements.
Now recruit participants through your website, agency, or social media or request clients for usability testing.
Design tasks that you want your participants to perform on your web app. For instance, an e-commerce website can ask users to select a product and get it through the checkout.
Note down the time taken by users to complete the task. This step is extremely crucial to identify if there are any complex flows, usability problems, or lack of user experience.

3. Interface testing

Interface testing is similar to software testing, which ensures proper connectivity between two software systems. This includes two major tests: application server and database server interface, and web server and application server interface.

Interface testing ensures that the end user does not face any hindrance while using the particular software. Developers mostly do interface testing on the messaging layer of the system; they conduct functional, load, and security tests on each code unit.

Running frequent interface testing is beneficial for your web application because-

Identify areas that are frequently used by the users and check their user-friendliness.
It helps understand the behavior of the application in the case of network or web server issues.
Interface testing keeps the security policies of the application in place and ensures robust communication between various components.
It checks web applications for proper server execution.

How to perform interface testing?

Start by defining your requirements, like the test's purpose and the functions and features you want to evaluate.
Now that you know your evaluation areas, it's time to finalize what output you are expecting from this test. Discuss with your developers and define the expected outcome.
Start with small codes and functions to assess if the final output matches the expected return.
Evaluate the performance of your application by deciding on a start and end point. Measure the expected time of interface testing with the actual time taken. You can then discuss with your developers how you can improve to minimize this deviation.

4. Compatibility Testing

Compatibility testing is non-functional testing that assesses your web application on various platforms and environments. Developers must ensure that your developed application works for all devices, hardware platforms, browsers, and software. This testing ensures that your application can seamlessly work across browsers without any trouble.

Types of compatibility testing

Hardware: Check hardware compatibility with RAM, ROM, Hard Disk, Memory Cards, Processor and Graphics Card.
Network: Check the web application's performance on a network with varying bandwidth, operating system, and capacity.
Smartphones: Check compatibility with mobile devices with different operating systems like Android, iOS, Windows, etc.
Operating system: Check compatibility with different operating systems like Windows, Mac, Unix etc.
Browser compatibility testing: Check browser compatibility of your web app with different browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, etc.
Software: Check compatibility with various software and their versions.
Devices: Check compatibility with various devices like Bluetooth, USB ports, scanners, etc.

How to perform compatibility testing?

Define the set of platforms or test environments in which the application is expected to run.
Note the expected outcome of this compatibility testing by collaborating with your developer.
You can then check the web application on all platforms, devices, and environments and further evaluate its performance.
Report the bugs, fix them, and rerun the test. The end-to-end workflow of the application should be smooth, stable, and error-free before handing it to the customers.

5. Database Testing

Database testing refers to software testing that checks for tables, schemas, and triggers in the database. As the complexity of your application increases, the need for frequent database testing increases. Developers use database testing to check web applications' performance on complex queries under load tests.

What to test in database testing?

Transactions: When testing transactions, your database should satisfy the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability) properties.
Database Scheme: It refers to how data will be organized in your database.
Triggers: When a certain event takes place, your database should automatically trigger the piece of code that needs to be executed.
Field constraints: Check whether the default value of a field is accurate. Field constraints specify the rules of data governing a field. You must have a value for this in your database.
Stored procedures: These are user-evoked functions where developers assess that the results are similar to the expected value.

How to perform database testing?

Prepare the environments that the application is expected to work in.
Note the expected outcome of this database testing by collaborating with your developer. Ensure your developer is well-versed in the knowledge of SQL and DML (Data Manipulation Language) statements.
You can then check the web application on all platforms, devices, and environments and further evaluate its performance.
Report the bugs, fix them, and rerun the test.

6. Performance Testing

Performance testing checks your web application for speed, stability, response time, reliability, and scalability. Performance testing aims to ensure a premium user experience and discover bottlenecks that affect web performance. An ideal web app should respond quickly, manage maximum user loads, and remain stable in all circumstances.

Types of performance testing

Load testing: Checks your application's ability during normal and peak loads.
Spike testing: Tests software's reaction to sudden changes in user load.
Stress testing: Tests your application in extreme workloads like high load or complex data processing to identify its breaking point.
Endurance testing: This ensures that the application can pass the anticipated load test for the maximum time.
Volume testing: This tests the web app's performance under various database volumes.
Scalability test: Ensures the ability of the application to effectively scale without downgrading user experience.

How to perform performance testing?

Determine your web app's testing and production environments. Also, understand your web app's hardware, software, and other network configuration to help developers lay out effective performance tests.
Plan your test scenarios. For instance, what will happen if there are a certain number of users on the site at the same time. Create similar scenarios to better test the performance of your web app.
Identify web performance metrics like response time, wait time, average load time, requests per second, error rate, transactions failed or passed, and others to plan your expected results.
Run the test and analyze the results. Make changes to the app till it offers speed, stability, and scalability.

7. Security testing

Security testing assesses your web application for flaws, vulnerabilities, and loopholes to prevent it from malware, cyberattacks, and data breaches. It ensures that the unauthorized data remains confidential and is limited to individuals/ entities with access. Security testing checks your application for -

Vulnerability: It is a security risk that hackers can exploit to gain access to your app data.
URL manipulation: Also called URL rewriting, it alters client-browser communication to hack crucial data and credentials.
Spoofing: It is the creation of fake look-alike websites and emails to trick the user into clicking some malicious email attachments.
SQL injection: This refers to injecting malicious SQL codes into entry fields to access user information.
XSS: Also called cross-site scripting to insert malicious JavaScript codes to otherwise safe websites.

How to perform security testing?

Determine your application's security areas that you want to include in the test.
Check whether your application's assets are updated to a newer version, follow user permission roles, and maintain security protocols.
Ask your developer to conduct penetration tests, configuration tests, client-side logic, database security, network assets, input validation and authentication tests.
Document website vulnerability details. Discuss potential solutions for security fixes with your developer. Make changes and ask a reputed vendor for a Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) certificate.

8. Regression Testing

Regression testing ensures that any changes in a program or code haven't negatively affected the performance of the existing features. It retests the already executed code to see if it works fine. Code changes often result in defects and malfunctions in the app; thus, frequent regression testing is responsible for maintaining your web app's stability.

Various regression techniques that you can employ are -

Unit regression testing: This is done during the unit testing phase, where any dependencies on the unit code are blocked so that they can be tested individually.
Partial regression: This verifies whether the code works fine after the changes are made by integrating it with already existing or unchanged code.
Complete regression: This is done when changes are made in multiple modules and to check their impact on other unchanged modules.

How to perform regression testing?

Define your regression testing method, retest all, regression test selection ( only perform tests on the selected text-suite), test case prioritization ( select test case with the highest priority is executed first) or hybrid (select specific test suite depending on its priority).
Select the test suite according to the changes made and their priority in the app.
Determine the estimated result or required eligibility to pass/fail the regression test.
Try automating tests for faster and more reliable outcomes. Most developers use QTP, Selenium, Watir or others to automate the process.
Analyze the regression test report and make adequate changes.

9. Crowd testing

Crowd testing, or crowdsourced testing, involves getting your web application tested by real users on different devices across the globe to identify bugs and errors. In-house developers can solve high-level bugs, but to expect that they can test applications on all devices and discover every potential error is impossible.

If your in-house team struggles to find enough time for testing before the product launch, you should definitely opt for crowd testing. There are a number of benefits to doing this type of testing-

Crowd testing is affordable since the testers are paid for the quality they deliver. So, if they do not provide the expected output delivery, their payment is also nil. It is 50-70% cheapr than other testing methods and can deliver similar results in half the time.
Through crowd testing, you get candid feedback from customers at different locations using different browsers and mobile devices, which is impossible in manual testing.
More crowd testers means more diversity of thoughts and faster feedback. It can 4x the market speed and make you ahead of your competitors.
It offers more insight than an internal team could come up with.

How to perform crowd testing?

Define the scope of your crowd testing, like a finished product or a particular feature, or test your app's beta version.
Decide your requirements based on what you want to achieve through this test, the expertise level of your testers, and the timeline for completion.
Hire your testers from renowned crowd testing companies like Testlio, Digivante, Global App Testing, Test IO, Cobalt and other popular ones.
Communicate with the testers about your expectations and what you want them to do. Educate them on how to make a bug report and the testing methods to adopt.
Initiate the test by setting up secured access for your testers using relevant mobile applications and operating systems.
Complete the testing process and evaluate the data collected. Make changes and repeat the process to achieve the expected outcome.

6 best tools for Website Testing

1. ruttl

ruttl is one of the best web testing tools on the market, with advanced issue tracking features and visual tests that let you identify bugs in seconds. It's super-easy to install; users just have to download the Google extension, and they can start adding websites within seconds. ruttl is like a sticky note on a webpage. Anyone involved in the website's development process can use it for bug tracking.

Features:

Provide contextual feedback by leaving comments on the elements and not on the location.
It's a one-click process that doesn't require any technical expertise.
Perform seamless navigation on everything- menus, buttons.
Collaborate with your team by simply adding emails to a project.
Raise tickets to point out bugs and share them with your team.
ruttl offers integration with over 3000+ tools using Zapier.
The easiest way to get unfiltered customer feedback for your staging projects.
No signup is needed for client comments.
You can ask customers to review web pages, web apps, images, and PDFs.
Get feedback on your web apps on ruttl.
Integrate with Slack to get instant notifications about client feedback through Slack.
Make instant real-time changes on your webpage through ruttl.
You can check all your website edits, comments made, and content changed on web pages from the activity panel.
Commendable customer support on all channels-Slack, email, in-app feedback button, and live chat.

Pricing: ruttl offers a bug tracking feature at just $33/month, along with some amazing features.

Signup and join the 15000+ teams and freelancers that use ruttl daily as their bug tracking tool.

2. BrowserStack

BrowserStack is a cloud-based online testing platform that tests your web applications on different mobile devices and multiple browsers without using devices, emulators, or virtual machines. It has zero setup and maintenance costs with instant access to over 3000+ browsers, Android and iOs users.

Features of BrowserStack -

It allows cross-browser testing on internal dev and staging environments, various browsers, and devices to help discuss even the tiniest issues.
BrowserStack offers automated visual testing to help discover bugs before your users do.
Besides web application testing, you can also test your mobile apps on real mobile devices and debug your software instantly.
You can seamlessly integrate BrowserStack with Selenium, Jenkins, Slack, and Gitlab. Jira and many other tools.

Pricing:

BrowserStack offers four paid plans starting at $39/month/user. You can use their free trial before committing to the tool.

3. Selenium

Selenium is a testing tool that automates web applications for testing purposes. It is not a single tool and offers a suite of testing tools like Selenium WebDriver, Selenium IDE, and Selenium Grid. Selenium Webdriver allows for cross-browser testing, while Selenium IDE is a tool for developing automated test cases for web applications. Selenium Grid lets you run tests on several machines in various environments.

Features of Selenium-

Selenium is a portable, open-source website testing framework that helps with faster testing.
Selenium supports various operating systems like Linux, MS Windows, and Macintosh to conduct testing.
Developers can conduct various tests like functional, regression, data-driven, and batch testing.
It supports various browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Opera, MS Edge, and Google Chrome to conduct testing.

Pricing:

Selenium is free to download from their website, but there are a number of additional costs that you might have to pay.

4. TestCafe

TestCafe offers end-to-end testing without the need for WebDriver and manual timeouts. Since it runs on Node.js and browsers, you already have it. This open-source platform allows you to create, run, and automate tests without coding. TestCafe is a dedicated tool for developers and QA teams who want to simplify the testing process.

Features of TestCafe

TestCafe Studio’s Visual Test Recorder observes your actions as you navigate the web page and automatically generates steps. These steps can be used to quickly test web pages across different mobile, desktop, and cloud browsers.
TestCafe auto-generates selectors for every page element in the test, which usually takes a lot of time in manual testing.
It is a cross-platform and cross-browser application that works well with Windows, Linux, and macOS.
TestCafe does not require any third-party integrations or Selenium/WebDriver. Users can start testing as soon as the product is installed.

Pricing:

TestCafe is free and open-source and is available for anyone to use.

5. TestComplete

TestComplete is a GUI testing tool that lets you easily test every web, desktop, and mobile application. It offers an intelligent object repository that supports more than 500 controls and makes sure the GUI tests are robust, scalable, and easy to maintain. You can perform a number of tests like keyword, scripting, test recording and playback, data-driven, and test visualizer.

Features of TestComplete

Record your tests to create automated UI tests across web, desktop, and mobile applications.
Get real-time information on your tests through a single-unified dashboard and track their progress.
TestComplete offers free training and support to help all customers with testing.
You can integrate TestComplete with your DevOps to ensure continuous testing.

Pricing:

TestComplete offers two paid plans starting at $3260/month.

Final thoughts

Frequent web application testing is extremely crucial for developers and QA engineers to detect bugs and errors that might negatively affect customer experience. It also gives you an overall idea of how your website performs, its strengths, and its weaknesses. There are several web testing methods to check your website's performance.

You can use tools like ruttl to identify and communicate visual bugs and errors in your web app with your team before it gets to your users.

7 Must-Have Skills for Freelance Web Designers

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 03:09:47 GMT

From shopping and socializing to entertainment and information, digital media is an important part of everyday life. And if you can combine creative vision with technical capability, you might just have what it takes to design websites and apps that keep people clicking.

This article will explore the essential skills needed to become a fantastic freelance web designer. We'll go from learning what UX is and how to include visual and responsive design elements in every project, to nurturing the communication and project management skills required to meet a brand’s specifications and client briefs.

What does a web designer do?

When it comes to building websites and apps, form and function are equally important – and it’s a web designer’s responsibility to deliver both. In other words, they need to understand how to ensure a digital platform not only looks great, but is also easy-to-use.

To achieve this, a web designer will first meet with their client – whether that’s a local business or an international brand – to discuss the brief. Following these conversations, the next stage is to come up with layouts, designs, color palettes, and fonts – essentially, all the visual aspects of a website or app – that convey the client’s message while also appealing to the target audience. As well as coming up with a look and feel that represents the business or brand's personality, they’ll also need to consider usability features, such as site navigation, load times, and mobile compatibility.

In addition to creating new websites or redesigning existing ones, web designers are often required to carry out ongoing maintenance by regularly updating and optimizing the platform to deliver the best possible user experience.

How to become a web designer

To kickstart your web-design career, you might consider formal training – such as enrolling in a degree or course that will teach you many of the fundamentals of digital design.

There’s also the option to support your learning – whether you attend an educational institute or are self-taught – with an apprenticeship. That might mean spending time at an agency specializing in web design, or with someone who has already launched a successful freelance business. This means you’ll be exposed to the realities of client briefs, design presentations, and the various stages involved in building and delivering a website or app in the real world.

As you work your way towards this role, it’s worth creating a web design portfolio and building a website to showcase your work. Think of it as a visual business card that instantly demonstrates your skills.

What skills do you need for web design?

A web designer needs to think creatively and logically, and get to grips with a number of technical skills – like UX design. While these skills might seem complex at first, they’ll soon make sense when put into practice. Similarly, if you are passionate about design and want to create visually-pleasing platforms, the soft skills required to be a web designer – such as an ability to listen and interpret a brief – will continue to develop over the course of your career.

Web designer technical skills

Developing an understanding of these areas will put you firmly on the path toward becoming a successful freelance web designer.

1. Visual Design

Visual or graphic design is an essential technical skill for any web designer. It will enable you to identify the most aesthetically pleasing design choices for a website or app based on the brand or business you’re working with, the platform’s use cases, and its intended audience.

Learn design programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to experiment with different visual design approaches, and keep up with the latest design trends to ensure your work attracts attention.

Remember, good web design revolves around crafting and conveying a business or brand’s look and feel – or, its ‘voice’ – across digital communication platforms, and so an understanding of visual design is very important.

2. UX

We’ve looked at the importance of creating a visually appealing website or app, and now it’s time to think about making sure it’s usable, enjoyable, and accessible. That means focusing on the user experience – or UX.

This technical skill requires web designers to carry out research and collect data in order to understand what users want, and develop an approach that puts efficiency and ease-of-use front and center.

A web designer identifies potential problems or usability challenges during a UX audit and comes up with solutions. They take the brand, business, and user requirements and turn them into meaningful online experiences. They also develop prototypes, sitemaps, and wireframes in order to deliver a seamless user experience.

3. Responsive Design

Deeply connected to UX design, responsive design is all about providing a consistent user experience regardless of the device or the browser. For this reason, it’s an important part of the web development process and, when done well, can greatly improve a website’s SEO – but we’ll look at that in more detail later.

This technical skill requires web designers to come up with a master layout that adjusts to fit the screen it's loaded on, and to ensure HTML, CSS, and JavaScript elements such as menus, text, and buttons are clear and usable wherever they appear.

Web designer soft skills

Next, we take a look at the soft skills – or people skills – that are essential when it comes to responding to clients and managing web design projects.

4. Communication

From face-to-face meetings to video calls and emails, you should strive to communicate with clients in a way that builds trust, ensures understanding, and demonstrates your ability to complete their design project to brief and on time. Explain the web design process to them in a way that’s easy to understand, and talk them through the various stages of the project so they know what to expect.

That said, you don’t have to do all the talking – your ability to listen and understand a client’s unique needs and requirements is crucial when it comes to delivering a website or app that not only fulfills, but exceeds their expectations. Ask questions, ensure you have interpreted their answers correctly and provide regular updates to ensure you are on the right track.

In addition, being a freelance web designer might also require you to work with other web specialists, including web developers and graphic designers, and liaise with third-party agencies. Being clear about your role and seeking ways to collaborate will help you get the most out of these relationships.

5. Client management

Speaking of client expectations, this skill is all about checking in regularly. After handing over a completed website or app, it’s important to provide post-build technical support and training. It’s closely related to project management, which involves breaking up the assignment into stages, drawing up realistic timelines and scheduling catch-ups. Essentially, the aim here is for the work to progress while ensuring the client feels reassured and that their needs are being met.

Remember, many web design agencies will have a dedicated client or account manager to perform this function, so reach out to these teams for any advice or project management tools they might use to make the process simpler and more streamlined – such as Asana, ClickUp, and Trello.

6. Attention to detail

From drawing up a contract to delivering a fully-functioning app or website that’s ready to launch, there are a million little things web designers need to consider from brief to build and beyond.

One way to ensure your work is aligned to your vision and adheres to the client’s requirements is to draw up a style guide. This is where you’ll document the visual strategy for the website and app, and compile rules for key elements such as colors, logo usage, and fonts. Not only will this attention to detail keep things consistent, but it will also serve as a valuable resource that you can share with both collaborators and the client to ensure their visual identity is upheld in the future.

Try to avoid letting deadlines get in the way of checking the details – think about legibility and accuracy, and ensure every element serves a purpose. Keep checking and testing your work, and be prepared to make changes in order to provide the best possible user experience.

7. Digital marketing & SEO

By understanding how a website or app feeds into a business or brand’s overall marketing strategy, you can more effectively test your work and identify elements that might need refining. Similarly, researching the latest digital marketing trends can ensure your design is up-to-date and more likely to resonate with users – which means achieving the marketing holy grail – more engagement.

You’ll spend a lot of time thinking about the speed, layout, structure and performance of a site – and all these things can help ensure it’s SEO-friendly. But there’s more that can be done. By understanding how to come up with and implement keywords, meta titles and descriptions, alt tags, and URLs that are optimized for search engines, such as Google, you’ll be able to boost your site’s rankings.

To wrap up

By combining technical knowledge with client-facing confidence, you’ll soon become a fantastic freelance web designer. And remember, the only way to keep improving is to constantly review and refine your approach. At the end of each project, ask yourself: what worked well and what are the areas where you could improve or add to your skillset?

Website Redesign: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

Tue, 30 Aug 2022 07:39:10 GMT

There can be a number of reasons why you want to do website redesign; maybe attract new users, get higher conversions, improve user experience, or boost revenue. Whatever your reasons are, redesigning your website is always a good way to keep up with the latest design trends and technological advancements.

In fact, 75% of users correlate your company's website with your web design. However, a website redesign is a massive undertaking; if you cut corners or skip steps, it can easily go off the rails and become a disaster.

So, the trick is to follow the correct process and use the right tools.

The following step-by-step process has helped us redesign 50+ websites in the last year alone.

So, let's get started.

What is a website redesign?

If you have an existing website, then website redesign refers to updating and refreshing its code, graphics, and content structure to better match the expectations of your target customers.

A website redesign process can also involve adding new features or completely revamping it on a new platform. For instance, converting your HTML website to Wordpress would require a complete website redesign.

No matter how well your website seemed when you first launched it, there always comes a time when it could benefit from a redesign. Given the constantly changing algorithms, design process, and consumer behavior, it's almost impossible for an outdated website to deliver extraordinary results.

Here is how Amazon looked back in 1999.

And this is how it looks now.

Do you think Amazon would have survived without a website redesign? Obviously not.

User behavior changes, technology upgrades, and competitors' increases require you to be up-to-date with your design game.

If done right, a successful website redesign can help you get

More qualified leads
Higher conversions
Lower bounce rate
Higher SEO rankings in the SERPs
Improved performance and faster page loading
An edge over your competitors
More accurate representation of your brand

Like Amazon, many successful companies, like Slack, Mailchimp, Instagram, Dropbox, and Reddit, have benefited from website redesigns to launch new features and provide a better user experience for their target customers.

Website redesign vs. Website refresh

A website redesign is often used interchangeably with a website refresh, which is far from the truth.

A website refresh does not change the overall structure of the website; maybe the look and feel of the website gets updated. such as changing the color palette, adding graphic elements or using a new font.

In a website redesign process, you revamp your entire website, upgrade to a new content management system, or add new functionalities. Website redesigns are also larger in scope since you'll have to consider how your website looks and its technical performance, like speed, indexability, and third-party integrations.

Why should you go through a website redesign process?

Website redesign process is tricky. You may think it's your only solution to nail conversation and attract users.

However, most website redesigns fail when you don't have a valid reason for why you are doing it.

The reason for a website redesign is often rooted in our gut feelings and wants. There are no numbers involved in the process; it's about why we think website redesigning is important. It's possible your team or boss is doing a website redesign because

They are bored of the current interface and want to build a new website
They have seen some of the latest online trends and now want to replicate it
Your competitors just redesigned their websites.

These reasons are emotionally-driven and not based on facts. Leaders need to spend enough time evaluating the impact of website redesigns on their business to decide if they want to go forward with it.

According to GoodFirms's survey, the top reasons for redesigning a website are:

low conversion rates (80.8 percent)
high bounce rates (65 percent)
needs better UX (61 percent)
not responsive on all devices (53.8 percent)
outdated website (38.5 percent)
not SEO-friendly (23.1 percent)

So, if your current website is facing similar issues, you might consider website redesigning.

The best way to decide if you should go through a website redesign process or not is to analyze your website from the point of view of your existing customers. Instead of solely relying on subjective opinions, let your analytics speak the truth.

Hop on to your website and ask yourself the following questions:

Does my website represent my brand?
Is my website easy to navigate?
Are your pages optimized for different resolutions and screens?
Does our website look outdated compared to our competitors and market standards?
What is your site's performance in terms of bounce rate, loading time and conversion?
Are our website pages frequently updated according to user research?

Analyze your answers and decide if your entire website needs a revamp or if making changes to certain website pages would do the trick. If your answer is the latter, choose website refresh; otherwise, it's time for a full website redesign.

How long does the website redesign process take?

A design phase in the website redesign process takes anywhere from 45–90 days or more, depending upon your industry, the complexity of the project, and the scope of work.

Since there is no one-size-fits-all website redesign strategy, web designers usually take their sweet time revamping a website. The development phase is usually divided into three stages:

Stage 1: Discovery

Understanding the target audience, defining strategy, creating milestones, and evaluating the scope of work help determine the project's timeline. A brainstorming session with your team where you define how your website is performing at present and what your expectations are after the website redesign.

Stage 2: Design

Follow the blueprint and kick off this website redesign process with the strategy. Create mockups for individual pages and, in the end, select the one that suits your business goals. Get approval for the design and start revamping your business website.

Stage 3: Launch

A website launch isn't the end of the process. You must monitor website design elements, web traffic, technical search engine optimization, and heatmaps. Conduct regular A/B testing to determine what's working best for the website.

Many smaller steps go between these stages, which influences the time taken to accomplish your website redesign plan.

What is a website redesign service?

A website redesign isn't just about improving the look and feel of your business website. Yes, it is partly, but you can also niche down on your problems and focus on bettering them one thing at a time. So, before you estimate your redesign cost, evaluate the scope of work and whether you want to redecorate web design, improve websites' backends, add more visuals, or completely revamp them. Knowing what you want will help you save money and time. The key website redesign services are:

Redecoration

Redecorating the Website means making minor changes to the web page's structure and layout. It involves adding more images, changing brand colors, or including new graphics, carousels, or videos. Most of the changes here are at the surface level, so there are no major changes from the marketing standpoint. Since there isn't much scope for work, the cost of redecoration is the lowest.

Rewire

Rewiring refers to updating codes and improving your current website's backend performance. It ensures that your website's performance is the best using the latest technologies. An example of rewiring could be moving your data from on-premise to the cloud or upgrading your content management system to avail the latest features. The cost of rewiring is higher than redecorating since you must invest in updating UX design, subscription plans, migrations, and other technical stuff.

Remodel

Remodeling is a combination of redecorating and rewiring. Its main aim is to improve the user interface with decoration and support your website's backend. Remodeling takes more time and resources, so it's expensive. However, you can expect good results, like increased website visitors, improved graphics, and high conversions. Remodeling is a balance of creative and technical work. You require a backend developer, tech expert, and web designer to help successfully remodel your website.

Rebuild

Rebuilding your website refers to recreating every element. It's like you are building a new website with new codes and visual elements. This website redesign project is best for businesses who want to rebrand their entire site from scratch. The cost of rebuilding is the highest since it's building a new website. Your design, CMS, code, servers, and database will all be replaced.

How much does a website redesign process cost?

The cost of website redesign has grown exponentially over the past decade. Businesses now understand the importance of inbound marketing and are ready to pay hefty amounts of money to improve their websites. Increased demand isn't the only factor that influences the redesign cost; there are a few more, like-

Size

Estimate how many pages you plan to redesign. Small business website usually has 1–50 pages, a medium-sized website has 50–150 pages, and a large website has 150+ web pages. With more pages, the cost of redesigning your current site will be higher. Also, analyze if the website content needs to be changed. The cost of copywriting can range between USD 2000–4000 (small websites), USD 4000–5000 (medium websites), and USD 6000 for large websites.

Complexity

The cost of website redesign depends on many factors contributing to its complexity, like several features, integrations, the responsiveness of the design, an updated content management system (CMS), and data compliance. A simple website redesign project can cost USD 3000-5000 for small websites, USD 9000–15000 for medium websites, and USD 15000–25000 for large websites. For visual and backend updates, there is an additional charge of USD 7000–15,000 for small websites; USD 1600–28,001 for medium websites; and USD 24000–50,000 for large websites.

Marketing

Most businesses spend good money marketing their websites to their target customers. This means running paid ads, launching campaigns, updating site content like blog articles or doing PRs and doing regular user research. This can cost around USD 3000-5000 for small websites, USD 4000-6000 for medium websites, and USD 6000-8000 for larger sites.

The prices for each service can fluctuate depending upon your requirements and whether you are doing it on your own, hiring a freelancer or assigning it to an agency.

Cost of a website redesign process or project when building it on your own

The cheapest way to redesign a website is by doing it yourself. Here, you have to spend more time than money. You need to evaluate the changes you want to implement on your website with the skills you possess. Most website redesign projects fail because people think their capable of doing a lot of things when they are not.

However, if you have a smaller website with a low budget, doing it yourself can cost you nothing to a few hundred dollars.

Cost of a website redesign project when hiring a freelancer

The next best option could be to hire a freelancer. This will at least save you a lot of time and let you focus on other business operations. Depending on their experience, a freelance web designer can charge between USD 2000 and USD 3000 for a simple redesign and USD 10000 to USD 20000 or more for a bigger website with complex needs.

The only con of working with a freelancer is a delay in project completion since they work on multiple projects. However, their collective experience in the industry allows them to help you suggest ways for improvement. Freelancers are a great option for small-to-medium-sized websites with an average budget.

Cost of a website redesign project when hiring an agency

The last option is to hire an agency for a website redesign process or project. So, if you have a good budget and want to save up your time, this is your ultimate option. Agencies give you access to a team of seasoned professionals that will help from brainstorming ( creating redesign examples) to implementing and monitoring website changes after the launch.

Hiring an agency can cost you anywhere between USD 15000 and USD 75000 or more, depending on the size, functionalities, and web design of the website. An agency will offer more than just a website redesign; it will spend time improving user experience, marketing strategy, conversion rate, and business goals.

How do I redesign an existing website? Follow these 6 easy steps.

The website redesign process is often comprehensive and time-consuming. Without a plan, it might derail from the objective and leave you with an unoptimized website that doesn't produce much output. These steps follow a data-driven approach to improve website traffic and boost ROI.

1. Evaluate your current site's performance

Start by evaluating your current website's performance to understand where you stand. This will help you set achievable goals and benchmarks for your redesigned site.

Conduct complete quality assurance or QA testing on your website to check for issues across design, documentation, coding, and user experience. The importance of each metric may vary depending upon your business goals, but it's important to review the entire site for complete information.

Performance testing

Performance testing checks your website for high traffic spikes, scalability, user load and stability under high pressure. This helps identify potential performance bottlenecks that affect the user experience. You can use free tools like Google's Lighthouse, GTmetrix, or Google PageSpeed Insights to get valuable information on your website's performance.

Usability testing

Today, consumers want a beautiful and flawless website with an excellent user interface and a modern design. Usability testing checks your website's quality in conveying an excellent user experience by allowing them to easily see, use, and navigate web pages. The easiest way to conduct usability testing is by inviting random users and understanding how they interact with your website. identify if there are any frustrating points, cluttered web pages, or complicated navigation processes.

Responsive testing

Responsive testing ensures that your website is conveniently accessible on all types of devices and operating systems. You can easily check this through Google Analytics, where you'll learn about the devices your customers use to consume your website. It shows the number of users, sessions, and bounce rate of all mobile devices.

Functionality testing

Functionality testing checks if all website elements perform as intended. The web team performs specific functions or inputs data to analyze the deviation between actual and expected output. This testing is about white and black box testing. White-list testing verifies code, design elements, and data structure to evaluate the website's quality level. Block-box testing checks software functionality without giving much importance to codes.

SEO testing

Ranking your website on search engines isn't an easy task. It requires extensive search engine optimization efforts to check if your website is optimized for SERP rankings with premium backlinks, meta descriptions, fast loading speed, and keyword optimization. Your content should be relevant, comfortable to read, and answer the user's search intent. Your website's landing page should have a call to action, social proof, no broken links, and SEO-friendly content for higher conversions.

2. Research your competitor's Website

Next, you should evaluate your competitor's website on the same page metrics to understand where your website is lagging. By paying close attention to what your competitors are doing better, you can develop a list of ideas you want to include in your new site.

Here, you can perform a quantitative and qualitative analysis of your competitor's website.

Quantitative analysis

A qualitative analysis is all about numbers. Just as your website has some valuable pages, so does your competitor's website. Since we don't have access to internal numbers, we have to use marketing tool like Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and SemRush to spy on our competitors.

Using them, you can get access to a lot of information, like

Organic traffic
Backlinks
Referring domains
Top pages
PPC keywords

This can be your go-to guide to understanding how your competitor's website is performing. You get all this information from their traffic sources to the paid ads they are running on a single dashboard.

Qualitative analysis

Qualitative analysis has less to do with numbers and more with how visitors use your competitor's website. The goal is to understand how potential customers consume content and monitor user behavior across the website.

You can do the following for qualitative analysis:

Surveys
User Interviews
Usability Testing
Focus Groups
Heat Maps
Session Recordings

Check your competitor's website like a user. Test it for loading speed, design consistency, browsers, design fields, screen resolutions, and intuitive navigation. See how the website process flows. For instance, a typical user journey would look like this: home page> product>pricing> payment page. The task is to see if all the links are working correctly and if you have smoothly reached your intended location.

Combine these insights to create a board of ideas on what you want to incorporate into your new website. You can expand your inspiration and look for ideas outside your niche. This inspiration need not be a replica of your new website but adapted according to your product.

3. Determine changes for your new website

Now that we have enough information on our current site's performance and the websites performing well in the niche, it's time to determine the changes you want to incorporate into your new site.

First, evaluate the motive behind your website redesign; maybe you want to sell more products, get more traffic, attract a new audience, or get your messaging right.

Setting key performance indicators, or KPIs, will help quantify business objectives. For instance, if you want to sell more through your online store, then your KPI could be

Traffic (especially on checkout and landing pages)
Conversion rates
Average customer lifetime value
Average order value

So, if a website redesign can boost your KPIs, you will know that it was successful.

Another important thing to consider is making changes step-by-step i.e to follow a proper website redesign process. For instance, if you completely revamp the checkout page and see an increase of 10%, then you still know nothing about what contributed to this positive result. Maybe the headline was attractive, the checkout process was smooth, or your SEO efforts paid off.

Redesign your website by focusing on the primary goals and then redesigning the design elements with every step.

4. Adopt a content-first information infrastructure

The content-first approach implies that your designs should only be created to support your ideas and messages to your audience. That means, instead of developing a super-stylish website to cramp your content into, you create a simple responsive design based on your information to include.

Content-first infrastructure implies your website's information in the most user-friendly and intuitive manner. This structure is based on the user research data collected in the previous step, like Google Analytics, heatmaps, scroll-depth tracking etc.

Make sure you understand the customer journey and sitemap when creating your designs.

during the web redesign process you might get stuck in feedback loops with your team. In order to mitigate that you can check out our visual feedback and collaboration tool ruttl, which allows you to give feedback on live websites, web apps, videos and more. It also has bug tracking capabilities

Customer journey

Customer journey refers to the illustration of all the touchpoints your ideal customer makes within your website. For instance, if a person comes to your website to purchase your product, what are the possible channels they could take before they complete the final task? This will help you understand if your current content supports your goals.

See, here is anything that needs to be re-written, removed, or redesigned. Your job should be to compel users to complete the final task. Check Amazon's customer journey to claim its services. This exactly shows the steps a user takes before they complete the final task.

Sitemap

Sitemap defines your site structure from pages, videos, and content on your site and their relations between them. Creating a sitemap helps search crawlers find similar content pages that are not readily accessible through links on the web page. Sitemaps are organized hierarchically, mimicking the customer journey and providing the right information to users.

5. Create sketches or mockups

After sitemaps, we move on to creating mockups. The design team can first start by building wireframes or blueprints of what they want the new web site to look like. These are made to understand how the content would be laid out on the page for a better user experience.

Now that you have nailed the UX, it's time to work on the UI. The best way to do this is by creating mockups using tools like Adobe XD and Figma. You'll apply colors, logos, and images to your created wireframe.

These mockups should explain changes in design, special functionality, and interactions with your development team. Mockups aren't a one-person job; you need your UX expert, marketers, graphic designers, and other experts to complete your redesign project.

6. Design testing and launch

Once the design is completed, it's time for testing. In the testing process, designers should create a duplicate of your current website with the latest designs. This duplicate website will have a different URL, which is not accessible to anyone without proper credentials.

You can ask your employees or beta testers to evaluate this duplicate website. This will allow your team members to find bugs and solve errors publicly before launching.

After all the testing, it's time to launch your redesigned website. You can either do a soft launch where a limited number of people interact with it. This can be another form of testing where you monitor the user's interaction with the website and fix bugs if any.

After a week of your soft launch, you can roll this new service out to your customers. Guide them through the changes you have made to the website and its benefits. Make sure to gather feedback and solve bugs to continue improving your website.

Final thoughts: How often should you redesign your website?

Redesigning your website isn't a simple task. We would say that it is more difficult than building a website from scratch. However, when done right, it yields over-the-top results that help your business thrive in this competitive world.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to when you should redesign your website. It all depends on how fast the digital world has grown. If you think your website is getting outdated and isn't delivering results, then opting for a redesign could be an option.

However, as a rule of thumb, you can think of a redesign once every two-three years. This will give you ample time to think of design changes or features you would like to add to your website in the coming year. Website redesign process is an ongoing one, since there will always be something to include or revamp to match users' expectations.

Best Design And Creative Approval Software To Use in 2024

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 11:52:19 GMT

Creative people would agree that they spend a significant amount of their time on getting their designs approved. This happens because the approval process is tiresome and not strategically planned.

A typical creative review process includes an endless exchange of emails, vague feedback, miscommunications, difficulties in collaboration, etc. There is a continuous back-and-forth to approve the design, which is not all feasible for an agency or a creative firm handling multiple clients.

Therefore, automating the design approval process is beneficial. By implementing automation over creative approvals, your team can see real-time creative progress for quicker approvals, including design, marketing, copy, and clients.

Creative approval software is a dedicated software designed to simplify a team's approval process. It's a cloud-based platform where the agency, creative firm, and client can collaborate and review files easily.

Using a creative approval process can drastically

Reduce the effort spent on sharing files, tracking new developments, and managing projects
Reduce communication delays in updating clients on the project status
Streamline your project management software according to your client's requirement
Promote faster project delivery etc.

When implementing the best practices, Ruttl users have reduced the creative review process by half. That means faster approvals, happier clients, and added bandwidth to take up more work.

What features to look for in creative approval software?

When looking for creative approval software, make sure to look for the following features: Make sure you create approval software that gels well with your industry. If the approval software understands your market, they are most likely to understand your project's requirements.

Your approval software should accept the images and doc formats your team uses.
Your team should be able to easily collaborate and communicate in a shared workspace to review files.
Look for creative approval software that offers third-party integrations with apps to work with your favorite tools easily.
It should allow guest commenting for anyone with the link to put in their comments.
Ideal creative approval software should allow you to upload and maintain multiple file versions.
Cost-effectiveness should be a top priority for your business. List your options with their features and pricing to select the best creative approval software.

Top creative approval software to try right now

Now that we know why we need creative approval software, Let's discuss the top cloud-based creative approval software that will save you time.

1. ruttl

ruttl lets you collect precise and accurate feedback from your team members and clients. You can easily send shareable links to live web pages and let them give their honest feedback.

Collaborate and communicate by addressing their comments and building meaningful relationships. You don't have to manually track all the comments; instead, you can create a new project for design feedback and integrate it with Asana or Trello. You can also record a video explaining the changes you want instead of relying on inefficient tools like calls and emails.

Members can make changes on live websites, like font size, alignment, and spacing, without making too many coding changes. Rutte is an all-in-one feedback tool where you can review websites, pdfs, images, and web apps.

Features of ruttl

The easiest way to get unfiltered customer feedback for your yet-to-be-launched project.
Integrate with 3000+ apps using Zapier.
No sign-up is needed for client comments.
You can ask customers to review web pages, images, and PDFs.
Get feedback on your web apps on ruttl with absolutely no logins needed.
Get instant notifications about client feedback through Slack.
Do instant real-time changes on your webpage through ruttl.
You can check all your website edits, comments, and content changes on web pages.
ruttl can reduce web app review time by half, which means quicker feedback and a better user experience on the site. It's not an alternative but the only solution that lets your customers participate in customer feedback.
Capture, track, resolve and report bugs and issues on digital products and websites. You can assign tickets to team members and set priorities to quickly resolve bugs.

Pricing

ruttl offers three paid plans: Standard, Pro, and Teams, starting at USD 12/month. You can also get a lifetime membership of ruttl from USD 600 onwards. ruttl also offers a basic free plan to try before committing.

Signup and join the 9000+ teams and freelancers that use ruttl daily as their website feedback tool. Click here to get started.

2. Ziflow

Ziflow is an exceptional creative collaboration platform, exclusively for agencies and brands to collaborate and provide feedback. It has a smooth user interface that works well for most workflows. You can organize everyone's feedback in one place to work on changes. Its creative dashboard makes project tracking easier with improved productivity.

Features of Ziflow

Ziflow supports over 1200 types of creative assets so that you can review all of them on one platform.
Set up a customized workflow to collaborate with your team faster. You can create review stages for the creative asset to go from one stage to another.
No app download is required. You can review creative assets on any device, whether a phone or a laptop.
Seamlessly connect your favorite tools with Ziflow one-click, low-code integrations.
See your productivity score with insights on revisions, late projects, turnaround time, and more.

Pricing

Ziflow offers one free and two paid plans, starting at $20/user/month.

3. Govisually

GoVisually offers fast creative and design approval solutions for designers, video creators, creative agencies, and marketing teams. It scraps the endless email conversation and miscommunication to establish a cohesive dashboard for design approvals. GoVisually makes design feedback hassle-free with an instant review, no registration required, and feedback tracking to keep everyone in the loop.

Features of GoVisually

Streamline your feedback process by putting in comments directly on your digital assets. You can also set deadlines for each task to make sure team members are on track.
Control who gets to view and download your files.
GoVisually provides a centralized workspace to store all your designs, categorized and labeled, so you don't mix them up.
Your clients can easily review your designs through a shareable link. No external registration is required.
All plans come with Slack integration to get notifications fast. GoVisually also offers Zapier integration to supercharge your workflow with thousands of apps.

Pricing

GoVisually offers two paid plans starting at $25/month. You can also opt for a free trial before committing.

4. Page Proof

Page Proof is an excellent design and creative approval software that makes reviewing and approving seamless. Its smart proofing tool makes it an apt piece of software for static files, video, and audio, email marketing, and design prototype proofing. You don't need any installs or plugins to use Page Proof. It will work well for most Chrome browsers on all devices. It's a simple and smart proofing solution that you should try.

Features of Page Proof

Page Proof is a highly secure and rigorously tested platform with a single sign-on (SSO) and data sovereignty in over 18 locations.
It offers pixel-perfect proofing, which is best for identifying packaging mistakes. This includes rulers, focus mode, gridlines, automatic link checking, fonts, color analysis, and more.
Created customized workflow to automate the sending of designs from one person to another.
The Smart Proof tool will highlight the changes made between versions without you having to figure it out yourself.
You can create Proof directly from the Adobe Creative Cloud. The Page Proof add-on supports Adobe In-Design, Photoshop, Premier Pro, Illustrator, and After Effects.

Pricing

Page Proof offers one free basic plan and two paid plans starting at $199/month.

5. Artwork Flow

If you are looking for creative approval software focused on packaging labels, then Artwork Flow is your ultimate solution. Artwork Flow has proven to accelerate product launches, reduce errors, and increase the approval rate. It lets you stay on top of industry regulations and automate the compliance adherence process to reduce manual review.

Features of Artwork Flow

You can create unlimited projects and pay as per usage.
Get standard online proofing tools like an online spell checker, Artwork PDF Compare, an online measurement scale, an Artwork color extractor, and an Artwork Font Finder.
Organize all your assets in one place with a digital asset management library.
Create a customized workflow template according to your business requirements for faster artwork approvals.
Collaborate with external agencies to make print proofing effective and within the platform.

Pricing

You can get in touch with sales for the pricing details.

6. Quick Reviewer

Quick Reviewer is a dedicated tool for creative agencies and brands looking for faster review and approval. It has powerful features that help users navigate, collaborate, and streamline workflow. The approval software is scalable, flexible, and secure, integrating well with your tech ecosystem across departments; whether a 100 MB PDF or a 100 GB video, Quick Reviewer's lightning fast upload will process it in seconds.

Features of Quick Reviewer

Integrate Quick Reviewer with thousands of apps seamlessly. You get comprehensive APIs and deep integrations with your existing CMS, DMS, PLMS, and PMS.
Personalize your dashboard with your company's logo, colors, fonts, brand theme, URL, and CSS.
Quick Reviewer offers 256-bit encryption to keep your data safe. It is also SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliant.
You can access Quick Reviewer from within Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. You can also upload files from Dropbox or integrate your Youtube account to share private videos for review.
The premium plan offers custom onboarding and training personalized to your business's needs.

Pricing

Quick Reviewer offers one basic free plan and three paid plans starting at $20/month.

7. Go Proof

Go Proof's hands-on feature lets graphic designers organize work, simplify proofing, and reduce approval time. It offers a range of pre-loaded workflow templates with creative briefs to let teams automate their work process. You can collaborate better with dedicated user roles like publishers, observers, reviewers, and gatekeepers.

Features of GoProof

Go Proof supports Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, InCopy, and Premier Pro.
The app offers standard proofing tools for accurate markups, including push pin, box, ruler, strike, highlight, check mark, cross, arrow, draw, and many others.
Proof on live websites by commenting, inviting collaborators, tracking and comparing versions, and driving compliance with web standards.
Keep track of comments by directly sharing them on Slack, Asana, Wrike, Trello, Basecamp, Dropbox, and Workday using quick share links.
Easily manage and collaborate with teams on Go Proof's holistic dashboard. Project managers can receive projects, assign tasks, and track reviews and approvals.

Pricing

You can get in touch with sales for the pricing details.

8. Review Studio

Review Studio is an excellent online proofing tool for marketing teams, creatives, ad agencies, and production studios. It offers intuitive features to automate workflow and remove the unnecessary manual load. Review Studio scrapes out endless email chains and helps teams collaborate better on a single platform.

Features of Review Studio

Provides excellent markup tools to give quick and accurate feedback. This includes shape choices, sticky notes, freehand, and pen for seamless proofing.
Review Studio lets you Proof videos, documents, images, and live websites.
Present your reviews live with your team and clients through Review Studio's presentation mode.
A centralized dashboard keeps track of all the projects, reviews, and pending tasks. This helps project managers align with deadlines and get approvals faster.
Robust API and Zapier integrations to seamlessly integrate over 2000+ applications.

Pricing

You can get in touch with sales for the pricing details.

9. Aproove

Aproove is an online proofing software that helps businesses fasten their creative approval process with real-time collaboration across 180+ media formats. Its easy-to-use interface makes it simpler for collaborators to put in comments, annotations, notes, and threads for seamless feedback. Aproove comes with in-built Digital Asset Management (DAM) features to store, share, and distribute projects across collaborators.

Features of Aproove

The content-based smart review lets you Proof each page in a multi-page document. For instance, if you are proofing a 10-page document and only find errors on one of the pages.
In most online proofing tools, you will have to reject the entire proof and create a different version. However, with Aproove, you can review each page as a single proof, so any changes made to one page don't affect the other.
Automatic version management that works alongside the comparison mode. So, you can side-by-side proof multiple versions and track revisions and changes.
A centralized dashboard tracks project completion, so you don't miss any deadlines. Each user is assigned a "To-Do" dashboard where daily tasks are updated.
Create a customized workflow using custom forms. This way, you can automate your repeatable business processes and track them through custom reports.
Aproove's Annotation Flow Management (AFM) allows you to have private meeting rooms for internal teams before they go to the client. Comments added internally will not be passed out to your client.

Pricing

Aproove offers two paid plans for small and medium businesses and enterprises, starting at $750/month.

10. Pastel

Pastel is a robust design and creative approval software that lets you review live websites, images, and PDFs. You can collaborate seamlessly with your teammates through mentioning tags, detailed audit trails, and dedicated markup tools. Review all your digital assets in one place using Pastel's dedicated dashboard.

Feature of Pastel

Pastel's integration feature lets you connect with thousands of tools seamlessly.
Organize your feedback through labels and keep everyone on the page.
You can automatically create tickets and tasks using Trello, Asana, and Jira.
Pastel allows you to invite unlimited guests with a shareable link.

Pricing

Pastel offers one free and three paid plans starting at $24/month.

Why choose ruttl over other creative approval software?

ruttl is an all-in-one tool that works more than just as a feedback platform. You can review live websites, web apps, and design annotations. Users can easily leave comments, making it easier for team members to make the changes. Using ruttl, you can provide an excellent customer experience, resulting in higher customer retention and references.

We are also launching some amazing features where users can review videos and illustrations and add comments. To make the customer feedback process more intuitive, our team is also working on adding new digital boards so that you can easily collaborate and communicate with your teams on new ideas.

ruttl will also help you quickly resolve bugs on your website by adding collaborators and leaving comments that seem buggy or out of context.

So, when you choose us, you aren't just getting a website feedback tool but a package of highly advanced features that are hard to find on any other platform.

Signup and join the 9000+ teams and freelancers that use Ruttl daily as their website feedback tool.

How to give effective feedback to a graphic designer?

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 11:00:10 GMT

So, you are creating this website and collaborating with graphic designers to help you turn your vision into reality.

You get the first draft and see that there are things that need reworking. As a project owner, you tried to convey your thoughts but could see that the feedback wasn't applied as you suggested.

This process goes on a couple of times, and by the end, you are frustrated.

Don't worry; this happens to everyone. Designers and non-designers don't speak the same language. Your thought process might not match theirs, or they might not be able to understand what you are trying to say here. This causes a vicious cycle of never-ending edits.

Mostly, the problem lies in the feedback process. Different communication styles and unique domain expertise complicate the collaborative process and cause potential friction.

So, how do you give your graphic designers feedback that they can use?

Let's find out.

Why is receiving feedback so challenging?

Before we count the mistakes you make in giving feedback, we must first discuss why receiving feedback is difficult for anyone.

Our brains are quite tricky. Research has proved that once an opinion is formed, it persists. Even after you give a person evidence that their actions are wrong, they will still believe it to be true.

That means your designer agrees with your opinion but might not be ready to change their mind. And this leads to cognitive dissonance, or clashing of opinions.

Our brain has a defense mechanism against criticism. We feel we are right, even if we are not. But, past the discomfort, most feedback is important.

Feedback helps you get an additional perspective on things you might not have considered yet. You can learn from it and revise your incorrect or outdated knowledge.

Feedback helps designers understand their client's expectations, thus speeding up the process of project completion. That means less time spent on sharing feedback back and forth.

Lastly, feedback improves your design skills. Tight feedback and repetition allow designers to practice their skills and improve.

How do you get your designers to accept your feedback?

As said, some designers get defensive if you comment on their work. However, there are two most appropriate ways to get your designers to accept your suggestions without being defensive.

Give them ownership

Most people aren't receptive to their ideas. So, instead of imposing your solutions, ask them what they think we should do in a situation. That way, they will feel empowered to brainstorm and come up with good ideas.

Doing so will save you time in making them understand why this particular thing isn't working out and how to improve it. With time, your designers will thank you for trusting them and giving them the creativity to develop unique solutions.

Nothing is right or wrong

In design, nothing is right or wrong. It all depends on the designer's perception. So, instead of telling your designers this element is wrong, ask them what they think of the problem.

Even if your designers do not agree with your idea, they will try to find a solution that meets your requirements. Use statements like "I could be wrong, but do you think there isn't enough whitespace in this section?" What would you suggest?

How to not give your feedback to a graphic designer?

This next section will dive into the mistakes you are making when giving feedback to your graphic designers.

1. Putting vague comments

We understand you are not from a design background and don't know what to expect in a design. However, you can easily tell whether the elements are working together or not.

And, to make it right, you put in comments like

"Can we be more creative here?", "This looks weird," "Make it pop," or a whole bunch of other things.

These comments are not feedback but rather gut reactions. Your designer cannot read your mind, so these comments have no clear direction, resulting in an unnecessary level of guesswork and revisions. Your feedback has to define a problem with a possible solution for your graphic designers to understand where you are heading.

How can you make this design feedback better?

When writing comments, ensure you are targeting a specific problem and including a possible solution. Putting in vague comments will not make the editing process simpler for your designer. Instead, be more specific.

So, instead of saying, "This looks weird," say, "The design element isn't going with the overall flow of the page, and it might need xyz changes." You can also give examples to make your designers better understand your expectations.

Know some design vocabulary

One of the major reasons why non-designers find it challenging to collaborate with designers is terminology. If you aren't from a design background but are leading a design project, you need to know the meaning of some common basic terms.

The more you familiarize yourself with design lingo, the greater your chances of giving super-specific, accurate feedback. You must do your homework and learn some design vocabulary before you put up comments.

How can you make this design feedback better?

One straight answer is to learn your lingo and use your terms correctly. Here are some of the design terms you should know about:

Tracking and kerning: Tracking refers to a uniform amount of space between each letter, and kerning is the spacing between individual letters.
Gradient: It means blending from one color to another, which sometimes creates a new color.
White space: it refers to the unoccupied space in a design.
Sans-Serif and Serif: They are common typefaces used in designing. The Serif fonts have lines and hooks, while Sans-Serif doesn't. There is a minute difference between them, so you will have to study them practically.
Opacity: It refers to the transparency of an image. Less opacity means a higher see-through image and vice-versa.

Learning this vocabulary is crucial if you want your designers to understand what you are trying to say. These are a few examples of the terms you should know for giving proper feedback to your designers. There are many more.

Impossible requests

Many times, what you imagine isn't feasible to create. Certain colors, shapes, and elements don't go together and might not fit on one page. Your designer will always try to match your expectations, but your vision should be reasonable.

It's okay to put in your views and give your designers a challenge, but expecting an unrealistic outcome isn't fruitful. This makes collaboration painful for you and your designers, who might not feel encouraged to make changes.

How can you make this design feedback better?

The best way to deal with such situations is to sit down and explain exactly what you want. Be clear and comprehensive in your request. Ask for feedback from your designers on whether the said expectations are feasible.

Don't feel shy about expressing your vision. However, trust your designers with their skills. They are professionals and know exactly what works and what does not. So, it's best to talk to them and understand what changes can be made to achieve the best outcome.

Practicing the sandwich technique

The sandwich technique is quite popular when giving feedback. You might not know it by name, but many project managers and editors use it to give feedback to their professionals. The sandwiching technique means placing negative feedback between two positive ones.

Like "I love the page vibe, but I'm not sure if the color palette matches our vision”. Such statements give no direct feedback and confuse the designers as to how to approach changes.

The sandwich approach is so predictable that it has lost its meaning. Many employees now ignore the positive feedback since they know it's quite intentional and the client doesn't actually like the work. It's quite a selfish approach when no one wants to be the bad guy.

But, if you want your positive feedback to look sincere, stop using the sandwich technique. Designers are always up for challenges; you don't have to sugarcoat using such techniques.

How can you make this design feedback better?

While it is important to consider your designer's feelings, the best way to give feedback is to be direct and concise. The sandwich technique often leaves designers unclear about what’s to be done next. So, instead, make your feedback clear and include the changes you want to see implemented.

Don't just highlight the problems but also the solution. Ask your designers for feedback and make this communication seamless and stress-free. This doesn't mean you shouldn't share positive feedback. Just make sure your positive feedback looks genuine and not a sugarcoat for the negative ones.

5. Not asking enough questions

Many project managers still make the mistake of not having a structural feedback pipeline. The mere act of submitting designs and putting down comments is quite basic. You don't know why an element is made this way. So, instead of just penning down changes, ask relevant process-driven questions to your designers.

You must trust your designers with their art and give them a fair chance to present their views. Such discussions help designers understand the project requirements and align their future design decisions with similar goals.

How can you make this design feedback better?

Feedback is a collective process. It can't be one-sided. So, let your designers share their thoughts instead of just commenting on changes. You can ask questions like

Why did you choose this color theme?
How do you think it matches our brand goals?
Do you think the design is easy to navigate, etc?

Each of these questions will help you understand the reasoning behind your designer's creative decision. This will make refining the designs easy since both the designer and you will have clarity on how you want a certain thing to look.

Why choose Ruttl to give your designers feedback?

ruttl is an all-in-one tool that works more than just as a design feedback platform. You can review live websites, web apps and design annotations. Users can easily leave comments, making it easier for team members to do the changes. Using Ruttl, you can provide an excellent customer experience, resulting in higher customer retention and references.

We are also launching some amazing features in which users can review videos and illustrations and add their comments. To make the customer feedback process more intuitive, our team is also working on adding new digital boards so that you can easily collaborate and communicate with your teams on new ideas.

ruttl will also help you resolve bugs quickly from your website by adding collaborators and leaving comments which seem to be buggy or out of context.

So, when you choose ruttl, you aren’t just getting a website feedback tool but a package of highly advanced features that are hard to find on any other platform.

Signup and join 9000+ teams and freelancers that use Ruttl daily as their website feedback tool.

How To Implement Creative Workflow Management

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 10:41:05 GMT

You must have heard people say creativity cannot be channelized or forced. It comes from your heart, and there is no process involved.

It sounds great when you don't have a lot of clients or a team to take care of.

But, if you have them, this can become a horror story. No matter how professional or seasoned you are in your niche, there will be times when clients rip off your work and suggest numerous changes.

Without a creative workflow, this can become an endless cycle of revisions. A creative workflow is not about putting boundaries on your creative work, but articulating the process from ideation to client approval.

So, the next time you see someone churning out great content every time, it's not all just luck or talent-but a systemized follow of a process that they have mastered i.e. creative workflow management.

In this blog, we will talk in detail about the creative workflow management system and how you can build it for your business.

What is creative workflow management?

Creative workflow management refers to the series of processes agencies or creative teams use to streamline the process of project handling from ideation to client approval. The Creative workflow management process is different for everyone, depending upon the industry, project type, and end goal.

For instance, if you are a freelancer, your creative workflow management can be defined in the following steps:

Intaking projects from clients
Produce work
Send for review
Get feedback and implement changes
Ship project

However, for an agency owner or creative firm, this workflow might look different-

Account manager takes a project from the client
Project head prepares the brief
Assign roles and set timelines
Get the first draft and offer feedback
Set to client
Implement changes and ship the project

For an in-house marketing team, a creative workflow management process looks like this:

Project ideation
Writing creative brief
Allocate task
Set milestones from start to finish
Produce creative work
Implement changes and ship to the client

It helps managers organize the key areas of the project, from the total number of members involved, their responsibilities, and the timeline of the deliverable. The focus is to provide a structure to the process without limiting creativity.

Having a creative workflow saves you from unforeseen hiccups that might derail the project. It helps avoid confusion and saves time, energy, and money. Organizations using creative workflow management are seen as more efficient than businesses that don't streamline their processes.

4 stages of creative workflow management

Whether you are an agency owner or an independent freelancer, you can streamline your creative work into different stages, from ideation to final product launch. This doesn't have to be complicated, but a simple series of operations to effectively complete your project. There are 4 stages of creative workflow management:

1. Project idealization

You receive a brief from the client's end, which includes everything about the project and the deliverables. As managers, your task should be to understand the project in detail, assign responsibilities to collaborators, and set milestones and timelines to ensure the project is delivered on time.

This phase includes the following tasks:

Study the project brief to define its objective, likely audience, timeline, and other information. If you are an agency or an in-house creative team, start with a team meeting with everyone involved in the project for ideation.
Set goals and define metrics for the project. Divide the bigger task into smaller ones to ensure that the project is delivered on time.
Define each project member's objective for effective strategizing and KPI measurement. Make sure the tasks assigned are achievable, relevant, time-bound and measurable.
Create an ultimate guide for your team members, which includes A-to-Z information on the project. This way, you can jump onto this guide in case of any confusion.

2. Content creation

Now starts the creative part of the workflow management process. With the set expectations, every member clearly understands their roles and responsibilities. The creative team discusses the content brief and takes action to complete it within the deadline. Project managers should also take regular feedback or do quality checks to make sure things remain on track.

Here, you have to complete the following tasks:

Create a collaborative environment where people are available for help and quick conversation about the project. This is also the best time to discuss goals and progress.
Give your client regular updates on the project's completion so both parties are on the same page.
Create a status report to measure the timely delivery of tasks
Ask for regular feedback from your team members to ensure they aren't overloaded with work.
Organize your project files well so there is no confusion while submitting them to the client.
Make sure your team has all the tools and software necessary for your team to be used in campaign creation.

3. Revisions and feedback

This phase involves getting internal feedback on the product or content your team has created and sending it to the client. Next, the feedback you receive has to be implemented to get final approval. If everything is approved, you can move on to the next step; if not, rework the changes as asked.

If you find yourself spending too much time on this stage, that means there was a problem in the ideation. The better your ideation process is, the less time you will have to spend on revisions.

The various activities involved in the stage-

Before sending it to the client, make sure to get final approval from the project manager.
Share content with clients, get feedback and implement changes (if any).
Create a streamlined approval process internally so you can speed things up and submit the project before the deadline.
Use a project management tool to track and assign changes.
Evaluate the level of feedback that matches the terms of the project so you aren't undercharging your client.

4. Final approval and campaign launch

Lastly, submit the completed project to the client for final approval. There isn't much to do except gather project materials. After the project is approved, you can bill your client for the same.

Among the tasks involved here are:

Submit your project and ask for approval
Keep a smooth communication channel with quick replies to keep your client satisfied
Invoice your client

Why do you need a creative workflow management system for your business?

Creative agencies mostly thrive on imagination. They need their sweet time to come up with ideas and suggestions for projects. However, this method might not be fruitful for agencies or businesses that handle multiple projects and need to deliver each one at a certain timeline.

Having a creative workflow management system works here. It doesn't limit your creativity but sets up boundaries for projects to be completed on time. There are a number of benefits to setting up creative workflow management for your business, such as:

1. Save your time and money

Without a creative workflow, there is no predefined layout or structure to aid collaboration. As a result, all team members work at their own pace and ability to complete the project. The result is often satisfactory and leads to unsatisfied customers.

Team members might also feel stressed because of the lack of a streamlined process to generate excellent results. But, again, this leads to the wastage of time and resources for the business.

When you establish a project layout from ideation to final submission, it facilitates effective collaboration. Team members do not waste their time on guesswork; instead, they have a defined scope of work and a deadline set. All of this translates into delivering excellent work and earning more money.

2. Maximize creativity

Many times, people say that creative people need to be set free, and trying to structure their workdays too much can stop them from producing new ideas.

However, this isn't true. Structuring your process keeps you away from all distractions and lets your brain focus on one thing. A recent survey by Coschedule says that organized marketers are 674% more likely to report success than others.

You can surely not time creativity, but it's important to set standards and deadlines for projects to be delivered on time.

3. Clearly defined project goals

A creative workflow management system outlines the project's basic parts, including the members involved, their scope of work, and deliverables. This way, team members know their project goals and the timeline to get them done.

With a creative workflow, all tasks are sequenced with a defined structure and order. This helps project managers efficiently track the duties and tasks of each member. In addition, it allows each team member to work independently and maximize creativity.

4. Streamlined collaboration

A freelancer that works on their own doesn't have to make constant updates until the project reaches the client's end. However, it is not the case for agencies or in-house marketing teams. The more people work on a project, the higher the chances of miscommunication.

Ineffective communication is the root cause of project derailing. It happens because the process of assigning duties and timelines isn't streamlined. So, you don't know who's responsible for what, resulting in stress and bad output.

Here, adopting creative workflow management comes in handy. Your entire team is aware of your tasks, who you have to report to, and what the deadline is. The process streamlines collaboration and keeps people informed of the latest updates on the project.

How to set up a creative workflow management process for your organization?

Now that you know what a creative workflow is and why you need it in your business, let's discuss ways to set it up. We will define the steps you need to take to go from project ideation to client approval.

2. Define project goals

The first step to getting started is creating a project brief that includes project goals, target audience, due dates, and milestones. Once you have a basic structure in place, conduct a kickoff meeting with your team to prepare them for the project.

Here, you can talk in detail about the digital assets that need to be delivered, trackable metrics, and project deadlines. In addition, the meeting should include everything about the client and the project so team members can easily assess and delegate responsibilities and define project goals.

2. Set your team's responsibility

A project reaches from ideation to approval because of the people involved. However, without a standard process, completing projects can become stressful, with people either overwhelmed with work or unsure of the tasks they have to do.

Delegating tasks is a common practice in agencies and creative firms to effectively assign responsibilities to team members. Depending upon an employee's expertise, performance, preferences, etc., they are given tasks.

Some of the common roles needed in a team are:

Project Principal
Project Strategist
Project Manager
Marketing Specialist
Designer
Developer

The needed roles depend upon the project requirements, but you should assign some basic roles and responsibilities to your team members to keep the project running.

3. Brainstorm ideas and create a workflow

Before starting any project, it's important to conduct initial brainstorming sessions to gather ideas. When you work in an agency, the pressure to generate new and better ideas is quite high. Unfortunately, this can lead to overworked and unmotivated team members.

To combat such situations and avoid "idea burnout," you must

Change your perspective on thinking and ask for feedback
Instead of brainstorming alone, do it with your peers
Take rest to recharge your brain
Try different techniques to brainstorm ideas like painting, reading, walking, whatever you feel helps.
Do a regular assessment of your idea and its feasibility with the project.

That's why creating an organized creative workflow is essential. Here, you can organize the steps of how your team should work with deadlines.

Workflow automation helps streamline the process from idea to final approval and ensures the project is done on time. creates approval stages, from idea finalization to project completion and submission to the client.

4. Meet deadlines and tracking changes

One of the reasons your clients aren't working with you long-term is because of missed deadlines. It's always tough to deliver work on a decided timeline, but you cannot get away with it. Your clients will judge you on the quality of work and the time it takes to complete the project.

Make sure you create project milestones for your team members so they are on track. And, if you think the deadline is tough to meet, you can always ask for a few more days. Whatever it takes, try to be on time.

Once you share your content, you might get some feedback. Don't get frustrated with it; instead, make a workflow on who will take up with edits. If the changes are major, that means there was a misinterpretation in the project understanding and you need to go back to the brainstorming stage.

Why choose Ruttl to give your team feedback?

We have also launched some amazing features in which users can review videos and illustrations and add their comments. To make the customer feedback process more intuitive, our team is also working on adding new digital boards so that you can easily collaborate and communicate with your teams on new ideas.

ruttl will also help you resolve bugs quickly from your website by adding collaborators and leaving comments which seem to be buggy or out of context.

So, when you choose ruttl, you aren’t just getting a website feedback tool but a package of highly advanced features that are hard to find on any other platform.

Signup and join 15000+ teams and freelancers that use ruttl daily as their website feedback tool.

Independent Page Sharing Link

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 15:21:50 GMT

To share your page independently, simply head inside your preferred project, hover on the page's card which you'd like to share and click on the 'Share' icon. Now that the share link is copied, please share it with your clients or external guests.

Pro-tip: If you'd like your clients to only review this page, please disable 'Show other pages' in the share modal.

Copy unresolved comments while adding a new version

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 15:03:18 GMT

While adding a version, you will now get the option to copy all unresolved comments to the new version.

Simply click on 'Add version' and you will receive a popup 'There are {X} unresolved comments on this version'. Clicking on the 'Copy Comments' button will copy these unresolved comments into the new version. You can always skip this functionality too.

Please do note that these comments will be pulled to your latest version as floating comments, which won't be pinned to any elements.

12 Best Customer Feedback Tools In 2025

Tue, 24 May 2022 08:19:38 GMT

Customer experience has fast become a priority for businesses. Gone are the days when the key to winning over buyers was only through product quality or price. But, in the last few years, the market has been flooded with options for customers to choose from, so why would they go for anything less?

Customers are no longer loyal to a brand based on its product or price. They are even willing to invest more if they get a good customer experience with the business. In research by PWC, 86% of customers are willing to pay more in return for a great customer experience.

So, how do you ensure that your customer's experience is on point?

One way is to directly ask them using a standard customer feedback tools. Such tools help collect information on what your customer's like and what they don't about your product. They use various techniques and formats like video, text, images, survey scores etc., to curate a detailed report on customers' experience with businesses.

And the moment you realize this you are already a step ahead of your competitors and closer to success.

In this article, we have curated the best customer feedback tools that you should go for when looking to get insights into your buyer's experience with your businesses.

What to look for in customer feedback tools?

Here are some of the must-have features in your customer feedback tools-

1. Collecting feedback and execution

You will find various customer feedback tools in the market that sell you features that you might not even need. When navigating a customer feedback tools for your business, collecting feedback and execution is the first thing you should look for. The application should allow you to collect valuable feedback through NPS, CSAT, GCR, CES, or user comments at all customer touchpoints.

2. Integration with other important tools

While a customer feedback tools is powerful on its own, it requires other CRM and marketing automation tools to give maximum results. When choosing a customer feedback tools, make sure it gels well with your current software stacks such as CRM, customer support and help desk to easily integrate and share information.

3. Price

Money is always a crucial parameter. Spending thousands of dollars doesn't make sense, if you still aren't happy with its performance. For small to medium businesses, you can discuss a price range and then choose a customer feedback tools of your choice. However, for large businesses with no foundation, you can look for an all-in-one software (like Ruttl) to salvage your need.

Top customer feedback tools

No customer feedback tools is the same, and neither are they created for every business. Ultimately, what you select depends on your feedback goals, what kind of business you run and your budget for the same. These are the roundup of the best customer feedback tools for your business-

1. Ruttl

If you have just created a brand new website, and want validation on the idea, then ruttl is what you need. Our customer feedback tools lets you collect precise and detailed customer reviews to offer the best customer experience to users. You can easily send shareable links to your customers' web pages and let them give their honest feedback.

Collaborate and communicate with customers by addressing their comments and building meaningful relations. Plus, you don't have to manually track all the comments; instead, you can create a new project for customer feedback and integrate it with Asana or Trello.

Features:

The easiest way to get unfiltered customer feedback for your yet-to-be-launched project.
Integrate with 3000+ apps using Zapier.
No sign-up needed for client comments.
You can ask customers to review web pages, images, and pdfs.
Get feedback on your web apps on ruttl with absolutely no logins needed.
Get instant notifications about client feedback through Slack.
Do instant real-time changes on your webpage through ruttl.
You can check all your website edits, comments made, and content changed on web pages from the activity panel.

ruttl can reduce web apps review time to half, which means quicker feedback, and a better user experience on the site. It's not an alternative but the only solution that lets your customer participate in the customer feedback process.

Pricing:

ruttl offers three paid plans: Standard, Pro and Teams, starting from $12/month. You can also get a lifetime membership of ruttl from $600 onwards. ruttl also offers a basic free plan to try before commitment.

Signup and join 15000+ teams and freelancers that use ruttl daily as their visual feedback tool.

2. Typeform

Typeform is a creative intersection between human emotions and functionality. It's an excellent choice among customer feedback tools for creating intuitive forms, questionnaires and surveys. Typeform presents questions one-at-a-time, that seems more like a conversation than a survey form. With built-in photo and video libraries, custom layouts and editable themes, Typeform makes it easy for businesses to create surveys that produce high response rates.

Features:

Provide integration with various tools like Slack, Autopilot, Google Sheets, Airtable, Mailchimp, Hubspot, Salesforce, Zapeir etc.
Includes features like question branching, online polls, skip logic, poll management etc.
Email distribution to get maximum buyer's response.
Provides live-tracking for quick decision making
Excellent reporting features to derive valuable insights from the customer's feedback form.

Pricing:

Typeform offers three pricing plans, Basic, Plus, and Business, starting from $29/month. You can also check out its free plan before any commitment.

3. Qualaroo

According to the platform, Qualaroo's responses work 10x more than email surveys because it catches users in real-time. You can determine exactly whom you want to target based on their behavioral pattern, specific actions, locations, browser cookies, events, or dates streamed through the application. Using Qualaroo, you can create various surveys like CES, UES, CSAT, NPS etc., using the latest Qualaroo customized themes and templates.

Features:

AI-powered analytics helps transform customer answers into organized data. The sentiment analysis helps businesses respond to users in real-time and visualize areas of improvement.
Qualaroo's Nudge for prototypes helps you ask the right question at the right time. It's compatible with major prototyping software, and you can integrate your feedback survey anywhere.
Include existing surveys to discover why potential clients aren't converting.
You can include various questions in your survey like open-ended, close-ended MCQ, Likert etc.
You can integrate Qualaroo with various popular tools like Mailchimp, Hubspot, Zapier, Marketo, etc.

Pricing:

Qualaroo offers three pricing plans, Essentials, Premium and Enterprise, starting from $ 0.0010 tracked Pageview/month. You can also try any of the plans for free for 15 days.

4. Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice provides customers with user-generated content to help them make informed decisions. Businesses can collect, organize, and display UGC content at scale. Among other customer feedback tools, this provides you with 360-degree information, from competitive benchmarking to customer sentiment. In short, Bazaarvoice is more than just a feedback tool; it helps businesses scale in revenue and builds trust among employees through UGC content.

Features:

Create shoppable images by directly integrating reviews and visual content from various sites to your product page.
Collect and market UGC content in text-based reviews, photos, social media posts and videos on the web page.
Actionable reporting features to track performance metrics and smash KPIs.
Bazaarvoice's Retailer Managed Sampling (RMS) is a way to collect exclusive reviews by rewarding brand advocates with product samples.
Compare your products across retail channels to gain a competitive advantage over retailers.

Pricing:

Contact the sales team for a quote.

5. Retently

If you are looking for a platform that focuses on identifying and measuring customer satisfaction through Net Promoter Survey (NPS), you can consider Retently. The customer feedback tools don't offer all the robust customer feedback features, but it focuses more on gathering customer and product experience information. It facilitates cross-channel feedback so you can engage with your audience at all places they are most likely to be present.

Features:

Provide instant follow-up for a personalized experience
Segment your audience by demographic to measure customer feedback accurately.
Compare your customer experience results with your industry to learn more about where you stand among the competition.
Analyze sentiment to predict customers' overall experience with the brand. It opens limitless opportunities for businesses to predict future actions for better CX.
Collect valuable feedback through NPS, CSAT, and CES at all customer touchpoints.

Pricing:

Recently offers three pricing plans, Basic, Essential, and Business, starting from $59/month. You can also take the 7-day free trial before commitment.

6. ProProfs: Online Survey Maker

ProProfs is an easy-to-use, versatile customer feedback tool where you can create surveys in less than 60 seconds. You can pick from 100+ ready-to-use templates, add scoring and branching to questions, customize it with logo and colors, and share it as a link on your socials and website. Using ProProfs, you can create NPS surveys, quizzes, assessments, polls, side-bar, pop-ups and in-app surveys.

Features:

ProProfs offers advanced reporting and analytics tools to understand who took your surveys, their experience, and more.
Integrate ProProfs with amazing tools like Mailchimp, CampaignMonitor, Constant Contact, WordPress, Salesforce, Zendesk and Freshdesk.
Offers skip logic for a personalized conversational experience to customers.
Fully-customizable template for quick survey creation
Businesses can target each page using custom URLs
You can create a survey for both the website and mobile app.

Pricing:

ProProfs offers two paid plans, starting from $ 0.10 Response/month. To start with, you can leverage its basic plan, that's available for free.

7. Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey is an excellent choice among customer feedback tools as it allows you to create feedback surveys quickly. It offers various features like permission control, automated reporting, customization tools, etc. You can create on-point customer feedback questions from basic to advanced 15+ question types and market them anywhere, including social media QR codes and offline.

Features:

Include pre-designed templates to build quick and effective surveys.
Survey Money includes an AI-based performance calculator to calculate and predict completion and the areas that need improvement.
Offers integration with various Salesforce, Marketo, Mailchimp, Zapier etc.
You can include elements like a scoring system, progress bars, question randomization, etc., with Survey Monkey.
Sentiment analysis to understand customers' experience beyond numbers.

8. UserReport

UserReport is one such tool based around two widgets: Survey and Feedback. Thus, it salvages the need to get to know your audience and collect feedback to build better products. Analyze your NPS to understand how many of your customers are satisfied and the ones who are unhappy. You can include your survey reports with Google Analytics to collect users' feedback across geographical boundaries.

Features:

Validate your audience across media to understand the needs of your user's expectations.
Create simple and shareable reports that give detailed insights into user's experience
The feedback widget is customizable with your color palette, text, and logo. It's available in over 60 languages, so there are no geographical boundaries.
When integrating with your online survey, get thousands of newsletter permissions for free.
Filter data according to geography, devices, user demographics and more.

Pricing:

Contact the sales team for a quote.

9. Hubspot

Hubspot is an easy-to-use, versatile choice from the customer feedback tools that helps businesses keep a pulse on their buyer's experience. Create custom surveys and feedback, and send it to your customers via web link or email. You can choose from various pre-built NPS, CES, and CSAT surveys to gather insights at all touchpoints. Hubspot includes a built-in feedback dashboard that lets you monitor survey performance by organizing the data into visual charts.

Features:

Automate the customer feedback process with ticket routing. You can use responses to generate tickets for customer issues for your internal team.
Use conversational bots to provide a one-to-one communication experience by routing customers to relevant steps.
Launch a customer portal to help users with relevant information.
Integrate automatic email follow-ups whenever someone fills up a form.
Built-in data analytics engine for quick analysis of customer responses.

Pricing:

Hubspot offers three pricing plans, Starter, Professional and Enterprise, starting from $45/month.

10. GetFeedback

GetFeedback's multi-channel customer feedback tools let you take action while it's still relevant. Businesses can send surveys to the right people at the right time according to customer's behavior, special location, browser cookies etc. Admins get an all-in-one dashboard where feedback from all the channels is brought together to spot trends over time.

Features:

Collect valuable feedback through NPS, CSAT, GCR, and CES at all customer touchpoints.
Quickly identify areas of opportunity by understanding the key drivers of your customer's experience.
To ensure teams handle critical feedback urgently, GetFeedback sends responses over Slack, customer follow-up in Salesforce and triggers technical glitches in Jira.
Collect customer feedback across all channels like SMS, emails, mobile apps and websites.
Automate the feedback collection process at key points and see a holistic view of your customers over time.

Pricing:

GetFeedback offers three pricing models Essentials, Pro and Ultimate. You can contact the sales team for a quote.

11. Hotjar

Hotjar, even though it is not an example of customer feedback tools, it is an excellent visual behavior tracking tool. You can collect in-moment feedback, see what your users are doing on your website and get detailed responses on their experience. You can even track scroll, clicks and move maps, which will help your businesses understand why behind certain comments and the areas that need improvement. Polls and surveys can be triggered just after the page loads or after X seconds before the user abandons the page.

Features:

Visualize user behavior through heatmaps to discover what attracts the most attention or understand what's getting ignored on your website.
Capture in-moment feedback to understand the user's experience on the site.
Integrate Hotjar with various popular tools like Slack, Segment, Hubspot, Optimizely, Zapier, etc.
See what exactly users are doing on your website by playing back recordings of them scrolling, u-turning, moving etc.
Create easy to build surveys and polls to capture on-site user's experience

Pricing:

Hotjar offers three paid plans of Plus, Business and scale starting from $39/month. It also offers a free basic plan with good features.

12. Zonka Feedback

Zonka Feedback lets you create surveys to measure customer satisfaction, loyalty, and efforts in a few minutes through CSAT surveys, NPS Surveys, and CES Surveys respectively. This type of customer feedback tools come with an easy-to-use survey builder and intuitive dashboard that lets you design, customize, send, and manage surveys from a single platform. Its in-depth reports on customer insights, trends, behavior, and more, to help you make data-driven decisions. It comes with 100+ survey templates, and 30+ survey questions, and helps you measure several customer experience metrics.

Features:

Easy-to-use survey builder with ready-to-use templates and complete customization
Create microsurveys as well as long surveys
Distribute surveys across multiple channels like website, in-app, in-product, email, SMS, survey app, and more.
Advanced survey reports and analytics to take required action or automate workflows
Seamless integration with third-party apps like Hubspot, Salesforce, Zendesk, and more.
Real-time alerts for poor scores or bad reviews to follow up, take action, and close the feedback loop.

Pricing:

Zonka Feedback offers free surveys for website and in-product surveys. It offers different plans - Starter, Professional, and Growth- starting from $49 per month.

Why choose ruttl over other customer feedback tools?

Ruttl is an all-in-one tool that works more than just as a customer feedback tool. You can review live websites, web apps and design annotations. Users can easily leave comments, making it easier for team members to do the changes. Using Ruttl, you can provide an excellent customer experience, resulting in higher customer retention and references.

Ruttl will also help you resolve bugs quickly from your website by adding collaborators and leaving comments which seem to be buggy or out of context.

So, when you choose Ruttl, you aren’t just getting a website feedback tool but a package of highly advanced features that are hard to find on any other platform.

Signup and join 20000+ teams and freelancers that use ruttl daily as their visual feedback tool.

Jira or Trello: Top Project Management Tool

Thu, 05 May 2022 10:27:36 GMT

Whether you’re trying to keep multiple projects in check, delegate tasks to your teammates, or have all project-related communication in one place, project management tools can be your one-stop destination.

When we think of project management tools, two popular names come to mind — Jira and Trello.

While both of these tools come from the same company, Atlassian, these tools are still fighting for the same target market. They have many overlapping features as well as differences between them which is why some businesses prefer one over the other.

Let us go into the details and find out whether it is Jira or Trello that would work the best for your business.

Overview of Jira

Jira is one of the best PM tools that was specifically built for software development. Apart from project planning, it also offers issue tracking features. The tool has different dashboards and outlines for agile and scrum techniques. When it comes to add-ons and integrations, Jira has over 1000 add-ons and integrations with different tools and software to help you optimize your development workflows. Jira has many products under its belt such as Jira Core, Jira Software, Jira Service Management, and Jira Align that you can use within your team to work better.

Overview of Trello

At first glance, you think of Trello as a white board where a project is broken down into different stages with each stage having its own tasks. It’s like a Kanban board where you can move one card through different stages (columns). You can visualize the task flow of designing projects, software development projects, or social media campaign projects. It is a lightweight PM tool that is built for general purposes rather than targeting one specific sector. In Trello, you can attach images and documents, comment on tasks and collaborate with your team members. Like Jira, they also offer many integrations that you can make use of.

Jira Vs Trello

Let’s compare Jira and Trello on all the different usecases these tools provide:

Task Management

Be it developing a software, designing a new content guide, or planning your next email marketing campaign, you need to break these projects down into smaller tasks.

Trello excels when it comes to simplistic task management. The tool has a three-part hierarchy: Boards, Lists, and Cards. You can organize these elements as you need, invite team members, assign tasks to teams, schedule due dates for each task, and even attach files to tasks. The one downside to using Trello is that they lack pre-built workflows in the sense that you’ll have to build processes from scratch for any project you want to start or you’ll have to copy existing boards and customize them.

Jira, on the other hand, has pre-built workflows to help development teams develop, test, and launch software. They even have custom workflows for various agile scenarios which makes Jira a great tool for managing agile projects. This can also be a potential drawback for teams that are not working on agile projects as they get far less flexibility. Even for teams who are looking for simple workflows and features, Jira may fail to make the cut.

Project Management

If you’re dealing with agile projects, specifically software development ones, Jira beats Trello in all regards. Agile project management needs an iterative approach where large projects are broken down into small tasks. Teams can make changes and adjustments in the scope of the project as needed.

Jira helps agile teams with a lot of features such as Scrum and Sprint planning, issue tracking, detailed project reporting, code repositories so that the team can manage their workflow right from coding to testing out the software and tracking application errors. Developers can even pull issues and user stories to the current sprint and assign these tasks to team members. Seeing the number of sprint days remaining, tracking task progress on scrum boards, error tracking, all can be possible with Jira.

Whereas Trello only has a Kanban interface available and it doesn’t offer most of the agile features that Jira has in store.

Collaboration

Both these tools work equally well when it comes to collaborating with your team. These are some common collaboration features that Jira and Trello offer:

Invite teammates to projects so that everyone knows about the project status and different tasks. This builds visibility and transparency in the organization.
Comment on specific tasks and everyone on the team will be notified
Direct comments to a team member using the @ symbol
Share attachments on cards
Turn on email, SMS and pop-up notifications so that you can be notified of real-time updates even when you’re not using the tool

Except for these features, Jira also offers traditional collaboration features such as file sharing and messaging.

Reporting

Many organizations rely on reports to track progress, understand where resource allocation is necessary, what is pushing projects to delay, and if they need to adjust milestones and deadlines.

Jira again turns out to be a clear winner when it comes to the reporting function of a PM tool. Be it their agile reporting features such as sprint planning, burndown charts, or their multiple chart and diagram templates that are built into the software to create valuable reports, Jira can help you keep everything on track and see that the project is progressing as intended.

While Trello has certain built-in report generation add-ons, Jira still provides far more extensive and useful data through their reports.

Hosting

Some businesses prefer having an on-premise software while others like having everything on cloud. Both these storage options have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, you might feel cloud storage to rank a little lower on confidentiality and security whereas you might find on-premise software to be pricey and have little modifications and feature additions.

If you are looking for an on-premise project management software, you’ll have to choose Jira as Trello operates only on cloud.

Integrations

When it comes to integrations, Jira and Trello both have integrations that help you work smoothly with other tools that your team is using. Trello integrates with Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, MailChimp, OneDrive, Salesforce, among others. Jira integrates with many design tools, software engineering apps, IT Team apps, CRM tools, test management apps, and other notable tools such as Slack, OneDrive, Google Drive, Salesforce, Usersnap, and Dropbox.

When it comes to third-party add-ons, Jira wins the contest as it has far more add-on options than Trello. But if you’re a business that doesn’t require a lot many integrations and add-ons, both of these tools become equal on this front.

Pricing

Trello ranks a little higher when it comes to price comparison with Jira. Both these tools offer four different pricing tiers with one of them being a free plan. Trello’s free tier is beneficial for small teams whereas Jira’s free plan has a user limit of 10 users.

The other plans for Jira and Trello both have different features such as custom fields, advanced checklists, advanced permission controls, data and insights, depending on the plan.

Jira’s Standard tier is most popular amongst small business organizations but they have a storage limit whereas the same tier in Trello has unlimited storage. Moreover, many growing teams will have to upgrade to the Premium version of Jira which again has a higher pricing point than Trello.

Both the PM tools follow the price per user per month model and Jira has expensive pricing tiers as compared to Trello.

Here’s the monthly price comparison for both these tools to help you make an informed decision:

Pros and cons of Jira

Jira was originated keeping in mind software development teams. The reason why it has so many features like bug tracking and ability to use scrum and sprint techniques for different projects. Here are some pros and cons of Jira.

Pros:

One of the best PM tools when it comes to agile projects
Large number of integrations and third-party add-ons that you can use to create new features in Jira to meet specific needs.
Offers an on-premise option
The availability of scrum and sprint features
Intuitive task filtering to focus on relevant tasks

Cons:

A steep learning curve as it has many features
Designed keeping in mind software development teams so doesn’t have a general use design like Trello
Requires a little understanding of agile development
Could be too complex for small teams that require basic PM features
Slightly on the more expensive side than Trello

Pros and cons of Trello

Trello has a very straightforward design and works great for general-use projects such as event planning, managing content requirements, developing marketing campaigns, and so on. Here’s the pros and cons for this PM tool.

Pros:

You can begin using this tool with little to no learning curve owing to its ease-of-use
They have filtering feature that you can use to narrow down on the relevant cards
The general-purpose design works for most teams and it doesn’t turn out to be too complex as well
It provides all the basic features that a PM tool should have
Kanban board makes the tool extremely visual and helps in easy project tracking

Cons:

It doesn’t have many advanced features
They do not have that many add-ons and integrations as Jira has
Does not work that well for agile projects that require frequent iterations
As they have a Kanban board, the tool doesn’t translate well on mobile as it requires a lot of space to display the board
Prioritization of tasks isn’t easy

Comparison Table

Which one should you get - Jira or Trello?

Trello may be your choice if you are looking for a simplistic PM tool that handles all the basic functions like adding tasks, commenting, inviting users, and so on. It offers small teams the right amount of features they need instead of bombarding them with too many complexities.

On the other hand, Jira may be your go-to PM tool if you have larger teams and are looking for a comprehensive tool that can handle all the complex projects you are managing.

Before you decide on any tool, make use of their free plans to get an experience of the tool and then upgrade to their higher pricing tiers.

Design Fix: Tips To Improve Feedback Loops

Thu, 05 May 2022 10:04:37 GMT

Designers must understand feedback loops if they wish to create impactful user experiences. Feedback not only helps in saving time and resources but also creates failure-proof designs.

Most of the time, feedback loops are not so apparent, so designers need to keep studying data, observe the real world and look at design problems with fresh perspectives.

In terms of design, feedback loops are staged across action, effect and feedback. For example, an action could be a user finishing a task using your digital product; an effect could be that they saved time doing so and the feedback could be they being appreciated that.

Understanding feedback loops help designers gauge their products, test ideas and prevent drastic design failures.

Looking forward to improving feedback loops for your design process? Follow these quick tips:

Analyze the Data

Research can provide you with a lot of data which helps you understand user behaviour and feedback loops. Whether you are designing a website or a product, this data could support your metrics study and make your products stand out.

Go for Usability Testing

User interviews are crucial to understanding how your designs would work in real-life. So, make the most use of data and user interviews by using empathy maps. Empathy maps are nothing but feedback loops which make you think, feel, see and hear like users.

Focus on the Questions

As a designer, you solve common problems and streamline your users' lives. To keep doing so, you must keep these problem statements in mind:

How long would it take to solve this design issue?
Can I interact with the design components?
Is my design working?

Feedback loops are incredibly helpful. By following these tips, you would be able to make the most of them and ace your design projects.

Version Control To Boost Your Design Productivity

Thu, 05 May 2022 09:37:28 GMT

Version control is one of the most important practices which are followed by the software engineering industry. Popularly known as VCS, version control enables collaboration when everyone is working independently. Furthermore, it helps cross-functional teams to work and maintain a main source of truth.

Think about Google Docs and the first thing that may pop in your mind is their incredibly used version history feature. Although version control is used to maintain a history of every release and update of software, documentation, complex projects or data sets, designers can also benefit from it.

How Version Control Can Help Designers?

Offline and traditional tools make it difficult for designers to collaborate and maintain a central version control like engineers. Having faced this issue first hand, we created ruttl which helps us to work seamlessly even when our design team is remotely distributed.

Using cloud based tools like ruttl, designers can easily work together on different projects and keep a tab on changes. This reduces rework, confusion and improves their productivity.

Essentially, version control helps designers to delete, retrieve and iterate their designers without disturbing anyone else’s work. They can work on the same file and get work done.

Version control is also useful when you are onboarding new designers to your team or handing off projects. New hires of your team could check the version control of your designs and know everything that was done on the project.

Looking for a tool to do version control on your web design projects? Check out ruttl and never worry about collaborations or maintaining a source of truth for design changes.

How To Create A User-friendly Landing Page UI?

Thu, 05 May 2022 09:22:24 GMT

Landing pages are an integral part of your web designs. It strikes the first point of connection between your business and your customer. Hence, it needs to be user-friendly and have an appealing feel. To do so, we must first understand what the term user-friendly exactly means.

Decoding User-Friendly Design

Simply put, user-friendly means any interface design which is easy to use. User-friendly design makes it simple for users to experience your design. Furthermore, it eases the way users navigate through your website, app or any other digital product without feeling overwhelmed.

Broadly speaking, a user-friendly design appears fluid, clutter-free and quick to navigate.

So, that brings us to the question: how to design a user-friendly landing page? We got your back!

Designing a User-Friendly Landing Page

There are two major phases for making your landing page more user-friendly namely - UI design and testing of landing page. Follow these tips to ensure both of them are up to the minute:

Use the right colour, typography and visuals

Visuals, colours and typography make your landing page more attention worthy. So, carefully choose them for your landing page. They must instantly appeal to your users and intrigue them to check the information placed across the website.

Use simple UI elements

When it comes to UI elements, keep them as familiar as possible. Work on creating a consistent design language so that it becomes easy for users to navigate your website.

Select the right interfaces

Think as a user, you would end up seeing a search bar or a hamburger almost every day on any website. There are many options which you can use for them. However, as a designer, you must carefully consider which elements are user-friendly and then use them.

Make it desktop and mobile friendly

Users across the globe are going mobile-first. Keep that in mind and ensure to make your landing page mobile-friendly so that they can easily go through your landing page. This effort on your side will surely create a positive user experience.

Conduct A/B Tests and Use Heatmaps

Last but not the least, create two versions of your landing page and get them tested. See which one garners better response, conversions and then take a call.

You may also use heatmaps to gauge user trends and patterns and score its user-friendliness before your landing page goes live.

Customers' expectations are soaring day by day. Create a user-friendly landing page for your business so that it soon transforms into a bankable brand.

5 Tips To Make Your Design Sprints Worth It!

Thu, 05 May 2022 09:08:21 GMT

As a freelancer or an in-house designer, you must have joined various design sprints for some projects during your career. Design sprints are quintessentially group sessions during which you collaborate with your team to find design solutions within 5 days. Through ideation, deep work, building prototypes, testing and reiterating, you find that solution. The end goal of a design sprint is to achieve speed and maximum efficiency.

These days, remote design sprints have started becoming popular as well owing to the global pandemic. These sprints allow global collaboration and do not limit participation. Offline design sprints need a facilitator who schedules, organizes, gathers essentials and runs the design sprint. Whereas, remote design sprints, present their own set of challenges such as striking organic conversations, aligning time zones, offering context and background or connection distortions.

Despite these challenges, you can still make your remote design sprints successful using these tips:

Get the Right Tools

Running a remote design sprint is only possible if you are equipped with just the right tools. Try and test various tools for documentation, video conferencing, whiteboarding and user testing beforehand so that on the D-day, you are all set.

Fix the Date and Time

Whether you have a global team or not, fixing date and time and sending meeting invites well in advance always helps. By doing so, you would get your whole team together and keep them on the same page.

Ask for Assistance

Pulling off a design sprint is not at all easy. There is a lot that needs to be done during its planning and also when it goes live. You do need help to make it a success. Do not take ownership of everything, ask one or two of your team members to help you out and the process will feel less overwhelming.

Stay on Video

Remote design sprints cannot showcase nonverbal cues or convey how the participants are feelings. To overcome this barrier, you must keep your video on so that the participants feel involved and can communicate with ease.

Schedule Breaks

Back to back brainstorming and whiteboarding can tire participants. Schedule timely lunch breaks, tea breaks and just quick refresher to beat all that call fatigue.

Do follow these tips to make your remote design sprints more productive and helpful!

Steps To Build Design System Roadmap

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 10:19:12 GMT

If someone were to come up to your design team and ask, “What are you working on?” would the answer be all the scattered tasks your team is working on or would you have a coherent answer specifying the focus area for your team now and what you are going to deliver next?

The latter comes easily when you have in place a design system roadmap.

A design system roadmap allows your design team and relevant stakeholders to know the timeline, various tasks, milestones, deliverables, and future releases. This helps bring clarity and transparency in the process.

Let’s see how you can build the perfect design system roadmap for your team:

1. Set goals

What is the main purpose for creating this roadmap? To manage expectations? Or to have a clear process for your entire team because you’re working on multiple projects?

2. Carry out an audit

See what you have and document everything. You can categorize your audit into 3 major categories: Visual (colors, fonts, images, logos), UI Components (Buttons, form fields, modals), and Interactions (microinteractions, animations)

3. Conduct research

Talk with design system’s users to learn about current workflows, pain points, their expectations from this system. You should also collect previous roadmaps, backlogs, UX strategy, and other relevant documents to ensure there’s no duplication of work and the new design system roadmap adheres to all current strategies and workflows.

4. Define and prioritize the parts you need to build

Making use of the above two steps, define all the parts of the design system you need to build or fix. Once that is listed out, you need to prioritize all these parts and then create a timeline accordingly. If you’re building a design system from scratch, break down your design system into small parts and start with basic styles and elements first. If you’re making changes to an existing design system, prioritize components and elements related to usability and accessibility.

5. Build

Now that the roadmap is in place, it’s time to build your design system. This could include deciding on the design system team, getting organizational buy-in, access to additional resources, building the color palette, implementing an icons library, establishing design system governance, and so on.

6. Test

Your design team must test components to ensure they meet the usability and accessibility standards. You can also create high-fidelity prototypes that look and function like the final product.

7. Maintain and evolve your design system

As your product keeps on evolving, so should your design system. You must also revise your roadmap once every quarter or six months to keep up with the changes and let your organization and stakeholders stay updated.

A design system roadmap serves many purposes like helping you monitor progress, measure the ROI of each release, improve collaboration and build accountability across team, help plan product releases and so much more.

It has the potential to change the way your design team operates and make it all the more better.

So, what are you waiting for? This is your hint to start working on your design system roadmap.

How To Boost Design Team Collaboration?

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 07:14:56 GMT

Collaborating on design projects isn’t a cakewalk. You have different design ideas popping up from each designer, opposing views, never-ending deadlines and delays, and client revisions that make your end product look messy.

But what exactly do we mean by design team collaboration?

Any designing process starts with the marketing team creating a brief that involves deadlines, design dimensions, references, and so on. Both the marketing team and design team review and asks questions on this brief after which the brief is accepted and work starts. After the final draft is worked upon, the marketing team reviews it and asks for changes which are again worked upon.

All the stages in this process require design team collaboration. Here are 4 ways you can boost that collaboration.

1. Have regular updates

There are a lot of interdependencies when it comes to design projects. For example, a UX researcher’s work may have a great impact on how the designer creates the layout of the website. Because of these varied dependencies, it’s critical to have regular updates. Many teams conduct daily stand-up meetings to let everyone on the team harmonize their tasks, and discuss the tasks for the day.

2. Use the right tools

Your entire team may not work from the office or you may have instances when a teammember can’t make it to work. That’s why it’s so important to have tools in place so that your work isn’t hampered. These tools could be PM tools like Trello where everyone can see their tasks and collaborate, communication tools like Slack to brainstorm or discuss design topics, visual feedback tools like Ruttl where your team can pinpoint those design changes, and other such designing and developing tools to have an efficient work process.

3. Set communication expectations

Before you start working on any project, it’s important to have communication guidelines in place and every team member should have a copy of the same. With so many different professionals working on a design project, this guideline can cover various topics like:

The places for different types of communication. For example project-related communication in Trello, inspiration communication in Slack channel, and so on.
Approval stages
How to call in a meeting for an emergency issue
Roles and responsibilities of different professionals and their POC (Point of Contact)

4. Exercise version control

In a design project, there are likely to be multiple versions. What would happen if your UX researcher runs a user feedback session with the wrong design? It’s important to have version control guidelines in place to avoid these kinds of scenarios. These guidelines could cover the naming conventions for each version, when final versions would be uploaded, and so on. You should also check in with your team regularly to ensure that these guidelines are being met and following-up with them if they aren’t.

An awesome design project isn’t just about great designers or great developers. It’s about a great team coming together. Design team collaboration is what makes that possible.

Follow these four steps to boost your design team collaboration and achieve success with each of your design projects.

Top Practices For User Feedback Strategy

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 07:52:39 GMT

Whether it is to understand your customer segments, see how your new feature would perform, or understand the interaction touchpoints and friction areas in your app, user feedback is what makes it possible.

But is it a simple process? Does the process end with just the collection of user feedback? Or is there a feedback loop that you need to close?

Here are 5 best practices for user feedback strategy that will help you gain clarity on the above questions.

1. Finalize the basics

Here are some details you should be clear of before you start your user feedback process:

Objectives: What is your goal? Do you want to measure loyalty metrics such as CSAT or NPS? Do you want to know the issues customers face in the checkout process?
Teams: Which teams would be involved? Discuss who will be in charge of collecting feedback, analyzing it, and making action plans based on the analysis. This way, you can keep everyone involved and gain perspectives from different teams.
Channels: Social media? Email? Or in-app surveys? Finalize the channels so that you can build your surveys based on different channels’ best practices.

2. Build user-centric surveys

You might want to deploy a very long and intensive survey so that you can gain all the insights you need to make a business decision. But will your users want to spend 10 minutes filling up a survey? No, right? That’s where user-centric surveys come into the picture. These surveys should be brief so that they don’t cause feedback fatigue. You can even have one or two open-ended questions that give you deeper insights into what the user is feeling.

3. Make surveys easily accessible

Want to gain relevant and timely feedback insights? Then make it easy for customers to access these surveys. Depending on passive and active feedback surveys, you can embed feedback buttons on all pages of your website so that the customer can give their feedback anywhere or trigger these surveys based on a certain action or behavior. For example, triggering a survey when a customer visits the pricing page but doesn’t subscribe.

4. Analyze your feedback

Collecting feedback is just half the work done, interpreting what the data means for your company and how to put it into action is as important. Instead of analyzing all the data together, you can even segment this data depending on your different customer segments. For example, understanding how customers in the USA are reacting to a price change as compared to customers in the UK. This can give you relevant insights into different customer segments and you can then create an action plan.

5. Create feedback loops

When an action plan is created, thank the users for their inputs and let them know that you value their opinions and how you have utilized their feedback. This closes the feedback loop and lets your user see the improvements their feedback will bring. It builds trust and they’ll be more likely to volunteer for such surveys in the future also.

Now that you know these 5 best practices for your user feedback strategy, put them into action and see the results for yourself.

How Web Design And Development Are Different?

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 07:36:02 GMT

While both the web designer and web developer have the same goal in mind — to create a great website or application, both these functions are quite different from each other.

From the kind of work they do to the processes they adopt to reach their end goal, there are a lot of differences. Let’s check them out.

What is web design and web development?

Web design is what is known as the overall look and feel of the website. It involves creating visual elements, pages, navigation of a website, and deciding on the color, typography, and visual assets such as images, videos, and logos that would go on the screen. Web designers also need to work on responsive design — how the design works on different devices such as desktops, mobile, and tablets.

The most popular web design disciplines are UX (User Experience) design, UI (User Interface) design, Product Design, and DesignOps.

Web development is the process of writing CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to bring web design into reality. It is also responsible for the things that users don’t see but are essential to the functioning of a website such as web servers, security, databases, and so on.

The various web development disciplines are front-end developer, back-end developer, and full-stack (both front-end and back-end) developer.

To learn more about web development, check out this web developer course.

What do web designers and web developers work on?

Here’s what the process of web design and development looks like:

The marketing team gives the designers and developers a brief of their new project — a new website or a product
The designers start by conducting market, user, and competitor research and understand core problems with the help of user journey maps.
The design team then brainstorms and starts working on ideas either using online tools or sketches and paper prototypes.
After this stage, they start creating wireframes of the website or the application. These wireframes are used as a guide to testing navigation and design information architecture
Once the wireframes are ready, mockups and high-fidelity prototype replicas of the application or website are created to conduct a round of usability testing with the relevant stakeholders
When the testing is done and feedback is collected, mockups and prototypes are prepared for the design handoff — the process when designs are handed over from the designers to the developers
Here’s where the developers’ real work starts. Making use of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the reference designs are used to build the website or application. A front-end framework may be used at this stage to develop the product faster.
APIs, Packages, and other development tools are used by front-end and back-end developers to enhance the application or website's functionality and connect it to other products.
When the development phase comes to an end, the design team conducts a quality assurance process to check whether everything is working properly or not.

Web design and web development both are great fields to step into. They are both equally essential to building great products. Now that you know the difference between the two, which do you think is the right fit for you?

Introducing Web App Support On Ruttl

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 12:56:20 GMT

You can now review your web apps and password-protected screens on ruttl with your team.

To add your web app, please follow the steps below:

Login to ruttl account and click on the extension.
Select ‘Web Application’ in the project type dropdown while creating the project.
Open your web app or logged-in screen in a new tab, click on the extension and add it to the project.

Download Chrome Extension - Web App Support

Project Settings Are Now Individual

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 11:27:35 GMT

Earlier, we had the same settings for all projects - so if you switched to list view for your project that has (let’s say) 40 pages, we kept the same setting for your other project(s) too.

But now it’s been taken care of. You choose grid or list view separately for each project, and ruttl will remember that when you head inside the project. What are your thoughts on this feature? Please let us know by replying to this email.

Best Design Development Handover Tools

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 11:15:56 GMT

Does work finish when designers have conceptualized their ideas into images? No! The most important part is still to come — the design handover process.

Design handover takes place when prototypes have been tested and requirements have been met. This design is then handed over to the developers to start coding.

This process can turn out to be quite frustrating and complicated because generally designers and developers don’t understand each other very well. Designers don’t know much about coding whereas developers don’t know much about the design process.

Mistakes in this stage could lead to product defects and unwanted delays.

To bridge this gap and avoid inefficiencies, design development handover tools come into the picture.

Here are 5 of them you can pick from:

1. Zeplin

Using Zeplin, your designers can create user flows with annotations to provide developers with context. They also have a style guide to save colors, spacing/layouts, text styles, and design components. With code snippets for web, Android applications with CSS, iOS, developers can directly copy/paste and get started. Zeplin integrates with Sketch, Photoshop, Figma, and even collaboration tools such as Slack, Jira, and Trello.

2. Avocode

Avocode has one-click integrations through which designers can save time by generating downloadable assets, snippets, and spec mode for ten code languages. Just like Zeplin, this tool works with Sketch, Photoshop, and Figma. It also supports CSS code exports, and multiple image exporting.

3. InVision

Inspect, InVision’s design handoff tool automatically generates code snippets and design specs for your developers. They have a storybook integration through which developers can avoid rework and searching of libraries as the integration notifies the developers of which components already exist in code repositories. To aid in communication and project management so designers and developers can collaborate with each other, they have integrations with Trello, Jira, and Confluence.

4. Marvel

Marvel bridges the gap between design and development by generating starter code and CSS for your mockups and prototypes. They also have a user-friendly interface so getting started with the tool won’t require a steep learning curve for your team. You can export code as CSS, Android XML, and Swift. Your developers can download assets from Marvel or inspect elements so that misinterpretation and too much switching between tools can be avoided.

5. Sympli

A powerful handover tool, Sympli has a user-friendly interface where designers can use popular integrations to sync components and mockups and even a design system to share with developers. One of the most unique benefits of this tool is that you can sync with IDEs through plugins forAndroid Studio and XCode for mobile app development. They also provide integrations with project management and development tools to make your design handover process simple and smooth.

No matter how great your design is or how knowledgeable your developers are, an ineffective design handover process can ruin all your work.

Make use of these 5 tools to bridge the gap between designers and developers and create great products.

Best Web Development Podcasts In 2024

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 13:43:38 GMT

Whether you’re just entering the field of web development or looking for a way to earn more bucks in this field, web development podcasts are your one-stop solution for everything.

They can inspire you, keep you updated with the latest technology and hacks, and help you learn from the greatest in the field.

A quick Google search and you’ll find hundreds of web development podcasts. But are all of them worth your time? Well, no!

This blog will make your search easier. So, let's dive in!

Here are the 14 web development podcasts you must subscribe to.

1. Syntax

Hosted by Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski, Syntax covers various technical topics from JavaScript frameworks to command-line tools. As both the hosts are popular teachers, their material is easy-to-understand and the wording and delivery are perfect for both beginners and professionals. They have created over 300 podcasts now and thus are experts at making podcasts that don’t bore you out. You can get to listen to their experiences, how they work, some fun bad dad jokes, and a lot more. The best part? They publish two times a week so you don’t get overwhelmed with too much content.

2. Developer Tea

The name comes from the fact that you can listen to these podcasts in your tea break - each episode is about 15-20 minutes long. This podcast is a little different from the rest in this niche. Instead of covering the same topics centering around coding and frameworks, Jonathan Cutrell, Developer Tea’s host, introduces you to the novel perspective on tech and delves deep into problem-solving, exceptions in tech, cognitive biases, mindset shift, and a lot more. Start this podcast series with an open mind and stick with it for a few weeks before you form an opinion about it.

3. PodRocket

If you’re a front-end developer, PodRocket is the place you should be at. They do weekly interviews with large industry profiles so you get to learn from the best in the field. The one unique thing about these interviews are that they are pretty well researched. The host takes time to know the guests well and thus poses questions that are actually helpful to the listener. These interviews revolve around frameworks, libraries, and tech problems the interviewees deal with every day.

4. Code Newbie

As the name suggests, Code Newbie is a podcast for people who are interested in web development but don’t know how to get started. They publish an episode every Monday where they feature other developers, programmers, and experts in the tech industry who are great at coding. They talk about their journeys and share their own go-to tools, hacks and where they get their inspiration from. These interviews can help you know about many useful facts and hacks that you can use in your web development projects. One amazing thing about Code Newbie is that they have their forum where you can interact with other web developers.

5. 99% Invisible

Looking for inspiration? Or looking for a podcast that you can listen to while commuting? 99% Invisible is a design-focused podcast which covers general design topics. This podcast changes your perspective and you look at the everyday world in a much more appreciative and creative way. It blends architecture, design, and cultural values to inspire your sense of curiosity by making you see the power of design in things you never noticed before. This is perfect for all of you who are stuck in a creative rut and are looking for inspiration.

6. The Web Ahead

Hosted by Jen Simmons, The Web Ahead talks about the future of the web and new technologies in the field. They have a range of topics like HTML, CMS, mobile development, layouts, tools, real-time web, responsive design, and so on. The show also interviews experts around the world and thus has a lot of things you can learn from. Awarded the Podcast of the year in 2015 and with over 100 episodes, you can choose to get started with the topic of your choice today itself.

7. The Bike Shed

Hosted by Chris Toomey and Steph Viccari, The Bike Shed is all about discussing their own personal experiences with web development and the challenges they face working on Rails, JavaScript, and other projects they are working on currently. The content of these podcasts thus feel relatable as they describe their everyday problems with web development. These episodes come out once or twice a week and thus you don’t get bombarded with too much information that many find difficult to process. You can even search for specific topics through their search section and listen to those that interest you.

8. Shop Talk Show

Hosted by Chris Coyier and Dave Rupert, this podcast focuses on front-end web design and development. Shop Talk Show is a weekly podcast with episodes that are about an hour long so if you’re someone who likes episodes that are long but in-depth, this is a podcast you should subscribe. These episodes revolve around topics like customer experience, CSS, layouts, etc. Every week, they feature great interviews with experts in the field of web development. These experts also answer questions submitted by listeners so you can get a chance to ask questions to these experts and learn from them.

9. Full Stack Radio

Adam Wathan runs Full Stack Radio and he makes the listeners have a great time by interviewing interesting personalities within the web development community. Adam combines his great skill of listening with insightful responses that make for great discussions and wonderful episodes. These episodes often center around problems related to the real world and the processes developers can take to solve them. Even if the episodes sometimes go over that 1 hour mark, you would feel the time flying by very quickly. Episodes usually release every few weeks so you can definitely carve up the space for them in your schedule.

10. Front End Happy Hour

Front End Happy Hour shares with you the latest tools, libraries and resources that emerged in the web development world during the past week. Front end being a necessary part for every web developer to build a great website, this podcast aims to make you ready for any challenges that come during your coding journey and how you can make use of certain tools to make things easier. The podcast also features a panel of experts from organizations such as Evernote, LinkedIn, and Netflix where the latest trends in front-end are discussed. If you’re a front end developer, this podcast is a must-have on your list.

11. JavaScript Jabber

JavaScript Jabber holds a weekly panel discussion that consists of 3-4 people and thus is very conversational in nature. You should have a basic knowledge of JavaScript to get more learnings from this podcast. It covers everything from front end to back end and makes sure that you’re updated about all the latest happenings when it comes to the world of JavaScript. The topics range from JS frameworks to JS communities and careers. Apart from the web ecosystem, they also touch upon mobile, NodeJS, and language features.

12. React Podcast

If you are into all things React, you must add this to your list of favorite podcasts. React Podcast invites a guest every week for an hour-long discussion around their topic of interest. Michael Chan, the host of this podcast knows how to make these interviews interesting by getting his guests to open up and talk about the things they are passionate about. While they haven’t posted any new episodes after 2020, there are still hundred of them on their website that you can go through.

13. Career Chats

Wondering about how to take that next step when it comes to a career in web development? Or want to know that one idea that can take your work to the next level? Career Chats is a podcast that talks about all this and more. It is hosted by Swyx and Randall and the podcast has just finished its first season with about 18 episodes for you to indulge in. This season has it all from how to write cold emails to land your dream job to how to pick a coding bootcamp. The best part? These episodes revolve around hyperfocus (one key idea that can change your life) which is why the episodes are impactful and short - just about 10-15 minutes long and you can fit these episodes whenever you have free time.

14. Chats with Kent

Kent, the host of Chats with Kent, is not just a fantastic developer but an incredible teacher and writer too. A reason why his one-on-one discussions with his guests are full of insightful responses and facts. His guests are some of the most famous personalities of web development and they cover different topic areas such as career development, modern technologies, web development problems, and a lot more. The most amazing part about this podcast is that they drop entire seasons at a time like Netflix so you can binge on these episodes. The podcast has its latest third season out but you can check out their earlier seasons as well.

Takeway

Whether you want to know how to advance in your career or need to learn about front-end development, these podcasts can help you. With so many of them inviting esteemed guests on their episodes, you are guaranteed an enriching learning experience and a chance to learn from the best in the field.

To find out those 2 or 3 podcasts that fit you the best, try experimenting by watching a couple of episodes and then making an informed choice.

A Guide To Design Language Switch Button For Your Website

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 09:33:43 GMT

Whether for your clients or for your design agency, if you wish to make a mark with localization then you must create a multi-lingual website. In case you have already been doing that, then you need to put some thought to let your users intuitively switch languages on your website. Having been there and done that, we could say that it is an art and its rewards are many. As per the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA), creating a multi-lingual website is a smart strategy - for every dollar that you spent, you could expect a 20 times return on it.

A language switch button is at the core of a multi-lingual website. It not only catches the eyes of your users but also retains them on your website through its intuitive user experience. Designing a language switch button is therefore crucial while creating a multi-lingual website. Let's take a look at the best design principles for creating it:

Using Language Switch with Icons

Think about a multi-lingual website and the first thing that could hit your mind is the language icon. Icons not only give a visual cue to your users, they also offer an intuitive user experience. Due to a lack of standardization, there is no fixed source for downloading these icons. However, you can check websites like Flaticon or Language Icon to find the perfect icon for your language switch.

Using Language Buttons

The U.S Web Design System has recently introduced a guide on web design standards and it has created a unique language switch by making use of a button component. If that complements your web design then feel free to use it.

Using Text Links

Thinking about creating a language switch with text links? Google will have your back. Language switch button with links is used by many global websites. Do consider it if you wish to make it easy for users to switch languages.

Using Language Switch in Navigation

A navigation bar is also a great place to embed a language switch. By embedding the language switch in the navigation bar of your website, you would make it simpler for users to find it and easily switch the language without trying to locate it across the website. Trello has done the same and it has proven to be effective for them.

Using Language Switch in Footer

Remember Facebook’s footer? We are sure you would recollect them placing language switch in their footers. There are many other websites that have been following this suit. If you are aiming to create a minimal, clutter-free website then think about placing the language switch in the footer, it will definitely make your website seamless.

Using Text-Based Language Switch

Last but not the least, always do user research and collect some feedback before designing a language switch for your website. Oftentimes, your users could incline towards a text-based language switch instead of the other options. Knowing this preference beforehand could help you save a lot of time and resources during the development stages.

Design Basics for Creating a Language Switch Button

Language switches can be customized in various ways and they are vital for creating a rich user experience.
Ensure that the visibility of your language switch is proper. Evaluate whether you wish to use flags or icons to increase it.
Avoid using the initials of languages as they might confuse your users. For example, use Hindi instead of Hin.
While language redirection can be one of those unique features of your website yet do not offer it at the cost of your language switch.

Importance of a Language Switch for User Experience

A language switch is the most important element to think about while creating a multilingual website.

If you end up using too many icons, flags or other visual elements then it could confuse your users and overwhelm them. Conversely, designing a seamless language switch would enhance the user experience for your repeating users and even the new ones.

A Lowdown On Bug Reports And How To Create Good One

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 09:17:01 GMT

When it comes to bugs, your users won't think twice before abandoning you in the dark if they persist. Be it for your website or for your app, the last thing that your users want to encounter is a bug. If you are looking for bug related feedback from your users then you might get disappointed as most of the beta testers or even your loyal users do not know about bug reports. Still, if they create one then it may confuse you further.

As a developer, designer or project manager, if you are trying to fix this challenge then standardization is the answer. Creating a structured bug report could help you as well as your users to document all the bugs they are encountering. A structured bug report could save more than 40% of your time during a typical workday.

Considering how effective bug reports can be for your web design and development endeavours, here's presenting everything you need to know about bug reports.

What is a Bug Report?

A bug report is a document that helps developers to know the chunks of code that are not properly working. It also informs developers about the parts of an app or website which are not properly. Without a bug report, it can get difficult for developers to track this relevant information. Fortunately, beta users, testers can help developers by submitting meticulous bug reports which help them decode the issues.

Ideally, a bug report must contain information related to one specific bug. It must be written in a concise and clear way. Additionally, a bug report must precisely inform the developer about the environment along with user steps that would allow recreation of the bug. Developers will fail to fix the bug if the environment and user steps are not mentioned in the bug report.

Writing a Good Bug Report

A good bug report should help developers with all the crucial information. When you are creating a bug report keep these pointers in mind:

Which problem are you trying to address?
How would the developer trace the problem?
In which part of the website/app did you encounter the problem?
On which environment (browse, device or OS) did the problem occur?

After taking these considerations into account, you can include these sections in your bug report:

1. Title or Bug ID

A title usually includes a clear description about the bug. For example: Pixelated text in taglines.

You could also consider assigning unique IDs to bugs to trace them in a quicker way.

2. Environment

Knowing the environment is important because the bug could specifically appear in one of them. For example, users may find a bug while opening Chrome on Android and not while opening Firefox on iOS. Hence, while mentioning the environment, one must also jot down the following:

Device: Hardware or the model

OS: Name of the OS

Tester: Name of the tester who found the bug

Software: The software on which the bug appeared

Connection Strength: The strength of WiFi, 4G, 3G on which it was tested

3. Steps to Trace the Bug

Mention the sequence of steps so that the developer can quickly follow them to find the bug and get ready to fix it.

4. Expected Outcome

The developer would need to know how the software needs to work in a particular area of the interface. They need to know the intensity of the bug and how it is disrupting the user flow. Try to describe the ideal outcome of the user action, so that the developer has some context.

5. Actual Outcome

Make sure to elaborate on the bug by writing about the following aspects:

How the interface is crashing?
Is the bug impeding user action?
Do you get an error message?
Is the bug making the software unresponsive?

Specificity for each of these sections will make your bug report detailed and will help developers a lot.

6. Screenshots

Always ensure to share visual proofs for the bugs that you are encountering. Without them, the developer will feel clueless and get lost in all the descriptions that you keep sharing. You can also capture screen videos to share the entire user journey with the developer. Videos are far more detailed than screenshots. So, make sure to share some videos as well with the developer. You can use tools like Automate or Live for the same.

7. Severity or Priority

Last but not the least, do assign a severity score to each bug that you find and write the corresponding priority for it. From low, minor, major to critical, chart out how crucial the severity and the priority are for a particular bug.

By following this template for bug reports, you will incredibly help developers. Whether you are a tester or a beta tester, make sure to follow this format of a bug report and make debugging simpler for your team.

Books To Unlock Your Creativity

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 11:58:30 GMT

Creativity is a skill we all need to hone, be it as designers at our workplaces or as chefs in our kitchens. One way to do it is by reading books and understanding how different creators motivated themselves to do great work.

One search on Amazon and you’ll find thousands of books that cater to creativity. Worry not! We have made your job easy by narrowing your search down to 5 must-read books to unlock your creativity.

1. The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda

One of the world’s top graphic designers and a professor at MIT, John Maeda talks about 10 laws of design that can be followed by designers, artists, and businesses. He talks about the simplicity paradox: how we want innovations that are simple and easy to use, and at the same time, innovations that do all the complex things we want them to do. He goes on to encourage creators to find a balance between simplicity and complexity in their creations.

2. You Are an Artist: Assignments to Spark Creation By Sarah Green

Sarah Green, a curator at an art museum for years, collects 50 assignments in this book to take you on a creative journey where you can sort books, discover imaginary friends, make brilliant designs, craft a landscape, or just doodle. She came up with these assignments by traveling around the country and meeting various innovators, asking them for prompts related to their work. You can filter these assignments to suit your needs and start discovering your inner creator.

3. Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic By Lisa Congdon

Lisa Congdon, a bestselling author, artist, and illustrator narrates her experience and shares advice to bring together various interviews with different illustrators, creatives, and artists to help you develop your own unique artistic voice. Find Your Artistic Voice takes you on a journey to develop your own visual identity through inspirational stories, practical strategies and hacks, and advices to overcome your insecurities and fears when it comes to creativity.

4. Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley and David Kelly

This book puts forth an important message — all of us possess a limitless potential for creativity. But putting that creativity to work requires a great deal of effort. Creative Confidence puts forth a framework of innovation that encourages creators and innovators to look at the world in a way they have not before. Add to that various experiences and stories given by both of the authors and from different creators, this book should be a must-read for creators everywhere.

5. Art Before Breakfast: A Zillion Ways to be More Creative No Matter How Busy You Are by Danny Gregory

Do you ever feel like you just don’t have enough time on your hands to build some creative habits? How do you think out of the box when you have a hundred spreadsheets to organize and thousands of unread emails lying in your inbox? Art Before Breakfast is perfect for all aspiring artists that just cant’ seem to find time in their day. It’s filled with many exercises along with practical instruction on techniques and materials that can make your work creative and exciting.

Now that you have 5 books on your TBR list, which one will you pick first?

What Is Concept Testing And Its Process?

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 09:54:18 GMT

Can you guess how many products fail every year?

Well, whatever your guess may have been, you’re set to be proven wrong.

A mammoth 95% of new products fail every year. Concept testing is what makes sure your product falls into the remaining 5%. Concept testing allows you to understand whether your product is resonating with the audience before launching it.

It allows you to understand what your customers feel about every aspect of your product. You can make improvisations or modifications depending on that feedback which increases your chances of success.

And the great news — it’s not limited to just products. You can make use of concept testing for:

New website
New features
Getting your pricing right
Identifying new customer segments

Here’s how you can conduct concept testing:

1. Decide on your objectives:

What are you trying to achieve with concept testing? It could be knowing if the new features are useful for your customers or figuring out how likely it is that a new target market will purchase your product.

2. Select a concept testing method:

There are many types of testing methods you can choose from:

Comparison testing- This allows you to test your audience on multiple concepts where they can rank or rate each concept
Monadic testing- Instead of showing every customer group multiple concepts, you divide your audience and have each group evaluate a single concept. This allows you to go more in-depth and understand why customers made specific choices.
Sequential monadic testing: The above two methods are combined here. You divide the audience into groups as monadic testing but you show them all your concepts. This can give you detailed answers but it could be lengthy for many people.
Protomonadic testing: A combination of all the methods; it tends to follow the sequential monadic testing approach followed by comparison testing where the audience chooses their favorite concept.

3. Select the right tools:

There’s a lot involved in concept testing. From deciding on the audience, framing the survey questions and multiple concepts, deploying the tests, to assimilating all the feedback and evaluating it, there are a ton of things to do. Concept testing tools do most of this work for you so you can focus on important parts. Here are some tools you can try out: Qualtrics, Zappi, Kantar, and Toluna.

4. Finalize your audience:

Depending on your objectives, choose the ideal audience for your concept testing. If you get this step wrong, your product managers and designers will have the wrong customers in mind during product designing and development. For example, if you’re launching a new feature that helps in designing posters, reaching out to marketing agencies would be a better choice than say, reaching out to tech firms. But ensure that you don’t narrow your audience too much. It should not just consist of your target market now but also your potential market in the future.

Now that you know how to conduct concept testing, just keep in mind these important factors - make it easy for your audience to get started again if they face any issues in the middle, and keep your surveys simple.

There you go! You’re all set to create a successful product now. Happy Concept Testing!

How To Overcome Designer’s Block?

Tue, 05 Apr 2022 05:51:59 GMT

As a designer, if there’s one thing you’re afraid of losing, it’s your creativity. But sometimes, you just can’t seem to have any ideas. Or you find it impossible to continue with a project or start a new one.

Welcome to the designer’s block club!

Let me tell you a secret - the best designers are in this club. We all go through this but we don’t have to remain stuck in this rut. Here are 4 ways you can overcome designer’s block.

1. Go back to the basics

Instead of waiting for that idea to strike while you’re glued to your computer screen, go back to the basics and take out your notebook and pen. Draw different shapes, pour out your thoughts, combine different design elements, or just doodle. The act of actually drawing things on paper will make you look at whatever you’re working on currently from a whole different perspective. It also gives you a digital break and when you come back, you can experiment with different things and see which idea on that paper worked the magic for you.

2. Look for different sources of inspiration

This could be either online or offline. You can go through the works of the designers and artists you look up to and figure out why those designs come out to be amazing. What do they do differently? What new styles do they bring? How do they combine different design elements? This can get you going to come up with your own amazing designs.

But your inspiration sources do not stop here. You can go out on a walk, immerse yourself in a travel video showing great architecture, or change your environment. You can see how different shapes come together, the color combinations of renowned buildings, the way different font styles build up a billboard poster, and so on. This can help you take away great ideas from not just existing designs but from the real world as well.

Pro-tip: You can create an inspiration folder for anything that inspired you. You can go through it when you’re in a rut to get your creative juices flowing.

3. Perform a monotonous activity

Maybe you have worked your creative mind too much. Instead of waiting for that idea to strike, perform a simple, monotonous task that gives your brain a much-needed rest. It could be something simple as washing your dishes, doing the laundry, or watering your plants. This gives your creative muscles a break and guess what, you can still get so many productive things done in that time.

4. Improvise existing designs

Hop on to Ruttl, take any existing website design, and try to make it better. You could change the fonts, the color palette, or move designs around. This can get your brain going and you can move on to your current project with new ideas. If you feel you made an amazing website design with these modifications, you can even get in touch with that brand and pitch your ideas. Who knows you might land a new client while trying to be creative?

What Is User Feedback And How To Collect It?

Tue, 05 Apr 2022 05:04:24 GMT

You might think your website design is top-notch but somehow your visitors are bouncing off after just 10 seconds on the website. Or you might think that the navigation of your mobile app is easy but your users are finding it difficult to go from one page to another.

The truth is, your users and visitors know much more about your product than you do, for one simple reason - they are the ones using it daily.

In such a scenario, gathering their feedback is paramount for businesses.

What is user feedback?

User feedback is data collected from your customers on your website, mobile app, or via email campaigns. With the help of user feedback, customers can react to your products or express their concerns and issues.

This feedback can then be used to improvise your product, build trust among customers, and further make use of this data for designing, developing, building marketing communication, and even using good user feedback as testimonials.

How to collect user feedback?

WEBSITE FEEDBACK:

You can see what users have to say about your website, what areas they need you to work on, and what areas they like the best on your website. You can collect this feedback by having a generic feedback survey on your website that pops up in certain situations, or at the bottom of your website that is always accessible.

If you have made changes to your website, you can even have your visitors give their opinion on that.

IN-APP (MOBILE) FEEDBACK:

You can gather in-moment feedback from your customers when they are using your mobile app. You can not only measure CSAT and NPS, but you can also gauge customer sentiment by keeping open comments on your surveys. Apart from that you can even launch surveys for the new features you have added to your apps, make the customer experience more personalized by creating different user personas according to the feedback you receive, and understand various customer pain points and improvise your in-app UX.

EMAIL FEEDBACK:

Let’s suppose your company always has a lot of email campaigns going on. These campaigns could be on cross-selling, promotions, new features, or even the latest updates from your blog and newsletters. Are the readers going through your entire email? Are they liking the content you’re sharing? Does this content make them want to take an action? Do they have any suggestions for you? You can find out about all this by having feedback surveys in your emails. You can do this by embedding email signature feedback, email campaign feedback, and email feedback surveys.

Take note, that the data you collect is only as good as you use it. Find creative ways to use it. For example, use it to guide your design team. Or try to use it in your marketing campaigns or customer service calls.

Before you get on to create your next survey, remember to keep it short and make it as conversational as possible.

All in all, user feedback, when collected in the right way can give you brilliant insights to take your UX and even business to another level.

14 Best Website Feedback Widgets Of 2025

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 12:35:17 GMT

Customer feedback is, undoubtedly, the best way to understand a user's impression and opinion of your website. You collect feedback, analyze it, make changes, and deliver a better user experience. Companies that offer a good customer experience bring 5.7X more revenue than the ones that lag.

However, the feedback part of the process takes too long. Endless emails, Slack chats, phone calls, and Zoom meetings are unmanageable and time-consuming.

This is where website feedback widget comes into play. A feedback widget is a component you can enable on your website to allow customers to give feedback.

The result? A better customer experience, higher retention, and more revenue.

If you are on this page, you are probably looking for the best website feedback widget tool and have already scrolled through hundreds of options.

So, we are not here to double down on that confusion.

We have personally tried over 50+ website feedback widget tools available on the market, and these are surely the best ones.

This blog will talk about the 15 best feedback widget tools that are easy to use, captures feedback, collect customer data, are best for reporting bugs, and are truly affordable.

Let's jump right in.

What is a website feedback widget?

Customer feedback is an inevitable component of a successful business. No matter how much time you have spent conducting user research and customer analysis for your website, nothing beats the feedback of a genuine visitor. So, give them a chance to express their thoughts without having to do much.

A website widget is a small code inserted to perform a set of functions. While browsing through a website, you might see pop-ups asking you to sign up for newsletters, download lead magnets, or suggest popular blog posts in the sidebar; these are all widgets.

A feedback widget does the same. They help users interact with brands and give them feedback on their fingerprints. You can use the website feedback widget in the form of:

Ratings on products, customer support, content, and more
Polls or surveys to analyze visitor's experience on the site
Testimonials for repeat customers
Sentiment ranking to ask users how they feel about your website
Website feedback button sidebar to inform of bugs

You can do a lot with your website feedback widget to collect the candid opinions of your website visitors. It helps bridge the gap between customer expectations and their experience on your website.

What to look for in a website feedback tool?

Here are some of the must-have features in your customer feedback tool:

1. Collecting feedback and execution

You will find various customer feedback widget tools on the market that sell features you might not even need. When navigating a feedback tool for your business, collecting feedback and execution is the first thing you should look for. The application should allow you to collect customer feedback through live chats, Net Promoter Score surveys, online reviews, feedback forms, or user comments at all customer touchpoints.

2. Integration with other important tools

While a customer feedback widget is powerful, it requires other CRM and marketing tools to give maximum results. When choosing a feedback tool, ensure it gels well with your current software stacks, such as CRM, customer support, and help desk, to easily integrate and share information.

3. Ease of use

Collecting customer feedback is already challenging, so why waste your time learning how to use the software? Choose a feedback tool that offers quick installation or provides training resources to learn how to use the software quickly. Your team should be able to use your customer feedback tool easily, without confusion or difficulty.

4. Customer support

No matter how great your website feedback widget is, you might have to rethink it if it doesn't offer robust customer support. Ideal customer feedback tools offer 24*7*365 customer support. service through chat, email, Slack, or phone calls. If not, you will have to handle issues independently, which is not feasible.

5. Price

Money is always a crucial parameter. Spending thousands of dollars doesn't make sense if you still aren't happy with its performance. For small-to-medium-sized businesses, you can discuss a price range and then choose a customer feedback widget tool. However, for large companies with no boundaries, you can look for an all-in-one software package (like Ruttl) to meet your needs.

Why is website feedback important?

Collecting user feedback for your website is beneficial for the following reasons:

Build a better user experience: Analytics tell you how many visitors left your site in the first 10 seconds but they don't tell you why they left. User feedback allows you to look beyond numbers and empathize with your customer and find out their concerns and problems which eventually leads to you building a better website and a better user experience.
Give users a voice: It's better to have your users tell you what they don't like about your website than to have them bounce off to your competitor. With user feedback, you can work on your negatives and reduce that bounce rate.
Eliminate the guesswork: Why are visitors not scrolling through the home page after a certain section? At what point are they abandoning the subscription process? You can find the answers to all of these questions through website feedback.

Why you should use feedback widgets?

A feedback widget enable your customers or even visitors to give you feedback and reviews. You can collect this feedback in different ways but here are seven reasons why website feedback widgets are the most suitable:

They involve minimal coding and effort on your part

You can collect real-time data to better understand the needs of your customers
You can get product ratings and reviews through a feedback widget
You can turn some of the reviews into testimonials for your brand
Evaluation of customer satisfaction and loyalty can be done
You can use this data for your marketing campaigns
You can dig deeper into customers' problems and help retain them

The different kinds of feedback widgets

You can make use of different kinds of feedback widget tools according to your requirements. Here are a few types you can pick from:

Feedback plugin: This is a small software that can be added to your WordPress or other websites. You can even include different forms in this plugin.
Third-party application: This is a widget that is separate from the host page and it collects feedback without any interference from the website owner thus inculcates transparency in the process.
Survey widget: If you are looking to create surveys and gather detailed feedback, opt for a survey widget instead of a feedback plugin.
Website feedback button: If your users run into any kind of problem, they can instantly click on this feedback button and leave their concerns. This is a relatively hidden component on your website so it doesn't hinder the user experience.

14 Best website feedback widgets

1. ruttl

If you have just created a brand new website and want feedback on the idea, then ruttl is what you need. This visual feedback tool lets you collect precise and detailed customer reviews to offer the best customer experience to users. You can easily send shareable links to your customers' web pages and let them give their honest feedback.

Collaborate and communicate with customers by addressing their comments and building meaningful relationships. You don't have to manually track all the comments; instead, you can create a new project for customer feedback and integrate it with Asana or Trello.

Features:

The easiest way to get unfiltered customer feedback for your yet-to-be-launched project.
Integrate with 3000+ apps using Zapier.
No sign-up is needed for client comments.
You can ask customers to review web pages, images, and PDFs.
Get feedback on your web apps on ruttl with absolutely no logins needed.
Get instant notifications about client feedback through Slack.
Do instant real-time changes on your webpage through ruttl.
An open Slack channel that provides prompt customer support to everyone, regardless of whether they are using a paid or free version.

From the activity panel, you can check all your website edits, comments, and content changes on web pages.

ruttl can reduce web app review time by half , which means quicker feedback and a better user experience on the site. It's not an alternative but the only solution that lets your customers participate in customer feedback.

Pricing:

ruttl offers three paid plans: Standard, Pro, and Teams, starting at $13/month. You can try the basic free plan to try before you commit.

Signup on ruttl to streamline your website feedback process.

2. Feedbackify

This is a simple feedback widget tool that you can embed in your website to collect user's suggestions, ratings, and comments. You can even customize the feedback button or make use of a text link to launch the form. They have a simple drag-and-drop form creator which makes it super easy to create forms and launch them. You can see all this feedback from Feedbackify's dashboard and even view its context like your customer's geographic location, which page the feedback was submitted on, which screen size or browser was used, and so on.

3. Emojics

Emojis are the way of expressing emotions today, be it through Facebook reactions or LinkedIn reactions. Emojics revolves around emojis and you can measure customer satisfaction and sentiment through their multi-purpose reaction button tool. You can get feedback for your website, blog content, and even your SaaS product. You can add your own text, CTA, and choose from over 300 emojis with different designs and styles. After feedback collection, they also provide you with tools to analyze this feedback.

4. CrowdSignal

CrowdSignal lets you create embedded surveys and polls on websites with unlimited questions and ratings. It's a WordPress plugin and is made by the creators of WordPress itself. You can even add conditional questions and collect feedback in the moment. They also let you customize styles to match your brand and conduct deep data analysis to evaluate your feedback. You can even export this data to Google Sheets and other tools for better organization and analysis.

5. Ask Nicely

Ask Nicely follows the NPS (Net Promoter Score) framework and you can embed these surveys on your website. You an even make use of different customer experience metrics such as CSAT, 5-star, or Customer Effort score. The unique part about this tool is that it integrates with over 40 different CRM platforms so you can trigger feedback requests related to specific times or events. The tool also provides you with analytical capabilities for you to evaluate the feedback.

6. Saber Feedback

Saber Feedback is a website widget that allows your visitors to highlight issues on your website through screenshots and submit them to you by email, or native integrations like Jira, Slack, and Trello. You can even embed surveys and forms through customizable user feedback buttons and include emoji rating, text box, check box and much more in your surveys. A great advantage of this widget is that you can use the feedback button in 13 different languages.

7. Zonka Feedback

This feedback widget can be set up in many different ways on your website to capture meaningful feedback. You can make use of Zonka Feedback's website feedback button, embedded surveys and forms, and feedback popups. You can launch these surveys at various touchpoints such as onboarding, cart abandonment, post-transaction, or any other events and interactions. They also provide in-depth analytics for feedback evaluation.

8. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is an all-in-one experience management platform that allows you to collect user feedback on your website, helps in market research, and employee insights. They also provide role-based dashboards for different users within an organization. Their analytics are also very powerful and they recommend actions based on various trends and patterns.

9. Usabilla

Usabilla provides you with a feedback button that you can place anywhere on your website or your app. Users can even select the part of the website they want to give feedback on and thus you can eliminate the guesswork of which part the user is referring to, leading to faster action. They also have a wide range of targeting options and you can run different types of surveys like NPS surveys, conditional surveys, rating surveys, and so on. Usabilla also provides a screenshot functionality where users can screenshot their issues and send them through an email.

10. GetFeedback

With this feedback widget, you can gain access to a plethora of tools that can help collect contextual feedback throughout the customer journey. You can trigger feedback surveys based on lifecycle events or any other events. Customization and personalization is also possible in GetFeedback and you can add your logos, fonts, colors, and custom URLs. With their advanced behavioral and demographic targeting, users can be prompted to give real-time website feedback.

11. Mopinion

Mopinion lets you place customized feedback buttons on your website and trigger customized surveys that you can build with an easy drag-and-drop interface. They have different feedback modes like slide-in forms, modals, or embedded on your site or email. Users can even submit visual feedback by pointing and clicking on-page elements. Apart from that, you can activate advanced question routing that decides which questions to hide or show next depending on the user's input for the previous questions.

12. Wootric

Wootric now InMoment is fast, easy, and one of the most powerful customer feedback widget. It offers Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Test (CES), CSAT and Customer Effort Score (CES) at all customer touchpoints to collect important feedback. Using this, you can ask the right questions on all possible channels, like mobile, in-app, email, SMS, or intercom messenger. All the collected data is presented neatly on a single dashboard. It auto-categorizes topics and analyzes responses to give you a clear idea of the feedback from your customers. Wootric offers integration with your favorite tools like Salesforce, Adobe Integration, Slack, Hubspot, and Zapeir, among others.

13. Survicate

Survicate is an excellent website feedback widget that lets you create on-brand surveys with more than 15 question types like NPS, CES, CSAT, and more. You can choose from over 125+ survey templates or create one yourself. It lets you change fonts, colors, and layout to match your brand style. Survicate offers multi-channel support and lets you collect targeted surveys across email, blog, social media, website, or in-app. You can track customer experience through a dedicated dashboard, filtering, and per-respondent analysis. Integrate your favorite tools with Survicate using Zapeir integration.

14. Appzi

Appzi is a beautifully crafted customer feedback widget that lets you understand users' experiences at all stages of the customer journey. You can choose from various survey templates or customize them to match your brand style. Collect feedback using an inline feedback widget, auto-pop surveys, contact forms, survey widget, or a feedback button on your website. Appzi uses artificial intelligence to analyze incoming feedback. Your reporting dashboard is dedicated to charts and numbers of user feedback to track customer satisfaction over time. Appzi allows over 3000+ tech integrations to let you mimic your existing workflow.

How to choose the best website feedback widget?

The best feedback widget for your website would depend on your requirements. Do you want a simple survey tool or an in-depth analyzer for the feedback you've collected? Do you want just written feedback or do you want a visual feedback tool where you can see annotations on screenshots?

After you finalize your requirements, go through customer feedback rating sites such as TrustRadius, G2, Capterra, to see what the users are liking and not liking about various tools. You can even choose to try out a tool and then subscribe to it.

Remember, the feedback you collect is only going to be effective if you use it across different departments - marketing, sales, content, UX, product, and design teams.

Wondering how to collect feedback across websites, PDFs, and static images?

ruttl is a visual feedback tool that helps you collaborate across many file formats and websites to deliver a seamless feedback experience for your teams.

Try it out today!

How to Annotate a PDF: 5 Steps and Best Practices

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 12:22:00 GMT

In today's digital world, PDFs have become the go-to format for sharing and presenting documents. Whether you're a student, professional, or simply someone who works with documents, knowing how to annotate a PDF is a valuable skill. PDF Annotations allow you to highlight important information, make notes, and collaborate with others effectively.

What is PDF Annotation?

Suppose you sent a PDF to your team to review a client proposal.

How do they leave comments? How do they suggest changes? Can they make changes to any design assets in the proposal? It becomes very cumbersome to communicate these things via email or through your Slack channel. For example, someone may have sent in an email saying, “Please change the aligning of the design asset” What if there are ten design assets? Which one is he talking about? Errors, back-and-forth communication, and misinterpretation are bound to happen. That’s where PDF annotations come into the picture.

PDF annotation refers to the practice of adding extra text, graphics, objects, or comments to a PDF document. Now, the team can easily point out the design asset they’re talking about in the PDF itself. The result? So much time and energy saved!

What are the Benefits of PDF Annotation and Why Annotate PDF Online?

PDF annotation offers numerous benefits in various personal, educational, professional, and collaborative contexts. Here are some of the key reasons why people annotate PDF online and the benefits it provides:

1. Enhanced Communication:

Clarity: PDF Annotations make it easier to convey thoughts, explanations, and ideas, ensuring that readers or collaborators understand the content's context and significance.
Visual Emphasis: PDF Annotations, such as highlighting and underlining, draw attention to critical information, making it stand out within the document.

2. Efficient Collaboration:

Real-time Feedback: With PDF annotation, collaborators can provide feedback and comments directly on the document, fostering real-time communication and reducing the need for lengthy email exchanges.
Version Control: Annotating PDFs allows users to track changes, revisions, and feedback over time, ensuring that the document remains up to date.

3. Document Organization:

Structuring Information: PDF Annotations help users organize content by categorizing, labelling, and prioritizing information within the document.
Keyword Highlighting: Highlighting keywords or key phrases with PDF annotation, aids in quickly locating and referencing essential information.

4. Knowledge Retention and Learning:

Study Aids: Students can annotate PDF textbooks and lecture notes to summarize key points, add clarifications, and create study aids for exams.
Interactive Learning: PDF Annotations promote active engagement with course materials, enhancing comprehension and retention.

5. Efficient Document Review:

Faster Review: PDF Annotations streamline the document review process by allowing reviewers to add comments, corrections, and suggestions directly to the document.
Improved Accuracy: PDF Annotations ensure that reviewers' feedback is clear and specific, reducing the risk of misinterpretation.

6. Legal and Compliance:

Contract Management: Annotating contracts and legal documents helps legal professionals track revisions, negotiate terms, and ensure compliance.
Audit Trails: PDF Annotation feature creates an audit trail, providing a record of changes and approvals for legal and compliance purposes.

7. Creative Workflows:

Design Feedback: Graphic designers and artists annotate PDFs to receive feedback, mark revisions, and collaborate on creative projects.
Storyboarding: Animators and filmmakers use PDF annotations for storyboarding and scene planning.

8. Visual Explanation:

Visual Illustrations: PDF Annotations can include visual elements like shapes, arrows, and diagrams, enhancing explanations and instructions.
Process Flow: Annotated process diagrams help explain workflows, procedures, and project plans.

9. Accessibility:

Text-to-Speech: PDF Annotations can be read aloud by text-to-speech software, making content more accessible to individuals with visual impairments.

10. Document Archiving and Reference:

Historical Records: Annotated documents serve as historical records, documenting decisions, revisions, and the thought process behind content creation.
Easy Retrieval: PDF Annotations and highlights facilitate quick content retrieval when revisiting documents for reference.

In summary, PDF annotation offers a wide range of benefits, from improving communication and collaboration to enhancing document organization and knowledge retention. Whether you're a student, professional, researcher, or creative, the ability to annotate a PDF is a valuable skill that can significantly enhance your work processes and productivity.

What are the Different Ways to Annotate a PDF?

There are two primary methods to annotate a PDF:

1. Using Built-in PDF Editors

Most PDF readers, like Adobe Acrobat Reader and Preview on macOS, come with basic PDF annotation features. These built-in tools allow you to add comments, highlight text, and draw shapes.

2. Third-Party PDF Annotation Tools

For more advanced PDF annotation capabilities, you can use third-party tools like ruttl, which specializes in annotation and collaboration. These tools offer a wide range of features and are often accessible online.

What are the industry use cases where PDF annotation is required?

PDF annotation is a versatile tool that finds applications in various industries and professional settings. Here are some industry use cases where PDF annotation is required:

A) Graphic Design and Creative Industries:

Graphic Design and Creative Industries can benefit significantly from using third-party PDF annotation tools to streamline their workflows, annotate a PDF and enhance collaboration. Here's how these industries can leverage such tools:

1. Review and Feedback on Design Mockups:

Graphic designers often create design mockups, wireframes, or visual concepts. Third-party PDF annotation tools allow clients and team members to provide feedback directly on these documents.
Stakeholders can use PDF annotation tools to add comments, highlight specific design elements, suggest changes, and approve or reject design concepts, making the review process more efficient.

2. Collaborative Design Projects:

Design teams working on complex projects can use PDF annotation tools for real-time collaboration. Multiple team members can simultaneously annotate design files, discussing ideas and revisions in real time.
This collaborative approach through PDF annotation tools, ensures that everyone is on the same page and can contribute their insights to improve the design.

3. Annotating Artwork and Illustrations:

Artists and illustrators can use PDF annotation tools to add comments and notes to their artwork, which can be helpful for self-feedback or when collaborating with art directors or clients.
PDF Annotations can include suggestions for changes, color adjustments, or other creative directions.

4. Storyboarding for Animation and Film:

Animators and filmmakers often create storyboards to plan scenes and sequences. PDF annotation tools enable them to annotate storyboards with notes, shot descriptions, and animation instructions.
This ensures clarity in the production process and helps everyone involved understand the vision.

5. Client Presentations and Prototypes:

When presenting design concepts or prototypes to clients, designers can use PDF annotation tools to guide clients through the work.
Clients can annotate directly on the presentation, indicating their preferences and providing feedback, making it easier to refine the final design.

6. Keeping Design Documentation Organized:

PDF annotation tools allow designers to create a structured system for documenting design choices, iterations, and revisions.
By annotating design documents with labels, tags, and comments, designers can maintain a clear history of their work, which is helpful for future reference or handovers to other team members.

7. Collaborative Redlining and Proofing:

For print design projects, PDF annotation tools are valuable for redlining. Designers, proofreaders, and printers can mark up PDF files with instructions for corrections or changes needed before printing.
This collaborative approach through PDF annotation ensures that print materials are error-free and meet quality standards.

8. Cross-Platform Collaboration:

Many third-party PDF annotation tools are cloud-based and support collaboration across different platforms and devices. This flexibility allows designers to work seamlessly, whether in the office or remotely.

9. Archiving and Version Control:

PDF annotation tools often include version control features, ensuring that design files are properly archived with annotations. This is useful for tracking changes over time and maintaining a design's history.

By integrating third-party PDF annotation tools into their workflows, Graphic Design and Creative Industries can improve communication, efficiency, and the overall quality of their work, ultimately enhancing their ability to meet client expectations and create exceptional designs.

B) Education:

E-Learning: In online courses and digital textbooks, students can annotate a PDF to highlight key concepts, add notes, and engage with the content.
Grading and Feedback: Teachers can use PDF annotation tools to grade assignments, provide feedback, and correct essays or exam papers electronically.

C) Legal:

Legal Document Review: Legal professionals often need to annotate contracts, court documents, and case materials with comments, highlights, and notes for collaboration and case analysis, which can be made easy with PDF annotation tools.
Legal Research: Lawyers and paralegals can use PDF annotation to annotate legal texts and articles for reference, making it easier to find and cite relevant information.

D) Healthcare:

Medical Records: Doctors and nurses can annotate patient records, X-rays, and medical charts to add notes, highlight findings, or make treatment recommendations, using PDF annotation tools.
Pharmaceutical Research: Researchers annotate scientific papers and clinical trial data for analysis and collaboration.

E) Architecture and Engineering:

Blueprints and CAD Drawings: Architects and engineers annotate PDF blueprints and CAD drawings to mark revisions, dimensions, and structural details.
Project Collaboration: Teams collaborate on construction projects by annotating PDF documents containing project plans, schematics, and specifications.

F) Business and Finance:

Financial Reports: Financial analysts annotate PDF financial reports with comments and highlights to analyze data and discuss findings with colleagues.
Contract Management: Businesses annotate contracts and agreements for negotiation, signing, and reference.

G) Publishing:

Proofreading and Editing: Editors use PDF annotation tools to mark up manuscripts, correct errors, and suggest changes in books, articles, and magazines.
Collaborative Writing: Co-authors collaborate on research papers and publications by annotating PDF drafts with comments and suggestions.

H) Government:

Policy and Regulation Review: Government agencies can annotate a PDF document to review and propose changes to policies, regulations, and legislation.
Archiving and Documentation: Public records and historical documents are often annotated for preservation and historical research.

I) Manufacturing and Product Design:

Product Blueprints: Manufacturers annotate PDF blueprints for product design, quality control, and production planning.
Quality Assurance: Quality control teams use PDF annotation to identify defects and document inspection results.

J) Real Estate:

Property Inspection: Real estate professionals annotate PDF inspection reports and property listings with observations and recommendations.
Contract Negotiation: Annotating contracts and offers helps streamline the buying and selling process.

These are just a few examples of industries where PDF annotation is essential for improving collaboration, communication, and document management. The ability to mark up PDF files online enhances productivity, facilitates remote work, and streamlines various processes across sectors.

Working on a bulk PDF file format? Add your relevant stakeholders to your ruttl account and get their feedback on PDF in real-time and collaborate effectively before you ship anything to production and save yourself from innumerable iterations.

How to Annotate a PDF File

Let's delve deeper into the various PDF annotation techniques available:

1. Highlighting Text

Highlighting is an effective way to emphasize text. Most PDF annotation tools have a highlighter feature that allows you to select text and apply different colors.

2. Adding Comments and Notes

Comments and notes let you provide additional information or feedback. You can add comments to specific text or use sticky notes for general notes.

Pro tip: Use ruttl to provide clear and contextual comments to your PDF File.

3. Drawing Shapes and Lines

Drawing tools enable you to create shapes, lines, and arrows for visual clarification. These are especially useful for diagrams and charts.

4. Inserting Stamps and Signatures

Stamps and signatures are essential for document approval and validation. You can add predefined stamps or create your custom stamps and signatures.

Collaborative PDF Annotation

Collaboration is crucial in many workflows, these PDF annotation tools offer several collaborative features:

1. Real-time Collaboration

With real-time collaboration, multiple users can annotate a PDF simultaneously, making it ideal for group projects or remote teamwork.

2. Version Control

Version control ensures that changes are tracked, allowing you to revert to previous versions if needed. This feature is vital for maintaining document integrity.

Annotate PDF Online with Ruttl - 5 steps

ruttl is a powerful online design feedback tool that simplifies PDF annotation. With ruttl, you can:

Annotate a PDF online from anywhere.
Collaborate in real-time with team members or clients.
Keep track of document versions and changes.
Easily manage and organize your annotated PDFs.

To start using ruttl for PDF annotation, follow these simple steps:

1. Sign up for a ruttl account:

Click on the get started button and add your details to create a free ruttl account, choose the PDF annotation project from our website feedback tool to review and collaborate in real-time.

2. Upload your PDF document:

Select the PDF annotation project type, you can upload your file up to 100 MB to annotate a PDF online, please note ruttl also provides you with a feature to annotate images in the same project type as well.

(Select project type)

(Upload your file to annotate a PDF online)

3. Start your PDF annotations:

Leave contextual feedback on your PDF file using the comment feature, no more need for screenshots and email back and forths.

4. Collaborate with others in real-time:

Work together with your team seamlessly using PDF annotation, assigning tasks and deadlines on the go, keeping your project moving forward efficiently.

5. Share the annotated PDF:

Extend project access to your clients, enabling them to provide feedback without the need for a sign-up process.

Why should you choose ruttl for PDF Annotation?

ruttl’s PDF Annotation tool empowers you to annotate PDFs online, providing an extensive array of features to enhance teamwork and productivity:

1. Add video comments:

Incorporate video comments to convey your thoughts effectively and visually, fostering clear and engaging discussions.

2. Chat live with your team:

Live chat with your team in real-time, ensuring swift and efficient coordination on PDF annotation projects.

3. Stay updated with notifications:

Receive timely notifications to remain up-to-date with any new comments or developments, ensuring you never miss a beat in your collaborative efforts.

4. Add versions:

Easily manage and track different versions of your PDF documents, simplifying the editing and revision process.

5. Integrations:

Integrate ruttl seamlessly with your favourite tools like Slack, Trello, Asana, ClickUp and Zapier, making your PDF annotation workflow more efficient and convenient than ever before.

Tips or Best Practices for Effective PDF Annotation

Annotating a PDF effectively requires attention to detail and organization. Here are ten best practices to follow when you annotate a PDF:

Use Clear and Legible PDF Annotations: Ensure that your PDF annotations are easy to read and understand. Use a legible font size and consider the viewer's perspective when adding comments or notes.
Consistent Color Coding: Implement a color-coding system for your PDF annotations. For instance, use one color for highlighting, another for underlining, and a different color for comments. Consistency helps maintain clarity.
Highlight Key Information with PDF annotation: Use highlighting to draw attention to essential points or passages in the PDF. Be selective and only highlight the most critical information to avoid overwhelming the document.
Add Descriptive Comments: When adding comments or notes, be descriptive and specific. Explain the purpose of the PDF annotation, clarify any doubts, and provide context to make your comments meaningful.
Use Sticky Notes Sparingly: While sticky notes can be useful, avoid cluttering the document with excessive notes. Reserve them for significant comments or general observations.
Maintain a Logical Flow: To annotate a PDF, organize your annotations in a logical sequence. Follow the natural reading order of the document, making it easier for others to understand your feedback or comments.
Group Annotations When Appropriate: If multiple PDF annotations are related, group them together using features like layers or folders. This keeps the document tidy and simplifies navigation.
Proofread your PDF Annotations: Just as you would proofread a written document, double-check your PDF annotations for errors in grammar, spelling, or clarity. Errors can undermine the credibility of your feedback.
Version Control: If you are collaborating or making multiple rounds of PDF annotations, maintain clear version control. Use version numbers or dates to track changes and ensure everyone is working on the latest version.
Respect the Original Content: During PDF annotation, remember that the primary content of the PDF is valuable. Avoid covering up critical information with annotations, and ensure that your annotations enhance rather than obscure the document.

Following these best practices will not only make your PDF annotations more effective but also contribute to better collaboration and communication when working with PDF documents.

Best Practices for Document Management

Proper document management is essential for effective PDF annotation:

File Naming Conventions: Establish a clear naming convention for annotated PDFs.
Folder Structure: Organize your documents into folders by project or category.
Backup and Sync: Regularly back up your annotated PDFs and sync them across devices.

Conclusion

Mastering how to annotate a PDF is a valuable skill that can significantly improve your document management, communication, and collaboration. Whether you choose built-in PDF editors or dedicated PDF annotation tools like Ruttl, the ability to mark up PDF files online will streamline your work processes and enhance your productivity.

Now that you have the knowledge and tools, start annotating PDFs with confidence and efficiency. If you're looking for a powerful online PDF annotation tool, consider giving Ruttl a try and experience seamless collaboration and annotation.

Remember, effective PDF annotation is about clarity, collaboration, and organization. Use this guide to become a proficient PDF annotator and elevate your document-handling skills to the next level.

Website Design Checklist: 15 Steps to Follow in 2025

Tue, 15 Mar 2022 17:28:38 GMT

If you're like most business owners, you probably think about redesigning your website regularly. After all, a website is often the first impression potential customers have of your business so it needs to be professional and up to date.

But, when it comes to website design, there are numerous factors to consider.

In addition to layout, navigation, and color scheme, there are a million other details that make up an appealing and effective website.

At ruttl, our team has a history of working with hundreds of web design agencies that handle design projects. With our years of experience backed by client knowledge, we have come up with a website design checklist that will turn your next web design launch successful.

The powerful 15-step website design checklist

A successful web design project not only gives an attractive look to your website but fulfills your business goals too, be it conversions or getting more traffic. Here’s how to hit the nail right on target with our website design checklist:

1. Set your goals

What happens when you participate in a race without a fixed end point? You may go in a different direction or you might end up demotivated and forsake running. That’s the same thing that can happen with your web design project.

Without a proper goal in mind, your team will not be able to strategize properly. For example, let’s suppose your team started designing without a goal. They ended up making an aesthetically pleasing website but they failed to target the right audience. Would this website design lead to conversions? Definitely not!

Here’s how to get clarity on your goals by answering these questions:

What does our company do? What value do we bring to our customers?
What problem is our web design going to solve? What is our end goal? Is it to rank higher on search engines or educate our current customers?
Do we need to keep in mind some current trends in our industry?
Who are our competitors? How are we different from them?

Next, break your goal into a well-defined objective. Here’s the difference between the two and an example to get you inspired:

2. Analyze your existing website

Here's point 2 on our website design checklist. If you already have a website, it’s best to perform a detailed analysis of it first

This could include conducting user interviews to understand their feedback, holding a brainstorming session with your team to know their suggestions, and conducting a competitor audit to figure out which website elements and trends they are capitalizing on.

This will help you find the current website’s strengths and weaknesses and what you need to update/change while redesigning.

For example, during the brainstorming session, your customer success representative may tell you that they have got a lot of feedback on navigation problems for certain web pages. You can take note of that and direct your designers to address the problem while redesigning.

You can even make use of tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to find existing issues/problems with your website. Here’s what a site audit looks like in Semrush:

3. Set your website design budget

Can you design your website for a hundred dollars? Or can it cost you a little over a thousand dollars? The truth is it depends. The cost can shoot up if you do not spend sufficient time planning your budget properly.

While setting the budget, make sure you consider the costs for all these crucial elements:

Interface design costs
Responsiveness, creation, and insertion costs
Content development costs
Graphic design and stock photo costs
SEO costs
Design and development costs
Maintenance and updating cost

You also need to add to this the human resource cost.

For example, you’re running a web design agency. If 2 designers are working on redesigning your website, calculate the number of hours it will take. Multiply it to their hourly rate.

Also, consider the opportunity cost (even if you don’t add that to your budget) of those 2 designers not being able to work on other projects when they are working on yours.

4. Set time frames

In any website design checklist, it's always important to set time frames as not everyone will have the luxury of working on a website design for several months. If you’re an SME or a startup, you may want to launch your website quickly and get the ball rolling.

While setting time frames, first create a blueprint of what you need to work on. Do this for every phase. For example, the content phase may include 4 activities while the design phase may include 7 activities.

You can create a work breakdown structure like this for each phase:

Set time estimates for all the activities and sub-tasks first. Once that is done, you’ll have a clear idea of how much time each phase of your web design will take.

You can then plan to assign additional resources if required so as to get the project done quickly and have your website up and ready in a few weeks.

5. Define your target audience

Image Source: Pinterest

Finding out your target audience is a crucial step to getting success with your goal.

For example, if your target audience is business leaders, you may want to have clear and concise website copy that doesn’t take away too much of the visitor’s time.

But how to find out your ideal customer base?

Here are 5 ways to do that:

Interview your current customers Look at their characteristics, demographics, interests, buying patterns, and other commonalities.
Conduct market research Find out the recent trends in your industry. This will help you get a clear idea of who your target audience is.
Research your competitors Who are they targeting? What kind of people are engaging with their content on social media?
Make use of Google Analytics to get data on the type of users visiting your site.
Create buyer personas if you deal with a business that appeals to a lot of different customer segments.

6. Think about the content strategy

You might already have some content on your existing website. But how much of it do you think is relevant? How much will it require an update? And is there scope for more content addition?

Your content strategy will depend on these answers and if you’ll be making any web page additions that will require additional content.

Even if you decide to move ahead with your existing content, copying and pasting that content to the new design can be time-consuming and complex.

For example, the new design may only allow for only one headline per section while your existing design has two. Now, do you omit one sentence? Or do you reduce the font size? Or do you opt for a different font style?

These decisions may take time which is why it’s important to create a content strategy that is in line with your new design.

7. Your current website design

Sometimes, you may not need to change your website’s design. You may just need to add some additional elements or content to it.

At this stage, you should first do a design audit. Is the current design great for usability? Or is it leading to some confusion? Are visitors navigating to the web pages or website elements that are key to your business’s growth?

Here’s a sample design audit checklist for you to get started:

Find out the answers to such questions by conducting user interviews or simply accessing Google Analytics or similar tools to track user behavior.

You can even ask your teammates that have daily interactions with prospects and buyers for some information.

After this is done, you will come to know whether to stick with a similar design or move in an entirely different direction.

8. What platform to choose?

If you’re just starting out and don’t wish to hire developers to build your website, you can choose to have a website builder.

While there are many website building platforms, here are the top ranking ones:

1. WordPress:

Over 43.1% of all websites on the Internet are powered by WordPress making it one of the most popular website builders out there. You can use it to build any kind of website. They also have a drag-and-drop editor that helps you easily create custom website designs.

2. Web.com

Web.com also offers a drag-and-drop website builder that’s easy to use for non-tech people as well. They also give you access to many pre-made website templates. You can customize these designs to match your brand with just a few clicks.

3. HubSpot Website Builder

HubSpot offers an all-in-one website builder that promises to create your website in just a few minutes. They make this possible by providing conversion-optimized website templates. They also let you do adaptive testing where you can choose up to 5 variations of a page and HubSpot lets you know which is the best performing option.

If you are redesigning a website, it’s best to use the website builder that you previously made use of. This will save you time as you’ll only need to change a few elements.

9. Think about graphic design

Is graphic design an important part of your website?

For example, if your buyers are not that active on the Internet and you’re just making a website because you have to, you might not want to hire a graphic designer. Instead, you can make use of readymade templates and website builders.

But let’s suppose you’re a design agency. You want to leave a lasting impression on those prospects who visit your website. You may want them to think, “They have made such a great design. If ever I need one, I think I can trust them enough to hire them.”

In such a case, you can’t rely on readymade templates that millions of businesses are using.

You need something unique. The best bet here is to hire a great graphic designer who can build things from scratch and create a unique and visually appealing site.

If you decide to hire a graphic designer, here are some things you must check for:

10. Development complexity

Development complexity refers to things that are impossible or difficult to know at the beginning of the project and which only become clear as and when the project progresses.

For web design projects, this could mean learning unfamiliar languages or programming practices, websites needing to work properly across various dissimilar environments, and facing errors and setbacks that are difficult to predict.

This development complexity may depend on the type of website you’re aiming to create.

For example, if you’re creating a simple site with a few web pages just to display information or have a blog, the complexity would be far less than if you’re wanting to go in-depth about 10 different services your business is providing.

Whether you have minimal or large development complexity, you should be creating a buffer for it so that your web design project doesn’t get delayed.

11. Mobile Optimization

The percentage of mobile device website traffic has crossed a mammoth 58.99% in the 2nd quarter of 2022.

This means that your website should be optimized for mobile. Otherwise, you’re missing out on a lot of traffic and conversions.

But what does mobile optimization mean? It means that your website’s design adjusts to different mobile sizes, visitors can see a purpose-built version of the site regardless of the device they are using, and so on.

Here’s how to optimize your website for the same:

Choose a mobile responsive template or theme. If you’re building a site in WordPress, you can easily search for “responsive theme”
Make sure the content on your mobile website is not too lengthy. Here’s an example for you to take a look at:
Make CSS and images light so that they can load faster
Avoid using pop-ups or even if you use them, make sure that it’s use is minimal.
Make use of large and readable font

Did you know that you can use ruttl to check if your website is mobile-friendly or not? You can even make iterations by inspecting CSS whenever you like.

12. Search Engine Optimization

If getting more website traffic is your goal, SEO is the way to go.

SEO helps your website be more discoverable. How? When they search for terms that are related to your brand (for example, best website design), SEO helps your website (for example, design agency) come up in those searches and turn that visitor into a customer.

To optimize your website for SEO, you need to conduct thorough keyword research, integrate those keywords strategically on your website, have a great blog with long value-adding and rich content pieces, get quality backlinks, and focus on on-site SEO which includes factors like URL slugs, meta tags, headlines, and subheadings.

13. Think about user experience

Is it enough for your website to look aesthetically pleasing? No.

It’s the user experience that is the most important factor of all.

User experience is how a person feels when interfacing with your website. Do they find that the website provides value? Do they find the website easy and pleasant to use?

Great user experience design is when the visitor answers, “Yes” to all these questions.

Here’s how to improve your website’s user experience:

Know who will visit your website (target audience) and build experiences that they want to have
Don’t stuff your website with too many elements. Keep it simple.
Make use of whitespace generously
Make sure that every page on your website loads fast
Make your website responsive
Ask for customer feedback regularly and ensure to implement that feedback to keep making your website better.

14. Set the quality standard

Your perception of a “great website” may differ from your designer’s perception of a “great website”. A reason why you should set some standards.

While it’s important to give your designers the freedom they need to come up with creative ideas, it’s also crucial to have some guidelines in place so that your website adheres to the current trends and rules that your industry is following.

The best way to set these quality standards is by having a meeting with your design and development team. These standards could cover things like the company logo placement or the number of external links in the content.

When everyone agrees to these standards, it’s easier for all involved to take the right design decisions.

Here are some of the website design standards that are generally accepted by all businesses:

It’s also important to note here that while standards are accepted by everyone, sometimes if it makes sense for your website to have a different layout or element, you should try that too. Then go and ask for some feedback. And figure out if you can keep that change or not.

15. Test before you go live

At the end of the day, you’re creating the website for your visitors. If you don’t test it and get feedback from them, you’re missing out.

There are many other benefits to website testing: gaining user trust, minimizing bugs and errors, ensuring compatibility across different platforms, improving search engine rankings, and drawing more visitors to your website.

The following are the different kinds of testing you should get done:

Functional testing
Database testing
Usability testing
Performance testing
Security testing
Responsiveness testing

The best way is to test your website at regular intervals so that an issue doesn’t stay unresolved for a longer time than necessary.

Ruttl slashes web design feedback in half

Whether you’re an agency, a product company, or a B2C company, Ruttl helps you succeed with your web design projects.

Here’s how teams across the world are using Ruttl to share precise feedback and avoid the back-and-forth that generally happens on email and other channels:

Leave comments on live web pages and static images
Make edits on live websites
Tag teammates to assign comments as tasks
Provide specific feedback through video comments
Enable guest commenting where clients can share feedback without having to signup
See how the mobile version of your website looks like and make iterations
Inspect CSS and fix issues
Replace images on live website
Use it as a bug issue and tracking tool
Integrate with tools like Zapier, Asana, Trello and Slack.

All of these features combine together to form a powerful tool. Read more about how our various clients have achieved extraordinary results with ruttl:

Tips for a successful website redesign project

Now that you know what to consider before redesigning your website, here are a few tips to help make the process smoother and more successful:

Plan Ahead: One of the most helpful things you can do for a successful website redesign project is to plan. This means setting deadlines, creating a budget, and assembling a team of professionals who can help you with the project.
Do Research: Before starting the redesign process, it's imperative to research what other websites are doing. You may find several designers creating videos online explaining any web design style so try to search online for informative sources. This will give you an idea of the trends in web design and help you decide which direction you want to go with your website.
Create a Style Guide: A style guide specifies how your website should look and feel. This will help your team stay on track as they're designing the website and make sure that everything looks cohesive.
Test, Test, Test: Once your website is up and running, make sure to test it extensively. This includes checking for broken links and other issues across different devices and browsers.
Keep The Updates Coming: Improving your website regularly is one of the most beneficial things you can do. This means adding relevant content, tweaking the design, and ensuring that everything is up-to-date.

A website redesign can be a daunting project but if you take the time to plan ahead and follow these tips, you're sure to have a successful outcome.

Final Thoughts

There are a few things you should know before redesigning your website. First, check to see if your present website is meeting your requirements. If it is serving your goals, you may want to consider options such as updating rather than going for a completely new website.

Also, make sure your website makeover has a specific goal in mind. What are your goals for this project? Is there a specific problem you're trying to solve? Knowing your priorities can help you make better decisions during the redesign process.

Finally, be prepared for some challenges. Redesigning a website may be a time-consuming and costly process so be prepared for some setbacks — there's no assurance that everything will run well during the remodeling process. You can achieve tremendous achievements if you take the time to plan well and make wise selections.

Whether you opt for a complete makeover or just some small modifications, equip your team with the tools they need. ruttl is the perfect tool that can cut back your website launch time to half and make the design process a breeze.

Try it out for free today!

We hope this website design checklist helps you in your journey!

5 Interesting Cookie Consents That Will Inspire You!

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 05:59:51 GMT

Cookies do not have that sweet a reputation when it comes to websites. Still, there's no way one must get rid off them. From enhancing the web experience till giving suggestions, cookies are needed to keep your business going.

There are two major types of cookies: first party and third party. First party cookies are made by the companies that run your website and the third party ones are used to retarget ads when you visit those websites.

What is cookie consent all about?

Cookie consent is basically the term used to take consent of users on a website to activate cookies. As per EU, under GDPR standards, websites need to collect data from users. They also need to explicit share that they are doing so with their visitors.

That's the reason why you would see the majority of the websites showing you a cookie consent form the minute you visit them. But, guess what? Most of these cookie consent forms are incredibly bad in terms of design and content. To let our creative juices flow, we picked up these 5 best cookie consent experiences, take a look:

Glossier

Both in terms of copy and design, the cookie consent experience of Glossier stands out. It is also exquisitely designed to blend with the overall UI and feels less intrusive.

Kinder

Kinder's website has a dark mode on but their cookie consent experience is incredible. Designed in a crisp layout with a bright red colour, it is hard to miss and doesn't interrupt users at all!

Revo

Simple to grasp and aesthetically placed, the cookie consent form of Revo is truly user-friendly. Next time you are designing a lifestyle or e-commerce website, you know where to get inspired from now, right?

Puma

Puma’s website has a floating banner that is all minimal and sleek. It will inspire you to take the simple approach while you are designing cookie consent experience for your next web project.

Google

Last but not the least, world’s favourite search engine gets its cookie consent experience right as well! Designed with its brand guidelines, its cookie consent experience doesn’t look out of place and effortlessly guides users.

Loved all these cookie consent design ideas? After all, their designs are spot on! Get inspired by them and go ace your web project with their help.

Create Iconic Projects With These 10 Pastel Icon Sets

Tue, 08 Mar 2022 10:36:44 GMT

Unlike the popular conception, icon designing is not easy. It is hard to crack it. Imagine creating a whole set of icons that must complement each other - there are so many things that you need to get right for it. Many professional designers also go to the extent of adding their personal touch to them.

To ease the process of icon designing for you, we have compiled some of the best icon design sets that are created by amazing designers across the globe. Take a look at these brilliant pastel icon sets and win accolades for your upcoming design projects by using them:

Ego Icons

Incredibly unique and minimal, Ego Icons have a stunning visual style. You can download the first 100 icons for free from their website. Trust us, they will enhance your UI design, App or even web projects with ease.

Ikonate

Looking for that perfect set of icons but just not finding the right ones? Go ahead and try Ikonate. You can easily edit the icon sets available at Ikonate. They give you a lot of freedom for customization. You can edit them as per the brand, colour palette that you wish to have - they are optimized to suit all your design requirements.

70 Basic Icons

Impeccably designed by Carlotta Govi, 70 Basic Icons provide you with 70 icon sets that you can use during design and development. They are available in AVI, SVG and Sketch formats - go ahead and use them as you like!

Gradient Freebie Icons

Perfect for creating modern and feel good designs, Gradient Freebie Icons offers you a range of beautiful icons. You can use them to modernize your design projects and give them an iconic look and feel.

Ion Icons

Open source and licensed by MIT, these icons are created by the Ionic Framework Team. You can get these premium icons in a variety of formats like SVG and web font. Feel free to use them for your web, app or desktop design projects.

Medical Icons

Pastel based and minimal, medical icons offer you a set of 12 free but incredibly detailed icons. Created by Justas Galaburda, these icons will enhance all your med-tech related design projects with relative ease.

Vivid Icons

Handcrafted and ready to use, you would get 90+ icons to use on Vivid Icons. They are lightweight and minified. Using them you can even select the colour scheme that you wish to use. They are half the size of SVG icons, so they will not take up much space.

Gesture Icons

Need pastel based hand icons for your design project but cannot seem to find anything great? Look further than Gesture Icons. These icons are great for onboarding for modern user experiences, definitely check them for your next design project.

Essential UI Icons

True to their name, Essential UI Icons offer you all the much-needed UI icons. They have a range of simple and bold icons which enhance your design projects. Make use of them for your mobile design.

These icon sets will surely make your design projects more appealing and iconic. Do use them whenever you are facing challenges to pick the right icons!

Introduced Secondary Colour In Custom Branding

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 10:44:13 GMT

We’ve introduced a secondary colour in our custom branding. Adding this secondary colour will help you easily differentiate between your comment and edit pins. For reference:

For this update simply go to Custom Branding in your Account Settings, select the secondary colour you want and save the changes.

10 Best Website Annotation Tools for 2024

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 08:57:49 GMT

Whether you are a developer, designer or product manager, working on web design entails a lot of back and forth. You need to send revisions to clients, take their feedback, discuss with your team and so and so forth. All of that can get daunting. Not to mention how you can lose track of changes, feedback and communication over email trails. Website annotating tools make these processes simpler for you.

These tools let you seamlessly collaborate and consolidate all the feedback that you keep receiving for your web projects. Apart from designers, and developers, website annotation tools also let you easily work with clients, their project managers, and quality analysts. That's why using a full-fledged website annotation tool is something you must consider as a design agency owner.

So, let's start!

10 Best Website Annotation Tools

Here is the list of 10 best website annotation and markup tools to check out in 2023 -

1. Ruttl

From editing live websites till video commenting, sharing live links with clients till image reviews and more, Ruttl is just perfect website annotation tool for every design agency owner. Its neat and minimal UI make work smooth for designers and developers. Currently, Ruttl offers 10+ features and has been a hit within the designers, developer and agency owners' communities. AppSumo has also appreciated its offerings, so go ahead and sign up on it for your next web project - their free and business plans both have amazing things to offer!

2. Revnote

Revnote helps you in annotating web pages directly from the browser. Using this tool you could compare and highlight information on web pages and also categorise them using labels. Their highlighter extension simplify your research process and also clip articles whenever needed. They have paid as well as free plans.

3. Pastel

Popular for all the right reasons, Pastel accelerates your project approval process. It offers you many features which include creating tickets for tasks, checking responsiveness of your web project and even pausing feedback whenever needed. Pastel has four plans for everyone ranging from freelancers til agency owners - pick the one that suits your requirements!

4. Bugherd

Bugherd simplifies web annotation by providing collaboration between various stakeholders. This tool has a chrome extension as well which gives you all the details about the annotations that are added. Using Bugherd your team members could easily check the screenshots for every annotation that is made. Do check out its 14 day free trial and business plans.

5. Hypothesis

Looking for light weight tool for website annotation? Take a look at Hypothesis. Using Hypothesis, you can highlight and even annotate selected elements. You can also use its feature called bookmarklet which lets you check all your annotations whenever you want. It is a free tool supported by an NGO, try it out for its simplicity and ease of use.

6. Diigo

Popular as an extension, Diigo consolidates all your web annotations - you can share them, bookmark them. With its free plans you would face some limits on the number of bookmarks. Its business plans offers more features and even provides a consolidated dashboard.

7. Usersnap

Usersnap can be used as a simple bug tracking and feedback collating tool. It lets you categories all your web annotations into projects as well. From business, enterprise till custom, Usersnap provides sorts your website annotation tools with a range of plans that you simply cannot miss.

8. PageProofer

Almost like a visual sticky note, PageProofer lets your entire team leave feedback on web projects. It smoothly works on all types of browsers. You can also assign annotations to your team members and create a sense of urgency through their priority feature. Check it out its free trial as well as its paid plans as per project needs.

9. Scrible

Used mainly by students, Scrible lets them annotate libraries and simplifies their research related work. From sorting webpages till bookmarking them, Scrible can be used by design professionals as well to collate all their research in one place.

10. JIRA Capture

Capture by JIRA lets you sort your annotations and make changes as per your priorities. You can also conduct user testing and review sessions using this tool. It is simple to use and robust in terms of functionality.

There are a variety of website annotation tools available to you. Understand their purpose, features that you are looking for and pick the right one for your design business from the list we just shared - we are sure it will help grow your business.

10 Characteristics Of A User Friendly Website

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 08:19:52 GMT

Despite so much awareness and technological advancement, business owners are not paying much heed to usability. Necessary for the overall success of websites, good usability improves search engine ranks, increases sales and revenues. That's why, business owners must not ignore usability.

The user-friendliness of your website also sets it apart from your competitors.It also helps your visitors for easily going through the website. Owing to all of these reasons, you must ensure that your website is user-friendly.

Curious about how to check the user-friendliness of your website? Take a look at these essential parameters and enhance your website for getting more customers, traction and revenues:

Accessibility to Diverse Users

Your users can be elderly, disable and even blind. Take them into account and make sure that you have screen-readers in place for them. You just need to follow the simple 508 website accessibility guidelines to let your website reach its larger and diverse set of users.

Compatibility with Mobile

The world has gone mobile. Your website needs to be more mobile-friendly to rise up the usability ranks. Use Google's mobile tester to check how your website appears on mobile. These days, you can also create your mobile website for free by using website builders.

Scannability of Content

Your visitors do not wait to read every word of the content that you have on your website. Instead, they wish to easily scan through it. Make it easy for them by highlighting and rightly placing the copy on it. Make the right use of paragraphs, descriptions, bullet points and more to format your content in a way which helps visitors easily scan through them.

Streamlined Information Architecture

Presenting all the information in a systematic manner is important to improve the usability of your website. As website these days have a whole range of information which needs to reach the right audience, you need to improve its information architecture. Think as a user and plan your categories, website sections in a proper manner.

Consistent Browser Experience

Avoiding browsing consistency can badly impact the performance of your website. Even global companies are ignoring such an important aspect of usability of their website. This not only affects their branding but also harms its user-friendliness. Different browser will interpret your website in different ways. Therefore, it is necessary to make your website's UX consistent across them. Invest in making sure that your website behaves and looks similar across Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera and Firefox. This will help make your website feel more professional and up to the mark.

Optimum Time for Loading

Imagine visiting a website that takes hours to load. Feels like a nightmare, right? Spare your visitors from that trouble by ensuring that your website loads within the first 4-6 seconds. Use tools like Pingdom to ensure increase the speed of your website and also improve it. Avoid using third-party plugins and widgets as they could impact the loading times.

Smooth Navigation

First of all, make sure that the navigation of your website is clutter-free. Keep it minimal and simple to go through. Good navigation is one of the most critical factors which make your website user-friendly. Create a good search feature, provide detailed header and footer, invest time in building good internal linking to streamline navigation and usability.

Enhance Handling of Errors

Some of the most user-friendly websites ensure that their errors are managed with proper descriptions. To make your website more user-friendly ensure that it shows right messages for the right errors at the right time. By doing so, your website will not only become robust but will remain bug-free as well.

Error-Free Code and Valid Mark-Up

If your website follows all the benchmarks and best-practices then it becomes more secure and user-friendly. It will also ensure that your website loads in less time across various websites. At the back end, this also helps you in tracking the actual problems, errors if you have ensured to make it optimum early on.

Complementing Colour Palette

Always ensure that your website has a contrasting colour scheme. The background and the text should strike the right balance. For example, if the background is white in colour then have black text to make your content look more clear. Using wrong colours can visually overwhelm users and impact its usability.

Your website's usability is critical for its success. Better usability improves its search ranks, brings in more visitors. Keep these factors in mind to make your website user-friendly and accelerate your business like never before.

Website Feedback Tools - A Guide To Your Users

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 06:50:04 GMT

User experience plays a great role in retaining your customers on your website. That's why in 2022, you cannot afford to have a website that is confusing for your users. While Google Analytics and other tools can give you insight on users, they cannot help you understand the issues related to functionality, design, usability, ease of use, readability which impact the user experience. Website feedback tools can help you in streamlining all of them.

What is a website feedback tool?

Website feedback gives you an enhanced understanding about users' journey. Website feedback tools also give you an insight about user behaviour on your website. Whether you are a product or a service company, these insights can prove to be incredibly helpful to grow revenue, increase conversion and retain users.

3 Major Types of Website Feedback Tools

There are many website feedback tools out there but depending upon the problem you are trying to solve, you can choose from these three broader categories.

1. Website annotation tools

Be it from your clients or users, collating all the feedback that you receive on your website is not easy. Tools like Ruttl come in handy then. Such tools are used mostly to identify UX issues, made live edits on website, give specific visual feedback to designers, developers.

2. Voice of customer tools

Mainly used to collect feedback from users, these tools help you in collecting detailed insights from your consumers. You can create a series of questions using these tools and make them live on your website to collect targeted feedback from users.

3. Website survey tools

Wish to know what brought users to your website? Well, run a survey on your website by using these tools. You can gauge customer satisfaction, intent and get specific feedback on pages through such tools.

In a nutshell, website feedback tools are necessary to give best user experience to your customers and grow conversions. Start strategically using them for your web business now that you know all about them!

Web Design Stats To Know In 2022

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 06:07:38 GMT

Having a website is crucial for any business these days. But will a basic website, like businesses had 10 years ago, be enough? Not really! Be it your design agency or your in-house design team, they need to adhere to the trends of today and incorporate the best practices of the web design world. Here are 6 web design stats that provide your team with the right insights to design a website that is both user-friendly and conversion-optimized.

Visitors prefer aesthetically pleasing websites

According to a worldwide study by Adobe, if people are given 15 minutes of time, 59% of them will read or browse through something beautifully designed rather than something plain or boring. What does this mean? Having a simple design will never be enough. Your visitors would love an attractive design, especially if you want them to spend more time on your website.

Display necessary information on your home page

What information are visitors looking for when they visit your homepage? Here are the stats:

86% of visitors want information about your products or services
64% expect contact information
52% want to know about your business

Make sure you incorporate all these details on your homepage and make it easier for visitors to understand what your business/product does and reach out to you in case they require your assistance.

The first impression is the last impression

Does a visitor go through your entire website to form an opinion about your website? Do they spend 10-15 minutes scrolling through your website to decide if they want to stay or move on to a competitor? No! A visitor takes only 50 milliseconds to form an opinion about your website. In such a scenario, a lot of your potential customers may decide to leave if your website design isn’t good.

Load time is crucial

53% of mobile visitors leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. If the loading time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds, the probability of bounce increases by 32%. If it goes from 1 second to 5 seconds, this probability jumps up to 90%. As more and more people are using mobiles to access websites, it becomes necessary for businesses to lower their loading time.

Reviews and testimonials are a must

Personal recommendations are great! But as good are reviews and testimonials. 84% of customers trust online reviews and testimonials as much as they do personal recommendations. This must appear on your homepage so visitors can easily see them and it also builds trust in your brand.

Don’t overcrowd your website

Research suggests that as the number of page elements like content, videos, images, or headlines increase from 400 to 6000, the probability of conversion drops by a whopping 95%. Remember that beautifully designed websites are loved by visitors but not at the cost of sites that are bloated and overly stuffed with many elements.

Now that you know these web design stats, make sure you incorporate them in all your web design projects.

Tips For Aspiring Web Designers

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 05:36:16 GMT

The world of designing is a lot more than just knowing the design elements and how to use them. You need to have good client communication, learn beyond designing to inculcate that in your client’s sites, and so much more. Here are 5 tips for aspiring web designers to rock the world of designing.

1. The ability to listen and delve deep into the context

You have a new client who wants to create a fashion-related website. You have seen many examples of such websites and have an idea of what it entails. Instead of just starting with that, listen to the client. Enquire about the reason for their creating a website, what pain points they are trying to solve, what customer experience are they looking to create, and so on. The more you see things from your client’s perspective, the more effective design you’ll come up with.

2. Make use of mind mapping

As a web designer, your mind is filled with ideas. To make sense of all those ideas and discover their interconnectivity, use mind mapping to give a structure to all unrelated ideas and use them for your next design project.

3. Never stop learning

The web design trends of today may not exist tomorrow. This calls for you to stay updated every single day with the best practices, the new design tools, and the upcoming trends. This way, you always have new ideas to incorporate into your projects instead of launching websites with the same old designs.

4. Take interest in fields apart from web designing

Having knowledge of different fields like architecture, fashion, engineering, ecommerce, helps you communicate and come up with better designs for your clients. A web designer has to work with illustrators, copywriters, and video makers. If you have knowledge in those areas, you would be able to better guide them regarding what exactly you need from them.

5. Follow famous design blogs

There are many design blogs and design newsletters that provide you with all the relevant updates and information related to the design world. Some of them also feature famous designers and their work to help you discover designers and learn from them. Not only that, you can also get inspired from such blogs and use that knowledge to better work on your upcoming design projects.

ruttl is one such blog that will keep you abreast of all the designing hacks/tips and how to deal with clients successfully. Check it out today!

Explore The 5 Best Wordpress Plugins For 2022

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 07:20:29 GMT

Wordpress runs more than 40% of the websites of the world. Without a doubt, it is one of the most popular website platforms. From themes to tools, Wordpress offers a range of powerful functionalities to make your website brilliant. Plugins are one of those tools that enhance your themes on Wordpress and optimize your website.

But, guess what, there are 42,000+ plugins on Wordpress. Which ones should you pick? Feeling overwhelmed? Please don't because we have got your back. Take a look at our favorite plugins for 2022 that have stood the test of time and continue to deliver:

1. Slider Revolution

True to its name, Slider Revolution visually uplifts your website. It gives more style to it by offering more slider templates, dynamic content and lets you impress your clients in no time.

2. Wordlift

A great plugin for web designers, Wordlift improves the search engine performance of your website through Knowledge graphs. It also helps in giving SEO training and knowledge.

3. OptinMonster

Want to get more leads through your website? Simple, install OptinMonster! It lets you activate various pop-ups including intent forms for your potential customers to reach out to you. Get it and see your business grow like never before!

4. Heroic Inbox

One of the best tools to manage all your email related communication, Heroic Inbox can be accessed from your company's website. It also helps in tracking your key metrics and overall performance of your team.

5. Smush

Wish to make image optimization on your website simpler? Get Smush! Smush automatically compresses the size of images that you upload on your website and thus decreases the loading time of your website. It makes your website more speedy! Running a website on Wordpress is inefficient without using plugins. Do install our recommended plugins and let them do their magic!

Why You Need An SSL Certificate For Your Website?

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 06:58:48 GMT

Whether you are a design agency owner or a freelancer, either way, in 2022, we are sure you would have a website. If you have one then we bet you would have heard about the SSL certificate. Yet, as the Google searches for SSL keep increasing, there are still many doubts about SSL certificates. Today, let's decode everything about it then?

Introducing SSL Certificate

Popularly known as Secure Sockets Layer, SSL is basically a security blanket. It protects the path of data between your browser and a web server. With SSL in place, hackers would not be able to steal any data from your site. Even search engines will trust your website more if you have installed an SSL certificate.

A website with an SSL certificate has a "padlock" and "https" besides its URL.

Why You Must Get an SSL Certificate for Your Website?

There are dozens of benefits of an SSL certificate. To quickly help you, listing down some of the top reasons that are on our mind:

Better Search Rankings

All the websites that line up on the top of Google Search results have an SSL certificate. So, your website will definitely get a great ranking if you have it.

Customers will Trust You

Every business owner wants to appear trustworthy to their clients. Your clients could share critical contact information or even credit card details, if you have an SSL certificate then they would feel secure to share it.

Increases Your Credibility

SSL certificate has become a necessary integration for quite a few years now. Websites that do not have them will not stand the test of time. You need it to make your website look genuine.

By now you know how important it is to get an SSL certificate for your website. In case you are dodging to not have one then trust us, now is the right time to get it to accelerate your web business!

Update All Page Versions Inside Your Project

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 09:30:43 GMT

To make your experience smooth while updating page versions inside a project, you no longer have to update them one by one.

Simply go inside the project, open the three-dot menu on the top-right side (near Share button) and click on 'Update all page versions'. All your pages will be updated at the click of one button!

5 Work From Home Tips To Boost Your Productivity

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 06:15:09 GMT

When the pandemic first hit our doors, we were excited about the possibility of having to work from our homes. No long commutes, no noisy workers, and the best of all - having to work in our pajamas. But as days passed, we started seeing our productivity falling while we were sitting with our laptops but watching the TV or dealing with neighbors that thought working from home means not working. As a creative person, be it a designer or a developer, you need to find that productivity anyhow. So, here are five WFH tips that will get you back your productivity high and help you enjoy all the remote work benefits without having to feel guilty about it.

1. Set up a no-distraction workplace

Just because you got rid of the hustle and bustle in your office doesn’t mean you are going to be devoid of distractions at home. A survey by Statista claims that 53.7% of respondents said that smartphones were the biggest distractors while working remotely. Other leading distractions included gaming, binge-watching, kids, news, pets, online shopping, and partners. So, how do you deal with these?

First, just observe your day. What are the distractions that are popping up? Is it someone in your family coming in to gossip or the TV that is lying in front of you? Once you determine your distractors, set up a no-distraction workplace. For example, being in a room where there is no TV, or keeping your mobile in the other room, or telling your family not to disturb you during your work hours. Fixing a workplace also makes sure that when you come around to being there, you enter into your work mode.

2. Fix your working hours

An initial concern while remote work was being adopted by so many companies around the world was - Will employees work the same from their homes? The situation slowly turned around to about 53.1% of people finding it difficult to separate work and nonwork life. While you are at home, the boundaries between work and personal life alter. You start putting in more hours at work and you may even bring your latest designing project to the dinner table.

To avoid this, fix your working hours. Communicate the same to your team and to your family. Track your working hours to make sure you're not overworking. Avoid replying to emails and scheduling meetings during your non-work hours. This makes sure you get enough time to unplug from work and spend time with your loved ones or do the things you love outside of work.

3. Always have a slot for “deep work”

Deep work is the ability to focus on a particular task that is usually cognitively demanding, without getting distracted. This could include the new website design you are working on or the presentation you have to deliver over the weekend. Deep work also helps you produce better results in less time. If you are someone who is an early riser, you can schedule this slot in the early morning hours so that you don’t face any external distractions. Alternatively, if you are a night owl, schedule this slot when your energy is high and distractions are at a low.

One essential aspect of maintaining productivity and wellness while working from home encompasses adopting a healthy diet. Balancing work and personal life can often lead to overlooking nutrition, adversely affecting both mental and physical health. Integrating ketogenic diet meals into your daily routine not only helps in staying focused but also ensures long-term wellbeing. These chef-crafted, nutritious meals fit perfectly into a busy schedule, aiding in efficient weight management without sacrificing taste or quality.

Scheduling your “deep work” slot will help you work on your focus levels and at the same time, get you to work on the important things.

4. Follow a morning and evening routine

For most of us, working at home turns out to be all “work, work, work, and go to sleep”. Soon, you start getting frustrated and feeling unproductive. One way to make sure you follow a healthy and energetic life is to adopt a morning and evening routine. By inculcating exercise, meditation, and relaxation into this routine, you can keep your mind calm and stay stress-free. Here’s one simple example routine for you to try out:

Morning routine: Wake up one hour prior to when you start your work, freshen up, have a healthy drink/smoothie, lay a mat on your floor and stretch your body, meditate for 5 minutes.

Evening routine: After work, organize your work desk, shut down your computer, wash your face, walk away from your desk, and meditate for 5 minutes.

5. Try virtual co-working

If you miss your co-workers a little too much and want a little resemblance of your office, you can try out virtual co-working. How to do this? Pick your working buddies. Schedule a Zoom meeting for an hour or two. Discuss what you’d be doing for the next couple of hours and when you’d be taking breaks. Start working on your individual tasks after that. You can even choose to relax in the assigned breaks by having someone lead a stretch session and everyone else following those instructions.

If you’re working remotely as a designer, these tips can work great for you. But when you’re stuck at your home without your team and client nearby, you have to rely a lot on emails and calls for your design feedback.

And guess what? This often results in confusions, misunderstandings, and errors. To help you launch your designs faster and get approvals from clients quickly, try out Ruttl today: www.ruttl.com

Design Decision Tips for SaaS Product Development

Mon, 21 Feb 2022 12:13:12 GMT

While managing so many design projects at Brucira for our clients over the years, we have realized that they do know the importance of UI/UX design. However, when we started creating Ruttl, we came across a unique challenge.

It dealt with making thoughtful design decisions at various stages of our SaaS product. This is something that we had not faced first-hand at Brucira, so it pushed our limits. We also researched a lot by the side for ruttl and understood early on that SaaS product design is different from other forms of designing.

When Siddhita Upare and I came up with the idea of ruttl 3 years back, all our decisions were driven by problems we faced during our initial days at Brucira while working on website projects. The comment and edit feature were nothing but replication of screenshots and inspect mode that we were already using to review live websites and we just presented the same in a more sophisticated and friendly manner.

Post our soft launch, we received thousands of test users who gave us feedback for introducing new features. So, in the second year our design decisions were derived by customer feedback.

Now, in our third year, we have a lot of decisions to take on features such as edit limits, pages limits, pricing structure. In order to get to the right decisions we are now taking help of "data" and so far we took a lot of right steps. Fully bootstrapped, we now are able to optimize our Ads spends and reach a total revenue of USD 80,000+.

Keeping these learnings and milestones in mind, we have collated some of the major design decisions that you need to consider for every stage of your SaaS product development. These insights have helped us a lot while we were making Ruttl. Go through them to relook at your SaaS product development journey:

Stage 1: Follow a Market First Approach

At the start, when you are focusing on creating an MVP for your SaaS product, follow conventional design principles. Do market research, analyze your competitors, define pricing, fine tune sales and marketing so that you can place your product in a good way. During this stage, you might end up giving more importance to market research than user research. However, soon you will have to relook at your users and take their feedback.

Stage 2: Interact with Your Users

SaaS products rely a lot on customer satisfaction. So, once you acquire more users, start scheduling more interviews and take their feedback to plan more features. You can also use these user given insights to refine your existing features. During this stage, you can also study your analytics to study each and every design flows. By this SaaS product design stage, you would have most of the information you need to make it grow big.

Stage 3: Introduce Features Based on User Feedback

Once you have collected user feedback, studied all the analytics and design flows, start focusing on the big picture. Based on the data and user feedback, you should start making major decisions on features, pricing, diversification and then let all the numbers decide whether you need to make any significant change on the user experience front.

SaaS product development and designing pose a unique set of problems and challenges that are gratifying to solve. If you are a design agency owner or an independent consultant trying to figure out this space then feel free to reach out to us. We will be happy to share more learnings we stumbled upon through Ruttl.

Why ClickUp Is Great For Project Management?

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 07:25:08 GMT

Whether you are a project manager or an important member of the design team, we all need to handle projects. Projects can easily get haywire if not managed properly. In fact, according to a research by KPMG, a whopping 70% of organizations went through at least one project failure in the last 12 months.

Here’s how ClickUp can be a great savior when it comes to managing projects efficiently and pushing them to success faster.

What is ClickUp?

ClickUp is a project management tool that has plethora of features like time tracking, task assignment, and so on that can help you manage and organize projects efficiently. You can even track your progress and goals so that you can recognize bottlenecks earlier and make sure delays don’t happen.

Here’s a detailed list of benefits you can get with ClickUp:

Manage projects in different views

What if you don’t have time to view the entire task list of your project team? The list view can be perfect for you. They also have other views such as Box, Gantt, Calendar and Board view to build the perfect workflow for your project.

Set clear expectations with time tracking

With ClickUp’s time tracking feature, you can assign tasks with time estimates and monitor the time spent on each phase of the project by getting detailed reports.

Collaborate better

Not only assigning tasks, you can comment on tasks or documents instead of having to send an email for every little thing. With real-time notifications, attachments and updates, you eliminate all the confusion, errors, and misunderstandings that often happen in large and medium-scale projects. What does this have a direct impact on? Faster project completion. A win-win for you and your clients.

Have a visual outline for your design team

So many times, you may need to see how a project will be phased out by drawing it out. ClickUp provides a mind mapping feature with which you can plan out projects and even individual tasks, project phases, and ideas.

Prioritize tasks

Not every task is equal in every project. For example, in a client design project, working on the features page may be on priority as the client may want to put up that page and activate the website. In such a case, you can set priorities on individual tasks so that the team knows which ones are urgent and which ones have flexible timeline.

Create templates

So many of your projects may have common things like checklists, tasks, and so on. Create templates so that you can save time for every upcoming project.

Have goal tracking

You can measure project goals in ClickUp by tying them to specific tasks, monetary values, numbers, and so on. This way, as a project manager, you can stay updated with the important goals and can easily track them from time to time.

Project management is going to be even more important in the days to come. For that same reason, Ruttl is coming up with an exciting ClickUp integration to make your feedback process even more streamlined. With just a click, you’d be able to assign tasks from Ruttl and so much more.

7 Things To Include In A Terms And Conditions Page

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 07:03:33 GMT

“Ahh! Terms and conditions. Who even goes through that?” That might be your first response when someone says you need to have a terms and conditions page on your website. Five or ten years ago, you may even be right not to have one.

But consider these two scenarios.

What if someone were to copy your website and they end up getting a tremendous response and making money out of it? Or what if your customer comes to you and tells you that they want a refund after using your product for two months?

Would you be able to fight these claims if you have not specified all these clauses such as copyright clause or return/refund policy on your terms and conditions page? A big No! And so having this page is a must to minimize your liability and fight against wrong claims.

Now the question arises - What all should you have on this page?

Worry not! Below we have listed down 7 things that should be there on your terms and conditions page.

1. Payments and billing

Your price may not remain the same forever. So you can claim here that you reserve the right to change the price for your different services and that the users would be responsible for paying that renewed amount if it’s a subscription model.

2. Copyright

This clause will protect you from unwarranted reproduction of your content. Make it clear to users that they can’t copy, reproduce or modify any copyrighted or proprietary contents without the owner’s consent.

3. Acceptance of terms

You might have certain terms you’d like the users to follow. For example, not using the app for illegal purposes, and so on. You can mention all those terms here which will be applicable to all users.

4. Liability and warranties

This clause holds that you cannot warrant that the system will operate without errors as some operations may malfunction at times. You will also denote here that the company will not be liable for things that can happen due to an unforeseen situation.

5. Acceptable use clause

What if someone uses your system to abuse, harass, threaten, or intimidate a person? The acceptable use clause mentions that the users will be accountable for any such activities and that by agreeing to this clause, they ensure they wouldn’t participate in any such activities.

6. Third-party content clause

You might have many third-party links in your content. Mention in this clause that you will not be responsible for what happens once the visitor exits your website and faces something in the third-party website or application.

7. Refund/return policy

If you have a series of products, mention the policies for each category and make sure that these policies are stated in a clear and understandable way.

Now that you know what things your terms and conditions page should include, start working on it today and ensure your business stays compliant and safe.

How Visual Collaboration Empowers Remote Teams

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 10:59:03 GMT

How many times have you gone over to your co-worker’s desk to show them a design update and explain to them why your client will love it? Or how many times have your teammates ditched those chains of emails because explaining design feedback became too complicated and frustrating for your team? With 77% of remote workers saying they’re more productive when working from home and remote teams on the rise, the “Can I come to your desk and explain this to you?” or “Can I visually show you how this new update works?” becomes difficult. The need for visual collaboration thus stays high for remote teams. Let’s understand why.

Email communication just doesn’t cut it for creative tasks

Design feedback or creative feedback is often a long process. It starts from day 1 and continues till the design is launched. There could be weeks or even months in between. How do you make sure that feedback is easily accessible when your teammate could be receiving hundreds of emails in a day? Can they easily find the feedback point they had received a month back? And what if someone forgot to include everyone in the cc? This could mean a lot of back-and-forth communication and even misunderstandings popping up. And with the dozens of screenshots you will have to attach every time to denote a design change, email definitely doesn’t cut it when it comes to design or creative feedback.

The need to point and show things

When it comes to creative tasks, communicating with texts is tough. Let’s take an example. Suppose your team is working on an animation for the home page of your website. The team lead thinks that the positioning of the animation isn’t fine. So he asks the team to change it. Now, according to their perspective, this positioning is perfect as it does not hinder the features of the website and as a person scrolls down, this animation blends perfectly with the other content on the home page. Can you explain this over text convincingly? Probably not. But can you record a video comment and explain this by pointing out your reasons? Absolutely!

Scheduling video calls is tough

When you have a large remote team, finding that one suitable slot where everyone is available can be tough, especially if you have people working in different time zones. As a team lead, you would waste so much time just picking a relevant time slot. In this scenario, if you also have to include the client in meetings, this becomes even harder. Instead, wouldn’t it be far easier to have a visual collaboration tool in place where your team and client both can leave comments at their convenience and resolve them?

Inability to record and keep track of everything

Let’s assume your team is making use of multiple tools while working remotely. In such a case, it’s common to have all your design feedback and conversations scattered in different tools. For example, some of your teammates may be leaving their comments in Slack, while some of them may be leaving their “resolved” updates on email. In such a case, it becomes very difficult to keep a track of everything. And what if your designs have multiple versions? Which feedback comment is related to which version? A lot of confusion and misunderstandings may pop up in this case as it’s just not possible to keep a track of everything when the information is scattered over different tools.

Collaborating visually is smoother

When it comes to collaboration, nothing beats the “Can I show you what I am thinking?” Creators have a lot going on in their minds and to put that into words is quite difficult. But to show them, be it on a whiteboard or on a visual collaboration tool, is quite efficient. It also helps the team understand things in a better way. You can even give precise values to your team instead of giving out vague feedback comments like, “Can you please move that content on the home page a little bit?”

Now that we know how important visual collaboration is for remote teams that can’t hold meetings every day or do not have the scope to hop on to their co-worker’s desk and explain things, let’s see how visual collaboration tools can be of assistance.

How a visual collaboration tool like Ruttl can help remote design teams?

You can comment on live websites: Instead of sharing a dozen screenshots, write your feedback comments on live websites by pointing towards the needed change and giving precise values to your team. You can even have a discussion there instead of hopping on to Slack for that.
Leave video comments: Want to show to your team why a feature needs change? Instead of writing down a long email, simply record a video comment and tag your teammates.
Create different versions: Manage different versions and easily keep a track of comments on them by checking them one at a time
Collaborate easily: Tag your teammates, assign them deadlines, and resolve comments. You can even invite your clients to leave their feedback comments by just sending them a simple shareability link.
Have everything at one place: When your team is working remotely, you no longer have to call somebody up to share feedback or send the version 2 of the website. Everything is there on the application itself.

Visual collaboration is the need of the hour and at ruttl, we have made our tool keeping in mind the challenges of remote teams and creators.

To know more about how ruttl can simplify your entire feedback process and push launches faster, start your free trial now!

Common Mistakes That Web Design Clients Make Frequently!

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 07:48:39 GMT

Your web design client lets you know his requirements - a sleek website, muted color tone, and a responsive mobile version. Do you have everything you need? You may think so but a month down the line, when you have multiple feedback meetings with your client, you may realize that there’s more to designer-client relationships than getting a basic requirement of what they want from you. Here are 5 common mistakes web design clients often make and how you can help resolve those mistakes for them.

Not providing a detailed brief

It’s the job of the web designer to come up with a website that gives the desired result to the client. But is it possible without knowing what the client’s goal is? Or what design features or elements he has in mind for the final outcome? Not having a detailed brief can mean a lot of rework happening at the later stage of the project. It will come along with a lot of back-and-forth discussion and frustration for both your client and the team.

To avoid this, walk your clients through the process you follow. Ask them questions. These questions could be something like:

What are you trying to achieve with your website? Just awareness or conversions? Or something else?
Who will be the target audience? Do you have a user persona for the same?
Are there any competitor sites you like? What do you think we should follow from them?
Do you have any design elements or features that you want us to incorporate?
What shades or color tones are preferable for the brand?
Are there any technical requirements like the site should load fast or have a checkout solution?

Setting an incorrect deadline

Your client may set a deadline without knowing how much time you will require for each phase of the web design project. If they haven’t provided a detailed brief in the first place, they may not have any idea at all about the kind of work that will go into the project. In both of these cases, you need to have a discussion with the client and walk them through the detailed steps you will undertake for their project and how much time it usually takes to complete each phase satisfactorily. You can even provide examples of your earlier design clients and the time it took your team to achieve the outcome. Ensuring that your customers fully understand the amount of work you’ll be undertaking will also help them grasp why you’re charging a certain amount for the project.

Being inflexible with their opinions

Do you know who Jeff Bezos considers to be smart? Those who are actually wrong a lot. Surprising, isn’t it? He has observed that, “The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem that they’ve already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.”

When it comes to web design clients, they might have certain ideas in mind. For example, they must have seen a site where content is little but they use a lot of animation and graphic elements. Instead of opposing the idea, have an open discussion. Let him know why this might be a bad idea. For example, it may hamper the site’s loading speed. Back it up with relevant stats that support your argument. Also ensure that you don’t stay rigid with your perspectives as well.

Making too many technical decisions

There are two scenarios when a client comes to you (a) they know every facet of web designing or (b) they don’t really know what they want or need and you’ll have to spend time to discuss the many outcomes of web design and what each would bring to their brand. When it comes to client A, they might think that because they know everything, they should make all the decisions. While it’s the client’s website after all, they should be deciding the major factors like the color tone, features the website must have, and so on but it should be up to your team to decide things like the kind of tools and inspiration models you would be using.

If your client tries to make every decision for you, it will be tough for the team to come up with great work. So, ask your client questions on why they need something to work in a particular way and tell them your processes in advance.

Not making use of a feedback tool

Web designing is a field where there needs to be ongoing feedback. Instead of having it all on email and using screenshots, ask your clients to give their feedback on the tool that you are using. With a tool like Ruttl, this process can become easier. You can just send them a shareability link and they can quickly give their feedback on different versions of the website without having to go through the hassling process of signing up and logging in every time they need to leave a comment. This makes sure every feedback point is at one place and nothing goes out of sight.

Now that you know how important having a feedback tool is, sign up to Ruttl today and make sure your web design projects and your client relationships run smoothly.

Start your free trial here: ruttl - visual feedback tool

Introducing List View In Projects

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 08:28:45 GMT

We’ve introduced a new way for you to look at the webpages, images & PDFs inside your project.

If you’re someone who’s used to seeing lists rather than grids, we’ve heard you. Simply go to the project & toggle between list and grid views from the top-right corner.

Access Your Previous Versions Using Asset Caching!

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 08:13:10 GMT

A few of our users faced this issue, related to caching.

Let's say you upload a webpage on ruttl (Version 1) & add a few comments & edits on the same. Then, a few changes are made on the live webpage, & then a version is added to ruttl (Version 2). In previous scenarios, the earlier version 1 used to show broken UI along with missing comments and edits.

But we've now fixed the same, and you should be able to make any number of edits on the live webpage, without affecting previous versions on ruttl.

P.S. - We won't be able to correct your previous versions until 14th Feb 2022, 5 PM IST. All versions added after this time will be successfully cached.

Truncated Long Links In Comments

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 05:43:23 GMT

Whenever long URLs were added to our comments, the UI was not correct, & the overall experience was not smooth. These long URl's took up lot of space, hampered the visual clarity and just looked ugly inside the interface!

Hence, we thought of making this issue better. So, we rectified the same by truncating long URLs which are added to our comments. The hyperlink will be exactly the same, however we'll visually truncate the URLs to allow for a better experience.

Saved Settings For Custom Reordering

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 04:42:34 GMT

Upon refreshing or revisiting the same project in the same session, the custom reordering was not being saved, thereby getting back to the original order inside the project. There have been several reports of this behavior. We've identified the root cause and fixed it. You won't need to worry about your custom ordering getting getting messed up anymore.

With the update, your custom reordering will be remembered by ruttl, and will also be shown to your team members and guests. All you need to do is refresh the project or revisit it (using the same browser) after having changed the order of the sections, and voilà – your new order will be there. Your team members can access this information even if they're using a different browser from yours, so it won't get lost.

CNAME Users, You Can Now Have Blank Metas!

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 04:36:07 GMT

Earlier, all our CNAME users viewd the page title on their custom domains as ruttl. We've now fixed the same, and all users with CNAME enabled will only see their team's name in the page title upon loading their custom domains.

This will ensure that all your clients and internal teammates only see your team's name while using our platform.

Floating Comments To Comment On An Entire Page!

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 14:10:56 GMT

A big part about website feedback process is that there are instances when certain comments are not related to a specific element on any web page. Rather, they are contextually more applicable to the entire webpage that is being reviewed.

To cater to this particular problem, we're launching floating comments!

Floating comments are used in certain situations where the comment can't be linked to any element on the page, making them "floating" and thus available everywhere. They don't appear on the screen, but you can view the comments at the activity panel.

Users can interact with them like any other comment - Edit, Resolve, Tag other teammates, Send them to Trello or Asana, or Delete them if not needed.

To use floating comments, simply go to the Activity Panel and click on Add new comment. Add the comment, attach screenshots or insert URLs. These floating comments will always reflect in your Activity Panel.

You Can Now Add Attachments In Comments

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 14:03:18 GMT

While comments are quite helpful to leave feedback, we figured out the there were lot of instances when more context is needed to communicate the idea behind a comment. While writing a comment, they needed to add an image, screenshot or some other attachment like PDF, in order to provide more context. In our previous version, this process was a bit convoluted.

With out latest update, we've introduced a brand new ability to add attachments to your comments! To add any attachment, all you need to do is click on the attachment icon in comments, select the file (you can even upload multiple files) and upload the same. These attachments will then be visible inside the comment, and also on the Activity Panel.

This way, we've made it a lot easier for you to communicate better and more contextual feedback with your clients and project stakeholders!

You Can Now Integrate Your Ruttl Account With Zapier!

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 13:42:17 GMT

For the longest time, Zapier has been a widely used tool! In fact, they state that "People who set up a Zap save an average of 4 hours their first week."

But in case you aren't, Zapier is a tool you can use to build a workflow. You can connect multiple apps and services from a variety of different companies. When you automate your favorite apps, Zapier's reliable workflow automation software takes care of the rest. For example, you could connect Apple Mail and Trello, so that whenever a new email comes into your inbox, it will create a new card on your trello board. All with just two clicks and no code.

It had been on our roadmap for quite sometime and now, we are finally announcing Zapier integration on ruttl!

Through this integration, you can connect your Zapier account and then get notifications of your project activities across 3000+ apps! Setup the Trigger and catch hook events, test the Sample data, select which notifications would you like to get, and then you'll be all set!

Edit Mode Removal From Guest Sharing Links

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 13:31:59 GMT

Recently, we were discussing with several users in our slack community regarding how edit mode is helping them with their feedback process. As it turns out, several of them notified us that, while edit mode was helpful for them, their clients found it.

Typically, we then observed that while working on web projects, clients never really used the edit mode. They rather focused on commneting and sharing their feedback. As a a result, when guest links were shared, the edit mode only confused them even further.

That's why, to make thing simpler and to improve the clarity for your clients, we decided to remove the edit mode from the guest sharing link. This will ensure a smoother and more effective feedback process while reviewing websites.

After discussion with multiple users, we discovered that clients never used our edit mode and removing it from the guest share link meant more clarity for your clients to use our product while reviewing websites. Hence, we removed edit mode and edits from our guest share link.

Guest Share Link Modifications

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 13:08:09 GMT

We've successfully made the following changes in our guest share link:

Earlier, when guest sharing link was used, the edit mode would be turned by default. Now, we've removed edit mode by default from guest sharing links.
Lot of users reported of confusion over edits in activity panel. So, now we have removed edits from Activity panel, and renamed the 'Activity Panel' to 'Comments'.
We've added new options to show or hide different versions of web page you create inside any ruttl project.
We've removed the login button from all guest share links.
Since guests often stick primarily to commenting activities, we've removed the option to toggle between comment & edit pins
Lastly, we have also removed the support icon to make thing cleaner!

Upload Multiple PDFs & Images At Once

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 04:40:56 GMT

Ruttl is all about efficiency while collecting visual feedback. When we pushed out our feature to review PDF's and images, almost every user was quite happy! After all, who doesn't work on these types of files, right?

Well, until now, you were only able to add one PDF or image at a time. This was causing a lot of friction, because users reported of wasting time while adding them one by one. We were already aware of this issue, but were fixing few things in the backend.

Today, we're pushing out the ability to upload multiple PDF's and Images to review at the same time! While uploading PDFs 📁 or static images 🖼️, choose multiple files and upload them at once inside your ruttl folder. These files will quickly get added to your project one after the other, & you can then review them with your team.

Top 20 Web Design Blogs That You Must Follow In 2025

Wed, 02 Feb 2022 08:13:27 GMT

In today's fast-paced world, keeping up with the latest web design trends and techniques is essential to stay ahead of the competition. Visual design alone influences a company's credibility for 75% of users.

Fortunately, many web design blogs or designer blogs provide valuable insights, inspiration, and advice to help designers and developers create stunning, functional, and user-friendly websites. From responsive design to accessibility, from typography to color theory, these web design blogs cover a wide range of topics essential for anyone involved in web design.

In this blog, we've compiled a list of the top 20 web design blogs that are worth following in 2025.

So, let's dive in!

4 Reasons Why You Must Read Web Design Blogs

1. Stay Up-to-Date with the Latest Trends

Web design is constantly evolving, and what was popular last year may not be relevant today. By reading web design blogs, you can stay up-to-date with the latest trends in web design, such as responsive design, minimalism, flat design, etc.

2. Learn New Techniques and Tools

Web design blogs or designer blogs are a great resource for learning new techniques and UX design tools. No matter your level of experience in design, there is always room to acquire new knowledge and skills to create more effective websites.

3. Get Inspiration for Your Projects

Web design blogs offer endless ideas for your projects, whether starting anew or revamping, you can get hundreds of ideas in just a matter of seconds!

4. Improve Your User Experience

Good web design is not just about aesthetics; it's also about creating a great user experience. Reading web design blogs can help you learn about best practices for user experience design, such as creating intuitive navigation to ensure fast loading times and optimizing for mobile devices.

Top 20 Web Design Blogs in 2025

1. ruttl blog

It's always great to see companies that deeply understand their industry and offer valuable insights to their audience. The ruttl blog is a great example of this, as it provides a wealth of web design and development information.

As a visual feedback and collaboration tool (that allows you to comment on live websites, web apps, mobile apps, PDFs, and images), our team has gained extensive experience working with design agencies. It has allowed us to identify the following:

Common hacks
Creative processes
Mistakes in the industry
Popular tools and extensions
Step-by-step guides

Our blog covers various topics, including design and development updates, productivity tips for designers and developers, and practical tips that design teams can implement immediately.

One of the standout features of the ruttl blog is the "Knowledge Box" section, which offers bite-sized posts that are easy to read, understand, and implement.

The team at ruttl also emphasizes the importance of using a visual feedback tool, which is essential for design agencies and teams to collaborate effectively and create great web designs quickly. ruttl blog addresses real-life challenges and offers practical solutions relevant to the design industry.

Overall, the ruttl blog is a valuable resource for anyone interested in reading web design blogs and development related blogs. It's definitely worth checking out.

2. Design Shack

Design Shack is a leading web design blog providing valuable content to the design community since 2003. The blog covers a broad range of topics related to web and graphic design, including:

Trends
Business
Mobile
UX
Typography
How to work in the design industry

With a team of experienced writers, Design Shack is committed to delivering insightful and informative articles. They help designers and developers stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the industry.

The platform also boasts an active community of over 15,000 members on social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. This community allows designers to interact with like-minded individuals in their field, share ideas, and stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the industry.

3. Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine is a well-known web design blog that covers a variety of topics such as accessibility, usability, design, web design, and more.

The website has a user-friendly interface that allows readers to search for specific articles through the search bar provided at the top. The content shared on the website is easy to read and informative, with visual elements such as screenshots, sketches, and images to enhance the user experience.

This blog is a favorite among thousands of web designers, who consider it their go-to place for inspiration and answers to their design-related questions. They also have a job board section where web designers can look for jobs, even remote positions, anywhere in the world.

In addition to their articles, Smashing Magazine also offers a range of freebies, including templates, plugins, live workshops, e-books, and guides. Readers can also subscribe to their email newsletter, which is delivered every week. Their web design blog has recently launched live workshops on front-end and UX that designers can check out to stay ahead of the curve.

4. UX Collective

UX Collective is a web design blog dedicated to providing designers with valuable content related to user experience (UX) design. With a team of experienced writers, their web design blog covers a wide range of topics, including UX research, usability testing, interaction design, and more.

One of the unique aspects of UX Collective is that it gets updated daily with new posts, providing readers with a continuous stream of fresh and relevant content. This helps to ensure that their content is fresh and relevant and provides a global perspective on UI UX and web design industry.

The blog's content is presented in a visually appealing format that is easy to read and digest. They use high-quality images, diagrams, and illustrations to enhance the user experience.

In addition to its daily updates, UX Collective also runs a weekly newsletter delivered to subscribers' inboxes. This newsletter provides readers with a roundup of the latest industry trends, tips, and news.

5. Web Design Ledger

Web Design Ledger's designer blogs are an excellent resource for designers and developers seeking inspiration, tips, and advice on a wide range of topics related to the field. With its beautifully categorized content and abundance of useful information, it's a great place to start your day when you need a boost of creativity.

The blog covers many different categories, including:

Web Design
Inspiration on UI
Graphics
Interviews
Web Development Reviews

They also offer a lot of content on a range of free resources, such as web design portfolio builders, portfolio examples, stock images, and fonts, making it even more appealing to its readers. In addition, Web Design Ledger goes in-depth on subcategories like user interface design, graphics, typography, and iconography.

One unique feature that sets Web Design Ledger apart from other blogs is their section dedicated to interviews with some top web designers.

This section allows readers to learn from thought leaders in the field and stay up-to-date with the latest design tools through their review section.

Overall, Web Design Ledger is a valuable bookmark for anyone in the web design and development industry.

6. Creative Bloq

Creative Bloq is a design blog offering many blog posts on various topics such as web design, general art, news, and trends. It is a go-to blog for inspiration and creativity in web design. Their web design blog posts showcase graphical website designs that can inspire web designers to come up with unique and innovative ideas.

Apart from web design, they also cover other types of artwork, like packaging and logo designs, and provide interesting and original content on abstract design topics.

One of the standout features of Creative Bloq is its guide and tutorials section, which covers a wide range of topics related to design tasks.

The section makes the blog an all-around destination for designers seeking to improve their skills or learn something new. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned professional, Creative Bloq has something for everyone.

In addition to the informative blog posts, Creative Bloq also features a section for design tools and resources, making it easy for designers to find the right tools for their projects.

7. Science Soft

ScienceSoft's web design blog is unique in that it caters specifically to business people. With a focus on design's role in e-business success, the blog provides extensive knowledge and explains winning approaches to adopt.

It also offers estimated costs for design and redesign work, helping readers make informed decisions about their design investments.

The blog is a summary of the experiences of ScienceSoft's design team, making it an invaluable resource for business people looking to understand and communicate better with their web designers.

By bridging the gap between business and design, ScienceSoft's web design blog is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of these two fields.

8. Dribbble

Dribbble is the ultimate destination for anyone interested in keeping up with the latest design trends and exploring the work of renowned and upcoming web designers. With its extensive design portfolio and blog, Dribbble offers a one-stop shop for anyone passionate about web design blogs.

What sets Dribbble apart from other web design blogs is its interactive platform, which encourages users to showcase their work and receive feedback from the global community. Dribbble's live workshops and courses can help you enhance your skills and stay on top of the latest trends.

Dribbble's website's most remarkable features are its sleek design and easy-to-navigate interface. The website is divided into different categories, making browsing and finding what you're looking for effortless. Whether you're interested in animation, typography, mobile design, or anything else, Dribbble has got you covered.

Dribbble also offers a job board where designers can find work opportunities and start earning right away. By subscribing to Dribbble Pro, you can access many benefits that can help you enhance your skills and take your design career to the next level.

9. Hongkiat

Hongkiat web design blog platform offers a wealth of resources for designers, including tutorials on design tools and access to freebies such as icon packs and fonts.

The blog's content is primarily focused on:

Web design
How-to guides
Business advice for web designers
Discussions on design philosophy

While the blog is geared towards experienced designers, it also provides resources for beginners, such as introductions to CSS and FAQs. With a long-standing reputation, Hongkiat's web design blogs are a valuable resource for designers of all skill levels.

10. Line25

Line25 web design blog platform is unique because they cover the latest trends and news in the design industry and delve into more abstract and relevant design themes. It includes philosophical questions such as the choice between minimalism and maximalism.

The website is divided into categories such as web development, web design, website templates, and UI/UX design. It allows readers to easily access the topics that interest them and gain more knowledge.

Line25 offers a variety of tutorials regularly, providing readers with the opportunity to learn new skills. However, the lack of a search option may require readers to manually navigate various topics to find the content they seek.

In addition to their articles and tutorials, Line25 provides many free resources, such as Photoshop templates and portfolio layouts, to help designers enhance their work.

11. Boagworld

Design requires more than just access to resources and tutorials. It involves gaining experience, learning, and understanding. To create effective designs, it's crucial to collect user feedback and research their habits.

Boagworld is a helpful resource for achieving this goal. Their web design blogs and podcasts cover various topics, from digital design and marketing to content creation and overall digital strategy.

Boagworld provides thoughtful and well-done content, making it an excellent addition to your reading list. By incorporating their insights, you can enhance your design skills and create more user-friendly designs that cater to your audience's needs.

12. A List Apart

A List Apart stands out from the crowd, focusing on quality articles and minimalist web design.

It is not your typical web design blog or site. Instead, it delves deeper into web content's design, development, and significance, with a particular emphasis on web standards and best practices. It covers topics such as content strategy, graphic design, accessibility, information architecture, user research, and the state of the web.

Unlike most web design blogs that offer free resources, this site provides in-depth and thoughtful content.

The founder, Zeldman, attributes this success to the emphasis on editing. The team carefully selects pieces that are thematically relevant to each other, ensuring that only the best content is published.

13. Envato Tuts+

Envato Tuts+ is a platform that strives to teach creative skills and provide ways to monetize those skills. Its ultimate goal is to empower individuals to learn and earn online.

The website offers comprehensive resources to help you learn web design. With free tutorials, learning guides, and online courses, you can develop your skills in interface design, UX, front-end development, motion design, accessibility, business, and more.

Whether you are a web designer or developer, their web design blog platform and site is a valuable resource. They also have a collection of e-books covering web and graphic design topics.

14. Design Bombs

Design Bombs, as its domain name suggests, is dedicated to offering innovative web design and development ideas.

As an online publication, their web design blog platform strives to deliver comprehensive tutorials, exclusive deals, well-researched guides, and other valuable content. The site's clean and straightforward layout conveys a refreshing vibe that instantly captures your attention.

Initially founded as a web design gallery, the website has evolved into a thriving platform where designers and developers can share their concepts, tutorials, and other helpful resources.

Whether you are struggling to come up with new ideas or simply seeking inspiration, Design bombs provide the perfect space to spark your creativity and reignite your passion for design.

At Design Bombs, the founder, Dev, is dedicated to providing you with the necessary tools and knowledge to establish a prosperous career as a freelancer or online business owner. Alternatively, you can use it if you enjoy creating visually impressive and engaging websites.

15. Onextrapixel

Onextrapixel (OXP) is a prominent online magazine and resource site catering to the needs of designers and web developers. It is headquartered in Singapore and aims to provide valuable insights, tips, and resources on design, development, and other relevant topics.

Subscribing to their newsletter ensures that you always have access to fresh and engaging content that is useful and interesting.

OXP stands out from similar sites due to its case studies based on trial-and-error web designs. These case studies provide a valuable learning experience for designers and developers. They showcase the process and evolution of a website's design and development.

It is highly recommended that you bookmark this web design blog site and add it to your list of go-to resources.

16. Awwwards

Awwwards is a website that showcases the best and most creative web designs on the internet and awards them with recognition. It is a great source of inspiration for designers and developers, as it features diverse designs and keeps users updated with the latest industry trends and developments.

Awwwards has different awards that recognize outstanding website designs. These awards include:

Site of the Day: Awwwards selects one website design daily that demonstrates exceptional creativity, design, and user experience.
Site of the Month: From each month's 8 highest scoring sites, Awwwards chooses one website as the Site of the Month.
Site of the Year: Awwwards evaluates all the Site of the Month winners and some personal favourates to select one website as the Site of the Year.

Awwwards evaluates websites based on various metrics, including creativity, design, usability, content, and responsiveness, before featuring them on their platform. This ensures that users can trust the quality of the websites showcased on the site.

In addition to featuring websites, Awwwards also offers valuable resources such as interviews and tutorials, which users can use to improve their skills and knowledge. The website also has a job portal that helps users search for job opportunities and apply for positions that match their skills and interests.

17. Vectornator

The Vectornator web design blog is a treasure trove of insightful and captivating long-form content, covering a range of design-related topics.

Authored by the Vectornator team, the designer blogs delves into the latest graphic design trends, logo design, color theory, design principles, and even offers drawing tutorials. The blog is an excellent resource for seasoned designers and beginners who want to expand their knowledge of graphic design and design.

Each article in vectornator is accompanied by stunning visuals, making it a delightful experience to read, discover, and get inspired by. The blog also features updates on Vectornator products, team interviews, and helpful tips and tricks on various creative topics.

18. Mockplus

Mockplus is a unique blog that focuses on providing designers with efficient tools to improve project productivity through interactive prototyping, scalable design systems, and unified collaboration.

Their web design blog site offers helpful tips and hacks to users who already use Mockplus technology, presented in articles and tutorials.

The blog regularly features compilations of top fonts, tools, icon packs, web design inspirations, and trends. Additionally, beginners can find valuable resources to help them get started, such as guides on mastering navigation menu design and experimenting with new design strategies.

Readers can subscribe to regular blog updates to ensure they only receive relevant and interesting content.

19. Speckyboy

Speckyboy is an established web design blog that serves as an online magazine. It offers a plethora of useful tips and features for web designers, covering various aspects of web design, including UX design, UI design, motion design, general design, design trends, and more.

In addition to design-related topics, the blog also sheds light on the everyday life of a web designer. It provides valuable tips on freelancing and time management, helping designers become more productive in their work.

One of the highlights of this magazine is its coverage of topics that are not commonly discussed elsewhere, such as time-saving techniques for Photoshop.

Moreover, the articles are visually engaging with many multimedia elements, making it easy for readers to skim through the content if they are short on time.

20. DesignrFix

Last on the list is Designrfix. The website boasts a diverse team that spans the globe, offering a wealth of design resources, including UX design examples, web backgrounds, and logo design.

With contributors hailing from various parts of the world, their web design blog platform provides a unique perspective on design trends and techniques influenced by different cultures and experiences.

Designrfix also offers a variety of beginner's guides to career guidance blogs. These guides are designed to help those new to design get started and develop their skills.

Wrapping Up

The design world moves incredibly quickly and is filled with constant change. Suppose you want to remain at the forefront of the latest design trends, developments, and experiments. In that case, it's important to pay attention to all aspects of the industry—including following web design blogs. If you haven't already, 2025 is a good year to start.

When selecting a web design blog to follow, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. You should explore various popular web design blogs to see which ones meet your needs. It's even possible to combine several go-to sites.

To stay updated on the latest web design, UI, and UX articles, stay connected with us through our blog.

If you need a fast website feedback and collaboration tool, give Ruttl a try

Key Questions to Improve Customer Feedback

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 06:59:03 GMT

No matter which feedback tools you use or what process you follow, getting customer feedback at regular intervals keeps your website or application up-to-date. After all, you may love a specific design or feature for your website but your customers might not. That’s when customer feedback helps you the most - figuring out that unknown development area.

Here are 5 question topics you must first finalize and then frame questions accordingly:

1. Is there a problem you are trying to solve?

For example, it could be that you are seeing a high bounce rate when visitors visit your pricing page. You may want to find out the reasons behind it.

You can then go on to ask questions like:

Did you find our pricing page confusing?
What changes would you recommend to improve your experience?
Did you face any problems while choosing the pricing model?

2. Do you want to understand customer behavior?

For example, you may want to delve deep into why some users go directly to your blog page or why some abandon your home page before scrolling till the end?

You can formulate questions like:

What was your first impression when you visited our website?
What was the one thing that stopped you from buying from us?
What part of the website did you first visit and why?

3. Do you need to update your website to reach a goal?

You might have seen your visitors bouncing to a competitor’s website 10 seconds after landing on yours. You might want to decrease this instant bounce rate.

You can create solution-specific questions for this:

What change would make the website experience better?
What motivates you to move to a different website?
According to you, on what comparison factors does this website fail?

4. Do you want to test your audience’s reaction to an upcoming update?

You might want to launch a completely different design or you might want to integrate AI into your website.

To check their reaction, you can pose questions like:

Would you like it if we integrate AI into our website?
Would you find it difficult if we completely revamped our website?
Would you want to have a staged website update or an altogether update?

By first deciding on the goal for your customer feedback, you can make your survey be as brief and to the point as possible.

Collect better feedback and save time in the process!

5 Ways To Set Up Your Web Design Projects For Success

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 06:54:17 GMT

Web design projects can be fun but they can also be full of complexities. With multiple people collaborating on one project, things can turn out to be quite messy. Here are 5 ways you can set up your web design projects for success (and have fun along the way)

1. Have examples in hand

You might have certain ideas in mind and client specifications that you need to follow. Instead of telling your team, “We need a sleek design for the home page” or “We need to follow a muted color tone”, find out website examples that give a clear direction to your team of what the end result should turn out to be.

2. Discuss the project plan

Before starting with the project, have a discussion with all the project stakeholders about how the project will move ahead and the details of every phase. Allow everyone to pitch in their ideas and suggestions. What does this accomplish? Everyone knows the roadmap and since everyone agreed to the plan, it also inculcates a sense of accountability and responsibility.

3. Create subtasks

A project can seem very daunting if seen as a whole. Instead, break it down into small subtasks for every phase. Assign these subtasks and make this list public so that everyone on the team knows exactly what they are responsible for and no one will feel left out or like they were given too much work to handle.

4. Use visual aids to denote progress

Having visual representations with appropriate tools can make seeing the progress fun and also keep track of how things are moving forward. You can list down the stages on a whiteboard or poster board and gamify the process by having rewards like office parties, pizza dinners, and so on, to encourage meeting daily goals and moving closer to the end result.

5. Be willing to help out when necessary

There may be times when your teammate may fall sick or when a complex issue pops up. Encourage your team to help their teammates during such problems and lead the way as the project manager so as to imbibe this spirit with everyone on the team. This can build team morale, employee trust, and investment.

Last but not the least, always have a visual feedback tool in place for your design projects. Keep all your feedback in one place and push your projects to launch faster

Check out how ruttl can simplify your website feedback process today!

How To Give Better Design Feedback

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 06:28:38 GMT

As the project owner, it's your responsibility to ensure that your vision for the website is realized by the graphic design team you're working with. After all, it's your website, and you should be happy with how it looks.

However, you may run into situations where the first draft differs from what you had in mind, and some things need to be changed. In these cases, it's important to be clear with your feedback so that the designers can make the changes you want to see.

Effective feedback can help improve the final product and ensure that it meets the needs of its intended audience.

So, how do you ensure that you're providing feedback to your graphic designer in the right way?

Let's find out.

What exactly is design feedback?

Design feedback is when someone gives you their thoughts and opinions on your design. This can be anything from how they think the overall design looks to specific elements like colors or fonts.

The key to effective design feedback is to focus on the specific aspects of the design that could be improved and to offer suggestions for how to make those improvements. This can help ensure that the final design is more effective and meets the needs of its intended audience.

Why is good feedback important?

Good feedback is essential because it helps improve the final web design and ensure that it meets the needs of its intended audience. Good feedback is specific, actionable, and focused on the aspects of the design that can be improved. It also takes into account the overall goals and objectives of the project.

On the other hand, bad feedback is vague, unhelpful, and often not actionable. It can lead to delays and confusion, as designers may need help to address the feedback or may even have to redo work that has already been completed. This can be frustrating and time-consuming and ultimately result in a final design that needs to be revised.

Good feedback is crucial for ensuring the following:

The design process is efficient and effective;
Designers understand what works and what doesn't;
Designers get the information they need to make informed decisions and improve their work.

Collecting good feedback is an integral part of any design project and can ultimately lead to a better final product.

Tips to give great design feedback

1. Destructive or unsupportive feedback

Sometimes, graphic designers are required to interpret complex and ambiguous directions from their managers. Your feedback can be positive or negative, but it should not be destructive.

Destructive design feedback is any feedback that is negative, unhelpful, or outright hostile. It can be difficult to deal with, but it's important to remember that constructive feedback is always more valuable in the long run.

Destructive or unsupportive feedback can lead to resentment and stress for both parties.

It's easy to give feedback that isn't helpful. Here are some examples:

"I don't like it." This is not constructive feedback because it doesn't say why you don't like it or what you do like.
"Change everything!" This is not constructive feedback because there's no context for what should be changed and why.
"It's not what I expected." This is not constructive feedback because you haven't told them what they did wrong or how they can fix it in the future.

How can you make this design feedback better?

Design can be a sensitive subject, and designers often take criticism personally. When giving feedback, try to be constructive and supportive. Remember that the goal is to help improve the design, not to tear it down.

You should avoid making personal attacks or judgments, and instead focus on the design itself.

Try using "I" statements to express your perspective and experiences when providing feedback.

For example, instead of saying, "This design is terrible," try saying, "I think this design could be improved by focusing on X, Y, and Z."

This will help the designer understand where you're coming from and make your feedback feel more personal and sincere.

2. Ill-timed or late feedback

One of the biggest problems with design feedback is that it is often given too late in the process. By the time the feedback is given, the designer has already put a lot of work into the design and may be reluctant to make changes. This can lead to a lot of back-and-forth between the designer and the client and ultimately delay the project.

Additionally, in some cases, there are no set stages for design feedback, so it can be hard to know when and how to give the feedback. This can often lead to design feedback being either too late or too early, which can be frustrating for both the designer and the client.

How can you make this design feedback better?

The feedback should be timely so the designer can easily incorporate changes before the deadline without any haste.

The earlier you provide feedback, the more time the designer will have to incorporate it into their work. Timely feedback helps avoid delays and ensures the design process stays on track.

Additionally, try to be consistent in your feedback. If you provide feedback at one stage of the design process, provide follow-up feedback at subsequent stages. This will help the designer understand how their work is progressing and ensure they are moving in the right direction.

3. Not using a design feedback tool

Suppose you are not using a design feedback tool when giving feedback to a graphic designer. In that case, it can make it difficult for the designer to understand and incorporate the feedback effectively.

Without a tool to organize and track feedback, the designer may receive conflicting or vague feedback, which can be frustrating and confusing. Additionally, without a record of previous feedback and responses, it can be difficult for the designer to see how their work has progressed and improved over time.

How can you make this design feedback better?

One way to help ensure that your feedback is helpful, actionable and trackable is to use a design feedback tool.

There are a number of different design feedback tools available, but they all essentially serve the same purpose: to help you give better feedback.

There are several ways that a feedback tool can help you give design feedback properly:

It provides a central place to collect and organize feedback: With a design feedback tool, you can easily collect and organize feedback from multiple people in one place, which can help you keep track of different suggestions and ideas.
It allows you to leave comments and suggestions directly on the design: Most design feedback tools allow you to leave comments and suggestions directly on the design itself, which can help the designer understand exactly what you are thinking.
It provides a record of previous feedback and responses: With a design feedback tool, you can see previous feedback and responses, which can help you track the progress of the design and ensure that previous suggestions are being addressed.

Overall, a design feedback tool can help you give design feedback in a clear, organized, and actionable way, which can improve the design process and result in better designs.

4. Authoritative behavior

Managers often authoritatively give feedback and make decisions for the designers rather than working with them to find a solution. This can make the designer feel disempowered and unable to contribute their ideas and creativity to the project.

When managers give overly prescriptive feedback or try to control the creative process, it can stifle innovation and creativity. It can also lead to a lack of ownership and buy-in from the designer, which can affect the quality of the final design.

How can you make this design feedback better?

While it's important to provide suggestions and ideas for how the design can be improved, it's ultimately the designer's responsibility to make the final decisions about the design.

Instead of making decisions for the designer, try to offer suggestions and let them make the final decisions. This will allow them to exercise their creativity and ownership over the design, and it will help to foster a more collaborative and positive working relationship.

By working together, managers and designers can find a solution that meets the client's needs while allowing the designer to be creative and innovative.

5. Undescriptive feedback

The worst kind of feedback is undescriptive feedback. It's vague, non-specific, and doesn't tell you anything about what you need to do differently or better next time.

For example, if a designer shows you a design and you say, "I don't like it," without explaining why the designer will have no idea what to change or improve. This can be frustrating for the designer and make it difficult for them to incorporate your feedback effectively.

How can you make this design feedback better?

It would help if you were clear and concise when giving feedback to graphic designers. Take the time to explain why you dislike something, or it isn't working for you.

For example, explain why it doesn't work for the project or what colors you would prefer if you don't like the color scheme. If you think a particular element is too busy or cluttered, explain why that is and how simplifying it would improve the design.

The more specific and descriptive you can be, your feedback will be more helpful. Remember, the goal is to help the designer create the best possible design, so take the time to give feedback that will be truly useful.

Issues with current methods of design feedback collection

Traditional methods for collecting design feedback typically involve using static documents and presentations, such as screenshots, PowerPoint slides, and email threads, to share the design with stakeholders.

Here are the issues with traditional methods used in collecting design feedback:

Screenshots and documents are static and do not provide an interactive platform for discussion and decision-making. This makes it difficult for designers and stakeholders to collaborate and discuss feedback in real time.
Email threads can quickly become cluttered and disorganized. They do not provide an interactive platform for sharing and discussing feedback. They don't allow easy feedback and progress tracking, hindering effective communication and collaboration between designers and stakeholders.
Presentations are typically one-way communication, with the presenter presenting the design to the audience. This does not allow for interactive discussion and collaboration, making it difficult to incorporate feedback and make decisions. Also, presentations take up a lot of time, which could be better, especially when working with multiple stakeholders.

These methods can be cumbersome and slow, hindering effective communication and collaboration between designers and stakeholders.

Share better feedback on designs with ruttl

ruttl is a feedback and collaboration tool that allows you to share feedback on design elements like websites, illustrations, icons, and images. It allows you to highlight specific areas of a design and add comments so that the design team can easily see and understand your feedback. To share feedback on a design using ruttl, you can follow these steps:

Firstly, create a new account and log in.
Once you're logged in, you can create a new project. You have three options available with ruttl - New website project, Bug tracking project, and web app project.

Assign a Project name and paste the website URL you're looking to test.

Click on the Share button to add designers assigned to the project. Once they've accepted the invitation, they'll be able to access your project and see the feedback.

ruttl has three modes to carry out the design feedback and implementation process - comment, preview, and edit mode. You can view the website in view mode, provide feedback in comment mode, and designers can implement feedback in edit mode.

Now, you can click on any specific element you want to give feedback on. Use the highlighting and commenting tools such as text, image, and video to mark up the design and give contextual feedback to the team.

When you're finished adding your feedback, the designers can work in the edit mode to inspect and edit page elements per your requirements and feedback. They can also respond to your feedback and respond to it, allowing for an efficient and effective collaboration process.

Overall, ruttl is a useful tool for sharing feedback on designs. It allows you to clearly and concisely communicate your ideas and suggestions, making it easier for the design team to understand and implement your feedback.

Conclusion

In conclusion, giving great design feedback is crucial for helping designers improve their work and create successful designs. By being specific and actionable, focusing on the design itself, providing context, asking questions, and being constructive and supportive, you can provide valuable feedback that will help the designer improve their work.

Additionally, avoiding making decisions for the designer and empowering them to make their own decisions can foster a more collaborative and positive working relationship.

If you're looking for an effective tool to help you give design feedback, consider using ruttl. With its intuitive interface and powerful collaboration features, ruttl makes it easy to provide feedback, track changes, and collaborate with your team. Sign up here and get started with your seamless design feedback process.

Best Inspirations For SaaS Website Design

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 05:27:47 GMT

According to a survey, 80% of businesses plan to turn all their systems into SaaS by 2025. What does this mean for the millions of SaaS companies all over the world? Competition is going to turn fierce; for every business requirement, a firm will have hundreds of options to pick from. Why would they choose yours?

There are various ways you can feature at the top in your customers’ options list. One amongst them is making a great first impression with the help of an amazing website design.

1. Proof

How do you trust a brand? Do you even subscribe to a tool without going through all the customer testimonials and reviews? Proof encourages this trust by seamlessly blending in social proof and what results a customer could expect if they subscribe to their tool.

They also go on to describe its many features on their ‘How it works’ page with an action-inducing tagline - “Convert up to 300% more visitors into leads, demos, and sales”. Proof is the perfect example of how to use social proof, case studies, and statistics to turn website visitors into prospects.

2. Shopify

Shopify’s website design is all for the end user. They understand that their clients are just starting out with their online marketplace and so, on their homepage they talk about how the Shopify platform will address their full scope of needs - marketing, selling, and managing everything.

They also pair this content with an effective statistic and testimonials at the end to encourage action. Their color tone and design looks quite appealing too.

3. Rafflecopter

One brilliant thing about Rafflecopter is the way they address their customers’ most pressing questions, be it if they require to know code to use the tool or if customers should have a minimum size giveaway.

They also pair this up with clever copy and straight talk like “We run Rafflecopter the way we wish other companies did business. We’re not into shady gimmicks or nickels and dimes.”

They have a clean and fun design and this website shows that you can have a great website design without too many animations and visuals.

4. Loom

Loom’s entire website is filled with fun animations, GIFs made during video conferencing, and short video clips that make the entire experience fun and interactive. As a result, their website is less word-heavy and more value-heavy which is perfect for a video chatting tool. This is a brilliant example of how you can have a website that imbibes elements from your business in a subtle way.

Now, here's a small surprise for you. When you design the website for your SaaS product, you will be collecting feedback from other people. But most of the times, founders try to get people to share their feedback over emails, messengers and other such routes.

What if we simplified this entire process with just one link?

That's where ruttl can help you smoothen this process! With ruttl, you can share your project with other people and allow them to leave comments on your live website. This will ensure that you get the best feedback possible on your website!

Now that you have this design inspiration, which one would you be using for your SaaS business?

Things ruttl Learnt From The AppSumo Launch Event!

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 11:51:23 GMT

Our recent Appsumo launch brought in great numbers for us, be it in the terms of reviews generated, users acquired, or revenue gained. But more importantly, our team got to experience a lot of new things and how to deal with them all.

From handling multiple calls to listing down tons of feature requests, we did everything. It was a first for many in our team when it came to managing an event on such a large scale. Here’s what our team learnt from the same.

Being open to new perspectives

Before starting with this campaign, we had certain beliefs in mind when it came to Ruttl. We had a set of features that we thought would be loved best by the new users. We tried to portray them as our main features. Surprisingly, we found out that many users didn’t like those features but loved the ones we didn’t talk out much. It made us realize the importance of thinking from different angles and being open to new ideas.

As a team, we ensured that henceforth we would first try out best to learn about the client, their requirements and then suggest features that would help solve their problems, and not the general industry’s problems. It has come out to be a breakthrough when it comes to our sales and support strategies.

Handling negative reviews as well as positive reviews

The world isn’t full of roses. And so wasn’t our Appsumo launch for Ruttl as wwii. We sure did recieve a great number of positive reviews but so came the negative reviews as well. Instead of dismissing them and fighting against those reviews, our team respected differing opinions and started working on that feedback.

In the process, we also discovered a lot of dealbreaker points for clients when it came to our app and started working on those right away. The result? At the end of the launch, not only did we have a team that was stronger than earlier but Ruttl had changed too, for the better.

We realized that if it weren’t for the negative reviews, we would never have discovered those issues and thus wouldn’t have had a chance to work on them and make our application better.

Need for dedicated sales support

Before the launch, we knew we would have to answer a lot of questions and doubts. We had 4 personnel totally prepared for that. Even then, things became chaotic. This resulted in a lot of waiting time for some prospects which shouldn’t have been the case. We grasped the importance of a strong plan of action and having a dedicated sales support team henceforth.

Because when you think about it, the most a customer needs you is before the sales and when an issue pops up. If you haven’t got a team who is ready and available during that stage, you’re losing out on a chance to acquire and retain a customer, both of which are equally important.

Need for proper testing

When over a thousand users were trying our application, we anticipated a few errors or bugs. But as it turned out, many users started complaining about product errors, issues, and the platform not working properly.

While we ended up resolving all of them quickly, we recognized the significance for needing a proper system and process for testing Ruttl in the future. We are currently working on that and ensuring that we adopt this stringent process for each of our projects in Brucira as well.

Implementation of new copywriting strategies

We were already making use of several strategies for content and visuals but for Appsumo, our entire team went through various copywriting strategies and pitched in their ideas to create content that garners enthusiasm in the audience for the campaign.

From coming up with engaging visuals to writing copies that evokes urgency in the audience and compels them to take action, we did it all. As a result, our team realized the importance of copywriting and how we can use it for our day-to-day content that we post across social media as well.

The ability to handle multiple responsibilities

For bootstrapped companies, it’s essential for everyone on the team to pitch in for campaigns like these and handle multiple responsibilities. For example, our graphic designers pitched in for creating the required content, developers helped answer support questions, and so on.

This not only helped the team learn about different roles and departments but it ensured that whenever it is required, a person on our team can easily handle a different department’s tasks.

Importance of user suggestions

We got a lot of feature requests and suggestions that we ourselves had not envisioned for Ruttl. This helped us know how important it is to get continuous feedback and suggestions from clients and people outside of the team.

Because we are used to looking at things in a certain way, we might miss out on things that are important for the client. We are also trying to implement this continuous feedback system for our clients that can help us improve Ruttl and solve various problems for design agencies.

To know more about Ruttl and how it can help your designing team, check out the the latest features that we've shipped recently!

Benefits of White Labelled Tools for Design Agencies

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 13:53:56 GMT

As a design agency owner, you are already doing a lot in-house. Sustaining and growing a design agency is no joke, right? Upon that, oftentimes, you need some tools to successfully complete your projects. Yet, it gets difficult to create the necessary tools in-house and as per Forbes, developing them by scratch takes more toll on your team. That’s when third party tools become important.

By using third-party tools you can create and manage your design projects far more effectively than you are able to do right now. Popularly known as white labelled tools, they help you in improving the value of your offerings and also assists in growing your design business.

What are white labelled tools?

Essentially speaking, white labelled tools are not necessarily the ones that you develop at your design agency. Instead, you can use white labels by putting your own branding on them and use them to create a good impression on your clients. They not only help boost your business but also create a unique perception for your services.

White labelled tools allow you to integrate varied offerings, products with your core competencies. For instance, if your core competency is web designing then using white labelled tools related to SEO, hosting, content, digital marketing will diversify and further strengthen your credibility in the industry.

Clients who are looking at holistic solutions will readily offer you projects if they know that you will take care of all their digital requirements - that's how white labelled tools help your design agency.

Having this broader idea about white labelled tools, let's dive deeper and understand how they will further grow your design business:

Improves Your Offerings

White labelled tools let you completely focus on your core competencies. In terms of your design agency, there are many solutions that your clients need which can be beyond your expertise.

Instead of burning your resources for developing such solutions, you could use white labelled tools and diversify your offerings. White labelled tools are prepacked with the core expertise of various professionals and they help you in smoothly navigating those particular requirements with ease.

Offers Better Brand Credibility

Whether you are looking to offer more solutions through your design agency or just solidify your brand, white labelled tools help you in achieving both of those objectives. Moreover, whenever you are using them you will be free from spending time and money developing, maintaining them. The best thing is that you can add your own custom branding to white labelled tools like ruttl and use them to substantiate your identity.

Increases Client Loyalty

Every business has become increasingly competitive. To stand out and sustain your design agency you need to have happy, long-term or recurring clients. By using white labelled tools you can offer end-to-end solutions like SEO, digital marketing and even content that could further boost their websites and brands.

If you allot time to create tools for such specific and core requirements in-house then you would waste a lot of time. Not to mention how this endeavor could derail your core business. Avoid this pitfall by using prepackaged solutions provided by white labelled tools.

Less Risky

Your design agency will remain relevant and grow if your employees are happy. When you create complex tools in-house you are demanding extra-hours and effort from your employees.

This derails their focus from their preferred job profiles which is designing. Over time, it could lead to employees leaving your design agency. White labelled tools save you from such nightmares and stabilize your design business.

Reduces Costs on Development

Developing sister tools for your design business will entail huge amounts of effort and money. In the short term, it might look lucrative but doing so could burn your budgets. Instead of burning your hands doing so, make use of tried and tested white labelled tools and start banking on them.

Helps You Focus on Your Core Business

In terms of design businesses, developing tools in-house can become complex as they fall beyond your area of expertise. That’s why, it makes sense to evaluate your current set of requirements apart from design and then pick the relevant white labelled tools.

They help you in setting up better timelines, deliverables and overall project management. Additionally, as white labelled tools are prepackaged, you could focus completely on your design offerings and feel rest assured for the complementary offerings that are streamlined by white labelled tools.

In a nutshell, white labelled tools assist you in banking upon your existing brand without allocating more time, resources or money for diversifying your offerings. Now that you know of all their benefits, start using for your design business from 2022?

Tips to reduce turnaround time on web design projects

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 03:41:41 GMT

If you are a web designer or run a growing design agency, you are already juggling a lot of things. From researching, planning, strategizing to designing, there is so much at stake for you. Out of all of that, communicating with your clients and managing the turnaround time is of utmost importance for any web designer or agency.

Turnaround time is key to setting up a feasible deadline for your web design projects. Your turnaround time can make or break your reputation as a personal or a business brand and it can leave an everlasting impact - because, at the end of the day, great clients come through word of mouth, right?

If the turnaround time is shorter for your web design project then it can strike a remarkable impression on your client. At the same time, going beyond the committed turnaround time could make your clients question your skills and professionalism. The best way out is to reduce your turnaround time on your web design projects and create a win-win situation for everyone.

To help you work on your time management and turnaround time on web projects, here's sharing some actionable tips that you could easily follow for your upcoming commitments:

1. Cultivate Self-Discipline

As design enthusiasts, we need time to let our creative juices flow and that sometimes leads to planned or unplanned procrastination. When you are set up against a deadline, the best way to decrease its turnaround is to pair procrastination with self-discipline like a warrior.

Take timely breaks but also set up some accountability for yourself and the team. Over time, by consistent self-discipline, you would see yourself and your team finishing off the web projects way before the deadlines!

2. Get Rid Of Distractions

Imagine yourself being in this zone of designing without any interruptions and then suddenly you have this urge to check social media. Been there, felt that? It takes about 23 minutes for you to get your focus back once you are distracted.

So, if you are looking at curbing all that extra time on your web design projects, just shut off all the distractions. Work in silence or put some good concentration tracks on loop - this will not only help you focus but also eliminate distractions.

3. Create Feasible Deadlines

Most of the time, the clients could convince you to set up early deadlines. Evaluate the scope of your web project and also the expectations that your clients have from them. Only after gauging all of it, you should create goals and deadlines.

This way you would have a better idea about the ideal turnaround time for the web project and then you could find out ways to reduce it. While doing this exercise, make sure to account for all the potential revisions, feedback, and technical issues to get more clarity.

4. Prioritize and Organize

One of the best methods to cut down on your turnaround time is to use project management apps like Asana, Trello, Brutask or ruttl. These platforms not only help you organize your web projects but also let your prioritize with your team.

From listing down all the tasks, assigning them to teammates till annotating your web projects - you can efficiently do it all by prioritizing and organizing. Eventually, this exercise lets you block your time and reduce turnaround for your projects.

5. Make Use of Pomodoro Technique

It has been proven for a long time that your brain works best in sprints. Pomodoro technique lets you leverage the same by making you work for short durations of 25 minutes.

In order to use this technique, you just need to assign yourself 25 minutes on a timer like Flow, Be Focused or Pomofocus. Once that is done, pick a task and work on it for 25 minutes. Take a break after 25 minutes and so on.

By splitting your tasks in shorter bursts, your productivity will undoubtedly improve and it would inevitably help in decreasing turnaround time on your web projects.

6. Balance Your Work and Life

Web designers and design agencies often run on the brink of burnouts. Stress and unreasonable deadlines can impact the turn around times for many projects. You can navigate it all by striking a balance between your work and life.

Remember that if you are not feeling good for a week or not taking some time to unwind then you would not be able to bring your best to the table. Oftentimes, turnaround times extend because web designers are overworked and stressed. Make sure to carve out some "me time", your turnarounds will get leaner in no time!

Having tried all of these time and personal management techniques for our web projects at our parent company Brucira, we are sure they would help you as well. Do implement these ideas and see how they work out towards helping you streamlining your turnaround time on projects. And if you want to take these ideas one level above, then check out ruttl!

It's the fastest website feedback tool used everyday by over 4500+ professionals and teams in the design industry to collect design feedback within minutes!

Improve Your Web Project Brief With These Questions

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 03:28:12 GMT

Landing a new design client is just the tip of the iceberg. As much as happy it makes you or your design agency feel, you need to swiftly move ahead to win and align a strategy.

Kickstarting a new web design project is absolutely exciting for all the involved stakeholders. However, you need to balance your creative flow with the actual design process.

You need to start a new web design project by letting all our creative juices flow. Yet, at the same time, you also need to have a sharp business sense. If you do not know your client's vision, long term goals and purpose for creating a website then your hard work could go down the drain.

That's why before starting any web design project, make sure to jot down a solid brief by asking some important questions.

Here's summing up a few of the important questions the design team at our parent company Brucira asks our clients:

1. What's your core business - service or product?

Early on, ask your client about their offerings. If your client has a service-based business then web design will have a different approach compared to when they have a product to talk about.

To make this question all the more insightful, ask them to describe their business. While they are doing so, you would get many valuable insights to draw upon for your web design project.

2. Do you have a website? or Why do you wish to redesign your website?

This is an incredibly important question that you must ask without a miss. If your clients already have a website then you can build upon it by exploring all the existing information. You will also have access to their existing CMS and other reports in that case.

If they want you to make a website from scratch then you will have to put in more effort in researching and then proceed with the rest of the process. This clarity is therefore helpful.

3. What do you want to achieve from this web design project?

To make a really effective website, you need to ask this question without any confusion to your clients. Unless you do know their final objective to be achieved from the website you cannot really help them out.

So, invest some time in this step and understand all the pain points of your clients. There are different results like activation of a blog, increasing visitors, streamlining one’s brand and more that your client would want to yield after the web design completion.

It’s better to know it all early on, right?

4. Which features do you want to include on the website?

Make sure to reach a common point about all the technical functionalities your clients need on their website. Clarifying this requirement will give you a clear understanding of the timelines and quotes that you need to propose to them. Also, knowing their technical needs like social media integration, mobile and web responsiveness will declutter your project planning.

5. Who is your target audience?

Target audience is the holy grail of web designing. As design and content are pretty relative, if you do not know your client’s target audience then the final website design could turn out less effective.

The Internet is getting increasingly competitive and to make a mark, you would need to appeal to your client’s target audience - so, know them thoroughly before you start web designing.

6. What should we be mindful of during the web design process?

Predict failures or delays and communicate them with your client. At the same time, ask them about their pet peeves and dislikes during the course of the project. That way, you will save time on revisions and back to back changes.

Ask them to share some of the worst websites that they have come across, this exercise will help you understand what they do not want to achieve from the current web design project.

7. Who are your key competitors?

Knowing the main competitors of your clients is very important. Their competitors’ websites can potentially help you in getting more information for your web design. You can check them to know what’s working well for them and what you could improve for your client’s website. You may even ask your client to list down what they like and dislike about their competitors’ websites to get more insights.

8. What makes you stand out from your competitors?

You would need to know the unique selling points of your clients to leverage while creating their websites. To make their website more remarkable and outstanding, discuss this question with them and you would be on your way to delivering a website that stands out from their competitors.

9. What would be the scope of this web design project?

Last but not least, define the scope of your web design project. A few clients might randomly ask you to add more features or nudge you to deliver before the agreed-upon deadline. You can avoid all that stress by communicating the major milestones, budget and expectations beforehand.

With these essential questions, you could read your clients’ expectations and meet them without any hassles. Put them to use then and see how streamlined your web design projects get!

Role Of Content In Web Design Process

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 03:17:55 GMT

Your clients may have detailed requirements when it comes to the design of the website. They might want a minimalistic, innovative, and modern design. But what about the content?

“Ahh, let’s make it more visual,” they might say. Designers and often clients overlook the fact that website content plays an important role not only in helping Google rank your website but helping website visitors take the desired action.

After all, what’s the point if your website checks off on all the design aspects but a visitor bounces off because the content isn’t compelling?

Why should content appear first in the design process?

The content on your website denotes the purpose behind it. It compels the reader to take action, guides them through the website experience, and provides information. A content-first design approach ensures that there’s a roadmap for how design should help optimize the content.

For example, you may choose to highlight certain sections of your content, say the introduction video to your product or an important statistic that shows how beneficial your product is.

It also makes your designers’ and programmers’ jobs easy. They may have in mind a million different ideas and configurations of how the layout should be. But with content already in place, the best ideas can be directed and assimilated in a functional and well-designed way.

How to pair design and content together?

Some websites just draw you in. Ever wondered why? Because the design and content go so well together, it starts telling you a story. Here are three steps to pair design and content together for your website.

1. Determine content and design goals

You may have an overall website goal like generating leads, boosting sales, educating customers but how do content and design feature in this? What are their respective goals that can help you meet the overall goal? By breaking these goals, you can then form a relationship between the two. Here are some examples for both these goals:

CONTENT GOALS:

Engaging audience
Highlighting the USP of the product
Educating the audience

DESIGN GOALS:

Grabbing reader’s attention
Highlighting key content points

2. Set up a meeting with the stakeholders

Before you start devising the content, schedule a meeting with the stakeholders to gain clarity and be on the same page. There’s a high probability that your client knows the customers better than you do and the type of content that will work the best for them.

For example, they might prefer to-the-point content than paragraphs of content or you may find out that while video content is the trend these days, the client’s target market prioritizes text content that is easily scannable over video content.

You may even ask them for existing feedback from customers, and have video interviews with them to figure out their core motivations and requirements.

3. Solidify a content plan

When you have all the information you need, you start devising a content plan. It could consist of -

The types of content you’ll need,
The people responsible for them,
The stages in which the content would be worked upon,
The key highlights of the content,
The guidelines the team would have to follow

This plan should act as a guiding force for your entire content team.

This is all well and done. But if you’re a design agency, you may have worked with many clients who prefer to write their own content. How do you make sure that the content works well with the design in this case? Let’s have a look.

How to help clients write their own content?

Here are some tips to make this process and smooth and easy for your client and designing team:

Help them break down the content deliverables and fix a deadline for each one of them.
Have fixed documents for each content piece that is reflected by a page within the sitemap so that it gives the client a framework to write within.
If you have worked on a similar content design earlier, provide the template to your client for reference.
Set up constraints like having no more than six words for the heading that acts a guide for the client’s content team
Have a checklist in place so nothing is missed and errors are avoided. This will save a lot of time at the later stages and help launch the website faster.

How ruttl plays an important role in this process?

Web designing and content planning have one thing in common - there are rounds of approvals and changes to be made. This means tons of screenshots and emails.

All of this leads to a lot of confusion and misunderstanding (we faced the same!).

ruttl helps streamline this entire process by letting the team edit on live websites, collaborate with each other, and keep a track of all the different versions of your content and design.

To see how it works for your team, sign up for your free account right away!

Capture Screenshot Of Webpages And Review Them

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 10:40:24 GMT

Although quite rare, there are certain instances where our users insert a URL into a new ruttl project, but due to some reason, the webpage doesn’t end up loading properly. In such a situation, a couple of the users have reported issues such as a broken page loading up, website assets missing or even as far as the webpage not loading up at all.

When such an issue occurs, it becomes difficult or even impossible to add any page and review it. That’s why our team decided to take this matter into our own hands and fix it.

We are now introducing the ability for screenshot capture!

With the help of this new functionality, you can now add any URL onto a ruttl project and upload a screenshot of the same to review it along with your team. Since it will be an image, you won’t be able to make any edits. However, you will be able to leave comments on the screenshot and sort out the feedback process right away.

Reorder The Webpages & Images Inside Your Project

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 10:31:19 GMT

Whenever a user creates a new ruttl project and adds pages from any website URL, the pages are visually sorted based on the sequence in which pages get added. While there are several sorting options available to choose from, the those elements- pages, images or PDFs- open up in the same sorting order for everyone else, including for your client on their shared link.

Until now, there was no option to manually sort the sequence. To ensure that our users can do this, we’ve now added the ability to custom order project pages.

To manually set the order & keep a specific page (or certain set of pages) in the beginning, the project owner can go to their project, select the page & drag & drop them to the beginning of the project. ruttl will remember this order of the pages and open them in the same order for all team members & the client as well.

Updated Notification Panel For Multiple Edits

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 10:28:20 GMT

While testing out ruttl, our team frequently noticed that multiple edits were not showing up in the existing notification panel inside the app.

Since projects often involve multiple edits, it was necessary to find a solution to this problem.

Well, now we’ve rectified this issue by making additional changes to our notifications panel. Now, all the multiple edits are showing up at the same time, under the same notification itself.

This will enable you to get a clear view on how many edits are made in your project on a certain webpage.

Now You Can Review PDF's inside ruttl!

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 10:22:19 GMT

When we built ruttl, we made a website feedback tool to help design professionals review live websites in a faster and efficient way! However, we know for a fact that most design projects don’t just involve reviewing webpages alone.

That’s why we’ve added a new support to review PDF files as well!

Inside ruttl, you will now be able to upload multiple other assets like PDF files in your project and review the same along with your team simply head to your project, click on the upload button and choose the PDF files that you wish to upload.

You can then add comments to this PDF, share the project with your team or the client, and review these files quickly with ruttl.

Seems magical, doesn’t it!? Go give this feature a try!

Numbered The Comments And Edits Inside Activity Panel

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 10:19:45 GMT

If you’ve used ruttl the past, you must have noticed that the numbers inside any comment circle and edit pins were only visible on the main screen while reviewing a webpage, image or a PDF. We noticed that this was making it a bit uneasy to correlate which comment on the screen matches the one on the Activity Panel.

That’s why, we’ve now pushed out a new update to make it easier for you to track those comments and edits. All your comments and edits are now numbered as per their respective pin on the Activity Panel. This makes it easier to view the corresponding pin's location while reviewing your webpage.

This way, we hope that the experience of using ruttl will be nicer and much more intuitive for ruttl users!

Introducing edit pins in ruttl!

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 10:16:12 GMT

Lately, our team had been observing and carefully studying the behavior of the comments section inside ruttl. We noticed that there was a slight level of mismatch that was happening between the comments and the edits.

It seemed that the edits made on any webpages were not clearly visible on ruttl projects and were difficult to match up on the activity panel. So, our team began cooking up new solutions to make the user experience even better.

Now, we are introducing “Edit pins” onto the screen and we’ve also numbered them to match with the behavior in the comments. Furthermore, to ensure that there will be no confusion, comment and edit pins will now have fully separate colors!

Introducing Team plans on ruttl

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 10:12:48 GMT

Until now, upgrading your plan on ruttl seemed like the perfect decision, to avail all the benefits and access to the powerful features. But something was still incomplete.

What if you work in a team and want to share these benefits with them as well?

Hence, we’ve finally introduced team plans on ruttl!

You can now create a team on ruttl, add your teammates and collaborate with them. Invite them as a manager/member and give them unlimited access to all the features on Ruttl.

This way, your team members and you can enjoy all those unlimited benefits together! Simply visit the Team section and add their email addresses to share the benefits of your upgraded ruttl plan.

To check out how to invite your team on a ruttl project, check out this youtube tutorial video below!

ruttl's 2021 Milestones: Year End Review

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 13:41:25 GMT

Starting and sustaining a design business is something that Brucira has taught us very well over the years. But this year, as we introduced our flagship product, ruttl, to the world, we experienced a whirlpool of emotions and learnt from our ever helpful design and SaaS community like never before.

ruttl was created after we kept facing constant troubles for website annotation and sharing feedback on live websites with our teams and clients. It was super personal for us and the community showered all the love on it. But, when we launched ruttl in February 2021, we had no idea that within 10 months we would have achieved:

5,000+ users
20+ features shipped
70K+ USD revenues
Used by professionals across 132 countries
Featured on 50+ platforms
AppSumo launch with 50K+ USD revenues within 3 days
Offering more integrations
Offered 12K+ USD Deals on Black Friday

and we are all set for ruttl's Product Hunt launch in 2022. Woah and phew!

Curious to know how we managed to do all of it? Take a rewind with us!

Users Stayed our North Stars

Going from 0 to 5K+ users is not a cakewalk. We prioritized and thought like our potential users right from the stage of research and development of ruttl. Our main purpose was to give it back to our design community which included fellow design agency owners, designers, developers, writers who have always been a sport for collaborations and growth of our industry.

What did we do right?

We talked with users first hand to understand their challenges with website annotation tools and for their overall web designing projects!

Launching 20+ New Features

From CNAME (Custom Domain login), Custom Branding, Guest commenting, Video commenting, Integrations with Slack, Trello & Asana, PDF Review feature, Static Image Review, Separate pins on Edit mode till Adding multiple pages from the same URL, Page versioning to Unsplash integration for replacing images - had we not talked with our users first hand, we would not have been able to launch these super helpful features.

What did we do right?

Being designers and developers ourselves, we worked upon the user insights and then tested out new features ourselves. Collectively, this helped us make ruttl more holistic and go-to-tool for web projects of various scales.

Built a Passionate Team

We created ruttl with all our awesome team members who were already working at Brucira. When we told them about ruttl, they jumped right on its bandwagon and committed 25,000+ hours to ensure it is shipped on time. Not to mention how all of those 8 rockstars poured their heart into its marketing, customer support, product improvement and more. ruttl owes its success to nobody but our team and users.

What did we do right?

We communicated our purpose for creating ruttl and what would it need from our team to make it a success. Transparency and effective delegation helped us all in aligning a lean team for it right from the start.

Witnessed Growth of Revenues to 70,000+ USD

Right from the beginning, we wanted ruttl to bridge the feedback and web project management gap between designers, project managers and clients. As we kept working on the same, slowly and steadily, the design community started loving ruttl. Soon enough, we onboarded users who were all set to try our premium plans and our revenues started picking up.

What did we do right?

We focussed on making our customers happier and chased after product excellence! As always, the big monies followed!

Conducted a Massive AppSumo Launch

Ask any SaaS product founder and they would tell you how nail biting launching your product on various coveted platforms is! We felt all of those feelings and then some more while introducing ruttl on AppSumo! Our patient team and understanding new users sailed us through the same and helped us garner 50K+ USD just from AppSumo alone.

What did we do right?

We offered plans that were perfect for AppSumo users, educated them about ruttl and offered seamless customer support to resolve all their issues at the earliest. In the end, it all added up!

Launched Big Black Friday Deals

Last but not the least, being tech enthusiasts ourselves, we HAD to offer some great deals for ruttl on Black Friday and Cyber Monday! Our team was bullish about the same and within a span of a week, we were able to create a stunning email campaign to inform our subscribers about the same. This activity helped us in getting in touch with our user base again and offer them great deals for believing in ruttl right from day one!

What did we do right?

We made sure to give it back to the community by making the most of these two massive festive sales. Overall, Black Friday and Cyber Monday garnered more loyal fans and encouragement for ruttl from the ever-giving design community.

What's coming up next in 2022?

Our next stop is launching on the widely famous platform- Product Hunt! And there is a lot more that's coming up in the store! As we are on a short break this week, Team ruttl has unwinded, introspected and is all geared to prep for 2022 with renewed gusto and passion to make a difference.

See you in 2022, then!

Ruttl Is Now Integrated With Live Chat

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 08:14:38 GMT

With Ruttl’s latest update, you can now chat with us live!

This live chat helps us in working on your feedback, resolving your issues and better understanding your feature recommendations. So go ahead, click on the ‘Need Help’ button to the bottom right hand corner of Ruttl’s dashboard and send us a message as per your need.

Meanwhile, we on the other side, are ready to reply to your messages like:

To know more about this update, check out the youtube video below:

Add Multiple Pages From A Website Link

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 07:48:11 GMT

Drum roll for the most requested feature on ruttl 🥁.

__You can now add multiple webpages from a single URL! __

Just paste the URL in Ruttl, select the pages which you’d like to upload to ruttl, and bam - your pages start adding to ruttl.

Feel free to reply us on support and let us know your thoughts on this most requested feature.

Customise Your Email Alerts On ruttl

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 07:42:08 GMT

You can now customise your email alerts on ruttl ✉️.

Go to Account Settings and click on Email Notifications. Customise which email you'd want to (or not want to) receive. Your settings will be directly saved and you will only receive the emails which you'll choose here.

5 Best Must-Listen Podcasts for Every UX Designer

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 12:12:33 GMT

Podcasts have become one of the most popular ways for professionals to upskill themselves and learn about the industry. Designers are no exception. With jobs, businesses, side hustles, finding time to read is getting increasingly difficult for designers like other professionals. If you are facing the same challenge then here's presenting some of the best podcasts hosted by design connoisseurs and leaders just for you:

Hacking UI Podcast

Hosted by David Tintner & Sagi Shrieber, this one is an incredibly enlightening podcast. Through this podcast, you would get to learn about user experience design, usability, user research, development and more from thought leaders, designers at Facebook, Intercom, Google, Airbnb, Invision and more.

UI Breakfast Podcast

Learn everything actionable on UI/UX design, product, marketing and more from this insightful podcast hosted by a seasoned UI/UX consultant from Russia, Jane Portman. They bring guests from various backgrounds and make sure your listening is worth it!

UX Podcast

Wish to learn more about users, business management, technology, digital media and more? Well, UX Podcast is a perfect match for you then! Streaming every Friday, UX Podcast is hosted by two curious designers James and Per, make sure to hear it out.

Google Design Podcast

Coming from the best folks in the industry, this podcast gives you a sneak peek into the minds of designers working at Google. Learn all about design processes, technology, systems and never run out of inspiration.

99% Invisible

Although not directly connected with UI/UX, this podcasts broadens your horizons for design thinking by discussing architecture, technology, object, sounds and more. Hosted by Roman Mars, you would love this podcast for this observations and wit on designs as well.

We are sure that one or the other podcast from this list will boost your career and growth, start listening to them then?

What to Consider before Starting Saas Product Design?

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 11:56:19 GMT

Software as a Service, popularly known as SaaS, is a public cloud service that lets you sell your products on a subscription basis. SaaS products work online and they ease your burden for managing them in-house.

As SaaS products have great churn rates and better retention, designers and developers across the globe have a liking for them. If are foraying into SaaS product design, then keep these factors in mind and you would be soon on your way to creating a successful SaaS product:

Find a Product-Market Fit

Before you start designing your dream SaaS product, research and analyse for your target audience. Understand their problems and see how you can solve their problems. If your SaaS product is able to troubleshoot the core issue at hand then it will be successful sooner or later, otherwise it will be doomed. Know that right in the planning stage by considering this study.

Focus on Marketing

Oftentimes, great SaaS products fall behind the good ones because they avoid marketing. While you are creating it, testing it, make sure to lay equal emphasis on its marketing plan. Create a long term plan for marketing of your SaaS by charting out strategy for SEO, social media, drip campaigns and even start working on creating a community early on.

Offer Customer Support

In today's day and age, bad customer support is considered to be suicidal for any SaaS product company which wishes to stay relevant. Never take your users for granted. Fix their bugs, offer streamlined updates to them without any delay. Talk to them to understand their issues related to your product and empathetically guide them to win their loyalty in the long term.

Provide Simple Pricing

Make your users' lives easy by giving them easy to understand and simple pricing plans. Study your competitors and strive to simplify their pricing shortcomings. Make considerations if your SaaS product is superior to them and then revise your pricing.

Enable Robust Operations

Ensure that your SaaS product is able to run on lower bandwidths. Many of your users could be operating on low speed Internet. Hence, make sure they can flawlessly use your product even with clunky speed.

Creating a brilliant SaaS product is not rocket science. Simply keep these considerations in mind and you would be sorted!

Effective Rules for Designing a Good FAQ Page

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 11:47:39 GMT

Many businesses do not invest much time or energy in designing their customer support journeys. Either they overwhelm users by giving too much information or just give a generic set of steps.

As a design agency founder or a designer yourself, you can find a better way around this by designing an informative and actionable FAQ page for your clients.

Here's sharing some of the simplest rules for designing with you so that you can create that perfect FAQ page without any hassles:

Keep it Short and Simple

Never overwhelm your users by writing 15 lines of answers. Instead, let your FAQs be actionable. Place their quick links right below the search box and let your users click on relevant questions themselves to get quick answers instead of searching for them.

Update Your FAQs

Stay relevant with the searches your users are making and update your FAQs regularly. Allot one day every week to get your FAQ page updated with new content and relevant links.

Focus on Your Users

Do not use FAQs to create internal links for your blog. Cultivate some empathy for your users and make it easy for them to look for solutions to their problems through FAQs.

Categorize Questions

Users find it super frustrating to go through a series of questions to find their solutions. Spare them that pain. Make it simpler for them by arranging questions as per their befitting categories.

Create a Search Box

Listing all the FAQs can make your page look denser. Give your users an access to search bar to type out keywords that match with their questions.

A few of the leading global companies like Zappos, Dropbox, Etsy, WhatsApp are already following these FAQ page design principles.

When are you planning to try them out for your design project?

Creativity Block? Use These Free Design Resources

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 11:22:46 GMT

As a designer, illustrator, we bet there's not a single project for which you didn't need some support of free design resources. In today's design-first age, it is impossible to not need more design assets like fonts, icons, illustrations and more. For all those amazing projects that will come your way this year, we have compiled a list of some of the best design resources.

These design resources will have your back, rest assured. Without much adieu, explore and bookmark them right away:

Ionicons

Keep a sizable collection of icons in your design armour, because you never know, right? Ionicons are open source and they even offer icons in SVG format for you to customize. So, for that next free icon search, you just need to head to Ionicons now!

Huesnap

Especially on those overworked days, finding just the right hue for your design projects seems like a challenge. Well, Huesnap completely snaps you out of that rut with their commendable range of palettes. Their colour picker and image upload features simplify your search all the more!

FontPair

Pairing varied fonts will no longer feel like a pain to you. Simply use FontPair to find the right combinations of fonts you could use for your design projects. Once you have found the ideal pair, download and start using them whenever you need them!

Frrames

Need to urgently design a mockup? Rely on Frrames. They have a wide collection of responsive mockups for Apple and Android devices as well. You can edit them in Figma, Sketch and other tools as well. Give them a try soon!

Paaatterns

Give a quick and great fix to all your background requirements for your website, branding related work with Paaatterns. With an awe-inspiring collection of patterns, they are hands-down one of the best free design resources providers.

On that note, get set to break your creative rut with these free design resources, folks! Do share your favourite ones in the comments below.

Hide Or Delete Your Edits Instantly!

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 12:09:02 GMT

You can now hide/show selective edits, or even delete them. You could do this on image replacements, content edits, alignment changes - okay, basically on all edits!

This could help you reveal the original/previous version of the element(s) and easily delete the edits that are no longer required anymore.

Different Login Screen For CNAME Users

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 11:55:09 GMT

Another one of our most requested updates is now rolled out - Different login screen for CNAME users!

Simply visit your custom domain, and you shall see no ruttl branding on the login screen.

Resolve edits on your ruttl project

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 10:54:46 GMT

Any collaborator on your project with edit access can now resolve edits.

Your teammates can now resolve edits on Ruttl by clicking on the avatar/profile image of the editor in the Activities Panel.

Also, everyone can also see who had resolved the last set of edits by simply hovering over the avatar/profile image of the resolved edit’s icon.

To know more about this update, check out the youtube video below:

Toggle Your In-App Sound Notifications On ruttl

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 10:50:11 GMT

Your in-app notifications can now be turned off on ruttl! 🤫

Simply head over to your Notifications Panel and click on the ‘Sound’ icon 🔊. Your in-app notification sound will now be muted.

New Keyboard Shortcut To Switch Between Comment & Edit!

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 10:46:22 GMT

We’ve introduced one more keyboard shortcut - Switching between comment and edit mode.

To do so, you can simply press Ctrl / Cmd + ‘ to switch to Edit mode, and Ctrl / Cmd + ; to switch to Comment mode.

You can also check out other keyboard shortcuts to make your access around ruttl easier and quicker.

Just go to Need Help (question icon on top right) and click on ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ in this dropdown to access all of them.

Introducing Marker In Video Commenting

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 10:40:27 GMT

We’ve updated our video comment feature. You can highlight with a marker while adding your video comment!

Highlight specific areas of your webpage or image while adding your video comment. Simply click on the marker icon while adding a video comment, and then highlight your preferred sections on the web page or image.

To see this feature live in action, check out the tutorial video below!

The Most Requested Feature- CNAME Is Here!

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 10:29:54 GMT

The most requested feature on ruttl is here - CNAME! 🤩 And we're all going happy-crazy like:

Here's how you can activate it on your account:

If you have the Team plan in your account, go to the Team section on the main dashboard.
Under the field of Custom domain, please enter your preferred domain.
Visit your domain registrar and create a CNAME DNS record pointing to cname.ruttl.com. This may take upto 15 minutes to be fully functional, depending on your TTL.
Once your CNAME is activated, visit your custom domain.

To watch this feature in action, checkout the youtube video below!

Close Buttons, Cookies Settings Or Promotional Popups

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 10:25:02 GMT

Follow links and buttons, and close popups or cookie settings while reviewing your webpages on ruttl.

This way, when you review your webpages, you don't have your screen area being continuously covered with the cookie bar or popup.

Go to Need Help (? symbol on the top right-hand) -> Keyboard Shortcuts to check out more keyboard shortcuts on our platform.

Say Hello To The New Activities Panel!

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 09:26:08 GMT

Our activities panel has a fresh new look! 💁‍♀️

The comments menu has been revamped, and your edit mode suggestions are shown in a new way.

You can now choose to:

Disable ‘scroll page on hover’ to easily go through comments
See the comments in a chronologically ascending or descending manner
See unresolved comments or edits by clicking on ‘Show unresolved’ button, or
Only see the comments that are assigned to you

Additionally, shareable links will now show the meta images of the webpage from which it is shared 🖼️. These changes are aimed to make your experience a lot more intuitive.

Want to see the new ruttl activity panel in action? Check out the video below!

Time saving tips to efficiently collect design feedback

Tue, 28 Dec 2021 04:03:53 GMT

When it comes to designing, feedback takes up a lot of time and sometimes may even end up delaying projects unnecessarily. At times, the client may forget to send the suggestions or the designer may forget to implement a feedback comment, or worse yet, an important feedback point may get lost in the two hundred unread emails in the inbox. To avoid all these and drastically reduce the time required to collect design feedback, Ruttl has compiled a set of pointers you can take care of.

Decide on feedback frequency beforehand

While some projects may require continuous feedback, others may not. For example, some clients may have worked with you in the past and they agree with your thinking and perspectives enough to trust that you’ll come up with the design they want. In this case, you may not need to have a lot of feedback sessions with the client. Depending on the type and duration of the project, fix a feedback frequency. You may divide it in terms of a feedback session after part A of the project or just have a 15 minutes feedback session every Saturday. Make sure you discuss the same with all the stakeholders.

How does this help? Now that the client knows your design team will need his feedback every week, he can schedule the same in his workday. This makes sure there are no delays when it comes to receiving the feedback and the project also doesn’t have to be at a standstill because of it.

Have a point of contact for each project

Let’s say a client reached out to the animation artist on your team to tweak an animation that is supposed to go on their website. The animation artist made that change but forgot to inform everyone else on the team. Someone might see that change in the animation and then re-tweak it again. Do you see a problem here? When there isn’t a dedicated project manager, things can easily go haywire and you might end up making the same mistakes frequently. A project manager, on the other hand, can be a single point of contact that handles the entire feedback process and makes sure it reaches the concerned person.

Similarly, identify the decision-makers on the client-side that will handle the communication and feedback process. You do not want to know at the 11th hour that the person agreeing with your design didn’t have the authority to do so in the first place.

Have a separate tool for your feedback process

Instead of having all your feedback and suggestions in different tools and mediums like email and Slack, have a separate tool that is dedicated to making your feedback process hassle-free and quicker. This saves you the trouble of looking for that one feedback point among a thread of fifty emails or missing out on a feedback point because there are seventy unread messages on Slack. That’s where ruttl can come in and save you time and effort.

Here’s all that you can do with a visual feedback tool like ruttl.

Comment and edit on live websites

Instead of having your teammates send you multiple screenshots, let them comment on live websites. This allows them to select the elements they need changes in and tag the concerned person in the comment. You can even provide feedback in a video comment. For example, you might want to give an explanation of why the color scheme needs to be changed. Instead of writing down a comment for the same, it’d be much easier to show them examples of different color schemes in a video comment and why they’d be a much better fit. These comments can then be resolved by your teammates by editing directly on live websites without having to go through the entire code.

Collaborate over design projects

You can tag your teammates to assign comments and tasks on the go. Not only that, you can even invite your clients to give their feedback on ruttl by sending them a shareable link. The best part about this is the client can write comments as a guest without having to go through the steps of signing up and logging in every time they need to share their feedback.

Give accurate design feedback

“Can you please shift the animation to the left?” How many times have you got vague comments like these from your client and teammates? A dedicated feedback tool like Ruttl helps them give you precise feedback by selecting the elements and mentioning the precise number of pixels, font size, or color code. This saves a lot of time as you no longer need to go back and forth on the same feedback points.

Create multiple webpage versions

What if the client liked the previous version of the website better? Or what if you need to adopt some elements from that version? There might even be instances where there’s a lot of rework happening at the same time. Ruttl solves this problem by allowing you to create multiple versions of your website and make changes to each one of them to see which works the best for your client and teammates.

The design feedback process can be a time-consuming one but if you take care of these pointers beforehand, you can save a lot of time and effort and in the process, nurture a good relationship with the client.

Share individual webpage versions as links

Mon, 27 Dec 2021 14:02:31 GMT

You can now share every version of your webpage as a link in Ruttl! 💪

Sharing a certain version helps your client or stakeholders in better understanding alternative options of your webpage. It can also be used for A/B testing, where you can share different variations of the design and gather feedback on the same.

We have also added this quick, 1-minute 'how-to' video below for your reference, please check the same:

Integrated A What's New Section!

Mon, 27 Dec 2021 12:09:54 GMT

We’ve integrated the What’s New section in Ruttl. This section will include everything we push for you to experience - from product updates and new features, to bug fixes and integrations (and more).

To learn more about this update, check out the youtube video below:

Create A Free Website With These Website Builders!

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 10:27:49 GMT

Social media could help you in putting your business out there in public. But if you are looking to substantiate your small or freelance business then you need a seamless, eye-catching website. With the help of a website, you could customize your company’s messaging through content and design. Apart from that, your website also builds your brand and gives it more credibility.

You do not need to go beyond your budget to create a website in 2021. All you need is some help from these free website builders - they will let you make trustworthy and professional-looking websites without any hassles. Explore them and pick the ones that meet your expectations:

Wix

Powered with tons of features, templates, Wix gives you all the freedom to create the website of your dreams for free. Their Undo feature, a varied gallery of templates help you make design choices with relative ease and within no time you would be able to make that perfect website for your business Wix.

WebFlow

Made for designers who can handle major customization decisions, Webflow is getting as popular as Wix for all the right reasons. Its smooth navigation, a vivid range of templates and dynamic navigation makes Webflow a great option to make your website on!

GoDaddy

A comprehensive platform of website creation, GoDaddy lifts up your website creation with its simple SEO, design and hosting options. It also lets you customize your CTA buttons and its mobile view grants a superior experience to your users. Choose it to resolve all your hosting and website creation woes in one go.

Weebly

Perfect for small and independent businesses, Weebly is an incredibly easy to use website builder. Its beginner-friendly interface makes it easier for users to choose templates and build their websites. You could rely on their timely prompts, clutter-free designs, and easy to set up processes any day!

Now that you know about so many free website builders, get started and create your own website already?

5 Amazing and Iconic Website Navigation Examples

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 10:19:58 GMT

Website navigation is critical for creating the foundation of your website. Good website navigation lets users explore and find exactly what they need. Navigation design is relative and different websites have different goals to achieve from it.

That's why there is no right answer to - what are the best website navigation examples? But, by keeping a few fundamentals of user experience in mind, we have selected a few of the best website navigation examples for you to explore and learn from.

Go ahead, check them out and get ready to create seamless website navigation:

1. Verk

One of the website navigation examples is Verk. Minimal and uncomplicated, VERK's navigation comprises white space and neat lines. Each of their screens pacifies users and helps them out with their tasks. The clear navigation bar at the top seamlessly informs users to take action. Overall, its breezy navigation frees users to explore the site and shop their products without overwhelming them.

2. POLITICO

With a simple yet intricate drop-down navigation menu, POLITICO's website informs users with the least confusion. Its screen is minimal and poses no visual distraction. Despite having a huge database of content, its website shows groups of categories in an effective manner. Thus, it makes for an useful tool among the website navigation examples.

3. ETQ

Inspired by minimalism, ETQ Amsterdam's website naturally draws users to all the items on their pages. Its crisp and direct navigation focuses on users but also guides them to shop without any distractions making it a valuable mention among the website navigation examples. There are just a few important categories mentioned on its navigation bar - this gives users more space to explore the website.

4. The Good Burger

The Good Burger's website, one of the best website navigation examples, is full of personality and simplicity. It flawlessly lets users check their menu and attracts them through a functional placement of content. One of the best things about this website is that it keeps users always in their focus. Even when they are navigating the sub-menus, the navigational menu on the left-hand side guides users and allows them to initiate action.

5. Gusto!

Peppy, bright and inviting, Gusto's website is on point for a modern and fun user experience. Apart from an eye-catching menu design, the parallax scrolling and dynamism of their website guides users to easily place their orders. Although it looks a bit subtle, their website is functional and flawless which is what makes it special among the website navigation examples.

Navigation depends a lot on the design and content of websites. Hence, getting it right is important. These best website navigation examples must have already inspired you to create some great navigation ideas for your web projects.

Start working on them then?

Difference between Adaptive and Responsive Design

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 10:12:52 GMT

Adaptive and responsive designs are nothing but two varied approaches of design for diverse devices. Responsive design makes use of a single layout and then adjusts navigation, content and overall elements to fit within a user's screen. It is more fluid and it adapts as per different screen sizes like desktop, mobile, tablet and more. Conversely, adaptive design is more fixed and it makes use of varied sizes of a fixed design.

Nowadays, most of the websites have a responsive design. When you are making use of responsive design, you will have to keep all the screens that a user could use in mind. If you make a layout without doing so then there are chances of certain elements, content fitting poorly within them.

In the case of adaptive design, designers would have more control as it first detects the device of the user and then adapts the template that is used to fit within its screen. As a designer, you would spend more time on adaptive design as it is more tailorable.

Before you decide on either of these design approaches, make sure to thoroughly know your audience. Once you have studied them and the devices they use, you would find it easier to design and choose the right approach.

To Sum it Up:

Apart from these factors, make considerations for gestures, navigation and hierarchy when you are creating cross-platform designs and finalising adaptive or responsive design.

Users love consistent and holistic digital experiences. Align all your user insights, content strategy and overall navigation and you shall be able to clearly decide the most optimum design approach.

Smooth web design projects: tips to avoid team chaos

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 03:50:44 GMT

How often does a project get stuck at a standstill because you didn’t receive feedback from the client? Or how often does it get delayed because the feedback didn’t reach the appropriate decision maker? If we could avoid all this internal chaos that comes along with managing a web design project, processes could be streamlined and work would become that much easier for everyone on the team. Here are 5 things you can take care of to achieve just that.

1. Identify decision-makers and assign a project manager

Who’s going to be in charge of approving the decisions from the client-side? Identifying these decision-makers becomes important as these are the people that have a better idea of the objectives, constraints, and requirements that are expected at the organizational level. This avoids the changes at the last moment that happens because the person who was approving the design ideas didn’t actually have the authority or the knowledge to do so.

Once you have identified the decision-makers, assign a project manager who would not only handle the communication with the client but also make sure the day-to-day responsibilities are carried out smoothly. Working in silos is a large part of working on web design projects but so is effective coordination and project management. That’s where the project manager can come in and make sure the internal chaos is avoided.

2. Have an inspiration library in place

Has it ever happened that you agreed on a web design style with the client before getting on with the actual work and in the end, they just didn’t like the style? It happens many times. Why? Because while you may have an idea of what the end product would look like, the client may not. Having an inspiration library in place from where you can show the client some examples of what their end product would look like makes things much easier for the client as well as your team.

They may also help the client identify any special features or elements they may want in their product. You can then figure out a way to tailor that trend to fit into the project.

3. Develop an initial project plan

After understanding the project scope, requirements, and deadlines given by the client, the first thing you need to do is develop an initial project plan. This would mean breaking down the project into parts, denoting the tasks and processes that would go into each part, and then coming up with deadlines for each milestone. Sharing this plan with the client beforehand ensures you both are on the same page and roadblocks are avoided moving ahead. For example, your client may need you to finalize the design and content for the home page of the website first and then work on the other parts. You can then take this into account and avoid the chaos that would come along with unscheduled changes to the plan.

4. Streamline your communication process

How often will meetings be conducted? When will they be conducted? Who will be a part of these meetings? Web design projects often require a continuous feedback and communication process because these projects usually span a period of two to eight weeks. By having a communication process in place, you ensure a steady feedback and suggestions inflow and thus your work keeps progressing smoothly without having to wait for days on end to receive a reply from your client while your team is stuck on a part of the project.

5. Have tools in place

How will the team coordinate with each other? What tools will they use to conduct meetings while they are stuck working remotely because of the pandemic? By having tools in place, the entire team stays updated on the project progress and knows the task dependencies and deadlines that are approaching. Trello is a great tool for managing your entire project and dividing it into milestones. We also make use of Brutask to see our team’s to-do lists for the day and how much progress has been made during the day.

To make the feedback process precise and easier, ruttl is the go-to tool that allows your client to comment on live websites without having to go through the hassles of signing up and logging in every time they need to suggest something.

To prepare yourself for your upcoming web design projects and avoid internal chaos, sign up for a free trial of ruttl today!

4 Wireframing Tools You Must Try Now!

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 10:39:26 GMT

A wireframe is essential to provide users with a seamless, intuitive experience of your digital designs. Often described as the blueprint of your final product, a wireframe helps in structuring and visualizing the user interface before the design moves into development. Whether you're working on a simple landing page or a complex app interface, wireframes help lay the foundation of your design thinking. Based on your project's scale and objective, your wireframes can range from minimalist outlines to highly detailed visual guides that incorporate functionality, hierarchy, and user flow.

A well-designed wireframe not only ensures a solid starting point for your product but also aids in better collaboration between design, product, and development teams. It helps stakeholders understand the layout and interactions at an early stage, preventing costly revisions down the line.

The good news? Creating a wireframe is no longer a cumbersome task. Thanks to the rise of intuitive and powerful wireframing tools, even beginner designers can now easily turn their ideas into structured visual plans. As you take your first steps or scale up in your design journey, exploring the best wireframe tools can help you craft stunning, user-centric designs without any hassle.

The Best Wireframe Tools for Your Designing Needs

Here are some top-tier wireframing tools that are widely used and loved across the design community:

Figma
Sketch
Invision Studio
Proto.io
Adobe XD

Each of these wireframing tools bring something unique to the table. From seamless collaboration features to intuitive prototyping, here’s what makes them stand out:

1. Figma

Widely loved by designers across the globe, Figma lets you seamlessly collaborate while making wireframes and more. As it is cloud-based, it beats a lot of its competitor wireframing tools. It is a bit expensive but hands-down, this wireframing tool compensates your money with tons of features to work all solo or with an extended team. To get started with, you can use their free trial to create three wireframe projects and give access to two editors.

2. Sketch

Sketch is a pioneer in the digital design space, especially beloved by Mac users. This wireframing tool, known for its sleek vector editing and plugin-friendly interface, allows designers to build wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes with ease. Whether you’re a solo designer or part of a larger team, Sketch offers both individual licenses and no-frills free versions to get you started.

3. Invision Studio

Originally known for prototyping, Invision Studio has now expanded to offer a dedicated wireframe tool as part of its platform. Its strength lies in design-to-development handoffs and team collaboration, helping designers turn static wireframes into interactive mockups. With scalable pricing models, Invision Studio is a smart choice for both startups and large organizations.

4. Adobe XD

Adobe XD is the go-to design tool for many UX professionals. Its clean, focused interface eliminates distractions, helping designers concentrate on structure and flow. Adobe XD streamlines the entire wireframing and prototyping process, and with Creative Cloud integration, sharing and syncing designs becomes effortless. The absence of constant plug-in updates or file downloads makes it one of the most convenient and robust wireframing tools available.

While the top 4 best wireframe tools above lead the pack, there are many other wireframing tools you can explore to fit your needs and budget. Options like Canva, Balsamiq, Fluid UI, UXPin, and Cacoo offer specialized features ranging from low-fidelity sketching to high-fidelity interactive mockups. Experiment with a few and see which wireframe tool aligns best with your workflow and design goals.

Conclusion

In the fast-paced world of design, having the right wireframing tool in your arsenal can make all the difference. Wireframes help you translate your vision into clear, tangible structures that guide your product from ideation to launch. Whether you're sketching a rough draft or building a detailed layout, the best wireframe tools empower you to visualize, iterate, and collaborate more effectively.

So don’t wait-dive in, explore these wireframing tools, and start shaping your next big idea into reality.

Asana + ruttl Integration Is Finally Here!

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 09:43:51 GMT

Using Asana for your project management purposes?

In our latest Ruttl update, we've added the new integration support for this widely popular project management software- Asana! 🎉

After you integrate ruttl with your existing Asana account, you can send your feedback comments from ruttl to your preferred project on Asana. 🤝

Take a look at this tutorial video down below to understand how you can connect your ruttl account with Asana!

User-Centric Design Basics for Flawless Web Design

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 09:03:52 GMT

Web designing and business goals go hand in hand. Fancy features, dozens of software upgrades cannot live up to the users if the system designs are not user-centric. Because the end users are the most crucial part of the entire designing process.

What is User Centric Design?

UCD involves the process of creating designs by keeping the perspective of end users in mind - how they will understanad and use the applications or systems.

You can make your designs user-centric by following these easy to grasp and implement principles:

Do Comprehensive Research

As UI/UX designers, you need to understand your users through and through. Visualize your designs as a user and see if you are able to smoothly navigate it.

Be Consistent

Create web designs that are simple to comprehend and minimal to use. Your interface elements must remain consistent. During the design phase, you can explore consistency by integrating components and also try out new designs to see how users are adapting to it instead of shelving it all to the testing phase.

Give Charge to the Users

The good news is that your users are always aware of their needs. Your design simply needs to provide solutions to them. Allow them to do what is really needed, keep system related constraints to a bare minimum.

Reduce the Effort

Complicated interactions with your designs can frustrate your users. Give them single and simple tasks to focus upon - make them worry less. Make sure to share adequate instructions with your users early on so that they get familiar with your designs.

Share Feedback

Do give enough assurance to your users when they have finished a task. Indicators or visual changes help in maintaining the confidence of your users. Ensure that all the varied levels of interaction with your design gives feedback to users to fall back on.

UI/UX designing is a long journey and users are your milestones. Keep them in mind with the help of these user-centric design basics and you will never let them down!

Ways To Find Freelance Web Design Jobs Online

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 08:55:36 GMT

Starting out as a freelance web designer and acing the process is a dream of many! The reality is that your freelance web design business needs to be sustained with strategy and great leads that keep coming your way - that can be daunting at first.

Apart from making stunning websites, you also need to ensure that you have quality clients. Finding clients may feel like rocket science in the beginning but you can streamline it by planning. To help you find some of the best freelance web design jobs out there, here’s sharing our tried and tested tips:

Get Active on LinkedIn

Take our word on this, LinkedIn is an absolute gold mine of leads. You could regularly search for “freelance web designer” on the job search and opportunities would get visible on the spur. For inbound leads, you could also start creating your personal brand on LinkedIn by sharing your recent work, posts and resources with the community.

Sign Up with Solidgigs

Do you feel a bit overwhelmed while going through a lot of freelance opportunities at once? Rely on Solidgigs then! They send you a curated newsletter with some of the most relevant freelance gigs to you every week. You may sign up for their free trial and later decide to switch to their subscription if you like their leads!

Tap Into We Work Remotely

We Work Remotely provides you some great leads for web design and various other categories without the hassles of signing up with them! From full-time till contract WWR offers a range of opportunities that are simply unmissable for a freelance web designer.

Explore Working Not Working

Working Not Working (WNW) offers you a job as well as a portfolio platform. Clients like Google and Apple have been using WNW, so keep an eye out on this platform. WNW does not charge freelance designers, they do take certain commissions from the clients though! Make the most of their leads then?

Go Bullish on ZipRecruiter

Last but not least, ZipRecruiter is one of those platforms for freelance web designers that always delivers! You will literally find hundreds of web designing gigs here. It is free for job seekers, so you would not burn any cash on it and the best thing is that recruiters can reach out to you directly by sharing relevant links.

You can find some of the best freelance job sites here.

Building your freelance web design empire is not all cakewalk but neither is it as herculean as you end up thinking! Go all strategic and smart for finding freelance leads, deliver awesome work on time - you would soon be on your way to make big monies then!

Build Strong Relationships With Web Design Clients

Wed, 10 Nov 2021 11:10:55 GMT

A good client-designer relationship can not only make work easy and fun but can also lead to productive discussions and ideas that help make the end result a lot better. You must have experienced this too, be it from the client-side or the designer side. What if we tell you there are ways to ensure you start off just the right way with your client/designer and have a relationship that is both fruitful and fun?

Here are 6 crucial factors you need to take care of.

1. Being prepared

What is the client’s brand about? Do they have an existing website or a social media page? Who are their competitors? What things can be adopted from their style or layout? As a web designer, these are some questions you need to research on before conducting your first meeting with the client. Not only does this show you are motivated and passionate about the work you do, but also it results in time saved as the client doesn’t have to update you on basic things.

This becomes an even more important factor when both of you are packed with to-dos on your task list. You can have productive meetings if you are prepared. What this might mean going ahead is sharing a brief with the client/designer before every meeting.

2. Setting expectations at the beginning

Every client and designer has their own set of rules and expectations. Letting them know your process, timeline, and feedback process can save time as well as build a better relationship moving forward. For example, after working on many projects, you may find out that continuous feedback works the best. Having a discussion with your client beforehand about this prepares them for the regular meetings they’d need to have with you.

Everything that you do sends a message to the client. For example, if you are keeping meetings on Saturday, it is assumed that you work on Saturdays as well. So, make sure everything that you do aligns with the expectations set in the beginning.

3. Having a transparent communication process

Instead of keeping things bottled up, be clear about any concerns you have with the project. Communicate openly with your client. For example, if your client has a habit of postponing meetings, try setting these meetings a week ahead so that they can schedule them. If not, communicate politely that it eats up a lot of your time that you could have otherwise dedicated to their web design project.

Open communication also means that instead of waving off your client’s concerns, you take time to think from their perspective and suggest solutions, if needed.

4. Being flexible

Sometimes, your client may need you to speed up the process. It may be due to an unplanned contingency like market changes or external influences. Adaptation is the key in these kinds of situations. It may also happen that even after spending a lot of time picking the right color for the website or writing the code for the entire project, your client may come up to you and demand major changes. Instead of taking it personally, understand their concerns and accept their feedback. A compromise here and there is the key to a good designer-client relationship.

5. Having patience

Your clients may not know about the typefaces, y-frames, and even the color sets that should be used for web designing. Instead of thinking that your client already knows everything, have patience and walk them through your rationale when they have a doubt or a differing opinion. Explain your thinking in a way that a non-designer can understand. Sure, it may be a little frustrating and may even take up quite a bit of your time but it will help you strengthen your relationship with the client and build trust.

6. Having a feedback process

When it comes to a web design project, a lot of feedback and suggestions come in from the client’s side as well as the team’s side. To have it all fragmented in different channels like emails, Whatsapp, and Slack may mean that important feedback might remain unattended.

Instead of having your client come up to you again and tell you about that, make use of a visual feedback tool like Ruttl. With its easy shareability link, clients can write their comments on live websites without having to go through the painstaking process of signing up and logging in every time they need to give feedback. Not only does Ruttl help your clients give you precise feedback, it makes sure no feedback data gets lost in the thousand unread emails in your inbox.

Thinking of taking Ruttl for a spin? Sign up and get started for free to see the power of Ruttl for yourself and build an amazing relationship with your web-design client!

Mistakes To Avoid While Designing A Web Project

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 09:18:31 GMT

Web designing has come a long way from serving static HTML pages to having completely dynamic and innovative websites. With rapid evolution and adding of different elements to the websites, there comes the possibility of making quite a few errors.

5 Common Mistakes while working on web projects

To save you from the trouble of having to deal with those mistakes in the later stages of a web project, Ruttl brings to you five common mistakes you need to avoid while managing a web project.

Moving on to coding before finalizing the design

Coding takes a whole lot of effort and time when it comes to working on a web project. Even a minor adjustment at the later stage will take up a lot of time shuffling and rewriting the code. Instead, conceptualize the design first. What will the icons look like? What will they do? How will the visitor be redirected to the login page? What kind of font, color and schematics would be the most ideal? These are some points that you need to plan beforehand.

Once you have a website layout ready, share that image with your client. The client can then have an idea of what the final website design would look like. Factor in the changes they suggest and then move on to the coding bit. This will not only make your entire process efficient, it would help you quickly push the website online as well.

Not having a proper feedback process

The feedback process is an ongoing one when it comes to working on a web project. There would be suggestions popping up from both the client’s end and your team’s end before development and post development of the website. It’s important as a team to have a proper feedback process where no pointers are missed out on and everything gets worked on and resolved smoothly.

A checklist can be made for your team where important aspects and how-tos are given for aspects like navigation, content, fonts, whitespace, alignment and CTAs. Instead of having multiple tools with scattered feedback, stick to one tool where the client and your team can have a look at the website and suggest everything in one place. This ensures you don’t deploy a website that has missed out on some important content or features.

Not giving precise contextual feedback

“Can you jazz it up a bit?” “Can you make the font in the headings a little bigger?” “Can you work on using better colors?”

This is the kind of feedback that can leave your team hanging. While jazzing it up may mean making the content a little bolder and bigger for you, it may mean using bright colors for me. Same is the case for the rest of the feedback comments. How much should the font size be increased? What do better colors mean? By giving precise contextual feedback, you not only make everyone on the team’s work easy, you make sure you get the results you wanted.

For example, instead of saying, “Move the logo to the left,” give precise value, “Move the logo to the left by 25 pixels.” Educate your team when it comes to giving precise feedback. This will eliminate so much of time waste, confusion and errors at the later stages.

Not having a collaboration tool

How many times has someone on your team forgot to work on a suggestion? Or maybe they were caught up in other things and the task got delayed? It happens quite a many times, doesn’t it? A collaboration tool like Slack or Trello can help you in this regard. Not only does it help inculcate accountability, it’s a great way to keep track of your project and timelines.

You can even store your design and development related resources in the tool and have one single tool to manage all the different files, images and links so everything is in handy when a person needs it.

Not going for responsive/quality testing

Globally, 68.1% of all website visits in 2020 came from mobile devices. A reason why a website with responsive design has become a necessity now: a design that works well on desktops, tablets, and mobile screens. The basics of responsive testing involve displaying and aligning the content consistently, rendering if the text is legible through different platforms, resizing images if needed, checking for navigation, scaling/resizing content based on portrait or landscape orientations in mobile device, and so on.

A responsive web design is also now an important ranking factor which makes it all the more crucial to go for responsive testing before the website going live.

How can ruttl help you manage a web project effectively?

Ruttl is a website feedback tool that helps you streamline your feedback process and makes collaboration easier. Here’s all that you can do with Ruttl:

Leave comments on live websites with precise pixel values, colors, font, alignment and other such specific creative direction.
Tag your teammates on comments and get these comments resolved by marking them done once the task is completed.
Get your clients to leave text and even video comments by sending them a shareability link so that they don’t have to face the hassle of signing up and logging in every time they need to suggest something.
Upload the images of your design and let your team share their feedback through comments on images.
Invite your team to collaborate on projects and give them real-time updates by simply tagging them in comments.
Conduct responsive testing easily by switching between desktop and mobile view and making changes if required.
Integrations with Slack and Trello for efficient workflow management
Record every version of your website so you can always come back to the previous versions to see the relevant updates.

To make managing web projects easier and developing great websites for your clients and your business, sign up to Ruttl now.

8 Tools Every Remote Creative Team Needs

Thu, 21 Oct 2021 06:07:57 GMT

The pandemic has turned offline discussions and work attires into Zoom calls and working in pajamas. But for creative teams, it’s been a big ask to shift from those in-office brainstorming sessions using the old is gold approach of whiteboard and marker to the online medium. The beauty of this situation is that many designing teams tried out different tools in this period. At Ruttl, we did the same. Here are 7 tools that we think every remote creative team should definitely try out.

1. Notion

As a design team, you may have a lot of notes and resources scattered over notebooks, Slack, Trello, or even emails. When you need to find that one video about designing an element, you waste away hours on thinking, “Where would it be? Trello, Asana, or in a million other places?” At Ruttl, we decided to streamline all such data and resources in Notion. You can manage all your clients, resources, checklists, and roadmaps to designing in Notion.

What can you do with Notion?

Have all your design resources in one place
Track the status of each client and have a roadmap in place
Build user personas and share them with your team
Create site map
Set status and filters for different elements
Make use of calendar to track things and design stages
Have a Kanban board to keep track of milestones
Store images for your creatives

You can even consider effective project management with Notion by using these templates.

2. ruttl

Do you spend more time making changes to your web design than actually creating one? Ruttl is that super tool that can help you lessen your review time and help complete projects faster. You can leave live comments on websites for your team and mention the precise measurements for alignment, pixels, and spacing.

Not only that, you can involve your clients in the website feedback process by just sending a shareability link with them. They can then write or leave a video comment, without having to face the hassles of signing up and logging in every time.

What can you do with Ruttl?

Share feedback with your team through real-time comments
Pin comments on live pixels and give specific creative direction
Suggest accurate values for iterations
Make changes on live websites
Invite clients to share their feedback
Upload multiple versions of images
Replace images on live websites
Inspect CSS for your website
Collaborate with your team
Quickly switch between desktop and mobile view
Revisit the previous website versions by recording them
Keep a track of all ongoing design activities

3. ProofHub

ProofHub is a complete project management and collaboration tool that helps teams collaborate, communicate and deliver projects on time. It has all the tools needed to manage tasks, delegate tasks, track time, chat with team members, etc. It is available as both an online and a mobile app, which means you can use it from any device that you have access to. Whether you are a freelancer working from home or a large corporation with an international workforce, ProofHub can help you achieve your goals.

__What can you do with ProofHub? __

Visualize your tasks in a table view that is easy to understand.
Plan your tasks with Kanban boards in an intuitive manner
See how the tasks are progressing in a timeline with Gantt charts - right on your screen!
Create custom workflows and assign roles to different users
Check and review content before it goes live for the best quality assurance
Share files, chat, and discuss tasks with teammates in real-time.
Multi-language support for global teams.

4. Loom

Loom, a video messaging tool, allows you to showcase your design by recording your screen or camera. At Ruttl, we make use of the different features of Loom like drawing tools and responding to videos in our brainstorming sessions and while sharing our creative ideas with the team. It has also helped us have better team alignment by making use of video messages to walk through complex issues and answer them in an effective way so the recipient knows what he/she has to work on.

What can you do with Loom?

Give brief tutorials on new features or processes
Onboard new team members by sharing a folder of Loom video messages
Have regular progress updates
Record loom to illustrate any bugs, technical issues, visual design, or user experience
Share design tricks
Give design feedback

5. Google Meet

Google Meet is a free tool that you can use for having meetings with your creative team. It comes with many features like screen sharing, adjustable layouts, calendar syncing, conference room booking, and so on. This is where your creative team can discuss ideas, the road ahead for projects, and dealing with any issues that pop up in a project.

What can you do with Google Meet?

Host secure video meetings
Host collaborative brainstorming sessions with digital whiteboard integration
Have polls
Join your meetings from your inbox

6. Brutask

Every person on a creative team is swamped up with multiple work responsibilities. A person may be working on content ideas for websites, social media posts, and case studies. Another might be working on designing the theme of a website and the company’s social media profile.

Brutask became our go-to task management tool when our entire team was getting used to WFH. Its simplicity when it comes to task management made using this tool a breeze for everyone in our creative team.

What can you do with Brutask?

Add your daily tasks
Prioritize your most important tasks for the day
Allocate time for each task
Add members and supervise your team
Access Google meeting links directly from within the app
Preschedule task in the future
Build a habit of maintaining to-do lists in simple manner

7. FlowMapp

FlowMapp is an exceptional UX tool that allows you to design beautiful apps, websites and products. You can plan user journeys, create user personas, create interactive and visual sitemaps and a lot more with FlowMapp. The best part is collaboration becomes easy with FlowMapp by sharing your boards with your client as well as colleagues.

What can you do with FlowMapp?

Site mapping
Flowcharting
Customer journey maps
Persona building

8. Figma

Figma is a cloud-based tool that is specially made for creative teams to brainstorm, design, build and collaborate effectively. It works on any platform and is the only design tool of its type to even work on hardware running on different operating systems where everyone can access, edit, and share Figma files. Figma also brings to you an online whiteboard that can bring you back to your in-office days and help you conceptualize and design your creatives.

What can you do with Figma?

Brainstorm on an online whiteboard
Carry out ideation and execution of your design with the modern pen tool and instant arc designs
Build an iterative design flow with live collaboration
Automate and augment your work with various plugins
Access various design libraries
Inspect design files
Make interactive prototypes with smart animation and dynamic overlays

Now that you know of these super amazing tools, try them out with your team and improve your designing process.

For more such tips on designing, UI and UX, keep track of: ruttl blog

Have Multiple Design Clients? Then Read These Tips!

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 12:14:37 GMT

A web design freelancer’s or a new entrepreneur’s journey can easily go from, “I hardly have any clients” to “I have so many new clients. How do I manage them?” Clashing deadlines, meetings, hundreds of unopened emails, and last-minute changes can seep out all your energy. But worry not. Ruttl has found for you five doable tips to make working with multiple clients a breeze. Let’s check them out.

1. Efficient coding for a few theme templates

Instead of starting from scratch every time you have to design a website, how efficient would it be to have a parent theme that can help you save time? There is a lot of common syntax and code in every website design. Why not turn this into a template that you can use every time you need to get started with a project? This template will have the most basic theme configuration code that you can further work with and refine or remove elements from.

Some of the basic things in this template would be the layout style, object-oriented CSS to create elements, different filters, and some action hooks to insert widgets, banner images, and slideshows. When you’re dealing with multiple clients, this parent theme comes in handy and you can even design simpler sites within a few hours. If you do not have the time to create such a framework, you can view the many frameworks available on WordPress and select the one that is the right fit for you.

2. Identify a list of core plugins

There are many plugins you must be installing for every client website such as:

SEO plugin to help optimize content for search engines to rank and attract new visitors.
Security plugin to safeguard all your online data and alert you about security issues.
Backup plugin to backup all your website data in case your site gets hacked, server crashes, or an update goes wrong.
Plugin to boost your social media presence by connecting your site to your social media pages and allowing you to create share and follow buttons.

Instead of remembering to install all of these plugins, make a checklist of all the trusted plugins. You might also need to ensure that all these plugins work well together and make use of tools that allow you to back up and update all your plugins automatically. Customized plugins can also be made if you use them for every website client of yours. Not only will it save you time, but you also offer your client a unique element.

3. Have a single login platform for various sites

“Can you please tweak this content?” “Can you add this feature?”

These are some requirements every client of yours may have from time to time. If you are managing multiple client websites, having to log in and log out of different development tools, website-specific CMSs, and hosting platforms may take up a lot of your time. To avoid this unnecessary time waste, you can manage all your client websites from one single dashboard and manage login credentials for all collaborators so you don’t have to manually enter passwords each time.

You can find many such platforms online and deploy updates, make changes, add SSL certificates, and much more from one location.

4. Make a weekly plan

Have you ever woken up in the morning and thought to yourself, “I have so much to do. Where do I start?” Don’t worry. You’re not the only one. With too much work, comes indecision. To avoid that, take time out of your schedule at the end of every week and evaluate the goals for the next week. For example, you might have to work on three design projects, have two onboarding calls, attend four meetings and work on your personal project.

List down everything that comes to mind. The more specific you are with your planning, the more chances of meeting all your goals. Make a detailed schedule with every day broken by the hour. Always keep a buffer hour in handy so that if any emergencies pop up, you’ll always have that buffer time to get all your tasks completed for the day.

If you aren’t a fan of those complicated weekly to-do lists, let Brutask be your companion. It’s a simple task management tool that is easy to get started with and will help you prioritize all your tasks for the week.

5. Have a website feedback tool to speed up the feedback process

Working with multiple clients means working with hundreds of feedback comments. “This alignment is not what I want”, “Can you change the color tones of this page?” and on and on. Keeping a track of all these comments can be exhausting when it comes in the form of unopened emails and Whatsapp conversations. By having a website feedback tool, your clients can comment directly on live websites, give precise values of height, width, and background colors and collaborate effectively. Imagine the number of hours you can save when you don’t have to go through 500 unread mails to search for that one feedback comment the client left you a week ago.

With Ruttl, you get access to not only a website feedback tool but also a digital whiteboard for all your design projects. You can do everything from reviewing your progress, making changes, and sharing feedback with your team from one single tool.

For more such insights on UI, UX, website design, work management, check out more such post on Ruttl's blog page!

Should You Rebrand Yourself Or Redesign Your Website?

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 06:09:05 GMT

You have launched a flawless product or have an incredible service to offer. Everything seems to be working well with customers but you are just not growing your revenue at a great pace. Sounds familiar? You got either of the two things to fix: your brand or your website.

Rebranding and website redesign are two major overhauls that help in streamlining your business. Confused about which one needs to be prioritized? Let's sort that out!

Why Website Redesign?

In 2021, you cannot afford to have a badly designed website that is too clunky to load. It frustrates your key customers and also drops your ranking on search engines. If your website is all of that right now then you got to reengineer it.

Finalize your goals for redesigning it though. Do you want more traffic? Do you wish to have better engagement and quality leads? All of these checklists will lead you to decode its new UI/UX, content creation process, search engine optimization and more.

Website redesign is not easy but its rewards are uncountable. Your business will certainly start reaping its benefits by witnessing better visibility, traction and revenue.

Why Rebranding?

Rebranding is needed when you have pivoted in terms of services, products. Also, if there's a lack of focussed communication, strong vision as a company then your business would require rebranding. Oftentimes, businesses are also not aligned with the design trends, their brand is like albatross hanging around their necks instead of being an asset. These shortcomings call for an overall brand recreation.

For instance, if your business is lagging on all of these fronts, a rebranding would save it from going irrelevant. It could potentially level up the business.

Rebranding vs Website Redesign

Avoid making uninformed decisions before going ahead with either of them. As a founder, solopreneur or consultant, you would exactly know the strengths and weaknesses of your business. Figure them out and then approach rebranding or website redesign for good!

10 Tips To Succeed As A Freelance Web Designer!

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 11:15:08 GMT

Remember when you were so excited to finally ditch the regular nine to five and set your own work hours? Then came those crazy long hours at work and your six days work week turned into eight day workweek.

If most of your day is spent dealing with client conversations, emails, and lead generation instead of designing, here are Ruttl's top 10 tips that will help you manage your work effectively and succeed as a freelance web designer.

1. Create a standardized process chart for your clients

“What aspect of the website design are you working on currently?” “Till when can we expect the home page design of the website?” “What is your design process?”

These are some of the common questions a web designer gets from their clients. Think about how many calls, messages and emails can be avoided if you provided each client a standardized process chart so they clearly knew your deliverables and what they can expect next. Instead of going for the usual all-text process explanation, turn it into an infographic. This infographic should contain a process overview, what each step may contain and if need be, an estimated timeline.

2. Design in iterations

Web designing is a creative task and if you work at hours on end on something, you’re bound to lose that creative touch. Not only that, your focus and energy levels may drop. That’s why you should aim to design in iterations. There are two ways to do this: Complete the whole task of web designing and then step into improvising or work on a part first, improve it and then step on to the next part. You can even check for usability and catch problems earlier with this approach.

3. Make use of checklists

Forgot to use the color tone the client suggested? Or to inculcate an important aspect? Making a checklist helps you avoid these last-minute problems and standardizes your workflows. For example, you can create a checklist to confirm all the deliverables or to remind you of the basic things you need to take care of. You can go through this guide by Digital Silk to create the perfect checklist for you.

4. Learn ways to speed up your tasks

There are some shortcuts that can considerably save your time. Be it designing shortcuts like Adobe Illustrator or InVision shortcuts, development shortcuts like Android Studio or GitHub shortcuts, or productivity shortcuts like Slack or Notion shortcuts, implementing them can speed up your tasks. You can check this detailed section on Shortcuts.design for the same.

Yet another hacks are to bulk install plugins that you regularly use on client’s sites and save time with a pre-designed template to show a potential buyer what their site would look like.

5. Get design feedback early

By getting design feedback from your client and team after every iteration of the design process, you keep everyone updated and save considerable time in catching and fixing errors early on in the project. For example, you may find that the icons you always use for your web design projects do not work for this client. Instead of changing each icon at the end, you could save effort and time by getting early feedback and keeping that in mind while working on the next iterations.

6. Delegate tasks

You do not need to give equal importance to all your tasks. Call scheduling, responding to emails and following up with prospects; these are some tasks that you can delegate to your team. If you are working alone, you can outsource these tasks to a virtual assistant by heading over to job listing platforms. This helps you spend time on finding high-paying clients and improving your skills.

7. Create user personas

When submitting your final web design to the client, you think, “I spent so much time creating this innovative design. The client will definitely like it.” But what if the client comes back to you and says, “This isn’t a right fit for my audience.” All that time and effort, it goes down the drain. Creating user personas saves you that trouble. It helps you understand your target audience and provides direction for making design decisions. There are many tools like Hubspot, UXPressia that will help you create user personas.

8. Collaborate and manage effectively

Tools like Asana, Trello, SmartTask help you collaborate effectively with your team or your client. They also help you manage everything from your projects to your daily to-dos. Communication platforms like Slack on the other hand can be a great medium to stay connected with your teammates/clients and share important information.

But what if you do not want too many features and want to work on a simpler platform? Brutask is a free task management tool that can take care of your task prioritization, team collaboration and time boxing.

9. Say No to distractions

One of the hardest parts of being a freelance web designer is staying away from the million distractions around you. Emails, Slack notifications, surfing through design newsletters and what not. To engage in deep work, say No to these distractions by putting your phone away from sight and trying a Google extension to block certain websites for certain time periods.

10. Avoid multitasking

Multitasking not only ruins the quality of your work, it slows you down. Instead, choose to focus on one task at a time. Here are 3 ways how:

Keep a to-later list. If you think of Task B while working on task A, put that task on your to-later list. This keeps you from moving from your current task.
Set a certain time to attend to calls and emails. Convey this time to your clients and teammates.
Don’t say yes to every request. Multitasking happens when we take too much on our plates. If you can’t deny a request, schedule a time to get to it later.

Apart from this, you can also speed up your review process by making use of Ruttl, a website feedback tool that helps you leave live comments on websites, collaborate with your team and speed up the entire process.

Tips To Earn More Freelance Design Projects

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 06:46:07 GMT

Being a freelancer has its perks - you get to choose your niche, get flexibility, grow your career at your own pace. At the same time, freelancers also feel this subtle pressure for converting clients month on month. Pitching to clients is a daily task that you need to constantly work on and improve. This begs the question - how to successfully pitch and win more freelance projects?

Unlike the popular misconception, pitching is not rocket science. You do not need to feel scared about it. Follow these easy tips to land just the right freelance projects and see them work well for you:

Understand their Needs

Before you approach any client, make sure you research about them. Try to figure out what they really need for their business. Create a pitch that offers solutions to their present problems.

Dive deeper to find the purpose of that project. Know the - what, why, how! While pitching, also try to evaluate how will you achieve the outcomes that need to be met. This will keep you on the same page with the clients and also give them clarity about your approach.

Walk Extra Miles

Avoid sending a run of the mill cold email for pitching. Think outside the box and share your work through a beautiful presentation or even a video - this extra effort will separate you from the crowd.

Do not go all gaga about yourself, know where to mark that fine line. Keep your introduction brief, crisp and share a detailed proposal that showcases your strengths, past experience in a comprehensive manner.

Strike a Rapport

Be polite and approachable while dealing with your first point of contact. They can pave your way forward for closing the deal. You do not need to be a bootlicker for it, just communicate well with them.

By creating a healthy professional relationship with them, you would start the project with the right footing.

Be Confident

Instead of spending hours and hours on research, smartly try to figure out what your potential clients need from a project. Line up your strengths, relevant previous work and share it with them. Prepare well to answer their questions and stay away from jargons.

Aim to simplify as much as you can during this stage and present your best selves when they reach out for any questions.

Final Word?

Research well, stay confident, work on building a good rapport with your point of contacts, present your strengths and past work well and there you go! You are all set to win freelance design projects, start pitching then?

5 Quick Fixes To Speed Up Your Website

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 04:31:30 GMT

Website is the most crucial touchpoint of your business and these days, even of your personal brand. You cannot afford to have a badly performing website that takes ages to load - it can hit your revenue!

The irony is that you cannot fix your website's performance unless you understand what's impeding it. Page speed is one of the most crucial factors that impact your website. Any website with a great page speed converts into a seamless user experience. This results in a reduced bounce rate. Unsurprisingly, this also improves your rankings on search engines.

Now that you know how crucial your website's speed can be, here are all the hacks to fix your website speed:

Find a Good Hosting Provider

Choosing a mediocre hosting provider will cost you more than you could imagine. Poor hosting strains your website and it converts into poor performance. Select a performance-based dedicated hosting provider that optimizes speed and would not have to stress so much.

Optimize and Structure Images

Images are important to visually represent your website and also for leveraging search engines. Compress large images and optimize them to reduce loading times. If needed then you must also change file formats. There are various plugins that you could use to ensure a lossless compression of images.

Ensure Web Pages are Cached

Caching helps you a lot in reducing website speed. It stores all the necessary files of your website, thus, it brings down the loading time. By enabling it, your server would take less time to load any pages.

Minimize the Number of Redirects

The more the redirects the more time is lost between HTTP requests and responses. Try to eliminate as many unwanted redirects as you can. Redirects can reduce the website speed. Keep an eye on your internal links, sub-menus to further cut them down.

Remove Useless Plugins

Plugins can bloat your website more than anything else. Outdated plugins are also not secure. Deactivate plugins that you are not using frequently because they can slow down your website.

While there are many other quick fixes to increase your website, these hacks will get you started and make you notice their effectiveness. Try them out yourselves and do share your experience with us!

The Right Way To Select A Website Annotation Tool

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 04:27:27 GMT

Designers, developers and writers are swamped with work, deadlines and continuous feedback inclusions. If you are either of them working at a design corporation or an agency, you would know all about it. To ease your day to day work there, a website annotation tool comes in handy.

From reviewing, commenting on live website, editing, reviewing static images, leaving visual feedback on website project - a good website annotation tool does all of that and then some more for you.

A website annotation tool simplifies collaborations, increases productivity. More importantly, it decreases the feedback gap between clients and designers, developers. Whether you are a designer, developer or writer, you would start liking the efficacy of a website annotation tool over scribbled notes to take feedback. After all, website designing needs systematic workflows, processes to be in place. With the right website annotation tool, you would not only simplify your work but also meet deadlines and make your clients happy with your deliverables. So, how do we go about selecting the right one? Let's explore!

With so many website commenting tools, visual feedback tools available, picking the right one can feel a bit overwhelming. We have broken down its selection process into these easy steps. Take a look:

Make a Note of Your Requirements

Before you select a website design feedback tool, make a list of everything you would want it to offer! Do you want it to have features like - comment on live website, review live website, leave feedback on live website? Note that down. Many annotation tools do not offer features like replace image on live website. So, before you finalize your website annotation tool, compare your checklist with as many visual feedback tools as possible.

Through this step, you would know which is that perfect website annotation tool for you.

Once you finalize the tool, you would have filled your design armour to make your clients and even your team happy!

Gauge the Technical Skills of Your Clients

You might just have to change your processes, approach according to the clients with whom you are working. To etch out the same, you need to first figure out whether your clients would send over complete, precise feedback.

Clients who have worked with tech teams understand that precision matters for web design projects. They would usually send detailed feedback for your team to work upon and iterate.

However, you might also work with clients who are not completely tech savvy and might just share generic feedback. This could lead to confusion, developers failing to figure out which bugs need to be fixed, designers overwhelmed by constant back and forth. With a seamless website annotation tool like Ruttl, it could be fixed. Share a simple shareability project link with your clients and they could comment on live website, check the progress and you could compile all their feedback in one go. No mess of emails, calls or texts!

Choose Your Communication Channel

Communication is key for project success and even otherwise as it helps in understanding the expectations of clients. While choosing the website annotation tool, try to fix the way you want to communicate. Would you constantly want to email, call or text them? Each of these channels can further expand the feedback gap.

Using Ruttl you could communicate with them over the live web project through comments. You could tag them for updates and make project management easier for them and even your team.

By doing so, you would not have to constantly check emails, texts or frantically call them. All their feedback and comments would be in one place with Ruttl.

Finalize the Feedback Process

Fixing a feedback workflow is necessary to keep the clients on the same page. You could choose emails to do back and forth for feedback. For many designers, developers, project managers email trails get cumbersome to navigate. For instance, if a client wants some pixel, image change to be done and forgot to send a new email for it then you might take hours to find that email alone. If you have been in that situation you would not want to be there again, right? So, pick a website annotation tool that could ease the feedback process for you. You could directly share live web project link with clients then.

In a nutshell, with the right website annotation tool, you would be able to simplify a lot of the complex web designing process. Your teams and clients will love working with you over a reliable website annotation tool as well.

As you kickstart the process for selecting just the right one, don’t get overwhelmed. Keep it simple by noting down these benchmarks for it:

Which features are you looking for?
What would be your communication channel?
How technically skilled are your clients?
How do you want your feedback process to be?

Once you figure these out, finding that perfect website annotation tool would be cake walk. Check out Ruttl to know more about the same!

Clutter To Clarity: Important Steps Of Web Design

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 11:47:33 GMT

The Internet is cluttered with a zillion websites already! Thankfully, many of these websites have great content and provide value. Yet, oftentimes, their design is subpar and outright poor. Many websites which are great on the design front, lack maintenance. Even feedback on websites is not taken by many stakeholders on time. All of these technical setbacks add up and impact businesses, revenues and even personal brands in the long run. That's why in today's age, web design and development should not be ignored. The good news is that you can avoid such issues by following the important stages of web development.

Web development is just not about writing unfathomable codes, web design is also a significant part of it. Web designers, developers are increasingly becoming aware of the same and are readily collaborating to create brilliant websites. They understand how critical their work is for the growth of their client's business and they are walking extra miles.

Having created many websites at Brucira with a team of passionate web designers, developers, we have identified these key stages for web development. We are sure this structured breakdown of the web development process would help fellow web designers and developers across the globe. Let's take a quick look at them then?

Know the End Goal

As a web designer, the first thing that you need to do is communicate with clients. Ask as many relevant questions as you wish to ask at the initial stage of web development. Questions like the following would help you in streamlining the web development process:

Who do you wish to connect with through this website?
Will this website inform, sell, amuse?
What will users find through this website?
Will this website be the first touchpoint for your brand or is it just an extension?
How will this website be different from other competitors

If these questions do not receive clear answers then your entire web project can go haywire. Know your client's end goals from the website early on along with the target users. It will ensure that your design and development is heading towards clarity.

Key Takeaways from this Stage:

Target Demographic
Brand Vision
Competitors
Visual Brief

Define the Scope of Work

Early on while working on Ruttl we realized that goals for web projects can change. Clients may have some change of heart or their goals can evolve. Documenting and finalizing the scope of work is therefore necessary. Otherwise, you might just end up developing and designing emails, apps and many other things which were not initially defined. Put all the communication on email with clients, create a contract so that you stay on the same page with them and avoid confusion.

While web designers are prepared to take on additional work many times, yet the process needs to be simplified along with the increase in budget. Start using these website tools to make this stage more seamless.

Key Takeaways from this Stage:

Understand the Deliverables
Make Contract to Define Work

Create Sitemap and Wireframe

Every web designer and developer would second that a sitemap is like a foundation for any web project. For any good website, you need to have a detailed sitemap in place. A sitemap helps web designers in getting a clear idea about the website information architecture. It also gives more clarity about the interconnection between web pages and other content elements.

After creating a sitemap, you need to start putting the wireframe in place. A wireframe typically looks like an exoskeleton. As a framework, it stores all the visual and content elements of your website. Through sitemaps, web designers can foresee all the challenges, gaps that might crop up during the creation of a website.

Wireframe also doubles up as a reference point to see how your website would eventually look like. Sitemap and wireframe are therefore crucial for effective web design and development.

Key Takeaways from this Stage:

Put a sitemap in place
Chart ou the Wireframe

Develop the Initial Content

Created sitemap and wireframe? Now off you start your content creation process! It is one of the most critical stages of web development. Content not only creates more action, engagement for your website but also helps for search engine optimization. The content and its placement/packaging decide the way in which users would interact with your website and take action.

Boring content will dull down your users and they would not connect with it. Intriguing, crisp content becomes more click-worthy and pushes users to take positive action on your website. By planning during this stage, you can space out your content in chunks. It would become more engaging that way. Users would not get overwhelmed by reading it.

Content also helps in tapping SEO. Start lining up keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush and more to use them as the web development process goes ahead. Informative, inspiring and keyword-rich content helps in driving more traffic to your website, so give this stage your thought and time.

Key Takeaways from this Stage:

Start crisp, engaging content
Align your SEO strategy for the website

Finalize the Visual Element

As important as content, this web development stage gets everyone's creative juices flowing. During this stage, you would ideally create the visual style for your website. From colours palettes, fonts, logos, branding elements - most of these are decided in consensus with the client. To effectively do so, we ask our clients to leave feedback on website prototypes using Ruttl. Web designers run the entire show during this stage.

By placing the right visual elements at the right place you can increase user retention, traffic and even grow revenue. From photographs, GIFs, videos, illustrations, you can choose as many pre-decided visual elements as you wish for your website. Just keep in mind that they should cohesively look creative and not out of the place. For our clients at Brucira, we usually try out all of them by uploading them through Ruttl. We share the same with our clients so that they can leave feedback on website and more so for its visual lineup.

Key Takeaways from this Stage:

Select good visual elements
Decide their form and function
Experiment with their placement

Find Errors by Testing

With everything else in place, now's the time to gear up for testing your website. It might take some time but proactively check each and every page, hyperlinks on your web project. Check your website across browsers - is it loading on time, is it running fine? By doing so, you would be able to identify coding errors, design bugs and quickly fix them.

Along with this, check the meta titles, descriptions and ensure the SEO hygiene of the website is great. Because something as simple as that can impact its performance. It would save you a lot of public bashing and lost traffic when the website goes live.

Key Takeaways from this Stage:

Check your website on multiple browsers
Proofread and edit all the content as per SEO guidelines

Launch the Final Version

All that waiting with bated breath, doing all the web development process right and now you are all set to launch the website. Still do not get all excited. Everything is in place but do not expect things to go smoothly. A few elements, content might need some fixing.

The web development process is always dynamic and it requires some or the other visual or technical updates. Fret not, by paying close attention to its form and function during the earlier stages you would end up creating a great website.

Proactive web designers and developers such as you would quickly grasp and ace this web development process. Till then, just keep at it!

Wondering if there might be a better way to do all this, without spending hours on back and forth emails with your team? Then look no further!

Ruttl is a visual website feedback tool that helps you comment on websites, collect feedback, collaborate with team members and clients to review design projects post development.

So, what are you waiting for? Experience the fastest way to review websites at ruttl.com!

Best Tools For Web Design Teams in 2025

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 08:20:31 GMT

Web designing starts and ends with brainstorm sessions, sketches, iterations, feedbacks, design shipping and coding. We all know that's the process and we have been following the same at Brucira.

Yet oftentimes, these offline methods of design and documentation can cost your teams. Imagine losing that rough web design sketch your team made! Client feedback also proves to be a task when you are noting it down offline - there's so much to track and revise, right? That's why digital web design tools are necessary for your teams.

Web designers already have a lot on their table on a daily basis. If you are one or are closely working with them you would agree in an instant. To streamline their work, web design tools come in handy. From designing till task breakdown and project collaboration, these tools cover everything up for web designers.

Having tried almost all of them at Brucira, here's presenting our recommendations for them. Each of these tools have a core specialization: collaboration, task management, designing, coding. We are sure that they would make web designing a cake walk for you, take a look:

For Collaboration and Task Management

Productivity of web designers relies heavily on collaboration and effective task management, using these tools, you would be able to amplify the same:

1. Trello

Say bye to sticky notes and bulletin boards, Trello digitally streamlines all your tasks, deadlines and makes task management, collaborations easier for you. Add your team members on Trello, assign them cards through boards. See how productive web designing and even other projects become for them then!

2. Ruttl

There are many website annotation tools but we were looking for the fastest one. Having failed at finding one, we developed Ruttl, our in-house feedback tool to review live websites and make website feedback sharing seamless for our web design teams. Through Ruttl, your web design teams can make edits on live website, they can review client feedback, inspect CSS, and even collaborate with developers, writers and clients for quick revisions.

3. Slack

Communication is key for effective web-designing. If clients have given a certain brief then the web-designing team needs to be aware about the same. For new updates related to the same, you need a single platform where all the communication can be accessed. Slack lets you do all of that using its workspaces. Through multiple channels on these workspaces, web designers will be able to check all the threads of communication, share updates about project progress and more.

4. Brutask

Web designing calls for structured breakdown of tasks. From preparing the wireframes till designing the interface and experience, all these processes need clearly defined tasks and deadlines. Brutask, yet another in-house tool built by Brucira, is a simple task management tool - its minimal interface won’t overwhelm your web-design teams and will assist them in completing, tracking tasks in no time.

For Designing and Coding

Despite being a secondary phase of project management, for web-designers, designing and coding tends to be their core job. It goes without saying that processes under this phase require support of robust tools. On that note, take a look at the best tools for designing, coding:

1. Invision

Hands down, Invision is one of the most trusted tools for design prototyping and collaboration. Using Invision, you can change your web designs into interactive, dynamic prototypes. Additionally, you can also infuse transitions, animations, call to action buttons and more to it without getting stuck with HTML. Web designers get a real time clarity for their designs through this tool. Clients can also interact with the designs made on Invision and check the demo.

2. Figma

Over the last few years, Figma has become the go-to tool for various web designers and design agencies. Its flexible designing interface allows designers to easily showcase their work and create as well. Their in-app commenting feature, holistic ecosystem doesn’t need constant updates or mockup creations.

3. Sketch

As a comprehensive vector based tool, Sketch lets you create prototypes, mockups, interfaces by easy collaborations. It is faster than other design softwares as it does not offer redundant features. Furthermore, the interface of Sketch is pretty minimalistic and efficient. This makes the work of busy web designers really easy. There are also various community plug-ins available on Sketch, so you can use them any time to make your workflows breezy.

4. Adobe XD

From prototyping to wireframing, you can do everything using Adobe XD. This platform lets you create multiple mockups and various versions on a single file. Its minimal interface and ease of use effectively helps web designers and even developers in many cases. While you work on Adobe XD, you need not keep integrating tools. Most importantly, you do not need to export iterations after every revision.

5. Webflow

Coding is a deal-breaker for many web designers and it is understandable considering how much involved they are with the creative process. Webflow is loved by web designers across the globe for its no-code-fuss-free web design offerings. This website-building tool is as easy as Ruttl’s visual feedback tool. Using Webflow’s drag and drop feature, you can make websites in no time without using any code, that’s quite something, isn’t it?

With these many tools in your armour, we are sure web designing will become easy and quick for you.

For more design and collaboration related insights, feel free to check our blog.

You Can Now Leave Feedback On Static Images In Ruttl!

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 06:17:57 GMT

We know from our own experience that the website code or interface designs aren’t just the only things that design teams work on. They involve working on a lot of static images like illustrations as well.

So, we’ve introduced a new feature in Ruttl - Static image review. With this feature, you can collaborate on web design images with your team and the client, and review the same by adding pixel-pinned comments. This will ensure that static design feedback is contextual across the team.

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

Introducing Guest Commenting In ruttl!

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 06:03:58 GMT

No client likes to remember their login credentials to use a specific service to review any of their projects. So we've gone ahead and made working with clients a LOT easier by introducing the Guest Commenting feature on ruttl!

Now your clients can leave contextual comments on your web projects without the need of logging in. Simply share the shareability link with them, the client or guest has to just enter their name, and then they can instantly start leaving comments on the webpage or the image.

The best part? You as the project owner have access to all comments. You can mark them resolved, unresolved, or even delete the ones which are not required. To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

New Release! ruttl Now Supports Custom Branding!

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 04:03:09 GMT

We get it. You want to use Ruttl but want your client to see your logos & icons instead of ruttl's. That’s why we are now introducing custom branding into Ruttl! With this feature, the owner of the Team plan can replace the Ruttl logo and icon with their preferred logo and icon on the app.

They can also narrow it down to their preferred primary colour and text highlight colour, which will be visible on the app's CTAs, and also while hovering on menus and other links. This will help you to offer a more personalized experience to your clients while working with them on their web design projects.

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

Say Hello To Trello Integration On ruttl!

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 04:00:11 GMT

Using Trello for managing all your projects? It's definitely a robust platform used by a lot of design teams lately! That's why our team is excited to introduce the all new Trello integration in Ruttl!

Using this new feature, you can integrate your Ruttl account with your Trello board. With this integration, you can create a Kanban styled tasklist for you and your team.

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

Why Ruttl Is the Future of Design Collaboration

Wed, 04 Aug 2021 12:09:31 GMT

As Paul Rand rightly said - design can be art, design can be simple and that’s why it is so complicated! But, the designing process should not be complicated for all the involved stakeholders like developers, writers and especially the design teams, don’t you agree?

Art and science, both are entwined for creating designs and that’s precisely why it garners relative feedback from the involved teams. A few of your teammates might need more negative space on the website. Your clients might ask for multiple changes without sharing contextual feedback. All of it could just snowball and overwhelm a passionate designer like you and of course, your team as well - we get it and we are here to help you with the fastest website annotation tool that we have designed in-house at Brucira, here’s presenting - Ruttl.

Design teams have to bear the brunt of collating feedback from multiple platforms and tools like slack, email, jira and more. What if you could magically figure and fix all the design improvements by collaborating on Ruttl? Feels unreal? Here’s how you could go about it:

Find & Resolve Comments on Live Website

Your clients, managers and other teams could comment on either the web or mobile interface of your design with the help of Ruttl. With easy highlights for the expected changes marked on Ruttl you could quickly find them and start working on them unlike on any other client feedback tool.

Review Live Website and Check Edit Requests

Got too many changes to make? You could access them one at a time through Ruttl’s easily accessible section for them. No need to waste time figuring out who requested that pixel change or copy edit, phew! Your clients could leave feedback on live website as well. Also, you could assign a few to your fellow design peer and get the job done within no time.

Navigate All the Project Activities

Need to track all the activities that were made on the project? We have got your back. Use our global activity panel to explore even the most basic edits that were done on your designs. So, just in case another designer takes over, he/she would know all the progress you have made on the project.

Work on Multiple Web Versions

Many projects could be convoluted enough and would need multiple versions that are simultaneously being revised. On Ruttl, you could work on multiple versions of the same project with your other design peers without any stress and downtime - take our word!

Curious about exploring Ruttl already? Sign up for this seamless website annotation tool right away!

To know about all new trends, updates in the design industry and latest developments at Ruttl, do follow us on LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

6 Ways To Improve Design-Development Collaboration

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 04:06:02 GMT

As exciting and enthralling web design is, the entire process can sometimes be marred with confusion, lost conversations, chaotic feedback, and delayed timelines. Whether you are a UI/UX designer, web developer, or product manager, these are the occasional devils that accompany many projects.

The common threads connecting these pitfalls are often sloppy communication and team collaboration on projects. The collaboration of the internal team is important, but the client and project managers need to be on the same page for clarity of thoughts and objectives.

We at Brucira have faced such hurdles during our internal projects where sifting through long email chains, getting and implementing the correct feedback was cumbersome and haphazard. That’s why we created Ruttl, a simple yet effective tool for the project teams and designer-developer community in particular.

We’ll talk about Ruttl in detail as we go along, discussing 6 secret methods of improving project collaboration.

So, how to improve collaboration?

1. Onboard everyone right from the beginning

Whenever a new project gets kicked off, a briefing session must clearly understand the direction, goal, and objectives. As is the norm with designing projects, the designers are always at the forefront, and others follow in the later stages.

But to have a streamlined workflow, it’s a great thing to have every stakeholder on board right from the word go, be it the product manager, the designer, the developer, or the content creator.

Ruttl is designed to keep the entire team connected and informed right from the beginning of the project and during the editing and review phases. Its visual-heavy interface keeps things uncluttered, concise, and intuitive and helps managers add and coordinate team members at will.

2. Common communication language

Designers talk about visual cues, colours and fonts, whereas for developers, everything means codes and numbers. The project managers, sales team, and others have their own interpretation for individual projects. To enable better collaboration, there must be a way or tool to effectively communicate in a common language that all the stakeholders can understand.

Ruttl enables each team member to leave comments and suggestions right on the website without resorting to emails with marked screenshots. This way, designers or managers can easily convey their thoughts to the developers without getting into the specifics of each other’s domains.

Designers can comment in terms of font colour, character spacing, kerning, image placement etc. which the developers can easily pick up and implement as CSS values.

3. Ideate, iterate and store

Web design is all about ideas flowing from the design team to the developers where it gets executed. And no design gets finalised without having multiple iterations to satisfy the objectives or the client’s desires. Just imagine a situation where a design iteration was better suited than the current one.

This requires each iteration to be either stored separately or redone, leading to unnecessary time delays, monetary losses, and frustration.

Ruttl stores every design iteration separately so that switching between different versions becomes effortless and time-saving. This also aids the review process in assessing the different changes that took place during the designing phase.

4. Regular follow-ups and coordination

Designing is a task that requires a lot of back and forth communication and the right mix of collaboration and coordination between developers and designers. On the other hand, project managers should follow up with both the client and the internal team to keep track of the various projects’ pace.

Ruttl provides managers with an overview of multiple projects at the same time and place and frees them up with the micromanagement of each task or communication while still keeping a check on the progress.

5. Reduce dependencies

Even after a design has been finalised, some minor edits or touch-ups might be required for which the sales team may approach the designers or developers. Such dependencies should be reduced for a more efficient workflow. Ruttl enables anyone with or without coding know-how to edit images or content on the go without things going haywire.

6. Keep clients in the active feedback loop

Clients can sometimes be unpredictable with their needs, and it often happens that they prop up a different demand during the designing phase. To avoid any confusion or such sudden directional changes, the client must be regularly invited to review the design and provide feedback.

Using Ruttl, one can easily share live websites with clients and get their valuable feedback without emails or logins, simplifying the client-side management smoother.

Brucira’s path-breaking review and feedback tool does away with the clunky and cluttered methods and brings ingenuity, clarity, and efficiency to the table. Check out Ruttl and get a free demo right now.

Follow us for more insight on design, UI, UX and everything in between: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Youtube

Important Hiring Tips For SaaS Founders

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 12:28:06 GMT

I'm specially sharing my hiring experiences for those of you who are in the process of scaling your product growth and now trying to get more people on your team. But in case you are side hustling / working solo, you might still find all these ideas as a helpful reference in the future! ✅

So, hiring might look easy on the outside because you just gotta pick one person for the job from hundreds of people. But I can assure you that it's exactly opposite. ❌

I've had fair share of experience in this while scaling my agency and ruttl team to 20 employees. So, I thought of writing down three important tips that you can use while hiring as a SaaS founder. ✍

1. Choose passion over degrees

I've seen this time and again that there is a vast majority of people who didn't go to super good schools but they are highly talented and skilled at their craft because they have burning passion to grow. Learn how to identify such people and hiring them as soon as possible!

2. Do you really need someone or are you looking for quick fix?

Nothing is worse than finding that out that you need a social media writer only because you wanted to test out social media marketing 🤐. Hire only once you know that things are going out of hand and now you need a new member for certain things OR you absolutely want to crush it over long term then get specialists on your team who can do better job than you would!

3. On-boarding is a make or break step

Yep, it's highly important to optimize this step otherwise you might find yourself simply helping new people understand how things work with your startup. A good way to do this is to create a scalable system such as making few videos that explain them stuff or a guideline document that can be used again to make onboarding easy for future team members.

How To Retain Website Visitors From Dropping Off

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 12:10:11 GMT

Ever visited a website that just takes forever to keep loading? Stats have proved it and even Google recommends that your website should ideally load up in two seconds. But what if you've exhausted your current resources and just can't seem to make your website any more faster? That's why we have bought a neat little design trick for you that we use to retain the dropping off customers.

It's the idea of splash screen illustrations.

When Ruttl wasn't super optimized as it is now, it would easily take anywhere between 5-8 seconds to load up any website inside a new Ruttl project. So, in order to keep our users engaged, we created few custom illustrations explaining Ruttl features through it.

This way, while the user is busy understanding those features, the pages are loading in the background. This keeps the users engaged and reduces drop-offs. Plus, it has another added benefit! It also complements the entire user experience and new user onboarding steps!

If you wish to check it out in action, visit this link to look at one of the illustrations that we are currently using.

If you want to get more references, feel free to sign up on ruttl, create a new project and take a look at the various illustrations that show up.

Why Client Feedback Is Crucial For Web Designing?

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 09:39:11 GMT

Feedback is one of the key elements of great communication and collaboration. It matters all the more when you are dealing with crucial web designing projects. In today's day and age, web design of businesses is directly connected to sales. Hence, as a web design agency or a consultant, you need to keep communicating with your client to get their web design right.

You would know the fundamentals of web design. Yet, your clients are connected with their target customers, industry. They exactly know what they wish to evoke or sell through their website design. That's why you cannot ignore feedback. So, always walk extra miles and ask for it.

Whether you are planning to edit live website or designing one from scratch, client feedback cannot be missed. Oftentimes, there is a gap between the client's expectations and the deliverables. By seeking client feedback early on, you would meet their expectations and also create more seamless web designs by including their briefs.

Web designing as such is an extremely collaborative process. Many diverse teams like design, development, content, project management work for the same. If at any point, client feedback is missed, then it could result in delay. Moreover, client feedback is also necessary to timely streamline the web design. Imagine not keeping the client updated about the changes till the end of the project! Feels like a nightmare to include all the changes at the last minute, right?

Having realized it beforehand at Brucira, we designed Ruttl, our flagship website design feedback tool to simplify web designing projects right from the start. Ruttl has immensely helped us and our clients in meeting at a common junction unlike any other client feedback software. Apart from these small functional and productive wins, client's feedback also offers these benefits:

5 Key Benefits of Taking Client Feedback for Web Design

On one hand, client feedback makes the web designing process simpler and guided. At the same time, it also gives you better visibility, understanding of the deliverables. It also helps further in the following ways:

Creates New Design Ideas

You might have a different approach for a web project. You could design it for a certain demographic but the client wishes it to be for the exact opposite of it. If you do not take their feedback on time then you might just miss that perspective. At the end of the project, it could make you feel frustrated and sorry for disappointing your client. Would you want to miss seeing the bigger picture? So, client feedback is necessary!

Streamlines Project Experience

Businesses are beyond numbers, projections and revenues. It is always about humans, intuitive design, tech and interactions. Client feedback is the first step that you take towards that by communicating and collaborating. Your proactivity, insistence for timely feedback eases the stress for the web project - not only for your teams but also for the clients. Make projects a cakewalk for your clients and see them always coming back to you for more projects. All it takes is just client feedback!

Builds Long-Term Trust

You might have the best of the development, design and content teams working for a web design project. Your aesthetics, research could be exceptional. Yet, it might not win the client’s trust. Proactive communication, requesting timely feedback slowly forges trust with them. When you walk the talk of welcoming and including their insights for web design, they start valuing and trusting you.

Improves Your Reputation

Something as simple as asking your clients’ opinion early on can foster a good impression and make them feel happy. It goes without saying that one happy client can recommend you to nine others. Hence, always request your clients to leave feedback on website. Your company’s brand and turn around time of a web project - both will get a boost by something as simple as this.

Enhances Client Relationship

Maintaining a good rapport with your clients is not rocket science. Take our word. While a clunky client feedback tool might make you feel that at times but you can change that with Ruttl. Through Ruttl, your clients can directly mention their feedback on live website. This not only reduces turn around time, but also shows your clients that you are quick in terms of work. It all adds up and strengthens your relationship with them.

The best part about client feedback is also that it makes your day more structured and easy. You and your team would exactly know where the web design project is headed. In case there are any last minute changes or major overhauls, you could build upon client feedback and still deliver on time. Furthermore, you could easily sign up on Ruttl and include client feedback on live website as well!

Now that you know how important client feedback is for all your web designing projects and even otherwise, make sure to do the most with it. At times, harsh feedback might bog down your spirits but remember, critical feedback always pushes you to present your best work. Go back to your desk, talk with your clients, note down their feedback, line all of it up on Ruttl and create an epic web design for them then?

Follow us for more insight on design, UI, UX and everything in between: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Youtube

The Critical Role Of Design Systems In Building Products!

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 08:18:32 GMT

Design is becoming increasingly complicated day by day. To empower teams to collaborate effectively and follow a set of design standards, companies like IBM, Uber and Airbnb have incorporated design systems to design their products. A design system is a lot more than your style guide or pattern library. Let’s dig into the details of what a design system is and how you can formulate the perfect one for your company.

What is a design system?

A design system is a collection of independent yet related components that helps improve product efficiency and enable a rich customer experience. Let’s take an example. A login button on your product is an independent component in itself with its own color tone and typography. But it is also an integral part of other components such as login screen, login message and so on. It can also be correlated with links to other pages.

By maintaining a standard across all such independent components can make the designer’s and developer’s work easy and ultimately the result shows in a great user experience.

How to build a design system?

Express the purpose of the product and map out user goals

The purpose of your product defines your design and development decisions. For example, if you’re developing a product that helps teach students about web designing in 20 days, your goal is to facilitate quick learning. This goal can evolve with time but make sure that your design revolves around this purpose. It could mean to-the-point directions on your website, quick sign up process, etc.

The next step is to understand who the users are and what their goals are. If, for instance, you're dealing with the elderly, your design process should resonate with them and be easy for them to understand. It will also give you an insight into how they will interact with your product. The product team should keep all this information in mind while working on the design system.

Establish design principles

Design principles are the guiding light for your team to reach the purpose of the product. They encompass what good design means for the company and some practical recommendations on how to achieve it.

Your design principles should not contain qualities that are given like “simple and useful”. Take for example one of the design principles of Medium, a popular blogging platform - “Direction over choice.” The design team understands that in order to make the writer focus on the content of the article, instead of designing a text editor with various visual styles, they should stick to a limited number of visual styles.

You can even inculcate practical recommendations by pairing a principle with a real-life example. This shows how the principle can be applied in context and avoids misinterpretation.

Focus on design components and patterns

The components in your design system are the building blocks which will have their technical and functional behavior specified whereas a pattern will allow you to use these components in a consistent and logical way. The pattern is further divided in two parts: functional and perceptual.

Functional pattern includes the tangible building blocks such as buttons, text, icons and all that comes together to form a product. The perceptual pattern, on the other hand, focuses on what users feel and helps differentiate your product from the other ones in the same domain. This goes on to include color, typography, shapes, animation and iconography. Not only these individual elements but the relationships between these elements will also influence perception. For example, you have to use the right combination of typography and animations to make your product feel a certain way.

Your perceptual pattern will depend on the answers to such questions: “How do we want our product to be perceived?”, “Do we want to have a serious or playful tone?”

What type of design system is best for you?

A strict design system will have detailed documentation to cover the majority of the guidelines the team will require and there will be a strict process to introduce anything new in the system. A loose design system leaves more room for experimentation and creativity. It gives an overall framework for the design team but the designers and developers are free to use it or not, depending on their requirements.

A balance between a strict and loose system is needed. In that way, you can experiment on a small scale and also not repel your designers and developers by keeping the process too restrictive.

Check out Ruttl- a visual feedback tool that helps you make changes to your website design without having to work with the code.

Simplify Web Projects With The New Page Approval Feature!

Thu, 08 Jul 2021 04:11:27 GMT

Collaborations are necessary to ensure any project's success. Especially when you are creating a website from scratch and have deadlines to meet. With design, development, content teams involved in the process, website creation presents its own set of challenges.

Think about having to go through multiple stages of internal approvals. Then there's a new set of approvals that you need to take from the clients. That's a whole lot of time that you would need to invest. How about simplifying the approval process within your teams with the help of Ruttl?

Having faced this challenge first hand while creating websites for clients at Brucira, we have streamlined it by launching the new Page Approval Feature on Ruttl!

What's this New Feature All About?

You would have multiple teams working to create a website. For every change that anyone makes, everyone needs to be informed or has to be kept on the same page, right?

But then finally who would decide whether the final changes are good to present to the client or not? Because everyone might just have different opinions! Imagine, so much of your team's time would go to finalize the feedback on live website. The project might never meet the deadline!

So, here's presenting Ruttl's all-page approval feature.

Make Approvals Easy on Ruttl

Using the page approval feature, you can assign an approver for your website. They would take the final call for giving a go ahead for any change. Post that, you could send that final version of the website to the client. This way, you and your team would save a lot of time!

More importantly, the page approval feature would bring more clarity to the process of website creation. As a visual feedback tool, Ruttl would let the approver see all the changes, comments, feedbacks and quickly take a call to approve or reject it.

Highlights of the Page Approval feature

You could always invite people from your team to collaborate on Ruttl. We took it a step ahead - you could make anyone from the team an approver now! When you make someone an approver from your team, they can approve webpages in the project.

Once the approver approves or green flags any webpage(s), the rest of the teammates can no longer comment or make edits on those specific webpage(s). That way, you would bring more clarity to the entire project.

But fret not! In case you wish to unapprove a page, or even change the approver, you could do that at any time.

As a project owner, you would always have a say in deciding who the approver is! If there’s confusion, you could change the approver at any time, or even become the approver yourself and take things back to where they were - simple!

How to use the feature

Please note that only a project owner can assign an approver. You can do so in the share screen modal by clicking on the badge in front of the member’s profile.

Once an approver is selected, he/she can simply go to any webpage and click on the button of ‘Mark approved’ in the bottom bar. They can also unapprove the webpage to allow for more comments and edits.

To remove this member as an approver, the project owner can simply click on their profile badge again, or click on the cross next to the ‘Approver’ tag. Repeat the above steps to make someone else as an approver.

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

Curious to try out this new feature on the fastest visual feedback tool? What’s stopping you then? Go ahead and check it on Ruttl now!

Apart from this new feature, you could also inspect CSS, comment on live website, review live website, leave feedback on live web using Ruttl! Sign up your team on it to try all of them out.

Do follow us on LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter to know more about website design feedback, design tips and hacks!

6 Strategies For High Converting Landing Page

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 02:59:15 GMT

Your website has multiple products, services and pages. How do you keep your audience hooked on one campaign or one goal? The answer is simple: create a high converting landing page. While it’s not exactly rocket science, it sure takes effort to design your landing page in order to get results. Ruttl brings to you 6 elements that will help you do the same.

1. Have an appealing main headline

A headline is what your visitor will see first. It’s important that your headline is catchy, clear, short and describes why the visitor will like to stay on your site. Here are 3 main things your headline should accomplish: It should tell the reader what your product or service is about or its core benefit. It should be attention catching. It should ideally not be more than 15 words.

Just by changing their headline, Insider was able to generate 9.52% more leads on their landing page.

The first image shows the headline they already had and the second one denotes the variant they came up with after testing. Why did this work? (a) They promised an easy solution (b) They promised they could do it in less time.

Here’s another amazing heading by Conversion Lab that meets all the checkpoints.

2. Have a supporting heading

Can’t fit it all in your heading? That’s when a supporting heading can come to your rescue. Your supporting headline can go into more detail of what your product or service has in store for your visitor. It has some element of persuasiveness that encourages your visitor to take action.

Here’s an example from Hubspot. As it’s difficult to talk about all their products in the heading, they do so effortlessly in the subheading.

Remember, your subheading should achieve these 4 goals:

Include your USP, if appropriate
Encourage action with an engaging CTA button
Keep it crisp and don’t overinform
Make it longer than your main heading

3. Have a visual focus

Can you see what these two snapshots of landing pages of Perfect Keto and Casper have in common?

They have a visual focus. Even without reading the headings and subheadings, you can get an idea of what the product might be about. Considering that our brain processes visual information faster than text, it’s imperative to add some visual elements to your landing pages. The images or videos that you add should be relevant to your product or service, should be of high quality and be able to catch the visitor’s attention.

4. Show some social proof

How many times have you scrolled through the reviews before buying a product? Probably many times. Social proof consists of testimonials, reviews, number of customers, your most elite clients and social engagement. By displaying this prominently on your landing page, you can persuade your visitors to click on your CTA. Why? Because visitors are more likely to purchase from you if others have done so in the past and are happy with their purchase.

By adding a simple testimonial above a form, WikiJob was able to increase conversions by 34%.

Here’s one example of how Codecademy uses real life stories from different customers.

5. Introduce your key benefits

To inspire your visitors to take action and appeal to them, introduce your key features and benefits on the landing page. You can put yourself into the shoes of your customers and ask yourself, “If I buy this tool, how would it help me?” Those are your product’s prominent features that should appear on your landing page.

Instead of writing lengthy descriptions, be brief and break it down into short bullet points or a single paragraph. Here’s an example of how Smartify does this.

6. Have a powerful CTA

The CTA is the main element of your landing page. It’s why you have spent so much effort in creating your landing page. A good CTA fulfills three aspects:

It ties back to the reason a person is visiting your landing page
It clearly says what the visitor will get in return if they click on it
It has a contrasting color or a different design that catches the visitor’s - attention.

Make sure you don’t go for the usual “Submit” or “Click here” texts. Make it a little unique.

Your landing pages will not be perfect on the first try. You may have to test different variations of it and then finalize the one that gets you the most results. To make the process of creating your landing pages and reviewing them much easier, try Ruttl, a website design feedback tool.

You can leave comments directly on live landing pages, inspect the different elements on it and collaborate easily with your entire team or client if you’re a website design agency.

Try it out here: ruttl.com

Analysis Over Paralysis Using This Strong Mindset Tip

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 03:45:03 GMT

I've been meaning to talk about this topic for a long time now, thanks to a small story that I've shared down below. So let me ask you, have you got these thoughts like - Should I release my product next week? Do I need to make my website better? Will people like this feature or hate it? Maybe I should research more before taking this decision?

As a founder, I'm sure some variation of these might have popped in your head. Trust me, I'm running a design agency alongside building two products and this still happens to me too!

But I've always been a big enthusiast of execution and speed. In my opinion, instead of pondering too much over analyzing and contemplating, I would rather create a whacky version of something, push it live, see how people react and accordingly optimize. I'm not saying that you shouldn't do research. You obviously should do it, it's crucial. But I just don't like getting into the "paralysis by analysis" mode.

Let me give you a small example of how this topic sparked in my mind today. About 2 months ago, I was on indie hackers trying to interact with couple of the posts in a group and I came across an interesting tool. Although I can't remember the name of it, the product website was minimal. Seriously, like on point copy with enough material to convince potential users. No fancy designs, nothing. Just the essential idea itself, because it was still in beta.

That's when I noticed that their FAQ page was built on Notion! Even though I love web designing, the whole idea of how simple their website was got me thinking how execution is super important.

They could've spent hours into getting the best looking website but having the approach of making a notion page which is enough to get the initial job done was fantastic! I was extremely impressed and that's how this topic sparked in my head.

So my advice to you is - Create something and don't worry about how it will perform. Just ship it out and keep testing. You don't need a perfect-perfect product. You can keep optimizing along the way with the feedback you receive. The whole point should be to focus on execution more.

Approval Feature: Avoid Confusions In Projects!

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 10:47:03 GMT

Working on design project but don't want accidental design changes to happen? That's why we are introducing an all new functionality of approving project pages with the Approvals feature!

The project owner will have to select an approver (or approvers). Once they approve a webpage, no more comments or edits can be made, unless the page is unapproved again. You will also be able to see who has approved the webpage.

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

Ruttl's Slack Integration Is Now Live!

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 10:39:00 GMT

Using Slack for all your project communication? We love it too and that's why we have brought Slack integration right inside your Ruttl account This way, you will get notified about all activities on your project, like:

When a comment is added to your project, or to a project you're a part of
When someone mentions you in a comment
When someone adds a webpage in the project
When someone adds a version to any of the webpages & a few more to keep you 'in-the-loop' of things

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

6 Email Marketing Tips You Must Know!

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 09:14:39 GMT

I know most guides on the internet give tips like have catchy subject line, use CTA, etc. If you've been bored with those tips, don't worry. I'm sharing these tips straight from my experience while building email marketing systems for ruttl.

Take this as a reference but also keep testing new hypothesis while sending emails to your users. Now, let's dig into the tips -

1. Don't bug inactive users beyond 3 follow ups.

If they haven't signed up by 3rd follow up, you are wasting money and effort. Send them email asking if they wish to stay opted in or else their account will be removed from further marketing activities.

2. Automate. Automate. Automate.

As much as you can. Analytics, drip campaigns, managing responses, tagging users. Everything can be automated. Do a small course on Zapier, it's powerful.

3. Customs fonts may/may not work.

Yes, not all browsers and devices might end up showing your custom font. So you will need to have another mainstream back up font just in case this doesn't work.

4. Do deep marketing by segmenting users.

This is a big one. I am still in progress on this idea but categorize users by getting their answers through a form/survey inside your product dashboard. Then based on inputs, categorize them and send relevant emails only. This is easy to manage if you follow tip 6.

5. Invest into better CRM tools whenever possible.

Once number of users starts going into 1000's, it becomes whole lot difficult to manage different stages of your users.

6. Don't hide unsubscribe button in sneaky way. People see through it.

It's the last thing you want when users are angry over not being able to unsubscribe from your mails. Make sure to keep this button accessible for anyone who wishes to do so.

That's it for today from my side! They are surely many more but it's tough to share in one single post, so I'll keep sharing in the coming posts. If you're interested, make sure to stay tuned with Ruttl!

The Uncommon Secret For Creating A Better Product!

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 07:18:41 GMT

At Brucira, we know how design can affect your online impressions and conversions. That's why I wanted to share a quick tip for everyone who's building their own products.

Make sure to have a brand guideline!

It's very important that you do this. Even if it's a rough draft, it still would do the job. The purpose behind this is to have brand consistency to build awareness around your product. It will also help you every time you need to represent your product online, be it listing platforms or just talking about your idea with potential customers.

People will eventually start remembering your product, so the earlier you do this the better it is. But this doesn't mean that you spend massive amount of hours simply building the logos and colors. Keep executing and working on your product primarily and do this alongside. This idea is more focused towards marketing of your product, which as you guessed right, can only happen when you have a product to show your customers.

To get started quickly, here are some key things you should include in it -

Your logo
The colors related to your product
Fonts that you will be using
Type of tonality your product needs
Content like short description, long descriptions, brand message, etc.

Tip Of The Week To Improve Your SaaS Product!

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 10:51:18 GMT

Who has faced the situation where you are getting customer sign ups but they are just not using your product? (or if they are, the activity duration is very low)

If you said yes , I know it's frustrating. Although there are many factors to this, let me share with you what I have learnt from my experience in product design.

You can try to fix this with UX Writing, which includes the textual content your user reads while using your product. It's important to get this right because even if an idea is rock solid, it won't go far if your users aren't able to understand it.

Your main goal with UX writing is to ensure that the user understands your product while using it. So, the text you use inside the interface needs to be oriented towards guiding them throughout this process.

👉 Don't confused this with copywriting, which is mostly used for marketing and selling. UX writing is geared more towards user experience and product usability to make your users feel more comfortable in your ecosystem.

Pro Tips To Use Right Away

1. Make everything concise - *Use as little word as possible while conveying what you want in the process effectively.

2. Stick to actual numbers - Instead of saying "two", say "2".

3. Reduce Jargon - *Avoid complex words when possible because not every user might know it's meaning. Stick to plain words.

4. Have consistency - Ensure that you are using similar textual pattern and voice throughout the entire product page and interface.

5. 3 Line Rule - Never cross a sentence to more than 3 lines. If it does, compress it otherwise users might lose focus while reading it.

That's the tip of the week from Ruttl! Do let us know if you find them useful!

Should SaaS Founders Use Social Media Marketing

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 10:30:07 GMT

Let me ask you one question. Have you ever got these responses when you ask people for tips to better market your product -

"You should do social media marketing!" "If you aren't posting on Instagram, you are missing out on customers!" "Instead of blogging, try writing on LinkedIn"

Yep. It's pretty common and I know it's tiring to hear this again and again. But I'm here to give you a rather different advice today. So here it goes.

Not every product needs social media marketing!

I'm not saying that it's useless. It's actually very powerful but you need to know whether it will benefit you. The same thing happened with me in the early days of ruttl. I got this advice a lot and tried experimenting with it. I tried giving it a proper dedicated try but the results weren't out of the world.

In fact, I got much better results from pushing out SEO content, doing community discussions and couple of other acquisition methods. Now, I simply maintain an active profile on these social platforms to share valuable posts with people and to build a community.

If your target audience spends most of their time reading text posts on LinkedIn, there's no point putting in too much effort into designing stunning creatives for Instagram. If your target audience is the younger generation, try using Snapchat, with 82% of its user base being under 35.

So, just think about whether your end customer is active on the platform of your choice. That's the most important question that can answer on whether social media marketing is useful for you or not.

Pro tip - You can always get growth by even sticking to one single platform (which usually gives great results!)

5 Questions To Ask Before Doing Content Marketing!

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 10:18:20 GMT

Starting a product blog was a big decision that I took for ruttl. It's been more than 4 months now since I have been posting 1 blog per week. I keep track of my website's Alexa ranking and it just keep growing every week.

Specially when it comes to SaaS products, content is the perfect way to market and get more customers. If done correctly, you can build a sustainable roadmap to getting new users by pushing out value content.

In order to help you get started, I've complied bunch of different questions you should answer before crafting your personal content marketing strategy. Here they are-

1. What do you want your audience to do after reading your content? Sign up and create account, share email? Don't have multiple goals, it will reduce the efficiency

2. Who can benefit the most from your content? Are you aware about their biggest pain points? Think hard on this because it won't work if you just put out content randomly

3. What types of content is working best for your competitors? Conduct a market research and find out those types. Experiment and see if they work. Chances are if it's working for them, it might work for you as well!

4. Where does your target audience hang out online? Choose the correct channels to distribute your content. If your audience is on LinkedIn, focus on text based posts. Don't spend too much efforts perfecting the promotion creatives for Instagram.

5. What will be the KPIs to measure your content marketing success? Is it blog view, website traffic, search engine rankings?

Loving Ruttl? We've Created A New Slack Community!

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 14:54:43 GMT

ruttl has got a big announcement for everyone! 📢

To deliver the smoothest experience possible while reviewing websites, we want to further understands your needs as a enthusiastic user! ✨

That's why we've created a new "ruttl slack community'" where you can join hands with other users to share new feature ideas and your reviews to help us improve the experience. ⭐

We're eager to see you on the other side so make sure to join the community by visiting this link! 🔗

UX Auditing And Doing It The Right Way

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 11:13:13 GMT

People are clicking on your Google Ads. But when they come to your website, they either find the items they like, put them in the cart and then abandon the cart or they bounce off to another website in as little as 5 seconds. How do you figure out what is going wrong with your ecommerce website design or your application?

Is it because the website is slow to load? Or because the navigation is too confusing? With so many elements on your site, it’s often confusing to find out what to work on. That’s where a UX audit can help you. Let’s go on to understand more about it.

What is a UX audit and when do you need to conduct one?

A UX audit is a process where a website or an application’s interface is evaluated to find problematic areas that make users abandon their journey and leave. A UX audit’s main goal is not to directly solve all the problems concerning your website or application but to answer questions such as: “Which steps are customers finding difficult while navigating the app?” “Do they face any difficulty understanding the functions?” “Is speed an issue?”

These problems, if solved, can help improve the user experience and increase conversion rates. A UX audit is mostly conducted when you redesign your website or application or wish to implement a new functionality or while making a new product. That said, it can be conducted at any stage to improve your product and remove any obstacles in the user’s journey.

Steps to conducting an effective UX Audit

1. Know your audience and your product

You must first understand the product goals you wish to achieve and then accordingly set up the UX audit objectives and expectations. For example, if your ultimate goal is to increase the conversion rate, you might want to assess the checkout process. Which parts are causing misunderstanding? Are the payment options too few? Is the payment portal unreliable? Are the delivery instructions not clear?

Knowing your audience is of paramount importance as well because they’ll be the people using your product. Understanding their behavior, demographics, user flows, and the steps they take to perform an action will build up a solid foundation. You can gain this information by gathering existing data, conducting stakeholder interviews and end user interviews.

2. Use different metrics and collect insights

Just measuring your website traffic isn’t enough. Once you have defined your core problem, you should collect all the different metrics that aid in giving you valuable insights related to that. For example, if your problem is poor conversion rate, the different metrics to be analyzed are traffic flows and trends over time, conversion and abandonment hotspots, what users do before and after they visit your site and so on.

Next, usability testing is done to detect design flaws, areas that affect the overall performance and functions that cause misunderstanding. Several such testing rounds are carried out to accurately come up with the products' problematic areas.

3. Organize and analyze the data

Once the data has been gathered, compile it into a spreadsheet or a medium that helps everyone stay in the loop and where the entire team can collaborate, record questions and ideas alongside relevant metrics. Some companies conduct a screen-by-screen analysis of their product which involves mapping out the entire user flow. This gives a clear picture of all the different pages and actions that users take. All of this is then analyzed and the major usability issues are pointed out.

4. Report the findings and recommend improvements

At the final stage, the findings are reviewed and presented along with the suggested improvements that need to take place, both in the short term and the long term. These suggestions could be across different fronts such as visual design, responsiveness, message clarity and accessibility.

These recommendations should first go through A/B testing. You can use Ruttl to make real-time edits and leave comments on websites. You can also check how two different versions of a website would look without coding knowledge. Inviting your team members, managers or clients to review your website and suggest changes is also possible. All of this will make your entire process easier and faster.

In your final report, you can organize all these findings and suggestions into different criteria like critical usability issues, A/B test and suggestions, quick wins, impact and challenges. Doing this will help you better identify the potential areas for improvement that could maximize your ROI.

Whether you’re a website design company or a brand that wants to conduct an in-depth UX Audit, try out ruttl.com for your A/B testing.

Introducing The Video Commenting Feature In Ruttl

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 03:29:39 GMT

You have a meeting in 10 minutes but you need to provide feedback to your website designer or developer before that. Or maybe you feel that speech is the best way to portray your message for your developer/designer.

For that very reason, we are bringing to you the video commenting feature in Ruttl. To give one more additional feature that can help you review your websites better. You now have an option to work with text comments as well as video comments.

Let’s go on to understand all that you can do with this feature.

1. Record entire webpage in video comment

You can open up your website that is undergoing the review process. Then switch to the comment mode instead of the preview mode. Click anywhere on the site and you’ll get an option to add a comment. Just below that you’ll see a video icon that will start your video comment. You can choose to share your entire screen, window or chrome tab.

The video recording will start and you can record your entire webpage. You can either leave general feedback on the video or point out the specific areas that require some editing or changes. You can even mention your coworkers to assign them their specific tasks. After you are done, you can click on the stop button. You can then either preview the video, save it or discard it.

How does this help your designer/developer?

They have to refer to only one video for making the changes.
The details that you speak while making the video can make sure no misunderstanding takes place.
The review time can be curtailed down to quite some extent.

2. Add text comments while recording video

But what if you want to add text comments as well? For example, you find out that the font size is not appropriate. So, instead of speaking that out, you can add a text comment - “increase the font size to 14” while recording the video and assign it to your designer.

You can add multiple text comments like this in the duration of your video so that it serves as a multiple check and removes all scope for confusion and errors at the later stage. This was done keeping in mind that you can use both the text comment and video comment feature to enhance your review process.

3. Add text to video comments

Your designer has added an illustration on the homepage of the website. You feel that there are some things that can be improved upon. What you can do is click on the illustration, add a text comment mentioning all the reference illustration articles and sites and then click on the video option underneath and choose the option of the entire screen.

You can then take him to a reference illustration maybe on some other website. You can guide him as to the differences between both the illustrations and why the latter one makes more impact. It could be the colors used or the simplicity of the illustration or the emotions behind the illustration.

Explaining this with the help of both video and text comments adds more clarity and also helps the designer understand things in much more detail if they would like by going through both the links you provided and the video you recorded stating all the relevant differences.

4. Resolve or delete video comments

Once you are done putting in your text comments and video comments, you can go on to first preview the video and check if all the points are being covered properly or not. Once you are sure, you can go on to save that video comment. Otherwise, you can easily delete that video comment.

When the reviewing process shifts to the final stage where the designers and developers work on the final edits, they can resolve all the video comments they have worked upon. This gives you an estimate of how much work is still left and in how much time you can come up with your final website design.

That’s all there is to this new video commenting feature. We’ve tried and tested this feature ourselves on our client projects and it works great. Not only does it make the website design review process more efficient but convenient as well. Paired up with text commenting, you are all set to rock your new website design, whether you’re creating it for a client as a website design agency or for your brand.

So, what are you waiting for? Try out this new feature for yourself at ruttl.com.

Other than that, you can also make edits and comments on live websites, invite clients to share feedback and tag team members.

New Release! Ruttl Now Supports Video Commenting!

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 03:15:01 GMT

Ruttl users had been asking for video recording and sharing feedback feature for quite some time. It was on a top priority in our product pipeline. We tried reaching out to Loom for a possible integration but the response was getting delayed.

There was no point wasting time dwelling on it. So guess what we did? We just built our own video commenting feature natively inside Ruttl within 1 week!

So now, Ruttl’s comment mode has been enriched with screen recording capability. While Ruttl records your screen, you can hover over elements and speak of the changes required. That’s how we took contextual feedback to the next level - quite literally!

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

Introducing The Support For Inline Text Editing!

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 13:14:55 GMT

The ability to do content editing on live websites is a big part of Ruttl's core features. To make this feature better, we were trying to come up with better ways to help text formatting function to the users.

But simplicity brings more to the table. Following this rule, our developers came up with idea of inline text editing and shipped the update live today! ✨

Users can now access their web page inside ruttl, edit any text and select the text that they wish to highlight. They will be able to use the inline editing toolbar right on top of the text box to performs functions such as bold, italics, or underline. 👨‍💻

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!To get more insights into the world of web design, check out our blog section.

ruttl Now Supports Unsplash Integration!

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 13:10:28 GMT

Images are a big part of reviewing websites in post development stage. However, when you need to change images on the website, it's annoying to go back to unsplash, research new images and come back to make the changes. So to make lives easier, Ruttl is now supporting native integration with Unsplash!

You can now search images on Unsplash and replace them on your website - directly inside ruttl. Also, developers can download the replaced image directly from the edit mode. How did you like that? 🤩

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

You Can Now Replace Images On Live Websites!

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 13:01:57 GMT

Design teams often work on projects where images are involved. However, any time they need to replace the image, it's a big hassle. So, we decided to optimize Ruttl for this particular process.

Now, Ruttl supports the feature to quickly replace images on a live website. Users can upload as many images as needed across dimensions and formats within no time - that too on a live website! 🌟

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below!

Now Add Multiple Versions Of Your Website In ruttl!

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 12:55:53 GMT

This update was specially created by taking into account that many teams frequently work on multiple versions of any website design. As a result, creating new Ruttl project for every version is clearly not the efficient way of doing things! 👀

To make working on new versions easier, we have added the new "Versioning" capabilities to Ruttl. Now users can revisit all the website versions they are working on by recording them. Navigating all the versions is fast and teams can easily collaborate to optimize their website designs.

To pull the latest version of a website, users simply need to click on the ‘Version’ button on the bottom left side of the screen. A dropdown menu will appear, click on the ‘Pull latest version’, and Voila! The latest version of the website will load.

Want to see this feature in action? Check out the tutorial video below!

Introducing Activity Panel In ruttl!

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 12:41:42 GMT

The user experience had been broken on ruttl when it came to switching between Comment and Inspect mode. In fact, not everyone figured out that we have an inspect mode. 👀

With this update, we went ahead and merged the comment and inspect mode into an all new 'Activity panel' showing both comments and edits in the same place.

From the Activities panel, users can check all the website edits, content changes and comments on web pages. This way, the team never loses track of ongoing activities. Anyone from the team can check all the latest activities done on a website project. The development team can easily navigate those suggestions and use them for the final codes to create pixel perfect designs.

We are hoping that this update will make the review process much easier and faster for you! ⚡

To learn more about this feature update, make sure to check out our tutorial video on youtube down below! Also, check out our blog section for daily updates.

Learn How To Craft An Intuitive Design That Users Love

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 09:56:12 GMT

When you see the ‘pull’ tag on the door of your supermarket, do you have to think twice about what action you need to perform? Or when you see the scissor mark followed by a dotted line on your instant noodles packet, do you have to spend time thinking about what it means? No, right? That’s what an intuitive design feels like.

While the term intuitive design has been doing the rounds for quite some time now, most of us are clueless as to what it exactly means when it comes to designing. Let’s go on to understand the holy grail of UI.

What is an Intuitive Design?

An intuitive design means that when a user sees it, they know exactly what to do. They don’t have to think twice about what a bell icon signifies or what the cart option will lead to. Intuitive design focuses on crafting a user experience that is easy to understand, easy to like and easy to use for your users.

Now, let’s take a look at 5 powerful ways through which you can craft designs that your users will love.

1. Know the users of your interface

Have you seen the mobile phones your grandparents use? Those phones have larger fonts, larger buttons and minimal functionalities. Now, compare those phones with the phones we use. There are many differences, right? Why? Because the audiences are completely different and the mobile phones are designed keeping those differences in mind.

To craft an intuitive design, you must first understand your audience. Ask yourself questions like, “Who is going to use my product?”, “What will they want or need?”, “Which interfaces will work well for them?”

2. Have a connection with real life counterparts

Even if you start using a new tool, there are some icons you instantly recognize. It can be the ‘+’ icon that indicates you can add something, the call icon that signifies you can jump on a call with someone, the bell icon that indicates notifications and so on.

This is what is called skeuomorphism. When you inculcate the concept of skeuomorphism, it means that your design objects are mimicking real-world counterparts. For example, the trash can icon denotes that you can delete something because in real life, a trash can signifies throwing away something that is not useful anymore.

Utilizing this concept makes it easier for users to understand the different icons/symbols and makes it easy for them to try out and explore different features of your application or facets of your website.

3. Make it easy to find things

Supposing you selected a communication tool for your organization. Would you like it if to reach every important feature, you have to navigate through multiple screens? Or worse yet, you can’t even find the basic features your team needs. Now compare this with tools like Trello and Slack. Every important feature you need is present on the first screen itself.

Be it direct messaging, different Trello boards, notifications, team members, everything the user needs is right in front of his eyes. He doesn’t have to keep searching for things again and again.

4. Imbibe efficiency into the design

If you have ever gone on to comment on a LinkedIn post, have you noticed the auto suggestions on the top? Or when you wanted to reply to a direct message, there were some suggestions given at the bottom?

Not only does it save time while replying to messages but it also makes using the tool much easier. While designing, ensure you don’t place many steps in the form of questions or screens before a user can complete a simple task. For example, if a product can be placed in the cart using one step only, don’t unnecessarily put 3 steps in between.

5. Help undo incorrect actions

We all have sent across mails with typos or mails with messages that say “Attached a document” but the mail got sent without any attachment. Thankfully, Gmail now has come up with a limited time feature that allows you to undo your sent mails.

Help your users undo their incorrect actions like instead of deleting forever, have a recycle bin from where they can restore files or a feature that allows them to see the previous versions of their website design and so on.

By following these 6 simple steps, you’re on the way to create a product or website that is intuitive in every sense. But can you guess one crucial element that is needed to ensure all these steps succeed? It's making sure that the team working on such projects are communicating efficiently and in synchoronous manner.

That's why we've built Ruttl exclusively to help you craft powerful and intuitive interfaces. Packed with abilities like allowing users to comment on website and editing visual aspects of any website element, Ruttl helps design teams to manage visual feedback on live websites.

Want to see it in action? Several teams across various countries have made the leap and integrated Ruttl into their daily workflow! Make sure to join them by creating an account on ruttl.com and switch to the future of design reviewing today itself!

5 Tips To Boost Website Audience Engagement

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 10:31:13 GMT

You spend bucks on creating compelling google advertisements and social media posts that compel people to visit your website. Your website traffic shoots up and you start dancing in your mind, thinking to yourself “My job is done here.” But is it really done?

Are these visitors purchasing your product or service? Are they subscribing to your newsletter or clicking on your call to actions? Are they spending more time on your website, viewing different pages instead of leaving?

If the answer to these questions is “No”, then this rise in traffic isn’t leading to conversions be it in terms of sales or brand loyalty. Not to worry. Ruttl has in store for you 5 quickly actionable website design tips that will help you boost the overall udience engagement on your website.

1. Focus on site layout and navigation

What if the chapters in your book are all haywire? Or the epilogue is in the middle of the book instead of at the end? Would you enjoy reading such a book? Most probably, no. You might even consider ditching that author’s books for a lifetime.

That would be the same case if your website doesn’t have a proper layout and navigation. Instead of having too much, stick to a simple layout. Use plenty of visual white space and keep your menu center stage so that it’s easy enough for everyone to figure out.

Another golden rule is to have a clear navigation. If your visitors aren’t able to find the information they need in two or three clicks and if your website is too difficult to navigate, the engagement would drop down. You may be better off with a good navigation menu and navigation that stays with you upon scrolling.

2. Create engaging content and show related resources

Having a blog is a great way to boost your website audience engagement. Small businesses can especially benefit a lot from this strategy. According to a study, small businesses that have blogs get 126% more leads than those who do not.

If you have just bought a product online, wouldn’t you be happy to learn different ways to use it and achieve success? That’s the power of having a blog and creating meaningful content. People will keep coming on to your site if they have a question or want to learn something new about your niche. Displaying related resources will also encourage the visitors to stay on your website for a longer time and increase pageviews.

3. Add a prominent search box

Have you ever come across a great product or a great article and remembered the website’s name so you can visit it again after some time? Later, when you go to that website, you scroll and scroll but just can’t find the thing you were looking for.

Most visitors come to your website to find something specific. When they have no means to find it, they’ll not only leave your site but they may never want to come back again. The best way to resolve this is by having a prominent search box on your site.

4. Conduct user testing

Your website may be perfect according to you. But are the users finding it easy to search the information they need? Is their attention going to the elements or features your website is supposed to be highlighting?

The best way to find the answers to these questions is by conducting user testing. Invite some users to review your website and find out the different ways you can boost website audience engagement. This doesn’t need to be a complex process. You can use Ruttl to simplify leaving comments on the live website itself.

5. Use different content types

Gone are the days when only written content worked. Video marketing, gifs, and podcast marketing are all the rage these days. A great example of this is the Dollar Shave Club that managed to bring in 12,000 orders in just 2 days with the help of video marketing. By making use of different content types, you can boost your website traffic and engagement. And with the availability of free video maker tools, creating engaging videos has become easier than ever before. You can use these tools to create stunning videos that showcase your brand's personality, values and help you connect with your audience on a deeper level.

Let’s take an example. Suppose, you created a short article on “5 ways to increase your email marketing success.” You can create an infographic for the same for your Instagram, a carousel post for LinkedIn and a detailed ebook on the same. With a single piece of content, you can increase both your traffic and engagement.

Website engagement can be that one thing that can turn your visitors into hot leads. But what if you already have a website and finding it difficult to visualize how different your website would look, if these 5 simple tips are implemented?

That's why we created Ruttl just for you! Ruttl is the fastest visual feedback tool that allows you to quickly add any link and make any changes to the website design layout, without having to work with the code directly!

So go ahead. Try implementing these amazing yet cost-effective tips on your website by signing up on Ruttl and creating a new project!

How To Properly Review A Website?

Tue, 25 May 2021 02:16:59 GMT

Websites are as important as your product/service these days. It could be the first impression your customer has when they become aware of your brand. About 50 milliseconds is the time users take to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not and whether they’ll stay or leave. In this case, your first impression can literally turn a prospect into a customer or sadly, drive a hot lead away.

While designing and developing a website are two of the most important things, let’s not forget that reviewing a website before it goes live can make all the difference. Just one edit can change the entire look or tone of your website for good.

So, how to ace this website review process? Ruttl is here to guide you through all the steps. Here are the most important things to test on your website on during the review process -

1. Appealing Call To Actions

Your website content, design and tone may be top-notch but it’s of no use if there aren’t any appealing calls to action for your user. These calls to action may be in the form of an e-book download on your blog page or opting for a subscription on your home page but make sure they are easily accessible and encourage the visitor to take action.

2. Website Structure and Design

Research says that the first impressions of a website are 94% design related. Your website should have an organized structure and design that is not too crowded but at the same time has enough to catch the visitor’s eye. You can match your structure with that of established players in your field and go a step further and make it even better.

3. Tone of the website

Is your website conveying professionalism? Are the images that you are using unique or are they a replica of thousands of such images you can find online? Is the content tone appropriate to your audience?

4. What catches the eye first?

What is capturing your eye first? Is it a notable feature of your company or an important statistic that can convert a visitor or is it just a company focused message that a prospect may not find relevant?

5. Icons and Color Palette

You may like a funky color tone but does it resonate with your audience? Is it appropriate for your industry? The same should be checked for the icons you use. Are they too technical to understand or can a layman figure out what they mean?

6. Navigation and User Experience

You want your site to provide an excellent user experience for your visitors. It’s something that everyone expects these days. Make sure there’s no ambiguity in your navigation where the user may fail to get what they want and navigate away from the site.

7. Content

Content isn’t just restricted to the ‘copy’ on your site. It consists of everything from images, videos and even audios. Make sure they all align well together and convey the appropriate message.

8. Loading Speed

A good load speed is not only important to rank well on Google, but also to control high bounce rates. Google keeps updating it's search engine algorithm and hence your website loading speed needs to be at it's best. Improving even one second of loading speed time can massively improve the visitors drop of rate of your website.

Things to take care of while critiquing the website

1. Be specific rather than giving out vague reviews

“I don’t like the feel of the website” may be true but what does that mean for your designer or developer? Does it translate into anything substantial for them? Definitely not. So, dig deep into your opinion. It might be that the colors used aren’t giving the website a good look or the font size needs to be toned down a little.

When you come across a specific point, instead of going back-and-forth on emails, try Ruttl where you can leave live comments on the website itself. Not only does this make the reviewing process easier but your designer or developer knows exactly what to do which curtails the time spent in this entire process.

2. Consider the context

Instead of saying, “The design of the home page doesn’t make any sense”, try saying, “I am curious. What thought process led you to select this design for our homepage?”

This will help you understand the context behind the design. It might be that the designer/developer had their own reasons. Always inquire before you outright criticize their work.

3. Don't be rigid with opinions

Remember, the real visitors of your website may not prefer what you prefer. While you may like technical jargons, it would make no sense for your website to have them. So, when faced against a reasonable argument, instead of sticking to your opinions, let them go. That’s how you can come up with better designs and a better overall website.

Wondering if there might be a better way to do all this, without spending hours on back and forth emails with your team? Then look no further!

Ruttl is a visual website feedback tool that helps you comment on websites, collect feedback, collaborate with team members and clients to review design projects post development.

So what are you waiting for? Experience the fastest way to review websites at ruttl.com!

Why Should Design Agencies Use A Website Feedback Tool?

Wed, 19 May 2021 12:33:00 GMT

We all know that website design is important. But how much? According to a study, 75% of consumers admitted that they make judgments on a company’s credibility based on the company’s website design. For design agencies, what it means is that the website designs you create for your clients can either make it or break it for them.

A reason why you not only need to have developers and designers that can create top-notch experiences but also a feedback tool that can curtail your review time and help come up with a final design that can make your client go, “Wow!”

At this point, you may be wondering, “Why do we need a tool for website review? We have been doing this via email for years” Well, ruttl is here to explain exactly why.

Why is website review important?

While your developers and designers may coordinate with each other, there are bound to be some revisions at the final stage. It may be related to pixels or an animation issue or something else altogether. Maybe, your client may have agreed to some aspects of the design but when they actually see the final design, they aren’t so happy with it.

Website review is one way to make sure that your final design is not only satisfactory for your developers, designers, animators and others involved but also for your client as well.

How does a website feedback tool help design agencies?

Let’s move on to understand the various ways a website feedback tool can help your design agency.

1. Better communication

Many times, the designer says something and the developer understands something else and vice versa. This leads to confusion and multiple edits again and again. Not only does this mean a lot of back and forth communication but it severely impacts the website launch time too. With a website feedback tool, communication becomes easier as you can leave comments on live websites that specifically indicate what changes need to be made (bonus: no more misunderstandings)

2. Clarity on minute details

Designer: This animation should be shifted a little towards the right side.

Developer: Okay! (shifts it completely to the right side)

Designer: Oh Lord, not again.

If you have dealt with this time and again, welcome to the club. The thing about using the routine communication tools for your website review process is that you miss out on minute details like pixels, font sizes, alignment, etc. Instead, use a tool that helps you pay attention to these details that can literally change the design of your client’s website for the better.

3. Changes become easy

At the review stage, when developers and designers see their final work come to life, they may find many aspects that need some changes. A website feedback tool like ruttl makes this easier and efficient by saving every single iteration of the website. You can then easily compare the different changes you make throughout and easily move towards the original one if you feel that was the best. A tool with a brilliant memory, what else do you need?

4. Optimization across different views

With so many people using mobiles to access different websites these days, optimizing across different views becomes important. Instead of assuming the codes for different device sizes, Ruttl allows designers and developers to easily switch between desktop and mobile views with a single click and see how the website looks across all devices.

5. Live website edits

The designer doesn’t think the font spacing is right. So, he sends a screenshot to the developer about what kind of spacing he requires. The developer again sends the screenshot of how it will look on the website. To avoid this screenshot game for each and every edit, a website feedback tool allows you to make live website edits that helps the developers see what exact changes are to be made and implement them accordingly.

6. Say goodbye to long emails

An average office worker receives about 121 emails every day. Just to find one change requirement, a developer may need to search through hundreds of emails that have the same subject line. Even more frustrating, imagine finding a requirement from the client that has forgotten to take you in the loop. Tools like Ruttl help you avoid such situations and save so much of your time as well.

7. Reducing time taken to review

When you spend less time in resolving confusions, misunderstandings and communication gaps, your website review process automatically becomes efficient. With so many features that a website feedback tool allows you to have, your developers and designers will no longer want to run away from this review process.

So, what are you waiting for? With Ruttl, make website development and designing an exciting adventure for your design agency.

Try it out with your next web design project at ruttl.com.

How Multiple Versions Improve Design Reviews

Tue, 11 May 2021 06:21:31 GMT

Have you ever had a client who kept going back and forth between the design options you shared? No matter how many versions you offered them, they were still confused because they couldn’t really “see it”?

We’ve all had such clients. As designers and developers, we can envision how the final website design will look for the end-user. Sometimes, clients cannot. So, how can you show clients different options for website designs without spending extra time, money, and effort asking the developer to code dozens of versions?

ruttl’s updated Version feature

As a product design agency, we’ve built several websites for clients in a variety of industries. Across all those projects, one thing has remained constant: the importance of version control.

When we first launched our design review product, ruttl, we didn’t include a feature that allowed users to create different versions of a website. But soon, we realized how critical it was to enable users to create multiple versions of a single web page to reduce the amount of coding and number of revisions from client feedback.

So, here’s everything ruttl’s Version feature offers to improve your web design projects:

1. Comparison

Has your copywriter given you three different headline and copy options to be added to the web page? Do you want to mix and match the copy options with other coloured headers? Or do you want to try out different fonts and alignments?

When you click “Add a version”, you can explore all these combinations and more from the same web page on your ruttl project. Try out different versions of your website until you’re satisfied that you have the best one. Designers don’t need any coding knowledge to create these unlimited versions, so there’s no need to involve the developer until your design is final.

2. Improve UI UX

Designers need to keep in mind the UI UX of their website designs, and using different versions to compare can have incredible results. For instance, if one version directs users to the CTA above the fold, another version can experiment by placing the CTA in a different spot. Clients can share their insight about increasing conversions, and designers can use them as guidelines to improve the website’s overall UI UX.

3. No need to switch projects

With ruttl’s Version feature, you don’t need to create a new project every time. Instead, you can just click on the “Add a Version'' and start work by tagging your team members to collaborate on the latest version.

Protip: Keep track of the different versions by adding them to your team’s project management tool. Adding the name of the designers working on each version will also help you ask them about the project.

4. Version history

You can add unlimited versions of your web page and access them any time because ruttl records every change and every version. That way, you don’t have to rack your brains to confirm which font and which colours were approved by the client that one time. You can bring them back whenever you want.

5. Precise client feedback

This is the best bit about having different versions for your web pages — you can invite clients to review these pages and provide clear feedback about what they want. No more requests like “Can we see this in red and blue, but with this font and with this alignment?”. ruttl’s version feature allows you to quickly and easily share different versions of your web pages, reduce revisions, and improve your final design.

6. Share approvals

Designers don’t need to sit with developers and take them through every web page version changes anymore. Just share the approved versions with the developer — they can directly pick up the codes and values from ruttl and make pixel-perfect websites.

A good SaaS product aims to solve user problems, and we’re constantly trying to improve ruttl by adding new features and updates. Our best work comes from your feedback — as a visual feedback and collaboration tool, we take all your suggestions seriously.

We’ve tried and tested ruttl’s Version feature ourselves on our client projects, and we’re excited to say that it works! It shortens the time spent on revisions, allows designers to experiment easily, and appeases clients with a multitude of options for their website design.

Interested in trying out ruttl? Create your first project here: ruttl.com

You can make edits and comment on live websites, tag team members, and invite clients to share clear feedback to make your design review process better.

5 Amazing Tools for Freelance Designers

Tue, 04 May 2021 06:54:24 GMT

One cannot undersell the importance of a well-designed product in today’s rapidly evolving world. UI UX designers, in particular, have to make sure the websites and apps they design can make a good first impression within 0.05 seconds. There is considerable effort and time invested in making easy-to-use and visually attractive products.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, India emerged as the second-fastest growing freelance market in the world, with a 46% increase in new freelancers in Q1 and Q2. Freelance designers, in general, are in high demand due to the increased focus on digital products as in-person shopping and recreation have reduced due to the pandemic.

Today, we’re sharing some valuable apps and design tools that are a must-have for any freelance designer.

1. Toggl

When you’re a freelancer, it can get challenging to manage your time well. Being self-employed means that you have to enforce your deadlines to ensure your work is complete by the time the client needs it. If you’re looking for a tool that helps you track how much time you spend on different aspects of a project, Toggl is a great tool. It is easy to use and generates useful reports that you can send to your clients.

Toggl track is the time-tracking version that helps you manage your time better. You can choose between summaries or detailed weekly reports and get them sent directly to your email. It also rounds up or down according to your choice. Toggl Plan is a team planning and project management app that includes project timelines, group overviews, and task management features. These can be useful for freelancer designers who have sub-contractors or work on multiple long-term projects at a time.

2. Bonsai

Bonsai is a useful contract generator, time-tracker, and project management tool for freelancers. Marketed as a comprehensive freelance product suite, Bonsai has several valuable features that include proposals, contracts, time-tracking for individual client projects, expense tracking, invoices and payments.

Freelance designers who don’t have time to shop around for or work with different tools to track their time, generate invoices, or manage projects can use Bonsai as a one-stop-shop for their needs.

3. ruttl

A staple in every freelance web designer’s arsenal, ruttl is a visual feedback and collaboration tool that helps you review websites quickly. A live website review tool, ruttl allows designers to make edits to live websites without coding knowledge. They can even invite clients and stakeholders to review the project and gather precise feedback to share with the developer, resulting in pixel-perfect websites.

Freelance designers who work with agencies or subcontractors can create projects and add team members. Commenting by tagging team members on live websites during the review process ensures clear and actionable feedback, reducing revision time. At the same time, the developers can pick up the codes and values directly from ruttl. What’s more, it even saves every version so designers can compare to make sure they design buttery-smooth websites for every client.

4. Huesnap

Choosing the right colours is critical for any design project. Designers working on projects will often get ”inspo” images from clients as guidelines for the design. Huesnap is the perfect way to use these inspiration images to create colour palettes that retain the client’s brand and tone.

For those seeking inspiration, use Huesnap to click photos and create palettes on the go. Similarly, you can also recreate new colour palettes using competitor colour palettes as your base to design within industry standards and expectations.

5. Brutask

Most freelancers work on a multitude of projects for several clients. This can make it challenging to keep track of each client’s requirements and allocate the right time to completing them. Brutask is a simple to-do list app that helps freelancers manage their tasks efficiently.

Users can create their to-do list by adding tasks, prioritizing important ones, and timeboxing them for better time management. When working with others, designers can also mark specific tasks as private while overseeing others’ tasks with admin or manager access. Brutasks’s simplicity makes it easy to use, and it works best for those who use post-it notes, daily to-do lists or want to inculcate this habit. It helps freelancers stay motivated by increasing productivity and creating a feeling of achievement every time you mark a task as done.

Pro tip: Pair Brutask with Toggl to see if you’re able to stick to the time you allocate for specific tasks or if you need to rework timelines. This will help reduce overwork and help you manage your time better in the long run.

Other important must-haves

If you’re entering the freelance world, ensure that you have the following to help you land the best clients and exciting projects.

1. Google Apps

It goes without saying that a professional email is necessary to set the right impression with your clients. Leveraging Gmail, Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets can help you share early design sketches, wireframes, and more. Storing your work on Google Drive (or Dropbox, depending on your preference) can help you work on the go. Cloud storage is also a great way to make sure you can access pieces on your portfolio if something happens to your storage devices.

2. Slack

Communication is vital for any project’s success. Whether it’s for revisions or feedback, freelance designers need to have communication tools in place to ensure they can gather all the required information from their clients. Slack is a valuable communication tool that boasts of several integrations, including Google apps. Create individual channels to track progress and separate different stages of the project to ensure clarity and transparency.

3. Portfolio

While this isn’t a tool, it’s an absolute must-have for any freelance designer. A robust UI UX portfolio is the best way to land clients. Whether you create your website or use an external platform like Dribble, your portfolio should be a collection of your strongest, most versatile work that highlights your skills.

We know being a freelance designer isn’t easy. In fact, before we started Brucira, we did a fair bit of freelancing ourselves. That’s we hope this list of helpful design tools and tips will help improve your freelance journey.

Try out ruttl, the future of design review here: ruttl.com

Create your first to-do list on Brutask here: brutask.com

How Colors Impact Your Website

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 03:14:12 GMT

Several studies have explored the impact of different colours and different types of colours on human beings. This field is called colour psychology, and designers can leverage several valuable bits of information when choosing colours for website design projects.

On a superficial level, people associate colours with prominent brands, i.e. colour branding. Colours can increase brand recognition by 80%. When it comes to web design and playing with saturation and brightness, the impact on user experience can be pretty striking. Employing design thinking to anticipate user journeys and user behaviour can help designers highlight relevant sections & CTA buttons through the right colours.

Brightness vs Saturation

Have you ever landed on a website that's almost too bright to look at for too long? Websites that have increased the colour brightness on their elements, CTA buttons, and text are attractive at the start but soon cause overstimulation in the retinas, reducing our tolerance.

Similarly, sections that are fully saturated draw attention but cannot sustain it. They disrupt the user experience and, if placed in large sections, drive the user away.

Saturation refers to the intensity of a colour, i.e. the amount of grey mixed into it. Brightness, on the other hand, is the amount of black or white in the colour. Web designers need to balance the two in small sections to draw attention and enhance user experience.

Bright desaturated colours are considered more friendly and professional, especially when gradated. `For instance, when Brucira designed BlueSapling's website, we chose bright colours to maintain the brand tonality and vitality across our designs.

On the other hand, darker desaturated colours, like the ones we used in the Easy A Tutor Dashboard, are considered more serious and professional. Most industries pair darker colours with more vibrant ones for contrast and to keep the user engaged.

Where should you use saturated and bright colours?

If your entire website is bright and saturated, it's hard for the user to read any copy or check out any visual information presented about your product. Use bright saturated colours in the two ways we suggest below:

Highlight sections

Desaturated colours are often chosen for panels, backgrounds, and menus to reduce user flow breaks. It's easy to find when needed but not in your face otherwise. That's why it's a good idea to use saturated and bright colours to highlight important sections on your web page. Use colours to make these elements stand out and guide your audience to them quickly.

Create prominent CTAs

If you pay attention, all the CTA buttons you'll come across are bright and saturated. If you haven't noticed it yet, you can check out the colour of the "Share" button on Google Docs as an example. Website designs that balance white space and saturated colours through their buttons draw the user and increase their conversion chances.

Another reason to place your CTAs in a bright coloured box is to help your users find them easily. As they scroll through your webpage, make it easier for the user to contact you, sign up, or learn more about the product or service. This will improve your overall UX (user experience)and contribute favourably to your website's UI (user interface). The UI determines user journeys, and correctly colouring CTA buttons will only boost your website's functionality.

Things to remember when choosing colours for your website

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind as you select the colours to define your brand and your website. Remember, colours affect our perceptions subconsciously, so choose wisely.

Research, research, research

Conducting competitor research to find out the dominant colours across your industry is a great way to set the right tone for your website. For instance, when we worked on Eugenie.ai's website redesign, we spent a lot of time researching the industry standards and how to make the website stand out with our designs.

Use colour to connect & share information

Ask yourself, do the colours help your audience connect with your brand and your products? Choose colours that favourably impact audience perception. Next, it's essential to ensure that all the time you spent crafting the perfect lines for your website copy to inform your audience about your products and service isn't going to waste. Don't choose the wrong colours or place brighter colours in the wrong sections. Make sure the text on your website can be easily read, especially in saturated sections.

Create a brand colour palette

There's no rule that you have to stick to the same colours your competitors are using. Choosing different colours can draw more attention and keep your user engaged. Remember to create a clear colour palette for your website, so all the illustrations, graphics, and elements are coordinated to give it a cohesive look.

High-quality UI vs simple UI

Fancier colours suggest a better user experience, while basic colours imply a low-quality or simple user experience. Complex, shaded, and graded colours make the user perceive that the website, and in turn, the product is high-quality since it seems professionally made.

There are exceptions to the rule: Google's simple colours, Coca Cola's signature red, or Nike's black and white — these companies use simple colours in their logos and across all their marketing collateral, even their websites. So, when choosing your brand colours, keep in mind the way you want your brand to be perceived.

Review website designs to get the perfect colours

Reviewing website designs needn't be time-consuming and stressful anymore. As a product design agency, we recognized the need for a visual website feedback tool decided to built ruttl.

ruttl lets you edit live websites, make font changes, move elements around, experiment with colours, and so much more. Web design reviews help you check if your CTA buttons are placed correctly and if they draw the right amount of attention from users. Similarly, you can check how two different versions of a website would look without coding knowledge with our version control feature.

Try it out with your next web design project at ruttl.com.

Everything You Need To Know About Wireframes

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 09:18:09 GMT

Wireframes are blueprints for a website and help with building more responsive websites. If you’ve got more time and want to know more about wireframes, why they’re important, and how you can use them to create responsive websites, we’ve got a wealth of information coming your way.

UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) are critical components that determine how users respond to your website. You don’t have long to make a good first impression either. It takes a user 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) to decide if they like your website enough to stay and browse. The visual appeal, user interface, and responsive nature of your website will help you retain and convert more users.

One of the first steps to creating a good website? Wireframes.

What are wireframes?

Wireframes are blueprints for your website. Think of it as the foundational structure of your website’s design. It shows how the elements on each page will be spaced, where the content will be placed, the primary CTAs, and other vital aspects.

Web designers use different types of tools to build their lo-fi (low fidelity) wireframes. Some from to sketch it out on paper, others use tools like Balsamiq, Proto.io, and wireframe.cc. At Brucira, we use the old-school way and sketch out our wireframes manually.

Wireframes don’t have any visual elements like fonts, colour, graphics etc. They connect information from the Information Architecture to different pathways throughout the website, helping designers map out user journeys and page functionalities.

Why are wireframes important?

Without a structure in place, it can be challenging to build any website well. Wireframes serve as the first step to building a well-designed website that considers business requirements and user needs.

1. Better functionality

When you start with wireframes, it’s easier for designers to map out the right functionality and pathways across the website as a whole. Changing placements and reworking elements in a hi-fi (high-fidelity) mockup or prototype is costlier and more time-consuming.

Understanding user needs to improve user experience and user interface will help designers and developers reduce the back and forth during the review stage.

2. Understand client requirements

Creating wireframes is a great way to properly understand what the client wants to get out of their website. The simple layout of wireframes eliminates distractions about colour, size, font, graphics, and other elements, allowing the client to focus on giving you precise instructions about what the website needs. Wireframes don’t contain a lot of detail, so it’s the perfect time to gather that data from the client and conduct independent research.

Sharing wireframes with clients will also help you gain more information about user behaviour, manage expectations, and learn how the client works. This is the first stage, so setting the tone for deliverables, review, and feedback will help you as the project progresses.

3. Early review = fewer revisions

Inviting the client to review the website’s wireframes allows them to share precise visual feedback about what they want. This will help designers prioritize the right content, build clear hierarchies, and improve the user experience right from the get-go. Designers can note pace constraints and gather feedback from stakeholders about what needs to be highlighted in the website design.

4. Responsive websites

Wireframes provide clarity of thought and a deeper understanding of how the website needs to function. It’s an important tool to communicate with different teams and team members, helping you build more responsive websites.

Wireframes for mobile-first websites will help developers understand how to code the elements optimally across different device sizes. Figuring out layout and navigation needs against screen size differences early on can help designers and developers work together to build more responsive websites.

Wireframes ≠ Prototypes

Don’t get confused between wireframes and prototypes. Though they serve similar functions, they come at different stages of the web design process. Wireframes are blueprints or sketches; prototypes are the closest versions to the finished product, without the code. Prototypes are more interactive and include all the visual elements of a final product. They’re often used as a way to test the product before launch and to fix any issues.

Done with wireframes, what’s next?

Once the client has approved your wireframes, you can start building the hi-fi versions of the website. Remember to ask for feedback at every stage to avoid revisions as the website gets closer to its finished version.

Once your website has been coded and is on the staging link, you can invite clients and other stakeholders to review it on ruttl. Seeing how the wireframes set the base of the entire website will help your client understand the importance of wireframing in the website design.

Do you need to make edits to the website when it’s almost ready but don’t want to involve the developer until you confirm the client’s changes? ruttl allows you to make edits to live websites, allowing designers to change website elements without coding knowledge.

Take your web design process to the next level with ruttl. Try it out for yourself at ruttl.com.

3 SaaS Influencers You Need To Follow Right Now

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 11:40:57 GMT

SaaS or Software as a Service is one of the fastest-growing verticals in the digital tech industry. SaaS allows users and providers to connect with one another via cloud computing, offering easy installation and accessibility. Some of the most common examples of SaaS that you’ve probably used include emails, calendars, Microsoft Office tools, etc.

Why is SaaS gaining importance?

With simple functionality and innovative options, SaaS has quickly become the preferred way for digital businesses to offer services. Traditional software required tedious installation and upkeep, something SaaS does away with due to its on-demand and cloud-based nature.

In fact, due to cloud computing, businesses can use innovative software created anywhere in the world. It’s easy to work with a distributed team since SaaS applications allow you to access app data without boundaries. When it comes to offering different devices and connectivity options, your SaaS provider has already taken care of it, allowing your workforce to use it without any issues. Most SaaS solutions also offer excellent security, protecting your data so that you aren’t exposed to mobile computing threats.

If you’re curious about all things SaaS, start by checking out our list of entrepreneurs, SaaS experts, and product leaders you can follow to increase your understanding of this budding vertical.

1. Neil Patel

If you run any digital business, you’ve probably heard the name Neil Patel mentioned during marketing meetings. One of the world’s most popular digital marketing gurus, Neil Patel owns Ubersuggest, a SaaS product that helps digital marketers with SEO, Google Analytics, competitor research, and more.

Patel is also the co-founder of several very successful companies, including Crazy Egg (an online platform for website analytics including heat maps, scroll maps, and more) and KISS metrics (targeted towards the growth of SaaS and ecommerce companies). He has been recognized as one of the world’s Top 25 marketers (Forbes), listed among the Top 100 Entrepreneurs Under 30 by President Barack Obama, and added to the Top 100 Entrepreneurs under 35 by the United Nations.

If you’d like to learn from him, you can check out his blog, sign up for his newsletter, and listen to his daily podcast with Eric Siu, Marketing School. He’s also the NYT best-selling author of Hustle: The Power to Charge Your Life with Money, Meaning, and Momentum.

2. Hiten Shah

Co-owners of KISS metrics and Crazy Egg with Neil Patel, Hiten Shah is another well-known name in the SaaS and digital marketing industry. Married to Neil Patel’s sister, Hiten Shah has established himself as a SaaS and digital marketing expert and entrepreneur with his companies, one of which is self-funded, the other, venture-backed.

His work as a consultant has seen him advise and work with over 500 startups, offering him unique insight into what makes a SaaS company successful. He shares this insight on his blog as well as in his newsletter, SaaS weekly. He also has a podcast called The Startup Chat with Steli Efti, consultant to startups and businesses in Silicon Valley.

3. Dharmesh Shah

Dharmesh Shah is the founder and CTO of Hubspot, a SaaS solution for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. A successful investor, entrepreneur, and product creator, Shah has invested in over 60 companies.

He has co-authored Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs with Brian Halligan, his Hubspot co-founder. With more than 70,000 clients in 120 countries, Hubspot is expected to report over $800 million in revenue in 2021.

Shah has founded OnStartups.com, a top-ranking blog and community with more than 700,000 members. The Hubspot Culture Code, published by Shah in 2013, has over 5.5 million views on SlideShare. He has also been named in Inc. Founders 40 and does many talks on startups, inbound marketing, company culture, and more.

We could add many other names to this list, which would be overwhelming for a beginner to SaaS culture and solutions. Instead, to stay up to date with the community, check out our blog, which offers great tips and tricks, especially for website designers and developers.

Don’t forget to check out ruttl, our visual feedback and collaboration tool — a SaaS solution for design review. Built by designers and developers, we’re excited to revamp the clunky and frustrating process of reviewing website designs to make it faster, smoother, and better.

P.S. For all those budding SaaS entrepreneurs and product creators out there, you need to try Brutask — the perfect task management tool for your small team.

How ruttl Went From 500 To 1000 Users In 1 Month!

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 05:48:43 GMT

When we began building ruttl, we knew first hand the importance of having a better website reviewing method for our team. Although the market is filled with some great tools, we noticed several pain points that were still not addressed. Fed up with no perfect solution, we decided to build ruttl into the most intuitive and powerful visual feedback tool that ever existed!

Well, today marks a big day in the journey of ruttl. Within the past one month, ruttl user base has scaled from 500 to now over 1000 users! Even though user acquisition is a tough process, people have started appreciating ruttl's fast operation speed coupled with the unique power of editing live websites directly inside ruttl.

If you are curious to know how we managed to touch the mighty "1000 user" number, here are some of the things that we did in the last month:

1. Google Ads Campaign

One of the most powerful channels that helped us achieved this goal was running google ads directly to targetted users. From web design to development, we identified several interests group that might fit the target user's persona of ruttl. Based on the interests, we ran multiple ads across the world and saw a huge influx of website traffic that was soon was converted into active users!

2. SEO Optimization

Probably one of the toughest things to do on a website is Search Engine Optimization. However, since this usually brings in the best quality traffic, we invested time and effort into ensuring that our website provided a blazing fast, smooth and beautiful user experience to the visitors. Alongside, we also created a list of keywords that we felt would be most relevant to our audience. Through publishing value-driven content on our blog page and on-page+off-page optimization techniques, we are now ranking on the first page for several keywords that our future users might be searching for on google search.

3. Community Outreach

Community support has always helped ruttl since its initial days. We have always striven to thank for this support by consistently giving out useful tips and tricks to the indie hackers community. This has helped us create a tribe of supporters who regularly refer to our content and stay updated with the latest developments for ruttl. It has also helped us in learning several growth tactics from experienced SaaS professionals who are active on this amazing community platform.

4. Retargeting Waitlisted Users

Our waitlisted user list was filled with enthusiastic beta testers who wanted to try out ruttl as soon as possible. It took us time to send ruttl's access to the entire list but it started getting tougher to convert people, thanks to the lengthy waiting period. Hence, we decided to take another approach. We revamped our approach and started to remarket the audience through follow-up emails and sending them useful content published on our blog page. This slowly but steadily started to improve our conversion numbers and helped us in gaining new users.

Shoutout to the entire ruttl team who has made this achievement possible by constantly putting in dedicated efforts and work relentlessly to make ruttl into the best visual feedback tool!

Working at a design agency yourself? Fed up with the old, laborious process of reviewing websites? Check out ruttl, the most intuitive website feedback tool and join the 1000+ users who have switched to this future of design review!

Why Commenting Isn’t Enough for Website Review

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 11:57:22 GMT

Over the last three years, we’ve realized something important about running a product design agency so efficiently: communication. It’s not a new concept, it’s certainly not something we discovered, but across our projects, communication is what helps us deliver high-quality work.

Of course, we didn’t realize the importance of communication and the different nuances from the get-go. No, that wouldn’t make for a good blog post, right? Like most other startups, we made mistakes, learned from them, optimized our processes, and used them to chart our current successes.

As a product design agency, we work across web design projects for a variety of clients. In a previous blog post, we shared how ruttl, our website feedback tool, was conceptualized from a failure we had during the web development stage.] In this one, we want to share how we learned that commenting on website isn’t enough for website review.

First, what is a website review?

If you’re unfamiliar with the process or want to refresh the basics, website reviews happen when the designer looks at how the developer has coded the designs into the website wireframes.

At this stage, the designer conducts an aesthetic review. They’re checking to see if the website looks good, the illustrations and elements complement the font, everything is aligned correctly, etc.

Most designers will review the website and send all their corrections by adding screenshots with comments explaining the issues to a word doc. The developer will then try and fix these issues to comply with the designer’s requirements. Other designers will sit with the developer and take them through each issue individually, asking them to change it to fit the approved designs.

The gap in communication

This is when problems begin to crop up. The issue with comments on marked-up screenshots is that they’re vague and offer little value. “Move this element a little to the left.” How much is a little? Designers aren’t able to quantify their designs in pixels. So, how does the designer know where the designer wants to place the element? There is no precision when it comes to comments during a website review.

During a project with a client from the AI (Artificial Intelligence) industry, we resorted to sending the values to the developer through screenshots, asking them to use those marked-up screenshots as the reference to rework the elements. It led to a lot of friction — we kept going back and forth and the result was still not what we had envisioned.

Building ruttl, the perfect solution

Earlier, we used a design annotation tool that allowed us to post comment on the website — still no clarity on values for the developers, though. That’s when we realized the potential of a website design feedback tool that allowed designers to make edits on staging links.

We built ruttl, the future of design review, as the perfect website annotation tool to solve these problems. In ruttl’s EDIT mode, designers can edit live elements, change the font alignment, spacing, and so much more. This allows them the freedom to visualize their website design without any coding knowledge.

For the developers, ruttl is the best tool to achieve pixel perfection. All the values can be picked up and used to build the website exactly as the design needs.

Keeping room for change

It’s at the review stage when most designers and developers change important elements to improve their website. After all, when the designers see their website designs come to life, there are little aspects that they want to change to make sure the final product is absolutely perfect.

On ruttl, designers can save every single iteration of the website, allowing for helpful comparisons. Developers can tweak the codes to make sure that the live website reflects the changes after development.

Optimizing for Mobile View

Developers need to make sure their website is also responsive across devices. Most developers tend to do this by optimizing their web design by assuming the codes applicable for the different device sizes.

When you use ruttl to review websites, developers don’t need to assume the values for mobile view. ruttl’s Responsive View allows designers and developers to check how their website looks across mobiles, tablets, and other devices.

Pixel perfect websites

Commenting leaves a lot to be desired during website review. Clarity and understanding are often missing when developers have only comments to guide them. That’s why when we decided to build a review tool like ruttl, we wanted to give designers the independence to change live websites without any coding knowledge. Similarly, we wanted to give developers an easy way to get the correct codes and values to create the final products.

Designers, bring your designs to life on ruttl.

Developers pick up the codes directly from live staging links.

Create pixel perfect websites when you review them on ruttl.

Check out this here to improve your web design review: https://ruttl.com/

On-Boarding Things That We Do For New Users

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 14:18:12 GMT

Whether your product is easy to understand or with steep learning curve, it is necessary to have a good on-boarding plan for new users. Without this set of defined actions, users might quickly lose interest and eventually drop out of using your product.

For today, we have decided to share our experience with creating on-boarding plan of ruttl. In the early days, when we didn't have any idea about these steps, we would simply sign up for different apps to study how they handled new users. This taught us new ways in which we can do the same.

Note - On-boarding is a long process and there are many layers to this. For this post particularly, I have included only the first few things that are done for new users within the first 2-4 hours of their sign up.

Here are few things that we have done( or are in the process of doing) for ruttl's initial customer onboarding -

1. Welcome Mailer 📧

Packed with welcome text along with ruttl's "How-To" YouTube playlist that explains different features and how to use them

2. Email from the co-founder 👨‍💻

A direct email from the co-founder to make the user feel warm, valued, to share the vision of the product and to once again offer support or assistance if needed.

3. One-Time Product Walkthrough Guide 👋

Comes in handy for news users to get accustomed to your interface and to understand which button does what.

4. Demo Video 📹

Inside account settings, users can view a recorded demo video that explains ruttl in depth as well.

A Must-Try Chrome Extension for Gmail

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 14:08:23 GMT

Back when we started sending follow up mails to waitlisted users for ruttl, we realized that this process of sending mails was about to get whole lot complicated. It was smooth only until the number of users started going from tens to hundreds.

We needed something to keep track of these users but traditional CRM tools were quite expensive to use. We started looking around for alternatives when we came across another founder's post online who talked about "Streak" - a simple chrome extension that acts like spreadsheet management tool for Gmail. Since then, this little tool has become an integral part of our daily activities.

The process is very simple. Simply install streak chrome extension, sign into it, go to your Gmail inbox and you should see a orange logo that takes you into the dashboard.

This helped us smoothen the process of managing waitlisted users. Every day we would send mails and the next day after checking the status of the user, we would move it into respective stages. Here's an idea of the user pipeline with stages that we created for ruttl to manage our waitlisted users -

Stage 1 - Sent access for ruttl
Stage 2 - First follow up
Stage 3 - Second follow up
Stage 4 - Signed-up user
Stage 5 - Random stage to mark out inactive/non-responsive users

Furthermore, here are some ways in which we found it useful -

To assign stages to ruttl user mails like "signed up users"
To create and send email templates with click of one-button
To manage leads and funding opportunities

We would highly encourage you to give it a try! If you want to learn more about what else streak can do, make sure you check out their features page.

5 User Acquisition Methods That Work For Us

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 14:00:36 GMT

User acquisition is no joke and you might get tired with all the promotion work in front of the internet. 😩

We know it's becoming harder and harder to get your product out in front of other people. So we wanted to share with you guys some methods that have been working successfully for ruttl.

1. Listing Platforms

We have seen good success by doing this. After researching dozens of websites and listing platforms, we found this cool cheatsheet filled with places to list your product. This process brings in some traffic regularly.

2. Email Marketing To Waitlisted Users

Earlier this year, we had opened up ruttl for beta testing and get over 1500 people to sign up. Slowly, we started handing out access to them. These users are now converting into active users for us. One of them in fact became our first paying customer too!

3. Social Media Posts

Regular value driven posts on LinkedIn are generating good results as well. We are trying to completely utilize the LinkedIn network to get people to sign up.

4. PR and Press Coverage

Although this was a paid initiative, we tried experimenting with it. It surely did generate traffic to ruttl and drove some conversions, thanks to the influencers who promoted ruttl.

5. Landing Page Feature

Probably one of the best working methods for us till now, landing page featuring platforms that featured us and got us to the front page of their website. This resulted in a spike and we got couple of users from that too.

Dealing With Angry Users? Here's How ruttl Dealt With It!

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 12:58:37 GMT

So today we got this mail from one of the ruttl users in our email marketing list 👇

We decided to make a social media to apologize to all those who got irritated by our emailers but couldn't unsubscribe. We am now working on the same issue and will be adding the feature shortly.

Along with that, we are also adding notification setting and account deletion functionality.

Remember guys, The best way to improve your product is to acknowledge where you are going wrong and to rectify it!

Again, we would like to thank the lovely users who force us to improve our designs every single day with honest feedback!

The Latest SEO Growth Hack That Worked For Us

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 12:50:49 GMT

About two weeks back, we shared about how we are using footer design to improve our SEO.

Well, the results are here!

When we went on google today and typed in the keyword "comment on live website", ruttl.com showed up on the 5th position.

More tricks are yet to get executed. we'll keep sharing our SEO progress with you guys every once in a while. In fact, if you are working on your SEO as well (or just find SEO interesting in general) you can check out this blog post that we found pretty useful. It's got over 300 quick hacks that you can use to boost your rankings!

Hope that helps you!

How Heat Maps Improve Website Design and UX

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 05:11:45 GMT

Have you ever found yourself on a website that’s super annoying and clunky to you? No matter how much you tap or click, you’re not able to find what you really want.

It’s not enjoyable, it’s not smooth, it’s not good design. The UI and UX designers have failed to build the website in a way that’s inviting and exciting for users. But there’s a way to fix such websites: heat maps.

What are heat maps?

A heat map is a data visualization of user behaviour on your website. Simply put, it helps you understand how visitors are using your website. Their scrolls, clicks, taps, and movements on your web page are coded by colour. A heat map’s colour scale starts with red for the parts of the web page that receive the most movement and ends with blue for the cooler parts of the page, i.e. minimal activity.

Website mapping data can help you figure out the following:

Click maps: where your users are clicking the mouse/tapping on their mobile devices
Scroll maps: where your users scroll on a page
Move maps: where your users are moving their mouse on the page (different from clicks)

How you can use heatmaps to improve user experience

Heat maps can help you fix problems and optimize your website to succeed in a mobile-first world. When 94% of people say that their first impression of a business comes from their website, it makes sense to ensure you have the best possible website. Your digital presence can increase customer conversion and bring in more leads. Here are some of the ways heat maps can improve your website’s UI and UX:

Build for responsive view

74% of visitors are more likely to return to a mobile-friendly website. Every single day, your visitors find your site across different devices — mobile phones, tablets, desktops, wearables, etc. Your website needs to be optimized for multiple screen sizes and resolutions.

Using a heat map to analyze your responsive website design can show you if users are scrolling past or missing critical CTAs. To help them engage better with your product on mobile devices, use heat maps to place important elements on higher movement sections.

Refine your CTAs

CTAs (Calls to action) are how a business can evaluate how many people are interested in what they’re offering. From sign ups to sales, CTAs encourage users to interact with the product. Well-placed CTAs increase conversion, boost customer retention and drive the business forward.

Heat maps can help you analyze if your CTAs are placed in the most optimal locations. You can also check how the elements around your CTAs complement them to increase clicks. With this visual analysis, you can also test new CTAs in areas with higher than average user engagement.

Check scroll distance

Most visitors will not scroll to the end of your website. So, if critical aspects of your website are below “the fold” — the part of the website that’s visible without scrolling — then users might miss out if they choose not to scroll.

Your website’s heat map will show you where the average user stops scrolling. Comparing your click maps and scroll maps will help you place the important information above the fold, ensuring it reaches more people.

Highlight issues

One of the most useful ways a heat map can help your website is by highlighting issues. If many users click on an image or element expecting it to take them somewhere, a heat map will share common click patterns. You can either add a CTA to that spot or clarify that the CTA is in a different section of the web page to avoid confusion.

Review your website & conduct heat map analysis

89% of consumers will shop with your competitor if your web design is flawed. This means that a poorly designed website not only decreases your sales but pushes customers into the waiting arms of your competitors. If you don’t review your website to ensure any small errors or issues are fixed before going live, then your users will find them for you.

Take the time to review your website and ensure that everything is optimized for your user. Visitors want to experience a beautifully laid-out, attractive website that answers their queries and will enable them to interact with the product. A well-designed website will help you gauge interest and increase sales over time.

At Brucira, our product design agency, we knew the importance of reviewing websites. That’s why we built ruttl to accompany our website heat map analysis. When it comes to fixing broken links or rearranging CTAs, it’s easy to edit live websites with ruttl. This means that designers can check how their website design looks without any coding knowledge.

We also wanted to allow users to add contextual comments while tagging their teammates. This allows them to improve the website design by working with data visualization from the heat map.

Check out our visual feedback tool ruttl

Follow our social media for more design and development tips: Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook

Top 6 Web Design Courses for Beginners

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 12:04:44 GMT

So, you want to be a web designer?

If you’re not sure where to begin, we’ve got you covered. The digital age has made it possible for everyone around the world to learn and develop their skills without any geographical barrier. Even so, the volume of information available can be confusing and overwhelming, which is where we come in.

First, what is web design, and why is it in so much demand?

Remember when we said it’s the digital age a few lines ago? That effectively means that brands and companies need a smooth, useful, and informative website to communicate with their customers today.

Web design is when you design a website — this includes microcopy, layouts, colours, illustrations, images, animations, element placement, and more. In order to make the website functional and aesthetic, the web design needs to comply with UI UX requirements. A pretty website alone doesn’t work very well.

When it comes to web design, it’s not essential to have a college or university qualification. Hands-on experience designing websites is far more useful since the industry is extremely dynamic. Creating a portfolio of diverse, buttery smooth website designs that highlight the intersection between design and UI UX is the best way to attract clients.

Today, every business, big or small, has a web presence. A well-designed website is the key to attracting, acquiring, and retaining customers. That’s why, we’ve curated a list that includes 5 of the best web design courses for beginners that you can start exploring right now!

Check available jobs on Jooble.

1. Web Design for Everybody: Basics for Web Development & Coding, University of Michigan, Coursera

Offered by the University of Michigan on Coursera, beginners to web design can pick up valuable CSS and responsive design skills, among others, during this course. In this specialization course, students will be able to write syntactically correct HTML5 and CSS3 and create interactive web designs with JavaScript.

The course takes approximately six months to complete at a pace of 3 hours per week and will offer a comprehensive understanding of web design and development basics. The benefit of an at-your-own-pace course like this is that it allows students to balance work and other responsibilities along with this course.

2. Web Design for Beginners | FREE COURSE – Envato Tuts+

If you're looking for an introduction to the fundamentals of web design, this free beginners course from Envato Tuts+ is a brilliant entry point. It features over 5 hours of lessons, split across over 30 lessons, and delivered by web design instructor Adi Purdila who covers everything from color, typography, and spacing, to sizing, imagery, and responsive web design.

By taking the course, you'll learn about all the elements you can use to design a web page–think headers, buttons, image galleries, and contact forms, and Adi will address the kinds of questions that every novice has when they start out. With over half a million views on YouTube alone, you'll be in good company if you begin your web design journey with this video.

3. Ultimate Web Design Course, Webflow University

One of the most popular web design courses on the internet, Webflow University’s course takes students through HTML and CSS basics across 100+ videos spanning five hours. The course is divided into sections exploring web structure, elements, buttons & links, typography, media, components, styling basics, layout basics, flexbox and grid, advanced layouts, styling typography, backgrounds, 3D styles, responsive design, CMS & dynamic content, and more.

A thorough introduction to web design, this course is targeted towards beginners and intermediate learners. There’s also a section where the course takes you through some useful SEO basics, including Google Analytics, paid vs. organic search, etc.

4. Web Design for Beginners: Real World Coding in HTML & CSS, Brad Schiff, Udemy

Udemy’s most popular course on web design, this course by Brad Schiff has over 50 thousand students and a strong 4.6 rating (from over 15,000 reviews). Split into 22 sections, the course has 71 videos that will take a student almost 11 hours to finish.

At the end of this course, the student will have a clear understanding of HTML & CSS basics, including the ability to add animations and effects with CSS3. Like most of the other courses in this list, students will also learn how to create websites with responsive design, optimizing them for different device sizes and screen resolutions.

5. Human-Centered Design: Building and Testing Prototypes, Open HPI

For those who have the basics of web design down but want to focus on picking up human-centered design skills, this is the perfect course. A self-paced course, it teaches students how to build simple and effective prototypes, prepare testing scenarios, and gain feedback from users.

Prototyping, planning, testing real scenarios are all part of the 4-week course, which over 5,000 students have signed up for. With a focus on web design led by design thinking, this course can help students create designs that employ UI UX techniques to increase conversion.

6. Web design track, Treehouse

Focusing on building a foundation with basic HTML and CSS skills, this 40-hour course from Treehouse is a good choice for those looking to cover a lot of ground in a short but detailed course. You’ll learn how to a mobile-first layout along with skills like typography selection and layout skills, Bootstrap 4 basics, browser prototypes, SVG basics, CSS animations, Sass basics, and more.

These five courses offer you a varied selection of web design fundamentals — depending on the time and resources you have available, you can begin learning with the course that appeals the most to you.

It’s important to remember that courses like these will help you master the basics but understanding what makes a website work will come through experience.

All the very best on your web design journey!

Check out our blog for more design and development tips: www.ruttl.com/blog

Once you design and build your first website, have someone review it on ruttl and see how easy it can be to review website projects without any coding knowledge.

Try it out here: www.ruttl.com

The Role of Visual Feedback in Web Development

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 13:02:44 GMT

Every day, whether we realize it or not, we depend on a lot of visual cues to decide if a product or interface works for us. That’s why it’s up to designers and developers to ensure that product is smooth, easy to use, and functional. The only way to accomplish this is to create a product that’s both useful and visually attractive.

The visual elements of a product — from the way the website copy is structured to the placement of the illustrations accompanying it — serve as small cues to enhance the user experience. It’s vital to review a website from all aspects, including visually. This is where a effective website feedback tool that also promotes collaboration comes into play.

Brucira, ruttl’s parent company, is a product design company, so we’ve made our fair share of websites and web apps. The review process that includes marked-up screenshots and emails isn’t conducive to productivity or collaboration. We built ruttl to overcome those shortcomings. We realized that feedback plays a critical role in web development. To ensure that this visual feedback was used properly, there had to be some guidelines for visual feedback and collaboration during our web projects:

1. Actionable feedback

We’ve discussed this before, but it always bears repeating: feedback should be clear, specific, and actionable. When you use visual feedback tools like ruttl, you can add feedback through comments by tagging the relevant team member — this ensures the team member knows who the feedback is coming from, what needs to be done and can ask any questions for guidance.

Actionable feedback saves a lot of time. Developers and designers can see exactly how the website looks like on ruttl and decide what needs to be changed without needing to recreate the website again and again to tackle multiple bugs or issues.

2. Easy changes

Along with actionable feedback, visual feedback and collaboration tools should also allow you to make quick changes to see how to make the website better. On ruttl, team members can change any images, restructure website elements, and edit the copy without any coding knowledge. This allows the team to go through several versions of the website quickly and easily, with minimal effort.

ruttl also allows you to make changes to live websites — this means that you don’t need to rework the entire website to change a few aspects or take it down when you’re redesigning it. Easy changes allow designers and developers to collaborate better to improve the website’s overall look and feel.

3. Accessible feedback

If you’ve taken the effort to make sure that your feedback is clear and actionable, that’s great! Don’t let your efforts go down the drain by losing the feedback in lengthy email threads or countless marked-up screenshots. Visual feedback and collaboration tools need to ensure that feedback is accessible to everyone involved in the project.

This means that any client or company feedback needs to be correctly relayed and interpreted by the designers and developers. Similarly, any feedback from project managers or senior designers needs to be placed in an accessible and easy to use manner for junior designers, developers, and copywriters working on the website.

On ruttl, to address missing or inaccessible feedback, we designed a global activity panel that also houses all the comments addressed to anyone in the team. Any comments addressed to you will also show up here. Since every comment is placed contextually (more on that below), it’s easy to locate it on any specific webpage for redesign or redevelopment.

4. Multiple versions

What happens if you’ve redesigned the website but forgot to retain some of the previous aspects that users loved? Whether you missed it or have to reach for it due to a change in the brief, visual feedback tools like ruttl also keep multiple versions of your web project. This way, you can revert to any version, take a quick look and rework the latest version to better align with the project guidelines.

Multiple versions also allow you to play around with the visual elements. You can create different versions to test out which looks and works better without having to code every single version. This saves a lot of time, money, and effort and offers excellent results that you can use to boost your final version.

5. Contextual feedback

Simply sending a slack message or an email about a bug isn’t going to get the issue fixed properly. Designers and developers have long-since relied on images, screenshots, and rough sketches to tackle problems through a visual way to ensure clarity and understanding.

ruttl takes this one step further by allowing you to place comments exactly where the issue is. Say you want to move the copy a little to the left? If you don’t have access to edit the website, you can quickly place a comment right where the text currently stands and clearly say what you want to be changed.

ruttl also makes it easy for developers to pick up the codes and rework the websites to meet the designers and the clients' expectations. This way, you can create pixel-perfect websites and ensure that your web development and design teams can collaborate easily.

We’re a product design agency ourselves, so we’ve known first-hand the problems faced when you cannot incorporate visual feedback when creating websites. From early-stage sketches to wireframes to the final version that goes live, every single web project has numerous changes. These changes, both little and large, take up a lot of time and effort.

Clear, actionable, and accessible feedback that’s placed contextually can really help speed up web development projects while also delivering high-quality work.

Excited about ruttl? Check out more of our features here: ruttl.com

Follow us on LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook to stay updated about new trends and updates in the design industry and in our company.

3 Key Terms You Must Know About SaaS Growth!

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 07:13:09 GMT

Hey everyone!

Welcome to a brand new week filled with hustle! 🥤

Last week, we did Facebook pixel integration for ruttl.com. The analytics platform is definitely challenging but with efforts, we hope to catch up with all those technical terms eventually.

Since we know how intimidating it can get to come across such new jargons, we thought of the sharing the most important "growth metrics" every founder needs to know while growing their own SaaS products!

Here are 3 important metrics to know about -

1. ARR and MRR

MRR is the overall monthly recurring revenue generated by your product while ARR is the overall annual recurring revenue generated by your product.

Make sure your pricing strategy is on point to ensure that you're ARR and MRR are in profitable state.

2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

The total cost of acquiring each customer, after spending on marketing, sales and everything else. Try to keep this as low as possible by finding efficient and better ways to gain new customers. For instance, word of mouth or referral programs.

If you are curious about CAC, we would suggest you to read this article.

3. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

This is the total revenue each customer gets you, over the entire lifetime period they are using your product. Have an excellent customer re-engagement strategy such as email marketing to maximize this value.

If you want re-engagement emailer ideas, make sure to refer to reallygoodemails.com.

Things You Should Focus On During Product Launch Day

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 12:18:27 GMT

3, 2, 1 and ignition!

It feels so good today because after working for over 1.5 years consistently on ruttl, we have finally launched it officially! 🚀

Last couple weeks were intense, filled with massive testing cycles and feedback analysis. In spite that, today was filled with new lessons.

Even though the preparations were done correctly, we did have small hiccups but that's the beauty of entrepreneurship- expecting the most unexpected stuff!

To explain in short, here's how the day went by-

Ensured quality control by testing everything before making the website live
Post launch, our team promoted the news everywhere on social media like LinkedIn and Instagram. We did email marketing by send mailers to our parent company Brucira's clients and 2000+ ruttl waitlisted users.
After promotions, we submitted the live website to multiple featuring sites like Landbook and Lapaninja, just waiting to hear back from them now.

We thought of sharing with you guys the 4 key takeaways that we got from today's experience-

1. Something might go wrong anyways so be cool!

The animation on pricing page started misbehaving post-launch but we found out that it was actually issue with responsiveness feature. We simply reuploaded a new animation later and fixed it.

2. Keep marketing materials ready before hand.

Keeping the social media captions ready 2 days before was extremely useful. We didn't have to run around, brainstorming ideas for the social media promotional content.

3. Test everywhere just to be safe.

Testing on multiple devices like Mac and Windows helped us to verify and ensure everything was in place. You don't need to own multiple devices. Just ask a friend that can help you :)

4. If you discover something, just remove it and fix later.

Post-launch we discovered a issue in testimonial section that was built only for testing stage. Luckily our team was agile enough and we quickly revamped the section.

Hope you find these points useful for your own product launch day!

That's it for today's knowledge box post everyone! Have a great day ahead!

Learn How To Price Your SaaS Product

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 12:08:13 GMT

Product pricing impacts the success of a product and yet most people go ahead with $10, $20 pricing because competitors are doing it.

Product pricing is no joke, we admit it guys. It's kept us scratching our heads for a really long time now.

It's sounds easy to put a random value on your product but it's far from the actual truth. ❌

The way you price and create your pricing model is a crazy thin line to walk on. What you choose might either drive the customers away instantly or bring them in a highly profitable (or even unprofitable) manner.

For the past month, ruttl has also been in the pricing cycle. We have been learning as much as we can so that the launch is successful executed.

If you're curious about how we went through learning about pricing ourselves, here's how we did it -

Listened to multiple SaaS podcasts
Studied tens of different blog pages
Went through dozens of YouTube and Conference videos

Although we haven't launched ruttl yet, we felt like sharing all the knowledge that we've learnt about SaaS pricing. 📚

Here are some of the main things you need to keep in mind -

It's okay to price more than your competition. But don't get greedy.
If you are charging more, make sure you have something unique to offer.
If people have set a threshold value for your type of product in the market, then either re-innovate in the market or don't cross that value where you start losing customers.
Study different SaaS pricing models. Just the way not every product is same, not every model maybe profitable for you. Having a freemium model might actually be very useful if you are able to deliver great user experience.
The other day, we read about a person who tried experimenting by making credit card details mandatory requirement for a trial. Reduce the friction in the process as much as you can and make it smooth for users
Create a custom enterprise pricing option so that you can customize it according to the custom requirement while making it profitable for you at the same time.
A free plan is highly subjective to the niche of your product. Understand the niche and think accordingly.

If you wanna go into details of trying different pricing models, do check out this interesting blog that helped us out a lot -> SaaS Pricing Models

But that's it for today guys! We hope you found the post useful! 🙌

Have a great day ahead!

7 UI/UX Communities You Need To Join In 2021!

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 11:58:22 GMT

Designing is a complex process that can get confusing along the way.

We remember the time when we were doing focused interviews with designers while coming up with the idea of building ruttl. The most common feedback I usually got while talking to solo designers was -

"The journey gets too lonely with no one to support and eventually people lose interest while designing new projects."

We get it. We have been through the same journey once.

But looking back at the process, we realize how important communities played a huge role in our journey!

When you have people supporting you and your idea, things become whole lot easier. That's why we thought of sharing with you guys the most important communities that helped us in our journey of UI/UX designing! 🎨

Dribbble (This one's a no-brainer 🧠)
Behance (Obviously! 🤷‍)
UX Mastery Community (A great source to find and learn new ideas)
Designed dot org (A slack channel filled with designers)
Designer Hangout (An invite-only community of 18,000 designers)
Indie Hackers Design and UX Group (Congrats! You are right here!)
The Interaction Design Foundation Community (It's paid but great!)

We hope that you guys find this list useful! If you haven't joined any community before, we would highly recommend you to do so as soon as possible!

How to Build a Powerful UI UX Portfolio

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 11:08:48 GMT

Whether you’re looking for a new job or you want to highlight your best work, a UI UX portfolio is a must-have for any designer. Your design portfolio is a collection of the different projects you’ve worked on and any ideas you have for new apps or products. It’s also the best way for someone else curious about your skills to see what you can do.

So, what are the basic elements of a design portfolio?

1. Your design projects (duh!)

It’s not a portfolio if you don’t showcase what you can do with your design skills. If you’re someone who hasn’t had any paid design projects, display your side projects, creative logo redesigns, illustrations, and any other projects that can show people you’re confident about your skills and willing to grow.

Analyze popular companies’ designs, rework to optimize them — put your own spin on it. Find their pain points and engineer human-centred solutions that are unique. Even if you don’t have a developer to bring the idea to life, show your process, design apps you wished existed, and be creative.

When adding any freelance or contractual design projects, remember to include the goal (or problem statement), your design process, the final product, and its positive impact.

2. Wireframes and prototypes (both high fidelity and low fidelity)

Make your portfolio an extension of your design skills by keeping it full of images and graphics. These keep your visitors reading for longer and offer a better overview of your projects. When you add your projects, include the wireframes and prototypes while noting your process during each iteration and what pushed you to improve.

Show your early ideas, brainstorming sessions, user acceptance testing (if any), your research about user journeys, and the steps you took to improve the user interface. Adding both low fidelity and high fidelity wireframes will give your readers a clear understanding of your design process.

3. Project impact

Whether it’s a real project or a design for an app you wished existed or have an idea about, mention the impact. Relay the outcome of your project — did it solve the user problem? Did it highlight any other pain points? Did it make the user journey easier?

If you’re reworking someone’s existing design, explain how your design makes it better — what does it add? Without your project’s outcome and impact, readers will be left wondering about the value of your skills and designs.

4. What you learned

In your UI UX portfolio, don’t forget to add a section that talks about the lessons you picked up over the courses of these design projects. This can include lessons from mentors who helped you create new and innovative designs or the self-learning you went through during the entire process. Talk about your techniques and how you’ve reformed them to gain better results.

5. Your CV/bio/contact details

Even though your design portfolio is a collection of your best design work, you need to add contact details, a small bio, and a link to your CV or use an online CV maker to create a professional-looking resume. If you’re looking to switch jobs or for some formal work experience, this is how recruiters and companies can contact you. Your CV is the place where you need to highlight complementary skills such as adaptability, communication, being a team player, and your work ethic that make you a great addition to any team or project.

3 key skills to highlight across your UI UX portfolio

The five elements mentioned above are the most essential things you need to include so that your portfolio doesn’t have any gaps. The following three aspects are what will make your UI UX portfolio truly stand out among others:

1. Problem-solving

This is one of the most in-demand skills for designers today. Across your projects, process, and impact, make sure you highlight how you solve problems and pain points for users. Incorporating case studies is an excellent way to display how your designs tackle user problems.

Focus on user interface and user experience issues and generating intelligent, human-centred solutions that are easy to implement and integrate. That’s the best way to show you’re adept at solving critical problems.

2. Creativity

A much-needed skill in any designer, it’s important that you correctly showcase your creativity. You can design your portfolio to include projects across different niches or show your expertise and growth in creativity in one industry.

Companies that have products that only attract a select group of people are often looking for designers to balance creativity and ingenuity, and that’s what your portfolio should strive to display. The same applies to companies that have industrial or serious offerings like finance, software development, etc.

Highlighting your creativity and how you’re constantly taking steps to improve your skills will go a long way in impressing anyone who is checking out your UI UX portfolio.

3. Storytelling

Design is visual and if well-done, often invisible yet impactful. Bring out this impact in your portfolio by creating a story about the problem, your process, and the solution. Creating a storyline helps your audience visualize your process and how you came up with the design that offered a neat solution.

This also gets the audience invested — if you include an app you’re building, or a project in progress, the way you narrate your story, and your journey will keep them hooked. That way, they’re able to remember you and your work whenever they need a designer with your skillset.

Even in your designs, storytelling is the way you should plot user flow and user journey. This allows users to move through the site and product in a more cohesive way.

And that’s it — these are our tips and tricks for how to build a UI UX portfolio that stands out! If you’re creating a website or app, remember to get some feedback on how it looks from your friends, team members, and colleagues.

Protip: Whether it’s catching an errant typo or reworking the way you’ve structured your portfolio for the best impact — reviewing your portfolio design is a must before you share it with the world.

Check out ruttl, website feedback tool that offers an improved way to work on website projects (including your portfolio). Make edits on live websites, change images, and invite others to review your work, so you know you’re putting your best foot forward.

Don’t forget to read our other blog posts for more helpful insight on designers, developers, and more.

Follow us on social media to stay updated about new updates, product news, industry happenings, and more: LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Important UI/UX Concepts I Learnt In My Career!

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 10:54:07 GMT

UI/UX is more than just designing. It's the psychological art of truly understanding the user.

While working on design projects with clients and while building ruttl, I particularly came across an interesting psychological concept in design called "Gestalt Laws of Perceptual Organization". ☁️

Don't get scared with the big terminology!

In order to help you guys understand this important concept, I though of explaining them in the simplest manner possible.

Although there are more ideas involved in the Gestalt Laws, I've choose to include the ones I worked closely on. 🙌

1. Law of Proximity

When we similar things near each other, they seem to be grouped together. For instance, you would a bunch of dotted column lines as a square if they are placed together closely.

2. Law of Pragnanz

Complicated figures will appear simplified to the human brain. So, if you were to see multiple geometric shapes overlapped, you would see the shapes directly instead of an abstract figure.

3. Law of Continuity

If you have bunch of dots in line, you would be able to visualize the continuous, curved line in the smooth manner like you normally would.

I hope you guys found this useful!

Have a great day ahead! 💯

How To Use Footer Design For Better SEO

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 10:45:11 GMT

While designing a website, most people tend to undervalue the importance of footer design.

The reality, however, is that your footer is viewed and used by more people than you actually think. As a result, your footer design is very important, so don't ignore it!

That's why we decided to share how we're planning to use our latest designed footer for ruttl to improve our SEO!

Since there is no way to upload image into this post, you can visit the below link to analyze my footer design. 👇

Here are some of the biggest benefits that I plan to utilize for increasing the overall SEO -

SEO Benefit 1 - Long Tail Keywords

Surely you must have heard that optimizing website for long tail keywords can do wonders to the SEO. Inside our footer, we've included several of the long tail keywords that were relevant to ruttl.

Furthermore, if you look at the 3 dots that expand another sub-menu when clicked, is also filled with long tail keywords. That's another great way to utilize space efficiently.

SEO Benefit 2 - Bonus CTA

Footer is like another CTA that a lot of people miss out on. Personally we think that it's one more chance for our visitors to click something and take an action. Eg. They might choose something like requesting a demo or signing up for the product newsletter. This directly can impact the SEO through higher visitor engagement time.

Also, it's a great way to link important sections of your website for easier access. After all, if you expect someone to scroll up all the way to look for another section, well, the person is simply going to -

Benefit 3 - Space for important info

Yes, the privacy policy, GDPR, legal documents are extremely important. But why waste your website header with these links when you have extra space at the bottom.

We plan to maximize the digital space by linking all these extra yet important documents into our footer design directly. In this way, we can share all the nessccessary documents without our overall digital real estate.

Conclusion

Don't overdo anything in life.

There is one thing like utilizing and maximizing. However, footer can quickly turn ugly. So, don't over crowd your footer with hundreds of links. It will simply confuse the user and in fact reduce your SEO!

Hope you find this useful for your product!

Have a great day!

3 Tips to Improve Your UX Using Storytelling

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 09:08:28 GMT

A good UX strategy helps apps to narrate their story while ensuring the user has an overall positive experience.

What is Storytelling? 🤔

Visual Storytelling is a way of making user journey smoother and effective using visual elements such as images, graphics, and much more. Storytelling methods can lead to two way interactions and thus develop a good relationship.

Why use this method? 💭

Humans are wired with emotions, which plays a crucial role in user satisfaction. A company may have the best product on the market but it's the brand story that truly defines their success. In order to tap into a user's mind, you need to be able to capture their attention with creative methods.

What makes a good Storytelling UX Strategy? 💡

Although there are several factors that can influence UX, here are some of the things you need to consider to make storytelling method work for you -

The narrative needs to be relatable and should invoke emotional responses from the user.

E.g -> Have you tried using Uber's application? The animations and colors are weaved well together which makes the app a delight to use every single time!
It should clearly communicate the story behind your brand. This should include all the colors schemes and illustrations styles that might relate to your brand.

E.g -> Check out ruttl's website and Instagram page. You might be able to recognize the theme that has been established on both the mediums.
Always consider the end user. A fancy UI that looks out of the world is of no use if the user is unable to navigate and forget the steps of using your application. Make the interface simple yet thought invoking.

E.g -> The interface of Indiehacker is a good example for this point! It's simple, smooth and highly effective.

Conclusion

In the end, design is a human-centered process. While making your UX strategy, think from the angle of the user and try to understand how a user thinks. Once you have the research in hand, integrate the 3 ideas explained above and your website/app should be able to deliver a positive experience.

Have a great day ahead! 💯

Best Tools for Product Management

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 05:57:25 GMT

Product managers are usually the backbone of a creative team. From tracking product development to gaining insight from user analytics, their role encompasses varied responsibilities. To keep the work machine well-oiled and running, every product manager needs some help.

Ever-changing priorities need product managers to be flexible and land on their feet every time. That’s why we’re bringing you a list of tools that our product manager uses on a daily basis to ensure excellent output at maximum productivity.

1. Product review: ruttl

ruttl is a visual feedback tool for teams that work on website projects. Get contextual feedback on illustrations and replace content on live websites while inviting managers, clients and stakeholders to review the work in progress and ask for timely feedback.

This means there are fewer email loops, and no feedback is lost. Product managers can keep track of all comments received and see how they’ve been resolved. ruttl also saves all iterations of the project, so product managers can review and go back and forth as needed.

2. Coordination & communication: Slack

Every team needs a way to communicate with each other. Whether the team works remotely or together in the same office, written communication is the best way to ensure nothing is missed or falls off anyone’s plate. Product managers can see all updates through different channels — whether it’s marketing or development.

Slack offers a quick and easy way to coordinate with team members while keeping a record of all instructions and communication. As a bonus, its integrations with Google Drive and similar apps allow team members to share their work in progress for review easily.

3. ProofHub

ProofHub is a highly effective product management tool that helps teams provide consistent outcomes and increase their success rate. With ProofHub, product managers can organize and assign tasks, manage team responsibilities, select the best perspective for their team, boost productivity, centralize all product conversations, and communicate from anywhere.

4. Project management: Trello / Notion

For teams that have to manage work for more than a few clients and internal projects, a project management tool like Trello or Notion is crucial. Trello allows you to create different boards for each project or project goal. Product managers can then group tasks, allocate them to team members, and move the task cards around as needed.

At Brucira, We also use Notion to maintain a working database of our important links and file locations, keeping it centralized so everyone can access anything they need. Notion also offers Kanban-style boards (like Trello) that product managers can tag people in and quickly move around. It also allows users to document any useful information: notes, graphics, links, within pages and sub-pages, making it a pretty comprehensive tool for most teams.

5. User research: Typeform / Google Forms

Product managers also need to conduct user research to ensure the products and services being rolled out are solving the right pain points. Typeform and Google Forms both allow you to easily and quickly create and send out appealing surveys and questionnaires to your users. Product managers can then track and analyze the customer feedback received, categorizing and turning them into practical and actionable tasks.

6. Task management: Brutask

For the product managers who want a bird’s eye view of what the team is working on, a task management app like Brutask is the solution. Brutask is a simple to-do list app that lets team members add their tasks at the start of the day and allocate time for each task. Product managers can then review the tasks on a stand-up call or simply follow-up via email or Slack for updates. Brutask offers Manager View, which allows the product managers to keep track of what everyone’s working on every day. An app like Brutask improves overall workplace productivity and offers autonomy without compromising on clarity.

7. Collaboration: Dropbox & Google Drive

Teams with high creative output require a useful collaboration tool or two. Dropbox and Google Drive are the two most commonly used storage and collaboration apps, and for good reason. They allow team members to save and capture their work in progress, allowing other members to access it. The right file-sharing tools enable teams to collaborate and share work in real-time, even remotely.

Furthermore, it assists product managers to track and prioritize backlogs, allocate and monitor tasks, accelerate product maturity, elaborate product goals, capture as well as track user feedback.

ProofHub makes it possible to transform a team's concept into a successful product. Product managers will be able to spark new ideas, strategize effectively, assign jobs appropriately, and deliver high-quality products.

At the end of the day, a holistic stack of product management tools offers clarity, easy communication, and a smoother product development process. These tools are by no means the only ones on the market — there are many, many more that we’re yet to try. Product management tools can improve your team’s output and help your product manager keep better track of everything that needs to get done.

If we’ve missed your favourite tool or if you have one you’d like for us to try, please let us know!

If you’re a designer fed up with the current clunky review process, our website feedback tool ruttl — the future of design review is on its way.

How Can You Make User Acceptance Testing Work for You?

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 12:38:33 GMT

Have you ever worked on an email marketing campaign? Most email software will stop you before you press ‘Launch’ and ask if you’ve sent a ‘Test’ email, randomly populated with someone in your email list.

Why?

It’s to ensure that the final product (the email, in this case) renders perfectly for the end-user.

Successful products and email campaigns have something in common: testing. For products and services, specifically, User Acceptance Testing (UAT).

So, what is User Acceptance Testing?

Commonly called beta testing, User Acceptance Testing is the last test of a product development cycle before it’s launched to the general public. Right after Quality Assessment (QA), a product is tested by a select few beta users who offer feedback that the creators can evaluate and use to improve.

Why does UAT work?

The strength of UAT lies in who is testing the product. The users selected from the waitlists must be representative of the actual end-users of the product. These tests allow the designers and developers to check that the product is satisfying correct user expectations.

User Acceptance Testing is done on products that are almost ready to go live. That means users can test the product, offer their feedback on how it solves pain points, and this can be incorporated before the product is launched. UAT prevents expensive post-launch fixes or changes that can drive away users and lower the product’s standing among competitors.

The version of the product offered to users for beta testing should be bug-free and have passed the Quality Assessment stage. Otherwise, the users will only focus on the bugs and minor issues, deterring them from checking the product's functionality and usefulness.

How can you use User Acceptance Testing for your products?

UAT is a necessary investment before you launch a new product or service. Setting aside time for multiple rounds of UAT with different testers from your waitlist should be woven into your product timeline. While the product is in the development stage, conduct UAT on smaller elements and chunks to gauge the correct solution to the problem in question.

For instance, as we continue to tweak ruttl’s last few bits and pieces, we’ve begun UAT to check how users respond and use different features. The earlier you start UAT for independent elements, the earlier you can collect feedback to improve your product.

Inviting users to test your product is not the same as bug fixing — ensure that your product is the best version of itself so you can get relevant and useful feedback. Invite users to test your product — choosing the right users is just as crucial as ensuring your product is fit to go live. The right users will help you determine if the product is good to go and satisfy both customer needs and business expectations.

Make UAT work for YOU

In order to glean as much useful feedback as possible from User Acceptance Testing, you need to ensure that you’re collecting feedback the right way. High quality and immediate visual feedback help you see where the snags are and what you need to do to fix them.

ruttl, a design review tool, has an in-app feedback button that sends us screenshots and any text the tester includes. This information goes right onto our Trello board, ready to be fixed before the next batch of users begin their beta tests.

As designers of a visual feedback and collaboration tool ourselves, we know the importance of making sure that the feedback collected is contextual, useful, and relevant. In fact, you can use ruttl to review websites by creating a small team of beta testers who offer feedback in the form of comments. You can also use the Comment mode on ruttl to invite clients and stakeholders to review any website to ensure you’re progressing on the right track.

Make User Acceptance Testing Constant

While the primary use of UAT is to ensure a product’s offerings aligns with user needs, it’s not simply a one-time thing. Conducting beta tests before updates, upgrades, and new features will help save both time and money in the long run.

It might be daunting to place an imperfect product in front of users, even for User Acceptance Testing, but it’s the key to perfecting your product before launch. The right users will offer the right kind of feedback that will help you improve your product and make it the best version possible before it launches. It also inspires trust in the general public that the team is receptive to feedback, creating a cycle of positive feedback.

If you leverage UAT for your products and services, the feedback you receive will be invaluable. Incorporating visual feedback tools like ruttl to collect user feedback will help you organize and work on it efficiently.

So, what are you waiting for? Add UAT to your product testing cycle at the earliest possible moments.

Find out more about ruttl- a website feedback tool that allows you to collaborate and get feedback on live link- created by designers over at Brucira.

5 Ways to Create A Great Customer Experience Strategy

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 10:58:55 GMT

Walt Disney once said, "Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do."

Simply put, your users and their experience with your product and company are what will propel your business to success. Stiff competition in today’s world means that it isn’t enough for you to offer a great product at lower prices. Engaging your customers to build a loyal user base will help you increase retention rates and encourage recommendations. Word-of-mouth is one of the oldest and strongest marketing tactics you can employ to get your business out there.

Investing a customer experience strategy eventually pays for itself as it has huge returns in the form of new customers and improved product offering (thanks to customer feedback).

Now, we hear you ask, how can you create a successful customer experience strategy?

1. Study customer/buyer personas

The first step is always to identify who your customers are and which buyer personas they fit into. At Brucira, when we design products, we begin by building different buyer personas that might interact with the product and ensure we create different roadmaps to convert them into a user. This allows us to create experiences that appeal to specific user personas. Mapping out the customer’s journey is also an integral aspect of ensuring the customer enjoys interacting with your product. The goal is to enrich their experience at every single touchpoint, creating a favourable impression.

2. Invest in customer support

Without dedicated process of collecting customer feedback, you miss out on lot of data that can help you turn visitors into paying customers. Users are often willing to share the improvements and additions they’d like in a product or service. Similarly, any issue or grievance they encounter while using the product or browsing should be immediately fixed to prevent poor user experience. To address that products need to introduce in-app feedback, regular surveys, and product evaluations.

3. Improve product accessibility

Make it easy for prospective users to find, access, and use our product. Prioritize user-friendliness in your design and ensure that your user interface doesn’t compromise on user experience in any manner. Start by targeting your audience on the channels they frequently use and by offering valuable, useful content. To update your products and business model, research customer expectations and study competitor offerings to see what they’re doing to improve their customer experience strategy.

4. Solve pain points

Instead of focusing on making profits, focus on solving customer pain points because the former follows the latter. Addressing friction in your user interface and taking customer feedback into account to offer a seamless user experience inspires customer loyalty and makes them feel heard.

5. Form a connection

Gaining your users’ trust is a crucial step in creating a successful customer experience. By treating your users as humans, i.e. by incorporating human-centric design, you can encourage to interact with your business through multiple channels. This leaves a lasting impression, and such users are much more likely to advocate for your business. Once again, you should focus on enriching the customer’s journey at every single touchpoint and use them to form a deep and lasting connecting, one that will make the customer want to return to your brand for all their needs.

Improve, improve, improve.

The beauty of a great customer experience strategy is that it is constantly improving. Keep on eye on marketing trends and how your customer expectations & interactions are changing. This will help you innovatively address different problems while impressing your existing customer base. Pay attention to the minor details and seize the smallest opportunities to provide your customers with the best experience when interacting with your product/business.

The success of a customer experience strategy positively impacts the financial performance of the product or service. It would be foolish to miss the opportunity to bring in more users and use their feedback & suggestions to improve your product. Creating a long-lasting connection can have many favourable effects — it helps you stand out among competitors, inspires your customers to recommend your product, and keeps them coming back for more.

According to PWC, almost one-fifth (17%) of US consumers will use a single bad experience to write off a brand or company. And more than half (59%) will walk away after multiple negative experiences, even if they love the company/product.

So, don’t ignore customer experience when it comes to building a product or business.

Check out ruttl, a website feedback tool for web design projects that allows you to collect visual feedback. The tips shared above are what we use every single day for our customer experience strategy. From identifying customer use-cases to adding an in-app feedback feature, we know that customer is king.

Building a Bootstrapped SaaS Startup

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 13:38:51 GMT

Okay, so you want to build a bootstrapped SaaS startup so you could have complete control over the creative aspects and the final product without compromising on revenue but don’t know where to begin? Don’t fret, we’ve got you covered.

ruttl is Brucira's bootstrapped Saas tool for remote work. As a bootstrapped startup, Brucira has extensive experience building the perfect product and service to attract great clients and increase user retention.

We built ruttl to be the innovative remote work tool solution to the currently existing, clunky and tiring design review process involving numerous marked-up screenshots and lengthy email feedback. From the time we’ve opened signups for the beta user waitlist till today, we’ve crossed 440 users!

So, in this blog post, we’re taking a moment to share our tips to build a successful bootstrapped SaaS startup.

1. Identify the product’s market fit & customer need

First, you need to identify the market your product fits into as well as the customer expectations it addresses. For ruttl, we were the frustrated designers and developers; we were the target customer base, so we decided to build a product that not only solved our problems but also could be used by other creators.

Without identifying your product’s market fit, you risk making something that a large, existing, and successful competitor has already accomplished. If you don’t take customer needs into account and build a new and unique product, you won’t have any use cases, rendering it useless for almost anyone except yourself. At this stage, it’s also important to acknowledge the limitations of your experience, skills, funds, and resources due to being bootstrapped. The product may take a longer time to launch, with some unaddressed bugs, or a different shortcoming. Nevertheless, it’s always a good idea to create something that solves a problem; you can figure out how to solve any internal issues as the product takes shape.

2. Create a comprehensive marketing strategy

Let’s say you’ve managed to create a version of the product you want to make and are on the fast track to finish the final product. You now want people to know what you’re doing, so you need a marketing strategy to attract users from different channels. Social media, digital, and content marketing are the three most important methods that can drive users to check out your product’s website, information, and sign up to use the beta product.

For ruttl, we began by establishing Brucira’s experience as an industry leader through content and social media marketing. Clear visual branding and consistent engagement led to our target audience following us and joining ruttl’s waitlist to try out an early version. Find your target audience, the customer base you’re solving problems for, and the best channel to engage with them. Consistency is key when it comes to marketing; don’t expect to see efforts overnight. As a bootstrapped SaaS startup, you will most likely have to use ads, targeted posts, and other useful tactics to build a strong audience base from scratch. Your audience will be an extremely valuable tool to leverage should you ever want to gain funding in the future.

3. Launch the beta product

It’s always a good idea to test your product with a few users before you formally launch the product to public users. This enables you to get every single bug and fix any issue you might have missed. Use this time to test your pricing, improve the ways you want visitors to convert into paying customers, and make your product better.

ruttl began handing out beta keys to the users on our waitlist a few months ago as we worked on introducing new features and fixing bugs behind the scenes. Our early users' valuable feedback has been instrumental in the latest additions to ruttl and has massively improved the overall user experience.

4. Design a customer experience strategy

Speaking of user experience, when it comes to a bootstrapped SaaS startup, your user is the main thing you need to focus on. Designing a customer experience strategy is key to user retention and scaling your product. You could have the best product at the lowest prices, but without a strategy to win over new and existing customers, there will be fewer users and negative or negligible word-of-mouth, something instrumental in getting people to try out your product.

Personal recommendations are the best way for a new user to find your product. That’s why it’s important to engage your current customers and find ways to get those who have left to return. For instance, when it comes to ruttl’s customer experience strategy, we make it a point to manually email every new user when they first join, offer them one on one sessions with our founders, and focus on proposing their user experience through demo calls and dedicated support.

5. Incorporate customer feedback

As a feedback & review tool, feedback runs in our blood. We take what our users have to say very seriously and want them to share even the smallest areas of friction so we can make the entire design review process a quick and easy process. We introduced an in-app feedback button that sends us screenshots and places the problem right on our Trello board to incorporate and encourage customer feedback. Customer feedback is the key to addressing pain points and developing new solutions that keep your users coming back for more.

Building a successful bootstrapped SaaS startup is hard work. But it’s also wholly rewarding when you see your product take off, when customers email you with positive feedback, and when new users join through your marketing and customer engagement strategies. The lessons you learn when working on a bootstrapped startup are not offered in any other environment. The limitations on you force you to seek innovative, cost-effective solutions that empower your team members and their efforts. These skills are the very ones that propel you to success, allowing you to take full credit for the growth of your SaaS product.

Follow ruttl’s journey as Brucira’s bootstrapped SaaS tool on our social media: LinkedIn | Insta

Considering Material Design? Here's What You Should Know

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 11:17:05 GMT

Have you ever thought there was something similar when you browsed through Google & its web apps? They’re all built on Material, a design framework introduced by Google in 2014, inspired by paper-based design styles.

What is Material Design?

Initially built for Android and now optimized for iOS, Flutter, and the web, Material helps web developers build high-quality, enriched digital experiences. Taking inspiration from the real world and its textures, the framework pays homage to paper and ink mediums by incorporating a play between reflections, lights, and shadows to create a bold and intentional web design.

The goal? To create cohesive user experience across Google’s different web apps. Consistency is one of the key points addressed in Material. It includes guidelines on typography, spacing, grids, scale, colour, images, and more, allowing designers to create hierarchical, meaningful designs.

Seamless transitions and subtle but constant feedback ensure that the user recognizes the elements that appear across different websites and web apps, maintaining continuity and consistency.

Benefits of using Material Design

There are several features that make using Material worth almost any designer’s time but here are our top 3:

1. Structured web design framework

A comprehensive design ecosystem, Material offers guidelines on how to use it for different use cases. It provides structure and clarity to designers looking to solve complex user pain points quickly and easily, reducing time to market and offering cheaper design costs.

2. Extensive yet flexible design library

Maintained and updated by Google, Material boasts an extensive library of components and elements that can be leveraged to create intuitive web designs. Along with dedicated support in the form of guidelines and user forums, designers can also take advantage of the user-friendliness of the framework. From haptic feedback to subtle animations, the how-tos are already incorporated.

3. Mobile-first approach

Created for Android, Material Design enables designers to easily adapt their websites and web apps to be responsive across different mobile devices and screen sizes. It allows creators to incorporate animations in design for user feedback and feature functionality. Recently, Google also released Dark theme options, enabling brands and companies to offer a different yet appealing visual option.

Drawbacks to building on Material Design

Every design framework lacks a few things, and Material is no exception. While all the benefits outweigh the negatives, some of these might be deal breakers for certain designers and clients, and validly so. Here’s a closer look at three drawbacks to material design:

1. Lack of creative expression

Even though Material design offers a fair amount of flexibility, being constrained within their guidelines and existing approaches might not work for some designers who want to express their creativity freely. This also manifests in lazy approaches to problems since there is no scope to add anything new or creative to the framework.

2. Non-Android Websites

Material design can be more complicated than flat design, especially for those working on non-Android websites and web apps. Material is optimized for Android, and while it supports iOS and other operating systems, the fact remains that some of its Android-specific offerings can cause friction.

3. Unoriginal designs

Material design is widely recognizable and associated with Google. For companies that want to establish their own branding, it’s not the best option since the design framework is pretty popular already. Unless the designers know how to manipulate it to make it look different, it’s going to give a very recognizable Google vibe.

At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to which design, Material vs flat, is perfect for the product website. No matter what it is, you can review and perfect it on website feedback tool.

Brucira’s new feedback tool for live website, ruttl lets you work on web design projects with your team members, clients, and other key stakeholders to create sleek, stunning, and beautiful designs.

Want to redesign your website? Reach out to us at hello@brucira.com.

Check out past examples of our work to see both Material and flat design in action.

The Importance of Design Thinking

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 06:07:04 GMT

Have you ever admired the way a company or a product addressed user pain points and solved problems through innovative solutions? Chances are, they were employing design thinking tactics to power their ideas and execution. According to the Harvard Business Review, design thinking works by removing the biases and behaviours that hamper innovation. This, in turn, leads to unique solutions that challenge the status quo and leave ample room for innovation.

So, what is design thinking really?

Design thinking, quite simply, is the process of coming up with newer, more innovative solutions while taking a human-centred approach to a problem. When solving a problem, design thinking reframes it to properly understand the pain points, challenges existing assumptions and practices, and identifies new strategies through deeper introspection. It’s a hands-on method of creating solutions that go above and beyond merely solving problems. It is by no means a new phenomenon. People have been using design thinking before it was even called that to solve problems and scale their businesses. Challenging assumptions, solving complex problems, and identifying human-centric solutions is at the heart of good design, technology, literature, and more. Continuous growth in the form of experiments and rework is a key feature of design thinking, leaving no room for complacency. How can design thinking help you and your business?

Experts have been leveraging design thinking for centuries to make profits and scale their business.

Identify your users’ problem

Design thinking goes beyond simply identifying existing pain points. It poses intriguing questions that stimulate new solutions to problems that customers didn’t know they had. More significant problems and opportunities often hide behind smaller, more commonly experienced friction points.

Placing your users at the centre of your solution leads you to design innovative solutions while solving existing pain points and anticipating future ones. Take advantage of user feedback and incorporate the same into building a more robust product.

Challenge the status quo

Using a diverse set of voices, reframing the problem, and looking at it from multiple perspectives leads to new solutions that may be difficult to build at first, but when scaled, lead to tremendous results. Take, for instance, Airbnb’s approach to making short-term housing and tourism more affordable, open, and easy to access. After dealing with initial mistrust and hiccups, they’ve built a platform that rivals well-established hotels and their legacies.

Innovate to provide better solutions

Design thinking helps you come up with creative solutions, as you place your focus on problem-solving. This lets you work on your goals and achieve them in a shorter time frame, setting you apart from competitors. Releasing products and services that target user pain points and offer innovative solutions places you first in the consumers’ minds, inspiring loyalty.

Improve user experience

Design thinking takes a human-centric approach and serves to improve the overall user experience. It starts by identifying user personas and creates different iterations of solutions to optimise each user persona’s buyer journey. From the first moment, a prospective user reaches your product until the final purchase and use; design thinking creates touchpoints that encourage the customer to use the product.

Improving customer experience after purchase by heeding feedback and incorporating the same into newer iterations of the product can help with customer retention and attracting a large number of customers due to positive feedback.

Opportunities to launch more products

With design thinking inspiring innovative solutions, companies can build and launch new products and services addressing user pain points. This leads to faster company growth and helps the business scale quicker. Since design thinking includes lots of different, diverse voices to build effective solutions, there are more opportunities for other teams to collaborate and come up with innovative ideas. These new products are better in line with customer demands and expectations, leading to higher adoption and continued success.

According to the Design Management Index, design thinking led companies have consistently outperformed at the S&P index by 219% over the last ten years. There is real value in incorporating design thinking when designing your products and services and building your company.

ruttl & design thinking

At Brucira, we use intelligent design thinking when creating products and services for our clients and ourselves. By incorporating early user feedback, reframing the problem to solve different pain points, and creating a simple design solution, we’ve gained great user retention and helped businesses grow organically.

ruttl is our new visual feedback and collaboration tool for web design projects. We were tired of using the old design review process — countless marked-up screenshots, lengthy email threads, lost snippets of feedback. So, we decided to reframe the problem and create a unique solution that lets designers and developers comment on live website to collaborate better by reducing the time spent reviewing and communicating. We’re in our beta stage, collecting valuable early user feedback and refining the product to make it a perfect offering.

Check it out at ruttl.com for yourself.

Want to see how design thinking can impact your business favourably? Contact us at hello@brucira.com.

See more of design thinking reflected in our client work and products.

Follow ruttl on social media:LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

Designers & Developers: Can They Work Together?

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 12:51:19 GMT

We want to know if it’s possible to work together without one side experiencing undue friction due to clunky review processes, inflexible timelines, and incompatible collaboration tools?

Designer pain points

Once the client shares the brief for what they envision their website to look like, designers get to work bringing it to life through their creatives. From ideation to sketches to colourising, the designs go through several stages to gain approvals from the client.

Then, the designer shares these designs with the web developer to build the actual website. This is where everything usually goes wrong.

Sometimes, the webpage ends up looking nothing like the designs shared. Others, the coding has changed the entire structure of the website design and thus, begins an endless cycle of emails and marked-up screenshots to bridge the gap between the designer’s vision and the web developer’s output.

Developer pain points

From the developer’s perspective, it’s easy to see why designs don’t manifest themselves exactly how the designer envisioned. It boils down to a lack of functionality. Sometimes, designers may have a limited understanding of how user interfaces and user journeys are crafted — this leads to pretty but effectively useless designs.

On the flip side, sometimes, designers fail to clearly communicate the aspects and details of their design that make the website truly functional for users. This is when the developer steps in and uses their understanding and develops something completely different from the original design.

United by a common goal

While designers and developers have different skills, they’re usually considered two sides of the same coin. This is because you cannot have great web design without one or the other.

A good designer will be intuitive and imaginative, with the ability to grasp different concepts such as colour, typography, spatial relationships, user experience, and more.

The best developers should be able to glean user journeys through details and manipulate the designs to develop an attractive website for users.

At the end of the day, both designers and developers work towards a common goal: a website that showcases the product in the best way possible. A good website is attractively designed with the right brand colours, messaging, and eye-catching images & typography. Simultaneously, the design must be functional, responsive, and encourage users to heed the call to action (CTA).

How can designers & developers work together?

We’ve talked about how communication and collaboration or a lack thereof can impact the web design process. A visual feedback and collaboration tool like ruttl can help designers and developers work together to build simple to use yet beautiful websites to attract users.

Clunky, old-school review processes that use endless marked-up screenshots or lengthy email threads make it difficult to find the changes that are needed to make the website better.

Enter ruttl

As a team of designers and developers ourselves, we’ve experienced the problems of the old design review process first-hand. That’s when we knew it was time to create something that could solve the problem and allow designers and developers to work on web design projects easily.

ruttl is this fruit of our labour. It is a website feedback tool that allows designers to seek contextual feedback on illustrations and designs thereby reducing the number of variations needed. Stakeholders and managers can make changes to elements and copy while leaving comments on live staging websites without any coding knowledge — this allows developers to properly understand how the final website needs to be.

We wanted to create something larger than a simple collaboration and productivity tool — ruttl enables designers, developers, copywriters, managers, clients, and stakeholders to work together to create brilliant websites.

How To Graciously Accept Negative Feedback

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 14:38:28 GMT

You’ve just finished work on a brilliant new design.

You love it, your team members love it, your managers also really like it.

But then the client takes a look at it — “What is this? We don’t like it.”

Previously, we’ve talked about how to share constructive feedback. Today, we want to talk about how to accept negative feedback and use the same to improve your work.

1. Don’t take it personally

The very first rule of work-place feedback is to de-personalize it. This feedback is for your work, not about you as a person or individual. While your ego might take a hit, the negative feedback isn’t meant to criticize you or skills — it is only about what needs to be changed in your output at work.

Also, unless you receive the same kind of negative feedback regularly, you’re clearly doing more right than wrong. Don’t let negative feedback affect your self-confidence or make you doubt your skills. Just as it is important to not take negative feedback personally, it is important that you evaluate where you can apply this feedback to reduce future friction and disappointment.

2. Don’t be defensive

Most of us will automatically want to jump to defend our work. Defending yourself with statements like“The brief wasn’t clear!” or “You loved this style the last time!” will not result in anything useful. Take a pause, and really listen to what the feedback includes. Take notes and see where you went wrong and how you can use this feedback to improve — this shows your consideration for others’ inputs on your work.

3. Focus on what can be improved

Take a moment to self-evaluate and critically look at your work from the perspective of the person sharing the negative feedback. When you put yourself in their shoes, you’ll be able to understand what was missing and what needs to be done to improve your work and bring it up to their standards. As with any feedback, it’s important to focus on what can be improved in your output and actions, because this will be a pivotal moment of learning in your career.

4. Ask for clear instructions & clarifications

It is important to ask for clear, specific, and actionable feedback so you can make the necessary changes to ensure your design or your work reflects what’s expected of you.

Good, useful feedback also highlights positive aspects so pick up on the bits that were appreciated and ask for clarifications about the changes and edits required. This will make sure that you don’t miss anything and share a high-quality output.

5. Ask for time

Don’t respond to negative feedback immediately. Always ask for time. For instance, you could say something like:

“Thanks for your feedback! Can we circle back at the end of the day once I’ve had time to think about it and offer potential solutions?”

Time will help you cool down and spot any mistakes and errors that can be easily fixed before you speak to the person who offered the feedback. Often, we spend so much time with our work that we miss little details that can unravel a project. Taking some time to look at your work objectively will help you learn from the experience and put the negative feedback to good use.

6. Use it for growth

Negative feedback is something everyone faces in life. For most of us, our work becomes a large part of our identity and that’s why it can be difficult to hear criticism about it. Taking the negative feedback positively can help you grow in your career and as a person because, at the end of the day, your work will reflect the time and dedication you put into it.

Nobody likes receiving negative feedback but knowing how to accept, and then use it to improve yourself can be a really useful thing to build both personal and professional relationships. Infact, apart from the personal growth, you can use negative feedback to improve the customer satisfaction too!

An easy way to avoid strong, negative feedback is to constantly get feedback at every step so that the client is not surprised by the final output.

ruttl is a visual feedback and collaboration tool that allows you to invite key stakeholders and clients to review your web design projects at different stages so you can ensure that your work is correctly aligned with their vision.

Sounds exciting? We hope so.

We’ve begun handing out the first few beta keys to the users on our waitlist. Click on the button below to join us as an early user to share YOUR feedback!

This is the third post in our Feedback series. Check out the difference between critiquing & criticism and adopt 7 ways to give better feedback.

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ruttl report: How We Onboarded Our First 250 Users

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 11:26:27 GMT

Building a new tool for seamless collaboration on web design isn’t as easy as one might think!

A quick introduction to ruttl!

Over the last few months, we’ve been working on ruttl, a visual feedback & collaboration tool that enables designers and web developers to work in sync on web projects. ruttl is Brucira’s first product that will be released to users, i.e. it isn’t something that has been designed to increase collaboration & productivity internally.

Ever since we released the first look for ruttl, we’ve received a tremendously positive response from designers and web developers who have been looking for a new way to collaborate. The current feedback collection process involves multiple time-consuming marked-up screenshots, lengthy email threads, and a lot of miscommunication.

As designers who had experienced this ourselves, we wanted to find a way to solve these major pain points. But since we were involved in building the solution, we wanted to make sure we wouldn’t miss any other issues. So, we decided to open up access to designers and web developers through a beta waitlist. They would be our early users, sharing their feedback & letting us know what needed to be fixed, which features they’d like, and so on.

At the end of our first phase, we had over 1500 users waiting to access ruttl!

When the first version of ruttl was ready, we decided on a strategic approach to share access with everyone who’d signed up.

Personalized onboarding emails

Our approach was to value quality over quantity. That’s why we began by manually sending out onboarding emails to those on our waitlist. We chose 30 people every day and sent out an email offering them credentials to trial ruttl’s beta version.

Some of them didn’t respond, so we followed up to check in if they were still interested and if not, we asked them the reason for the same. We also wanted to make sure they knew ruttl had begun beta tests and that their experience and feedback would help us build the best design review tool on the market.

The email strategy we adopted was successful because the personalized approach won a lot of people over almost immediately. They knew we cared about their opinion and feedback, and they felt happy to share the same with us.

Cross-channel promotions

Our second strategy was to engage with like-minded people on Indie Hacker, a platform for up and coming products & businesses. We chose to target designers and developers who we thought would benefit from trying ruttl out and several of them signed up for the waitlist to gain access.

Brucira has established itself as a leading product design agency, and the design community has been following our growth. We leveraged this through social media marketing and sharing educational and useful content through our channels.

One-on-one demo meetings

Our third and final strategy which turned out to be the most successful: one-on-one demo videos and walkthroughs.

We offered the first beta users one-on-one ‘demo meetings’ with our founder & CEO so that they would be able to use ruttl to its full potential easily. Since more and more people began requesting these demo meetings, our project manager, Rishab, took charge and ensured that each and every doubt/issue a user had was resolved on priority. This hands-on approach was appreciated by our beta users who were able to share very insightful feedback about their experience using ruttl. Additionally, we integrated demo automation tools to streamline the process and make it more accessible to a larger audience.

What We Learnt

As a startup powered by a small but fiercely dedicated team, we know the value of a personalized approach over an automated one. Our strategy to personally reach out to our waitlist users was time-consuming and tedious, but we wanted to make sure every user knew how important and special they were to us. This difficult-to-execute but highly-effective, three-pronged strategy has resulted in some great feedback for ruttl that we can’t wait to incorporate in our next version.

Want to try the fastest way to give feedback on live website? Get started for free with ruttl!

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Why Your Website Needs to Be Responsive

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:37:38 GMT

With over 3.8 billion estimated smartphone users in 2021, it’s no surprise that businesses are keen to have a mobile version of their website for consumers to browse through. Ever since the invention of smartphones, we’ve grown accustomed to a variety of mobile devices from tablets to wearables like smartwatches. For your website to appeal to those on their mobile devices, it needs to be responsive & intuitively designed.

What is Responsive View?

Responsive (web) design was first spoken about by Ethan Marcott over a decade ago as the digital landscape witnessed huge changes with the rising popularity of smartphones like the iPhone.

Websites designed with a responsive view can easily adapt to different screen sizes. This ensures that your website is readable even with changing screen sizes and technology. Responsive view optimizes the user’s browsing experience for their device — whether it’s a touchscreen or a wearable or a simple tablet, the user is greeted with a clean, easy-to-understand website.

Marcott advises designers to integrate flexibility and a shared experience into their website design:

“Rather than tailoring disconnected designs to each of an ever-increasing number of web devices, we can treat them as facets of the same experience. We can design for an optimal viewing experience, but embed standards-based technologies into our designs to make them not only more flexible, but more adaptive to the media that renders them.”

The Importance of Responsive View

While it may seem unnecessary, the better designed your website is for different mobile devices, the more users you can reach. Responsive view uses a mix of flexible grids, layouts, and images, coupled with smartly designed CSS media queries. This means that any well-designed website should be compatible & accommodating as the user switches devices.

For instance, your website should be able to automatically switch from an iPad view to an iPhone one, accomodating for the change in screen size and scripting abilities in a moment. The website should also be designed keeping in mind people’s desires to rotate their view and browse in landscape/portrait modes.

In the last ten years since Marcott first wrote about the growing demands for responsive design by clients & companies, we have more devices and different technology, necessitating mobile-first designs.

Google’s Mobile-first Indexing

If you want your product or website to be found on Google, then you should know that Google now follows mobile-first indexing. This means that it crawls, indexes, and ranks the mobile version of a site before the web version.

This means that all your efforts to increase your search engine rankings or to market your product on Google are futile if your website isn’t designed responsively. Responsive design brings users to your site, increasing your domain ranking and overall discoverability.

Developing Mobile-First Design

Mobile-first design is when a product is first designed for a mobile phone browser. This means that the website is developed with a basic outlook in mind with the necessary functions and features. The second step is to then develop this design into a more advanced version for PC/tablet browsers. This is called Progressive Advancement.

Progressive Advancement lets designers build features that can easily be integrated into PC browsers, reducing the overall impact and strain that may be felt during Graceful Degradation. This is because if designers began with an advanced version of their product, the mobile version often ends up being a watered-down version due to the reduction of functionalities to fit mobile devices.

Graceful Degradation is another way to go about developing web design. This is when the product or website is first designed for the PC/desktop web browser and then it’s functionalities are reduced until it’s compatible with mobile devices and their comparatively simpler browser abilities.

How ruttl Can Help You Design Responsive Websites

We’re building an intuitive web design tool that lets multiple team members collaborate on web projects and leave feedback on live website. Designers, developers, content writers, managers, as well as clients and stakeholders can work in tandem to develop sleek & beautiful designs that are optimized for both desktop & mobile devices.

ruttl’s ‘Responsive View’ feature lets you view your website on a mobile screen, and edit content on live website. You can use various other features of ruttl to adjust screen resolutions, image sizes, and other elements to craft a perfect mobile-first version of your product. Oh, and did we mention that it's all with the click of a button and without any need for coding knowledge!

This ensures that your websites are correctly optimized for mobile devices and automatically adjust to your user’s screen preferences.

Eager to try out ruttl for yourself and see the magic? We’ve begun handing out beta keys to our early users. Sign up below.

To know more about how design can improve your product, follow us on social media for tips & tricks about UI, UX, design, and more.

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7 Ways to Give Better Design Feedback

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 06:58:50 GMT

In our last blog post, we explored the need for good feedback. In this one, we’re here to tell you how to go about giving your team members clear, specific, and actionable feedback that they can use to improve their work. It doesn’t matter if you’re providing feedback to a copywriter, web designer or to a web developer, these 7 tips will definitely change the way you go about giving feedback to others.

1. Set clear expectations for the feedback process

The first thing to do is set the right expectations. This means that the brief you provide to the creator should be succinct, clear, and useful. If the directions are murky, then the product isn’t likely to be anything great. Take the brief into account when you provide feedback and evaluate it accurately, without adding any personal biases. Ensure that the feedback process is honest and transparent.

2. Offer feedback at set intervals

Collecting good quality feedback early on is extremely important in the entire process of web designing.The longer you wait to offer feedback to the creator, the greater the investment of time and effort that they might have to potentially undo and/or rework. Providing feedback at multiple stages of the process can weed out errors quicker and save a considerable amount of both cost and time.

3. Don’t make it personal

Like we’ve mentioned above, keep your feedback separate from any personal biases you may have. This is not the time to evaluate it based on “how you would have done it” rather, you need to share how this can be improved — the work should be done well while providing a learning opportunity for the creator. If they have ample expertise already, the feedback should serve to help them develop something everyone can be proud of.

4. Give actionable feedback

Simply saying “this doesn’t work” without giving any directions on how or why it doesn’t is just bad feedback. Good feedback is contextual, actionable, and specific. Simply saying “another option, please” without stating why you need another one and what you expect to see changed is another example of what you shouldn’t do. Offer actionable feedback — make sure you’re giving actual ways to improve the end result rather than just stating that you didn’t like it.

5. Ask questions and give answers

Understanding the creator’s thought process can be extremely helpful, especially when the feedback is negative. Blanket statements like “fix this” or “make this change” will result in the desired changes but you will face the same issue again if the creator doesn’t understand why you’ve asked for those changes in the first place. Ask the right questions and encourage them to ask you questions as well. Every creator brings something to the table and good feedback incorporates that. This serves to give the creator a morale boost and makes them feel their opinion and thoughts are valued.

6. Highlight positives

We all like being praised, especially if it’s for work we’ve put a lot of effort into. Make sure to point out the good parts of the project when offering feedback. If you only talk about the negatives and what needs to be improved, your creator will be left disgruntled and annoyed because you didn’t notice what was done well. Reassuring the creator that they are on the right track is an important part of providing feedback.

7. Provide contextual feedback

This is self explanatory but ensuring that the feedback you share is contextual and appropriate for the project can help the creator rework aspects easier. When it comes to offering feedback for writing, you can use Track Changes so your comments explain why you’re making this change. Designers and developers tend to use a myriad of free tools ranging from screenshots to slides to collate feedback — this can get really frustrating.

We’re working on creating a website feedback tool that can really simplify the feedback process for designers & developers.

ruttl is the future of design review. It’s going to change the way you review live website and share feedback. Offer contextual feedback, make edits to live websites, replace images and copy, see all comments from team members in one spot, and more.

Join the waitlist & follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn so you don’t miss any updates!

What’s the Difference Between Critiquing & Criticizing?

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 11:34:02 GMT

Picture this.

You’ve finished working on a particularly difficult brief. You’re pretty happy with the result.

When the feedback trickled in you weren’t expecting to see your supervisor gushing over your work, but you expected something positive at the very least. This is something that’s happened to all of us. We have all been guilty of sharing feedback that could have been better structured and better at getting our point across.

If the feedback you share is confusing, it doesn’t highlight the good aspects of the work, or if it’s just plain mean — that’s definitely going to lower your team member’s morale.

Haven’t we all taken what was meant to be constructive criticism, personally? It doesn’t feel great to be told your work so far isn’t yet up to the mark, and hearing about all the ways you could have improved your work can be really disheartening, especially if you’re being told the same in front of your colleagues.

The role of feedback in the creative process

The importance of clear, specific, and useful feedback for a designer or developer cannot be underplayed. It’s not easy to replicate someone’s vision into a website or illustration and it doesn’t get any easier if the brief or feedback you receive is all muddled.

There’s a clear difference between criticism and feedback — the former has negative connotations while the latter is something that designers and developers will most certainly use to improve their work. Good feedback incorporates critiquing — it highlights both positive and negative aspects of the work so the designer or developer knows which aspects need work and which are good as they are.

First drafts aren’t going to be perfect

As a web designer, one uses the knowledge one has gained through education and/or experience to create an attractive website or webpage for the client. Whether it involves adding some stunning new typography or creating beautiful illustrations from scratch, a designer is essentially working with a client’s vision for their website or product. It is inevitable that there will be a few mistakes and discrepancies since you can’t enter someone’s head to see exactly how they want their website to look like.

Every designer will create something new and personalized for each client. No two designs can be replicated (unless you want to get into trouble for plagiarizing) and this means that designers and developers will receive tons of feedback through their project and rework things multiple times. This is how superior quality websites and products are developed.

The benefits of critiquing incorrectly

Harsh or blunt criticism often elicits a defensive response, meant to justify the investment placed by the designer into the project. Constructive critique, on the other hand, can serve to nullify this defensive response, to help the designer work out the legitimate flaws in their product so as to be able to best satisfy the client’s needs exactly as per the requirements. It is thus important to learn how to give critique and not criticism, to help designers best assimilate the feedback into their work and optimize their product. Here are a few ways in which you can do so:

The art of giving good feedback

There is a certain way to go about sharing feedback, even if everything you want to say is negative. Try not to make it a sandwich — good, bad, good. People are usually too fixated on the negative aspects to really enjoy the praise for the aspects they aced. Keep positive and negative feedback independent of each other. Looping them together will make the designer or developer think you’re only placating them with a few positive but meaningless comments.

In the end, make sure you put yourself in the other person’s shoes before you share feedback. Make an honest attempt to understand the project, the effort that has gone into the creation, and the creator’s thought process. Share useful feedback that the creator can use to improve their work in a positive and easy to understand manner.

Sharing valuable feedback can result in creations that come back truly improved with great opportunities for learning all around.

How ruttl Was Born Out Of Delays in Development?

Tue, 08 Sep 2020 11:23:19 GMT

In July 2018, when we had just launched Brucira, we were approached by a Canadian business who wanted to hire us for a website design project. The client needed both website and internal product design, which would take almost 4-5 months — an opportunity we really needed at the time.

The Project

Here’s what they required from us:

4-pager website design
6 illustrations
Website development in vue.js
Internal dashboard

The client wanted to launch their website within 60 days, so they gave us 5 weeks to complete the project. This was split into design (3 weeks) and development (2 weeks).

We split the cost of website design and development and provided the breakdown of the same to the client. Once they accepted, we began the project immediately. The project was good and the scope was well-defined. The only problem we had was that even though we had accepted the development part of the project, we didn’t know how to do it (especially in vue.js). We were banking on hiring some of our ex-colleagues, but no one seemed to know how to develop in vue.js — they were all proficient in react, which is much easier to find developers for.

Somehow, we found two developers who knew a little bit of vue.js and were willing to learn on the go as we worked on the project. Once we worked out their fees and hired the, they immediately got to work on the development of the website.

The Opportunity

At that time, Brucira was a startup where only the two co-founders were working. This meant that a long, 5-month project like this was a HUGE opportunity that we couldn’t let go. Since we knew the client would hesitate if they had to do their design in one place and development from another, we simply said yes to the opportunity, thinking we would figure it out like we always do.

Generally, we take 5-6 weeks to design a 4-page website with illustrations but since this project was extremely important for us (and for Brucira), we went the extra mile and worked for nearly 16 hours every day. We delivered an immensely high-quality design in under 3 weeks. The client was very happy with the output and we even talked about the scope of long-term engagement.

The Challenge

While we told the client that we would finish their website development within 2 weeks, we were facing issues because the developers worked full-time for another company during the day. Hence, they worked odd hours for the project.

The first weekend, they shared the first page for review and that’s when we began worrying. The webpage was very different from the design we had shared and the client was certainly going to dislike the quality of the codes. The developer and I sat down in a café and I began reviewing the page section by section.

Here is exactly how I did the website review:

I took screenshots of the website sections and overlapped them with the actual designs so that the developer could see what needed to be fixed.
I inspected the elements of the staging link and gave precise values to the developer.
I dictated each change that would be necessary to fix the other minor bugs so that it would be a high-quality website to match our designs.

Reviewing a single webpage took me over three hours and the results were still not satisfactory. Now I got really worried because it seemed like there was no chance that we could deliver the client’s website on time.

The Breakup

I requested that the client give us an additional week so we could refine their site. This way, we wouldn’t lose the great impression we had created with our designs. Since the developers only worked in the night, I had to restructure my day accordingly. I worked on other projects during the day and we burned the midnight oil every night. Over the next two weeks, I spent nearly 50 hours just reviewing the website development.

Even with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, we only managed to finish the desktop version of the site in time. The client was furious and decided to involve their in-house developer to work on the mobile (and desktop) versions of their site. We had no choice; we dropped the project in the middle. The client didn’t pay us for the development, but since our developers had worked so hard in such a short time, we somehow managed to pay them for their work.

The New Approach

We lost a lot that day.

We lost our standing with the client, we lost some good business, and most importantly, we lost the opportunity to build a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with the client. It was then that we understood that in our eagerness to prove ourselves, we had taken on too much.

From then on, we decided that we would change our approach to projects completely:

We padded the time we would realistically need to finish a project with some buffer time. This allows us to deal with any unforeseen circumstance and still deliver the client’s needs on time.
We decided not to take on projects until we knew we had someone with the right skill set to work on them perfectly. This meant hiring and trialling a lot of freelancers for smaller assignments so we could find the right fit.
We also realized that we needed a new way to work on design and development in tandem. The whole screenshot and overlay process was time-consuming, exhausting, and the developer couldn’t see exactly what we wanted anyway.

Like a Phoenix Rising from The Ashes

This is why we were inspired to create a new way to leave feedback on website.

Enter ruttl.

As they say, when one door shuts, another opens. We built ruttl out of our failure that day. We knew there was a crucial need for time-strapped developers and designers to work easily on website projects.

ruttl simplifies your review process and allows you to collaborate with your team on live websites. This way you can collect visual feedback to know exactly what needs to be changed to make your design and development better.

Clients or managing leaders can use the Inspect mode to take a look at how the webpage looks and then Comment directly on the sections that need changes. ruttl offers a transparent yet innovative way for design and development teams to collaborate on website development.

We wanted to make sure that other designers and developers need not go through what we did. We want to offer them a way to work together and generate ideas to create the best they can. Eager to know more?

We’re launching soon.

Join the wait-list for our private beta-program until then. We’re looking forward to your feedback so we can create something truly wonderful and useful.

What If…ruttl Solved All Your Website Design Problems?

Mon, 07 Sep 2020 13:08:13 GMT

Every invention that changed the world grew from frustration and the idea that things could be done better in a new way. We believe that ruttl is an innovative way of working for designers and developers while collaborating on the creation of a website.

Want to know what makes us so confident?

We asked designers, illustrators, developers, and content writers to tell us about problems they found most irritating when working on web design projects and we fixed them:

Live Website Edits

The biggest issue faced by web developers is the difficulty of enabling a change in the website UI and UX design via specific comments from the stakeholders. With ruttl, we introduce allow users to make edits on live websites! This means that developers can see exactly what changes need to be made on their screen and implement them properly. Gone are the days when you would have to click a plethora of screenshots to share with developers to get the changes they need on their website.

Similarly, another common issue that developers and designers face is the incongruous way of working when it comes to design and development. ruttl offers a collaborative platform where designers can directly make the changes on the live website project and add any comments for the developers to take a look at. Fewer screenshots, better visual feedback, it’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Don’t like the look of that header or the font it uses? No problem, you can change it directly from ruttl’s intuitive text box feature.

Edit Copy Directly on the Live Website Link

In fact, with ruttl, all editing and copy changes can now be done directly on the live website to visualize exactly how your website will look, while you make those changes. How cool is that?

Illustrators and graphic designers in particular face the brunt of the lack of a collaboration tool that enables changes to be finalized quickly. Many an illustrator will tell you with a grim face about the last time they received vague, unclear instructions from the client, not knowing how to proceed further. Verbal guidelines for an illustration or design requirement sometimes lead to a finished creative that isn’t really in mind with what the client envisioned.

When you work on website projects with ruttl, you receive clear feedback in the form of comments directly on the illustration so you know exactly what’s in the client’s mind. This works the other way as well — ruttl allows designers to showcase how their work would look on a live website allowing the client to get a clear understanding of what this visual would add to the website.

Avoid Long Email Threads

Even if you manage to execute the client’s vision perfectly with those guidelines, you’re now faced with multiple emails flooding your inbox. Some from the client, detailing feedback and asking for changes, some from the web developer who isn’t able to understand what is exactly needed to make that graphic work on the website.

Earlier, there was no platform which allowed clients to address their grievances with the website design, or for designers provide feedback to the developers without using email or third-party applications like Slack. This inevitably leads to multiple problems; losing a feedback email amongst the mountain of emails needed to sift through, painfully drafting entire paragraphs to detail the changes in one line or one part of the website, or, you know, more screenshots.

When you use ruttl, you can say goodbye to lengthy email threads with feedback and design issues. We provide a way through which content writers, designers, and developers can work in harmony directly on the live website. ruttl allows users to invite team members to view or comment on the project, which means all of the feedback you get is visual and stored in one place.

Reduced Post-Development Review Time

Playing the long waiting game to get your website changes approved by all the parties involved — stakeholders, investors, managers — can be incredibly frustrating. ruttl combats this issue by drastically reducing the waiting time faced by writers and developers by organizing the review process such that all the required comments and markups meant for the designers and developers are easy to find in one spot. This means your inbox remains uncluttered but you still get a notification whenever someone makes a change on your project.

ruttl is the future of design review.

Website development is going to get so much more exciting now that you can make live edits to the copy and change what you want while asking your team members to collaborate with you directly on the project. We’re excited, are you?

ruttl has been built as a website feedback tool for designers, by designers. We know what you want. We know what you need. Want to see what a live website review tool can do for you? Join our beta launch waitlist here. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to make sure you don’t miss a thing!

Here's How Improving Website Content Writing

Sat, 09 May 2020 07:39:16 GMT

Working on website design is one of our favorite things to do at Brucira. The creativity, strategy-building, and finesse that we get to display during web design projects are unmatched by any other, to be quite candid.

For every website design project, we start with information architecture and post-approvals. Then, we create wireframes before forming the final design.

The website content writing for the designs is often provided by the client. They either have their own website content writing team or hired contractors.

Here’s how a typical work tacker looks like:

The Pain Point

We usually receive website content writing in a document with headers and sub-headers marked to give the coordinates of the website content writing material. These markings help the developers visually identify where goes what. This leads to the creation of long documents that takes an enormous amount of time for both creators and the receivers.

We ask for the website content writing drafts during two stages - the wireframe stage and the final interface design stage. This means that the writers have to create website content writing copies twice, and since they have no idea how it translates into the design, they’re writing blind.

As the final design is being developed using the wireframes, content changes several times to fit the new design requirements. This means that if a particular section had forty words during the wireframe stage, it may need to be cut down to twenty words or fewer in the final design. This requires multiple rounds of edits, signing off on the final content by senior members, design and developer changes — all of which is time-consuming, expensive and tiring.

The whole process works like a table tennis game, except the writers on the other end of the table don’t know where to aim their ball. Waiting for writers to edit their copy interrupts the workflow of the designers.

Writers wait for the designers to add the given copy and send mock-ups of how it looks on the webpage. The process is repeated at least three or four times because the writers need to provide copy multiple times so it can complement the design while still sharing the client’s message.

The Holy Grail

We imagined there was scope for an alternative universe, one where the chaos of multiple rounds of website content writing edits didn’t exist. A space-time continuum in which designers and content writers could work in real-time synergy, eliminating confusion and inefficiencies. In this ideal world, website content writing wouldn't be a disconnected process but an integrated, seamless part of the overall web design journey.

Too often, we’ve seen brilliant website content writing copies fall flat simply because it didn’t sit well within a design, or creative layouts go to waste because the copy didn’t adapt quickly enough. This disconnect between content and design becomes a bottleneck, costing teams countless hours and added stress.

We wanted to reimagine website content writing not as a static document handed off to a designer but as a dynamic, collaborative process. One where writers could visualize their words in real context, on real designs, making real-time adjustments. One where design didn’t have to halt while waiting for a new round of rewrites. One where everyone, from copywriters to developers to stakeholders, could speak the same visual and textual language without switching between endless docs, screenshots, and email chains.

This vision was not just about eliminating inefficiency, it was about enhancing creativity and collaboration. Because when website content writing becomes a living part of the design process, the result isn’t just better workflow, it’s a better website.

What was needed

A way for writers to be able to see how their copy lends itself to the website design.
A way for designers to work seamlessly with copywriters without having to change the copy on the website multiple times because it didn’t fit, didn’t look nice, or simply didn’t do justice to the design.
A cost-effective and time-saving collaboration tool for multiple rounds of copyedits between designers, copywriters, stakeholders, and everyone else involved in the project.

Drum Rolls Please

Ruttl is a website feedback tool that provides an ingenious way to save both time and money when it comes to website content writing for web design projects. With Ruttl, you can mark-up changes on a live website allowing content writers to make their website content writing edits directly onto the webpage. Senior members of the team can inspect the final website design and comment on live website that let the writers know what changes are needed in the website content writing material.

No longer will your edits for individual lines get lost in long emails or buried under your 5,647,000 email and Slack threads. As we mentioned, in a post about how we started using slides for illustration projects, we love innovative tools like Slack but most of them do not offer the similar level of agility that you get while using live website review tools like ruttl.

When it comes to involving key leaders and stakeholders, the client can simply use Ruttl to show what the live website would look like with the changes. Any edits the stakeholders may have can be directly implemented onto the webpage for the designers and developers to follow with Ruttl.

Why I Started Using Slides for Illustration Projects

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 06:24:39 GMT

I started doing freelancing from the mid of 2016 when I first opened my Dribbble account. I started small with limited clients to whom I used to create icon sets and 2-3 illustration sets at max. By the end of the year 2016, I was getting good enough freelance opportunities and so the project size increased.

The biggest problem about these projects was not the quality of illustration, deadlines or budget. But the problem was the way I used to get feedback from the clients. At that time I wasn't using any defined process for illustration.

The Old Process

Initially, I started sending sketches to the clients for approvals and used to set up an hour-long call for feedback and suggestions. Post that I used to send the artwork over email. But, the process became tedious when the number of illustrations increased along with rounds of feedback.

The mood boards were not in place. The feedbacks on emails sometimes got lost resulting in different iterations. And sometimes, this left a bad impression on the client.

During those days, custom illustrations were new in demand, and not many clients knew what process should be followed to optimize the entire process so they never complained 😛.

When the number of illustrations increased, I realized that I should not rely on emails anymore. The loss of information started increasing, along with miss managed feedback conversations. Then I started using communication tools like Slack and WhatsApp group chats for feedbacks and the entire project process.

Here's why I liked using communication tools (like Slack):

I could create separate channels for separate parts of the project such as mood boards, icons, sketches, app illustrations, website illustrations, etc.
All of the information was there in these channels which I could later go through in case I wanted to refer back.
Slack was much quicker and online chat was always a relief.

Despite all these positive aspects, these tools still lack contextual feedback ability. Big time. Random conversations used to start between any feedback chat which made it tough to track the feedbacks - especially when I used to deal with several stakeholders. But I didn't have many options, so I continued using Slack.

It was the beginning of the year 2018 when we started Brucira and the first client that approached us was Google life sciences product - Onduo. I was really excited to work with them as it was a kind of a dream client for us. We on-boarded the client and started with our regular process and asked them to join the Slack channel. Their company policy didn't allow us to use softwares that Google didn't make. So, they requested us to stick with the email. It was a little uncomfortable since I knew the drawbacks of using Gmail for communication. But I didn’t resist. After all, it was Google 😄.

I went through the brief. When I was asked to send the mood board first, I decided to prepare a good looking presentation PDF instead of sending JPEGs over the mail, to set a good impression.

PDF - Mood board and colour pallete

The client loved that PDF and sent a copy of that PDF with minor feedback. That was the first time I observed that feedbacks attached to the right context are easy to track and easy to resolve. Then I shared the illustration sketches with them and expected the feedbacks in the same format, and that’s what happened. I received well-organised feedbacks in my inbox, which resulted in shorter feedback time and better quality of output.

PDF - Sketches for Onduo

This was the point I understood what process I should follow for all my upcoming projects. Instead of PDF presentations, I started using Google Slides for the following reasons:

All of the designs (sketches, mood boards and artwork) could be placed at a single place for review.
The progress could be tracked properly in the presentation format.
The improvement in the illustrations were measurable.
Clients could leave contextual comments on slides.

Despite all the good things about using slides for illustration projects, there are a few drawbacks that make it a not-so-perfect tool for managing projects.

We are making sure that ruttl will overcome those shortcomings for illustration feedbacks and serve as the good project management tool for web designs/illustrators. From editing live websites to realtime commenting, it's getting packed with features that will allow design teams to optimize their website review process!

Check it out here - visual feedback tool.

3 Key Aspects of Post-Development Website Reviews

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 05:31:03 GMT

Let’s talk about what happens while building a new website. As a web-designer you work hard on collecting requirements from the client, put all your creative juices to work and come up with a great design, run around to get the designs approved, and TA-DA! You have a mind-blowing design ready that your client too has given a go-ahead for. Now the time has come to pass this visual wonder off to your counterparts in the development team to create magic with this design.

But all that you can say after what you receive back as the end product is “What the ****????”

If you are a designer, you definitely have come across a similar situation at-least once in your career, where you fail to understand how could something designed so well go this wrong.

Though design and development seem like two faces of the same coin, where the two functions are expected to collaborate seamlessly creating great end-products, the functions most often struggle to work well together.

Here, let's take a deeper look at the three key aspects of post development website reviews:

Communication

The biggest challenge is the lack of communication. Most of the times we assume that the person on the other end knows exactly what we are talking about even without checking for his understanding.

Likewise, most of the times, when the design is being shared with the developers, the designers don’t follow proper guidelines assuming that the developers understand the underlying details. This not only leads to a lot of back and forth between the designers, clients and the developers, but also has a direct impact on the website launch timeline. The situation becomes although more complicated when the designers and developers are working remotely or across different time zones.

Collaboration

Getting stakeholders to review the website to check the user experience and evaluate whether the creative vision aligns with the company vision is only one part of the challenge. Designers lose a lot of time and energy in antics of collaboration over web design projects.

Most of the times, the only way stakeholders collaborate is by taking a plethora screenshots of website, pasting them in word file and sharing their feedback. This feedback is further passed on to the developers. On making the necessary changes, the developers again create a word document with another ocean of screenshots. This process is not only time consuming, but can be extremely frustrating.

Technology

Using inappropriate technology like emails, spreadsheets or word documents can only make collaboration more complicated. Instead of making it easy for stakeholders to share information, it only leads more towards miscommunication and disconnecting people further.

Imagine digging through long email threads where each one of the stakeholder has shared his feedback by hitting ’reply all’. Or even worst, imagine you are trying to find a feedback from a stakeholder who has conveniently forgotten to loop you in the mail thread as he missed hitting the ‘reply all’ button.

Inappropriate technology only leads towards building silos and leads further towards miscommunication.

Conclusion

It’s high-time that we think of better ways to manage post development reviews, collaborate seamlessly with stakeholders and make the process of creating phenomenal websites a breeze.

Say goodbye to your age old methods and start using modern solutions like website feedback tool. Ruttl is here to disrupt the post-development design review process and forever change the way you communicate, collaborate and share feedback with stakeholders.

Is Remote Working Really Challenging?

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 07:04:48 GMT

Remote working has become the buzzword since the last few days. Although a number of companies have been practicing the "work from home" culture in the last decade, the COVID-19 situation has made a million others join the force to make it the new normal. We are seeing and experiencing what may be the future of the workforce.

Millions of Americans in the field of design, artistry and creativity, technology and the IT sectors work remotely and swear by the versatility and freedom it offers. Did you know that in the U.S. alone, 4.7 million employees (3.4% of the workforce) work from home at least half the week. (Global Workplace Analytics). And 77% of remote employees say they're more productive when working from home. (CoSo Cloud).

Though it sounds very exciting, remote working for a number of professionals is not always a bed of roses, and comes with its own set of challenges.

Communication

“Did you say you emailed me the comments yesterday? Shoot, I seem to have completely overlooked the email”. Communication is one of the biggest challenges while working remotely. Most of the communication happens through emails and often people complain about their team not being on top of things or not receiving emails on time. At times, it becomes very easy for people to misread a certain tone of the email. Misunderstandings can spiral out of control in no time if communication is not handled properly while working remotely.

Collaboration

“WOW! It's a wonderful idea. But I will have to completely relook into my code to implement this. How nice would it have been had you left a note about this earlier?”. Most of the design work happens in collaboration with multiple stakeholders working under the same room and working in-sync with each other. So most designers feel crippled while working remotely and not getting to collaborate adequately with their team. Working remotely becomes a bigger challenge when stakeholders spread across different continents and working across different time zones.

Tracking

“If I don’t see you working, then how do I actually know if you are working?”. More often than we think, managers lose control of what is happening with their team either due to the plethora of emails that get exchanged during the day or due to lack of communication.While it is extremely important for the managers to keep a tab on what work is happening with their team and to have a sense of security, lack of trust can be a huge motivation killer for most employees. Tracking the progress while managing employee emotions thus becomes a huge challenge with the remote workforce.

Feedbacks

“Can I get your comments on this please?”. Designers always look forward to getting timely feedback and constructive criticism to deliver their best work. Delayed responses to feedback requests while working remotely can kill the enthusiasm of the designers.

Have we ever pondered upon the thought - “What if all these challenges had a single-point solution?” , “What if the sprint reviews happened in a ziffy?”. “What if we didn’t really have to worry about all these challenges while working remotely?” Wouldn't it be wonderful to have an answer to questions like these?

And what if we said, we do have a solution to all these problems? What if we said we are here to redefine communication and collaboration amongst your design stakeholders?

Be assured that an exciting website feedback tool is on your way. Watch out this space to know more in the coming days.

PS: You can follow our page “Ruttl” and be a part of our network on LinkedIn for the latest updates.