Over the years, effective training content used to be a challenging task but with the rise of e-learning technologies, creating course material has become easier than ever. One of the things that have changed effective eLearning is SCORM authoring tools.
The SCORM authoring tools need to have important features that will allow for its effective use. The tool is shared with all employees of a company, irrespective of their age, location, or the device they use. Whether you are considering acquiring a new authoring tool or planning to replace an existing one, you need to choose a reliable one. Else, you end up with a tool that will create more problems than it will solve. Well, according to a recent study, one way to decide the right SCORM authoring tool is by conducting a needs assessment. After that, you need to opt for the one that provides solutions for your e-learning needs. That said, let’s have a quick look at some of the must-have features of SCORM authoring tools below.
Top Features You Need In An SCORM Authoring Tool
User-friendly Interface
If I want to get an authoring tool, one of the features I’d prioritize is having a tool with an intuitive user interface. Not everybody is tech-savvy, so the ability for all employees irrespective of their age to be able to use the tool is essential.
The SCORM authoring tool must be flexible to design effective training contentwith good workflow. When designing a large course material, it is very important because it saves time and energy. Since the ability to design course material in a short period is vital, you must consider this feature before opting for an authoring tool.
Individual online assessment features
This feature is crucial to help in the assessmentof learners. It gives an evaluation of what the employee already knows, what they have learned in the course, how much of the course material they can retain, and their progress.
SCORM authoring tool with this feature helps to determine the effectiveness of the course material. Also, it’s a good way to get feedback from employees.
The features like quizzes (form-based question, open question, multiple retry attempts, feedback), course assessment (question bank, random questions), scoring (negative scoring, badges), analytics (reporting and tracking) are good ways to access employees.
Collaborative factor
e-Learning involves many different people living in different geographical locations. As such, it will be very important to carry all participants along throughout the course, irrespective of where they live.
When providing a course material you should be able to provide standardized course content that all participants can flow with. Acollaboration friendlyauthoring tool will enable you to create this.
When considering a SCORM authoring tool, you might want to consider the following:
Provide multi-language support to enable you to create a course in different languages.
Have shared resources and share options (email, links, social media)
Provide co-authoring and author control.
Have user roles and
Have versioning
Templates and themes
Your design should have a consistent look and a nice feel. This can be achieved by using a template that will help you when designing many course content for the same participants. Consistent look and feel will keep your audience’s attention focused on the course, rather than being distracted by different designs.
Since most SCORM authoring tools come with many different template designs, you should consider the one that can edit templates and design custom templates. With this, you will be able to make a consistent design that tells more about your brand.
Apart from that, you may consider having an authoring tool with the ability to import and install pre-built templates from other programs as well.
Administration
Administration features enable you to organize your course training tailored in a way that will make all participants flow with it. A well-organized administration will help you to easily set your preferences when designing your course content.
The administration features will also make it easier for you to set the tool and quickly get started with it.
A good SCORM authoring tool should be able to have:
Language setting option.
Flexible workspace setup that is easy to navigate with movable windows and dockable panels
Preview and view preference.
Auto recovery to prevent loss of saved and unsaved courses.
Roles and permission
Security
Publishing
There may be a need for you to publish your course in different formats based on your needs. So, before choosing a SCORM authoring tool, you need to check what your design needs. These requirements should be compliant with your Learning Management System (LMS).
The most common LMS compliant standards are SCORM and Tin Can API. Apart from that, other common formats include PDF, Word, Flash, HTML5, iOS, Android, CD, file, cloud-based, and Microsoft Powerpoint.
Conclusion
We’d like to also stress the importance of a good support structure. Irrespective of whether you are an expert or a novice, you will benefit from help from a good SCORM authoring tool brand. Some brands provide support in the form of live chat support, phone support, training video guides, and community forums that enable you to get troubleshooting help or ask questions. Some would even allow you to use the demo version, for you to try out their tools. This should be a major factor when choosing an authoring tool.
Whatever authoring tool you choose, make sure that you create an effective workflow for managing feedback for your SCORM courses. If you have not given zipBoard a try yet for improving your eLearning reviews and QA process, give it a try! Learn more about zipBoard’s (eLearning review and QA features) or sign up directly for the product here.
Branding your company to stand out amongst the competition sounds like a daunting task. And even though it is an intense process, it isn’t that hard and it can be fun. It is just a time-consuming process. Remember though, consistency is key.
The branding journey can be less complicated by learning about branding archetypes. Use this as a foundation to build on. Find your voice within the right archetype and learn to deliver it with the right words, logos, font, and colors – all of which will be more relatable to your customers.
Where to Start Your Branding
Start by exploring all of the brand archetypes first. It is said that 77 percent of consumers tend to buy from brands who happen to share the same values as them. Following an archetype is a way to easily relate to consumers.
Branding Archetype History
Let’s just go over a little history lesson on archetypes. To connect with an audience, humans like symbolism. So, Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, created these archetypes to build a deep connection with buyers.
The goal is to relate better to customers with these personas and using authentic and consistent communication throughout the entire buying process.
The innocent is all about happiness and safety. The archetype is optimistic and pure. Those using this archetype need to be careful not to come across too boring. Add some spice to encouraging strong values with honesty and simplicity. Brands who use innocent archetypes include Coke and Dove. One example that stands out to us is the campaign that Coca Cola does each year, “The Holidays are Coming”. This excites customers and brings holiday cheer.
Colors: Pastels like mint green, light blue, and all shades of pink.
Font: Clean, simple, and uncluttered.
Magician
The magician is magical and all about making your dreams come true. This archetype believes anything is possible and creating special moments with charm. However, don’t be too risky and take things over the top though. Brands who use the magician archetype include Apple and Disney. The Magical World of Disney is the prime example of using the magician to attract customers as it brings joy and magic, all in one.
Colors: Pastels such as purples, pinks, and some light blues.
Fonts: Fun and flowing, maybe even some cursive.
Sage
The sage is full of wisdom and the pursuit of knowledge. The sage archetype doesn’t rely on fantasy, just brilliance, and is a trusted source and advisor. Brands that use the sage archetype include Google and universities like Harvard. Brands who use quotes or images of people like Albert Einstein and Gandhi use the sage archetype to attract customers with famous and knowledgeable personalities.
Colors: Teal, dark green, tan, and grey.
Fonts: Solid, historic, and classic fonts such as Times New Roman.
Outlaw
The outlaw is strong and not afraid of anything. The outlaw archetype believes in revolution to break the rules and to say no to authority. But don’t be too bold with his archetype where it comes across negative. Brands who use the outlaw archetype includes Harley Davidson and Virgin Mobile. Harley Davidson will always be a brand that uses the outlaw archetype perfectly. There commercials always display an open road, a symbolism for freedom.
Colors: Black, dark reds, and dark oranges.
Font: Shock factor with bold and non-conventional fonts.
Jester
The jester is silly and humorous. The jester archetype uses comedy and fun to bring a smile and joy. Just don’t be too silly and look disrespectful. Brands who use the jester archetype include Ikea and Old Spice. M&Ms uses jester to attract customers by airing humorous commercials. How can you not laugh when thinking of talking M&Ms?
Colors: Fun and bright colors like purples, pinks, blues, and yellows.
Fonts: Fun, youthful, and playful like Comic Sans.
Lover
The lover is and appears to be grounded. The key to the lover archetype is to use intimacy to seduce. Brands who use the lover archetypes include Godiva and Victoria’s Secret. Godiva delivers sensual yet attractive ads to grab the attention of their consumers, especially around the holidays.
Colors: Passionate and deep reds, bright pinks, and purples.
Fonts: Soft, feminine, and cursive.
Explorer
The explorer believes in the freedom to get out and explore. The explorer archetype focuses on new experiences and discovering things while being ambitious and independent. Brands who use this archetype include Jeep and Red Bull.
Colors: Earthy colors such as neutrals, grey, tan, some oranges, and reds.
Fonts: Less is more, structured, and youthful.
Ruler
The ruler is luxurious and exclusive. The ruler archetype likes control, being organized, and being responsible. Brands who use this archetype include Mercedes Benz. For example, luxurious car companies like Lexus air commercials about gifting a car to yourself. They believe in rewarding yourself for hard work, a trait of the ruler.
Colors: Simple and primary colors like reds and blues with some greens.
Fonts: Authoritative, commanding, and bold.
Caregiver
The caregiver believes in building trust and being safe. This archetype helps others by being caring, nurturing, and maternal. When using this archetype, don’t come across too weak and be taken advantage of. Brands who use the caregiver archetype include Campbell’s Soup, Johnson and Johnson, and Hallmark. Johnson and Johnson offer products to help care for others, so of course, they are going to use the caregiver archetype by airing ads of people caring for others with their products.
Colors: Pastels like all light blues, pinks, peach, and purples.
Fonts: Sentimental and inviting.
Hero
The hero believes in the world becoming a better place. The hero archetype is courageous, honorable, confident, and ready to rise to the challenge. Just don’t be too arrogant when using this archetype. Brands who use the hero archetype include Nike, Army, and BMW. Nike’s slogan, “Just Do It”, is a perfect example of using the hero archetype. When people think of Nike, they think of the ability to conquer anything, just like a hero.
Colors: Energizing and strong, like all shades of blue, with a pop of bright yellows.
Fonts: Powerful and strong.
Everyman
The everyman appeals to the regular person, the average Joe. The archetype wants everyone to feel like they belong and are connected. When using the everyman archetype, don’t blend in, still, need a strong identity. Brands who use this archetype include Starbucks and Home Depot. Target stands out as a brand who displays the everyman in their ads. By welcoming all, Target fits in everyone’s life!
Colors: Basic and simple light blues and greens.
Fonts: Straight forward and basic such as Arial.
Creator
The creator strives to create only the best and at any cost. The archetype is a perfectionist. And focuses on the vision. Brands who use the creator archetype include Lego and Crayola. Creative brands like Adobe capture the creator archetype by airing ads that show how creative you can get with their products, opening up a whole new world to innovation.
Now that you have learned about all of the different archetypes, which can be quite overwhelming, it is time to pick the right one for your brand.
Some helpful tips when narrowing it down. First, get rid of all the archetypes that DON’T fit your brand. You should be able to cross off at least half of the list. Next, narrow it down to about 3.
Now, take a deeper look at those 3. Look at the words to use, the colors, and the fonts. Which is the best for your brand? Which of these can you see be a lasting relationship with your brand?
It is now time to narrow it down to a primary archetype rather than a secondary one. Primarily use the one you chose while sprinkling in some of the secondary.
Then, start your branding! Start by including the right colors into your logo, and on your website. Don’t forget to also use the right fonts on your website, along with the right wording.
Creating a brand takes time and collaborative effort from internal and external stakeholder’s. There are still teams that might be using emails, and chats to convey their feedback, however if you want to build brand that are liked by many then you should use the power of visual communication.
zipBoard is a review and collaboration tool that lets designers, developers and clients collaborate and communicate effectively. It’s a whiteboard for your project development collaboration. All you need is your website URL to get started and have your entire team in sync in one place.
Try zipBoard Today !
It is easy to get started on the free trial. Simply sign up, no credit card required.
Innovation in web development is evolving rapidly every year. 5 to 10 years ago no one would have thought that we would be able to build powerful web applications in the browser as we are able to do today. Back in those days, people would use software installed on their local computer or laptop to do their work. But that made it difficult for the user to access their work from a different location.
Since cloud computing has come into picture there is a drastic change in how we access tools and software. Almost every software these days are being converted from a computer-based application to a cloud-based application.
We are living in times where we are no more restricted to one or two computer systems or locations. Instead, we can access our work from anywhere in the world by simply using an internet browser to login to the system and resuming the work right where we left it.
All of this was made possible because of advancements in web tools and web browsers. This has also lead to a constantly growing demand for advancements in web tools and functionality in web browsers.
More and more companies are coming out with amazing web-based solutions to ease web developer’s and designer’s life.
Today I will present you with the most popular 45+ web tools in 2020.
To come up with this awesome list of web tools, we took into consideration how many users does the solution has and what you get for what you pay.
You will find included very different web solutions: an affordable logo design contest, powerful WordPress themes and plugins, website builders, web development services, and much more.
Did you know that WooCommerce is powering over 1.5 million shops and that it is probably the most used e-commerce solution worldwide? It has lots of advantages:
• Free. • Easy to customize. • Lots of powerful features. • The store you build belongs to you (versus Shopify for example and other solutions). • There is a huge number of extensions that will supercharge your WooCommerce store. • Informative analytics. • Much more.
It’s easy to see why there are so many users.
If you want to properly run a WooCommerce store at its maximum capacity, to take advantage of this powerful platform and get tons of sales, you need only one additional thing. You need a specialized team to take care of your WooCommerce store.
WPcustomify is specialized in WooCommerce and they know perfectly this platform. They will help you install any type of extension, they will fully configure your store, and offer you support for any errors or problems you get.
Let the experts take care of your WooCommerce store so you can focus on getting more sales.
Besides being proficient in programming, developers can largely benefit from having an extensive set of project management skills. They should be capable of optimizing work processes in a way that lets completing the planned work on budget and schedule. Moreover, they should be able to respond to any changes in the project’s scope promptly and efficiently.
An intelligent timesheet tool, actiTIME, can be of great help for developers and their managers in attaining these objectives. Its core features are:
Scope management for creating projects and tasks, setting up estimates and deadlines, and monitoring current performance on the Kanban board;
Time tracking for keeping an accurate record of working hours and billable time;
Thorough reports for a comprehensive review and analysis of productivity trends, as well as project costs and revenues.
With all these features, actiTIME fosters closer attention to details in the management process and reduces the risk of errors during data collection. Moreover, it automates many HR and accounting processes, from PTO accrual to client billing and invoicing. Therefore, it saves a ton of time that you may invest in working on more critical project-related issues.
actiTIME is also very flexible, and you can easily integrate it with a wide variety of other useful tools through Zapier or API. Moreover, actiTIME’s automatic timer can be accessed directly through the Chrome extension in Jira, Github, and GitLab. In this way, the tool enables you to track time while being entirely concentrated on the primary work process. Sign up for a free actiTIME trial and bring your productivity to the next level.
You want a WordPress theme that is complete, easy to configure and customize, lightning-fast, affordable (only $59), and which will make your website convert better? Take a look at Total, this theme will literally do all these things for you, these are not big empty words.
It comes loaded with 40+ premium demos that will make your website look exactly as in the demo, with 80+ builder modules, with 500+ styling options, and premium plugins included for free — Visual Page Builder, Templatera, and Slider Revolution.
Take a look at the theme demos, you will fall in love instantly, you never saw so much a high-quality and well-designed theme.
Whenever you need a new web design tool for your projects, browse Webdesign Toolbox, and find it in minutes. Stop wasting your time on Google Search and in other places, to find the right web tools for your projects.
This website has 965 resources manually added in 78 different categories, being very well categorized. It will become a huge encyclopedia of web design resources; every month being updated.
Webdesign Toolbox is already used with huge success by both professional and newbie web designers, coders, web strategists, online entrepreneurs, bloggers, and marketers.
Join them and use Webdesign Toolbox, it is 100% free.
You want the most complete, technologically-advanced, yet simple to use and affordable service for doing manual and automated testing? TestingBot is the best solution for all of these, being feature-rich and supporting all kinds of tests, including live tests and multi-device testing.
Codester is a huge marketplace where you will find tens of thousands of premium PHP scripts, apps, plugins, website templates of all kind, and even hugely discounted items.
Browse Codester, here you can find everything you are looking for and the prices are excellent.
Remote teams from all over the world use with huge success Taskade, a professional, complete, and technologically advanced collaboration tool.
This unique platform lets you and your team fully customize your workspaces, in just a few seconds. You can create the workspaces from scratch, or you can use the included templates, there are hundreds to choose from.
Taskade is feature-rich, having everything you need.
MailMunch is a highly popular solution in the market, used by tons of companies and marketers to boost conversions by up to 400%.
It grows your email list and it converts your visitors into subscribers and customers.
This complete lead generation software comes loaded with captivating templates, with an easy to use drag and drop builder, and lots of useful features that will supercharge your forms and landing pages.
Unlayer is the best email template builder on the market, being super easy to embed on your website (takes less than 5 minutes). Let your website visitors create superb emails and landing pages directly from your website using Unlayer templates and the brilliant drag-and-drop builder.
Do you want the best WordPress SEO plugin for your website? Rank Math is free to use, yet it is the most advanced in this niche.
After a basic configuration, it puts on auto-pilot your WordPress SEO and it helps your website rank higher and gets more traffic, with the existing content.
Use Schema Pro plugin to quickly add schema markups to all the selected pages, with 1-click. Your WordPress website will rank higher and get more traffic.
To create engaging and high-converting landing pages you need only the right tool, not special skills or magic ideas.
Such a tool is Landingi. It comes loaded with awesome templates, with a drag-and-drop builder, with tons of elements, and a clever interface that is simple to use.
Start your free trial and build a super landing page with Landingi.
Do you love super in-depth and comprehensive articles and tutorials? Then you will fall in love with CollectiveRay. Here you will find such stuff, and even more.
This is among the few places where experts write so high-quality articles and reviews.
ContentSnare will collect content from your customers, automatically, helping you finish more projects and reduce costs. Sounds awesome? Of course, because it is.
The configuration takes less than 5 minutes, and right after ContentSnare will work autonomously.
Start a 14-day free trial. No credit card required.
Astra is the fastest growing WordPress theme of all time, having already 1 million users in 2020. It has the most comprehensive library of website designs, unparalleled performance, and tons of features.
Need a website? Make one yourself with uKit. A powerful tool that enables you to create a modern site in your browser. No need to download anything or fiddle with the code — simply pick a template, then edit it as you see fit in a convenient editor. Sell services and goods with the integrated Store module, and promote your site with the SEO module.
Fotor is an online photo editor and background remover software that is used by tens of thousands of marketers, graphic designers, bloggers, vloggers, and online entrepreneurs.
It is easy to create engaging content with Fotor, there are tons of pictures and elements included, and the editor is brilliant.
If you need a form, quiz, and surveys, you can create it on a shoestring or even for free with the stepFORM builder. It contains 17 basic elements and a rich library of professional-looking templates. Moreover, you can integrate payment systems (PayPal, Wallet One) and statistics (Google Analytics), configure CSS properties, and add custom code. The platform is mobile-friendly. Start with the free plan today!
SuperbWebsiteBuilders.com highlights pros and cons of the most popular web design platforms as well as their main characteristics and special features. It contains dozens of reviews and comparisons of these services as well as those of hosting providers. This eliminates the need to look for the niche-related info elsewhere as all the required data are at hand here.
pCloudy is a popular mobile app testing software that lets you do all kinds of tests, both manual and automated. The platform is super simple to use, yet is among the most advanced in this niche.
You are a professional freelancer and you need tailored contract templates? No problem, Bonsai will help you with that.
They are the best in the freelancer software industry, being the best for invoice templates for every freelance profession, for CRM, for calculating taxes, time-tracking, and much more.
Do you have multiple social media pages? Do you want to share them most efficiently across the audience of your multiple channels? Open your door to a new effective social media tool — uSocial. Sporting several unique features, such as Meta Builder to build thumbnails, clean code to load faster, and own analytics, it’s one of the best tools for your social media needs. Try it now!
A simple and quick way to heavily increase productivity and security in your company is to use a PC monitoring software for your employees. The most popular solution is Controlio, being simple to use, and feature-rich.
Wix2WP.Pro is the all-in-one Wix to WordPress migration platform, which has distinguished itself due to its professional staff, years of niche experience and rich portfolio of successfully completed projects. They pay individual attention to each client and each website that is under transfer. This is a perfect solution for beginners and web design pros, who don’t have time to complete the task independently.
You are curious to find out what fonts are used by your competitors or on your favorite websites? WhatFontIs will help you identify these fonts for free, being the best font finder in the industry.
Identify fonts like professionals, with WhatFontIs is simple.
The best UI Kits and dashboards can be found on the Creative Tim website. They produce all their stuff with their own teams, that is why the quality of the products is outstanding, including for their free stuff.
Browse the website and see what cool products they have for you.
SiteBuilders.Pro is a worthy solution for users, who decide to move their web projects between well-known CMS or website builders. They deal with transferring all types of projects, taking care of all the details and special platform nuances. In addition to content transfer, SiteBuilders. Pro experts will help you with further website promotion. Their rich experience will contribute to positive results.
If you want to entice more customers to your website, uCalc is what you need. It’s a modern, easy-to-handle form/calculator builder that provides a wide collection of templates suitable for a small or medium-sized business of any industry. Plus, various formula types are available for creating a calculator for any purpose. Start with the Free plan and let it work for you!
UPQODE is an eCommerce web development agency in the US that develops platforms for online stores to sell their products. In addition, the agency offers cost-effective eCommerce services for small businesses.
UPQODE’s team of experts is dedicated to providing its clients with marketing solutions such as SEO services, Google Ads setup, social media ads, and conversion optimization.
The agency has worked with a majority of US customers.
RumbleTalk will help you add a moderated chat for Q&A and live events on your website, being the best solution in the market. It is simple to use and they have a free plan that you can start with.
WordPressToWix.PRO focuses on ensuring easy, convenient and fast website transfer from WordPress to Wix. The platform also offers quality project promotion and preservation of search engine positions upon the completion of the task. The team of proficient web designers will gladly assist you with all the steps of the procedure, ensuring top notch result.
Is your website builder not good enough for you? Do you feel like you lack features to build a website that you truly desire? uCoz website builder is here to rescue you! A unique blend of Pro-level editing tools, custom code access, and a visual editor allows you to create a unique and professional website with ease. And it’s free to use!
HTMLtoWordPress.PRO is a full-cycle service, which deals with the professional, safe, and convenient transfer of HTML websites to WordPress. The platform has dozens of successfully completed projects in its portfolio and lots of satisfied clients. They employ a team of experts, who will take care of all the stages of the migration process to ensure worthy results.
If you are looking for the best Elementor-based WordPress theme, then Blabber is definitely worthy of your attention. This is a ready-to-go solution apt for all kinds of blogs, media sites, businesses, entertainment projects, and even eCommerce. One of the most impressive features of the Blabber theme is the constantly-glowing collection of homepage demos. The theme includes 20+ demo styles apt for personal, travel, fashion, sports, science, health, and other topics. All pages and design elements of the theme are ready to be modified in the intuitive drag-and-drop mode. Take control of your site’s content organization with the Gutenberg editor.
46. FC United | Football, Soccer & Sports WordPressTheme + RTL
FC United is a functional and multi-purpose WordPress theme apt for the launch of football, basketball, and other kinds of sports-related websites. The fully responsive layout of the theme is intended to adjust all pieces of your site’s content razor-sharp on different screen sizes. It also includes a collection of ready-to-go homepage demos. The number of extra demos grows bigger with the launch of every next update. The theme supports all the major WordPress plugins and extensions, including SportsPress. The latter lets you transform your WordPress website into the fully-featured sports clutch website with match reports, league tables, and more.
47.Craftis— Handcraft & Artisan WordPress Theme for Creatives
Make your craftwork look it’s best using the Craftis WordPress theme. The clean and stylish design of the theme is perfectly suited for a range of websites promoting handmade works. The Craftis theme is intended to be used for blogs and web stores. The latter is easy to achieve using the theme’s compatibility with WooCommerce and Elegro Crypto Payment plugins. It also contains a bunch of ready-made pages, which are ready to be modified in the drag-and-drop mode of the Elementor page builder. Additionally, the theme lets you choose from 10 unique homepage styles apt for artisans and craftsmen.
Zento is a state-of-the-art Software-as-a-Service eCommerce platform built on the solid foundation of Magento 2 with a next-gen Progressive Web App frontend. All the tools and integrations you need to run and operate your online shop, in a modern and reliable solution. Sell everywhere, automate your operations, increase conversions, and focus on your business, not the technology behind it.
Orsolo is an all in one project and task management tool to organize projects without extra complexity. With Orsolo, you can manage your work at a personal level and keep track of every stage. You can upload files, save bookmarks, and create notes as well. Using the To-do list feature, you can add quick tasks to your project boards and tick them off when done. Keep track of your project spend as you go along with the Budget tracker.
zipBoard is a web-based visual review and bug tracking tool for web developers and designers to better manage website development projects. It is built to manage internal reviews, tasks, bugs or issues, defects, and client feedback all within one centralized system. Simplifying the review and approval process from internal teams and external stakeholders.
zipBoard lets you review multiple digital contents in a single project or across multiple projects. It allows reviewing multiple types of file formats ranging from images, videos, live websites, e-learning courses, PDF documents, and HTML pages.
By using zipBoard for bug tracking and visual review, you can improve the quality and speed up the development process, while cutting down the website development cost.
Now, deliver quality products at an affordable cost as all plans come with unlimited projects and unlimited collaborators. You can start with a free trial account without any credit card.
February 6, 2020 Posted by zipBoard AdminDesign, Resources
0 thoughts on “Web Design Trends 2020: Predictions From Experts”
Here is a list of powerful design trends that will likely dominate in 2020. Keeping up with these web design trends will make your brand look attractive.
Enterprise-level e-commerce is a serious business with a lot of money on the line. With good design, not only is the top-end value of a conversion likely to be significantly higher, but the likelihood that the fallout from a slight misstep will snowball into a social media firestorm is much greater.
Learning Creation can tend to be chaotic, if proper processes are not followed. Missing deadlines and ineffective content also results from an unplanned learning delivery. Assigning roles and priorities can help create a repeatable process in e-learning. Here are a few tips to establish an effective process for learning delivery
Remote communication and collaboration are not easy. But in the dynamic web design and development space, it’s the need of the hour. To bring the best talent on-board, here are some tools that ease your remote team challenges.
Are you a designer? Are you always struggling to keep your inbox in control? Are you the one who has to spend more time clearing the clutter than actually designing?
The design is no longer done in isolation. Design these days is a team sport. Rather it always was, when it comes to designing experiences. It’s not only the designers who define the design sprint team. Designers, developers, business analysts, clients, SMEs interact and discuss to structure the design roadmap. Working together prevents pitfalls and leads to better planning. This, in turn, saves cost and time.
When people from different domains come together to achieve a common goal, collaboration gets critically essential. And keeping up with the flow of information can easily get overwhelming without the right project management tool in place.
Things to consider while choosing the Project Management System for design teams.
Team comprise of designers as well as non designers(techies, hard core business guys, marketing and sales representatives, etc.)
Design is not something static, it’s a process that needs to evolve and prosper with time.
Design assets and files can be huge.
Different stakeholders might need to get involved in different sprint stages.
For collaborating over mocks and designs contextual feedback and discussions are a must.
Creativity can’t wait. Thus, real time updates and reporting are a must to ensure smooth and timely flow of facts and figures.
Integration with day to day design team tool is a plus as it strengthens collaboration while being in the familiar space i.e. shallow learning curve and adoption time.
Reasons Why Designers Need Project Management
Collaboration and communication
“The way we talk about design to stakeholders is critical to the success of our projects. We must become better communicators of design to people who may not have the same depth of experience in design or technology that we do.”
As NASA rule#15 suggests: ‘More often than not, the seeds of success or failure are planted during the early planning and team-building stage’. Thus, to facilitate better communication proper channels need to be established right from the planning phase.
Communicating design well to the internal team as well as the external stakeholders opens channels for suggestions and enhancements based on real experiences. that gives design the right direction. An easy way to share and discuss design is a boon for creative teams. And if the same channel can address all the stakeholders involved(internal or external)its an additional feather that make the collaboration process smoother.
Now if a single project management tool can keep track of these scattered internal and external facing communication paths. It will surely save designers from the insane pressure to keep things manageable.
Bucketing and prioritizing Tasks
The phrase ‘First things first’ holds true in every scenario. All tasks the design team intends to accomplish are not identical in terms of criticality. The priority, severity and complexity of each task is different and needs to be handled accordingly. But the absence of a system that clearly buckets your tasks for different modules and priority can easily overwhelm you. This adds to the mess and pressure that already prevails catering to strict deadlines. One shot planning is obsolete and undesirable. So, tasks keep coming at their pace as the team decides for successive modules and gathers feedback for the previously designed modules. Having a system set to place these tasks in desired lists keeps thing in order and makes the workflow effortless.
Time Tracking
At the end of each design sprint the biggest concern is ‘where we spent all the time? Damn it was 5 days! Did we just did this only? Why couldn’t we beat the plan?’ — These thoughts will keep hounding you and your team unless you get organised. Just having a project management tool in place won’t do wonders. All the tasks and discussions need to be reflected in the system. Continuously updating the tasks as per the current status keeps everyone in sync. This in the long run helps you identify the silos where you need to work to improve your process.
Setting up a process and not improving it over time is sheer foolishness
A central reference to locate assets, thoughts, tasks and time and resources spent on the same is a great source to analyse and understand the trends.
Final Thoughts
Based on your team structure and design process the requirements for the project management tools may vary. But the broader picture remains the same. To avoid being lost in collecting bits and pieces all the the time you need a platform to collate and track your tasks, communicate with your team and clients and finally to peep into the performance and efficiency achieved.
zipBoard is a tool to manage projects and issues in your web design process with your entire team in one place. Be it a developer, designer, manager or external stakeholder, everyone can collaborate, exchange feedback and track tasks in zipBoard.
Design these days is a team sport. Designers, developers, business analysts, clients, SMEs interact and discuss to structure the design roadmap. When people from different domains come together to achieve a common goal, collaboration gets critically essential. Keeping up with the flow of information can easily get overwhelming without the right project management tool in place.
When it comes to managing design projects, the frequency and probability of changes and revisions are even higher. The design has everything to do with human experience. Assumptions and plans often take a backseat when human experience is involved. Know the 7 steps for managing a design project.
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