40 Free Cartoon and Comic Fonts

Original Source: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/40-free-unique-cartoon-and-comic-fonts/

Have you ever feel that traditional fonts are a little too boring and plain for your designs and artworks? Ever wanted to use fonts that are funkier, stylish and fun to look at? Cartoon and comic…

Visit hongkiat.com for full content.

Collective #621

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/vF9Y8Q2NROY/

Collective 621 item image

Inspirational Website of the Week: Elias & Valentin

A very fluid experience on another level of sophistication. Our pick this week.

Get inspired

Collective 621 item image

This content is sponsored via Syndicate Ads
Website Behavior Analytics Software

Understand how users are really experiencing your site without drowning in numbers!

Try it free

Collective 621 item image

Component Driven User Interfaces

The Chromatic team made this great resource that explores how modularity is transforming design and front-end development and explains what Component Driven UIs are.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

Shader Studies: Matrix Effect

Shahriar Shahrabi wrote this break down of the matrix shader effect written by Will Kirby and also implemented a real time matrix Shader in Unity 3D with Triplanar mapping.

Read it

Collective 621 item image

Present

A terminal-based presentation tool with colors and effects.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

Web Brutalism, Seamfulness, and Notion

A very interesting article on how a tool for sensemaking reconciles two distinct software design ideologies.

Read it

Collective 621 item image

Omatsuri

A great place to find open source browser tools for everyday use.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

Stitches

A CSS-in-JS library with near-zero runtime, server-side rendering and multi-variant support.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

Building Website Headers with CSS Flexbox

A very practical tutorial on how to code up responsive flexbox-powered website headers.

Read it

Collective 621 item image

Custom bullets with CSS ::marker

Learn how trivial it has become to customize the color, size or type of number or bullet when using lists.

Read it

Collective 621 item image

CSS ART – Vintage VW Bug

A beautiful VW Bug created with CSS only.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

An Interesting Explanation of async/await in JavaScript

Learn how to use async/await in JavaScript in this article by Dmitri Pavlutin.

Read it

Collective 621 item image

Proportional Resizing with CSS Variables

A very useful snippet by Ahmad Shadeed on how to proportionally control the dimensions of an element.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

Is the web getting slower?

Is website performance getting worse overall? The team of DebugBear tries to answer the question.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

To design and develop an interactive globe

Read about Stripe’s approach to creating a 1:40 million-scale, interactive 3D model of the earth.

Read it

Collective 621 item image

Increment: APIs

This issue of Increment explores all things APIs—from their prehistory to their future, their design and development to their opportunities and impacts.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

CSS3D Adventure Game

A 3D game rendered entirely in CSS/HTML. Can you escape the dungeon?

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

Flexbox Defense

The Tower Defense game with a twist: all towers must be positioned with CSS Flexbox!

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

Alt text overlay bookmarklet

Christian Heilmann created a bookmarklet to easily test which images have alternative text and what it is.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

Creating A Custom Scroll Bar In 24 Lines Of CSS

Have you ever encountered a website with a beautiful scrollbar and thought to yourself “wow, I wish I… Tagged with css.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

CSS Values

A place to search the syntax and all possible values for any valid CSS property.

Check it out

Collective 621 item image

From Our Blog
Diagonal Thumbnail Slideshow Animation

A simple slideshow with tilted thumbnails and large titles that animate when navigating.

Check it out

The post Collective #621 appeared first on Codrops.

3 Essential Design Trends, September 2020

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2020/09/3-essential-design-trends-september-2020/

A seasonal change is on the horizon and that always has me looking to refresh projects. This month’s design trends provide a few different ways to do that without ripping up your entire website.

Here’s what’s trending in design this month.

Animated Heroes (That Aren’t Video)

Hero headers and screens that feature video animation have been popular for a while, but more website designers are experimenting with other types of full-screen moving graphics.

What’s cool about this trend is that it can take on plenty of different forms and look a lot of different ways, meaning that no two websites are identical in this regard.

The other bonus to this trend is that you can add a full-screen animation to almost any style of design without a complete overhaul of the website. You may need a few small tweaks to create a seamless transition from one screen to the next, but it’s a quick, modern design element that you can deploy rather quickly.

Typozon uses a quick motion graphic with plenty of different brand marks to tell the story of their brand identity work. Admittedly, the animation can get a little dizzying if you look at it too long, but the bright colors on the olive background are attention-getting for sure.

Day 1 Club by Spotify opens with a lot of motion in the setup and then settles into subtle motion behind the primary call to action. Shades of black and soft movement bring everything together and help you focus on the bright red button and text overlay.

Kieran Baybutt uses multiple animations for this portfolio website. The most interesting might be on the “second screen.” A couple of things are happening here. The words change with mouse movements as does the background image. There’s also a cool hover pointer featuring portfolio elements that’s in constant motion. There’s a lot going on here, but it makes you want to click around.

Animated or Floating Circles

Circles might be one of the hottest design trends of 2020. They are in all kinds of projects and keep evolving in different ways.

Maybe part of the reason is because of the message that designers are trying to convey in these projects. Circles are associated with harmony and protection. They are used to represent unity, community, and commitment. In motion, circles can also spark feelings of motion or movement with speed determining how chaotic (or not) that movement may be.

This month’s iteration of circle trends is animated. Some circles animate in place, while others seem to float in space on the canvas.

The circles in each example have something in common though – they bring you into the design and encourage interaction with it. (That might be why this website design trend is increasing in popularity all the time.)

The circular motion for the UX+ logo actually helps draw the eye away from all the almost overwhelming animation on the left side of the split-screen design. With plenty of white space surrounding it, the constant movement is just enough to pull attention to the logo and then down the screen to important information about the event.

Katch Me uses circles that seem to float over the background video with a soft “bounce” in place. The animation changes when the mouse hovers over each circle with an expanded action and the ability to move the circle in a larger space. The circles here are actually the call-to-action buttons.

Visually, the circles for Anastasiia Afanasieva’s website look like a mashup of the above examples. There’s a rotating animation for circles that seem to float in space. You have to click through this design though to see the real brilliance in it. Each circle has a hover state that changes the background color of the website (and images in each box) to match the color displayed.

Bright Yellow Coloring

Another website design trend that might be a reflection of the state of the world is in the use of the color yellow. With a global health pandemic, design projects are leaning in to brighter, more cheerful tones to help offset the stress of the world.

For many, yellow can shine just a bit of hope and optimism into gloomier times.

While most of the projects using bright yellow as an eye-popping accent, others are going all in.

Next Big Thing AG uses yellow imagery inside of oversized cutout lettering (another website design trend this year) on a dark background. Even with the darker overall palette, the design feels bright and enticing. You almost want to dive deeper into the design to see what the image behind the letters is and what else the site contains.

Sonya Mudvex uses a full yellow background on her portfolio homepage to stop visitors in their tracks. The rest of the design features a soft gray background and plenty of yellow accents. In addition to great use of color here, there are plenty of other UX tricks in this design, including some geolocation tools if you interact with the ticket validation graphic on the screen.

Upqode uses yellow with a peachy color palette to stand out. The illustrated animations are much more lively thanks to bright coloring. The overall color palette is a bit unexpected, and that’s what makes it interesting.

Conclusion

If this month’s website design trends tell you anything, it’s that interactive elements and animation are a growing part of the conversation. Are you already using these techniques in projects? (If not, it is probably time to think about it.)

You can also see how the influence of what’s happening in the world around us impacts design as well. It can counter other emotions to create a better mental space or mirror what’s happening in the world around us.

Source

p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;}
.alignleft {float:left;}
p.showcase {clear:both;}
body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;}

30+ Fresh New UI Kits – Free and Premium

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~3/kZD40ys-oDE/

Every web designer and developer can use new UI kits to get their project started, speed up delivery time, or just for inspiration to create their own ideas and mockups. Today we are giving you over 30 of the best free and premium UI kits to choose from, so you don’t have to spend your valuable time searching through the thousands that are available. Use these kits however you see fit for your next or future projects, and be sure to bookmark this page so you can come back and find additional kits to utilize whenever you need them.

UX Designer Toolbox: Unlimited Downloads Starting at $16.50/Month

UX & UI Kits

UX & UI Kits
14,000+ UX & UI Kits

Wireframe Kits

Wireframe Kits
1,100+ Wireframe Kits

Icon Sets

Icon Sets
11,000+ Icon Sets

DOWNLOAD NOW
Envato Elements

Karamtaj Gift Shop UI Kit (Free)

 Karamtaj Gift shop UI kit - UX and UI kits

Cassiopeia – Flower Store UI Kit (Free)

Cassiopeia - UI kits

Dasmin Delivery Food App Mobile UI kit (Premium)

Dasmin Delivery Food App Mobile Ui kit - UX and UI kits

RevKit – Design System UI Kit (Free)

RevKit - Design System UI Kit

InsightKit – Dashboard UI Kit (Premium)

InsightKit – Dashboard UI Kit

iPlayMusic – A Free Awesome Music App UI Kit (Free)

iPlayMusic - A Free Awesome Music App UI Kit - UX and UI kits

Climax – Live Game Streaming UI Kit (Premium)

Climax - Live Game Streaming UI Kit - UX and UI kits

E-commerce UI Kit (Free)

E-commerce UI Kit

Snowflake UI Kit (Free)

Snowflake UI Kit

Architect Responsive Landing Page (Premium)

Architect Responsive Landing Page - UX and UI kits

Velocity: A dashboard UI kit with a robust design system (Free)

Velocity dashboard

Unit – Free UI Kit (Free)

Unit – Free UI Kit

Clevr – Book Store Ecommerce Website Template (Premium)

Clevr - Book Store Ecommerce Website Template - UX and UI kits

Smart Home—A digital UI Kit for the physical world (Free)

Smart Home

Furniture Store Mobile App UI Kit Template (Premium)

Furniture Store Mobile App UI Kit Template - UX and UI kits

Rise Free eCommerce UI Kit (Free)

Rise Free eCommerce UI Kit

Shopper UI Kit (Free)

Shopper UI Kit

e-Book Store Detail App UI Kit Bundle (Premium)

e-Book Store Detail App UI Kit Bundle - UX and UI kits

Now: A beautiful cross-platform UI kit (Free)

Now

Covid19 UI Kit (Free)

Covid19 UI Kit

Rasa – Food Recipe iOS App Design UI Template (Premium)

Rasa - Food Recipe iOS App Design UI Template - UX and UI kits

Flame UI Kit for Sketch (Free)

Flame UI Kit for Sketch (FREE)

Financial UI Kit for Adobe XD (Free)

Financial UI Kit for Adobe XD

Wedding Ceremony Template (Premium)

Wedding Ceremony Template - UX and UI kits

Figma Admin Dashboard UI Kit (Free)

Figma Admin Dashboard

Gaming UI Kit (Free)

Gaming UI Kit

Agency Business Landing Page Template (Premium)

Agency Business Landing page Template - UX and UI kits

Components Free UI Kit (Free)

Components

Wallet & Finance Mobile App UI Kit Template (Premium)

Wallet & Finance Mobile App UI Kit Template - UX and UI kits

Summer UI Kit (Free)

Summer UI Kit


5 Best Free Courses and Resources to Level Up As a Web Designer

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2020/09/5-best-free-courses-and-resources-to-level-up-as-a-web-designer/

I often see freelancers on social media asking what the secret is to working fewer hours, making more money, and helping new clients to find them. While those things tend to happen the longer you’ve been freelancing, it doesn’t happen without some effort.

If you’re wondering how you can change things so that your business becomes more profitable and easier to manage, education is the key.

But it’s not just mastering new design techniques that will take you to the next level. It’s important to invest your time in a well-rounded education so that you can grow not just as a web designer, but also as a freelancer and business owner.

The good news is that you don’t have to spend a ton of cash on courses or resources. In the following round-up, I’m going to share some of the best free courses to help you level up.

5 Best Free Courses and Resources for Web Designers

Rather than sign up for Udemy, Skillshare and other premium course membership sites, I recommend taking a bootstrapping approach to self-education. I mean, the whole point in learning new skills and strengthening existing ones is so you can run a better business and make more money, right?

Once you have extra funds to throw at premium courses, definitely explore those options. For now, let’s focus on the free courses and resources that’ll help get you to that next level:

1. edX

edX was created by Harvard and MIT in order to provide university-level training and education to anyone, anywhere. While you can’t get certified without paying a few hundred dollars, you can go through entire courses for free.

Courses are offered over a wide range of categories. As a freelance web designer, you’d do well to focus on the following areas:

Design
Learn more than just how to design beautiful interfaces. Learn about the technical side of it, too — things like AI, IoT, and cybersecurity.

Computer Science
Learn web development and coding.

Business & Management
Learn essential business skills like:

Project management
Finance management
Leadership
Marketing and analysis

Communication
Learn things like branding, negotiation, reputation management, and critical thinking.

2. Envato Tuts+

Envato Tuts+ might be best known for its succinct step-by-step design and development tutorials. However, it has a new section of free video courses to take advantage of.

Although you won’t learn any soft skills here, this is a great resource if you want to master the tools of your trade.

Free courses give you a deeper look at tools like:

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Adobe’s suite of software
Sketch
WordPress
Video conferencing tools

3. YouTube

YouTube is more than just a place to watch entertaining videos. There are some amazing YouTube channels for web designers at all skill levels.

When choosing a design channel and course to follow, look for ones that are well organized. If they’re just posting videos at random without any rhyme or reason, it’ll be difficult to focus on and master one skill set before moving onto the next.

Here are the channels I recommend you follow:

Flux

Learn skills related to:

Web design
Getting started as a freelancer
Strengthening your processes
Building your portfolio
Design theory and strategy

CharliMarieTV

Learn skills related to:

Web design
Building sites with Figma or Webflow
Career paths for designers
Productivity hacks

NNgroup

Learn skills related to UX:

Web design
User psychology
Usability testing
Design thinking
Research and data analysis
Journey mapping
Get access to UX Conference seminars, too

4. Moz Whiteboard Fridays

Even if you don’t offer SEO as a standalone service, it’s important for web designers to understand the role they play in SEO and to stay abreast of the latest and greatest strategies.

If you haven’t tuned in for one of Moz’s Whiteboard Fridays yet, I’d recommend you start now.

Some of the topics might not be relevant to you (like creating a content strategy). However, there are others you’ll get some great tips from, like the one above that talks about creating great visuals, preparing web pages with tags and schema markup, and optimizing for featured snippets.

5. Nir Eyal – Indistractible

Nir Eyal has made a name for himself over the years as an author and presenter on the subject of human psychology and behavior. His first book (Hooked) examined consumer behavior and how to design around it. His second (Indistractible) turned the focus on us — the doers and creators who build experiences and products for consumers.

The first of his free resources to explore is this 30-minute presentation on why we’re so easily distracted and how to keep those distractions (and ourselves) from getting in the way.

The second free resource to snag up is the 80-page workbook available on the homepage. Here’s a preview of what it looks like:

You’ll learn about common distractions, identify those that are specific to you, and then work through exercises to defeat them.

If this is something you’re struggling with, these resources will empower you to make a much-needed change.

BONUS: WebDesigner Depot

Although WebDesigner Depot doesn’t offer video courses, I consider each of the articles contained within this site to be mini-courses of their own. And you’ll learn everything you’ve ever wanted to know about becoming a web designer and growing your freelance business.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

Source

p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;}
.alignleft {float:left;}
p.showcase {clear:both;}
body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;}

Building Microservices with Deno, Reno, and PostgreSQL

Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/building-microservices-with-deno-reno-postgresql/?utm_source=rss

Building Microservices with Deno, Reno, and PostgreSQL

In this tutorial, we show you how to go about building microservices with Deno, and introduce you to Reno — a thin routing library for Deno. We’ll explore how we can use this newer JavaScript platform to build a microservice that exposes endpoints for acting on a database.

Deno is a JavaScript and TypeScript runtime from Node.js creator Ryan Dahl that aims to address some of the latter technology’s shortcomings, such as simplifying the module path lookup algorithm and more closely aligning the core APIs with their browser-based equivalents. Despite these fundamental differences, the potential applications of Deno and Node.js are mostly identical. One of Node’s core strengths lies in building HTTP services, and the same can be argued for Deno.

Writing HTTP Servers with std/http

Before we introduce a routing library or contemplate our data access layer, it would be useful to step back and build a simple HTTP server with the std/http module, which is part of Deno’s standard library. If you haven’t already, install Deno. In a Unix-type operating system, you can run:

$ curl -fsSL https://deno.land/x/install/install.sh | sh -s v1.3.0

Note that this tutorial has been developed against 1.3.0 (and std 0.65.0 as we’ll see later), but any later 1.x versions you may be using should be compatible. Alternatively, if you’re running an older version of Deno, you can upgrade to 1.3.0 with the deno upgrade command:

deno upgrade –version 1.3.0

You can verify that the expected Deno version has been installed with deno –version.

We’re now in a position to build an HTTP server. Create a directory, within your usual development directory, named deno-hello-http, and open it in your editor. Then, create a file called server.ts, and use the listenAndServe function within std/http to build our server:

import { listenAndServe } from “https://deno.land/std@0.65.0/http/mod.ts”;

const BINDING = “:8000”;

console.log(`Listening on ${BINDING}…`);

await listenAndServe(BINDING, (req) => {
req.respond({ body: “Hello world!” });
});

Developer Experience Protips

If you’re using VS Code, I’d heavily recommend the official Deno extension, which provides support for Deno’s path resolution algorithm. Additionally, you can run deno cache server.ts to install the dependencies and their TypeScript definitions, the latter serving as an invaluable API guide when writing your code.

We can start our server by running deno run –allow-net server.ts in our shell. Note the –allow-net permissions flag, granting our program with network access. Once listening on port 8000, we can target it with a HTTP request:

$ curl -v http://localhost:8000/ ; echo

> GET / HTTP/1.1
> Host: localhost:8000
> User-Agent: curl/7.58.0
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< content-length: 12
<

Hello world!

Great! With a few lines of TypeScript, we’ve been able to implement a simple server. That said, it isn’t particularly well-featured at this point. Given that we consistently serve “Hello world!” from our callback function, the same response will be returned for any endpoint or HTTP method. If we hit a server with POST /add, we’ll receive the same headers and body:

$ curl -v -d ‘{}’ http://localhost:8000/add ; echo

> POST /add HTTP/1.1
> Host: localhost:8000
> User-Agent: curl/7.58.0
> Accept: */*
> Content-Length: 2
> Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
>
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< content-length: 12
<

Hello world!

We can limit the existing response to GET / by conditionally checking the url and method properties of our callback’s req parameter:

import {
listenAndServe,
ServerRequest,
} from “https://deno.land/std@0.65.0/http/mod.ts”;

const BINDING = “:8000”;

console.log(`Listening on ${BINDING}…`);

function notFound({ method, url }: ServerRequest) {
return {
status: 404,
body: `No route found for ${method} ${url}`,
};
}

await listenAndServe(BINDING, (req) => {
const res = req.method === “GET” && req.url === “/”
? { body: “Hello world” }
: notFound(req);

req.respond(res);
});

If we restart our server, we should observe that GET / works as expected, but any other URL or method will result in a HTTP 404:

$ curl -v -d ‘{}’ http://localhost:8000/add ; echo

> POST /add HTTP/1.1
> Host: localhost:8000
> User-Agent: curl/7.58.0
> Accept: */*
> Content-Length: 2
> Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
>
< HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
< content-length: 28
<

No route found for POST /add

std/http Beyond Simple Services

Bootstrapping trivial HTTP servers with Deno and std/http has proven to be relatively straightforward. How does this approach scale for more complex services?

Let’s consider a /messages endpoint that accepts and returns user-submitted messages. Following a RESTful approach, we can define the behavior of this endpoint and of our service overall:

Continue reading
Building Microservices with Deno, Reno, and PostgreSQL
on SitePoint.

Diagonal Thumbnail Slideshow Animation

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/ikLcNlTo_vM/

The other day I saw this very nice Dribbble shot by Anton Tkachev and couldn’t help but envision it as a slideshow with some large typography. So I went ahead and did a small demo which then turned into an exploration of several animations for the image tiles and the texts.

So the main idea is to animate the tilted thumbnails out of the viewport when navigating to the next or previous slide. While the thumbnails move out, the titles get animated too, in that reveal/unreveal fashion that seems to be quite trendy now. The direction of the motion depends on wether we’re navigating back or forth.

The animations are powered by GreenSock’s GSAP animation library.

I’m totally in love with IvyMode and this demo was just a perfect excuse to use Jan Maack’s typeface again!

The images used in the demos are by generative artist Manolo Ide who offers his artwork for free.

I really hope this gives you a starting point for exploring more effects!

The post Diagonal Thumbnail Slideshow Animation appeared first on Codrops.

20 Neat Workspace Designs to Boost Productivity

Original Source: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/workspace-design/

Bored with the state of your workspace or office desk? Maybe this post will convince you to do something about it. It doesn’t matter if you work from home work or are chained to an office desk…

Visit hongkiat.com for full content.

8 Easy Ways To Ruin Your User Onboarding

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2020/08/8-easy-ways-to-ruin-your-user-onboarding/

To understand why user onboarding is such an indispensable tool, we need to empathize with the people using our products; we all come from different backgrounds and cultures, we make different assumptions, and we see the world differently.

User onboarding helps mitigate these differences by making your product’s learning curve less steep.

However, companies often make unfortunate mistakes that hinder user experience and cause frustration. In today’s article, we’ll take a look at eight ways companies ruin their products’ onboarding process.

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

1. No User Onboarding at all

As a part of the team that created a product, you’ve probably spent hundreds of hours going over its features and the most minute detail. Naturally, you know the product like the back of your hand. The user does not.

Naturally, you know the product like the back of your hand. The user does not

We may believe that the app we’ve worked on is straightforward and that user onboarding is probably overkill — but that’s almost never the case. Guiding our users through a product will help with retention, conversion, and their overall satisfaction.

However, there are very rare cases when you can do without user onboarding, here are a few:

Your product is too straightforward to cause any confusion;
Your product has a formulaic structure, similar to that of other products’ in your category, i.e., social media or e-commerce;
Your product relies heavily on Google or iOS design guidelines with common design patterns;
Your product is too complex (enterprise or business-oriented) — in such cases, users need special training, rather than just an onboarding;

2. Assuming That Users “Get It”

 One of the vital UX mottos we should always be mindful of is that “we are not our users.” When onboarding them, we always need to assume that they’re at square one. We should communicate with them as if they have no prior knowledge of our product, its terminology, and the way it works.

Providing freshly-registered users with highly contextual information will most likely confuse them. As a result, this will render your attempts to create a helpful onboarding process useless.  

3. Onboarding Users on a Single Touchpoint

it’s tempting to brainstorm which features should make it into the onboarding, then design and code them; that’s a very bad idea

The main problem with the previous point is that it’s too contextual for new users. However, providing no context altogether can be problematic as well. This is commonly found in onboarding processes that focus on a single touchpoint while leaving out the rest of the product.

By choosing to inform users of our product’s features, we force them to detour from their “normal” course of action. This comes at the cost of the user’s frustration.

Since we’re asking people to pay this price, it’s best to provide them with information that will also help them navigate the entire product. As a result, this will decrease the number of times we’ll have to distract them from their ordinary flow.

4. Forcing Users Through Onboarding

We’ve previously mentioned that we mustn’t assume that users have any background knowledge about our products.

The opposite argument can be made — experienced users don’t need a basic onboarding process. It will most likely frustrate them, and it won’t provide them with any real value. Also, forcing users through this process will most likely take the onboarding frustration to a whole other level.

This is why it’s essential that we allow them to skip the parts they don’t find useful. This way, we’ll address the knowledge gaps of the people who really want it and need it.

5. Onboarding Based Purely on Assumptions

This is yet another point that’s implicit in “we are not our users”. Oftentimes, it’s tempting to brainstorm which features should make it into the onboarding, then design and code them; that’s a very bad idea.

Here’s what every designer should do instead:

Do user interviews: You should conduct these before having anything designed; user interviews will help you shortlist and prioritize features in terms of their significance, so that the onboarding is focused around the features that matter most.
Do usability testing: Once you have a good idea of what features your users consider most important, design onboarding that reflects that; having completed your design, make sure to conduct at least 5 usability testing sessions with users, so that you can make sure that your design works.

6. Just Letting Users Quit

While we shouldn’t force people to go through onboarding, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t nudge them in the right direction.

find that sweet spot between being front of mind and annoying

People choose not to onboard for many reasons, but showing them around will benefit both parties. Therefore, it’s never wrong to remind them that they can always resume onboarding via email or push notifications (unless you’re too pushy). Make sure to find that sweet spot between being front of mind and annoying. 

Similarly, these two mediums are a great way to deliver valuable information as well.

Here’s a great example of an onboarding email from InVision:

And here’s a clever notification from TripPlanner:

Source: clevertap.com

7. Asking For Too Much Information

We need to always be mindful of the fact that the product’s spokesperson should act as a guide during onboarding. Its goal at the very beginning is to build trust.

We can ask for small favors when we’ve built a solid and lasting relationship

Not only is asking for too much information from the get-go unproductive, but it will also undermine the trust that the user already gave us.

It’s best to abstain from asking freshly-registered users for their credit card information. Nearly 100% of businesses care about profits — and there’s no shame in it. However, today’s most successful companies make money by providing users with value. So it’s best to stimulate users to share their financial data in subtler ways while focusing on customer experience.

The same can be said about subjecting the people using your service to extensive questionnaires. At the first steps of our interaction, it’s all about giving and gaining trust. We can ask for small favors when we’ve built a solid and lasting relationship.

8. Onboarding for the Sake of Onboarding

While there are dozens of reasons why you should guide your users through your product, it needs to be done well. A pointless onboarding process that doesn’t provide users with value is more frustrating than the lack thereof.

Onboarding can be a bit frustrating at times. Pointless onboarding will just raise eyebrows. It will slow users down and disengage them, which is exactly the opposite of what we want.

Conclusion

The process of introducing your users to your product is one of the factors that will define its success.

A critical aspect of user onboarding that we need to always take into account is value. Is this detour from our user’s ordinary course of action valuable to them? Will this improve their experience with the product?

Onboarding demands careful and continuous tailoring. Once perfected, this process will help you win new users’ hearts and help you build brand loyalty.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

Source

p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;}
.alignleft {float:left;}
p.showcase {clear:both;}
body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;}