Original Source: http://inspiredm.com/cloud-storage-cdn-option/

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If you have a slow site, probably on shared server that receives a lot of traffic, you may be able to speed things up a bit by hosting some of your content on a Content Delivery Network (CDN).

Unfortunately traditional CDN is often priced out of reach for a small business website, but the good news is there is a way to set up cloud storage drives to act as your own personal CDN systems. In this article we’ll discover some methods for doing that.

Cloud storage CDN emulation vs pure CDN

The main difference is cost and volume. Pure CDN usually works out cheaper for high traffic volumes and more expensive for low traffic volumes. Because a typical small business isn’t likely to see the kind of traffic that would make pure CDN worth it, emulating CDN functionality with cloud storage is generally a more affordable and simple solution.

Choosing a cloud storage provider

Using cloud storage for CDN requires that you can make individual files available for direct public access, so this rules out zero-knowledge encryption services, because they’re not designed for general public access.

Second, you don’t want a provider that puts limits on resource access, or at least the limits should not be too strict.

Distributing content you want to get paid for

There are then different options depending on what kind of content you’re hosting. If you’re wanting to host specialist content, for example video, music, or other artistic works, checking out DECENT would be a good idea.

DECENT is a highly specialized blockchain based decentralized content delivery network. It allows you to self-publish anything without dependency on a middleman.

Utilizing peer-to-peer connections, DECENT traffic is very difficult to disrupt or block, which also makes it potentially able to circumvent censorship. It is more oriented toward commercial transactions, and blockchain technology makes these transactions easy to secure.

What it’s not very good for is distributing ordinary files like JavaScript, CSS, and XML files. For that, you’ll need a more regular cloud storage provider. The two biggest players in this field are Google and Amazon. Both are giants, but there are considerable differences between them.

A quick comparison: Amazon vs Google

Amazon comes in two flavors: Amazon S3 and Amazon Drive. The Amazon S3 system is an enterprise level system with all the complexity that you’d expect from such a system. It’s designed for big websites that get a lot of traffic, and the pricing structure is really complicated.

You may never need to worry about the pricing, however, if your needs are reasonably modest. Amazon S3 offers a free deal with 5GB of storage, 20k get requests and 2k put requests.

The problem here is that many of those get requests are not coming from humans, but from robots, so you can quickly burn through 20,000 requests before the month is up if your site is good at attracting robots. When your site does go over the limits, it doesn’t get suspended. You just have to pay up.

Amazon Drive is like Amazon S3 with training wheels. It comes with a much easier to use interface, requiring less technical ability. There’s a subclass called Prime Photos where you can get unlimited photo storage, and 5GB of storage for videos and other files, but it’s only free if you subscribe to Amazon Prime. The next step up provides 100GB of storage for $11.99 per year, and for $59.99 per year you can get 1TB of storage.

The standout thing here is the pricing is much simpler than Amazon S3. You know upfront what you get and what you’re expected to pay for it. It’s not really intended for using as a CDN, but it’s still possible to do it.

If you’re a WordPress user, you may prefer to use Amazon S3 because there are tools especially designed to help you do that through Amazon CloudFront. The complexity of setting that up is going to be beyond the scope of this article, so look for a dedicated article on exactly that topic coming up soon.

Google also has two options available: Google Cloud Storage and Google Drive. If you’re a Gmail user, you already have Google Drive.

Google Cloud Storage is intended for enterprise level use, and as such it requires a certain amount of technical ability to configure it and fine tune it. Google Drive is consumer-grade, but very easy to use with its simple web interface.

Google Drive starts you off with a generous 15GB of free storage, which is way more than most average small business websites will ever need. Should you find you need more, you can upgrade to:

All is not as it seems with these storage limits, however. Google Docs, photos other than full resolution (if stored using Google Photos), and any files shared with you by someone else don’t count toward your storage limit. Unfortunately emails (and attachments) do take up space if you’re actively using the Gmail account.

To give you an idea of how much you can store in 15GB, that is approximately 30 to 40 videos (m4v / mp4) at 1080 x 720 and 90 minutes duration, or about 88,235 photos at 800 x 600 and optimized for the web. It would be unusual for the average small business to need that much for its website.

Google Drive is much less expensive than Amazon Drive. In terms of performance, Amazon may have a bit of an edge, and the documentation with Amazon is better. Head to head, Google is offering better value overall.

Which should you choose? It depends whether you consider performance to be more important than cost.

Hosting images, CSS and JavaScript from Google Drive

This is not a lot more complicated than hosting video. In fact, it may even be easier. Here is what you need to do:

1. In your Google Drive, create a special folder that will store the files

2. Make sure the name you give it helps it stand out from other drive folders

3. Upload all the files to that folder (you can also create subfolders)

4. Select the folder that will be shared and click the share button

5. When the sharing dialog appears, select “Advanced”

6. On the more advanced Sharing Settings dialog, select “Change”

7. Now change the setting to “On – Public on the Web”

8. You will need to repeat the above process for every individual file as well

9. Copy the link for each resource and paste into a text editor

10. Delete everything except the file id

11. Now add text “https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&” in front of the file id

12. Now you can modify your HTML. For CSS:

For JS:

For an image:

13. Upload the a test version of the HTML file and speed test this vs the original file

Original:

Updated test version with CDN from Google Drive:

Something very important you need to notice here is that with CDN enabled, the performance was actually degraded. This happened because my own web server automatically compresses everything, but the resources transferred to Google Drive are not automatically compressed.

That’s a topic for another day, but the real lesson here is that CDN isn’t always going to be an improvement for page loading time. Where it can still be useful, however, is by reducing disk space and bandwidth on your own server, allowing Google to shoulder the load for you. In most cases, that’s not going to hurt your loading times too much.

Streaming video: Google Drive vs YouTube

Google is the owner of YouTube, so either way you are using the same technology. Performance will be about the same, and the quality will be exactly the same, so why bother comparing? There are some small differences between streaming from either of these two sources.

When your video is hosted on YouTube, it doesn’t cost you anything, and doesn’t take up any storage space you personally own or rent. Videos on YouTube are ad-supported, allow viewers to comment by default, and show a bunch of links to other videos at the end of the video. Users can also find a link to view an embedded video on YouTube instead of on your site. Both of these behaviors are highly undesirable.

Hosting videos on Google Drive means there are no ads, no suggested links at the end of the video, and no option to view the video on YouTube (since it’s not hosted there). Otherwise there are no visible differences.

Hosting on YouTube can lead to greater exposure, if that’s what you’re after. Hosting on Google Drive gives you more control, more exclusivity, and helps keep the viewer on your site without the temptations offered by YouTube.

Both are better than alternatives such as Vimeo, because it is easier to include subtitles and the streaming quality can be adjusted by the viewer to suit their connection speed.

Streaming video from Google Drive and from YouTube uses very similar processes.

1. Upload the video to your Google Drive or to YouTube.

2. Upload or create any required subtitle files.

3. Test your video. Don’t skip this important step.

4. While the video is open, select the three vertical dots in corner of screen, then select “Share” from the menu.

5. Click on the “Advanced” link in the dialog that appears.

6. Click on the”Change” link.

7. Select “On – Public on the Web”

8. Then copy the link location and follow steps 9 to 13, except you’ll be using video HTML instead of image HTML, so your could will look something like this example:

The cc_load_policy property determines whether subtitles / closed captions should be visible by default. It’s good practice to set this to on, but Google applies the policy inconsistently anyway, possibly due to cross-platform complications.

Make sure you really need CDN

Most of the time CDN works fine, but there can be times when a page hangs up because it’s trying to fetch a remote resource that simply won’t load. Google fonts, and certain other Google APIs, are notorious for this.

If you’re hosting your site on servers located in your own country and most of your traffic is local, using CDN may create more problems instead of less.

In any case, always check the results of modifications you make and be sure they’re really beneficial. If they’re not, rewind back to the point where your site was operating at maximum efficiency or try another strategy.

Using a CDN lets you create smaller websites, so even if there’s a slight performance price to pay, it may still be to your advantage if you host multiple sites from a single hosting account.

header image courtesy of Alexandr Ivanov

This post Cloud Storage as a CDN Option was written by Inspired Mag Team and first appearedon Inspired Magazine.

Original Source: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/rellaxjs-parallax-script/

Parallax scrolling looks incredible when done right. It’s not a feature you’ll want on every website but for creative sites and landing pages, parallax elements grab attention fast. There…

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Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2017/09/ultimate-ux-design-guide-to-saas-on-boarding-part-1-sign-up-forms/

SaaS Customer On-boarding is the process that users have to experience while initiating their journey as a customer on a company’s software application. Customer on-boarding initiates from the experience that employees previously had to undergo while joining a firm. The on-boarding process sets the tone for a good user experience.

Long story short, special emphasis should be given to make the on-boarding process as flawless as possible.

The SaaS customer on-boarding process is based on 6 comprehensive aspects:

Sign up Form
Welcome Email
Drip Campaign
First Login & Product Tutorial
Data Import & Notifications
Check up calls & Swag

All the aspects of the process play an equally important part in forming a desirable reputation of the brand in the eyes of the customers during the on-boarding process. I will be discussing the first step to the on-boarding process, the sign up forms, in detail today.

Sign up forms are the first point of contact between an application and a customer, which is why I will be discussing them before the rest. By providing tips which can improve the experience at the customer’s end, I will be providing start ups with 6 useful techniques to make the process smooth and convenient.

Keep the Questions Limited

If you ask the customers to fill a large amount of fields on the sign up form, there is bound to be some discontent at their end. You have to limit the questions you ask, to increase the rate of conversion from the sign up form to the other parts of the process. By decreasing the amount of questions you initially ask, you can ensure a higher conversion rate.

Having understood the importance of keeping the questions limited, it is imperative that you know which questions to cut out and which you should include. Anything that can directly initiate your relationship with the customer should be asked. An email address is good enough for a subscription, so it should be your priority.

Shopify’s sign up page is an example of keeping it precise and to-the-point.

Ask whatever is necessary to initiate your relationship and make the customer proceed to the next step. Necessary questions include the email address of a user, so that there is a mode of communication. Besides the email and user name, other questions regarding the personal information of the user should be left for later, in the ‘Complete Your Profile’ step. Let’s continue using Shopify’s example. Once a customer signs up with Shopify, they are directed towards completing their profile:

 

Back Your Sign Up Form with Strong Social Evidence

One noticeable thing about the current generation is their infatuation towards joining the bandwagon and keeping up with the fads. So, if you are able to put up interesting figures regarding the people who have signed up on your website with success, you can be guaranteed of a positive response from the customer.

Salesforce is an excellent example of a company that does this. Right below the signup form, a customer can find the benefits that customers of Salesforce have received.

 

SingleGrain decided to create their social proof by displaying on the sign-up page logos of their clients.

InVisionApp took and advantage of the authority principle displaying on the sign-up page testimonials from people like Mike Davidson (Vice President of Design at Twitter) or Andy Law (‎Manager of Mobile Product Design at Netflix)

 

Make the Email Sign-up a Beneficial Deal For the Customer

If you are able to sell the sign up to the customer, you have aced the first step of the SaaS customer on-boarding process. You need them to sign up on your website, and the customers need something for doing that. To be fair, the customers want as much as they can get, for giving as little information as they can. This is where a conundrum arises.

The confusion can be solved by creating a deal for the customer. Get the customer to perceive they’re benefiting from the deal. This can be done by offering the customer something in return, something which motivates the customer to move into the sign-up process. The value proposition should be clearly visible for the customer to comprehend. Many SaaS companies like Convertize.io come up with a brilliant motivation argument—the free trial period that often motivates individuals to sign up. Convertize gives your 14-days trial as an opportunity to test their product.

 

The offer you make to the customers plays the role of the main attraction and serves as bait. If the offer is viable and good enough for the customers, it will help in attracting them to the brand. If it is not, then customers won’t be attracted to your brand. Thus, the offer you make to the customers is your lead magnet or core attraction. All other details just complement the lead magnet into initiating the perfect deal with you.

Design is Important!

The design of the form is as important as anything else, which is why great detail should be given to this aspect of the deal. A design which is aesthetic is bound to get more customers sign up for your website than before. The importance of design should not be neglected at all costs. Furthermore, a website with a better design than the other websites will garner more trust from the users. Accordingly to Dr Coker, from the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Business and Economics, users are found to trust website with prettier designs more than others:

Internet consumers are 20 per cent more trusting of websites than they were five years ago

Coinbase’s signup form is an excellent example. The design is simple and user friendly without compromising on looking sleek and elegant.

 

Manage User’s Expectations

Let customers know what’s going to happen next. Don’t leave them quizzical as suspense is not the feeling you want to create here. Make the customer trust you from the word go, by letting them know what they’re signing up for.

If consumers have to submit the form feeling uncertain about what is going to happen next, there is bound to be friction. The best way to go about this is to have your submit button say something other than just ‘submit’. You can write whatever is going to happen next on the button. This way there will be less uncertainty and the users will be more in control.

Leanplum’s signup page is a good example of this, with the promise of instant access after signup.

 

Social Media Signup

Giving users the option to sign up using social media accounts can drastically speed up the process for the user and increase the probability of conversion. Common social media sign-in options include Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus. Clicking on a social media button for access looks far more appealing to the user, as compared to filling in a number of information fields.

There are a number of advantages and disadvantages of using social media signups.

The advantages include:

No need to worry about an additional password. People with an active online presence are usually members of a lot of websites. Remembering an additional password can be worrisome and can deter a user enough to not sign up for your website. A social media sign-in option eliminates this deterrent.
Faster registration. Signing up via a social media account is far faster than the tedious process of filling out an online form
Market Research. A social account sign-in can grant you a wealth of information about your user, ranging from personal preferences to birthday, where they live, their friends etc. This can allow you to better assess your target market.
Engaged Users. According to online research, users that log in to other websites via Social media accounts stay longer. This research was conducted by Facebook. Users can Like / Share and since their friends are right there, this can increase the market reach for your website.

Disadvantages of using Social Media Sign up:

Anxiety from too many options. If you offer multiple social media sign-in options your user could become flustered and then decide to “come back to it later”.
Would it affect your brand? Giving a social media sign-in option is creating the presence of another brand alongside your own. Will the option really result in a greater conversion rate? Also, if a user’s social media account is hacked, their account on your website may suffer too.
Relying on a third party. If a social media server crashes, it could restrict your user’s access to his/her account with you. You would need a backup for that eventuality.
Accessibility. Some workplaces have blocked social media websites. Therefore, if your users log in through social media, they would not be able to.
Privacy. Some users are extremely privacy conscious and would rather create an account with you rather than use their social media.

Signup Flow

We’ve talked about how it’s important to have a signup page that is concise and enticing by way of its content and design. However, the signup page is part of something called the “sign-up flow”. The signup flow refers to the steps in the process that the user has to take to go from signing up to using the product / service. We encounter another term in this regard, which is “friction”. Simply put, friction represents the amount of effort that the user has to invest in completing the signup process.

Let’s talk a little bit about friction and then we’ll go on to discuss common signup flows that companies use.

Friction

The amount of friction encountered by users can’t really be objectively measured. However there are three things (according to Totango) that can, to an extent, allow for gauging how much friction an average user might encounter:

Information Cost. Total number of fields to be filled in by the user.
Steps to Completion. The number of steps / pages the user has to pass through to get to access the application.
Effort investment. Number of decisions that the user has to make and extra activities to be completed.

3 Common Signup Flows

Signup flows can be designed in innumerable ways. The flow is dependent on the product, the target market and many other variables. However there are three broad based signup flows that we’ve observed, and usually other signup flows are more or less derivative of these.

Flow 1: Access to App After a Number of Steps

This is the most commonly used sign up flow that companies use. Users are familiar with this process and consequently don’t have to think much about it. However there are a lot of steps that the user needs to take before getting to the app.

Flow 2: Setting Up of Account After Accessing the App

Being able to instantly access the app after signup is the reason why a lot of friction is eliminated in this approach. However this way you could get a lot of users who just want to try the app out, without any intention of completing the signup process.

Flow 3: Immediate Access to the App 

A signup flow that goes one step further than the second approach, this is absolutely frictionless.

Conclusion

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p class=”p2″>Sign-up forms don’t come across as the most exciting items to design on a website. In fact, most companies neglect the importance of sign-up forms by implementing below par designs. You can either inculcate a striking palette, a witty heading or an aesthetic design. But whatever you do, make sure that your first impression weaves its magic over the customers. Keeping in mind the importance of the sign up page in setting the right impression, there should be no errors whatsoever.

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p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;}
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Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/learn-react-everything-need-get-started/

React is a JavaScript library, originally built by developers at Facebook, for building fast user interfaces. If you’re dipping your toe into the React waters, or if your React development journey is picking up speed, it can be hard to stay across the fundamentals, techniques, tools and tricks – so we’ve created this guide to […]

Continue reading %How to Learn React: Everything You Need to Get Started%

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/MDXVf5wQ2Eg/

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