One of the best things a business can do to build a better brand is put all of their effort into authenticity and relevance. How can we achieve that when audiences and shoppers seem to be changing every day? Well, these five branding trends point to a good start to making 2021 the first year you work towards a business that people don’t just support, but wholly buy into as a concept and experience.

Five Trends Proven to Build a Better Brand

A brand isn’t just a way to increase sales. If you ask a digital strategy agency, they’ll tell you that a brand is just the manifestation of your own values, ideas, and inspiration in the form of marketing. With as much time as we put into our work, it’s important to have a brand reflect what matters most to your business. 

There are easy things we all know about memorable brands. Apart from a good logo and social media presence, going bigger and better in 2021 is going to help grow your business in meaningful ways. Here are some of the top trends in branding that will prove to be wildly beneficial to incorporate.

Have a Personal Presence in your Brand

Nothing helps you connect with your customers and audience more than being at the forefront of your brand. Whether you keep up with a regularly updated blog or include yourself in social media post images, you matter to your brand! 

It’s not just about making sure people know the person behind the business. When we step out of the background and take an upfront role in branding, we emerge as leaders and authentic storytellers. What is a brand if not a story waiting to be told? Nobody is going to tell your story better than you, so be sure to personally play a role in your brand in some shape or form. 

Put Your Values at the Forefront

2020 was a huge year for brand’s recognizing the importance of putting their values on full display. Shoppers are more likely to go out and support businesses that mirror their beliefs and values. Plus, speaking out and showing up when it matters about crucial issues can help show customers that you’re worth supporting. 

If your brand chooses to go the route of repurposing revenue to a cause, remember the golden rule of business advocacy: transparency, transparency, transparency! Be clear in your messages and your actions when it comes to highlighting your values. Any cause for confusion or concern can do more harm than good, even when your intentions are true. 

Stand Out in Expressive Ways

We know the importance of logos and graphics, but what sets you apart as a brand? In most cases, it’s going to end up being the ways in which you express your brand’s energy or spirit through visuals. From product shoots to Instagram posts, the way you express emotion through your images matters. 

Let’s take Hydroflask for example. As you scroll Hydroflask’s Instagram, the images and graphics are bright, energetic, and the people in the pictures are smiling and look happy! It’s hard to not look at these images and think that Hydroflask is a brand that’s great to bring along on your favorite journeys and adventures. 

This is all an organized branding decision, and guess what, it works! Make it work for you and find ways to be expressive in every image and graphic you create.

Don’t Be Afraid to Be Weird

Being weird used to be an insult. Now, your brand can gain a lot from going against the current and being authentically you. If you can pinpoint a way that your brand is special or unique, lean into it! It’s important to take branding seriously, but don’t make your brand too serious. 

The best way to ensure a healthy balance of effective branding with plenty of room for the oddities that draw an audience’s eye is to experiment. Your creative team can take the freedom given in finding a perfectly distinguishable weirdness to really carve out a space for you in your market no matter how crowded. 

Create an Immersive Experience for your Customers

When you put energy into your brand, you’re telling the story of your business. Your brand isn’t a means to sell your product or service. Your brand is the way you invite customers to join the journey you’re on with your business. 

From the inside looks at what you’re up to during a busy day to polling audiences in fun Q+A videos, your presence in digital copy, graphics, and images and video are going to be the difference maker for a customer choosing you. Make sure to immerse yourself in your brand and the audience will follow suit. 

Find your Brand’s Happy Place

When it comes to branding, it’s exciting to carve out a perfect way to present yourself through various marketing tools and techniques. When you need a hand, however, trusted agencies can help pinpoint what makes you special and how to shape your brand around your unique offering to the world. Start building your better brand today!

The post Building a Better Brand in 2021: Five Trends to Consider appeared first on SiteProNews.

The best part of the cloud is that you can use it to protect against the very threats that increased during its rise in usage. For example, cloud services that invite cybersecurity threats can also be used to shut them down. You can even protect your data online by using a java development company to make your site secure. Many of the risks posed against companies can be avoided; it’s all about how you set yourself up for the future. Let’s identify a few of the threats commonly experienced by companies and talk about what you can do to keep them at bay. 

Common Cloud Security Risks (And How to Avoid Them)

As we all know, the launch of a new tool or initiative at work doesn’t mean the work on that project is over. Much like anything you launch like an app or a product, the work to keep that product in tip top shape continues on after the development process. To ensure cloud security, you’ll also need to continue prioritizing cloud protections after implementing cloud strategy into your company. To do so, experts agree that one of the best ways to accomplish this is to enlist the help of idevsecops into your cloud infrastructure. 

Idevsecops provide you with a comprehensive way to address cloud security issues when they arise. Here are some of the threats you’ll likely encounter and how this approach can keep your organization safe.

Data Breaches and Leaks

The more information you put online into the cloud, the more of a risk you run of that information being accessed by undesired users. That’s just the truth of this way of computing. That said, it’s not a threat that should keep you from using the cloud. In the face of record cloud data breaches during 2020, devsecops security can provide you a better protection against these breaches. 

Devsecops tackles the issue of unauthorized users accessing your info by automating the process of scanning for logins to your most sensitive data. Coded into your cloud infrastructure, this form of security notifies you the moment someone who isn’t permitted to access certain data attempts to login. Automated systems can even deny these users if they’re not hardcoded into the cloud as an authorized user. It’s a massive help in tackling a rising issue in cloud security.

Data Loss

A breach is frustrating, but data loss feels like a complete lapse in judgement and care. When data loss occurs, it can be the result of faulty hardware or equipment. That said, it’s rare that this occurs with the cloud since everything is stored digitally. More often than not, data loss occurs because of human error. This experience is almost always avoidable, especially when you utilize the help of infrastructure as code. 

When you codify your cloud security enhancements into your cloud ecosystem, you can identify misconfigurations before they ever lead to data loss. As one of the most overlooked aspects of cloud security, data loss can lead to huge setbacks as your company continues to grow and expand. 

When you ensure devsecops solutions are a part of your cloud computing plan, you can keep these threats to a minimum by allowing automated processes to protect for human error in codifying the cloud. 

DoS Attacks

We know about data loss and data hacks, but DoS attacks might be a new term to you if you’re relatively new to cloud computing. A DoS attack stands for denial of service. This sort of attack attempts to disrupt your cloud computing offerings to customers and employees by overwhelming your cloud system to the point of breaking. While the cloud system is unable to load, you might experience setbacks but your customers will also not be very happy. These sorts of attacks often occur when a hacker cannot access info they’re hoping to steal. Out of anger or simply to target your businesses’ ability to function, they’ll take down your ability to operate. 

Devsecops can ensure that the scalability of your cloud is prepared for this sort of attack. By codifying your cloud security, it’s easier to hop into your infrastructure and adapt to the needs of your company’s expanding bandwidth. Of course, a sudden attack won’t allow you much time to expand and scale at that moment, but cloud security helps to ensure this issue is identified immediately as it’s happening so your system can deny requests from the hack. 

Preparing for the Worst is the Best Way to Take Advantage of Cloud Computing

It might seem like all of this planning adopts a “worst case scenario” mindset for your cloud security. That’s because it does; but that’s not a bad thing. It’s important to prepare for the worst cloud security attacks you can imagine because those cautionary protections help to keep them at bay. When you’re considering expanding your cloud services, be sure to consider devsecops and the enhanced cloud security measures necessary to ensure peace of mind for your business. 

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If you are going to keep your marketing efforts ahead of the competition, you need to stay up to date on these developments. Fortunately, you have a number of marketing pros willing to share their expertise and knowledge for free on YouTube.

With that said, not every YouTube marketing channel is equal and many of them are posting outdated or erroneous information. To make sure you are getting the best advice, you will need to know which channels to follow.

For marketers looking to maintain their edge, the following are some of the top video marketing channels you can find on YouTube.

Think Media

Founded by Sean Cannell, Think Media is a YouTube channel that should be at the top of the list for any business trying to use video marketing. With educational content that is also entertaining, Think Media has built a dedicated following among video creators of all types. At the time of writing, Think Media had more than 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube.

Along with camera tutorials and reviews, the Think Media channel offers a range of posts for everything from setting up a YouTube channel and creating better videos to making better thumbnails and using different types of software and technology to produce better videos. With an array of valuable content from experienced video makers, Think Media is a can’t miss channel for video marketing advice.

Derral Eves

Derral Eves is a a television producer, professional speaker and marketing consultant. Along with being a video marketer, he also offers advice on areas concerning social media marketing and mobile marketing. If you are looking to up your marketing game and stay current on the latest developments, his YouTube Channel is a great place to start.

While there is other content on the channel, Derral focuses most of his videos on building a channel and turning videos into success. Along with creating content to teach users how to use video marketing, he also offers a lot of advice about what not to do. This channel is great for learning about the business side of being a video marketer and there is a lot of valuable advice about attracting and keeping an audience.

Video Influencers

This channel was created by marketing experts Benji Travis and Sean Cannell. The main focus of the channel is teaching people how to have success as a video influencer. The channel is full of useful insights into the world of video creators and it also offers a range of interviews with popular video influencers and business leaders.

If you are an influencer or just trying to build a channel, this is one of the first channels you should check out. The videos cover a broad range of topics like the best cameras to use, making money from your channel and they even cover niche topics like how to have success with specific types of content. The interviews are also a great source of info because they often get insights from some of the top names in the world of video marketing.

Owen Video

Don’t let the fact that Owen Video has just a little over 62,000 subscribers fool you into thinking it is any less valuable than larger channels. This channel is run by a genuine video marketing pro and he knows how to grow a YouTube Channel. This channel is focused on video marketing and it covers TikTok and Facebook video as well as YouTube. 

With the wide variety of video marketing content, Owen Video can offer value for people new to video marketing as well as experienced pros. You can learn how to make better thumbnails, be more persuasive in sales videos, create better live streams, and more. The videos also tend to be short and entertaining, so it is easy to make it through the library of content while learning about video marketing tactics.

Neil Patel

Neil Patel is already well-known in the digital marketing industry. Beyond being a successful digital marketing pro, he has been featured in publications like the Wall Street Journal and Forbes and he is a New York Times bestselling author. 

The Neil Patel YouTube channel is more of a general digital marketing channel, but it also offers great advice for video marketing. The channel has tips for YouTube and Facebook videos and it covers a range of topics that include things like expanding your reach, finding new video topics and monetization. If you are looking to learn about social media marketing and SEO as well as video marketing, Neil Patel’s YouTube channel offers valuable advice that covers it all.

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Since smartphones are computers we take everywhere, it only makes sense that these devices could have great potential when applied to healthcare. Healthcare software development could be used to improve care and make the lives of professionals easier. This will not only make the patient experience better, in some cases, it could save lives.

The global market for mobile health was valued at over $40 billion in 2020. It is expected to grow considerably over the next few years. To get a better understanding of where the market is headed, let’s take a look at some of the ways mobile health apps can be used to improve care.

Making Care More Convenient 

Many patients put off care or checkups just because they find the experience inconvenient. They don’t want to drive to a doctor’s office and wait for their appointment to come up. With mobile apps, care can be made more convenient.

With the right mobile app features, a range of primary care services can be available without having to leave your home. You can consult with a doctor about an issue you are having, send images, chat over video or get a prescription if need be. Some care will require seeing a doctor in-person, but there are plenty of issues that could be resolved through a simple video chat.

Avoiding Wait Times

Wait times can be a significant factor in improving the patient experience. A patient goes to a clinic, hospital or doctor’s office only to find that it is crowded and that they need to wait hours for the attention they need. 

This is an issue that could be solved with apps. An app could be developed to monitor the current wait times at different healthcare facilities. When a patient needs care, they could open the app and check the wait times at different facilities in their area. They could then choose the one that will be able to provide care with the shortest wait.

Improving Access

Access to care can be an issue in many areas. This is especially true if you live far from a city. In the past, patients may have had to travel hours to meet with specialists to get a health issue checked out. This not only made the care inconvenient, but it also added to the cost of care.

With different types of healthcare apps, some of these problems can be resolved without the patient having to go see the specialists face-to-face. In some cases, they could handle the checkup with a video chat from home. If the issue is more complex, they could go see their local primary care doctor, and the doctor could then consult with the specialist using an app.

Lowering Costs

Cost is another barrier for many patients. Hospitals are often at their own discretion when it comes to determining the cost of treatment and you can’t just leave to go find a better deal. Apps could help to control costs by making it easier to compare prices among different facilities and by making the process of care more efficient.

Apps can also make payment easier and more efficient. Instead of having to go to the billing department, hospitals could accept payment from your smartphone. If you are connected through an app, the healthcare service could send a bill to your phone and you could use a mobile wallet to complete payment.

Opportunities for Healthcare Professionals

Healthcare apps can offer new opportunities for healthcare professionals. Instead of strictly offering services from an office, clinic or hospital, apps could be used to deliver services to consumers in a way that is more convenient.

Apps could be used to connect patients to professionals and allow them to interact in a way that is more direct. The patient could go on the app, find the type of service they need and then the app would give them a selection of professionals that could help. These apps could be good for connecting patients with professionals like doctors, nurses and physical therapists.

Monitoring Your Health

Mobile apps can also be great for helping patients monitor their health. Instead of having to go to the doctor to have a simple checkup, connected devices could do some of the monitoring and the results could be sent to the doctor. This could save time for the doctors and make life easier for patients. 

We already see a few examples of these types of devices. Patients can already use connected devices to measure blood pressure, check heart rate and monitor blood sugar. The devices connect wirelessly to the smartphone and they work with an app to collect the necessary information.

Stay Connected With Healthcare Professionals

Many conditions require the patient to stay in contact with a doctor for many months. Unfortunately, some patients fail to show up for follow-up appointments or they don’t manage the required home care in the way they should. For many patients, this causes additional health issues or it can lead to a less than ideal outcome after treatment.

Apps can provide the perfect solution for these issues. An app can make it easy for a doctor or nurse to check in on a patient when they are at home. Along with that, an app can remind the patient of a follow-up visit and it can help them stay on schedule with any home care that might be needed. It can even be programmed to give the patient reminders to do things like take their medication.

As new as the market for healthcare apps is, it is already showing a lot of potential. It is making care more accessible and it is making it easier for professionals to offer care in ways that serve patients better. While many patients have yet to experience apps as a part of healthcare, we should expect that they will become more common in the future.

The post 7 Ways Mobile Apps are Making Healthcare Better for Everyone appeared first on SiteProNews.

With smartphones becoming so integral to the everyday lives of so many people, things like iPhone app development are booming. Businesses see the potential of smartphone apps, and they are looking for ways to provide new services and increase profits. 

For businesses to have success in the modern mobile landscape, they have to stay up to date with the latest trends. In this post, we are going to look at the hottest app development trends to look out for in the coming year.

Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is not new, but 2021 is expected to be a big year for connected devices. This is in part because of the current roll-out of 5G networks. 

According to research from IDC, there were an estimated 10 million 5G connections in 2019. That number is expected to grow beyond one billion in 2023. With faster mobile networks, we will see IoT apps starting to push the limits of mobile technology.

At the current time, a lot of IoT is in smart home, business tech or simple wearables. As 5G networks continue to roll out, 5G is going to enable smart cities and apps that work with smart cars. This year is going to be a year for experimentation with IoT app technology.

Augmented Reality 

Augmented Reality (AR) is expected to have a big year in 2021. Developers have been experimenting with AR for a few years. Beyond entertainment, we have started to see use cases that include things like marketing, manufacturing, social media and healthcare. With mobile platforms like ARCore and ARKit continuing to improve, 2021 should be an exciting year for Augmented Reality.

Wearables

Demand for wearable devices is on the rise. With things like smartwatches and fitness trackers becoming more common, there is going to be a growing trend in developing apps that work with wearable devices. This trend will not only affect the fitness and gadget sectors, but we should also expect to see an increased focus on developing apps and wearables that can support healthcare functions.

Beacon Technology

Beacon technology is going to play a major role in improving location-based experiences. With beacon technology, a business can use low-intensity Bluetooth to send signals to nearby smart devices. This could be used by healthcare facilities, hotels, restaurants, and event centers just to name a few of the businesses that might benefit. 

The beacon devices can be set up by a business and can transmit a signal with a unique identifier. When the signal is picked up by a device, it can then tell the device to carry out a range of functions. Common applications would be to mark the location of the business on a map or to deliver a custom advertising message to attract customers. With beacon technology in a mobile app, businesses can take location-based advertising to a new level.

Chatbots

Chatbots are another technology that has been around for a while. With that said, today’s chatbots have taken an evolutionary leap that makes them like an entirely new species when compared to the chatbots of just a few years ago. Along with that, they have become easier to develop and integrate in with mobile apps.

With chatbots being more capable and more accessible, we will see more businesses looking to integrate chatbots with their apps. These chatbots will handle things like customer service inquiries and they can be trained to act as a digital assistant to help customers find the products they want. Many brands will even start to use chatbots as a vital part of their marketing efforts.

Ecommerce

Mobile ecommerce has been on the rise for some time. With 2020 being a year that saw huge gains in online shopping, more businesses are going to look to ecommerce app development as a necessity if they want to stay competitive.

2021 should be a year that sees incredible growth in the number of ecommerce businesses that are online. Along with that, traditional brick-and-mortar businesses are going to start looking to the value of having a mobile app for selling products and engaging with consumers.

Artificial Intelligence

We expect to see an increase in the uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in mobile applications. Instead of using simple rules to give the impression of intelligence, we are going to see a range of apps that are truly intelligent and independent. This will cover everything from better recommendation engines and more sophisticated advertising tools to apps that can provide better education services or accurate analysis for healthcare services and diagnostics.

On-Demand Apps

The on-demand economy has been a major trend for the last few years. That is expected to continue and grow during 2021. Consumers want products and services ready and available instantly, and app development is going to be one of the primary tools businesses use to deliver on the on-demand trend. 

While ridesharing services and food delivery tend to be two of the most common examples in the current economy, we are starting to see an expanding range of industries going on-demand. In the coming year, we will see more examples of things like home maintenance, auto repair, healthcare, pet care and more being offered through on-demand apps.

Every year sees big changes in the mobile app development industry. New technologies emerge or developers hit on new ideas that every business wants to follow. Regardless of how the trend came to be, businesses need to be aware of them if they want to stay competitive moving forward. You might not need to follow every trend, but if you miss one that is relevant to your industry, you could fall behind the competition. In the modern digital economy, being behind by even a few months can be a significant setback.

The post 8 Mobile Development Trends to Expect in 2021 appeared first on SiteProNews.

The following are a few examples. If you’re a developer, consider how you can make use of:

Newsletters

Staying abreast of the latest news and best practices regarding any particular type of app development is very important. That’s why smart developers often follow industry newsletters. These newsletters can provide them with updates about new products, changing user behaviors, and much more.

There’s no one specific newsletter a developer should subscribe to. The right newsletter for a given developer will depend on the types of projects they work on.

For example, someone who focuses mainly on iPhone app development should read such newsletters as iOS Dev Weekly and MacRumors. Someone who works more on Android apps should instead follow Android Weekly and Android Headlines.

Inspired UI

An effective and aesthetically-pleasing UI may play as much of a role in an app’s success as an intuitive UX. Luckily, Inspired UI, as the name implies, offers inspiration to developers by showcasing a variety of different strong UIs from top apps. 

These examples can serve multiple purposes. They might give a developer new ideas about an app’s overall UI, or they may help a developer make certain decisions about specific elements of a UI.

Stack Overflow

When you’re struggling with a particular development challenge or you have a question about coding, sometimes, your fellow developers will offer the best help.

Developers who participate in the Stack Overflow community have experienced this firsthand. Stack Overflow is simply a platform where developers can post questions for other developers to answer. Additionally, the site features an archive of popular or helpful past questions, allowing developers to complete tasks much more quickly than they otherwise might.

Quora is another resource that can be helpful in this capacity. While Stack Overflow is useful in that it’s solely devoted to development topics, many expert developers are also active on Quora. Even Reddit can be a useful resource to some degree.

Unsplash

Many types of apps benefit from the inclusion of high-quality photos. However, not everyone has the budget to hire a photographer to provide said photos directly. 

Luckily, they have other options in these circumstances. Unsplash is an online repository featuring thousands of high-quality pictures. 

All the pictures are available for free download, and while the platform does encourage crediting photographers, anyone who uses these photos isn’t required to provide credit.

TETHR

TETHR is a useful free resource in two primary situations: When you’re creating a very basic early version of an iOS app to get a better sense of how the finished product should look and function, and when you’re a novice iOS developer building your skills.

TETHER is essentially a free iOS design kit offering hundreds of templates and components developers can incorporate into their apps. Its drag-and-drop functionality makes creating mock-up versions of apps very easy. Like Inspired UI, experimenting with TETHR can also provide a developer with UI inspiration during the early stages of development.

Books

It’s important not to overlook the value of “old school” resources such as books. For example, someone brushing up on their Android development skills should at least read Android Application Development for Dummies, Hello, Android, and Head First Android Development. These books provide useful overviews of various Android development topics.

Google+

Google+ may not be a crucial resource for all developers. However, for an Android developer, maintaining an active Google+ account is often a smart idea.

After all, Android is Google’s operating system. Thus, it may come as no surprise that Google+ is home to many communities specifically catering to Android developers. Along with participating in discussions on Stack Overflow, Quora, and Reddit, an Android developer could potentially find answers to many of their questions on these communities.

Such communities can also give developers platforms to discuss their own unique approaches to development. As a result, they’ll learn new skills from each other.

GitHub

Many developers have found GitHub to be among the most important development resources available to them in recent years.

It can be somewhat difficult to describe exactly what GitHub offers in its entirety if you’re not an active user of this resource. Some would generally claim it’s a social media platform for developers.

That’s accurate to an extent. GitHub actually helps developers in a range of ways. Primarily, though, it allows them to share free code and to collaborate more easily on open source projects.

GitHub Jobs is also a very useful resource for developers seeking employment. Developers who are already employed full-time, but wouldn’t mind earning some extra money picking up freelance work, can find such gigs on platforms like Upwork as well. Successfully tackling a few freelance projects can help a developer build a portfolio to more easily find work at an agency in the future.

YouTube

YouTube has made it possible to quickly learn about various subjects. Development is no different.

A quick search reveals there are many YouTube channels devoted to this topic. Some are geared towards “newbies” who may just be learning the basics of development. Others feature deeper insights targeting working developers.

Regardless, YouTube videos can be s particularly helpful means of illustrating various development techniques and ideas due to their visual nature. It’s one thing to read a description of how a developer created a given UI or solved a given problem. It’s another thing when you can directly see them demonstrate the process. 

All that said, it’s worth noting that new resources for developers become available nearly constantly. It’s important that developers use the resources currently available to them, but it’s also essential that they continue to research this topic, learning about emerging resources before the competition does.

The post Spotlight on the Best Resources for App Developers appeared first on SiteProNews.

That’s why you should keep the following trends in mind. In 2020, they’ll substantially influence the way your competitors approach design. Additionally, when people are trying to find a programmer, they’ll look for those that are well-versed in the most up-to-date and innovative design trends. 

Comprehensive Branding

You likely already know that some degree of visual branding helps your business make a consistent impression on your audience. However, it’s important to understand that a unique logo is no longer sufficient. You need to brand all your visual content.

For example, perhaps you’ve developed an app that helps people find recipes. Odds are good the app features a general color scheme and visual style. 

Maybe you also promote your app through a YouTube channel featuring videos of hosts making some of the recipes it offers. These videos should also adhere to a similar color scheme and visual approach.

That’s merely one example. Everything that can be considered a visual representation of your business, from your website to your business cards, should share visual qualities associated with your brand.

Unique Typography

Don’t overlook the importance of proper branding. According to some estimates, a major brand could be worth billions of dollars. A strong brand can also help you maintain a loyal customer base.

Thus, you need to consider all the ways you can use visual elements to differentiate your brand from others. This includes focusing on what some might dismiss as minor details.

For example, one way to stand out among the crowd is to simply use your own custom typography, instead of using the same fonts others use. It’s worth noting that developing your own fonts will also help you avoid the costs and complications associated with font licensing.

Just make sure you choose a font that embodies the qualities you want people to associate your brand with. For example, many law firms use formal typography, such as fonts resembling Cambria or Times New Roman, in order to convey a sense of professionalism and reliability. On the other hand, a company offering wellness products to young people might use something more whimsical. While your goal is to develop your own font, it’s also a good idea to start off with standard fonts that reflect your brand to a degree, using them as inspiration when you develop new typography.

Eye-Catching Color

Many brands have embraced a relatively minimalist approach to color schemes in recent years. They’ve branded their products with pastel hues and similar muted colors, ensuring all visuals look clean and unintimidating.

That approach may have worked fairly well for a while. However, design trends often change because consumers get bored. When they grow accustomed to a certain visual style, it no longer impresses them.

This is a key reason many design experts believe 2020 will mark a shift back towards bold and contrasting color schemes. Because many recent color schemes have been minimal, this is a smart, simple, and effective way to capture your audience’s attention.

Experimentation

A focus on minimalism has also had the unfortunate side effect of making brands blend into one another. When everyone is applying similar design principles, no one stands out.

That’s why some design experts also encourage companies to experiment during 2020. Now’s a time to try out design and branding ideas that you may have been reluctant to try when playing it safe. 

The types of “experiments” you might conduct will vary depending on your goals and ideas. For instance, some brands might try to make a stronger impression on leads with an animated logo. Others are developing custom emojis to communicate with customers in a language that’s more universal than basic text. Some are simply taking the opportunity to incorporate more video into their approach to design.

Those are merely a few ideas. This year, consider listing all the design experiments you may want to try, and see if any deliver results. 

Using Art

Yes, design is already an art itself. However, it’s the type of art that can involve leveraging other art forms to enhance an overall effect.

In recent years this has often taken the form of developing logos and similar imagery with computer graphics. This year, it’s likely some brands will experiment with more traditional illustration and art styles. Once again, by choosing not to continue doing what everyone else has been doing recently, brands are more likely to stand out in the crowd.

Remember these points when designing your products this year! A strong user experience isn’t enough to guarantee success. To ensure your products attract (and keep) customers, you need to ensure they look visually appealing.

The post Digital Design Trends You’ll Be Seeing a Lot of This Year appeared first on SiteProNews.

Phishers typically attempt to deceive their targets by creating fake versions of websites that look real. Users enter their information just as they would on the real site, allowing the scammers to collect it. They often initially approach their targets via email, although they may also call targets on the phone.

Guarding against phishing, both as someone who receives email and as someone who sends email, is important. Luckily, there are steps you can take to protect yourself.

Basic Signs of Phishing Scams

Phishers often imitate major brands and organizations when sending emails to targets. Google, Microsoft, and Facebook are among the brands imitated most often, but they are by no means the only companies phishers pretend to represent.

You should always be suspicious of unexpected emails from companies. This is particularly true if they claim to be sending urgent messages. Phishers try to get people to click on their emails by sending fake alerts about security concerns, financial irregularities, and similar issues.

You should also be suspicious when receiving emails with unexpected attachments. These could be malicious and should not be clicked on. 

That said, phishers don’t always try to mimic companies recipients have accounts with. Sometimes they take the form of new contacts who are simply “reaching out” for information. Such emails should also be treated with caution.

How to Recognize Phishing Scam Sites

There are certain signs email recipients can look for to determine if they are being scammed. One is to simply compare the potentially “fake” site to the real thing. Although some scammers create very sophisticated mimic sites, many others make clear errors. If a site doesn’t look legitimate, it probably isn’t.

Sometimes the differences are subtle. For instance, a phisher might generally create a convincing fake site, but their version of the company logo doesn’t match the logo on the real site. Or, perhaps the login button on a fake site is a slightly different color than the actual login button. Small details such as these are worth paying attention to. Additionally, these sites sometimes feature excessive banners, another warning sign to look out for.

Phishers may also slightly modify the URLs of popular sites to convince users to click on them. For instance, someone trying to get your bank account information might create a URL where just one or two of the letters are rearranged (“eaxmple.com” instead of “example.com”), hoping you won’t notice the difference. That’s why it’s always a good idea to carefully check a URL before clicking on it.

Look for HTTPS

Another easy way to avoid phishing scams is to simply avoid clicking on URLs that don’t begin with “https.” Its presence indicates the site is secure. If a site is still using the old “http” protocol, err on the side of caution and don’t visit it. While it’s possible that some older sites haven’t updated to https yet, the vast majority of reputable sites have made the switch by now.

Take Extra Steps

Phishers often get the attention of targets by pretending to represent banks or the IRS. If someone receives an email telling them they owe money, they may feel they need to click on it and take the recommended action.

Don’t make this mistake. The IRS and many banks typically don’t get in touch with people via email anyway. If you suspect they are legitimately trying to contact you, instead of clicking a link you receive in an email, visit the actual site directly and log in. This is a small extra step that can make a big difference.

You might also want to consider using a password manager. This makes it easy to log in to sites with just a single click. You’ll be more inclined to take the extra step described here if you don’t need to manually enter your password every single time.

It’s also worth noting that many of today’s security suite products offer anti-phishing features that can be very effective. For additional protection, you may want to look into upgrading yours if it doesn’t boast such features.

Check Registration Data

If you suspect a URL may have been created for a phishing scam, you can always check its whois registration data. In most cases, phishing URLs are fairly new. Don’t click on a URL that supposedly links to a reputable company’s site if you learn the URL is only a few months old. That’s an obvious sign that it’s not legitimate.

These are important points to keep in mind for anyone who uses email in any capacity. It’s unfortunately fairly common for scammers to try and take advantage of unsuspecting victims online. You can avoid this by exercising basic caution.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Phishing Scams appeared first on SiteProNews.

One thing skills are so useful for here is that they open the door to new possibilities: the voice interface can be used to better serve customers and share content more effectively. The tool is growing in popularity, having added 5,000 skills over a six month period last year. 

If you’ve been wanting to increase your brand visibility, an Alexa skill could be just the thing to help. However, be careful that your company isn’t developing a skill just to have one; if necessary, hire a programmer with experience in developing voice assistant skills. They can help you build a program your audience will actually want to use. 

Below are some examples of successfully launched Alexa skills that you can take inspiration from:

Johnnie Walker Integrates a Personal Touch

Johnnie Walker is a popular whiskey brand that has taken a unique approach to their Alexa skill. Once a user confirms that they’re of age and legally allowed to drink, potential customers can access a wide range of features from the brand. 

The skill can recommend whiskey based on the customer’s answers to questions about their tastes and palate, which helps the brand boost their sales. It also makes the customer feel like they’re having a personal conversation. This is perfect for today’s consumer, as a recent survey revealed that people look for what they perceive as personalized brand interactions.

Luckily, Alexa skills are optimized to learn about customer preferences. This creates a clear path for you to be able to provide a more personalized experience to each user. Individualized interactions increase customer engagement and are more likely to foster a sense of brand loyalty. 

Time Out Gives Easy Updates

Time Out is a popular publication that provides users with information and suggestions for major travel destinations like New York, London, and Tokyo. The company’s Alexa tool makes it easier for the reader to get recommendations for things to do around town. The tool is updated daily by the publications editing team with unmissable events and opportunities for each location. 

This skill allows Time Out to promote its products while providing their customers with helpful services. It also helps the brand to increase their recognition across broader audiences.

Frequent updates are a great way to keep users engaged and coming back for more. If new material is always available to your audience, they can get into the habit of regularly using your skill. While you may not need to update daily, keeping your information fresh and constantly striving to provide your audience with more is a great way to maintain customer satisfaction.

Tide Lets You ‘Keep it in the Family’

Tide has a simple, widely recognized purpose: helping its users remove fabric stains. The more people who associate Tide with this cleaning process, the greater benefit the company receives. This was the idea behind the creation of their skill: the program instructs users on how to treat and remove various stains. It is in this way that Alexa helps the brand: the voice software allows the skill to come across like a knowledgeable friend or family member.

An easy-to-use skill that makes the user feel comfortable interacting with it is a great way to increase platform engagement. Word-of-mouth can be a valuable tool with a skill like this. Imagine that your friend spills their glass of red wine on your antique tablecloth; Tide’s Alexa skill can put you at ease while impressing your companions with its efficiency.

Why You Should Develop Alexa Skills

With the rise of assistants like Alexa, voice searching is becoming more and more popular among users. Advances in the technology mean that it is only becoming more reliable, which helps to boost this popularity. 

Alexa skills are ideal for content marketing as they can offer personalized service to users. Skills present brands with an opportunity to consistently interact with their users, whether it’s through recommending daily content or attempting to boost your sales.

The post How An Alexa Skill Can Help Your Company Work Better appeared first on SiteProNews.

When technology develops to the point that it moves out into the public sphere, all kinds of creativity and innovation starts to happen. Whether we know it or not, we’re already seeing artificial intelligence in action. Talking to Apple’s Siri or using facial recognition to unlock iPhones, checking in with Google Translate for language translation, or donning an Oculus Rift headset to play a game would all be impossible without AI.

New developers bring in new ideas, many of which were inconceivable to the public when the tech was developed. Sometimes that means facial recognition apps that work even though we don’t know why. And sometimes, it’s about mixing drinks.

AI Can Now Mix Your Drinks

In the movie Passengers, actor Chris Pratt spends a fair amount of time chatting with a human-looking robot bartender to work through his problems. One mobile app development agency decided  to make that a reality with the creation of Niq.

The drink dispenser is designed in such a way that users can interact and exchange pleasantries with it,  along with being able to order perfectly mixed drinks. Niq marks a new frontier in the world of tech.

That’s right, artificial intelligence can bartend.

By taking existing technology, a new concept, and a twenty-four hackathon, a group of staffers cobbled together a drink dispenser to create a rudimentary artificially intelligent bartender that works. Almost every step of the process is powered by some form of developed AI. Mix them all together, and you have a British-accented bartender who knows what you like to drink.

The Ingredients for an AI Bartender

The components are from a who’s who list of market leaders:

• Microsoft’s Face API, which utilizes an artificial intelligence process to recognize and identify people. Niq uses it to welcome people by name, incorporating a human greeting.

• Apple’s Siri uses its voice-to-text technology to translate what the customer says into text. Next, API.ai, a text-based conversational service app from Dialogflow, helps build a library of conversational interactions for Niq to better respond to the customer.

• Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Polly takes the information from API.ia and turns it more natural conversation. This is a deep learning approach that analyzes and learns how people communicate with each other.

• All this information is processed in mere microseconds. Commands are sent to Arduino boards, a sophisticated circuitry system that executes software to control physical devices. For Niq, the action becomes the pouring of the perfect drink, using exact measurements.

• One of the key advantages of deep learning is the idea that it builds on past experiences. Every time someone orders a drink, Niq builds a profile for that person by connecting it to their facial recognition, the conversational interaction, and the customers preference. Plans are in place for Niq to use that profile to make recommendations for drinks it thinks the customer will also enjoy.

The Implications for the Future of Development

In some respects, using such advanced technology to act like a bartender seems trivial. In other ways, however, that’s almost the point. Part of the drive behind artificial intelligence is to make tech work like people do. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun or convenient.

As the cost of the services and applications of AI continues to come down – not to mention what’s already accessible for free – artificial intelligence can provide all kinds of everyday services in a smoother, more efficient manner than they currently occur.

We can all raise a toast to that.

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