Year: 2019

Categories
Graphic Design

HOW USER CENTERED DESIGN CAN HELP SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS WEBSITES

The vast majority of small business owners are providing products or services in areas other than website design and effectiveness. As such, they are at the mercy of their web designers and developers to create an online presence for their company that is effective and successful at enticing its visitors to perform desired actions. In order to take control and provide higher chances of online success, small business owners might consider employing the principles of user-centered Design (UCD).

A general overview of UCD is such that the user is the focus of determining how their needs, wants and even their limitations are the primary focus driving the decision-making process of the design. Many professional web designers fail to understand this concept, much less employ it in their workflow. If those you’re paying to come up with effective websites for your company are not even considering using UCD, you might want to take the lead and find someone or a service that will help you in the endeavor.

Understand the Users

When it comes to the design of your website, understanding what your users are doing is definitely an important aspect of online operations. The challenge, however, is that this type of metrics, also known as analytics, can only tell you what has happened:

– How many visitors came to your home page?

– Where did those visitors come from search engine results pages, email newsletter links, deep links on other websites, etc

– How long did the visitor stay at your site?

– How many pages did they view while they were there?

Again, this information is well and good, but even with the metrics you just don’t have the insight into what was going through the visitors’ mind.

Why They Do What They Do

This brings up the value of understanding why your website visitors do what they do. user-centered Design is just the vehicle you need in order to gain knowledge and understanding of that “why”. The more you understand how UCD works, the easier it will be for you to learn what areas of your website can positively (or negatively) affect the visitor’s experience. Once you have this type of knowledge, you can make iterative changes which then allow you to further cement the user experience. Even if you’re not sure about your own presentation techniques, knowing the requirements and putting the user first can go a long way.

The Value of UCD Service

A quality UCD service will help you understand the intangible aspects of how a visitor uses your website. Often times there’s nothing more than a frustrated thought passing through the users’ mind. No click or time on page is likely to help you understand that emotion. But with UCD you might have the chance to watch a video of test users as they make their way through your online pages. Note a disgruntled sigh, or observe the slightest eye roll at the same time a user is attempting to navigate through your site, and you have a much clearer idea of where a problem could exist. You’d never get that depth of insight with a tally of the number of times a user made it through a page (via clicking on navigation links.)

Overall, when you decide to design your small business website with UCD techniques you’ll be able to make positive changes, faster. These changes help to support your business’ online goals and provide you with the justification for making otherwise hard decisions.

The best news is that you don’t have to be an expert in design or have a doctorate in user psychology in order to take advantage of these concepts. There are services available in the marketplace that excel in providing small to medium-sized businesses with the capabilities to do much, if not all the research and development online. If your online success depends upon the actions of your website visitors, why not take the time to find an effective and reasonably priced user-centered design service as soon as you can. Your bottom line will surely thank you!

Categories
Software Technology

How to Prevent Backup Mistakes and What to Do to Recover Lost Data

It happens to everyone at least once if you have been involved with computers at work or at home for any length of time. You accidentally hit a wrong button or do something else wrong and ZIP before you know it that folder of family pictures is gone, or all the banking data for your small business account is gone, or your entire hard disk is just wiped clean and your life passes before your eyes. And guess what – you don’t have a backup. So, there is a lesson to learn in this – always do a backup.

3-2-1-1 rule

While researching for this article, I learned a good backup method to use – it is known as the 3-2-1-1 rule for backups. This means that you maintain three copies of all important data, stored on two various types of media (one on disk, other on tape), storing one copy on-site and one copy off-site, with one of these copies physically removed from the network which creates what is known as an “air gap” that cannot be ransomed or hacked.

Important to always remember

You need to always do backups. At your business, you should do two backups and keep one onsite and the other somewhere off-site. This is a good way to avoid losing all your data. And on your home computer – always do backups.

Audit your backup

Never just set up the backup, then leave not checking the backup on the next day. It could have been a bad backup and you would never know until something goes wrong, so always check or audit the backup to make sure that it is a good and true backup.

Programs to use

There are also many programs that can help you with backing up your data and keep you from making stupid mistakes. But even these don’t work all the time. Especially if you are not paying attention or often just in a hurry.

No backups

But if you are not in the habit of doing backups – no rule is going to help. Your data is gone and that’s it. But, not so fast as there are always companies that can help you with this problem. There is probably a data recovery company somewhere near you – after all you are not the only one who erases everything accidentally. It happens to everyone and these companies can recover data from almost everything.

What can be recovered

These companies have standard services such as:

  • Hard drive recovery
  • RAID data recovery
  • SSD data recovery
  • Memory card recovery
  • USB flash recovery
  • External drive recovery

Don’t just run away

Usually, with these companies, there is no challenge that is too large or complex for the data not to be recovered. So, remember this before you decide to drop everything and run away from home or work – there are companies that know how to recover your data.

Categories
Technology

Smarter but Smaller Flip Phones Hit the Market

We have gone to smartphones that have everything to mobile flip phones that have more than the basics yet so small they are able to fit in the palm of a user’s hand. Yet, they still have all the modern features. These tiny phones can:

  • Handle phone calls
  • Bluetooth connectivity
  • Walkman
  • Voice changer facility
  • Great battery times

These devices are smaller in size but also smarter in options.

Simple Mobile Alcatel MYFLIP

One of these small phones is the Simple Mobile Alcatel MYFLIP™ which is more than a tiny basic phone. It can deliver the essential features to make anyone be more productive – such as:

  • Access to email
  • Use of a calendar
  • Access to the Web
  • 4G speeds

This phone has features of smartphones without all the bulk! This mobile phone as a display that is 2.8-inch and includes an interface that is easy to use with keypad designed for navigating and dialing quickly. The user will also be able to see who is calling without opening the phone due to the external preview with a 1.44-inch display. And you will be able to enjoy the long-lasting battery as there is no need to worry about charge any time during the day since the 1350 mAh battery with 8 hours of talk time has the day covered.

DIVA Series by Blu

There is also being introduced the latest addition to the DIVA Series by Blu, the beautiful DIVA Flip. This has a generous 2.4-inch bright display that delights the sight, giving the user incredible viewing experience. The VGA camera has a Led Flash which enables the user to capture and record all your special moments. It is matched with Bluetooth technology and the user can share times with family and friends. Users can stay entertained wherever you go with MP3 Player, FM radio, and MP4 Musica Player. The user also can save music, pictures, and clips in the 32GM MicroSD expansion slot.

Manufacturers are now able to produce smaller and smaller phones with all the advantages of the larger mobile phones but known of the bulk.

Shenzhen L8star Technology Co. Ltd, established in 2016, is a professional manufacturer engaged in offering a one-stop service from research & development, production, marketing and sales of mobile phones and smart wearables.

Categories
Gadget

What to Look for In Virtual Reality Headsets as This Holiday Season Gifts

With the new VR gaming headset, you will be better able to keep your head in the game. And Black Friday which is the largest shopping event each year during the holiday season is only 54 days away. This is the time when items begin to see gigantic cuts in prices. Here are the best virtual reality headsets 2019.

Sales on Black Friday

Most of the time, consumer items of electronic like gaming devices, smartphones or laptops are at the top of the list for consumers during the largest sales even after Thanksgiving. Monitoring closely Black Friday events, you will find that manufacturers and retainers of gaming consoles are often offering huge discounts on gaming needs like Virtual Reality headsets.

VR headsets

VR headsets are currently in the group of the newest movement in gaming, as more game creators have begun to assimilate virtual and augmented reality into popular game titles and have developed more games created only for VR. Now, you can play popular VR with most of the better games.

HTC Vive Cosmos

The newest VR headset is the HTC Vive Cosmos that is currently available for pre-order. It is said to be the next big deal in VR gaming due to impressive visual resolution to date with 6 camera sensors that aid in expanding the user’s range of motion. This new headset pre-orders at $699.99 and will ship on October 3rd, but you can expect the price to go down on Black Friday.

Here are others you can also find:

HTC Vive Virtual Reality System

This is the predecessor to Vice Cosmos’ and is currently priced at $467.79 on Amazon.com, but it could see a very large discount on Black Friday. This device boasts true-to-life movements as well as realistic graphics, HD haptic feedback, and directional audio. It can be used while standing, seated or however you want to play.

Oculus Go Standalone Virtual Reality Headset

This Oculus Go develop by Oculus VR together with Qualcomm and Xiaomi, saw a huge price cut on Amazon Prime Day in July and it is believed it will see another discount on Black Friday. This 32GB variant is now priced at $199, but during Prime Day it dropped down to $159. It features lenses that are innovative and brings to life colors that are vibrant and has optics that are crystal clear.

Oculus Rift S PC-Powered VR Gaming Headset

This Oculus Rift S is the high-end version of the Oculus Go, could possibly get marked down on Black Friday from its present of $399.00. Any game played on the Oculus Go is also available in the Oculus Rifts. But with the console, you will get to experience improved optics that allow you to enjoy next-generation lenses and a display that is sharper with bright, vivid colors as well as reduced “screen-door” effect.

These are the tops in VR headset so think about shopping for their best prices for Holiday gifts.

Categories
SEO

Opening a New Business, You Need a Good Website Design and Search Engine Optimization

When you are building your online business, you need a great website. You can do it yourself if you know about web design, but most businessmen are more involved with just growing their business. This means you need to find someone who is experienced in web design.

Website designer

If you are located in the New Jersey area there is an excellent business doing Web Design NJ that you might want to contact. Web design is deceivingly difficult, as it involves attaining a design that is both pleasing and usable, delivers information and builds a brand by being technically visually coherent.

Information

So, good web design is about information and getting a user to that information in a reasonable manner. With good web design, the user should be directed around the screen by the way in which you want them to see your information. This is called by some as “precedence” and it is about how much graphic weight various areas of your web design have.

Logo

In most websites the first thing to see is the logo – logos are extremely important. It must be the first thing that users see when they enter your website and they should immediately know that they are at the site they want to be viewing.

SEO

Now if you have a great website, you need to get users to know where you are and that is where Search Engine Optimization becomes so important. This will give you higher rankings on search engines so that users looking for you or your product will quickly find you when doing a search. SEO is the only way to drive users to your website. You can hire someone to also do this for you and there is also a good company for SEO NJ.

Open for business

With great website design and proper search engine optimization, now it is time to open your business.

Categories
Web Hosting

3 things you need to know about Web hosting

All websites on the internet are made of up two basic entities, the hosting server, and the domain. The domain is the name of the website URL. This is an identity for your brand or business. The hosting, however, is the brains of this identity. All the functions of a website such as speed, uptime, load time, traffic capacity, etc are all dependent on what kind of hosting server you have. Understanding how web hosting works can sound overwhelming, but it’s quite simple. We can break it down to mainly three things:

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is the basis of a website. A hosting server is the back-end service of any website that manages its working. All the information on the website is stored on this server. By writing codes, we can view each page on a website by accessing a specific section of the hosting server.

Different websites might need different types of hosting

This is why understanding how web hosting works is very important. Depending on the operations on your website, the traffic you are expecting, the files you need to store, you will need to pick a hosting that fits best. A good hosting not just gives you back-end, but also assists your with troubleshoots, glitches and code errors.

How costly is web hosting?

The cost of web hosting depends on the speed and the service space you need. While you can find services for dirt cheap, they might only facilitate a single page static website.

If you are running a business such as a store or a blog, you can expect a lot of visits to your website. This means you need to invest in a bigger hosting server. If you purchase the wrong hosting, you could sabotage your entire website.

What if I do not want to invest in hosting?

Once you are done understanding how web hosting works, you might be curious if there is a way around buying hosting. There is. There are companies that allow you to use simple drag-and-drop to create stunning websites. By using their dashboard and small monthly fee, you can get simple websites. The only disadvantage to these platforms is that they are not suitable if you want extreme customizations. The room to play within an independent hosting server is much more.

Categories
SEO

Position yourself as the authority

Don’t just say that you have the knowledge, show it.

How many times have you seen a website that says something like, “We have the knowledge and the experience to…” or “Our experienced and knowledgeable team is here to serve you.” Or something similar. Sound familiar?

Yes, our clients provide the same empty language from time to time and yes we do populate this type of content onto the sites we built on a frequent basis. I’m sorry to say it.

The fact is that we’re in a time when it’s pretty easy to build a website. It’s free to put up a blog on someone else’s website (like WordPress or Blogspot, for example).  And just about anyone can write a sentence that says they have the knowledge and the experience to do whatever. The consumer has grown impervious to such language. Today’s consumer wants more.

We want to feel like we’re getting great information from the fountain of knowledge. We want to feel like we’re making informed decisions. We know that with a few keywords in Google, we can access lots of information sources, but we want to quickly and efficiently access the best. We want authority.

How do I become an authority?

Well, an authority is an “Accepted source of information.” At least, that’s one of the ways that dictionary.com defines the word. Well, this is where your website really can be a powerful tool in a few ways.

If your website includes vast amounts of information and it answers the user’s first question, whatever that may be, then they’re likely to come back again for another answer. Basic questions asked of a real estate website might be:

To show that you have more than information, you have the knowledge, you’re going to want to have a blog. Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis and/or already have a blog will agree. Your blog is where you flaunt your stuff. You show what you’ve got. If you feel like you’re giving away the store, don’t worry. Give away as much information as you’re willing to type. The more you post, the more you’ll look like the authority you are.

The reality of SEO  is that there are just too many realtors out there. It’s not like Coke and Pepsi who have been trying to take market share from one another for decades. You’re trying to take a few more deals from a large pool. You’re trying to rise above the crowd. Do this by showing the visitors to your site just how much knowledge you have and what all those years of experience have taught you.

Conclusion

I’d like to conclude by mentioning someone who embodies authority. Paul Krugman is a NY Times columnist and Nobel Lauriate in economics. Not only does he have the years of experience and the accolades to prove his prowess, but he also writes with authority. I recommend checking out his columns and examining his writing style. Also, he’s pretty smart and insightful, you’ll probably learn something about our economy while you’re at it.

Categories
Technology

How can customized Postcard Printing Services benefit your business?

When it comes to marketing for your business, one of the best ways and affordable too is to opt for printing postcards. Not only is it a straightforward way to pull in customers, but also is known to be a cost-effective one. This is quite a compelling way to market your products effectively.

If you have a new service getting launched and you want people to know about it, you could simply get the message printed on the postcard. This is a great way to pull in potential customers towards your services and business. Getting customized postcard printing services benefits your business in a lot many ways. To know more about it please keep reading below:

Getting your message printed and delivered quickly

If you notice, there has been a rise in the area of Print Sale. Why are so many people getting their marketing campaign started with printing postcards? The answer is simple. You can get your message printed on the postcard without having to do anything much. Even customers who get it in their hands, will not have to open an envelope. The message is printed right before their eyes and its good to be read. All you need is a basic postcard, and your job is done. If you want you could also get deigns or templates printed as per your choice. You can also get your business logo printed on the postcard. There are so many mall businesses, which do not have much time to get the postcard designed, so they simply get their message printed on the postcard, and its good to go.

An inexpensive way to market your products and services

Whether you are a big company or a small one, you would always want to save money for your business. One of the best ways to market your product at the same time save time and money is to use a printing service. These services are easily accessible online, and quite inexpensive too.

A wide number of options available

The other reason why you could choose the option of getting postcards printed is that you get tons of options available in hand. With so many templates and design options available beforehand, you will feel more than happy to choose such designs and tools. You get the chance to make your postcards catchy and attractive using such tools.

Categories
Software

Self Direction Software for Medical Care of People with Disabilities

There are several types of self-direction software with the product of Evero.com considered to be one of the best.

Another self-direction

The self direction software is a system of medical care for People who have Developmental Disabilities which gives them or their caretakers or representative control over the services they receive as well as the support they need. Unlike the traditional systems, “self-direction” software uses a person-centered planning process and gives the individuals the ability to control the services the patient gets and how these services are to be received including who is providing them.

Difference between this and Medicare

There are some big differences with this self-direction software especially when compared with the Medicare system. Under the traditional system, caregivers are hired or recruited by an agency with the individual having no overview of the process of hiring or who is hired. What this means is that the agency supplied caregiver must be accepted whether you know or trust the person or not. As well, it is not unusual for agency selected caregivers to be unattainable due to shortages.

Caregivers

Now with self-direction, you can pick the caregivers. It can be either a professional or merely a trusted next-door neighbor or a loved one. This self-directed care as well allows you to pick any backup caregivers for those situations when the main caregiver is not available.

Choosing the services

In a traditional system, individuals have little to no say over the types of services they get. This is determined completely by the case managers. The situation with self-directed service is different. With this service, an individual can work out any necessary details for the needs of the services with the help of the case manager. This is allowing you to take into consideration any special needs or challenges for the individual when choosing the health care services to be received.

Self direction software

So self-direction software is a must for any person who is under Medicare and has special needs that Medicare might not be able to handle efficiently the care for those with disabilities.

Categories
SEO

Top 3 Challenges of Managing Reputation of the Business over the Web

The internet is proving to be a promising platform for businesses that want to lower down the business cost. The revenue generated from online platforms is growing chunk by chunk every year. Consumers have changed the way they shop. Now, mostly they come to the internet first to enquire about the product or service; mostly, they come to compare the prices offline and online, to read the reviews and also to get the advantage of home delivery service. All these ways of marketing products and services indicate the importance of reputation management. This is one of the biggest challenges a business faces while going over the web.

Other challenges are:

1. Bad reviews

Any frustrated buyer can use the web and write a bad review. This may sound harmless, but the hit is realized when the position on the search engines is pushed below or further to the next page or beyond.

2. Social media

Social media threads can make the businessmen’s life hell if the people are not talking positively about their offering. They have to manage their reputation on social media as well.

3. Product descriptions

Writing product descriptions so that it boosts the sale or helps manage the reputation is another big challenge that can give the businessmen sleepless nights. The descriptions must include keywords in the title, should be able to engage the buyers and also offer complete information about the product without sounding too flowery.

All these challenges need the expertise of an Online Reputation Management Company. The main job of this company is to push the negative reviews to the second page and beyond and boost the ranking of positive things said about the business. The company can take a look at the bigger picture on the whole and may suggest something for product descriptions also, or about the responsiveness of the page. So, hire these professionals to take care of online reputation and get more numbers through online means.