How to productize services as a web designer or developer

Standardize your offers

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If you've ever felt you needed more time in the day, or that you're only working on one project at a time and find yourself resisting or struggling to scale, you might want to learn how to productize services.

In the website services industry, the struggle is real. We create products on a daily basis, but as a service. The thought of productizing our own services can seem elusive or mysterious. How do you know if your service can be turned into a product?

What is productization?

Productization is taking "delivery" and making it repeatable, scalable and standardized. It also means that you, personally, don't deliver the whole process from start to finish.

For example, take a book, software, course or plugin. All those products can be delivered as a service. What you learn in a book or a course could be delivered as a consultation. A plugin or some software to manage your budget and accounts can be done by a person. All these could be delivered by their creator as a service, but as a product, they can scale faster and deliver a standard result to all customers.

Don't get me wrong, services are a fantastic way to run a business. But for some, they're not as scalable or profitable as they originally hoped. The biggest problem with delivering a service is that, even with staff and a team, you can only deliver so much at once.

Creating a product from your services is easier than you might think, but it requires you to swallow a few fears and take a deep breath.

Service vs. product

Productizing your services is often seen as a magic bullet when it comes to solving many of the problems that website professionals face. We love the idea of having a suite of well-polished and well-defined products that suit our customers. But often, when it comes to delivering them, we're still delivering a service.

In his book, From Single To Scale, author Mike Killen talks about the three laws of scale that help define if something is a product:

Do I have to do the work or can someone else?

Can I receive 1,000 orders tomorrow and handle it?

Is the process/delivery repeatable so anyone can do it?

Frequently, we find that many website service-based businesses that want to productize services struggle because they can't deliver a standardized service to their customers.

Truly creating products from services and productizing your offering means you must adhere to strict rules.

Sure, some products have add-ons and small customizations, but the standard delivery process probably doesn't change. Have you ever tried to negotiate the terms of your checking account at a bank? Your account is such a standardized product that the idea of customizing it is unheard of.

It doesn't have to be custom

Photo: Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash When you productize services, you leave some of the custom tailoring behind.

Without a doubt, the biggest roadblock to creating a product, or suite of products, is that we believe customers want custom. We're website designers and developers, right? Aren't they're coming to us because they want a custom and bespoke solution?

We often fall into this trap, believing our clients' businesses and their needs are special little snowflakes that deserve 100-percent custom, individual requirements and specifications. But we'd be wrong.

Customers want SOLUTIONS more than they want custom.

If your desire is to productize services, you have to lovingly say goodbye to a certain level of customization. Now, there's nothing wrong with custom work — but the reality is, most businesses aren't charging enough to justify a fully customized solution.

Productize services by answering these 10 questions

Without further ado, here's our 10-point checklist to see if your website-based service can be turned into a product.

1. Does your service offer a solution to a problem?

The best gauge to know if your product will succeed is to evaluate if it solves a problem. If it solves a problem, then you can be almost be certain someone needs it. Focusing on your product as a solution is the best was to refine your product's offerings, messaging and projections for demand.

2. Does your service have a deliverable?

Photo: quijonido via VisualHunt / CC BY

It's nearly impossible to convert a service to a product if there's no deliverable. When someone forks over their credit card to purchase your product, what are they receiving in return?

Focusing on the deliverable can help you focus what exactly your product offers.

In creating my business, WP Care Market, where we match small business owners with website consultants, I knew the importance of a deliverable to shift our service more to a product. Therefore, we refined WP Care Market to be responsible for the website audit of the small business owner's website before matching to a pro. This way, our customers receive beautiful reports on the intricacies and needs of their site before we make the referral to the website pro.

3. Can delivery of the product be scaled?

Review the three questions above from Mike Killen's From Single to Scale and evaluate if your product can scale. Could you receive 1,000 orders tomorrow and deliver the same results to every customer?

Consider a small business owner who builds custom tables from reclaimed wood. Often, we as website service-based businesses are delivering custom built, reclaimed wood "tables" from hand (much like the aforementioned craftsman), but for Ikea prices.

Ikea, on the other hand, can scale their table sales because the manufacturing and delivery process is scalable. It's repeatable, and everyone gets the same thing. Yes, the product quality is different, but that doesn't matter to Ikea's target market.

4. If some level of service is involved, can it be carried out by someone else?

There are numerous companies who sell products that still require some level of service. Removing all elements of the human touch is not the point of productizing — removing you from the central hub of providing that service personally is the point. You must be able to remove yourself from carrying out the delivery of the product to truly transition your service to a product.

5. Has there been proven demand?

"Build it, and they will come" is the No.1 killer for new products. You must confirm that people want the solution first before looking to scale. Productizing should be seen as a solution to scale, rather than the first offering.

6. Does shifting your service to a product help your customer still achieve their results and continue to add value?

Shifting to productizing shouldn't impact the results and value your customers found through your service.

Picture yourself as a consultant where you coach business owners one-on-one on how to navigate the tricky world of online marketing. Shifting to providing productized services in an online course should in no way water down or de-value the impact of your technique, insight and advice. It might impact the personalization of your message, but it should still help the customer achieve their desired results.

7. Can the product offering and price be fixed for a wide audience?

Photo: davide ragusa on Unsplash

As we touched upon early, the product needs to be delivered with a strict set of rules, which also determines a fixed pricing structure. This means you have to have a specific target market in mind, know what that target market will pay to solve their problems, and then price and structure your offer accordingly.

8. Can you tweak the current delivery of your service?

Think outside of what you're used to delivering. Is there another way to deliver those same results?

Say I'm a chef at a restaurant and someone wants to learn how to cook my meals. I gladly accept their offer, and we meet in the grocery store to get started. We pick out our produce, and go back to the kitchen.

Yes, this process is repeatable and standardized, but what happens when 1,000 people ask?

We obviously can't have 1,000 people in the store or the kitchen. So, we switch our delivery method to webinars, online videos, books and worksheets.

9. Can you develop a watertight process?

In John Warrillow's book, Built To Sell, he talks about writing down the process for your most popular service to determine your best product.

For example, if you are a website developer, write up your process for how the website delivers results to your customer. Does it attract traffic? Does it help them rank on Google? Do they capture leads and email subscribers?

Now, are there other ways you can deliver those results through a watertight process? Possible avenues to help solve these needs might involve software, plugins or operations manuals, among many others.

10. Is it something you are passionate about?

Lastly, creating a new product is hard work. I can guarantee that if you are not passionate about the problem it solves, you'll barely rev that engine and get the plane off the ground. When deciding to productize services, you most certainly will be putting in serious man hours upfront in the early stages. Make sure it's worth it.

Where do you go from here?

You've determined, "Good golly, I might have a product?!" So what are the next steps?

Develop your product offering through standardization and process. Even if you don't think you have a standardized method, try it. You might surprise yourself.

To begin, ask yourself what happens from initial contact all the way to delivery. Go through each step, and look at what is repeatable. This is the start of your product. If you can write up a standardized series of steps for delivery and checked off all our 10 items above, congratulations, you've got a product!

Image by: tobiastoft via Visualhunt / CC BY

#godaddypro #design #development Kristina Romero Kristina Romero is a digital business consultant working with small businesses and entrepreneurs. She began as a website developer with her company KR Media & Designs creating websites for companies that included Coca-Cola Company, Food Network, and Hollywood celebrities. Kristina is also the founder of WP Care Market where she connects small business owners with quality website professionals for ongoing website care. Products Mentioned GoDaddy Pro Learn More Get our newsletters!

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Source: How to productize services as a web designer or developer

Web-based system automatically evaluates proposals from far-flung data scientists

"I think that the concept of massive and open data science can be really leveraged for areas where there's a strong social impact but not necessarily a single profit-making or government organization that is coordinating responses," MIT graduate student Micah Smith says about FeatureHub. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In the analysis of big data sets, the first step is usually the identification of "features"—data points with particular predictive power or analytic utility. Choosing features usually requires some human intuition. For instance, a sales database might contain revenues and date ranges, but it might take a human to recognize that average revenues—revenues divided by the sizes of the ranges—is the really useful metric.

MIT researchers have developed a new collaboration tool, dubbed FeatureHub, intended to make feature identification more efficient and effective. With FeatureHub, data scientists and experts on particular topics could log on to a central site and spend an hour or two reviewing a problem and proposing features. Software then tests myriad combinations of features against target data, to determine which are most useful for a given predictive task.

In tests, the researchers recruited 32 analysts with data science experience, who spent five hours each with the system, familiarizing themselves with it and using it to propose candidate features for each of two data-science problems.

The predictive models produced by the system were tested against those submitted to a data-science competition called Kaggle. The Kaggle entries had been scored on a 100-point scale, and the FeatureHub models were within three and five points of the winning entries for the two problems.

But where the top-scoring entries were the result of weeks or even months of work, the FeatureHub entries were produced in a matter of days. And while 32 collaborators on a single data science project is a lot by today's standards, Micah Smith, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science who helped lead the project, has much larger ambitions.

FeatureHub—like its name—was inspired by GitHub, an online repository of open-source programming projects, some of which have drawn thousands of contributors. Smith hopes that FeatureHub might someday attain a similar scale.

"I do hope that we can facilitate having thousands of people working on a single solution for predicting where traffic accidents are most likely to strike in New York City or predicting which patients in a hospital are most likely to require some medical intervention," he says. "I think that the concept of massive and open data science can be really leveraged for areas where there's a strong social impact but not necessarily a single profit-making or government organization that is coordinating responses."

Smith and his colleagues presented a paper describing FeatureHub at the IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics. His coauthors on the paper are his thesis advisor, Kalyan Veeramachaneni, a principal research scientist at MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, and Roy Wedge, who began working with Veeramachaneni's group as an MIT undergraduate and is now a software engineer at Feature Labs, a data science company based on the group's work.

FeatureHub's user interface is built on top of a common data-analysis software suite called the Jupyter Notebook, and the evaluation of feature sets is performed by standard machine-learning software packages. Features must be written in the Python programming language, but their design has to follow a template that intentionally keeps the syntax simple. A typical feature might require between five and 10 lines of code.

The MIT researchers wrote code that mediates between the other software packages and manages data, pooling features submitted by many different users and tracking those collections of features that perform best on particular data analysis tasks.

In the past, Veeramachaneni's group has developed software that automatically generates features by inferring relationships between data from the manner in which they're organized. When that organizational information is missing, however, the approach is less effective.

Still, Smith imagines, automatic feature synthesis could be used in conjunction with FeatureHub, getting projects started before volunteers have begun to contribute to them, saving the grunt work of enumerating the obvious features, and augmenting the best-performing sets of features contributed by humans.

Explore further: System that replaces human intuition with algorithms outperforms human teams

More information: Paper: "FeatureHub: Towards collaborative data science" dai.lids.mit.edu/featurehub-smith.pdf

Source: Web-based system automatically evaluates proposals from far-flung data scientists

Software Patents Purely for Marketing Purposes in an Age When These Aren’t Enforceable Anyway

Posted in America, Marketing, Patents at 6:55 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Marketing overload and wasted effort

Summary: Examples from the past week of patents whose sole purpose seems to be promotion of some software rather than prospects of successful litigation

UNOFFICIALLY, software patents are a thing of the past in the United States. The USPTO continues to grant them (not for long perhaps), but courts repeatedly reject them and PTAB does too.

We are watching software patents closely. We try to gain insights into how they get granted and where/when.

Days ago we saw this article about R3. The whole article is about a potential patent or two and it certainly seems like a misguided move from the startup. R3 seems not to know that such patents have no validity/weight in a court of law. These are a waste of time and money, but R3 is pursuing these anyway. To quote the article: "Consortium startup R3 has filed two patent applications detailing its work on applying distributed ledger tech to "dynamic" agreements between financial institutions.

"The two applications – submitted last year and published by the the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Oct. 19 – detail the use of a system for tracking, maintaining and updating agreements via a shared ledger."

These are applications for software patents; the USPTO ought to reject these on grounds like Section 101 (abstract ideas).

Another new example we stumbled upon was Tangoe, which is trying to disguise or 'dress up' software patents using buzzwords like IoT. Based onthis press release, it's another timely example of software patents that should not be granted by the Office.

Another new example comes from ProofPlus. It speaks of an "additional patent for the software engine that drives the ProofPlus electronic document system," but the abstract nature of this is almost self explanatory within the sentence.

Accompanying this puff piece we have this press release [1, 2] titled "Chinese Government Allows Patenting of US Company's Compliance Software for Financial Documents" (very similar to the headline above). Well, China has a patent bubble/gold rush going on right now; SIPO still grants the most hilarious and dumbest of patents, so there's nothing to be proud of here. They are clearly pursuing self-legitimacy in the wrong places.

A few days ago we saw this announcement from VerifyMe, an obscure (to us) firm which describes itself as "a pioneer in patented physical, cyber and biometric technologies" (as if the patents matter).

Here is another new press release which boasts/brags about software patents by stating: "Intensity Analytics, a specialized software company with patented identity and cybersecurity products…"

FICO too has just wasted money pursuing software patents and then issuing a press release about them [1, 2]. Not enforceable post-Alice, but hey, at least they can use the "p" word to impress potential shareholders.

Here is another days-old press release that says "Enterprise IP management software is an automation system for modern corporate that supports in the tracking of patents, trademarks, copyrights and IP."

These things barely work, but there's plenty of marketing for them. Now, here's a funny claim from British media a few days ago:

Crowdfunding in August 2015 led to industrial design, hardware, software, packaging and a patent.

Paul added: "Just two per cent of patents become products. But with passion you can do it."

Where does that figure come from? Is it made up?

In conclusion, a lot of the media and especially press releases tend do market software around the idea that there's a patent (or several patents) on it. Classic example of patents as means of marketing rather than any practical value. █

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Large US Companies Continue to Stockpile Patents, But US Courts Have Learned to Repel Patent Maximalism

In spite of misguided campaigns to accumulate/hoard tens of thousands of patents and then cross-license these, courts do not see the legitimacy of most of these patents

Software Patents Purely for Marketing Purposes in an Age When These Aren't Enforceable Anyway

Examples from the past week of patents whose sole purpose seems to be promotion of some software rather than prospects of successful litigation

The Patent Trolls' Lobby is Upset About TC Heartland, Tries to Belittle Its Impact While Promoting Software Patents

A roundup of recent takes and spin surrounding the decision of the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS), in which is was ruled that lawsuits in the Eastern District of Texas can be shifted to other venues (closer to the alleged infringements, typically involving dubious software patents)

Links 29/10/2017: Purism Librem 13 Reviewed, Wine 3.0 and Next Ubuntu Plans

Links for the day

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is Getting Stronger and the Litigation 'Industry' Hates It With a Passion

PTAB, which invalidates a lot of software patents, receives broad support from everyone but those who profit from patent litigation; we present a roundup

AIPLA, Watchtroll (the Trolls' Lobby) and Other Pressure Groups Are Still Trying to Eliminate/Weaken PTAB and Section 101

The American Intellectual Property Lawyers Association (AIPLA), a front group of people who profit from mass litigation, is pressuring politicians and USPTO officials to reduce the quality of patents, remove barriers to frivolous lawsuits, and generally put the interests of prosecutors/trolls ahead of the interests of technologists

Fresh Allegations That the Belgian EPO Delegation is Compromised or in Cahoots With Benoît Battistelli

Belgium's representatives might need further scrutiny, say inside sources, for they have been enabling some rather dubious activity which merits inconvenient questions

The Financial Handling of the EPO is Incredibly Scandalous

Billions of euros from EPO stakeholders are mishandled and Battisteli even builds himself a bar using that money

Amgen is Willing to Kill Many Anemia Patients for Some Patent Revenue

Amgen's aggressive patent strategy, culminating even in embargoes, leaves Amgen executives with blood on their hands (but also a lot of patent fees from serial litigation)

Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and Federal Circuit Smash Another Software Patent of an Infamous Troll, Uniloc

The company which has been reduced to just a patent troll that uses software patents to demand many millions of dollars finally hits a wall (against Sega)

Big News if True: USPTO to Stop Issuing Software Patents Altogether (Citing Section 101)

As virtually every court ruling in the US is against software patents (more so at higher courts) the US patent office accepts that it can no longer issue such patents, according to rumours/gossip

Canon Has Proven That Microsoft's Shell Game With Patent Trolls Makes 'Peace' Deals (Paying 'Protection' Money) Futile, Belatedly Joins OIN

The Open Invention Network (OIN), whose CEO used to talk about how Microsoft would attempt to pass patents for patent trolls to attack GNU/Linux, adds Canon as a community member and we are attempting to keep track of Microsoft's intricate shell game (securing a multi-billion dollar patent 'tax' on Linux)

Patent Trolls' Enablers Celebrate and Lobby for Patents on Software, React in Fury When Google Gets Some

Apparently, according to the patent microcosm, Google runs the world and software patents are very evil only when Google gets them

Patent Scope in Europe Should Not be Decided by the Self-Serving Patent Law Firms, But They Totally Dominate the Media

Coverage regarding patents in Europe is still (nearly) monopolised by the patent microcosm, i.e. the 'industry' that profits when many patents are granted and a lot of lawsuits get filed

French Politician Claudine Lepage Confronts the EPO Again, Mentions the Hague Court

The European Patent Office (EPO) comes under renewed pressure from Claudine Lepage, who is about the same age as Battistelli but isn't tolerating him, saying that he directly impacts the reputation of France in international institutions

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Keltie LLP Advertises Dodging Patent Rules (Software Patents) and Dodging Tax

A true testament to the sordid state of sites which claim to cover patent matters but are actually false marketing disguised as "news" or "advice"

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Benoît Battistelli Still Involved in Politics, Probably in Defiance of Clear Rules for International Civil Servants

Benoît Battistelli turns out to still be involved in Saint-Germain-en-Laye politics

New EPC Cartoon

The cartoon anticipates/extrapolates the impact of the latest reform on the future patent quality and possible consequences for holders of European Patents after Brexit

Professor Siegfried Broß Again Complains About the Situation at the EPO and Issues With the UPC

In spite of the suspicious absence of real coverage/journalism regarding the Unitary Patent (as opposed to puff pieces penned by Team UPC), voices come out in opposition of the Unitary Patent and comments continue to be deleted (usually by Team UPC, which orchestrates a media blackout on UPC matters)

The European Commission Has Essentially Invalided Many European Patents (EPs) for Being Out of Scope; Are Software Patents (CII) Next?

Now that the European Commission openly intervenes in matters pertaining to the EPC and granted patents, will it belatedly revoke all these software patents (granted over the years by the EPO)?

The EPO is Breaking the Law and Its Employees Cannot Speak About It (Updated)

A truly extraordinary situation at the EPO, where laws are being violated in the name of so-called 'production' and truth is treated as "defamation" and attacked vehemently

Big Blow for the Unitary Patent (UPC) as Even Patent Professionals Say "It's Dead"

Issues for the UPC have become too much for momentum to be gained anywhere across Europe, resulting in decay and perhaps abandonment

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IP Kat Admits It Was Its Own Choice to Censor (Delete) Many Comments About the European Patent Office

The European Patent Office (EPO) can only be mentioned in a positive way/context in IP Kat, as Battistelli and his cronies may celebrate deletion of comments critical of them

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Let's Hope That Apple v Samsung Puts an End to Design Patents Once and For All

Apple and Samsung are going to court again and again, much of the time just to bicker/argue about stupid design patents like rounded corners

Freedom of Expression is Dying Not Only at the EPO But Also Outside the EPO (Media Coverage of the EPO)

An epidemic of censorship around the Unitary Patent (UPC) and the European Patent Office (EPO) belatedly receives a lot more attention

What If Lionel Baranes Was EPO President?

Recalling the time Battistelli was considered unfit for the job of Vice-President (let alone President)

Source: Software Patents Purely for Marketing Purposes in an Age When These Aren't Enforceable Anyway

JOE SMALDONE: The fields of design and dreams

GENEVA — "We just don't recognize life's most significant moments while they're happening," said Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham in the 1989 baseball film "Field of Dreams." "Back then I thought, 'Well, there'll be other days.' I didn't realize that that was the only day."

Graham was talking about the one and only game he ever played in the major leagues. It was a reference to making the most of one's opportunities and living in the moment.

For Geneva native Joe Smaldone, his own opportunity in the big leagues is one that is not being taken for granted.

On Smaldone's computer wallpaper is the quote "Create something today even if it sucks." He says it is a source of daily inspiration.

"I try to live by that quote because if you constantly push yourself to create every single day, you'll always be improving, you'll always be learning and, every once in a while, what you create that day won't suck," Smaldone said.

With the World Series underway this week — Game 3 is tonight in Houston — Smaldone is hard at work in the Astros front office. He works in the marketing department as a graphic designer. He lives just outside of downtown Houston and works each day at Minute Maid Park, the Astros' home stadium.

Previously, he worked as an intern for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as well as a marketing and graphic design assistant at the University of North Carolina.

The Astros, an expansion-era team established in 1962, have a relatively short history compared to that of their opponent, the storied Los Angeles Dodgers. However, what the Astros lack in postseason experience and championship pedigree, they make up for in youthful energy, hunger and ambition — in all levels of their organization.

That also describes Smaldone, a 2009 Geneva High graduate, and his own determination and potential.

After graduating from Ithaca College with a bachelor's degree in sports management, Smaldone earned a master's in sports administration from the University of North Carolina.

"Sports were just a part of my family growing up," said Smaldone, the son of Doug and Pam Smaldone. "My older siblings both played multiple sports, and I followed along, whether it was Little League or soccer camps."

These days, Joe's brother Paul is a general manager at Wegmans, while his sister, Randalle, works for the city of Charlotte, N.C.

For Smaldone, the path to graphic design wasn't immediately clear.

"I feel like I've always had some sort of artistic side," said Smaldone, noting he didn't really get into art until college. "I used to draw a bunch when I was younger, but I kind of got away from it when I got into sports. I'd mess around with some design software and make some fliers or web graphics for the wrestling team there. I took a couple electives that focused on web design and photography. Even then it was still a side hobby. I didn't really get into the type of work I do today until I was in grad school."

He credits his career path to Tony Tucker, an instructor at UNC.

"He taught me so much in design and really pushed me and convinced me I could turn it into a career," Smaldone said. "I wouldn't be where I'm at today if I didn't meet him."

As part of the marketing team for a professional sports team, there are many projects to tackle.

"On any given day I could be working on T-shirt design, web graphics, stadium signage, logos, posters, and really anything you see from the Astros online, or the stadium, is from our creative team," he said.

He enjoys working on the corporate side of sports. It's far different from his days playing high school baseball and wrestling in high school and college.

"You have to take the fan out of you a lot of the time, but I love being a part of the behind-the-scenes of a sports team," he said.

Thinking back to his first day on the job in Houston, he said it was a mixture of nerves and excitement.

"I think with any creative field or job, you always have some sort of self-doubt or worry about your work being good enough," said Smaldone, adding, "I think there is a natural sense of self-doubt that you have every now and then; you just have to push through."

That's exactly what the city of Houston did earlier this year. Smaldone remembers well Hurricane Harvey and its impact on the community — and how the people of Houston bonded to get through the natural disaster.

"The Astros, coming back to play in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, that was a really special thing to be a part of," he said. "Thousands of people lost their homes. People lost their lives. The city was looking for something they could smile about even for a couple of hours."

"We created a 'Houston Strong' patch for the team to wear, and they have worn it on their jerseys ever since. It's been an inspiration to the team and the city."

Right now, Smaldone is working on a postseason print series called "Legacy." The project includes illustrating key moments, or the best player from each of the Astros' postseason wins, in order to tell a visual story to fans.

In the long run, according to Smaldone, "we are in the process of building the entire brand of our new minor league team in Fayetteville, N.C. It includes everything from the name of the team, to the logos, uniforms, mascot, everything. It'll probably be a two- to three-year process overall."

As much as he enjoys Houston, Smaldone admits living more than 1,500 miles from home is tough at times.

"I miss family and friends more than anything, and Wegmans and the lake ... I joke with people that sometimes I feel like I'm living on another continent because it is so far away," Smaldone said, "but I love the [Houston] area."

Source: JOE SMALDONE: The fields of design and dreams

New software and restorative products highlight ADA 2017

By Tony Edwards, DrBicuspid.com editor in chief

October 27, 2017 -- New practice design software, fill material, a laser, and more were among the new or new-to-the-U.S. products highlighted at the recent 2017 ADA annual meeting in Atlanta. DrBicuspid.com brings you a look at some of these new products from Biolase, Carestream Dental, Voco, and more.

Practice management products

Henry Schein launches website for practice design

Henry Schein Dental has launched its Integrated Design Studio website.

The website is aimed at practitioners looking to design a new practice or remodel or expand an existing one. It features planning tools, 3D samples, and access to Henry Schein's design team.

Restorative products

Waterlase Express from Biolase.

Biolase debuts Waterlase Express in the U.S.

Biolase has introduced the Waterlase Express laser to the U.S. market.

The device includes the company's familiar tablet-based interface along with clinical workflows for more than 80 clinical procedures, procedure presets, and one-slider cutting adjustment control.

Undertaking a periodontal, pediatric, or implant procedure? The laser has step-by-step protocols to guide the practitioner through these procedures.

The laser debuted at the International Dental Show in Germany in March 2017.

Tokuyama launches new bulk fill material

Tokuyama Dental America has launched a new bulk fill material, the Estelite Bulk Fill Flow.

The product uses spherical filler technology for restorations with no additional layers or composites needed. The material offers higher strength and wear resistance compared with other materials, along with lower shrinkage stress and excellent cavity adaptation according to the company.

Voco introduces Grandio blocs to U.S.

Voco has introduced Grandio blocs to the U.S. market.

Grandio blocs are nanohybrid ceramic blocs with high flexural strength. These blocs have a clean edge when prepped and allow the practitioner to do a 4° angle as compared with a 6° angle. Grandio blocs can be processed using standard milling devices. They come in two sizes for inlays, onlays, and single crowns, as well as in two translucency levels for anterior and posterior restorations.

The blocs debuted at the International Dental Show in Germany in March 2017.

The Grandio blocs. Image courtesy of Voco.

Software updates

Carestream Dental updates CS 3600 software

Carestream Dental has updated its CS 3600 scanner software.

The software now features real-time feedback, green guide arrows that indicate missing information in a scan, and yellow highlights that show gaps. The updated software also includes a restoration locking tool that allows users to select up to six previously scanned preparation areas, according to the company.

An example of the green guide arrows in the updated CS 3600 scanner software. Image courtesy of Carestream Dental.

Related Reading

Copyright © 2017 DrBicuspid.comLast Updated hh 10/27/2017 11:00:27 AM
Source: New software and restorative products highlight ADA 2017

Microsoft's quarterly profit bolstered by cloud demand, software

"Our results reflect accelerating innovation and increased usage and engagement across our businesses as customers continue to choose Microsoft to help them transform," Nadella said in a statement.

Microsoft reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as its push into the cloud forged steadily ahead, with demand for online versions of Office productivity software and the Azure web-services business bolstering sales and earnings.

Profit in the fiscal first quarter, which ended September 30, exceeded analysts' estimates and sales rose 12 per cent to $US24.5 billion amid buoyant demand for Azure cloud services, used to store and run customers' applications in Microsoft's data centres.

Chief executive officer Satya Nadella has turned Microsoft into a cloud-computing powerhouse, recently reshuffling the sales force and investing in new products and services. His efforts have helped win over customers like Bank of America for Azure, No. 2 behind Amazon.com in the biggest part of the cloud market, and internet-based Office 365 workplace tools. The changes also have the approval of shareholders, whose optimism has almost doubled the company's stock price during Nadella's three and a half years as CEO.

"The transition to the cloud has been good - Microsoft has come a long way," said Sid Parakh, a fund manager at Becker Capital Management, which has $US3.8 billion in assets under management.

Net income in the recent period was 84 cents a share, Microsoft said in a statement. That compares with the 72-cent average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Microsoft shares rose 3.4 per cent to $US81.40 in extended trading following the report, after closing at $US78.76 in New York. The stock jumped 8.1 per cent in the quarter, compared with a 4 per cent gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

Commercial cloud revenue was $US20.4 billion on an annualised basis, meeting the company's $US20 billion target previously set for the fiscal year that started July 1. At the same time, as new data centres come online and become more efficient, Microsoft has been making progress in increasing the profitability of these services, with commercial cloud gross margin widening to 57 per cent. Azure gross margins were a "key component" of the 8 percentage point improvement in commercial cloud services from the same period last year, chief financial officer Amy Hood said.

"We're seeing customers, as they continue to use Azure, start to consume the premium services," like AI and data analytics software that are much more profitable, Hood said in an interview. Azure margins were also helped by developments in the core hardware and software, she said.

Azure sales rose 90 per cent. Microsoft said earlier this month that Bank of America will use both Azure and Office 365 as it shifts more of its operations to the cloud. The Office product line, which consists of internet-based versions of Word, Excel and other workplace productivity software, posted sales growth of 42 per cent.

Microsoft's Azure service still lags behind market leader Amazon by a wide margin, but Microsoft is attracting more big customers, even as Amazon Web Services also notches strong growth. The rise in subscription sales for Azure and for corporate and consumer versions of Office 365 also provides more stable and recurring revenue.

Revenue has been patchier in personal-computer software and hardware. The overall market has continued to contract, and Microsoft's Surface devices fluctuate in popularity based on competition and when new devices hit store shelves. Surface hardware sales jumped 12 per cent largely driven by the new Surface Laptop. The segment declined earlier in 2017 owing to aging Surface Pro products that consumers shunned. This recent period was the first full quarter in which stores were stocked with an update to that product - Microsoft's best-selling Surface - and a totally new category, a laptop computer with a clamshell design. Both devices went on sale June 15.

Total revenue in the company's More Personal Computing division, which also includes the Windows operating system, was $US9.4 billion, beating the $US8.8 billion average estimate of four analysts polled by Bloomberg. Industrywide, global PC shipments fell 3.6 per cent in the period, according to Gartner.

In the Intelligent Cloud unit, made up of Azure and server software deployed in customers' own data centres, sales climbed 14 per cent to $US6.9 billion, compared with the $US6.7 billion average analyst projection. Productivity revenue, mainly Office software, climbed 28 per cent to $US8.2 billion. Analysts had estimated $US8 billion.

Source: Microsoft's quarterly profit bolstered by cloud demand, software

How to Design Great Visual Content for Your Website

Do you want to design visuals for your own website, but you're still thinking that great-looking design is for the professionals? Did you try a lot of different tools and WordPress themes and still don't know how to make that page look edgy?

Well, doing good visuals it's much easier than it seems, with the right tools. To learn how to design graphics online you need nothing but a little bit of creativity, some time and effort, and obviously a few tips from the pros! Here are a few… secret weapons we can easily share with you to help you achieve great results in no time.

Choose the right pictures

Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well it is, but a lot of people still get this wrong. When you start browsing through a gallery of images, the first thing you should ask yourself isn't "is this picture nice/funny/beautiful?"

Rather, you should try to find the picture that truly supports the message you want to convey with the right tone and emotion. Nothing is more detrimental to the final effect of your page that a sad or serious picture if your content was humorous or happy, for example. The user must find the image relatable, and should "feel" it other than just like it.

Another thing that will make your pics look awfully out of context, is choosing the wrong colors. If you used a red and yellow palette, look for a dawn or sunset picture, rather than for a winter scenario or a night city. You can use a nice frame to encircle it and smooth out the transition with the rest of the art, but mismatching colors will break the flow.

Using a few effects like blurring or background shapes is finally a great way to highlight a caption, and let it stand out to further add to the uniqueness of the picture.

Determine your Focal Point

The focal point represent the place where you want your user's eye to go. It's the place where you want the roaming eye of the lurker to land, and can literally make every other detail of the design disappear.

The simplest way to get your focal point wrong, is to slap the point of interest in the middle of an image. Actually, that's not how the human brain is wired. Our eyes do, in fact, follow a precise pattern when looking at things, and the pros found it and called it the "Rule of Thirds".

Just draw the grid lines that help you draw the eye to one of the focal points between them. Most camera phones have this setting, making it easy to line up your image to the focal points within the grid. If you nail this "magic rule", your design will work like a charm to everybody who watches it.

Use the right colors

Choosing the right palette is vital to properly convey your message. The most basic aspect is to make the page readable enough. That fluorescent pink text over a deep blue background might have looked cool on a 1998 blog, but in 2017 it will just make people want to look away.

A wise use of contrasting colors can be used to make something like a picture or a text pop off the page or screen, but don't overdo it or it will just look and feel awful.

Try to pull out one or two colors from the photo you use, or if you start with the background, try to choose a palette that is appropriate with the emotions you want to drive. If you want to advertise organic products for example, choose warm and natural colors like white, brown, olive and sand. If you are selling tech stuff or software something more serious like metal grey, navy blue, violet or turquoise might instead be a better fit.

Finally, try to work on gradients to add more depth to your overlay and make your content look more three-dimensional.

Choose the right fonts

Don't use Comic Sans. Seriously. Don't. It's just ugly, okay? Nobody likes it.

Other than not using Comic Sans for any reason, you should choose your fonts carefully to make your design look cool and readable as well. Some fonts are more lighter and fun than other which instead look bold and serious. In general, the more a font is narrow and squared, the more it suits to a technical or professional content.

If your design is mostly focused on pictures, do not distract your users' attention with a strong font. Go for a sleek, minimalist one that is not too invasive. Lighter and thinner fonts, on the other hand, work better on flat colored or clear backgrounds.

Well, you're a pro now. That's probably an exaggeration, but you surely learned a lot of useful tips that can go a long way towards making you a better visual designer. Go out and test yourself now, you're ready to show the world how much you just improved!

Source: How to Design Great Visual Content for Your Website

A Crash Course in UI Design

UI vs. UX

If you've done any kind of research about software design, you've probably heard of the terms "UI" and "UX". But what separates UI from UX?

At their most simple forms, UX design is what makes an interface useful, and UI design is what makes an interface beautiful. For UI, this includes a blend of visual hierarchy and interface elements. To understand what separates a great interface from a good interface, one must understand the UI design is merely just one layer of the entire design process. Perhaps this is why people often confuse UX and UI. In the following few paragraphs, however, I hope to help you as the audience or reader understand where the differences lie in the context of the design process.

According to Garrett in The Elements of the User Experience, UX can be understood in five primary planes.

Let's start with the most abstract plane:

The first plane of product design

At a high level, the first plane is really the starting block of product design. Here, you're applying different research methods, including user interviews, competitive analyses, user personas, and other research techniques to understand:

What is the problem you are trying to solve?

What are your user needs?

How does your product fit within a business context (product objectives)?

The second plane:

The second plane of product design

In this stage, you should be defining functional specifications and content requirements of your platform. In other words:

How might you solve the problems through your platform? What are the features, and how might you prioritize them?

The challenge here for designers is prioritizing features while minimizing tradeoffs. Sure, you might have hundreds of ideas to solve a problem, but you can't implement all of them.

The third plane:

In this stage, your ideas should begin to form a structure. Information architecture is concerned with how the information within an app is organized, and how users cognitively process the information. User flows map out the specific journeys users embark on through the app to help solve their specific need. It's concerned with the most logical steps for your users to gratify their needs.

The next plane is where things become less abstract and more concrete:

The skeleton plane seeks to achieve the structure of an interface design and information design. Interface design is concerned with the arrangement of specific interface elements to enable users to interact with the functionality of a system, while information design is concerned with the presentation of information in a way that facilitates understanding.

In this stage, you'll probably find UX or Product Designers designing, testing, and iterating on wireframes. Wireframes are very low fidelity, often greyscale mockups that demonstrate the intent of each interface element for users.

And finally, the most concrete plane:

The surface plane, as the name suggests, strives for great sensory experience and visual design. The goal here for designers is to form a visceral connection with users by successfully communicating the brand, product, value and functionality in one cohesive image.

This is the plane where you'll find UI Designers and Visual Designers doing the bulk of their work using tools such as Sketch, Photoshop, Adobe Experience Design, Illustrator.

Next, let's jump into some basic principles of UI Design.

Principle #1: Clarity comes first

There's nothing worse than ambiguity in an app. What does this button do? How did I get here? How do I go back? In order to avoid this, a designer should always ask themselves:

Why is this here? Does this make sense? What other possibilities can I explore?

Great designers know how to explore the variety of possibilities of an interface layout, the potential tradeoffs of each, and understand which design might help a user best achieve their goals. Clarity in design allows a user to feel confident while navigating through your app.

Principle #2: Provide clear, meaningful feedback

We've all used a website or an app where we'll try to click a button, and we'll wonder if the system registered the click.

Simply put, every action needs a reaction. If you're a web developer, for example, changing the :hover state of a button is a common form of feedback to allow your users to understand their hover action.

A great example is Facebook's use of their skeleton loading state. While the user waits for their content to load, a loading state in the shape of the content provides meaningful and relevant feedback for users for them to understand that their content is loading.

Principle #3: Consistency matters

When I refer to consistency, I'm talking about consistency in the placement of interface elements or the language throughout the product. Once your users start learning how to use a product, they shouldn't have to relearn it. Let's take a look at an example of bad consistency.

Xfinity Home Page

Xfinity TV Page

Xfinity Personal Page

The above example might look like 3 websites from 3 different companies, but it's actually not. What might make one think that? Well, the navigation bars for each page uses a different set of colors, layout and font styles. As a user, this might be confusing and disorienting, and users might forget that these are all under one single website.

As a designer, how can you maintain consistency throughout your app? You can design your app using a consistent grid system, such as the common 8-point grid system found in mobile apps and icon design. You can also maintain a consistent color scheme and navigational elements across screens. These elements can all be rooted in a style-guide:

The point is: good consistency and structure will make your users feel at home.

Principle #4: When in doubt, use established design patterns

Don't get me wrong here — innovation is awesome and encouraged, but it shouldn't have to be at the expense of the user experience. There's no need to reinvent the wheel if the wheel is doing a great job at doing its job. For example, if you're ever unsure if an icon accurately or intuitively represents a word, just use the word in its place. Or adhere to common color patterns, such as a shade of red to warn/alert a user, or green to mark something complete.

Why use established design patterns? Well, for one, many of these established design principles are grounded in human perception. Let's take a F-Shaped reading pattern or eye scanning pattern when it comes to reading blocks of content.

The F-Shaped reading pattern

This is a heat map generated by data collected from an eye-tracking experiment. The red areas represent the most viewed sections, while the blue are the least. As you can see, the heat map generated somewhat resembles the letter F. But what does this mean for designers?

It means you should put the most important content at the top left corner.

For example, you'll typically find a logo in the top left corner. This allows companies to strengthen their brand identities. In the top right corner, you might typically find the pages for navigation, or perhaps a search bar. This allows users to navigate different pages with ease without searching throughout the page for the navigational elements. Here are two examples that adhere to this design pattern:

As you go further and further down the page, the user's attention might wither. Therefore, put the most important content towards the top, and user bold headlines that will make your content easily scannable.

Principle #5: Use visual hierarchy

What is visual hierarchy? Well, it's the arrangement of elements in a way that implies relative importance. it's the designer's attempt to guide the order in which the eyes perceive information presented.

The way we perceive information is affected by several factors that contribute to how we rank the hierarchy of the content within the layout. Let's jump into some hierarchy basics:

I. Typography

What makes good typography? The two primary factors are legibility and readability.

Legibility is the innate qualities of a typeface that makes each individual letterform distinguishable from one another. This is totally dependent on the typeface, so there's nothing that you can do to make a typeface more legible, so pick appropriately.

Readability is determined by how you manipulate a particular typeface to make it easier to comprehend.

Notice how the top typeface is harder to read than the bottom? If not…

What about now?

Another factor in determining how easy something is to read is the line length. If the line is too short, and the reader jumps from line to line constantly, it makes it extremely difficult for the reader to absorb information. The same goes for if the line length is too long?—?the eyes get tired quickly.

Also, never center large blocks of copy. It's much easier for us to read a block of text that is left aligned because the eye knows exactly where the next line begins.

II. White space (AKA Negative Space)

Has anyone looked at a menu / a website / an interface and thought, "This looks and feels great, but I'm not sure why?" Well now you do. The answer is white space. White space helps with readability and comprehension immensely. A study (Lin, 2004), found that good use of white space between paragraphs and in the left and right margin increases comprehension by almost 20%. Readers find it easier to focus on and process generously spaced content.

Positive space = Dog. Negative Space = Cat

A lot of people believe white space depends on "taste". I think it's more objective than that. We can use white space intentionally to create a strong hierarchy. Let's take a look at Helen Tran's site and how she uses white space intentionally:

Beautiful portfolio! Now let's take a closer look:

Notice how there are 4 clear blocks of content. Let's break it down either further:

Helen uses a combination of line height, font size, color, and white space to separate content within each block itself. This allows for ease for users to naturally navigate the sections of these blocks of content.

III. Color

Color theory is really, really complex. My goal isn't to explain the entirety of color theory, but to provide you with a few broad concepts that you might be able to leverage in your UI designs immediately.

If you stare at the above picture, you'll notice that the blue square on the left feels farther away, while the red square on the right feels closer. Warm colors come towards you, while cool colors fade into the background. Let's take a look at this in a UI example:

Source: Dribbble

In the design above, we can see how the designer is using a warm red to bring the call-to-action (Update Now) forward, while using a cooler blue to recede the navigation farther into the background. The same happens in the illustration on the left. The red lightning icon immediately stands out among the rest of the interface.

You can also use colors to group similar interface components together:

Source: Dribbble

Lastly, less is more. The more colors there are, the less impact each individual color will have. A great example is Instagram's recent redesign:

The reduction of color not only makes the photos stand out more, but it increases the effectiveness of the notifications as well because they aren't competing with the colors in the top and bottom navigation bars anymore.

Further Resources: uxdesign.cc – User Experience DesignUser Experience, Usability, Product Design. By @fabriciot and @caioab. Follow the UX BearColor in UI Design: A (Practical) FrameworkBeing pretty self-taught as far as UI design goes, I've always wondered why so many articles and books talk about color…UI Design: Famous PrinciplesIn this article, trying to collect the famous principles in design & how it used in UI design, principles will help you…

This article was originally published on Jeff's Medium page.

Source: A Crash Course in UI Design

Stop Designing For Only 85% Of Users: Nailing Accessibility In Design

As designers, we like to think we are solution-based. But whereas we wouldn't hesitate to call out a museum made inaccessible by a lack of wheelchair ramps, many of us still remain somewhat oblivious to flaws in our user interfaces. Poor visual design, in particular, can be a barrier to a good user experience. Whereas disability advocacy has long focused on ways to help the user adapt to the situation, we have reached a point where users expect products to be optimized for a broad range of needs.

The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies 4%1 of the global population as being visually impaired, 4% as having low vision and 0.6% as being blind. That's a total of over half a billion people who cannot use your product if it isn't appropriately accessible. We've reached something of a watershed moment for accessibility in 2017. This is thanks, in part, to litigation — over 240 US businesses have been sued over website accessibility since 2015 (Wall Street Journal, paywall2) — while diversity and inclusion, broadly, have become a priority in many of the biggest organizations. Your company wants to make sure it is serving the widest possible audience. As a designer, you care about users — call it empathy in design or call it being a human.

The visual interface is an obvious place to begin digging into accessibility. In this article, we'll discuss some of the most common visual impairments, focusing on color-blindness to explain how you can make small changes to your workflow and products to ensure you're not alienating users.

Improving Color Accessibility Link

Designing for color-blind people can be easily forgotten because most designers aren't color-blind. There are a number of principles that you can use to make your design easy to use for everyone, including people who are color-blind. Read more →3

Accessibility Affects All Users Link

It isn't just the 8.6% of the population with visual impairments who benefit from accessibility. Good design is good design. Many websites and apps are overly complicated, and everyone finds at least some interfaces difficult to use: when we're tired, when we're awkwardly trying to check something while walking down a street, when we're squinting at a screen in the dark, or when we've got a shopping basket in one hand and our phone in the other.

Even the bulk of the population with standard eyesight experience color in different ways. So, accessibility isn't just about those suffering from impaired vision; everyone has their own constraints, physical and mental, and we can help significantly simply by being more thoughtful when we work. While designing for accessibility will sometimes mean making an accommodation, keeping best practices and accessibility in mind as you work will often mean you create a product that nails both.

How Do Visual Impairments Change The Experience? Link

To create a properly accessible product, we first need to understand how someone with a visual impairment sees things.

According to the WHO4, refractive errors (nearsightedness5, farsightedness6, astigmatism7 and presbyopia8) account for 43% of visual impairments, cataracts9 for 33% and glaucoma10 for 2%. Color-blindness alone affects approximately 4.5% of the population and can vastly impact the way a user experiences design.

Let's look at a simulation of how this manifests:

11A red-green UI translates poorly under certain color-blindness conditions.

There are three main types of color-blindness:

Monochromacy (total color-blindness)While uncommon, people with this condition cannot see color at all. So, for example, bright or pastel interfaces with subtle gradients that rely on hues to differentiate features will be very difficult for the user to navigate. Action buttons might be hard to find.

Dichromacy (two-color vision)For people with dichromacy, what is intended to be a broad color palette might appear to be made up of different shades of the same hue. If the app uses colors to denote different labels or channels, the user won't necessarily be able to benefit from that design feature.

Anomalous trichromacy (deficient color vision)With deficient color vision, one of the three cones in the eye malfunction to varying degrees of severity. This ranges from near-normal color vision to two-color vision in severe cases. Users with anomalous trichromacy might find your logo or design to be less compelling if color is a major factor — especially problematic if you're relying on the same fonts and icons for your buttons.

The key point is that you cannot assume users will all see the same thing. So, how do we use design to optimize the experience for everyone?

Color As A Tool But Not A Magic Key Link

Color not only plays a large role in determining how an interface looks, but also helps in systematizing content, defining hierarchy and informing interface behaviors and flows. It's a powerful design tool, but to use it efficiently, you need to understand its capabilities and limitations. Some key rules that we'll discuss below are:

keeping color-blindness in mind when picking and implementing color palettes, as we will demonstrate below;

never relying on color alone for anything important — clarify color information with icons and, ideally, text;

ensuring text links stand out from the surrounding content.

Because the most common difficulty that visually impaired users have is identifying particular hues of color, try to rely more on brightness contrast to differentiate elements and to make them legible.

12A dark color and light color will provide high contrast for users. (View large version13)

The color wheel below gives you an easy guide to finding high-contrast colors. A dark color from the hues in the lower half set against a light color from the upper half will provide strong contrast. Avoid relying on the contrast between light colors from the bottom half and dark colors from the top half.

14A bright and a dark color will provide strong contrast, while two dull colors will blend. (View large version15)

Avoid contrasting hues from adjoining parts of the circle if those colors do not contrast in lightness.

16Complementary colors will be highly effective, whereas adjacent colors in the color wheel will contrast less. (View large version17)

Don't rely on color alone to convey a message. Nike's search bar is an example of how a lack of descriptions of the colors could be misleading. Adding color names to the swatches would remove the need to repeatedly hover to confirm you have selected the right model.

18Color swatches can be confusing for customers shopping online. (View large version19)

Amazon does a better job of this by adding the color's name on top of each thumbnail when the user hovers over it.

Avoid using color as the only indication of what to do or of the information you are trying to get across. Instead, use color only as a hint to the user.

20(View large version21)

The broader the color palette you design, the greater the opportunity to confuse hues, so limit your color palette. The 15-color palette below provides good discrimination for common color-blindness types. Individuals with tritanopia cannot distinguish between hue pairings marked with the bullet (●) as well as pairings marked with the triangle (◥) in the graphic below.

22Certain colors are indistinguishable to people with color-blindness.

Use texture and patterns to emphasize contrast. For example, it might be difficult for color-blind users to interpret graphs and charts. In this case, use contrasting patterns and, where possible, embed text instead. (Of course, the question of whether to code the bars in different colors will depend on the data series you are showing.)

23Textures can better differentiate colors. (View large version24)

When creating buttons that call the user's attention and require their direct interaction, avoid using color combos that are easily confused by color-blind users (red and green, or blue and yellow).

Also, make sure that these elements contain clear and visible text or iconography that makes the goal clear.

25Action buttons in particular should not mislead users through confusing color combinations. (View large version26)Creating Accessible UI Design Link

Stripping color out of your design can also be a good test of its functionality. If it's completely reliant on color, there are likely bigger issues with the logic. For example, minimal interfaces can be very poor for accessibility if stripped of visual features, but stark minimal design can be very clear when using shapes, color and contrast to draw attention to key elements.

27Stripping an interface of its color attributes can reveal design flaws.

Use subtle drop shadows to create contrast while keeping true to a brand's colors and identity.

28Drop shadows offer an alternative that is in keeping with brand colors. (View large version29)

Divert effort from developing fancy, impractical UIs into decorating functional UIs — adding things like hover (for non-touch devices), tap, active and error states, as well as icons to accompany color and text — some of which can be done by using more standard components or conventional design patterns.

As an example of an impractical UI, the interface below becomes a cloud of text bubbles when viewed in monochrome.

30Beware a heavy reliance on red text to act as a callout. (View large version31)

For website content, the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.032 (WCAG 2.0) detail a number of recommendations for making the web more accessible. Level A is the minimum requirement, Level AA asks for audio and video captions, and Level AAA is the rating indicating the highest level of accessibility.

Many components are simple: using alt text for images, or retaining form information after an authenticated session has expired. One of the most important but basic recommendations made by the WCAG 2.0 has to do with contrast, especially concerning the contrast ratio between text and its background.

33High ratios between boldness and a font's x-height help the user, as recommended for Level AAA of web accessibility."But Dribbble Won't Like It!" Link

As designers, we want to make the most creative solutions possible, right?

Well, of course, catering for accessibility does add some constraints to your designs, but you already design within a framework of many constraints, all of which are key parts of a functional product. This is just one of those constraints.

Accessibility isn't just about people with visual impairments; everyone benefits from accessible content. Design imagines a better world and has an underpinning of function, whether or not the designer has loftier aesthetic goals. Designing for accessibility not only is largely straightforward, but it's important for you, your bosses, your clients and your users. With the fundamentals of accessibility on hand, along with our list of best practices, you should be able to keep even your Dribbble shots widely accessible.

Helpful Tools For Designers Link

Understanding how others see your designs is key to providing the best experience for everyone. Luckily, there are some easy ways to stay on top of the WCAG 2.0 guidelines to ensure your designs are accessible.

Sketch Link

Stark34 is an excellent Sketch plugin that provides a windowed simulation of the various types of color-blindness. It also provides contrast ratios between two selected layers.

Use Sketch's built-in and nested symbols system to create a sticker sheet of your UI elements, to make it easy to check all variants and states in situ; it can be easy to forget about certain scenarios.

Photoshop Link

Photoshop has built-in color-blindness-checking utilities via the color profiles feature.

35Use Photoshop's proof settings to simulate color-blindness.Web Link

Tanaguru36Give this contrast-finder tool a color pairing, and it will calculate the contrast ratio to generate similar colors that would improve accessibility.

Colorblind Web Page Filter37This tool will simulate different types of color-blindness on a web page.

NoCoffee38This "vision simulator" add-on identifies problems on a web page such as low acuity, low contrast and color reliance.

iOS Link

The Colorblindness App39 was developed by Felipe Elioenay and is one of our favorites. The user hovers their phone camera over everyday objects, and the app describes the color of that object on screen with a super-simple interface.

Miscellaneous Link

Color Oracle40 is a useful macOS utility app that previews your current screen in the various types of color-blindness.

Hard-Coding An Accessible Experience: Tips For Developers Link

Good design and a good user experience go a very long way toward making a website more accessible, but sometimes we need to go a step further and consider development.

Semantic HTML Link

Assistive technology such as screen-reader software is sometimes necessary to write semantic, standards-compliant HTML in order to improve accessibility.

HTML5 elements are semantic HTML; they provide meaning to the structure of the page. A blind person using a screen reader needs to be able to skip through to different sections of the page, rather than reading the whole page from start to finish. Using heading levels appropriately (h1 through h6) makes this a lot easier. The user can listen to all of the section headings and then decide which part of the page they are interested in.

Keeping the content and presentation layers separated is also incredibly important. HTML is for content and structure, and CSS is for presentation and layout.

Images Link

For a user with a visual impairment, images will need alt tags that explain what the image shows, as well as captions and labels to fill in missing context. When you're inputting this information, describe the function of the graphics. "Go to Portfolio" is more useful than "Photo of a briefcase."

Video and Audio Link

Using HTML5 video and audio tags lets the browser know what content is there and, by default, uses the system's playback UI, which is likely already both familiar and accessible to the user.

Forms Link

Forms can cause problems for people using screen readers if you don't ensure they can access all of the information they need to fill out the form.

Those using a screen reader need to know what is supposed to be entered in each field, because they're unable to see the label next to the field. There's already a solution to this one: the label element, which associates label text with a form field.

New in HTML5 is the ability to specify the data type of an input field. By marking expected data types, the browser will provide the best input type for that data type (for example, a number pad for a numeric figure, or a date-picker for a date).

iOS and Android Link

Apple has long been supportive of accessibility, with features like Display Zoom, but over the past few years it's taken it up a notch by orchestrating iOS features such as Dynamic Type, Auto-Layout, and UIStackView, which come together to form the foundation for a highly responsive UI — and all developers can easily take advantage.

41Apple introduced Dynamic Type at the latest Worldwide Developer Conference. (View large version42)

At the 2017 Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple urged third-party developers to support Dynamic Type if they weren't already, having added support for custom fonts to adhere to the user's Dynamic Type size preference in iOS 11.

Android has its own responsive layout and dynamic type solution. You can specify measurements in dp (density-independent pixel) and sp (scaleable pixels) for type to automatically adjust based on the user's settings.

Design Best Practices And Accessibility Toolkit Link

Color contrast is a powerful design tool and a pillar of AAA design.

Don't just rely on colors and icons. Text labels ensure users know what they're choosing.

Filled icons are clearer than thin-line icons (Apple agrees). If you must, then thick strokes are easier to detect than thin strokes.

Contrasting patterns give a sense of texture and help users to differentiate between elements.

Provide enough white space around click and tap targets for users to locate and hit them.

Recognizable icon silhouettes outperform circles with symbols inside.

Precise language, such as verbs on button tiles, let the user know they can "continue," rather than presenting them with a suite of "yes" and "no" options.

Fonts with small x-heights are easier to read (Brandon Grotesque is a good one), but otherwise avoid decorative fonts (sorry, Lobster).

Ensure text links stand out by using a clear callout, such as an underline.

Make sure your JavaScript and CSS techniques don't block highlighting, which many users do to increase contrast.

Familiarity and consistency gives users a head start. Know when to use established design patterns, common interactions and native components.

Icons and buttons need to be tappable, but they don't have to be obnoxiously large. Add a low-contrast container or white space around them to create visual balance and suitable tap targets.

Random A11Y43 is a crowd-sourced effort to generate high-contrast color palettes that aren't ugly.

References Link

"Visual Impairment44," Wikipedia

"Color Blindness45," Wikipedia

"Prevalence46," Colour Blindness

"Tips for Designing for Colorblind Users47," Design Shack

"Designing for Color Blindness48," Understanding Graphics

"Accessible Interface Design49," UX Planet

"Designing for and as a Color-Blind Person50," Envato Tuts+

"Improving UX for Color-Blind Users51," Smashing Magazine

We Are Colorblind52

"Designing Colorblind-Friendly Websites53," Template Monster

"How to Design for Color Blindness54," Usabilla

"Website Design for Color Blind55," Go Daddy

"10 Free Screen Readers for Visually Impaired Users56," Usability Geek

"Design for Visually Impaired57," Mashable

"Design Website for Blind Users58," Hobo Web

"Accessibility Basics59," Envato Tuts+

"Making Your HTML Accessible for the Visually Impaired60," EConsultancy

"Creating Accessible Websites61," AFB

"Types of Colour Blindness62," Colour Blind Awareness

(da, vf, yk, al, il)

1 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/

2 http://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-face-lawsuits-over-website-accessibility-for-blind-users-1478005201

3 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/06/improving-color-accessibility-for-color-blind-users/

4 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/

5 https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision-problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision-conditions/myopia?sso=y

6 https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision-problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision-conditions/hyperopia?sso=y

7 https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision-problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision-conditions/astigmatism?sso=y

8 https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision-problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision-conditions/presbyopia?sso=y

9 https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision-problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision-conditions/cataract/cataract-faqs?sso=y

10 https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision-problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision-conditions/glaucoma?sso=y

11 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-1-preview-opt.gif

12 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-2-preview-opt.png

13 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-2-preview-opt.png

14 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-3-preview-opt.png

15 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-3-preview-opt.png

16 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-4-preview-opt.png

17 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-4-preview-opt.png

18 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-5-preview-opt.png

19 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-5-preview-opt.png

20 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-6-preview-opt.png

21 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-6-preview-opt.png

22 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-7-preview-opt.png

23 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-8-preview-opt.png

24 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-8-preview-opt.png

25 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-9-preview-opt.png

26 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-9-preview-opt.png

27 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-10-preview-opt.gif

28 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-11-preview-opt.png

29 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-11-preview-opt.png

30 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-12-preview-opt.png

31 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-12-preview-opt.png

32 https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

33 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-13-preview-opt.png

34 http://www.getstark.co

35 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-14-preview-opt.png

36 http://contrast-finder.tanaguru.com/result.html?foreground=%23AE0000&background=%23212121&ratio=4.5&isBackgroundTested=false&algo=Rgb&distanceSort=asc

37 https://www.toptal.com/designers/colorfilter

38 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/NoCoffee%20Vision%20Simulator?hl=en&gl=US

39 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/colorblindness-app/id882336196?mt=8

40 http://www.apple.com

41 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-15-preview-opt.png

42 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Fueled_Smashing-15-preview-opt.png

43 http://www.randoma11y.com

44 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_impairment

45 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness

46 http://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/

47 https://designshack.net/articles/accessibility/tips-for-designing-for-colorblind-users/

48 http://understandinggraphics.com/design/designing-for-color-blindness/

49 https://uxplanet.org/accessible-interface-design-3c59ee3ec730

50 https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/designing-for-and-as-a-color-blind-person--webdesign-3408

51 https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/06/improving-ux-for-color-blind-users/

52 http://wearecolorblind.com

53 https://www.templatemonster.com/blog/designing-colorblind-friendly-website/

54 http://blog.usabilla.com/how-to-design-for-color-blindness/

55 https://www.godaddy.com/garage/webpro/design/website-design-blind/

56 http://usabilitygeek.com/10-free-screen-reader-blind-visually-impaired-users/

57 http://mashable.com/2011/04/20/design-for-visually-impaired/#W2oFFcOURPqj

58 https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/design-website-for-blind/

59 https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/accessibility-basics-designing-for-visual-impairment--cms-27634

60 https://econsultancy.com/blog/67625-making-your-html-accessible-for-the-visually-impaired/

61 http://www.afb.org/info/programs-and-services/technology-evaluation/creating-accessible-websites/improving-your-web-site/1235

62 http://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/types-of-colour-blindness/

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Source: Stop Designing For Only 85% Of Users: Nailing Accessibility In Design