Sunday, April 30, 2017

Popular Design News of the Week: April 24, 2017 – April 30, 2017

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. 

The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that were posted, so don’t miss out and subscribe to our newsletter and follow the site daily for all the news.

Google is Crushing the Internet

 

The Salary of UX Professionals

 

13 Terrible Web Trends from the 90s, and How to Recreate Them

 

What is a Beautiful User Experience?

 

6 Website Design Trends

 

10 Things Designers Say that Normal People Don’t

 

Pixels Are Dead

 

Top 10 UI/UX Design Instagram Accounts for Design Inspiration

 

Gmail: An Unsolicited Redesign (#1)

 

100 Ways to Be More Creative

 

Your Body Text is Too Small

 

25 Useful Web Animation Tools 2017

 

PNG or SVG, Which is the Best in 2017?

 

How We Made Our Website Offline First

 

Moodica – Oddly Satisfying Videos to Relax your Brain

 

10 Best New Web Design Tools for April 2017

 

Designers (Mostly) Love HuffPost’s Bold Redesign

 

The Graphic Designer Reworking Fashion’s Most Iconic Logos

 

Developer/Designer Page Layout Concept

 

Cartoon Reveals the Importance of Completing Side Projects

 

How to Price a Logo Design

 

Pirate Bay Founder Launches Anonymous Domain Registration Service

 

This Crazy New Interface Makes Zero Sense–For Now

 

Polaris, Shopify’s Design System

 

Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.

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Saturday, April 29, 2017

Comics of the Week #387

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

Mixed emotions

Trust issues

 

The irony

Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…

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Friday, April 28, 2017

The Designer’s 4 Step Guide to Securing WordPress

WordPress has become the world’s most popular CMS. Because it is so popular, this is even more of a reason to enhance WordPress security if you are using it for your website. Most people understand how to make their page itself secure, but if you are not focusing on the the security of your WordPress site by limiting access to important files and folders, then you are still at risk. To do this you will not be making any changes to WordPress itself, but rather altering how WordPress runs on a server and how much access users have to its files.

Step 1: Limiting access to wp-includes folder

WordPress sites are comprised of a series of files and folders, each with their own unique URLs, which means if someone were to type in the correct URL they could access or alter sensitive files that run your site. One of the most common targets for this kind of hacking is the wp-includes folder, so we are going to add some additional code to the server configuration file to beef up security and prevent these kinds of threats. When we are done with this, anyone attempting to access these files gets redirected back out.

To start you will want to open up the .htaccess file for your site. You can do this through any text editor, doesn’t matter which because all we are doing is adding a little snippet of code to the file. You will notice that the file already has code in it, generated by WordPress. In one of the early lines of code, you will find a line that says # BEGIN WordPress. Directly above this code, we are going to add the additional lines of code, which will fortify the site’s defenses by restricting access to the wp-includes folder.

# Blocking web access to the wp-includes folder
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^wp-admin/includes/ - [F,L]
RewriteRule !^wp-includes/ - [S=3]
RewriteRule ^wp-includes/[^/]+\.php$ - [F,L]
RewriteRule ^wp-includes/js/tinymce/langs/.+\.php - [F,L]
RewriteRule ^wp-includes/theme-compat/ - [F,L]
</IfModule>

Afterward, you simply need to re-upload the file to the server and you’re done. While the changes here seem minor it can have a large impact on your site’s defenses. Because many of the advanced functions of WordPress are located within the wp-includes folder, they are a major target for hackers to go after. With these changes implemented, when users attempt to access this folder, they will instead be automatically redirected to the front page of your site.

Step 2: Protecting wp-config.php

Our next step to fortify WordPress security is to limit access to the wp-config.php file. When you first created your WordPress site, you had to create a database name, username, password, and table prefix, which is contained in the wp-config.php file. The reason you want to protect this file is because it contains the information WordPress needs to talk to the database, and in the long run, control your site.

To protect your wp-config.php file, you will just need to do a few simple steps. First, we will want to open up the .htaccess file again. Next, we will want to copy the snippet of code below and paste it into our .htaccess file just like we did with step 1.

# Blocking web access to the wp-config.php file
<files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>

Finally, save and re-upload the file.

Step 3: Defending the .htaccess file itself

As you can see with steps 1 and 2, the .htaccess file can be intrinsic to defending your WordPress site from malicious external threats. That is why in this step we are going to protect the .htaccess file itself, preventing hackers from removing the protections we’ve already put in place.

To do this we will again open up the .htaccess file. Next, insert the code below in to the existing code.

# Securing .htaccess file
<files ~ "^.*\.([Hh][Tt][Aa])">
order allow,deny
deny from all
satisfy all
</files>

And with this simple addition, your .htaccess file is protected from outside threats.

Step 4: Removing file editor access

For the final step we are going to be denying hackers access to one of the most destructive tools they could get their hands on: the Editor inside the WordPress dashboard. It allows you to edit your theme files, which is helpful but can be dangerous. If a person, other than yourself would get access to this, then they could change your code and break your site.

With this project, we will be removing the  Editor from the WordPress dashboard. Rather than accessing the file through WordPress, I recommend that you access it through an ftp client such as FileZilla, which is better for site integrity.

So to do this project we will first want to open up the wp-config.php file. Once we have that open, we are going to go to the end of the code, here you will find the text “That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.”. Right before this text we are going to add the code below to remove file editing entirely from WordPress.

define('DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);

Once you have added the code, save the file and re-upload it to the server. Now your WordPress site is safe from anyone gaining access to your site and trying to manipulate the code.

Know that your site is safe

If you follow all of these steps, your site should be much safer. By reducing the amount of access hackers have to the files important to running your site, you have increased your WordPress site’s overall security.

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How Netflix Maintains a Low Churn Rate by Keeping Customers Engaged & Watching

With over 90 million customers watching a combined 125 million hours of television and movies everyday, there’s no doubt that Netflix has changed the way we watch our favorite shows. It has also become a prime force in our daily lives — integrating into everything from mobile devices to our language and culture.

And with a relatively low 9% churn rate (lower than any other subscription streaming service), one has to wonder — how does a service like this continue to keep their customers engaged in both the short and long term? How do they succeed when others fall short? Let’s take a closer look and discover how they do it.

Why Engagement is So Crucial to Netflix

As a subscription service, each new month gives every Netflix users a chance to cancel the service.

Like all subscription companies, the best step Netflix can take to reduce churn is to create a great product that people are willing to pay for. They do this by having a large library of original and licensed content. As long as people keep watching, they’ll keep paying.

Let’s look at how Netflix achieves relatively low churn rates, when compared to their peers.

Reluctant to Switch

With more than a third of U.S. households subscribed to Netflix, it’s no secret they’re far ahead of their competitors (namely Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus) in the video streaming subscription race. Recent research by Parks Associates showed that only 4% of U.S. broadband households cancelled their Netflix service — representing almost 9% of Netflix’s subscriber base.

By comparison, 7% of users cancelled their Hulu Plus subscription within a year — but that figure represents approximately half of Hulu Plus’ current subscriber base.

subscribers-canceling-netflix(OTT refers to “Over the Top” – a term used in broadcasting to refer to internet-based transmission of media without an operator –as in cable or satellite — controlling or distributing the media).

What this tells us, is that not only are most households electing to keep their Netflix subscription and “test the waters” with other streaming services, but those same users keep coming back. But what is it that draws them back?

A Deeper Insight into User Preferences

Perhaps some of what makes Netflix so irresistible among its user base are its original shows. With fan favorites like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, Netflix has its finger on the pulse of what users are watching. And they’re not just skimming the surface, either. They look at things like:

  • How many users watched a particular episode
  • How many users watched an entire series
  • How much of a gap was there between when the user watched one episode and the next?

And that’s not all. They’re also gathering data on:

  • When you pause, rewind or fast-forward (or if you stop watching and never pick it back up again)
  • What day you watch (most people watch TV shows over the week and movies on the weekend)
  • What date and time you watch, as well as the zip code you’re watching from
  • What device(s) you use to watch which media
  • The ratings you give and the searches you conduct
  • Your browsing and scrolling habits
  • And even the data within the movies and shows themselves

Netflix knows when the credits roll – but it’s also speculated that they’re monitoring things like the volume, movie/show setting, colors and so on. All of this information is not just collected, but also acted upon.

Some might even say that Netflix took a huge gamble ($100 million to be exact) in purchasing the exclusive rights to House of Cards but they did so with a concrete hypothesis — that a large portion of its customers streamed “The Social Network”, directed by David Fincher from beginning to end. House of Cards is also directed by David Fincher. What’s more, they also noticed that films with Kevin Spacey tended to do well, as well as the original British version of House of Cards.

But Netflix didn’t just settle on one trailer to introduce users to House of Cards. Spacey fans saw trailers that exclusively featured him. Women who watched Thelma and Louise saw trailers featuring the female protagonists of House of Cards and big time film buffs saw trailers that reflected Mr. Fincher’s finest directing moments.

All of these points intersected in a way that practically lit up a path to customer engagement and retention. And all of them were made possible thanks to insights delivered by big data.

But this method only attracts users who happen to be watching other movies. What about when they’re not watching? Netflix has that covered, too.

Email: We Added a Show You Might Like

With the vast content library available, it would be overwhelming to not recommend shows to users. So Netflix doesn’t just collect data about the shows you watch — it acts on that data too, sending you emails when a show is added that you may like based on your existing viewing habits.

netflix-email-you-may-be-interested-in

The email itself is simple and straightforward, and, this is the important part — you can play the episode right from within your mobile device, or add it to your watch list. So it’s not just notifying you that you might enjoy this show, but rather giving you an action to take that lets them better tweak suggestions according to your viewing habits.

Push and In-App Notification – New Season

Many people find push notifications bothersome and frustrating — but it all depends on where they come from. Things that affect users directly – like utilities (your water or electricity is scheduled to be off for a time) or transportation (there’s a car wreck near you that may slow your commute) are definitely wanted.

Movie or series suggestions don’t seem like they’d be high up on users’ priority lists, but Netflix has done a fine job of customizing and fine tuning what gets shown to each user. For example, if you followed season 1 of House of Cards, Netflix lets you know that Season 2 is now available:

netflix-HOC-push-notification

What it doesn’t do is inundate you with notifications when every new season or every new movie is listed. Each push notification is carefully crafted again, based on the data from your viewing habits. This way, it’s not intrusive, but rather engaging.

Recommendations for You

Netflix is also famous for its recommendations. It knows it has just 90 seconds or less to convince you that there’s something worth watching that’s catered to your tastes, it looks at things such as the genre you watch and your ratings, but also what you don’t watch. There’s a very real problem of overwhelming the user — with so many choices, Netflix doesn’t want to get too personal.

And it doesn’t care so much about what you watch, but rather that you watch. When given the choice between calling a friend, reading a book or watching Netflix, they obviously want you to keep coming back.

And although Netflix does push its own original series up on its recommendation pages, it plays a flat fee to content providers, so there’s no reason for its recommendation algorithm to favor one series over another. Everything it recommends to you, it does not just because of your viewing habits today, but also historically.

All of these options filter in to create a uniquely personalized — but not too personal — list of recommendations specifically tailored to each user. An engaged user is a happy user, and Netflix is pulling out all the stops to keep them watching.

Interestingly enough, the personalization algorithm resets every 24 hours, making it more likely that users will keep discovering current titles of interest from Netflix’s ever-growing catalog.

Split Testing

Not surprisingly, Netflix also does a great deal of split testing — a couple hundred tests each year to be exact. It randomly selects around 300,000 users from around the world and tests everything from images to font size.

Whenever major changes are made, such as a homepage redesign, users are understandably upset and backlash is imminent – it’s in our nature to tend to resist change. However, Netflix does a good job of easing them into the new design by explaining what has changed and why. According to Netflix’s vice president of product innovation, Chris Jaffe, however, less than half of their tests have a positive impact on metrics.

Conclusion

Even still, with so many options to keep users informed across nearly every type of device, Netflix is continuing to test, innovate and refine its algorithms to prevent churn and keep users watching — and those users are at its core in a quest for never-ending user experience growth.

What are your thoughts on Netflix’s methods to keep you hooked? Have you discovered new shows as a result of their recommendations? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today!

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