Drew Thomas is an entrepreneur, a consultant, and an ecommerce expert. He’s currently working on an ecommerce platform called Really Simple Store. He previously cofounded and ran Brolik, a digital agency, as CCO and then CTO. He lives in Austin, TX.
Advanced website builders — the tools provided by Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, The Grid and more — produce websites that look and feel like they were designed and coded by humans. They’re also software as a service, which is a different business model than traditional, custom-developed websites.
So, should companies use them? At some point, will they replace custom development? In short, yes.
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We have a lot of passwords to remember, and it’s becoming a problem. Authentication is clearly important, but there are many ways to reliably authenticate users – not just passwords.
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Digital experiences are emulating real life more and more every day. This may seem counterintuitive, considering the hate that rains down on skeuomorphic visual design, but there’s a lot more to emulating real life than aesthetics.
Interface designers can emulate real-life physics and movement on a digital screen. This type of motion is becoming more common, which is why it’s becoming easier for people to understand computers. We’re not getting better, the interfaces are!
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Information about customers has never been available on the scale it is today. Businesses are learning new ways to leverage data to improve themselves on a daily basis. They’re realizing that data collection and data analysis have a measurable return on investment, and decision-makers are asking to see them.
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When considering a mobile Web strategy and weighing responsive Web design against a separate mobile website, the most important metric is how functional the website is for the user. This goes beyond better content organization for smaller screens.
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With all the talk about responsive Web design, designers and coders are moving even further from the fixed pixel layouts of design’s print-based history. We’re finally thinking in terms of fluid layouts and expandable, interactive content. But when you get down to it, we’re still thinking of the fluidity in terms of desktop, tablet and mobile sizes.
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