Digital whiteboards have much in common. These are all-encompassing online workspaces – shareable canvases that allow users to work with documents and media, keep notes, draw, create flowcharts, schemes, communicate, download or share results. Because today there are loads of collaborative whiteboard tools, developers enhance their software with unique features and design – to differentiate from competitors and win the market share. We’ve reviewed 7 whiteboarding tools that are considered first-rate in the class. Each offers different traits and price ranges, so you can compare and conclude what’ll fit your team’s needs most.

Weje

Weje is, perhaps, one of the most accessible and easy-to-use online whiteboarding tools, so it will best fit neophytes in the collaborative software “solar system”. Remote teams, self-employed entrepreneurs, students, and teachers – these are who constitute the greater part of Weje.io users. Here, one can create and share a limitless number of online whiteboards. A user may choose to start with a blank workspace or pick up a pattern from the templates library and tailor it.

Collaborators can either upload data on the Weje board or paste it straight from the Web. To organize scattered cards, one needs to drag one with the mouse and drop it where necessary within the whiteboard. Aside from templates and endless canvases, Weje also has online sticky notes, Kanban, a mind map maker, a drawing tool, and an instant messenger. These are useful for:

• managing tasks
• designing roadmaps, mood boards, and workflows
• organizing brainstorming sessions
• creating online learning hubs
• synchronizing actions with the team.

Price: It’s available for free if one works with 2 co-editors. To invite more people to the board, a user will have to pay for a subscription from $4 per month.

Online Whiteboarding Tools – Miro

This online whiteboard will fit all purposes and teams – from marketers and salesmen to developers and designers. Miro’s online whiteboards have a clean design, straightforward navigation, and a bundle of collaborative options for:

• brainstorming
• workflows building
• organizing online meetings
• mapping ideas
• strategic planning
• research & design.

Each of the 6 use cases has built-in templates that you can pick up and start with. These include common matrices, maps, and charts, like KWL or Customer journey, as well as “generic” schemes that users can customize to their needs. On the canvases, there are several interesting options, as well: sticky notes, shapes, connection lines, frames, comments, cards, voting, and others. Users can turn on the presentation mode or share screens, which makes it much easier to handle online team meetings or conferences.

Price: Miro is free for personal usage. Small teams will have to pay from $8 per user per month, and there’s an “Enterprise” package with custom pricing for big companies.

Mural

Mural whiteboards are as artful as the tool’s name suggests. It’s bright as a parrot tail, so if you have nothing against a bit of excessive design, you’ll definitely like this software. Mural has well-worked-out templates. For example, a “Team Bookshelf” template looks like a real bookshelf, and a “Team Warmups & Energizers” looks like a map of the world with pointers and dedicated space for online sticky notes.

The software allows organizing engaging and interactive online workshops. It has timers, voting options, meeting notes, ice breakers, and many more that help to moderate remote sessions with the team.

Price: paid subscription starts from $9.99 per 1 user per month, and the fee is charged annually. However, a user can get 5 murals for free.

Ayoa

The tool’s “raisin” is mind maps. Whatever you may want to have to outline thoughts Ayoa will offer you that on a silver platter. First, you can choose the view for your map – a “classy” mind map, radial, or tree-like. Then, you can put the core idea on the canvases and create sibling branches with an arrow icon. You can use different shapes for different matters, e.g. a bubble, a cloud, an ellipse, or a square, and apply multiple colors to distinguish objects even better. Ayoa has templates for Kanban and Gantt charts, so the software can be used as a project management tool, as well.

Price: the subscription starts from €9 per user/month. New users can start with 7-days free trial.

Online Whiteboarding Tools – Explain Everything

The tool positions as an assistant for students, educators, and thinkers, however, we believe it can come in handy for white collars, as well. Explain Everything allows recording user’s actions, launch online meetings, and even draw with a marker as if it was the physical whiteboard in the classroom. You can use it in the browser or download the app, available for both iOS or Android devices.

Price: a single user can access Explain Everything for free, while classes and teams will have to pay from $$8.99 per user, monthly.

Gtmhub

This represents the objectives and key results (OKR) class of software. Gtmhub whiteboards are designed specifically to align and manage teamwork, and there are many features allowing to do that. Gtmhub is similar to Jira. While on the canvas, a user can create tasks and see progress with tailored reports. When the task’s status changes, e.g. when it’s moved from the To-Do list to “In progress”, the online board’s managers receive notifications on updates.

Users can turn on filters, sort tasks as to their priority, and even set up automation. There are more than 160 integrations offered, including Google Spreadsheets, which allows aligning data flow within the team. Price: Gtmhub is quite cheap. The subscription starts from just $1 per user per month (if billed annually).

Creately

This is a nice tool for brainstorming and if one needs some online space for visualizing ideas. Creately is much about drawing – it offers many specialized shapes and themes, diagram templates, and drawing shortcuts. Thus, a user can create geometric forms and set interrelations between them effortlessly and quickly. Designers and developers will appreciate numerous libraries, in particular, “Wireframes and UI”, “UI Flows and Sitemaps”, and “AWS, IT Networks”. Creately also has built-in calling, screen sharing, and exporting options.

Price: “Personal” plan starts at $3.25, and the most advanced subscription totals at $15 per month per 1 user.

Online Whiteboarding Tools – Conclusion

To find the best online whiteboarding tool, we suggest you try and compare several. Luckily, the majority grants free access for individual users, so you can sign up and test features before purchasing the subscription for the team.

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What Is Product Design Consulting?

Product design consulting is a comprehensive service combining both creative and technical expertise on designing, building and launching a product. It may play a critical role for clients who are about to start product development but don’t have prior experience. Product design consulting usually includes services such as:

• Concept creation
• Strategy development
• Prototyping
• Detail engineering
• Industrial design
• Cost analysis

An expected result of the process is a product of good standard, high functionality and appealing aesthetics. Using product design consulting can help you solve a lot of the problems that we’ll discuss in a bit.

When Do You Need Product Design Consulting?

Hiring a product design consultant is recommended in a few special cases. Let’s take a look at them to see whether working with product design consultants is really worth considering.

You Lack Expertise

If you’re designing a product for the first time or you’re about to enter a brand new industry, you most probably don’t have experience yet. Product design requires a bunch of skills that are difficult to gain quickly when you’re just starting out. Working with a product design consultant or agency will provide you with access to wide knowledge and support in specific areas. However, remember to make sure that they really specialize in the area of your interest and understand your industry very well. Working with an external company will also help you to avoid building an in-house team, which is costly and time-consuming.

You May Face Problems (and You Surely Will!)

If you’re lucky, you can find a product design consultant who is experienced in exactly the field of your interest. They may have already solved similar problems or designed and launched similar products. Such experience may turn out to be simply invaluable in the case of difficulties or bottlenecks in production. The wide knowledge and expertise of your partner can help you solve issues quickly and with less effort.

You Don’t Have Resources In-house

As we’ve already mentioned, you may not have skilled employees on board – especially in the beginning. Hiring a professional product design consulting agency can help you get access to expertise and knowledge you don’t have on hand. If you have an experienced team, but they’re busy with other tasks and projects, hiring an external specialist will still require less effort than recruiting. You will also get access to a nearly unlimited pool of technical skills and creativity.

You Don’t Have Time for Internal Development

If your company is already focused on a few projects, working on the next one might simply be too much. The bigger the company is, the longer it may take to kick off new initiatives. Hiring external support may help speed up product development so you can see results much faster. Thanks to this, you will be able to complete more projects simultaneously, and it’s your product design consulting partner who will coordinate the whole process and assign the right people.

You Need New, Fresh Ideas

Even though you’re experienced in product development, you may still significantly benefit from cooperating with an external expert. This will give you access to new ideas and solutions from the same or other industries. Thanks to this, you will be able to adjust your project to consumer needs much more accurately and increase your market reach.

You Want to Secure Your Team

Some problems or delays may occur when your employee decides to leave the team. It might be difficult to quickly replace them with an equally skilled specialist. When working with an external partner, finding new talent will no longer be your problem. A product design consulting company will most probably immediately assign someone from their pool, and the designing process will be nearly undisturbed.

The Benefits of Working with a Product Design Consulting Expert

If any of the points above apply to you, it’s definitely a sign that you should consider cooperating with a product design consultant. This is recommended for organizations of any size, including small and medium companies, startups and global organizations that want to improve their processes. We hope this article has helped you to decide whether it’s a good idea for you.

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What is the Rule of Thirds?

The Rule of Thirds web design technique is used for creating pleasing aesthetics and balance in images. It basically says that placing items of interest on the “thirds” of an image is more pleasing to the eye than centering or more other symmetrical approaches. These thirds are created by dividing an image (or working space) into nine equal parts, with two equally spaced horizontal lines and two equally spaced vertical lines.

Like so:

Each line runs along a “third” of the image. Placing your most critical elements on these thirds (and especially where they intersect) will create a pleasing, balanced design. Though most often mentioned in photography (that is why the grid appears every time you use cropping tool in photo editors, like Photoshop or Luminar), the Rule of Thirds is used in everything from films and paintings to websites and posters—just about anything that desires a positive visual impact.

Using the Rule of Thirds Web Design

The Rule of Thirds web design principle is most often used to determine where the most important elements will sit on a page, where the negative space should be, and at what ratio your images should be set. If you’re already working with a grid design, so much the better. The Rule of Thirds will help you choose what dimensions each grid element should have. It can also be a factor in conversion optimization, as the more pleasing the experience for the viewer, the more likely they’ll stick around to actually read your calls to action.

Where to Place Important Elements

One of the first questions in a site layout is where to place your most important elements (i.e. site logo, calls to action, etc.). The answer is generally to place them where the viewer will look first. But where’s that? When using the Rule of Thirds web design, the answer’s pretty simple: on the intersections. Why? Well, the viewer’s eye path is not random—unless otherwise directed it travels a predictable route, starting at the upper left of an image (or website), moving down to the bottom left, moving onto the upper right and then ending at the bottom right. It just so happens that these “sweet spots” of a viewer’s gaze land right on the intersections of the lines in the Rule of Thirds grid. Here’s where the eyes land first:

This means that if you place your most important element on or near the upper-left grid point, you’ll be more likely to make sure your viewer sees it first.  Here’s an example:

Here, TechValidate chooses to put their important text close to the #1 spot, closely followed by a call to action near the #2 point. Remember, you don’t have to place things exactly on the points—just near them. This is especially true with responsive web design, as different mobile devices will change where things sit.

Determining Negative Space

If you’re opting for a clean, minimalist design, then the Rule of Thirds will not only help determine where to set your images, it can also help you decide where the negative space should be. Negative space is the space around and between the elements of a site, where there is no image, text, or distracting background. It’s a crucial design element for creating a high-readability factor and a pleasing user experience, allowing the mind to better put into context the images it sees.

In the image below, design firm Staak.co.uk chooses a sleek, minimalist design with plenty of negative space and a clear focus on its defining element:

Staak’s design ensures that the viewers’ eyes hit first and linger on their defining element. Remember, the eyes scan predictably when not otherwise directed. Here, they’ve been directed to the right-hand third of the screen. In the lower left-hand sweet spot, they have the link they want users to click on. Contrary, to popular “sweet spot” design, the upper left is negative space, but since Staak directs the eyes clearly to the right, it works just fine.

Here’s another from the Austin Children’s Shelter:

Here, the negative space is in the middle, and the Rule of Thirds is used to guide the placement of the image on the right and the text on the left, with the call to action near the bottom left “sweet spot.”

Here’s another example from the French site UZIK. Notice how the negative space on the right-hand side really draws the eyes to the sweet spot on the left-hand side.

Using the Rule of Thirds to Arrange Your Images

Another main use of the Rule of Thirds web design is determining how to space your images on the screen. Say you have a site that speaks predominantly through its images—how should you space them? Well, the Rule of Thirds would have you place them directly in thirds on the page. Build in Amsterdam, featured below, uses the Rule of Thirds both for their image placement and for their text:

While you don’t need to take the rule quite so literally as this, following it even roughly will help you find the best place to set your images.

The Golden Ratio

While the Rule of Thirds has been around roughly two hundred years, it’s based off an even older design element: The Golden Ratio. The root of countless mysteries, the Golden Ratio is a geometric ratio that has been heralded as a timeless blueprint for beautiful and effective proportionality. Also known as the Golden Mean, the Divine Proportion, the Golden Section, and Phi, the golden ratio is the visual representation of a + b over a = a over b = 1.61803….

First defined by Euclid as a simple matter of geometry around 300 BCE, the golden ratio has had centuries of mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, architects, and even mystics pondering and debating over its ubiquity and appeal. Phi enthusiasts claim the golden ratio has been used in everything from the construction of the Egyptian pyramids to the Mona Lisa, and since the Renaissance many artists have proportioned their work in accordance with the golden ratio, particularly in the form of the “golden rectangle” (a rectangle with a length roughly one and a half times its width).

How does it work in web design? Well, the Golden Ratio applies most strongly to rectangles, and let’s face it—from computer screen to our mobile phones—we live in a world of rectangles. And while the Golden Ratio can be a bit problematic to apply in its entirety to a website (you can’t change the ratio, and therefore you can’t compress or expand it to “make it fit”), it can show you the best places to set your important elements. It can be particularly helpful if your site has a lot of information, providing a guide as to where to place the most important elements.

Twitter and National Geographic are two of the bigger names that have used the Golden Ratio in their design.

Summing up Rule of Thirds Web Design Secrets

One thing note, is that you don’t have to use the entire formula of the Golden Ratio at any given point. You could just use sections of it. For example, if you’re wondering at what spacing to place two vertical columns, the Golden Ration has an easy template for that—the first two rectangles/squares.

The result is somewhat subtler than using the Rule of Thirds and yet in most cases, more pleasing to the eye. That being said, if using this form seems challenging to you, you can always default to the Rule of Thirds. The proportions will still yield eye-pleasing results. Whichever you choose, both techniques will provide invaluable direction in where to place your design elements for the best user experience. And as we know, a better user experience equals longer staying time and more conversions.

The post Rule of Thirds Web Design: Using Layout Secrets appeared first on DesignWebKit.

Now, of course, that depends on marketing yourself correctly. But you can’t market what you don’t have. For that reason, you need to take whatever actions you can to improve your actual graphic design skills. That’s where daily exercises come in.

Here are some of the best-proven techniques and exercises that will help you get that edge you need to climb to the top of the field. And yes, the view from up there is amazing.

Improve Graphic Design Skills By Reading Every Day

Step one to improve your graphic design skills is to read broadly and widely. Find some of the more interesting voices in the field and follow what they’ve got to say about it. This will give you insights and ideas that otherwise you would entirely be missed out on.

Don’t know what to read? Well, there are plenty of choices out there. You can check out Awwwards, for example. These guys find the best pages out there and then highlight them for you in a central location so that you can see what’s moving and who’s shaking in the design world. Other good choices are MotoCMS design blog, Line25 blog.

Take an Hour To Draw By Hand

You should treat drawing by hand a little bit like meditation. Done right, it can inspire you for the rest of the day. So how do you do it right?

First of all, learn to just draw. The part of your brain that edits and the part of your brain that is responsible for creative insights are not the same. In fact, the more critical you are of what you’re putting down, the harder it will be to actually do stuff.

For that reason, just draw. Don’t erase. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work. This is not about the result. It’s about the inner journey and reflecting on what you’re doing. What comes out onto the page is in many ways secondary.

Don’t know what to draw about? Then just take a regular object, like an apple or a tap, and draw that. Do a different version every day of the week. Try different styles. Then move on to something new.  Make use of handy drawing apps.

Take Courses on Graphic Design

You can get a long way with hands-on experience, but you can only ever get so far without understanding the fundamentals. Obeying the rules of color theory and typography will make it so that your designs go from chaotic to clean.

Now, you don’t directly have to enroll in a school to get this stuff down. There are fortunately a lot of opportunities to do it on your own. My suggestion is to find out the reading lists of the more popular courses and just working your way through those. This will give you a lot of the fundamental knowledge without you actually having to pay to go to the universities.

So work that into your schedule. You’ll be surprised how much you can pick up if you read 30 minutes a day.

Connect With Other Graphic Designers

That doesn’t sound like an exercise, you’re thinking. If it doesn’t, then you’re not doing it correctly. You should learn to set a certain window of time aside every day to engage with other designers. This can be just to stay on their radar, to ask for feedback or to give your own comments.

Doing this every day will help you build up a network. More importantly, the more people engage and comment on what you’re doing, the more easily you’ll know when you’re learning stuff that’s valuable and when you’re just spinning your wheels in the air. That’s important, as most of us waste a lot of time chasing dead ends. Any help you can get to avoid doing that will be incredibly useful to you.

Work on Your Dreams

It can be exhausting to do the same thing over and over again. Unfortunately, that’s where you’ll often find yourself as you’re climbing the design ladder. Down below there is a lot of grunt work that can get incredibly repetitive.

And sure, you’ll become good at that, but that is not what you’re after. You want to be good at a wide range of skills. For that matter, take the time to work on what you love. This will constantly stretch your design muscles in different directions and – more importantly – will make sure that your enthusiasm doesn’t wane. And let’s be clear about it, that enthusiasm is key to continuing your climb upwards.

After all, it’s with enthusiasm that you’ll get noticed and make sure that you keep getting better and improving your graphic design skills.

Fail a Lot

The idea that failure is bad for you is baked into our modern culture. It’s also a pile of horse manure. If babies were afraid of failure, they’d never learn to walk, talk or figure out that the circle really doesn’t go in the square hole. If you’re afraid of failure, then you’ll never learn what it really means to design.

The trick isn’t to avoid failure. Instead, it’s to accept when you’ve failed, to learn what you can from the experience and then to move onto the next thing. In other words, fail fast.

Or, as Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I have only found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”  

Where should you try to fail? Try new techniques, new software and new ways of doing things, for starters. Of course, if you’re very unsure if it’s going to work, then do so on your own time. Then you can relax and you have nothing serious riding on accepting that something didn’t work.

Put Your Graphic Works Out There

And here I don’t mean in the protective circles of people who are your friends and who don’t want to hurt your feelings. Instead, find the meanest and most critical audience that’s out there and be willing to put your stuff in front of them and when you do, resist every urge that you’ve got to defend it. Instead, just take what they tell you.

Here are some things to note:

• Just because they’re mean, doesn’t mean it’s true. We all know there are plenty of trolls out there.
• The reverse also holds. Just because they say nice things, doesn’t mean your design is nice. Some people just say nice things.
• Use the rule of three. If three different people say the same thing, then there might be some kind of value to what they’re saying (be it positive or negative).
• If you can’t take the criticism of absolute strangers who ultimately have almost no effect on your wellbeing, how do you think you’ll do when a client has bad things to say? So, use this as an opportunity to get a much thicker skin.

Final Words

The design is a process. That goes both for what you put out and your career. As long as you keep trying new things and working at it, you’ll keep improving your graphic design skills. If you don’t, then you won’t.

For that reason, build some habits. Create a schedule with tasks that you want to do that will push you beyond where you feel safe. That – and plenty of feedback – will make sure that you keep growing and keep climbing design mountain until finally you’ll be out in the sunshine and dictating terms instead of reading them.

The post 10 Proven Ways to Develop Your Graphic Design Skills appeared first on DesignWebKit.

Project Initialization

Source: Theologicon.org
When a new project comes in hand, designers have a huge number of ideas in their heads. This period is the most anxious for artists. Therefore it is really important to have a look at things with relax mind and take a decision while keeping in mind what the project reflects in reality and what are its basic requirements. For this ask a few simple questions on different aspects of the project.

Ask questions:

Sourse: Pickthebrain.com
Web designers can ask the following questions:

• What as a designer you are looking for in the project?
• What your client is expecting from you to do?

There may be some specific items you may want to include like banners, navigations with different structure, a logo or an influential color scheme.

Sketch Mockup:

Sourse: Techpavan.com
After clarifying the above questions sketch a few mockups that will really be helpful in making the design process easy. If you are not artistic don’t panic even a rough sketch can also be useful and provide inspiration than having nothing at all. With prototype, you will have a proper guideline for your work and also provide you with a wireframe, which will be a base for all your future pages. If the page styles differ you can also modify the wireframes.

Look into Design Galleries for Inspiration

Many designers submit their artworks into design galleries so others may get inspiration. Everyone can borrow ideas from these places and there is no harm in it. You can take up different design ideas and artistic styles and blend them together to have a fantastic design of your own. Many artists oppose this point of view, but if you are a true designer you can master this skill and soon begin to create your own interfaces simply through inspiration without copying anyone’s ideas. Designers need to exercise creative part of their brain and with time they become perfect in it. There are many showcases online including spectacular CSS galleries that can be used for this purpose.

Test Run- Crucial Aspect Often Neglected

Source: hearpreneur.com
Visualize how your project will appear in different browsers before converting your mockup into a coding format. Imagine yourself as a viewer, and see with the user’s eye how the project will look. This practice will help you to see things from a bigger perspective rather than being just a designer. This will also save a lot of time in the long run.

Alternate Designing for Comparison

Source: Artsyville.blogspot.com
The process of creation an alternate design will take time but it’s really worth it, so don’t miss this step. Draw a few alternative designs and choose from them the final version. This can easily be done using Photoshop. The process often takes much time, as I already said, but it can save a lot of efforts while final stages of production.

Keep in Mind White Spaces

Always keep in mind white spaces while designing. When the elements of a page are properly laid out you get a perfect and natural symmetry in design. You can get a good and user friendly website keeping in mind web pages coded in grids and accessibility. Remove any elements that take up space not needed. Check out such kind of content like paragraphs, headings, images and videos etc. Arrange all these elements in a way that users don’t face interactivity problems. Make a list of page elements that seem necessary to you. It may comprise of search boxes, social media sharing buttons, shopping cart icons or links, featured blog posts and a contact form.

The gold rule of designing is to set your mind free during a working process, this will help more inspirational ideas to come.

Media Content.

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