The way of business solutions
www.insightssuccess.com August 2017
The
10 Best
UI/UX
Tech Talk Is Virtual Reality the Future King of the UI/UX Kingdom?
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
Spotlight Let Your Website Tell a Story
Tech-n-Trend Vogues that will Change the UI/UX Industry
Carl Widdowson
CEO
TM
The Creative Momentum
Revolutionizing Day-to-Day Businesses with Creative UI/UX Solutions
Editorial
I Are We Amid Enterprise UI/UX Renaissance?
n any industry from healthcare, media, entertainment to automotive and manufacturing, UI/UX Solution Providers play one of the most critical roles in building an enterprise’s presence in the digital space, developing its design, adding value to its business, initiating strategic business structure and driving results ensuring high returns on investment. Without effective UI/UX designers, any company can hardly establish strategic communications to achieve their positive goals. With the sudden modifications taking place in the technology sector, we can observe that the designers are now shifting the paradigm and thinking out of the box to help clients go that extra mile to serve their business purposes.
With the consumerization of the enterprises, user experience in the B2B Sector is standing out to be a major issue which businesses should be deliberate about, I believe the purpose of User Interface has changed a lot, and so are the functionalities of the Solution Providers of this industry. Designers are not just focusing on offering a congenial view to the users; rather it is evident that they are making efforts to create designs which are engaging, precise and efficient. Considering the present situation, it can be apparently said that these solution providers are revolutioneering the entire business world, driving change, managing escalation of the client’s business. Observing the current scenario, we can say that the role of design is in prime focus, whereas, very few have investigated the new status quo for the trillion-dollar B2B space. Reports suggest that the concept and implementation of UX are still new to B2B companies and maintaining the consistency of design is another greater challenge the industry is facing currently. It’s already on the radar that improving UX consistency has been marked as 59 per cent, testing designs with end-users have been marked as 53 per cent, whereas, clarifying requirements and collaborating between teams have been found to be 46 per cent and 44 per cent, respectively. Companies should focus on increasing the number of developers in proper balance with the number of designers as some mismatch has been observed in that. Apparently, UX has traditionally been an afterthought in the world of enterprise products, and products teams were mostly engineering-driven, functionality was found to come before usability and usefulness. All we can say is that as UI/UX continues to evolve as a core business competency, the evolution of the processes and platforms that support collaborative product development will also be observed.
Rajarshi Chatterjee
Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Ariana Lawrence Managing Editor Rajarshi Chatterjee Co-Editors David Smith Ujal Nair Stephanie Andrews Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Alex Noel Picture Editor Aparna Vanzul Art Editor Vijaykumar Dudhbhate Business Development Manager Mark Harris Steve Smith Marketing Manager Alex Noel Business Development Executive David, Joseph, John, Mary Research Analyst Jennifer Circulation Manager Robert Database Management Steve Technology Consultant Vishal More sales@insightssuccess.com
August, 2017 Corporate Ofď€ ces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: Visit www.insightssuccess.com
Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Ofď€ ce No. 513, 5th Floor, Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017 Phone - India: 020-69400110, 111, 112 Email: meera@insightssuccess.in For Subscription: Visit www.insightssuccess.in
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08 The Creative Momentum: Revolutionizing Day-to-Day Businesses with Creative UI/UX Solutions
C O V E R C X O
S T O R Y
S T A N D P O I N T
30 Disruptive Technology Organizations: Driving the Exponential Conglomerate
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14 Bluestepstudio: Building Sites that Reect Quality and Business Philosophy
22 Daniel Spatzek: Designing Milestones in the UI/UX Industry
28 Julia Hell Graď€ k: Creating Visual Landmarks while Making Web Interesting
34 Weberous LLC: Innovating Creative Ways to Expand Your Reach and Capture Your Audience
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Tech Talk: Is Virtual Reality the Future King of the UI/UX Kingdom?
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Spotlight: Let Your Website Tell a Story
Tech-n-Trend: Vogues that will Change the UI/UX Industry Change is the only constant thing in the world.
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Solution Providers
UI/UX Solution Providers, giving a phenomenal Web Experience
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esigning your content, beautifying it, building your presence on the internet and the digital world, helping you reach your audience, UI/UX Solution Providers are helping businesses to design their User Interface and helping their clients to spread the message to their target audience with an impactful memory. In any industry, the importance of online presence is of highest priority, hence, the need for UI/UX Solution Providers has emerged with time. To showcase such UI/UX solution providers that are helping all the leading industries, let it be online, IT, automotive, manufacturing, hospitality, retail or healthcare, Insights Success has come up with an issue of The 10 Best UI/UX Solution Providers. On the cover of this issue, we have The Creative Momentum, an award-winning digital solutions agency, providing industry-leading UI/UX experiences. The Creative Momentum is also known to provide inbound marketing, SEO, PPC, logo/branding services and more. Experienced in every field – technology, financial services, healthcare, aviation, media and entertainment – across multiple devices, Content Management Systems and app development. Leading the way with UI/UX solutions across multiple industries because clients seek them out specifically for their expertise on those solutions. Whereas many clients did not know what UI/UX is, now with The Creative Momentum, the industry is seeing a shift with clients looking for UI/UX from the beginning. Its extraordinary services has helped people to know some amazing artistry of UI/UX industry. Along with this amazing Cover Story, this issue has come up with some interesting stories of major contributing enterprises of the UI/UX industry such as Weberous LLC, Los Angeles based full-service Graphic and Web Design agency, which is helping businesses in expanding their reach, capturing their audience and increasing their return on investment in the most creative way possible. Bluestepstudio, a creative design studio from Italy specializing in digital design and ensuring seamless services throughout the entire deployment and ongoing support procedure by offering high performance, user-friendly, well integrated and creative web application design and development solutions. We have also covered some of the significant contributors of the industry who leads both their company and the industry, as Daniel Spatzek, an award-winning freelance graphic designer and art director from Austria who has been known to provide unique UI/UX solutions to fulfill the communicating goals of his clients. Julia Hell is an award-winning freelance graphic designer and art director who is known to provide the clients with tailor made platforms aiming for a unique user experience through her company Julia Hell Grafik. This issue contains some of the masterly written articles by our in-house editors to ignite the flame of UI/UX Industry in the minds of readers like Vogues that will change the UI/UX Industry, Is Virtual Reality the Future King of the UI/UX Kingdom and Let Your Website Tell a Story. Hope, this issue will be remarkable and memorable for you.
www.inď€ onic.com
Cover Story
Carl Widdowson CEO
Solution Providers
Cover Story echnology evolves quickly, bringing new gadgets to market all the time. New devices change how users interact with this technology, requiring UI/UX solutions to adapt.
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and entertainment and more – including companies ranked in the Fortune 50. Basically, there isn’t an industry or business size they haven’t touched and UI/UX influences all of them.
Users access mobile devices for shopping, entertainment, recreational activities and general research. Desktop/laptop usage still steadily leans towards in-depth research and daily office work.
Extraordinary performance has won The Creative Momentum three consecutive annual awards as the fastest growing privately held company in Atlanta by Atlanta Business Chronicle and, most recently, a spot on the Inc. 5,000. With over 100 industry awards, reports suggest The Creative Momentum has made more progress in growth and revenue than any other digital agency in the last 5+ years.
As we know, younger generations interact with their devices differently and cannot imagine a time we lived without them. B2C business has shifted to reach these users. B2B is also evolving by providing employees laptop and mobile devices with high screen resolution and all the functionality previously reserved for desktops.
The Creative Momentum – Thriving by Moving Businesses Forward The Creative Momentum started their journey in the field of custom web design and development in 2012, growing their client list from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies in just a very short span of few years. Their rise in success is startling and unfettered, reported as more successful than any other agency in the timeframe from which they originated. The web design process gives businesses the perfect opportunity to rethink their entire branding and marketing strategies. Clients happy with the web design process began looking to The Creative Momentum for further creative and marketing influence. So, The Creative Momentum began growing their service offerings to include Branding, Inbound Marketing, SEO, PPC, mobile app development, explainer videos, software development, and more. Thriving in the Atlanta community, The Creative Momentum now services clients globally in high-tech B2B, B2C, healthcare, consulting, security and non-profit industries.
Every industry is moving faster into the future with new mobile technology and Virtual Reality (VR). The Creative Momentum is leading the way with UI/UX solutions across multiple industries because clients seek them out specifically for their expertise on those solutions. Whereas many clients did not know what UI/UX is, now the industry is seeing a shift with clients looking for UI/UX from the beginning. The Creative Momentum services businesses in every field – healthcare, technology, financial services, aviation, media
The Creative Momentum Lead by User-first Advocate With a mission to provide user-first designs, ultimate creative and everlasting UI/UX solutions to his clients, Carl Widdowson, CEO at The Creative Momentum, cofounded the company in 2012. With a degree in Arts, Multimedia and Web Design from Art Institute of Atlanta and extraordinary experience spanning almost a decade, Widdowson is passionate about leading with enthusiastic team collaboration, visibility and determination. “UI/UX has increasingly interested clients over the years because they realize a great user experience ultimately means conversions, which leads to revenue. UI/UX is about getting the user information relevant to what they’re searching.” – Carl Widdowson, CEO.
We truly view our customers as partners and strive to make them feel we are an extension of their team and we have had tremendous customer success The Leadership Which Lead the Team towards Success Co-founders Carl Widdowson and Michael White began The Creative Momentum for a single purpose – to provide an amazing digital marketing experience from beginning to end. Carl is a visionary Creative Director with custom websites of Fortune 100 companies on his dossier. Mashable contacted Widdowson for his input on The New York Times website redesign. Carl also oversees all creative vision and strategy at The Creative Momentum. Company President Michael White leads overall business vision, revenue, and operations. His guidance helped The Creative Momentum recently rank on the Inc. 5000 list, become a 3-time recipient of the Pacesetter Award for being among the top 100 fastest growing private companies in Atlanta by Atlanta Business Chronicle, and rank nationally for web design and development for the past five years. Revolutionizing Business Process Fusing technology and design may be revolutionary, but The Creative Momentum operates with a traditional “client’s needs first, then the client’s customer” approach. Treating clients as partners clears the way and allows them to effectively concentrate on the UI/UX experience. The Creative Momentum has worked
on a wide range of projects, varying in scope, from a software involving ultrasound technology to help hospitals more effectively use their data and machines accurately. In the aviation industry, they enabled users to control in-flight entertainment and gave the user full access to control the experience through their mobile or laptop devices. In-depth Service Specialties UI/UX – At The Creative Momentum, the user comes first and all designs and conversions reflect it. Web designers study their clients thoroughly, learn who the user is and create a UI/UX strategy that fits them perfectly. All designs are mobile responsive, considering every platform a user may interact with on a website. Inbound Marketing – Studies in inbound marketing prove it is the best way to attract the right visitors to your website. The Creative Momentum uses a combination of quality blogging, gating valuable content, utilizing social media to engage with users regularly and keeping SEO up-to-date. Staff copywriters create the language for websites, landing pages, blogs, social media, email marketing and more. The Facilities Are Expanding In 2016, The Creative Momentum outgrew their space and moved to an office in Roswell, more than doubling their square footage. They designed the space themselves and have grown more than 408% in the past 3 years. The culture is fun and collaborative with open offices, a lounge, coffee bar and recreational activities. All of this was designed to inspire creativity. Relationships with Clients & Employees To The Creative Momentum, no client is the same. Starting from zero with everyone, clients are not painted into a corner at any point in the process, from the RFI/RFP stage all the way to
project completion. Treating each product as a unique one-off leaves room for creativity, inspiration and hard work. They consult every client personally to ensure transparency and honesty, which ultimately leads to a product the client loves. Widdowson says, “We love to meet with clients face-to-face. It paves the way to open communication, so uneasy feelings are addressed right away. Meeting the needs of our clients is actually very easy because we have a comprehensive discovery phase.” Employees are encouraged to continue education and maintain a work/life balance. “We believe culture is downright contagious in a great and
“Anyone can have a beautiful website. But if it lacks the functionality and ability to get real-time customer feedback and drive critical business decisions, you've severely missed an opportunity.” transforming way that benefits our organization and ultimately impacts the customer. That won’t go away.” And that is what has helped The Creative Momentum to earn more than 100 industry awards in the few short years since they have been open, continuing to grow and recently rank on the Inc. 5000. Atlanta Business Chronicle has given them the Pacesetter Award consecutively for 3 years, recognizing them as one of the top 100 fastest growing, privately-held companies in the Atlanta area.
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CORPORATE OFFICE Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754,(302)-319-9947 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription : Visit www.insightssuccess.com
Solution Providers
Company Name
Management
Brief
Architype archetype-a.com
Yaroslav Bosenko Founder & CEO
Archetype is a team of professionals who have built a great customer service and have been working on optimizations all the time in the field of UI/UX and Motion Design.
Bluestepstudio bluestepstudio.it
Andrea Sotgiu Founder & CEO
Bluestepstudio is a creative design studio from Italy specializing in digital design.
Daniel Spatzek danielspatzek.com
Daniel Spatzek Founder
Daniel Spatzek is an award-winning freelance graphic designer and art director from Austria who has been known to provide unique UI/UX solutions.
Experience Dynamics experiencedynamics.com
Alison Gavine Director
Experience Dynamics is an award-winning User Experience (UX) consulting firm that uses real-world research to help Fortune 500 clients engage, improve and innovate User Interface (UI) designs for digital experiences.
Julia Hell Grafik julia-hell.com
Julia Hell Founder
Julia Hell is an award-winning freelance graphic designer and art director who is known to provide the clients with tailor made platforms aiming for a unique user experience through her company Julia Hell Grafik.
Yazin Akkawi Founder
MSTQ is an award-winning experience design consultancy creating digital experiences for companies of all sizes and industries with UI/UX Design, Design Thinking and Innovation Consulting.
thecreativemomentum.com
Carl Widdowson CEO
The Creative Momentum is an award-winning digital solutions agency, providing industry-leading UI/UX experiences. They also provide inbound marketing, SEO, PPC, logo/branding services and more. Experienced in every field – technology, financial services, healthcare, aviation, media and entertainment – across multiple devices, Content Management Systems and app development.
Triangulaire triangulaire.com
Christophe Guerin Founder
Triangulaire is a multidisciplinary, multidisciplinary production program, accompanying both agencies and advertisers in the realization of their projects.
Wb-Tech wbtech.pro
Kirill Grishanin Founder
WB-Tech designs, developes and launches complex websites and online services.
Weberous LLC weberous.com
Rafael Romis Founder
Weberous is a full-service Los Angeles Graphic and Web Design agency, created to provide professional web design and web development services, ranging from custom web designs to fully functional rich websites.
MSTQ mstq.io
The Creative Momentum
Solution Providers
Bluestepstudio: Building Sites that Reect Quality and Business Philosophy
I
t is truly fascinating to see how the websites have evolved through the years. With each new breakthrough in the design architecture, there has been a visible shift in the trends observed in the sites all over the globe. From being artistic and poetic about the content with highquality images, audio interactions, 3D Programming and sophisticated animations; modern websites are now more minimalistic in design, with a flatter architecture that is mainly focused on the content. This latest trend could be largely credited to the realization that web users are mostly content seekers and hence many of the web developers are striving on presenting content in an intuitive, efficient, and in a concise way. By offering high performance, userfriendly, well integrated and creative web application design and development solutions, Bluestepstudio has ensured seamless services throughout the entire deployment and ongoing support procedure. Bluestepstudio offers the abovementioned solutions as standalone units as well as part of a multi-level system. They are in terms with the fact that many interfaces and in-app stuff would get adapted for a certain user and this is what most of the designer’s work at Bluestepstudio is concerned with.
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Designs that Quench every Single Business Needs Right from its early days, Bluestepstudio has ensured seamless services to deliver productive, scalable and highly secure web application solutions expressly designed for their client’s business needs. They specialize in managing all processes related to a communication project. The Studio has showcased its expertise in web designing, Digital Consulting, Mobile & Tablet applications, Branding, Responsive Web Design, Ecommerce, and Content Strategy. Bluestepstudio has been observed to invest a considerable amount of emphasis on getting the brief, or the starting point, right. Whether it’s media, advertising, branding or a digital project, clients have continually experienced a 360° branding and communication strategy that pinpoints an issue or problem with high precision. Once the briefing has been worked out, Bluestepstudio shares it with people from different disciplines and backgrounds to bring with them unique perspectives to solve their client’s business and marketing needs . Forecasting the Future trends and Embracing every Errands Bluestepstudio aims to build long term professional relationships with their
clients. With consistently high-quality work at the heart of their business strategy, client’s satisfaction seems to be the ultimate goal at Bluestepstudio. Hence, it doesn’t come as a surprise to find some prestigious names in their long list of clients. In spite of being fortunate of having a diverse client list, there are none who could be termed as a typical Bluestepstudio client. This, in fact, provides the studio with a rich seam of experience that is fully incorporated for the benefit of the client. The Leadership at Bluestepstudio is cognizant of the fact that VR technologies would undoubtedly hold a significant place in our everyday lives very soon. Even though Virtual Reality is being used for professional training and the healthcare industry for years now, VR is gradually leaking into the entertainment industry. Virtual Reality technology’s popularity is evident from the rising popularity of VR cinemas, and soon tickets would be sold for remote live events too, such as sporting events and pop concerts. Their clients include Fadil Berisha (an acclaimed New York-based Fashion Photographer), Contini Wines (one of the oldest and most prestigious wine producing establishments in Sardinia), Iva Zanicchi (a popular singer), Red & Black Jeans, Onderler Holding (an | August 2017 |
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Incredibly organized, easy to communicate with, responsive with next iterations and renowned for beautiful and cuttingedge work
Founder & CEO
award-winning Dârâ Kırmızıtoprak project), Life in a Box (a touching photo essay by Dragi Nedelchevski), Publicis and much more. The Conscious Designer at the Helm of Affairs A Digital Creative Director with over 15 years of extensive experience, Andrea Sotgiu, the Founder and CEO of Bluestepstudio, is passionate about delivering top notch digital concepts, specializing in Digital Design, Interactive Design, User Experience, and Digital Identity. He considers himself lucky enough to be able to work in several different creative environments, with different people and clients, for the past 17 years. Andrea started out in multimedia, and then moved to digital advertising, all the while staying focused on entertaining and surprising the audience. His areas of expertise include Web design, Creative Direction, Art Direction, ECommerce, Consulting, Startups, Social Media, Branding, iPhone Applications, iPad Applications and Front-End Development.
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Andrea Sotgiu
At Bluestepstudio, Andrea is looking into Readymag, Semplice, Slides, and Unbounce that eliminates the necessity to build landing pages. The best part of these tools is that it simply saves the effort required for developing a responsive design. Bluestepstudio has been accredited and recognized by the industry’s leading webmasters. They have been endowed with several accolades that include, The FWA, Awwwards, The Dieline, Communication Arts, Web Design Index, CSS Design Awards, Logo Lounge, DesignTaxi, Css Awards, Design Apart, Webdesigner Trends, Design Charts, HTML Inspiration and much more. Bluesstepstudio’s passion for design is the main reason for all their successes. Their creativity is highlighted in their designs and their quality is experienced by their clients. Their philosophy of simplicity is equally complemented by their extremely crafty designs and Bluestepstudio is wellrecognized in the industry for the commitment they showcase through their long-term relationships.
Andrea is currently moving towards design automation. He is currently working on lots of frameworks, tools, and kits that would take the complexity out of the designer’s work.
| August 2017 |
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Tech Talk
Is Virtual Reality the Future
Kingdom? T
raditionally, the world used to consider that the primary job of User Interface was to beautify the digital world and improve the User Experience through any platform, be it mobile, computers, websites, apps and games. Slowly, we can observe the emergence of the demand, necessity and the need for websites, which are continually changing along with the job roles of the UI/UX Solution Providers. As technology is advancing, people are exploring and redefining the concept of Virtual Reality and slowly the industry is realizing its significance and potentials. The VR technology is already redefining every industry connected with IT and technology. With the help of VR kits readily available in the market, people can see the quite distinct and disruptive future of the industry. With the sudden introduction of this unbelievable technology, we can apparently say that the UI/UX industry is the most affected among all other industries.
Developing new Resources for embracing VR Technology
Enterprises are growing and spreading their arms to explore their bond between UI/UX and VR tech, but we can see that this is the technology that is going to conquer the entire digital media and the computerized device market. Considering the current industry scenario, we can observe that the scientists are giving their best to bring together all the resources to use the VR in improving the User Experience. The researchers all around the world have concluded that in the present state, only a few of those patterns have been tried and tested, and only a few of them are successful. Experts say that to implement this technology in the UI/UX industry, the whole industry must modify itself first, rather than specifically improving on the device technology only. This modification shall begin from the screens, where, flat screens will have to be curved ones, narrowing the field of vision, motion flow of the content and many other things. To help the viewer enjoy the perfect VR experience, designers should use the concept of eye tracking and keep the audience busy in focusing on the front views. If the designer forces the viewer to rotate their head, instead of eyes, the experience will not be that good and will lead to motion sickness. The content should be designed in a way that the motion of the new element should be directed towards the field of view directly and not against it. Researchers have revealed the secret behind making the best VR experience- Lights and Movements. Apparently, these are the two substances that the UI/UX designers must play with to make a memorable experience of the Virtual Reality. And foreseers of the industry say that the time is not too far when this technology will rule the entire industry.
The Beauty of VR/AR lies in its Practicality in the millennial generation
Even though the laymen are not enjoying the ultimate experience of virtual and augmented reality, the urge to gain such pleasurable experience exists in every person who is anyhow connected with the digital space. The industry scenario suggests that the enterprises are realizing the potentials of using the technologies-VR and AR. It has been found that VR
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| August 2017 |
King of the
UI/UX offers practical ways to convey knowledge and its immersive nature that caters to the workforce. With the help of these extraordinary technologies, companies are making their technology-driven tools more realistic and much better than the older ones. Not just improving the workforce technology, the technology is helping businesses to see what they are planning to build that was not at all possible earlier. Experts suggest that this level of prototyping will help decision makers and end-users to provide better and more valuable feedback early in the game, ultimately leading to less wastage of time and money. Every industry is getting beneďŹ tted with this technology and it is increasing their potential. Today, it is even possible to offer practical and helpful telemedicine facilities to help medical professionals improve human lives with the help of this brilliant technology.
The technology was mostly developed for offering the ultimate gaming experience, but as the technology is evolving, people all over earth are exploring new ways in which VR is improving human lives. Apparently, it seems that the technology is simulating business strategy, government policy and other choices. This is the technology which is improving the vision of human beings, the signiďŹ cance of UI/UX industry and helping people experience something more than just seeing. Considering all the beneďŹ t it offers; industry gurus apparently say that this is the future king of the UI/UX kingdom.
| August 2017 |
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TELLING
LIFE’S STORIES FROM MEMORY
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hange can be good as well as change can be bad, but a change is always needed and it's a crucial necessity of life. Humans are evolving from the days they came into being. And in each and every industry, change has been thoroughly observed since their inception. Similarly, the UI/UX industry is undergoing rapid changes every day. In the world of web, every moment brings in something new and innovative. The question arises on the impact and importance of this shift. Most living being recognizes those famous words by Winston Churchill, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” The world of web is evolving fast and the websites are becoming more innovative, creative yet target specific. Those days are rapidly fading away when the sites were built only for giving pleasure to the viewer’s eyes or promoting any brand, icon/logo, or personality, and rather they are becoming more accurate in penetrating and convincing humans minds nowadays. One will see the things which one wants to see and nothing that the viewer dislikes. Most counts that as an advantage yet some does not. Though the aims, motives, and beliefs of the websites are changing, the factor highlighting Vista and visual pleasure will always play the most significant role in any internet site. It does not matter what a website contains to a third person, but what counts more is how it looks. A dull site may contain useful content, yet it would not gain enough traffic to survive in the industry. Even the worlds’ most visited websites like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube, and Amazon also modify their user interface to stay updated and hold on their percentage of visitors. The trends, fashion and vogue rotating around the UI/UX industry which is either ruling or going to take over the industry can be termed as:
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| August 2017 |
• Websites Painted with Giant Images and Full Screen Videos That old proverb, “A picture can paint thousand words” is still true even in the times when one can connect to his/her loved ones million miles away in a fraction of a second. Scientists say that vision is the strongest of all senses humans possess, and that is why one can easily perceive the meaning and the tone of voice of the speaker through a picture in a much simpler way. That's why this concept has been utilized in the process of website design to make websites more beautiful, meaning and impactful. It does also help the viewer to get the sense of the message in a much clear way and faster pace. From the website builder's perspective, images and videos play a powerful medium to engage viewers for a much longer time as compared to regular texts.
• Longform Content Adds Fluidity in Scrolling Users are becoming more lazy and busy, hence, looking for their comfort zone in every sphere of life. Old format scrolling options bore the users more now than ever after increase in the usage of smaller screened devices with touchscreen facilities. Designers are focusing more on designing long-form content and scrollable interfaces on bigger screens as well small screens, enabling users to scan large volumes of material very quickly in a single fluidic motion without losing the continuation in the flow of navigation or being interrupted. Experts suggest that is an option to tell a long narrative structure story in a linear form, irrespective of the devices they are using.
• Colors are Attractive to the New Generation There was a time when flat designs, flawless yet muted colors and lack of vivid graphics, were rising in the industry but now the time has come for colorful images and illustrated graphics. Industry pioneers are explaining that the bright colors and gradients are playing an important role in injecting energy, warmth and dynamism through the websites and their experiment with color palettes are making them stand in the forefront of the industry. Along with colors, illustrations are considered to play critical role in creating meaningful connection between the website and the user.
• Breaking Grids Can Offer User's Imagination and Flexibility of Vision Ever since the primitive days of designing, grids were considered to be the most vital tool for designers in providing a foundation for design ensuring proper balance, consistency, rhythm and order. Though it is an incredibly important tool, it can also stand as a wall between the website and the user. It can also be restricting and rigid in blocking the creative options for designers. To break the traditional rules of designing and explore new ventures, designers are experimenting with the design layout by breaking the grid system. By breaking this system, the developers can enjoy the flexibility ensuring fluidity and freedom, ultimately making websites more user-friendly and making it easier for the viewers to work on the sites through screens of all sizes. In the world of web, anything that is new today, it will be old tomorrow. Websites are always modifying themselves; rather they have to or lose the race. The industry scenario suggests that the foreseers of the industry are bringing up more new trends into the industry along with the ones given above. Trendy effects like Parallax, where background moves at a slower rate than the foreground, enable the users to enjoy the sense of dynamism, fluidity and be engaged in the content. Adding more cards to the website increases its utility as well as beauty. Interesting trends like adding conversational tools like chatbots, gesture and voice based experience and meaningful micro conversation are making websites more meaningful and impactful while keeping the users engaged and entertained.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is courage to continue that counts,” asserts Winston Churchill.
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Solution Providers
Daniel Spatzek: Designing Milestones in the UI/UX Industry
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echnology is always changing, redefining its terms and improving its own definitions every moment. The combination of design, technology, and art makes the backbone of the UI/UX industry. Nothing remains stagnant in this industry. Every design expert has their own views on the industry scenario which complements each other. Some say that mobile based UI/UX, some say app-based, while others say chatbot and conversational-UX are going to lead the industry. Industry pioneers say that in the present state, designers feel the need to follow the most dominant trend. The work of the fellow designers inspires them to reuse their animations and further develop that with effects to create something trendier. Intellectuals state that, it is often resulting in an experience that might be overwhelming for casual users or contradictory instead of supporting it. Forerunners of the industry see the near future to be saturated with effectoverloaded UIs. They have also stated that the old school branding skills and innovative yet decent concept will come back again and rule the industry. For any wise person who has a sober taste of art and design, picture counts more than the frame, and the content must get into focus while animation must serve a purpose. In other words, animations should be handled with care and wisdom because they are an intrinsic part of a good user experience
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and this will never change. To redefine the industry and create new milestones, enters Daniel Spatzek, an awardwinning freelance graphic designer and art director from Austria. He has been known to provide unique UI/UX solutions that please the eye of the viewer and tickles the brain by wrapping the latest web technologies around the conceptual ideas that correctly fit the communicating goals of his clients.
Daniel is a man of excellence who is guided by his aesthetic sense and an in-depth knowledge of technology. His works have made him an achiever of multiple awards like Designer of the Year Finalist 2016 by CSSDA, winner of Greatest Clicks Award from 20102016 and his portfolio website has won even more. From being the Site of the Day, one among 20 greatest web layouts to many others distinguished awards in the industry. His excellent skills have earned him an honorable
position on the judging panel of the CSS Design Awards Team. A Man of Excellence with A Soul seeking for Perfection Being a perfectionist, Daniel stands firm as an award-winning freelance digital graphic designer and art director who has also served as the judge for one of the biggest UI/UX award sites. Educated as a traditional graphic designer, his work ranges from branding, illustration, photo art direction, conceptual collages to anything else in the world of UI/UX. Daniel’s expertise lies in digital design and reports suggest that he has a wealth of experience of more than nine years as a professional in the world of UI/UX design. During his journey of almost a decade of intensive and pro-level work experience in the UI/UX industry, Daniel has learned the hook-n-crook of designing. To him, the most important thing at first isn’t the client’s satisfaction, and rather it’s the client’s customer satisfaction. His definition of a successful product doesn’t stand as the one which makes the clients happy but the product which fulfills the needs and desires of the client’s customers, and that is what creates a positive effect on the sales number and ultimately makes the clients happy in a sustainable way. This is what matters to Daniel at the end of the day.
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I always try to go the extra mile for my clients and do more than is expected
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Daniel Spatzek Founder
Daniel says, “Reliability and trustworthiness are the essential factors here. I try to create a relationship with my clients built on trust. Trust in my abilities and skills to deliver a product that creates significant value for the users and has an impact on the success of my clients’ business.” Revolutionizing Solutions and Redefining Potentials Meeting clients’ expectations is not the only goal of this award-winning designer, Daniel leads it to more. He considers himself to the client while undertaking an assignment and works the same way as if he is in the client's position. This is how Daniel stands unique in this stiff competition. Daniel maintains extreme transparency with his clients. Instead of going through channels and talking to project managers, he speaks directly to his clients, and this is what he believes is the key to understand their wishes and to be able to translate them into tailormade ideas.
everything Daniel keeps his hands on, he brings out something new and innovative from the usually overlooked and neglected items. Instead of putting effects, animations or aesthetics, he puts enormous thought and reason into every single part of the UI/UX to achieve tailor-made solutions that deliver extraordinary experiences to the user and strengthens the brand of his clients and helps them to translate UX into business goals. Building Stepping Stones of Future To fulfill the demands of his clients satisfactorily, Daniel is currently focusing on building his new brand which acts as a bridge of collaboration between his partners, development and himself. He is capable and renowned for satisfying all kinds of clients from small to well-established ones. Enterprises are happy with Daniel’s expertise, and the award-winning designer is planning to expand the team to bring in new and more exciting innovations into the industry.
The award-winning freelance designer feels Virtual Reality has tremendous potential, but since VR is still in a very early stage and the devices required are not widespread yet, so its usage makes sense in very few situations. In
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Spotlight
Let Your Website Tell a Story C
ommunication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing,” asserts Rollo May, the famous American psychologist and influential leader.
Communication is popularly defined as the process of exchanging messages between a person and his/her oneself or more than one individuals. The messages can be of any form and the conversation might take on any media. Like all other media, website is a medium of communication and every website has something innovative to show, something new to tell and something inspiring to create an impact on the viewer's mind. People love to talk, but what they want more is to hear a story. More than half of the world is shouting and saying, “Tell me a story”. From Hollywood movies, classic novels, musical tracks, blogs to advertisement clips, it's the story that creates an impact on the audiences’ minds. With the change in the air, people are demanding new stuff every now and then. Story was and is on high demand, irrespective of the time and medium of communication. A question that has been ticking the minds of majority populace is that when every medium can tell then why not a website. Witnessing so much scope for improvement, this is the time and way to break through the competition, offer something which others would not have imagined and win the soul of people. As said by the famous American author Sue Grafton, Ideas are easy but the execution of ideas is something that really separates the sheep from the goats. Even the ex-CEO of Ford, Lee Lacocca said, “You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won'’t get you anywhere. “
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The ways in which one can improve their User-Experience Presentation are as follows: Inform, Inspire, Educate and Entertain This is nothing new but the idea has been revolving around the minds of intellectuals even much before the media was born. Even the media giant BBC (British Broadcast Corporation) has praised this concept and said that only those programmes and services can enrich the minds of people that has a motive to inform, educate and entertain. It seems apparently that delivering the same boring form of concept in the same boring way can result into nothing but a dull and dreary presentation. Instead of designing website into bullet or point format, designers can introduce storytelling while adding music, videos and photos or anything that grabs people’s attention and helps people in recalling the message of the website. Concise and Clear Message It is better not to let people assume what the website maker is trying to say, instead, the idea, motive and aim of the message should be clear enough to leave no scope for the viewer to imagine things. The message should be to-the-point and precise, so that in any point, the message is not misinterpreted. It has to be kept in mind that your website has your content and the viewer might not be interested in what the developer or builder has to say. This may sound depressing but the viewer is least interested in the information you are offering, hence, it is your duty to bombard them with the message you want to convey. If the message is clear enough and presented in a proper way, then the user has better chances to
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remember that. Else, just keep it “Short, sweet and to the point”. Involve Your Audience Do you remember your old school or college days? There is hardly any possibility that at least five percent of students have found those classes and lecture sessions entertaining. Even the teachers say that a presentation without interaction with the participants is nothing but boring lecture. So, it’s time to check whether your website is boring viewers or entertaining them. Involve people as much as possible and ignite interaction, conversation and even debate. Throwing questions towards the audience and giving them a task to undertake and keeping them engaged is the best thing a website builder can do. Even the audience can ask a question, so let them ask and repeat the question before answering that and let others hear that, if anyone has missed, and let the trail pass on. Add Graphics to Your Content You are the artist, you are the website maker, but your audience might not be aware and they don’t know you, your context of imagination and the reasons behind your abstract ideas. Hence, it can be difficult for the people to get the meaning of your concepts and ideas. Studies have revealed that humans are good in getting the meaning out of abstract, emotional and memorable ideas, concepts and message through the help of simple stories. Experts suggest that there can be nothing better than a graphical story. More color, pictures, videos and presenter notes always indulges the viewers to get more engaged and involved into the content of the website. Including slides can be interesting, but keeping long slides can be boring for the audience. It does matter what the story is, but what counts more is the way you tell it. A good storyteller can make a dull story interesting to hear, whereas, a poor storyteller can make a good story boring. Stories can help you to give shape to those late-night ideas and presentation and bring them to life. It is the most efficient way to get the message across your viewers’ minds. A website can tell a story and at the same time you can tell a story through your website. Even personal stories can be great to help the audience to connect themselves with their past and memories, making a meaningful impact into the lives of the audience. One should never hesitate to ask feedback from others as that gives the biggest opportunity and scope for improvement in the most effective way.
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Solution Providers
Julia Hell Grafik: Creating Visual Landmarks while Making Web Interesting
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he industry of UX/UI is rapidly evolving with the latest technological advancements in the world. The current scenario suggests that the UI designers are nowadays adopting streamlined approach to put users onboard. UI is not just UI anymore and it is more of Graphical User Interface (GUI) with a lot of physical interactions. From gesture hinting to progressive disclosure, it consists of everything. The UX/UI industry is transforming every moment but the people’s neverending demands are always rising. People don’t just settle for more now, they want it fast also. The industry pioneers are improving themselves every moment to stay updated in the market and fulfill users’ demands. Currently, the world is in demand of quick solutions, rather they demand instantaneous answers to their questions. Intellectuals of the industry suggest that it is better to go for a template instead of a custom-made web page. Foreseers of the UX/UI industry are predicting that in the future, template building kits are going to get a bigger variety of possibilities so that in the end, people will not be able to distinguish one from another. Since each person is different from other, each of them has a different necessity and every user expects a special solution designed only for
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them. To fulfill these demands and satisfy each client individually, enters Julia Hell, a marvelous Freelance Graphic Designer and Art Director from Germany, known to provide clients with tailor made platforms aiming for a unique user experience. Julia is one such humble woman who is highly focused on satisfying the clients by fulfilling their demands related to the UX/UI necessities. Her
clients are primarily the ones who work in the fields with a strong visual approach. Originally belonging to a classic print background, Julia works in an experimental way while creating web solutions and considering every new page to be a blank canvas. Her approach, humbleness, a mind to understand client’s demands, aesthetic sense and extraordinary work has earned her various awards for excellence including Silver A’ Design Award for Graphics and Visual Communication Category in 2016 and
Silver A’ Design for Website and Web Design Category in 2015. Painting Web with Keyboard, Mouse and Pointers Julia is trained with the knowledge and skills of HTML and CSS, yet she does not feel the need to program the pages herself and keeps her focus mainly on innovating in the Frontend area. She prefers to visualize the ideal design solution before thinking about possible technical limitations. Julia is onewoman army. She keeps herself busy in doing everything to keep the company up and running. Dedicated to art, creativity and web design, Julia maintains a strong work ethic towards her work and herself and that is what is paying her off for years. Just after finishing her graduation, Julia began working as a freelancer and took small steps in developing and growing her enterprise. While talking about the difficulties she has faced during her journey, Julia says that her husband, a Frontend Developer, was of great help to her in realizing the web projects. With the increase in the amount of projects, she is planning to expand her team to help clients achieve success faster and better. Julia is a down to earth woman who believes in learning and gaining experience from anything and everything to improve herself
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‘‘ Founder
better and deliver extraordinary services to her clients. Delivering Solution Professionally with a Personal Touch Julia follows a unique set of belief and working pattern. She thinks a personal touch and a detailed interaction with the clients can not only help her deliver better solutions but also help her in understanding clients. Her workflow begins with the interaction with the clients in knowing their needs and requirements through a traditional briefing, following a talk about the desires of the clients about their web appearance. Generally, she draws a detailed plot after completing her meeting with the clients and sits with the programmer for a thorough planning to provide customers with the solution filled with perfectionism.
‘‘
Julia Hell
In order to achieve a good solution, both client and designer feel condent with a continuing indispensable dialogue
landmarks to keep the web being an interesting and fun place to interact with.” Future through the Eyes of the Designer Julia feels VR is an extremely interesting field and imagines working on projects including VR in the future with a team of professionals. She says that the day is not too far when she will develop her freelance entity into an agency, working with multiple projects at the same time and delivering solutions faster without compromising with the quality. Julia has recently come up with a new business model which might be interesting for startups and mediumsized enterprises. The award-winning designer from Berlin, Julia, is planning to expand her team, and yet will be still focusing on corporate design and offering clients a 360° solution in the UX/UI sector.
Julia believes to possess the right instincts for finding work and says, “There is honestly no big strategy behind that.” Practicing trial and error method in overcoming hurdles, Julia is successfully delivering satisfactory solution to her customers. She says, “I wouldn’t go so far to call my work revolutionary. But it is my approach to create visual
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CXO Standpoint
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Disruptive Technology Organizations: Driving the Exponential Conglomerate
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he 4th Generation of the Industrial Revolution has arrived, now too must come the companies!
Doubletap Ventures is a select entry entrepreneur society and the angel community of Silicon Valley startup founders and CEOs. My partner Jon Gillon and I saw a huge hole in the market where many early stage founders were raising millions of dollars in funding, graduating the best incubators and accelerators in the world and then being left to their own merits with no real support network to run their soon to be empires. This is how DoubleTap Ventures was born. We decided to bring all of the CEOs together to create a nurturing environment where founders could speak openly about their diminishing run rate, war stories, lack of sleep, and logistical nightmares they were experiencing on
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a daily basis but more importantly we wanted them to share their unfair advantages and networks with each other. We have founders in every vertical from fintech, ecommerce, fashion, AI to crypto currency. We have over 120 members and over $750 Million in combined funding and some of the world’s sharpest future industry leaders. At DoubleTap Ventures, we are huge advocates of the conglomerate, or otherwise known as a ‘group’, or ‘family of companies’. However, technology conglomerates have a particularly unique upside to the structure; the self-replicating nature of conglomerates will eventually exponentially pay off for the business and their respective personnel. Human capital is the lifeblood of any business and the inevitable growth of the workforce should encourage the expansion of business. Thus have no fear about the people who want to rise to the top, identify opportunities that interest them and prepare them for a journey to create that business for themselves and for you. Businesses should adopt a mindset of encouraging intrapreneurship with a focus on incorporating the next generation of technologies into the company’s operations. The beauty of the various disruptive technologies is the mass effect of AR/VR, AI/ML, and block-chain, to name a few. The possibilities are abundant and the only vehicles able to take them through the course is a conglomerate. Entrepreneurs have created a plethora of startups hacking various aspects of these disruptive technologies all inevitably requiring an acquisition to create mass effect. And there is no better use for a conglomerate than to scale a ‘great idea’, which turned into a compelling business. General Electric, if you call it a technology company, did this many many years ago. Alphabet (GOOGLE) has reinvented it. Due to the unique architecture they are now more effective than most technology companies of its size. Elon Musk, is in the process of implementing this on a massive scale; beginning with the merger of Solar City and Tesla. Soon SpaceX will likely follow in some fashion, followed swiftly by Hyperloop. In my opinion Musk will be known as the Rockefeller of our time (hats off!). Technology and innovation, moving at the rapid pace that it is, causes corporations to disrupt themselves or ‘restructure’, (perhaps destructing…think Hewlett-Packard), shifting to adapt to the current landscape as they wish to incorporate the bleeding edge into their core business has most ‘old-school’ executives making every effort to protect their personal and corporate interests. Unfortunately, Wall Street doesn’t have the palate to allow for multi-quarter restructuring unless they are extraordinarily profitable. However; the incorporation And that’s the beauty, the mass effect of AR/VR, AI/ML, and block-chain, have created a plethora of startups hacking various aspects of these disruptive technologies all inevitably requiring an acquisition to create mass effect. Revolutionizing corporate structure in this fashion of a hybrid conglomerate / ‘family of companies’ model, I believe will become a very appealing strategy to companies of all varieties. It’s obvious benefits empower employees to grow and ascend through the corporate ladder, acquire new businesses, which fit into the ecosystem, deploy corporate capital efficiently and internally, etc. But the real power is the structure allows the company to create innovation and effectively disrupt itself. Alphabet calls it, X. X, the moonshots division is tasked with creating innovation at 10X or more! Nothing less. Technology companies, particularly will be wanting to expand their presence and market share into new markets, Comcast will undoubtedly leverage it’s new assets to create VR/AR businesses. As will most media and news companies, this expansion will require better corporate strategy, empowering of brilliant minds to take ownership, etc. If you are a founder who has raised at least $1 million in funding and would be interested in joining DoubleTap Ventures. Please don’t hesitate to reach us at dane@doubletap.ventures with your pitch deck and website.
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Solution Providers
Weberous LLC: Innovating Creative Ways to Expand Your Reach and Capture Your Audience
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ccording to the pioneers of the UX/UI industry, the definition of the best website has changed completely from what it was in its primitive days. Once, there was a time when a highly well-designed website was defined to be the one filled up with some cool and exciting features, a weird navigation system and anything else that the designer might have thought would look good. People no more prefer the aesthetic sense, taste of art and opinion of the designers to be displayed on their websites.
People all around the world are no longer creating or designing websites for the solitary sake of viewer’s visual pleasure, rather, they are investing millions of dollars for their website, so that its extraordinary design can promote the investor’s brand, product or the investor himself, and make a mark in the minds of the viewer. Every entrepreneur primarily focusses to reach their potential and active customers through their websites and the key goal of each project is not just to look pretty, but rather to promote the brand, make an impact, or increase sales. Weberous LLC is a Los Angeles based full-service Graphic and Web Design agency, which is helping businesses in expanding their reach, capturing their audience and increasing their return on investment in
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the most creative way possible. It is all about “Branding,” “Web Design” and “Marketing.” A company and its services are not defined by what they boast about themselves, rather what their clients and customers say about them. Weberous does the job of a silent worker and lets their customers speak about the company. This UX/UI Solution Providing company is known to handle some of the greatest designing projects in the world
including Disney xPrize and Stunt Players Directory. They are also known to partner with some of the tech giants like Adobe Dreamweaver, Hostgator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, HTML5, Wordpress, and PayPal. Headquartered in LA, Weberous is spread all across the United States, Singapore, Dubai, Russia, China, Greece, England, France, Korea, Saudi Arabia and Japan. Making Your Future Better with Creative UX/UI Solutions Industry intellectuals have apparently said that the future of UX will be
adaptive websites ─ these are the websites that can adjust according to their visitor's interests, based on the information they capture from the viewers. The idea of “one size fits all” will no longer exist, and in the near future, the days would witness the websites adjusting themselves based on the information they can derive from each of their visitors ─ either from their IP address or from the record of their visits. Weberous entered the industry with a motive to meet these needs and make internet an innovative business spot. At Weberous, they start each project by learning everything they can gather about their clients’ company, their goals, motives, work, and industry. After gathering enough knowledge about the company’s vision, Weberous focusses on creating a UX for their clients that will boost up their target audience. The team at Weberous follows a strict pattern of workflow in a proper sequential manner- create a sitemap, a user flow and finally wireframes for each key page of their website to ensure that they cover all the bases and set up for the best results. About the Man behind this Innovative UX/UI Company Rafael Romis, Founder of Weberous,
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We have and will continue to perfect our process in order to live up to the expectations that come with the Weberous name, and we'll focus on what
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we do best, which is to make great websites that are easy to use and convert! Rafael Romis Founder
is a man full of passion, dedication, aesthetics and an immense knowledge of the UX/UI industry. Being a man of excellence, he is all about transparency and efficient customer service. Rafael is a dependable marketing professional with extensive international skills in web design, print design, online marketing, and sales and distribution. Three words which describes him best are─ Web Design, Marketing, and Business Strategy. Rafael has a huge interest in learning and is keen to explore various fields of education, hence, he completed his academic career in various spheres like Film/TV, Business Administration and Management, Business Management, Marketing and Related Support Services from the University of California, Los Angeles, University of Kent and American College of Thessaloniki. Before Weberous, Rafael has served various companies and has gained extensive experience in training and leading the sales team to achieve high revenue margins. He is popularly known to possess the highest degree of integrity, supported by a flawless record of impeccable sales achievements in the US, EU, UK, and Greece. To Rafael, Weberous is a family business with family values. He not only leads the
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company from an executive level, rather, shows his acumen through each of the projects that the company works on. While talking about the website scenarios, Rafael said, “Great websites are the output but great relationships are really what it’s all about, and that’s why the majority of clients stay with the company for years.” Eager to Try Something New and Push the Standards The team at Weberous is dedicated to innovating their system, redefine their work and improve themselves to stay in the forefront of the industry. They provide a platform that allows parents to verify their identity, enabling them to activate and authorize their children’s account to use the site for Disney/xPrize, and a gateway to a membership site for the most prominent stuntmen directory for Stunt Players. Their work suggests that they are always more than eager to try something new and push the standards. Keeping clients happy is one of the most important factors behind its success and maintaining excellent relationships with its customers have attributed Weberous to achieve its goals.
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