Collection of Yanlin Ma’s 2.5D UI interaction experiments on the web.
Co-founder and Creative Director at jam3
AKQA – Associate Creative Director
Elephant – Design Lead, Art
Design Lead at Blizzard Entertainment
Co-founder Design Director at TRÜF
Founder / CD at Uncloudy & Co. And Art Director at Forsman & Bodenfors Inhouse
Creative Director & CEO @ Trionn Design
Graphic Designer and UI/UX Designer at Doctor Jekyll
Independent Creative Director & Designer
Hibo – Digital Art Director
Nintai Studio – Creative Director
Awwwards Users – Pro and Chief
Senior Front-end Developer @ Sennep Ltd
Creative Developer at Hello Monday
Yanlin MafromUnited States
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January 04, 2020
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January 03, 2020
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January 02, 2020
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From United States
January 01, 2020
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Sites are sent to a minimum of 16 Design Jury members, the two scores furthest from the average will be automatically eliminated by our system. SOTD will then be sent to the Developer Jury to be evaluated following the Developer Guidelines, find more info here.
In this article, I’ll show you how to use PHP code in your HTML pages. It’s aimed to PHP beginners who are trying to strengthen their grip on the world’s most popular server-side scripting language.
Again, PHP is a server-side scripting language. That means a PHP script is executed on the server, the output is built on the server, and the result is finally sent as HTML to the client browser for rendering. It’s natural to mix PHP and HTML in a script, but as a beginner, it’s tricky to know how to combine the PHP code with the HTML code.
Today, we’re going to discuss a couple of different ways you could choose from when you want to use PHP in HTML. I assume that you have a working installation of PHP so that you can run the examples provided in this article.
Different Ways to Combine PHP and HTML
Broadly speaking, when it comes to use PHP in HTML, there are two different approaches. The first is to embed the PHP code in your HTML file itself with the .html extension—this requires a special consideration which we’ll discuss in a moment. The other option, the preferred way, is to combine PHP and HTML tags in .php files.
Since PHP is a server-side scripting language, the code is interpreted and run on the server side. For example, if you add the following code in your index.html file, it won’t run out of the box.
Embed PHP in a .html File
First of all, don’t worry if you haven’t seen this kind of mixed PHP and HTML code before, as we’ll discuss it in detail throughout this article. The above example outputs following in your browser:
So as you can see, by default, PHP tags in your .html document are not detected, and they’re just considered plain-text, outputting without parsing. That’s because the server is usually configured to run PHP only for files with the .php extension.
If you want to run your HTML files as PHP, you can tell the server to run your .html files as PHP files, but it’s a much better idea to put your mixed PHP and HTML code into a file with the .php extension.
That’s what I’ll show you in this tutorial.
How to Add PHP Tags in Your HTML Page?
When it comes to integrating PHP code with HTML content, you need to enclose the PHP code with the PHP start tag and the PHP end tag ?>. The code wrapped between these two tags is considered to be PHP code, and thus it'll be executed on the server side before the requested file is sent to the client browser.
Let’s have a look at a very simple example which displays a message by the PHP code. Create the index.php file with the following contents under your document root.
How to put PHP in HTML - Simple Example
The important thing in the above example is that the PHP code is wrapped by the PHP tags.
The output of the above example looks like this:
And, if you look at the view source of the page, it should look like this:
As you can see, the PHP code is parsed and executed on the server side, and it's merged with HTML before the page is sent to the client browser.
Let’s have a look at another example:
How to put PHP in HTML- Date Example
This is pure HTML message.
Next, we’ll display today’s date and day by PHP!
Today’s date is and it’s a today!
Again, this is static HTML content.
This will output the current date and time, so as you can see you can use PHP code in between the HTML tags to produce dynamic output from the server. It’s important to remember that whenever the page is executed on the server side, all the code between the and ?> tags will be interpreted as PHP and the output will be embedded with the HTML tags.
In fact, there’s another way you could write the above example as shown in the following snippet.
How to put PHP in HTML- Date Example
This is pure HTML message.
Next, we’ll display today’s date and day by PHP!
' . date('Y/m/d') . ' and it’s a '.date('l').' today!';
?>
Again, this is static HTML content.
In the above example, we’ve used the concatenation feature of PHP which allows you to join different strings into one string. And finally, we’ve used the echo construct to display the concatenated string.
The output is same irrespective of the method you use as shown in the following screenshot.
And that brings another question: which is the best way? Should you use the concatenation feature or insert separate PHP tags in between the HTML tags? I would say, it really depends, there’s no strict rule which forces you to use one of these methods. Personally, I feel that the placeholder method is more readable compared to the concatenation method.
The overall structure of the PHP page combined with HTML and PHP code should look like this:
...
HTML...
HTML...
HTML...
In the next section, we’ll see how you could use PHP loops with HTML.
How to Use PHP Loops in Your HTML Page
Iterating through the arrays to produce HTML content is one of the most common tasks you'll encounter while writing PHP scripts. In this section, we’ll see how you could iterate through the an array of items and and generate output.
In most of the cases, you’ll need to display array content which you’ve populated from the database or some other sources. In this example, for the sake of simplicity, we’ll initialize the array with different values in the beginning of the script itself.
Go ahead and create a PHP file with the following contents.
How to put PHP in HTML - foreach Example
List of Employees
Firstly, we’ve initialized the array in the beginning of our script. Next, we’ve used the foreach construct to iterate through the array values. And finally, we’ve used the echo construct to display the array element value.
And the output should look like this:
The same example with a while loop looks like this:
How to put PHP in HTML - foreach Example
List of Employees
And the output will be the same. So that’s how you can use foreach and while loops to generate HTML content based on PHP arrays.
In the next and last section, we’ll see how you could use PHP short tags syntax.
How to Use PHP Short Tags
In the examples we’ve discussed so far, we’ve used the as a starting tag everywhere. In fact, PHP comes with a variation of that which you could use as a short-hand syntax when you want to display a string or value of the variable.
Let’s revise the example with the short-hand syntax which we discussed earlier.
How to put PHP in HTML - Simple Example
As you can see, we can omit the echo or print construct while displaying a value by using the short-hand syntax. The short-hand syntax is short and readable when you want to display something with echo or print.
So these are different ways you can use to add PHP in HTML content. As a beginner, you can learn from trying different ways to do things, and it's fun too!
Conclusion
Today we discussed how you can mix PHP and HTML to create dynamic HTML. We discussed different methods with a few handful of examples to see how things work.
Feel free to use the feed below to ask if you’ve any queries and I’ll be happy to answer them!
The Best PHP Scripts on CodeCanyon
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Here are a few of the best-selling and up-and-coming PHP scripts available from CodeCanyon for 2020.
One of the best things about working as a freelance designer is that you can work from anywhere you like. You could be at a co-working hub, in your bedroom, or at the beach; as long as you meet your deadlines, it doesn’t matter where you are. Being able to work wherever you like also gives you the freedom of finding international clients. Why limit yourself by working only for people in your neighborhood or your city? You could do web design or graphic design work from your local cafe for a business in the next street, or on the next continent. It doesn’t make a difference to your professionalism or your skills.
Working for global clients gives you an excellent opportunity to expand your business. After all, the bigger the pool of potential clients, the greater your chances of finding a good gig. Sometimes international businesses look for freelance designers that live locally to their target audience, and different costs of living and salary scales mean that you could charge a very good rate, and still undercut freelancers in a more expensive region. If you’re still nervous about working for global clients, we share advice about the right way to do it.
There are 2 main ways of connecting with global customers: through freelance marketplaces, or as a direct client.
Freelance marketplaces
Freelance marketplaces can be a good way to test out new geography as a freelancer. You can see what other freelancers with similar skills are charging, and get an idea of the types of work that are available. These marketplaces attract many businesses who are searching for freelancers, so it’s a good source of potential jobs.
As well as using international freelancer platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer.com, it’s worthwhile to register on platforms that serve a specific country or region. For example, visit Twago for European clients, Broxer for India, and OzLance for jobs in Australia and New Zealand.
Here are some tips for success on freelance marketplaces:
Fill out your complete profile, including all your qualifications, certifications, and experience.
Choose an attractive profile picture that shows your full, smiling face, without any hair or accessories in the way. It should look professional, ie. no selfies or beach snaps.
Be responsive to everybody, to build a reputation for prompt and polite replies.
Check that your English level is high enough for the marketplace. If it’s not, it might be worth taking an online course to improve your English before trying again.
Create an impressive online portfolio that showcases your best work to future clients.
Check the website frequently for new gigs. The first one to respond is usually the one most likely to get hired.
Take the time to write a personal proposal for every job you apply for. Even though you want to reply quickly, you’ll impress the client more with a well-written proposal. And no matter how short you are on time, always proofread your proposal before hitting send!
You’ll usually make more money from direct clients than through a marketplace, because there’s no need to pay commission. It can take a bit more work to find direct clients in a different area, but once you’ve broken into the market you’ll find that it’s worth it. Generally, you just need one client to get you started; once you’ve made that connection, one client can lead to a second one, and a third, etc.
Here are some tips for finding direct clients in a different country:
Do some research to find out how much local freelancers usually charge, so that you can fit in with the market.
Localize your website with content that’s relevant to your target market. If your website is in English and you’re targeting a different English-speaking country, you might want to change your spelling.
If you want clients in an area that speaks a different language, it’s a good idea to pay a professional translator to translate your website.
Network with other freelancers in your target area. They can tell you about local freelancer sites, let you know about typical client expectations, and hopefully even put you in touch with new clients.
Use social media to find out what clients need in your target area, connect with potential customers, and make useful connections.
One way to shift to working for direct clients is to begin working for someone through a freelance marketplace. If they are happy with your work and want to carry on working with you, you can suggest that they employ you directly. Just be careful, because many marketplaces have rules about how long you have to wait before you can work directly for a client you met on their platform.
Getting paid by global clients can be worrying, but not if you use Payoneer. Payoneer makes it easy to get paid either by private businesses or through a freelance marketplace.
Payoneer’s local receiving accounts give you the ability to receive local bank transfers from companies and marketplaces as if you had a local account. Accept and hold payments in USD, GBP, CAD, EUR, AUD, MXN and more! You easily convert them into your local currency when you’re ready to make a withdrawal. Basically, all your payments in different currencies from global clients can sit together in a single account, making it easier to keep track of your cash flow.
You can also use Payoneer to send payment requests directly to clients anywhere in the world. They’ll have the option to pay you via bank transfer, credit card or eCheck, and you can track their payments until they reach your account. If you work with subcontractors or suppliers, you can use Payoneer to manage payments to them as well – you can either pay them directly from your Payoneer balance to theirs if they have a Payoneer account. If they don’t, you can still pay them from your balance via bank transfer.
With Payoneer, there’s nothing holding you back from expanding globally to work for international customers.
Don’t have Payoneer account yet? Sign up now and get a $50 bonus after receiving over $1000 payment in total!
The designer took to the stage at Design Manchester’s DM19 conference to warn against the “sans serification” of digital design and to champion the side hustle.
“When it was first adopted, digital design gave way to huge creativity in the industry, we were able to do incredible, beautiful pieces of work,” recalled designer Daljit Singh onstage at Design Manchester’s DM19 conference. “But in a digital world where you expect things to be really experimental and beautiful…we now live in a world where things are incredibly flat.”
The “homogenisation of design”, as Singh puts it, has been well-reported of tech companies the world over. But beyond the likes of Uber, Google and Apple, he says even some of the world’s most design-led companies have fallen victim to “sans serification”. And the result, Singh says, is an industry that often prizes “normality” over creativity.
Some of the many brands Singh believes have fallen victim to the trend.
Having your own arsenal of ideas
But how do designers fight against the wishes of clients, when so many are asking for the same thing? For Singh, it’s all about designers’ side projects.
Singh now works for ANNA, a challenger bank for the creative industries. But in the early days of his career, he founded digital design agency Digit, regarded as one of the first studios of its kind. “Digit was all about personal passion projects,” he says, “for us, experimentation was what it was all about.”
And by doing so, he says, the team were able to net the big clients they did. Speaking to Design Week after his talk, he added: “Sometimes pushing the boundaries isn’t possible, because things are set in stone and you need to get the job done.
“But at its heart, design must be something creative and having your own arsenal of ideas that you’ve developed yourself is an incredibly useful way to show clients there are other possibilities beyond ‘normality’.”
Scratching a creative itch
But side projects don’t just exist as an outlet for creativity, according to Singh. They also work to bolster the confidence of designers and their understanding of the industry.
“Designers can sometimes be really ill-equipped to apply their design in a particular way, because they have little understanding of the reality of what a business is trying to do,” he says.
Singh points to his own experience in launching a range of sausages, Mr Singh’s Bangra Sausages: “You can learn a lot from doing something outside of your comfort zone.”
While it may not have been a successful venture in the long-run, “doing it for himself” allowed it him to experience the needs and requirements of the commercial side of the industry was invaluable, he says. He urges designers, therefore, to “be brave” in their side projects, since lessons can be applied across disciplines and ventures.
Sometimes, its not about the success of a passion project, more just the fact an “itch is being scratched” – especially when you aren’t getting it from clients. “We all need a bit on the side sometimes,” he says.
Today we live surrounded by software products to a much greater extent than surrounded by people. It is difficult to imagine any activity which is not connected with software at any rate. Even those who don’t use smartphones or laptops also face interfaces against their own will.
Over the past two decades with the effort of designers and developers, interfaces of software products have become more user-friendly, so the users have learned their basic language and now can use the same app on different devices. However, the major issues of software didn’t go away. Every product still makes users perform a certain algorithm of actions to reach their goal. Still software programs are created for the majority of users not considering the of each one of them individually, still, a new application means new language and a new device means a new pattern which has to be studied continuously.
If you open Google and search for “Java” then links to websites connected with a programming language will occupy most of the first page. You might also see a link to a restaurant with the same name but you probably have nothing to do with the programming language and was looking for coffee or an island in the Pacific. Google showed you the most popular links for the query, relevant to the requests of the majority but not you personally. Google, as well as other software products, does not take into consideration who you are, your current circumstances, and what had happened before you opened Google.
Can a software product be targeted not at the majority of users but for me? Can it take my current circumstances into account at a particular moment in time? Can I use a product that looks different for me rather than for you?
Not so many early adopter companies today are working on the creation of products, which will manage to do it all, new high-quality products, software of the new generation — software based on artificial intelligence technologies.
These kind of products work more like our brain does. We don’t think in algorithms as today’s software demands us to do. It is too energy-consuming, we think in ready-made patterns — get into a car — insert a key, it’s gloomy outside — take an umbrella. Our brain does not have any desire or any capacity to analyse such patterns.
We don’t pay attention to how we make the right decisions when the time is right, how we receive information without asking any questions in our heads. Today’s software makes us formulate queries, execute algorithms step by step.
The next-generation products must provide certain information to fully meet its user’s needs
information for the specific user,
information for the particular moment in time, certain circumstances,
the information in the needed volume at the particular moment.
These principles are the base for the new high-quality software which delivers information not based on use cases and target group analysis but based on the needs of each user individually.
Today we already have quite enough data on every user behaviour in different situations, what they prefer and what they try to avoid. If software products can access this information, analyse it, then their work will become more specific user-oriented and we won’t need to perform a huge number of actions, which we perform today to achieve a result. Another important principle of the new software functioning is access to all user data which already exists or can be collected.
There are a lot of people who are doing the same job as I am, looking for the same information, those who have achieved more in the sphere than me. Access to their knowledge will let new products not only to be based on my personal experience or qualifications but will be able to take all world experience into account when performing any task for which I have “hired” the product. And this data is already there, it is updated and is modified every day. Every day some post in blogs, some upload photos, some host online courses, some read articles which I must read to be successful in what I’m currently working on.
We need to reconsider our attitude to data privacy for the future products. Software must have free access to all data, human gathered experience that should be available to everyone.
Each second information is not only created but is also modified, it is evaluated. The intelligent system must take into consideration a user’s interaction with itself and adjust its behaviour accordingly, that is, continuously studying.
All of the above will be quite difficult to achieve having such discrete level of Internet access. Internet availability depends on the country, mobile operator, Wi-Fi access point, paid bills, too many conditions. For future products, it will be vital to have constant internet access, it must be as easy as a socket access today.
Since the future intelligence systems will need to process huge pools of data, which have all humankind experience, taking into consideration its modifications and results of its work, making it impossible to say that future software is a set of separate products that live their own lives as it is happening now. Any data must have public access including the work results of the intelligence system itself, not only people’s. It is possible to be achieved only if we have a common global platform that will connect all AI products into one single system — an intelligent operating system.
Today we see operating systems as a set of applications that we use to do our “job”. We use applications that we visually like more, which work faster, can do more or are easier to understand, but in the end, its work result is to complete a particular task. When I want to send a text, I want to deliver some information so for me there’s no difference if I use WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, the result will always be the same. So I just choose an application that I like more.
An important difference between an intelligent operating system and those that we have now is that intelligent OS is condition-based and not app-based as today. Applications how we understand them today will cease to exist and will become a set of skills that software suppliers “teach” the intelligence system, like a teacher at school.
To sum up, future software based on the following principles:
Providing the required information meeting the user’s needs at a particular point in time;
complete openness and accessibility of any ever created data from every user, excluding the data which can identify a specific user;
continuous self-education;
existence of a single global platform (intelligent operating system), which will connect all products based on AI and will be based on circumstances of each particular user, not on applications;
universal free access to the Internet with no restrictions.
Products based on artificial intelligence are about a different way of user-device interaction. They demand a high-quality new interface, unlike the one we use today.
Characteristics
Interface is always a change indicator. If any drastic improvement is made in technology, then firstly, it affects the visual side of it.
The last global breakthrough was 36 years ago when Apple introduced Lisa with a graphic interface. It was something monumental in comparison to other computers at that time which interfaces looked more or less like this:
But 36 years passed and today we have quite decent artificial intelligence works. Our mobile phones know our fingerprints, they can execute voice commands and recognise a person looking at them. And today our interfaces look like this:
But 36 years ago the first Lisa interface looked like this:
So nearly nothing has changed at all, apart from the visual part and several functions performed.
A new type of software demands a new approach in the interface. Our current interfaces are morally outdated and that their dullness limits the development of technology is the worst. We need a pathbreaking approach in interface architecture, which won’t make us study it but work for us.
In this particular case, the idea is simple — there will be no interface. I mean traditional interface concept which we are used to — windows, icons, controls, menus, forms, tabs, etc. All this junk will stay only in a computer science museum and in retro films. Content will be the only thing left for us, the reason why we use our devices, applications, and websites for.
There are 3 global areas where we use our gadgets:
receiving information
creating information
communication
If the system is fully based on the principles from Part 1, then we don’t need an interface in today’s understanding to receive information. In this case, content becomes interface and occupies the whole screen.
Knowing about the circumstances about me and what I prefer, the system will provide me with the content at the right time and right form when I need it. The need for a section like “Settings” disappears automatically. We will no longer need to register anywhere, our information will be in free access anyway. The device sees that I am in front of it and, it is a considerably more secure way of authentication.
Devices will be able to see and hear, distinguish what’s happening around them, they will hear what is said, what is happening, consider and analyse the information, that is, continually study. Having “eyes” and “ears” the system will be able to accurately respond to the changes in circumstances and deliver relevant content by minute. If me and friend of mine are discussing that we are hungry and it would be nice to order a pizza, and then I take my phone and see a pre-order on the screen. It is my favourite pizza and I’m likely going to order it, and its price will be taken into consideration according to my credit card balance. The pizza will be delivered from a reliable place approved by other users and the delivery guy will already have my current address and I will only need to accept the offer. I’m sure it’s going to be the best offer and, I won’t even want to double-check it.
If the device can see, then it will easily distinguish a person in front of it. So when I take my friend’s phone, I will see the same things that I would see on my phone if I took it instead. And such a thing will happen with every device, everywhere. What I won’t be able to see is my friend’s content.
This principle must work on every device. If I stand in front of a display at the airport, the system will distinguish me and will show information about my flight, where I should go. At McDonald’s, the display will automatically make my order and I won’t have to take my credit card out because the system already knows its information. Same as in the situation with the pizza I will only have to agree.
Our whole device usage experience is dictated by the goals we have: we look for flowers to please a person we love (short term goal), we write a report to our boss to continue getting our salary and live with comfort (everyday goal), we are studying a new discipline to start our own business and change our lives (global aim). The problem is that by “users”, use cases of whom designers consider, today we understand the target audience of a business or the majority. And today’s product is designed in a way to satisfy the desires of the majority of profitable users, not individuals.
The main task of the future intelligence systems is to understand user goals and aims at every particular moment. And here by a user, we mean a particular person who is interacting with the interface.
If I have just arrived in a new city and went out of the airport, then my goal is to get to the booked hotel, which complies with my habits and my bank account balance. If I went to bed late in the evening and took my phone, what I regularly do, then it is the right time to offer me something not connected with my everyday tasks but connected with my global aim (e.g. find something useful about artificial intelligence, taking into consideration the time of my usual falling asleep). And this is the moment when global access to data about every person and his activities work for the progress of mankind. Because there are people with similar aims to mine and they have already achieved more in the area than I did, so I can use their experience and knowledge.
Mobile phones’ popularity has outrun personal computers and even laptops. You might not have a laptop but you have a phone whose main task is communication. Phone, of course, was initially designed as a communication device but with smartphone advent, the word was reconsidered. Today, communication is less about phone calls and more about text and graphic communication. Communication is a separate type of user-software interaction. It can neither be labeled consumption nor information creation, it has signs of both of them.
We communicate to receive and send information.
Today, despite the huge number of messengers, we still have unresolved major problems in this type of interaction:
inability to find the right time for communication;
inability to reproduce the real mood of the message;
lack of instant feedback from the recipient (if understood or didn’t understand, is embarrassed, angry, surprised, etc);
language barrier.
Some of these problems are easily solved by verbal communication (audio/video) but the majority of problems remain unsolved.
On the one hand, having access to user information, it’s not so difficult to notify me that my message is not likely to be read any time soon because the recipient is currently on the plane. On the other hand, if I’m attending a very important meeting, I do not want to be distracted by my device, showing a text from my mom.
Language translation is another field of work for the intelligent OS. We already have enough information about languages, their pronunciation, and constructions. Language is a dynamic system and, if we have global access to all the data, changes in languages can be noticed instantly, so we won’t have to wait for linguistic institutions to make a decision. The profession of a translator or an interpreter is just another atavism which shall bite the dust in history books or an article like “50 extinct professions”. A Greenland Eskimo and a Carribean fisherman can talk to each other only by having a device, which will do the job of an interpreter, at hand.
If the intellectual system knows our habits well, listens to and studies what we say, knows our circumstances and plans, then it can notify people we communicate with without our participation. Just imagine yourself flying to visit a friend in another country, you’ve already got on a plane and has turned all your devices off when your friend suddenly realises he doesn’t even know your flight number so he sends you a voice message which you will be able to answer only in a few hours. But your OS, having this information, can answer your friend and even have some small talk with him, using a pattern of how you usually speak. And this is a completely new approach in communication, it can be conducted without the direct involvement of the user. Worried parents can hear your voice or receive a text message answering their “Did you get safe?” without waiting for you to finish an important meeting. A customer will be able to receive information which the supplier has forgotten to provide even when the supplier can’t reply for whatever the reason. In theory, it might give us possibility to communicate with those who are no longer here. And this will become the most lifelike realisation of the idea that a human being is what they have created, said, learned and decided because the information remains forever and can’t be changed.
Ecosystem
Our current work experience with software fully depends on what applications we install on our device. Applications give extra functionality, in addition to the basic within the operating system. The more I install, the more my device can do. This approach goes absolutely against the fast development of new generation technologies, for which it is vital to receive information about the user’s aspects of life in full. Without it, the idea of access to any kind of information is beyond attainment.
This is the reason why the future system shall be global as the Internet. For the system, devices will only be entry points, tools for getting information, kind of “portals”. Every user will be able to use any device to acquire any information they need, regardless of whether the device belongs to them or not. The device will identify the user and will show them what they need at that particular moment, however, it will not let them acquire any information that is not intended for them. At first, it might sound dangerous but actually, it is the most effective and logical private data protection ever — your private information will be available only to the physical you and no-one else whoever managed to get to your device or even your password, which happens quite frequently today.
This approach abolishes the understanding of a device as localised closed information storage. Information from all the users must be available in full. It doesn’t mean that anyone can get access to everything that other users have written or taken pictures of. All of it must be anonymised, deprived of any opportunity to personify the author, except when the author posts something under his name. That is to say that in comparison to today’s systems, which protect access to information, new systems will protect the identity of the information owner.
Indeed, does it matter who created this piece of knowledge if I received what I needed? I can get valuable advice before getting on a trip to the South Pole from someone who has already been there. Or advice which other users considered useful, not even knowing it was a 78-year old lady from Australia.
The new generation of technologies and interfaces inevitably creates a new type of developers, designers, and other IT specialists. The disappearance of old professions and the creation of new ones is inevitable. For example, when graphic interface emerged, professions like interface graphic designer, front-end developer, back-end developer appeared. Product manager, customer support specialist and many other professions became very popular with the development of online services.
The new generation of interfaces ruins the understanding of interface design as we have understood it for the past 30 years. This profession will no longer be needed because the traditional concept of the interface will no longer exist. We will no longer need to analyse use cases, create convenient registration forms, identify essential and minor controls, etc. Instead of this, designers of the new generation will have to focus on content design (which is largely neglected today, I must say, and interface processes are currently given the priority). I mean that the role of the future software designer will be, as it’s clearly understood by now, to deliver the content concept to the user simply and sufficiently.
Today it is largely left to the mercy of so-called content managers because not so many designers care about photo quality, infographic accessibility, text clarity and correct emphasis in it.
Designers take off this responsibility by their ingenuity to hide technology imperfections and maintain the interface, which will lead to a great improvement in content, which is the final aim of every user.
However, the idea of total absence of interface puts great responsibility on developers. The future of the new technology highly depends on them now, they have the major role in creating a new reality of software. Today developers are mainly engaged in creating applications. Users install applications to add a new “skill” to their device, they kind of hire this application to do a particular job. As a result, the user’s ability to get one or another result from their device depends only on how well they prepared it, stuffing with applications, setting them up correctly and going through all the humiliating stages of registration.
But the point is that we don’t need applications to interact with them, we need them to execute specific tasks. Today we chose an application from a great variety of those, which perform the same functionality, we choose the ones which we like visually, which have a simpler interface, have more functions or just differ from the rest. However, the idea stays the same, we use applications for the same tasks, which in the new generation systems will be executed without traditional interface thus making the design no more than just a gold plating.
The work of an artificial intelligence developer will be to “teach” the system new skills. The work will be not to create algorithms but to “train” the system, to make it acquire new skills as if it were a human being. Basic functionality has to be incorporated into the system in the first place — identifying what is important for a particular user at a particular point in time, studying their behaviour patterns, defining their goals and aims. Several other skills will have to be integrated and that is what the new generation developers will do. Instead of creating Vivino application developers will teach the system to understand the wine preferences of each user and give them advice from important users upon a bottle of wine, to the label of which they bring the camera of their device. Messenger developers will teach the system to understand when and which message to show and when to notify my talk partner that I’m currently busy and can’t talk.
Developers of the new generation will slightly resemble today’s ones — they will create much fewer algorithms and deal more with collecting, analysing and structuring data, which will be fed to the system, determining the standard behaviour of the system, and optimising its learning process. The role of data and knowledge engineers will grow; their objective will be knowledge collecting and structuring, as well as controlling its validation. We can say that these two professions are going to assume major roles in the new generation business and be the most wanted. New professions will appear, but now it’s not so easy to define them. However, we will need someone like a “mental physician” who will deal with causes of the situations when the system would fail to make a decision or a specific conclusion in those situations when a person can easily comprehend. A list of new professions must be much longer than we can imagine now.
Roadmap
New generation software is approaching day by day. Today we are not even at the beginning of this path, we have come a decent way and we are somewhere around the moment of execution.
However, the execution demands particular reforms in software, revolutionary in some cases, and perhaps it might sound crazy for today’s user but that is what the new generation is about. It is something we have never faced before. If one single company created the second generation of interfaces, then the third generation being more global will require the effort of not even one or ten companies, but it is about a consolidated effort of thousands and dozens of companies altogether. Many areas in IT from legislation to device production will need to be reformed.
The campaign roadmap for most significant changes is as follows:
User data worldwide collection. This stage has started a long time ago and currently is developing in a variety of modern products. The future of software products is collection of user data, their behaviour, knowledge, behaviour patterns, and preferences. Data will become fuel, the future “black gold” for software products. It will be impossible to create a new type of product without data from a sufficient number of users, thus making this resource commercially viable. Major companies like Google or Facebook are actively accumulating data almost in every aspect of a modern person’s life, which will let them become leaders in the development of a global intellectual system in the future.
Data privacy revision. Today’s understanding of private information is nearly the only obstacle to software development, like censorship in literature. Now everything that a user did not allow direct access to other users is considered to be private. The concept of privacy should be changed, it should protect the user’s identity based on his data and not protect the access to the data itself.
Providing widespread access to the Internet. This process has also been launched a long time ago and is developing very successfully.
One way or another, we will end up thinking that the absence of the Internet in any place on the planet is as wild as the absence of electricity today.
Future operating system base functionality design.
This step is most likely intended for those, out of thousands of companies working in AI, who will manage to, following the example of the first UNIX team, develop the core of the future operating system. The core which other companies will develop bringing in their experience until it becomes ready to use product. This is a defining task, which, unfortunately, is still not even at the stage of awareness of its necessity.
Device improvement. Devices must be able to hear and see what is around them. It seems that since the first computer, now we are in the situation when device development outruns the development of software. Today’s devices already perform these functions quite well, however, in the future, they are expected to perform even more.
Transition to a new generation interface. It is important to understand that first of all, the improvement of technology should be aimed at changing every user’s life. There’s no point in wasting so much energy to create new types of information that would still be not easy to reach without going through a set of algorithms and not understanding the patterns of a particular operating system. The future of software must be focused on every user, as it has never been before.
A few years ago “AlphaGo” movie was shot. It tells us about a program created by DeepMind company. It was a program that played Go and which outgaimed the world champion. While playing a game the program made move #37 after which all the Go experts in attendance clutched their heads being sure that you could never make such a move, it was totally stupid and disastrous, and that the game was lost. However, that exact move let the player win, making a turning point at the tournament, because a human being, the world champion could not expect such a “lack of logic”. Some say that this lack of logic is ingenuity. In my opinion, move #37 shows the main object of future software — look for subtle patterns. An intelligence system managed to do it. It put emotional, traditional, cultural barriers aside, those things that we — humans can’t do as a rule.
Matt here and I’m really proud to finally release Flowkit 3.0, which now supports Figma, Sketch, and XD.
I’m particularly excited for the new Figma plugin that this release brings. I never would’ve thought Flowkit would become something more than a static library, but now it’s some bonafide software. =)
Dylan Feltus lead the development of the Figma plugin and he did an awesome job. You can install the plugin here: https://www.figma.com/c/plugin/7…
And through the weekend until Nov 25, you can get 20% off a license using the code THIRDTIMESACHARM at checkout.
Noiz! is a musical soundboard game that encourages kids’ creativity by letting them explore and experiment with sound. Created for children’s destination HeiHei and funded by NZ on Air.
Digital Art Director at Sid Lee
Head Of Digital Art at ALMAPBBDO
Creative Director at Bitmama
89colors – Founder/Product Designer
Creative Director at Locomotive
Co-founder and Creative Director at jam3
Freelance Interactive Designer at UNIT9
Elephant – Design Lead, Art
Co-founder of Design Thinking School Sochnik
Product Design Director at AKQA San Francisco
Moonraft Innovation Labs – Creative Director
Senior Designer at Mediamonks
Awwwards Users – Pro and Chief
Independent Interactive Developer
Creative Director and Founder at -99 design studio
Senior Front-end Developer @ Sennep Ltd
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Jury vote eliminated
Sites are sent to a minimum of 16 Design Jury members, the two scores furthest from the average will be automatically eliminated by our system. SOTD will then be sent to the Developer Jury to be evaluated following the Developer Guidelines, find more info here.
Today, we’re excited to announce TinaCMS: an open-source site editing toolkit for React-based sites (Gatsby and Next.js).
Tina is not a CMS, in the traditional sense. As in, it’s not a separate system for managing content. Instead, Tina adds editing functionality to your site when running in dev mode locally, or when using Tina Teams (cloud)…In fact, I’m writing this post with Tina right now:
When you install Tina, your site gets a floating edit icon in the corner that toggles an editing pane (left) to expose the CMS fields. This gives your content editors a contextual editing experience that’s super intuitive. When you click “Save” Tina writes your content to external data sources, such as markdown or json files. Try the Gatsby starter site to see for yourself.
Where does Tina store my content?
Currently, Tina writes to Markdown and data files and commits to Git but it can be extended to write to other data sources (think, a WordPress database, Google Sheets, Airtable, etc). When running locally, Tina writes to the file system and if you’re using Tina Teams, it commits to your GitHub/GitLab repo.
Why Tina?
I’ve been setting up content management systems for people since the early 2000’s. In the beginning, CMSs like WordPress and Drupal gave our non-developer colleagues website editing powers. But we’ve seen very little innovation on the editing experience in the past 10 years. Meanwhile, the editing experience of site builders like Squarespace, Wix and Webflow have become very sophisticated.
When I watch people use a traditional CMS, I often see them struggle because the input (the CMS) lacks the context of the output (their site) and using a CMS feels more like filing your taxes than editing a website. Now that we’ve moved to headless CMSs and the JAMstack, editors often lose the ability to preview, leaving them in the dark as they create content.
We developers have hot-reloading, and Tina is the hot-reloading for content editors.
Get Started
We’re coming out of a monolithic CMS era and we believe next-gen sites need a next-gen CMS. Checkout Tina and let us know what you think!
It’s amazing how much technology has evolved in recent years. We’ve seen unprecedented advances in smartphones, IoT, home AI assistants and more. Martech has similarly kept pace: we’ve seen the rise of AR / VR advertising, the continued growth of video, and AI and machine learning that has sharpened personalization and predictive efforts. In B2B marketing, account-based marketing (ABM) and an emphasis on aligning sales and marketing are both white hot.
But as marketing and technology has evolved at breakneck speed in both the B2C and B2B worlds, our metrics for measurement have lagged behind. More than ever, I’m asking my team: how are we measuring our impact? Is it connected to our company’s larger goals? And most importantly: if we do better on our marketing metrics, does our company increase revenue?
We must take a revenue mindset in order to gain their seat at the table. When marketers understand how their work impacts a company’s bottom line, that’s when they have the opportunity to advance their own career but also elevate marketing as a profession. No joke: with revenue comes respect. Marketers are frequently guilty of being disconnected from driving revenue. That’s often because we’re working toward outdated metrics, like conversion rates, download numbers, or video views. In other words, we’re tracking our marketing qualified leads (MQLs).
Marketers have become focused on aligning with sales teams, which is a worthy effort. But even as we’re aligning with sales, we haven’t changed how we measure our results. We’re still looking at our marketing KPIs – usually MQLs – instead of how our marketing efforts directly lead to revenue. It’s like measuring how good a football team is by how many home runs they’ve hit.
Instead of focusing on aligning sales and marketing, let’s focus on aligning our marketing metrics to revenue. This makes marketers more vital to a business. Marketers can understand what’s truly moving the needle with prospects and adapt accordingly. If events are driving the most revenue, or whitepapers, or webinars, marketers can move in real-time to double down on these channels and see results. The end result is that marketers own more of the funnel which is an empowering and powerful shift for us.
Let’s dive deeper into the disconnect between MQLs and ROI. Hubspot found that one-third of all marketers say MQLs are the most important metric they measure. And yet, marketers that prove ROI of their efforts on average see 1.6X higher budgets than those who don’t.
MQLs, by their very nature, are internal looking. Most outside of the marketing department don’t understand what makes a lead “marketing qualified.” That’s probably a good thing, as the ones who do understand would say that MQLs are arbitrary at best, entirely irrelevant at worst. They also don’t measure ROI. Let’s say you have 10 people input their information and download a whitepaper. These 10 are MQLs according to your team’s definition. But if all 10 are individual contributors who don’t have purchasing power, they may be an MQL — but they won’t earn your business a nickel.
MQLs were more relevant when we had less channels to engage with prospects. But now we tailor our MQLs to the marketing we are pushing on potential customers – so meeting MQL goals becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s not all our fault, as marketers have been under immense pressure to get our MQL numbers up. But the result is that a viewer who dropped off after 10 seconds of a webinar is lumped in as an MQL, just like the viewer who stayed for nearly an hour and engaged with polls throughout. Sales becomes overwhelmed with all these MQLs and doesn’t know which leads to pursue. Conversions drop and we wonder why.
Instead of looking at your MQL as a fulfillment of your channels, work back from won deals to see what channels are producing those leads. We should all develop a more nuanced view of our leads. How are they engaged? What’s the quality of engagement? What type of engagement usually signals an imminent purchase decision? This type of engagement data needs to be a part of your measurement. Then you can create your own MQL methodology that’s modern and relevant to your needs.
If you truly want to align your marketing team to revenue, focus on ROI. Revamping or moving away from MQLs is not the easy or simple solution. You could get pushback from those above and below you. After all, a CEO may be used to hearing about MQLs for years or even decades. The people you manage will have to revamp their approach to meet a different set of more revenue-focused metrics. And we marketing leaders need to start from scratch to truly understand what metrics align with ROI and revenue, and develop a new set of KPIs to measure our team’s work. All of this will take time, resources and patience. But it will also be worth it.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.
About The Author
Joe Hyland is the CMO of the leading webinar platform company, ON24, where he is responsible for the company’s global marketing, communication and brand strategy. He has over a decade of experience creating and marketing innovative products in the enterprise and SaaS software markets. Before joining ON24, Hyland was the CMO at Taulia, the SaaS market-leading financial supply chain company. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College.
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