video:-create-an-accessible-rating-plugin-in-css-and-javascript

In this tutorial, we’ll go through the different steps of creating a rating widget, with a particular focus on:

  • keyboard accessibility (use Tab key, Space bar and arrow keys to navigate and interact with the component);
  • aria attributes and roles to improve Screen Reader accessibility;
  • no JavaScript support.

Final result

The Rating plugin is also available as a component in the CodyHouse UI Framework.

Requirements

To follow along the video tutorial, fork this pen on Codepen:

? https://codepen.io/codyhouse/pen/Wqvpmm

or download CodyFrame on Github:

video:-what-is-website-hosting?

Transcript:

What is website hosting? 

This is to make a point, I promise. 

When you go to a party, there’s always a host. The host is usually the one who sets the location so everyone can come and enjoy the party.

When you’re thinking of website hosting, think of your site’s host like the host of the party. 

Your web host, just like a party host, offers you a place to put your website so it can be enjoyed by everyone on the internet.

If you haven’t guessed, in this video, I’m going to tell you all about the basics of website hosting services, go over a few different types of web hosting, and explain why choosing the right provider matters for your business.  

Keep watching to learn more! 

Thanks for tuning into this video. If you aren’t subscribed to our YouTube channel already, make sure you hit that big red subscribe button so you don’t miss out on any content. 

What is website hosting? 

As I said before, website hosting allows your site to be on the internet. You can have the best-looking website out there, but without a host, all you have is a bunch of files with nowhere to go.

When you pay a hosting provider to host your site, you’re paying for space on a server.

The amount of space and the cost can vary depending on what you choose. 

There are a lot—and I mean A LOT—of hosting providers out there. What you choose really depends on what you need for your business. 

What I mean by this is different providers have different options you can choose from to host your website. 

If you’re a larger e-commerce site selling football jerseys internationally, you’re going to need much more space and control over your website than a smaller site that makes custom sports attire for local teams.

Small and large sports sites

So choosing the right type of web hosting for your business is really important to your web presence. 

What are the different types of web hosting? 

I’m going to talk about four different types of website hosting.  

The first option is a website builder. 

You’ve probably heard of these. Website builders like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress are popular options among small businesses and bloggers. 

With a website builder, you can also directly edit your site without any specific code, so it’s a great tool for a beginner. 

The second type of website hosting is shared hosting.

Shared hosting means you share a server with other websites. So if you don’t get a ton of web traffic, this option might work for you. 

The downside is if one website crashes the server, you’re stuck dealing with that. Even if you didn’t break it. 

If other sites on the same server get a lot of traffic, or even if your site gets a lot of traffic, it’ll also slow down your site.

There are other options if you don’t think this is what your business needs. 

Okay, option three: a virtual private server.

Just like a shared host, you share a virtual private server, or VPS, with other websites. 

However, the server is separated into different virtual servers for each site. So although you share the same physical location with other sites, each has its own little compartment. 

Think of it like a dresser for your clothing. You have the dresser that contains the different drawers, and inside each drawer are your shirts, socks, pants, and whatever else you have in there. 

A VPS is like a dresser with drawers for clothing

Each type of clothing, a.k.a. each website, is separated in a different compartment, but everything is contained in the same storage unit. 

A VPS allocates a set amount of space for each site, so if one site on the server is getting a lot of traffic, it won’t negatively affect how your site runs.  

Kind of like if you have a lot of shirts, and your shirt drawer gets stuck, you can still access your socks. 

And now to option four, the most expensive option. A dedicated server. 

A dedicated server is all yours. 

You’re not sharing any space with other sites. The server is entirely dedicated to you. 

Plus, you have total access to the server

If your website gets over 100,000 visitors a month, you might want to look into a dedicated server. 

But if you run a small business on a budget and your website gets less than 100,000 visitors in a month, this probably isn’t the right server type for you. 

Choosing the right type of web hosting for your business can be a tough choice, but it can also help to look into the services each web host offers. 

Why is choosing the right web hosting provider so important? 

Making the wrong choice for your business’s website can harm your business in the long-run. 

Going with the cheapest option may work for your wallet right now, but it can lead to a slower site and, ultimately, fewer visitors. 

And there are high expectations when it comes to site speed. In fact, a lot of people will leave your site if it takes over three seconds to load

People leave a slow website

This ties back to your site’s search engine optimization. This is where I tell you to check out our SEO playlist on YouTube.

Search engine results

If you see that people are bouncing from your site, it’s a signal that you’re giving them a bad user experience, or you don’t have what they’re looking for.

Even if you have all the answers on your site, it won’t matter if it doesn’t load.

This will definitely hurt your position in the search engine rankings. The further from the top of the search results you are, the less traffic you’ll get. 

So do your research and know your business needs before paying for web hosting services. 

If you’re looking for expert help maintaining your website, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team at WebFX. We’d be happy to work with you so you can start driving results for your clients. 

And as always, subscribe to our YouTube channel and read our blog for expert internet marketing knowledge. 

See you next time!

video-game-console-logos

Like most 80s kids, my first gaming system was an NES. But I became quite the rebel when I purchased my second system, a Sega Genesis. The console wars were in full force, and I was one of only a handful at my school to join the dark side of Sega, as opposed to the much more popular Super Nintendo. The Sega Genesis was my first big purchase as a kid, and I mowed yards all summer long (along with selling my NES in a garage sale) to place my $189.99 order from the Sears Catalog. I’m not much of a gamer nowadays (4 kids will do that to you), but I still have my old Sega Genesis stored away, just waiting to be re-discovered.

This list covers the second (1976) through eighth (present) generation consoles. According to Wikipedia, there were 687 first-generation consoles produced, so I decided that was a rabbit hole I didn’t want to enter. I had fun designing the page to look like an old video game ad or one of those posters that came in Nintendo Power. The TV screen borders even made me nostalgic for playing games on an old crappy 19-inch TV. As always, let me know if I missed something.

  • 3DO Interactive Multiplayer

    1993

  • Amstrad GX4000

    1990

  • APF Imagination Machine

    1979

  • APF-MP1000

    1978

  • Apple Bandai Pippin

    1995

  • Atari 2600

    1977

  • Atari 5200

    1982

  • Atari 7800

    1986

  • Atari XEGS

    1987

  • Atari Jaguar

    1993

  • Atari Jaguar CD

    1995

  • Bandai Super Vision 8000

    1979

  • Bandai Playdia

    1994

  • Capcom CPS Changer

    1994

  • Casio PV-1000

    1983

  • Casio Loopy

    1995

  • ColecoVision

    1982

  • Commodore 64

    1990

  • Commodore CDTV

    1991

  • Commodore Amiga CD32

    1993

  • Daewoo Electronics Zemmix

    1983

  • Emerson Arcadia 2001

    1982

  • Emerson Leisure Vision

    1982

  • Epoch Cassette Vision

    1981

  • Epoch Super Cassette Vision

    1984

  • Fairchild Channel F

    1976

  • Fujitsu FM Towns Marty

    1993

  • Funtech Super A’Can

    1995

  • Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy

    1983

  • Interton VC 4000

    1978

  • Konami Picno

    1993

  • Konix Multisystem

    1989

  • LJN Video Art

    1985

  • Magnavox Odyssey2

    1978

  • Mattel Intellivision

    1980

  • Mattel HyperScan

    2006

  • Memorex VIS

    1992

  • Midway Bally Astrocade

    1977

  • Microsoft Xbox

    2001

  • Microsoft Xbox 360

    2005

  • Microsoft Xbox One

    2013

  • Milton Bradley Vectrex

    1982

  • NEC PC Engine

    1987

  • NEC TurboGrafx-16

    1987

  • NEC Super CD-ROM2

    1988

  • NEC SuperGrafx2

    1989

  • NEC PC-FX

    1994

  • Nichibutsu My Vision

    1983

  • Nintendo Entertainment System

    1983

  • Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom)

    1983

  • Nintendo Super Nintendo

    1990

  • Nintendo Super Famicom

    1990

  • Nintendo Satellaview

    1995

  • Nintendo 64

    1996

  • Nintendo 64DD

    1999

  • Nintendo GameCube

    2001

  • Nintendo iQue Player

    2003

  • Nintendo Wii

    2006

  • Nintendo Wii U

    2012

  • Nintendo Switch

    2017

  • Philips Videopac G7400

    1983

  • Philips CD-i

    1991

  • Pioneer LaserActive

    1993

  • Pioneer LaserActive Mega LD

    1993

  • RCA Studio II

    1977

  • RDI Halcyon

    1985

  • Sega SG-1000

    1983

  • Sega Mark III

    1985

  • Sega Master System

    1985

  • Sega Tyco Video Driver

    1988

  • Sega Genesis

    1988

  • Sega Mega Drive

    1988

  • Sega CD

    1991

  • Sega Mega CD

    1991

  • Sega Mega CD 2

    1993

  • Sega Pico

    1993

  • Sega 32x

    1994

  • Sega Saturn

    1994

  • Sega Dreamcast

    1998

  • Sega Advanced Pico Beena

    2005

  • SNK Neo-Geo AES

    1990

  • SNK Neo-Geo CD

    1994

  • Sony PlayStation

    1994

  • Sony PlayStation 2

    2000

  • Sony PlayStation 3

    2006

  • Sony PlayStation 4

    2013

  • SSD Xavix PORT

    2004

  • Takara Video Challenger

    1987

  • Tomy Tutor

    1983

  • Ultravision Video Arcade System

    1983

  • View-Master Interactive Vision

    1988

  • VM Labs Nuon

    2000

  • VTech CreatiVision

    1981

  • VTech Socrates

    1988

  • VTech V.Smile

    2004

  • VTech V.Flash

    2006

  • Worlds of Wonder Action Max

    1987

  • ZAPiT Game Wave

    2005

  • Zeebo

    2009

youtube-‘video-reach’-campaigns-let-advertisers-upload-multiple-videos-for-single-campaign

YouTube launched a new way to run video ad campaigns on Monday. The new Video Reach campaigns make it possible for advertiser to upload three different asset types — six-second bumper ads, skippable in-stream ads and non-skippable in-stream ads — in a single campaign. Google will use its machine learning technology to determine the most efficient combination of the ads to maximize audience reach.

“This will allow for optimized, more effective campaigns and free up your time to focus on more strategic priorities that can differentiate your business,” writes Vishal Sharma, VP of product management at YouTube, on the Google Ads Blog.

Advertisers can upload three video ads to a single campaign which is purchased on a CPM-basis. The Video Reach campaigns are available to all advertisers and currently run on YouTube’s desktop and mobile platforms, but YouTube VP Debbie Weinstein said the company will likely extend the campaigns to Google video partners in the future. Weinstein said the new campaigns, “Are about making video advertising easier and simpler.”

Why we should care

By allowing advertisers to upload multiple types of video assets, YouTube’s video reach campaigns takes the guesswork out of creating comprehensive campaigns that utilize a series of ads.

Ford, a brand given early access to the new campaign format, reports it lowered campaign costs by more than 20% compared to their previous YouTube benchmarks.

“The positive results of the Video Reach campaigns not only provided cost efficiencies while maintaining effectiveness, but also the confidence to implement this tactic across additions campaigns,” said Ford’s Head of U.S. Media Lisa Shoder.

More on the news

  • Weinstein said YouTube’s machine learning technology is looking at what consumers are most likely to watch at a given time to determine when to run the varying video ad assets.
  • YouTube made the announcement ahead Advertising Week which kicks off on Monday in New York City.
  • As part of the announcement, YouTube reports it is also planning to bring TrueView for action ads to the YouTube home feed during the fourth quarter of this year.


About The Author

facebook-video-marketers-get-new-tools,-metrics-for-live,-watch-parties,-creator-studio

Facebook is releasing new features and metrics for its Live API, Watch Parties and within its Creator Studio, all of which can be used by marketers to advance their video efforts.

“The features we’re announcing today were built based on feedback from our community of video creators and publishers,” writes Facebook Product Manager Erin Connolly and Head of Creator and Publisher Experience Jeff Birkeland on the company’s news blog. Facebook officially announced the following updates during its appearance at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam.

“Rehearsals” via Facebook’s Live API. Facebook is making it possible for Page owners to publish Live video only to their Page Admin and editors with a new feature called “Rehearsals.” This will allow creators to test new production setups, interactive features and do practice runs for live broadcasts.

Live video editing and steaming updates. Video creators on the platform are also getting a new trimming tool for Live video, allowing them to trim the beginning or end of a Live video. Facebook is also extending the maximum duration for Live broadcasts via the Live API from four hours to eight hours. (“We know that some publishers require longer broadcasting times to accommodate things like sporting events, news days and gaming broadcasts,” writes Connolly and Birkeland.)

Facebook is also allowing video creators to broadcast their Facebook Live videos to more than one online streaming service using the Live API.

Creator Studio adds Instagram and IGTV features. Facebook is making it possible for video creators to publish and schedule video content on Instagram and Instagram’s long-form video app IGTV. Page admins will be able to schedule video content on the Instagram platforms up to six months in advance via the Creator Studio, and Facebook reports it is working on new drafting and editing features for videos published to the Instagram Feed and IGTV which will be available in the coming months.

Creator Studio is also expanding the number of languages it supports for auto-captioning within videos, adding 13 new languages that Pages can utilize via “just one click.” The new language offerings include:

  • Arabic
  • Chinese
  • German
  • Hindi
  • Italian
  • Malay
  • Russian
  • Tagalog
  • Tamil
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Urdu
  • Vietnamese

New distribution metrics. Video marketers will also have a new Distribution metric within Creator Studio to measure a video’s overall performance. “A new Distribution metric…gives a score to each video’s performance based on the Page’s historic average on a range of metrics that drive distribution, such as 1-Minute Views, Average Minutes Watched and Retention.”

integrating-video-and-web-content:-lessons-in-user-interface-design

Fullscreen

Recently I’ve been working on The Beautube, a site that integrates video tutorials with details about the products being mentioned in the videos, specifically in the realm of cosmetics.

This project has presented numerous challenges for how to design a tight, intuitive UI that makes efficient use of the available screen space when both video and web content are begging for more room.

Here I’d like to share a few lessons based on my experiences so far.

The basic requirements of the site are to display an embedded YouTube video, and alongside this, a list of elements containing product details. This list can be rather lengthy, so scrolling somehow has be involved. The question is how.

In our initial prototypes, I played with both vertical scrolling of the products adjacent to the video, and horizontal scrolling below the video. For horizontal scrolling, both a standard browser overflow scroll and a carousel were explored, even though carousels have been found to be ineffective.

At first blush, horizontal scrolling is appealing. For desktops, the horizontal axis gives room for more products to be displayed at once. Horizontal scrolling also harmonizes well with the playback bar of the video itself.

In action, it’s a different story. Vertical scrolling is the standard behavior on webpages, and so familiar to users at this point that they instinctively know when to scroll down even when scrollbars have been removed. Horizontal scrolling not so much. Additionally, scrolling down with a swipe of your finger is an engrained and comfortable motion compared to horizontal flicking, especially for long periods of time. And most computer mouses have a scroll wheel in just one direction — you guessed it, vertical.

In the end, one of our early design decisions was to go with vertical scrolling and have the rest of UI accommodate it, even if it added some tradeoffs to deal with.

Vertical vs horizontal scrolling

That’s not to say horizontal scrolling should be verboten. I imagine a strong case could be made for horizontal scrolling when there’s close integration with video playback with minimal user interaction. Or for bidirectional scrolling, as a secondary navigation.

Netflix is a good example of this, where users vertically scroll through categories, and then horizontally scroll through videos within a category.

Netflix

Having settled on a vertical list, I experimented with multiple columns, with the idea of increasing the information density. While I was able to squeeze a few more items into the visible part of the list, it came at the cost of readability. With a single column, users can quickly scan down the list to view all of the product images, all of the product titles, etc. When multiple columns are added, the user’s eyes have to dance back-and-forth as they make their way down the list, tiring faster and losing their place.

Multiple vs single column

A single column works out in this case because the space available to the list is rather narrow to begin with. If the space were much wider, staying with a single column could lead to text that pushes beyond the optimal line length, causing readability to suffer in a new way.

By default, when scrolling through the list of products, the video will also scroll off the page. This forces the user to jump back and forth, when the ideal behavior is to be able to reference both at the same time. Fortunately, the CSS property position: sticky comes to the rescue. Setting this on the video will keep it in the viewport, sticking to the top or bottom edge of the widow, so long as the list is on screen as well.

Sticky positioning

When using media queries, both developers and frameworks often rely solely on breakpoints set at different widths. For basic cases, such as turning two columns of text into one for mobile, this approach suffices. But for more complex situations, adding the orientation feature to media queries can make all the difference.

Consider our project, which needs to squeeze in both the video player, which is always present at its 16:9 aspect ratio, and the product list, whose design we have more room to play with. The naive approach of moving to a single column for smaller devices only works if the device is being held in portrait mode. If rotated to landscape however, the two-column layout will make better use of the space.

Orientation

As a side-note, remember to make your videos responsive. If you’re delivering your video in an iframe, as is the case with YouTube embeds, you’ll need some CSS trickery to get this done.

One gotcha to watch out for is that on iOS by default, YouTube will automatically play embedded videos in full-screen, rendering all of the above design improvements moot. To allow mobile users to view all of our content simultaneously, enable inline playback with the playsinline parameter.

Fullscreen

Everything up to this point has been about layout and positioning. But integrating video content with the web also affords integrated behaviors. For this project, two-way coupling was implemented, meaning that the state of the video content affects the web content, and vice versa. Communicating between the two is made possible by the YouTube Player API, which exposes video player events like onReady and methods like seekTo() and getCurrentTime().

In the list, each item has a clickable timestamp that seeks the player to that time in the video. On the video side, a listener checks when the current time elapses past a new timestamp, highlighting the respective item and scrolling it into view with the native method scrollIntoView().

Two-way coupling

Lastly, I adopted what I call the lazy auto-scroll. By this principle, the current active list item is:

  1. always kept in the viewport
  2. but by scrolling with the least amount of movement possible

Let’s take a few concrete examples. When the newly active item is already within the viewport, no auto-scrolling happens, regardless of the item’s position. When the active item is above the fold, which can happen when the user has browsed around the list, the list auto-scrolls to put the item on the top edge of the viewport. When the active item is below the fold, the list auto-scrolls the item to the bottom edge of the viewport. And the auto-scrolling check happens only when the video reaches a new timestamp.

Lazy autoscroll

The effect of this lazy auto-scrolling is that there’s less unnecessary movement creating distraction and a chance for the user to lose their place. If the active item is a few pixels off from the top or center of the list, does it really need to scroll those measly pixels?

Lazy auto-scrolling also gives users freedom to browse around a bit without auto-scroll hijacking their actions. Only when the video reaches a new timestamp, the list re-orients itself, benefiting users who do want to navigate back to the current active item eventually.

Applying all of the lessons above, here’s the current, though likely not the final, state of The Beautube.

The Beautube

video-marketing-tops-list-of-marketers’-priorities,-voice-search-ranks-low

According to new research which surveyed over 1,000 creative and digital marketing decision-makers, video is the top priority for the remainder of 2019 and into 2020. The Mondo Creative & Digital Trends report revealed that 67% of digital marketers and creatives anticipate video marketing as their first priority. When it comes to search engine marketing, however, respondents indicated that visual and voice search are much lower on the priority list.

Why we should care

The types of video marketing that respondents expect to invest in most include Instagram stories (66%) and newsfeed videos (62%). Gifs (52%), cinemographs (31%), live streaming (28%) and IGTV (28%) were among other top-ranking video types respondents anticipate producing.

Unsurprisingly, the prioritization of Instagram stories and newsfeed videos varied between B2B and B2C marketers; B2B marketers lean towards newsfeed videos, while B2C marketers rank Instagram stories higher.

Beyond video, survey respondents indicated that experiential marketing (31%), micro-moments (28%), motion design (24%), visual search (21%) and voice search (10%) are important to their 2019-2020 marketing efforts.

Voice search did not rank as a top priority for digital marketers, according to Mondo. Only 17% indicated their websites are already optimized for search or have plans to implement changes in the next 12 months. Thirty-five percent have or plan to optimize their websites for visual search.

Digital marketers ranked audience targeting (86%) as the top component informing their paid search strategies in the next year, with keywords (83%) and remarketing (76%) also ranking high on the list of priorities.

While more devices with voice activations continue to enter the market, marketers might not be fully prepared for a shift towards voice search. With video currently sitting at the top of the marketers’ wishlist, we can’t let emerging search trends fall by the wayside.

More on the news

  • GDPR compliance is a high priority for 55% percent of those surveyed.
  • Fourty-one percent of respondents cited artificial intelligence or machine learning technologies
  • Reactive design was also ranked by 38% of respondents as a high priority in 2019-2020 marketing plans.
  • Earlier this year, the IAB and eMarketer reported that advertisers are expected to dedicate more than half of video budgets to original content this year.


About The Author

video:-the-universal-s

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