How We Get Lucky In The Jungle

March 14, 2019 - Posted By: CreateApe

We know we got you with that tagline. As we celebrate St. Patricks day you might all be going out to explore the luck of the Irish, but this is how we get lucky in the jungle. This St. Patricks day, we want to say a big thank you to our clients over the years who have expressed how lucky they feel to have found us in this massive corporate jungle!

We all have different expectations of what’s at the end of the rainbow. For us, our pot of gold is hearing impactful and positive feedback from our clients. This year, we’ve been feeling the luck with Clutch.co. In 2019 alone, CreateApe has been featured as a top UX/UI leader in Orange County and Los Angeles. The companies featured are chosen for leadership, technology, and marketing expertise and we’re elated to be among them.

Getting Lucky In The Jungle

Voted as one of the top agencies for creative and design, our feedback from Clutch reflects our success that’s all due to our clients! Although we love the creativity and challenge that’s involved in flushing out a project, there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing the benefits of our work coming to life and hearing positive feedback from our designs.

As we look back on all of our favorite projects, we can’t help but look at the results too. Not only do our clients feel the benefits of fully robust new designs, but the numbers don’t lie. Increased conversion rates, visitations, and page impressions are all a product of the design work our team creates and we couldn’t be prouder.

Clients Getting Lucky

CreateApe was rated as a 5-star service by a client of ours who provided feedback on a Clutch.co. In this case, the project was for a real estate management company and involved a full-size digital rebrand. The activities ranged from web development, an overarching website redesign with various landing pages, and email design.

Their VP stated, “CreateApe is now a trusted, long-term partner thanks to their constant drive towards innovation and the conscious effort they make to provide top-level communication. They use an iterative approach to hone a brand’s core message, and never lose sight of a projects ultimate goal.”

We pride ourselves in being intuitive and adaptable, and our clients think so too. One of their team members also commented, “We can give them a skeleton model and they come back with an incredible representation of what we’re seeking.”

Getting Over the Rainbow

Some of the challenges we overcame with this project? We wanted to create a more cohesive brand for their online presence. To ensure that, whenever a user went to their site, everything was consistent and clear in terms of visual and content. We also wanted to add ingenuity and innovation- but just enough it wouldn’t distract and deviate from their brand vision. Ultimately, leading to higher conversion.

Another project we did for an AI Marketing Company was raved about on Clutch.co. At the time, the company was going through a complete rebrand that included renaming and repositioning themselves. That’s where we came in.

After we helped brainstorm ideas, we redesigned their website from the ground up. We were able to develop a whole new look and feel of the site and assisted in transferring the backend to WordPress.

Not only did their internal team appreciate the new design, but investors and the in-house sales team found the website easier to navigate. They reviewed, “CreateApe went above and beyond to meet all needs, while their expertise and exceptional communication skills helped them deliver a top-notch product on time.”

“The website was part of our rebrand campaign, so the design was very important to us. CreateApe understood exactly what our CEO and our team wanted. They were able to interpret our ideas even when we weren’t articulating them clearly.”

We love when our clients lean on us for expertise and knowledge. Even better, we love it when we see our customer’s reporting increased results. Want to get lucky in the jungle with us? Let our CreateApe expert team be your jungle guide. We will help you traverse the wilds as we take your project to new heights.

Clutch Ranks CreateApe #1 UX Design Agency In Orange County

February 7, 2019 - Posted By: CreateApe

Clutch released a list of the top UX agencies across the United States and CreateApe was honored to be among them as the #1 UX/UI agency in Orange County! Rock on, team!

Clutch is a B2B firm in located in Washington DC, connecting small to medium businesses to agencies and consultants through research, ratings, and reviews. Clutch covers over 500 different industries, each company evaluated on criteria such as market presence, client base, and industry experience.

CreateApe was ranked one of the top agencies in Orange County for our User Experience & User Interface (UX/UI) design expertise and consistent ability to provide the highest quality of customer service possible. Thanks to all of our outstanding clients taking the time to do the Clutch interview process, CreateApe now has a rating of 4.8, making us the matrix leader in the Orange County UX Designers page organically.

Clutch Senior Business Analyst IIse Heine commented, “These designers combine cutting-edge techniques with a keen knowledge of human nature and aesthetic sense to help companies achieve their business goals, working closely with them every step of the way.”

“The top UX designers use best practices to optimize a website’s usability, accessibility and overall look,” said Heine.

The top agencies in the U.S. have been chosen based on client feedback, verified through phone interviews, quality of work and market presence.

A recent client of ours provided feedback on a project with us via Clutch and rated CreateApe as a 5-star service. The project was to design and develop a Shopify Plus website with custom features. They said, “CreateApe was knowledgeable, dedicated, and committed to success. They felt like part of our development team—and still do as they monitor our site. We couldn’t ask for more.”

Another reviewer stated, “CreateApe creates clear and unique designs that effectively achieve the company’s goals. They’re able to deliver products that require little iteration with minimal direction. Organized, responsive, and proactive in their approach, they continue to be great partners to work with.”

At CreateApe, we tackle every project no matter the level of complexity with a sense of purposeful passion because we value our clients success as our own. We develop modern, visually appealing products that aren’t only designed to look good, but are functional and intuitive to the User’s experience. But we would be nothing without happy clients. Their feedback to Clutch has been more rewarding than anything else could have been. Thank you to our awesome clients!

Thanks Google, Are You Mobile Ready?

June 11, 2018 - Posted by: Alessandro Fard

Google has officially announced that they will be moving to “mobile-first” indexing. This means that Google will now use the mobile version of a web page for “content indexing and ranking.” As of last year, mobile devices surpassed desktop internet usage worldwide as desktop became a secondary touch point for most users. So, it’s no surprise Google is moving away from a desktop-centric ranking system.

Historically, Google has used desktop versions of page content for indexing but are now using mobile to identify relevant content on the page. Mobile First won’t serve in conjunction with desktop indexing, but as a separate entity in which Google will utilize going forward.

Google is claiming that this new mobile indexing system won’t change ranking, yet in the developer notes it explicitly claims “mobile-first indexing means Google will predominantly use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.”

What are mobile solutions that exist right now?

Well, there is a spectrum of options.

Now that Google is penalizing your ranking efforts by prioritizing Mobile First designs, we all kind of have to follow suit. Most designers use a blend of already made bootstrap frameworks and custom design additions to automatically condense information into a mobile device. This is a lazy (but totally acceptable!) way to answer the Google First problem.

But what can you do to make sure your website is on top of the mobile game?

Depending on time and resources, there are different approaches you can take to design for mobile. Best case scenario is for every desktop design you have, a mobile design will also be created. This takes into account the nuances of each platform and still allows for maximum creativity and interactivity on each page. Now, I’m not advocating for you to suddenly spend an inordinate amount of time producing highly nuanced mobile designs in the next week. However, here are some tips and tricks you can implement to create a better mobile presence:

Sticky Navigation:

Sticky navigation is when a user scrolls through content and your navigation stays sticking to the top of the page. This is key on mobile. If you have an informational site, landing page, or even a product page, having navigation stay sticky will allow your users to easily find content instead of having to search for it. If they decide to take an online action, they can do it easily. Instead of having to scroll back up to “learn more” or Buy Now, it’s right there in front of them.

Truncation:

Things that make sense on desktop don’t necessarily work on mobile. A lot of business owners will have a website with simple navigation, a beautiful hero image, a main value proposition with titles, and maybe even a call to action button. These usually look great on desktop, but the moment you start to degrade that it into a mobile space, it will typically stack everything to look like an endless scroll. (You lose the CTAs and the emphasis you designed for.)

To avoid that, use truncation procedures like:

Make icons smaller
Have one sentence of website copy featured with an option to expand for more.

Truncation is adapting to mobile so that it’s easier to use and consume for the user. If truncation is done right, everything will be placed higher on the web page in a succinct and accessible manner.

Why is this important?

We don’t absolutely know what will convert the user, but what if it’s the testimonial that was buried in that giant scroll? Truncate your content intelligently when designing a mobile solution to increase user conversion and experience.

Image Sizing:

Sometimes clients will have a beautiful photo on a desktop page, but when it comes time to design for mobile the image is simply too big and decreases usability for the user. You don’t want everything on your desktop design featured on your mobile design. Make sure your images size gracefully or have your designer resize the image altogether so that it fits within your mobile solution.

The rule of thumb for mobile isn’t less is more, but to design with intention. A great UX/UI team will know how to guide you through these steps by first getting to understand your demographic, business goals, and budget. We do the research so you don’t have to.

Want to learn more?

Let us help get you situated for the Mobile First changes coming your way. It’s a jungle out there, click here so you don’t have to go at it alone! Let our CreateApe experts act as “jungle guides” and help you traverse the wilds as we take your project to new heights.

Mobile Design Workshop

May 18, 2018 - Posted by: CreateApe

CreateApe is excited to announce that our founder, Alessandro Fard, will be holding a Mobile Design Workshop in Los Angeles this Wednesday May 23rd from 6-8:30 pm at the WeWork Playa Vista.

The workshop will cover practical applications for UX, including best design patterns and strategies for each platform, with a special focus on critical elements of iOS and Android mobile apps: home screen, search, navigation, forms, and workflows. No experience in UX/UI design is needed to participate.

The activity based workshop will be focused on:

Individual and personalized case studies from the class attending.
Hands on experience with user-centered design approaches.
Learning storyboarding and user scenarios.
User testing of paper prototypes using Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation (RITE).
Practical application of mobile design patterns
NOTE: Topics covered will vary depending on attendee case studies presented. Bring your questions AND your work examples for Alessandro to offer suggestions on!

Participants will walk away with:

Best design strategy for iOS, Android and Web.
Understanding the essentials: Reinventing your interface with an agile and responsive approach.
Document use cases and personas in context using storyboards.
Selecting the right design pattern for interfaces to drive desired user experience.
Design usable and effective mobile forms and workflows.

With over fifteen-years experience in the web industry, Alessandro has worked directly with awesome companies like American Express, Best Buy, and Facebook. His work has been featured in VentureBeat, TechCrunch50, Newsweek, and his article “The UX University of Life” was featured in UX Magazine.

As a lifelong learner, Alessandro believes his everyday experiences can be leveraged as a part of an ongoing UX education. Great UX is something everyone can learn and achieve.

Parking:

There is plenty of street parking available around the building and a parking structure across the street at the Whole Food Marketplace.

For more information and to purchase tickets visit the link here! If you are a current or previous client of Alessandro’s please message us at support@createape.com to get your FREE registration code.

Event Sponsored By:

Schmoozd is an offline social event that serves a passionate community of culturally-connected people who are seeking an alternative way to socialize and network. A service from Creativewhiz, Inc., a digital agency based in Los Angeles.