Summary

In the first few months of 2023, generative AI has burst on to the scene and begun to change our relationship with technology forever. Already, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that people in a wide range of jobs will have to adapt quickly or risk being replaced. In this article, we explore the impact AI is having on the web design and development industry, as well as how businesses, and people, should approach working with this innovative technology. 

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AI tools are nothing new. We’ve all been using them for years, from chatbots to predictive text to voice-controlled assistants like Siri and Alexa. But the recent mainstream adoption of AI tools such as Chat GPT, and the rapid advancement of the technology itself, has caused huge disruption across a number of industries. 

Many assumed that people like marketers, software developers, and UX and UI designers would be some of the last ones at risk of having their jobs taken by AI, due to their need for creative skill and use of human emotion. Ironically, these roles have been some of the first to come “under threat” over the past few months.

AI’s speed and efficiency is already forcing us to ask questions about the future of the web design and development industry. With that in mind, one question in particular has dominated discussion online so far this year:

Are our jobs in danger of being taken by AI? 

By now, you’re almost certainly aware that AI offers incredible value by accelerating workflows and augmenting skills. Some of the most beneficial use cases lie in: 

• Brainstorming and ideation
• Assistance in research and information-gathering
• Writing copy
• Writing code 
• Image and video creation 
• Data analysis 
• Automating manual processes.

AI can also devise entire business and marketing strategies, solve complex problems, and even create its own AI-powered applications from scratch. Perhaps most importantly, it can do all these tasks in a matter of seconds, when most of them would take a human several hours, days or even months. 

The Latest News and Tools (at the Time of Writing)

Over the past few months, there are more and more AI-powered tools being released on an almost daily basis. 

The number of AI tools that have been released recently is staggering, and the capabilities of some of them is truly mind-blowing. Just last month, in March 2023: 

• GPT-4 was released as an upgrade to Chat GPT. GPT-4 can understand images, process 25,000 words in one go, earn a top 10% score on complex exams, and even demonstrate some advanced reasoning capabilities. 

• Adobe released Firefly, which is a programme with a range of new generative AI features. It can create outstanding new content using simple language, with almost-unlimited creative options like turning 3D compositions into photorealistic images and automating advanced video editing processes. 

• GitHub launched CoPilotX, which can supposedly boost coding speed by up to 55%. CoPilotX has similar features to Chat GPT, but will be used by software engineers and developers to boost productivity and time-to-market. 

• And, just last week, Stability AI released its Stable Diffusion XL model, offering photorealism through an intricate editing interface. It’s reportedly built with around 2.3 billion parameters. 

It’s both exciting and terrifying to think these highly intelligent tools are just the tip of the AI iceberg. When you consider how common it’s now become to use AI to develop even more advanced AI, it seems that the rate of evolution will only continue to increase exponentially from here. 

How is AI Transforming Design and Development?

While these AI tools are extremely impressive, it’s not as straightforward as simply plugging them in and sitting back while they literally do your work for you. It’s possible we may get there one day, but right now we believe we’re a long way off.

These tools are highly sophisticated and intuitive, and their adoption is probably going to change the way we all work forever. However, this should be seen as technology that will augment and enhance people’s ability to do their jobs, or create new jobs entirely, rather than “steal” them away from us. 

The current use cases for AI are mostly just ways for you to do your work, much faster and more effectively. This could either be done by automating processes to save time, or by supplementing your existing skill-set with new capabilities with the help of AI. For example, if you wanted to convert your code from one language into multiple languages, you would be able to do this with the help of Chat GPT. 

When it comes to user experience (UX) design, one crucial thing AI will always be missing is human empathy, emotion, and understanding. A company looking to create a high-performance website that supports their strategic business goals and engages their target audience will fail if they don’t take into account human understanding and collaboration between them and their web development agency.

Outlining the What and the How is important, but the Why is arguably what drives great UX and UI.

“Design is not just a visual experience, it’s an emotional one. It should make people feel something.”

Nathan Shedroff, Author and Professor of Design Strategy

UX design is a nuanced, collaborative process, focusing on the specific requirements of the business and the specific needs of the target audience. You can save a lot of time using AI to produce a high volume of early conceptual designs or accelerate your copywriting process. But without the human element, none of these things will be authentic or anywhere near the required standard.

Potential Concerns and Risks with AI

Of course, we’ve not even mentioned the rising concerns and risks associated with AI yet. Just last month, over 1,000 technology leaders and influencers signed a petition to halt the development of generative AI until more governance can be introduced to ensure its safety.

There are still some serious grey areas regarding the use of this technology in business as well, from regulations and legal implications to the copyright of creative work like logos and images. These are providing opportunities for a wide range of new forms of cyber crime, phishing, and “deep-fake” imitations which could spiral out of control if left unchecked. 

There are also plenty of moral issues surrounding AI that we must consider. For example, what implications will there be for our society if global businesses do begin replacing humans with AI on a large scale? 

A key concern is that Generative AI is also having a significant impact on the environment, which is a conversation most people seem to be avoiding for the time being. With the global fight to reduce carbon emissions intensifying, and more businesses placing sustainability at the core of their values, there needs to be some action taken to balance those priorities with the efficiency and speed enabled by AI.  

The SoBold Perspective 

From our perspective, as a leading design and development agency, we believe that people will always want and need to work with other people. Personable relationships, real-life experience, and critical thinking are all essential parts of our work. In many cases, that’s also what many of our clients value most about our services. 

Granted, we’re always looking for innovative new ways to push the boundaries, and AI is an incredible tool that will help us do that. But it won’t replace crucial human characteristics like empathy, emotion, and subjective opinions. 

It will, however, help us spend less time on low-value tasks, and more time to focus on building stronger relationships and gaining a deeper understanding of our clients’ needs. That will only result in improving the work we deliver, which is something we’re always striving to achieve. 

The Verdict on AI (for Now)

This year will probably be looked back on as a turning point in history when AI was introduced to the world. But this technology won’t replace too many jobs just yet. Instead, it will enhance our ability to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently. 

For now, the only people at risk of losing their jobs to AI are those who fail – or refuse – to adapt to this new way of working and embrace the change. Similarly, if you’re using AI because you’re being lazy or complacent, that will also cause problems. You should never use work produced by a generative AI tool without checking its quality and accuracy, and you’ll always need to add a human touch before considering it finished. 

On the other hand, if you’re forward-thinking and agile, embracing AI will make you exponentially better at your job. Here at SoBold, we’re personally most excited by how AI has the potential to help us vastly improve the service we deliver for our clients.

Of course, this technology is evolving so fast that it’s difficult to predict where we’ll stand a year from now. We’ll be discussing this, and lots of other important trends, in our new monthly newsletter.

If you’ve never been to a conference of any type before, you possibly think you already know the important areas of your profession and can find out any developments from your colleagues or the internet. At least that’s what I thought prior to attending Pixel Pioneers 2022.

Which option sounds more appealing to you? Pick up extra skills on occasion, or go to a conference and absorb a mega-dose of industry knowledge, make connections and enjoy exploring fresh surroundings? Luckily at SoBold we have the opportunity to do both.

The conference covered both ends of the telescope – from broad topics such as energy consumption, to a fifty minute talk about the brief three milliseconds your screen goes blank in between webpage loads. How the visually impaired experience the internet, to technical developments in styling / fonts.

My personal hero was Chris How – his mantra of valuing your customer’s time and giving them small moments of delight strongly resonated with me. In accordance, I want to guide you through the content of the conference, with links to the core material that will best replicate what the SoBold team saw, whilst valuing your precious time.

GAVIN STRANGE : Less Thinkering, More Tinkering

A must watch to boost your levels of creativity. Gavin shares his personal and professional projects with Aardman Studios. Lots of useful insights into reaching the pinnacle of creativity. Highly engaging delivery, visuals and plenty of ‘further reading’ material. Definitely worth watching in entirety. Gavin Strange website – will give you a sense of his creative flair and influences. https://www.jam-factory.com/

“It’s better to beg for forgiveness, than ask for permission.”

Gavin Strange

BIANCA BERNING : Variable Fonts – WTF?

From a technical and design standpoint, learning about variable fonts is incredibly useful. Towards the end Bianca veers into the potential application of variable fonts – imagine a world where your computer mutates its content to fit the viewer’s specific needs. If you’re looking for new avenues for unique artistic features for your website – this talk is for you. Everyone should have a play with variable fonts – try it here https://v-fonts.com/

CHRIS HOW : You Got to Fight for the Right to Delight

Chris’s choice of examples and commentary is intentionally entertaining and eclectic. His approach to design changes your criteria for success and also would decisively influence your next project. Essential viewing. Whether you’re a seasoned designer or developer short of a design, this talk will give you a guiding direction. Information on the Kano product roadmap here. https://www.productplan.com/glossary/kano-model/

LÉONIE WATSON : Accessibility: The Land That Time to Interactive Forgot

Visually impaired people experience the internet through screen readers – the internet described in words. Léonie’s valuable insight will definitely re-balance your priorities and appreciation for how websites should function. Some of the technical history she overviews was a bit lost on the audience but the switch in mindset is valuable. Important to dip into, especially for gleaming a deeper understanding of how a web document is compiled and loaded. It might sound ‘techy’ but it’s like understanding how our lungs work – illuminating. If you haven’t viewed any of your own websites using a screen reader – you definitely should. For a great sense of how the net is best experienced for visually impaired users – just check out her website – tink.uk

LUKE MURPHY : Lightning Talk: Design Tokens – Searching for a Source of Truth

Design Tokens act as a very useful tool for blending the boundaries of where design and development meet, in fact, they act as a technical element that affect design and development in equal measures. If you have no idea what a design token is – this talk could unlock a tonne of structure for your product. Here’s an overview article on design tokens 

HANNAH SMITH : How to Make Digital Services More Sustainable

Hannah Smith’s talk invited us to critique our energy consumption and make changes to our habits as both consumers and producers of digital content. She makes the case that space travel is a waste of resources, and that using less lays the path to fulfilment. See if her arguments resonate with you.  Hannah’s book recommendation – Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth

JHEY TOMPKINS : Supercharge Your Skills with Creative Coding

A mad professor of CSS and JavaScript – Jhey has a mixture of technical tricks and interesting libraries for speech recognition. Deadpan yet full of colourful examples, Jhey clumsily demonstrates his collection of magical creations and challenges you, the developer, to break out of your ‘siloed’ mentality for visual  presentation. Check out his catalogue of wondrous CSS/JS creations here

STUART LANGRIDGE : You Really Don’t Need All That JavaScript, I Promise

Painting with the broad brushes down to the nat-hair infinitesimally small details, Stuart reminds us of the importance of returning to the basics in order to best utilise the web. Unfortunately some of the libraries he suggests do not have extensive compatibility and thus aren’t for mainstream production… yet. His insight does provide a deeper understanding of the mechanics of the tools we use, although the message is quite drawn out. Example of the shared transitions js library https://codepen.io/drenther/pen/NjzeOO

RACHEL ANDREW : What’s New in CSS?

Rachel Andrew – new css features either in or emerging from or newly arrived from CSS-land. Truly at the coalface of emerging CSS features. For a frontend developer it was akin to being shown new letters in the alphabet that were being proposed. A summary of similar information can be found here – https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/03/new-css-features-2022/

Bristol itself is well worth a visit – a centre for nightlife, hedonism and youthful idealism. Simply walking around the harbour area in the daytime will refresh your appreciation for one-of-a-kind shops and overflowing street art. Make sure you have plenty of free space in your phone for all the photos. The SoBold team had a very enriching experience and bonded even tighter as a team. I hope to see you at the next one!

Links to the conference videos will be available via the Pixel Pioneers website.

When looking at content management systems (CMS), scalability refers to the ability to expand and grow your site with more content, capabilities, features, and functionality.

Your CMS is a long-term investment, and its scalability will have a strong influence on whether or not that investment is successful.

“When sustainable business growth is a top strategic objective, you need full confidence that your web presence can seamlessly scale and evolve to support that growth.”

This requires a platform that allows you to quickly and easily create new features and functionality. Ideally, you should be able to do this without having to invest significant time and resources into additional costly development work.

WordPress is One of the Most Scalable Platforms Around

Evidence of WordPress’s great scalability can be found in the fact that almost 45% of the world’s websites are built on the platform. That includes global enterprises such as investment firm Blackstone, research and advisory leader Forrester, the NHS England, and leading pharmaceutical company Hutch Med.

This is because WordPress websites can seamlessly scale as your needs change and your business grows. You can easily add a high volume of new content to your site at speed without compromising on quality. 

WordPress is also renowned for how easily you, or your development partner, can build bespoke features and functionality, so your site can keep evolving with new capabilities to support more advanced requirements. 

“No matter the size or complexity of your site, WordPress can provide fast, intuitive development capabilities with ongoing growth acting as a natural outcome.”

Using WordPress at Scale 

Developing, managing, and maintaining a high-performance website at scale is a complex challenge. For that reason, it’s important to work with an experienced web design and development agency who can enable continual growth and support you through it.

Part of your agency’s services will include configuring your platform, and building your site in the back-end, in a way that encourages long-term scalability. We’ll explain our own approach to this in more detail in the next section. But first, let’s look at some of the fundamental ways to use WordPress at scale: 

Bespoke Features and Functionality

If you want to build out your website with new capabilities, WordPress stands above all its competitors thanks to its ability to develop bespoke features that are unique to your site. 

WordPress is built on PHP, which is the most popular development language around, as it’s currently used by over three quarters (77.5%) of all websites with a known server-side programming language. With PHP, WordPress has a significant advantage over other CMSs, because it allows you to create virtually anything and integrate it with the platform.

Selecting an agency partner with WordPress-specific skills provides you with the opportunity to leverage the platform for almost limitless scalability, among other benefits. 

WordPress Plugins 

WordPress also comes with a vast range of plugins, which can help with adding to, and enhancing, the existing functionality of your site. Plugins are an essential aspect of WordPress development, but it’s crucial that you only choose the most reputable, tested, and proven plugins. 

Your agency partner should be experienced in this plugin selection and use their past experience to recommend the best ones to use for your specific requirements. Your agency partner should also be able to advise you on how plugins will scale with increases in website size or traffic volume to help preserve your site’s performance.

Using plugins that are not regularly updated, or that come from unknown development owners, could harm your site by making it heavier, slowing down your page loading times, and possibly even creating security vulnerabilities. 

Using a particularly large number of plugins is another situation that could result in slower loading speeds or other performance issues. Be mindful that use of plugins can reduce the bespoke development time needed to build your site, and the use of too many plugins could cause performance issues. If you find yourself in this situation, it could be an indication that your development partner might actually be taking shortcuts.

The Importance of a Trusted Partner 

Whether you’re using plugins or building new bespoke features, your agency will be able to take care of all of these crucial aspects of your development for you. Their support and guidance will ensure you can expand your site freely without running into any technical issues. 

Once you have everything you need in place, your agency will then be able to accelerate the speed at which you can scale moving forward. A great agency partner will also provide you with ongoing education and support, allowing you and your team to build your site out easily and efficiently by yourself too, whenever you want or need to.

Taking a More Scalable Approach – Building with Blocks 

While many agencies still use a more traditional method of developing sites with WordPress, taking a block-based approach provides even greater opportunities for dynamic scalability. 

As an alternative to the time-consuming practice of inputting text and images into a rich text editor in your CMS, the block-based approach allows you to create each page on your site more easily with a set of pre-built components. 

Components are blocks of code with pre-defined style and input types. You can use and re-use these components across multiple pages of your site to scale it at a much faster pace. Any time you want to create a high volume of new content, you simply pick your already-built components and place them in the correct positions. 

This is an approach that enables virtually limitless growth of your website at speed with a high level of quality and accuracy. Building components that can be reused across your site will also deliver added benefits like increased efficiency and reduced costs. This in turn provides you with more time to focus on developing better services and experiences for your site visitors. 

The block-based approach to building websites is another way to make your WordPress platform leaner for better performance as well, because it removes the need for a bloated library of unnecessary plugins and features. 

You can read a more in-depth explanation of how to use this block-based approach for your own benefit in our related article here. 

An Enterprise-Grade CMS 

Scalability should be a key aspect of your criteria when selecting a CMS to build a website. Rapid growth and flexibility are crucial for your platform of choice.

Despite some still mistakenly thinking it might not be up to the task, you can use WordPress to build large, robust, high-performance sites at speed, and easily adapt them as your requirements change. 

This arguably makes WordPress one of – if not the – best CMS options available today. When you look at some of the world’s leading businesses currently using the platform to great success, that argument becomes much easier to appreciate.

Like with any CMS, though, the key to successful scalability is having the support of an experienced, trusted agency partner behind you, ensuring you’re leveraging the platform to its full potential. 

If you’d like more support in selecting the right CMS for your business, read our in-depth guide to understanding and evaluating the enterprise options for bespoke development.

The end-to-end process of web design is made up of a number of different phases that should all inform and complement each other. 

When working with a web design and development agency, they should use their expertise and experience to guide you through this process, which consists of:

• In-depth research and careful planning
• Visual exploration and mood boards
• User experience (UX) design 
• User interface (UI) design.

Once you’ve completed each of those phases and you have a design that you’re proud of, your agency partner will be tasked with preparing your website for development.

This article will explain the process of preparing a website for development, helping you understand what’s involved, what to expect, and how to approach it.

Designing  Your Website Across Different Break-Points 

In a recent article, we explained how the purpose of your UX is to help your visitors complete a task or process on your website as easily as possible, ultimately leading them to follow a call-to-action. 

Your UX is brought to life by your UI, which includes all the visual and interactive elements of your website, from colour and font to buttons and scrolling. 

Towards the end of the UI design phase, the next step will be to roll out your designs across a number of break-points. 

Break-points are the screen sizes of devices that your design will fit within. This allows your website to be designed as responsive and optimised for use across a wide range of different devices and channels. 

This is important because certain aspects of your site may not translate down perfectly across different screen sizes. 

Here at SoBold, we design sites across the following break-points, but this may vary from agency to agency:

• 1,920px – For most external computer monitor sizes
• 1,366px – For most laptop screen sizes
• 992px – For most Notebook and iPad devices
• 768px – For most other tablet devices
• 375px – For most smartphones.

If you want your website to be designed as mobile-first, it’s important to raise it at the beginning of the project so your agency can create your wireframes in that context. However, you should only ever make that decision based on real data regarding your target audience’s preferences. 

In this case, your agency should work with you to conduct some additional research and determine the best screen size for your particular audience. This will ensure the UX designers work with the right starting point for your high-fidelity wireframes.

A Thorough Hand-Over from Design to Development 

This phase of a website project involves a process that takes a lot of careful work and close collaboration between the different teams within an agency. 

Here at SoBold, we make a point to ensure the design team talks the development team through all the work they’ve done on your mood boards, UX design, and UI design in detail. This includes explaining the decision making process behind everything they’ve designed.

While a lot of agencies will just hand the designs to the developers and ask them to start building, we believe this is something that should be treated as more of a team effort. Doing so as a core part of our process has proven to add tremendous value to the work our clients have received in recent years. 

It’s beneficial to the overall project for the developers to fully understand why the decisions have been made about the designs. It’s also important that they’re given a detailed run through of what they’re building within the context of the whole site.

For example, there may be a fairly complex block which is built early on in the development process. If the developers are made aware that slight variations of this same block will be used several times throughout the site, they can save valuable time and work more efficiently by repurposing the first block when it’s first built. 

This hand-over is crucial in ensuring the development process runs smoothly, providing you with a high-performance website that meets your expectations, delivered on time and within budget.

A Well Designed Website Ready to Be Built 

After the hand-over is complete, your agency will be able to export all your design assets and the developers will begin building your website. 

While web design may seem straightforward when explained like this, in reality it’s a complex process that requires a great deal of specialist skills and expertise. That’s why it’s so important to have the support of an agency partner you can trust and rely on to guide you. 

Working with a talented agency will ensure you’re able to create a unique design that will resonate with your target audience and help you achieve your strategic business goals through your new website. 

Keep an eye out for our upcoming blog series where we’ll walk you step-by-step through the web development process, making it far more approachable and easy to manage for you.

If you’d like to discover how generative AI technology is transforming the web design and development space, read our recent article here. 

SoBold are delighted to announce that we have obtained a sponsor licence in order to sponsor international skilled workers to come and work at SoBold.

SoBold have always put heavy emphasis on hiring the best global talent for our needs, and we have strengthened our ability to do this by obtaining a Skilled Worker Sponsorship Licence. 

With all sponsorship licences that the Home Offices grants they need to be reassured that the sponsors can live up to the “significant trust” that the department places in them. The Home Office further made checks that SoBold is a “honest, dependable and reliable” workplace, and capable of meeting the responsibilities that it expects from sponsors.

Since being granted our Skiller Worker Licence, we have been fortunate enough to put it to use to hire two new team members. 

Anna de Moraes, joined SoBold, from Portuguese company, SpringParrot. Anna had been able to work remotely, and was living and working from the UK, when she got in touch with SoBold. Anna, who is natively from Brazil, said of the process: 

“​The steps were pretty clear and the whole process was quite simple. I’ve had friends waiting years for their visas to be approved while we were able to complete everything in a short period of time! I was already excited to start and, in a blink of an eye, I was finally part of the SoBold team!”

More recently, SoBold hired Santosh Gajera as a Back End WordPress Developer. Santosh has relocated from India in order to provide his services to SoBold. When asked about the process behind him getting his Skilled Worker VISA granted, Santosh said:

“To keep my IT career moving forward, I needed sponsorship from an organisation that sponsored my visa. SoBold has been an invaluable help in obtaining my Tier-2 (Skilled worker) visa. I am very thankful to their hard work and professionalism. My documents were handled very scrupulously by them, and they provided full support throughout the whole application process . I got my visa approved in two days, which is amazing, and they handled everything for me.”

SoBold worked with all-in-one digital platform, Nation Better in order to achieve our sponsorship licence and the process was streamlined, affordable and transparent.

SoBold already have a diverse talent pool, with staff from all over Europe, and with the help of Nation Better, we have been able to improve the way in which we hire international talent and open up opportunities further afield. We look forward to continue growing our team with exceptional overseas talent and have access to a wider talent pool.

SoBold Managing Director, Will Newland said:

We are absolutely delighted to welcome both Anna and Santosh to the SoBold team. Without our Sponsorship Licence we would be missing out on a large pool of talent that is the future of our business. We very much look forward to continuing to use our Sponsorship Licence to our advantage and giving skilled employees the opportunity to come and work here at SoBold.

For more information on what current vacancies we have, please visit our website careers page.