Plixo website “design update”, part 3 – Targeted Screen Resolutions

Posted on October 21, 2014 by plixo


Website Redesign: What are the critical screen resolutions ?

In Part 2, Which Browsers to Target?, we reviewed the targeted browsers and version using Google Analytics
In this part, we evaluate using same period of Google Analytics data.
We sort from most common to less common, guestimate the user profile and their trend [ex: iPhone6 already in the stat but growing fast] and finally put priorities based on % + trend.
More difficult then it seems since some report physical resolutions, some report CSS type resolution, etc.

The reason to not only use % but also estimated user profile and trend is to ensure our web site update will actual target our critical customers [we have both B2B thus must consider "old" corporate computers used by buyer/admin; and B2C thus must consider latest mobiles] not only now but at least for the next 12 months.

We group and organize them in a limited, manageable number of screen resolution, and put them in a more visual infographic with portrait/landscape actual size when suitable that we will use later to do our Responsive Web Design with the critical size breaks.

Responsive Web Design : Screen Resolution Target InfographicResponsive Web Design : Screen Resolution Target Infographic

 

Next Episode: drafting Responsive Web Design for the critical screen resolution…

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Plixo website “design update”, part 2 – Browser Targets

Posted on October 21, 2014 by plixo

Website Redesign, Which Browsers to Target?

In part 1, Why an updated web design?, we reviewed the rationales behind our decision to go for a design update.

In this part, we describe which platform/OS/browser we will support and test our web site against.

Step 1: Get stats from Google Analytics

We used past 3 months of Google Analytics to get the following statistics on our visitor base.

  1. Operating System:
  2. Browsers:

    Need to go into more details 

    1. Chrome
       

      Very messy and not really useful…

    2. Safari
       

      Quite a range…

    3. Internet Explorer
       

      Definitely useful, still close to 20% of IE users using IE8, guessing corporate computers running XP…

    4. Android Browser
       

      So only 4.x, no need to worry about older versions…

Step 2: Making Sense of it, Threshold selection

Now let’s make more sense of this, using excel and setting some targets

  1. Operating System:
    OS % S%
    Windows 53.9% 53.9%
    iOS 16.9% 70.8%
    Macintosh 15.7% 86.5%
    Android 12.9% 99.5%
    Linux 0.3% 99.7%
    Windows Phone 0.1% 99.9%
    Others 0.2% 100.0%
  2. Browsers:
     

    Browser Version actual % ∑ %
    Safari 7.0.x 17.02% 17.02%
    Chrome 36.x 16.96% 33.98%
    Chrome 37.x 13.53% 47.52%
    Chrome 35.x 7.17% 54.69%
    IE 11.0 6.14% 60.83%
    IE 9.0 3.66% 64.49%
    Android 4.x 3.04% 67.53%
    IE 8.0 2.89% 70.41%
    Chrome 1.5 2.40% 72.82%
    IE 10.0 1.68% 74.50%
    Safari 5.1.x 1.00% 75.50%
    Safari 8.0 0.85% 76.35%
    Safari 6.0 0.84% 77.20%
    Opera 0.51% 77.71%
    IE 7.0 0.38% 78.09%
    IE 6.0 0.04% 78.12%
    in bold the browsers to be used for full testing

Next Part: Choosing targeted screen resolutions

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Plixo website “design update”, part 1 – Why?

Posted on October 9, 2014 by plixo

We recently embarked on a significant “design update” of our website, www.plixo.com.sg, and will post articles on the real-world experience we are collecting on the way, hoping it to be valuable for anybody conducting such a perilous task !

Why an update ?

First to consider is actually….
Why we should not do any significant update !

  1. Our website has pretty good Google rankings for most of our critical keywords in our targeted market Singapore:[more on why later]
    • 42 top ranks
    • 96 ranks 2-5
    • 25 ranks 6-10

    This include not only long-tail low-search keywords (ex:”laser cut leather singapore”, top rank) but also some describing our main activity (ex:”large format printing”, top rank) and some wide and competitive (ex:poster printing, rank 2).

  2. We got an average of above 200 visitors per day, most of them qualified that translate to around 50 requests by email and 20 phone calls, being our main business source of new customers, both B2B and B2C, and just nice to fill our production.
  3. Our customers regularly praise our website, easy to use even on mobile and comparing favorably against our competitors

So Why ?
Here is our reasoning:

  1. We never totally polished our current web site, with many small details here and there [pixels alignment, differences in rendering in various browsers, some pages with gallery some with slide-shows] not satisfying our perfectionist eyes. Trying to fix these with our current HTML+CSS has proven difficult, so a rewrite is expected to allow this
  2. While our website has some basic Responsive features and display nicely on smartphones and tablets, it’s not optimized for Retina type aka high DPI displays, with our logo and “icons” being blurs etc.
  3. Our website load very fast, but still use a lot of bandwidth and HTTP requests for the “enhanced” features “Gallery” and “Map”, making it not totally mobile friendly
  4. We have additional websites on the way for dedicated products/brands (BenMark, Sign4Sure). Updating our current website will provide us a real-case and a base for these two websites.

Each of this point is not enough to take the risk and bear the cost of a redesign. But all together their offer a more compelling story.
And oups, I forgot one key reason: I’m in charge of our web and wanna enjoy some of the new technologies and hopefully share and get praised for it :-)

Next episode: part 2 – Target and Criteria

Featured image © Violetkaipa | Dreamstime.com – Technology In The Hands Photo

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Jobs openings still open :-)

Posted on October 2, 2014 by plixo

We have 3 job positions open !
Apply and join us in our growth !
Here are direct link to the 3 descriptions in JobsBank:

- Signage and Vinyl sticker Installer
https://www.jobsbank.gov.sg/…/JobBankHandl…/SearchDetail.do…

- Large format Printing & Finishing Operator
https://www.jobsbank.gov.sg/…/JobBankHandl…/SearchDetail.do…

- CO2 Laser Machinist
https://www.jobsbank.gov.sg/…/JobBankHandl…/SearchDetail.do…

Or just go to JobsBank and search for Plixo…

Hoping to interview you soon :-)

 

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New product offering: Safety Signs

Posted on August 14, 2014 by plixo

See our new page: http://www.plixo.com.sg/safety-signs.php

 

Full range of safety signs, in various dimensions, materials etc…

More to come since we are working on adding an online database with design, materials, prices and later on direct online ordering ;-)

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New Job Opening: Laser Operator

Posted on July 7, 2014 by plixo

Job Opening: Laser Operator
Immediate, Near Red Hill MRT, Beginners Welcome
5.5 days per week, Competitive wages
See full details as pdf here.

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One day of Canvas Printing and Wrap in our Singapore Workshop

Posted on June 25, 2014 by plixo

In our serie “one Day of”, Artist canvas print & wrap in Singapore at our workshop near Red Hill MRT:

  • First,build nice frame with full backing:

  • Second, wrap the canvas printing nicely with dedicated attention of the alignment

  • One canvas printing already assembled, more to go !

And the last but not the least one, nice tryptique of canvas printing of Singapore Landscape:


For more, see Artist Canvas Printing in Singapore, why Plixo ?

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One Day of Pipe Marker production

Posted on June 25, 2014 by plixo

Don’t think these pictures need any comments…

Ah yes, one, and an important one: all our pipe markers are now under our new brand BenMark™, fruitful result of our joint agreement for Benwin, cf www.benwin.com.sg.

Dedicated website www.benmark.com.sg coming soon…

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Plixo Pipe markers successfully pass extended temperature range test

Posted on May 6, 2014 by plixo

Great News,

We just succeeded in testing our pipe markers against an extended temperature range of up to 130°C !

Here is the beginning:

 

Mid test view:

And some views of the final results:


 

For the sake of safety, we will take 125°C for our datasheet ;-)

This is one extra test passed successfully after our first rough chemical resistance and flame behaviour test which can be seen here Fire Behaviour + Chemical Resistance Test on our pipe markers and competitors.

More coming:

  • Accelerated aging, either Xenon or UV not decided yet
  • Sea water spray test
  • etc..

Let’s see if our competitors are up to the task, a real test better than just comparing datasheet, as demonstrated already in our video…

 

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Safety Signs: Stickers, Tags, boards

Posted on March 10, 2014 by plixo

While doing these safety stickers and related signs for a while, we are now increasing this activity and proposing these as standard products, soon to be included in our website.

 

Simple self-adhesive sign with/without reflective material

Fire safety sticker

For automated car park lift

Installed on the system itself

Another type using aluminium frame…

Restricted Area stickers packed ready for export to install on marine vessels.

 

 

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