Googles new No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA

Googles new No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA could change the way we think about form security. Most web designers don’t like captcha security but they are a necessary evil these days. With the huge amounts of form spam we get some kind of auto form submission and bot security is needed on almost every form we create. Personally, I prefer to use simple captchas that don’t get in the way of the user such as asking a simple question but even these aren’t fall proof and sooner or later the bots beat them and spam gets through.

The most common captchas used by web designers seem to be of the ‘read and image and enter the text’ variety but even these can be tricky for users to use. Sometimes the text isn’t readable or the text entered wrong which all go to making a less than ideal user experience.

There have been other options for web designers to use as form security but none of them are ideal and they are all just work arounds and hacks to try and beat the bots more than help the user experience and create an easy form submission process.

Googles new reCAPTCHA services hopes to change all that with its ‘I’m not a robot’ checkbox.

Entering text in a box after trying to read a small image or do a maths question is less than ideal and asks the user to do a lot but with a simple click the new Google reCAPTCHA service can tell if you’re a bot or a human. But how does it do this with a simple click? Google uses a combination of factors to check what is happening on the page before the checkbox is clicked and it uses what happens with your mouse to see if you’re a real human navigating round a web page normally or a bot going straight for the submit button. Most of time this seems to work very well but on those occasions where Google can’t quite tell if you’re human it will show the standard text image that you need to read and enter text for.

In the world of form security this is a huge change and will make filling out forms a lot nicer for the end user. Googles service is also very easy to integrate for web designers and comes with a good API and works with all sorts of different coding languages.

To fully test out how good it is I’ll be adding it to the kc web design kent website over the next few days and using it on client sites. A few WordPress plugins are starting to appear now which will make it very easy to integrate on WordPress sites.

Its not often I say this but well done Google!

Web design consultancy, website builds & cheap web design

The 3 main job types we get asked about a lot at kc web design ltd are web design consultancy, website design and builds on content management systems such as WordPress and Expression Engine and cheap web design. We work on projects in all of these areas and they all have their own unique processes and pricing.

Web design consultancy

Web design consultancy usually involves high level research and design and less coding than other types of projects. We do a lot of web design consultancy work for well known brands, such as Fujitsu, that requires a lot of research, planning, wire-framing and UI design. Working closely with business owners within Fujitsu we redesign large sections of the UK website to improve user flow, call-to-action engagement and navigation as well as making the design more engaging and unique for specific sections of the site. We’re currently involved in a project to make the careers section more engaging and less masculine feeling by introducing different design elements to make the overall feel of the page more enticing to female job applicants. kc web design ltd have also made huge improvements to the Fujitsu UK contact process which has improved communication to the correct departments by over 70%.

For prices of our web design consultancy please contact us.

Website design and builds on content management systems

A lot of the projects we work on are basic web design and build projects. These normally consist of a period of research and planning then a design stage followed by coding and building the website. These days we usually build our websites utilising content management systems such as WordPress and Expression Engine unless the client specifically doesn’t need access to change content. But thats very rare these days.

Most of these sites are for small to medium size businesses although we do build large corporate sites using Expression Engine (for example the Geocel website) as it’s a very good scalable CMS that works well for large complex sites.

We also now build most of our commerce solutions using WordPress and the brilliant Woocommerce plugin. E-commerce websites are a little more complex than basic brochure type sites and so the costs are higher and development times longer.

If you would like a website built on WordPress or Expression engine or need an e-commerce website please contact us for pricing.

Cheap web design

At kc web design ltd we get asked a lot about cheap web design. Although we no longer do cheap web design we do try and support local businesses that want to get started with a website but we also know that in this world you get what you pay for. We’d had a huge amount of people come to us over the years asking us to pick up cheap web design projects that have gone bad for one reason or another. There are a lot of cheap web design providers out there offering very poor services.

In light of this we decided to build a self-build system for people that want cheap web design but also want it to be professional, modern and supported by professional web designers with over 15 years experience in the web design industry. So, we built an online website builder for small businesses called kc-weblite that’s cost effective (only £10 per month including hosting and support), very easy to use, comes with professional web design support and allows you to get a modern, responsive website up and running within a few hours.

 

WordPress social networks auto-poster

Like all good web design companies, sometimes at kc web design we slip a little on our SEO strategy while we’re head down in projects. It happens. While I had some time this week I decided to go through our social media strategy and realised that posts we’d written on the kc web design Kent website hadn’t been auto posting to our social networks. Over the years I’d used a number of different WordPress plugins to auto-post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc but all of them were no longer working. One of the major reasons for these plains not working any more were updates to the social media API’s and out of date plugins. So, the search was on again for a social networks auto-poster plugin that would do it all properly.

The NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster plugin came highly recommended on one of the WordPress forums so I gave it a try. As a WordPress plugin it works very well, is easy to install and has very good documentation which comes in very, very handy when you try and set up each social network. And boy does that take some time! Long gone are the days of entering your username and password and clicking a button to allow access to your account. These days its all about creating apps and widgets and tokens and secret codes and handshakes and tweaking a million different security settings. It took me the good part of a morning to set up and test 4 different social networks and get them working properly so that I could auto-post from WordPress. Not a quick easy job. And some – yes you Google+ – still don’t allow an easy way to auto post (although there is an extra plugin for NextScripts: Social Networks Auto-Poster that is supposed to help with this but I haven’t tried it yet).

Is it worth auto-posting your WordPress news to social networks?

Yes. It gives your articles chance to get noticed in areas that they normally wouldn’t. If you have a good following on the social networks then its easy for users to repost and pass on those articles. If you use good Twitter hash tags then your articles are more likely to get picked up when users search for those hashtags. And Google likes it because all those back links from social networks give your site authority.

It might take a while to set up and it does take a bit of management but it is worth the extra effort in the long term.

If you have a WordPress website and want to utilise the power of a social networks auto-poster then give kc web design a call and we can help set things up for you.

Speedy Expo website design

kc web design kent have recently launched a new website for Speedy Expo, a conference for Speedy customers and partners in the UK, in partnership with marketing company QRBT and Speedy Hire – a leading provider of tools and equipment for hire and sale to the construction industry.

The Speedy Expo runs every year and is a 2 day event in October 2015 at the Telford International Centre organised by QRBT and Speedy Hire to bring together Speedy partners and customers. The show includes partner stands from the likes of JCB, Makita and other industry leading brands, demonstrations, speakers, meeting areas and an awards dinner with entertainment presented by Pollyanna Woodward.

kc web design Kent designed and built the new website on WordPress to make it easy for QRBT to update the content regularly and add new partner logos and news items. The website design was created to funnel exhibitors and visitors into booking sections and provide detailed information on the event programme. The website design is responsive and works on all mobile devices. Over time, as the event grows and more exhibitors come on board, the website will be populated with partner logos and more information.

kc web design Kent provide full website design services for small, medium and large companies using industry standard content management systems such as WordPress and Expression Engine. kc web design work with leading brands, such as Fujitsu, on all types of website design projects. kc web design are specialists in website design, user interface (UI) design and website development.