CakeDC Blog

Every visitor to your website has a goal in mind - this may not be a conscious goal, but they are visiting your site for a reason. So listening to your users feedback is key to meeting their expectations! As a business owner, be sure to keep these in consideration and as a developer, be sure to pass these recommendations through to your clients. What are some things that users are trying to tell you and how do you find out? What and why is it Often people forget about the basics and fail to include what their product, service or business is. By excluding this vital information there will be users who will not know what the purpose of the page that they have stumbled upon is, but what to do next - and therefor bounce quickly off of your site. Where is your pricing information? If you are trying to sell something - a product or a service - be sure to include the price information as this is used by your visitor to determine their next action. Even if you are providing resources in return for their details, it is important to be clear. Where are those testimonials or reviews? Have others tried it People like to know that whatever they are investing money into is worth it - reviews or customer testimonials help to show your visitors what you can do. Be sure to add this information in a way that is easy for you visitors to find. Where can I sign up or contact you Another vital piece of information that many often forget is to let your visitors know how to signup and contact you. Perhaps you have chosen to hide your contact information due to spam bots or other issues faced, however, if you are in the business of recruiting clients, then be sure to have some form of contact information easily available to your visitors.
Not sure if you are missing anything? CakeDC, the experts behind CakePHP, offer a range of services including consulting, guiding you through the best practices with your CakePHP application.

With ecommerce trending, it may be the next step for your business. However, it can seem daunting - so where do you start?   Starting with basics, you need a website that will serve as a platform for your products - a good starting point is key. Perhaps your website is up and running, but you aren’t happy with it - why not do a redesign at the same time as doing payment integration. Be sure to discuss your needs with your development team.   Next is to ensure your product list is up to date and aligned with your ecommerce goals. With the ecommerce industry becoming so competitive, it's important to stand out - both with your products as well as with the overall user experience.   So your products stand out on your website, things are looking good! But having a functional payment processor is key to making those sales! Here are some key tips to ask your development team today!  

• Before considering technical aspects, take consideration of the payment processing fees but be sure to pick a provider that is trusted by customers
• Reference check your selection of payment gateway with your development team, will they be comfortable integrating this third party service with your site or do they have an alternative solution
• Are you selecting a payment gateway that has been certified as safe and secure? By choosing one that is popular and trusted with customers will keep you on track for this requirement.
• Is the payment gateway capable of accepting different payment methods such as credit cards, debit cards and others
• Where are you planning to sell geographically via your ecommerce store? Is your payment gateway compatible with this geographical location? Some payment gateways are limited to certain countries - be sure to double check this before implementing the integration.
• Should you chose to scale your business in the future, will your payment gateway be able to grow with you?

  Just remember, that whatever you choose to do with your ecommerce site, your payment integration should be as secure and smooth as possible. Chat to the expert team behind CakePHP today, to discuss how we can take your ecommerce integration to the next level. CakeDC is here to lead, so you can lead.  

As exciting as launching a brand new website is, there are a lot of expectations that can be built up around it. Here are some top tips to not fall into the easy traps of launching your website   Don’t be a perfectionist It can be easy for some people to take the perfectionist view point when launching a new site. Rather focus on launching your website to its best and get feedback from testing and website visitors.   Doing it all yourself With the launch of your new site, it's important to delegate - make sure you have a expert team behind you so that you can manage your business and end goals. CakeDC, the experts behind CakePHP, believe in this philosophy - we lead, so you can lead.   Create a launch plan, now! If you do not have a plan for your launch, then the time is now! With research and strategy building, your launch will have direction, while reaching the right audience. Write everything down and be sure to share it with your team.   Linking to all Social media platforms With social media becoming an important way to reach out and talk to potential clients, it is key to ensure that you link your social media accounts to your websites and visa versa.   Have you tested? Testing is another key part to the success of your new site’s launch. Be sure to not miss this step. Not sure how to properly test your site? Here’s a great checklist to check out. From how to test elements such as HTML, CSS, security and performance through to SEO and accessibility, this checklist will guide you along best practices when it comes to testing.   Relax and execute your plan Lasty, relax and execute your plan! The final step to your new site’s launch is rollout. Things should be set up and in place which allow you to roll out your launch with minimal hassle.   At CakeDC, our goal is to help you, as a business leader, develop, achieve and maintain your competitive leadership in your market. Contact us to find out more about how we can create your custom application today.

If you have ever taken a moment to contribute to open source, then you would know that it can be quite rewarding. But perhaps you are involved in an open source community, but aren’t necessarily contributing - yet! Maybe you are too nervous to contribute or you make a list of excuses as to why you aren't able to commit the time.   If you aren’t contributing just yet, here are some great benefits to you to start today.   Meet others in the community who are interested in similar things The CakePHP Community is welcoming and warm - by getting involved in the forums, online chats or through other participation, you can get to know others with similar interests.   Finding mentors within the community Get to know the community by getting involved - is there someone in the community who you think does an amazing job doing what they do? Chat to them, learn from them. There are some incredible mentors in the open source world - and they are normally down to earth and approachable.   Grow your knowledge and skill set base By contributing to open source, it gives you the opportunity to practise your skills. Through community involvement, you will learn new ways of doing things or suggest ways to improve on how things are done.   Help others - sense of giving Find reward in helping others solve the problems that have been troubling them. Giving back to the community brings in many rewards and a sense of achievement can be gained by helping out.   And now you may be asking - but how do I start? Easy! Just go ahead and find some issues that you can help out with, or simply join the support forums around the community and answer some questions - people appreciate the help and you never know, you could find help by helping others!   At CakeDC, time is committed to open source contributions. From our open source plugins through to support on community platforms, CakeDC ensures that time is committed to ongoing community support.

Perhaps you are budget conscious or you are not computer savvy, and website builders look appealing to you. When getting a website developed for your business, key questions to ask yourself include: can it be managed effectively; will you be able to drive your brand online; will it be safe and secure? While website builders may seem like a good option, it can cause your business harm. Here’s a look at some of the cons of website builders.   You do not own your website Should you choose to leave your website builder, the website you have designed and any elements remain the property of the builder. You will essentially need to start over. From your content through to your domain name, all of this may need to be given up (as you are not the owner).   Website URL is not fully customizable When making use of a website builder, you are limited to the options that are provided. Some website builders offer different tiers, depending on your monthly subscription fee, however, you may need or want to do something that is out of the standard template.   Use of templates and outdated coding practises The use of templates is standard when building a website using a website builder. However, the use of outdated, unresponsive and badly designed templates can seriously hamper your brand (and website’s) ability to speak to your potential clients. These templates can use clunky, old fashioned and simple design.   SEO can be problematic With only basic SEO tactics employed by website builders, caution needs to be taken! Lacking SEO functionality can hamper your website’s ability to be found by potential clients - not appearing in search results and a lack of visibility can be damaging to your business.   Options, such as 3rd party integrations, are not available If you are looking to integrate 3rd party options, then think again - with only a limited options available, the ones you may want could not be available. For some business owners, this realisation may come too late and only after the website has been established, leaving them caught in a bad situation.
  Customized website application solutions are the way to go if you want to properly represent your business online. From increased functionality options, to fully scalable solutions that will grow with you and your business. CakeDC, the experts behind CakePHP, can offer you solutions that will answer every problem you have previously encountered with cheaper and less secure development solutions.

This is the second article about RBAC in CakePHP series (2/2). In our previous post we did a quick introduction to RBAC and how to setup CakeDC/Auth plugin in an example project, dealing with basic array based rules. Today we'll talk about how to debug rules, and provide complex Auth rules to check permissions. We'll also discuss how to encapsulate the rules logic into `Rules` classes, and how to deal with RBAC in big projects.  

Debugging rules

Notice when debug is enabled, a detailed trace of the matched rule allowing a given action is logged into debug.log For example: 2017-10-04 23:58:10 Debug: For {"prefix":null,"plugin":null,"extension":null,"controller":"Categories","action":"index","role":"admin"} --> Rule matched {"role":"*","controller":"*","action":["index","view"],"allowed":true} with result = 1 This log could save you some time while debugging why a specific action is granted.

Callbacks for complex authentication rules

Let's imagine a more complex rule, for example, we want to block access to the articles/add action if the user has more than 3 articles already created. In this case we are going to use a callback to define at runtime the result of the allowed key in the rule. [ 'role' => '*', 'controller' => 'Articles', 'action' => 'add', 'allowed' => function (array $user, $role, \Cake\Http\ServerRequest $request) { $userId = $user['id'] ?? null; if (!$userId) { return false; } $articlesCount = \Cake\ORM\TableRegistry::get('Articles')->findByUserId($userId)->count(); return $articlesCount <= 3; } ],

Rules example

As previously discussed, we have the ability to create complex logic to check if a given role is allowed to access an action, but we could also extend this concept to define permission rules that affect specific users. One common use case is allowing the owner of the resource access to a restricted set of actions, for example the author of a given article could have access to edit and delete the entry. This case was so common that we've included a predefined Rule class you can use after minimal configuration. The final rule would be like this one: [ 'role' => '*', 'controller' => 'Articles', 'action' => ['edit', 'delete'], 'allowed' => new \CakeDC\Auth\Rbac\Rules\Owner(), ], The Owner rule will use by default the user_id field in articles table to match the logged in user id. You can customize the columns, and how the article id is extracted. This covers most of the cases where you need to identify the owner of a given row to assign specific permissions.

Other considerations

Permissions and big projects

Having permission rules in a single file could be a solution for small projects, but when they grow, it's usually hard to manage them. How could we deal with the complexity?

• Break permission file into additional configuration files
• Per role, usually a good idea when you have a different set of permissions per role. You can use the Configure class to append the permissions, usually having a defaults file with common permissions would be a good idea, then you can read N files, one per role to apply the specific permissions per role.
• Per feature/plugin, useful when you have a lot of actions, and a small set of roles, or when the roles are mostly the same regarding permissions, with a couple changes between them. In this case you will define the rules in N files, each one covering a subset of the actions in your application, for example invoices.php file would add the pemissions to the Invoices plugin. In the case you work with plugins, keep in mind you could write the permission rules inside each plugin and share/distribute the rules if you reuse the plugin in other apps (as long as the other apps will have similar roles).
• QA and maintenance
• It's always a good idea to think about the complexity of testing the application based on the existing roles. Automated integration testing helps a lot, but if you are planning to have some real humans doing click through, each role will multiply the time to pass a full regression test on the release. Key question here is "Do we really need this role?"
• Having a clear and documented permissions matrix file, with roles vs actions and either "YES" | "NO" | "RuleName" in the cell value will help a lot to understand if the given role should be allowed to access to a given action. If it's a CSV file it could be actually used to create a unit test and check at least the static permission rules.
• Debugging and tracing is also important, for that reason we've included a trace feature in CakeDC/Auth that logs to debug.log the rule matched to allow/deny a specific auth check.

About performance

Performance "could" become an issue in the case you have a huge amount of rules, and some of them would require database access to check if they are matching. As a general recommendation, remember the following tips:

• Rules are matched top to bottom
• Try to leave the permission rules reading the database to the end of the file
• Cache the commonly used queries, possibly the same query will be used again soon
• Note cache invalidation is always fun, and could lead to very complex scenarios, keep it simple
• If you need too much context and database interaction for a given rule, maybe the check should be done elsewhere. You could give some flexibility and get some performance in return

Last words

We've collected some notes about the implementation of a RBAC based system in CakePHP using our CakeDC/Auth plugin. As stated before, there are many other ways, but this is ours, worked well on several projects and we thought it was a good idea to share it with other members of the CakePHP community to expose a possible solution for their next project Authorization flavor. Please let us know if you use it, we are always improving on them - And happy to get issues and pull requests for our open source plugins. As part of our open source work in CakeDC, we maintain many open source plugins as well as contribute to the CakePHP Community. Reference

• CakeDC/Auth RBAC Documentation
• Using RBAC as a CakePHP Middleware
• CakeDC/Users Documentation

This is the first post of a small series covering how to setup, organize and implement an RBAC based authorization system in CakePHP using the CakeDC/Auth Plugin. We'll cover the basic concepts, setup and implementation of the basic permission rules in part 1.

What does RBAC mean in this context?

We'll use RBAC as "Role Base Access Control", meaning your app will be using the following concepts to define who can access what:

• "Who" is an existing user, mainly identified as his role in the system, such as an "admin" or "writer", etc.
• "What" is a specific action in your application, identified as the associated routing params, for example ['controller' => 'Posts', 'action' => 'add'].
• A permission in this context would be a link between who, and what.

Why not ACL?

ACL is a really good choice when your answer is 'yes' to any of the following questions:

• Do we need to let users create new roles on the fly?
• Do we need the roles to inherit permissions (tree structure)?
• Do we need to assign permissions NOT based on controller actions? For example CRUD based permissions, checked on the model layer for each operation on a given row.

If your answer is yes, you should consider using cakephp/acl. It provides a very powerful, reliable and flexible way to configure your permissions, but with greater power comes a bigger maintenance burden, that is keeping the acl data in your tables. Specially if you have several environments to maintain, you'll need to write migrations to populate your acl tables, then create import/export scripts and utilities to reproduce permission issues from live environments, and so on. Not an impossible task, but could increase the complexity of your project in a significant way...

Setting up CakeDC/Auth

There are other plugins you could use, but this one will cover everything you'll need, so let's go. CakeDC/Auth usually comes installed from within CakeDC/Users (a complete solution covering many more features) but today we'll set it up alone. composer require cakedc/auth bin/cake plugin load CakeDC/Auth And last, but not least, add the RBAC Auth to the list of Authorize objects. Here is a working configuration based on the blog tutorial. We'll be using the blog tutorial described in the book as an example application Change AppController.php Auth related configuration to: $this->loadComponent('Auth', [ 'authorize' => ['CakeDC/Auth.SimpleRbac'], 'loginRedirect' => [ 'controller' => 'Articles', 'action' => 'index' ], 'logoutRedirect' => [ 'controller' => 'Pages', 'action' => 'display', 'home' ] ]); With this change, we'll be using only the rules defined in config/permissions.php file. If this file is not present, default permissions will be in place. Default permissions will grant access to admin role to all actions. To override permissions, you can copy the default permissions to your project and fix the rules: cp vendor/cakedc/auth/config/permissions.php config/ Then edit this file and check the provided examples and defaults.

Using CakeDC/Auth

The core of the RBAC system is the ability to define permission rules that will match one given role with the actions granted. Rules are defined in an array, but you can extend the AbstractProvider class to retrieve the rules from somewhere else (database?). By default, nothing will be granted. Rules are evaluated top to bottom. The first rule matched will stop the evaluation, and the authentication result will be provided by the value of the allowed key. Note we can use a callback to implement complex rules, or encapsulate the rules into classes that we could reuse across projects, like the Owner rule class provided. This is an example rule [ 'role' => '*', 'plugin' => 'CakeDC/Users', 'controller' => 'Users', 'action' => ['profile', 'logout'], ], We could read this rule as follows: "For any role, we grant access to actions 'profile' and 'logout' in the Users controller in plugin CakeDC/Users". Note default allowed value is true, we can use an array, or a string to determine the role, plugin, controller and action. We can also use * in the value to match anything or use * at the start of the key to match anything but the values, for example '*controller' => 'Users', would match all the controllers but 'Users'.

Simple Rules

As our first objective, we are going to grant access to all the index and view pages, using the rule [ 'role' => '*', 'controller' => '*', 'action' => ['index', 'view'], ],

Stay tuned for the second post, where we'll deal with complex rules, rule classes and implementation tips for complex applications...

If you have a website and have not made the necessary security precautions, then you may become victim to hacking.   Besides the obvious defacing that can take place once your website has fallen victim, here are some other signs you have been hacked:

• Your website redirects to another site, not your own.
• Google or Bing notifies you.
• Your browser indicates that your site is not secure.
• You notice a change in your website traffic, especially from different countries.

  So you’ve been hacked - what do you do? Where do you start?   We’ve put together a few things that you need to look into as soon as possible!  

• Do you have a support team? Contact them!

In this situation, it is best to immediately contact your technical support - your web developers who have experience in how to handle these situations. From what to shut down, what to look for and where to check. Someone without the technical expertise to help you is going to have difficulty properly fixing things!  

• Get together all of the information required for your support team

Your support team will need all the access information, so start putting this together - things they will need access to include your CMS; hosting provider and login details; web logs, FTP/sFTP access credentials as well as any back ups you may have. If you have never been hacked or do not have regular back ups running - here’s a good place to start.  

• Temporarily take your website down

If you haven’t already done so, make sure to take your site down temporarily. While you are doing this, it is also important to check all your servers and computers for malware, spyware or trojans. And if you have a virtual server, it may be in the best interest to start over - some attacks leave software that may not be visible or you may not know what to look for.  

• Change your passwords

Make sure to change your passwords! Not sure what to use? For the best security, make use of a password generator that includes both letters and numbers of more than 12.
  For expert development and consultation services, give CakeDC a call - we lead, so you can lead.

With your website as such a powerful tool in reaching potential clients, can you afford to have forms that aren’t adequately bringing in conversions or leads?   If you are failing to get leads in, have you considered that your forms may be the problem? Here are some tips to getting your forms up to scratch.   Keep it simple Its key to keep your forms as easy as possible to submit - remove as many barriers as you can. Do you request excessive information, ask your user to login in order to submit their details or have a design that is over complicated and confusing? These are the things to look out for as they can act as deterrents to form submissions or lead conversions.   Fill out the form yourself, give it a test run! If you haven’t already, give your form a test run! How do you feel about filling out the required fields, how long does it take, what emotions would you feel if this wasn’t your website and your form? Take all of these points into consideration and see if there any adjustments that need to be made.   Reduce the number of fields There is no need to require 20 fields when submitting a form. Not only is it time consuming, but also unnecessary and frustrating to your user. Be sure to keep things to a minimum - if a user profile is required, ask them to fill this out later, once they have a feel for the benefits to them.   Is there motivation to submit the form? Are you looking for new leads or to build up your email database? Does the user have incentive to submit the form? Besides your basic contact us forms, there should ideally be other CTA’s or lead generation techniques at play. These could include access to white papers, reports or expert advice which may be offered up as ‘free’ should the user submit their details. Use the opportunity to capture as many leads as possible - and remember, users need a reason to submit their details to you.   Confirm the submission So a user has submitted their details, is there a confirmation message or page redirect? If not, you may be further frustrating your user - make sure to let them know that they have successfully submitted and you have received their information.   For expert development and consultation services, give CakeDC a call - we lead, so you can lead.  

With UX being a subjective, human and ever changing experience, it can be seen as difficult to track. However, there are some key tell-tale signs that you should be tracking in order to assess the overall user experience of your website.   Common metrics to use when tracking UX   1. Tracking how long it takes visitors to fill out your forms If your contact forms take too much time to fill in, your visitors or potential clients may get frustrated and fail to complete the form. Forms need to be simple, short and easy. Some tips to keeping forms user friendly and easy to fill in include:

• keeping the number of fields as simple as possible,
• Keeping the number of fields to as few as possible, there will be opportunity to ask for more information later on in the customer journey.
• Testing your form yourself, if you struggle to fill out the fields during testing then you definitely need to relook it!
• Add a confirmation page or message to let your user know that they have submitted successfully

  2. How many fields are skipped in submitted forms? Do you allow for optional fields in your forms? If you do, do you find a trend on certain fields not being submitted? These fields may be too much trouble for your users to fill in - remember, most visitors are lazy when needing to contact you. Make it as easy as possible but also, its important to ensure that you aren’t being too intrusive when requiring information in your forms. If it’s not ‘need to know’ information, then cut it from your form. These skipped fields give you a good idea as to what your user is thinking and feeling. Make sure to keep an eye on how your forms are submitted and what your users are subconsciously telling you.   3. Analyse your user experience with the use of heat maps Heatmaps give you the best view of the journey your visitors take when visiting your page. From where they are clicking to the amount of engagement a page gets and where. Simple things from users clicking your logo top of page to which links they view as engaging and click through to, these insights help you better optimise your page.      4. Collect feedback from customers and your customer service department Your customer service department is front facing - these are the people that will know what users are saying about your website and they are able to provide insights into where your UX issues. If you haven’t already - this is a great place to start your UX measurement and feedback journey.   If you need an expert to help you with your website, then give CakeDC a call. CakeDC - the experts behind CakePHP.  

If you haven’t had a good hard look at your website in a while, now is the time to do so. You will probably find a few things that you’d like fixed. These are the most common challenges that websites fail to fix in time.   Content and technology that is out of date If you had your website built years ago, chances are that it is (severely) out of date. This leaves you vulnerable to security breaches amongst other things. Content is another part of your website that goes out of date, do a spring clean of your overall content and make sure everything listed on your site is still relevant and well organized.   No Call to action for your visitors Are you missing call-to-action triggers such as “Download”, “Contact Us”, “Get started” or “Sign up for free”. You may be losing valuable conversions by not encouraging visitors to engage with your content and brand. This is a quick and easy fix - ideally, you should be checking and updating this type of content regularly to keep abreast of website visitor trends.   Lack of branding It is important as a business owner to make your brand reliable and trustworthy, it is also important to make sure your website correctly displays your clear brand message. Who are you, what do you offer and what tone do you use to project your brand to your clients.   Traffic woes due to SEO troubles If you are not seeing good traffic onto your site, the main culprit may be poor SEO practices. Be sure to regularly check your analytics tracking and if you seeing poor traffic landing on your site then the next port-of-call is to suss out your SEO elements. These include title tags, headlines, content, alt tags, file names, meta descriptions. It is also important to make sure these all align to your key brand message and product offering. The best trick is to select a core group of relevant and related keywords and build your SEO strategy around these.   Websites that haven’t been optimised for mobile If you (or your development team) has failed to quality test the appearance of your site across devices, then you are probably in the majority of companies that are not optimised for mobile. The time is now! Mobile optimised sites are becoming more and more important to business strategy as consumers are no longer bound to only browsing via their computers or laptops. Be sure to check that you are following best practices when optimising for mobile, such as common menu icons and icon placements.   Not sure if your website needs an overhaul? Contact the experts behind CakeDC today to find out more about our development services as well as how we can help you become leaders. CakeDC - We lead, so you can lead.  

From increasing engagement through to increasing overall website performance, there may be aspects of your site that you are currently unhappy with or are looking to improve. Redesigning your website may be necessary due to lack of performance or a brand overhaul, but there are certain things that you should avoid at all costs when redesigning your website.   1. Not considering risk mitigation Most creative or marketing agencies offer web redesigns are part of their packages, however, often fail to outline the different risks that you may face. Such risks include loss of data, server failures, loss of website functionality, bugs and QA testing timelines. To fully understand your risk exposure, it is ideal to consider all individual changes or updates being made and then multiply by the depth of change for each element.   2. An overcrowded home page We understand, when given the opportunity to redesign your website, the first goal is to get all of your messaging across to your potential clients. However, the biggest mistake when doing this, is to inundate the user with too much information and overcrowd your homepage. This leaves visitors confused, overwhelmed - Users make a decision on whether or not to continue browsing after 3 seconds. It is important to ensure that all information is presented in a concise manner. Perhaps investigate infographics to reduce word dense designs.   3. It’s difficult to contact you Leaving out essential contact information or links to your social sites may discourage potential clients from trying to contact you. Keep your information handy in the footer of each page, as well as on its on contact page. The contact page gives you the opportunity to include a contact form as well as other relevant information that may be useful to your visitors.   4. Not having responsive web design and cross device QA testing Your website visitors will become frustrated if they are viewing your site on a device that has not been optimised for - leaving the page lacking user friendliness. Make sure to test a variety of devices and ensure your website has responsive web design.   5. Slow site speed and lack of optimisation Having a slow site can take away any favorable first impressions - make sure to optimise thoroughly when developing your site and ensure site speed is up to scratch.   6. Avoid poor or pixelated imagery Make sure to give proper image files to your development team. Including pixelated or poor imagery onto your site displays lack of professionalism to your visitors or potential clients.   Are you struggling with any of the above website redesign issues? Contact the CakeDC team today and speak to the experts behind CakePHP

In the world of so many options to build your next website, we thought we would put the many benefits of CakePHP forward for you to learn more about this great framework! CakePHP remains popular as it provides ability to simultaneously fulfill the needs of the various stake holders to a project including business owners, project managers, developers, and system administrators. But were you aware of the other great reasons why you should consider CakePHP for your next application? Build quickly CakePHP helps you (or your developers!) build quickly using code generation and scaffolding features. CakePHP is Secure The CakePHP project regularly releases updates and security fixes, as well as allowing developers to follow best practices when securing web applications. CakePHP can make your website faster Ever loaded a web page or web application and wished it was faster? CakePHP helps developers to optimise applications making them more efficient and quicker to load. Reduce your maintenance costs! CakePHP structures code in an easy to follow architecture allowing you to save money on any future maintenance requirements. Create Scalable applications Get a code base developed that is ready for expansion - grow your business without worrying if your web application can keep up. Convenient extensions Easily extend your project with components, behaviors and plugins. CakePHP allows you to expand the functionality of your app using pre-generated code or plugins from other projects meaning that you don’t have to write everything from scratch. CakePHP has a solid community and core team This open source framework has a strong following as well as a strong (volunteer) team leading it forward and making sure it stays current. With these and many more reasons why CakePHP makes an excellent choice for your next application, we recommend it time and time again. CakeDC are not only the experts behind the framework, we are also able to offer you the best solutions catered to your specific requirements. Our team caters to finding efficient problem solving approaches while offering expert assistance, support and advice from initial contact through to project completion and hand over. Contact our team today to get your project started!

Custom websites offer many benefits and advantages over pre-built solutions. Have you considered a custom website or application? Working with the right team is key to success - contact CakeDC today to find out how we can develop your custom solution today! We’ve put together a list of some of the advantages that you could get from deciding a custom solution for you.

• Being able to plan, and plan properly

Custom solutions allow you to start with a planning phase. This ensures that all expectations and a complete project scope can be decided on and approved. It allows you and your development team to be on the same page. Here is the chance as the client, to ask questions and deep dive into options with your development team.

• Longevity

At CakeDC, we aim to ensure that custom applications and solutions for our clients, are built with longevity and scalability in mind. Getting a custom solution developed for you is a dream, but imagine that your business grows from strength to strength over the coming years - will your solution, application or website be able to cope with increased traffic, more users etc. We keep these in the fore of development solutions, ensuring longevity for your application.

• Support, expertise and assistance

Cheaper, non-customisable solutions are often chosen over more expensive solutions. However, choosing the cheaper option can leave you in the deep end - it leaves you and your business open to vulnerabilities (hacking, lack of security, ransomware attacks). At CakeDC, we offer custom web development solutions that are tailored to you and your needs. We also offer support, expertise and assistance. When acquiring a team, be sure to ask them what they will offer you in terms of support in developing your application.

• Alignment with your branding and business message

A custom website enables you to be able to design the website around your brand. It will impress visitors (potential clients), allow you to showcase any images, brochures or video’s appropriately and keep your branding intact. CakeDC delivers scalable, secure and reliable solutions, contact us today to get your project started!

Ease of navigation is closely linked to user experience - it can make or break how the user interacts with your website. From being able to find and use your navigation menu, through to the user being able to find the information they are looking for, it is important to ensure your navigation options are cleverly designed and stick to best practices.   If visitors are having difficulty with your navigation options, you are missing an opportunity to either create a conversion, delight your customer or engage a potential client.   When it comes to your website usability, here are some things you can focus on to ensure your site’s navigation is a user-friendly one:   1.     Keep it simple While this one may sound obvious, it is important to ensure that you avoid making your navigation difficult to comprehend. Examples of this include cluttered navigation menus, disorganized sub menus   2.     Keep it predictable While creativity makes your website stand out and is great to catch a user's attention and provoke emotion, it is important not to practise creativity in areas where predictability is preferred by the user or visitor. Such as when creating your navigation menu or the placement thereof.   3.     Keep it consistent It is key to keep the theme and structure of the different pages of your site consistent. Check our CakeDC.com menu and the different pages, each page keeps the overall theme and structure consistent. This is to ensure that your user is able to make sense of the content as quickly as possible when switching between pages.   4.     Have a clear hierarchical structure Every category and clickable sub category should have a clear hierarchical structure and should be visible in your menu. Doing this gives your user a clear view and pathway for them to go to the exact page or content that they are wanting. This point is particularly important for website that have a wide range of products or services.   5.    Make it distinct Navigation options should be clearly visible and easy to find. They should stand out from other graphics, images or backgrounds. This can be done through size, color and font.   6.    Link the logo to the homepage A good practice is to link the homepage to the logo of your company on your website. This logo should be in the same place on every page. Users have a high tendency to click on your logo, with the expectation that it will lead back to the home page as this is a generally predictable behavior across websites and design practices.   7.     Always include a search bar Search bars are necessary for making your website more usable to your visitors. Some visitors only want to find information by using a search bar within your site. Offer your users a way to navigate through your website without having to go through every page or menu option.

UX and UI are often misused in the tech industry. Understanding the key differences between UX and UI is beneficial, we take a quick look at both. UX, User Experience Design, and UI, User Interface Design, are both crucial to a product, such as a website, and work closely together while remaining vastly different disciplines. UX design tends to be more analytical and technical, while UI is not. A basic example for UX design would refer to how users interact with CakeDC.com, where they find the navigation menus (is this as per industry norm or do they have difficulty navigating around the website to find the information they are looking for, or how to contact CakeDC via our contact form or telephone number). Whereas UI design looks at ensuring brand relevance through the look and feel of the site, keeping color standards as per best practice. UX, User Experience Design UXD or User Experience Design refers to the process of enhancing the experience that a user has with a company, its products or its services. This is done by focusing on increasing the ease of use as well as improving the overall interaction between the user and the product or service. Good user experience design translates to customer satisfaction and loyalty so it's vitally important to ensure good design is put to practice! As a UX designer, you will  need to understand your site’s users and potential users, from creating persona’s to determining user stories and carrying out user testing. A persona could be an example of a customer who is seeking more information by contacting you versus a visitor who would like to learn more by reading your blog. UI, User Interface Design User Interface Design is the look, feel and interactivity of the product, basically referring to the means by which the user and a product (such as a website) interact with each other. The end goal of UI Design is to “achieve structure, analysis and optimization of a customer’s experience with the company and product.” UI Design includes activities that range from user guides and story lines through to UI prototyping and implementation with the development team.
  While there are differences between UX and UI, there are some similarities, let’s look at these:

• Have a primary objective of improving customer satisfaction such as improving the use of a “contact us” form
• Focus on the user and his/her interaction with a product/service such as having an easy to navigate menu
• Can be applied to any product

Here is an example of the planning behind CakeDC.com

Redesigning your website can be a daunting and scary task, however, with the proper preparation and the right development team it can be a breeze! It can be a potentially long and tedious process, with a lot that can go wrong. From just a visual overhaul through to improving branding, user experience and sales, a website redesign can encompass a wide variety of changes that you can benefit from. Whatever your reasoning is for choosing a redesign, it offers you an opportunity to re-evaluate the bigger picture and see where improvements can be made. Here’s a quick checklist of things to look out for when embarking on a website redesign

1. Strategy - why are you doing a redesign. Pencil down your main points behind the redesign project. What are your goals, ideals, visions. Where do you want the redesign to get you. What are the measurable results that you are hoping to see - importantly, you should also benchmark your current traffic and metrics.
2. Saving your current assets - Have you made the proper back ups of the important files, media etc so that these remain accessible after the redesign of your website is complete. Go a step further, and take your metrics to work out what the most important assets and pages of your website - such product pages with the most sales or blog posts with the most views or social shares.
3. Define your target audience - who is your idea visitor? Look at your customer journey and describe your customer.
4. Have you checked out your competitors? Conduct competitive research - their overall look, problem areas, good ideas that appeal to you and your product/redesign.
5. Outline your key features - identify what is most important to your website redesign. From shopping carts to news posts, landing pages, social sharing, security updates.
6. Set your budget - outline what you want and how much you’d like to spend on it. Who - an agency, a freelancer etc - as well as the size or scope of your project, backend applications or additional features that you are looking for.
7. Create a timeline and schedule your milestones - When do you expect to see things happen.
8. Have you considered optimization? Don’t forget to make sure that your site is optimized social media and search engines.
9. Test and revise - before launching!

Everyone wants their website to stand out and be noticed, have you considered what the top UX principles should be when designing your next website? We have compiled a quick list of our top ones.

• Keep the user in mind - it's a social experience

Visitors may not always remember all the information presented to them on your site, however, they will almost certainly remember the experience or how they felt. Advertisers focus on selling to your heart, so why shouldn't you when designing. Focus on creating an emotional connection with your user.

• Visitors scan websites - very few actually read!

Infographics and images are a perfect way to get your message across quickly - try to capture as many of your audience as you can by including ‘scan friendly’ content.

• Keep it simple and clear

Don’t let your main message get lost in clutter. Keep the visitors path to success clear and concise. It can take as little as 0.5 seconds for a visitor to decide whether to stay or leave. Don’t let a user have to think about their next action - keep preferred actions as clear as possible.

• Getting creative vs. using common design patterns

There are many commonly used UI patterns out there, which users are already accustomed to. By making use of these in your design, you make it easier for your user to adapt while making it easier for them to make use of your website. Links, buttons, position of login points, logos and company names all form part of commonly used UI patterns. Try to balance usability with your own creativity.

• Designing above the fold vs. designing for above the fold.

When designing to capture one’s attention, above the fold becomes a hot topic. Designing above the fold needs to be referenced within its own context - it varies across devices. Ideally when designing to capture attention, focus should not only be on the top of the page but rather be held throughout the page’s design.

• UX is a conversation

Your goal when designing any website, is to create a dialogue with potential clients. The key to this point is to know who your visitors will be and to use these as insights into developing your design.

• Responsive design should be thoughtful design

Designing your website to be fluid across devices has become increasingly important over the last few years. However, many companies are still making websites responsive just to be responsive without proportioning image and text sizes. Top tip is to check out your site on different devices, such as mobile and tablets, and asking yourself “does this look good”.

Do you know what the difference is between responsive websites vs. native apps? With users more and more likely to be browsing your website on their mobiles, have you considered how they see and experience it across devices? A bad mobile experience may be likely to turn potential customers away, so it’s vital to ensuring that all touchpoints match your brand experience and draw customers in. But how do you go about that - what is the best solution for you - responsive website or a native app? Below we look at the differences between the two, however, the best solution for you will be highly dependent on your website and business/consumer needs, be sure to speak with your development team to get the best fit for you! Responsive vs native Responsive Web Design is the methodology that recommends the design and implementation of a website that responds to user behavior and environment based on the screen size, orientation and operating system of their device. While a native/mobile app, once the app has been downloaded, it’s stored directly on their device, so they will be able to access it in every context. Native apps can be used both online and offline. These two mobile solutions do not answer the same needs. In today’s world, all websites should be responsive to mobile devices, but not everyone needs a mobile app. Mobile or native app’s are expensive and time consuming to produce, they also can irritate users who do not see value in downloading them. However, should your product work well or need an app to work well in, you should investigate it. Generally the development time and cost of a native app can make this look like a poor option, however, if your product or need is one of the following, an app is definitely the way to go.

• interactivity /Gaming is required: an App is the best choice if you require an immersive and interactive user experience.
• Regular usage and personalization: Are you planning that your users use the app on a regular basis?
• Complex calculations or reporting: Think banking or financial calculators.
• Offline accessibility: Is your concept something that you want users to be able to use offline?

A key point to take into consideration when deciding what is the best fit for your business concept, is to keep your goals in  mind. If your goal is purely from a marketing and content distribution consideration, to ensure usability on mobile platforms, then a responsive website is what you need. However, if you are requiring a more immersive brand experience, a native app is required.