With an unswervingly changing business environment, the only way to survive in the sea of brands is by adopting innovation from time-to-time. The easiest way to create a powerful impact on your users’ minds is by serving something creative on the platter.

That being said, there is no denying the fact that creativity and innovation cannot be obtained easily. The entire process does not only demand being productive but a lot of efforts as well.

Delving more into the creativity phenomenon, it is quite essential to comprehend the profound idea of Design Thinking. This prototype-centered and user-oriented methodology primarily suit business designs, services, and products.

Design Thinking is becoming one of the most talked about concepts. Therefore, it’s the time to adopt this concept to get the most out of it. So, if you were unfamiliar with this topic yet, here is everything you should know about Design Thinking.

What is Design Thinking?

Based on people and their perception, the design thinking definition may vary. However, in simple words, it is a process that designers use to resolve intricated problems and discover satisfactory resolutions for clients.

Since design mindset is always focused on the solution, the design thinking process attracts imagination, logic, systematic reasoning, and intuition to explore possible opportunities to provide desired results to the customer.

Key Elements of Design Thinking:

Unquestionably, design thinking, if used effectively, can be one of the most useful tools. Here are the top four elements that comprise design thinking:

• Defining the Problem:

Despite it sounding an easy-going task, defining a problem is probably one of the most essential and challenging stages. Usually, design thinking entails a business or a team that would question the issue.

The entire process consists of defining and altering the opportunities before executing on them. For this, one must be thoroughly engrossed and immersed in the problem.

Just like a child, one must be competent enough to question every aspect until a satisfactory answer is found.

• Creating & Considering Different Options:

Most of the time, even the most proficient and well-versed team fails to solve a problem in the same way. More so, if the time is less and appropriate results are generated, it becomes even more difficult.

Regardless of how logical a solution may appear out to be, the design thinking process demands different answers for reflection in such a manner that the result always looks the same.

This stage is wholly dedicated to opportunities; therefore, different perspectives are essential. With design thinking, one can obtain better answers if five people are working on one problem in a day, instead of one person working on the issue for five days.

• Polishing Chosen Directions:

If at the initial stage, even the strongest of ideas can turn out to be vulnerable. Therefore, this stage allows the team to nurture the anticipated results and polish them to a certain extent that they become acceptable.

Design thinking process lets the potential of results to be realized by developing such an environment that favors experimentation and growth. This stage, several small ideas are combined to come to a better conclusion. And then, the process keeps on repeating until the accurate answer is discovered.

• Choose the One & Execute:

Now is the time for execution and attaining objectives. Serious examples of solutions are developed, and testing takes an intense and critical turn. Since this is the last stage, either problem is completely solved, or chances are revealed.

The end stage helps the designer to apply the methodologies of design to every situation and bring out the best result.

Why Do You Need Design Thinking?

Now that you are familiar with what is design thinking, let’s talk about how advantageous it can prove out to be for you. Here are few reasons that would tell you why design thinking should guide your work for adequate results:

• Emphasise on End Users:

The entire process of design thinking is meant to solve problems by keeping end users in the middle. By using this methodology, you develop such services or products that adequately fulfill the users’ needs.

Being integrally human-centric, this process tries to find out the frustrations and pain points of your users along with the solutions through which you can make their lives easier. Hence, giving your business leverage.

• It is All About Testing:

Design Thinking centralizes the viewpoint of designing, testing, and repeating. Before you invest a lot of money, efforts, and time on a particular idea, the design thinking process helps you create several replicas and get feedback from customers and users.

Although, in comparison with problem-solving linear approaches, this process is a bit complicated; however, when it comes to results, design thinking brings out the most interesting and powerful results ever.

• Creating Value with Problem Solving:

Those who are new to this concept should not be taken away by its name. Design thinking is not restricted to innovation and creativity. But, specifically, it is about solving problems and creating value.

However, instead of going towards it in a traditional way, this concept uses principles of design to solve different problems, regardless of the problem size and the industry domain.

With time, the design thinking definition is continuously evolving. It is changing and challenging the way problems are solved; therefore, providing additional value to end users.

Over the period of time, design thinking has taken several jumps forward. In renowned companies like Whirlpool, Apple, and more, this concept plays an important role in making decisions. Hence, it not only enhances the experience of users but also provides value to shareholders.

Using design thinking templates and guides will not only help you save time but also gain valuable knowledge in understanding your customers, strategizing your projects, and designing amazing experiences.

With this process, you can bring out the best possible results by ideating and testing solutions, which is quite essential to understand customer needs to survive in the competitive marketplace. So, try and adopt this methodology in your business, if you haven’t till yet, and attain the best of outcomes.

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Utilizing social media templates to ensure your pages have a visual appeal to potential followers and customers is essential regardless of the type of page you have created and are promoting.

Why Social Media Image Sizes Matter

Images that are uploaded and shared on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, are automatically resized and optimized for the best loading and viewing times. When you upload an image that is too large. It is possible that you may not be able to see the image in its entirety or lose sight of the purpose of the image altogether.

If you upload an image that is too small for a space, the image itself will be stretched, causing pixelation and distortion for anyone who views the photo.

Facebook Image Sizes

Cover photos are often the most important photo of a Facebook page that is attempting to promote a brand, product, or service. The standard cover photo on Facebook is 828×315 pixels. For profile photos, stick to 180×180 (or larger relevant square sizes for the best optimization possible).

When sharing an image on Facebook, keep in mind that photos or videos that include media should have imagery that is 1200×900 for optimal visual appeal when users are scrolling and browsing your page (or paid promotional posts). Sharing links also contract the display of your update a bit, requiring imagery that is at least 1200×628 for the best results.

Instagram Images

While Instagram is a media-based social media platform, it still has the ability to distort the photos and videos you upload and share if you are not optimizing them beforehand. Ideally, profile photos uploaded to Instagram should be 110×110 pixels (or another larger square variation such as 300×300). Because photo thumbnails appear as 160×160 pixels, square images are ideal whenever you are using Instagram’s platform.

For the highest quality displayed when users are browsing your photos and video media, upload at 1080×1080 pixels to maximize the resolution you are able to display without distorting your uploads. Stories are shown in 750×1334 pixel slots, which is important to keep in mind when you are planning to launch an upcoming marketing campaign using Instagram as the main platform for promotion.

Uploading Images to Pinterest

Profile images on Pinterest are displayed using 180×180 pixel-sized photos. When you are interested in creating a new board image to showcase pins to your followers. Stick with a 214×100 pixel template. Board thumbnails are also displayed similarly, with a 222×150 thumbnail. Pin previews are often 238 pixels in width with a 736-pixel length in height.

Optimal Filetypes

When you are designing your own imagery and media for social media pages, always save your files properly to avoid distortion and unwanted image optimization. Save your social media (and other web-based media) files as PNG files to keep distortion at a minimum without losing the overall quality of your graphics and photos. Saving as a PNG helps to preserve the original image’s quality while also reducing the size of your files so users are able to see your graphics with ease.

Using Social Media Templates

One of the best ways to get familiar with social media image sizes is to utilize templates that are readily available. Templates for social media platforms are pre-designed with the right dimensions in place, saving you time when you want to implement your brand and other company-related imagery into new uploads.

Using a template not only helps to save time when updating your social media pages. But it is also essential when you want to guarantee all of your videos and photo imagery related to your page is displayed and viewed properly by followers and potential customers of yours.

Having a clear understanding of social media image sizes and how to properly format imagery for social media is a way for you to outshine competition while solidifying a spot for yourself in any industry or market. With the right social media image size guide, never miss out on an opportunity to showcase products or your brand’s name to millions of potential followers and future shoppers.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Image Sizes + Graphics Templates appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

If yes, SlideDeck is the perfect WordPress slider plugin you’re looking for.

What is SlideDeck?

SlideDeck is a popular WordPress slider plugin. With its responsive slider and smooth transitions, you can create a stunning SEO friendly WordPress slideshow within minutes.

With SlideDeck, there are two types of sliders that you can create by either selecting Dynamic Source or Custom Content.

What is a Dynamic Source Slider?

If you want to create a slider which can automatically fetch and publish content from your favorite Social Media networks, then a Dynamic Source slider is your best choice. SlideDeck supports all major Social Media Network sources like Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google Plus, YouTube, and many more. You can have a dedicated slider to your favorite network or mix it up by combining several sources in one epic slider for your blog or website.

You can either buy individual sources from the SlideDeck website as per your requirement, or buy the complete SlideDeck extensions mega bundle (at a discount) which includes 16 lenses for stunning transitions and slider effects, 17 sources covering all major social platforms, 20 slider templates for different needs, and 4 add-ons. Getting this extensions bundle makes sure you can create a premium and beautiful slider with plenty of features.

Note: In this article, we’ll focus on how to create a social media slider using the example of a Pinterest dynamic source.

Setting Up Your First Social Media Slider in Five Easy Steps

Step 1: Install and Activate the SlideDeck Plugin

If the SlideDeck plugin is not already installed, follow the steps below to install and activate it:

• Download the plugin from https://wordpress.org/plugins/slidedeck/
• Extract the SlideDeck plugin folder in /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
• Click on the Plugins tab from your WordPress admin dashboard.
• Activate SlideDeck plugin.

Step 2: Install the Social Media Dynamic Source

Once you have bought and downloaded the desired source, you can install it from the sources tab:

• Select ‘Sources’ from the SlideDeck menu.
• Click on the ‘Upload Source’ button.
• Select ‘Browse’ and then choose the particular dynamic source (zip file) that you want to upload.
• Click on ‘Install Now’ button.
• You can confirm the list of installed sources in sources tab.

Step 3: Create Your First SlideDeck

• Select Manage from the SlideDeck menu.
• Click on the “Create SlideDeck” button under New Slide.
• Select Pinterest as the Dynamic Source.

Note: Make sure you have an active account of the source you select.

Step 4: Configure Pinterest Source

• Click on the configure arrow button next to the Pinterest icon.
• Paste the URL of your user profile page or a Pinterest board.
• Click on the ‘Apply’ button.
• Click on the Save SlideDeck button.

Note: Some sources like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google+, etc. will require you to create an access token. For detailed information on how to create an access token, please refer SlideDeck documentation.

Step 5: Publish WordPress Pinterest Slider on Your Website

You’re done configuring the source, now all you have to do is go ahead and publish or update your slider. Select any of the three listed methods above.

Congratulations on creating your first SlideDeck. I hope this article helped you in creating a Social Media slider on your WordPress website. If you have any queries or feedback, please let me know in the comments.

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