Visibility of system status is one of the most important principles in user interface design. Users want to feel in control of the system they’re using, which means they want to know and understand their current context at any given time, and especially when a system is busy doing work. A wait-animation progress indicator is…
Have you ever wondered what it takes to create a SpriteKit game? Does collision detection seem like a daunting task? Do you want to know how to properly handle sound effects and background music? Game-making has never been easier on iOS since the introduction of SpriteKit. In part two of this three-part series, we will…
Time moves pretty fast. A new year will be upon us soon, and most of us probably haven’t even realized it. So while we’re almost ready to leave the autumn season (and 2016!) behind, let’s refuel our inspiration for another month and start working on our New Year’s resolution list. Observe closely at the following…
Are you afraid of refactoring code? I love refactoring code. It’s nice to see a code base growing, but this also means that new quirks and suboptimal changes are introduced along the way. At some point, you might realize that there could be a huge opportunity in rewriting the code — to eliminate conflicts or…
Are you ready for the countdown to Christmas? Today, we’re merrily releasing a brand new Christmas Advent Icon Set, a set of 25 icons that are all available in AI, EPS, SVG, PNG and PDF formats. These icons were all designed and created by Manuela Langella and are free to be used in private as…
New month, new wallpapers! To get you in the right mood for December, designers and artists from across the globe got their ideas bubbling and created unique and inspiring Christmas wallpaper calendars to deck your desktop. This monthly wallpapers mission has been going on for eight years now, and we are very thankful to everyone…
Almost five years ago, I had the honor of writing a post on Smashing Magazine about my Photoshop panel GuideGuide. Since then it has seen wild success as the most installed third-party Photoshop extension, an achievement I’m quite proud. In that time, I’ve added some powerful features and, most recently, expanded it to Illustrator. This…
We have great new technology available to enhance our websites. But while theoretical articles explain well what the technologies do, we often struggle to find real use cases or details on how things worked out in actual projects. This week I stumbled across a couple of great posts that share exactly these precious real-life insights:…
The resurgence of hand lettering, calligraphy, signage, penmanship, or really anything that is graphic and handmade is increasingly difficult to ignore. Along with letters drawn in any of the categories just mentioned, drawing, sketching, sketchnoting, and any hybrid style (combinations of the above) have also been gaining attention among designers, illustrators, and other professionals. A…
Some like it loud, others need some steady beats to stay focused, others calm tunes. A while ago we asked on Twitter and Facebook what music the web community is listening to when coding and designing. The answers were as diverse as the community itself and certainly too good to live an existence only in…
