As web developers, we need to rely on our knowledge, and choosing solutions we’re already familiar with is often the most convenient approach to solving a problem. However, not only technology is evolving but also our knowledge of how to use it. For a while, we thought it’s best to use base64 encoding for inlining…
Have you ever dreamt of exploring the deep sea and getting up close to its fascinating, weird creatures? Or maybe you’ve dreamt of boarding a spacecraft to experience the beauty of our planet from above? The desire to leave the beaten tracks and explore unfamiliar terrain is human nature. To celebrate mankind’s urge to explore,…
There’s a technique for improving one’s user interface design skills that is the most efficient way I know of expanding one’s visual vocabulary but that I’ve rarely heard mentioned by digital designers. I’m talking about copywork. Copywork is a technique that writers and painters have been using for centuries. It is the process of recreating…
For luxury companies and upscale lifestyle service providers, excellence in experience is an essential component of the value delivered. Conceptually different from the mass market, the luxury domain relies not only on offering the highest differentiated products and services, but on delivering experiential value. Adopting technology and embracing a digital presence through platforms and initiatives,…
I’ve been thinking a lot about speech for the last few years. In fact, it’s been a major focus in several of my talks of late, including my well-received Smashing Conference talk “Designing the Conversation.” As such, I’ve been keenly interested in the development of the Web Speech API. If you’re unfamiliar, this API gives…
The sharing spirit in the design community is remarkable. Designers spend countless hours on side projects and without asking for anything in return, they share their creations freely with the community. Just to give something back, to inspire and to support fellow folks in their work. When working on a project yourself, freebies like these…
Many criticize gestural controls as being unintuitive and unnecessary. Despite this, widespread adoption is underway already, and the UI design world is burning the candle at both ends to develop solutions that are instinctively tactile. The challenges here are those of novelty. Even though gestural controls have been around since the early 1980s and have…
Everyone here can have a big impact on a project, on someone else. I get very excited about this when I read stories like the one about an intern at Google who did an experiment that saves tons of traffic, or when I get an email from one of my readers who now published an…
Creating a clock in Sketch might not sound exciting at first, but we’ll discover how easy it is to recreate real-world objects in a very accurate way. You’ll learn how to apply multiple layers of borders and shadows, you’ll take a deeper look at gradients and you will see how objects can be rotated and…
The first set of screens with which users interact, set the expectations of the app. To make sure your users don’t delete your app after the first use, you should teach them how to complete key tasks and make them want to come back for more. In other words, you need to successfully onboard and…
