Sometimes, you might wonder why something ends up the size that it is. Or, you might want to do something different to the default behavior. To do so, you need to know something of how the underlying algorithms figure out how to distribute space. When starting to use Flexbox and Grid, it can be frustrating to find that we sometimes don’t get the layout we expect. Often this is due to the way sizing is calculated in these new layout methods. In this article, Rachel Andrew will try to explain exactly how big that box is, and how it got to be that size!
Read more…
13 live webinars. Four days. That’s the Design Systems Virtual Summit which our friends at UXPin are hosting from February 13th to 16th. Join free from anywhere, and learn from experienced practitioners how to build and maintain a design system efficiently. The four days will be jam-packed with first-hand insights provided by experts from companies like Atlassian, Airbnb, Linkedin, IBM, and more. To make learning as practical as possible, each speaker will share lessons learned from real projects and case studies — takeaways that you can apply to your work right away.
Read more…
File selection inputs are difficult to style the way developers want to, so many simply hide it and create a button that opens the file selection dialog instead. Nowadays, though, there is an even fancier way of handling file selection: drag and drop. In this article, Joseph Zimmerman will be using “vanilla” ES2015+ JavaScript (no frameworks or libraries) to complete this project, and it is assumed you have a working knowledge of JavaScript in the browser. This example should be compatible with every evergreen browser plus IE 10 and 11.
Read more…
Air quality is a serious and complicated issue. It’s not as easy to understand as the weather. However, by creating a variety of quick iterative prototypes — regardless of how fake — Geof Crowl was able to find straightforward answers to design and program my iOS app Air Lookout.
Read more…
In an ever-changing discipline, it can be hard to keep abreast of everything as a user experience designer. It’s a challenge! An understanding of core design principles, however, will stand the test of time and serve you well throughout your career. In this article, the second in a series of ten sponsored by Adobe XD, Christopher Murphy provides an overview of universal principles of UX design, ensuring your skillset is built on firm foundations.
Read more…
Writing in a new language requires time and practice. Front-end developer Brian Holt guides readers through building a drum sequencer in Elm. In part one of this two-part series, he’ll walk through the foundational concepts in Elm, i.e. getting started, using types, rendering views, and updating state. You will learn how to work with the Elm architecture in order to create simple applications.
Read more…
In experience design, friction is the newsletter signup overlay covering the actual content, the difficult wording on a landing page, or the needless optional questions in a checkout flow. It’s usually the opposite of being intuitive or effortless. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s always bad for the users. In this article, Zoltan Kollin will show you when and how friction can be an efficient tool to actually design better experiences.
Read more…
Why is Visual Studio Code (VS Code) so popular, and do we really need another text editor? In this article, we’ll take a look at how VS Code extends traditional text editor concepts and opens up entirely new avenues of productivity for developers. These are all the best things about VS Code that nobody ever bothered to tell you.
Read more…
Though we have a good understanding of the types of button design rules that universally work, there will be times when you’re surprised by a rogue element that performs well. Like ghost buttons. They aren’t much of a mystery, despite their eerie-sounding name. They’re call-to-action (CTA) buttons for your website, like any other. The key difference is in how they look. Logic would dictate that ghost buttons are not good for web design. Yet, research shows us that visitors don’t necessarily see them that way.
Read more…
Personal reflection enables us to process and make meaning of all of the great (and not so great) learning and working experiences we’ve had. Everyone stands to gain from engaging in some type of reflection. We can also encourage others to grow through personal reflection. In this article, Victor Yocco will cover some of the benefits of personal reflection, as well as methods of reflecting that you can incorporate into your routine.
Read more…