Sketch has delivered a robust design platform with a refreshing, simple user interface. The open nature of the Sketch plugin system means that anyone can identify a need, write a plugin and share it with the community. A major barrier is stopping those eager to take part: Designers and front-end developers must learn how to write a plugin. What if users could write plugins using technologies they are already familiar with? In this article, Zachary Schuessler covers the usage of WebView technology to create a plugin using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
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You might have noticed it already: in the past few weeks you might have missed Anselm’s Web Development Reading List issues here on SmashingMag. No worries, from now on, we’ll switch to collecting the most important news of each month in one handy, monthly summary for you. If you’d like to continue reading Anselm’s weekly reading list (and we encourage you to!), you can still do so via email, on wdrl.info or via RSS. — Editorial Team
Hello again! I’ll continue publishing this resource and am grateful for everyone who supports my ongoing work. And to celebrate the last weekly edition, I found a lot of great articles for you: Biohacking news that sound like science fiction, advances in deep learning with JavaScript, and a lot more. Happy reading!
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As a developer, David Tucker often runs up against one hurdle that can slow down the initial build of a mobile hypothesis: user management. Cognito is a tool for enabling users to sign up for and sign into web and mobile applications that you create. In addition to this functionality, it also allows for storage of user data offline, and it provides synchronization of this data. In this article, David will walk you through the process of configuring a user pool for your needs. Then, he will integrate this user pool with an iOS application and allow a user to log in and fetch the attributes associated with their user account.
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When designed properly, Feature comparison can aid in decision-making way beyond placing product specifications side by side. They can also add meaning to an otherwise too technical product specification sheet, explaining why a certain feature is relevant to the customer or how a certain product is better than the others. In this article Vitaly Friedman will look into all of the fine details that make a perfect, accessible and helpful feature comparison table.
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In order to really know whether your work is any good, you need a higher level of principles that can be used as a measuring stick for implementing design. You need something that is removed from a specific language like CSS or an opinionated way of writing it. To bridge this gap, Tom Greever’s compiled nine principles of design implementation. This is a set of broad guidelines meant to preserve an underlying value. It can be used as a guide for someone working on implementation or as a tool to evaluate an existing project. To make it easier to follow along and see how each principle applies to a project, Tom will use a design mockup from one of his projects as the basis for this article.
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The performance and effectiveness of internal marketing campaigns should be assessed, as this is one of the most powerful instruments for generating more leads, more conversions and more revenue on your website. In many cases, web analysts use Google Analytics’ UTM campaign parameters to track internal advertising. The problem is that UTM parameters are intended to be used in external campaigns. Unfortunately, they are not suitable for tracking internal campaigns. In this article, Christian Ebernickel will explain why you would corrupt your Google Analytics data when using UTM parameters for internal tracking purposes, as well as presenting the solution and including a precise description of all the necessary steps.
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Taking your app to a new platform requires that you adapt to your users’ expectations and needs in that new medium. When moving from desktop web to mobile interfaces, developers have had to rethink interaction design to work around a constrained screen size, a new set of input gestures and unreliable network connections.
In this article, Bear Douglas and Sara Culver will walk you through their extended UX guide which will let you design a good experience end to end, but here, they’ll focus on identifying basic assumptions about users, considering UI aspects that are specific to messaging platforms, and writing app text for conversation.
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Pricing isn’t a matter of calculating a rate based on hours spent or return generated. It’s your time, and if people are willing to pay, you can charge whatever you like. Paul Boag has read many posts about the pricing of a project. From value-based pricing, to billing around Agile cycles. These are all great approaches, but in this article, he is going to share with you the rather inelegant approach (which has allowed him to run a lucrative business for the last 15 years) he takes to the subject. It begins by knowing the minimum you have to charge per hour.
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With the current state of web apps, we can rely on various UI elements to interact with users. With the Web Speech API, we can develop rich web applications with natural user interactions and minimal visual interface, using voice commands. In this tutorial, Tomomi Imura will use the API to create an artificial intelligence (AI) voice chat interface in the browser. The app will listen to the user’s voice and reply with a synthetic voice. Because the Web Speech API is still experimental, the app works only in supported browsers. The features used for this article, both speech recognition and speech synthesis, are currently only in the Chromium-based browsers, including Chrome 25+ and Opera 27+, while Firefox, Edge and Safari support only speech synthesis at the moment.
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Every designer develops their unique style and workflow, and studying their artwork can all inspire us to look beyond our own horizon and try something new. Always remember to take a closer look at things around you; you’ll be sure to find inspiration in the little things. It really doesn’t take much to let your mind wander. Today, Vitaly Friedman brings you another collection of brilliant illustrations and photographs.
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