Here at Smashing Magazine, our aim is to highlight topics that inspire, challenge, and motivate us to do more and do it better. The design-related content that is published in the Design category of the magazine is dedicated to our cherished community of designers (developers and other are welcome too, of course!) who want to help each other as well as learn from each other.
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Online shopping is about convenience and comfort, and those of us who have ventured into the realm of online shopping know how time-consuming it can be. The online stores that stand out from the rest are those that go the extra mile for their users. In this article, Shavaughn Haack will look at some small and big e-commerce websites that create pleasant online shopping experiences. You’ll consider the experience from the very start to the very end, right through to the checkout process.
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Today, Vitaly Friedman reveals the Smashing Book Mystery riddle and announces the winners! (in case you want to figure it out first, close this window since there are spoilers in this post.
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If customers can’t find a product, they can’t buy it. Therefore we invested eight months conducting a large-scale usability research study on the product-finding experience. We set out to explore how users navigate, find and select products on e-commerce websites. Throughout the test sessions, the subjects would abandon websites because they were unable to find the products they were looking for. All of these usability issues have been distilled into 79 concise guidelines in a report titled “Homepage & Category Usability.” In this article, we’ll go over seven of the guidelines.
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These websites have some captivating interactivity; however, the selection of type and the typographic styling and spacing are the reasons why we chose them for this piece. We focus on typography and on how engaging it can be; hopefully, this article will draw your attention to some of the minutiae involved in effective typography, and move you to continue on your own thought-provoking journey through the typographic details of other websites.
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Is sketching by hand more than a nostalgic activity? How is paper any different from a screen, especially when hardware is becoming more and more sophisticated? Is improving your hand-sketching skills really worthwhile when high-tech software is advancing every day?
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Time is a key factor in productivity. Working efficiently enables us to deliver better value at a competitive price. In this article, Melanie Lang presents a collection of tools, tips and tricks that will make your standard workflow as fast and practical as possible, so that you have more time for the exciting parts of the project. Ready? Here we go!
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Creating great copy is pointless if it is visually uninspiring or unreadable. Likewise, if the content doesn’t deliver, then even the most attractive page won’t hold the reader’s attention. No matter how clearly laid out a design is or how elegant the infographics are, our number one visual tool for relaying information to the audience is well-written text.
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This tutorial shows the basic steps Veerle Pieters followed to create a water lily; but in creating this flower, she did way more than what is presented here. You see, every creation is never straightforward or perfect right away. It takes some trial and error, because she also needed to find the method that can be most easily explained. To get to her result, you’ll be doing a lot of clever actions while having a lot of room for experimentation as well.
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Lately we’ve seen a rapid shift in software and app interface design, from 3-D and skeuomorphic to flat and minimal. Let’s take a moment to consider how we got here and what influence it’s having on interface design as a whole. Minimal design’s widespread resurgence is refreshing to witness. It is by no means the right solution for everything, but when applied thoughtfully and appropriately, it makes for a highly usable and enjoyable digital experience.
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