While effective bundling of resources on the web has received a great deal of mindshare in recent times, how we ship front-end resources to our users has remained pretty much the same. The average weight of JavaScript and style resources that a website ships with is rising — even though build tooling to optimize the website has never been better. With the marketshare of evergreen browsers rising fast and browsers launching support for new features in lockstep, is it time we rethink asset delivery for the modern web? Today, Shubham Kanodia will give you some answers.
Read more…
In order for a product to succeed, designers should know their competition and collect as much data as possible. This data helps to create a solid product that users will actually want to use, rather than a product we want or imagine. Competitive analysis is one of the ways to get this data and to create a user-friendly product. No prior knowledge of the topic is needed because in this article, Mayur Kshirsagar will be explaining what the term means and how to perform a competitive analysis as you go.
Read more…
In Google’s never-ending journey to make the web a mobile-friendly place, we now have even greater insights into the four key reasons why consumers reach for their mobile devices. These are known as micro-moments, and this post aims to teach you how to design for micro-moments to increase website conversion rates.
Read more…
Today, Vitaly Friedman brings you the following pairing of talks from 2018 SmashingConfs, which will help you to assess the third party scripts you might be considering adding to a site. Taking into account business goals, user experience and performance you can make good decisions about what to include and how to do it.
Read more…
How can we design in a way to help visitors rather than frustrate them? How do we know that a great user experience is really working well? In this pairing of videos from 2018 SmashingConfs, we think about UX — from two very different angles.
Read more…
Images are powerful. They can provide key information and context to articles, or merely add humorous asides. They do anything for us that plain text just can’t by itself. But when there’s too much imagery, it can be frustrating for users on slow connections, or run afoul of data plan allowances. In this eBook, you’ll learn all about WebP: what it’s capable of, how it performs, how to convert images to the format in a variety of ways, and most importantly, how to use it. Meet “The WebP Manual,” our latest edition to the Smashing eBook Library that covers everything you need to know about the latest image format to sweep the web!
Read more…
In this excerpt from his eBook “The WebP Manual,” developer and author Jeremy Wagner will show you the many ways you can convert your existing images to the WebP format.
Read more…
With so much going on in the web industry, it can be difficult catching up with everything — especially with font loading and webfonts that greatly affect web performance. Search no further — we’ve got your back.
Read more…
We’re pretty excited by tools such as SVGator, which really speed up the process when you’re making simple SVG animations. Animated SVG files have become very popular, because they are entirely scalable, small and 100% code-based, which allows for so many transformations and tweaks. This, however, comes at a price: the steep learning curve for complete beginners. In this article, Vitaly Friedman will show you how easy it is to use and how you can get a great-looking animation in no time.
Read more…
The placeholder attribute contains a surprising amount of issues that prevent it from delivering on what it promises. The presence of a placeholder attribute won’t be flagged by automated accessibility checking software. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s usable. Ultimately, accessibility is about people, not standards, so it is important to think about your interface in terms beyond running through a checklist. In this article, Eric Bailey will clarify why you need to stop using it.
Read more…
