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October 11, 2016 — Today, people seek out information quickly, and cards serve it up well, regardless of device. Most of you probably have a better understanding why card-style design is so popular and will continue to increase in popularity. This trend won’t end anytime soon. Cards are here to stay and continue to be an essential part of app design. In this article, Nick Babich will explain what cards mean to UI designers, and he’ll review three popular card-based services. Read more…

October 6, 2016 — Are gestures a powerful mode of interaction? The rise of touch and gesture-driven devices has dramatically changed the way we think about interaction. Gestures are more than merely entertaining, they are very useful and feel familiar. Today, the success of a mobile app significantly depends on how well gestures are implemented into the user experience. There’s no way to design a mobile app without thinking about gestures. They should serve as facilitators and time savers. In order to design a meaningful gesture you should tie it to an action and allow the gesture to stand with the action. Read more…

October 4, 2016 — With the React Native Universal Windows platform extension, you can now make your React Native applications run on the Universal Windows families of devices, including desktop, mobile, and Xbox. In this code story, Eric Rozell will walk you through the process of setting up a Universal Windows project for React Native, importing core Windows-specific modules to your JavaScript components, and running the app with Visual Studio. Read more…

September 21, 2016 — The best error message is the one that never shows up. It is always better to prevent errors from happening in the first place by guiding users in the right direction ahead of time. But, when errors do arise, well-designed error handling helps teach users how to use the app as you intended. In this article, Nick Babich will examine how the design of apps can be optimized to prevent user errors and how to create effective error messages in cases when errors occur independently of user input. Read more…

August 10, 2016 — Designers love to get the big picture right, but if the details aren’t handled properly, the solution will fail. That’s why well-designed microinteractions make experiences feel crafted. As Charles Eames once said, “The details are not the details. They make the design.” Every element of the design matters. Details make your app stand out from the competition because they can be either practical and forgettable or impressive, useful and unforgettable. Read more…

July 13, 2016 — Babylon.js is a JavaScript framework for building 3D games with HTML5, WebGL and Web Audio. To celebrate the new version 2.3 of the library, David Rousset decided to build a new demo named “Sponza” to highlight what can be done with the WebGL engine and HTML5 when it comes to building great games nowadays. In this article, he’ll explain how it all works together, along with the various challenges he’s faced and the lessons he’s learned while building it. Read more…

July 6, 2016 — Made for fast and fluid UX design, Adobe XD gives you everything in one neat bundle: it lets you sketch out ideas, create interactive prototypes, test and share them. To give you a head start when working with XD, Cosima Mielke has compiled 15 pro tips, including features that might not be obvious at first glance but that will make your prototyping workflow a lot smoother. Please note that a Windows version is in the works and due later in 2016, but for now Adobe XD is available for Mac OS X only. Read more…

May 18, 2016 — Varnishtest can be used to test a cache invalidation method or to reproduce bugs when filing a bug report. To ensure optimal performance from a Varnish Cache deployment, one should integrate Varnishtest into the design. Varnishtest can be used by system administrators in two scenarios: (1) when configuring a Varnish Cache installation, and (2) when writing complex caching policies in the Varnish Configuration Language (VCL) or when tuning Varnish Cache. Code tinkerers who work on extensions written for Varnish Cache (called VMODs) can use Varnishtest to define and test their modules. Read more…