In this article, Steven Hoober shines the spotlight on Fitts’ Law and explains why we should always ask questions and consider what particular guidelines and lessons mean to our users and our products. When I started writing Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces, I would regularly find an interesting topic or tangent that led far into […]
Have usability conventions and the web’s universality steered us away from proper art direction? Have we forgotten about art direction altogether? Marko Dugonjić believes so. As designers, we can achieve much more with type, and with just a little more thought and creativity, we can finally start to take full advantage of the type systems
Maintaining optimal mental health is critical for programmers because most of our work is more mentally demanding than it is physically. However, building and maintaining a reliable and rewarding strategy to maintain a healthy balance in our work demands can be a challenge. In this article, we’ll look at why taking care of our work-life
Maintaining a design system is a lot of work. In this article, Atila Fassina shares his lessons learned and how a platform such as Backlight can help put together a series of tools to speed up your architecture setup. In theory, everybody has a relatively similar concept for what a “Design System” means, though nuances
Creating voice user interfaces requires a lot of design expertise in various areas such as conversation design, interaction design, visual and motion design. This article covers the most critical aspects of designing for voice user interfaces — designing the conversation and designing visual interfaces. Voice is a powerful tool that we can use to communicate
There are various ways to approach responsive typography and consistent vertical rhythm, and they are not limited to my suggestion. However, Jonathan Suh finds that this works for him more times than not. Managing consistent, typographic rhythm isn’t easy, but when the type is responsive, things get even more difficult. Fortunately, Sass maps make responsive
What is it that makes a haunted house feel so disturbing? Is it the fact that it’s been long abandoned? That it’s riddled with dark and twisty hallways? That it simulates danger? Or maybe it’s the low-quality construction that makes people nervous? In this article, Suzanne Scacca is going to take these frightening characteristics and
Instead of spending your coffee break scrolling through your social feeds, how about a lovely little website instead? We came across some fantastic ones that are just too good not to be shared. They are perfect for a short coffee break or whenever you’re up for a little bit of diversion. But be warned, your break might
Like many things, a design system isn’t ever a finished thing — it’s a journey. How we go about that journey can affect the things we produce along the way. Before diving in and starting to plan anything out, be clear about where the benefits and the risks might lie. It can be easy to
There was a time when marketers used things like urgency, scarcity and FOMO to drive online shoppers to a sale. But scare tactics can actually hurt a brand’s relationships with customers. By their very nature, we run into similar problems with shipping and inventory alerts. That said, there are ways that web designers can keep
