Design

Q&A is a column in which I’ll post long-form answers to thought-provoking questions. This particular question was inspired by a thread in…

Digital Design Reinvented

Holistic web design: it just sounds so... '60s counter-culture acid-fueled epiphany-like. But it's worth looking at anyway. I mean, everyone here has either read the Dirk Gently books, or at least watched the latest Netflix adaptation, right? No? Well, here's the crash course: Everything is connected. That connection might be tenuous or obvious, but everything is more or less connected somehow. You can find elements of this idea in chaos theory, especially in the Butterfly Effect—you know, a butterfly flaps its wings in China, and Florida gets hit with a hurricane. (Prediction: by 2020, we ...

Moqups is a streamlined and intuitive web app that helps you create and collaborate on wireframes, mockups, diagrams and prototypes - for any type of project.

I am a huge advocate of User Experience (UX) design.

Easing gradients supercharges linear gradients so they're a lot more flexible and you can say goodbye to hard edges.

A dark user experience pattern is loosely defined as a way to trick users into performing certain actions. These actions always benefit the company employing these techniques, and often leave user out of pocket in at least one way. Sometimes this is monetary; other times it's at the cost of privacy, time, or even user rights. Some of the most common dark patterns include disguising advertisements, sneaking additional items into a user's basket, making it difficult to cancel a subscription, and tricking users to share information they did not intend to. The list goes on, and it's becoming a ...

Why We Abandoned The Hamburger Menu

_Alec McGuffey is the co-founder of RookieUp, a design education platform that offers short-term bootcamps and portfolio-building tools to give aspiring designers everything they need to build a strong design portfolio and launch their design career. Here, he outlines his top tips._

I can’t stress how much I despise these browser pop-ups. I see them all the time, and put simply, they’re ruining the Internet. Every site that uses them fundamentally undermines their readability, and makes me never want to go back. News sites don’t need to know my location. And nobody wants random, shrill notifications in […]

When your product, and the team building it, scales fast, it can be hard to maintain consistency. Here’s how we created a comprehensive design system to keep everyone on the same page.

Now, we’re going to look at a subject that comes directly from mathematics and that we can also find all around us – the golden ratio. Don’t worry; we’re not going back into the classroom for long. We will examine what this concept is and exactly how much it is a fundamental part of making designs pleasing to the user’s eye. The golden ratio’s story is the stuff of legend. With a history dating back almost to the time of Pi (another great mathematical formula, which is essential in understand...

“Golden Ratio” is of great importance in the design of architecture, appliances, logos and photos. I don’t want to write about it a lot…

One of the major characteristics of effective design is a clear user interface.

Learn what wireframing is, how to design them, and some best-practices to follow, so you can diagram your own wireframes using Cacoo.

Well organized and easy to understand Web building tutorials with lots of examples of how to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, PHP, and XML.

The trend of using large, full-screen background videos in web design has been growing over the last several years.Using a video instead of a static background makes your website come to life. You can show a flurry of activity in your office; happy customers enjoying your product or service; the process of creating a high-tech and complex product.No matter the subject matter, it is undeniable that a video is more immersive than a still image.However, some of these video backgrounds are better-executed than others.

Color me stupid as to why there’s not a single good explanation of the HSB color system online. Two and a half million Google results, but none of them seem ...

An interactive tool to create, share, and apply color palettes to your UI, as well as measure the accessibility level of any color combination.

Pantone has been a leader in colors for print media for a while now, but as a designer, there are great many advantages of using Pantone as…

A radically new open source design tool built for cross-functional product teams.

A series of video tutorials for UI/UX designers that don't use Photoshop as their main tool but still need to do some image retouching here and there.

A ghost button is a button that has an outline but no solid fill. They're a popular trend across the web, but many designers are misusing them.

We all know that two bodies can’t occupy the same physical space. This kind of logic should be present in all our designs… I can’t travel…

Mustafa Kurtuldu mulls over the topic of performance - both perceived and measured - for users of mobile devices. Of course, in managing to deliver millions of gifts around the world on the night before Christmas perhaps Santa is the real expert in mobile performance.

The best options around – and the pros and cons of each.

Framer is a professional interaction design tool for the modern product designer.

An Open Source repository of Design Principles and methods

When creating flowcharts, it’s best to keep things simple. These tips on format and design will help you get from start to finish with ease.

Obtaining the right information before you start wireframing is critical to your project’s success. It ensures you remain on-brand and reach client goals.