March 31, 2020 — By now, you’re probably used to seeing design trends come and go. But have you ever given any thought to what passing trends do to a website when left there for too long? As a web designer, you have a few choices. You can ignore popular design trends altogether; you can adopt them, but pull them out of rotation the second they go stale, or you can put your own unique spin on them. This guide will help you figure out which approach makes the most sense for your site. Read more…

March 31, 2020 — Let’s welcome the new month with some fresh wallpapers. Designed with love by artists and designers from across the globe, they are available with and without a calendar for April 2020. Read more…

March 30, 2020 — We use language as a tool for communication with other people. Writers use words to communicate with their readers, while designers use visual language to communicate with their users. Fonts, colors, shapes, visual elements such as icons — those are elements of design language. Effective design language streamlines communication. A robust visual design language is the cornerstone of good design. In this article, Gleb Kuznetsov will show you how the team at Fantasy approached designing a mobile OS for Huawei. Read more…

March 30, 2020 — Announcing a set of checklists to help you create smart interface design patterns. Totally free if you sign up for our friendly newsletter. These checklists are based on the work Vitaly has been doing for many years, exploring and examining examples of desktop and mobile interfaces. Learning what works and what doesn’t in usability tests and user interviews. Read more…

March 27, 2020 — You don’t need to know your trees from your dangling blobs. If you use Git every day and feel like it’s a juggling act, then here are some tricks and tips to help make your life a bit easier. There’s been a lot written about getting started with git, understanding how git works under the hood or techniques for better branching strategies. In this article, Shane Hudson will specifically target the stuff that just makes your life better in a small way. Read more…

March 26, 2020 — Recent research has found that e-commerce category pages have higher click-through rates in search than individual category pages. So, if your e-commerce site is struggling to attract shoppers and convert them, your category pages (specifically, those on mobile) might be in need of a redesign. Based on the following data, Suzanne Scacca will show you how category pages have a role to play — as the intermediary between search engines and e-commerce websites. Read more…

March 25, 2020 — In Part 1, Paul explained the basics of the terminal, shared a few productivity hacks to get you started, and how to choose a code editor. In this part, he’ll continue with the topics of version control (Git), HTML and CSS, semantic code, and a brief introduction to some key engineering principles. Read more…

March 24, 2020 — In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, we’re talking about the user experience around converting site visitors into customers. Can our selling techniques leave customers feeling cheated? And how can that be avoided? Drew McLellan talks to conversion optimization specialist Paul Boag to find out. Read more…

March 23, 2020 — With so many people — including our workshop leaders — working from home, we thought we would bring our Smashing workshops from our home offices to yours. We hope we can help you continue to learn and interact with the speakers and each other, and also help out our workshop leaders who are losing income by being unable to run their workshops in person right now. Read more…

March 23, 2020 — In this seventh instalment of Inspired Design Decisions, Andy Clarke will explore how American art director and graphic designer Otto Storch inspires his designs for the web. How do we use CSS Shapes to go beyond basic shapes to add energy to our designs? How do we use rotations on text for extra impact? How can we use mirroring and reflections to add interest to a design? In this article, we’ll explore just that. Read more…