February 4, 2020 — We need to craft better digital products that respect customer’s choices without hurting business KPIs. And we need to do so by taming data collection and abandoning dark patterns, from hidden checkboxes to ambiguous copywriting. Today, Vitaly Friedman brings you our new practical guide on how to influence a positive change in your company and help your business grow sustainably. Without dark patterns, with ethics in mind, and ready for GDPR and CCPA. Jump to table of contents or pre-order the book right away. Read more…

February 4, 2020 — In this post, we’ll set up a demo site and tutorial for headless WordPress, including a starter template! We’ll use the WordPress dashboard for rich content editing, while migrating the front-end architecture to the JAMstack to benefit from better security, performance, and reliability. We’ll do this by setting up a Vue application with Nuxt, pulling in the posts from our application via the WordPress API. Read more…

February 3, 2020 — SmashingConf is coming to Austin, and in this post, Rachel Andrew brings you an interview with one of our speakers, Zach Leatherman, who will be talking about type and font performance. Zach is no stranger to the Smashing stage, and if you want to find out more about web fonts and loading strategies, you can watch his talk from SmashingConf London 2018. Read more…

January 31, 2020 — Artists and designers from across the globe once again got out their favorite tools and created unique and inspiring wallpapers to welcome the new month. The wallpapers are available with and without a calendar for February 2020 and can be downloaded for free. Read more…

January 30, 2020 — Today, Anna Prenzel would like to focus on data streams resulting from click events on the user interface. The processing of such clickstreams is particularly useful for applications with an intensive user interaction where many events have to be processed. This article is dedicated to Angular developers who want to harness the concept of reactive programming. This is a programming style that — simply put — deals with the processing of asynchronous data streams. Read more…

January 29, 2020 — As opposed to JavaScript and Python, variables and functions in CSCS are case-insensitive. The primary goal of CSCS is to let the developer write as little code as possible. In this article, Vassili Kaplan explains how you can use a scripting language to develop cross-platform mobile applications. You’ll find examples in both iOS and Android that include placing widgets on the screen, SQLite, Web Requests and JSON parsing. Read more…

January 28, 2020 — WordPress adoption is massive. So why would a WordPress site consider moving to JAMstack? In this technical case study, Sarah Drasner will cover what an actual WordPress migration looks like, using Smashing Magazine itself! She’ll talk through the gains and losses, the things she wishes she knew earlier, and what she was surprised by. Let’s dig in! Read more…

January 28, 2020 — We’re taking a look at the brand new version of Microsoft Edge and its Chromium-based rendering engine. What does that change mean for web developers, and how does the death of Microsoft’s own rendering engine impact the web? Today, Drew McLellan talks to Microsoft’s Aaron Gustafson and Stephanie Stimac to find out. Read more…

January 27, 2020 — Want to build a website or PWA that attracts a large audience and then converts as much of that audience into paying customers as possible? If that’s the case, what you need to do is use storytelling in your design — and there are a bunch of ways to do this. The key is to pair your client’s story, brand image, and goals with the style of story you decide to tell. There’s a ton of variation in how a story can be told. There is one thing they all need to have in common though: They need to somehow draw the reader into the narrative. Read more…

January 24, 2020 — How do we know if we are truly impactful as a design team? Are we seen as a vehicle to deliver a solution that moves a needle? The business value of design has been proven at scale by the McKinsey Design Index. and the study shows the best design performers increased their revenues and shareholder returns at nearly twice the rate of their industry counterparts. It’s time to empower our design teams and give them one voice to show how and when design really adds value. Read more…