If you work on the web, your superpower is side projects. Unlike your regular job, a side project lets you take on an alternate identity, one of which you are in charge and no one can stop you. And the best part: If your impact is big enough, the whole world will soon know your name. Side projects are underused by the vast majority of designers and developers out there. In this article, Sacha Greif will give you a play-by-play account of the process of building and launching one such side project.
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In this article, Denys Mishunov aims to provide you with the reasons and theories for why things function in certain way. He will use examples that are observable in the offline world and, using principles of psychology, research and analysis in psychophysics and neuroscience, he will try to answer some “Why?” questions. Denys will also cover psychological aspects of some practical cases, like performance optimization of an existing project, how to deal with the better performance of a competitor’s website and how to make users barely notice any waiting for your services.
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Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera dominate the world’s desktop browser market. Whichever statistics you check, you’ll notice that they often contradict each other in declaring which browser is leading the race. They may be the most popular, but they are not the only options available for accessing the Internet. So, what about the remaining share? In this article, Victor Clarke shows you 15 desktop browsers that are worth considering if you’re tired of the browser war champions. This list isn’t comprehensive — several hundred browsers are available online — but these are the ones that regularly receive updates and provide a new web surfing experience.
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Hey, lovely to have you back here. Facebook announced that they built their first cross-platform React Native app. After nearly three years of development, Modernizr 3 is out now. Heydon Pickering explains how to re-create the goodness of gifs in a vector format with SVG. Our dear friend Anselm Hannemann is keeping track of everything in the web development reading list, so you don’t have to. The result is a carefully collected list of articles that popped up over the last week and which might interest you.
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The industry wants us to waste broken gadgets and buy new ones, even if it would only take minutes for anyone to repair it. But without companies sharing how we can repair things, it’s a tough task. We, including the gadget vendors need to start thinking about how to produce less waste. Our dear friend Anselm Hannemann is keeping track of everything in the web development reading list, so you don’t have to. The result is a carefully collected list of articles that popped up over the last week and which might interest you.
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Mmost products contain at least one element of anticipation. Aaron Shapiro from HUGE defined anticipatory design as a method where it’s up to the designer to simplify processes as much as possible for users, minimizing difficulty by making decisions on their behalf. Look at the examples in this article, and consider the checklist to spot opportunities for improvement in your current user experience. If you are starting out from scratch, you have a unique opportunity to embed these principles from the outset.
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We’ve hidden secret keys in different (physical) locations across the world. To move from one level to another, you’ll have to find a hidden print-out in all (four) locations. Watch out for GIF file names. Below you’ll find the first animated GIF that contains a location clue. Identify the location, go there and find a hidden print-out. Once you’ve reached the last level (you’ll know when), just tweet out all the keys in one single hashtag to @smashingmag on Twitter! Alright, let’s get down to business. Are you ready? Action!
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Chrome introduces custom tabs and smooth transitions, allowing apps to preload specific URLs in the in-app browser for a faster user experience. Facebook released a complete rewrite of their React developer tools, now available for Firefox as well. Our dear friend Anselm Hannemann is keeping track of everything in the web development reading list so you don’t have to. The result is a carefully collected list of articles that popped up over the last week and which might interest you.
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Welcome back to the Web Development Reading List (WDRL) for this week! Our dear friend Anselm Hannemann is keeping track of everything in the web development reading list so you don’t have to. The reaction on the first post last week was quite overwhelming. Instead of the previously announced biweekly schedule here on Smashing Magazine, Anselm will post it in sync with the original WDRL; so, expect content to appear weekly here from now on.
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So far, most of the responsive design thinking has revolved around covering the range of experiences from mobile to desktop. Yet little attention has been paid to the opportunities for expanding that range beyond the standard desktop screen, to create an experience optimized for modern large-scale displays. In this article, Christian Holst will explore how e-commerce designers could use responsive upscaling to craft a tailored experience for users with big screens. He’ll cover one core principle, along with 11 ideas for upscaling different parts of the e-commerce experience to deal with the various usability challenges observed during our e-commerce usability studies.
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