Does writing microcopy need to be considered an essential part of the design process? Most definitely, yes. The tendency among most clients and design teams is first and foremost to establish on-screen interactions, pattern libraries, wireframes and workflows and to release the latest and greatest features — to the point that, at times, they’ll defer the copy (specifically, the microcopy) till the latter stages. While the general consensus is that content matters and should be central to any design undertaking, the opposite tends to be true. Words, for the most part, still form the backbone of communication on the web, even with the emergence of new technologies such as Voice User Interfaces (VUI).
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Solid typography, well-crafted with attention and care is one of the small details that make a project shine. In practice, however, publishing on the web is supposed to be fast, and the little details are often overlooked, which is a pity, because they are not only pleasing to the eye but also improve the reading experience. The tools and resources compiled in this article will help you bring some of that meaning that typography has always benefited from in print to your web projects. Are you ready to do some catching up on that type game?
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In practice, mock-ups usually represent a perfect experience in a perfect context with perfect data which doesn’t really exist. A good example for it are “optimal” usernames which are perfectly short, fit on a single line on mobile and wrap nicely, or perfect photography that allows for perfectly legible text overlays. Nothing is perfect on the web. We need to craft future-proof experiences. We use little helpers all the time, and they prove to be great tools to build websites that are prepared for everything that comes their way. They also reflect reality much better than perfect mock-ups with perfect heights and perfect names and email addresses ever would. Stay resilient — that’s the true power of the web.
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Smashing Magazine is known for lengthy, comprehensive articles. But what about something different for a change? What about shorter, concise pieces with useful tips that you could easily read over a short coffee break? As an experiment, this is one of the shorter Quick Tips-kind-of articles — shorter posts prepared and edited by our editorial team.
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Now is a great time to start a podcast. It’s an authentic and intimate way to demonstrate authority in your niche and to grow your client base. Kyle Racki recently started his first podcast, Agencies Drinking Beer, with his cofounder, Kevin Springer. When starting out, he was a bit lost with the technical logistics of actually setting up the podcast. Here is all of the best advice, information and resources Kyle can offer you. This way, you can spend less time on the technical side of setting up your podcast and more time creating killer content. It’s a lot of work, and discipline is required to regularly deliver new content, but the reward is more than worth the effort. Ready to start? Let’s go!
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What if you are about to start working on a new project which should apply the material design language introduced by Google last year? In this article, Sven Lennartz is here to have your back — with a little selection of handy goodies, icons, templates and tools to help you get off the ground faster. After reading this, you will have a few tools in your toolbox to approach that project head-on, without losing time, and focusing on crafting those websites that your users will love and keep returning to.
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The majority of conferences are small. Most are single-track events, except for those that are 10-plus-track affairs. Many offer workshops to round out the experience. In this article Jan Constantin won’t present best practices for planning a conference, but rather will look at how it’s actually done most of the time. While this is not a guide to putting together the perfect conference, it gives a good overview of what seems to work and which elements are so unpredictable that they do not serve as reliable guidelines.
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At Typeform, David Okuniev was inspired to simplify online forms by a movie that’s decidedly a blast from the past: the 1983 film WarGames, which centers around a student who remotely logs into a research computer and, through its terminal interface, nearly sparks a nuclear war. Stripping forms down to their basics and building them back up into something better took four years of work, but that core idea guided the team all along: questions are better than lists. In this article you will find David Okuniev’s story of how he turned that idea into a product that’s helped companies of all sizes get a 55% completion rate on their forms.
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The best writers often work with an editor (or two), who will help them coalesce their words into something more compelling or easier to understand. Having worked with several editors, Paul Lloyd really came to appreciate this aspect of the writing process. Refinement is an essential aspect of any creative process. As refactoring code can make a program more logical and efficient, editing a text can allow an underlying idea to be more clearly stated, or make a piece more enjoyable to read. And when he heard about Editorially, a collaborative writing tool designed with Web writers in mind, he immediately signed up.
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Fortunately, learning is not limited to only a small minority of people anymore; it is not even limited to visiting a school or a university. The Internet makes it possible for us to distribute knowledge at a small price, and is full of web design resources to expand everyone’s knowledge on an enormous variety of topics.
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