Good Web designers know what many others might not realize: that creating a truly beautiful website requires care, time and craft. And similar to how a craftsperson molds their creation by combining raw materials, skill and unwavering focus on the vision, a beautiful design is planned and executed with exceptional focus on what is to be achieved by the website. It is important, however, not to confuse a beautifully crafted website with one that simply brushes over the content with attractive visuals.
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Error pages for form-field validation are dreadful. You’ve just filled out 20 form fields, yet you get the same bloated page thrown back in your face because a single field failed to validate. I clearly recall the often loud sighs of despair during our last usability study each time a test subject encountered a validation error page.
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Have you ever wanted your users to click a link but didn’t know how to get them to act? When some designers run into this problem, they’re tempted to use the words “Click here” on their links.
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brand new Smashing Books #3 and #3⅓ have been released last month and we’re sincerely grateful for the tremendous feedback, reviews and photos submitted by our truly smashing readers across the world.
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Emergency car shopping is no fun. This past month was the second time I had to shop for a car in a short timeframe without advance warning. Like most informed shoppers, I went online to get a feel for my options, armed with knowledge of what I was looking for: apart from safety, gas mileage and reliability, it had to comfortably seat six and not require me to take out a second mortgage.
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The mobile Web has gotten a bum rap. It spends most of its time either in the shadow of the desktop or playing the role of the native app’s frumpy friend. Luckily, we’ve got the tools to change that. Progressive enhancement, mobile-first and responsive design can help lead us towards a more unified, future-friendly Web. That’s the good news. The bad news? These tools are worthless if you don’t have license to use them.
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Design patterns bring many benefits, as well as some drawbacks to watch out for. But we’d be foolish to ignore these helpful guidelines. There is no formula for what we need to do; rather, we need to operate within certain boundaries to ensure we’re creating great design solutions without alienating users.
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The term “social media guru” has almost become a dirty word within the Web community. In fact, despite most of us being early adopters of social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, we consider social media the purview of marketeers.
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When iOS started to gain momentum, soon after the first iPhone launched, many businesses started to pay attention to apps. The number of apps for iOS grew exponentially, and every company, big and small, rushed to create their own app to support their business.
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You cannot plan for and design a responsive, content-focused, mobile-first website the same way you’ve been creating websites for years—you just can’t. If your goal is to produce something that is not fixed-width and serves smaller devices just the styles they require, why would you use a dated process that contradicts those goals?
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