For years you have been searching for it. You hear the question being asked in your dreams as you go on an Indiana-Jones-type-crusade to find the answer. When the answer comes to you, you know that the confetti will fall from the ceiling and the band will start playing your favorite song. You might even get a kiss from that special someone. So what is this question? "What is the secret to Web design?"
A tough question and one that might not have an answer. In 2006, Oliver Reichenstein wrote that Web Design is 95% Typography. Some people loved it, others were not so amused. If Web design was based that much on typography, then what was the point of learning anything else? All you needed to do is understand the elements of typography and you were good to go.
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This is our sixth article in a series that introduces the latest useful and freely available tools and techniques, developed and released by active members of the Web design community. The first article covered PrefixFree; the second introduced Foundation, a responsive framework; the third presented Sisyphus.js, a library for Gmail-like client-side drafts. The fourth shared a free plugin called GuideGuide with us, and in the fifth we've announced Erskine's responsive grid generator Gridpak.
JS Bin was one of the very first public paste bins with the output rendered live in your browser and available to share and edit with the completed output. Released back in 2008, JS Bin is now on its third iteration and after a long and thorough development finally includes some of the original features I wanted to build JS Bin with. It’s completely free to use all its features and open source, and it’s available on Github.
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One of the visual effects that is a mainstay in my Web design toolkit is the letterpress effect. Used properly, it’s a quick way to make text blend better with the layout, as if it were machine-stamped onto the background. Think of what a home appliance marquee or a professional business card looks (and feels) like, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Letterpress is a venerable technique of printing that involves “pressing” a plate of movable type onto a sheet of paper to produce an effect that is impressed (where the text is pressed down onto the paper) or embossed (where the text is raised above the surface of the paper).
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Every now and then, we look around, select fresh free high-quality fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice out there is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually time you should be investing in your projects. We search for them and find them so that you don’t have to.
In this selection, we’re pleased to present Signika, Plastic Type, Bariol, Alegreya, Metropolis, Typometry and other quality fonts. Please note that while most fonts are available for commercial projects, some are for personal use only and are clearly marked as such. Also, please read the licensing agreements carefully before using the fonts; they may change from time to time. Make sure to check the free quality fonts round-up from January 2011, too.
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We have lots and lots of good stuff here for your weekend reading pleasure in today's Smashing Daily issue, like some thoughts about the first transatlantic communication cable, and some thoughts about brands (and whether you can actually care about them). We have a good article about expectations when doing business, and an idea to serve images that are acceptable to the retina. There's news about jQuery, a post about browser update policies, and much more.
You can also have a look at the Smashing Daily Archive to see what you've missed!
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The term “responsive design” has gathered a lot of well-deserved buzz among Web designers. As you probably know, it refers to an easy way to dynamically customize interfaces for different devices and to serve them all from the same website, with no need for a separate mobile domain.
It solves one major problem, and very elegantly: how to adapt visual interfaces for mobile, tablet and desktop browsers. But when unifying a website, you have to solve problems other than how it will appear in different browsers, which could make the task much more difficult than you first realize.
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You've presented the new website and everyone loves it. The design is crisp, the code is bug-free, and you're ready to release. Then someone asks, “Does it work in Japanese?”
You break out in a cold sweat: you have no idea. The website works in English, and you figured other languages would come later. Now you have to rework the whole app to support other languages. Your release date slips, and you spend the next two months fixing bugs, only to find that you’ve missed half of them.
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Today we'll have a look at a few projects in which the consistent use of the well-known term "emotional design" can result in a great personality. Positive attitude often leads to people sharing and even advocating for your product with their peers.
Positive emotions instill positive memories and make users want to interact with your product in the future. There’s also an additional benefit: In pleasant, positive situations, people are much more likely to tolerate minor difficulties and irrelevance. While poor design is never excusable, when people are relaxed, the pleasant and pleasurable aspects of a design will make them more forgiving of problems within the interface.
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We love to tell users that they have done something wrong. We have error messages for everything from poorly formatted telephone numbers to incorrect logins. But what about our user's successes, do we celebrate them? Do we tell them they are doing something right?
It is as important to tell users that they are doing things right, as it is to inform them when they make a mistake. This kind of positive reinforcement is key to a pleasurable user experience. In this post, I want to explain why positive feedback matters, suggest when it is appropriate and how to integrate it into your website.
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