In this article, Ksenia Sternina decided to analyze the physiology of using the interface of Mail.Ru’s Email app; for example, how comfortable is it to use an iPad app in typical positions? The behaviors we studied included tapping buttons while lying down, browsing photos while sitting, swiping, and writing text. Her results revealed a number of purely ergonomic problems that should be taken into account when developing any iPad app. The results are shown here on an iPad layout using a three-color schema. Controls located in the green zone are easily reachable by the average person; the yellow zone is still reachable but not as easily; and the red zone is the most inconvenient location for controls.
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In this article, Carlo Daniele will show you how to provide your WordPress installation with an advanced search system allowing the user to search and retrieve content from a specific custom post type, filtering results by custom taxonomy terms and multiple custom field values. He will cover both a theoretical introduction to handling user requests and a concrete application of that theory, particularly, building an advanced search system.
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Deviating from the traditional infographic form means that you tread into more complex media territory, but such experimentation with technology and narrative will be key in shaping the future of infographic design. In compiling this list, Babar Suleman received some great recommendations from friends and peers in the design world, and picking just 23 was not easy. Check out the list below to see if your favorite infographic made the list, and let us know about any others that should have been included!
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Procedural content generation has been in use for the last 40 years in video games, and it’s a key characteristic of rogue-like games. Instead of manually writing different levels, defining where walls are or where monsters are hidden, you could use an algorithm to generate that for you. While there are many different situations in which procedural content generation is possible to use, it’s more evident in well-known video games. There is one example which is less well known but highly respected by passionate geeks: Dwarf Fortress. In this game an entire world is simulated with its history.
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What’s going on in the industry? What new techniques have emerged recently? What insights, tools, tips and tricks is the web design community talking about? Anselm Hannemann is collecting everything that popped up over the last week in his web development reading list so that you don’t miss out on anything. The result is a carefully curated list of articles and resources that are worth taking a closer look at.
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What are the guidelines to follow when using data to personalize digital experiences, and how can organizations help people feel comfortable with personalization services that research clearly shows people want? CX and UX professionals are faced with the difficult task of helping clients navigate design decisions around privacy and personalization of digital services. It’s up to us to help clients understand the implications to business outcomes and ethics. To do this well, we must introduce privacy considerations into the design process as early as possible.
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We proudly craft affordable, practical books for pros like yourself who want to improve skills and make a difference. No fluff, no theory — just actionable insights applicable to your work right away. In this article, we bring you a quick overview of the last ones! We take pride in the time and efforts we put into creating our Smashing Books. We sincerely appreciate your support and trust — without you, we wouldn’t be able to release the books, and you should know that.
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Houdini is a new W3C task force that introduces a new set of APIs that will give developers the power to extend CSS itself, and the tools to hook into the styling and layout process of a browser’s rendering engine. In this article, Philip Walton is going to talk about how Houdini will solve CSS feature problems and list some of the more exciting features currently in development. He’ll also offer some concrete things you as web developers can do today to help make Houdini a reality.
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In this article, Manuela Langella will teach you not only how to draw a cartoon in Adobe Illustrator, but also how to decide on character, place and situation in order to tell a story. Before grabbing your pencil or software tool, ask yourself, “What will be my topic?” How many characters you will use, and who will they be? What background will they move against? What era will they live in? In what scene will you put them? Through the steps in this tutorial, she will explain to you her own choices. Let’s begin!
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Today we are pleased to feature the new and free font families Yrsa and Rasa by David Březina and Anna Giedryś and their story behind the design process. David has written two articles about the project’s development in which they discussed what they meant by remixing and how they approached harmonization of the two different scripts, Latin and Gujarati. Today, as they release the fonts into the wild, David will explain what they’ve learned from a six-month-long exercise.
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