Because of how far certain Web technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 have brought us, many would say that—from a Web platform perspective—the future is now. Sounds like a cliché, I know. At the very least, it feels like the future is starting to bubble up to the surface… but it’s just not quite there yet.
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Despite a great deal of mobile innovation, many creators of financial apps still copy their interface patterns from the desktop Web, even though these patterns are not as well suited to the mobile space. Small screens, custom controls, divided attention and fat fingers demand different thinking when designing for mobile.
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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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In this article, we’ll look at writing documentation for a WordPress plugin, theme or product. Most of the information can be applied to documentation for other software types, but we’ll look at some WordPress-specific aspects. In my experience, the quality of documentation in WordPress plugins and themes varies widely.
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As interface designers, we’re often required to demonstrate the look and feel (and interactions) of the interfaces we design. We often begin with a series of flat images, and while these may be pixel perfect and show some amazing detail, they lack the context of the user experience.
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This overview features a hand-picked and organized selection of the most useful Smashing Magazine’s articles related to CSS3 and published here over all the years.
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Serifs, sans serifs and… scripts. In theory not a bad typographic palette to play with, but when it comes to practice, the options are always far fewer.
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Many people think of PHP, Ruby on Rails or Python and Django when choosing a language to create a new website or when choosing a language to learn to get that exciting new job. .NET, however, seems to occupy a space somewhat apart from this playground of cool kids. It’s always the last to be picked for team sports; it was shouting “Wassup!” at parties well after 2000; and it has been just plain left out in the cold.
I’m not one of these people. In fact, I’m quite a fan of .NET and have found it great to develop with since moving away from PHP in the early days of my career. With its great tools, large community and broad applicability (mobile, Xbox, desktop and Web) it’s both powerful and fun.
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