CategoryApps

March 8, 2019 — Take a gander at the revenues of the top mobile apps and it’s easy to get lost in dreams of what could be if only you built a mobile app today. Then again, have you ever considered how much it actually costs to build and maintain a mobile app? When you look at the big picture, you’ll soon realize that mobile apps aren’t a smart investment for most. That’s why you need to give serious consideration to building a PWA this year. In this article, Suzanne Scacca is going to talk about why app monetization needs to be one of the first things you think about before making a choice between designing a mobile app or PWA for your clients. Read more…

February 19, 2019 — In this tutorial, Ahmed Bouchefra will use the latest versions of Bootstrap 4 and Angular 7 to build an Angular application and style the interface with Bootstrap. Let’s see how we can integrate Bootstrap CSS styles and JavaScript files with an Angular project generated using the Angular CLI, and how to use form controls and classes to create beautiful forms and how to style HTML tables using Table styles. Read more…

February 15, 2019 — For the past few months, Cory Shaw has been building a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application, and throughout the development process he’s realized what a powerful tool Slack (or team chat in general) can be to monitor user and application behavior. After a bit of integration, it’s provided a real-time view into our application that previously didn’t exist, and it’s been so invaluable that he couldn’t help but write up this show-and-tell. Read more…

February 13, 2019 — With Progressive Web Apps, you can now use the web to build full-blown apps. Thanks to an enormous amount of new specifications and features, we can do things with the web that you used to need to write native apps for. However, talking to hardware devices was still a bridge too far up till now. Today, Niels Leenheer will introduce you to WebBluetooth. Thanks to this tool, we can now build PWAs that can control your lights, drive a car or even control a drone. Read more…

February 5, 2019 — Good performance is critical to delivering a good user experience, and iOS users often have high expectations of their apps. A slow and unresponsive app might make users give up on using your app or, worse, leave a bad rating. In this article, Axel Kee is going to look into five optimization tricks that will make your app feel more responsive. Read more…

January 29, 2019 — API-based solutions are becoming a critical building block of modern digital products. What are they? How can they impact your design process? Finally, how to evaluate them without bothering your software team? The growing amount of data and the need for speed in building products pushed APIs to become the lingua franca of digital teams. To design systems based on API-first systems, make sure you understand the vendors’ offerings. Today, Michał Sędzielewski brings you this hands-on testing guide which is a good starting point in doing so. It will help you explore the API capabilities even before you throw it to your teaching team, saving their energy — and yours as well. Read more…

January 9, 2019 — The scope of possibilities to apply Google Cloud Vision service is practically endless. With Python Library available, it can certainly help you bring out deeper interest in Machine Learning technologies. Google Vision API turned out to be a great tool to get a text from a photo. In this article, Bartosz Biskupski will guide you through the development process with Python in a sample project. If you’re a novice, don’t worry. You will only need a very basic knowledge of this programming language — with no other skills required. Let’s get started! Read more…

January 8, 2019 — A search bar isn’t some throwaway design element. When your app promises a speedy and convenient experience to its users, a search bar can cut down on the time they have to spend inside it. So, as you work on creating better experiences for your mobile app users, spend some time thinking about the design of your app’s search bar. Things like placement, hint text, and the way search results are displayed contribute to how users engage with search as well as your app as a whole. Read more…

December 28, 2018 — The mobile web has definitely improved from where it was just a couple years ago. When it comes to the mobile user experience, are mobile websites all that bad? You hear so much about the benefits of building a dedicated native app, but that can become an incredibly costly gamble if users don’t take to it. That said, is the progressive web app the best choice? And will it eventually replace the mobile web and native apps? In this article, Suzanne Scacca explores this idea. Read more…

December 19, 2018 — A sighted user puts himself in the shoes of a non-sighted user. In this series, Chris Ashton attempts to use the web under various constraints, representing a given demographic of user. I hope to raise the profile of difficulties faced by real people, which are avoidable if we design and develop in a way that is sympathetic to their needs. Today, Chris experiences first-hand difficulties that visually impaired users face and describes what we can do as web developers to help. Read more…