A meaningful user experience is what can set your site apart from others. But what makes an experience truly meaningful? And how to achieve that? The tools, tips, and resources in this post not only help you to come up with a UX strategy that works for you and your team but also to circumvent potential UX pitfalls.
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Are you ready for the countdown to Christmas? From festiveiconsets to advent calendars that are bound to sweeten your days with a delightful little surprise each morning, we’ve decided to join in on this lovely annual tradition and bring it all to one place. So prepare yourself a nice cup of coffee and get cozy — there’s always something new to learn and discover!
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Writing CSS has probably never been more fun and exciting than it is today. In this post we’ll take a look at common problems and use cases we all have to face in our work and how to solve them with modern CSS. If you’re interested, we’ve also just recently covered CSS auditing tools, CSS generators, front-end boilerplates and VS code extensions — you might find them useful, too.
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Readability programs may seem like a godsend, but the worst thing writers can do is write to please them above all others. Finding your voice is hard enough without also trying to sound like everyone else.
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If you’ve been looking for a list of email newsletters dedicated to web designers and developers, Ricky Onsman has got one that is bound to help you keep up with the industry — the most useful news and resources sent directly to your email inbox. The newsletters that were most namechecked are included here in their own section: “The Favorites.” For this article, Ricky focused on great newsletter content. It could be presented as sophisticated HTML with videos and infographics, or it could be no nonsense plain text with minimal descriptions, as long as the content — including how reliable any links are — is good.
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Smashing Magazine’s editor-in-chief, Rachel Andrew, attended the Google I/O 2018 event in Mountain View. We made sure you don’t miss out: Here’s a roundup of the announcements and launches that were presented at the event. To help you use the things announced, Rachel will be linking to the videos of those sessions plus any supporting material she’s been able to find.
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Designers and developers have to take a lot of things into account when designing a website, from visual appearance to functional design. In this article, Nick Babich will focus on the main principles, heuristics and approaches that will help you to create a great user experience for your website. Treat your website as a continually evolving project, and use analytics and user feedback to constantly improve the experience. And remember that design isn’t just for designers — it’s for users.
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The web community has assembled some fantastic advent calendars this year, and to make the choice of which ones to follow a bit easier, Cosima Mielke collected a selection of advent calendars in this Quick Tip for you. No matter if you’re a front-end dev, UX designer, or content strategist, we’re certain you’ll find something to inspire you for the upcoming year. So prepare yourself a nice cup of coffee, cozy up in your favorite chair and, well, enjoy!
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Does writing microcopy need to be considered an essential part of the design process? Most definitely, yes. The tendency among most clients and design teams is first and foremost to establish on-screen interactions, pattern libraries, wireframes and workflows and to release the latest and greatest features — to the point that, at times, they’ll defer the copy (specifically, the microcopy) till the latter stages. While the general consensus is that content matters and should be central to any design undertaking, the opposite tends to be true. Words, for the most part, still form the backbone of communication on the web, even with the emergence of new technologies such as Voice User Interfaces (VUI).
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