Switching tools isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. In this article, Buzz Usborne brings you a nuts-and-bolts and behind-the-scenes look at how Help Scout migrated design systems from Sketch to Figma — why we made the switch, a step-by-step walkthrough of what it entailed, and what we got out of it — a story that applies to any team considering a large-scale tool migration.
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Let’s welcome September with a fresh desktop wallpaper. Designed by artists and designers from across the globe and available with and without a calendar. As a bonus goodie, we also collected some timeless favorites from past years’ editions at the end of this post. Please note that all images can be clicked on and lead to the preview of the wallpaper. We respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience through their works. A big thank-you to all the artists who have submitted their wallpapers and are still diligently continuing to do so. Happy September!
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In any project that requires any user interaction, there is one critical factor that makes the difference between success and failure: good documentation. This holds true regardless of how small or large your project is. One of the most overlooked aspects of creating and/or maintaining any software library is good documentation. Luckily for you, a new tool on the market is here to make it easy for you to create great documentation for your projects. Whether you like it or not, you will never hear from users who give up after being unable to solve their problem due to inadequate documentation.
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Phones are getting bigger, and some parts of the screen are easier to interact with than others. Having the hamburger menu at the top provides too big of an interaction cost, and we have a large number of amazing mobile app designs that utilize the bottom part of the screen. We need to adjust how we build and design our websites. Is there something to learn from app design and tap bars? Can we fix the mobile navigation of our websites to have a lower interaction cost? In this article, Arturas Leonovas will find out.
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You’ve probably heard of WebAssembly and why it’s a powerful tool in the browser. In this article, Robert Aboukhalil will explore why serverless WebAssembly might be equally powerful outside the browser, and how to get started using it. Certain types of applications — such as data analysis and image processing, to name a few — can greatly benefit from such an approach. Though the runtime suffers because of the additional round-trips to the network, this approach does allow us to process more data at a time and not put a drain on users’ resources.
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Philippe Hong has made the switch to Figma almost two years ago and he has no regrets so far. In one of his previous blog posts on the topic, he made an in-depth review of Figma, and he’s glad he could help other designers make the switch In this article, let’s take a closer look at what Figma really has to offer. Here are 20 tips on how to work faster and better with this well-known and collaborative interface design tool.
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In this tutorial, Matt Zand will show you how to harness the power of HTML5 web storage by creating a shopping cart step-by-step. What you learn from this tutorial can easily be applied to other site features that may not require database storage such as user preferences, users’ favorite contents, wish list, user settings like username and password and more.
Update (27,29 Aug) Editor’s Note: We have updated the examples to address accessibility issues in the HTML.
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The Embedded Image Preview (EIP) technique introduced in this article allows us to load preview images during lazy loading using progressive JPEGs, Ajax and HTTP range requests without having to transfer additional data. JPEG files, for which lazy loading is mostly used, have the possibility, according to the specification, to store the data contained in them in such a way that first the coarse and then the detailed image contents are displayed. Instead of having the image built up from top to bottom during loading, a blurred image can be displayed very quickly, which gradually becomes sharper and sharper.
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As with many other topics in software development, testing and test driven development are often made needlessly complex in theory and implementation by placing too much emphasis on learning a wide array of testing frameworks. In this article, Ryan Kay will revisit what testing means by a simple analogy, explore concepts in software architecture which will directly result in a reduced need for testing frameworks, and some arguments as to why you might benefit from an attitude of minimalism for your testing process.
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Think about your last few software projects. Was there a healthy balance between concrete business goals, meeting users’ needs, and shipping the product in a timely fashion? The key to striking this balance is a design process that accounts for complexity, addresses design problems early, and avoids relying too heavily on third parties. A major contributor to clunky software is flawed design processes. In this article, Eric Olive will outline four design process problems and explain how to address them.
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