After building several client websites, ranging from small cafés to growing startups, Stefan Judis figured out that the holy WYSIWYG editor is not always the silver bullet we’re all looking for. These interfaces aim to make building websites easy, but there are always more use cases for your content on different platforms. In this article Stefan Judis will show you what he built and how his website surprisingly turned out to be his daily companion.
Read more…
Game-making has never been easier on iOS since the introduction of SpriteKit. In part three of this three-part series, Marc Vandehey will finish up the RainCat game and complete the introduction to SpriteKit.
This is lesson three in your RainCat journey. Today you will learn how to create options for muting sounds; game-quitting option; and a main menu — with buttons
Read more…
In this article, Kyle Cassidy shares his thoughts and experiences on how lean thinking helped to instill efficiencies within his UX design process. For clients undertaking multiple projects, the lack of consistent wireframe deliverables was confusing and disorientating, with the client having to remember multiple URLs and logins while also learning how to navigate the various outputs. Many routine tasks were unnecessarily repeated across multiple projects. It was clear that they needed to establish some rules and guidelines to create a more cohesive approach. They needed to set a new direction, and now was the time to start.
Read more…
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.
Read more…
In this article, Cosima Mielke brings you some holiday-themed icon sets for you that’ll give your creative projects some holiday flair. Perfect for Christmas cards, gift tags, last-minute wrapping paper, or whatever else you can think of. All icons can be downloaded for free! Please consult their licenses or contact the creators before using them in commercial projects. Reselling a bundle is never cool, though. Have a happy holiday season!
Read more…
Sometimes animation that is nice and smooth in a simple demo runs very slowly on a real website, introduces visual artefacts or even crashes the browser. Why does this happen? How do we fix it? In this article, Sergey Chikuyonok aims to help you to better understand how the browser uses the GPU to render, so that you can create impressive websites that run quickly on all devices. Let’s do it!
Read more…
Even though the new Service Worker API allows you to cache away all of your website’s assets for an almost instant subsequent load, like when meeting someone new, the first impression is what counts. If the first load takes more than 3 seconds, more than 53% of all users will drop off. There are ways to mitigate this problem of a slow first load, but you can only get so far with this strategy, and you have to employ, or be, a front-end performance wizard. So, if an almost instant first load is fundamentally at odds with a native-like app experience, what can we do? In this article, Paul Bakaus will show you the way.
Read more…
While an instant response from an app is the best, there are times when your app won’t be able to comply with the guidelines for speed. A slow response could be caused by a bad internet connection, or an operation itself can take a long time. For such cases, in order to minimize user tension, you must reassure users that the app is working on their request and that actual progress is being made. A wait-animation progress indicator is the most common form of providing a system status for users when something is happening or loading. It’s important to provide feedback to the user about what is happening with the app within a reasonable amount of time.
Read more…
In this chapter, Brad Frost will tackle all that goes into selling, creating, and maintaining effective design systems. What begins as a giant slab of rock can turn into a finely polished sculpture, thanks to a ton of hard work, genuine collaboration, constant communication, and plenty of iteration. If you like what you read, we’ve got you covered! The print version of Smashing Book 5 (including the eBook) bundled with the Atomic Design eBook is available today for just $29 — down from $49. Get the bundle now. You ready? Let’s go.
Read more…
Game-making has never been easier on iOS since the introduction of SpriteKit. In part two of this three-part series, Marc Vandehey will explore the basics of SpriteKit. If you missed out on the previous lesson, you can catch up by getting the code on GitHub. Remember that this tutorial requires Xcode 8 and Swift 3. Today, you will learn how to spawn the cat, spawn food, animate the cat and add sound effects and music. Let’s do it!
Read more…
