Most of the time, we develop websites without understanding what the browser is actually doing under the hood. How exactly does the browser render our web pages from the HTML, CSS and JavaScript that we create? Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool can be very helpful when trying to profile a web page and find areas for improvement. You simply enter the URL of the page that you want to test, and the tool provides you with a list of performance suggestions. Fortunately, the solution to this problem is simpler than it seems! The answer lies in the way that the CSS and JavaScript are loaded in your web page.
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In this tutorial, Matthew Ray will show you how to set up a GitHub repository to push updates to your plugin, wherever it resides. While you always have the option to use the WordPress Subversion repository, there may be instances where you prefer to host a plugin yourself. Perhaps you are offering your users a premium plugin. Maybe you need a way to keep your client’s code in sync across multiple sites. It could simply be that you want to use a Git workflow instead of Subversion. After reading this, you should be able to update your plugin by clicking the “Update now” button on the plugins page!
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As designers on the web, we have a responsibility to create things that empower kids and make them smarter, not the opposite. In this article Trine Falbe will give you some insights about what kids are like from the psychological point of view, and how this affects the way they use the web. She’ll also cover practical design guidelines to create better web stuff for kids. We should be the ones who make sure that the kinds of things that go on in apps like Talking Tom and The Smurfs’ Village don’t become the norm. Designing with respect should be our norm.
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It’s no secret that the crowdfunding industry is booming. It seems like every day you hear about an exciting new startup crushing their campaign goals and launching their company via Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Up to this point most software startups have failed to take advantage of this growing movement. In this article Matt Ward will cover the highs and lows of app-based crowdfunding, the purpose being to shed light on common software flaws seen in crowdfunding to ideally help your campaigns prosper. And whether you choose to use crowdfunding to jump-start your startup or not, many of the following concepts go well beyond initial launch-stage success.
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Before the launch of the Apple Watch, Nikolay Morev’s iOS team at myMail (one of the popular alternative email apps for iOS) worked tirelessly with a simulator to create a new Apple Watch app. They wanted the first buyers of the Apple Watch to have the opportunity to use myMail from day one. What they learned through using the simulator and creating the app is described in this article and will help iOS developers get to results, faster, and avoid a few headaches down the road. Happy designing for the Watch!
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If you’re publishing a lot of content, then high-quality images are vital to keeping readers engaged and coming back for more. But contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to resort to cheesy stock photos (like the one with the matchstick metaphor that jumpstarted my quest for a better process). In this article, Lauren Jung will walk you through how to do just that, as well as provide you with a starter kit of tools to kickstart your foray into the exciting world of quick-and-dirty image creation. Having a streamlined process for creating eye-catching images is imperative and imperative to online publishing because, if done right, it will speed up your efforts by far.
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While animations may have great visual appeal, they also make app experiences more intuitive and engaging. Animation can make an app feel more fluid and responsive by providing feedback on user interaction. This means that, for designers, creating authentic animations is increasingly becoming a part of the job description. Whether you’re a designer, product manager, developer or anyone else working on a product, Keynote is a great way to communicate ideas quickly. The speed, gentle learning curve and quality of output all make it an ideal tool for your arsenal.
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As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one — desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for August 2015. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! We are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month.
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CSS quantity queries follow the concept of changing the styles based on a condition: the condition within a quantity query being the number of sibling elements. An example would be navigation where items are 25% wide when four items are available; yet when there are five items available, the width of the navigation items changes to 20%. This is a common problem with dynamic site frameworks like WordPress or Ghost. Can you avoid too many media queries and JavaScript workarounds? Yes, you can. This is where quantity queries are best used. By being creative with CSS selectors, we can count the number of sibling items and apply styles if they meet the conditions. Using these queries, we can future-proof our designs and projects, and allow them to scale gracefully.
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Implementations usually involved either using an external image editor to create multiple images for multiple values of the pie chart, or large JavaScript frameworks designed for much more complex charts. Although the feat is not as impossible as it once was, there’s still no simple one-liner for it. However, in this article, Lea Verou will show you that there are many better, more maintainable ways to achieve it today.
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