In this article, Maksim Chemerisuk describes his approach with better-dom to solve the internationalization problem. Since the last article about this, “Writing a Better JavaScript Library for the DOM,” he has revisited the concept to solve the issues raised through feedback. The solution was originally intended to be a set of internationalization APIs for plugins, extensions, etc. It doesn’t rely heavily on the better-dom library, so it could be adapted to any existing JavaScript library.
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As digital professionals, we like to complain that the organizations with which we work are a hindrance. But are they? Exactly how digitally-friendly are the companies we work for? Before Paul Boag helps a client go through the process of digital transformation, he needs to understand where the problems lie. He does this using a digital health check. Below is an outline of the areas that he investigates, the questions he asks and what those questions reveal. Paul’s hope is that this health check will help you better understand the organizations with which you work.
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Icons are a simple, effective way to draw users into the content of your website. Today’s icon set consists of a set of icons in two styles (flat and light gradient). The icons have been carefully designed by PixelBuddha and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. It’s completely free to use for commercial or personal applications without any restrictions.
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In this article Julian Shapiro will demonstrate that websites can benefit from the same level of interactive and performant motion design found on mobile apps. In the following examples, he’ll be using Velocity JS — a popular animation engine that drastically improves the speed of UI animation. In particular, Velocity.js’ UI pack, which allows you to quickly inject motion design into your pages.
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Some of us were born with this feeling of what feels and looks right. But other people also have a gift of aesthetic feeling, a gift to recognize beauty. Ordinary users, then, just like designers, recognize beauty and know what’s right and not right. This is not where the problem of handing over creative control arises. The problem is that they don’t know the principles that designers do. But there is a way. We can guide users simply by limiting their creative control, which also makes for a simpler tool.
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“What is the best career advice you’ve ever received?”. Throughout his career, Jeremy Girard has received plenty of advice. But after thinking about that question (from one of his students) for a week or so, Jeremy Girard came up with four pieces of advice that he received early in his career and that were invaluable to him as he was getting started in this industry but that are just as relevant and useful to him today.
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Z-index is an inherently tricky thing, and maintaining z-index order in a complex layout is notoriously difficult. With different stacking orders and contexts, keeping track of them as their numbers increase can be hard — and once they start to spread across CSS files, forget about it! Because z-index can make or break a UI element’s visibility and usability, keeping your website’s UI in working order can be a delicate balance.
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Gulp is one of quite a few build tools available in JavaScript, and other build tools not written in JavaScript are available, too, including Rake. Why should you choose it? Gulp is a build system that can improve how you develop websites by automating common tasks, such as compiling preprocessed CSS. In this article, Callum Macrae will see how you can use Gulp to change your development workflow, making it faster and more efficient.
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As designers, we must understand the role of momentum in effective user interface design and create experiences that keep our users moving forward. How do you know when your design has enough friction to be understood but is not overly complicated? In this article, Martijn van Tilburg considers different design scenarios and how to manage the user’s momentum by speeding up or slowing down their flow according to the situation. He will also discuss a framework for thinking about friction in your next design and when to be strategically innovative in order to maintain momentum.
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In this third part of the series, Joseph Zimmerman will be taking a gander at how Marionette helps make views better in Backbone. Marionette extends the base View class from Backbone to give us more built-in functionality, and to convert all of the common code down to configuration. Some things may be mentioned in this article that refer to the previous articles, and this is part of a series about Marionette, so if you wish to learn about Marionette, you should read the whole series.
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