The simpler, smaller and lighter an application is, the cheaper and easier it will be to write from scratch. When Nick Gauthier set out to build MeetSpace, he and his team had a familiar decision to make: What’s our tech stack going to be? They gathered their requirements, reviewed their skillset and ultimately decided to use vanilla JavaScript and to avoid a front-end framework. Using this approach, they were able to create an incredibly fast and light web application that is also less work to maintain over time.
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Quantitative research methods come with effective statistical techniques for determining a sample size. Qualitative research methods currently have no similar commonly accepted technique. Yet, there are steps you should take to ensure you have collected and analyzed the right amount of data. In this article, Victor Yocco will propose a formula for determining qualitative sample sizes in user research. He’ll also discuss how to collect and analyze data in order to achieve “data saturation.” Finally, Victor will provide a case study highlighting the concepts explored in this article.
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To this day, a lot of companies still religiously follow the path to app store publishing. “Publish it and they will come,” “The web is dead,” they used to say! According to recent studies, just 26.4% of users who visit a page in an app store today will install an app. The other 73.6% are lost to the developer and don’t even try the app. Among the ones who install it, an average of 99% are lost in the following 90 days. As a consequence, the same people who declared the web dead years ago are now shouting, “Apps are dying”. So, Where is the mobile web heading? To answer this question, Ciprian Borodescu and his colleagues at Appticles have conducted a colossal study on 10,000 publishing and e-commerce websites from Alexa, scouting for signs of resurrection, and instead finding serious traces of diversification. Their findings are detailed in this article.
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Sound UX principles apply to all user groups, regardless of their social status or preferences. Today, users anticipate a superior experience and have a strong understanding of the value delivered. They are focused on results and a one-button approach, expecting their orders to be addressed at the highest level of service and with maximum transparency. However, more so in the luxury field, human interaction within the digital experience is not an option, but rather an undeniably powerful tool that improves communication and increases loyalty. In this article, Yegor Tsynkevich & Vadim Slavin will present a case study and share observations on the peculiarities of the UX design of a luxury lifestyle service platform and its mobile apps.
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When it comes to elections, we are each given a choice in how to express our opinions and beliefs. Some designers and developers use their skills to further articulate their choice in one person. Here’s a glimpse into how Topple Trump!, an interactive responsive quiz game, was designed and built — combined with some valuable lessons learned along the way. This article is about techniques and strategies, so please avoid political flame in the comments.
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In this article, Anya Pratskevich will share some ideas about app page design. She’ll also argue that dropping your assumptions and testing is the only way to find content that not only looks and reads great, but also helps your bottom line. The reality is that nobody knows for sure how to design for maximum conversion. What worked in one project will not necessarily work in another. What you can do is test everything: whether it is a different background color for each screenshot (worked in our case) or simply rearranging your current visuals on the page. Design optimization is a dicey game, so roll with it and have fun testing.
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Small companies with newer brands suffer from not yet having established a culture and the difficulty of conveying their inner values in external communication Working so closely with a large enterprise such as Lufthansa can be overwhelming for any small startup. In this article, Josip Budzaki explains how the project with Lufthansa and their way of thinking really facilitated the process and enabled the team to follow their vision — that’s not something you encounter in many companies!
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Today, join Cory Shaw while he reflects on some of the mistakes he and his team made, the tools they used, the workflows and guidelines they followed, and even some of the custom tools they built while working on the new Hawaiian Airlines website. All while growing a UI development team from one to over ten people to get the job done. It was a rollercoaster ride like no other, but they have prevailed and built what he believes to be one of the best airline-booking experiences on the web. This article and the information herein has been shared with the explicit permission and generosity of Hawaiian Airlines.
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HTTP Archive shows that images make up 64% of a web page’s total size on average. Given this, image optimization is key, especially considering that many users will abandon a request if it doesn’t load within a few seconds. The problem with image optimization is that we want to keep file sizes small without sacrificing quality. WebP is an image format that was created in 2010 and is currently being developed by Google. This format delivers lossless and lossy compression for images. Several big names are campaigning for WebP, most notably Google, Facebook and eBay.
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If you work on the web, your superpower is side projects. Unlike your regular job, a side project lets you take on an alternate identity, one of which you are in charge and no one can stop you. And the best part: If your impact is big enough, the whole world will soon know your name. Side projects are underused by the vast majority of designers and developers out there. In this article, Sacha Greif will give you a play-by-play account of the process of building and launching one such side project.
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