Design involves decisions, and those decisions are often flawed because our brains are wired for survival. The same brain features that literally helped us survive in the wild do not serve us well in the 21st-century workplace. In this article, Eric Olive will identify four decision-related traps that impede good design and offer techniques for avoiding these traps. These decision traps are based on research conducted by psychologists, neuroscientists, molecular biologists, and behavioral economists including several cited here.
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The web is more than predictable compositions of rectangles, circles and triangles. With CSS Grid Layout, CSS Shapes and a bit of art direction we can achieve remarkable results — we just need a front-end strategy how to get there. That’s why we created “Art Direction for the Web,” a new Smashing Book for breaking out of generic experiences on the web. Now we can study the once uncharted territory of layout, type treatment and composition that print designers have skillfully and meticulously conquered, and explore which lessons from print we could bring to our web experiences today.
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A lead capture page greatly differs from a traditional web page in a number of ways. Put that lead generating page on mobile and you’ll see those differences expand and even test the limits of what you thought was possible for mobile. In this article, Suzanne Scacca is going to look at some tips for utilizing those differences to improve how well your lead capture pages convert on mobile. She’ll also analyze a number of landing pages on mobile so you can see how the design criteria may change based on what you’re promoting and who you’re trying to promote it to.
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Last year, Rachel Andrew wrote “Take A New Look At CSS Shapes” where she reintroduced readers to the basics of using CSS Shapes. In this new tutorial, Andy Clarke expands on the topic of “Art Direction for the Web” with CSS Shapes to create exciting and inspired new design ideas. Andy is going to show you how to use CSS Shapes to create the following five different types of layout: v-shapes, z-patterns, curved shapes, diagonal shapes, and rotated shapes.
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Now cookie prompts aren’t particularly useful, but they certainly helped raise awareness about privacy and data collection on the web. In fact, users now know that websites track their data, which they weren’t aware of a few years ago. But they often see it as a necessary evil in exchange for accessing the content “for free.” This series of articles is about privacy-related design patterns. Vitaly Friedman will be exploring some of the respectful ways to approach privacy and data collection, and how to deal with those notorious cookie consent prompts, intrusive push notifications, glorious permission requests, malicious third-party tracking and offboarding experience.
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Has Generation Z been part of your discussions with web design clients? If not, then it’s time you factored it in. This next generation wasn’t caught between worlds the way many millennials were, which means they have a whole different set of expectations when it comes to the technology they interact with on a daily basis. As Gen Z gets older and their spending power becomes more obvious, your clients are going to need you to design their websites in a way that appeals to their specific demands. With this guide, Suzanne Scacca will show you how to do that.
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Art direction has been part of advertising and print design for over 100 years, but on the web art direction is rare and there have been few meaningful conversations about it. Art Direction for the Web by Andy Clarke changes that and explains art direction, what it means, why it matters, and who can do it. Jump to table of contents or pre-order the book right away. This is a book about why art direction matters and how you can art-direct compelling and effective experiences across devices and platforms.
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Are you considering transforming old cursive handwriting into a modern digital font? Before forging ahead with the design, assess your goals for historical accuracy, identify the idiosyncrasies that make the handwriting special, develop a strategy for connecting glyphs, and decide if you want to include texture. One of the biggest decisions you will need to make is whether you want to capture every nuance of your handwriting specimen, or if you want to design something inspired by that handwriting. Today, Carolyn Porter will help you with that. Let the fun begin!
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A search bar isn’t some throwaway design element. When your app promises a speedy and convenient experience to its users, a search bar can cut down on the time they have to spend inside it. So, as you work on creating better experiences for your mobile app users, spend some time thinking about the design of your app’s search bar. Things like placement, hint text, and the way search results are displayed contribute to how users engage with search as well as your app as a whole.
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We’re at the dawn of a UI revolution. Not only will multimodal interfaces give users more power, but they will also change the way users interact with systems. In this article, Nick Babich will show you how to build your own multimodal UI using Adobe XD. You will explore the concept of a voice-enabled interface and review different types of voice-enabled interfaces; find out why voice-enabled, multimodal user interfaces will be the preferred user experience; see how you can build a multimodal UI using Adobe XD.
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