Ten free usability testing tools

There are plenty of tools around which allow by website owners to conduct tests and attempt to identify problem areas on their websites. By Graham Charlton

Using Heat Maps to Improve Web Site Usability – Which Tool is Best?

Which one is best? Which one gives you more for your buck? And how user friendly is it to use? By Christine Kim

Scrolling and Attention

Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold. By Jakob Nielsen

A Tweeting jQuery Plugin for Visitors to Your Website

“Like it? Tweet it!” is a jQuery-powered JavaScript widget that enables visitors to your website or blog to write a tweet about the site directly in a box displayed in the corner of the website. By Ray Cheung

Scalable Full Body Backgrounds in Web Design

It is reasonable to assume that most users have a display resolution higher than or equal 1024×768 pixels. As display resolutions continue to increase, there has been a steady trend of websites that have employed full body backgrounds using large images. By Mike Takahashi

Interview with Brian Kalma of Zappos

Online retailer Zappos is known for its fanatical dedication to customer service. Brian Kalma, director of user experience, tells Oliver Lindberg about branding, Happy Cog’s redesign of the site and why a third of the employees are on Twitter. By .Net

HTML5 today!

Remy Sharp talks about what’s coming with HTML5, what happened to XHTML2, how XHTML is not dead and why HTML5 is here today, and not 2022 (phew!). By .Net

13 Excellent Tools and Systems for CSS Grid Based Layouts

A good grid can be a strong foundation for any design. Using grids got its start in print design, but has made it’s way over to the web. By Henry Jones

10 Useful iPhone Apps for Web Designers and Developers

The iPhone has revolutionized the mobile device, and the App Store has taken it even further. There are literally apps for just about everything. By Henry Jones

11 Excellent Solutions for Making Your Website Mobile Friendly

It seems that almost everybody has a cell phone these days, and with the growing adoption of smart phones, more and more people are browsing the internet on their mobile device. By Henry Jones

Walking & Writing About Design

An Interview with Alissa Walker. By Rachel Elnar

30+ Useful Adobe Air Application for Web Designers and Developers

The Adobe® AIR® runtime lets developers use proven web technologies to build rich Internet applications that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems. By Deep

Simple Strategies for Engaging Your Visitors

Engaging your visitors (audience, community, users, members, customers, or whichever term you prefer) should be your top priority. Plain and simple. By Andrew Follett

The Anatomy of a Website

Many people find it hard to picture a website as more than a bundle of content. This often makes explaining the mixture of languages used and the way everything comes together a difficult task. By Alexander Dawson

7 Deadly Sins Represented with Web Design Colors

The sins are as follows: envy, pride, wrath, sloth, lust, greed, gluttony. By Nick Burd

Using photos in web design

Using photos as a design element and central piece in a web design is a great way to get a point across to the viewers or to just add more depth into the design. By Tyler Denis

Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference – Win a Free Pass

New Riders’ Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference, now in its fourth consecutive year, will take place June 28-29, 2010 in San Francisco, CA and the timing couldn’t be better! By Jacob Gube

Modern CSS Layouts: The Essential Characteristics-Part 1

How do you keep up with all of the new techniques and make sure your Web pages look great on the increasing number of browsers and devices out there? By Zoe Mickley Gillenwater

Part 2 here

50 Helpful Typography Tools And Resources

We love beautiful typography, and we appreciate the efforts of designers who come up with great typographic techniques and tools or who just share their knowledge with fellow designers. By Vitaly Friedman

The Current State of Web Design: Trends 2010

Web design is a fickle industry. Just like every other form of artistic expression, Web design has undergone a continuous and surprisingly fast evolution. By Vitaly Friedman

Principles Of Minimalist Web Design, With Examples

Minimalism is achieved by reducing a design to only the most essential elements. Expressions of minimalism span multiple disciplines, as well as other art forms such as music and literature. For website designers, though, minimalism can be intimidating and difficult to master. By Cameron Chapman

Women In Web Design: Group Interview

What follows are answers to questions that are particularly useful and interesting for those just starting to design websites for a living or considering diving into the Web design industry. By Smashing Editorial

Case-Study: Deconstructing Popular Websites

Great web design happens with sound user needs, solid business goals and focused metrics. Learning how to deconstruct a website is an important step in building a plan that aligns the company vision with the needs of users. A good review will put the focus on the profitability of the business. By Zurb

A Brief History of Markup

HTML is the unifying language of the World Wide Web. Using just the simple tags it contains, the human race has created an astoundingly diverse network of hyperlinked documents, from Amazon, eBay, and Wikipedia, to personal blogs and websites. By Jeremy Keith

Create a Creative Web Layout for your Business using Photoshop

There are many creative faces in the design community who are waiting to be seen. If you’re a beginner to designing for the web then this will be a great tutorial for you.

The Only 5 Google Chrome Extensions You Need

One of Google Chrome’s best features is its minimalist interface. The browser also already has many built-in features that satisfy even the most advanced web users. In order to keep Chrome’s uncluttered user interface, it’s best to avoid installing too many extensions. By Jacob Gube

Web Design Fundamentals

Bad Web design is usually easy to spot. Even the “untrained” eye gets cross when visiting a site that has confusing navigation, hard-to-read fonts, or music that is impossible to mute. Most visitors will simply leave the site rather than sinking any more time into it. By Megan O. Read

The Art & Science of Evidence-Based Design

Great article on how to "bridge art and science" when making design decisions. By David Gillis

Shades of Grey: Wireframes as Thinking Device

Wireframes act as a form of 'thinking device' for the setting and exploration of a given problem space—in this example, a homepage for a cruise line operator. By Will Evans

60 Web Design Photoshop Layout Tutorials From 2010

Here's a great list of web design Photoshop tutorials. By Daniels Mekss

18 Wireframing, Mockup And Prototyping Tools To Plan Designs

Here are some additional wireframing software programs.

A wireframe kit for Google Drawings

Morten created a stencil for the Google Drawings addition to Google Docs. Could be interesting to try. Comparing Google Docs as a wireframing tool to Omnigraffle and Visio

40 Useful jQuery Techniques and Plugins

Here's a great article on jQuery techniques and plugins by Vitaly Friedman