Book review: the Smashing Book 2

In February, Smashing Magazine officially released their latest print book project, The Smashing Book 2. Here's a review by Webdesigner Depot

Mind blowing examples of experimental typography

Typography is often thought of in its practical form, as text on a web page or printed material.
A designer may look at typography in the way that it will impact their design, considering aspects such as spacing, leading, weight and size. By Webdesigner Depot

10 Important UI Design Considerations for Web Apps

The blank state is how your app will look and function when the user hasn’t entered any data yet (except perhaps their email address after signing up for an account). This is the first interaction and scenario that your user will encounter with your app and it can make or break their first experience and impression. By Marc Gayle

Ten Oddities And Secrets About JavaScript

JavaScript. At once bizarre and yet beautiful, it is surely the programming language that Pablo Picasso would have invented. Null is apparently an object, an empty array is apparently equal to false, and functions are bandied around as though they were tennis balls. By Andy Croxall

The Process of Planning a Perfect Website

Although it’s bold to pop open Adobe Photoshop and get right into designing, there are many steps which can enhance a website when taken into consideration. The planning process, although not seemingly too long, is an almost essential aspect of what it lends to the creative process. By Jake Rocheleau

Freelance Personal Finances: Your Guide

Managing your finances as a freelance designer can lead to a multitude of cluster headaches and obscure nosebleeds. Luckily there are many tools, tips and software designed to ease the money burden, allowing you to spend more time on your work than time on the figures. By Matt Polo

Designing an SEO Friendly Website

SEO has become a valuable online marketing tool for businesses of all shapes and sizes, but for an SEO campaign to be successful, solid foundations need to be in place. Doing things right from the offset can really reap the benefits, save time and money. By Dave Cain

Adding Constraints May Boost Your Creativity

Constraints, restrictions, guidelines, whatever you call them – they tend to get a bad wrap; they’re always associated with negativity. It doesn’t have to be that way! By Nathan Weller

7 Ways Designers & Developers Can Optimize Sites for Search Engines

Web designers and developers have many responsibilities when it comes to building websites. From creating a solid layout for the front-end, to writing clean code so that the site runs bug free – there’s a lot involved. By Tommy Swanson

Minimal Web Icons

Here are some minimal icons are useful for a lot of web design projects. This set includes 42 icons for basic website usage. By Henry Jones

21 Examples of Parallax Scrolling in Web Design

The Parallax effect or parallax scrolling in web design is the technique that features layered images that move around the website in different speeds/perspectives creating a nice and interesting 3D illusion. By Gisele Muller

30 Inspiring “About Me” Pages

"About me" pages have the ability to engage and inform your site visitors in a personal and friendly way. For web professionals, our "About me" page can be critical in establishing a true connection with potential clients, and it can set us apart from a sea of other designers and developers. By Stephanie Hamilton

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Becoming a Freelancer

The web is an ocean of information, advertising and communication that is attracting more and more professionals. The web as an industry is versatile and full of interesting fields that would satisfy people of all professional backgrounds. By Maria Malidaki

Soft UI Kit: Free PSD for Mocking Up Web Designs

Soft UI Kit is a free PSD that includes most common web elements and is perfect for mocking up designs. By Adrian Pelletier

Explaining The Dreaded DNS Delay

Imagine that your biggest client calls because they are having trouble retrieving their email. Or they want to know what their best-selling item is right now. Or their most popular blog post. Perhaps their website has suddenly gone down. You can hardly reply, “No problem, I’ll get back to you in 24 to 48 hours.” By Paul Tero

Getting Started With Defensive Web Design

Nothing ruins a great website UI like people using it. At least, it often feels that way. You put in days or weeks building the interface, only to find that a vast majority of visitors abandon it partway through the process that it supports. By Ian Lurie

35 Useful Free Fonts for Graphic Designers

There are more free fonts around than ever before. High-quality, attractive and elegant fonts that you don’t have to pay a cent for are everywhere. By Crazyleaf

Jessica Hische

Jessica Hische - An Evening With: Jessica Hische from Build on Vimeo.

Human Behavior Theories That Can be Applied to Web Design

Humans are logical creatures, and as surprising as this might be, when we visit a website our minds make a series of decisions that affect the actions we take. By Alexander Dawson

App Sketcher

App Sketcher is a lightweight prototyping tool for developing interactive HTML prototypes or wireframes. By Wireframes

Print Loves Web

In our industry, print design and digital/Web design are two very different trades. By Mark Cossey

Building An Effective ‘Coming Soon’ Page For Your Product

The perfect teaser page must score high on all four axis of the following:

Memorability,
Virality,
Desirability,
Data collection-ability

By Sacha Greif

Improving Usability with Fitts’ Law

Back in 1954, psychologist Paul Fitts published an article the detailed his theory on human mechanics as it pertained to aimed movement. It was Fitts’ observation that the action of pointing to or tapping an target object could be measured and predicted mathematically. By Jason Gross

http://sixrevisions.com/user-interface/designing-effective-faq-pages/

So your web design company is ready to roll. You’ve got happy customers and more people coming to the door every day. But where do you go from there?

This article shares a handful of strategies for growing your web design company. By Alex Kehayias

Designing Effective FAQ Pages

FAQ stands for "frequently asked questions." As the name implies, it is a type of web page (or group of web pages) that lists questions frequently asked by users, usually about different aspects of the website or its services. The answers are typically shown with the questions. By Mohammad Moradi

Relationship Engineering: Designing The Happily Ever After

Maintaining a long-term relationship is not easy; things can easily become stale. Looks and personality are crucial in developing attraction, but people need more from a serious relationship. To create a strong and long-lasting bond, two other elements are needed: simplicity and reward. By Thomas Giannattasio

Optimizing Emotional Engagement In Web Design Through Metrics

Think about what keeps you coming back to your favorite store, your favorite person or even your favorite website. It’s not just a mindless buy-go, hug-go or click-go relationship. It is a complicated, emotional connection. By Shell Greenier

Optimizing Error Pages: Creating Opportunities Out Of Mistakes

In this article, we’ll review a few techniques that will help Web designers and UI professionals improve their error pages in order to engage visitors and improve the experience. As C.S. Lewis said, “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” Website designers should take this to heart. By Daniel Waisberg

30 Outstanding Travel Websites

Websites from the travel industry often use excellent photography and attractive designs. Of course, having an appealing website helps for making the subject of the site as attractive as possible to people who may be interested in visiting. By Vandelay Design

10 Ways for Web Designers to Upsell

New clients for your web design services are not always easy to come by. So when you have a client, being able to offer them more services can have a drastic impact on your income. By Vandelay Design

Design Inspiration: Showcase of Community Websites

25 community websites to showcase some examples of outstanding design. The sites come from a wide variety of different industries, but they all share the common focus of bringing together like-minded people in some way. By Vandelay Design

A different thought

Designing is an art and design intelligence that must be visible to the onlooker. Evidently, designing trends undergo relentless metamorphosis, evolve over time and will eventually vanish from the landscape. By Speckyboy

Building Mobile Web Apps the Right Way: Tips and Techniques

Mobile web apps are useful alternatives to native apps for mobile devices. These days, Android-based products and iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad all come packed with fantastic mobile browsers (Mobile Chrome and Mobile Safari respectively), and Opera fans can install their preferred browser, too. By Andrew Devlin

Effective Website Help Systems: Tips and Examples

Web designers should regard every user who comes to our websites as potential newcomers, providing enough instruction and guidelines for them to complete their tasks and get familiar with the site. By Mohammad Moradi

8 Things They Don’t Tell You About Being a Web Designer

Anyone who has worked in the industry of building websites for a while has seen many trends start, prosper and burn out. They understand that tools and certain technical proficiencies boom and bust constantly, but the person behind the work stays put. By Jason Schubring

30 Awesome Web Designs That Create an Illusion of Depth

Depth perception is our ability to see the world in three dimensions. It allows us to gauge the relative distances of objects we can see. In a plane/2D surface, depth can be simulated by the use of concepts related to depth of field, perspective, focal/vantage point, shading, lighting, and others. By Stephaine Hamilton

9 Ways To Improve the SEO of Every Website You Design

One of the biggest challenges that online businesses face today is maintaining relevance in the eyes of the search engines, especially Google. With Google controlling more than 90% of the search traffic in the US alone, it’s not surprising that the most important goal of any web-based marketing strategy is to be number one in Google. By Alex Cleaanthous

How to Write an Amazing Article

Good article on how to write compelling web content. By James Costa

The Importance of Web Content Strategy

Some web design and web development agencies have it all. They provide their clients with a complete site solution from beginning to end, from site planning and information architecture to web design, web hosting, and SEO. It’s tough for a smaller web design company or the solo freelancer to compete.

Or is it? By Rick Sloboda

Smarter Web Designs: Responsive and Customizable

The way we design websites has changed profoundly in recent years. We have more information on how web users interact with user interfaces, we have developed many testing methods for evaluating usability, and we now build sites with great emphasis on user-centered design. By Alexander Daswson

Using CSS3: Older Browsers And Common Considerations

With the arrival of IE9, Microsoft has signalled its intent to work more with standards-based technologies. With IE still the single most popular browser and in many ways the browser for the uninitiated, this is hopefully the long awaited start of us Web craftsmen embracing the idea of using CSS3 as freely as we do CSS 2.1. By Dave Sparks

Innovative Techniques To Simplify Sign-Ups and Log-Ins

There are many ways to design sign-up and log-in forms. Most designers are familiar with the conventional ways. But understanding and applying a few innovative techniques could make your forms simpler and more efficient to fill out. By Anthony T

How To Get Sign-Off For Your Designs

Paul Boaq offers some very helpful tips on how to get sign-off on your designs.

The Future Of CSS: Experimental CSS Properties

Despite contemporary browsers supporting a wealth of CSS3 properties, most designers and developers seem to focus on the quite harmless properties such as border-radius, box-shadow or transform. By Christian Krammer

Branding On Mobile Devices And Desktop Browsers

According to Brandweek, “brands are the express checkout for people living their lives at ever increasing speed. This article shows you how, and why, to add “app”-like icons to your sites for several mobile and desktop browser displays, to clearly and elegantly identify your site with an icon that stands out from the crowd. By Michael Tuck

Designer-Developer discord

The differences between designers and developers often erupt in pointed jabs on the Web or at conferences. Jokes or not, the jabs create friction whose consequences are real. By Cassie McDaniel

Get out there and make something

Some words of wisdom by Michael Aleo.

Now you see me

Perhaps the most heavily-repeated pattern in JavaScript-based page manipulation is showing and hiding content. Tabbed interfaces. Collapsible elements. Accordion widgets. It crops up nearly everywhere. By Aaron Gustafson

More Meaningful Typography

We have all heard of the golden mean (also known as the golden ratio or golden section): the self-replicating page with a proportion of 1:1.618 that is said to be found in everything from the design of ancient Greek architecture to the growth patterns of plants. This and other meaningful ratios rooted in geometry, music, nature, and history can be expressed as modular scales and put to work on the web. By Tim Brown

How to Create an Awesome Blurry Menu Using CSS

Tips on how to create a perfect and simple blurry menu effect via CSS. By Rochester Oliveira

Bridging the Gap: Difference between Print and Web Design

It’s becoming more and more common for modern-day graphic designers to take on more than one role. In the area of design, many have to be familiar with both print design and web design, which doesn’t sound like a hard task. By Kendra Gaines

How to Safely Match Web Design and Typography

As web designers, our designs have to be both usable and attractive, communicate information and create a name. Our designs must be technically proven and tested for our dear readers. With that in mind, web designing is definitely a form of communication and nowadays, this type of communication is very, very important. By Luanne Manreal

Preparing For a Web Design Project

There are several stages during the process of a web design project, and every stage is important to achieve a positive end result. In order to proceed to the research phase, you need to gather information and know what the project is about, which technology is required, the target audience, goals, content, etc. By Ruben D'Oliveira

Organizing Your Freelance Business Before Going on a Vacation

The most annoying thing about freelancing is the inability to take vacations. Sure, theoretically, you can take them. Practically, it’s nearly impossible. After all, who’s going to run the business if you’re on leave? By Samar Owals

Designing for Different Age Groups

Diversity is one of the things that make the web great, and every audience has its own needs and requirements. But what happens if that audience is comprised of a specific age group? By Alexander Dawson

What every web designer should know

Jeffrey’s talk is called What Every Web Designer Should Know—A Better You At What You Do. He asks “what does it mean to be a designer when everyone is calling themselves a designer?” By Jeffrey Zeldman

Whitney Hess: Design Principles — The Philosophy of UX

As a consultant, Whitney spends a lot of time talking about UX and inevitably, the talk turns to deliverables and process but really we should be establishing a philosophy about how to treat people, in the same way that visual design is about establishing a philosophy about how make an impact. By Whitney Hess

Luke Wroblewski: Mobile Web Design Moves

A few years ago, Morgan Stanley published a report in which they predicted that somewhere in 2012 more mobile devices would be shipped than PCs. Well, it happened two years earlier than predicted. By Luke Wroblewski

App equality

In the early years of Apple's surge in the market, the App Store was the only game in town, and developers came to the platform in the thousands. Since early 2010, around the release of the Google Nexus One, the Android platform has been a competitive option in the smartphone market thanks to improved platform maturity. By Steve Workman

10 guidelines for quantitative measurement of ux

Most UX designers use qualitative research—typically in the form of usability tests—to guide their decision-making. However, using quantitative data to measure user experience can be a very different proposition. By Richard Dalton

The UX of this article

In many respects, when we talk about, evaluate, and revise products from a usability standpoint, we overlook the most important piece: content. Our tendency is to be concerned only with the wrapper or container, navigation through that container, and the interplay of the elements that make up the container. But what about the content which populates this otherwise dead space? By Brett Sandusky

How to Create CSS3 Paper Curls Without Images

Paper curls have been popular for a few years. The viewer sees a natural-looking slightly curved box but, in reality, it’s an optical illusion created by a shadow at the bottom of the element. By Craig Buckler

Ubiquitous IA

View more presentations from Peter Morville

A User-Centered Approach To Web Design For Mobile Devices

Whether 2011 will be the real “year of the mobile” remains to be seen, but what is indisputable is the fact that the mobile usage of the Web is growing and evolving. As it evolves, so does the mobile user experience, driven by advances in mobile device technology — from better browsers on basic mobile phones (or feature phones — remember the Motorola RAZR?) to the increased adoption of smartphones and tablets. By Lyndon Cerejo

Grid Calculator Pro Edition

When you setup your layout, do you spend a great deal of time only to end up with mediocre results? Do you find yourself re-using an existing grid layout due to lack of time? Designers Bookshop

PowerMockup

PowerMockup is a simple UI design plugin for Microsoft PowerPoint that makes it easy to create low fidelity wireframes. By Wireframes Magazine

The Fundamental Rules of a Successful Designer-Developer Relationship

A designer working with a developer, and vice versa, is a great idea to speed up the website creation process, and it can also often times yield better final results for the project. By Kayla Knight

The Most Important CSS3 Properties Explained

It's an exiting time for web designers. Major new browser releases are coming in very fast and with them massively extended support for CSS3. By Christian Krammer

27 Free Online & Offline Applications for Designers & Developers

Nowadays, a lot of great and usable applications are sold by their creators. This way, authors, get monetary support for their work, however, not every author decides to sell, some of the creators simply share it with the community for free. By Stelian Subotin

A Useful Collection of iPhone/iPad Apps Developer Tools and Resources

The iPad was the 2010 must-have gadget of the year, and the iPhone and respective iPod Touch have been incredibly popular over the last few years. It's clear that the success of these devices can be attributed to the endless number of useful, fun, and interesting applications provided by the community. By Kayla Knight

Freelancers Face-off: Designer vs Developer

As the web industry grows designers and developers are butting heads more frequently. While they both have the same goals, achieving them is not as easy. By Stephanie Hamilton

An In-depth Understanding of Character Encoding

Character encoding is not necessarily something many new web developers care about, or even understand. By Kayla Knight

Showcasing Skills in Web Design

Portfolios are one of the best methods we have as designers to showcase our creative talents and imaginative muscles with code. By Alexander Dawson

Ecommerce Solutions for Websites: Paid, Open-Source, or Custom-made?

E-commerce is a growing commodity in web development, and any web developer can benefit from learning how to develop for a popular e-commerce solution. By Kayla Knight

Usability Testing With Card Sorting

Information architecture is a big component of web design. What order should elements go in? Is there a visual hierarchy that must be followed? What should go where? Is the current navigational structure the most efficient? These are just some questions that a designer faces. By Kayla Knight

How to Use Your iPad for Real Design Work

Designers have a love affair with Apple products that stretches back decades, but as Apple shifts their focus towards low-power devices that fit more towards a mainstream audience, are designers being left behind? By Joshua Johnson

How Cognitive Biases Shape User Experience

Everyone develops opinions regarding how things should look, how things should behave, and what things should be called. These cognitive biases make up the filter between what actually exists, and what we perceive to be true. By Jordan Julien

Breaking Development: Web Apps That Feel Native

At the Breaking Development Conference in Dallas TX, Jonathan Snook talked about techniques to development rich, app-like interfaces within mobile Web browsers in his presentation "Fake it 'til you make it: creating mobile apps that feel like native apps". Here are notes taken by Luke Wroblewski

Video: Designing for Today's Web Interview

By Luke Wroblewski

Mobile Auto-Suggest on Steroids: Tap-Ahead Design Pattern

In contrast to desktop Web search, auto-suggest on mobile devices is subject to two additional limitations: typing avoidance and slower bandwidth. The new patent-pending design pattern, Tap-Ahead, uses continuous refinement to create an intuitive, authentically mobile auto-suggest solution. By Greq Nudelman

Real-Time Data And A More Personalized Web

As Web designers, we face a daily struggle to keep pace with advances in technology, new standards and new user expectations. By Sam Quayle