So You’re Selling a WordPress Theme: Best Practices for Demos

When you’re selling a theme, its demo is your sales pitch. If the demo falls short in some way, it’s doing a disservice to the theme and will lead to a loss of sales. If your theme includes hundreds of features, but buyers can’t see them in action, you may as well have no features… Continue reading So You’re Selling a WordPress Theme: Best Practices for Demos

Manipulating Images in PHP Using GD

The internet would be pretty dull without images. However, maintaining and manipulating hundreds or thousands of images for your web site can be a headache. As your site design changes, you might need to modify all your images—for example, you might need to convert all your images to grayscale or resize them to 50% of… Continue reading Manipulating Images in PHP Using GD

The Impact WordPress Has Had on the Web

WordPress recently celebrated its 15th birthday. Not only is it quite an achievement for anything web-related to last that long, it’s also impressive to see that the content management system is still at its peak relevancy. That got me thinking about the impact WordPress has had on the web and specifically on web designers. Frankly,… Continue reading The Impact WordPress Has Had on the Web

5 Practical Productivity Hacks to Improve Web Design Efficiency

When it comes to web design, creativity and productivity are central to your work. If you lack in either of these areas, it will be a struggle to come up with quality results. The challenge, especially with the productivity half, is that everyone is unique. What works for one designer might not work for you,… Continue reading 5 Practical Productivity Hacks to Improve Web Design Efficiency

How to hack people loyalty with care?

First thing first: If you have a few friends in your life, care is not designed to fit your skillset. Having a lot of friends proves how much effort and time you have spent to build a loving community around you. Care requires the same effort and it should be mandatory for every startup. “Caring… Continue reading How to hack people loyalty with care?

Debugging Node Code in VS Code ― Scotch

Visual Studio Code has an amazing amount of functionality built in, including support for debugging applications. Although the functionality is there, it took me several tries to figure out how to get things configured to debug Node applications. It became even more tricky when using Nodemon, so I figured it was worth it to share… Continue reading Debugging Node Code in VS Code ― Scotch

What an iPhone notification dot told me last night

I am the red notification dot on your iPhone, I make sure you keep seeing me. I’ll create new tasks for you to finish, Come on, just tap on me. Why am I so irresistible? How do I make your finger tap? Do I provide you with the unconditional love you long for, Or am… Continue reading What an iPhone notification dot told me last night

What’s the impact of Design, you ask?

A quick introduction Design, to me, is to bring compelling ideas to life. Having come from an Engineering background with a bit of experience in Product Marketing, I quickly realized the importance of Design. I dream of being in the front row in creating experiences that positively impact a million people’s lives. Like I want… Continue reading What’s the impact of Design, you ask?

What Are the WordPress PHP Coding Standards?

What are the WordPress PHP coding standards? In this video from my course, Learn PHP for WordPress, you’ll learn all about the coding standards and why they’re important. The WordPress PHP Coding Standards What Are the WordPress PHP Coding Standards? You can find the full WordPress PHP coding standards in the official WordPress handbook. They’re… Continue reading What Are the WordPress PHP Coding Standards?

What I wish I’d known before designing digital products and user interfaces

2. Hick’s Law Delivering a good user experience requires that first you find out the functionalities that will answer their needs; second, you need to guide them to the specific functions they need most. If users end up stuck in the decision-making process of “what next?”, they may become confused, frustrated, or leave your website. Hick’s… Continue reading What I wish I’d known before designing digital products and user interfaces

Having a hard time with your graphics? Probably you haven’t heard about Crello

Hey you! Have you been having a hard time designing that amazing graphic you have in mind? Have you been spending a lot just to get your simple animations done? That your professional graphic designer hasn’t been designing for you designs that are professional, right? I’ve been in that state too, no until I got… Continue reading Having a hard time with your graphics? Probably you haven’t heard about Crello

Using CSS Pseudo-elements and Pseudo-classes like ::before and ::after

April 23, 2018 by Alex Fox CSS wasn’t always as flexible as it is today. By using CSS pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes, designers can target elements based on their dynamic states or positioning in relation to other elements. Pseudo-Elements and Pseudo-Classes There are two types of pseudo selectors: pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes. Either of these pseudo selectors… Continue reading Using CSS Pseudo-elements and Pseudo-classes like ::before and ::after

5 Tools that Web Developers and Programmers Need

Web developers are like digital poets. Their lines of code help bring ideas to life by way of beautiful and stunning websites and apps. The demand for more responsive sites is growing, which is a sign that site owners are becoming smarter on how they provide content for their target audience. As a result, programmers… Continue reading 5 Tools that Web Developers and Programmers Need

The Brand: the forgotten child in Design Thinking

Just as ‘we are our brain’, companies ‘are their brand’. It defines why they exist, why they do what they do and what distinguishes them from competition. The often quoted Simon Sinek framework of the ‘why, how and what‘ is a perfect way to answer the question: ‘why are we doing what we’re doing?’, and… Continue reading The Brand: the forgotten child in Design Thinking

Designing Happy

Health problems stemming from stress and loneliness include: obesity, high blood pressure, alcoholism, depression, heart disease, insomnia, and stroke. The solution In surveying the landscape, one might think there are already solutions for this problem including traditional mental health solutions as well as new up-and-coming behavioral health startups. Newer solutions often require high levels of customer… Continue reading Designing Happy

Note-taking during design reviews — and more UX links this week

News & ideas Netflix Sans, a new custom typeface developed with Dalton Maag Intel just open sourced Stephen Hawking’s speech system There’s a new trend on the internet of editing famous songs like if they were playing in an empty mall or from another room In case you were left wondering, this is what an inclusion… Continue reading Note-taking during design reviews — and more UX links this week

How does design strategy work within a large enterprise?

Courtesy Dilbert Last October, I visited my alma mater, the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding program, which teaches graduate students about the intersections of business & design. Whenever I visit, there’s always students that have questions about what I do, both as an IBM’er and a Design Strategist. Most recently, I was asked… Continue reading How does design strategy work within a large enterprise?

Getting Started with Chrome Developer Tools: Inspect Element

Google Chrome is one of the best consumer browsers on the market, but it also contains a number of powerful developer tools. We can reveal some of these tools with Chrome’s Inspect Element (or “Inspect”) tool. This developer tool provides insight into how websites are constructed and styled, and it can help you debug your own… Continue reading Getting Started with Chrome Developer Tools: Inspect Element

How to Create Better Typography Based Designs

In days gone by, books were originally handwritten by monks in monasteries. Later on, they were created out of wooden or metal type, which was used as a part of a printing process. Using typography, therefore, has a long legacy. In a world where many focus on a drop down menu and the size of… Continue reading How to Create Better Typography Based Designs

Typography Tips You Should Know When Designing a Website

Graphic designers use typography as a form of communication. Both the appearance of text and the readability of this text in a visual product have an impact on user experience. Typography speaks to users, and may, therefore, be considered the voice of design. This is because typography sets a mood for a website and shares… Continue reading Typography Tips You Should Know When Designing a Website

Design a Cool Text Portrait Effect for Your Business Card

Business cards are one of the top ways to market your company because they’re so versatile and portable. That’s why so many business owners use them—but that makes them kind of hard to stand out. A business card needs to be totally unique so it won’t end up in the trash. And that’s where you… Continue reading Design a Cool Text Portrait Effect for Your Business Card

Design a Cool Text Portrait Effect for Your Business Card in Illustrator

Business cards are one of the top ways to market your company because they’re so versatile and portable. That’s why so many business owners use them—but that makes them kind of hard to stand out. A business card needs to be totally unique so it won’t end up in the trash. And that’s where you… Continue reading Design a Cool Text Portrait Effect for Your Business Card in Illustrator

Getting Started With Redux: Learn by Example

Redux helps you manage state by setting the state up at a global level. In the previous tutorial, we had a good look at the Redux architecture and the integral components of Redux such as actions, action creators, the store, and reducers.  In this second post of the series, we are going to bolster our… Continue reading Getting Started With Redux: Learn by Example

Popular Design News of the Week: December 25, 2017 – December 31, 2017

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.  The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however,… Continue reading Popular Design News of the Week: December 25, 2017 – December 31, 2017