Why UI designers should understand Flexbox and CSS Grid

CSS for UI Designer Or bye bye, 12-column grid layout Most designers are familiar with responsive design, a column-based layout approach with fixed breakpoints to cover all screen sizes. However, we can move beyond the rigid structure with modern CSS layouts, crafting flexible and dynamic designs that seamlessly adjust to different screen sizes. Designers and developers having different… Continue reading Why UI designers should understand Flexbox and CSS Grid

Crafting an effective design system strategy

How to build a strategy, not a roadmap A design system is a product. A product that solves concrete tasks: ensuring consistency reducing development time and much more Most often, the main reason to create a new product is that you want it to be different from the existing ones on the market. After all, why waste time… Continue reading Crafting an effective design system strategy

Test smart: How to validate product on a business-facing level?

It took a long time since my story How to Select Testing Techniques for an Agile Team was published (if you ask me what happened in between, the short answer will be: a war in Ukraine and a career pivot). The mentioned story focused on Agile Testing Quadrants, a method presented by Lisa Crispin and… Continue reading Test smart: How to validate product on a business-facing level?

30 Free Xmas Graphics

Compilations By Louise North 4 days ago We’ve reached that time of year when all marketing is on a singular theme: snow, presents, and turkey (or nut roast, if that’s your preference). These last few weeks running up to the Christmas break can be an endless trudge through grey, cold weather if you’re in the… Continue reading 30 Free Xmas Graphics

The extended designer, and the design machine

The Extended Designer spends less time making products, and more time making progress. The Extended Designer spends less time making products, and more time making progress. 2023 has been Generative AI’s breakout year, but that has been greeted by some fairly mixed responses, particularly from Designers. As the terrain we all live on reconfigures around… Continue reading The extended designer, and the design machine

The usability problem with prompt-driven AI

As the GenAI hype dust settles — it’s time to start thinking about usability and the opportunity it presents to address declining engagement and retention. Source: Pexels GenAI represents a new paradigm in User Interface Design and a radical shift from Command-Based Interaction Models and Graphical User Interfaces which have dominated the last 50 years of computing.… Continue reading The usability problem with prompt-driven AI

From Beethoven to Bach: how Apple’s new app makes classical music discovery a breeze

Discovering and enjoying classical music made easy with Apple’s dedicated app, Apple Music Classical Generated by the author using Adobe Firefly There’s a problem when it comes to searching and exploring classical music on music streaming services. Apple Music is not different, and Apple tried to solve this problem by launching a separate app! In this… Continue reading From Beethoven to Bach: how Apple’s new app makes classical music discovery a breeze

3 Essential Design Trends, June 2023

That’s a big part of the reason so many designers are stripping down menus to more minimal styles. (Plus, it can create a cleaner, more sleek overall design.) Here’s what’s trending in design this month – and it is all about navigation. 1. Pop-Out Navigation There’s an obvious connection to mobile-friendliness here – website designs that use… Continue reading 3 Essential Design Trends, June 2023

Embracing change with system-driven design

To embrace change, you have to make it easy and cheap. System-driven design is one way to do just that. Waterfall, the double diamond, and other traditional ways of approaching the development of digital products rooted in the building perspective take for granted that it’s easier to make changes to designs than code. They operate under… Continue reading Embracing change with system-driven design

How high-fidelity prototypes can enhance user testing

During the usability testing phase, gathering as much information as possible about how users understand designs/product is essential. The objectives of usability testing often differ across studies. They typically uncover product or service design issues, discover opportunities for enhancement, and gain insight into the target user’s behaviour and preferences [1]. Tools like Figma and Sketch… Continue reading How high-fidelity prototypes can enhance user testing

How to design generative AI experiences to be truly helpful

From bullsh*t generator to ultimate copilot. Photo by Rolf van Root on Unsplash Suddenly, news about Generative AI is everywhere. People talk about how ChatGPT reached 1 million users in a record of 5 days, how Goldman Sachs predicts that AI will impact 300 million jobs, and how the new Bing goes “unhinged”… All the hypes aside,… Continue reading How to design generative AI experiences to be truly helpful

Conversational AI search: beware of smoke and mirrors

Search bots based on LLMs contain hidden dangers Photo by Julius Drost on Unsplash At the moment, conversational AI search is in a perilous place. In the midst of an AI hype boom, it’s easy to overlook the challenges and dangers inherent in the way major search companies are applying large language models to our information ecosystems.… Continue reading Conversational AI search: beware of smoke and mirrors

Will nationalism end the golden age of global AI collaboration?

As nationalism divides nations and limits international collaboration, is the future of AI in danger? Artificial intelligence has made tremendous progress in recent years, and much of this progress can be attributed to the open-source software movement. By fostering collaboration and sharing knowledge and resources among developers worldwide, the open-source movement has helped bring together AI… Continue reading Will nationalism end the golden age of global AI collaboration?

What a robbery taught me about validating assumptions in UX

A reminder to test assumptions when building or designing. At 2am, on Thursday, 10th November 2022, armed men broke down the door to my apartment and then the door to my bathroom where I was hiding. They carted away with my laptop, iPhone, and half my sanity. I wouldn’t say I saw the robbery coming, but… Continue reading What a robbery taught me about validating assumptions in UX

Research vs Vision: the origin story of Sony Walkman, Mini Cooper, and the iPhone

It’s always interesting to watch how companies approach the building of their new products. During the market research phase, companies are trying to future-proof every detail to ensure it will be popular among users and bring more money to the company. Research methodologies and strategies have been improving since the beginning of the 20th century. Some… Continue reading Research vs Vision: the origin story of Sony Walkman, Mini Cooper, and the iPhone

How to create responsive cards with the help of auto-layout in Figma?

Auto Layout is one of the most powerful features of Figma and today we will be creating a card design inside Figma using Auto-Layout which will be fully responsive, i.e would respond to the screen size. demonstrates the responsive design of the card Before we get started, there are 3 main things we are talking about in… Continue reading How to create responsive cards with the help of auto-layout in Figma?

WordPress Product Founders on What They’d Do Differently

Incredible as it sounds, WordPress was initially released back in 2003. And it has evolved quite a bit during that time. It has become a mature, if ever-changing, platform for building websites. Its massive theme and plugin ecosystem have also seen its share of changes. We’ve witnessed solo entrepreneurs launching products, nurturing their growth, and… Continue reading WordPress Product Founders on What They’d Do Differently

A Beginner’s Guide to the Character Panel in Illustrator

In the following tutorial, you’ll learn everything you need to know about Adobe Illustrator’s Character panel. You can read this detailed written guide, and additionally, you can follow this new video from the Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel: What You’ll Learn in This Character Panel Illustrator Tutorial How to open the Character panel in Illustrator … Continue reading A Beginner’s Guide to the Character Panel in Illustrator

10 Best Real Estate Listing Plugins for WordPress

Are you having trouble finding a high quality real estate listing plugin for WordPress? Do you need a full-featured real estate plugin that helps make your real estate transactions more efficient? WPL Pro Real Estate is one of the many high quality MLS WordPress plugins on CodeCanyon Create a robust database of properties for your… Continue reading 10 Best Real Estate Listing Plugins for WordPress

10 Best Exit Intent Popup Plugins for WordPress

Are you having trouble keeping visitors on your website? Do you want to boost your conversions and sales? ConvertPlus is one of the many high quality exit-intent WordPress plugins on CodeCanyon. Keep website visitors on your website and grow your business with exit intent WordPress plugins. These plugins will quickly improve your retention, sales, or… Continue reading 10 Best Exit Intent Popup Plugins for WordPress

Make Smooth Transitions with Easing in Figma and After Effects

I love creating smooth transitions in Figma, both for concepts and final designs. But for extra finesse and control over easing types, you should export from Figma into Adobe After Effects and finish the job there—let me show you! Smooth(er) Transitions in Figma and Adobe After Effects Smooth transitions in apps and websites are where… Continue reading Make Smooth Transitions with Easing in Figma and After Effects

How to Let Users Dynamically Change the Number of Posts per Page in WordPress

Consider the following scenario: you have a WordPress blog with hundreds of posts. On your blog archive page, six posts appear at a time. Of course, there’s pagination for moving between older and newer posts. But what if you want to give users the option to choose the number of posts they want to display… Continue reading How to Let Users Dynamically Change the Number of Posts per Page in WordPress

Why designers don’t use your design system

Improve the adoption of your design system through components flexibility Thumbnail of Cosmos Design System ❤ This is not a recipe for success or a know-it-all article. Here I’m focusing on the most constant and significant challenge when building design systems — reaching a balance and compromising between flexibility and rigidity of components standards. The components in the… Continue reading Why designers don’t use your design system

12 Best WordPress File Managers

Are you looking for a file manager to help manage your files and folders for your WordPress website?  When running a WordPress website, you continously will add files and media. Eventually you’ll end up with thousands of images and other files. However, the built-in WordPress media manager is poorly equipped to organize these files in… Continue reading 12 Best WordPress File Managers