15 Great Tools & Resources for Designers & Agencies in 2024

Posted · Category: Design, Tools It’s 2024 and the number of web design resources and tools on the market seems overwhelming. That’s good news since you need the right tools and resources to come up with competitive designs. The bad news is, rather than sifting through thousands of products to get the ones that best… Continue reading 15 Great Tools & Resources for Designers & Agencies in 2024

UI elements are not so elementary

To function, components require a specific structure. To appear visually — they don’t. This has been breaking handoff processes for years. Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table looks simple, it doesn’t strike as if the elements are, in fact, significantly different from one another. But when you dig in and understand that just a ‘seemingly insignificant’ property of the number… Continue reading UI elements are not so elementary

The Art of Engineering AI Prompts

AI By Louise North 3 days ago In the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence, the ability to communicate effectively with AI tools has become an indispensable skill. Whether you’re generating content, solving complex data problems, or creating stunning digital art, the quality of the outcomes you receive is directly influenced by the prompts you… Continue reading The Art of Engineering AI Prompts

Google Maps: a refreshing turn in the right direction

Finally! Google Maps gets a much-needed makeover… and we’re here for it. Sometimes, a reroute is all it takes to rediscover the joy of the journey — Google Maps’ latest update is a testament to that. What’s New Since My Last Rant A few months back, I ripped into some serious user experience flaws in Google Maps. Google Maps: about that… Continue reading Google Maps: a refreshing turn in the right direction

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

Design Systems Teams: Understand Your Users So They Can Serve Theirs

Welcome to the next edition of my Design Strategy blog series. Today, I’ll be sharing a story from some recent client visits that will help y’all recognize WHY you should do things differently to mature and scale your digital accessibility program quickly. I will once again skip the “how-to” dry laundry lists of tactical “do… Continue reading Design Systems Teams: Understand Your Users So They Can Serve Theirs

Give Your Site Some Focus! Tips for Designing Useful and Usable Focus Indicators

What Are Focus Indicators? Have you ever noticed the blue outlines that sometimes show up around buttons or form fields? What about when you click on a menu item? Have you ever tried to make those outlines disappear? Here’s a hint: by default, browsers use the :focus css pseudo class to give outlines to form… Continue reading Give Your Site Some Focus! Tips for Designing Useful and Usable Focus Indicators

Housing, It’s a Human Right (Part 1)

A 3-Part Series on the digital accessibility of the housing process experienced by people with disabilities. In this 3-part series, we will look at the challenges and rewards of the entire experience surrounding the process of acquiring housing for people who live with a disability.  We will look at: Buying an existing home Leasing an… Continue reading Housing, It’s a Human Right (Part 1)

From toy to titan: the activations behind the Barbie effect

The marketing budget for Barbie was $150m, more than the $145m for the movie itself—and it shows. Barbie takes over the streets of Dubai. Credit Eye Studio. Operation Barbie Summer (the internal codename from Warner Bros) is in full swing. Since its release on July 21st, just two weeks ago, the Barbie movie has shattered 11 box… Continue reading From toy to titan: the activations behind the Barbie effect

WCAG 2.2 Removes 4.1.1 Parsing and How axe-core is Impacted

Earlier this year, for the first time ever the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) proposed to remove a success criterion from WCAG 2. Success Criterion 4.1.1 Parsing ensures that pages written in markup languages like HTML and SVG are written in a way that allows browsers and assistive technologies to understand them consistently. Let’s take… Continue reading WCAG 2.2 Removes 4.1.1 Parsing and How axe-core is Impacted

Apple Vision Pro: how to turn people into 24/7 surveillance agents for capitalism

From Apple.com In the world of tech, innovation is a double-edged sword. On one side, we have the allure of cutting-edge technology, promising to revolutionize our lives. But what happens when this revolution infringes on our privacy? The latest product from Apple, the Vision Pro AR headset, is a perfect example of this dichotomy. The… Continue reading Apple Vision Pro: how to turn people into 24/7 surveillance agents for capitalism

The AI revolution for businesses and the customer experience

After scouring the web and experimenting with numerous AI tools I am sharing my predictions for 2030 and beyond. Image created by Midjourney AI using a prompt from Danny Bluestone. In this article I am outlining my 6 ‘I’s to how I see AI evolving over the next decade. They include AI’s impact on the Internet,… Continue reading The AI revolution for businesses and the customer experience

The state of SaaS marketplace UX

A comprehensive review of popular SaaS marketplaces, including Airtable, Figma, Miro, Slack, and Zoom. Designing a SaaS marketplace or platform? Want to understand the SaaS marketplace experience of today? You’re in the right place. In this article, you’ll find a summary of the research I gathered to support my team in building our emerging platform. By reading… Continue reading The state of SaaS marketplace UX

Turning users into AI, UX personality test, modeling components in Figma

Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers. Modern products often have a large amount of user research data from different sources: user research interviews, intercom conversations, customer e-mails, surveys, customer reviews on various platforms, and whatnot. Making sense of all that data is a challenging task. A traditional way to do that is to maintain a… Continue reading Turning users into AI, UX personality test, modeling components in Figma

The UX of Sweetgreen

Sweetgreen seems to have its mind in the right place when it comes to embracing present and future technologies to offer an amazing UX. Image by Sweetgreen. Sweetgreen has come a long way since opening its first Washington, D.C. salad bar in 2007. 15 years have passed, and they are now on track to reach over 200… Continue reading The UX of Sweetgreen

The age of Agile must end

30 years ago the technology industry attempted to import Lean practices — it failed. Instead of “continuous improvement,” progress halted. Agile is incompatible with UX research, design, and scalable development. It always will be. It’s time to create a new operational standard. Changing of the guards. Photo by Micah Kunkle on Unsplash As startups refocus on “operational efficiency,”… Continue reading The age of Agile must end

5 Web Design Trends You Need to Be Aware of in 2023

Posted · Category: Best Collections, Design The beginning of a new year is typically a time when we plan to find ways to make life a little better. The same applies to web designers who look for new and better ways to make their designs more engaging and productive. In this post we will look… Continue reading 5 Web Design Trends You Need to Be Aware of in 2023

Sketchy Pencil Effect with Three.js Post-Processing

From our sponsor: Get suggestions for improving your content, targeting, and marketing automations to help you increase revenue. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a sketchy, pencil effect using Three.js post-processing. We’ll go through the steps for creating a custom post-processing render pass, implementing edge detection in WebGL, re-rendering the normal buffer… Continue reading Sketchy Pencil Effect with Three.js Post-Processing

The Ultimate Guide to Typography

Are you interested in typography? This complete course covers everything from typography history to the difference between typefaces and fonts, typeface classification, how to choose a font, and more! Watch the Ultimate Guide to Typography Course What You’ll Learn What is the history of typography? What is the difference between a typeface and a… Continue reading The Ultimate Guide to Typography

Adobe Illustrator for Beginners

Learn how to use Adobe Illustrator in this free course for absolute beginners. By the end, you’ll know how to draw in Adobe Illustrator, how to make a pattern in Illustrator, and so much more. Watch the Full Illustrator for Beginners Course What You’ll Learn How to draw in Illustrator Working with color and… Continue reading Adobe Illustrator for Beginners

Are Modals In Web Design A UX Disaster?

Modals, a nifty little feature that allows you to display different messages at the top of your website, have been touted as extremely useful. Some even claim that they are helpful enough to completely replace the banner ads we all hate so much. But are modals in web design a UX disaster? If you are… Continue reading Are Modals In Web Design A UX Disaster?

The Benefits of Drone Videos for Businesses

Are you looking for a way to generate high-quality, low-cost video content for your next marketing campaign? One of the most popular new options is drone video. Drones are not just for the military and mischievous teens. They’re also used to shoot engaging video footage for film, TV, and advertising.  Drones offer a clear advantage… Continue reading The Benefits of Drone Videos for Businesses

How to Create an Artistic Painting Effect in Affinity Photo

Today, we’ll be taking a look at how to create artistic painting effects in Affinity Photo. Affinity Photo may not have any dedicated artist effect filters, but it has more than enough amazing built-in tools that let you turn a photo into a painting or drawing. All without a drawing tablet! We are putting three… Continue reading How to Create an Artistic Painting Effect in Affinity Photo