Tag: Web

Linkbuilding: The Citizen’s Field GuideLinkbuilding: The Citizen’s Field Guide Myriam Jessier & Stéphanie Walter 2018-07-18T13:35:07+02:00 2018-07-18T17:57:52+00:00 Before buying followers on Instagram was a common practice, before Russian trolls made fake news an Olympic sport, we had linkbuilding. Today, we still have linkbuilding, its just that you haven't noticed it — or have you? Welcome, to the Twilight Zone, dear folks. You are about to go through a linkbuilding crash course. This will help you preserve your website, detect potential problems in content or consider why you keep receiving strange emails from strangers wanting to get their links all o...

So You Want to Persuade Users? Make Things Simple!So You Want to Persuade Users? Make Things Simple! Lyndon Cerejo 2018-07-17T16:15:38+02:00 2018-07-17T15:48:55+00:00 (This article is kindly sponsored by Adobe.) The persuasive design toolbox is filled with powerful tools based on psychology. These tools range from Cialdini’s set of six principles of persuasion to ten times that number of Persuasive Patterns. Presented with all these methods, it can be tempting to use all of them to cover all possible bases, using a shotgun approach, hoping that one will resonate with your target users. However, applying persuasion principles and patterns in a haphazard manner ...

Data visualization has quickly become a standard for disseminating information on the web. It’s used across a range of industries, from business intelligence to journalism, to help us understand and communicate the insights within data. Our brains are primed to process information that’s presented visually, making it much easier for us to understand data visualized in charts and graphs than data listed in tables and spreadsheets. A great data visualization should leverage these strengths of the human visual system to display data so that it can be readily absorbed and understood. It should take into account what we know about visual processing to enhance and ease the viewers’ experience of the data. With so many tools and frameworks now available for building these graphics, it’s time to ...

The Holy Grail Of Reusable Components: Custom Elements, Shadow DOM, And NPMThe Holy Grail Of Reusable Components: Custom Elements, Shadow DOM, And NPM Oliver Williams 2018-07-16T13:30:58+02:00 2018-07-16T17:29:08+00:00 For even the simplest of components, the cost in human-labour may have been significant. UX teams do usability testing. An array of stakeholders have to sign off on the design. Developers conduct AB tests, accessibility audits, unit tests and cross-browser checks. Once you’ve solved a problem, you don’t want to repeat that effort. By building a reusable component library (rather than building everything from scratch), we can continuously utilize...

What kind of projects are you working on? It might be the hotter days (with more time at a computer) that have me focused on ways to enhance productivity. In this month’s roundup of new design tools and information, you’ll find plenty of helpful items that relate to workflow. If we’ve missed something that you think should have been on the list, let us know in the comments. And if you know of a new app or resource that should be featured next month, tweet it to @carriecousins to be considered! UnDraw UnDraw is a curated collection of SVG images that you can use for free, without attribution. All of the images fall under the MIT license and the site is packed with scalable images for web projects. Embed tiny SVGs or edit the code and make each image your own before adding it to your design...

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, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that were posted, so don’t miss out and subscribe to our newsletter and follow the site daily for all the news. Visual System   You Know a Web Site Sucks If…   Physics-Based Background Scroll Effects   Unused   Visitors – Google Analytics in your Menu Bar   Getting a 99/100 Google PageSpeed ...

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD. The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers. These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today. So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons. Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own… No extra costs You get what you pay for   Low tech budget Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below… Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5! ...

Monthly Web Development Update 7/2018: Practical Accessibility, Design Mistakes, And Feature ControlMonthly Web Development Update 7/2018: Practical Accessibility, Design Mistakes, And Feature Control Anselm Hannemann 2018-07-13T14:20:17+02:00 2018-07-13T12:33:42+00:00 The web continues to amaze me. With all its variety and different changes to the platform, it’s hard to see a straight pattern — if there even is (just) one. But it’s wonderful to see what is being changed, which features are added to the platform, which ones get deprecated, and how browsers implement more and more technology to protect the user from malicious website attacks. It’s interesting to...

There are so many distractions when you are a freelancer. From kids coming into your home office or time sucks like Facebook, you need to focus and be more efficient. The key is arming yourself with the right tools for the job. Here, we’ve gathered a list of online time savers (productivity tools for the win!) plus tips for managing distractions. Create the Right Working Space Freelancers, if you want to work from home, you need an actual work space. Using the kitchen counter or just putting a desk in your bedroom is a recipe for distraction. (You’ll see the dishes piled up or find 10 other things that need your attention when what you should be doing is working.) Create a dedicated workspace—preferably one with a door and that isn’t used for anything else. Look for a room with a window. ...

They say that an image is worth a thousand words, and web designers certainly seem to have taken it to heart: the trend for image-rich, stylised page design means that there is now often little room for writing on a web page. Looking at recent trends in web design, we see full-screen photos, minimalist split-screens and enticing overlays. It’s all very visual, and not one of the examples contains many words on the featured pages. These trends are great for designers, who can let their creativity flow without being burdened by the need to include dull tracts of text. On the other hand, although these sites can undoubtedly be beautiful, the trend is dividing experts: many feel that by carrying little text, sites are losing the key function of being informative about a product or service. Th...

How To Create A Flat Vector Illustration In Affinity DesignerHow To Create A Flat Vector Illustration In Affinity Designer Isabel Aracama 2018-07-11T20:00:02+02:00 2018-07-11T18:05:32+00:00 (This is a sponsored post.) If you are in the design world, chances are that you’ve already heard about Affinity Designer, a vector graphics editor for Apple’s macOS and Microsoft Windows. It was July 2015 when Serif Europe launched the amazing software that many designers and illustrators like me are using now as their main tool for professional work. Unlike some other packages, its price is really affordable, there’s no subscription model and, as mentioned already, it’s a...

Did you know that the longest word in the English dictionary is 189,891 letters long? It is (and you can see a full spelling here). This word is the name for a protein dubbed “Tintin” and would take you more than 3 and a half hours to say out loud. Pretty crazy, right? But why in the world am I sharing this with you today? Because 189,891 letters is way too long! It could have been reduced to 50, 25, or even 10 letters, but it wasn’t. Why? Because people love to complicate things. And nowhere is this more true than in the realm of online security and user experience. You see, most self-proclaimed gurus will try and overwhelm you with fancy industry jargon and advanced (but entirely unnecessary) security recommendations in order to appear like they know what they’re talking about and sell...