Top Design News
28. September 2023
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Exploring Enhanced Patterns In WordPress 6.3
In this article, Ganesh Dahal explains how the features have evolved since reusable blocks were officially released in WordPress 5.0 — and how the two have converged in WordPress 6.3 to form a powerful feature capable of allowing content creators to sync content and design patterns consistently in pages and posts.
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Getting Started With Neon Branching
Branches are a really nice (and safe) way to configure or reconfigure your database without fear of screwing up the production database. Let’s take a closer look at how branching works with [Neon](https://bit.ly/46cEgX1), and the good news is, you probably already know how it works!
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Smashing Podcast Episode 65 With Alex Older: How Do You Run A Grassroots Conference?
We’re talking about running grassroots conferences and meet-ups. What does it take to organize a small industry event for your community? Drew McLellan talks to WDC’s Alex Older to find out.
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WaterBear: Building A Free Platform For Impactful Documentaries (Part 1)
Adrian’s kicking off a two-part series, sharing his journey as a lead developer. In the process, you will learn about the lessons and insights Adrian gained at work, including the strategies that went into the technical stack of the project and what it looks like to collaborate with a team he is leading for the first time.
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The Path To Awesome CSS Easing With The linear() Function
With the new CSS `linear()` easing function on the horizon, the possibilities of what we can do to create natural-feeling animations and transitions in the future are greatly expanded. Jhey Tompkins looks at the current state of CSS easing in this article and demonstrates what we can expect from `linear()`, including handy tools to get your hands on it today.
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Facilitating Inclusive Online Workshops (Part 2)
To help ensure the success of a workshop, Ben Shih introduces the concept of an inclusive workshop. In Part 2 of the series, you will continue to delve deeper into several key principles and guidelines that you can follow during and after the workshop to encourage an inclusive atmosphere.
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How Smashing Magazine Uses TinaCMS To Manage An Editorial Workflow
This article is a peek behind the curtain of how content is managed here at Smashing Magazine. In it, you’ll get a tour of an article’s full lifecycle, from a basic outline to the sort of thing you’re reading right this second.
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Revealing Images With CSS Mask Animations
Let’s play with images and experiment with CSS masks. The idea is fairly simple: take a single `` tag and harness the power of CSS to accomplish complex hover transitions. Through different demos, you will see how CSS masks combined with gradients allow us to create fancy effects — with efficient, reusable code.
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Facilitating Inclusive Online Workshops (Part 1)
Running a workshop can be an effective alternative to traditional, long-standing meetings. To help ensure its success, Ben Shih introduces the concept of an inclusive workshop. In Part 1 of the series, you discover the fundamentals of inclusivity and get some solid guidance on how to plan an inclusive remote workshop.
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Gradients, Blend Modes, And A Really Cool Hover Effect
Gradients are a powerful CSS feature. We use them for texture, depth, and even to hide parts of elements with CSS masking. This article covers another interesting way to use gradients — as a hover effect that affects the appearance of other elements around the hovered element.
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Rediscovering The Joy Of Design
Pratik Joglekar takes a philosophical approach to remind designers about the lost joy within themselves by effectively placing massive importance on mindfulness, introspection, and forward-looking. Without joy, the work we do would feel meaningless. To prevent it from happening, check out a few ideas that would help rediscover that spark of joy.
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Long Live The Test Pyramid
Is the Test Pyramid really dead? Discover the more contemporary testing strategies and evaluate the Test Pyramid’s relevance in today’s software development practices.
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Generating Real-Time Audio Sentiment Analysis With AI
In this article, Joas Pambou builds the tool to provide a sentiment score in **real-time** with enhanced user experience by providing multilingual support. You will use an OpenAI library called Whisper that transcribes audio files into text and detects the language, and Gradio, a UI framework, to establish the interface.
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A September Of Never Ending Adventures (2023 Wallpapers Edition)
Let’s get ready for September with some fresh wallpaper designs! Created with love by artists and designers from across the globe, the wallpapers in this collection come in versions with and without a calendar. Enjoy!
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Falling For Oklch: A Love Story Of Color Spaces, Gamuts, And CSS
The CSS Color Module Level 4 specification defined a slew of new color features when it became a candidate recommendation in 2022, including Oklab and Oklch, which have widened the field of color we have to work with. Explore the Oklch color space and how to start using it in CSS today.
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Improving The Double Diamond Design Process
The so-called “Double Diamond” is a great way of visualizing an ideal design process — but it’s just not the way most companies deliver new projects or services. Andy Budd proposes a new “Double Diamond” idea that better aligns with the way work actually gets done and highlights the place where design has the most leverage.
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A Few Interesting Ways To Use CSS Shadows For More Than Depth
We often think of shadows in CSS as something to reach for when we want to add depth to a design. But shadows can be used for more than depth. Let’s experiment with different shadows — two CSS properties and a filter — to make interesting hover effects, different text styles, and even casting shadows on other shadows.
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Better Context Menus With Safe Triangles
Discover how to improve the user experience of nested menus and tackle a minor yet common issue with them when the user’s pointer leaves the menu item for a moment, and the nested menu goes away, requiring the user to re-hover and try again. A well-known concept called the “safe triangle” solves this problem.
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Modern Methods For Improving Drupal’s Largest Contentful Paint Core Web Vital
The background image used in the hero component, which is slow to load, is a very common problem with any component that uses a large image file as a background image. In this article, Mike Herchel walks you through how to tackle this common performance issue using modern techniques.
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Knip: An Automated Tool For Finding Unused Files, Exports, And Dependencies
Most of the projects have at least a few unused files, exports, and dependencies lying around, often because it’s difficult knowing when one thing relies on another and scary removing something you’re not sure is in use. Lars Kappert shares a tool he’s been working on that offers a solution.
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Designing Accessible Text Over Images: Best Practices, Techniques And Resources (Part 2)
In part 2 of the series, Hannah Milan reviews various accessible text over images techniques for designing your content, including framing the image, soft-colored gradients technique, text styles and text position, solid color shapes, and use of colored backgrounds.
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Running A Page Speed Test: Monitoring vs. Measuring
What does your performance “stack” look like? There are all kinds of tools available for measuring page speed, but what data and assumptions do they use to measure performance? And speaking of *measuring* performance, there’s quite a difference between that and *monitoring* performance. Let’s dig in!
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Using Friction As A Feature In Machine Learning Algorithms
Friction often has a negative connotation in user experience design, but it actually has many benefits. Its best-known use case is mitigating unintended consequences in high-risk scenarios, yet it has a new place in the age of artificial intelligence. Adding strategic friction to interfaces can lead to profound efficiency gains in machine learning algorithms.
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Designing Accessible Text Over Images: Best Practices, Techniques, And Resources (Part 1)
In this two-part series of articles, Hannah Milan covers the best practices when using various accessible text over images techniques for designing your web and mobile app content.
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How We Optimized Performance To Serve A Global Audience
Liran Cohen and the team at Bookaway, a travel booking service, dramatically improved their site’s performance by auditing Core Web Vitals. In this article, Liran shares his team’s process for auditing and monitoring Web Vitals and the effort it took to dramatically improve Bookaway’s performance — and the benefits that came with it.
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Smashing Podcast Episode 64 With Alvin Bryan: What Is A Headless CMS?
We’re talking about headless content management systems. What are they, and how do they differ from more traditional systems? Drew McLellan talks to Alvin Bryan to find out.
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CSS And Accessibility: Inclusion Through User Choice
In this article, Carie Fisher outlines which CSS media features are available for detecting user preferences and how they are used to design and build more inclusive user experiences.
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Living In The Moment (August 2023 Wallpapers Edition)
New month, new wallpapers! In this post, you’ll find unique and inspiring wallpapers for August 2023. Created with love by the community for the community, they come in versions with and without a calendar. Enjoy!
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How To Define An Array Of Colors With CSS
Join Temani Afif on experiment with modern CSS features to create an array of colors. The goal is to define a comma-separated list of colors and iterate through them using an index.
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How To Use Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning To Summarize Chat Conversations
In this article, we’ll explore how to build a chat summarizer using the Cohere API and deploy it as a web application using Gradio.[ Cohere](https://cohere.com/) is an AI platform that provides state-of-the-art natural language processing models for a variety of tasks, including summarization. We’ll cover the steps involved in training the summarizer using sample chat conversations, interacting with the Cohere API to generate summaries, and creating a user-friendly interface using [Gradio](https://www.gradio.app/).
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Modern Technology And The Future Of Language Translation
The field of language translation has never been more exciting. Explore the evolution of language translation platforms, how we got to where we are today, and what advancements we can look forward to in the coming years.
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Recreating YouTube’s Ambient Mode Glow Effect
In this article, Adrian deconstructs YouTube’s “Ambient Mode” feature and how HTML `` and the `requestAnimationFrame` function are used to create the glowing effect.
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The Art Of Looking Back: A Critical Reflection For Individual Contributors
Discover the importance of critical reflective practice and challenge some beliefs about reflection and its role in our work and growth. Kristian Mikhel suggests a critical reflective routine for individual contributors and gives some practical recommendations that will make reflection meaningful and actionable.
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Designing Age-Inclusive Products: Guidelines And Best Practices
With an estimated one in every eight individuals worldwide surpassing the age of 60, who are actively adopting online shopping, the need for user-friendly interfaces tailored to their needs becomes apparent. Explore the guidelines to help you design inclusive products for all, particularly for an older audience and your future self.
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Writing CSS In 2023: Is It Any Different Than A Few Years Ago?
CSS is evolving faster than ever. With all of the new features that are now available — and forthcoming — since we got Flexbox and Grid years ago, the way we write CSS is evolving, too. In this article, Geoff Graham shares which features have had the most influence on his current approaches to CSS, as well as those that have not (at least yet).
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How To Create A Rapid Research Program To Support Insights At Scale
Accelerate your organization’s growth and innovation with the power of Rapid Research. From inception to implementation, here is the step-by-step roadmap on how to build the program from scratch and uncover the untapped ROI opportunities waiting to propel your initiatives to new heights.
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Smashing Podcast Episode 63 With Chris Ferdinandi: What Is The Transitional Web?
In this episode of The Smashing Podcast, we’re talking about The Transitional Web. What is it, and how does it describe the technologies we’re using? Drew McLellan talks to Chris Ferdinandi to find out.
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How To Become A Better Speaker At Conferences
In this article, Andy Budd, curator of UX London and Leading Design conferences, outlines some of the things that make a potentially amazing presentation, as well as a few big gotchas. If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to get a speaking slot at a conference, this article is for you.
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Shines, Perspective, And Rotations: Fancy CSS 3D Effects For Images
CSS has all kinds of tricks that are capable of turning images into neat, interactive elements. This article is a collection of fancy 3D effects for images that demonstrate those CSS powers.
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The UX Of Flight Searches: How We Challenged Industry Standards
As of today, the world’s 50 top airlines have all agreed on the same flight search pattern. Yet the path to booking the right flight remains frustrating and confusing. Is there really only one solution? Explore the thought experiment which turned the seemingly untouchable pattern on its head and offered new food for thought.