1,379 articles from Smashing Magazine.
Everybody loves a nice freebie, right? To get you in the mood for the upcoming holidays, we collected some winter- and holiday-themed icon sets and vector elements that you can use in your projects for free. All icons and design elements in this collection can be downloaded for free. And, psst, they are perfect if you’re in need for some last-minute Christmas cards, gift tags, or wrapping paper, t
There are so many websites out there that have not considered the overall usability of their visually impaired users. When it comes to designing better links and sending better emails, Slava Shestopalov has a few tips on how to improve your website’s experience while accessibility in mind.
Are you ready for the countdown to Christmas? From [festive](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/12/freebie-christmas-advent-icon-set-25-icons-ai-eps-svg-png-pdf/) [icon](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/12/freebie-christmas-icons-illustrations/) [sets](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/11/freebie-christmas-icon-set-ai-psd-eps-pdf-svg-png/) to advent calendars that are bound to sweeten
There’s a great challenge that comes with building Jamstack applications on the web. In this article, Caleb Olojo will be using Next.js to bootstrap your app. This does not mean that the [create-react-app](https://create-react-app.dev/) library will not work. You can make use of any one that you find convenient. You’re using Next.js because of the many perks that come with it.
In this episode, we’re asking if changes to best practises over the last year have negatively impacted the web. Is it all downhill from here? Drew McLellan talks to expert Chris Ferdinandi to find out.
Let’s welcome December with some new wallpapers! Designed by artists and designers from across the globe, they are available with and without a calendar for the month. All wallpapers in this post are created with love and come in versions with and without a calendar for December 2021. Enjoy!
One of Jhey’s main mantras is to make learning fun. In this article, he shows you ways to level up your skills by bringing your ideas to life, and not forgetting that you can be playful with code. With that mindset, every idea is bound to become an opportunity to try something new. It’s fun to make things that we may not create on a day-to-day basis. Demos like this can pose different challenges a
There are a few ways in which you can make a large code-base easy to maintain. In this article, Nirmalya discusses some of the complex problems that he faced while building and maintaining large Next.js applications. He always explains how these problems can be solved by using various tools. Most of these points will apply to any front-end application. For any front-end application, the main prior
Instead of spending your coffee break scrolling through your social feeds, how about a lovely little website instead? We came across some fantastic ones that are just too good not to be shared. They are perfect for a short coffee break or whenever you’re up for a little bit of diversion. But be warned, your break might take a bit longer than intended.
The separation of content and presentation that CSS gives us always comes in handy when we need to adapt designs to better serve different communities. With a little CSS, we can adapt our web designs to be more accommodating for people with dyslexia. In this article, John C Barstow will explore those techniques by adding a dyslexia-friendly mode to an existing design.
What’s the state of CSS, Vue.js and Next.js? What are new, smart interface design patterns we could use? Let’s figure it out. With our [online workshops on UX, front-end and design](https://smashingconf.com/online-workshops).
Implementing a performance culture at Wix can enable you to apply performance enhancements to almost every part of your technological stack — from infrastructure to software architecture and media formats. In this article, Dan Shappir shares which actions and processes the Wix team put in place in order to achieve dramatic improvements in the performance of websites built and hosted on their platf
Wildcard domains often go under the radar. Hosting with a wildcard subdomain enables your users to visit your site on any subdomain of your domain (*.example.com), and as you can imagine, we can use this to create unique user experiences which we’ll be exploring in this article through a Next.js lens.
Did you know that your chosen color palette can have an impact on how much energy your website uses? Even a more environmentally friendly choice of colors can reduce the impact on the battery life of mobile devices. In this article, Michelle Barker shares advice on the not-so-obvious things you have to keep in mind when handling colors in CSS today.
Meet “Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces”, our brand-new guide on designing for mobile with proven, universal, human-centric standards. 400 pages. Shipping starting in mid-January 2022. Jump to details and get the book right away.
What’s your favorite command-line tool? In this post, Louis Lazaris shares a collection of relevant command-line apps and utilities that he has personally come across in the past few years. If there’s a useful one that hasn’t been mentioned and one you use regularly, please do share it in the comments.
React class-based components are messy, confusing, hard for humans and machines. But before React 16.8, class-based components were mandatory for any projects that require states, life-cycle methods, and many other important functionalities. All these changed with the introduction of hooks in React 16.8. Hooks are game-changers. They have simplified React, made it neater, easier to write and debug
Dribbbleshots just might be the hotbed of questionable dashboards. Striking visuals, little context, and no research: all recipes for mediocrity. Mediocrity won’t do. We’ll pursue greatness. And in that pursuit, we’ll cover research, decluttering, and data visualization. In this article, Adam Fard will talk about research, decluttering, and data visualization, as well as how these things can make
Internationalized routing is not exactly a new feature on Next.js. (It has been out since [v.10](https://nextjs.org/blog/next-10).) In this article, we are not only checking what we get from this feature, but also how to leverage such functionalities to achieve the best user experience and a smooth developer experience as well. Keep reading if you enjoy self-documented code, lean bundle-sizes and
If we want to make our websites successful, we need to pay special attention to two concerns: design and speed. In both accounts, Cloudinary can help us out. In this article, Leonardo Losoviz explains how Cloudinary’s integration can be used with WordPress to produce and deliver optimal digital experiences.
A great commerce experience cannot be distilled to a single number. It’s not a Lighthouse score, or a set of Core Web Vitals figures, although both are important inputs. A great commerce experience is a trilemma that carefully balances competing needs of delivering a great customer experience, dynamic storefront capabilities, and long-term business — conversion, retention, re-engagement — objectiv
Concept testing is a blend of market and UX research, two disciplines that share many methods in common. You shouldn’t consider it anti-UX to also explore topics related to market acceptance. After all, what good is a usable product if it serves no purpose or doesn’t have any meaningful sized market willing to adopt it? Concept testing ideas before moving into a detailed design is good UX practice
In this episode, we’re talking about Astro. Will this modern static site builder launch you into the stratosphere? Drew McLellan talks to developer Matthew Phillips to find out.
Within the last decade, technologies like GraphQL have changed how we build web apps and how they communicate with each other. GraphQL provides certain benefits over REST APIs — let’s find out what they are. In this article, David Atanda will cover advanced topics to achieve real-time update of data using the update() function, subscription, and Optimistic UI. All in a bit to improve user experien
Serverless UI is simply a free, open-source command-line utility for quickly building and deploying serverless applications on the AWS platform. In this article, we will learn and cover everything needed on using Serverless UI to deploy our projects or serverless applications to cloud services providers.
In this article, Alex Husar sheds the spotlight on Magento PWAs and explains why business owners are getting them (often instead of native applications). Alex introduces ways of how progressive web applications can be developed on Magento, as well as go over the major pros and cons of each development path.
November is just around the corner, and with it, a new collection of desktop wallpapers to celebrate the beginning of the month. Designed by creatives from all across the globe, they come in versions with and without a calendar. Let’s make November colorful!
Stop wasting time and effort writing copy that falls flat. Raise your copywriting game and boost your powers of persuasion with these rich and informative online resources. If you’re ready to acquire near-mystical powers of persuasion, check out these useful resources and tools that are bound to help strengthen your copywriting skills.
The wealth of data that Amazon holds can make a huge difference when you’re designing a product or hunting for a bargain. But, how can a developer get that data? Simple, by using a web scraper. Why would someone want to scrape Amazon pages? You’re about to find out! Here’s how to build your data extraction bot with Node.js.
Eye-tracking, a method that measures where people are looking and for how long they are looking, became more accessible to UX research thanks to technology. It allows researchers to see through the users’ eyes and get insights about visual attention. This article explores the latest trends in the eye-tracking market and how the methodology can be included in the UX researcher’s toolbox.
Nx is a build framework that facilitates optimization, efficient scaling of applications, and other features such as shared libraries and components. In this article, Melvin Kosisochukwu will be looking at how you can effectively scale Next.js applications by using Nx. If you’re a developer looking to optimize applications and create reuseable components across applications, this article is for yo
If we use a width and height that isn’t proportional to the image’s aspect ratio, the image might either be compressed or stretched. That isn’t good, and it can be solved either with object-fit for an img element or by using background-size. In this article, Ahmad Shadeed will go through how `object-fit` and `background-size` work, when you can use them, and why, along with some practical use case
Quasar is an open-source Vue.js-based cross-platform framework that allows you, as a developer, to easily build apps for both desktop and mobile using technologies such as Cordova and Electron and writing your code once. The app we’ll build will store and get its data from Firebase, meaning that we will also be seeing how to use Firebase in Quasar.
It’s impressive how quickly a real-time multi-user application can be built with Colyseus — once you figure out how to properly describe the schema. This article highlights the process, technical decisions and lessons learned behind building the real-time game Autowuzzler. Learn how to share game state across multiple clients in real-time with Colyseus, do physics calculations with Matter.js, stor
The `prefers-reduced-motion` media query has excellent support in all modern browsers going back a couple of years. In this article, Michelle Barker explains why there’s no reason not to use it today to make your sites more accessible.
Back in January 2020, Ben Holmes set out to do what just about every web developer does each year: rebuild his personal site. In this article, he shares his story of how he set out to build his own build pipeline from absolute ground zero and created [Slinkity](https://slinkity.dev/).
With server-side and client-side code coexisting in the same code base, front-end developers can extend the reach of what’s possible using the tools they already know and love. In this tutorial, Paul Scanlon explains how to build an API by using Gatsby Functions and what you need to keep in mind when deploying it to Gatsby Cloud.
In this episode, we’re talking about DevOps. What is it, and is it a string to add to your web development bow? Drew McLellan talks to expert Jeff Smith to find out.
Cumulative Layout Shift is one of the hardest core web vital to debug. In this article, we go through different tools to investigate CLS, when to use them(and when not), and solutions to some of the CLS issues we faced in our Next.js-based e-commerce website.
Maintaining optimal mental health is critical for programmers because most of our work is more mentally demanding than it is physically. However, building and maintaining a reliable and rewarding strategy to maintain a healthy balance in our work demands can be a challenge. In this article, we’ll look at why taking care of our work-life balance is important, how to develop a simple and effective m
Customers may start using your app because you offer a unique product, but user experience is what makes them stay. For that, you need excellent UX designers, and the know-how to spot them when hiring. This article is about the essentials of evaluating potential designers and design agencies you wish to hire. Getting this right is more important than ever.
Writing CSS has probably never been more fun and exciting than it is today. In this post we’ll take a look at common problems and use cases we all have to face in our work and how to solve them with modern CSS. If you’re interested, we’ve also just recently covered [CSS auditing tools](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/03/css-auditing-tools/), [CSS generators](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/
Do you like a good interface design challenge? What about accessibility testing and design systems? Or maybe Next.js and advanced CSS? With our [new online workshops](https://smashingconf.com/online-workshops/) on front-end & design, we cover all of it. Below you’ll find a schedule of what’s coming up next. Ah, and [here
React with JSX is a fantastic tool for making easy-to-use components. Typescript components make it an absolute pleasure for developers to integrate your components into their apps and explore your APIs. Learn about three lesser-known React APIs that can take your components to the next level, and help you build even better React Components in this article.
UXPin has recently launched a new feature called “Merge”. This tool aims to break through the chasms of design and development, all while improving the agility and quality our teams expect. This new technology may cause some rethink on how the whole design team and engineering team collaborates.
A “dark pattern” is a deceptive UX pattern that tricks users into doing things they may not really want to do. Autofill is a widespread feature either by choice or by accident: who hasn’t accepted to let the browser save/use web form information, either on purpose or by mistake? In this article, Alvaro Montoro does a little experiment to find out how much privacy is taken away from users across th
Most animation libraries like GSAP and Framer Motion are built purely with JavaScript or TypeScript, unlike AnimXYZ, which is labelled “the first composable CSS animation toolkit”, built mainly with SCSS. While a simple library, it can be used to achieve a lot of awesome animation on the web in a short amount of time and little code. In this article, Ejiro Asiuwhu will show you how to use the Anim
Creating an interactive experience with fiction can be a chore with traditional content management tools. Let’s make it the domain of just one content creator in which the user will fill out a form before reading the story. In this article, Bryan Robinson will be building an interactive fiction experience in which a user can insert words that match parts of speech given by the content creator. Let
Every once in a while, we publish [freebies](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/freebies/) related to different occasions and themes. We hope that with this icon set, every designer will be able to find their own use case and contribute to saving lives. Free for personal and commercial use. [Get the free icon pack](https://smashingmagazine.com/provide/smashing-freebie-coronavirus-covid19.zi
Debugging in CSS means figuring out what might be the problem when you have unexpected layout results. Today, Stephanie Eckles will look at a few categories bugs often fit into, see how you can evaluate the situation, and explore techniques that help prevent these bugs.
Have you ever struggled with testing cloud services locally? Specifically, have you ever struggled with locally testing an API that uses API Gateway and Lambda, with the Serverless framework, on AWS? In this article, Tom Hudson shares a quick overview of how easy it is to quickly set up your project to test locally before deploying to AWS.
One of the use cases for using CSS Grid is to display a gallery of images, but a gallery on its own may not be that exciting. In this article, Silvestar Bistrović will be looking at how to set up a gallery that is expandable as well as accessible with a few tips and tricks along the way. Let’s get started!
Many websites have some sort of search feature because it helps users navigate through their content easily. Implementing it the right way can be tricky and might not give a good user experience. In this tutorial, Miracle Onyenma will be integrating Algolia, a popular and powerful search service for the best experience on our Nuxt site.
Get your desktop ready for fall and the upcoming Halloween season with a fresh batch of desktop wallpapers. Created with love by designers and artists from across the globe, they come in versions with and without a calendar for October 2021.
In this article, we’ll highlight how modern image formats (AVIF or WebP) can improve compression by up to 50% and deliver better quality per-byte while still looking visually appealing. We’ll compare what’s possible at high-quality, low-quality and file-size targets.
You can find Markdown in many places on the Internet. In this article, Eric Bailey covers different aspects of Markdown and how it interacts with other technology. At first, it may seem daunting since there is a lot of content to cover across a few different subject areas, but keep in mind that each tweak and update will have a direct impact on someone’s quality of life when using the web.
Is end-to-end testing a painful topic for you? End-to-end testing does have some pitfalls that are cause for concern. Let’s look at how to prevent many of them. In this article, Ramona Schwering explains how to handle end-to-end testing with Cypress and make it make it not so tedious and expensive for yourself, but fun instead. hope to show you that end-end testing can be fun!
Developing with Next.js is amazing, but there are definitely some challenges. The developer experience with Next.js is something you just need to experience. We made the switch from a more traditional integrated e-commerce platform to a headless platform with Next.js. Here are the most important lessons learned while rebuilding a large e-commerce site with Next.js.
You’ve seen them before. Confusing and frustrating design patterns that seem to be chasing you everywhere you go, from one website to another. It’s time to fix them for good in a [free Smashing online workshop](https://smashingconf.com/online-workshops/workshops/frustrating-design-patterns/) next week. Today, Vitaly Friedman will take a look into carousels, modals, infinite scroll, parallax and sc
The new CSS `accent-color` property makes it quick and easy to roll out our brand colors to certain form inputs by leveraging user agent styles. It has the potential to provide quick and easy styling for many of our form elements, especially where extensive customization isn’t needed, as well as allowing the browser to pick the best options for accessibility. In this article Michelle Barker will t
