10 Key Principles of User-Centered Design

As we head into the final month of 2022, plenty of new ideas and website design trends are still emerging. The evolution throughout the year has been exciting and designed to help website designers and developers create greater engagement and interactivity while pushing the envelope. These trends are no exception. Here’s what’s trending in design this month. 1. Video Game Inspiration That space where reality and virtual reality merge...

Tis (almost) the season to be jolly, and with Christmas Day just one month away, it’s high time to start putting together your Winter holiday promotions. Today, we want to share some incredible free Xmas illustrations. There are several greetings card-style designs that are just perfect for sending to customers as part of an email campaign. You’ll also find dozens of Christmas-themed items that can be combined to create your own seasonal...

Looking to save big and make your web design job easier at the same? This carefully picked list includes top-tier quality items that have already been used by hundreds of thousands of people like you. From WordPress themes, plugins, web apps, website builders, and illustrations, this list has everything for everyone. Check all these 10 excellent deals for designers below: 1. Amelia Amelia is a WordPress booking plugin that saves businesses...

Designers have a wide range of lucrative career options. This resource puts together some of the best small business ideas to help chart your career path.  It covers the market size, earning potential, estimated startup cost, the target audience, and the value they bring to the table. You'll also learn how to launch the business, the required training and licenses, and a few companies already killing it in the space for your inspiration....

Nothing breathes life into your designs like the typefaces you choose, so every month, we put together this roundup of the best new fonts we’ve found online. This month, a distinctly medieval aesthetic permeates some of the designs. You’ll find plenty of rebellion in fonts that break the rules for fun. And as always, we’ve included some excellent practical options. Enjoy! Arnika Arnika is a relaxed typeface with much more character...

Artificial intelligence is the latest buzzword in the tech world. It’s everywhere and has been for a while, but AI-powered writing software is a relatively new concept. AI Writing Software uses artificial intelligence to write articles, blog posts, and other content in your voice. The goal is to provide a tool that will save you time and energy so you can focus on different aspects of your business or life. To help you get started, we’ve...

You don’t need an online shop to sell on Pinterest, but owning one can give you the upper hand. The only problem is that managing an eCommerce store is expensive. On the other hand, selling on Pinterest has a low entry barrier. So it’s an excellent place to start even if you can’t afford a website. Plus, Pinterest has many engaged users who are happy to buy your product, craft or offer. This is the only social media network where the most significant...

Every month we put together this collection of the best new websites we’ve seen appear on the web in the previous four weeks. In this month's collection, you’ll find lots of daring interactions, some inventive portfolio sites, florescent yellow colors, and even some old-school mouse trails. Enjoy! Joshua’s World Joshua’s World is a fantastic animated site. Grab and drag to tilt and rotate the island and watch the little cyclist...

Podcasts are on the rise. In 2020 consumption of podcasts reached 332.2 million internet users, and this number grew to 383.7 in 2021. And it is increasing steadily - with the number of listeners slated to reach about 509.4 in 2024. Podcasts have moved from a niche market of discussants in their parent’s basements to being spread across the globe into everyone’s earsets.  However, it’s more complex than just creating a decent show and...

Color and depth are key themes this month as we look at what design trends are happening across websites. Red is the primary color of choice, and you can see it almost everywhere; the new thing is that it’s being used in backgrounds and as more than an accent color. Additionally, 3D elements and depth of field are making significant impressions. Here’s what’s trending in design this month. 1. Red Backgrounds Red is the color of power, passion,...

Everyone needs high-quality stock images; they’re essential for breaking up text-heavy websites, creating an emotional connection with your users, and for reinforcing your brand. They say images are worth 1,000 words, but with the way users tend to scan and read online, it’s more like 10,000. So the next time you're looking for high-quality stock images, check out Photostockeditor.com. Its images are all free to download, and it has...

When you need a website, you have two options, you can hire someone who’s an expert in website building to design it for you, or you can make it yourself. Hiring someone with experience building a website means you’ll get a more professional result, and you should achieve a good return on your investment. However, hiring a freelancer or a design agency has plenty of pitfalls. Budgets can spiral, timescales get stretched, and the end result...

Whether you’ve worked with a few WordPress themes to design websites or worked with many of them, you’ll no doubt agree that plenty of WordPress themes that are visually gorgeous on the front end can be terribly unattractive and extremely awkward to use on the backend.  Working with a WordPress theme can sometimes be difficult, but it can be different. Want proof? Look no further than with BeTheme.  BeTheme, with 260,000+ sales and counting...

We write this guide to the best new tools for designers and developers each month. For October, we’ve sought out tools to make you a better website builder, some handy utilities to make you more productive, and a spooky font for the end of the month. Enjoy! Microsoft Designer Microsoft Designer is a brand-new app for creating images from text prompts. You can create social media posts, blog images, and any other assets you need with its step-by-step...

A robust email marketing strategy is a great way to reach your target audience directly. But your email marketing campaign success rests on whether you used the best email marketing services. No two email marketing services are equal. So you must choose carefully. We created this guide and ranked the 12 best email marketing services for you. How to Choose the Best Email Marketing Services Although we ranked these best email marketing services...

This month, it’s all about the images. Each of the design trends we spotted has to do with the images you select – or don’t select – for a project and how you use them. Here’s what’s trending in design this month. 1. Floating Images Sometimes you design off the grid intentionally. Other times you are designing on a grid that’s maybe not-so-obvious. One of these things is happening with the floating images website design trend. Here,...

A design portfolio is an excellent way to demonstrate your skills as a freelancer. As a web designer, you compete with millions of other web designers. Therefore, you must have a strong portfolio to land a high-paying web designing job in such a competitive space. A strong portfolio sets you apart from others. Having no clients, however, can make it challenging to get your portfolio noticed and build up any momentum. People typically build...

Each month we publish this roundup of the best new fonts for designers to help you find new ways of packing personality into your designs. In October’s edition, you’ll find a number of revivals and a ton of vintage inspiration, all wrapped up with a modern twist. After years of geometric sans-serifs, a few decorative flourishes are more than welcome. Enjoy! The Future The Future and its accompanying monospace The Future Mono is a homage...

Jakob Nielsen’s How Users Read on the Web is 25 years old this week, and one glance at an eye-tracking study will tell you its key observations are still relevant today. Simply put, users don’t read a web page; they scan it for individual words and sentences. A typical pattern shown in eye-tracking reports is that users will rapidly scan a page, scrolling down to do so. Then either hit the back button and pump your bounce rate, or scroll to...

The design world fluctuates back and forth, swerving between love and hate for different design trends. Sometimes we see a wide range of approaches, and sometimes designers all hop on the same idea. This month, the web is dominated by animation. Designers are cramming in motion in unexpected ways. And it’s fun to explore. Here are 20 of the best new sites on the web this month. Enjoy! Bannach Bannach is a German furniture brand. Its products...

User Experience is a crucial consideration for any web developer or designer; the only way to ensure that you’re delivering a successful website is to ensure that the end-user or customer will feel comfortable using it.  A strong user experience increases your client’s chances of successful audience engagement and conversions. What you might not realize, however, is that the strategies you use to enhance UX as a web developer or designer...

There were mixed reactions on Thursday morning when Adobe announced it had acquired Figma. Excited press releases extolling the benefits of the “collaboration” followed the news. Dylan Field, founder and CEO of Figma, said: “There is a huge opportunity for us to accelerate the growth and innovation of the Figma platform with access to Adobe’s technology…” The reaction from the design community has been a little less enthusiastic....