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...

Regardless of what kind of WordPress website you’re running, chances are an RSS aggregator plugin can help you deliver more value through it. RSS feeds give you the option to curate content from multiple sources and share it with your site’s readers. This way, you don’t have to worry about creating original content regularly or risk losing traffic to your blog because you don’t have enough content on it in the first place. In this post,...

It’s here, people! NBC has gone (more) digital, because we as a society have decided that this was better for the environment, and also because the news gets to our phones so much faster. It’s also cheaper. Okay, I’m going to stop messing with the print guys—they’ve done nothing to me—suffice it to say that the industry has changed, and NBC is still changing with it, on the design front. Back in June of 2017, we said that NBC was working...

Nobody wants to create bad design, and yet it happens all the time. And while the cause of bad design varies, the final result is the same—bad user experience. Bad user experience frustrates users and often leads to abandoning the product. In this article, I’ll focus on one particular aspect of bad design—using UI techniques that lead to bad UX. 1. Pop-Ups If I ask you to name the single most irritating thing on the web, the odds are that you’ll...

Google Web Designer just released its 3.0 beta version for public consumption and testing. Despite the product’s name, you still can’t design websites with it. For those of you who figured that out when it first released—and have ignored it ever since—here’s a refresher: Google Web Designer is an app that makes it easier to create interactive content with HTML5, Canvas, and the like. Specifically, it’s designed for creating...

Spring is in the air with plenty of new tools, particular color and CSS options. We hope that the change of season has you inspired to create and that these new design tools can make your work life just a little easier. 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! Abstract Acrylic...

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...

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...

If you can get through the basics of PHP then you’ll have a solid foundation on backend development. It’s knowledge you can use for WordPress coding or even to build your own webapps. But developers nowadays often use open source frameworks like Laravel. This is by far the most comprehensive framework for PHP development and guaranteed to help you create your own apps, land a job in the industry, or a mix of both! To get you started with Laravel...

When you build a site, you need to start with the user experience (UX) and work backwards. Even before you write a single line of code, you’ll need to know who the users you’re writing that code for are, as well as what the client’s objective experience is for those users. Who Are Our Users? That is the first question developers at Incapsula asked themselves when redesigning controls on its dashboard. In its case, developers chose to differentiate...

If experience has taught me anything it’s that pictures are better than words, nothing aligns everyone’s understanding of a web design problem like a quick scribble with a sharpie (other writing instruments are available). It’s the quickest, easiest and cheapest way of making others understand your design thinking… so why don’t we do it more often?… in fact why doesn’t everybody do it? Why?! Maybe we scare people off? one...

Hello readers! It’s March. As is tradition, I’ve gone and collected a bunch of interesting portfolio designs for your perusal. It’s an eclectic mix this month. You’ll see some plain and basic good design together with sites that do interesting things with 3D graphics. Enjoy! Note: I’m judging these sites by how good they look to me. If they’re creative and original, or classic but really well-done, it’s all good to me. Sometimes,...

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...

It’s going to happen — a design project or website launch will go poorly. What you do in the first hours, days, and weeks after that mistake can shape your future career path. Every designer makes a mistake, which is almost always a disaster to the client. No matter how big or small you think the error is, it is important to handle it with grace and make things right for the client. (This can help salvage the relationship and your reputation.)...