Could there be a better way to celebrate the beginning of a new month than with a collection of desktop wallpapers? We’ve got some eye-catching designs to sweeten up your October. Enjoy! https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/desktop-wallpaper-calendars-october-2024/
One of the main laws that applies to almost everything in our lives, including building digital products, is Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Our goal is to prevent things from going wrong and, if they do, mitigate the consequences. In this article, Victor Ponamarev explores different strategies for preventing users from making mistakes. https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/how-manage-dangerous-actions-user-interfaces/
In this age of endless newfangled organizational tools, the spreadsheet holds firm. Frederick O’Brien explains how, from engineering to design, they can still provide a rock-solid foundation for your work. https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/timeless-power-of-spreadsheets/
This article aims to celebrate the power of introversion in UX research and design. Victor Yocco debunks common misconceptions, explores the unique strengths introverted researchers and designers bring to the table, and offers practical tips for thriving in a field that sometimes seems tailored for extroverts. https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/embracing-introversion-in-ux/
Myriam Frisano explores the basics of hand-coding SVGs with practical examples to demystify the inner workings of common SVG elements. In this guide, you’ll learn about asking the right questions to solve common positioning problems and how to leverage JavaScript so that, by the end, you can add “SVG coding” to your toolbox. You’ll also be able to declare proudly, “I know how to draw literal pictures with words!” https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/svg-coding-examples-recipes-writing-vectors-by
Creating ready-to-implement Lottie animations with a single tool is now possible thanks to SVGator’s latest feature updates. In this article, you will learn how to create and animate a Lottie using SVGator, an online animation tool that has zero learning curve if you’re familiar with at least one design tool. https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/creating-custom-lottie-animations-svgator/
Bringing data to life in your application can be done without the usual headaches. Paul Scanlon shows you how you can build beautiful data visualizations using the Google Analytics API, and you won’t have to spend any time “massaging” the data. https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/how-build-custom-data-visualizations-luzmo-flex/
Anticipatory design, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine learning (ML), and Big Data (BD), promises to transform user experiences by predicting and fulfilling needs before users even express them. While this proactive approach seems revolutionary, many businesses struggle to meet the high expectations it sets. Joana Cerejo delves into the challenges of anticipatory design, highlights key failures, and offers a framework to help designers and businesses succeed in this complex landsc
Google Analytics is often on a “need to know” basis, but why not flip the script? Paul Scanlon shares how he wrote a GitHub Action that queries Google Analytics to automatically generate and post a top ten page views report to Slack, making it incredibly easy to track page performance and share insights with your team. https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/how-create-weekly-google-analytics-report-posts-slack/
Sticky positioning is one of those CSS features that’s pretty delicate and can be negated by a lot of things, so here’s another one to add to your mental catalog: Sticky elements don’t play nicely if they have to coordinate with other elements to make up a combined height, like 100vh. Philip Braunen explores why this happens and presents a solution to fix it.
https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/sticky-headers-full-height-elements-tricky-combination/