I read an interesting article on Forbes recently about language saturation. Here’s the problem: Consumers don’t always understand the technicalities of what businesses do or the solutions they’ve created for them. So, copywriters use jargon that translates something like “Internet-connected devices with computing capabilities” into “smartphones”, “smart watches” and “smart speakers”. Some of these buzzwords spread like wildfire and it soon becomes impossible to find a brand or website that doesn’t use them.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/web-design-trend-popular/

In times like these where our everyday life is pausing and we’re trying to find strategies to cope with this situation we all find ourselves in at the moment, little routines can help give us a sense of security and familiarity — no matter if it’s having a cup of coffee in the midday sun on your balcony, calling an old friend in the evenings, or trying out a new recipe every day.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/desktop-wallpaper-calendars-april-2020/

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs Like written words are to language, fonts, colors, shapes and icons are to visual design. An effective visual design language not only acts as a communication framework for all stakeholders on a product development team, but unites a brand and its customers to ensure that a company’s brand identity matches a customer’s brand perception.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/visual-design-language-building-blocks/

Sharing the things we have learned is at the heart of everything we do at Smashing. That goes for the team as well as our authors, and Vitaly has been working on a set of checklists to accompany his workshop, Smart Interface Design Patterns. The resulting PDF is 152 pages packed with useful information to help you create better interfaces. And, we’re offering it to you free of charge. These checklists are based on the work Vitaly has been doing for many years, exploring and examining examples of desktop and mobile interfaces.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/smart-interface-design-patterns-checklists/

Git was released almost 15 years ago. In that time it has gone from underdog to unbeaten champion, git init is often the first command run on a new project. It is undoubtedly an important tool that many of us use on a daily basis, and yet it is often seen as magic: brilliant, but scary. There’s been a lot written about getting started with git, understanding how git works under the hood or techniques for better branching strategies.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/make-life-easier-when-using-git/

For e-commerce designers, it’s easy to focus on designing the home page, individual product pages as well as the checkout experience because they’re obvious stepping stones along the mobile shoppers’ journey. Based on the following data, though, category pages also have a role to play — as the intermediary between search engines and e-commerce websites. Jill Kocher Brown, the SEO Director of JumpFly, shared the following research at SMX West 2020:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/mobile-conversions-category-page-design/

Literally, tomes have been written on version control. Nevertheless, I will start by sharing a brief explanation and other introductory content to whet your appetite for further study. Version control (not to be confused with version history) is basically a way for people to collaborate in their own environments on a single project, with a single main source of truth (often called the “master” branch). I’ll go over today is the bare minimum you’ll need to know in order to download a project, make a change, and then send it to master.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/designers-code-git-hmtl-css-engineering-principles/

Please note that dates are subject to change due to COVID-19, so it would be best to check the websites for further information regarding their conference dates and schedules. We’re putting our heart and soul into crafting personal, inclusive and valuable events for all of us to become better professionals. With online workshops, we aim to give you the same experience and access to experts as in an in-person workshop, without needing to leave your desk.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/web-tech-front-end-ux-conferences/

In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, we’re talking about the user experience around converting site visitors into customers. Can our selling techniques leave customers feeling cheated? And how can that be avoided? I spoke to conversion optimisation specialist Paul Boag to find out. Show Notes More about the book Click! How To Encourage Clicks Without Shady Tricks Paul on Twitter The Boagworld UX Show Paul’s consultancy Boagworks Weekly Update “Implementing Infinite Scroll And Image Lazy Loading In React,” by Chidi Orji “How Indigo.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/smashing-podcast-episode-12/

We had to postpone our SmashingConf in San Francisco until 10th–11th November 2020 and, like so many of you, our team will be staying firmly put at home for the next month or more. However, we know that many of you are still hoping to develop your skills, and we had workshops ready to go. We decided to find a way to bring the workshops to your home office, trying to keep as much of the live experience as possible.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/smashing-online-workshops/

For the past few years, books about HTML and CSS have almost vanished from my studio bookshelves. I replaced them with books on art direction, editorial, and graphic design. Recently, I was browsing a new addition to my library and was captivated by one magazine spread. I loved the way its designer has playfully combined images and typography to create a design which was full of energy and movement. To remind myself to take another look at this design, I snapped a picture of it with my iPhone.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/inspired-design-decisions-otto-storch/

Table sorting has always been a pretty hard issue to get right. There’s a lot of interactions to keep track of, extensive DOM mutations to do and even intricate sorting algorithms, too. It’s just one of those challenges that are hard to get right. Right? Instead of pulling in external libraries, let’s try to make stuff ourselves. In this article, we’re going to create a reusable way to sort your tabular data in React.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/sortable-tables-react/

It takes a long time for a new CSS feature or improvement to progress from an initial draft to a fully-supported and stable CSS feature that developers can use. JavaScript-based polyfills can be used as a substitute for the lack of browser support in order to use new CSS features before they’re officially implemented. But they are flawed in most cases. For example, scrollsnap-polyfill is one of several polyfills that can be used to fix browser support inconsistencies for the CSS Scroll Snap specification.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/practical-overview-css-houdini/

As a designer with many years of experience, I often encourage my colleagues and reports to pick up some coding skills. While many are open to the idea, others balk at the notion. I usually hear some variation of “I didn’t study design to become a developer.” Although this is a valid concern, I’d like to emphasize two points: a better understanding of the materials usually leads to better outcomes, and there is an important distinction between “coding” and “software engineering.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/designers-code-terminal-text-editors-part-1/

Usability is critical for a website’s success, but it can be difficult to nail down in early design and development stages without a little help. It’s not as though the research and preparation you do for a new site won’t give you insights on how to build something that’s both beautiful and functional. And having a rock-solid design system and designer-developer handoff will certainly help you bring quality control and consistency to your site.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/indigo-design-usability-testing-guesswork-web-design/

If you have been looking for an alternative to pagination, infinite scroll is a good consideration. In this article, we’re going to explore some use cases for the Intersection Observer API in the context of a React functional component. The reader should possess a working knowledge of React functional components. Some familiarity with React hooks will be beneficial but not required, as we will be taking a look at a few.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/infinite-scroll-lazy-image-loading-react/

For all the times we asked folks about Smashing, most still seem to believe that we’re some sort of large publishing company situated somewhere in the United States — both of which are wrong. It all started in Freiburg, Germany, and the team consists of folks scattered all over the world — with most of us not working fulltime for Smashing. That’s right, working remotely is quite familiar to us, and so with the current situation going on with COVID-19 that is making everyone uneasy, we’d like to make the best of things and help our friends who are having to work or lead teams remotely for the first time.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/monthly-roundup-03-2020/

We have all been looking forward to our SmashingConf in San Francisco, and are so sad to have to announce that the conference is being postponed until 10th–11th November 2020. If you have tickets for the event, you should already have received an email. If not, then please see the detailed information on this page, get in touch with us, and we will help you out. The team is on standby to try and help you as quickly as possible.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/smashingconfsf-2020-update/

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs) became a W3C open standard in 1999 — back when the new tech hotness was the Blackberry phone, Napster first invaded college dorms, and the Y2K bug sparked fear in us all. Fast forward to our modern digital world and you’ll notice that while the other tech trends have waned, SVGs are still around and thriving. This is partly due to SVGs having a small footprint for such high visual fidelity, in a world where bandwidth and performance matter more than ever — especially on mobile devices and situations/locations where data is at a premium.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/accessible-svgs-inclusiveness-beyond-patterns/

If you’re anything like me, you’ve forgotten your password more than once, especially on sites you haven’t visited in a while. You’ve probably also seen, and/or been mortified by, reset password emails that contain your password in plain text. Unfortunately, the reset password workflow gets short shrift and limited attention during application development. This not only can lead to a frustrating user experience, but can also leave your application with gaping security holes.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/03/creating-secure-password-flows-nodejs-mysql/