Dave:
A danger I am constantly battling is becoming too tied to my tools. By tools, I mean the things I use to get work done. It could be Photoshop, CSS, a CMS, pen, paper, anything I use to do my job. Why is this so dangerous? Aren’t tools there to make our lives easier? Well, they are, but we often lock in out toolset too early on projects and it ends up hurting our product in the long run.
Josh:
Primer:
I thought that I would start a series of fairly straight forward posts that refer to the basics that are so often overlooked in web development and more specifically the realm of front end development. Utilizing sprites should be one of those techniques that it’s a no brainer and have no second thoughts/reasons on why not to use them. In case you did forget, the sprite is in reference to early video game developers who used a large image to contain multiple states of an entity while preserving precious space on the game media at the time.
Samantha:
At Phase2 style tiles are an important part of our design process. They provide us with a communication tool that helps us to understand out client's vision and achieve their goals through visual design. I recently wrote a post explaining where style tiles came from, what they are and how a designer can integrate them into their process.
Betsy:
We love to see more web design and UX talks popping up at DrupalCon each year. And we’re particularly excited that our own Samantha Warren is helping to lead that trend publicly.
Laura:
Openpublicapp.com launched today. In creating the design for the site, we wanted the brand to convey two things:
Betsy:
See You at DrupalCon in Chicago! We go there to get inspired, recharge, exchange awesome ideas, and help to make a difference in the open-source community beyond our neighborhoods here in the DC area.
Joshua:
Agile design is a given for software development; flexibility helps us better contain unforeseen technical challenges and pivot on formerly expected features when they’re deemed unnecessary.
Dave:
We’ve all been to a website that’s overrun with advertising. Performance on these tends to be abysmal -- the slow loading time is mostly thanks to all those jumping, flashing, talking, moving, animated sidebars, headers, footers, and mid-page graphics screaming for our attention.
Samantha:
If you are a web designer, there is no shortage of inspirational and educational design conferences available for you to speak at or attend. Ranging from practical to theoretical, thousands of attendees to a hundred, conferences are a great way to get away from your computer screen and make connections with other designers... in person.
Samantha:
There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website that is hard to navigate or poorly designed. Users seek information and when that information is difficult to access, it causes a breakdown in communication, frustration, and a bad experience.
