A List Apart

I've been fortunate enough to attend talks given by both Luke Wroblewski (LUKEW, http://www.lukew.com/) and Joshua Clarke (Global Moxie, http://globalmoxie.com). Both have written excellent books on design principles and UX/UI implementation (Luke on web form design, Joshua on app interfaces and design). If you're interested in web standards and design, http://www.alistapart.com/ is also a great site to follow.

"Being pretty" is a must for great usability. I am not talking about decoration which is superficial, but the real prettiness which comes from having clear layout, visual hierarchy, well thought-out typography, etc. To borrow from Steve Jobs: design is how it works. There is not much to "work" on useit.com, but there definitely is a room for improvement (layout, typography, focus, etc), now it is just two columns with bunch of links. See for example http://alistapart.com/ — for me it is still has the best design for content-oriented site. It is very pretty and at the same time all that prettiness has a function.

I think the solution is a combination of tactics. A curated "getting started" or "best of" list is a good way to get eyes on some of the best posts that are representative of the blog. Make good use of categories and tags, and use lists of related posts to make navigation between similar posts less painful. On my blog (http://grokcode.com), I also have a prominent "popular today" section on the homepage so people can see which posts are getting the most traffic at the moment (these are rarely the newest posts). http://www.alistapart.com/ has a curated "editor's choice" section on the homepage that is frequently updated and help draw attention to great content from the archives. Also, the standard blog format uses entire posts on the homepage and archive pages, but everything is so much cleaner and easier to navigate if only post summaries appear on those pages.

Hey Dan, I would definitely recommend reading these sources for getting a comprehensive understanding about general design principals and core ideas: The Gestalt Principles The guiding theory in understanding how the human brain process images and visual data. http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprincip… Web Typography Great resource for understanding typography and especially for the web http://webtypography.net/ A List Apart I am sure you are already familiar with this awesome publication by the Happy Cog crew and other contributors. To me this covers most of the on screen design issues in today's world and it keeps on evolving which is awesome. http://www.alistapart.com/ I Hope this help!

http://www.alistapart.com/ is where I learned a lot. One of the classic articles was about using an unordered list to make a menu. http://www.alistapart.com/articles/horizdropdowns/

I think you should focus on improving the design of your site. Make it more simple so your content is focused - remove the weird matching colors, cloud picture taking too much space on the top and other things that take the focus of your site's main attraction: great content. I think you could get inspired by A List Apart ( http://www.alistapart.com/ ), they provide similar articles like you, but their design and typography is much better.

Dustin Curtis recommended me 3 sites on twitter the other day: http://www.alistapart.com/ Articles and reference http://creattica.com/ Social voting on CSS, logos, biz cards etc. http://typophile.com/ Mostly discussion as far as I can tell. Creattica is by far my favorite for just browsing. ALA is popular destination for anyone involved in web design.

Nice article, the comments here are kind of amazing for a nominally technical audience. It is almost as if people have no idea how difficult automatic page layout and formatting is. There are literally PhD thesis topics on it[1]. And to expect that complexity to be abstracted away into some sort of simple "do-what-I-mean" expression? That just isn't going to happen. Go look at Gwern Branwen's web site[2]. That is art. But the trick is decide how you want the site to look and then constraining your written material to be expressible in that style. I've been looking at web page layout since 1995 when I joined a startup that was doing the "first magazine on the web about Golf!"[3] When the Zen Garden folks did their web site and started the 'A List Apart' mailing list which is now a website[4] it really helped me understand just what one was up against if you wanted to produce web content that rendered nicely on a wide variety of projections. And yes, the term projection is intentional because the function of going from semantic content to presentation on a screen or paper or other flat surface of finite size, is a mapping (or projection) from a native space into the rule set of the destination space. That rule set consists of both physical constraints (pixels per inch, total pixels horizonally and vertically, color capability) and software constraints (how much of the underlying capability can the browser software that is currently running express). Not to mention that every…

It's absolutely fine to be a not-great UX designer. I'm also not a great UX designer. The way you wrote and posted this article, there was an implication to me (and I'm guessing to others) that you think this design philosophy is better than what most other people are doing. The article would benefit from some qualifications, e.g.: "I'm still teaching myself UX and aesthetic design," for example. As it is, it comes across as a strong argument from someone who thinks he's an expert (and thinks other people's design decisions are wrong). In terms of resources, you could take a full-semester class just about typography. Designing UIs is really hard and requires a ton of research. I've spent hundreds of hours over the last 10+ years just reading books and articles, and I still consider myself an amateur. My strong recommendation is to pay someone who is great at UX and understands how to accommodate people with physical disabilities. Even people who are just 40+ years old (and not disabled in any way) are getting significantly less light coming through their retinas, and it's possible to choose fonts and colors that are difficult for them. You can find someone who could revamp your stylesheet in a couple of days, and it shouldn't cost you more than $1k-$2k with the right person on Upwork. You seem to be great at a lot of other things, so why not find someone who has equal depth at UX design? As a generalist myself, I often rely on specialists because it's truly impossible…

I can't quite tell if you're having trouble with front-end architecture (code structure/design, separating things effectively across HTML/CSS/JS) or design (UI, UX, look/feel, application layout and navigation structure) or both. If the first is the problem, it's probably worth running through some tutorials to build a full application on whatever set of libs/framework you've chosen. For example, there's a course on Udemy called "Modern React and Redux" that'll introduce you to (surprise) react and redux, as well as demonstrating how to structure your application and build some basics. There's any number of similar things from other people for other ways to structure an app with jQuery or Angular or whatever. If the design-side stuff is the problem, the first and easiest thing to do is look at examples of good design. Showcases like https://www.thebestdesigns.com/ will have tons of beautiful, well-designed websites you can look through and examine. This is more useful if you put some effort into it (What do I like about this design? Why did they do things this way? If I play with the CSS and adjust these things, how does that change the look/feel? How did they get this effect?) Sites like https://alistapart.com/ and Smashing magazine will have some useful articles to read, sites that sell templates can give an idea of current design trends that are popular/sell well (themeforest etc.), Dribbble and the like will have detailed design mocks, UI kits and guidelines will have…

"Life without enquiry is not worth living for a man", think that's Socrates. Good luck, I remember doing a 3 months internship at Agilent Tech yeeaaaarrss ago where at the end I was like - "No way am i ever working in this Dilbert socially backwards environment" Not to say it was a bad place, just not for me. Since then, I've had 6 or 7 real jobs, in 4 or 5 different industries, travelled round the world, asked loads of questions, tried loads of things and still not satisfied. It's a tough one, everybody's different and very few people figure 'it' out, hence why you most advice is stupidly simple, short and unhelpful like 'be yourself', 'do what you love', etc... the list goes on. 'Wear sunscreen' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI there is a good line in there "Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't." My 2 cents: - try everything while still young and while your responsibilities are small, and monthly nut is small. It's much more difficult to have a mid life crisis when you need $4000 a month for mortgages, cars and kids. - don't chase the $$$ - you'll never be as good as the guy who's doing it cause he loves it - most people aren't satisfied with what they do, which is why books by Tim Ferris and Chris Guillebeau sell so well, they sell the 'dream' - as far as…

I'd actual advise you to "Think in Lisp" while learning Javascript - I'd just read "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" when I started getting deeper in the JS, and it made a world of difference. The Javascript type system is a little like Python and a little insane - check out "http://www.slideshare.net/SlexAxton/superclassy-inheritance-in-javascr… The Mozilla HTML reference is very good: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/HTML/Element and between it and just viewing the source on decent websites you can learn a lot - coming from Java, you must know XML pretty well already :) As for CSS, I've always just used the W3's reference: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/ which is a little dense but followable. (The W3 for HTML isn't bad either, but they will use the schema definitions for everything, which are slightly opaque.) Finally, http://www.alistapart.com/ is a great reference for the pragmatic state of web design. Lots of great articles, especially going back a bit.

Web design is a really broad field. You need to understand HTML and CSS, you need to understand the limitations of web browsers as a medium, you need to understand how users interact with webpages, and you need to have a decent handle on typography/visual design. I don't have good tutorials/articles for all of these areas, unfortunately: they're things I've learned over a pretty long period of time by reading a lot of different disparate articles. In general, A List Apart (http://www.alistapart.com/) is an excellent resource for articles on design. While it's frequently linked, a lot of the stuff on Smashing Magazine (http://smashingmagazine.com/) is awful. Their articles on how to do things with HTML/CSS are usually decent, but their articles about actual design usually demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what good design is. I'm also haven't really found any resources with good exercises. One of the things about design is that you really need to be getting feedback from a real person. If you're doing things and would like design-related feedback, I'm usually happy to give it. (My email is in my profile.) For learning HTML and CSS I recommend HTML Dog (http://htmldog.com/). It's a bit dated and won't cover HTML5/CSS3 stuff at all, but it does teach good practices, and I haven't found anything better. I also haven't found a good article/tutorial on web browser limitations. You need to be aware of web browser width (people generally design for a 1024px wide…

I got similar complaints about my designs, (which can be super frustrating..."i gave you a website...now you want it to be gorgeous too...sheesh"). So I started taking note of what I liked and didn't like about site designs. I made a delicious list and tagged the sites i liked with "webdesign-inspiration" if they have something that specifically stood out to me. Design is an art, and every artist learns by imitating. Find a feature you enjoy and try to duplicate it. Firebug is your friend. But never get too attached. Just because a child spends hours on a macaroni picture doesn't mean everyone will love it. Listen to your users/friends and take their advice with a grain of salt. Re-design, is just part of design. Find a few design blogs that you can relate to, i like css-tricks, and check them every once in a while. If you like sparten designs, read http://www.alistapart.com/ . A typography based webpage design takes more skill and patience to make look good than just throwing some blue web 2.0 buttons on your nav bar. Keep a folder of screen shots of web designs you like and constantly ask yourself what makes you like them, and how can you incorporate those features in your site. Finally, if you have any limitations (mine is colors) there are plenty of resources to help you out, just search for them. Such as http://www.colourlovers.com/ Good luck!

> Uh, no? There are reasons that user-agent sniffing is highly deprecated. I never mentioned user-agent sniffing nor would I ever recommend this outdated technique. Using media queries for responsive design became a thing in 2010 with Ethan Marcotte's seminal article "Responsive Web Design" [1]. In the intervening 14 years, we have much better ways of adapting to different screen sizes. In fact, using CSS Grid for layout as it was intended results in responsive layouts without media queries and breakpoints. Watch Jen Simmons' videos on intrinsic design [2] for the full run-down. [1]: https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSquHt1VCf34IngL-rsj1DRIhmTDKL…

It might have been this: as posted by @hypertexthero "My favorite from 20 years ago: Doug Bowman’s 'Sliding Doors' of CSS to make rounded corner tabs that would expand to fit the text: https://alistapart.com/article/slidingdoors/ "

Some of my favorites: - Faux columns, to get a visual stretch and make it appear that the sidebar was as long as the content https://alistapart.com/article/fauxcolumns/ - Or take that even further, with a nine-patch and 9 div's or a 3x3 table you could hack your own borders by repeating backgrounds in some axis. With CSS3 we got border-image that could help this a bit. These border styles aren't that much in favor anymore, though. - To make rounded borders, one could use the nine-patch. But many would also use a generator to make some HTML that basically simulated a rounded border, by making lots of elements. Found this article describing it: http://benogle.com/2009/04/29/css-round-corners.html Conventional wisdom was that the added markup would be more bytes than an image would be, but less roundtrips and quite easy to do.

My favorite from 20 years ago: Doug Bowman’s “Sliding Doors” of CSS to make rounded corner tabs that would expand to fit the text: https://alistapart.com/article/slidingdoors/

Aldo worth mentioning; the sliding doors technique for rounded corners; https://alistapart.com/article/slidingdoors/

CSS and HTML is great for documents - not so great for applications. Most sites end up implementing their own navigation UI/UX at a minimum (an application) - many end up as more applications. For an example of "documents", see eg: https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/ Or https://alistapart.com/article/building-books-with-css3/

Wow - it’s been a long time since I’ve thought about this site. I remember … wait this isn’t the same as https://alistapart.com/ I wonder if there is a relation between the two.

Not really, but browsing Smashing Magazine[1] or A List Apart’s[2] more popular articles could give you a better sense, and some more in depth knowledge. 1: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/ 2: https://alistapart.com/

Some classic webmaster nostalgia: Sliding door technique: https://alistapart.com/article/slidingdoors/ Bulletproof buttons: https://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200705/creating_bulletproof_gra…

My two favorite articles from that era are from a list apart: https://alistapart.com/article/prettyaccessibleforms/ and site point: https://www.sitepoint.com/fancy-form-design-css/. Long form articles were pretty much the norm for these types of educational content and videos were rare. CSS-tricks and smashing magazine came along a bit later with some good content also. Haven’t found video equivalents of any of it but I haven’t looked much either.

Slightly off-topic but I love that A List Apart is still running. They were a mainstay for me early in my career, the Suckerfish Dropdown article in particular was a big deal to me. https://alistapart.com/article/dropdowns/

The term was coined by Heydon Pickering [0]. He's great, also responsible for the useful site Inclusive Components [1] and one of the authors of Every Layout [2]. [0] https://alistapart.com/article/axiomatic-css-and-lobotomized-owls/ [1] https://inclusive-components.design [2] https://every-layout.dev

I always thought tabs were an Opera invention, or maybe one of those IE shells like Maxthon or Neoplanet? IE5:mac was a fantastic browser though and was widely regarded as having the best CSS1 conformance of its time, as well as some cool features like an eBay auction tracker sidebar that seem quaint today but were very useful to me at the time: https://alistapart.com/article/ie5mac/ On the flip side, the only time I can remember hearing an entire crowd boo Stebe Jovs was when he announced that IE 4.5 would ship as the default browser in Mac OS 8: https://youtu.be/WxOp5mBY9IY?t=142

Rachel Agnew is a great resource for learning modern css and the things it's capable of. A good start is probably these slides on 'The Evolution of Responsive Design' - https://noti.st/rachelandrew/4AtjON#spytgfW which also lists a few other resources (including this article: https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design) Flexbox froggy https://flexboxfroggy.com/ is a good learning game for understanding flexbox And Grid Garden https://cssgridgarden.com/ does the same for css grids. Understanding both those is pretty core to understanding modern responsive design.

Here is a handful of blogs I follow on Design/UX/Product: - https://spotify.design/ - https://thedsgnblog.com/ - https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/ - https://www.creativereview.co.uk/ - https://alistapart.com/ - One of the favs.

> The "best practices" in web development and user experience all deoptimize end-user ergonomy and productivity. What are you seeing that leads you to think this? The ads and engagement drivers (autoplaying videos of other content on the site) on sites that need eyeballs to keep the lights on, or the articles showing how to download the minimum usable assets so you don't waste the user's bandwidth, battery, and disk space[1]? The latter is what I tend to see when I'm looking at pages describing "best practice". 1: https://alistapart.com/article/request-with-intent-caching-strategies-…