March 17, 2024

Issue #635: Niche product design

Pinball user interface, How to build a great web portfolio, The design industry's role in combating misinformation, CSS background-repeat, and more.

Codux: The all-in-one visual development environment - Edit CSS and style React components visually directly on the source code. Build UI the way it was intended with total design control, all within web standards. - Codux sponsored
Niche product design - Seeking uniqueness where design flourish. - Itay Dreyfus
Pinball user interface - Using software can be hard. All those form fields, menu items, interactive widgets and more… continually changing. - Luke Wroblewski

Read all week, picked once. The best design links — every Tuesday.

Defensible visual design - When you show your visual design to people, they might ask questions or challenge your decisions. Here are some notes on how to make your visual design easier to defend. - Anthony Hobday
Whats wrong with software design today (video) - As soon as I read No More Boring Apps I was hooked. Andy Allen immediately became one of my design heroes and now I use his Not Boring apps daily. This conversation is a behind-the-scenes of his journey. - Andy Allen, Michael Riddering
Design against AI - In this 30-minute 2024 Design and Tech Report, ‘Design Against AI,’ the evolving dynamics between AI and design are explored, highlighting the uncertainty of whether to compete with, protest against, or collaborate with AI. - John Maeda
Storytelling in UX work: Study guide - Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn how to craft compelling stories while communicating research findings and design ideas. - Megan Chan

Whats next for a global design system - I truly feel like we can dramatically improve the world’s web experiences while making better use of our collective human potential. - Brad Frost
Techniques to break words - I made a page that allows you to play around with a few variations on breaking words. I use long single words in English, German, Hebrew (right-to-left), Hindi, Japanese, and Arabic (right-to-left). - Adrian Roselli
Building websites and building websites well - Ready for a short exercise? Write down what you associate with building a website. Then, write down what you think is needed to build a website well. - Jens Oliver Meiert
The quiet, pervasive devaluation of frontend - I keep noticing those of us in the frontend field being treated much the same as nurses, paralegals, and executive assistants. Our work is seen as important, certainly, but just not the same as, or as important as, the “real” work. - Josh Collinsworth

Math: A great design tool - I’ve assembled tools over years that help me get over the fear or trepidation more quickly than others. - Dan Mall
Color is a four letter word - Profanity can be a remarkable way to get a point across. The trick is sparse use in the right situation. The same goes for color. Yes, color turns heads. Flowers figured that out hundreds of million years ago. That can be good or bad. - PJ Onori

How to build a newthing - The beginning is not with an idea but with the feeling towards an idea. Something you feel but do not know. It makes you anxious and gives you somersaults inside if you try to explain. - Yancey Strickler
Craft - On dedication and love for the invisible work. - Caio Braga, Fabricio Teixeira
Juice - The non-essential visual, audio and haptic effects that enhance the players experience. - Brad Woods

What is design? - Making sense and giving form as a formula for design. - Ida Persson