“Why does this have to be a modal?”

By Chris Coyier on

It’s not that modals are all automatically bad, it’s that, as Adrian Egger says, “modals are the crutch of the inarticulate design and developer” and they “are easily replaced with other patterns that are less jarring.” on the dedicated site for this crusade: modalzmodalzmodalz.com. Adrian’s personal site is sweet, too.

Design Spells

By Chris Coyier on

I feel like I haven’t seen a really nice web design inspiration gallery in a while so Design Spells is really doing it for me. Design details that feel like magic. I think it’s the focus on websites. 😍

Flashy Landing Pages

By Chris Coyier on

I’ve had this Tweet bookmarked for months now from Brian Lovin who does a classic and well-deserved wrist-slapping of flashy design at the cost of communication. It’s all-too-easy to focus on exotic micro-interactions that will get likes on social media, but fail to communicate what a product does or tell a compelling story. Criticism of […]

A design portfolio mistake

By Chris Coyier on

Matej Latin has rejected the vast majority of portfolios he’s seen in his career for one reason, a “linear design process”: By “linear design process” I mean cookie-cutter case studies that always read the same. The designer learned about a problem, conducted user interviews, created user personas, proceeded to sketches, then mockups and wireframes, made […]

Design Engineers

By Chris Coyier on

The job title “Design Engineer” has been having a moment. I commented on Jim Nielsen’s takes recently. To me it makes a logical sense. The engineer aspect means they know the tech (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), and the design aspect means they are building and refining the look and experience. You don’t have to be both. […]

The Linear Look

By Chris Coyier on

If there is any one web design style trend that is dominant right now, it’s The Linear Look, as Alex Trost shows off here.

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