Thursday, December 18, 2014

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Getting started with Foundation for apps

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So, there’s a new version of Foundation…


Not long ago, we told you all about how to get started with Foundation 5. Now there’s a new version out; not “Foundation 6” but Foundation for Apps, and it’s going to be huge.


That Foundation 5 is a powerful and flexible framework, there is no doubt. It can be used for content-driven websites, apps, almost anything you can think of, though it might take some work and customization. There are, however, layout and design conventions specific to apps. Also, apps are often developed for mobile browsers, which support newer technologies.


In short, the classic Foundation framework, while flexible enough to make apps with, was created as a tool for many purposes. App developers may want something that caters a bit more specifically to their needs, and Zurb has provided exactly that.


Installation & features


Foundation for Apps is not the old Foundation with some added features. It’s a completely different product. It’s designed from the ground up do be web developer-friendly. Indeed, while you don’t need to be a developer to use it, it helps to know a little bit about setting up development environments.


This is because you don’t just unzip this framework and drop it in your apps folder. It’s based on tools like Angular.js](https://angularjs.org/) and Sass; it comes with its own mini-server which will compile and serve your projects for you on the fly. This means that you have to have Node.js, Ruby, and a few other things installed. You also have to install the whole thing from the command line. Developers working on Linux and OSX won’t have any problems getting set up. It’s a bit more troublesome for aspiring nerds like me who use Windows.


Once you get past these initial hurdl… ahem I mean, embrace this new way of doing things, you’ll see some awesome stuff under the cover, including:



  • A grid based on Flexbox and designed for apps. It includes support for laying out your “screens” vertically and horizontally, scrolling inside each section, and more;

  • tons of UI components;

  • Angular.js; it’s all the rage right now;

  • a template and component-based file structure;

  • Motion UI: Zurb’s new animation library designed specifically for app user interfaces.


Getting started


One of the advantages of frameworks in general is that they’re perfect for making quick prototypes. Once you’ve installed this thing, and have started the mini server, it’s time to put your ideas together into a live, interactive interface that doesn’t do anything. Yet.


For this article, I created a dead-simple “contact management page” that would have any client begging for more details, and maybe a change of layout:


Getting started with Foundation for apps


In your app’s directory, you’ll find several folders and files. For the purposes of pure front-end development, you only need to worry about the “client” folder. That’s where all of your source files go. In there, the following folders and files are set up by default:




assets
- js
- - app.js
- scss
- - _settings.scss
- - app.css
- templates
- - home.html
index.html

The app.scss and app.js files are where you put all your custom Sass and JS, respectively. _settings.scss is just that: the file where you can override a lot of the default styles. The code is properly commented, and it’s easy enough to find what you need. You can also use this file to completely disable different parts of the CSS framework, so they won’t be included when your app is built.


index.html is the file that “make it all happen” by pulling in other components, app screens, and so on. home.html is the content that you’ll see when you first go to http://localhost:8080, once the mini-server is running. It’s also where I started working.


The grid


The first thing you’ll have to get used to is the grid itself. It uses Flexbox, so things work quite a bit differently, but the classes will be familiar. To create two blocks/columns of equal width, this is all you need to do:




<div class="grid-block">
<div class="grid-block"></div>
<div class="grid-block"></div>
</div>

Yup. That’s it. If you want to put actual content inside those two columns, you’ll need to do it differently. This is what the columns in my prototype look like:




<div class="grid-block">
<div class="grid-block">
<div id="side" class="small-12 medium-4 grid-content medium-order-2"></div>
<div id="contacts" class="small-12 medium-8 grid-content medium-order-1">
</div>
</div>

You’ll notice that you always seem to need two elements with grid-block as classes to make things align properly. You might also notice that I’ve manually specified column widths. If you don’t, all blocks will expand to fill all available space, remaining equally wide.


Components


Also included are a large number of components from classic Foundation. You have your classic callouts and modal windows, alert boxes, form styles, button styles, tabs, and more. The typography is solid, and there’s also a limited icon set (all SVG) included for use in buttons, menus, and so on.


I’m particularly fond of the panels, which are basically blocks of content hidden off-canvas, which can be called onto the screen from any side.


I also like the “cards”. Cards are just simple rectangular objects meant to separate content. I used them for the list of contacts in the screenshot above. For the full list, see the documentation.


Go for it.


What are you waiting for? Get your command-line on and start playing with this. Even if you’re not an app developer, it’s good to know how to work in this environment, especially if you work with actual programmers.








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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Accelerate your front-end website development with Harp

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I like static sites. To be more accurate, I like building them. There’s something pure about sitting there in front of your screen; it’s just you and your text editor, writing in plain old HTML and CSS.


Don’t get me wrong, dynamic sites are fun too. God knows I’m a fan of WordPress and the ease of use that it affords users. Static sites bring me back, though. I remember switching from WYSIWYG software to a text editor. I remember streamlining the development process with my first ever PHP function: include. Those were good days, but unlike so many others, they’re not all gone.


The difference is that now, we can do it better. Pre-processors like Less and Sass vastly improved the experience of writing CSS. We have any number of scripting languages to mix into our HTML, if we so choose. And then… then people did some really interesting things.


I’ve previously mentioned the Hammer app for Mac. It’s an app that introduces its own functions and expansions to good old HTML, allowing you to include a file as a partial in another, and other good things. It compiles the results into a regular static site that can be hosted anywhere. It’s actually got quite a few more features than that, but this article isn’t about Hammer. Why? It’s only available for the Mac platform.


Enter Harp…


Introducing Harp


It’s not an app, it’s a whole lot more. It includes preprocessors for CSS. It includes templating languages for HTML documents. It’s a mini server that can be used for development, or turned into an actual production server. You can use server-side JavaScript to turn it into a full app, as it runs on Node.js. Or, if you’re not a programmer, you can just build your static site, and then compile it for hosting elsewhere.


Because it’s based on Node.js, it’s cross-platform. It’s also MIT licensed, so it’s free. You can even make changes and redistribute or resell it if you like.


Now, people who have been keeping an eye out will have noticed that Harp is not the only tool of its kind. Lots of people are creating Node-based tools for getting web projects started quickly. My main problem with these is that they generally assume that you want to use their favorite CSS framework, animation library, or HTML boilerplate. Harp makes no assumptions about the code you want to write. It just gives you the tools to write it faster.


Mind you, it has to be installed and run via the command line. There’s no GUI for this. But once you get it going — and that isn’t hard at all — the benefits outweigh the learning curve.


The tools


CSS pre-processors


By now, I’m sure most of our readers are familiar with the ways that the web industry has tried to improve on vanilla CSS. When the mini-server for your project is running, LESS, SASS, and Stylus files are all automatically compiled into CSS.


The compilation is always satisfyingly fast. In all of my tests, changes made to my website have compiled in the time it takes me to save my file, then refresh my browser.


Templating languages


Also included are Jade and EJS. These are both JavaScript templating languages designed to help you write/generate more advanced HTML documents with more flexibility. Basically, you can build HTML templates, and store your actual page content separately from those templates. It’s kind of like using a CMS, only there’s no database (unless you want one), and you have to write all of the content into plain text files.


The real advantage is, of course, code maintenance, plus all the cool stuff that actual programmers can do with actual server and client-side JavaScript. These are also the languages that allow you to create more advanced systems, like blogs, all relatively easily (again, if you have a programmer on the payroll).


What’s the difference between the two? It’s mostly about how you prefer to write your code.


EJS keeps things simple. If you already know HTML, it’s just a matter of adding in EJS-specific tags, like so: <% include global/header %>. What I did there? Basically, I just grabbed the HTML for my page header from another file and imported it for use in my main template. You can do lots more complex stuff, of course. Here’s what the Harp documentation has to say about EJS.


Jade takes a very different approach to writing HTML altogether. It looks like this, as shown on the project’s home page:




body
h1 Jade - node template engine
#container.col
if youAreUsingJade
p You are amazing
else
p Get on it!
p.
Jade is pretty cool,

That all gets translated into HTML and Javascript. Note the inclusion of an if/else statement right in the middle of it all, and the dependence on proper indentation.


Coffeescript


Coffeescript is to JavaScript what Jade is to HTML. Basically, it’s a simplified format for writing JavaScript, which then gets compiled into the regular stuff. Like Jade, it’s heavily indentation-dependent, and drops a lot of the syntax.


It looks like this (another example shamelessly cribbed from the project’s home page):




math =
root: Math.sqrt
square: square
cube: (x) -> x * square x

And the output looks like this:




math = {
root: Math.sqrt,
square: square,
cube: function(x) {
return x * square(x);
}
};

The platform


The websites created with Harp can be hosted anywhere, of course. It’s worth mentioning, though, that Harp’s creators made a hosting platform specifically designed for stuff built with their software. The pricing ain’t bad, and it integrates with Dropbox for easy automatic updates to your site. Check it out here: www.harp.io


Conclusion


Harp, with its preprocessors, templating languages, sheer speed, and cross-platform goodness, is a solid addition to any designer’s toolbox. I say it’s worth the learning curve.








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Friday, December 5, 2014

16 places to get your photo books this holiday season

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Perusing your digital photos are great, but sometimes you just want something a little more tangible, something you can hold in your hands. Of course you can turn to getting a bunch of prints at your local superstore or pharmacy, but then what do you do with all the prints? If you’re anything like me, you look through them twice and then shove them into a drawer to be forgotten.


Instead, why not get a bound photo book printed? There are tons of places online to get it done (many of the aforementioned superstores and pharmacies also provide this), some of which can even pull images directly from your Instagram or other online photo accounts. Some offer tons of options, while others offer much more limited ones (which is sometimes reflected in lower prices).


Here are 16 of the best online photo book services, one of which is almost sure to meet your needs (and your budget).


Snapfish


Snapfish offers photo books in a variety of sizes: 5×7, 8×8, 8×11, 12×12, and 11×14. They offer three different types of books: Premier, which can have up to 100 pages and has a lay-flat binding that’s perfect for two-page spreads; Custom, that has a lay-flat binding for up to 90 pages, or a perfect binding up to 150 pages; and Classic, which offers up to 150 pages in either stitched or perfect-bound format.


Pricing starts at $11.99 for a 5×7 book, or $59.99 for an 11×14 book. Their bestseller is the 8×11 book, starting at $24.99.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Blurb


Blurb offers photo books with five different paper options, including standard semi-matte 80# paper, matte 100# paper, and Proline Pearl Photo semi-gloss 140# paper. Their books also come in five sizes: small square 7×7, standard portrait 7.75×9.75, standard landscape 10×8, large square 12×12, and large landscape 13×11. They’re available as softcovers, imagewrap hardcovers, and dust jacketed hardcovers.


Small square books start at $34.99 with 20 pages, while the large landscape books start at $66.24. Quantity discounts are available if you’re purchasing more than 10 books at a time.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Montage


Montage offers photo books in three sizes: small 6×6, medium 8.5×8.5, and large 12×12. They offer “auto-magic” book designs that do your page layouts for you, and their books include up to 70 pages and 180 photos for a fixed price. Books are bound in eco-friendly leather from Italy, and each book has lay-flat pages.


Small books are just $39, medium books are $59, and large are $119.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Kolo


Kolo is an award-winning photo book company that offers a variety of sizes and formats. They offer a 5.5×8, 8.5×11, and 11×14 books, plus a smaller Noci photo book with 24 photos and a Vineyard book that holds just 6 photos. They use archival/acid-free paper, with 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 sheets per book (unless otherwise specified).


Pricing starts at just $12 for the Vineyard photo book, $20 for the Noci, or $29 for a 20-sheet 5.5×8 photo book. The larger 11×14 starts at $69 for a standard 10-sheet photo book or $99 for a lay-flat version.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Mixbook


Mixbook offers a ton of pre-designed templates for photo books (as well as a blank version you can design yourself), in a range of sizes: 8×6, 8.5×8.5, 8.5×11, 11×8.5, 12×12, and 14×11. There are a variety of styles, too: softcover, hardcover, hardcover with dust jacket, leather with dust jacket, and lay-flat hardcovers. Each book includes 20 pages, with additional pages incurring extra charges.


A standard 8×6 softcover book starts at $12.99, with hardcover versions ranging from $29.99 to $39.99. The 14×11 hardcovers range from $64.99 to $74.99.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Picaboo


Picaboo offers photo books in five styles: premium mini books, classic, seamless lay-flat, “Madison” (handmade with custom covers), and flush mount. Mini books come in 5×5 and 5×4 inch sizes and come with 20 pages standard, though they can be expanded up to 60 total. Classic photo books come in five sizes: 8×6, 11×9, 14×11, 8×8, and 12×12 inch sizes. Lay-flat books come in 8×8, 11×9, 12×12, and 14×11 inch sizes. Madison books are only available in the 11×9″ size. Flush mount books come in either 11×9 or 14×11 inch sizes.


Premium mini books start at $19.99. Classic photo books start at $19.99 for a softcover or $29.99 for a hardcover 8×6, and go up to $24.99 for a softcover 11×9, or $64.99 for a hardcover 14×11. Seamless lay-flat books start at $64.99 for an 8×8 and go to $119.99 for a 14×11. The Madison books start at $199.99 for a 20-page version. The flush mount books start at $399.99 for an 11×9 or $499.99 for a 14×11, including 20 pages.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


My Publisher


My Publisher offers four different photo book styles: 15×11.5″ deluxe hardcovers, 11.25×8.75″ classic hardcovers, 7.75×5.75″ pocketbooks, and a 3.5×2.75″ mini book. Cover options include a book jacket, photo finish, leather, or linen. Paper options include two different weights, as well as a matte or satin finish.


Deluxe hardcovers start at $59.99 for 20 pages, classic hardcovers are $29.99 for 20 pages, pocketbooks are $12.99 for 20 pages, and mini books are $2.99 for 20 pages.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Tinyprints


Tinyprints, from Shutterfly, lets you make custom or simple photo books with your Shutterfly photos. They have a variety of styles for your book pages, with custom path books including 1-25 photos per page (up to 1000 total), and simple path books including 1-4 photos per page (up to 500 total). Books come in a variety of sizes, including 5×7, 7×9, 8×8, 8×11, 10×10, 12×12, and 11×14.


Soft cover photo books start at $11.49 for a 5×7, up to $19.49 for a 10×10. Hardcover photo books start at $22.49 for an 8×8, and go up to $34.99 for an 11×14. Both softcover and hardcover books include 20 pages.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Artifact Uprising


Artifact Uprising offers premium hardcover and softcover photo books, and even includes Instagram-friendly books. They come in a variety of sizes: 5.5×5.5, 6×8 (portrait or landscape), 8.5×8.5, and 11×8.5 (portrait or landscape), and in both hardcover and softcover bindings. They’re printed on 100% recycled paper.


Pricing starts at $17.99 for a 5.5×5.5″ 40-page softcover book. Hardcover books start at $69 for 50 pages.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Pinhole Press


Pinhole Press offers photo books with matte or glossy paper, in softcover and hardcover, with a range of bindings. They also offer “Brag Books”, with pages that open accordion-style. They offer a range of sizes: 3.5×5 (Brag Books), 5.25×5.25, 6.75×6.75, 8.75×8.75, 9×6.625, 9.125×6, and 8.125×10.


Signature photo books start at $74.99, while softcover photo books start at $44.99. Brag Books are only $24.99.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Flickr


Flickr offers printed photo books that are easy to make using photos from your Flickr account. They offer fewer options than most other photo book companies: books have glossy hardcovers with matching glossy dust jackets, are 8.5×11 inches, and lustre paper. They include a minimum of 20 pages, and a maximum of 240. Creating a book is simple: just put the photos you want to use into an album and click “create”.


A 20-page book costs $34.95.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Apple


Apple offers a limited selection of printed photo books, including both hardcover and softcover version, in a range of sizes: 13×10, 11×8.5, 8×6, and 3.5×2.6. Creating books is easy, you just use iPhoto to lay out pictures by date, while favoring higher-rated photos. You can then customize your book with captions and titles, two-page spreads, and even add maps. Books come with 20 pages minimum, but can be up to 100 pages long.


A 3.5×2.6″ softcover book starts at $3.99, while the large 11×8.5″ softcover starts at $19.99. Hardcover books start at $29.99 for an 11×8.5″ or $49.99 for a 13×10″ version.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Artisan State


Artisan State offers 100% flush mount photo albums that are very affordable. They offer four styles: a “little black book”, hardcover book, leather cover book, and crystal clear cover book. They’re custom bound to meet your exact page length specifications. The pages are rigid, making them much more durable. There are a huge range of sizes, from 4×4 to 11×8 for the little black book.


Prices vary widely based on size, but the basic little black book starts at $20 for 20 pages, with hardcover photo books starting at $35 for a 16-page book.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Prinstagram


Printstagram offers photo books for your Instagram photos. You get a 38-page book bound with a hardcover. You can opt to put one photo per page and use 38 photos, or use many photos per page and use up to 319 images. You can opt to include the original captions if you’d like, too. Finished books are 7×8.5″.


Prinstagram photo books are $25.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Print Studio


Print Studio is the same company as Printstagram, but allows you to use your non-Instagram photos. The books are 7×8.5″, bound in hardback with a customizable cover, and include 38 pages. You can create a classic 38-image book with or without captions, or use their creative layout for up to 319 images.


Print Studio books are $25.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


PastBook


PastBook lets you easily create photo books from a variety of social media and cloud accounts: Dropbox, Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, and more. You can also create collaborative photo books by inviting friends to add their images. Books are in landscape format, either 8.5×6″ or 12×8.5″, and are printed on 200 gram paper. There are two options for softcover books: up to 24 pages or up to 500 pages. Hardcover books can be created with up to 300 pages. There’s also a free iPhone app for creating your PastBooks. And they use environmentally-friendly papers and inks.


Pricing starts at $14 for a 24 page softcover book, and $45 for a hardcover book.


16 places to get your photo books this holiday season


Conclusion


Considering how widely prices and options vary from company to company, be sure to do your homework and figure out exactly what you need prior to ordering your photo books.








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Saturday, November 29, 2014

Comics of the week #263

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Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.


The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.


These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.


So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.


Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…


Continuing Education Regardless of Vocation


Comics of the week #263


Wide open spaces


Comics of the week #263


Hopefully it’s an only child


Comics of the week #263


Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…








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Comics of the week #263



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Monday, November 24, 2014

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

(2/3) The secret to a successful career in design

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Welcome to the 21st century, where life and work are less and less about our skills or what we know, and more and more about how to cope with what we don’t know so we can get new answers, learn new skills, find (or create) new knowledge. In HR parlance, this ability is part of a set referred to as “soft skills” or “character traits”. They represent industries’ growing realization that it’s better to hire someone who may not be the most expert at Photoshop, but who is highly adaptable, or someone who may not know as much about html5, but has demonstrated outstanding creativity, persistence or resourcefulness. These types of traits are harder to measure, but résumés are changing as candidates learn how to demonstrate soft skills with “success stories”, while in-person interviews reveal others. According to some experienced tech recruiters, there are 28 character traits employers tend to look for. We don’t all have all of them, so play to your strengths. You may be someone who excels at persistence in the face of obstacles, or who thrives on solving the toughest problems. The key, however, will be your willingness and ability to ask questions. Two powerful ways humans, and designers, ask and pursue questions are through research and experimentation. Research: “What else do I need to know (about the market, the client, the industry, current trends, the product, etc.)?” Experimentation: “Is this true?” (i.e. “Is this true? Our market has changed drastically from millennials to seniors,” or “Is this true? More people will click the buy button if we turn it red.”)


First, the ‘H’ word


Being a good questioner requires humility. This means being willing to ask, “What don’t I know?” And sometimes more specifically, “Are the stakeholders resisting because they don’t feel heard?” or “What should I question about my own preconceived ideas?” It may be argued that the industrial designer, Dieter Rams, moved from design excellence to design greatness when he began asking himself, “Is my design good design?” Humility itself may be considered a skill. It takes time and effort to find a balance between confidence in the value of your ideas and willingness to be wrong about them. Usually, we lean too far one way or another. Overconfidence makes us boorish steamrollers who dismiss the input of others (including our clients). A lack of confidence gets in the way of effectively defending our good ideas when they are too quickly dismissed. From a gender point of view, men tend to err on the side of overconfidence and women tend to undervalue themselves, and therefore, their ideas. There are plenty of exceptions to that rule, but it’s a statistical reality worth mentioning if you’re interested in tackling this beast. In general, it’s not about toning down or trying to lighten one side of the scale, but adding weight to the other side. So if you decide your “overconfidence” is getting in the way of your creative success, keep the confidence (it’s golden!), but find ways to let other ideas in, especially those that conflict with yours. If you have had enough of undervaluing yourself, keep that tremendous receptiveness (which is priceless) and face down the inner critics that are willing to help naysayers trash your ideas. Humility is an essential ingredient for successful research and experimentation. It means your eyes are open to new discoveries, rather than blinkered to simply proving your own points.


This is the age of research


Many professionals call learning how to ask questions the first rule of research (though some make a good case for patience). What are we researching? Everything. Like a Japanese master preparing to paint a mountain, we need to know the mountain first. We need to research the client (their past, and their future vision), the product, its industry, its market. We also need to research new behavior studies, surprise applications (new ways a product is being used, new places and surfaces for a logo, new vehicles for expressing brand), and new web design tech that could prove to be just what the project needs. Our access to information is exploding daily. Research used to be about trips to the library or the government office, it was also about libraries and government offices that required distant travels. Now (to make an extreme point) it’s about finding a place to pause so we can flip open a laptop or thumb through data on a mobile device. Having that kind of access requires us as designers to develop both a research rigor and research style. Rigor is discipline. Having a clear set of questions laid out in advance facilitates rigor and provides a clear path past distractions. We need to pursue research questions down trustworthy paths, and be willing to consider discoveries that are outside our expectations. On the other hand, it’s our research style, developed over time, that inspires us to venture (astutely) down the less trustworthy paths. With rigor, we dodge the rabbit holes. With a style of research that’s ours alone, we learn which rabbit holes may be worth a visit.


Experimentation


Hopefully, as a designer you’re experimenting all the time. You’re doodling. You’re designing the Yahoo! logo that should have been. Or you’ve got a side project going, like a self promotional calendar, a 3D printing quest, a hand lettering project, etc. We may not be aware of it, but experimentation always starts with the question, “Is this true?” Science as a discipline requires a formal hypothesis. It’s a statement, not a question, but the next step is to test it to see if the statement is true. Designers can sometimes play this a lot closer to the hip, because first, we have to design something that looks good to us. In those cases, we are our own “control group”. Instead of a formal hypotheses, we may start with a hunch (which is, essentially, an unverbalized hypothesis) that a certain concept will look cool, or be implemented best with an alternate programming language. We try it out. Meh. We try it from a different angle. Still meh. Hunch/hypothesis disproved, we move on. We may have a hunch that the best coding language for a project is Ajax. Again, we’re asking, “Is this true? If I use Ajax, I’ll get the functionality I need.” We code it (or a representative portion of it), we test it, and we evaluate the results. Being willing to test an idea, to find out that it sucks and to move on to another idea, is one of those skills and strengths that transcends technical skills. At the same time that we’re running these kinds of tests, we also need to be performing more rigorous trials that require tighter controls. Depending on the resources available and the potential returns for a successful site (such as e-commerce), we can potentially take experimentation, and the rigor it demands, just as far as scientists do. In these, you put forward your hypothesis, such as, “If we remove the leaderboard banner ad, improved sales will more than offset the loss of ad revenue,” and then measure the results using the ever-more-sophisticated tools available, from analytics to in-person eye-tracking sessions. Most importantly, in experimentation, not only are you exercising your questioning muscles, but also the muscles that help you hear the real, potentially disappointing (or embarrassing), answer.


Conclusion


Hard skills and knowledge are very important, but a few years from now, you’ll need a new set of hard skills because the playing field in website design and tech will not stop changing. Soft skills, like knowing how to ask questions, will stay. While you’re at it, consider this: identify your three strongest personal traits, and make them stronger. Some good examples: hone your curiosity, get a clear understanding of how you learn best, develop effective tactics for coping with stress and routinely coming to terms with your ego. Consciously developing your character traits is essential whether you travel in salaried corporate circles or run an independent design business. Among them, the mastery of asking questions is a core skill to actively incorporate into your professional design practice. Develop ways to form questions and pursue them. Refine the ways you find answers, create answers and in turn, allow new questions to be born.








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(2/3) The secret to a successful career in design



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