Archive for year: 2024

Original Source: https://www.creativebloq.com/art/digital-art/i-reviewed-and-still-use-the-wacom-movink-13-drawing-tablet-and-it-just-reduced-in-price-ahead-of-black-friday

Short and sweet with a full stop.

Original Source: https://www.creativebloq.com/design/3-things-the-design-industry-needs-to-improve-according-to-experts

We need to strike a balance between innovation and empathy.

Original Source: https://tympanus.net/codrops/2024/11/21/from-product-to-cart-adding-guiding-animations-to-the-shopping-experience/

An in-depth tutorial on how to create an engaging animation where items move from the product gallery to the shopping cart.

Original Source: https://webdesignerdepot.com/a-closer-look-at-wordpress-6-7-rollins/

The WordPress 6.7 release, named “Rollins” honors jazz legend Sonny Rollins, renowned for his improvisational mastery and innovative contributions to jazz.

His iconic compositions, like “St. Thomas” and “Oleo,” reflect his bold, exploratory style, paralleling WordPress’ mission to empower creativity and innovation. This update embodies Rollins’ spirit of pushing boundaries, offering new features and enhancements to inspire digital expression.

Twenty Twenty-Five Theme

The new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Five, is built to offer unparalleled flexibility for various website types. Whether you are creating a personal blog, a portfolio, or a professional business site, this theme provides robust design tools that leverage the full power of the block editor.

It includes multiple pre-designed block patterns, diverse style variations, and rich color palettes, allowing users to create visually stunning and functional websites quickly and easily.

Zoom Out Mode

Zoom Out Mode is a revolutionary addition to the site editing experience. It allows users to view and edit their website from a broader perspective, making it easier to arrange and modify entire sections and patterns. This feature is especially useful for managing complex layouts, giving users a clear overview of their site’s structure and design while streamlining the process of making adjustments.

Dynamic Content Integration

WordPress 6.7 introduces the ability to connect blocks directly to dynamic content sources, such as custom fields, from within the editor.

This new functionality simplifies the creation of dynamic websites, such as portfolios, blogs, and ecommerce stores, without requiring extensive coding knowledge. It also enhances compatibility with popular tools like Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), making it easier to create and manage dynamic content.

Advanced Typography Control

The advanced typography settings in WordPress 6.7 give users greater control over text design. With the ability to create and manage custom font size presets, as well as utilize fluid typography for responsive text scaling, users can ensure that their websites look polished and consistent across all devices. This update also enhances the overall design flexibility and user experience.

Performance Enhancements

Performance improvements are a highlight of WordPress 6.7, focusing on speed and stability. Block patterns and templates now load faster, and previews in data views have been optimized for efficiency. Compatibility with PHP 8 and higher versions has been improved, and the HTML processing engine has been refined for faster rendering and better performance overall.

Accessibility Improvements

Accessibility has been a major focus in this release, with over 65 fixes and enhancements aimed at making WordPress more inclusive. These updates include improved keyboard navigation in the editor, better labeling and instructions for various interface components, and fixes to ensure that assistive technologies can interact with WordPress more effectively.

HEIC Image Support

WordPress 6.7 adds native support for HEIC image files, a format widely used by iPhone cameras. This update makes it easier to upload and use high-quality, space-efficient images across all blocks, expanding the platform’s media capabilities and providing more options for visual content creation.

Query Loop Block Refinements

The Query Loop block, a powerful tool for displaying dynamic content, has been refined for ease of use. Automated default settings simplify the setup process, while key customization options have been consolidated for greater clarity. These improvements make the Query Loop block more accessible to beginners while retaining its flexibility for advanced users.

Preview Dropdown Extensions

Developers now have the ability to extend the preview dropdown menu with custom preview options. This feature enables users to test and view content in new contexts, such as specific device sizes or custom configurations, providing greater flexibility and control over the content preview process.

Background Customization

Enhanced background customization tools allow for the application of consistent styles across a site. These global settings ensure a unified design aesthetic while offering greater creative control over the appearance of pages and individual blocks. This feature simplifies the process of maintaining cohesive site-wide designs.

Site Editor Page View Enhancements

The Site Editor’s page view has been enhanced to include advanced filtering options, enabling users to display specific categories such as Published, Draft, or Scheduled pages. This update improves navigation and organization within the editor, making it easier to manage content effectively.

Template Registration API

The new Template Registration API simplifies the process of creating and managing custom templates. It allows plugins to introduce custom templates independent of themes, supports theme overrides, and enables the creation of templates tailored to specific categories or content types.

Expanded Design Tools

WordPress 6.7 expands the range of design tools available for individual blocks. New options, such as shadows and borders, give users more creative control over block appearance. These tools enable the creation of visually distinct and professional-looking websites without the need for external design software.

Interactivity API Improvements

The Interactivity API has been updated with new capabilities for robust state management and improved integration with JavaScript. These enhancements make it easier for developers to build dynamic, interactive web experiences while addressing previous bugs to ensure smoother operation.

WordPress 6.7 is a testament to the platform’s commitment to continuous improvement and innovation. It provides tools and features that cater to a diverse range of users, enabling them to build more functional, visually appealing, and high-performing websites.

Download WordPress 6.7 “Rollins” here

Original Source: https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/11/ai-transformative-impact-web-design-supercharging-productivity/

As I sit down to write this article, I can’t help but marvel at the incredible changes sweeping through our industry. For the first time in my career, I feel like we’re no longer limited by our technology but by our imagination. Well, almost. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the web design landscape in ways we could only dream of a few years ago, and I’m excited to share with you how it’s supercharging our productivity across various aspects of our work.

AI Is A Partner, Not A Competitor

Now, before we dive in, let me assure you: AI isn’t here to replace us. At least, not for a while yet. There are still crucial areas where human expertise reigns supreme. AI struggles with strategic planning that considers the nuances of human behavior and market trends. It can’t match our emotional intelligence when navigating client relationships and team dynamics. And when it comes to creative thinking that pushes boundaries and creates truly innovative solutions, we humans still have the upper hand.

But here’s the exciting part: AI is becoming an invaluable tool that’s supercharging our productivity. Think of it as having a highly capable intern at your disposal. As the Nielsen Norman Group aptly put it in their article “AI as an Intern,” we need to approach AI tools with the right mindset. Double-check their work, use them for initial drafts rather than final products, and provide specific instructions and relevant context.

The key to harnessing AI’s power lies in working with it collaboratively.

Don’t expect perfect results on the first try. Instead, engage in a back-and-forth conversation, refining the AI output through iteration. This process of continuous improvement is where AI truly shines, dramatically speeding up our workflow.

Let’s explore how AI is reshaping different areas of our industry, looking at some of the many tools available to us.

AI In Design: Unleashing Creativity And Efficiency

In the realm of design, AI is proving to be a game-changer. It’s particularly adept at:

Collaborating on layout;
Generating the perfect image;
Refining and adapting existing imagery.

Take AI in Figma, for instance. It’s become my go-to for generating dummy content and tidying up my layers. The time saved on these mundane tasks allows me to focus more on the creative aspects of design.

Generative imagery tools like Krea, which uses Flux, have revolutionized how we source visuals. Gone are the days of endlessly scrolling through stock libraries. Now, we can describe exactly what we need, and AI will create it for us. This level of customization and specificity is a game changer for creating unique, on-brand visuals.

Relume is another tool I’ve found incredibly useful. It’s great for a collaborative back-and-forth over designs or for quickly putting together designs for smaller sites. The ability to iterate rapidly with AI assistance has significantly sped up my design process.

And let’s not forget about Adobe. Their upcoming tools, such as lighting matching for composite images, are set to take our design capabilities to new heights. If you want to see more of what’s on the horizon, I highly recommend checking out the latest Adobe Max presentations.

AI In Coding: Boosting Developer Productivity

The impact of AI on coding is nothing short of revolutionary. According to a McKinsey study, developers using AI tools performed coding tasks like code generation, refactoring, and documentation 20%-50% faster on average compared to those not using AI tools. That’s a significant productivity boost!

AI is helping developers in several key areas:

Coding faster;
Debugging more efficiently;
Automatically generating code comments;
Writing basic code.

To put this into perspective, AI now writes 25% of the code at Google. That’s a staggering figure from one of the world’s leading tech companies.

Tools like Cursor AI and GitHub Copilot are at the forefront of this revolution, offering features such as:

AI pair programming with predictive code edits;
Natural language code editing;
Chat interfaces for asking questions and getting help.

I’ve personally been amazed by what ChatGPT 01-Preview can do. I’ve used it to build simple WordPress plugins in minutes, tasks that would have taken me significantly longer in the past.

AI In UX: Enhancing User Research And Analysis

In the field of User Experience (UX), AI is opening up new possibilities for research and analysis. It’s allowing us to:

Conduct user research at scale;
Analyze open-ended qualitative feedback;
Query analytic data using natural language;
Predict user behavior.

I’ve found ChatGPT to be an invaluable tool for data analysis, particularly when it comes to making sense of analytics and survey responses. It can quickly identify patterns and insights that might take us hours to uncover manually.

Tools like Strella are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in user research. AI can now perform user interviews at scale, allowing us to gather insights from a much larger pool of users than ever before.

Attention Insight is another fascinating tool. It uses AI to predict where people will look on a page, providing valuable data for optimizing layouts and user interfaces.

Microsoft Clarity has also upped its game, allowing us to ask questions about our analytic insights, heatmaps, and session recordings. This natural language interface makes it easier than ever to extract meaningful insights from our data.

AI In Copywriting: Elevating Content Quality And Efficiency

When it comes to copywriting, AI is proving to be a powerful ally. It’s helping us:

Transform poor-quality stakeholder content into web-optimized copy;
Brainstorm value propositions and create high-converting copy;
Craft compelling business cases and strategy documentation;
Write standard operating procedures.

Notion AI has become one of my go-to tools for content creation. It combines the best of ChatGPT and Claude, allowing it to draw upon a wide range of provided source material to write detailed documentation, articles, and reports.

ChatGPT has been a game-changer for improving the quality of website copy. It can take user questions and bullet-point answers from subject specialists and transform them into web-optimized content. I’ve found it particularly useful for defining value propositions and writing high-converting copy.

For refining existing content, the Hemingway Editor is invaluable. It can take the existing copy and make it clearer, more concise, and easier to scan — essential qualities for effective web content.

AI In Administration: Streamlining Mundane Tasks

AI isn’t just transforming the technical aspects of our work; it’s also making a significant impact on those mundane administrative tasks that often eat up our time. By leveraging AI, we can streamline various aspects of our daily workflow, allowing us to focus more on high-value activities.

Here are some ways AI is helping us tackle administrative tasks more efficiently:

Getting our thoughts down faster;
Writing better emails;
Summarizing long emails or Slack threads;
Speeding up research;
Backing up arguments with relevant data.

Let me share some personal experiences with AI tools that have transformed my administrative workflow:

I’ve dramatically increased my writing speed using Flow. This tool has taken me from typing at 49 words per minute to dictating at over 95 words per minute. Not only does it allow me to dictate, but it also tidies up my words to ensure they read well and are grammatically correct.

For email writing, I’ve found Fixkey to be invaluable. It helps me rewrite or reformat copy quickly. I’ve even set up a prompt that tones down my emails when I’m feeling particularly irritable, ensuring they sound reasonable and professional.

Dealing with long email threads or Slack conversations can be time-consuming. That’s where Spark comes in handy. It summarizes lengthy threads, saving me valuable time. Interestingly, this feature is now built into iOS for all notifications, making it even more accessible.

When it comes to research, Google Notebook LLM has been a game-changer. I can feed it large amounts of data on a subject and quickly extract valuable insights. This tool has significantly sped up my research process.

Lastly, if I need to back up an argument with a statistic or quote, Perplexity has become my go-to resource. It quickly finds relevant sources I can quote, adding credibility to my work without the need for extensive manual searches.

Conclusion: Embracing AI For A More Productive Future

As I wrap up this article, I realize I’ve only scratched the surface of what AI can do for our industry. The real challenge isn’t in the technology itself but in breaking out of our established routines and taking the time to experiment with what’s possible.

I believe we need to cultivate a new habit: pausing before each new task to consider how AI could help us approach it differently. The winners in this new reality will be those who can best integrate this technology into their workflow.

AI isn’t replacing us — it’s empowering us to work smarter and more efficiently. By embracing these tools and learning to collaborate effectively with AI, we can focus more on the aspects of our work that truly require human creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the rapid pace of change, don’t worry. We’re all learning and adapting together. Remember, the goal isn’t to become an AI expert overnight but to gradually incorporate these tools into your work in ways that make sense for you and your projects.