Original Source: https://smashingmagazine.com/2021/03/css-auditing-tools/

How large is your CSS? How repetitive is it? What about your CSS specificity score? Can you safely remove some declarations and vendor prefixes, and if so, how do you spot them quickly? Over the last few weeks, we’ve been working on refactoring and cleaning up our CSS, and as a result, we stumbled upon a couple of useful tools that helped us identify duplicates. So let’s review some of them.

More On CSS:

Comprehensive Guide To CSS Layout
Managing CSS Z-Index
How To Align Things In CSS
Things You Can Do With CSS Today
Useful DevTools Tips and Shortcuts
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CSS Stats

CSS Stats runs a thorough audit of the CSS files requested on a page. Like many similar tools, it provides a dashboard-alike view of rules, selectors, declarations and properties, along with pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements. It also breaks down all styles into groups, from layout and structure to spacing, typography, font stacks and colors.

One of the useful features that CSS Stats provides is the CSS specificity score, showing how unnecessarily specific some of the selectors are. Lower scores and flatter curves are better for maintainability.

It also includes an overview of colors used, printed by declaration order, and a score for Total vs. Unique declarations, along with the comparison charts that can help you identify which properties might be the best candidates for creating abstractions. That’s a great start to understand where the main problems in your CSS lie, and what to focus on.

Yellow Lab Tools

Yellow Lab Tools, is a free tool for auditing web performance, but it also includes some very helpful helpers for measure the complexity of your CSS — and also provides actionable insights into how to resolve these issues.

The tool highlights duplicated selectors and properties, old IE fixes, old vendor prefixes and redundant selectors, along with complex selectors and syntax errors. Obviously, you can dive deep into each of the sections and study which selectors or rules specifically are overwritten or repeated. That’s a great option to discover some of the low-hanging fruits and resolve them quickly.

We can go a bit deeper though. Once you tap into the overview of old vendor prefixes, you can not only check the offenders but also which browsers these prefixes are accommodating for. Then you can head to your Browserslist configuration to double-check if you aren’t serving too many vendor prefixes, and test your configuration on Browsersl.ist or via Terminal.

Project Wallace

Unlike other tools, Project Wallace, created by Bart Veneman, additionally keeps the history of your CSS over time. You can use webhooks to automatically analyze CSS on every push in your CI. The tool tracks the state of your CSS over time by looking into specific CSS-related metrics such as average selector per rule, maximum selectors per rule and declarations per rule, along with a general overview of CSS complexity.

Parker

Katie Fenn’s Parker is a command-line stylesheet analysis tool that runs metrics on your stylesheets and reports on their complexity. It runs on Node.js, and, unlike CSS Stats, you can run it to measure your local files, e.g. as a part of your build process.

DevTools CSS Auditing

Of course, we can also use DevTools’ CSS overview panel. (You can enable it in the “Experimental Settings”). Once you capture a page, it provides an overview of media queries, colors and font declarations, but also highlights unused declarations which you can safely remove.

Also, CSS coverage returns an overview of unused CSS on a page. You could even go a bit further and bulk find unused CSS/JS with Puppeteer.

With “Code coverage” in place, going through a couple of scenarios that include a lot of tapping, tabbing and window resizing, we also export coverage data that DevTools collects as JSON (via the export/download icon). On top of that, you could use Puppeteer that also provides an API to collect coverage.

We’ve highlighted some of the details, and a few further DevTools tips in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge in Useful DevTools Tips And Shortcuts here on Smashing Magazine.

What Tools Are You Using?

Ideally, a CSS auditing tool would provide some insights about how heavily CSS implact rendering performance, and which operations lead to expensive layout recalculations. It could also highlight what properties don’t affect the rendering at all (like Firefox DevTools does it), and perhaps even suggest how to write slightly more efficient CSS selectors.

These are just a few tools that we’ve discovered — we’d love to hear your stories and your tools that work well to identify the bottlenecks and fix CSS issues faster. Please leave a comment and share your story in the comments!

You can also subscribe to our friendly email newsletter to not miss next posts like this one. And, of course, happy CSS auditing and debugging!

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/TDOftuzwhdQ/best-laser-cutters

Find the best laser cutter for perfect cuts and quality engraving.

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2021/03/8-domain-name-myths-every-web-designer-should-know/

A domain name is an essential element of every project, product, and company. It’s central to a brand and has a disproportionately large impact on user experience. Not only that, but it also impacts SEO and ultimately revenue.

Domain names are also one of the most commonly retailed elements in web technology, with most designers hoarding a small empire’s worth of domain names “just in case” the right side-project comes along.

Because so much of the information and advice on domain names is provided by companies selling domain names and is therefore not impartial, we wanted to bust some of the myths you’ll encounter.

Myth 1: Anyone Can Own a Domain Name

In fact, almost no one can own a domain name. As demonstrated by the (probably) annual renewal notices you receive, you are merely renting a domain name.

You pay a registrar, who registers the domain with ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) — or an entity to whom ICANN has delegated the responsibility for a particular TLD.

Even when renting a domain, you do not have the right to use it; thousands of UK-based businesses have had .eu domains stripped from them as a result of being removed from the EU.

Myth 2: There’s a Perfect Domain For Every Project

Domains do not have inherent value; they acquire value over time.

25 years ago, if you were building a search engine, the ‘perfect’ domain might have been search.com, find.com, or perhaps look.com — the particularly cynical might have opted for webads.com. You almost certainly wouldn’t have registered google.com because it says nothing about search.

Any domain name can acquire value through longevity, SEO, and branding

google.com acquired its value through a simple, relentless branding strategy and a generous dollop of luck.

Any domain name can acquire value through longevity, SEO, and branding.

Myth 3: Your Domain Name Should Contain Keywords

If you’re at the point of registering a domain name, either your business is new, or your digital strategy is. In either case, you have hopefully carried out keyword research, but without a live site, your keyword research hasn’t been validated. In other words, you don’t know what your keywords are.

Even if you’re confident that you know exactly what your keywords should be at this time, your keywords may change. The pandemic has required most businesses to pivot to some degree. eatoutny.com isn’t much use if legal restrictions have forced you to switch to a delivery business — unless you’ve also registered eatinny.com.

Furthermore, in the area of ecommerce, customers tend to view keyword-heavy domain names as budget options because they are like generic-brand goods. It may be that your business will only ever be a budget option, but it’s not a wise business decision to restrict your options.

There is an SEO benefit to keywords in a domain, but it is minimal and will almost certainly vanish in the next few years — even for EMD (Exact Match Domains) — because it is too close to gaming the system.

Myth 4: You Don’t Need a .com

As frustrating as it may be to seek out a .com you’re happy with, nothing says “late to the party” like a .biz domain.

A .co extension is slightly better in some regions because the .co.** format is commonly used; .co.jp for example. However, .co tends to be typed as .com by users accustomed to the more common format.

nothing says “late to the party” like a .biz domain

It’s possible to opt for pun-based names using regionally specific TLDs like buy.it, or join.in. This kind of strategy will play havoc with your local search strategy because computers don’t understand puns; you’ll potentially do quite well in Italy or India, though.

If you’re registering a domain for a non-profit, then .org is perfectly acceptable. However, carefully consider whether a domain is worth the lost traffic if you can’t also register the .com (because people will type .com).

The one exception is industry-specific TLDs that communicate something about the domain’s contents to a target demographic. For example, .design is a great extension for designers, and .io is fine for an app if it targets developers (i.e., people who understand the joke). You should also register the .com if you can, and if you can’t, carefully consider whom you’re likely to be competing with for SERPs.

This is not to say that anything other than a .com is worthless, just worth less than the .com.

Myth 5: A Trademark Entitles You to Register a Domain

Trademark registration and domain registration are two entirely different processes, and one does not entitle you to the other. This has been legally challenged a few times and fails far more often than it succeeds.

Trademarks are rarely blanket registrations, which means the trademark owner needs to declare the industry in which it will operate; there was no enmity between Apple Inc. and Apple Corp Ltd. until the former moved into music publishing and no one could download the White Album onto their iPod.

There is, however, a limited value in registering a domain that has been trademarked elsewhere. Not least because you will be competing against their SEO, and if they’re big enough to trademark a name, they’ve probably grabbed the .com.

Myth 6: Premium Domains Are a Good Investment

Premium domains are domains that have been speculatively registered in the hope of attracting a huge resale fee. The process is commonly referred to as ‘domain squatting.’

Domain squatters bulk-register domains in the hope that one of them will be valuable to someone. As a result, they are forced to charge exorbitant fees to cover their losses; a premium domain will cost anything from 1000–100,000% of the actual registration cost.

Setting aside the cost — which would be better spent on marketing — premium domains often come with legacy issues, such as a troubled search engine history, that you do not want to inherit.

Myth 7: A Matching Handle Must be Available on Social Media

The business value of a social media account varies from company to company and from platform to platform. Even if it is valuable to you, numerous marketing strategies will accommodate a domain name: prepending with ‘use,’ or ‘get,’ or appending with ‘hq,’ for example.

More importantly, it’s unwise to allow a third-party to define your long-term brand identity; sure, Facebook is huge now, but then so was the T-Rex.

Myth 8: You Need a Domain Name

A domain name is an alias, nothing more. You don’t actually need a domain name — what you need is an IP address, which a domain name makes human-friendly.

Think of domain names as an accessibility issue; humans are less able to read IP addresses than computers, and domains bridge the gap. (See how helpful accessibility is?)

While a domain name is beneficial, question whether a sub-domain or even an IP address would do. Registering a domain is an exciting stage of a project that many people never get past, leaving themselves with a huge collection of domains that they pay an annual fee for, and never actually develop.

What Makes a Good Domain Name

Now we’ve dispelled some of the myths surrounding domain names, let’s look at the key characteristics shared by good domain names:

A Good Domain Name is Brandable

A brandable domain is non-generic. It’s the difference between a sticky-plaster and a band-aid. Unique is good, rare is acceptable, generic is a waste of money.

A Good Domain Name is Flexible

Keep it flexible. Don’t tie yourself to one market or one demographic. Your domain name needs to work now and fifty years in the future.

A Good Domain Name is Musical

Six to 12 characters and two to three syllables is the sweet spot. Names in that range have a musical rhythm our brains find it easier to retain and recall.

A Good Domain Name is Phonetic

There are 44 word sounds in the English language. Other languages have similar totals. If you use a domain name that is pronounced phonetically, it will be easy to communicate.

Source

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The post 8 Domain Name Myths Every Web Designer Should Know first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/1DGRktqklJM/noti-editorial-design

Noti – Editorial Design

abduzeedo03.09.21

Bękarty – shared an inspiring editorial design project titled Noti. Honestly I don’t fully understand the scope of this project, however the typography and the overall editorial design is really good. Hopefully someone can give me more details, not that it will change my mind about how inspiring this project is.  

Credits

Cover graphics: Piotr Kuchciński
Cooperation: Piotr Kuchciński, Kamila Woynicz
Font: RT Catalog by Kamil Kurzajewski
Printing on paper: Cuturon X-treme 170g (cover), Pergraphica Natural Rough 120g, IQ Print 70g
Publisher: Noti — www.noti.pl

For more information make sure to check out http://www.bekarty.pl

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/DEOUrdt1yJQ/ibm-app-icon-design-visual-language-0

IBM App Icon Design & Visual Language

AoiroStudio03.04.21

Peter Garvin is working as a designer at IBM from specifically from the Brand Experience and Design Team. He shared a series of very cool series of iconography from their IBM Design Language. Divided into four categories: Stroke app icons, Fill app icons, IBM Plex app icons, and Hero brands. The visual direction is a mixture of minimal approaches coming together with gradients and shades. I think it’s a very intriguing direction compared to the past years and it’s nice to see it applicable either on light or dark theme to accommodate all sorts of use cases. Definitely worth checking it out!

More about ibm.com/design/language/

 

Credits

IBM Brand Experience & Design