Kogin embroidered Insect Brooches

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/ML1RoYZLucI/kogin-embroidered-insect-brooches

Kogin embroidered Insect Brooches

Kogin embroidered Insect Brooches

AoiroStudio
Jun 29, 2018

Let’s take a look at this unique project by Hiné Mizushima who is (in his own words) Slow Crafter, Needle-felter and Illustrator based in Vancouver, BC in Canada. We are looking at his Kogin embroidered insect brooches he worked on for a group exhibition happening right now in Osaka, Japan. What is Kogin? It’s a traditional quilting method of Aomori’s Tsugaru region, where its characteristic is the beauty of its design. As you can see in the following, it’s an art and we can definitely appreciate its creativity.

Kogin embroidered insect brooches for a group exhibition, The Kingdom of Specimens at ranbu gallery (2nd floor) in Osaka, Japan, opening June 20th, 2018! I used some of my hand-dyed Kogin fabrics and most of my hand-dyed Kogin threads for the brooches, and I also used tiny Japanese glass beads for the details.

More Links
Learn more about Hiné Mizushima
Follow Hiné’s work on Behance
Kogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect BroochesKogin embroidered Insect Brooches

crafts
embroidery
design


Create an Effective Plan for Your Website’s Design

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~3/gouEHNayjHU/

When designing your own website, it typically requires you to craft a detailed plan for creating it and oftentimes finding people to assist with the project. Sometimes the website design takes no more than a week, but most of the time it takes longer. What’s more is that all websites require testing and some kind of maintenance after the design is done.

Websites are becoming simpler and easier to construct, but you still don’t want to cut any corners along the way. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of steps for you to effectively plan your website’s design.

Create a Plan with Goals

Your plan involves figuring out the purpose of your website. Do you want more sales? Email subscribers? Donations?

After that, you need to set up some goals for that plan. How many sales are you trying to get per month? Is there a certain number of visitors you would like to see every month? Combined with a good analytics program (like Google Analytics), you should be able to check in on all of this information.

Person illustrating a business plan

Assign Roles for that Plan

You often won’t be working on the website design alone. You might need a web developer, along with someone who can write content, like blog posts and webpage details. The same goes for a logo designer and a CSS professional who takes your customizations to the next level.

Once you decide on the professionals needed, outline the roles and make sure everyone knows what others are doing.

Create a Budget Based on the Plan and Roles

It’s good to set your team before establishing a budget, since the web design professionals can help recommend the best value in items like hosting, graphic design, content management systems and more. It doesn’t matter the size of your organization. A budget needs to be put in place to see your expenses and how you plan on paying for those expenses.

Coins and Clock

Develop a Strategy for Content

Without a content strategy, websites tend to not get updated. These types of sites display old, stale information that people don’t care about. Therefore, you should put together a strategy for content such as blog posts, slideshows, documents, videos and pictures. Are you going to post all of these content items starting at day one? Or is it a better idea to make a schedule and share things like videos and blog posts over the course of the year?

Draw Out the Structure of the Website and Make a Mockup

Think about which web pages you’ll use to form your website. For instance, you may have pages like About Us, Contact Us, Portfolio or an Online Shop.

Once you have the list of webpages, generate a mockup, or visual representation of your website, to show to other people in your organization. This is essentially the first draft of the site, which can be developed in Photoshop or many other mockup or wireframe programs online. Most of the time it’s best to have a designer complete the mockup, but sometimes you can do it yourself with pen and paper.

Website Mockup

Design It

From simple navigation to a quality company logo, the process of designing is best accomplished with an experienced web designer. Even if you only hire a consultant or use online resources to design your site, take your time with this process and prepare for lots of testing.

Test the Design Multiple Times

Consistent testing solves many problems and guarantees that the mistakes are minimized. For example, one of your testers might find that the website doesn’t show up properly on Internet Explorer. Another tester may discover that a few of your navigational buttons lead to broken links. Having a solid testing plan ensures that your website is ready to show to both customers and the search engines.

Person typing on a laptop

Maintain, Maintain, Maintain

You may have someone in your organization to maintain the website, or you might want to hire a freelancer to do this. Regardless, maintenance keeps your website secure, up-to-date, clean and fresh with content.

It’s important to assign someone to post new content on your website. It’s also necessary to update your CMS and plugins. In addition, you’ll want to configure a system that backs up your content and secures the site into the future.

Now You’re Ready to Effectively Plan Your Website’s Design

Now that you have the knowledge to plan your website, get started with your outline and think about the people who will undertake every task. If you have any questions about effectively planning your website’s design, let us know in the comments.


Visual Design Inspiration for your Monday Morning

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/9lGDvEOeV1o/visual-design-inspiration-your-monday-morning

Visual Design Inspiration for your Monday Morning

Monday Visual Design Inspiration

abduzeedo
Jul 02, 2018

Monday is always the perfect day to spend some time to collect some visual design inspiration and set some goals for the week. With that in mind, there’s nothing better than getting tons of references. In the past, I used to go through books and magazines, but with the web now things are way easier. So for this post, I would like to share some of the UI design inspiration I have been collecting during the weekend for the upcoming redesign of Abduzeedo, which I will have more to share very soon. 

So for this post, I would like to share some references in web design, app design or simply put, pure design inspiration.

Visual Design Inspiration

03 architecture website3dflipFurnitureStoriesuiAuto landing page dribbbleMaster&DynamicOchcinci landing page nike design ui ux product web dribbble full 5Anicornxorder  yalessandri 3ShopHome 1.0

visual design


How to Run a Heuristic UX Evaluation

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~3/z1N9WV8rgV4/

User experience development and optimization is a broad field. There are many facets of web design to consider in the development of a website. The factors affecting user experience, or UX, span from content production and page layout to website interactions.

Being able to identify usability issues with a user interface is called heuristics. It encompasses broad, qualitative rules that help determine the usability of your website and the overall experience your visitors are having.

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To ensure better performance, designers use a heuristic evaluation, which is a way to test the overall UX of your site and if the site has usability issues. Your website’s UX is important and can have a big impact on your business and the success of your website.

Image via UsabilityGeek.com

A heuristic evaluation is different than user-testing because you are utilizing usability professionals instead of users. Sometimes, this approach is referred to as an expert review since you are getting professional feedback about your UX.

There are over 200 criteria that can be used when a site is being evaluated. Most businesses will determine the specific probes they want to be included in the evaluation. Many experts base their questions and responses on Jacob Neilson’s 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design.

Here is a closer look at those 10 heuristics:

1. Visibility of System Status

The system or website should always keep users in the loop about what is going on. This information is given to users through feedback in a reasonable time.

2. Match Between System and the Real World

The website should cater to a specific audience. The language used through phrases, words, and concepts should be relatable to that specific audience and fit into their worldview.

3. User Control and Freedom

Users will inevitably click on something by mistake, leading them to a page they don’t want to be on. An exit or return option should be available to them for a quick return.

4. Consistency and Standards

Platform conventions have been put in place, so your users do not have to wonder what your website means. Most users are familiar with these conventions. If your site is consistent, it should be easy for users to navigate and know what steps to take to reach a goal.

5. Error Prevention

Evaluators check for situations that could lead to an error page for your user. A good error message will send readers back to where they belong. An even better solution is removing any error-prone conditions on your website.

6. Recognizing Rather than Recalling

Your website should not require its users to remember information. Objects, actions, and options should always be visible, allowing them to keep up with your website’s dialogue without missing a beat.

7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use

Accelerators are often used to speed up the process and interaction between experienced users and your website. This means that no matter the level of expertise of your user, your site will function at the same speed.

8. Aesthetic and Minimal Design

There should be no fluff or irrelevant information on your website. The design should be aesthetically pleasing and seamlessly incorporate relevant content and information for your users.

9. Helps Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors

Error messages should never include code and should simply explain the problem to users. It should suggest a quick solution that is easy for the user to follow.

10. Help and Documentation

It is most effective to have a system or website that does not require any help or documentation. If your system does require it, it should be easy to find, read, and carry out.

How to Run Your Evaluation

Planning and running your heuristic evaluation can be a long process.

Companies with expansive resources should hire at least three usability experts to perform the evaluation. Your team will decide upon the guidelines to be used during the evaluation, and then each expert will evaluate the site separately. Someone who is comfortable with the site should be available to the experts to answer any questions and record the process.

Before You Start

It is important to have a clear focus of who your users are before you begin the evaluation process. Develop personas or story maps for your users and make sure your website design caters to those individuals.

Consider the different tasks your users do when they are visiting your website. Most businesses prefer to rank these activities in order of importance. Take these tasks and relate them to the guidelines that will be given to the evaluators.

Develop a Method

After you have determined your guidelines and tasks the experts should be evaluating for, develop a method. Your evaluation method will include a system of severity codes the evaluators will be basing their responses on. Once the guidelines and methods are in place and your experts have been trained on them, it is time to run the evaluation.

Write a Report

When the heuristic evaluation is over, it is time to study the responses and write a report on the findings. Just like data, here’s where you gather the intel and analyze it. At this point, you can show developers the problems your users may have and come up with solutions for them.

Though you offer a written report, present your findings in person, if possible. This evaluation was done to test the functionality and UX of your website, and those who are involved in the process need to fully understand the findings – some of that may mean face-to-face interaction.

You will be reporting to the team of developers and key stakeholders in the business, so present the information tactfully and make it clear the recommendations for changes are for the betterment of the business.

Your report should include a list of the specific heuristics that were used in the evaluation. This will show the starting point that gave you your results. Explain who the experts are and their backgrounds to the group.

List the issues you discovered with the most important first. Then, give the audience solutions to how these problems can be fixed efficiently.

Your findings and report may mean some extra work for the developers, so give them as much information as possible about the findings so they understand how the UX is being affected and what they can do to fix it.

Can You Run a Heuristic Evaluation Without Experts?

Small start-ups or freelance web developers may not be able to afford a team of experts to evaluate their web design. In these situations, a more informal method called the heuristic markup can be helpful. This method does not provide professional results but can still be beneficial when testing your usability and UX.

Using this process, you set aside a few hours to walk through the website. Try to separate yourself from the development and act as a member of your target audience.

Keep in mind one of the personas developed for the business and perform the tasks as you imagine they would. Keep notes of your experiences as you move your way through the website, keeping track of areas where you got stumped or see a potential problem.

Insight Into UX Can Boost Your Website’s Traffic

Sometimes, why a website works well for a demographic can be a mystery, and these heuristic evaluations take some of the guesswork out of the process. Regardless of the size of your business, a heuristic evaluation of your website allows you to gain knowledge and experience about what your users are seeing.

Their experience on your website determines how long they stay, if they buy your product or service, and whether they return. Conducting an evaluation is the best way to discover potential problems and develop the best UX for your visitors.


10 Open Source 3D Animated Sliders Built On CSS & JavaScript

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~3/CI9_9MXM-Lc/

You can add some pretty crazy image sliders into your project with basic jQuery or even with free WordPress plugins.

They all have their own unique animations, custom interfaces and features. But if you can’t find what you want in a plugin, then you may be forced to build it yourself.

That’s what many of the developers featured below did when they built these incredible 3D-animated sliders. Here are 10 of my favorites from CodePen.

Slicebox

See the Pen Slicebox – 3D Image Slider by codefactory (@codefactory) on CodePen.

You’ve probably seen or heard of Slicebox before. This is a popular 3D slideshow plugin and it’s by far one of the most detailed.

This pen offers a live demo of the animated slider in action with most of the features still intact. It all runs on jQuery, while this specific demo works with just 50 lines of JavaScript.

But you can find an even more detailed example on the Codrops site. I’m a huge fan of this slider. If you’re looking for something with crazy 3D effects – this is your best bet.

Rotating Page Slider

See the Pen Rotating 3D Slider by Nikolay Talanov (@suez) on CodePen.

Developer Nikolay Talanov created this rotating slider with some very detailed JavaScript and even more complex HTML/CSS classes.

His code actually follows the BEM naming conventions for CSS, which use a double underline to separate blocks from containers. This makes it a lot easier to skim the code once you understand what you’re looking at.

But this slider may not work for everyone because it rotates the entire page rather than just a part of the page.

Still, it’s a really cool effect that would work very well on specific projects.

Smooth Perspective Slider

See the Pen Smooth 3d perspective slider by Alex Nozdriukhin (@alexnoz) on CodePen.

If you love parallax design on the web, then have a look at this slider created by Alex Nozdriukhin.

As you move your cursor around the page you’ll notice the slideshow element responds in kind. As you rotate your way through the elements, notice the custom animation effects.

This really is pretty smooth and it’s a darn creative use of web animation. However, you may have trouble finding a project that is a good fit for this type of slideshow.

3D Effects with jQuery

See the Pen jQuery 3D Effect Slider by victor (@vkanet) on CodePen.

This basic slider is proof that you can build something great with just a little bit of jQuery. It works on a timer interval, but can also be controlled with the included navigation arrows or dots.

It’s all pretty easy to customize if you’re looking to restyle the animation, as well. Just make sure that you’re up-to-date on the latest jQuery techniques before diving into this code.

3D Flipping Image

See the Pen 3D Flip Image Slideshow by Nik Lanús (@niklanus) on CodePen.

One interesting aspect of this pen is that it doesn’t work exactly like a slideshow. It’s built more to showcase the animation rather than a typical slider UI.

Still, I’d say that developer Nik Lanús has created an amazing design with a very attractive flipping animation.

You can force the images to flip by scrolling up or down on the page (this can all be controlled in jQuery). But it’ll take some work to move this animation effect into a full-blown image slider.

3D Cube Slider

See the Pen 3D Cube slider. Pure CSS. by Ilya K. (@fornyhucker) on CodePen.

I’ve never seen anything quite like this on the web – it has to be one of a kind.

With this 3D cube, you may be surprised how accurate and smooth the animations feel. Note that this script is a bit heavy, so you may have to give the pen a minute to load in.

But here’s the great part: this entire 3D cube animation works on pure CSS. No JavaScript required. How great is that?

Carousel Using TweenMax.js & jQuery

See the Pen 3D Carousel Using TweenMax.js & jQuery by John Blazek (@johnblazek) on CodePen.

You can build some incredible things with custom libraries like TweenMax.

One such example is this carousel, which works just like a typical 3D rotating album you’d expect to find in iTunes. The whole thing is controlled via JavaScript and it works with one of the many TweenMax animations.

Granted, this demo just uses placeholder text for each block – so it’s not all that pretty to look at. But you can easily swap out the text and create one heck of a custom carousel.

3D Slider in Pure CSS

See the Pen PURE CSS 3D SLIDER by Dmitriy Panfilov (@panfilov) on CodePen.

Here’s another radical slider with a super unique interface. This CSS3 slider is built on just HTML and CSS – making it even more impressive.

Creator Dmitriy Panfilov built this like an album stack where you click any of the lower elements to bring it into the foreground. It’s not your typical slideshow interface but it can work very well on websites with enough space.

But this really feels more like a practice project just to prove how much you can do with a little CSS ingenuity.

3D Image Gallery

See the Pen 3D images gallery by Bobby (@ImBobby) on CodePen.

If you’re looking for a rotating carousel with a smaller frame, check out this code snippet.

It works via CSS3 transforms and really does feel like it’s embedded into the page in 3D space. Note that the images may also take a few seconds to load, so it may require some patience on your part.

But what I like most about this snippet its portability. You can reformat the container element to whatever size you’d like – making this flexible and easy to add into any layout.

10. Carousel Cubed

See the Pen 3D Cube Carousel by Derek Wheelden (@frxnz) on CodePen.

Yup, another crazy cube carousel with some pretty whacky code.

This design created by Derek Wheelden relies on Sass and Bourbon mixins to simplify the animations. But all of the jQuery code is built from scratch, so you can easily reuse it without any preprocessing.

Again, this may not prove incredibly useful for every project you build. But the design is flashy enough to grab attention and certainly usable in the majority of modern web browsers.

This is just the tip of the iceberg with 3D effects on the web. If you’d like to see more, have a peek in CodePen for plenty of awesome 3D snippets that you can work with.


Most Promising Web Design Trends To Follow In 2018

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Designrfix/~3/N3n7oJqmtbw/most-promising-web-design-trends-to-follow-in-2018

Technology is advancing fast, and most people have forgotten the days when time had to be set aside for shopping and running errands. Most businesses now have an online presence because people no longer have the time for time-consuming activities like shopping. Apart from completing their shopping from the comfort of their home, people are […]

The post Most Promising Web Design Trends To Follow In 2018 appeared first on designrfix.com.

Collective #429

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/VZrxaI__Y-c/

C429_mockup

Shotsnapp

A fantastic tool for creating mockup presentations for your design. Made by Gaddafi Rusli.

Check it out

C429_Be

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Even the best web designers make mistakes. A solution to this problem is using pre-built websites. Be Theme offers over 350 of them, each of them at one click away from being installed on your website.

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C429_access

Designing for accessibility is not that hard

Pablo Stanley shows us seven easy-to-implement guidelines to design a more accessible web.

Read it

C429_tenori

Tenori-off

A smart music sequencer that uses Machine Learning to try to match drums to a synth melody. Made by Monica Dinculescu.

Check it out

C429_scrollgradient

Scrolling Gradient

Mike Riethmuller created this demo where a background gradient changes according to the scroll position.

Check it out

C429_tree

Reduce JavaScript Payloads with Tree Shaking

Jeremy Wagner explains how to use tree shaking, a form of dead code elimination, to improve JavaScript performance.

Read it

C429_doodle

SVG Pattern Doodler

Niklas Knaack created this fantastic demo where a simple algorithm draws patterns and doodles into an SVG element.

Check it out

C429_array

An adventure in sparse arrays

Remy Sharp explores sparse arrays and shares some common pitfalls when dealing with them.

Read it

C429_singlie

Singlie

A progressive and minimal implementation of the circular and linear singly linked list data structures in modern ES6.

Check it out

C429_leira

Free Font: Leira

A playful brush font designed by Evita Vilaka.

Get it

C429_interneting

Interneting Is Hard

In case you missed it: A resource of friendly web development tutorials for complete beginners.

Check it out

C429_scroll

fakeScroll

A lightweight and robust custom-looking HTML scrollbar script.

Check it out

C429_react

React From Zero

A simple yet comprehensive React tutorial.

Check it out

C429_ch

What is the CSS ‘ch’ Unit?

Eric Meyer explains the ch unit in CSS.

Read it

C429_generative

Generative WorldCup

An experiment with the world cup statistics API and canvas to generate abstract patterns for each soccer match.

Check it out

C429_fontsize

Pixels vs. Ems: Users DO Change Font Size

An interesting article with data on how many users actually change the font size in their browsers. By Evan Minto.

Read it

C429_chart

ChartGen

An SVG chart generator that utilizes the Box-Muller transform to generate random trending data for realistic SVG line and bar charts.

Check it out

C429_transemails

Everything You Need To Know About Transactional Email But Didn’t Know To Ask

Some advanced best practices for transactional emails by Garrett Dimon.

Read it

C429_fittext

Fitting Text to a Container

Chris Coyier explores the different ways of making a text size itself to fill a container.

Read it

C429_css4

Where is CSS4? When is it coming out?

Jen Simmons explains why CSS4 does not exist.

Watch it

C429_firejs

‘Fire’ visual effect in JavaScript

A short tutorial on how to create a pixel fire effect in JavaScript with just about 20 lines of code.

Read it

C429_more

More

A nice link animation made by Chris Gannon.

Check it out

C429_svgiconsystems

The guide to integrating and styling icon systems?- inline SVG and icon components

In this two-part series, Claudia Romano explains integration techniques for icon systems using practical code examples.

Read it

C429_vue

The Vue Handbook

A guide to Vue written by Flavio Copes. Free for a subscription.

Check it out

C429_gridtut

The simpleton’s guide to CSS Grid

An easy-to-follow guide to CSS Grid by Dennis Gaebel.

Read it

Collective #429 was written by Pedro Botelho and published on Codrops.

50 Useful Android Apps for Designers (2018)

Original Source: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/android-apps-designer/

Long list of Android apps that are useful for designers including photo editing and sharing, and social media apps along with others.

The post 50 Useful Android Apps for Designers (2018) appeared…

Visit hongkiat.com for full content.

Collective #430

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/oII1mpjoJwY/

C430_WOTW

Inspirational Website of the Week: An Interesting Day

No animations but a brilliant layout and a unique design with some nice details. Our pick this week.

Get inspired

C430_optin

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C430_cms

Publii

Publii is a static-website-building tool for every skill level with a GUI to build a safe, fast and stylish website.

Check it out

C430_IEGrid

CSS Grid in IE: CSS Grid and the New Autoprefixer

Daniel Tonon’s three-part series on CSS Grid in Internet Explorer. In this second part he tackles the common misconception that the IE implementation of CSS grid is extremely difficult.

Read it

C430_feature

Introduction to Feature Policy

Learn everything about “Feature Policy” which allows web developers to selectively enable, disable, and modify the behavior of certain APIs and web features in the browser. By Eric Bidelman.

Read it

C430_subgrid

CSS Grid Level 2: Here Comes Subgrid

Rachel Andrew explains the new features of CSS Grid Level 2.

Read it

C430_cssdoodles

CSS Doodles

A lovely set of CSS doodles by Agathe Cocco.

Check it out

C430_generative

The Mutable Gallery

A collection of generative artworks by Heydon Pickering.

Check it out

C430_text

Textalytic

Textalytic is a free Natural Language Processing service that handles pre-processing, analyzing, and visualization in an easy to use web interface.

Check it out

C430_iconsystems

The guide to integrating and styling icon systems?- SVG sprites, SVG symbols and icon fonts

The second part in a two-part series on icon systems with focus on SVG image sprites, SVG symbols and icon fonts. By Sebastiano Guerriero.

Read it

C430_physics

Physics-Based Background Scroll Effects

In case you missed it: a tutorial on how to create an animated background effect with Matter.js.

Read it

C430_loading

Infinitely drawing icons

A great loading animation of icons by Mikael Ainalem.

Check it out

C430_clocks

Clock Shop

A collection of beautiful and unusual clock demos.

Check it out

C430_ab

The Link Bar, an Ecommerce Mobile Homepage Navigation Alternative (to the Hamburger Menu)

Some interesting AB test results of using the link bar navigation pattern in mobile sites.

Check it out

C430_forms

Beyond Likert scales: how we made boring form-filling more fun

Read how the team at JotForm made their forms more fun to use.

Read it

C430_cssart

picCSSel Art

A tool to create CSS pixel art made by Kushagra Gour.

Check it out

C430_ghost

Ghost Mouse

A fantastic demo by Liam Egan where a blob like element moves with the mouse/finger.

Check it out

C430_brads

Brad’s Homelab

Brad Fitzpatrick’s home lab setup for highly-available internet.

Check it out

C430_clearfix

Clearfix: A Lesson in Web Development Evolution

Jason Hoffman takes a look at the history of the famous CSS clearfix hack.

Read it

C430_svgterm

termtosvg

A Linux terminal recorder written in Python that renders your command line sessions as standalone SVG animations.

Check it out

C430_font

Free Font: Akrotiri

A playful rounded font made by Ilya Zakharov.

Get it

Collective #430 was written by Pedro Botelho and published on Codrops.

Better Collaboration By Bringing Designers Into The Code Review Process

Original Source: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/07/collaboration-designers-code-review-process/

Better Collaboration By Bringing Designers Into The Code Review Process

Better Collaboration By Bringing Designers Into The Code Review Process

Ida Aalen

2018-07-10T13:50:26+02:00
2018-07-10T14:18:57+00:00

Smooth collaboration between developers and designers is something everyone aspires to, but it’s notoriously difficult. But with today’s advanced web, it’s difficult — if not impossible — to build a truly great product without collaborating across disciplines. Because of the range of technologies required to build a product, the product can only truly succeed when all disciplines — developers and designers, content creators, and user experience strategists — are deeply involved from the early stages of the project. When this happens, all ends of what it takes to build a product come naturally together into a unified whole, and a thus great product.

Because of this, no one is really promoting waterfall processes anymore. Nevertheless, involving other people early on, especially people from other disciplines, can feel scary. In the worst case scenario, it leads to “design by committee.”

Moreover, both designers and content strategists often have backgrounds in fields in which a sole creative genius is still the ideal. Having someone else proof your work can feel like a threat to your creativity.

So how can you involve people early on so that you’re avoiding the waterfall, but also making sure that you’re not setting yourself up for design by committee? I found my answer when learning about code reviews.

Getting workflow just right ain’t an easy task. So are proper estimates. Or alignment among different departments. That’s why we’ve set up “this-is-how-I-work”-sessions — with smart cookies sharing what works well for them. A part of the Smashing Membership, of course.

Explore features →

Smashing TV, with live sessions for professional designers and developers.

The Aha! Moment

In July 2017, I founded Confrere together with two developers, and we quickly hired our first engineer (I’m not a developer myself, I’m more of a UX or content designer). Our collaboration was running surprisingly smoothly, so much so that at our retrospectives, the recurring theme was that we all felt that we were “doing it right.”

Three people are smiling and sitting next to each other around a computer. From left to right, they are Dag-Inge (CTO), Ida (CPO) and Ingvild (Sr. Engineer).

Dag-Inge (CTO), myself (CPO) and Ingvild (Sr. Engineer). (Large preview)

I sat down with my colleagues to try to pinpoint what exactly it was that we were “doing right” so that we could try to preserve that feeling even as our company grew and our team expanded. We came to the realization that we all appreciated that the whole team was involved early on and that we were being honest and clear in our feedback to each other. Our CTO Dag-Inge added: “It works because we’re doing it as peers. You’re not being berated and just getting a list of faults”.

The word “peer” is what gave me the aha moment. I realized that those of us working within UX, design, and content have a lot to learn from developers when it comes to collaboration.

Peer reviewing in the form of code reviews is essential to how software gets built. To me, code reviews offer inspiration for improving collaboration within our own fields, but also a model for collaborating across fields and disciplines.

If you’re already familiar with code reviews, feel free to skip the next section.

What Is A Code Review?

A code review can be done in various ways. Today, the most typical form of code review happens in the way of so-called pull requests (using a technology called git). As illustrated below, the pull requests let other people on the team know that a developer has completed code that they wish to merge with the main code base. It also allows the team to review the code: they give feedback on the code before it gets merged, in case it needs improvement.

Pull requests have clearly defined roles: there is an author and a reviewer(s).

Ingvild and Dag-Inge is setting next to each other and smiling. An arrow indicated that Ingvild has sent code to Dag-Inge.

Ingvild (the author) requests a review from Dag-Inge (the reviewer). (Large preview)

As an example, let’s say our senior engineer Ingvild has made a change to Confrere’s sign-up flow. Before it is merged into the main code base and gets shipped, she (the author) creates a pull request to request a review from our CTO Dag-Inge (the reviewer). He won’t make any changes to her code, only add his comments.

Ingvild and Dag-Inge is setting next to each other. An arrow indicates that Dag-Inge has sent comments on code back to Ingvild.

Dag-Inge comments on Ingvild’s code. (Large preview)

It’s up to Ingvild how she wants to act on the feedback she received in the review. She’ll update her pull request with the changes she sees fit.

Ingvild and Dag-Inge are sitting next to each other. An arrow indicates that Ingvild is sending back her code to Dag-Inge, having looked through the code he commented on.

Ingvild updates her code with the changes she sees fit in light of Dag-Inge’s comments. (Large preview)

When the reviewer(s) approve the pull request, Ingvild can then merge her changes with the main code base.

Ingvild and Dag-Inge are sitting next to each other. A thumbs-up is displayed on the code review Dag-Inge has sent to Ingvild. And arrow indicates she pushes this code to the main repository.

After Dag-Inge gives the thumbs up, Ingvild can push the fix to production. (Large preview)

Why Bother Doing Code Review?

If you’ve never done code review, the process above might sound bureaucratic. If you have doubts, here’s a ton of blog posts and academic research about the advantages of code review.

Code reviews set the tone for the entire company that everything we do should be open to scrutiny from others, and that such scrutiny should be a welcome part of your workflow rather than viewed as threatening.

— Bruce Johnson, co-founder of Full Story

Code review reduces risk. Having someone proof your work, and also knowing someone will proof your work, helps weed out
 errors and
 heightens quality. In addition, it ensures consistency and helps every team member familiarize with more of the code base.

When done right, code review also builds a culture for collaboration and openness. Trying to understand and critique other people’s work is an excellent way to learn, and so is getting honest feedback on your work.

Always having at least two people look over the code also curtails ideas of “my” code 
and “your” code.
 It’s our code.

Considering these advantages, a review shouldn’t just be for code.

Review Principles For All Disciplines, Not Just Code

With reviews, there is always one author and one or more reviewers. That means you can involve people early on without falling into design by committee.

First, I have to mention two important factors which will affect your team’s ability to do beneficial reviews. You don’t necessarily have to have mastered them, but as a minimum, you should aspire to the following:

You and your colleagues respect each other and each other’s disciplines.
You’re sufficiently self-assured in your own role so that you feel like you can both give and receive criticism (this is also connected to the team’s psychological safety).

Even if we’re not reviewing code, there’s a lot to learn from existing best practices for code reviews.

Within our team, we try to adhere to the following principles when doing reviews:

Critique the work, 
not the author.
Be critical, but remain 
affable and curious.
Differentiate between a) Suggestions b) Requirements, c) Points that need discussion or clarification.
Move discussions from
 text to face-to-face. (Video counts)
Don’t forget to 
praise the good parts! What’s clever, creative, solid, original, funny, nice, and so on?

These principles weren’t actually written down until after we discussed why our collaboration was working so well. We all felt we were allowed to and expected to ask questions and suggest improvements already, and that our motivations were always about building something great together, and not about criticising another person.

Because we were being clear about what kind of feedback we were giving, and also remembered to praise each other’s good work, doing reviews was a positive force rather than a demotivating one.

An Example

To give you an idea of how our team uses review across disciplines and throughout a process, let’s look at how the different members of our team switched between the roles of author and reviewer when we created our sign-up flow.

Step 1: Requirements gathering

Author: Ida (UX)

Reviewers: Svein (strategy), Dag-Inge (engineering), Ingvild (engineering).

A whiteboard is showing rough sketches of a sign-up form. A man (Svein) and a woman (Ingvild) are smiling and discussing.

The team gathered around the whiteboard. Svein (CEO) to the left, Ingvild (Sr. Eng), to the right. (Large preview)

Whiteboard sessions can be exhausting if there’s no structure to them. To maintain productivity and creativity, we use the author/reviewer structure, even for something as seemingly basic as brainstorming on a whiteboard. In this case, in which we were coming up with the requirements for our sign-up flow, I got to be the author, and the rest of the team gave their feedback and acted as reviewers. Because they also knew they’d be able to review what I came up with in step 2 (plenty more opportunity for adjustments, suggestions, and improvements), we worked swiftly and were able to agree upon the requirements in under 2 hours.

Step 2: Mockup with microcopy

Author: Ida (UX)

Reviewers: Ingvild (engineering), Eivind (design), Svein (strategy).

A screenshot of a Google Doc mocking up a sign-up form with comments from team members Ingvild and Ida.

By mocking up in Google docs, it’s easy for people from all disciplines to provide feedback early on. (Large preview)

As an author, I created a mockup of the sign-up flow with microcopy. Did the sign-up flow make sense, from both the user and engineering perspective? And how could we improve the flow from a design and frontend perspective? At this stage, it was essential to work in a format in which it would be easy for all disciplines to give feedback (we opted for Google Docs, but it could also have been done with a tool like InvisionApp).

Step 3: Implementing the sign-up flow

Author: Ingvild (engineering)

Reviewer: Ida (UX) and Dag-Inge (engineering).

We had agreed upon the flow, the input fields, and the microcopy, and so it was up to Ingvild to implement it. Thanks to Surge, we can automatically create preview URLs of the changes so that people who can’t read code are able to give feedback at this stage as well.

Step 4: User testing

Author: Ida (UX)

Reviewer: The users.

Two women (Ida and a user) sitting next to eachother in front of a laptop.

Ida doing user testing on a small budget. (Large preview)

Yes, we consider user testing a form of review. We brought our newly built sign-up flow face-to-face with actual users. This step gave us a ton of insight, and the most significant changes in our sign-up flow came as a result.

Step 5: Design

Author: Eivind (design)

Reviewers: Ingvild (engineering) and Ida (UX).

A screenshot from Slack. Eivind, the designer, has posted a screenshot, and Ida replies with enthusiasm.

The first version of the sign-up flow was based on existing design components. In this stage, Eivind developed some new components to help improve the design. (Large preview)

When design suddenly shows up here in step 5, it might look a lot like a waterfall process. However, our designer Eivind had already been involved as a reviewer since step 2. He gave a bunch of useful feedback at that stage and was also able to start thinking about how we could improve the design of the sign-up flow beyond the existing modules in our design system. At this step, Eivind could also help solve some of the issues that we identified in the user testing.

Step 6: Implementation

Author: Ingvild (engineering)

Reviewer: Eivind (design), Ida (UX) and Dag-Inge (engineering).

And then we’re back to implementing.

Why review works

In summary, there’s always just one author, thus avoiding design by committee. By involving a range of disciplines as reviewers early on, we avoid having a waterfall process.

People can flag their concerns early and also start thinking about how they can contribute later on. The clearly defined roles keep the process on track.

Regular Review Walkthroughs

Taking inspiration from code walkthroughs, we also do regular review walkthroughs with different foci, guided by the following principles:

The walkthrough is done together.
One person is in charge of reviewing and documenting.
The idea is to identify issues, not necessarily to solve them.
Choose a format that gives as much context as possible, so that it’s easy to act upon the findings later (e.g. InvisionApp for visual reviews, Google Docs for text, and so on).

We’ve done review walkthroughs for things such as accessibility audits, reviewing feature requests, auditing the implementation of the design, and doing heuristic usability evaluations.

When we do our quarterly accessibility reviews, our accessibility consultant Joakim first goes through the interface and documents and prioritizes the issues he’s found in a shared Google Sheet. Joakim then walks us through the most important issues he’s identified.

Meeting face-to-face (or at least on video) to go through the issues helps create an environment for learning rather than a feeling of being supervised or micromanaged.

Three people in a sofa gathered around a laptop. They’re discussing and smiling.

Accessibility review: Joakim (right) walks Ingvild and Dag-Inge through the accessibility issues he found in his audit. (Large preview)

If you find yourself always being tied up with something that’s due for release, or fixing whatever is at the top of your inbox, reviews can help remedy that. If you set aside regular half days for reviewing work you’ve already done, you can identify issues before they become urgent. It can also help you refocus and make sure you’re priorities are keeping along the right lines. Your team should maybe not begin building that new feature before you’re confident that the existing features are living up to your standards.

User Testing Is A Form Of Review

An important motivation for code reviews is to reduce risk. By doing it every single time you introduce a change or add something new to your product, and not just when you suspect something is maybe not up to par, you diminish the chance of shipping bugs or subpar features. I believe we should look at user testing from the same perspective.

You see, if you want to reduce the risk of shipping with major usability issues, user testing has to be part of your process. Just having your UX designers review the interface isn’t enough. Several studies have found that even usability experts fail in identifying every actual usability problems. On average, 1 in 3 issues identified by experts were false alarms — they weren’t issues for users in practice. But worse, 1 in 2 issues that users did in fact have, were overlooked by the experts.

Skipping user testing is just as big a risk as skipping code review.

Does Review Mean Death To Creativity?

People working within design, user experience, and content often have educational backgrounds from art schools or maybe literature, in which the sole creator or creative artistic genius is hailed as the ideal. If you go back in history, this used to be the case for developers as well. Over time, this has changed by necessity as web development has grown more complex.

If you cling to the idea of creativity coming from somewhere deep within yourself, the idea of review might feel threatening or scary. Someone meddling in your half-finished work? Ouch. But if you think about creativity as something that can spring from many sources, including dialogue, collaboration, or any form of inspiration (whether from the outside or from someplace within you), then a review is only an asset and an opportunity.

As long as we’re building something for the web, there’s no way around collaborating with other people, be it within our own field or others. And a good idea will survive review.

Let’s create something great together.

Smashing Editorial
(rb, ra, yk, il)