Web Developer Tools & Resources
When we hype up the technology, we mostly help the people who put money into it. This post isn’t about those people or that money, maybe they could use the help… my point is, they are irrelevant when we want to understand the merits of AI. They muddy the waters and overshadow the important questions.
But what about future generations? For them, these tools will have always been an integral part of everyday life. Just as I can remember a time without smartphones, my teenage daughter can’t. She was born after the iPhone took the world by storm. Touchscreens and app stores are all she’s ever known.
So, you’ve built an amazing open source project or developer tool. Now you need a landing page that doesn’t suck! You could spend weeks researching what works, A/B testing layouts, and second-guessing design decisions.
One of the fastest ways to frustrate a user is by losing their progress. Imagine this: you scroll, scroll, scroll down a long list…click…read, and hit the Back button, only to land back at the top of the list instead of where you left off.
Welcome to this week’s Unicorn Club, and a quick shoutout to the 29 new readers who joined us. You’re in good company.
When I first stepped into the world of UX, I was flooded with buzzwords — wireframes, user personas, sitemaps, design systems, micro interactions, heuristics… the list never ended. I watched countless YouTube tutorials, bookmarked too many articles, and spent days trying to make my Figma files look “perfect.”
Small details in product design can create big moments of friction. This is one of them.
Non-linear web design offers users a dynamic and interactive experience by allowing them to explore content in various, personalized paths rather than following a rigid, linear flow. This approach enhances user engagement and fosters a more organic, exploratory web experience.
OpenAI unveils ‘ChatGPT agent’ that gives ChatGPT its own computer to autonomously use your email and web apps, download and create files for you
Companies developing video AI models and tools often talk about working with Hollywood studios to make certain workflows possible. On Thursday, Netflix said that it has started using AI in movies and shows it produces.
What does it take to consistently ship great products? For many development leaders, the answer is evolving. To understand this shift and its broader impacts, we commissioned research from the International Data Corporation (IDC)—surveying 500 development leaders across North America and Europe and augmenting with qualitative interviews. While we expected to hear about expanding responsibilities and the growing impact of generative AI, we were struck by how often respondents cited design as...
If you’ve ever scrolled through social media and stopped mid-swipe because something caught your eye, chances are it had movement.
Millions of people visit the web daily for answers, advice, and inspiration. SEO content bridges a user’s intent with meaningful, discoverable digital information. Building informative, trustworthy articles, product descriptions, videos, and guides can position a website as a reliable resource within its field. But there is more to SEO than filling a page with keywords and hoping for the best. Highly effective SEO content understands how search engines interpret relevance,...
An inside look at how movement in design, storytelling and technology shaped a platform to inspire the next generation of creatives.
Flip phones aren’t dead. On the contrary, 200+ million non-smartphones are sold annually. That’s roughly equivalent to the number of iPhones sold in 2024. Even in the United States, millions of flip phones are sold each year.
Want to create user experiences that are not only beautiful but also intuitive and effective? Looking to master the core UX principles that every successful designer relies on?
I think the best way for me to show you what I want to show you is to make this blog post a bit like a story. So I’m gonna do that.
During a recent discovery project I led on car finance, I interviewed a participant who, based on the screener, appeared to meet the eligibility criteria.
The leap to a larger organization was a significant step in my career, but the initial excitement quickly met a complex reality. In my previous roles, design approval was straightforward. But here it was a negotiation between a host of powerful stakeholders. The Head of Engineering focused on feasibility, the VP of Products on market fit, and the Head of Design on system consistency.
AI-design isn’t a novelty anymore — it’s rapidly becoming a key part of how modern designers operate. In this article, I explore where today’s tools provide real value, how they fit into existing workflows, and what it takes to start building an AI-enhanced practice.
Scroll-driven animations are great! They’re a powerful tool that lets developers tie the movement and transformation of elements directly to the user’s scroll position. This technique opens up new ways to create interactive experiences, cuing images to appear, text to glide across the stage, and backgrounds to subtly shift. Used thoughtfully, scroll-driven animations (SDA) can make your website feel more dynamic, engaging, and responsive.
SVGs aren’t just pretty vector images — they’re powerful tools for creating lightweight, scalable, and stunning animations right inside your browser. Whether it’s an animated icon, a funky line drawing effect, or a complex UI loader — SVG animations can make your web experiences interactive and fun without killing performance.
As the leaves change color and the air gets crisp, it’s not just nature that’s going through a transformation. Fall is the perfect time to refresh your website’s SEO and get it ready for the end-of-year rush or to set the stage for next year’s growth. Whether you’re a B2B or B2C business, these 10 simple SEO steps will help you optimize your website for the season ahead.
Reducing the number of accessible endpoints and exposed components is fundamental.
Sales teams are under more pressure than ever to do more with less. In 2025, AI tools to book more meetings have gone from nice-to-have to mission-critical. These tools don’t just save time—they personalize outreach, schedule calls faster, and help you close more deals with less human effort.
Any company, big or small, new or old, will at some point introduce something new to their products for their potential or existing customers to access and use. But anyone who’s done this knows that change often comes with resistance. Some users simply dislike anything new. Others feel their expectations weren’t met, or they think the update doesn’t match their preferences.
Designing visuals that respond to real-time data or user input usually means switching between multiple tools — one for animation, another for logic, and yet another for implementation. This back-and-forth can slow down iteration, make small changes cumbersome, and create a disconnect between design and behavior.
You have probably thought, “There must be a better way,” if you have ever sat in front of your screen adjusting pixel margins or rewriting the same line of CSS for the hundredth time. You’re not by yourself. In a time when creativity and efficiency are frequently seen as mutually exclusive, a new class of tools is demonstrating that you don’t have to choose between the two – greetings from...
Canva is perfect for designing everything from business cards to posters. But when it comes to taking those designs from screen to paper, things can get tricky.
Brands like Nuuly, Ruggable, and GitHub are designing multidimensional experiences that build customer trust, serve employee needs, and uphold core values.
In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a liquid glass effect (much like Apple’s latest iOS release) with HTML, CSS, and SVG filters.
Designing a new AI feature? Where do you even begin? From first steps to design flows and interactions, here’s a simple, systematic approach to building AI experiences that stick. More design patterns in our Smart Interface Design Patterns, a friendly video course on UX and design patterns by Vitaly — from complex data tables and nested filters to FAQs and error messages.
I see a lot of bad system design advice. One classic is the LinkedIn-optimized “bet you never heard of queues” style of post, presumably aimed at people who are new to the industry. Another is the Twitter-optimized “you’re a terrible engineer if you ever store booleans in a database” clever trick1. Even good system design advice can be kind of bad. I love Designing Data-Intensive Applications, but I don’t think it’s particularly...
The subtle ways in which design tools shape how we think and what we make
Think of stimulation as the effect or mood a color combination can create, ranging from sleep coma to hyper excitement. You can click on the button below to dive straight into it now, or keep reading to learn more.
Technology, innovation and advancements can solve problems that make our lives easier and more enjoyable. When working with new technology, designers act as interpreters between the tech and their users – ensuring that users can understand how to use the technology, that it fits their needs, etc.
Earlier this month I met with a product manager who wanted to know if a designer on my team had capacity to take on a small project. Everyone’s stretched thin and we’re no different. I didn’t have a great answer for her.
Ideal for creating portfolio demo reels, social media posts, launch videos and quickly adding motion to your apps and websites.
In today’s digital world, the terms UX and UI get thrown around a lot, especially if you’re working on web design or development projects. But what do they actually mean, and why should your business focus on both? Let’s break it down.
Digital transformation has evolved from a trend to a necessity for businesses of all sizes in 2025. As organizations seek to remain competitive, meet rising customer expectations, and adapt to rapid technological change, artificial intelligence (AI) stands out as a critical driver. However, the journey to meaningful and sustainable digital progress is complex — and this is where expert AI consulting becomes indispensable.
Accessibility is a right — and a legal requirement in many countries. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) set the standard for digital accessibility, and failure to adhere to these guidelines can result in lawsuits, fines, or worse.
Websites don’t age gracefully. Left unattended, they inevitably fall behind the latest best practices and technologies. We especially see the impact on sites built with WordPress.
Growing a startup means becoming bigger while also making smart decisions. Having such a digital plan for startups means technology is aligned with what the business wants to achieve over time.
It’s time again to share some cool resources and tools for our fellow developers. There are so many cool tools out there to help you build faster, write better code, and stay organized.
We scaled Santa, an open-source binary authorization tool, across all Figmates’ laptops to boost endpoint security while keeping workflows seamless. Here’s how we tackled the challenges and ensured a smooth rollout.
In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to build a fun and interactive mesh gradient generator that you can use to create beautiful mesh gradients and add them to your designs.
Mosaic designs have an incredible ability to evoke a sense of tradition, craftsmanship, and timeless beauty in any design.
Web design ideas in 2025 demonstrate a bright and unusual approach. They combine aesthetics, proven functionality, perfect usability, and innovations. Who dictates trends for design developments? Surely, it is real visitors who use the websites every day and desire to enjoy both attractive design and improved functionality.
Mature organizations use career ladders to assess whether an employee is exceeding their job expectations and ready for promotion. These ladders typically encompass several areas of skills and provide a precise indication of whether someone is close to being promoted or if they should focus on improving in certain areas.
In our original design, user input was handled through modal dialogs. This approach became problematic as our workflows grew in complexity — especially when forms became multi-step, or when nested actions required opening a new modal on top of another.
Equal-height image layouts seem simple until you try to build one that’s truly responsive. This tutorial walks through my solution using flexbox aspect ratios, the Eleventy Image plugin, and a Nunjucks shortcode.
As always in design, timing matters, and so do timely notifications. Let’s explore how we might improve the notifications UX. More design patterns in our Smart Interface Design Patterns, a friendly video course on UX and design patterns by Vitaly — from complex data tables and nested filters to FAQs and error messages.
Discover how to use CSS @if() conditions to streamline your styles—no preprocessors needed!
When Transport Focus first approached us in 2012, we could never have predicted that a decade later, we’d be stewarding one of the UK’s most critical public resources through its third major evolution. What started as a straightforward website redesign has grown into a strategic partnership that demonstrates the power of sustained collaboration.
In this tutorial, we’ll create a color contrast tool that lets you check the accessibility and readability of text, by comparing the ratio between background and foreground colors.
Consistency is key when it comes to building a memorable brand. But keeping your designs aligned, especially when your team is growing or juggling lots of content, can be time-consuming.
Let’s be honest for a second. Have you ever set up a new front-end project and, somewhere between choosing a build tool, a state manager, and a styling library, just felt… tired? It’s a specific kind of exhaustion. You haven’t even written a line of app logic, but you’re already worn out by the sheer weight of the decisions.
Figma, a design and development platform for people who build apps, websites, and other digital products together, is expanding its presence in Latin America. At the same time, it is further localizing its products with the launch of Latin American Spanish.
In today’s fast-moving market, businesses are constantly seeking ways to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and deliver better services. One of the most promising approaches to achieving these goals is through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in automation.
A product catalog does more than list what you sell, it can also help shape how people see your brand. A clean, well-structured layout can make your products easier to browse and more appealing to potential buyers. But starting from scratch in InDesign takes time. That’s where these templates come in.
Content design. The somewhat forgotten practice that guides users from A to B. That structures information. That plays a simple yet powerful role in shaping user experience (UX). The unsung hero of design that very rarely receives the recognition it deserves.
Create WCAG-compliant infographics with expert tips on alt text, contrast, and screen reader support. Make your visuals accessible to all.
So a big theme of this conversation is how to identify the right opportunities to design AI into a product that’s already working. Ioana shares a bunch of stories and lessons learned from her time at Miro as well as a refreshing perspective on AI and design as whole that i think will resonate with a lot of you.
It’s glossy. It’s bold… and controversial. A calm, inclusive look at Apple’s most radical UI shift.
I’m enjoying these FAQ style articles. Today I’m digging into 7 questions that companies have asked me in recent months with the help of Cindy, Garron, Gustavs and Nad.
From giant inflatable glyphs to welcoming soundscapes, Figma’s Brand Studio designed an immersive conference that celebrated the spirit of makership at every turn.
We’ve all been there. You find a stock graphic labeled “premium,” pay the extra fee, and then realize it still looks cheap in your design.
I have a confession to make. For the first year or so, I used GitHub Copilot like a glorified spell-checker. A really, really smart spell-checker, sure—one that could write a whole function instead of just fixing a typo—but the dynamic was the same. I’d write, it would suggest, and I’d hit Tab. The end.
Transform your website from flat to flourishing with interactive animations that enhance user experience.
To be honest, I was a smidge skeptical. I know what a design token is. It’s a variable of a color or font-family or something. I pretty much only work on websites, so that exposes itself as a --custom-property and I already know that using those to abstract common usage of colors and fonts is smart and helpful. Done. I get that people managing a whole fleet of sites (and apps running in who-knows-what...
With that in mind, we’re focused on increasing the number of designers who receive leads and the number of leads each designer receives, with work underway to improve every facet of the conversion funnel.
, Apple’s yearly developer conference where they reveal new platforms, technologies, and (most relevant here) design languages. During the presentation they released their newest iteration, dubbed Liquid Glass.
Welcome to Fundament, a weekly product design newsletter where we share actionable tips and insightful stories with the worldwide design community.
The composable software platform for AI-powered organizations
Transport Focus serves as the voice of passengers throughout the UK’s transport network, covering rail, bus, and tram services across England, Wales, and Scotland. As a government-funded watchdog, they deliver critical research, manage customer complaints, and advocate for better service across the national transportation infrastructure. If there’s a BBC news story on transport, you’re guaranteed the team at Transport Focus will have the data to support it.
During a recent holiday, I got the new Peugeot 3008 in the rental car lottery. It features Peugeot’s new Panorama i-Cockpit—a bold dashboard redesign with a beautiful display. But after a week of use, it became clear that the software couldn’t match the impressive hardware.
In this process we never think to ask if abdicating our creative judgment almost completely to the Large Language Model gods is a good idea. It’s like we’re a tribe of primitive Luddites offering up our drudgery in return for a magical oracle that only rewards the loudest acolytes.
I often nostalgically look back at products of the past — the colorful original iMac or the Palm Pilot — and wonder what it would be like if I could use them today. Of course, I can’t. They lack the connectivity, the power, and the software needed.
Generate heat-mapped reports to justify your earliest designs with AI drop off, miss clicks and duration.
In the spirit of 12 Factor Apps. The source for this project is public at https://github.com/humanlayer/12-factor-agents, and I welcome your feedback and contributions. Let’s figure this out together!
AI is transforming the way we work — automating production, collapsing handoffs, and enabling non-designers to ship work that once required a full design team. Like it or not, we’re heading into a world where many design tasks will no longer need a designer.