Links (12,294 links)

A showcase of what is possible with Progressive Web Apps today.

I have often been asked to distill the vast corpus of user interface design into a few key principles. While I was reluctant to do this, it turned out to be a good exercise to write “Golden Rules,” that are applicable in most interactive systems. These principles, derived from experience and refined over three decades, require validation and tuning for specific design domains.

This is wonderful.

These tools can’t create anything new. They spin together the most basic aesthetics of digital art into a slurry that feels immediately dated upon creation. Which is why, less than two years after DALL-E 2 launched to the public, ushering in a new age of AI, the content these tools produce has quickly gone from shiny new toy to visual shorthand for e-waste. They are basically a high-tech version of a Bitmoji.

A common location to store all color scheme data for the Tinted theming project

Via Popular.

Measuring the use of the product isn’t bad. However, it does not measure the UX of the product. The UX is the user experience, and these metrics have nothing experiential in them.

A brilliant reference for an Astro blog + digital garden.

When you try building web components the same way you build React components, it’s easy to get frustrated and give up because web components don’t work like React components — I know I gave up a few times.

The grain of a React component is not the grain of a web component. Their design prioritize different functionality and forms of use. If you try to use one like the other, you’ll fight the direction of their natural grain.

Color schemes with accessible contrast.

A Framework for building Themes

A place to report bugs on websites.

✨ The all-contributors bot website and documentation. Recognize all contributors, not just the ones who push code ✨

Maybe this time all the exciting calendar start-ups won't go all "our incredible journey" and disappear.

Resources, links, projects, and ideas for gardeners tending their digital notes on the public interwebs

One-way sync engine for the iCloud Photos Library into the native file system

Over the last 9 months we’ve deleted close to 80% of the marketing footprint off ibm.com. Tens of thousands of pages. The result is that traffic, conversion and all our experience and NPS metrics are up. It was a gross project but I’ll tell you about it.

Just build a normal website.

Via benterrett.

Designed to be a reference for anyone building component-based user interfaces, The Component Gallery is an up-to-date repository of interface components based on examples from the world of design systems.

Via Popular.

Via Popular.

Hiring even one person creates a lot less profit than you’d think, and launching a product rarely works out.

Via Popular.

How can we make the case for slowing down to speed up when we are already going slow, and when shutting things down and starting over is not an option?

Throughout this piece, we’ve talked about the sans-serifs and the utilitarian nature of their design. But perhaps their greatest sin is that they often lack personality. When more and more customers are looking for a more human relationship with brands, having the same logo font as everyone else just doesn’t cut it.

GDS is thinking about its strategy for 2025-30. I’m Head of Product in the Digital Service Platforms part of GDS - you might have previously known it as…

Round robin letters allow relationships to survive the distances and distractions of modern life. They are the friendship equivalent of a mid-ranking CIA official visiting Beijing for talks: they can pave the way for a proper meeting.

This methodology involves decoupling the design tokens and elements from their implementation, allowing them to be applied across various platforms and technologies. This platform-agnostic nature of headless design systems makes them highly scalable and suitable for organizations that have a presence across multiple digital mediums beyond just the product.

So, essentially a reframing of what we called the Spotify Model in 2019, based on the "Reimagining Design Systems at Spotify" talk.

A primer on brand for product teams

This page collects all the familiar navigation patterns for structuring iOS apps, like drill-downs, modals, pyramids, sequences, and more! Think of it as an unofficial bonus chapter for Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, written by someone who cares deeply about well-crafted user interfaces.

Via tlavoie.

CSS custom properties to help accelerate adaptive and consistent design.

This is a great example of a shift I’m seeing from marketing focusing on quantity (of leads) to quality (of engagement) through the funnel and correlating that with performance at each stage.

If you’re designing a brand today, you’re designing a digital entity. You’re also designing a shared entity. Brands today aren’t the work of lone geniuses. They are collaborations between marketers, product people, partners and customers.

Systems thinking allows your work to reach more people.

If a component doesn’t align with the project’s vision, it’s not sacrilege to customize or create entirely new elements.

Via Popular.

In short, black and white logo marks no longer cover all colours. There are certain circumstances in which black and white logos could cover use of the marks in different colours, provided a change only in colour would not alter the distinctive character of the mark.

Beautiful & consistent icon toolkit made by the community. Open-source project and a fork of Feather Icons.

Via monospaced.

everynoise.com is and was a projection of things I worked on at the Echo Nest, and then Spotify. As of this morning, I'm not working there, and I expect most of the things I did will no longer be done. The domain is mine, but the processes that updated the site have already stopped running, and the current server may stop serving at any moment. Once that happens, I will try to bring back at least a wistful memorial to what it was.

Via philgyford.

Via monospaced.

Via monospaced.

Opinions on corporate and brand identity work.

There is a long-standing free-market complaint about Japan’s "over-investment" in public infrastructure, but in recent years, I’ve realized how clean and reliable subways, sidewalks, and public roads don't just make the city more livable, but more equitable, as well. Everyone can enjoy good public transportation, no matter their socioeconomic background (and many wealthy people ride the subway here). The train station near the San'ya “slum” is just as clean as the train station in posh Omotesando.