We’ve all seen margin: 0 auto; for horizontal centering, but margin: auto; has refused to work for vertical centering… until now! But actually (spoiler alert!) absolute centering only requires a declared height* and these styles: .Absolute-Center { margin: auto; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0; }

There has been a fantastic response to the post on the Dribbblisation of Design, many people agreeing with the premise and adding to it, some disagreeing and offering counter points. I want to respond to people’s commentary, explain the original motivation for the post which wasn’t about Dribbble specifically, and talk about how we hire […]

Designing and developing can be time-consuming without a workflow, especially when the project involves a new challenge, putting the team or freelancer into unknown territory. Moreover, time is a key factor in productivity. Working efficiently enables us to deliver better value at a competitive price.

When you buy something, I bet you want it to work. Heck, even if you use something for free — maybe borrowed from a friend — I bet you want it to work. No one prefers hiking boots that are too tight (or too loose), a car that shimmies when you drive faster than 40 […]

I’ve been thinking about workflows for Responsive Web Design quite a bit, particularly since its now become our default approach on every new project – similar to Cloud Fours recent change of heart. I’ve been especially influenced by two recent articles on the topic, namely Dennis Kardys’s A More Flexible Workflow, and Viljami Salminen’s Responsive workflow. I struggled […]

Ultimately, we are deluding ourselves if we think that the products that we design are the ‘things’ that we sell, rather than the individual, social and cultural experience that they engender, and the value and impact that they have. Design that ignores this is not worthy of the name. Design should embrace failure.

While the word perfect is highly subjective, I can state with some degree of confidence that the “perfect client” for us web designers would be a client that: Gives us complete creative control Tells us what they want Leaves us alone to get the job done (i.e., they aren’t a micro-manager) However, I can tell you from my experience that […]

Stephanie Troeth’s main job title is subtly different from the terms we usually hear within the field of user experience. She’s a user experience strategist, a discipline that “has yet to hit mainstream”, she tells me, which involves working in the place where user experience and business objectives meet. She will go into gut instincts […]

There is a very clever technique by Alexey Ten on providing an image fallback for SVG going around the internet recently. It does just what you want in the classic no-SVG-support browsers IE 8- and Android 2.3. If we dig a little deeper we find a some pretty interesting stuff including a bit of unexpected […]

Many software developers fail to understand the principles of designing notifications the right way. It sounds like a simple feature, but when you look at it from the end–user’s perspective, there are some important things that need good execution.