Back to News Working in tech and design requires constantly keeping up with the latest techniques, tools, technologies, and industry news. Here are a few of the things our team found useful over the last week.
Design
Designing for good: creators in Japan respond to the coronavirus
japantimes.co.jp
It’s a trying time for everyone, but it’s inspiring see designers are finding creative ways to help others. Stay safe and stay one tuna away from others!
— Anne
How to facilitate a successful remote workshop
invisionapp.com
An interesting read particularly for the Covid situation for those who are in the position of running remote design workshops.
— Adam P
Motors by memory – How accurately can the British public draw car logos from memory?
vanmonster.com
This is both very fun and interesting, and also a great lesson on iconic visual branding. I wonder how Tacchi’s logo would fare!
— Mark
Multicultural design: adapting visual systems from Western to Eastern countries
uxdesign.cc
I came across this article in my search for resources on the differences between Japanese and Western web design. It’s an interesting read that takes you to the cross-section of language and design. I particularly liked the discussion of grids and the consideration of the amount of space each character takes.
— Anne
Why cross-cultural design matters
imaginarycloud.com
It’s easy to make faulty assumptions on what is and isn’t standard or common sense for users. This is particularly true when working outside your home country, as your users may come to different conclusions and make different decisions than you based on their culture. This article is a well-written reminder to focus not just on your users, but also on their backgrounds.
— Ian
Tech
Fraidy Cat
fraidyc.at
Fraidy Cat is an open source Electron app for aggregating your favourite sites and social media profiles. It’s fun to use and because it’s a relatively simple app it’s great for learning how to build electron apps.
— Adam A
Privacy-preserving contact tracing
apple.com
Apple and Google uniting for once to help the world tackle The Virus in the best way they know how – using the ubiquitous mobile tech in all of our pockets. I’m impressed at the privacy-focused approach here, and sincerely hope someone in the Japanese government is making moves to implement this in a country-wide app asap! Related reading includes Does Covid-19 contact tracing pose a privacy risk? Your questions, answered, NSHipsters fantastic-as-usual technical review, and Quentin Zervaas’ example prototype.
— Mark
Best practices for creating React Native apps
medium.com
An updated list on what the author considers best practices for React Native. From our experience at Tacchi, this is a solid list and covers many important aspects of developing with React Native, including when and when not to use Expo as well as error handling.
— Ian
Why you should keep faith with React Native
blog.logrocket.com
A nice critical and balanced writeup on the current state of React Native and some notes on its roadmap for the upcoming year. One thing I didn’t know until reading this was how extensively Microsoft is using it, including in their Word, Excel and Xbox apps!
— Mark