Back to News Happy New Year, everyone! Here are a few of the things our team found useful or interesting this past week.
Design
Just keep scrolling! How to design lengthy, lengthy pages
smashingmagazine.com
It can be challenging designing a long page with a lot of content. I found this article helpful in terms of best practices and what to keep in mind to preserve usability.
— Anne
Using “How Might We” questions to ideate on the right problems
nngroup.com
The technique for ideation that this article explains is simple. But, it’s very essential and I think it would influence the quality of ideas you get from group work.
— Junta
The state of design in 2021
The State of Design in 2021
A nice digestive article by Abstract on design trends such as design teams, design process, and how outcome is measured. Visually very well presented too!
— Adam P
27 research-backed web design tips: How to design a website that works
orbitmedia.com
Here is a great list of best practices for web design with the research to back it up!
— Anne
Tech
Comparing static site generator build times
css-tricks.com
A good comparison of build times for the most popular static site generators. While this shouldn’t be the main thing you focus on when deciding which SSG to use for your brand spanking new blog, this is one piece of information to consider.
— Ian
End-to-end testing in React Native with Detox
blog.logrocket.com
A nice handy article on implementing detox testing for React Native.
— Adam P
Heroku is being left in the dust when it comes to raw power
mailchi.mp/railsspeed
I always enjoy Nate Berkopec’s articles on how to improve the performance of your Rails apps. This is a particularly interesting one. Did you know that Heroku dynos are using AWS instances that are a few generations out of date? I sure didn’t!
— Ian
iSH Shell iOS app
apps.apple.com
I’m a little surprised that this made it onto the App store, but it’s likely a highly neutered version of a full-fledged Linux shell. Still, what developer doesn’t want to be able to access a terminal on their iPad?
— Ian
Why teach frontend skills to a primarily backend-focused audience?
mailchi.mp/railsspeed
Why learn about frontend when you’re primarily a backend developer? This little quote from the article sums it up, I’d say:
“[W]eb application performance is browser performance. … Backend response times make up 10% or less of the average latency of a web application.”
— Ian