Mobile

Learn how to put mobile first in your designs, for phones, tablets, and wearable devices. Create responsive designs, and tap-friendly layouts!

Mobile First Design: Why It’s Great and Why It Sucks

Mobile / 23 Jul 2019

Mobile First Design: Why It’s Great and Why It Sucks

Historically, most web designers and their clients have approached the desktop side of any project first, while leaving the mobile part as a secondary goal that gets accomplished later. Even with the rise of responsive design, many of us begin with the “full size” site and work our way down.

There’s a growing trend in the industry though to flip this workflow on its head and actually begin with mobile considerations and then work up to a larger desktop version.

Why would you ever approach a project this way? What are some of the pros and cons of this strategy? Read on to find out!

Tips for Designing Better Mobile Typography

Mobile / 5 Mar 2014

Tips for Designing Better Mobile Typography

Mobile is big right now. But often the typography is small. When it comes to creating great type on small screens, there are plenty of challenges.

So how can you make the most of responsiveness, mobile design and typography? The first step is really understanding type and the second is by thinking about how people read. Put the two together and you will get a handle on creating great mobile type in no time. It’s a skill that every designer needs to master in the digital age.

The Importance of Designing for Readability

Mobile / 22 Jul 2013

The Importance of Designing for Readability

Text is not an afterthought in the design process. It should be your first consideration.

Readability should be one of the top concerns when it comes to any design project. If text can’t be read, then why are you designing in the first place? Good design delivers content in a way that is understandable; readability is a big part of comprehension. Today we’ll be discussing how you can plan a design around the words, so that your projects are easy to read.

Focal Point: Intelligent Cropping of Responsive Images

Mobile / 12 Apr 2013

Focal Point: Intelligent Cropping of Responsive Images

The practice of implementing responsive images is still in its infancy. We’ve seen a lot of ideas and suggestions for how it should be done and we’re bound to see a lot more.

Today we’re going to look at a fascinating little framework that allows you to not only automatically resize your images when the viewport changes, but also crop the images with a specific important focal point in mind. Amazingly enough, it does all this with pure CSS. Read on to see how it works.

Are Hover Events Extinct?

Mobile / 26 Apr 2012

Are Hover Events Extinct?

Odds are, :hover was the very first pseudo class selector that you ever learned. Heck, it might be the only one you ever learned. We all love this lovely little feature and use it constantly as a way to create enriched user experiences.

My question today could change the way you think about hover forever: “Does the ubiquity of touchscreens render hover events obsolete?” Put another way, did the iPhone kill :hover? Read on to see how iOS handles a CSS hover event, what that means for you as a developer, and how you should or shouldn’t be using hover events in your designs.