UX

Buttons and loading states are one of the most fundamental parts of any app or website. For me at least, I'd press a button to submit information to an endpoint so often that I found myself looking for easy ways to improve this action's UX. My immediate thought was that it would be great to show a loading state and disable the button until the action had completed. Unfortunately doing this manually for each button looked like far too much boilerplate code. Add a state to keep track of loading evrey time a button to submit i

I've previously talked about how to read markdown files from Next.js' API routes. However, it was only recently, while improving some of my blog's logic, that I realised the true value of this technique. So here's a simple guide on how to create an incredibly powerful content API from your Markdown files and double your build speed while you're at it.

If you're a web developer, you probably spend a whole lot of time in your terminal. But, despite how fundamental terminals are for modern web development, they're incredibly minimal and limited with often quite bad UX. That's why I've spent no less than a couple of years perfecting this cross-platform guide to improving your terminal experience. And it's what I use every day for both personal and professional projects, so I know it works. It's by no means perfect, but it should be enough to get you started. Once you're done, your terminal should look something

A unicorn designer is defined as someone skilled in design, visual design, and coding. While they're very sought after, they are usually looked down upon by other designers because they're seen as avoiding being a specialist in anything. Here's why that shouldn't be the case. I recently discussed the nature of Unicorn Designers with some peers. And I could see pretty quickly that the consensus among Interaction and Prod

Figma, the collaborative design and prototyping tool, has yielded great success as a slick (and free) Adobe XD and Sketch alternative. And this year, its features and UX are being upgraded like never before. So let's have look at what's new in Figma in 2020. The

People will put up with all manner of design sins when settling for a period tracker. And it wasn't until I tried Apple's in-built cycle-tracker that I realised just how dire the situation on the app store was. So whats the big deal? The Importance of a Good Mobile Period Tracker Every friend and family member I know who menstruates uses a period-tracking app. And unless they're into tech, they generally settle on the first or second thing they find in the app store. This is... fine... But we deserve better. So why don't we hold

After a decade of comfortable design stagnation for the platform, the 2020 Facebook redesign is here. And as one of the lucky people who got to test it this week, and I have to say: I'm impressed. Facebook has been altering bits and pieces of their design for the past couple of years. However, as these were mostly small improvements on existing elements, they only marginally improved user experience. So seeing Facebook being re-designed from the ground-up is not only a refreshing surprise, but also something quite necessary.

It's harder than ever to find a mid-range phone in android or iOS that does everything you want it to. But why? Let's analyse the smartphone market in 2020 and go through the best phones for the year. All Out of Options I had a Oneplus 3 for years and I loved it. It was sturdy, beautiful and surprisingly powerful for just £309. When it broke suddenly last year I found myself in a real pickle of indecision over how to replace it. I quickly learned that in the years while owning my Oneplus, the mid

Having proved steadfastly popular since its inception a decade ago, Duolingo shows no signs of slowing down. So how does it keep us hooked? Duolingo's presence as the world's leading language-learning app is undeniable. In fact, according to their LinkedIn page, the app boasts 300 million users. That's not a number to be sniffed at. If you've tried Duolingo (and if you're even a little into languages, you probably have) you'll have noticed just how easy it is. Once

I love my job, but let's be honest, that daily commute gets a little boring and Spotify can only take me so far. I started looking for weird music just to fill my time, staring out the bus window to the increasingly dark winter mornings That is until one day when I opened Spotify and the first suggestion on my homepage wasn't an album or a daily playlist, but a podcast called StartUp. The genius behind "StartUp" Gimlet Media's Startup Podcast If you think of