Magazine
Human-Centered Design Through AI-Assisted Usability Testing: Reality Or Fiction? — Smashing Magazine
The most reliable way to meet user needs is through extensive usability research. However, scaling can be a challenge, especially if a researcher needs to personally e-meet every participant. When left to their own devices, participants also tend to provide incomplete answers. Could parts of this interaction be automated to help researchers gather more data…
Time To First Byte: Beyond Server Response Time — Smashing Magazine
Optimizing web performance means looking beyond surface-level metrics. Time to First Byte (TTFB) is crucial, but improving it requires more than tweaking server response time. Matt Zeunert breaks down what TTFB is, what causes its poor score, and why reducing server response time alone isn’t enough for optimization and often won’t be the most impactful…
Integrations: From Simple Data Transfer To Modern Composable Architectures — Smashing Magazine
In today’s web development landscape, the concept of a monolithic application has become increasingly rare. Modern applications are composed of multiple specialized services, each of which handles specific aspects of functionality. This shift didn’t happen overnight — it’s the result of decades of evolution in how we think about and implement data transfer between systems….
Look Closer, Inspiration Lies Everywhere (February 2025 Wallpapers Edition) — Smashing Magazine
Let’s make the most of the shortest of all months, with a new collection of desktop wallpapers celebrating new opportunities, sweet memories, happy little moments, and everything in between. All of them created with love by the community for the community. Enjoy! As designers, we are always on the lookout for some fresh inspiration, and…
Navigating The Challenges Of Modern Open-Source Authoring: Lessons Learned — Smashing Magazine
Alvaro Saburido delves into the current state and challenges of Open-Source authoring, sharing lessons learned from both community- and company-driven initiatives. Open source is the backbone of modern software development. As someone deeply involved in both community-driven and company-driven open source, I’ve had the privilege of experiencing its diverse approaches firsthand. This article dives into…
On-Device AI: Building Smarter, Faster, And Private Applications — Smashing Magazine
Shouldn’t there be a way to keep your apps or project data private and improve performance by reducing server latency? This is what on-device AI is designed to solve. It handles AI processing locally, right on your device, without connecting to the internet and sending data to the cloud. In this article, Joas Pambou explains…
Solo Development: Learning To Let Go Of Perfection — Smashing Magazine
The best and worst thing about solo development is the “solo” part. There’s a lot of freedom in working alone, and that freedom can be inspiring, but it can also become a debilitating hindrance to productivity and progress. Victor Ayomipo shares his personal lessons on what it takes to navigate solo development and build the…
New Front-End Features For Designers In 2025 — Smashing Magazine
Searching for the most flexible front-end workflows and toolkits, it’s easy to forget how powerful some of the fundamentals on the web have become these days. This post is a journey through new front-end features and what they are capable of. Component-specific styling, styling parents based on their children, relative colors — the web platform…
The Design Leader Dilemma — Smashing Magazine
Design leaders are expected to deliver the impossible. Instead of trying, we need to redefine our role from implementor to enabler. Many design leaders find themselves in an impossible situation. On one side, senior management have read articles trumpeting the incredible ROI of user experience design. McKinsey tells us that design-led companies achieve 56% higher…
An Introduction To CSS Scroll-Driven Animations: Scroll And View Progress Timelines — Smashing Magazine
with the ID “progress.” At the end of the CSS file, you’ll see it has a background color, a defined width and height, and it’s fixed at the top of the page. There’s also an animation that scales it from 0 to 1 along the x-axis — pretty standard if you’re familiar with CSS animations!…