Portfolio advice to a younger self — 1. Your portfolio will get you an interview, not a job The role of your portfolio (and resume) is to get you an interview. Your work should stand on its own, but it shouldn’t include an 8-page case study. Save your detailed process and trove of artifacts to review onsite. 2. Unsolicited redesigns are OK Junior designers often don’t have a lot of client projects in…

With Firebase’s new Firestore for offline support — In case you haven’t heard, Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are finally ready for prime time. It might not yet be obvious to many people how to install a PWA, but if you’ve done it once you won’t forget it and it’s simpler than using an app store. There are many…

My role as a hybrid designer and front-end engineer gives me a unique opportunity to see how the sausage is both designed and made. Our… — My role as a hybrid designer and front-end engineer gives me a unique opportunity to see how the sausage is both designed and made. Our process at Perficient Digital Labs varies by project, but is often: 📓 Gather requirements through 👩‍🔬 research & interviews

Do your eyes glaze over at the mention of an API? Have no idea if cookies are good, bad, or just delicious? — Do your eyes glaze over at the mention of an API? Have no idea if cookies are good, bad, or just delicious? Web development is complicated. And there’s a lot of confusing terminology surrounding it. …

A blank page is less intimidating than a blank screen — My urge is often to start wireframing in Sketch. But even if you’re keeping things simple — only using basic shapes and grayscale — pencil on paper is a better place to start. Sketching comes easier to some. If you like drawing, it’s instinctual to start there. But I’ve never drawn for fun and certainly am not skilled at it. None of that matters. Sketching allows you to produce designs faster than a computer. More speed prevents second-guessing your ideas and leads to more unique concepts and thorough exploration.

What we learned making a bot that talks like a person — It’s 12:30pm at Truth Labs which means we’re standing outside trying to decide where to go for lunch. We’re a creative bunch, so this seemed like a problem we should be able to solve. And a perfect opportunity to take a shot at experimenting with conversational UIs. First, some terminology Graphical user interfaces…

Unlock all layers on the current artboard using ⌘⌥L — We’re big fans of Sketch. We use it for everything from low-fidelity wireframes to pixel-perfect mockups. However, many of us who cut our teeth in Illustrator find that while Sketch rocks 99% of the time, there are still a few workflows that, well, need work. Specifically: it’s a pain to…

Why use Google Fonts anyway? — They’re free for commercial use They’re super simple to set up They can be quite fast (common fonts are likely cached) Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Google Fonts are everywhere. Here are my favorites… Lato Looking for a sans-serif? Lato is a great place to start. It’s a versatile font available…

Wizard of Oz prototyping is the process of making something manual appear automatic. The term comes from the novel and film, where the… — Wizard of Oz prototyping is the process of making something manual appear automatic. The term comes from the novel and film, where the wizard turns out to be a man behind a curtain. So what does this have to do with software? A big component to Agile and lean development…