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MasterCard unveils its first rebrand in 20 years

July 15th, 2016 No comments

MasterCard’s logo is almost universally recognized because it’s remained unchanged for 20 years. The interlocking twin circles (one red and the other yellow) with the wordmark “MasterCard” prominently displayed on top has greeted its credit card holders around the world for decades. You might even say that this logo was ubiquitous in financial and consumer circles.

Now, MasterCard has unveiled its new logo, which was created to make it easier for the company to brand itself consistently across all of its interests, including digital and the web. Interestingly, the redesign isn’t much of a stark departure from what’s worked for the company, namely the intersecting circles. Subtle changes have been added to the logo, but these subtle changes have created a huge impact on the company’s product line, as it’s now easier than ever for people to identify the brand planet-wide.

In the old design, the logo featured interlocking circles that created a venn diagram where the circles overlapped. Here, the red and yellow circles looked like teeth on a zipper as there were bars of red and yellow in the middle. The MasterCard wordmark was imposed on top of the circles, with uppercase and lowercase text in addition to a drop shadow that fell on the circles.

The new logo design espouses smart minimalism by taking all of the old design’s elements and simplifying it that much further to create a logo that has fewer elements for its partner banks (which issue its cards) to use in confusing cross-branding.

Instead of the red-and-yellow comb effect in the center of the circles, we know see the true result of red and yellow mixing, which is the color orange. The wordmark “MasterCard” has been entirely kicked out of the circles and now appears underneath them.

The wordmark also features a new typeface, FF Mark. The most notable change is that every letter in the new wordmark is now lowercase while also sporting circular curves that the old wordmark couldn’t accommodate. It’s also gone from white to black.

The design company that worked on this update, Pentagram, was thankful that it already had much to work with before they began the redesign. The old logo already featured one of the simplest and easiest geometric shapes with which to work, not to mention two of the three primary colors. As a result, Pentagram didn’t really perform a complete overhaul, but, rather, a simple design tweak that updated the logo to today’s branding needs.

The new logo is anything but excessively clever or instantly eye-catching. Instead, it’s a safe and effective transition from a tested design to one that’s complementary to an evolving brand identity.

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Change Color of All Four Borders Even With `border-collapse: collapse;`

July 15th, 2016 No comments

The following is a guest post by Daniel Jauch. It’s a quicky that covers something I bet many of us have run across at one time or another: border-collapse is great, until it impedes on your ability to change a border color you’re trying to change because of the overlapping.

The border-collapse property is great for making borders even all around

cells. It makes for a clean look that I actually prefer.

But, there is something that can cause issues with how a browser draws the cells and their respective borders. Each cell is placed under the previous one when being drawn in order. This means that if tables have different colored borders, those borders are hidden on some sides.

The Problem

In the code example below, hover over cells to see how borders can be hidden behind each other.

See the Pen Table border collapse step 1 by Daniel (@gooseofmusic) on CodePen.

Since z-index doesn’t work on cells inside a

, we have to work with the content inside the cells.

The Solution

Step 1

Fair warning: this solution will employ the use of negative margins. For those of you who don’t like negative margins, avert your eyes.

First, we put a wrapper around the content inside the cell. Move the border, padding, etc to the inside content to match.

See the Pen Table border collapse step 2 by Daniel (@gooseofmusic) on CodePen.

This alone will actually reverse the problem: the borders on the bottom and right show up on top.

Step 2

From there, we also have to add z-index to the :hover state so it stacks above the other elements. Because we’re z-indexing content inside the table cell, rather than the

itself, it works.

See the Pen Table border collapse step 3 by Daniel (@gooseofmusic) on CodePen.

Make sure the z-index is not included in any transition or you’ll see the previously hidden borders “swipe” into view rather than fade.


Change Color of All Four Borders Even With `border-collapse: collapse;` is a post from CSS-Tricks

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Free download: Boho logos by Freepik

July 15th, 2016 No comments

Looking for an attention grabbing, boho-style logo for your business? You won’t go far wrong with this group of six hand-drawn logotypes designed by Freepik.com

Each of the logos uses a script-style, or hand-lettering style font, so you can easily change the text to your business’ name. The fonts used are Amatic, Dancing Script, Grand Hotel, Kaushan Script, and Landliebe; a link for each of them is included in the download.

The file is delivered in .EPS, .AI, and .JPG formats, and is free to use for personal and commercial use with an attribution to Freepik. Download beneath the preview:

Please enter your email address below and click the download button. The download link will be sent to you by email, or if you have already subscribed, the download will begin immediately.

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Web Development Reading List #145: Font Loading Strategies, Scaling SVGs And Infinite Scrolling Done Right

July 15th, 2016 No comments

I love articles that specifically focus on tiny little details within web development. For example, this week I stumbled upon an article featuring all the fine details about scheduling in requestAnimationFrame. Another gem I discovered is a widely unknown but very practical SVG attribute to preserve stroke widths while scaling an illustration.

Web Development Reading List #145: Font Loading Strategies, Scaling SVGs, And Infinite Scrolling Done Right

All of these little details can make such a huge difference in our projects, so I’m particularly thankful for having discovered these articles to share with you this week. Let’s dive in.

The post Web Development Reading List #145: Font Loading Strategies, Scaling SVGs And Infinite Scrolling Done Right appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

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HTML5 and JavaScript: How to Create Mobile Web Apps

July 15th, 2016 No comments
mobile Web-Apps

Mobile apps don’t always have to come as native apps. We can also use HTML5 and the JavaScript APIs it introduced, to develop mobile web apps that are (almost) equal to the natively programmed apps. On top of that, native applications also have disadvantages that you won’t need to deal with when using HTML5.

No Store Constraint, no Different Platforms

Apps have become an indispensable part of smartphones and tablets. However, if you want to offer mobile apps yourself, you’ll learn that it comes with a couple of hazards and effort that needs to be put in. The so-called hybrid apps that run on multiple platforms, however, only resemble some sort of container that holds web apps developed in HTML and JavaScript.

Googles Play Store

Google’s Play Store

Another disadvantage of native apps is that they can only be installed via the respective app store. This causes one-time registration payment in the Google Play Store, and regular payments when using Apple. It is possible to install apps without a store on Android devices. However, you need to activate app installation from “unknown” sources in the settings to do so.

You don’t have any of these problems with web apps. They are created entirely in HTML5 and JavaScript, and thus, they are independent from operating systems and stores.

Device Orientation and Localization

Many apps use the special device functions that smartphones and tablets are equipped with. This includes the gyroscope, which detects the rotation of a device around its own axis, allowing it to recognize if a device is held in the portrait, or landscape mode. This is also possible using JavaScript.

window.addEventListener("deviceorientation", function() {
 console.log(e.alpha);
 console.log(e.beta);
 console.log(e.gamma);
}, true);

In the example, three angles that display the device’s current rotation, are distributed via the event “deviceorientation”.

GPS tracking is also very commonly used. Aside from navigation apps, social network apps are the ones that access the user’s location the most. Once again, this is also possible with JavaScript.

navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position) {
 console.log(position.coords.latitude, position.coords.longitude);
});

As you can see above, the coordinates of the longitude and latitude are distributed via “geolocation”. This makes it possible to determine the respective GPS position.

Saving Offline Via Application Cache

Especially on mobile devices, native apps have the advantage that they only need to be downloaded once to be available even without an internet connnection. However, that is no reason to feel obligated to create a native app. After all, the HTML5 application cache lets you permanently save a web app’s data as well.

For that, a so-called manifest file, that defines which data should be cached after the first time loading the page on a device, is referenced.

<html manifest="example.appcache">

Then, the manifest file contains all the data of the website that you want to make available offline.

CACHE MANIFEST
index.html
stylesheet.css
logo.png

In the example above, three files are downloaded, and from that point on, they are loaded from the application cache instead of from the internet.

Gesture Controls

While the mouse dominates desktop devices, its job is done by finger taps on smartphones and tablets. Aside from simple taps that replace the mouse click to an extent, mobile devices also allow for so-called gestures. The swipe gesture that is used to display or hide menus, or go through an image gallery, is probably the most popular one.

JavaScript also lets you build this functionality. To do so, there are several different “touch” events that work in a way similar to the “mouse” events. For instance, there are “touchstart”, “touchmove”, and “touched”, which reflect the position of a finger on the display. Here, multiple fingers placed on the display at the same time, can be registered via “touch” events.

document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].addEventListener("touchmove", function(e) {
  console.log(e.changedTouches[0].pageX);
  console.log(e.changedTouches[0].pageY);
}, false);

Via “changedTouches” all touches on the display are saved as arrays. In our example, the coordinates of the first touch are displayed.

Camera Access

Accessing cameras via “getUserMedia()” is a rather new option. For that, the first thing that needs to be done is placing an empty “

<video autoplay="autoplay"></video>

Subsequently, the camera image will be placed in there via “getUserMedia()”

navigator.getUserMedia ({
  audio: true,
  video: true
}, function (stream) {
  document.getElementsByTagName("video")[0].src = window.URL.createObjectURL(stream);
}, function() {
  console.log("Error");
});

“getUserMedia()” requires three parameters. First, you define if video and audio content should be transferred. Then, a function that processes the stream and hands it over to the “

At the moment, “getUserMedia()” still needs to be labelled with a vendor prefix, like “webkitGetUserMedia()”.

Placing Web Apps on the Home Screen With the Web Application Manifest

On the mobile Chrome, there’s the function “add to home screen”. Here, a bookmark is not placed in the browser, but on the home screen. A manifest lets you define a name different from the page title, as well as a custom icon.

Chrome und die Funktion „Zum Startbildschirm hinzufügen“

Chrome and the Function “Add to Home Screen”

To do so, the manifest file needs to be defined in the HTML header first.

<link rel="manifest" href="manifest.json">

Afterwards, the way this bookmark should be displayed on the home screen is determined in this file in JSON format.

{
  "name": "Demo",
  "icons": [{
    "src": "icon_36x36.png",
    "sizes": "36x36",
    "type": "image/png",
    "density": 1
  }]
}

In the sample above, the name of the bookmark is defined via “name”, and a bunch of files that reference icons in different resolutions and pixel densities are defined via “icons”.

Furthermore, you are also able to determine the app’s behaviour when opened from the home screen.

"display": "standalone",
"orientation": "portrait"

“display” turns a website into a standalone application. Here, address bar and browser menu are hidden, and the website is displayed in full-screen mode. “orientation” is used to choose between portrait and landscape mode.

Conclusion

Thanks to the web application manifest, mobile apps and native apps are barely different from each other once deposited on the home screen. With the help of the many JavaScript APIs, it is also possible to use almost all the features of smartphones and tablets that native apps get to use.

(dpe)

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30 Free and Premium Responsive eCommerce Templates

July 14th, 2016 No comments
F2 - Fashion Boutique Magento Theme

No business can go without a rock-solid online presentation. With the intention of saving the time and effort of web development, both business owners and web design agencies opt for ready-made website templates, which can go live out of the box. For this blog post we have hand-picked 30 responsive eCommerce templates, both premium and free. To make it easier to browse the chart, we have grouped all of the designs by the platforms with which they are compatible. So, get ready to see responsive Magento themes, PrestaShop themes, Shopify themes, Opencart templates and WooCommerce Themes.

A selection of the latest Magento themes is first on the list. We’ll start with premium solutions and move on to their free equivalents. We will repeat the same in each subsequent block. So, browse the compilation, view the themes’ live demos and pick the ones that meet your business needs perfectly.

Responsive eCommerce Templates for Magento

F2 – Fashion Boutique Magento Theme

Demo | More info

F2 is a fully featured, 100% responsive Magento theme best suited for fashion and beauty stores. Running on Magento 2.0 framework, it includes a set of custom TM modules, which all of the theme’s owners can use for free. So, by downloading the theme you will have access to MegaMenu, Film Slider, Ajax Search, Newsletter popup, and Ajax Filer premium extensions. Featuring configurable swatches, carousel product slider, a sticky MegaMenu and live search functionality, the theme is intended to provide your web audience with top-notch online experience.

2YOU Magento Theme

2YOU Magento Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

Featuring a clean design, this eCommerce theme is no less elegant. Fashion outfit stores will look amazing when built with its help. Simple and intuitive in navigation, the template allows the users to locate desired items effortlessly. Thought-out content positioning, live search and functional MegaMenu facilitate navigation to a great extent. All elements of the theme’s design and functionality can be tweaked via a feature-rich dashboard.

Watches Magento Theme

Watches Magento Theme

Demo | More info

This fully responsive eCommerce theme is built in clean, flat style, which lets you bring the users focus of attention to your store’s content. By default, the theme is intended for accessories stores. However, it will work well for any other purpose, once you have applied relevant changes to the theme’s look and feel. For example, it will work well for electronics, software, tools and equipment stores. The theme is pre-loaded with social sharing options, letting your audience spread the word about their preferred items with a click.

Vini – Fashion shop Magento Theme

Vini - Fashion shop Magento Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

This is one of the most recent Magento 2.0 themes from TemplateMonster. The theme runs on Magento 2.0 framework. Boasting lightning-fast page loading speeds, the theme is also crafted to adjust flawlessly to any screen size automatically. Loaded with pre-designed templates for home, product, category and other pages, the theme also includes custom-made extensions, which will enhance your work with Vini to a great extent.

iShop – Electronic Magento Theme

iShop - Electronic Magento Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

Like the rest of the responsive eCommerce templates in this compilation, it is fully editable and designed as per the latest web standards. Flat, minimalist layout of this theme, built with attention to detail, will be a perfect fit for websites selling tech gear. A set of custom TM modules is also added to the theme’s pack.

F2 – Magento 2.0 Theme (Free)

F2 - Magento 2.0 Theme

Demo | More info

Remember, earlier in this post we were talking about a premium F2 Magento theme? Here is its free equivalent. Looking pretty much the same as the paid solution, the theme features the basic elements, which will help you get started with your site in no time. For example, the pack includes unique category and product pages, a fully responsive Magento 2.0 framework, image slider, dropdown menu, configurable swatches, carousel product listing, and more. One of the main differences is that the free F2 theme lacks the custom TM modules, which are integrated into the premium F2 Magento theme.

Fitness Magento Theme (Free)

Fitness Magento Theme (free)

Demo | More info

This fully-customizable free Magento theme is intended to bring more elegance and style to sport related websites. The theme runs on Bootstrap framework, and is cross-browser compatible. Featuring a bold slider, retina-ready images, sticky navigation and lazy load effect, the theme provides the users with outstanding viewing and shopping experiences.

Responsive eCommerce Templates for PrestaShop

Molotok PrestaShop Theme

Molotok PrestaShop Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

This is one of the latest and most popular responsive eCommerce templates from TemplateMonster (a certified PrestaShop themes developer). This is an ever-growing PrestaShop theme, which gets bigger and better with the passage of time. You’ll like Molotok if you need a megamenu, a stylish slider, parallax effect, a theme color switcher, lots of premium modules worth $174 and other great stuff.
Btw, you can manage the theme’s layout in any possible way. For example, your web shop might have 1 sidebar, 2 sidebars or no sidebar at all. It should be also mentioned that Molotok has multiple demos, so we suggest that you check the theme yourself and see all the options it has to offer.

Queen – Women’s Clothes PrestaShop Theme

Queen - Womens Clothes PrestaShop Theme

Demo | More info

This is one more fully-featured responsive PrestaShop Theme. Its vintage-styled layout looks charming. Fashion and beauty related stores captivate with their non-standard online presentation, when built with the help of this template. A set of pre-loaded custom modules let you save more than $300 when purchasing the theme. In addition to its impressive visual presentation, it boasts a powerful admin panel, which brings Queen in alignment with other top-rated responsive eCommerce templates.

Bikerita – Responsive PrestaShop Theme

Bikerita - Responsive PrestaShop Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

Bikerita is one of those PrestaShop themes that come pre-loaded with premium modules and extensions, which everyone who downloads the theme can use for free. Best suited for sport and adventure related sites, it looks very straightforward and dynamic. Photo sliders and parallax scrolling backgrounds make the theme eye-catching and interactive. Featuring multilingual and multicurrency support, the theme is enhanced with a newsletter popup – a fully editable element, which you can adjust in any way you wish.

iShop – Computer Store PrestaShop Theme

iShop - Computer Store PrestaShop Theme

Demo | More info

iShop is one of those responsive eCommerce templates that is intended for selling computers, mobile phones and other tech gear on the web. Neutral color scheme of its design creates a calming atmosphere on the page, letting the users focus their attention on the store’s products. Bold sliders, product and category banners as well as a set of featured items allow you to showcase your offerings in style.

Computer Hardware PrestaShop Theme

Computer Hardware PrestaShop Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

Similar to the aforementioned PrestaShop themes, this ttheme runs on a 100% responsive Bootstrap framework. Cross browser compatible and SEO-friendly, it ensures top-notch performance of your store across a variety of web browsers and in search results. The sleek and stylish layout of this theme built in pale hues will make your eCommerce site look spacious and easy-on-the-eyes. Photo and video backgrounds, featuring parallax scrolling effect, add more depth and dynamism to the theme.

PrestaShop Theme for Book Website (Free)

PrestaShop Theme for Book Website (free)

Demo | More info

Stylish and dynamic, this freebie can go hand-in-hand with premium PrestaShop themes. Its layout is fully adaptive. A theme color switcher tool lets you manage the theme’s color scheme effortlessly, watching the changes live, without reloading the page. The theme’s header is enhanced with a sticky MegaMenu. Integration of social media tools lets your visitors share their preferred content with a click.

Fashion Store PrestaShop Theme (Free)

Fashion Store Prestashop Theme (free)

Demo | More info

The theme looks simple yet functional. Built with attention to detail, it lets online shoppers locate desired items in no time. A sticky MegaMenu and live search functionality are added to enhance navigation onsite. On the front page, featured items are organized into a grid-based list. The parallax scrolling backgrounds featuring the store’s fashion items, draw the users’ attention to the highlighted items.

Responsive eCommerce Templates for Shopify

Computers Shopify Theme

Computers Shopify Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

Let’s begin our selection of responsive Shopify themes with a responsive ready-made solution for electronics stores. Featuring a customizable slider in the header of the front page, the theme captivates the users’ attention with your store’s offerings. The product carousel and product badges allow the users to browse your inventory effortlessly and locate the right products in no time. The integrated Google map widget shows the shortest route to your physical location, whereas a set of social sharing options welcomes the users to subscribe to your updates on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platform.

Caviar Shopify Theme

Caviar Shopify Theme

Demo | More info

This simple and intuitive responsive eCommerce template is best suited for food and drink related websites. Its functional and easy to navigate layout features a host of elements providing for an effective presentation of your store’s offers on the web. A built-in promo banner, customizable MegaMenu, product badges, Elevate Zoom, live search, and more handy elements are provided to enhance your clients’ shopping experience.

Brilliance Shopify Theme

Brilliance Shopify Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

A classic combination of black and white colors makes this fashion Shopify theme so elegant and trendy. Enumerated content blocks make it easier to scan the page. Visual and written content make up a perfect balance on the page. Product Quick View option lets the users look through the product details without navigating to a separate page.

Apparel Responsive Shopify Theme

Apparel Responsive Shopify Theme

Demo | More info

This is one of the most popular fashion Shopify themes from TemplateMonster. The template is pre-loaded with customized modules. A selection of custom page templates will help you get started with your web store in no time – just replace the default content with yours and get your site live.

Time Craft Shopify Theme

Time Craft Shopify Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

In addition to a fully featured blog, the template is integrated with blog functionality. To help you manage the theme’s color palette, it is pre-loaded with a theme color switcher tool. With its help you can choose from the existing color combinations without the need to reload the page. Ajax cart, live search, sticky MegaMenu, product badges and the Elevate zoom feature are added to provide the users with a seamless shopping experience.

Fleur de lis Shopify Theme (Free)

Fleur de lis Shopify Theme (free)

Demo | More info

This is one of those free responsive eCommerce templates that can easily compete with premium solutions thanks to their functional filling and visual appeal. The clean and minimalist style of the theme is enhanced with stunning visuals, creating a cheerful and optimistic atmosphere on the page. A 2-column layout is spacious enough to share loads of data in an easy-to-browse manner. Featuring a fully responsive framework, the theme will adjust all of your site’s content to any screen resolution.

Responsive eCommerce Templates for Opencart

FLO OpenCart Template

FLO OpenCart Template - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

Like the majority of OpenCart templates from TemplateMonster, this template is intended to perform smoothly across all the major web browsers. As the name implies, the template will work well for interior design and furniture web stores. Traditionally, the theme’s layout is fully customizable and can be adjusted to fit a number of other niches. Custom page templates, customized modules, Google web fonts, a selection of web forms, and more advanced features are integrated to let you create a versatile web page.

VIVA OpenCart Template

VIVA OpenCart Template

Demo | More info

The theme looks both trendy and functional. The clean layout is enhanced with bold images and easy-to-follow navigation. When reaching your site, the users will be introduced to a newsletter popup form. A fully editable dropdown menu remains fixed to the top of the page as a user navigates your content. Wishlist and shopping cart options are also sticky.

Status OpenCart Template

Status OpenCart Template - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

The next theme on the list of premium Opencart templates is best suited for print shops. The layout includes a number of elements providing for an effective online presentation of your store’s offerings. A page-width slider, quality product thumbnails, easy to scan features and special items invite the users to start making purchases right from the theme’s front page. All of the store’s items are supplied with ratings, facilitating the users’ decision-making to a great degree.

Organic Cosmetics OpenCart Template

Organic Cosmetics OpenCart Template

Demo | More info

The theme will bring more style and elegance to beauty and fashion related web stores. Its greenish color scheme makes the design so fresh and natural. The layout is built with the focus on the store’s products. Grid/list views, products compare, wishlist, product badges, sticky MegaMenu, and more features are built into the theme and can be managed via the dashboard.

Shine OpenCart Template

Shine OpenCart Template - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

The bold metro style of the template’s layout makes it stand out from the rest of the OpenCart templates. Impressive visuals combined with a powerful set of features make the theme a rock-solid foundation for beauty, fashion and accessories stores. The theme runs on a fully adaptive framework, which ensures that all of the store’s content (including visuals) will scale to any display size.

Mobile Shop OpenCart Template (Free)

Mobile Shop OpenCart Template (free)

Demo | More info

The free OpenCart template is best suited for tech gear shops. A card-based layout structure is both trendy and user-friendly. A set of featured products placed below the product banners is supplied with a cool hover effect, which reveals CTAs and star rating on the mouse-over. An informative footer will take the users to the rest of your site’s pages with a click, whereas integrated social media options will guide them to your social media profiles.

Responsive eCommerce Templates for WooCommerce

Fairy Style WooCommerce Theme

Fairy Style WooCommerce Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

Fairy Style is the first on the list of the best WooCommerce themes from TemplateMonster for 2016. Simple and intuitive in its management, it includes a WordPress Live Customizer feature, which allows you to apply quick changes to your store’s layout while simply dragging and dropping different design elements. On top of that, the theme is licensed under GPL v3.0, which means that you can install it on as many sites as you wish and tweak the template’s code in multiple ways.

Wilson Smith WooCommerce Theme

Wilson Smith WooCommerce Theme

Demo | More info

The theme is built with valid, semantic code. Running on Bootstrap framework, it is fully adaptive to all screen sizes. Similar to the previously mentioned theme, this one is GPL licensed. WordPress Live Customizer is also included. A simple and easy-to-navigate layout structure makes it an optimal solution for eCommerce web projects selling electronics.

Fishing Online Store WooCommerce Theme

Fishing Online Store WooCommerce Theme - responsive eCommerce templates

Demo | More info

The theme will work well for content-heavy web stores. Best suited for fishing, sport and travel sites, it is abundant in bold visuals both in the backgrounds and on product pages. Thanks to the lazy load effect, the theme will load all content smoothly across a variety of devices. Cherry Framework with a selection of handy shortcodes will enhance the look and feel of your pages.

Drug Store WooCommerce Theme (Free)

Drug Store WooCommerce Theme (free)

Demo | More info

This is the last, but not the least theme on this list of responsive eCommerce templates. Its pixel-perfect design will work well for a variety of web projects, including sport, travel, electronics, entertainment, hobbies, gifts and others. Featuring stunning animation effects and parallax scrolling images, it is intended to present your store’s offerings in the best way possible. A fully editable layout, as well as Cherry Framework with its advanced set of features, is included as well.

Final Words

These are 30 of the most popular and trending responsive eCommerce templates. See all of them in action while browsing live demos, try how freebies perform and enrich your collection of cool web design stuff with more premium ready-made solutions.

Read More at 30 Free and Premium Responsive eCommerce Templates

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A Comprehensive Guide to Font Loading Strategies

July 14th, 2016 No comments

Squee!

The post we’ve been waiting for from Zach Leatherman. This will be the go-to reference when making tech and UX choices on font loading.

Zach compares 11 current (and future) techniques for loading web fonts, all with live demos. He clearly lists the PRO’s and CON’s for each without making it a novel. Most valuably, he provides a VERDICT on each, which let’s you know if the technique is up-to-par or not.

A winner is declared, but it’s fairly tricky to implement. It requires a “very small subset Roman web font” as a data URL loaded in the head, cached with sessionStorage, and observed for and loaded in stages via class names. The “baseline standard” is “FOUT with a Class” (eliminates the dangerous FOIT), and there are options in there if you really dislike FOUT.

A future-winner is also declared.

Direct Link to ArticlePermalink


A Comprehensive Guide to Font Loading Strategies is a post from CSS-Tricks

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Designing the perfect notification UX

July 14th, 2016 No comments

Notifications are all around us on the web and on mobile. Originally intended to help our user experience and usability in general, that’s not always been the case in practice since notifications can quickly become an annoyance if they’re designed poorly or not managed properly.

From desktop-based notifications to the notifications you can toggle on and off on your mobile apps, these alerts are all around us today. Thanks to their prevalence, it’s easy to take their design for granted, which usually leads to unsatisfactory UX.

What makes a notification design good? When and where should a specific notification appear?

Unobtrusiveness

There’s a fine line between notifications that serve their purpose and help users with timely alerts and reminders, and notifications that are nothing more than distractions because of how they make their way onto a user’s screen. Designers need to know what this fine line is so they can always stay on the UX-friendly side of it.

Notifications should always be as unobtrusive as possible. They shouldn’t interfere with what task the user needs to accomplish at any time, yet they should obviously still achieve their intended purpose of letting users know of something important that’s coming up.

On my Mac, for example, OS X is the OS that decides how my calendar app will notify me of important events. I never have my calendar open as with other, more heavily used applications and programs, so the calendar has to find a way to get my attention while still promoting great usability.

When your event gets nearer, my calendar sends me small notifications that slide in at the top right of my screen. Although they’re small, I’ll always see them because the movement catches my eye, and their small size means that they’ll never obstruct what I’m doing. In short, these unobtrusive notifications from my calendar are wonderful because they fulfill their purpose without being a hassle to my UX.

Location-based relevance

One of the hallmarks of excellent usability is pushing relevant notifications to users, particularly when they’re out and about. Smartphones today are so under siege by a plethora of notifications, but not all of them are designed with the user in mind, unfortunately.

Location-based notifications provide a very helpful benefit because of their relevance to where users are in the moment. If an app has properly gathered information from its users, it should already know the user’s likes and dislikes and can therefore push relevant notifications. For instance, when it comes to retail apps, one of the most favorite activities people do on those apps is create shopping and wish lists. This info is a goldmine for the app’s administrators because they can see exactly what’s relevant to a user and what’s not.

If an app has properly gathered information from its users, it should already know the user’s likes and dislikes

Location-based relevance means sending your users notifications when they’re able to take action on a specific purchase because they’re geographically near the actual store.

In the case of, let’s say the Target app, it’s indescribably helpful to design notifications to ping the user when they’re close to a Target store and using info culled from their in-app shopping lists. If there’s a sale on detergent, and the app knows that detergent just happens to be on the user’s shopping list for the week, a notification should be pushed to user when they’re near an actual Target.

Last-chance confirmation messages

There’s nothing more annoying than accidentally deleting an app, which usually destroys all of the information and data inside of it that you’ve worked hard to accumulate over time. Whether it’s your social-media or cloud-storage apps, not having vital data around anymore all because of an accidental tap on your smartphone is frustrating and hard to take.

That’s exactly why notifications that act as confirmation messages should make completely clear what’s being deleted before it’s actually deleted. These popup boxes should have the following characteristics:

  • be big enough to fill the screen width wise so that users can’t easily overlook them;
  • ask a short question of the user that forces them to make a decision;
  • use simple and to-the-point language to communicate what action is being considered;
  • use a bolded headline to catch the user’s attention;
  • feature call to action buttons that are clearly marked and have a distinct color.

Numerical values

When we quantify something, it usually gets easier for us to process and handle the task because it allows us to analyze how much personal investment of time we have to put into it. Numbers also help us to prioritize whether or not we want to take on a certain task at the moment. Measurable things are therefore helpful to usability because they allow us to make better decisions.

Notifications that contain numbers allow us to manage our workflows more efficiently

Notifications that contain numbers allow us to manage our workflows more efficiently. When we see a badge, an alert or just an icon that updates us that we have one notification to deal with, we’re likelier to deal with it right at that moment because it implies little work. Looking at one update will take us a conceivably shorter period of time than five updates.

At the same time, an alert that communicates that we have several notifications will be something that we’re likelier to put off until we think we can free up more time to adequately handle that load of work.

Google’s notifications system routinely uses numbers to update you on how many alerts you have to deal with at a given time, thereby quantifying how much work you’ll likely have to do if you check said alerts. This gives users more control over their time management.

Usability Should be Job One

It’s too easy for designers to get caught up in designing notifications for the sake of designing notifications. It seems like almost every single app out there is replete with alerts and notification features.

The biggest job for designers is deciding what notification should ultimately find its way to the end user since not all info is obviously going to be essential to the user. When the notification has a direct impact on the user’s UX, then it has to be pushed to the user, otherwise it probably doesn’t need to be shown.

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Freebie: Summer Icon Set (40 Icons, PNG, PDF, PSD, EPS, AI, SVG)

July 14th, 2016 No comments

You deserve a vacation, don’t you think? Now, you might need icons on your website to indicate that you’re away, or even use some for your auto-reply. For whatever reason you decide to use today’s icon set, we’re sure they’ll bring happy summer vibes to anyone who comes their way.

Freebie: Summer Icon Set (40 Icons, PNG, PDF, PSD, EPS, AI, SVG)

This set of 40 icons was created by the design team at Printerinks.com. Please note that this icon set is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is not cool. Please provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word in blog posts or anywhere else.

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Keeping Your Business And Clients Safe With Digital Policies

July 14th, 2016 No comments

Digital workers, especially web designers and developers, need to recognize that policy influences their products online much as it does offline. Whatever the scale of our enterprise — whether a large corporation, small digital agency, software company or personal venture — we must work within this system of legislated regulations (what we simply call “policies”) in order to maintain our compliance with the law.

Keeping Your Business And Clients Safe With Digital Policies

Our present regulatory environment is a world of rules we must navigate every day at the workplace, especially if we own a business. Why, then, should we expect the digital world in which we build websites and transact business to be any different? It isn’t — in fact, if anything, the regulatory environment on the web has grown more complex and codified in recent years, with new requirements arising quickly for accessibility, cookies, online privacy, the right to be forgotten, the exporting of personal citizenship information, and so on.

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