Build Ultra-Modern Web Apps with Angular Material - from toptal

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Sharing an article titled - Build Ultra-Modern Web Apps with Angular Material - from toptal. 

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At the Google I/O Conference back in 2014, Google announced Material Design, their new design language. They have since converted much of their popular applications to adhere to this new spec in an effort to provide a consistent experience. Now they are trying to convince you to follow along as well.

What is Material Design?

After a visit to the official Material Design spec, you will immediately get a feeling of ultra-modern minimalism. Basic shapes and flat colors are the theme here. Going through the documentation is quite an experience. I recommend taking a look for yourself, but I will summarize it here.

Goal

The purpose is to create a visual language that synthesizes classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science. Also to develop a single underlying system that allows for a unified experience across various platforms and device sizes.

Principles

Material Design is founded on three principles.

Material Is the Metaphor

Inspired by the study of paper and ink, the material lives in 3D space and is grounded in tactile reality. It gives the illusion of space by using realistic shadows. The paper material must abide by the laws of physics (i.e. two pieces of paper may not travel through each other), but may supercede the physical world (i.e. a paper may grow or shrink).

Bold, Graphic, Intentional

Deliberate color choices, edge-to-edge imagery, large-scale typography, and intentional white space create a bold and graphic interface that immerse the user in the experience. The Floating Action Button, or FAB, is a prime example of this principle. Have you noticed that little circle with the ‘plus’ symbol floating around in your Google Inbox app? Material Design makes it very apparent that this is an important button.

Motion Provides Meaning

Motion is meaningful and appropriate, serving to focus attention and maintain continuity. Feedback is subtle yet clear. Transitions are efficient yet coherent. The main point here is to animate only when it has a purpose and not to overdo it.

How does AngularJS fit into Material Design?

AngularJS, Google’s “Superheroic JavaScript MVW Framework”, addresses many of the challenges encountered in developing single-page applications (SPA). It provides the framework needed for creating modern web applications that connect to APIs and never need the page to be refreshed.

AngularJS: A New Approach

Angular is what HTML would have been, had it been designed for applications. HTML is a great declarative language for static documents, but creating dynamic applications not so much.

Creating dynamic applications with HTML has always been an exercise in tricking the browser into doing things it wasn’t meant to do. There are a couple of approaches to doing this.

1. Library - a collection of functions. (jQuery)
2. Framework - code dynamically fills in static elements when needed. (Durandal, Ember)

Angular takes a different approach to solve this problem. Instead of struggling with the HTML it is given, it creates new HTML constructs. Angular teaches the browser new HTML syntax through a construct called ‘directives’. Angular comes with a set of these directives built-in, but also allows you to create custom directives, so it allows you to write your own HTML elements.

Wouldn’t it be neat if Google created a set of directives based on Material Design principles?

Introducing Angular Material

Google is actively developing Angular Material, an implementation of Material Design in AngularJS. Angular Material provides a set of reusable UI components based on the Material Design system. Angular Material is composed of several pieces. It has a CSS library for typography and other elements, it provides an interesting JavaScript approach for theming, and its responsive layout uses a flex grid. But the most appealing feature of Angular Material is its amazing collection of directives.

Getting Started

I have created an open source project to help jumpstart your next Angular Material project. The purpose of this project is to give an example of everything Angular Material has to offer, all under one roof. Navigation, paging, theming, and the entire collection of directives are ready to go, all you have to do is feed in your data and bind it to the HTML.

Take a look at the demo here or fork the code on GitHub.

Directives

Directives are a core Angular feature. Angular comes with several directives that you use all of the time like ng-model or ng-repeat. They are a very important piece of Angular that makes the framework function as it should.

How to Use an Angular Material Directive

Angular Material extends this directive library with a set of beautiful Material Design inspired directives. Angular Material directives are HTML tags that begin with ‘md’; short for Material Design. They couldn’t be much easier to use. For example, let’s take a look at the good old button.

A standard HTML button might look something like this.

<button>Click Me</button>

An Angular Material button looks like this.

<md-button>Click Me</md-button>

And this is all that is needed to make a Material button. Now, there are several other options that are available for this directive such as theming it and raising it from the surface to imply importance.

<md-button class="md-raised md-primary md-hue-1">Click Me</md-button>

Services

Services are also core to Angular functionality. They are used to share code across the application. A common core service like $http is used and reused for data calls in Angular applications.

Angular services are:

1. Lazily instantiated – Angular only instantiates a service when an application component depends on it.
2. Singletons – Each component dependent on a service gets a reference to the single instance generated by the service factory.

How to Use an Angular Material Service

Angular Material comes packaged with some services that provide some extra functionality to the application. They also contribute to the performance of some of the directives. A great example of a service is the ‘toast’.

A toast is a small notification that slides in from the top of the screen and goes away after a few seconds. Using this service is easy.

In JavaScript,

$mdToast.show(
      $mdToast.simple('Simple Toast!')
        .position('left bottom')
        .hideDelay(3000)
    );

This example shows a simple toast that pops up on the bottom left of the screen and retreats after 3 seconds.

Some services can be personalized with custom templates. In this case, the $mdToast service can use a custom HTML template by using the md-toast directive.

Theming

Material Design is a visual language where themes convey meaning through color, tones, and contrast. These themes are expressed throughout the components in the entire application to provide a more unified feel.

According to the Material Design guidelines, you must “limit your selection of colors by choosing three color hues from the primary palette and one accent color from the secondary palette.” Angular Material makes following this guideline simple by using JavaScript to configure the theme. But first, what is a palette and a hue?

• Hue: A hue is a single color in a palette.
• Palette: A palette is a collection of hues.

For example, a palette would be ‘green’ and a hue is a particular shade of green. Angular Material comes packaged with all of the valid palettes from the Material Design spec. You can learn about more about the valid color palettes here.

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The original post can be found HERE

Thanks for dropping by.

Alan

Guide to Showcasing Sketch and Photoshop Skills in Your Portfolio

Sharing an article from Toptal titled: Guide to Showcasing Sketch and Photoshop Skills in Your Portfolio

Both Sketch and Photoshop are great tools used by almost every designer to accomplish a huge variety of tasks. To Photoshop has even become a dictionary verb. It doesn’t come as a surprise that most clients will expect a designer to have a high level of Sketch and Photoshop expertise. The majority of Toptal design jobs have either Sketch or Photoshop listed as one of their main required software. All of this is probably making you want to demonstrate your Sketch and Photoshop mastery throughout your portfolio.

Before proceeding, keep in mind that both Sketch and Photoshop are just tools and although tools do not make great designers, being a master of the tool gives the ability to execute your ideas professionally and efficiently.

So, how do you showcase that you are a Sketch or Photoshop expert in your portfolio? It mostly depends on the kind of design work you mainly use either program for.

You do visuals, photo manipulation and illustration

If the focus of your design work is in the creation of visuals, illustration, photo manipulation and photo editing in Photoshop, you’ll want that to shine from your portfolio. When deciding which projects to showcase in the portfolio be sure to choose only your best work and try not to be repetitive. There might be some clients that fall in love with your unique style but often clients prefer designers who can adapt to different styles and trends.

Choose work that demonstrates your mastery in detailed visual compositions, combining various layers, masks and advanced blending and some other qualities that demonstrate your proficiency with using light and shadow. Show that you understand perspective. Include an example that illustrates how immaculately you manage colors. In addition to showing complete visuals or illustrations put some emphasis on perfectly crafted details and make a few close-ups of the most interesting details that really demonstrate your perfection. Share your work process in the portfolio, give some sketches, display how raw materials looked like and what you’ve accomplished to make out of them. If it’s appropriate to showcase photo editing skills, put in some before and after the visuals.

You are the branding expert

While developing the visual identity as a part of a branding project you preferably won’t use Photoshop as your main tool of choice but one of the vector tools such as Illustrator. However, Photoshop will come in handy to visualize how that identity (logo, chosen colors palette, and typography) will work and look on stationary, signage, visual identity guidelines, website, apps and other additional advertising materials.

To showcase your branding project at its best, the first step you’ll need to do is to find or make some 3D mockup templates. Be careful to choose ones that won’t interfere with work that you are primarily showing, but instead, choose ones that will put emphasis on its best features. Avoid weird perspectives, too many distractions in the form of surrounding objects, colors, patterns.

Remember that you are showcasing your branding capabilities to prospective clients and not trying to sell them good looking mockups, especially if you haven’t made them by yourself. If you are buying or using some free templates be sure they are of quality. When applying your work inside a mockup, give attention to details, align everything perfectly, take care that there are no pixels hanging around.

Double check that you are putting your pages or screens in the right perspective, that lighting, white balance and shades are all adjusted and that nothing looks pixelated or distorted. Keep in mind that the scene you are building must look like a real one and although it might not be noticed at the first glance some inconsistencies could signify to a potential client that you are not giving enough attention to details or that you are not so versed in Photoshop.

You are a web or UI designer

Photoshop was not developed for web and user interface visual design, but since no completely corresponding tool existed at the time, most web designers were using it as their primary tool. With the adoption of responsive design and the arrival of more appropriate tools and workflows developed specifically for web and user interface design, Photoshop lost its web design tool throne. There are still some designers, especially those not working on Macs that use Photoshop, but Sketch is now the leader in the field.

If you are working as a web or user interface designer, no matter which tool you use you’ll want to show your proficiency and effectiveness in it and that could hardly be accomplished without revealing your process. High-quality visuals can be produced even if you are not a master of your tools, but glancing through your work files and workflow can show potential clients and collaborators that you are one. That is the reason for showing and describing in your portfolio how you use grids, artboards, structure your layers, and deal with Sketch symbols or Adobe CC libraries, handle typography and styles. Show some close-ups that will place emphasis on your attention to detail. If you craft your pixel-perfect icons and other elements in Sketch, display them with pride.

When choosing mockups in which to present web design or UI work stick with ones that won’t interfere with your designs. Let them be clear, without any unnecessary clutter. If using 3D perspective views, be sure that your work, which is core content of your portfolio, is shown in a way all important components are visible and understandable and there are no perspective distortions.

No matter what, take care of this

If you claim to be a Sketch or Photoshop expert, be sure that all your portfolio projects and presentations look professional. Some minor details, like the wrong direction of a shadow, or any pixelation might show a well-trained eye that your design skills are weak or that you lack the ability to polish your projects up to the last detail.

Be sure that all pictures you are putting in a portfolio are sharp and that nothing is pixelated, posterized or distorted. All elements in photomontages should blend seamlessly, and perspectives of different elements must be aligned and lighting effects, shadows and white balance in compliance.

Remember also that although the presentation of projects in your portfolio is very important, and can be a good means of showing your Photoshop skills, don’t let it become more important than the work itself. If by looking at your portfolio, one is more aware of the presentation than the content, be sure that something went wrong and reconsider rebuilding the portfolio around your best projects.

Original post can be found HERE (Scroll down to the end part) . 

Top 10 Most Common Mobile App Design Mistakes

Sharing an article from Toptal titled: 

Top 10 Most Common Mobile App Design Mistakes

The mobile app market is saturated with competition. Trends turn over quickly, but no niche can last very long without several competitors jumping onto the bandwagon. These conditions result in a high failure rate across the board for the mobile app market. Only 20% of downloaded apps see users return after the first use, whereas 3% of apps remain in use after a month.

If any part of an app is undesirable, or slow to get the hang of, users are more likely to install a new one, rather than stick it out with the imperfect product. Nothing is wasted for the consumer when disposing of an app - except for the efforts of the designers and developers, that is. So, why is it that so many apps fail? Is this a predictable phenomenon that app designers and developers should accept? For clients, is this success rate acceptable? What does it take to bring your designs into the top 3% of prosperous apps?

The common mistakes span from failing to maintain consistency throughout the lifespan of an app, to attracting users in the first place. How can apps be designed with intuitive simplicity, without becoming repetitive and boring? How can an app offer pleasing details, without losing sight of a greater purpose? Most apps live and die in the first few days, so here are the top ten most common mistakes that designers can avoid.

Only 3% of mobile apps are in use after being downloaded.

Common Mistake #1: A Poor First Impression

Often the first use, or first day with an app, is the most critical period to hook a potential user. The first impression is so critical that it could be an umbrella point for the rest of this top ten. If anything goes wrong, or appears confusing or boring, potential users are quickly disinterested. Although, the proper balance for first impressions is tricky to handle. In some cases, a lengthy onboarding, or process to discover necessary features can bores users. Yet, an instantly stimulating app may disregard the need for a proper tutorial, and promote confusion. Find the balance between an app that is immediately intuitive, but also introduces the users to the most exciting, engaging features quickly. Keep in mind that when users are coming to your app, they’re seeing it for the first time. Go through a proper beta testing process to learn how others perceive your app from the beginning. What seems obvious to the design team, may not be for newcomers.

Improper Onboarding

Onboarding is the step by step process of introducing a user to your app. Although it can be a good way to get someone quickly oriented, onboarding can also be a drawn out process that stands in the way of your users and their content. Often these tutorials are too long, and are likely swiped through blindly.

Sometimes, users have seen your app used in public or elsewhere, such that they get the point and just want to jump in. So, allow for a sort of quick exit strategy to avoid entirely blocking out the app upon its first use. To ensure that the onboarding process is in fact effective, consider which values this can communicate and how. The onboarding process should demonstrate the value of the app in order to hook a user, rather than just an explanation.

Go easy on the intro animation

Some designers address the issue of a good first impression with gripping intro animations to dazzle new users. But, keep in mind that every time someone wants to run the app, they’re going to have to sit through the same thing over and over. If the app serves a daily function, then this will tire your users quickly. Ten seconds of someone’s day for a logo to swipe across the screen and maybe spin a couple times don’t really seem worth it after a while.

Common Mistake #2: Designing an App Without Purpose

Avoid entering the design process without succinct intentions. Apps are often designed and developed in order to follow trends, rather than to solve a problem, fill a niche, or offer a distinct service. What is the ambition for the app? For the designer and their team, the sense of purpose will affect every step of a project. This sensibility will guide each decision from the branding or marketing of an app, to the wireframe format, and button aesthetic. If the purpose is clear, each piece of the app will communicate and function as a coherent whole. Therefore, have the design and development team continually consider their decisions within a greater goal. As the project progresses, the initial ambition may change. This is okay, as long as the vision remains coherent.

Conveying this vision to your potential users means that they will understand what value the app brings to their life. Thus, this vision is an important thing to communicate in a first impression. The question becomes how quickly can you convince users of your vision for the app? How it will improve a person’s life, or provide some sort of enjoyment or comfort. If this ambition is conveyed quickly, then as long as your app is in fact useful, it will make it into the 3%.

Often joining a pre-existing market, or app niche, means that there are apps to study while designing your own. Thus, be careful how you choose to ‘re-purpose’ what is already out there. Study the existing app market, rather than skimming over it. Then, improve upon existing products with intent, rather than thoughtlessly imitating.

Common Mistake #3: Missing Out On UX Design Mapping

Be careful not to skip over a thoughtful planning of an app’s UX architecture before jumping into design work. Even before getting to a wireframing stage, the flow and structure of an app should be mapped out. Designers are often too excited to produce aesthetics and details. This results in a culture of designers who generally under appreciate UX, and the necessary logic or navigation within an app. Slow down. Sketch out the flow of the app first before worrying too much about the finer brush strokes. Often apps fail from an overarching lack of flow and organization, rather than imperfect details. However, once the design process takes off always keep the big picture in mind. The details and aesthetic should then clearly evoke the greater concept.

Common Mistake #4: Disregarding App Development Budget

As soon as the basis of the app is sketched, this is a good time to get a budget from the development team. This way you don’t reach the end of the project and suddenly need to start cutting critical features. As your design career develops, always take note of the average costs of constructing your concepts so that your design thinking responds to economic restraints. Budgets should be useful design constraints to work within. 

Many failed apps try to cram too many features in from launch.

Common Mistake #5: Cramming in Design Features

Hopefully, rigorous wireframing will make the distinction between necessary and excessive functions clear. The platform is already the ultimate swiss army knife, so your app doesn’t need to be. Not only will cramming an app with features lead to a likely disorienting User Experience, but an overloaded app will also be difficult to market. If the use of the app is difficult to explain in a concise way, it’s likely trying to do too much. Paring down features is always hard, but it’s necessary. Often, the best strategy might be to gain trust in the beginning with a single or few features, then later in the life of the app can new ones be ‘tested’. This way, the additional features are less likely to interfere with the crucial first few days of an apps’ life.

Common Mistake #6: Dismissing App Context

Although the conditions of most design offices practically operate within a vacuum, app designers must be aware of wider contexts. Although purpose and ambition are important, they become irrelevant if not directed within the proper context. Remember that although you and your design team may know your app very well, and find its interfacing obvious, this may not be the case for first time users, or different demographics.

Consider the immediate context or situation in which the app is intended to be used. Given the social situation, how long might the person expect to be on the app for? What else might be helpful for them to stumble upon given the circumstance? For example, UBER’s interface excels at being used very quickly. This means that for the most part, there isn’t much room for other content. This is perfect because when a user is out with friends and needing to book a ride, your conversation is hardly interrupted in the process. UBER hides a lot of support content deep within the app, but it only appears once the scenario calls for it.

Who is the target audience for the app? How might the type of user affect how the design of the app? Perhaps, consider that an app targeted for a younger user may be able to take more liberties in assuming a certain level of intuition from the user. Whereas, many functions may need to be pointed out for a less tech savvy user. Is your app meant to be accessed quickly and for a short period of time? Or, is this an app with lots of content that allows users to stay a while? How will the design convey this form of use?

A good app design should consider the context in which it is used.

Common Mistake #7: Underestimating Crossing Platforms

Often apps are developed quickly as a response to changing markets or advancing competitors. This often results in web content being dragged into the mobile platform. A constant issue, which you’d think would be widely understood by now, is that often apps and other mobile content make poor transitions between the desktop, or mobile platforms. No longer can mobile design get away with scaling down web content in the hope of getting a business quickly into the mobile market. The web to mobile transition doesn’t just mean scaling everything down, but also being able to work with less. Functions, navigation and content must all be conveyed with a more minimal strategy. Another common issue appears when an app developing team aspires to release a product simultaneously on all platforms, and through different app stores. This often results in poor compatibility, or a generally buggy, unpolished app.The gymnastics of balancing multiple platforms may be too much to add onto the launch of an app. However, it doesn’t hurt to sometimes take it slowly with one OS at a time, and iron out the major issues, before worrying about compatibility between platforms.

Common Mistake #8: Overcomplicating App Design

The famous architect Mies Van der Rohe once said, “It’s better to be good than to be unique”. Ensure that your design is meeting the brief before you start breaking the box or adding flourishes. When a designer finds themselves adding things in order to make a composition more appealing or exciting, these choices will likely lack much value. Continue to ask throughout the design process, how much can I remove? Instead of designing additively, design reductively. What isn’t needed? This method is directed as much towards content, concept and function as it is aesthetics. Over complexity is often a result of a design unnecessarily breaking conventions. Several symbols and interfaces are standard within our visual and tactile language. Will your product really benefit from reworking these standards? Standard icons have proven themselves to be universally intuitive. Thus, they are often the quickest way to provide visual cues without cluttering a screen. Don’t let your design flourishes get in the way of the actual content, or function of the app. Often, apps are not given enough white space. The need for white space is a graphic concept that has transcended both digital and print, thus it shouldn’t be underrated. Give elements on the screen room to breath so that all of the work you put into navigation and UX can be felt.

The app design process can be reductive, rather than additive.

Common Mistake #9: Design Inconsistencies

To the point on simplicity, if a design is going to introduce new standards, they have to at least be consistent across the app. Each new function or piece of content doesn’t necessarily have to be an opportunity to introduce a new design concept. Are texts uniformly formatted? Do UI elements behave in predictable, yet pleasing ways throughout the app? Design consistency must find the balance between existing within common visual language, as well as avoiding being aesthetically stagnant. The balance between intuitive consistency and boredom is a fine line.

Common Mistake #10: Under Utilizing App Beta Testing

All designers should analyze the use of their apps with some sort of feedback loop in order to learn what is and isn’t working. A common mistake in testing is for a team to do their beta testing in-house. You need to bring in fresh eyes in order to really dig into the drafts of the app. Send out an ad for beta testers and work with a select audience before going public. This can be a great way to iron out details, edit down features, and find what’s missing. Although, beta testing can be time consuming, it may be a better alternative to developing an app that flops. Anticipate that testing often takes 8 weeks for some developers to do it properly. Avoid using friends or colleagues as testers as they may not criticize the app with the honesty that you need. Using app blogs or website to review your app is another way to test the app in a public setting without a full launch. If you’re having a hard time paring down features for your app, this is a good opportunity to see what elements matter or not.

The app design market is a battleground, so designing products which are only adequate just isn’t enough. Find a way to hook users from the beginning - communicate, and demonstrate the critical values and features as soon as you can. To be able to do this, your design team must have a coherent vision of what the app is hoping to achieve. In order to establish this ambition, a rigorous story-boarding process can iron out what is and isn’t imperative. Consider which types of users your app may best fit with. Then refine and refine until absolutely nothing else can be taken away from the project without it falling apart. 

The original article can be found HERE. 

Thanks for dropping by.