Entries by webguru

How To Build Your Own Action For Google Home Using API.AI

    For the holidays, the owner of (and my boss at) thirteen23 gave each employee a Google Home device. If you don’t already know, Google Home is a voice-activated speaker powered by Google Assistant and is a competing product to Amazon’s line of Alexa products. I already have the Amazon Echo, and as Director […]

Just Keep Scrolling! How To Design Lengthy, Lengthy Pages

    Websites with long or infinite scrolling are becoming more and more common lately, and it’s no mere trend or coincidence. The technique of long scrolling allows users to traverse chunks of content without any interruption or additional interaction — information simply appear as the user scrolls down the page. Infinite scrolling is a […]

Conversational Design Essentials: Tips For Building A Chatbot

    Human interactions are incredibly fascinating if you take a close look at them — the social awkwardness, the communication styles, the way knowledge is transferred, the way stories are told and trust is built. But what happens when a machine evokes the same response? Conversational interfaces have become the new hotness in UX […]

Front-End Performance Checklist 2017 (PDF, Apple Pages)

    Are you using progressive booting already? What about tree-shaking and code-splitting in React and Angular? Have you set up Brotli or Zopfli compression, OCSP stapling and HPACK compression? Also, how about resource hints, client hints and CSS containment — not to mention IPv6, HTTP/2 and service workers? Performance isn’t just a technical concern: It […]

The (Not So) Secret Powers Of The Mobile Browser

    Apple taught us, “There’s an app for that.” And we believed it. Why wouldn’t we? But time has passed since 2009. Our mobile users have gotten more mature and are starting to weigh having space for new photos against installing your big fat e-commerce app. Meanwhile, mobile browsers have also improved. New APIs […]