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Developing A Chatbot Using Microsoft’s Bot Framework, LUIS And Node.js (Part 1)

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This tutorial gives you hands-on access to my journey of creating a digital assistant capable of connecting with any system via a RESTful API to perform various tasks.

Developing A Chatbot Using Microsoft Bot Framework, LUIS And Node.js (Part 1)

Here, I’ll be demonstrating how to save a user’s basic information and create a new project on their behalf via natural language processing (NLP).

The post Developing A Chatbot Using Microsoft’s Bot Framework, LUIS And Node.js (Part 1) appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Source: Smashing Magazine, Developing A Chatbot Using Microsoft’s Bot Framework, LUIS And Node.js (Part 1)

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

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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.

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

I already have the Amazon Echo, and as Director of Technology at thirteen23, I love tinkering with software for new products. For the Amazon Echo, you can create what are called “skills”, which allow you to build custom interactions when speaking to the device.

The post How To Build Your Own Action For Google Home Using API.AI appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Source: Smashing Magazine, How To Build Your Own Action For Google Home Using API.AI

Free Geometric UI Icons With A Fresh And Futuristic Twist (100 Icons, 6 Formats)

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How about an icon set that gives your UI designs just that finishing touch they need? One that stands out while keeping the design clear and legible? Vincent Le Moign spent two years on designing such a set, and we are very happy to feature part of it as a freebie today.

Free Geometric UI Icons With A Fresh And Futuristic Twist (100 Icons, 6 Formats)

The EGO icon collection shines with its well-balanced, geometric style — perfect to make a bold statement without being obtrusive. To prepare you for nearly everything that an app or web interface could ask for, EGO covers tech- and office-themed icons, just like commerce, transport, nature, and leisure motifs. 100 icons in total that can be resized and customized to your liking (AI, EPS, SVG, Sketch, Iconjar, and PDF versions are available). Black and duo-tone blue versions are already on board when you download the set.

The post Free Geometric UI Icons With A Fresh And Futuristic Twist (100 Icons, 6 Formats) appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Source: Smashing Magazine, Free Geometric UI Icons With A Fresh And Futuristic Twist (100 Icons, 6 Formats)

Just Keep Scrolling! How To Design Lengthy, Lengthy Pages

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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.

Just Keep Scrolling! How To Design Lengthy, Lengthy Pages

Infinite scrolling is a variety of long scrolling that allows users to scroll through a massive chunk of content with no finish line in sight (it’s the endless scrolling you see on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr feeds).

The post Just Keep Scrolling! How To Design Lengthy, Lengthy Pages appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Source: Smashing Magazine, Just Keep Scrolling! How To Design Lengthy, Lengthy Pages

Building For Mobile: RWD, PWA, AMP Or Instant Articles?

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As we look deep into 2017, one of the questions on every web developer’s mind ought to be, “What trend will define the web in 2017?” Just three years ago, we were talking about the “Year of Responsive Web Design”, and we’ve all seen how the stakes were raised when Google announced Mobilegeddon (21 April 2015) and started to boost the rankings of mobile-friendly websites in mobile search results.

Building For Mobile: RWD, PWA, AMP Or Instant Articles?

Today, as our findings indicate, responsive web design is the norm, with 7 out of 10 mobile-optimized websites being responsive, up from 5 last year, which begs the questions: What’s next? Where is it all heading? We solved the screen-size issue and had a great run for a few years — now what?

The post Building For Mobile: RWD, PWA, AMP Or Instant Articles? appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Source: Smashing Magazine, Building For Mobile: RWD, PWA, AMP Or Instant Articles?

Web Development Reading List #175: GraphQL, IndexedDB2, And An Open Ethical Internet

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With GraphQL, FQL, and IndexedDB2, we have new tools at our fingertips that allow us to build products that are not only more flexible but also faster. With this week’s Web Development Reading List, we’ll dive a bit deeper into these promising technologies and combine this with thoughts about the openness of the internet, ethical choices, and building inclusive products. So without further ado, let’s get started!

Web Development Reading List 175

Chrome 57 just hit stable, now the Chrome developer team announced Chrome 58 beta. It includes IndexedDB2.0 support and improvements to iframe navigation. Among the smaller changes are also auto-pause/resume of video on Android when the window is in the background and the fact that HTTPS is now required for the Web Notifications API.

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Source: Smashing Magazine, Web Development Reading List #175: GraphQL, IndexedDB2, And An Open Ethical Internet

Conversational Design Essentials: Tips For Building A Chatbot

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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 Design Essentials: Tips For Building A Chatbot

Conversational interfaces have become the new hotness in UX design. Google is about to release a new virtual assistant chatbot; Facebook has already launched the updated Messenger platform with chatbots; and Microsoft went as far as to claim that the operating system of the future isn’t Windows, but “conversation as a platform.”

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Source: Smashing Magazine, Conversational Design Essentials: Tips For Building A Chatbot

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

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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?

PRPL Pattern in the application shell architecture

Performance isn’t just a technical concern: It matters, and when baking it into the workflow, design decisions have to be informed by their performance implications. Performance has to be measured, monitored and refined continually, and the growing complexity of the web poses new challenges that make it hard to keep track of metrics, because metrics will vary significantly depending on the device, browser, protocol, network type and latency (CDNs, ISPs, caches, proxies, firewalls, load balancers and servers all play a role in performance).

The post Front-End Performance Checklist 2017 (PDF, Apple Pages) appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Source: Smashing Magazine, Front-End Performance Checklist 2017 (PDF, Apple Pages)

App Development Showdown: Why You Should Care About Revisiting The Native Vs. Hybrid Debate In 2017

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Back in 2007, the world met the iPhone for the very first time. After Apple’s product debut, it took less than six months for work to begin on PhoneGap, which would become one of the first and most adopted frameworks for hybrid mobile app development — that is, for apps written simultaneously for multiple platforms using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, rather than coded in native languages.

App Development Showdown: Why You Should Care About Revisiting The Native Vs. Hybrid Debate In 2016

When compared with the prospect of learning an entirely new language and development environment in order to program iOS (and soon Android) apps, the appeal of this type of development to the already huge population of web developers in the world was palpable.

The post App Development Showdown: Why You Should Care About Revisiting The Native Vs. Hybrid Debate In 2017 appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Source: Smashing Magazine, App Development Showdown: Why You Should Care About Revisiting The Native Vs. Hybrid Debate In 2017

The (Not So) Secret Powers Of The Mobile Browser

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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 are being supported, and they will bring native app-like functionality to the mobile browser.

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We can now access video and audio and use WebRTC to build a live video-chat web apps directly in the browser, no native app or plugin required. We can build progressive web apps that bring users an almost native app experience, with a launch icon, notifications, offline support and more. Using geolocation, battery status, ambient light detection, Bluetooth and the physical web, we can even go beyond responsive web design and build websites that will automagically adapt to users’ needs and context.

The post The (Not So) Secret Powers Of The Mobile Browser appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Source: Smashing Magazine, The (Not So) Secret Powers Of The Mobile Browser