Break the Rules!
"Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist." — Falsely attributed to Pablo Picasso
Design Systems
The Math Behind Nesting Rounded Corners
I was recently designing an interface with a lot of rounded corners. But, when I nested rounded corners it looked off somehow...
Cloud Four Dot Com: What’s New in 2022
We just shipped the largest update to cloudfour.com since 2016! This time around, we had three main goals…
Truly Portable Design Patterns
Components are everywhere, but they are rarely reusable across systems. A design system component is written differently than a CMS editor component. But does it have to be this way? Could we take one set of components and port them to multiple JavaScript frameworks, import them into design tools, and use them for the editing interfaces in content management systems?
Web Design Tool Wish List
I’ve spent years looking for tools that help designers who don’t code participate in a process like the one we use. Something that would let them reuse design system components and would allow them…
Responsive Design Process that Works
Responsive design sprints are a significantly better way to design and build for today's web than the traditional web design process. We provide the receipts. Unfortunately, not every organization can adopt this responsive design sprints. Why is that and what can be done about it?
Faulty Assumptions and Unwanted Features of Most Web Design Tools
Web design software makers saw the pain caused by the design to developer hand off and built features to help. Unfortunately, these features don’t help as much as the software makers hope. At best, they are unwanted features to be ignored. At worst, they reinforce faulty assumptions that undermine design systems.
Traditional Web Design Process is Fundamentally Broken
Responsive design broke the traditional web design and development process in fundamental ways. Despite this fact, many organizations continue to use this broken process.
The Design System Priority of Constituencies
Of all the things that the W3C has published, my favorite is the priority of constituencies. That’s quite a statement given the W3C published the standards that form the foundation of the web and, by extension, my career. But the priority of constituencies has always deeply resonated with me. What happens if we apply it to design systems?
HSL: a color format for humans
Colors on the web are confusing — but they don't have to be! The HSL format makes it easy for humans and computers to work with color.