I have been working as a UI/ UX engineer for more than three years. Three years aren't enough to have great knowledge but I have good knowledge on giving the user a good visual experience and a good experience while using the apps or web-sites I have developed.  I am now searching for a new job. I have been asked often if not most of the time on what is responsive design? I think the people who conduct interviews come in with a few points on responsive web-design and expect the candidate to answer those specific points. RWD(Responsive web-design) is a vast subject and keeps evolving from time to time. Which brings me to a quote from Albert Einstein "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." RWD is a highly subjective topic and doesn't have any hard and fast rules for its creation. I cannot copy Apple's website for my client and expect him to reap profits same as Apple. It works for Apple because it is Apple. I truly believe that there are no such hard and fast rules for RWD and that design and UX shall always evolve through time. Now what happens in the interview: I explain a few points and give them a few examples of good UI/ UX web-apps, websites and apps even quote a few designers, so far it's not been fruitful.  My question to everyone here?  How will you summarise in a few points what is responsive web-design?
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I have heard of many websites using "responsive design".   What is this and why should somebody use it?
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With left nav, responsive design, and various new-user notices, this is what an anonymous user currently sees (browser window here is 1090px wide):    I realize that a lot of this content -- code of conduct, new-user intro, cookies notice -- is important.  And I get that the left nav is an important design element, and responsive design dictates the width of the right column.  But when you add it all up, Q&amp;A -- what the site is about -- gets a distressingly small portion of the screen.  Can we do better?   Maybe we can make that intro/mini-tour shorter? Maybe we can hide the right column for anonymous users? Maybe some things can wait until the user's viewed a few pages? Maybe other things I haven't thought of?   My concern is that anonymous users -- people coming from Google, people who were referred to a site by users hoping to recruit them, or others who find their way to us but aren't invested in us -- will turn away before seeing how rich and helpful our sites are.  Which would be a real shame, because our sites are awesome.  First impressions matter.  When I'm asking a rabbi to check out Mi Yodeya or a professional chef to check out Seasoned Advice or my vet to check out Pets (all of these have happened), I want to make a good impression.  I want the person to see more than 2.5 questions; I want to increase the chances the person will see something interesting or say "oh I can answer that!" and dig deeper.  Yes, the other stuff is important, but maybe not now?  Is there a better way to "stage" all this information for people we haven't yet hooked?
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What I mean by this question is how can a person be an UX designer just by making a STATIC high fidelity mockup on a piece of software like "Photoshop" or "Sketch" or whatever.  Does not the words "User experience" mean by itself "movement", "motion" , "flow" and so on?  Does not being an UX Designer requires to actually make something real, palpable, usable in order to create an experience? I'm talking about knowing how to create what you've made in "Photoshop".  Am I totally wrong about this?
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I'm just starting to learn web design and ux and I have a very simple question. What is the best resolution to design for?   For example, I want to design a WP Plugin settings page, what resolution should it be? What resolution should I use for the buttons?
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As a web developer, both front-end and back end architect, I work with many different designers and sometimes find it frustrating working with design comps where no thought was put into how to accomplish the design in basic CSS and HTML.  On the other hand as a developer I'm expected to be able to produce code from any design.  Do web designers need to know basic modern CSS and HTML techniques?  Why or why not is this important for a well rounded web designer?  Some general thoughts:   Front end web developers should be skilled enough to code up any design. Web designers should have an understanding of how users will actually interact with their design. Design shops would rather have designers design and leave all the coding up to the developers.
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This is now out for all of the sites  We've had the new default unified theme up on  for a month and a half now and the response there has been really positive. We got a lot of great feedback from the PPCG community and worked out a lot of trouble spots.   If you've been following the progress on my , you'll know that one of the staff will usually post a discussion on each meta site as the theme rolls out. With so many sites using this theme, we decided it'd be easier to post one announcement here on MSE and feature it so that the entire network can see it and respond in one place, as a bug on one site will probably be affecting all of them.  We don't expect there to be any bugs in this theme (famous last words, apparently), since it's been used for a while on PPCG but if you do see anything amiss, please use this post to point it out so that we can dig into it. Some of your concerns may already be mentioned on the PPCG announcement post I linked at the beginning of this one, so please check there to see if they've been reported yet.  If you have general concerns about left navigation or responsive design, please use the .  Some things to be aware of:   Left Navigation is active on most pages (but can be collapsed into a menu by visiting your site preferences - ). Responsive layout is active, which lets the site adjust as browser widths change - no side scrolling (some pages haven't been updated, yet, though). For now, if you prefer the scrolling, you can disable this by clicking the "disable responsiveness" link in the footer. Link underlining is active. In an effort to make links more visible, they are now being underlined.     While this change is definitely something many users have strong feelings about, I'm really excited about this step in particular because it means that some very long-standing communities will be a lot closer to getting custom themes. We have about ten sites that are no longer in beta but haven't gotten a custom design yet, and once this changeover is complete, we'll move forward in designing those sites - and maybe others.  The layout unification is also allowing us to more easily improve existing features like  and develop new features that have long been requested like , which is currently in testing. We'd love to get more features out to you all and that's easier when we spend more time working on the new features and less time squashing bugs they cause because we have 60+ very different site layouts.  This is addressed in a  if you want more detail.    I'll be doing my best to keep an eye out for - and respond to - questions asking about this change on the child metas for all of the beta sites as we transition to the responsive design but feel free to link users here as well.
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Update:  Thanks for all the feedback and bug reports! I am locking this thread so people don't keep answering it when we no longer monitor it.  If you see a bug or want to raise a feature request, please do so in the usual manner, as a new question.    Some of you may have noticed that  the  and  pages that we have been talking about for a while now on .  Most? Well, yes, the new design is dependent on a SE network-wide update (a new base css framework) that the design team have been working on. This is an ongoing effort and we will be launching the new pages as sites are moved to the new design.  You've all been hugely helpful already - much of what we love most in here came from  and  you gave us on Meta.     But it's possible that it's not quite perfect yet. If you find any bugs and have any feedback to give, please post these as answers to this post.  Just post one issue per answer - that would help us focus on specific items one at a time.
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This morning i was looking online for articles that could lead me to a method that can be used to measure/quantify usability &amp; user experience. The method i was interested in finding more information about, is about whether it is possible to have a set of good practices that can help in grading an overall system, both in it's prototype stage and even when creating mockups.   Obviously heuristic evaluation and user testing are key elements in developing a good user experience, but i was wondering if before these stages begin and testing is conducted there might possibly be a method for grading your mockups/prototypes internally before going forward to stakeholders and begin testing?   All answers and feedback are welcome as of yet i have been unable to find something that is similar to what i'm describing, i've read up about:  SUM (Single Usability Metric) -   System Usability Scale -
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I'm working on a web app with a team of 5, including me. One database administrator, one project manager, two programmers and me the front-end designer. This project is an internal reporting system.  Anyways, I've struggling a little bit with my team, the DBA and two programmers seem to control our meetings with what Data we are going to pull and the best way to work it into an object model.  And then look to me to design some pretty interface.  Truth is, we've never measured the objectives of this application and what strategy will best meet them from a front-end design/UX standpoint. We've done no wire frames, no planning of content, no planning of pages, no conversations on specific interface components, nothing like that. It seems my team is content with designing and building the entire UX/UI based on a couple of ideas we've spit-balled in meetings.  Forgive me if this sounds too much like a gripe, but I'm at a loss. How do I get my team to understand, we can't just throw the front-end together based on back-end data and the interface HAS to be well planned out and organized?
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Questions like looking for css templates, blog templates, icons ... In general, resources (let's leave the licensing terms aside for now) which you might need when building a project of your own. Where should those questions go?  They're definitely not on-topic on Stack', SuperUser maybe although I doubt it. Webapps? Hmm, probably not.  Is there a place where they would be on-topic on the SE network?
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Most designers hit a roadblock at one time or another.   Few designers get those "dream" projects where they are allowed to create anything and everything they want. In most cases we all have to adhere to some restrictions.   After dealing with similar restrictions repeatedly, it becomes very easy to get mired down in how the design problems have been previously solved rather than finding new solutions.   I'm familiar with mood boards, idea books, and the like. However, these all seem to basically take the user down the same previously traveled paths.  What specific steps should one take in order to break out of current mindsets and expand horizons to look at a project in a fresh, inventive manner?  Is there a processes you use to conceptualize something in a new way?
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My firm has developed a small, domain-specific desktop GUI application. Being small, it loads fast (practically instantly) and initially presents a "home" screen, which in this app, is a kind of graphical menu. It has been suggested we introduce a 2-3 second delay in which we show some logo/splash-screen. The rationale is that this looks more professional.  What is the common wisdom on this?  Note: personally I hate this kind of screen; but I am just an engineer - the suggestion is that real users like them.   So I am really looking for evidence about what users do and do not like, not just what the people on this site like.  Update: Like me, most of you dislike the artificial delay.  But responses are more mixed about what users will want or accept. The story seems that, (a) people will accept a 1-2 second delay, and (b) users trust some applications better if they take their time.  But what evidence is there about this particular case of a software load-up screen?  We cannot be the first company that tried this, it must have been commonplace in the 90s.  Was there a backlash?  Were there studies to support either view?
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I quite enjoy paying attention to how I design my documents and presentations. I usually spend hours thinking over and designing my slides for a workshop or presentation, so that they are aesthetically pleasing and as intuitive as possible. Likewise I recently started revising my CV I figured and I wanted to make it stand out a bit more. (Just to make it clear I don't mean making a clown of a document but just better use of colors, contrast and design elements.)  I have long wondered whether or not this is something that can backfire, since most documents in academic context are extremely plain, at least in my experience. It's very common to see the default Powerpoint slides (white bg, black arial text) or .   My question is as follows: is putting time and effort into design of academic documents something that can backfire? Will I risk being prejudged with first impressions such as "well he put much effort in the presentation his documents, perhaps because the content is sub-par"?     I realize that the question might be somewhat subjective from person to person but I encourage everyone to consider it in terms of this SE blog entry: .
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I'm designing a web app but can't reveal its name and its main function so let's see how this could be explained.  In this app there's a type of user that have the power to Add and Remove Team Members (Employees) so for him to do that I thought well let's make this very easy, he's just going to need to press the "+" button and fill a little form BUT to make it even more seamless let's make that a Dialog box.  Question: Is it right for an user to write stuff on a Dialog box or those are only for information display as alerts, etc.  Below you can enter the link to the Dialog section on Material Design and a screenshot of how this Dialog/Form is going to look (I need to add the lines below every line like any other form but I just stopped after this question popped right into my mind).
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I've been searching through SE-Meta and,from what I can gather, the general consensus is that questions that ask for API &amp; Framework recommendations that can help solve a particular problem are typically marked as "Too Localized" or "Off Topic".  I can understand this reasoning because posting answers to these questions can be problematic.  One of the big reasons (which I do agree with) is that as time progresses, an API can lose support or better APIs could come along and initial answers may become invalid.  Yet, as a developer, I need to find an API or Framework for a specific need in which I'm not to familiar with and having a good recommendation from an expert is invaluable.  Of course, in such a case I start by Googling associated keywords and I tack on "API" to the end of my search.  This usually helps but it doesn't always provide useful results.  For specific needs, it can be difficult to even get a result for an API or framework.    Even worse, there have been occasions where I have found an API, started to use it, and after a month or two of getting my bearings with the API, I'd find out that another API exists, which almost all other developers use and is a considerably better API choice!  Have an expert  or two recommend an API could have saved me weeks (or possibly months) of work if I had started out with the best tool for the job.  With that stated, within the Stack Exchange community is there any away that a user can ask for API recommendations?  It doesn't have to be on Stack Overflow.  If such questions are acceptable on Stack Overflow, what guidelines dictate which API recommendation requests are acceptable and which are not?  I'm a bit confused but I'd imagine there is a way within SE that I can get these types of questions answered by those who are quite familiar within the area of my new development needs.
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I'm creating the UI for a web application which will mainly run on Macs. So my goal is to preserve the look and feel of Mac OS. But since I don't use Apples Frameworks I'm not allowed to use their UI design. So my question is: how closely am I allowed to copy their design without violating copyrights?  Do you think this is still legitimate?
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(Note that I am going to use screenshots here because I suspect writing about this will change the behavior over time.)  If you do a Google search for     uiviewcontroller best practices   either with or without the quotes, you end up with results like this:      Note that none of these pages resolve to the actual Stack Overflow question containing those words in the title. They resolve to either a) sites that are mirroring our creative commons data and correctly pointing back to the source question without nofollow, as properly specified by  or b) our own internal links to the question, but not the actual question itself.   The actual page with the title ...     Custom UIView and UIViewController best practices?   ... does exist at this URL ...  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3300183/custom-uiview-and-uiviewcontroller-best-practices  ... and apparently it is present in Google's index!    But why does it not appear when we search for      uiviewcontroller best practices   ?   We know that   Google contains this page in its index Our search terms match the title of the question Stack Overflow has much higher pagerank than the other sites that are    I don't get it. What are we doing wrong here?