The Daily Index — Wednesday, November 1, 2023

NEWS & TRENDS

TLDR Design

THE NEW SPACE BLACK MACBOOK PRO IS STUNNING

Apple's new MacBook Pro has a finish option called Space Black, a color first introduced on the iPhone. It's slightly darker gray than Space Gray, which it replaces, and it uses a new chemical to deter fingerprints. Space Black is exclusive to the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro M3 Pro and M3 Max configurations.

digitaltrends.com · 2 min

TLDR Design

CHROME FINALLY GETS ITS LONG-AWAITED BOTTOM BAR … ON IOS

Google has introduced a bottom address bar for Chrome on iOS, allowing users to move the address bar from the top to the bottom. This feature was highly requested and provides flexibility based on user preferences and device size. Users can enable it by long-pressing the address bar and selecting the "Move address bar to bottom" option, similar to Safari's interface.

androidpolice.com · 2 min

TLDR Design

FRAMER'S OCTOBER UPDATE

Framer has been updated with over 30 improvements and fixes in October, including three key additions. The Color Picker was updated to split the values of RGB and HSL colors for easier editing. In addition, you can now drag and drop videos directly onto the Canvas to easily add and upload new videos while preserving the aspect ratio of the source file. Finally, there have been improvements to all the copy-and-paste workflows in Effects.

framer.com · 2 min

TLDR Design

UX DESIGNERS’ BURNOUT: HOW TO DEAL WITH IT?

Designers burn out because of three reasons: constant pressure and deadlines, being an underestimated member of a team, and monotonous work. As a result, the quality of their work decreases, their motivation disappears, and their well-being deteriorates due to stress and overwork. To prevent burnout, they should take walks, keep track of their schedule, not don’t overwork themselves, leave enough time for hobbies and socializing, get rid of distractions at work, exercise to stay fit and dump the extra stress, and check in with their career progress regularly.

uxplanet.org · 4 min

TLDR Design

DEFAULT IT OR DESIGN IT

In design, problems arise when designers spend too much time on minutia at the expense of big strategic decisions. The “Default it or Design it” heuristic helps mitigate that issue by sorting decisions based on their impact, allowing designers to focus their creativity where it matters most. The 'Default It' approach is about simplifying choices. On the other side is the 'Design It' approach, where designers take time to work in-depth on critical choices that can shape projects in big ways.

betterbydesign.cc · 5 min

TLDR Design

ARTICULATING DESIGN DECISIONS TO STAKEHOLDERS

A design decision is often viewed as a matter of personal preference or opinion. However, design solves problems, so it is essential to base decisions on something other than hunches or ideas. Throughout this lesson, you'll learn how to align stakeholders' expectations and gain their support for your design choices through effective communication. You'll find flaws and wrong assumptions so your work supports users while matching business goals. Also, you'll learn how to explain how your decisions impact business goals.

app.uxcel.com · 14 min

TLDR Design

16 INCREDIBLE FIGMA TEMPLATES YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT

Figma templates and Figma widgets have been welcome additions to the platform's ecosystem, helping designers do certain things faster and easier. In this great list, you'll find wireframe kits, illustration sets, design system templates, icon libraries, and much more.

blog.logrocket.com · 8 min

TLDR Design

EMBRACING INDIVIDUALITY IN DESIGN – HERE’S THE STORY OF FERRÉOL BABIN

Within the furniture and lighting design realm, there’s an unspoken rule regarding design pitches. Designers share their concepts with companies, and it’s the company’s prerogative whether to proceed with the idea. Ferréol Babin made a bold decision at a certain point—to start afresh and create his pieces with a distinctive approach that birthed something entirely new, unparalleled, and inspirational, breathing life into beautiful objects crafted with reverence for both material and process—an ethos that every designer should embrace.

designwanted.com · 4 min

TLDR Design

PASSKEYS: A NO-FRILLS EXPLAINER ON THE FUTURE OF PASSWORD-LESS AUTHENTICATION

Passkeys are beginning to make their way into popular apps, from password managers to multi-factor authenticators, vastly improving the user experience of authentication. There’s also a downside — having to store additional cryptographic keys for each login and every site for which you have a passkey often requires more space than storing a password. However, the security gains, the user experience from not having to remember a password, and the prevention of common phishing techniques more than offset the increased storage space.

smashingmagazine.com · 19 min

TLDR Design

HOW NETLIFY REBRANDED THEIR APP IN JUST SIX WEEKS

Netlify recently rebranded all of its properties, including its marketing pages, docs site, and app UI. Often, this type of work takes six months or more since there are so many moving parts, stakeholders, and time zones. It took Netlify just six weeks.

storybook.js.org · 5 min

TLDR Design

USING AI, CARTOONIST AMY KURZWEIL CONNECTS WITH DECEASED GRANDFATHER IN 'ARTIFICIAL'

Cartoonist Amy Kurzweil shares how she and her father, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, used artificial intelligence to connect with her grandfather. Fredbot, her grandfather's chatbot, was built by digitizing thousands of his lecture notes, love letters, music writings, and employment applications. The process inspired Amy to write and illustrate the book.

npr.org · 6 min

TLDR Design

SWISS SCULPTOR CHRISTIAN BOLT OFFERS A FRESH ANSWER TO THE AGE-OLD QUESTION: WHAT IS BEAUTY?

We don't always get answers to our greatest questions in words. In some cases, art can help us see things in a new light. A new exhibition at Impulse Gallery in Lucerne, Switzerland, shows 14 sculptures by Christian Bolt that explore the concept of beauty from unexpected angles.

creativeboom.com · 6 min

TLDR Design

AI DOESN’T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS YET: USER EXPERIENCE IS A BIG MISSING PIECE

More than half of the world's population has low literacy, making using prompts difficult. Alternatively, the fundamentals of usability have been neglected or forgotten in the frenetic race to push generative AI to an eager audience. As soon as the novelty of these tools wears off, they will need more than just utility to keep users interested.

wraltechwire.com · 6 min