February 11, 2014 in Learn
Build a Self-Destructing Message Android App
We have just released a new Android course where you can learn how to build Ribbit, an app that lets users send photo and video messages that “self-destruct” after they’ve been viewed! This is the Android version of the same…
February 10, 2014 in Learn
Getting Involved in Open Source Projects
The open source movement has been responsible for many great innovations over the past few decades. Linux, the Apache Web Server, and Rails are just a few examples of open source projects that have elevated the web industry to new…
February 6, 2014 in Learn
Optimizing Mobile Web Apps for iOS
When I was looking through the analytics data for a product I recently launched I was taken aback by just how much mobile traffic the web app was getting. After seeking some feedback from users it became clear that people…
February 4, 2014 in Learn
Getting Started with the Speech Synthesis API
With the introduction of products like Siri and Google Now, speech technology has really taken off in the past few years. Various organisations have been working on speech recognition and synthesis for decades, but it seems like only recently that…
January 31, 2014 in Learn
How to use the Meter & Progress Elements
The development of HTML5 has introduced a series of new elements that can be used to create common UI components like date pickers and autocomplete dropdowns. Two of these new elements are <progress> and <meter>. In this post you’re going…
January 29, 2014 in Learn
Why jQuery is the Most Popular JavaScript Library
John Resig released jQuery on August 26th, 2006 and changed the front-end development landscape forever. jQuery quickly arose to be the go to JavaScript framework. A number of other libraries came out around the same time such as MooTools and…
January 29, 2014 in Learn
A Tale of Front-end Sanity: Beware the Sass @import
Imagine coming into work on your first day as a front-end designer or dev and getting your Rails development system up and running for the first time. You’re really excited to start working on something in the app or website…
January 23, 2014 in Learn
The Perfect WordPress Inline SVG Workflow
Today we’re going to be looking at the perfect inline SVG workflow for WordPress. Before we go any further though, if you’re unfamiliar with the different varieties of SVGs, I highly recommend you take a quick read through Chris Coyier’s…
January 23, 2014 in Learn
Product Analytics 101
Feedback loops are an essential component in product development because these loops provide regular opportunities to learn and adjust the product to have better fit. Qualitative feedback loops enable you to better understand your customers. Prototyping is another powerful feedback…
January 21, 2014 in Learn
Exploring the Battery Status API
With the rise in popularity of mobile web apps there’s been a big push to develop device APIs that allow web developers to reach out of the browser and access the underlying device hardware. We’ve seen the introduction of getUserMedia,…
January 16, 2014 in Learn
Accepting Voice Input in HTML5 Forms
The way that we interact with computers has changed dramatically over the past decade. Touch-screen devices and laptop trackpads have enabled a much more intuitive form of interaction than is achievable using a traditional mouse. These changes haven’t been limited…
January 16, 2014 in Learn
What is Unobtrusive JavaScript and Why it’s Important?
Unobtrusive JavaScript is a best practice methodology for attaching JavaScript to the front-end of a website. It’s an ideal to strive toward and something we should bear in mind whenever we’re adding JavaScript to a site. It is the separation…