Google created the Material Design design language to be used across devices. If you’re using Material Design with React, I’d recommend Material-UI for React to get the ball rolling. It’s a library of components or pre-styled elements (similar to the Bootstrap framework) that are easy to add to a page, and the components look and function well out of the box. Read more on Four Hurdles when Prototyping with Material-UI for React…
Author: Bryan Elkus
Identifying Design & Development Implementation Potholes
The marriage of design and software implementation has been a positive thing for the user. At Atomic, we receive a lot of good feedback about the use of Human Centered Design, but the design process is really just the start. What brings designs to life is the way our poly-skilled teams work hard to avoid road bumps during implementation, ensuring a quality outcome for our clients. Read more on Identifying Design & Development Implementation Potholes…
When’s the Best Time to User Test? A Case Study
On a recent project, we had enough time to do a small user test, which got me thinking about the optimal time to get feedback. We discussed two options: at the visual design stage with a clickable prototype, or with a rudimentary minimal viable product. Read more on When’s the Best Time to User Test? A Case Study…
Three Tips for Winning Your Battle with Sketch Symbols
Sketch, a favorite user interface tool, added Symbol support a few years ago. Since then, I and many other designers at Atomic have heavily leveraged Symbols in our work.
Read more on Three Tips for Winning Your Battle with Sketch Symbols…
Inspecting Safari’s Web Browser on a Mobile Device
Inspecting the browser gives you access to the details of a website or application. Using built-in developer tools and third-party add-ons, we can view the inner workings of an application.
For example, you can see the content structure in DOM, view the console for logs or error messages, and review network requests for assets being loaded. When debugging a user interface problem, you can use the elements panel to modify live content on the screen, changing the content, type color, or button sizes. Read more on Inspecting Safari’s Web Browser on a Mobile Device…
Practices for Harnessing SCSS with React
We have been hard at work on a client project using React. We haven’t made our way to implementing CSS Modules yet, but we’ve established a set of rules to help us keep the CSS in order.
Read more on Practices for Harnessing SCSS with React…
Experimenting with MongoDB
For a recent prototype, we wanted to bring in a database instead of relying on something like Google Sheets. I’d heard about MongoDB as part of the MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, and Node.js) or MEAN (MongoDB, Express, AngularJS, and Node.js) stacks and felt it was worth a try. In the end, I was very happy with my experience using it for a small prototype application.
Read more on Experimenting with MongoDB…
How Being a Consultant Taught me to Appreciate the Value of Time
In a recent job interview with a potential Atom, we were talking about some of the differences between product companies and life at a software consultancy like Atomic. One topic that arose was tracking time, and it occurred to me how much tracking work time at Atomic has changed the way I approach my work and personal time. Read more on How Being a Consultant Taught me to Appreciate the Value of Time…
Multiple HTTP Requests for an AngularJS + Google Sheets Prototype
As I continued to build out my AngularJS + Google Sheets prototype, I ran into another problem. I wanted to load the data from two Google Sheets and access the data in the same function. I created this example, which loads in one Sheet with weather forecasts and another with weather types and descriptions, as a proxy. Read more on Multiple HTTP Requests for an AngularJS + Google Sheets Prototype…
JSON to XML with AngularJS in Preparation for InDesign
In a recent project, I wanted to use Google Sheets as a content management system: the source for a print layout and a website. I wanted the content to reside in a single, easily editable location.
In order to achieve that outcome, InDesign requires the data in an XML file. But first, I had to convert the JSON data in Google Sheets to XML. This would allow me to customize the tag names to leverage the custom mapping styles feature within InDesign, which would make it a breeze to update the InDesign document as the content of the book changed. Read more on JSON to XML with AngularJS in Preparation for InDesign…