Product designer here. I just spent the past few hours fine-tuning some visual details in our Figma component library. Now I need to file tickets for each change and work with our frontend developers to make sure the updated Figma details get properly mapped over to React.
I've grown numb to the friction, but I think this Utopia demo just reset my pain tolerance. Going back to manually mapping designs from Figma mocks to React components feels so dated. Almost like those PSD2HTML websites of the early 2000s.
Utopia Founder here, also a designer. I agree, and for me this cuts both ways - seeing the changes I make in a real UI makes it so much faster to understand edge cases. Not to mention that I used to inevitably re-create production components in my designs. And sure, there are tools for that, but often they just add overhead.
Not sure if you're familiar with the movement, but standardized design tokens[1] seem like the future to me, depending on how well they are done. There's a list of major vendor like Adobe, Figma, etc. that are already onboard and the standardization process is progressing slowly but surely.
As I'm designing an app I don't want just click & drag visually to get some eye-balled spacing or size value. I want a design system with consistent spacing rules. Design tools enable this somewhat but the token standardization is pushing this much further. For example: there's already a hub/API for distributing design tokens to other services. I've seen a live demo of Specify[2] pushing token changes from Figma to a GitHub PR or creating JIRA task during a design token talk from a token w3c group member.
And it's not just about design -> code. If these tokens are standardized, design tools themselves (among others) could have a standardized way of transferring designs.
Heck, even Utopia could embrace this at some point to provide you an alternative view/workflow for your already standardized design tokens.
I've been using Remotion for the past 2 weeks with my startup twingate.com. Here are my thoughts thus far:
- It only works if enough people remember to open it every day. We started with just our frontend team of 4 people and since we're at the end of a sprint and doing a lot of code reviews it's been getting a lot of activity.
- It's more viral than I thought. We went from 4/25 to 12/25 teammates using it in the past week. I typically join a call maybe once a day, but I'm seeing other teammates jump on a call every hour (just saw two people start talking while I was typing this comment).
- The UI is small so it's fairly easy to ignore (especially on a big monitor)
- Since videos are limited to a small circle, ending calls after 5 minutes feels more natural than ending a Zoom call
- Screen sharing is pretty good, but you can't limit sharing to just one app
My theory on why Remotion has picked up so quickly with our team:
Working remotely can be lonely. By no means does this solve loneliness, but it definitely gives you back a slice of that working-in-an-office vibe.
OpenGov is a powerful platform that strengthens the bond between citizens and their governments as well as increases internal efficiency in financial planning and analysis. We design innovative interfaces that transform complex government financial data into approachable and actionable visualizations for citizens, journalists, and government employees.
We have a huge vision and we're backed by folks who do as well. We're 35 people strong, based in mountain view, and have raised $22 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Formation8, and Thrive Capital.
There's a lot to do
Creating new, cloud-based technology for an old-line industry is challenging, but also immensely rewarding. Your work will affect and transform governments and the communities they serve in new and profound ways. We recognize that recruiting and cultivating amazing people is the key to developing the powerful and intuitive software that can achieve our company's goals.
The team I'm a part of designed and built the platform Palo Alto uses to publish their financial data, OpenGov.com.
I don't generally put in plugs on HN but we're always looking for people interested in making a difference with the intersection of good government and tech. Drop me a line if you're interested zjohnston@opengov.com.
OpenGov is a very nice initiative. I did not know any such project in existence at all. One thing is for sure that in order to build trust one need to be transparent and accountable. Who says modern technology won't solve into Govt. related issues? This great initiative is a perfect answer. Keep up the good work. Thanks for sharing with us.
I've gone through most of the lessons and while they do a really good job of breaking coding concepts down into real world scenarios involving dogs and tennis balls.
I think they also provide live chat based help if you pay extra.
How many emails in a thread can this handle? A friend was JUST asking me of a way to export a 55,000 email long email thread. Will he break this if he uses it?
There are a number reasons to adopt retina graphics for your website today but it's not for everyone.
Consider the time it takes to update and maintain 2 versions of all images and ask yourself, is the >1% user base going to outweigh the time it takes to update this?
Make sure you consider the possibility that the >1% who are early adopters of the retina macbook may also be the type of early adopters who would try your alpha version.
As a designer, I know it's a major problem that if you primarily work on the best/brightest displays, you forget what your designs look like everywhere else.
So if you decide to "go retina", make sure you don't get carried away with fine lines and make the <99% squint to see your 8px #f0f0f0 text.
OneSchool is looking for beta users to build the first products on top of its API.
The API is part of a larger OPEN movement to liberate data from schools and enable startups to build amazing products from that data.
http://oneschool.com/open
I signed up at the bottom of that page, but I don't know how you're distinguishing students from teachers from developers in that signup form. I'm a developer that would like to checkout the API, assuming you have some data in it already.
I've grown numb to the friction, but I think this Utopia demo just reset my pain tolerance. Going back to manually mapping designs from Figma mocks to React components feels so dated. Almost like those PSD2HTML websites of the early 2000s.
The market absolutely needs a product like this.