With its charming cast of characters and special seasonal events, Stardew Valley provides a cozy yet still challenging gaming experience. While each seasonal event is unique and enjoyable in its own right, some are more beneficial to progressing the game than others.

The Dragon Ball franchise has a surplus of quirky and colorful characters born of the imagination of Akira Toriyama (and later of Toyotar's) and though many of them are known to everyone, some are kept under a fog mystery that enshrouds their origins, and even their true goals in the series.

Hello, I am a student working on a degree in Game Development (a few months from first year of schooling so a noob lol. But have done some minor modding in Skyrim) and for all those in the industry or even just trying to start. What kind of advice would you give to someone like me who is still learning and not yet doing any work. Look forward to any advice or questions you might have!

Unique Cards for a Unique ExperienceEvery card in your collection is truly unique, generated through an advanced randomization system that ensures no two decks are ever the same. Your strategy, your playstyle, and your collection will stand apart from all others, giving you a one-of-a-kind edge on the battlefield.Daily Booster PacksEach day, you will be rewarded with a booster pack containing 5 FREE cards offe

Now that the Deadpool movie rights are back in Marvel Studios hands and Deadpool has joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe (sorta, kinda, in an elliptical way), one fan is hoping for a specific hero crossover. Wt FXsDaniel Macarin, who was part of the VFX tech team on 2016s Deadpool and became the VFX supervisor on Deadpool 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine, is hoping to get his hands on Spider-Man. Or more specifically, Spider-Mans mask.A moment between Deadpool and Spider-Man it would be a dream. I think we could have a tremendous amount of fun with it, he told Polygon in an interview around the time of Deadpool & Wolverines release.That interview mostly focused on Wt FXs effects work on Wolverines mask and facial expressions in Deadpool & Wolverine, and on how Ryan Reynolds asked the company to turn Wolverines skeleton into a rotting mummy for the opening-credits combat sequence. But asked what other character he most wanted to work on, Macarin immediately brought up his Spider-Man fandom. Macarin thinks ILMs work on Spider-Mans masked facial expressions as of Captain America: Civil War were in part inspired by Wts Deadpool work. They did [the digital] work on Spider-Man, he said. I think a lot of that had to do with the influence of when we did it on Deadpool it gave them a bit of an opening of We can animate this. This is a personal feeling [I think they realized] that they could animate Spider-Mans mask, and people would still believe its Spider-Man. It gives the character something.But Macarin would like to push those expressions further. I think there is room to do more with it, he said. Some of the humor Tom Holland has, that he brings out in his character I really love it, and I feel we could definitely push in that mask.ILMs version of Spider-Man in Civil War was an entirely digital creation, but in the Deadpool movies, Wt is only making tiny tweaks to real footage of the actors in costume, manipulating faces in ways that make their emotions more obvious in the masks. (For instance, in Deadpool & Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds was adamant that he wanted the audience to be able to see his characters love for Dogpool written all over his masked face.) A very subtle difference: Left, the original shot from the set. Right, Wts expression tweak on DeadpoolChances are good that if Disney ever does put Spider-Man and Deadpool in the same movie, Macarin will be involved: Hes worked on a number of past Marvel Studios movies as a digital effects supervisor, includingThe Avengers,Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, andIron Man 3. And he has no intention of letting anyone else take over Deadpool for future movies.I was involved in the tech side [of 2016s Deadpool], not in the art side, he said. The guy in the office right next to me [right now] ran Deadpool 1. [But] because I understood the technology and Im a huge fan of the character, I took over on Deadpool 2, and Ive kind of kept it locked ever since, because I refuse to let it go.Deadpool & Wolverine is now streaming on Disney Plus, and is available for purchase on Amazon and other digital platforms.

Chasing down super rare cards is just one way to approach card collecting. Depending on their interests, players can focus on tracking down cards from a certain artist or period of time or build a collection around a single favorite Pokmon. As I play Pokmon Trading Card Game Pocket, Ive enjoyed building a collection by finding cards in languages other than English.TCG Pocket is a free-to-play mobile game where players assemble a digital collection of Pokmon cards. The game launched with a line of booster packs called Genetic Apex and at time of publication, there are 226 cards in the apps rolodex. Ive collected enough cards that I no longer pull new ones every time I open a pack. It can feel a bit repetitive, so switching things up and trying to collect the cards in other languages keeps things interesting.A cool detail about TCG Pocket is that the game makes it very easy to collect cards in different languages, such as Japanese, French, and German. I first started collecting by sending a friend request to any person I battled who used cards in another language. If my opponent plays the game in Japanese, then I can use Wonder Pick to collect a Japanese card from a pack they opened. This adds a fun dynamic to battling strangers online, because it has made me pay attention to the players who play in different languages and their cards.If you have another copy of the card in your collection in your designated language, you wont see your special language card in the lineup. However, you can still show it off in a binder. All you need to do is go to the corresponding card and put it in a binder, and the game will show the one you collected in the other language. So if you collected a French version of the trainer card Lt. Surge, which is translated to Major Bob, you can view the French text card of Major Bob in the binder.If the friending and Wonder Pick method is too slow for you, theres another way to broaden the linguistic horizons of your Pokmon cards. You can also just go into the games settings and switch the language of the app. If you change the game to Italian, then the cards you open will be in Italian; if you swap it to Spanish, then the cards you get will be in Spanish. I didnt bump into any limits on this. So if you wanted to go ham and, say, seek some super rare full-art cards in Japanese, there is nothing stopping you from taking that route. Just remember that the UI for your app will also be in your chosen language.All in all, its a cute touch even if you cant use the cards in battles (the deck builder translates them back to your designated language). I happen to have random cards from other languages in my own physical Pokmon TCG collection. Now, I can mimic that in TCG Pocket as well, and giggle at Major Bob in the process.

Build a sustainable future in tech by taking small yet efficient steps toward strategic content management.My sense is that if you want to change the world, you start with yourself and work outward because you build your competence that way. JordanPetersonThis article serves as a practical guide to help you implement and maintain a sustainable environment in your team, focusing on the type of content you create, making workflows more organised and efficient.The sustainability challenge intechContent design as a tool for sustainabilityThree content design practices for sustainable communicationBusiness benefits of a sustainable environmentImplementing sustainable content design practices intechExternal communications: UX, Legal, Marketing, SupportInternal communications: Documentation, Meetings, Emails, OnboardingThe sustainability challenge intechAs part of the tech world, each of us plays a role in managing data usage and its impact on our future. While sustainability often evokes ideas of a green world, it also involves strategically organising workflows in tech companies. This approach not only conserves resources but also saves time and effort, enabling us to focus on meaningful tasks rather than repetitive workan unsustainable practice intech.The more sustainable practices we integrate into our routines, the less repetitive work we encounter. This isnt just a responsible approach its also an enjoyable one. In this article, we wont dwell on sustainability issues but instead will present content design practices with actionable steps anyone can take to foster sustainability within their organisation, boosting both efficiency and long-term impact.By putting in the effort to build a sustainable environment now, we can create lasting results for years to come, ensuring we leave a positive legacy. Ultimately, sustainability in tech supports both a greener planet and a more efficient, rewarding work experience.Content design as a tool for sustainabilityAs a content designer, I encounter opportunities for sustainability improvements daily from simple resources like glossaries to restructured sustainable design workflows and collaboration methods at the organisational level.Content, as a tool for answering a user need, is everywhere, and it can be crafted poorly or efficiently. What excites me is how straightforward it can be to create effective content though knowing where to begin can sometimes be challenging. This is why Ive created this guide: to provide clear starting points for fostering sustainability in your organisation through contentdesign.By following these principles, you can reduce unnecessary documentation, create concise yet informative content for external as well as internal use, and leverage templates and ready-to-use solutions. While some aspects of content are unique to specific companies or tools, this article outlines universal practices that require no specialised tools. You can start reshaping your sustainability impact via content as soon as you finishreading.Three content design practices for sustainable communicationAmong the best content design practices, three core, widely applicable principles can enhance sustainability in any tech workflow: writing in clear language (also known as plain language), structuring content effectively, and creating reusablecontent.Clear languageClear language ensures that even complex ideas are easy to understand. Many governments, such as Australias, promote these principles to improve accessibility.Key guidelines include:Use everydaywords.Avoid jargon or latin expressions, acronyms, initialisms and abbreviations.Use inclusive language.Learn the words your audienceuses.Choose simple words over complex expressions.Limit terms with specialised meanings.These principles align with readability standards, like those by Jakob Nielsen. Clear language improves comprehension for all readers, including those learning the language. Aim for a reading level equivalent to GCSE or A-levels (10 12th grade), ensuring clarity for a broad audience.Clear language applies to writing and speaking, so consider borrowing from your natural spoken style for clearer writtencontent.Structured contentOnce ideas are expressed in clear language, structuring content becomes essential. Proper structure allows readers to scan information and complete their tasks quicker and with less energy waste, saving time on reading, understanding, and recalling content. Well-structured information is also easier to remember and visuallyprocess.To make content accessible and easily digestible, follow these guidelines:Use meaningful titles that summarise the sections mainidea.Be succinct and remove unnecessary words andphrases.Ensure relevance: if a sentence or phrase doesnt contribute essential information, removeit.Keep it brief: focus on one main message at a time and avoid unnecessary punctuation.Use a logical hierarchy: in English, this typically means placing content from top to bottom, left to right (e.g., legal text should appear before, not after, abutton).Add clear calls toaction.Use bullet or numbered lists wherever possible.These steps make content accessible and assist people in achieving their goals, promoting better UX and supporting sustainability. When content is well-structured and clear, users are less likely to repeat tasks, reducing inefficiency. UX patterns that frustrate users or lead to misclicks increase energy use without addingvalue.Reusable contentOnce content is clear and well-structured, reusability becomes the next step. Reusable content involves creating standardised components that can be used across different contexts.Reusable content benefits all user-facing communications, from product descriptions to onboarding flows and support chat. For instance, product descriptions might be presented in the form of a short text, titles and subtitles, or detailed instructions all used at different stages of the user journey. Consistent access to reusable content helps every team stayaligned.Different companies manage reusable content in variousways:Content Management Systems (CMS) help international teams manage translations and maintain consistency across languages.DITA XML is widely used in technical documentation to create and manage reusablecontent.Integrated content design system or content standards work best when embedded within the product designsystem.Product glossaries (spreadsheets like Excel files uploaded to a CMS) help maintain consistent terminology.Having a single, reliable source of truth for content prevents teams from creating duplicate material and supports a sustainable workflow a key content design approach that benefits tech companies overall.Business benefits of a sustainable environmentSustainability initiatives, when done well, directly impact costs. Without it, companies often waste resources. Clear language and structured content help teams spend less time reading and comprehending, while reusable content allows teams to access existing resources, reducing repetitive work.Lets estimate the savings from implementing sustainable practices. Imagine only 25% of a companys 1,000 employees benefit from implementing these three content design principles, saving each of these 250 employees two hours per week. Assuming an average hourly rate of $45: 250 employees x 2 hours per week x 50 weeks x $45/hour = $1,125,000 savings per yeartotal.This rough calculation shows the substantial savings sustainable content design practices can offer a company of 1000 employees.Implementing sustainable content design practices intechThese core content design practices clear language, structured content, and reusability are initially intended to streamline workflows within content teams in a tech company. They enhance collaboration, alignment, and productivity, helping content designers develop consistent guidelines and tone of voice, especially valuable for emerging teams. However, content isnt solely the responsibility of content designers it extends throughout UX and beyond, impacting all areas of an organisation.How to use thisguide1. Identify the type of communication you manage or contribute to within yourcompany.2. Review the three content design principles applied to that type of communication, and explore how you can foster a sustainable approach.3. Start with a practical example to make your initial steps towards sustainability.4. Share your approach with other teams to strengthen your companys overall sustainability efforts. Using a RACI chart can support this initiative by defining roles and responsibilities within content projects.External communicationsExternal communications extend to various teams within the organisation. Product and marketing teams should meet periodically to share updates and proposals regarding external communications. The engineering team needs to be aware that the content they develop is part of a collaborative effort, while support teams, who engage directly with customers, must align their communication style with the UX principles. The legal team plays a key role in ensuring that all legal content is clear and serves its purpose throughout the user experience. If a brands different communication platforms convey messages in varying ways, it may confuse people when they interact with each ofthem.While there is much to discuss regarding the impact of content design principles on all aspects of a product, it is important to remember that implementing these three principles to boost product sustainability is a manageable process. Once established, these practices will become self-sustaining.User experienceThe direct outcome of content design principles is evident in the user experience of digital services and products. While the quality of code and documentation is essential, sustainable digital products also depend on efficient infrastructure, optimised content delivery, and clear governance practices. Design decisions influence the overall system sustainability by shaping how resources are used and maintained over time. Oftentimes, the elements that make a product or service more sustainable are those that also make it good forusers.Clear language: When utilising clear language, we should aim for terminology that is easily recognisable, constructing short sentences where each conveys a single idea. Unnecessary elements should be eliminated, and if elaboration enhances understanding, we should not hesitate to expand on specific points. All texts must be concise, informative, and distinct from one another. Button names must clearly indicate the actions they perform, enhancing usability. When we use clear language, we minimise the need to rephrase ideas, which leads to clear and concise texts that reduce code complexity.For international companies, a product glossary integrated into a content management system ensures that translations are automatically updated alongside content resources.Structured content: It is vital to create a logical hierarchy of information that guides the reader on what to consume first and what follows. Logical ordering through titles (h1, h2, h3) and subtitles makes code creation and navigation straightforward. During the content structuring process, it often becomes apparent what information should be retained and what can be discarded as excess. This clarity not only improves the overall code quality impacting sustainability in tech companies but also enhances product accessibility.Reusable content: While a design system has to offer flexibility we can identify various elements that can be reused in UX, such as titles, subtitles, labels, error messages, buttons. There is no need to recreate these components repeatedly. Reusable content ensures that your content remains agile and future-proof. Reusable terminology should begin with how we spell the companys name. We should also standardise introductory texts that represent our product and its features, ensuring there are both short and long versions. Legal texts, including agreements such as those that appear when users click buttons should be streamlined. Understanding the meaning behind legal texts can reveal that some may be eliminated entirely only when approved by a legal team simplifying the user experience.Reusing content also contributes to sustainable coding. Each line of text that is reused is easily updated without requiring code rewrites. DITA is an excellent solution for this, and content management systems serve as practical and effective tools.Begin by assessing the content creation tools currently used in your company and align your work with your content design teams guidelines. Utilise the terms in your product glossary, and if such a document does not exist, establishing it should be a priority. This process may be extensive, but the time invested is invaluable. Start with onboarding materials, titles and subtitles, and concise legal texts, alongside clear button labels. Ensure that the maximum character length is defined for labels in space-restricted modules. Ensure every word serves a purpose and aids people in navigating the content flow. When choosing a non-text content format, opt for the lowest-emission option that provides the mostvalue.Collaboration with development teams is most important. Observing their meetings can provide insights into their coding practices and tools, enabling discussions on effective collaboration and the steps necessary to integrate sustainability practices into their workflows.LegalLegal texts are essential for everyones understanding, both within the context of user experience and beyond. However, legal terminology can often be confusing, highlighting the need for improvement.Clear language: Legal terminology can be transformed into easily comprehensible texts using clear language principles. It is well-established that even professionals in highly specialised fields prefer simple language over complexjargon.Structured content: Legal documents often contain lengthy texts that cover numerous specific topics, making navigation challenging. Typically, individuals do not need to access all sections simultaneously instead, they need to quickly find relevant information. Here, clear titles and a logical sequence can significantly enhance usability.Reusable content: This practice is a common challenge for many legal teams. Documents may be reused for extended periods after being created and approved, resulting in new team members hesitating to make changes for fear of legal repercussions. Content reusability should not involve outdated or inaccurate material rather, it is about maintaining the best pieces of content in terms of user experience and ensuring they are readily available as authoritative sources. Regular audit will ensure that the most current information is consistently reflected wherever the content isused.Start by creating a list of rules for updating legal texts, including approval processes, guidelines on the length of information, style of titles, and so on. Additionally, compile a document with links to all legal texts, including the date of the last update and the name of the person who signed itoff.Content designers or UX writers can be invaluable in updating and restructuring legal texts. The UX research and support teams, who understand the audience best, can assist in finding the appropriate voice and testing whether the updated version is sufficiently clear or requires further iteration.In terms of sustainability, these practices can reduce excessive legal documentation, creating an environment where finding relevant, accessible, and up-to-date information benefits not only users but also the legal teamitself.MarketingCopywriters, PR professionals, and CRM specialists often engage with audiences even before their first interaction with a product. The impact of these teams on sustainable communication practices is significant.Clear language: While clear language is essential for global marketing communications, exceptions may arise for local campaigns. For example, marketing teams operating in specific regions may use humour, or puns in slogans and calls to action. However, such language should be limited to local campaigns and must be tested and approved by local experts. In contrast, clear language is critical for onboarding materials that highlight the products positive impact on users lives and for website content that conveys the companys values.Structured content: When detailing product benefits, focus on clarity and conciseness avoid unnecessary repetition. For long-form content, adhering to general structuring practices is beneficial. In emails and SMS communications, ensure that title or subtitle conveys a clear action for thereader.Reusable content: This represents a significant opportunity for creating a sustainable environment within marketing teams. Proper categorisation and filtering of reusable content are vital. Important tags may include the applicable location, links to translations, approval names, campaign names, and target audiences.Begin with a source document containing all the baseline taglines and brief texts about the company, its products, values, and benefits. Align these messages with your audience and establish a single source of truth that specifies where, when, and how to use this content shaping how you want your audience to perceive and remember your brand. Make your SEO decisions as strategic as the contentitself.Distribute this document widely along with concise guidelines on when and how messages can be used independently and when your involvement is required. The UX team should have access to this document to incorporate the content into draft layouts of landing pages, for example. During the initial creation or updating phase, engage with all stakeholders involved in tone of voice decisions, including content designers or UX writers, business developers, and legal advisors.SupportCustomers seek empathy when reaching out to support, so clear and straightforward communication demonstrates care simply when it saves their time. Conveying a unified message also allows the support team to showcase the humanity behind theproduct.Clear language: These additions to clear language fundamentals help support teams work efficiently and thoughtfully, laying the groundwork for creating effective FAQ sections as the nextstep.Be transparent about decision-making processes.Avoid saying sorry unless the error lies with theproduct.Do not claim to understand customers feelings instead, focus on providing relevant information.Structured content: Support teams frequently provide information that can be structured for better scannability. By organising content effectively, both customers and support staff save time, fostering a sustainable workflow within the techcompany.Reusable content: Developing templates for support chat messages and structured responses can significantly reduce the workload while ensuring a consistent tone of voice. Resources invested in creating and maintaining an up-to-date FAQ section or Help Centre are worthwhile, as they provide comprehensive guides not only for users but also for internal teams. These resources can facilitate onboarding for new employees and serve as a reliable reference for all teammembers.Begin by identifying existing templates and creating a repository for them. This will allow for easier updates, target audience identification, and ensure the team has a template to quickly address typical customer inquiries. This document should evolve into an accessible FAQ for users, followed by the iterative development of support chat templates. Collecting pain points and resolving them through clear, structured content is a significant investment that the support team can make for thecompany.Engage with other departments to avoid confusion in providing inaccurate information. Content designers or UX writers first to determine the best methods for collecting and transforming support data and user feedback into a useful FAQ section. Engineering and analytics teams possess valuable insights into how customers use the product and where they encounter difficulties. UX/UI designers can enhance the visual appeal and navigation of the FAQ section. This project requires careful planning utilise a RACI chart to outline initial collaborators while remaining open to new partnerships as the project unfolds. Such initiatives will foster valuable relationships and collaboration opportunities.Internal communicationsContent design principles extend beyond external communication they can significantly enhance internal workflows. While content designers may not be directly involved in improving processes, these practices can be used independently by everyone, fostering a sustainable environment within thecompany.Photo sourceDocumentationIn todays tech environment, documentation is essential for capturing new features, projects, and approaches. With remote teams and varied work schedules, the need for accessible, written information is greater thanever.Clear language: Regardless of your role, create content that is accessible to all employees. Empathy is key people prefer not to struggle with complex language when reading documentation. As mentioned earlier, even experts want clear, concise information. Consider including a list of terms in each document to ensure everyone uses consistent language.Structured content: Use descriptive titles that clearly reflect the documents main ideas, and organise content logically. If a document covers different topics, consider splitting it into separate files. Clear cross-references and link names are essential for effective navigation, especially when different teams use varied tools. Streamline this process by implementing templates for common documentation types (such as project, feature, update, task, marketing, design, support, legal, content, research feedback). Utilise tags to enhance searchability and maintain a shared template space, accompanied by usage instructions to ensure consistency and sustainability.Reusable content: Documents templates enable their content reusability. Develop example project documents that colleagues can copy and adapt as needed, maintaining the initial structure and navigation to support sustainable documentation practices.Start by selecting an appropriate documentation tool. If thats not feasible, create a simple document with links to all relevant workspaces to facilitate cross-referencing. Prepare a table covering key aspects of projects and share it with colleagues during meetings.While someone should oversee this documentation project, engaging collaboratively will enhance the effectiveness and relevance of the documentation.MeetingsMeetings can be time-consuming. To maximise their effectiveness and ensure that all participants understand their purpose, basic content design principles can be invaluable.Clear language: It is easy to overwhelm attendees with complex terminology. Prior to the meeting, refer to a word list related to the topic and provide explanations for any unavoidable jargon. Offer synonyms or brief descriptions to aid understanding. Facilitate discussions efficiently by actively listening, paraphrasing participants contributions, and reiterating key points using clear language.Structured content: A clear agenda, including a brief overview of the project and an introduction to all participants. Include a checklist of objectives to be covered, specifying priorities and the individuals responsible for each topic. This approach clarifies the discussions focus and the rationale behind each invitees presence.Reusable content: Meeting structures can and should be standardised. Create or adapt a template that includes comprehensive details and specifications, allowing for easy modification. Its more efficient to remove unnecessary elements from a template than to add them later. This iterative process will help develop an optimal meeting format. Also, consider drafting an instruction guide for facilitators on starting meetings, summarising discussions, and achieving consensus, as meetings arent always about immediate decisions.Start by assessing the current structure of your meetings and gather informal feedback from colleagues about potential improvements. Compile valid suggestions into a single template and note any additional ideas that arise during discussions for future consideration. Establish fundamental meeting rules, such as starting with the project background, outlining current targets, introducing participants, and posting the agenda in advance clarifying what in advance means aswell.Once youve refined these ideas with your immediate team and key collaborators, present the principles to your department, demonstrating their effectiveness by following your own guidelines.EmailsEmails are a concise form of communication where all three content design principles apply effectively.Clear language: Ensure your email is easy to understand. If using complex terms, provide a glossary at the end to clarify. Write as you would speak if unsure, read it aloud to check itsclarity.Structured content: Make your email scannable by avoiding unnecessary introductions. Be polite yet concise, expressing gratitude without lengthy pleasantries. Use titles for different topics or provide detailed project information. Include links to related projects to facilitate easy navigation.Reusable content: Titles can be reused as part of your email structure. For example, Meghan Caseys Content Strategy Toolkit suggests elements for an email agenda, suchas:Introduction: Who youare.Overview of the project: What problem youresolving.Why you need them: Specific tasks for each recipient.The team: A brief overview of teammembers.Expectations: What you request from the recipient.A big thank you: Acknowledge their commitment to reading youremail.Start by experimenting with this structure, adapting it to your needs, and documenting it for team reference.Collaborate across the company to make this documentation easily accessible and promote the efficient email structure forall.OnboardingThe principles discussed in this article can serve as effective onboarding material. With clear documentation and a single source of truth for information, newcomers can self-onboard, reducing the time experienced colleagues spend answering their questions. This allows new hires to focus on role-specific information rather than generalqueries.Clear language: Avoid complex terminology without clarification. Provide a glossary to ensure newcomers easily grasp company values and rules. This initial interaction shapes their understanding of internal processes, making clarity essential.Structured content: Present information chronologically, helping newcomers absorb insights without needing to go back. Clearly indicate new information, its relevance to daily tasks, and provide examples. Videos can enhance onboarding, but ensure accompanying text summaries and subtitles for accessibility.Reusable content: While onboarding materials should cater to individual roles, core information should be reused across departments. This saves time and ensures consistency in presenting company values and rules. Structure this information to be general, with department-specific adaptations.Begin by gathering company values and rules in a straightforward format. Decide on the presentation style and tone of voice, which may differ from external communications. Typically, the internal tone is friendlier, allowing for a more casual approach.Collaborate with different departments, especially with an internal communications specialist. Ensure the recruiting team is aware of the onboarding materials provided during the first days and weeks of employment.The journey towards tech sustainability through content design principles reveals a fundamental truth: its not just about what we create, but how we create, manage and maintain it for long-term impact.When teams across the organisation write clearly, organise thoughtfully and reuse content systematically, they reduce waste and work more efficiently. These principles benefit both the environment and business by saving time, reducing costs and making information more accessible. Every tech professional who writes emails, creates presentations or develops documentation can apply thesebasics.The way forward is simple: create less, reuse more, and make every piece of content work harder for longer. This approach extends beyond content designers it empowers everyone in tech to create more sustainable content.Content design practices for sustainable communication in tech was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Designers use an unconstrained canvas tool to design for rule-based interactive systems, hoping the devs will perfect everything in production. This causes misalignment between designers anddevs.There are two persistent issues that keep plaguing the product design and development worlds. The first one is very much on the surface, and thusno surprisegets both a lot of attention and a plethora of sometimes reasonable solutions. The second one is much deeper, more subtle, and easier tomiss.Lets start with the first onethe handoffproblem.There are, in fact, several reasons why the handoff process is a majorproblem:Friction, and with it the potential for mistakes in a handoff, causes the actual coded products to differ from the designers intentions, as captured in their design tool. The only experience that matters is that of real users with the real-coded product. Not getting the designs perfectly reflected in the final product makes the process ineffective and demoralizing.Handoff wastes a lot of time for designers and developers. It takes a lot of mental effort to encode and decode all the relevant info for building the screens correctly. A designer must over-communicate with specs, examples, comments, and documentation, while a developer must inspect the designs with paranoid, detective-level vigilance, sometimes squinting to avoid missing anything.Handing designs to developers to build from scratch creates a redundant, atrophied artifact. Once the code is live, it diverges from the source of truth, creating a never-ending race to ensure the design file and the reality match. When that pairing is inevitably broken, a chain of mistrust builds. Developers see outdated designs and feel justified in ignoring parts that seem out of touch with reality. As a result, designers become hyper-vigilant, hunting for mismatches between the design and the implementation. This occurs frequently when developers choose a library as the optimal solution for a component and do not properly match the specified styling.The need to hand designs over forces designers to waste time on things they usually dont like or value that much. Its not the peak of creativity to specify and document all the ways a text field should be able to render in the product. Especially knowing that this is not the actual thing being built, but only a disposable artifact. It forces front-end developers to focus on tasks of little joy or meaning as well. Recreating an already designed screen in code while chasing down designers to verify how things should reflow when the viewport gets smaller or larger is no funeither.Since those problems are quite clear, the motivation for solving them was, and still is,high.And so there were two general directions for solutions that the market allowed toevolve:One was a path of helper apps to the most popular canvas design tools. It started with tools for easier inspection (Avocode, Zeplin, Simpli, Abstract). Then, design tools added inspection features (like Dev Mode in Figma, Sketch, XD, and InVision). After that, specific tools appeared. These included Zeroheight and InVisions DSM for easier documentation. Many plugins also emerged in the Sketch and Figma marketplaces, like Anima, Locofy, and other Figma-to-HTML tools.The other path was entirely different in nature. It sought to eliminate the handoff altogether by creating a new breed of design tools that were able to ship end-to-end by themselves with little to no help from developers. The most prominent and robust nowadays would be Webflow and Framer, but there is a whole slew of them, starting with Dreamweaver some 25 yearsago.The biggest issue with all these no-code / low-code tools was, and still is, that the way theyre built not only eliminates the handoff, but also the need for developers themselves. This, naturally, created a pretty low ceiling for the complexity of the products these tools can allow designers to build end-to-end. Primarily for this reason, the monetary success followed website building tools, rather than native iOS / Android or web app building tools (at this stage Im only aware of Play for iOS and Draftbit). The chief reason for this, as I can make sense of it, is that in apps the logical complexity exceeds the ability of the no-code tools to deliver. In the last few years, some vertical tools like Framer, Webflow, Builder.io started building bridges as an import ability from canvas tools like Figma, using their ownplugins.And so, the space of solutions for the handoff problem has a trade-off in the middle of itsheart:You either have a generic canvas tool that allows you to design the most complex apps in the world, but the design is only an artifact and necessitates a handoff, or you have a specialized builder tool that frees you to design and develop by yourself, but it has a low ceiling of complexity for the product you want tocreate.As far as Im aware, there have only been two design/development tools that successfully incorporated a different, unifying strategy.Flash (created by Macromedia, succeeded by Adobe, killed by SteveJobs)Blend for Visual Studio using XAML and the WPF platform from Microsoft.Flash had ActionScript that allowed the same object to be freely designed by the designer and logically manipulated using ActionScript commands by the developer. This setup let all the relevant pros do their jobs. The designers focused on what was important, both experientially and visually. They didnt need to hand off anything to developers, since they could just target the existing assets created by the designers. No throwaway artifacts, no handoff, and no limit to the complexity. Flash didnt try to code for you. It allowed developers to pick up where designers maxed out their comfortzone.Blend for Visual Studio had a similar story, but with different files, structures, and logic. It was a twin-environment setup. The designers could design, and the Visual Studio developers could target the exact same assets. Again, no handoff, no throwaway artifacts, and no limits on complexity.As we all know, Flash died because of security and performance incompatibility with the iPhone. Blend and Visual Studio are now niche, unpopular tools. In all the surveys of tool usage in the last 7 years, I havent seen a single mention of them. Meanwhile, Figma has taken almost all the product design marketshare).This has to lead us to the conclusion that the tools with the best approach are still not immune to failing for all sorts of other reasons. Business is a fickle and unpredictable game,indeed.Now, as Ive stated at the beginning, there are two persistent issues that keep plaguing the product design and development worlds. Lets explore the more hidden, but an even more important issue:Naive canvas-based tools hide the vast spectrum of design properties from designers.The ramifications of this problem are large. But its not a malicious plot to keep designers blissfully ignorantits the bad side of a tradeoff that designers used to only look at its good side. Freedom. And boy, do designers love their freedom. I know Ido.It is important to realize how we got to where we are with the canvas tools that have become so ubiquitous in the industry.We started with a physical page. Paper, ink, and colors manipulated to perfection by graphic designers. The page was static, concrete, well-defined, and never changing. Then graphic programs arrived to help speed things upPhotoshop, Freehand, Corel Draw, Illustrator (and many more after those). All helped us design printed and mostly static web assets. Then, something important happened. Computers began to diverge in screen sizes. The internet and native apps had to adapt. They introduced responsive units and rules. It all escalated even more after the introduction of the iPhone and tablets. But the designers, graphic and early-interactive designers that is, were hooked on the page metaphor. Naturally, the revenue-powered design tools kept giving them exactly that. The ease of direct manipulation (first with a mouse and keyboard, then with finger gestures and a stylus) was too comfortable to give up for other benefits. This led to a mismatch where designers were encouraged by the tools to have freedom, while the demand now was for responsive, systematic, smart, parametric design rulesfor developers to implement.And this is where the great divide becomes clearbecause:The set of tools and abilities that maximize intuitive, freeform graphic manipulation is exactly the opposite of the set of tools that help define coherent, robust, flexible, and parametric systems.Think about the very basic nature of gravitation: in all the main canvas tools up until the introduction of Figmas auto-layout a few years ago, the freedom meant that there was no gravitational pull either upwards or downwards. Very much unlike both the web and the native iOS and Android environments.When you have no gravitation, the default mode of everything is to be absolutely positioned in gradual z-index order, one on top of the other. Nothing pushes anything else. Nothing interacts. Paddings and margins dont mean anything. Text doesnt make boxes get larger when more words are typed in. Since theres no viewport, no viewport-related measurements can be used; even percentages are almost never used. So almost nothing is relative.Slowly, UI-friendly tools started appearing. Sketch opened the door for both XD and Figma. It did this by using components, overrides, a generic mapping of frame = div, and more visual qualities that can be parameterized (colors, typography, effects, and layout grids in Figma). It was a breath of fresh air, but the challenges rose in tandem with thetools.The most technical designers felt the pressure to start experimenting with code by themselves. This gave them superpowers because it informed their otherwise naive stance about how the real world of UI programming works. A push towards getting more robust tools was felt, and the leading tools (Sketch, Figma, and XD) introduced Auto Layout, which was a slightly capped but friendly version of Flexbox. It was like having a mini-universe with DOM-like gravity inside a capsuled auto-layout-enabled frame, inside a universe of a do-whatever-you-like canvas.This was revolutionary. Designers began to consider how content affects container sizes. Layout reflow became more robust, and finally, padding mattered.Savvy designers started building almost everything they had in the UI using auto-layout.Now, let that sink in for asecondIn a universe with no gravitation, we are creating almost everything as a bunch of microuniverses with gravitation! Wouldnt it be so much easier if the base default reality was the one with the gravitation, sort of auto layout by default!? Oh wait, thats exactly how the web, iOS, and Android alreadywork.So the trajectory of progress seems clear if you look at the last 10 years. Tools are trying to get designers closer and closer to systematic and flexible design rule-making.ButWe are still before the biggest, most important leapforward.For the actual UI building (components and pages)product designers will have to give up their beloved free-form canvas.As far as I can see it, designing and building digital products will have to abide by the constraints of the platform in which they are coded and tested. As a designer, I must have the full spectrum of tools to use flex, grid, padding, margin, percentages on every single measurement, viewport units, and many more. I need to be able to easily change the viewport and see everything that needs to be affectedbe affected. Components should have a difference between states and properties because they are not the same. Their variants should be set in a rule-based fashion, not by specifying all my variants one by one. Instead of styles, Design Tokens should parametrize everything. Robust, multi-layered tokens with aliases and composite token types (like typography).The default of the tool has to help me make better decisions, not nicer or easier decisions. It has to keep me from veering too easily into a naive, chaotic, inconsistent mess of a system. A system that will be easy to create on a whim, but nightmarish to maintain. To get a sense of what we are actually doing when were designing for interactive digital experiencesread what Frank Chimero wrote in his essay The Webs Grain. This part is about how hard it is to master the design for screens because theyare:an edgeless surface of unknown proportions comprised of small, individual, and variable elements from multiple vantages assembled into a readable whole that documents amoment.This is the grain of digital products, web, and elsewhere. So the design tools we use should help us actually interact with this surface, not hide and abstract it away from us. Its time we mature as designers. The quality of processes, the relationships with the developers, our products, and the well-being of our customers are all well worth theeffort.The right tool will have to be built for a collaboration. A true collaboration, not a handoff. With developers, because complex products (which will be the vast majority) need them. Theres no avoiding that with dreams of magic AI fairy dust and no-code, no-dev narrow builders, empowering as they mayseem.I hope disruption is well on its way. Im working with my friends to build a tool I believe has these properties. Its called Jux. Still very early days and a long way to go, but I think were on to something trulyradical.Dive even deeper by readingthese:Nathan Curtiss great article about what should a spec for handoffincludeBrad Frosts article + demo for prototyping using Claude with real codedobjects.To have a good sense of the real interactivity of most common components go through this list by Iain Bean. Theres a page for components and a page for some great designsystems.Read Shamsis article laying out an argument against thehandoff.Read Joe Alterios deep piece about tools and craft and how AI will affect itall.Great read from Vitaly Friedman of Smashing Magazine regarding nohandoffOriginally posted on the Jux bloghereThe root causes for the dev-design mismatch was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Thanksgiving might be on your mind right about now. If youre hosting and cooking this holiday meal for the first time, bless your heart. There are a lot of things weve put together to help you cheat some dishes. And even if you have hosted this dinner before, theres a good chance youre feeling a lot of pressure. In order to give you quality advice on hosting, I decided to turn to to the Queen of Entertaining, Martha Stewart, and her first cookbook, Entertaining. If youre a first timer or generally anxious about cooking Thanksgiving dinner, here are my biggest takeaways from the book so you can get to it.Entertaining is Martha Stewarts very first cookbook from 1982, and while some recipes are decidedly out of fashion, its functional ideas for supplying food to loads of people are strong. The book has multiple chapters on hosting large parties, from a dinner with eight guests to a full-blown wedding lunch (although she calls it a luncheon, which I cannot bring myself to do). Unfortunately, this book is out of print now and considered a collectible item. (You can bid for it on Ebay.)The following tips are things I noticed throughout nearly every chapter of Stewarts premier cookbook.Write out your menu (for yourself)Each chapter of the book starts out with a list of 10 to 15 dishes. While the intention is to give you her actual menu from the event and supply a small table of contents to the chapter, I find this to be a great organizational move for the host, new or practiced. I dont know about you, but I have wrapped up a dinner party, sent everyone home, and begun cleaning when Ive opened the fridge and said, Oh. I forgot to make the ... [fill in the blank]." Or the more stressful realization that youve forgotten an integral ingredient while youre actively cooking that dish.Writing out the menu for yourself is a good way to see if youre making accidental duplicates in your side dishes. Last year I wrote down a roasted tomato side and also a tomato salad. I noticed the dupe and swapped in a green salad. Having your menu written also allows you to recognize gaps. Maybe youll see you have three meat dishes and nothing vegetarian for your cousin. Did you forget the mashed potatoes or the cranberry sauce?The big takeaway. The menu is your first step to making sure your dinner party goes smoothly and youve covered all your bases; everything else follows from there. It allows you to write out a shopping list, and then it provides the structure for planning out your daywhen youll cook and how long it should take. You can even print out the menu if youre into that sort of thing.Keep the dishes simpleIm guilty of getting carried away with jazzing up classic sides, but Martha keeps things simple. Instead of overcomplicating each recipe with a large list of ingredients, she focuses a lot on simple dishes and leans into French titles (which automatically makes them fancy). Corn muffins, mushroom vichyssoise (a creamy mushroom soup), shrimp wrapped in snow peas, and string beans vinaigrette are good examples. The string beans dish is actually my favorite. Its literally blanched string beans tossed with vinaigrette and piled with thinly sliced red onions. While utterly simple (you could even buy the vinaigrette), I would absolutely grab a heap to have on my plate.The big takeaway. Theres a balance to strike when preparing a dinner party. Big feasts like Thanksgiving emphasize a bountiful selection, so keep them simple. Youll be making several different dishes and the best way to prevent an overwhelmed palate (and overwhelmed person) is to let those dishes shine in their purest form. Blanch vegetables to bring out their sugars and maintain crisp textures, make simple, elegant soups, and keep breads neutral so they can sop up many different juices and sauces without contradicting them.Use sauces and spreadsIn Entertaining, Martha almost always has a menu item thats a sauce, dip, or dressing. The sauce or spread always accompanies another menu itemmeats might be served with a mousse, or spread, veggies with a dip or vinaigrette, and sometimes shell just suggest a big bowl of dip nearby that plays well with everything else on the table.The big takeaway. Ive always felt that sauces and condiments play a crucial role in making the Thanksgiving meal work for everyone at your table. Its the easiest way to allow guests to personalize their flavors and they can make the simplest dish feel special. A slice of turkey breast among guests becomes turkey and gravy, turkey with chili oil, or turkey with sage and browned butter sauce. If youre keeping the dishes simple (as suggested before), then the dressings allow your guests to get a little wild, should they so choose.Small bites are betterWhether its a crudit party or a farmhouse Thanksgiving, Martha is never serving large portions. Instead of making one whole baked russet per person, shes setting up a platter of baked new potatoes (these are roughly a third the size of russets). Its common to see individually wrapped, appetizer-like bites so guests can choose as many as they like.The big takeaway. This is my biggest lesson because my eyes are always bigger than my stomach, even when I cook. The Thanksgiving meal features countless side dishes. some of which certain guests wont touch, others that everyone will have a bite off. The point is that smaller bites make more sense for the guest. They want to try a bit of everything and are more likely to sample a skewer of shrimp than a large shrimp cake. Keep the servings small. Though it may seem slightly contrary, using family-style platters of these small bites present the feel of a festive mound but your loved ones can easily grab a small sampling.Make a signature drinkSurely we cant forget about a drinkMartha hasnt. Raspberry cordials, mulled ciders or wine, a Bloody Mary, or holiday eggnogthese are all alcoholic, sure, but theyre purposeful drinks for the occasions they match up with. Its never a simple pop open a bottle of wine. Though sometimes open bar is mentioned, but that goes without saying. The cocktails in her chapters are fruity and fresh for the summer, or warming and hearty for the winter.The big takeaway. Have a signature drink for the evening that brings in a bit of the season. Its certainly the last thing on the priority list, and the drink doesnt have to supply an ABV, but I think providing a special beverage is a thoughtful touch to the entire event. To prevent being pulled in too many directions, check out this guide to batching cocktails so you can mix ahead of time and leave your guests to do the pouring.

As an increasing number of people are abandoning Elon Musk's X, Bluesky appears to be among the networks many of these social media refugees people are flocking to. The decentralized social network has nearly 17 million users as of this writinga massive increase considering it celebrated reaching 10 million users just two months ago. If you're among those who have recently quit X and are looking for a different place to connect with people online, I'm here to help you get started with Bluesky.Creating an accountSetting up your Bluesky account is quite easy. You can go to the Bluesky website and and click Sign Up to get this underway. Key in your email address, set a password, add your birthdate, and click Next. You can choose a handle, which is essentially your username, and complete the captcha. Congratulations! Your Bluesky account is now set up. The process is similar if you download Bluesky's apps for iPhone or Android.Your Bluesky username will be something like @prawnay.bsky.social. However, you can replace the Bluesky domain name with your own domain. Follow these steps to use your own domain in your Bluesky handle. If youre switching your handle to your own domain, be aware that your old handle can be claimed by others. Migrating your followers and data from XIt's a pain to start afresh on a new social media platform, but you don't have to do that if you're migrating from X to Bluesky. My colleague Joel Cunningham has written about two excellent apps that let you port your posts and followers from X to Bluesky. If you're looking for who to follow, you can use Sky Follower Bridge to easily find your former X followers (and the people you followed) on Bluesky. There are some limitations, but as long as the person is using the same handle or the same display name, or has listed their Bluesky handle in their Twitter bio, you'll be able to track them down.To move your old posts from X to Bluesky, you can use a Chrome extension called Porto. It'll import most of your tweets, but it excludes retweets or quoted tweets. That's probably good enough for most people. Posting on BlueskyYou can use Bluesky's apps or website to start posting to the social network. Once you hit the new post button, you'll see that you can add up to 300 characters to a post and attach photos, videos, and gifs. There's another button called Anybody can interact and you should select it to choose your audience for posts. This lets you choose if you want to let people quote your post and if you want to limit replies to your followers, mentioned accounts, or disable replies altogether.Alt text is an important feature if you want your posts to be accessible to low-vision users. It's a separate text field you can use to describe the images you've attached, and it's good etiquette to add it whenever you share media alongside a post. In the post draft, just look for the "+ ALT" icon in the upper left corner, and type away (alt text doesn't affect the character count for your post). If you want a reminder to add alt-text every time you share an image, click the gear icon in the left-hand sidebar, then select Accessibility and toggle on Require alt text before posting.Setting up your Bluesky feed Credit: Screenshot / Pranay Parab When you start using Bluesky, the service asks you which topics you're interested in, and the feed you see in the app is based on that. If you want to use Bluesky's algorithmic feed as your primary option, you can like a few posts to train the algorithm. Once you've liked 10 posts, your feed will be adjusted to reflect your taste. However, the real fun is in setting up your own feeds. To do this, you can click the # button up top on the website or in the app, tap the three-lines menu in the top-left corner, and select Feeds.You can now browse through the available feeds or search for specific topics, and subscribe to them. You'll find feeds grouped by topics such as cat pics (is any social network worth joining if there are no cat pics?), art, gardening, and so on. You'll also find other useful feeds such as OnlyPosts, which removes reposts and replies from the people you follow.Once you've subscribed to a few feeds, they'll appear in separate tabs at the top of your Bluesky homepage. You can go to your Feeds page and reorder these feeds to set a preferred one as the default. This means that unlike Threads, Bluesky doesn't force you into using an algorithmic feed as the default option. I used this opportunity to put cat pics front and center on Bluesky and I have no regrets.Use starter packs to find people to followLooking for interesting people to follow is vital on a site without an algorithm. To that end, Blueskys community has created some excellent "starter packs" of people you can follow, grouped by areas of interest. You can visit this page to find lots of useful starter packs and follow a whole bunch of interesting accounts in one tap. Alternatively, you cab search for starter packs directly in the app using relevant keywordsjust click on the Feeds tab in your search results.Use advanced search featuresThe Bluesky team has made it easy to search the app for posts from a particular user or including a particular keyword, but you have to know the right tags to get the most out of them. You'll want to use advanced search operators to zero in on content youre looking for. For example, you can put a search term in double quotes to look for those exact words, or you could use the mentions:username operator to find posts that mention a specific person on Bluesky. The full list of advanced search operators is available on this page. Add more languages to your feedIf you're bilingual, you should set up Bluesky to show posts in more than one language. The service defaults to English and hides posts in other languages from your feed. You can go to Bluesky's Language Settings page to change this. In the app, this page is under the three-lines menu > Settings > Languages. Select Content Languages and add all the languages that you speak.Stop trolls and garbage from appearing in your Bluesky feed Credit: Screenshot / Pranay Parab This is the last step in setting up your Bluesky account. This social network has powerful moderation tools built in and you should use them to ensure that your feed doesn't become toxic. Bluesky allows you to create lists of shareable lists of accounts that you can mute or block easily. I've used it to mute all kinds of content around politics and cryptocurrency, and you can block the things you don't care much for.Go to Bluesky Settings > Moderation > Moderation Lists to create these lists. Alternatively, you can check out curated lists such as the anti-NFT/crypto list, content scrapers, etc. While Bluesky allows you to block these accounts in one click, I recommend muting them instead. Unless you can verify that each account in the list posts about something you don't want to see, you shouldn't mass-block people because you could end up blocking someone who accidentally got added to these lists as well.Control who can reply to or quote your posts Credit: Screenshot / Joel Cunningham Moderation tools are among the strongest traits of this social network. Take the Detach Quoted Post feature as an example: If someone quotes your post on Bluesky, you can hit the three-dots button below the post and select Detach Quote to remove the quoted part. Your post will disappear from theirs, and their comment will disappear from your feed. (The other person won't be directly notified you've done this, though if they go back to look at their own feed, they will be able to tell.) This lets you maintain some control over who quotes your post, and you also have the ability to disable quoting altogether on a per-post basis. To do this, tap Everyone can reply from the post composer to open a menu where you can choose who can reply to a post and completely disable Quote posts if you prefer.Moderation tools also include the ability to hide any word or hashtag from your feed, which is standard for most social mediabut you can also choose to allow those muted words or hashtags from people you follow, while still muting them elsewhere in the app. There's also a separate Advanced settings menu within Bluesky's Moderation settings where you can select which types of sensitive content you wish to see, be warned about, or hide altogether. This lets you filter out most kinds of triggering content and keep your feed calmer. A work in progressBluesky has been out of beta for less than a year and is still growing and changing rapidly. I'll continue to update this post as new tools and settings come online.