Ben Moss
Webdesigner Depot
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Ben:
6 Predictions for Web Design in 2023
Welcome to our annual guessing game of what the next twelve months will bring. As ever, the design world isn’t isolated from the world in which it exists, so when events shape our lives, they impact our work, the work clients ask for, and the work that inspires us. According to Collins Dictionary, the word → Read More
How To Make Your Designs Scannable (And Why You Should)
Jakob Nielsen’s How Users Read on the Web is 25 years old this week, and one glance at an eye-tracking study will tell you its key observations are still relevant today. Simply put, users don’t read a web page; they scan it for individual words and sentences. A typical pattern shown in eye-tracking reports is that → Read More
How to Start a Web Design Agency in 28 Days: Week Four
Three weeks ago, you started a web design agency. Then over the last two weeks, you’ve taken a leap toward making your business viable by defining who you are as a business and putting together your documents. This week, we’ll tie up loose ends so that you’re a fully functional agency able to pick and → Read More
How to Start a Web Design Agency in 28 Days: Week Three
Two weeks ago, you started a web design agency. Last week you began to define your agency by choosing clients, setting red lines, and writing your elevator pitch. This week, we will implement some practical solutions before problems occur. Remember one task per day; it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Day Fifteen: Terms of Service → Read More
How to Start a Web Design Agency in 28 Days: Week Two
Last week, you started a web design agency. This week we’ll help you take the next steps towards making your agency viable. The first couple of days were spent on legal checks and taxes. After that, you’ve picked a niche to specialize in, an awesome name, worked out how much you’re going to charge, and […] → Read More
15 Best New Fonts, July 2022
Typefaces give a voice and a character to our text. As a result, they influence our designs more than most design elements. But with so many typefaces available, selecting one (or two!) can be one of the most challenging decisions in any design project — which is probably why so many big brands opt for […] → Read More
WordPress 6.0 Lives Up To The Hype
WordPress 6.0 has been released, and another niche jazz musician will be enjoying extra Spotify royalties next month. WordPress 6, named for latin-jazz musician Arturo O’Farrill, is the realization of a change of direction the WordPress Foundation adopted several years ago. All versions of WordPress now power around 42% of the web. That’s approximately […] → Read More
When UX Goes Bad (and How to Fix It)
Designing for user experiences is what all designers do. UX is often thought of as the preserve of app or web designers; however, even a print designer laying out a magazine anticipates reader reaction to the scale of type, the placement of adverts, and the art direction of successive stories. Because all designers design user […] → Read More
5 Must-Have Elements of a Successful Footer in 2022
If you want to know how well-dressed someone is, look at their shoes. Shoes tell you a lot about a person’s style, activities, and choices. We often choose clothes to deceive people about who we are — we want to be brighter, more successful, more relaxed, more adventurous than we actually are. But, our shoes […] → Read More
The Case Against UX Testing
Picture a dark office, blinds drawn. Picture a UX designer smoking a cigar. See the light filtered through the smoke whipped to fog by a spinning ceiling fan. Watch as the UX designer sits at a desk and considers the website. The UX designer has devised a series of tests to determine if a green […] → Read More
5 Big Web Design Predictions for 2022
Every year, at this time, blogs like this one like to try and predict what’s going to happen in the year ahead. It’s a way of drawing a line under the archive and starting afresh. A rejuvenation that, as humans, we find life-affirming. Ten years ago, I would have had high confidence in these predictions […] → Read More
8 Freelance Project Management Apps for 2021+
In my experience, the biggest challenge that freelancers face — more than winning clients or setting prices — is project management; take on too much work, and you’ll start missing deadlines, take on too little, and you’ll start missing your rent. Some people are naturally organized; they rock up at their desk at 08:59, fully […] → Read More
How to Work for Free Without Wrecking Your Career
Choosing to work for free, pro bono, gratis, without charge is something that most of us find ourselves doing at one time or another. Whether we’re filling a hole in our portfolio, there’s a friend or relative we feel beholden to, or because there’s an opportunity to aid a cause we value. Recently, I agreed […] → Read More
9 Must-Install Craft CMS Plugins
Craft CMS is increasing in popularity, and as it does, the previously relatively scant range of plugins is growing rapidly. There are plugins for Craft ranging from simple field utilities to the full ecommerce solution provided by Pixel & Tonic — the makers of Craft. An early decision that has borne fruit for Craft has […] → Read More
3 Ways to Design More Inclusively
Inclusive design is often mistaken for accessibility, or even used as an interchangeable term, which is a good indication that most designers don’t know what it means. Accessibility is a process that seeks to mitigate issues in a design that is not sufficiently universal; inclusive design increases the universality of the design. In real-world terms, […] → Read More
Poll: Is Environmentally Conscious Web Design Really Worth It?
We’re no longer arguing about whether climate change exists because climate change is now extensively documented. Instead, we’re arguing over whether climate change is a natural cycle or human-accelerated. At this point, the reasonable best-case (yes, best-case) scenario is that global temperatures will rise by 2˚C — if we don’t meet our global emissions targets, […] → Read More
8 Domain Name Myths Every Web Designer Should Know
A domain name is an essential element of every project, product, and company. It’s central to a brand and has a disproportionately large impact on user experience. Not only that, but it also impacts SEO and ultimately revenue. Domain names are also one of the most commonly retailed elements in web technology, with most designers […] → Read More
Exclusive Infographic: WordPress by the Numbers
What is WordPress? It began as a simple CMS for building a blog, and it has evolved over the years into a complex ecosystem of tools and resources. WordPress can power ecommerce sites, interactive courses, art projects, and of course, it powers one or two blogs. Depending on who you ask, WordPress powers between 35% […] → Read More
Is Twitter Rebrand a Glimpse at the Future of Design?
The CMO at Twitter, Leslie Berland, has announced a substantial rebrand intended to reflect the experience of using the site. The move was announced on the platform first and later confirmed on its blog. Twitter hopes the visual identity will “fully reflect the complexity, fluidity, and power of the conversations today.” The instantly recognizable bird […] → Read More
8 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website Typography in Under 30 Minutes
Typography is one of the most important elements of any site, having a measurably large impact on brand and experience. So fundamental is it that making wholesale changes to your typography — opting for a new font, changing the measure, increasing leading — is complex and fraught with potential time-sinks. But there are some simple […] → Read More