In the previous article in this series, I discussed our ideation and initial prototyping process. We covered details on how to use Adobe Fireworks to set up a responsive design wireframe, reusable components, prototypes and ways to share designs.

In this article, we’ll share how we used Adobe Fireworks in our iterative visual design process, along with other useful tips.

Why Adobe Fireworks?

Before diving into details, let’s acknowledge that Fireworks became feature-frozen in May 2013 and that some of the visual results discussed in this article could have been achieved using alternative graphics software, such as Photoshop, Illustrator or Sketch. But the hard truth is that Fireworks is still used by many designers and offers a unique workflow and integrated feature set, unmatched by any program available. For a good read on why Fireworks is still relevant, I recommend “The Present and Future of Adobe Fireworks.”

In Search of the Key Design Tool

As discussed in the “Creating Wireframes And Prototypes” section of part 1, our choice of a design tool came down to the following:

• Speed
  Fireworks proved to be quicker for directly creating and manipulating visual elements on the screen than other tools, like Photoshop and Illustrator. The combination of integrated vector tools and bitmap-editing capabilities in one package, plus pages, states, symbols, styles and extensions, was something unique and worked best for us.
• File size
  We found that PSD visual design files created in Photoshop for the same screen designs are much larger than those created in Fireworks — sometimes two to five times larger.
• Team learning curve
  When Gabriel Gross (our visual UI designer) joined the team, we had already created a lot of wireframes in Fireworks. He initially considered just translating those wireframes to Photoshop. Because of the amount of work that would have been required, he decided to try Fireworks on a few screens. About a week later, he suggested working directly from the Fireworks PNG wireframe files, instead of recreating the designs from scratch. From this point forward, we’ve been using the wireframe files as the starting point for visual design screens.
• Workflow and efficiency
  Reusing wireframes as a staring point really helped us get from wireframes to high-fidelity visuals in record time. We were able to take advantage of the efficiencies built into sharing files and iterating on them together. For a detailed look at a similar workflow, check out “Designing Interactive Products With Fireworks” by Nick Myers of Cooper and “iOS Prototyping With Adobe Fireworks and TAP” by Shlomo Goltz.

Note: Gabriel was also familiar with Adobe Flash and its various features and quirks. The transition to Fireworks was fairly straightforward — the Properties panel that spans the bottom of the screen, navigation of nested symbols, the symbols library and so on are quite similar in Fireworks and Flash.

Exploring Branding and Style

As discussed in the previous article, the design team decided on a pragmatic approach to creating visual elements. We decided early on in the project that we would only do as much visual layout and style exploration as necessary in graphics applications — the rest would be done through an iterative process in the browser. With this in mind, we ditched any elaborate branding exercise needed just for stakeholder buy-in and opted to create style tiles and a revised logo.

So, What Are Style Tiles?

Style tiles are a design document consisting of fonts, colors and interface elements that communicate the essence of the visual brand of a website or application. They help to communicate a proposed common visual language and can be used to discuss style preferences that meet the goals of the stakeholders or client. Samantha Warren explains the workflow pretty well in her article on A List Apart, “Style Tiles and How They Work,” so I won’t go into deeper detail than this:

Websites are so much more than just usable interfaces: they tell a story…

Style tiles are a flexible starting point that define a style to communicate the web in a way that clients understand. A style tile is more refined than a traditional identity mood board and less detailed than a website mockup or comp. When an interior designer redesigns a room they don’t build multiple options of the designs they’re proposing, they bring color swatches, paint chips, and architectural drawings. Style tiles act as paint chips and color swatches for the interface that we can execute on any device or at any dimension. It’s a truly responsive solution to visual design.

To learn more about style tiles, I recommend also visiting Samantha’s website Style Tiles.

An sample style tile from Mojo Motors’ redesign process. (View large version)

Typography and Typecast

Most designers would agree that their favorite graphics application does not provide an accurate preview of how text will appear in the browser. With this in mind, we did as much text layout as was needed in graphics applications and then explored the finer typographical details in the browser. There, we could also accurately evaluate the effect of responsive layouts on the type as we moved through breakpoints.

In working with fonts, we faced the same dilemma explained by the Typecast team:

We discovered that working with system fonts in Fireworks was faster for our designers, but build was slow because our developers had to interpret fonts and classes, resolve inconsistencies and negotiate font compromises with the designers. Plus there was that pesky problem of comp fonts not always resembling site fonts due to the rendering.

And when we moved to designing with web fonts, it was the opposite problem. It was faster for developers because there were fewer negotiations and less guesswork. But designers were wasting valuable project time stepping through a really repetitious process to get the web fonts into their layouts. You know the deal:

Go to URL → Paste copy → Preview → Capture → Import to comp → Resize → Arrange – Repeat⁴⁰ → Find typos → Pull hair out → Repeat → Show client comp → Get requests to make bigger, smaller, different → Die a little inside → Repeat²⁰

Both approaches had serious drawbacks.

So, to help us compare and narrow down Web fonts for Mojo Motors’ website, we turned to Typecast’s own solution.

Exploring typography in Typecast.

Typecast is a powerful browser-based design tool that makes it easy to experiment and design with the actual Web fonts that you plan to use on your website. The application lets you design visually and builds standards-compliant HTML and CSS in the background. Each Typecast subscription also comes with access to Web fonts from Typekit, Font Deck and Google, as well as a free Fonts.com account. Other features include the ability to create style guides and to share projects. Typecast is really a game-changer, and I highly recommend considering it as part of your responsive design toolkit.

Redesigning Mojo Motors’ Logo

As part of the website redesign, our team was also tasked with rethinking the company’s logo. All of the logo explorations were done in Illustrator, which is better suited to this type of work. Using Illustrator made more sense because it enabled us to create and output both CMYK files for print and RGB files for the screen.

The logo redesign combined elements of the old wordmark, a symbol and a new typeface.

Mojo Motors’ business cards, before and after.

Setting Up The Workspace For Visual Design

The key to using an existing Fireworks wireframe file for visual design work is to set up the application and the files properly. As discussed in the previous article, we did this up front so that we could take advantage of the application’s pixel-precise layout capabilities and increase our overall efficiency throughout the project.

Let’s quickly cover the basics.

Keyboard Shortcuts

One thing that can speed up the completion of tasks in Fireworks is mastering the keyboard shortcuts. For someone transitioning from another Adobe application, Fireworks provides the option to customize the keyboard shortcuts to closely match those of Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign — or any variation you may need, for that matter. Our team settled on Photoshop’s shortcuts because they were the most familiar.

Changing these settings in Fireworks is easy. In Windows go to Edit → Keyboard Shortcuts, or on a Mac go to Edit → Fireworks → Keyboard Shortcuts. Then, select “Photoshop” or another shortcut set from the “Current Set” dropdown menu, and click “OK.”

Customizing shortcuts in Fireworks.

To customize further, open the “Keyboard Shortcuts” dialog again:

1. In the “Commands” field, select a specific Fireworks menu command or tool.
2. Type a new shortcut combo in the “Press Key” field, and click the “Change” button;
3. When you are done editing the shortcuts, save the shortcut set as a variant of the set you selected previously (e.g. “My_Custom_Set”).

Now you can work faster using the keyboard shortcuts that you are familiar with!

Grids, Guides, Rulers and Tooltips

The great thing about carefully setting our responsive design grids during the process of creating a wireframe is that all of the grids and guides that we needed were already in place for the visual design process. Below are some of the options that we enabled when setting up our initial files.

Rulers are really handy for orienting yourself visually and are required for working with guides on the screen (in the menu, View → Rulers).

Rulers around the canvas.

We set our visible horizontal and vertical background grids to 10 pixels. Grids and of some their options can be accessed by going to View → Grid → Show Grid/Snap to Grid/Edit Grid… or by going to Edit → Preferences → Guides and Grids.

The guides and grids settings in “Preferences”.

This setting works well also because it matches the pixel increment (10 pixels) when objects are moved on the screen (for example, when we nudge an element using the Shift + arrow key shortcut). We often toggle this setting on and off as needed when drawing.

A vertical and horizontal background grid of 10-pixel increments.

We typically add guides to match the responsive grid layers and other objects as needed; guides are then toggled on and off while drawing. Guides in Fireworks are page-specific and don’t automatically appear on all pages unless placed on a master layer.

Here are a few useful tips:

• Position unlocked guides precisely in Fireworks by clicking on a guide and entering the position directly.
• Check guide’s spacing by placing your cursor between two guides and holding down the Shift key.
• If you move a guide while holding down the Shift key, you can also precisely dial in the spacing.

Position guides accurately by double-clicking a guide.

Measure guide spacing by pressing Shift between guides.

Reposition guides visually by holding down Shift while moving a guide.

Guides and their options can be accessed via View → Guides → Show Guides/Lock Guides/Snap to Guides/Clear Guides…. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to speed up these operations.

Note: To do more with guides, I highly recommend the Guides panel extension by Eugene Jude, which enables you to create guides from selections, copy and paste guides, etc.

For an in-depth look at grid and guide workflows, check the “Grids Panel” and the “Guides Panel” sections in Ashish Bogawat’s article “Optimizing the Design Workflow With Fireworks Extensions.” (By the way, a similar panel named GuideGuide has recently become available for Photoshop users as well.)

Guides panel extension.

Smart guides are really helpful and enable you to visually align objects on the screen without having to use the Align panel. Turning these on (by going to View → Smart Guides) will allow you to see the precise adjustments to the location or size of an object when performing a free transform operation.

Smart guides for visual alignment.

Useful tip: If you find yourself creating a lot of responsive design grids, then you might also want to consider the Insert Grids extension by John Dunning.

Color Management, Color Picker and Swatches

Unlike the rest of Adobe’s Creative Suite, Fireworks does not require any particular color management settings for you to get started. The application was designed from the ground up for screen design, and it is set to the RGB color space out of the box.

Note: The Color Palette panel, in addition to the RGB, HSV and HLS color spaces, also shows a CMYK option, but it is not recommended for print work.

Options in the Color Palette panel.

The popup color picker is quite easy to use and is one of the best ways to specify colors for a user interface. It supports RGB and HEX color selection by default, as well as the more flexible RGBa specification that is supported by all modern browsers. Another useful feature is the one-click color copy feature. (As of the time of writing, Sketch is the only other app that has similar RGBa capabilities. Also worth mentioning is that Adobe has just added color-picker options for fills and strokes in Photoshop CS6 and CC.)

Fireworks’s color picker.

To bring in the color palette from our exploration, we saved an RGB .ASE file in Illustrator and imported it into Fireworks with the help of the Swatches panel. Once imported, the color scheme became immediately available in the color picker.

Export the .ASE swatch file from illustrator and import it into Fireworks.

The Color Palette panel is a great alternative to using the Swatches panel or color picker to specify colors. The panel is broken down into “Selector,” “Mixer” and “Blender” tabs.

The ‘Color Palette’ panel.

• “Selector” tab
  This allows you to choose between different color models and select colors using an Adobe-like color picker, instead of the default color cubes swatches. The available options include HSV, HSL, CMYK and RGB; for most of our redesign work, we used the RGB model.
• “Mixer” tab
  This is great for recoloring artwork and creating color tints. We relied on this greatly for stretching the range of our color palette. To try two different palettes in your document, follow these steps:
  1. Click “Palette1” on the left of the panel to set the base colors for the first palette.
  2. Click “Palette2” on the right side of the panel, and then select the base colors for the second palette.
  3. To switch back and forth between the two palettes, select the palette to recolor with and then click the “Replace Color” icon.
• “Blender” tab
  Here, you can create a color gradation series, which is really handy for exploring gradients. All you have to do is this:
  1. Fill the color boxes at the bottom of the panel to select the beginning and ending colors.
  2. Use the “Steps” slider to select the number of steps in the series.
• Exporting
  Exporting any palette out of this panel requires saving it as an .ACT swatch file, which can be shared with other Fireworks or Photoshop users. Unfortunately, Illustrator cannot open this swatch file format. To share with Illustrator, consider exporting an .ASE file via the Swatches panel, which will work across all Adobe products.

Note: The most recent versions of Fireworks (CS5, CS5.1, CS6) all natively support both .ACT and .ASE swatch formats. Earlier versions of Fireworks (CS4 and older) support only .ACT.

Setting Up The Document For High-Resolution Displays

Another decision we had to make before starting the visual design process was how to set up our files for high pixel-density (or “Retina”) displays. We could approach this in a few ways:

1. Start with standard-resolution files and scale up for Retina graphics. We opted for this because we were starting from standard-resolution wireframes.
2. Start with high-resolution files and scale down for non-Retina graphics.

Both conversion methods should be quite seamless and yield the same results. Objects in Fireworks are created as vector shapes by default, and any effects applied will also scale (assuming, of course, that you have not created any shapes using filled selections, which were popular in Photoshop prior to the more robust shape layer option available today). All text objects in Fireworks will scale without problems, too.

Working With Raster Images (Bitmaps)

Any bitmap images can be replaced with a higher-resolution versions. The key is to always start with high-resolution images where needed and scale down. Below are a few other options to consider:

• Image symbols
  An alternative to replacing your images (and one I highly recommend) is to turn your high-resolution images into symbols (Modify → Symbol → Convert to Symbol, or F8) and scale down their placed instances in the layout. Once you turn a raster image into a symbol, you can scale it down to any size and then back up to the original size as many times as you’d like without any loss in quality. If you choose this method, you won’t have to replace your images!
• Linked images
  An option I discovered recently is to link images. This requires installing the free Linked Images extension by John Dunning. With this option, your layouts will be refreshed with the high-resolution images upon being scaled up (the images are stored in a folder outside of the Fireworks file). For a detailed overview of this method, please check the “Linked Images” section of “Fireworks Extensions for a Better Design Workflow, Part 2.”

Note: For layout purposes, we used the first option to set image symbols of cars as placeholders. The final car images are generated dynamically on the server and rendered on the live website. We won’t cover this production process in this article.

Hint: A good read on Retina graphics is “Retinafy Your Websites and Apps” by Thomas Fuchs.

Live (Pre)View: Bringing Wireframes To Life

Live View, Skala Preview and Xscope

Just as when we were creating the wireframes, we frequently had to check how the mockups looked and scaled on real devices, such as the iPhone and iPad.

For quick previews while designing, we turned again to the LiveView app (check out my previous article for details on our process). Alternatives to LiveView are Skala Preview and Xscope, which provide similar functionality but integrate better with Photoshop. Skala Preview is also compatible with Android devices.

Bringing Wireframes to Life

Once the file was set up, the next step was to add pixel precision to the interface and content. This is also when we applied brand elements such as color, typography, iconography and the logo from our style tiles. Putting the pages for each breakpoint in one working file made it easier to transpose screen elements between mobile, tablet and desktop layouts (see part 1 of this series for details on pages, states and symbols in Fireworks).

Favorite Fireworks Features During The Visual Design Stage

In this next part, we’ll cover some Fireworks features, tools and workflows that really came in handy during the visual design stage.

Properties Panel (Property Inspector Panel)

A lot of great features in Fireworks make creating screen graphics fast and efficient, but the single most powerful UI feature for us was the contextual direct editing of objects, available via the Properties panel (also called the Property Inspector (or PI) panel). This powerful panel changes contextually based on the type of object selected on the canvas.

The Properties panel is normally found at the bottom of the screen when a document is first opened in Fireworks. It allows you to manage all attributes, such as fills, strokes, gradients, patterns, textures, size, position, scale, opacity, blend modes, live filters, text properties, masks (and masks properties), symbols and much more, for any selected object or group of objects.

In these three sample screenshots, you can see how the Properties panel adapts to the type of object selected. (View large version)

Once you understand how the Properties panel works, quickly inspecting and changing the properties of all types of objects with pixel-level precision become really easy. You might also find that making changes is a lot faster than in any other graphics application (including Sketch!).

Gradients

Creating gradients is quite simple and intuitive. Adjusting and changing the fill type can be easily done at any time. Fireworks also offers 12 gradient types out of the box. And the dither option reduces banding when images are exported.

Side note: Starting with CS6, Adobe added some similar features to Photoshop, including the ability to add fills and strokes to shape layers as an alternative to live filters such as gradient overlay effects. Unfortunately, you can’t change the fill type as easily once you have committed to a gradient or any other type. Changing the fill type requires selecting the shape layer with the Path Selection tool, which will reveal your options in the options bar (in CS6) or in the Properties panel (in CC), at which point you can make your changes.

Textures

In addition to applying fills to vector objects in Fireworks, you can add textures to any fill type or stroke. Being able to apply textures to strokes is really useful for simulating CSS border-image effects, which is now supported by most modern browsers. Other features include being able to use your own texture files and specifying the opacity level.

Apply textures with (again!) the mighty Properties panel.

If you plan on using textures a lot, the free Texture Panel extension by Matt Curtis is a good addition to Fireworks. For details on this extension, check out Matt’s article, “Using the Texture Panel in Adobe Fireworks.”

Texture Panel extension.

Fireworks Live Filters and Photoshop Live Effects

Fireworks comes with most of the important non-destructive effects that you will need to bring screen designs to life, and it includes some familiar Photoshop live effects as options. I typically opt for Fireworks’ native filters before considering the Photoshop ones.

Fireworks’s live filters can be applied to any type of object (vector, bitmap, symbol, etc.) non-destructively, and the stacking order of applied live filters may be changed simply by dragging and dropping. Another key feature is the ability to apply multiple filters of the same type to a single object.

Fireworks’ live filters in the Properties panel.

I find the native filters to be quite adequate for most tasks, and I need to switch to Photoshop only for complex compositing, correcting photo colors and creating textures.

Blend Modes

Blend modes in Fireworks are similar to Photoshop’s and Illustrator’s. For a long time, Fireworks was the only Adobe application that allowed you to apply blend modes to multiple selected objects (or layers) at once. (Similar features were introduced to Photoshop in CS6. Illustrator requires the opacity option to be edited in the Appearance or Transparency panel.)

Blend Modes may be modified in the Layers panel (top screenshot) and in the Properties panel (bottom screenshot).

Pasting Attributes

Copying and pasting attributes (using the simple Control/Command + C and Control/Command + Alt + Shift + V shortcuts) between objects is an awesome feature and a huge timesaver, one we often leveraged during the process of going from wireframes to visual comps. Unlike copying and pasting layer styles in Photoshop, Fireworks transfers all attributes — including font type, font size, fill type, stroke type, applied live filters and so on — from one selected object to another.

Pasting attributes can even be done selectively (see the “Paste Selective Attributes” section of “Fireworks Extensions for a Better Design Workflow, Part 2”), which makes the feature even more powerful.

Styles and the Styles Panel

While being able to copy and paste attributes is very useful, using Fireworks’ styles is a lot more efficient and an essential part of creating visual mockups.

Styles in Fireworks are analogous to CSS in Web design. They can be quickly applied to objects on the screen to mock up variations or can be used to apply a final style guide for brand consistency. Whenever a style definition changes, all objects that have the same style are updated automatically.

Apply styles via the Styles panel from the built-in library.

Apply styles via the Properties panel.

Style can be created and managed in both the Styles panel and the Properties panel. As a bonus, Fireworks ships with a large library of premade styles that can be applied very quickly to any mockup. You can also easily create, edit and reuse your own styles.

Rounded Rectangles

Creating (and modifying) rounded rectangles is very easy, and Fireworks is the most flexible here of the three Adobe applications typically used for screen design (the other two being Photoshop and Illustrator). Create one by modifying the roundness of a rectangle shape (i.e. the border-radius of each corner) directly in the Properties panel or by inserting a rounded rectangle auto shape.

You can control the roundness of a rectangle’s corners in one of two ways. (View large version)

My preference is to use the Properties panel because you can specify the roundness in percentages or pixels. But modifying the roundness at any time is easy either way. You can also modify individual corners of a rounded rectangle. When you’re using the Rounded Rectangle auto shape, the roundness can be also controlled with the Auto Shape Properties panel.

(Photoshop CC just added an option to apply rounding to individual corners of a rectangle or to a rounded rectangle shape layer via the Properties panel. This is a welcome change and a great alternative to adding rounded corners as an appearance effect in Illustrator.)

Multi-Border Rectangle Auto Shape

The Multi-Border Rectangle auto shape is an extension by John Dunning that makes it easy to mock up CSS-style borders on vector rectangles. You can specify a different border width and color for each of the four borders of a rectangle, just as you do with CSS for each border of an HTML element. This extension proved very useful during our visual design process.

We used the Multi-Border Rectangle auto shape to add top and bottom borders to rectangles.

Path Panel

Fireworks has an easy to use and robust set of vector-editing tools, with many of the same features found in Illustrator. Most of the tools can be accessed from the Path panel (and a few are in the “Modify” menu). In CS6, some of the basic path tools were added to the Properties panel, for easy access.

Note: There is a more recent version of the Path panel (with many additions and improvements) than the one that ships with Fireworks CS6. (In case you’re wondering, Aaron Beall is the talented developer responsible for the latest versions of the Path panel in Fireworks, including the one in CS6.)

The ‘Path’ panel.

Importing From and Exporting to Illustrator

Fireworks handles .AI files very well, and we used it whenever we had to work with vector art created in Illustrator or in Illustrator-compatible applications. As part of the importing process, you are even presented with a “Vector File Options” window, giving you the option to select a specific Illustrator artboard to import.

We especially took advantage of this workflow with our company’s logo and illustrations throughout the website. Our freelance illustrator worked in Illustrator and imported directly into our Fireworks layouts. For smaller artwork, you could also copy a single object or group of objects in Illustrator and then paste them directly in Fireworks.

The illustration for Mojo Motors’ “Tour” page was created in Illustrator and then imported into Fireworks, with all vectors perfectly preserved and editable. (View large version)

Exporting vector objects to Illustrator for further refinement is as easy as selecting the object (or group of objects) in Fireworks, then going to Edit → Copy as Vectors, and then pasting the vector objects in Illustrator. (Simply copying and pasting objects would put bitmap objects in Illustrator, instead of vectors, so always go to Edit → Copy as Vectors, instead of Edit → Copy.)

To export large artwork in Fireworks, save the entire file as an .AI file and then open that .AI file in Illustrator.

Note: In Illustrator CC, Adobe removed the importing and exporting options described above. If you are using Illustrator CC, you might need to save your files as “Illustrator v. CS6” to take advantage of all of these capabilities, or work in Illustrator CS6 or lower, which supports all of these options out of the box.

Importing From and Exporting to Photoshop

Importing and exporting with Photoshop is a breeze with Fireworks — Fireworks can save to .PSD and also open .PSD files. In both cases, layers and naming conventions will be preserved.

The results will vary according to the options you’ve set during the importing or exporting process and how much editability you would like to retain. My suggestion is to experiment a little to see which settings work best for your purpose.

The Photoshop importing and file-opening dialogs in Fireworks.

Note: As of the time of writing, Photoshop importing and exporting still works well in Photoshop CC and CS6.

Align Panel

If you intend to create pixel-precise layouts, then you cannot do without the Align panel. With it, you can align multiple objects to each other or relative to the canvas. (Adobe Illustrator has a similar feature, and it was just introduced to Photoshop CS6 as well, although its functionality is not as robust.)

Two useful features that are unique to the Align panel in Fireworks are the “Match Size” and “Space Evenly” options.

The ‘Align’ panel.

• Match size
  This option lets you match the size of the selected object to the height or width (or both — but usually the longer dimension) of another object.
• Space evenly
  This is different than distribution, enabling you to align objects a fixed distance apart.

The Align panel is invaluable. The only option that I wish Fireworks had adopted from Illustrator is the alignment object reference, which enables you to pick the object to align your selection to.

Symbols

During the visual design process, we continued to look for opportunities to modularize interface components by creating reusable symbols. In some cases, we simply applied visual styles to existing wireframe symbols.

Styled component symbols are very efficient and reduced the time we took to create alternate layouts and iterations. For details on creating symbols, read the section “Creating Reusable Modular Elements” in part 1 of this series.

9-Slice Scaling

The 9-Slice Scaling tool is original to Fireworks and was adopted later by Flash and recently by Illustrator. With it, you can scale objects without distorting protected areas. A popular use of the tool is to protect rounded corners in a symbol when scaled.

Use the 9-Slice guides to preserve rounded corners in a button.

The 9-Slice Scaling tool works on symbols and on both vector and bitmap objects, making it extremely versatile.

Single-Layer Editing

This feature is really geared to designers who are coming to Fireworks from Photoshop and who are used to selecting layers before working on them. I personally prefer the default auto layer selection method in Fireworks because it is faster, especially in files with a ton of layers.

The single-layer editing option in the Layers panel menu.

Conclusion

I was really torn about whether this article would still be relevant in light of the announcement that Fireworks has been feature-frozen. However, as I explored all of the alternative ways to make one’s workflow efficient, I realized that Fireworks is still powerful and will continue to be the best option until Adobe unveils its replacement or until another competitor supports all of its features, including integration with other Adobe products, as Fireworks currently provides. (In my opinion, Photoshop and Illustrator have recently gained some sorely needed features that make the process of designing for screens more efficient, but they’re not there yet.)

Screenshots of Mojo Motors’ website after the redesign (Click each image for a larger version).

Alternatives?

Are there alternatives to Fireworks? Of course.

For example, for teams comfortable stepping outside of the Adobe world, the Mac-only Sketch is a great replacement, and I hope to see it integrate more of the time-saving features offered by Fireworks. Read about some of the benefits of using Sketch for UI design in the following articles:

• “It’s Time to Dump Photoshop and Embrace Sketch,” Baz Deas
• “Discovering Sketch,” Jean-Marc Denis

Sketch doesn’t totally replace Fireworks, but it’s getting pretty close in my opinion. (Craig Erskine, who uses both Sketch and Fireworks, has shared his thoughts on the matter.)

At the other end of the spectrum, I am quite excited about applications such as Macaw, which are embracing a more modern approach to designing for screens with a native desktop application. I recently supported Macaw’s Kickstarter effort and am currently trying out the product with my early-bird license. (The product will launch sometime in March or April 2014.)

Another noteworthy project is Evolve UI, a somewhat secret yet exciting initiative by Tribaloid and one that could shake up our workflow in the next few years. Evolve UI is being developed by Alan Musselman, who worked as Fireworks’ project manager for quite some time, and it is currently in alpha development.

Awards

Last but not least, I’d like to mention that Mojo Motors’ redesigned website received quite a few awards after it launched — namely, the Web Marketing Association’s WebAward for 2013, the Interactive Media Award for 2013 and the Automotive Website Awards’ Rising Star award for 2014. I feel very proud of the work we did on this project. Fireworks was invaluable to our team, minimizing the production work and freeing us to focus on designing a good product for our users.

Note

All of the screenshots of Mojo Motors’ website are from the initial launch state at the end of 2012. Some of the screenshots in this article might not match the current website because pages are frequently optimized according to analytics, user testing and performance.

The 404 page.

Further Reading

Should you want to explore more of Fireworks’ features and options, these resources might be helpful:

• “Refining Your Design in Adobe Fireworks,” Benjamin De Cock
• “Developing a Design Workflow in Adobe Fireworks,” Joshua Bullock
• “Useful Fireworks Techniques and Features for Large Design Teams,” Kris Niles
• “The Power of Adobe Fireworks: What Can You Achieve With It?,” Michel Bozgounov
• “Replicate the Siri Icon in Adobe Fireworks,” Firetuts
• “Sprite Animation Using Adobe Fireworks and Axure,” Joseph Reni, Firetuts
• “iOS Prototyping With TAP and Adobe Fireworks,” Shlomo Goltz: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
• “Optimizing the Design Workflow With Fireworks Extensions,” Ashish Bogawat: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

What’s Next?

We’ve planned this case study of Mojo Motors to span three articles. Part 1 covered the UX and interaction design stage. Part 2 has covered the visual design stage. Part 3 (currently on the drafting board) will discuss how our team translated the visual design to the front-end iterative development cycle. Stay tuned!

(mb, al, il)

© Olawale Oladunni for Smashing Magazine, 2014.

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Whatever the need, restriction or customization requires identifying each user accessing your site. For an Internet facing site meant for general users, the username and password still prevails largely because there isn't a better option. There are other options if you're working in special environments, such as a company Intranet, where you have some control over the site visitors.

While a common need, logins and passwords are often handled in a way that leaves the website and its users, unnecessarily more vulnerable to security attacks. By following some best practices, you can better protect your site and its contents from hackers. The consequences of poor protection can be serious. Imagine a site where any user could post content that appeared to be from the company due to poor password management or an online store where any user could view all orders placed on the site.

Let's take a look at a few security considerations while working with logins and passwords on your websites.

Usernames: Emails or Generic

The login consists of a username which identifies you, and a password validating you are the user that you claim to be. Websites often allow the user to either specify a custom username or use the user's email address as their username.

Advantages

Emails don't change often and most websites already gather this information, so the user will also be less likely to forget their email than a username they created. The email will also automatically be unique as users rarely share an email account and those who do, likely wouldn't want separate accounts.

Disadvantages

The downsides to an email include that two people who share an email, cannot have separate accounts. Additionally, if your site has a legitimate reason for one person to have multiple accounts, this may not be possible with emails, but easier to implement using usernames. It's also likely an email is easier to hack since a user likely uses the same email at every site, but the majority of usernames will likely not be much more difficult to hack, as users tend to reuse usernames just as much as they reuse passwords.

Unless you have a specific reason to avoid an email address, prefer the email for the login username. The use of the email has also become the norm on websites. Don't forget though, to provide an email-based-login with a way to change the email. Without this feature, a user would need to create a new account and lose all past history just because they changed Internet providers or lost a previous account due to graduation or changing jobs, causing their old email to go away.

Always be careful while using email as the login to not show it publicly, for both privacy reasons and spam prevention issues.

Logins Can Provide Too Much Info

The login page of your website will be the first point of research for a hacker. The hacker will attempt to determine valid accounts that exist on a website. Properly handling the login page will make the hacker's job more difficult. To start, you should minimize the amount of data a failed login provides to an attacker. Your initial thought when someone enters a username that's not recognized might be to provide a helpful message that they should check their username. You can provide a more secure page by showing the same error message when the username is not found and when the password doesn't match the password for the given user. The message should indicate that the combination of username and password was not correct, to let the user know to verify both pieces of information, not just one or the other.

If your site uses emails for the login username, an attacker can easily validate if a user has an account on your service if you return a different message for an unknown login compared to a failed username and password combination. It does make things a bit less convenient for the user, but the added security is normally the better trade off.

As noted, taking away the specific message for an invalid username, trades increased security for a worse user experience. Providing a message that a login does not exist will help the user notice typos such as typing john instead of jon easier. That message also helps a user that does not remember which username they used on your site. Do keep in mind that these types of messages give hackers a simple and easy way to verify if a user exists on your site.

You can also help foil a hacker by better handling multiple login attempts. Accidentally mistyping a username or password more than once occurs fairly commonly from a mistyped character, transposing two characters, or using the password for another site instead of the correct password. Allowing unlimited login attempts opens the door to a brute force attack of trying usernames and passwords repeatedly to determine the correct login. Automated tools and scripts speed up the process allowing a hacker to methodically work through many potential passwords, until finding the correct login.

Introducing an increasing delay time after each failed login attempt also helps foil hackers. The first login attempt happens normally. The second login is delayed a fraction of a second before returning the result. Further attempts are delayed increasingly longer before returning a response. This delay allows for minimal disruption for a legitimate user that's made a mistake, but slows down the hacker attempting to brute force the site.

For more sensitive data, a stronger approach can be taken by locking out the account after a number of failed attempts. Locking the account disables it either temporarily or permanently. The lockout stops brute force attacks as after a point, the login will not work. A temporary-disabling should have minimal affect on the user as long as a message for the reason for the lock out is displayed. A permanent lock requires the user to contact support to fix the problem and better fits logins, protecting important data.

Securing Passwords

Passwords are the most sensitive aspect of the login. Never store passwords in plain text. Never. Ever. Doing so means almost any security problem can expose login information. Even encrypted passwords should be avoided as if the hacker gains access to the encrypted data the decryption process can be much easier. Any storage where you can retrieve a password, makes it easier for a hacker to do the same.

Salting and Hashing

Passwords should be stored salted and hashed. A salt is a randomly generated, unique value stored for each login and added before hashing. Adding the salt prevents identical passwords from having the same hash and prevents a hacker from building a list of the hash result of possible password combinations in advance. By adding the random hash, a password of abc123 (please never use anything like that as an actual password) will result in a different hash for every user.

A hash function turns the password into a fixed length value. There are functions specifically designed for passwords such as PBKDF2 or Bcrypt. The GPU processors in modern graphics cards can perform the computations needed to hash and can break many weak algorithms quickly. Dedicated machines for the purpose of breaking passwords can determine any eight character password or less, in under six hours.

Users often tend to reuse the same password for most sites where they have accounts. Many sites have begun testing the exposed credentials from major account login hacks against their own logins and contacting users whose username and password combinations match. Evernote and Facebook recently examined login credentials released from Adobe and alerted users using those same credentials.

The easiest way to handle passwords correctly is to use the tools included in your web framework. Password security is complicated and getting just one thing wrong can leave your user's passwords open to attack. pH pass provides a public domain library for PHP using Bcrypt. The older built in .NET membership providers used weaker hashes, but the new Universal Providers use PBKDF2. Rails also provides a Bcrypt gem.

Resetting Passwords

When you properly secure passwords so that they cannot be retrieved, you lose the ability to provide the user a forgotten password. Then, you need to provide an alternative way for a user who legitimately forgot their password to reset the password in a secure manner.

The Password Reset Page

A good reset-password page allows the user to change the password without knowing the current password. The traditional method allows the user to enter their email address and then sends a link to a webpage that allows them to reset the password. Sending a link is more secure than sending a password since the new password isn't created until the user accesses the page. Sending a new password by email would create a new credential that anyone intercepting the email would be able to use without the user's knowledge. If someone intercepts the email and resets the password, the user will know when they access and attempt to reset their password.

A good reset page should also not provide validation that an account exists. The logic is the same that we discussed in regards to not providing feedback if an account didn't exist when logging in. Even if the login does not exist in the system. The best approach is to provide a message that instructions have been sent to the email address on file. You should still send an email to the entered email since it could be a legitimate case of having forgotten which email was used for an account, such as entering a work email instead of a personal email.

Password Reset Links

The link to reset passwords should be designed so the reset request has a limited lifespan and can be only used one time. Create a unique token for each reset request, tied to the account requested and store it in a database. This token becomes part of the URL emailed to reset the password. The token also should be assigned an expiration time and be removed after the reset completes. If someone attempts to use a token that has been already used or expired, the request would fail. The expiration time needs to be long enough to allow the email to be received and the user to complete the action, but not so long as to allow use too far in the future. A time frame of a few hours usually will suffice.

Resetting a Password Via Email

Resetting a password using email also makes the security of your site dependent on the integrity of the user's email. If the email can be accessed, then that person can reset the password. Sites can add security questions that must be answered before resetting the password. Security questions provide little extra security if the answers are easy to find. A security question of "What is my hometown?" provides little security if the answer can be found on the person's Facebook profile. For more on developing good questions, see http://goodsecurityquestions.com/.

Two Step Authentication

A login and password requires only one pair of information to access a website. When that information is provided, then the user is assumed to be the correct person. To make stealing credentials less effective, you can add a second step to the authentication process. In addition to something that the user knows (the username and password), the user also must use something they have in their current possession, commonly a cell phone through either SMS or an application for this purpose.

Banks were probably the first to implement this process using custom hardware to generate a time dependent code. Google popularized the use of SMS text messages or an app as a second step. Many sites now use a login compatible with Google's implementation of RFC 6238. You can find libraries already implementing this technique for most popular frameworks such as ASP.NET, ASP.NET #2, Ruby on Rails, PHP, and Django.

External Authentication

To avoid these problems you have another option, let someone else deal with all this by integrating with a third party for authentication such as Twitter, Facebook or OpenID. Doing so offers benefits and disadvantages. It does take away most of the security concerns that we've discuss here as someone else deals with those issues. However, these other sites are also probably a bigger hacker target than you. If you use another site to handle authentication, then if that login is compromised, the hackers have access to your site.

Using a known third party can both help and hurt from a reputation and social point of view. The advantage of allowing login with either Facebook or Twitter is that so many users already have accounts there that they would be happy to use it. Other visitors may view the integration with these sites as a negative feature and not use your site because of it or if it is the only option provided to them.

Conclusion

Your web application's login plays a vital role in securing your site. Taking care to protect your login will do much to protect your site, your site's users and their private information. To work securely with logins, minimize the amount of data your login and password reset pages could potentially provide to a hacker. Also, put security measures in place to make it more difficult to guess your user's passwords via brute force.

Protecting passwords is a critical concern of any site. Poorly protected passwords make the hacker's job easier and can end with the login credentials of your site exposed to the public. Using hashed and salted passwords makes the hacker's job much more difficult. Additionally, adding the option of a second step to the login process can provide more protection for your site's users. You can also chose to utilize a third party to handle logins to your site.

The following is a guest post by Ian Marquette. Ian learned that SVG can have a <text> element, meaning that text could come from a dynamic source while still being able to do cool custom SVG-specific stuff to it.

I was recently working on a WordPress-based website that needed an infographic. Being a proponent of responsive design, I drew the infographic in Illustrator and exported it to SVG for scalability. While tinkering around in the backend I discovered that you can add WordPress custom fields to SVG text elements that allow you to control text-based content from within your WordPress CMS. How awesome is that?

Here I'll explain how I did it, and some further options you might find useful.

Preparing the SVG File

Create the graphic in your vector-editing software of choice. Add placeholder text to the area you'll want to contain user-controlled text. Here I've created a simple graphic for demonstration purposes.

Now open your SVG file with your preferred editor. You'll have to make some changes to the code. In my example the path had to be changed to a <textpath>, given an ID and linked to using xlink. If I didn't do this, each individual character in my text would have its own tag, coordinates etc.

<svg width="1000px" height="300px" viewBox="0 0 1000 300"
         xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" 
         xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"&gt;
      <defs>
        <path id="MyPath"
              d="M 100 200 
                 C 200 100 300   0 400 100
                 C 500 200 600 300 700 200
                 C 800 100 900 100 900 100" />
      </defs>
    
      <use xlink:href="#MyPath" fill="none" stroke="green"  />
    
      <text font-family="Helvetica" font-size="42.5">
        <textPath xlink:href="#MyPath">
          SVG Text on a path for WordPress!
        </textPath>
      </text>
    
    </svg>

Here's a live demo of some text-on-a-path:

See the Pen JoakC by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

You can just copy and paste the markup straight into a WordPress template. You could also use on of the other methods of using SVG on your page, such as linking to the file as an object. Essentially it needs to be inline SVG, not SVG used as an or background-image.

You'll want to replace the content between the <text> tags with the following code, replacing custom_field with whatever name you want to give yours:

<?php
      global $wp_query;
      $postid = $wp_query->post->ID;
      echo get_post_meta($postid, 'custom_field', true);
      wp_reset_query();
    ?>

Dropping that within the SVG will look like:

<svg width="1000px" height="300px" viewBox="0 0 1000 300"
         xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" 
         xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"&gt;
    
      <defs>
        <path id="MyPath"
              d="M 100 200 
                 C 200 100 300   0 400 100
                 C 500 200 600 300 700 200
                 C 800 100 900 100 900 100" />
      </defs>
    
      <use xlink:href="#MyPath" fill="none" stroke="green"  />
    
      <text font-family="Helvetica" font-size="42.5">
        <textPath xlink:href="#MyPath">
           <?php
            global $wp_query;
            $postid = $wp_query->post->ID;
            echo get_post_meta($postid, 'custom_field', true);
            wp_reset_query();
           ?>
        </textPath>
      </text>
    
    </svg>

Now create a custom field in the WordPress CMS with this label and populate it.

Now if you check out that page, you should see the custom text sitting inside your custom SVG graphic! Of course custom fields are just one way to do this that is rather extensible. You could use do the post title this way, menus, or anything else that dynamically spits out text from any CMS.

Once it's in there the text can be styled just like regular markup. For instance:

...
    <textpath class="text-path" ... >
      ...

.text-path {
      fill: orange;
    }

Or any other SVG CSS property. That means using custom fonts via @font-face work just fine. You also have access to nice features such as SVG filters and animation.

SVG & WordPress Custom Fields is a post from CSS-Tricks

A High-Tech Manufacturing Leader In Baltimore Drives Innovation With Lifelong Learning

In the last decade, Baltimore has become a hotbed for high-tech growth and this accomplishment is one for the city to be proud of. It takes a rich talent pool, often from local universities, to make a tech city. Additionally, the business and political community have shown strong support of technology initiatives and start-ups. With these attractive features in place, the area is wired for continued prosperity in this industry.

(Photo Courtesy of Mike Adelstein)

One of the primary reasons that Mike Adelstein, president and CEO of Potomac Photonics, a leader in micro-fabrication and small hole drilling, moved the company to bwtech@UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County) Research and Technology Park was to be in a tech-centric environment that fosters innovation and learning. In fact, Adelstein initially started his education at UMBC earning a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology before joining Potomac Photonics – a step that effectively launched his career and the lifelong pursuit of education both in and out of classroom.

Where did you earn your degree?

“After I started working at Potomac Photonics, I earned a Masters of Science in Technology Management at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) and became a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).”

How has education prepared you for your job?

“My degree in biochemistry and molecular biology initially helped me succeed as a sales engineer for Potomac Photonics because I felt very comfortable working in a technical environment. My masters degree and CPA provided me with the foundation to be promoted to president and CEO in 2011, and lead a buyout of the company in 2012. The combination of my degrees and certification has been essential in preparing me to deal with all aspects of the company and serve our partners and customers at a high level, both from a technical and business perspective.”

Could you have reached your present position without your education endeavors?

“Certainly my education played a critical role in helping me reach my present position. Additionally, factors such as my passion for high-tech manufacturing and perseverance to achieve success, especially for our customers and employees, are also important.”

What continuing education is required for your specific role?

“In addition to earning CPE hours for my CPA license, I attend workshops and conferences. For hands-on training, I am looking forward to spending time in our new innovation laboratory. Potomac Photonics’ Educational Manufacturing Initiative, which provides universities and institutions with access to our services at a reduced rate, helps to keep my pulse on what the next generation of engineers and scientists will require in terms of manufacturing.”

Keri Ann Beazell is a Baltimore writer following the latest developments in arts and culture, natural wonders, lifestyle and pets. She enjoys promoting thought-provoking discussions, education, new ideas and smiles among readers. Follow her online at beazellblog.com and Examiner.com

Keeping abreast of emerging trends is one of the most challenging aspects of any designer’s job. If you’re looking for a truly accurate picture of the web design world we’ll inhabit over the next few years, as well as the technologies, techniques and ideas that will be guiding our careers then you need to attend the Future of Web Design conference.

Returning for its 8th year, FOWD will be held 7th–9th April at the Brewery in London, UK.

There are practical hands-on workshops that allow you to experience a range of vital technologies including CSS architecture and responsive design. Workshops are taught by respected industry leaders including Rachel Nabors, Harry Roberts, Jason Pamental and Paul Addams; giving you the chance to immerse yourself in some genuinely innovative techniques.

The central focus of the conference is the future of the web design sector and all the sessions focus on key emerging practices and technologies that could be the next big thing.

It’s the perfect opportunity to develop your agency’s staff into a cutting-edge team that are both prepared for, and excited about the next few years.

Key sessions this year include Stephanie Rieger (Yiibu), Razvan Caliman (Adobe), Jason Pamental (H+W Design) and Gunnar Vilhjálmsson (Monotype); as well as many more with 30 sessions scheduled for the 2 conference days.

On top of that, the buzz that surrounds the conference is a great place to network, hang out, and otherwise make those connections that ensure we stay a community rather than a professional field.

Attending the FOWD conference is a sure-fire way to develop a vision for where the Web is going, how we’re going to get there, and what we’ll see along the way. With an impressive list of speakers and a great balance of design, technical and inspirational sessions, FOWD is one of the premier events on the conference calendar and not to be missed.

We’re delighted that FOWD have given WebdesignerDepot readers a discount off their regular price, just enter WEBDESIGNERDEPOT at the checkout for a 10% discount.

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