The 10 most read blogs on Heart Internet in 2020

On the Heart Internet blog this year we’ve covered topics from cyber security to team work. But some of them have piqued more interest than others. Here’s our list of the most popular Heart Internet blogs of 2020 – with number one being the most read ... more

5 of the most popular coding languages to learn in 2020

It’s hard to overstate the importance language plays in our lives. Whether verbal or non-verbal, language is how we convey not only our basic needs for survival but also our complex thoughts and ideas. Coding languages are no different. It may be through ... more

Getting started with front-end testing using Cypress

We all know that testing is important, but this is often limited to unit testing and integration testing, focusing on the back-end of our application, and we tend to forget about testing the front-end. There are so many different types of tests that ... more

5 common internationalisation pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

Internationalisation, sometimes shortened to “i18n”, is an important but often overlooked step of developing an application. Internationalisation is the process of designing your application, so that it isn’t hard-coded to one language, locale, or region. ... more

The importance of localisation and how to implement and test it in React

In this article, we’ll be covering the foundational principles of localisation in React. We’ll start by looking at what localisation is and why it’s important before jumping into code samples to prepare your app for a global audience. According to a ... more

30 DevTools resources to help you get the most out of Firefox and Chrome

DevTools are powerful sets of web developer tools built directly into major web browsers. They help you edit websites on-the-fly and quickly diagnose problems. You can manipulate DOM elements, gauge performance and debug JavaScript — all from within ... more

34 WordPress tutorials for modern web development

WordPress now powers 34 percent of all the websites — more than one third of the entire web. While its dominance can’t be ignored, a lot of developers started getting frustrated with the CMS because up until recently it wasn’t possible to incorporate ... more

The state of modern image optimisation techniques on the web in 2019

Last year, I wrote a post examining the ways that the web uses images. Utilising data from the HTTP Archive, I was able to look at how 500,000 websites deliver images and how many sites had room for improvement in their image delivery mechanisms in order ... more

30 inspiring CodePen demos to boost your CSS, SVG and JavaScript skills

Creative coding and front-end development playground CodePen has established itself as an amazing community for testing and showcasing HTML, CSS and JavaScript code snippets. It’s both an online code editor and learning environment that enables developers ... more

How small businesses can use AMP Stories on WordPress

People love stories! Not only those told on TV or in children’s books. Some of the stories of the 21st century are told on Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram. Many are personal and users embrace their ephemeral nature. What’s a business to do, though? ... more

37 Sketch tools and plugins that will improve your design workflow

Sketch remains one of the most popular tools for digital designers. One million people have bought a license, and the company behind it, Bohemian Coding, recently raised $20 million in venture capital. New features include Smart Distribute, which makes ... more

4 common CSS problems and how to solve them

That moment has come. You’re posed with another task that you have to figure out with CSS. You’re probably doing all kinds of searches to find the right solution, but you’re coming up empty. Surely someone has found a solution to the same issue. Well, ... more

33 articles and tutorials that will help you build more accessible websites

Accessibility is finally going mainstream. It used to be a niche discipline that concentrated on disabled customers, a ‘nice to have’ that often got forgotten or lacked the necessary resources and budget. The smartphone and the recent focus on inclusive ... more

What does ‘Gutenberg-ready’ mean for WordPress themes?

The theory is: Gutenberg, the new block editor, works with any WordPress theme out of the box. It only changes the editing experience but not how content is stored and then rendered on the front-end by the theme. Mind you, if you use a third-party page-builder ... more

Best practices for optimising video streams on the web

When I think of video streaming, I typically think of Netflix, Amazon or YouTube — the major providers of video on the web today. When I think of “video on the web,” I generally think about pages with a background video, or another fun immersive feature ... more

Do you need to code to be considered a web developer?

What made Shakespeare the paragon of writers? There is a case to be made that, beyond simple raw talent, he had in his time, played many parts – he’d been both an actor and a director, before writing. Knowing stagecraft and understanding what delivering ... more

Practical tips for faster websites: an interview with Harry Roberts

A few weeks ago Heart Internet sponsored the return of digital design conference New Adventures in Nottingham. One of the highlights was Harry Roberts’ popular workshop on front-end performance (which once again sold out). As building faster websites ... more

The developer’s guide to native web animation

Animation on the web has come a long way. At first we used Flash to create websites, which were all fun and interactive, then we got to fancy JavaScript libraries, and now the web platform offers us a selection of native animation tools. But with all ... more

16 DevTools tips and tricks every CSS developer needs to know

When it comes to debugging the front-end, if you’re like many developers, you basically live in your browser’s developer tools. But even after having worked in Chrome’s developer tools for quite a few years, I still come across tips, tricks, and features ... more

7 tips to properly manage your dependencies in Node.js

Before using a third-party package, you should get detailed information about it and, for example, consider the popularity, the license or known security issues. And once you’ve decided to use a package as dependency, you should continue keeping an eye ... more

5 more things you didn’t know a browser could do!

The web is an incredible place these days. New browser capabilities, paired with big improvements to the JavaScript language and advancements in development tools and frameworks, are changing the way we think about the web: from a place to read simple ... more

Creating front-end prototypes for a great user experience

Static deliverables like wireframes and mockups often demonstrate the structure and aesthetics of an application but fall short of illustrating the feeling and emotion of it. In some cases, the final static deliverables always have to be adjusted due ... more

Scalable CSS: Top tips for writing and maintaining CSS for scale

Writing and maintaining CSS for a small site is very different from a large site or multiple sites. How exactly we developers can and should write CSS for scale varies according to the specifics of what we’re working on. From my experience, what happens ... more

3 features that could change the future of JavaScript

Do you want to discover the next exciting JavaScript features that you didn’t even know you needed? Let me show you three proposals that may change the way you write code the same way the spread operator did. However, here’s a small disclaimer: All of ... more

Getting started with CSS Variables

The year 1991 became a turning point for the web. Back then Tim Berners-Lee first announced HTML. At that time there was no method for styling web pages. A five-year period went by before the first official CSS Level 1 specification was published by ... more

Create beautiful test-driven data visualisations with D3.js

D3.js is the de facto library to create dynamic, interactive and engaging data visualisations on the web. D3 development frequently starts by working from one of the community’s many examples. These examples are helpful as a way to jumpstart a project, ... more

25 JavaScript tutorials to take your skills to the next level

JavaScript has evolved from being a derided “toy language” into the language that powers the web. It’s pretty much everywhere these days. It’s in internet-connected devices, it’s used to ensure we can read websites when we’re offline, and it helps with ... more

5 reasons developers are switching to Vue.js

The Vue.js framework is quickly gaining in popularity, and although it won’t have the market share of other frameworks for a while, more and more companies are considering it for projects. So let’s dive into how it compares with other frameworks and ... more

5 things you didn’t know a browser could do!

We tend to see the web as a simple thing. A place to get some information, send an email, or publish a detailed report of our day on social media to get some virtual likes. When we want to do a little bit more, we usually turn to desktop software or ... more

Build Faster Websites – Free ebook to download

The modern web is becoming more and more bloated, and page sizes continue to grow just as steadily as the number of devices we’re designing for. The need to optimise our sites and apps for performance has become more important than ever, especially as ... more