Design resources for developers

Keeping abreast of technology updates has always been a formidable job.  As always, there are all sorts of options for consuming the fire hose of news.  For me, RSS feeds (I use Feedspot for my reader now) from some trusted sources remains a favorite, and I'd like to share a couple of gems that have been really fantastic for a number of years now.

Both of these are design-oriented sites, focusing on UI technologies, techniques, and reviews as well as design theory, layout reviews, and the like.  Given my typical focus on back-end design and architecture, these sites are a great way to bolster by front-end perspective and give me some tools to jump-start UI work.  I've been following both of these sites long enough that I honestly can't remember where I found them, but I'm really impressed with the track record for both.

Honkiat.com (odd name, I know, but it's good stuff) is a real grab-bag of articles, so be prepared to filter out some topics you may not be interested in.  If you sift through to topics that are of interest, though, there are some really good resources.  In most cases, these articles are annotated link collections, so don't expect to find source code here.  Do expect to see examples of UI tools and technologies put to use with links to source sites where you can learn more.   A quick flip through recent articles shows topics like these:

Smashing Magazine tends to cover fewer topics more deeply, with more of a focus on their own content, vs curation of content from other sources.  This is a great source for tutorials and backgrounders, and they've published a number of books based largely on rolled-up content from the site.  Again, not everything will be of interest, but the quality of the content that's here is really high.  Here's a quick sampling of some recent articles from Smashing Magazine:

If you're looking for a couple good streams of design inspiration, give these two a look, and if you've got any other favorites, let me know!