Our Latest Insights

Thoughts from our team on current events, new techniques and tools, trends we're seeing, and our culture.

14 results shown.
  • Introducing Renature: Experimenting with Physics for UI Animation

    December 18, 2019
    For this first fellowship, Parker Ziegler, in collaboration with others at Formidable, is working on a new physics-based animation library for React focused on modeling natural-world forces like gravity, friction, air resistance, and fluid dynamics. The project is called renature, harkening to the inspiration it takes from the physics of our universe. It's targeted at UI developers, digital artists, and physics nerds alike. In this post, we'll introduce the motivations behind writing renature, highlight some of the technology we're using to build it, and show off the progress we've made in these first two weeks!
  • The UX Deck: Card-Based Testing for Better Design

    December 12, 2019
    Formidable design team has developed a card-based user testing model to meet the needs of client projects that require early-stage research and concept validation. As part of our commitment to open source, we are sharing our learnings and best practices related to this methodology. Here's what it is, how to use it, and where to get your own copy.
  • Runpkg v1.0 - The node packages explorer

    December 4, 2019
    Earlier in the year we released Runpkg, an online tool to help developers explore npm packages and their dependencies. We were pleased with the results, but, as with any prototype, there was room for improvement. Over the past few weeks, we were able to iterate on our prototype to improve the package viewing experience, the performance and speed of the site, and the overall design and user experience. Today we are delighted to announce the release of Runpkg v1.
  • Meet Emma Brillhart

    November 14, 2019
    We'd like to introduce you to Emma Brillhart. Emma is a senior developer, engineering manager, experienced speaker, co-lead of our newest office in Phoenix, Arizona, and now leads our DevRel program at Formidable.
  • urql DevTools: Introducing Explorer View

    October 17, 2019
    In its current state, the urql DevTools make it easy to understand how these responses come in, but you’re still not able to observe your GraphQL data as a whole. We wanted a simpler way for users to see what data their app is currently consuming with a clear overview of which exact query produced which response, without the need to check the network tab manually. We also wanted to see that data update in real time and include any metadata such as cache outcomes as part of the view.
  • Living on the Edge: Lazy Static Sites with Modern CDNs and Lambda

    October 15, 2019
    Websites like the New York Times can't wait for a twenty-minute build to deliver breaking stories. A CDN-based service like unpkg can't build a static filesystem for every possible npm package without exorbitant storage and compute costs. Yet these services stay fast in spite of the pitfalls of dynamic sites. How?
  • Responsive Images: Improving performance by letting the browser do the work

    October 8, 2019
    We want to serve appropriate images to all of our users, like small images on slower connections and small screens, and large, high-quality images on fast connections and high-resolution screens. Luckily, all modern browsers support a few nifty HTML features to help us optimize our images for whatever device your users are visiting your site on.
  • Building a more accessible web with semantic HTML

    October 2, 2019
    I want to make a case for semantic HTML as a way to unlock the door to building accessible apps from the ground up. Accessibility is something that we must get better at slowly, not overnight, and if we do, we will end up saving time and become stronger developers.
  • Say Hello to Kate Schaefer

    September 12, 2019
    Our Formidable Denver office is growing! Please meet Kate Schaefer, a software engineer from Colorado.
  • Progress Towards OSS Sustainability

    August 28, 2019
    Open source sustainability has been an increasingly visible problem in recent years. The problem is too big for any one person, or any one company to solve, but at Formidable, we're hoping to make a very small, local dent by making open source work more sustainable for our business and for our engineers.
  • Input Smoothing: An Intro To Reactive Animations

    August 16, 2019
    A tutorial on how to make an input smoothing object from scratch and leverage it in a React component to smoothly animate a cursor.
  • Glicky: A Graphical User Interface for JavaScript Development Workflows

    June 18, 2019
    Modern web development is hard. Long gone are the days of opening up your text editor, writing some HTML, CSS and JavaScript, saving it to an index.html file, and loading it in your browser. For many of us, fiddling with package.json and interacting with the terminal seems easy, because we've done it for a long time. But do you remember how you felt the first time you were faced with a terminal?
  • Meet Jon Reynolds

    June 18, 2019
    We're launching a new blog series to showcase our talented team of Formidables across the globe. We're delighted to introduce you to Jon Reynolds from the Formidable Denver office.
  • How To Create an Ideal Design to Dev Workflow

    June 13, 2019
    Products that require both design and engineering find an inflection point in their lifecycle that can cause confusion, delay production, and add multiple headaches further down the road. Specifically stated, that point is when the thing that is designed must now be made. How can we, as both designers and developers, mitigate these risks and foster a more inclusive workflow that ensures the final designs are not only beautiful, but functional and developmentally sound?