✏ Issue #501: UI Cheat Sheet, 20 Best New Sites, How I Experience Web Today, Google Overhauls Webpage Titles, and more…

Get 4x more ideas, 3.2x more focus, and 13% better retention with the Idea Toolset. The Confidant Notebook opens flat for easy writing, the Squire Pen is ergonomically designed for comfort, and the Guardian Case carries your notebook, pen, phone, and more. Products backed by science: Baronfig. Get 20% off with code WEBDESIGNERDEPOT—ends in 3 days! - Ad

When it comes to web design agencies, there’s plenty of competition. So how do you determine the best? In this interesting roundup Alex Alabbas picks out his top ten agency sites, based on how they engage with new clients. The selections range from known names to up-and-coming design shops. It’s a must-read.

A good website tells a story; that’s the message in this month’s collection of the 20 Best New Sites. Each month we gather together the most interesting sites launched in the previous four weeks and package them for your enjoyment. In this month’s edition, you’ll find portfolio sites, typography, illustration, and more.

There’s nothing more frustrating than staring at a bunch of code and not knowing what it does. Figstack is a game-changing app that’s going to revolutionize how we learn to code. It translates code from one language into another, like JavaScript to PHP; it can even translate code into English. There’s a free forever plan.

UI design isn’t a complex field; it’s all about hierarchy and spacing. But even veteran designers will find themselves overwhelmed at times by the number of different considerations that have to be taken into account. Tess Gadd’s brilliant UI Cheat Sheet simplifies everything, from grids to spatial relationships.

If you’re sick of the endless swarm of pop-ups, notifications, interstitials, sign-up notifications, and general digital detritus that plagues the web, you’ll love — or hate — How I Experience Web Today; a fun interactive rant about every poorly considered UI device in use today. Click the first link, and be prepared to quit your browser!

One of the most underrated HTML elements is the description list. It’s a semantic way of marking up name-value pairs that’s been supported since forever but is constantly overlooked. In this great post, Ben Myers champions the <dl>, reminding us of its versatility and offering simple tips for making the most of it.

In a typically opaque move, Google has confirmed that it has changed how it formulates web page titles in its search listings — it ignores the title tags you set 20% of the time. What Google used to do is rewrite page titles based on the search query; now, it rewrites page titles based on the actual subject of the page.

Zoom is a super-useful service that’s deadly boring to use. If you’re as sick of Zoom meetings as everyone else on the planet, you’ll love Macro: a Zoom client for creatives that lets you customize your appearance. You can join any Zoom meeting with Macro, and everyone will see you through the filters, shapes, and reactions you create.