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Business Web application design is too often neglected. I see a lot of applications that don’t meet the needs of either businesses or users and thus contribute to a loss of profit and poor user experience. It even happens that designers are not involved in the process of creating applications at all, putting all of the responsibility on the shoulders of developers.

This is a tough task for developers, who may have plenty of back-end and front-end development experience but limited knowledge of design. This results in unsatisfied customers, frustrated users and failed projects.

So, we will cover the basics of user interface design for business Web applications. While one could apply many approaches, techniques and principles to UI design in general, our focus here will be on business Web applications.

[Offtopic: By the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has a mobile version? Try it out if you have an iPhone, Blackberry or another capable device.] (more...)

It’s time for something brand new and exciting on Smashing Magazine. Actually, we have quite a few things in the works, and today we are happy to reveal one of them. Over the years, we have published many lengthy articles, and now we want to write some shorter ones for a change. We want to launch the Smashing Email Newsletter and we prepared some nice prizes for our subscribers.

Every week our editorial team will work on short, entertaining and (of course) relevant articles for the upcoming issue. The newsletter will be sent out once a week, probably on Tuesdays, and will contain unique tips and tricks for designers and Web developers, written by us exclusively for our email subscribers.

The 10,001 Subscriber Challenge

And to make it a bit more interesting, we decided to create a challenge for us and our readers. Here’s the deal: the Smashing Newsletter will be published only if we get at least 10,001 subscribers. (The earliest we would send it out is next Tuesday.) So, it’s up to you to decide whether we should launch the newsletter. And you can help right away: just type in your (valid) email address, confirm the subscription (opt in) and you’re done!

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Israel is a young country with an old heart. It has been quickly built up over the last 60 years as an independent democratic Jewish state and is shockingly cutting edge for a country so new.

It is a tiny surreal sliver of land smack dab in the middle of the Middle East: a very European, modern civilization… just programmed to Jewish tradition. Israel has great weather, nice beaches along the Mediterranean sea, fresh and tasty food and a warm and friendly culture. It is home to historic holy sites of the world’s three major religions, and buses drive down streets whose stones are older than anything you’ll find in Europe.

Israeli design at its best: ILook, an Israeli street-fashion blog. The text on the left side says: “Send me a good picture of a hipster and win 300 bottles of Maccabi beer” (via Tal Sach).

It feels as if Israel has one foot in Silicon Valley and the other in ancient Canaan — with an undercurrent of Middle Eastern hospitality and culture in this already multi-cultural society. And yet, English is commonly spoken here because many Jews from all over the world immigrate here regularly (not to mention the thousands of tourists from around the globe who pour in for sun, falafel, nightlife and a dash of biblical archaeology.) In some areas, you hear as much Spanish, French, Russian and English on the streets as Hebrew.

Because of its small size and the everyone-knows-everyone effect of being a bunch of Jews, cabin fever (and completion of mandatory army service for the younger generation) drives Israel’s citizens out on frequent travels across the globe, to India, Asia, and South America. As a result, a unique mix of cultural discoveries abroad is woven into Israeli culture. (more...)