Leading the Pack

I used to cringe when we heard, "we need more flash on the page." A decade later, we've moved past Flash implementations, but not all businesses have made huge leaps away from the thinking that came with "more flash." And today that thinking is going to get in the way as technology rapidly transforms the way people connect online. With less time to engage, and more devices to connect with, it's imperative that businesses commit to understanding how people use their products and services. We're intent to help people understand why this is so important and how they can create great products for their customers.

Over the years of helping startups, it became clear that our consulting was more than just informing clients of our best practices, it was teaching them how to approach problems. True to our values, we've focused on being good coaches as well as service providers. Part of being a good coach is also education &mash; an important piece of how we approach our entire business. We strive to teach people how to think through these complex multi-device problems.

So it's with great pleasure to announce three important initiatives at ZURB:

Foundation 3.0, our powerful open-source responsive framework, launched yesterday. We've put thousands of man hours into this effort, led by Jonathan Smiley, and we're excited to share our expertise and tools with the world.
Pattern Tap, our design pattern interaction library, we acquired this past month. It's a great resource to learn from other designers who have designed clever solutions.
ZURBwired, our 24-hour event that helps one nonprofit. This will be our fifth one and we've extended our submissions deadline to July 6th.

We're excited to share our knowledge and tools and hope we can inspire you to share your ideas. Design literacy is incredibly important! That’s why we’ve dedicated ourselves to leading the pack when it comes to design education. So with that, let's jump into the latest happenings.

Foundation 3: The Most Advanced Responsive Framework

I'm so proud of the relentless effort of the ZURB team to get Foundation 3 out the door. We're thrilled to release the most advanced responsive framework in the world. We've shifted the development of Foundation over to Sass (SCSS) and Compass instead of pure CSS. Don't worry, however, you can still use straight-up CSS if that's what you prefer.

We've also expanded the toolbox with Foundation 3. We've included new tab styles, new buttons, semantic grid mixins, new UI elements and typography based on a modular scale. We can't wait to see what you create with Foundation 3!

Download Foundation 3

Off-Canvas Layouts for Foundation

We worked with our friends Luke Wroblewski and Jason Weaver to put together a Foundation layouts that give you the flexibility of native off-canvas layouts on the Web. If you’re familiar with Facebook’s native app, you'll recognize this nifty feature. Best of all, these layouts work with Foundation 3. We'd like to thank Luke and Jason for collaborating with us on these layouts.

Get the Off-Canvas Layouts for Foundation

We’ve Acquired Pattern Tap!

As if Foundation 3 wasn't exciting enough, this month we also acquired Pattern Tap. We'd like to extend our thanks to Matthew Smith for creating a great resource for designers to see what's working well on the Web and why. Matthew isn't going far and will remain a contributor to Pattern Tap.

Check Out the Designs on Pattern Tap

Build a Good Core Product

We had a great time at the ZURBsoapbox with Formspring Founder and CEO Ade Olonoh. He gave us great insight into how the social Q&A site got to 10 million users faster than Pinterest and kept them. The trick is to build a good core product, he told us.

Hear the Other Takeaways From Ade's Soapbox

In Case You Missed: "Bit.ly Redesign Upsets Users"

When link-shortner bit.ly changed its design, many users got upset and openly boycotted the site. So we decided to see what got users so riled up and used Verify to take an in-depth look at the redesign. Here's an excerpt from our findings:

"Visually, it's clear most people are confused by the previously (simple) act of adding a bitmark. There's high click volume in the upper-right hand side of the design — the primary way to add a new bitmark."

Read the Rest of the Article

ZURBwired Submission Deadline Extended

We’re at it again this year where we help one lucky nonprofit get over a design slump and achieve a goal for their organization. This year will be our fifth ZURBwired and we’ve begun accepting applications. We’ve extended our submissions deadline to July 6th to give nonprofits some extra time to get their applications in. Thank you to everyone who's submitted their nonprofit already.

Read the ZURBwired Submission Guidelines

Front-End Developer Job Listing on ZURBjobs

Our friends at Inflection and Business Model Foundry have new job listings up at ZURBjobs. Inflection is looking for a Front-End Developer while Business Model Foundry is looking for a Senior Ruby on Rails Developer. The folks at Inflection have even put up a nifty video on their work culture.

Check Out Our Recent Job Listing

We're Hiring!

We're currently looking for an awesome Designer to join our quest for world domination and help us build great things. While what we need is always changing, it's our philosophy to hire people, not roles. Think you've got the chops?