Five Steps to Interfaces That Connect. The Artisan of the Day Is Leah Thompson.
When it comes to turning designs into engaging user interfaces, Leah Thompson has cracked the code on making frontend development less intimidating and more systematic.
Leah is a Marketing Engineer at Laravel, working on the DevRel team. But her journey to Laravel wasn’t linear: she holds a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and spent time as a high school Geometry teacher before discovering her passion for solving more meaningful problems in tech. After leaving teaching, she joined 100 Devs, a free online bootcamp focused on the MERN stack, and spent her first two and a half years as a developer in the JavaScript ecosystem.
Her Laravel story began when her company decided to migrate from Next.js and Node.js to Laravel and PHP. She dove straight into Laravel (doing things "the way you're not supposed to") and finished the Laravel bootcamp the night before attending her first Laracon in 2024. That conference changed everything: she fell in love with both the framework and the community, eventually leading to her joining the Laravel team.
Leah brings a teacher's clarity to complex topics, breaking down intimidating design challenges into manageable steps. Like Evan You, another Laravel Community member, Leah proves there's no single path into development, and that diverse backgrounds bring valuable perspectives to how we solve problems.
Five Steps to Interfaces That Connect: Demystifying Frontend Excellence
At Laracon US, Leah delivered a practical talk that transformed how developers approach building user interfaces that leave lasting impressions. Drawing from her real-world experience shipping Laravel marketing sites under intense deadlines, she showed that creating emotionally engaging interfaces is a methodical process anyone can follow.
Leah's five-step formula for building interfaces that connect:
Step 1: Spacing and Padding
- Give your content breathing room to make it easier for people to consume
- Even this simple step dramatically improves readability and user experience
Step 2: Fonts
- Encompasses all typography: font families, text sizes, font weights, and styles
- Proper typography instantly makes interfaces feel more polished and professional
Step 3: Layering
- Add depth to your design by layering content, backgrounds, and foreground elements
- Transforms flat, two-dimensional designs into more engaging, three-dimensional experiences
Step 4: Something Weird (The Fun Element)
- Add an element that makes your interface stand out and be memorable
- Doesn't have to be actually weird, just distinctive enough to create a lasting impression
Step 5: Animation and Interaction
- Include hover effects, page load animations, and interactive elements
- Motion brings interfaces to life and creates emotional connections with users
Leah's demonstrations showed this formula in action on both the Laracon conference site and Laravel Nightwatch marketing pages. Starting with stripped-back content, she systematically applied each step, showing how interfaces transform from basic to extraordinary through methodical application of these principles.
Leah’s talk was relatable because she shared her real experience: joining Laravel and immediately being thrown into shipping complex marketing sites with tight deadlines. Her formula was honed and battle-tested under the pressure of shipping production sites for a very design-conscious team.
Her approach reflects her mathematical background: when faced with challenging problems, break them down into manageable steps. This systematic approach to frontend development makes beautiful, engaging interfaces accessible to developers who might otherwise be intimidated by complex designs.
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