Webdesigninformer.com

Eric Meyer Go to the source

I recently became re-acquainted with a ghost, and it looked very, very familiar. In the spring of 1995, just over a year into my first Web gig and still just over a year away from first encountering CSS, I wrote the following: Writing to the Norm No, not the fat guy on “Cheers.” Actually, it’s a fundamental issue every Web author needs to know about and appreciate. Web browsers are written by different people. Each person has their own idea about how Web documents should look. … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

The most recent guardian technology podcast opened with these headlines… “On this week’s podcast, we’re looking closely at why a 32×32 pixel digital icon designed for the UK Government’s Information Commissioner’s Office cost £585 of public funds!” To discuss this topic of national importance, Margaret Manning, the Director of the design agency responsible was bought in and grilled as to why the creation of an icon could have cost so much. Margaret stated that the actual design and production work would have taken a couple of hours, and the bulk of the cost was actually administrative. At this point Margaret was interrupted by the interviewer, Charles Arthur, who exclaimed with incredulity, how he’d heard that icons could be done in a matter of minutes. Hearing this I was genuinely gobsmacked. I’ve long been a fan of both the Guardian newspaper and the tech podcast. However It was as if they had somehow been hijacked by the Daily Mail on a slow news week… Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

There are a handful of people who follow me on Twitter who continually moan about the way I use the service. Some complain when I tweet about what I’ve eaten, who I’ve met or what I’ve done that day. Others complain when I use Gowalla or Foursquare to announce my location or post a stream of consciousness on a topic that is currently bugging me. An obvious reaction is to remind those people that nobody is forcing them to follow me and they can easily unfollow if they don’t like what I’m saying. In fact, I have done just that on several occasions. However Twitter is an unusual hybrid of public discussion and private conversation… Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

At Clearleft we’re an incredibly business focussed agency. So we work closely with our stakeholders to understand their business needs, and then turn these into Key Performance Indicators to track. In the vast majority of cases, our clients KPI s increase after working with us. However on the rare occasion that things go in the other direction, we take it as a matter of professional pride to rectify the matter. Thankfully we’ve only seen this happen on 4 occasions in our 6 year history. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom: 30-Second Rule for App Success : Speaking of Instagram, this is some sharp thinking by Kevin Systrom on pairing down features for the initial stages of an app: [Instagram] has come a long way since its first iteration, a feature-laden app called Burbn that lacked a simple value proposition. To founder and CEO Kevin Systrom, simplifying the product — paring it down into an app that enables users to share beautiful photographs quickly — was the smartest business decision his team made - and a strategy other developers should take to heart. ‘Products can introduce more complexity over time, but as far as launching and introducing a new product in to the market, it’s a marketing problem,’ Systrom tells Fast Company. ‘You have to explain everything you do, and people have to understand it, within seconds.’ … Still, there were benefits to its see-what-sticks approach: The team realized its users were gung-ho about Burbn’s photo-sharing capabilities and filters. … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

This blog launched in August 2003 and was one of the very first standards based websites in the UK. Back then Flash was king and the latest design trend was the pixel font. We viewed the web though a 800×600 lens and few people even knew about accessibility, let along cared. How times have changed. The rest of the web has moved on, but my little backwater has remained frozen in time. What seemed like cutting edge back in 2003 is now embarrassingly out of date. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Let’s get straight to it! I’m busy writing a book called “The Icon Handbook” to be published by Five Simple Steps , hopefully at the latter end of this year. It will be ‘application-agnostic’, looking at the process of creating icons for web as well as software. It will be a manual, reference guide and coffee table book in one. For the last 5 years I’ve been wanting to write this book – I keep looking around for other books of its type on the market, but never find any. … Read the rest here

Mezzoblue Go to the source

I’ve decided to slap a Creative Commons license on the entire darn Chalkwork Family and make them completely free for personal use, starting right now. I’ve been considering doing this for quite a while. These icons represent a lot of hard work for me between 2006 and 2009, so you can imagine I’ve thought through the implications of making them available for free download without a pay barrier: will people use them commercially and not pay? Will they abuse the license terms? … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

The date for this years Tweed Run , the metropolitan bike ride with style, has been announced as the 9th April. As mentioned back at Christmas, I’m planning to do next years Tweed Run as I need three things: Tweeds, obviously! A bit more fitness (yes, even for a 10 mile bike ride!). My stamina has been getting so much better since October, and I’m losing weight steadily. It’s a great feeling, but I want to be a more confident cyclist before I take part in anything social. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

The [Project] Food Guide Pyramid : Trent Walton, sharing his reasons for taking on a project, formatted like a food guide pyramid : Passion & belief in a cause is easily a sufficiently motivating factor, as are bills that need to be paid. The way I see it— if you’re into it, do it. Just be sure the next gig offsets the previous one’s deficiencies. Do 10 consecutive jobs solely for the paycheck, and you very well may find yourself out of whack…. When a job is done, we’re left with experience, new skills, and a sharpened perception. Do work that you enjoy so you can be good at what you love. … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

In 1884 Thomas Marks opened his first market stall in Leeds. Over the next few years he opened 20 other stalls around the UK. In 1894, Thomas Spencer invested in the business and retail chain Marks & Spencer was born. From it’s humble beginnings M&S —as it was colloquially called—became one of the UK’ s biggest success stories and was the first retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion. Companies like WH Smith, Woolworth’s and AMSTRAD all started the same way, so it would seem that in order to make it big, you should start small. Can the same thing be said of the Web… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Daring Fireball: The Verizon iPhone 4 : The Gruber, comprehensive as always, sharing his take on the new Verizon iPhone. He’s had one for a week already: The numbers don’t lie. AT&T’s data network is faster — when you have a strong connection on both phones. The catch is with that ‘when you have a strong connection’ clause. Verizon’s network has wider, more consistent coverage, and noticeably superior voice quality…. There’s one difference [between the AT&T iPhone and Verizon iPhone], the network, and their network looks better. … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

As web developers, we want a way to ask “can you do this?” And there are varying degrees to which we can determine this. One of those ways is to use user agent (UA) detection. We ask the browser some information about itself and it tells us. Based on what we know about a browser, we can make certain assumptions. If a browser tells you it is Internet Explorer, chances are you support the HTML, CSS and JavaScript that Internet Explorer supports. This detection could happen on the server-side or client-side… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Hiring: Mobile Web Developer at WillowTree Apps : Virginia-based WillowTree Apps has launched an impressive 70+ apps since 2008 for the iOS, Blackberry, Windows 7, and Android platforms. I was fairly impressed as I flipped through their portfolio. If you know HTML5/CSS3 inside and out, have a solid understanding of JavaScript, and have experience working with at least one high-level, server-side language, you’ll contribute to making their portfolio even more impressive. Position is in Charlottesville, and relocation assistance is offered for the right candidate. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

On Hiring Front-end Engineers : Speaking of freelance gigs and jobs, Chris Zacharias, former YouTube engineer (I believe), authors some thoughts on what to look for in front-end engineers. On scripting: Bad front-end engineers are dependent on jQuery and other libraries. Good front-end engineers make use of libraries like jQuery to empower themselves, but are not beholden to them. On art: Nearly every first rate web developer I have worked with had some kind of extracurricular, no matter how casual, that focused around some form of art. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

On Hiring Front-end Engineers : Speaking of freelance gigs and jobs, Chris Zacharias, former YouTube engineer (I believe), authors some thoughts on what to look for in front-end engineers. On scripting: Bad front-end engineers are dependent on jQuery and other libraries. Good front-end engineers make use of libraries like jQuery to empower themselves, but are not beholden to them. On art: Nearly every first rate web developer I have worked with had some kind of extracurricular, no matter how casual, that focused around some form of art. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

The W3C unveiled a new logo and branding strategy today. (You might have heard.) It brings all the deliciousness of a Soviet-era Transformers logo to the yummy conflation of several related technologies! Did you get your WOFF in my HTML, or did I get my CSS all over your HTML? As per usual, a lot of people have said a lot of things about this. For my part, I figure, hey, given that CSS3 is now a branded part of your nutritious HTML5 breakfast, why not go with the flow? … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Turning Adversity to Advantage : The Dalai Lama: Murder, scandal, and deceit all have their origin in disturbing emotions. This inevitably gives rise to the question — can we train the mind? There are many methods by which to do this. Among these, in the Buddhist tradition, is a special instruction called mind training, which focuses on cultivating concern for others and turning adversity to advantage. It is this pattern of thought, transforming problems into happiness that has enabled the Tibetan people to maintain their dignity and spirit in the face of great difficulties… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

How Nike’s Visual Tricks Made Oregon Look Fast : Ah ha, so at least there was some strategic thinking behind Oregon’s brightly colored socks in last night’s game: ‘Oregon is one of the fastest teams in the nation, and we wanted them to look fast,’ Todd Van Horn, Nike’s top football uniform designer, tells us…. Visually, the colorway of the uniforms is meant to bring your eyes to the fastest moving parts of the player’s bodies — the hands, and in particular the shins, which move twice as fast as the thighs do while running. The bright yellow socks, which blended seamlessly into the cleats, drew attention to that fact. Despite the visual trickery, Oregon lost 19-22 to Auburn in an excellent match that was decided only in the final seconds. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

How Nike’s Visual Tricks Made Oregon Look Fast : Ah ha, so at least there was some strategic thinking behind Oregon’s brightly colored socks in last night’s game: ‘Oregon is one of the fastest teams in the nation, and we wanted them to look fast,’ Todd Van Horn, Nike’s top football uniform designer, tells us…. Visually, the colorway of the uniforms is meant to bring your eyes to the fastest moving parts of the player’s bodies — the hands, and in particular the shins, which move twice as fast as the thighs do while running. The bright yellow socks, which blended seamlessly into the cleats, drew attention to that fact. Despite the visual trickery, Oregon lost 19-22 to Auburn in an excellent match that was decided only in the final seconds. Congrats to both teams — and to all of college football — for an exciting 2010 season. (And say what you will about the socks, but I thought Oregon’s helmets looked fantastic.) … Read the rest here