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Snook Go to the source

Sitepoint has recently released a book called Fancy Form Design . Sitepoint was kind enough to provide me with a copy of it and being only 176 pages, I was able to finish it in short order. Fancy Form Design is a quick read and has a clear focus: design quality forms. The book is broken down into 5 sections, each building on the one previous using a single project over the scope of the book. For a multi-author effort, this is impressive and appreciated. The first chapter talks about form elements including browser built-ins such as checkboxes and select menus. … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

I had an epiphany and I hope somebody at Adobe has been paying attention to the HTML5 developments. Adobe is well positioned to take advantage of emerging browser features, most specifically canvas. As great as canvas is, having a visual tool to assist in taking advantage of that would be ideal. Such a tool would smooth out the rough spots of cross-browser issues and could provide a set of pre-designed widgets and interactions that could be quickly dropped into any project. Flash developers would likely find it an easy transition to building canvas-based tools. It’d be easier because of their knowledge of animation and because of the similarities between ActionScript and JavaScript. … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

I had an epiphany and I hope somebody at Adobe has been paying attention to the HTML5 developments. Adobe is well positioned to take advantage of emerging browser features, most specifically canvas. As great as canvas is, having a visual tool to assist in taking advantage of that would be ideal. Such a tool would smooth out the rough spots of cross-browser issues and could provide a set of pre-designed widgets and interactions that could be quickly dropped into any project. Flash developers would likely find it an easy transition to building canvas-based tools… Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been taking a bit of a break lately. But there’s some exciting stuff coming up in the not too distant future. Excuses, Excuses Despite the temptations of ever-warming weather, I had to throw most of my free time towards a new presentation for An Event Apart and @media last week, and on a gameplan for teaching in the fall. Well, that and sometimes I just don’t have much of anything to say. Rather than drop posts on here that I don’t care about, I decided to take a few weeks away from this site to recharge. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Last week I had the pleasure of attending @media 2009 in London, where it has to be said, I had the best conference experience I’ve had for a long time. I prefer the more cosy nature of the event – a single track, not too large and overwhelming quantity of people, and simply great talks. I can’t pick one favourite presentation, as I came away feeling really inspired and energised by everything. It was also the last @media curated by Patrick Griffiths, who is moving on to follow other passions (from next year the conference will be in the able hands of the Web Directions Team ). I want to take this opportunity to thank Patrick for encouraging me to talk, and giving the best possible environment to do it in. … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Time to set your alarms or calendar notifications as tickets for dConstruct go on sale this Monday at 11am. As always we’ve scoured the world to bring you an amazing line-up of speakers. People who educated, entertained and inspired us over the last couple of years. We’ve got insightful speakers like Adam Greenfield , author of “Everyware”, talking about ubiquity and location, or Russell Davies from Wired Magazine talking about the rise in post digital culture. We’ve got entertaining and educational sessions like Nathan Shedroff and Chris Noessel ’s excellent talk about interaction paradigms in science fiction movies. … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

When CSS animations were first introduced in Webkit back in 2007, I expressed my concerns that CSS may not be the best place for it . Sound cool? I don’t think so. Not only does it make CSS more complicated, it makes JavaScript more complicated, too. Having actually taken some time to implement CSS animations in an example , a light bulb clicked. The way I looked at how animations were declared and in what situations you would declare them suddenly changed. … Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

The rule of thirds and ratios such as the golden section are fantastic methods for achieving designs that feel cohesive. The problem is these principles don’t really apply to web design. Golden Ratio: When the ratio between two numbers is the same as the ratio of the sum of those numbers and the larger number. Basically, a+b is to a as a is to b . Also referred to as the “divine proportion” from its frequent occurrence in nature. … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

I recently received a wireframe from a potential client outlining their plans for a new homepage, which in itself was pretty impressive. It showed that the client had knowledge of the industry as well as a good understanding about the importance of planning. To produce this wireframe our prospective client had used a relatively new tool called Balsamiq, which aims to capture the sketchy nature of hand drawn wireframes with the utility of a GUI application. On the surface this seems like a really good idea and it obviously allowed the client to produce something relatively quickly with little or no prior experience. As such, I think a tool like Balsamiq does have a place in the non-professional market… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Gestural (touch) UI is gaining momentum as a suitable companion, and in some cases worthy replacement, to the traditional UI via peripheral device input. Of course, with this momentum comes revised thinking about how we design for interaction. To this end, San Francisco-based Punchcut, an agency specializing in mobile design, threw together a very brief video demonstrating five considerations to keep in mind when designing for touch. (Beautiful job on motion design btw, guys.) The more detailed article that preceded the video can be found here: Design Considerations for Touch UI . … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

I was reviewing analytics data for Authentic Jobs this morning, and some figures emerged that are remarkable, but also somewhat unsurprising: For the same monthly period one year ago, visits to the site have increased by 45.9% and average time on the site has increased by 22.9% . For the same annual period one year ago (technically two years ago), visits to the site have increased by 76.0% and average time on the site has decreased by 5.1% . I say somewhat unsurprising because given the current economic climate, one can assume traffic to online job boards has increased in the last 6-12 months. Indeed, a recent report from comScore confirms this assumption: Job search ranked as the fastest growing U.S. online category in 2008 . Had comScore’s study included other countries, the same trend would likely have emerged. … Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

I’m trying to cut back on travel and speaking dates this year, but I’ll be out and about a few times. If you happen to be attending any of these events, be sure to say hello! Not the Same Old Story , SXSW Interactive, March 14, 11:30am I’ll be moderating a panel exploring how people from different backgrounds tackle the problem of design and storytelling online. From the description: If the web provides so many ways to connect with audiences, why are we all stuck telling the same story with our designs? Hear from a panel of storytelling experts on the importance of narrative and art direction online to break away from static and boring experiences. I’m honored to be joined on the panel by some very talented folks: Nicholas Felton, feltron.com Daniel Burka, Creative Director, Digg/Pownce Emily Gordon, Editor-in-Chief, Print Magazine , Emdashes.com Ian Adelman, Design Director, NYMag.com The Influencers , DOT DOT DOT, April 15 The upcoming Interaction Design Masters program at SVA is really building steam, and they’ve been giving back to the community with a free monthly lecture series called DOT DOT DOT. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

View from on stage as I’m preparing to speak at An Event Apart New Orleans 2008. I’ll be straight up with you: I don’t profess to be an expert speaker. I’ve had my share of presentations that have been total flops, along with some very successful ones. But if anything, I’ve done quite a bit of speaking over the past four years (see the summary on my LinkedIn public profile ), and therefore I’ve learned a few things about speaking along the way. Below are 20 things I’ve learned. Though this list is geared towards one-hour sessions rather than panels and workshops, some of the same principles apply… Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

There’s a lot of sneering about end of year lists, but I love looking back personally, as well as reading others (like Jeremy and Elliot ) as well. Anyway, I’ve been doing it since 1990, so I don’t see why I should stop now

Andy Budd Go to the source

Ticket sales for UX London launched today so I thought I’d take this opportunity to outline what we’re trying to achieve with this event. A lot of industry conferences are what I’d describe as “talking heads” events, where well known speakers stand up for an hour and give the audience a big does of inspiration. I love these type of events and this is essentially what we do at dConstruct . I always come away with a head full of ideas and an a renewed interest in my profession. The one criticism I hear is that, while these events are inspiring, you don’t usually end up learning new skills. I think a lot of people blame the speakers or conference organisers for this, but I actually think it’s down to the format… Read the rest here

Digital Web Go to the source

We a very interesting article this week from new contributor Steve Heffernan , who brings us REST ful CSS . Our last few CSS articles sparked quite a row in the comments, so I hope the same audience takes a long look at Steve’s proposals, even if web app languages like Ruby on Rails isn’t your day-to-day forte. CSS management is a growing issue as we make even greater advances in CSS techiques, JavaScript support and enhancement and rich interactions like web apps. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Let’s be honest: Who doesn’t profit from thinking in the shower? I imagine we’d be hard-pressed to find anyone reading these words who hasn’t had an epiphany, big or small, under the cadence of falling water. There’s something about showering that tends to spawn new ideas which may not occur otherwise. And the frequency with which this occurs seems to suggest that perhaps the occurrence isn’t merely happenstance, but instead a decent model for what has been called “creative pause” — the shift from being fully engaged in a creative activity to being passively engaged, or the shift to being disengaged altogether. Edward de Bono, who may have first coined the phrase, describes creative pause as a deliberate, self-imposed pause to consider alternative solutions to a problem — even when things are going perfectly fine — for “some of the best results come when people stop to think about things that no one else has stopped to think about” ( Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas )… Read the rest here

Clagnut Go to the source

Over on the IXDA mailing list, Jared Spool opened a discussion on Where that ACD thing fits in which he wonders what Activity-Centred Design (ACD) might be and where it fits into other design approaches. In the previous discussion of ACD versus UCD on this list, the focus has been defined simply: Someone practicing ACD focuses on the activities of the design, where someone practicing UCD focuses on the users. Some have said that ACD minimizes the need of doing personas (a ‘user-centered’ activity) and just looks at the underlying activities that are obvious to the design result. If one asserts that UCD is a collection of activities that go beyond ACD , looking at the goals, needs, and context of the user, beyond just that of the underlying activities, then I would say that ACD is just a lazy man’s UCD . In this context, Jared considers laziness to be a good thing, applauding ‘anyone who is creatively lazy, looking for ways reduce effort while producing more.’ Jared’s points reflect a conversation we occasionally have here at Clearleft . We say we do User-Centred Design (UCD), but ask ourselves if we really do ACD ? … Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

R eading is one of my great loves in life, a fact that is sometimes at odds with my smock wearing tendencies. Over the years, I’ve repeatedly affirmed self-education despite the lack of a classroom. This helps me stay sharp and challenge my notions about design and the stuff I make everyday. Good books are tough to find, so I’ve begun keeping track of notable ones. I still get a lot of emails asking about graphic design reading recommendations, so when I relaunched this site, I decided to dedicate a section to others like me where I could keep a list of books that I’ve found helpful. I don’t provide these as a comprehensive canon, but as a source of books I’ve vetted as worthwhile for those wanting to keep learning. … Read the rest here

Digital Web Go to the source

This week Digital Web features an interview (by our own Frances Berriman ) with Aral Balkan , the organizer of the upcoming <head> Conference . Aral talks about the goals of <head>, social interactions and the challenges of virtual communication. … Read the rest here