David McCandless: The Beauty of Data Visualization : This 18-minute TED talk is worth watching. I’ve been following David’s site, Information is Beautiful , for some time now. His presentation is as informative and entertaining as the site. … Read the rest here
Good vs. Great Design (Video) : Video from my presentation, “Good vs. Great Design”, at LessConf 3010. This is the first time in the four years I’ve given this presentation that video from the session has been made available. It’s lengthy. … Read the rest here
Stanford University: iPhone Application Development (iTunes) : If you’re interested in teaching yourself how to develop for iPhone, this might be the ideal resource. Includes videos and presentation slides, all free of charge. And the “professors” are Apple employees Alan Cannistraro and Josh Shaffer. Don’t know Objective-C? Start following Dan Walker’s series of articles, the first titled “ Learn Objective-C: Day 1 ”. … Read the rest here
The Declaration of Independence, Rendered with CSS3 and @font-face : The markup is fairly clean, but still somewhat presentational. On the whole, however, this is nicely executed. … Read the rest here
The Cure for Creative Blocks? Leave Your Desk. : Jocelyn K. Glei, writing for The 99 Percent: Though we are more likely than ever to be tethered to others by our iPhones and Blackberries, it’s more important than ever to carve out periods of uninterrupted contemplation. To take our brains out of their scattershot Internet patterns and navigate a new city, take in nature on a long walk, sit quietly and read a book, or have a serendipitous conversation with a stranger. I’d refer to this as creative pause , and I agree with Jocelyn’s remarks about it being a necessary element in the flow of creativity. … Read the rest here
Flickr Realigns its Photo Page : Not a drastic overhaul, but it needn’t be. The very page I’ve used in my Good vs. Great Design presentations as an example of great visual hierarchy improves its hierarchy yet again. Even larger pictures, title and description closer together, a visually reduced toolbar, and a few new features. … Read the rest here
I’ll be doing a 5 minute microslot on CSS filters at the next Oxford Geek Night on July 21st. CSS filters is the practice of linking to your stylesheets in different ways in order to control how different browsers and their versions get your CSS . It’s something I get quite a lot of questions about when people look at my source code, so I thought I’d explain it via a presentation! The OGN microslot is the ideal format for it. If you live nearish to Oxford, and haven’t been to Geek Night yet, do come and see what you’re missing. It’s a free event (sponsored by local gents/superstars Torchbox ) in the Jericho Tavern in Oxford… Read the rest here
Web Design Concepts for Non-Web Designers : These slides are from a HOW presentation given by Matthew Richmond, aka Chopping Block . The slide format uses HTML5 and is based on the HTML5 Slideshow by Marcin Wichary, Ernest Delgado, Alex Russell, and Brad Neuberg. What’s significant about this presentation is that Matthew’s shop has been a Flash development shop almost since its inception. Although Matthew firmly believes that there are experiences Flash provides that HTML5 cannot replicate, he’s very aware of the heated zealous crazy current debate between the two technologies. Matthew and I, along with Patrick McNeil , had the pleasure of sitting on a panel together at HOW. Matthew and Patrick are both sharp individuals, and it was a pleasure to field questions from the audience together. … Read the rest here
Good vs. Great(er) Design : I’m not typically fond of publishing my slides without the additional context provided by audio or video from the presentation, as my slides aren’t meant to stand on their own. But I’ll do it anyway. This PDF contains slides from the updated version of my “Good vs. Great Design” presentation, given recently at LessConf and HOW Design Conference … Read the rest here
Modify the Presentation Layout of Safari 5 Reader : This tip will work for modifying just about anything, not just color. Try eliminating line 85 if you’re as unenthused as I am about justified text. … Read the rest here
IE and HTML5 Testing, or “Apple’s Hilariously Disingenous ‘HTML5’ Showcase” : Bruce Lawson, Opera employee and member of The Web Standards Project : In the 18 months I’ve really focussed on HTML5, I’ve seen approximately 238 different HTML5 ‘testing’ sites appear. Most of them wildly pick and mix specs, checking for HTML5, related WHATWG-derived specifications such as Web Workers and then, drunk and giddy with buzzwords, throw in SVG, CORS, CSS Media Queries, and some Apple proprietary CSS extension before hyperventilating and going to bed for a lie down. He goes on to mention Apple’s HTML5 Showcase in support of his argument, while commending IE9’s HTML5 tests: Therefore, it’s particularly refreshing to see the new Microsoft IE9 HTML5 Testing Centre bringing some sanity to the party. None of the scope-creep for our friends in Microsoft. … Read the rest here
My Interview with TechDrawl at LessConf : Includes interview commentary, a brief snippet from my presentation Q&A, and remarks from a few attendees afterwards. … Read the rest here
New HTML5 Form Field Type: range : Amidst all the HTML5 buzz over the past year, somehow I missed this: HTML5 offers a new input field type, type=”range” , which renders a UI slider for entering data anywhere between the min and max values you specify. This feature could become as useful as CSS multiple backgrounds, in that a) it’s long overdue and b) we’re already faking it all over the web. The HTML5 presentation from which this slide was taken, by the way, is wonderful. It’s an interactive teaching tool on the subject of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript APIs. Slide 41 is really wild—press 3, then arrow left or right. Update: I failed to mention these slides are best viewed with a browser that already supports these features, i.e… Read the rest here
In October 2009, the hashtag #lessconf began showing up repeatedly in my Twitter stream. The tweets were remarkably positive for something I’d heard nothing about previously. It turns out Steven Bristol and Allan Branch of Less Everything , the bright minds behind LessAccounting , were hosting a conference. Crush It! author Gary Vaynerchuk, Wufoo founder Kevin Hale and others spoke, and nearly 200 of you attended. This year’s LessConf 3010 resumes in Atlanta, Georgia, May 21–22… Read the rest here
Edward Tufte Goes to Washington : The New York Times: [Tufte] was appointed by President Obama to a panel to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which monitors the way the $787 billion in the stimulus package is being spent…. Ever the statistician, Mr. Tufte, whose first official meeting in the capital will be in mid-April, quantified his optimism: “Chances are 7 in 10 that I can significantly improve the presentation on accountability and transparency of stimulus money. Three in 10 that there would be a broader change in transparency in Washington.” … Read the rest here
I recently presented a session at MIX10, The Type We Want , in which I covered where we came from with using custom fonts on the web, where we are now and the hurdles we face moving forward. All of the videos and slides are posted at http://live.visitmix.com/Videos . You’ll have to sift through the list to find my session, DS15. The slideshow posted on the MIX10 site is the original PowerPoint file which, ironically, won’t show the right fonts. I’ve uploaded the slides to Slideshare, though, and have embedded them for your perusal. … Read the rest here
In order to get more people in the design scene speaking at events like SillSwap , BarCamp and even dConstruct or UX London , I’ve been toying with the idea of organising a free public speaking course. It would be held on a yet-to-be-determined Saturday at the Clearleft offices in Brighton and would focus on practical, hands-on tuition. We would start with how to plan, research and design a talk that delights your audience, paying special attention to story telling and narrative. We would then move onto the delivery and performance side of things; teaching people how to project their voice, vary their tone, use the stage and work the audience. It’s all basic stuff, but it’s these rookie errors that can damage an otherwise excellent presentation. To ensure everybody gets the individual attention they need, the even will be for a limited number of people… Read the rest here
Michael Bierut is such a down-to-earth, practical designer (and speaker) who works hard to do amazing work without the typical stigma associated with graphic designers. This practicality is clearly evident in the video above, a presentation given at CreativeMornings in New York City. And if you haven’t seen Helvetica , you need to see how his commentary really helps the movie shine. Michael’s presentation on clients is one of those “should be required viewing” kind of presentations. It’s fantastic… Read the rest here
I’ve spent a bit of time playing around with HTML5’s canvas element lately. It’s a fun new toy and has a lot of potential to be useful. But the biggest headache I’m finding so far is the lack of authoring tools. SVG has been around for ages, whereas Canvas is still relatively new. (Mozilla’s Vladimir Vukićević has a good overview presentation of the differences between the two, and when and where to use each.) SVG support is built into plenty of graphic editing tools; Canvas support is so far sadly lacking, although Matt May pointed me to this YouTube video that shows off the upcoming Canvas support Adobe’s CS5 suite will have, whenever it becomes available… Read the rest here
As a self confirmed conference junkie I speak at a dozen events each year, and attend many more. As such I’ve probably seen close to a thousand talks over the last five years. Because of this I’ve got a pretty good idea what makes for an exciting talk and how you can guarantee your session will suck. As somebody who also organises two conferences, UX London and dConstruct I’m really keen on getting new talent into the speaking circuit while still maintaining quality. As such I’ve put together a quick guide to help both new and experienced speakers kick arse/ass. … Read the rest here
