Visual Remedies

Interesting Challenges for 2010

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:03:42 -0500

Two potentially better ways to accomplish a long-term goal (i.e., new years resolution) and integrate a new habit into your daily rituals. I plan on trying the following two challenges.

Design Something Every Day!
"what if we spent less time surfing the Web looking for inspiration and more time creating and designing things?"

example - http://dailydropcap.com/

52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion
"52 Weeks will give you the tools you need to journal your creative journey..."

example - http://52weeksofux.com

A Look Backwards and to the Future

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:41:29 -0500

It's that time of year where we try to make sense of the past and predict the future. The following are a few web related examples.

10 Web trends to watch in 2010

Top Digital Trends for 2010

Google’s 2009: A Glimpse of the Web’s Next Decade

A Year In Review: 2009 Social Marketing Trends

.net magazine 2009 Web Awards

The Decade's 14 Biggest Design Moments

Picturing the Past 10 Years

Taking A Step Back

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:42:00 -0500

Over the past month I've stepped back from posting to this blog for the following two reasons.

First, at the end of the year I will be leaving my full-time Web Design position, after 9+ years, to seek new opportunities. All of my free time has gone towards completing work before I leave as well as preparing my portfolio, resume, etc.

Second, I wanted to look back at my original goals for this blog and assess what has and has not been accomplished and what needs to change. A big influence on my thinking has been recent debate in the web design world over the value of new "list" style blogs versus traditional "content" style blogs. Overall more time is required on my part to create content worthy of reading.

Alternative Type

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:13:41 -0500

Khoi Vinh shares the results of his search for "an alternative to the typeface Klavika... something similarly contemporary and similarly strong in its forms, a real workhorse of a typeface that I can call to duty during those times when Helvetica won’t do."

Read the full article - Font Hunt.

Web Development - Structure, presentation, and behavior

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:04:39 -0500

Jens Meiert outlines web development practices from 1990 through 2009 and projects what the future may hold in 2019.

Read HTML, CSS, and Web Development Practices: Past, Present, and Future (via @smashingmag)

Case Study: National Park Foundation micro site

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:03:53 -0500

by Tracy Brady of Modernista! and Matt FaJohn of FL2

“The Goal... the National Park Foundation needed a digital experience that could drive action and involvement—primarily in the form of email submissions and donations.”

Read Case Study: National Park Foundation micro site

View “This Is Your Land” micro site

Why We Look at Some Web Ads and Not Others

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:25:38 -0500

Eyetracking Web Usability is a new book by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice.

“Don't let the bland title fool you — what Nielsen and Pernice have done is track the eye movements of hundreds of people as they navigate Web sites...”

Read the complete book review at Time.com - Why We Look at Some Web Ads and Not Others

Web Design (fill in the blank) - There's an App for That!

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:27:29 -0500

There seems to be no shortage of new (new to the market or new to me) web design related applications appearing weekly if not daily. I'm always looking for ways to do things more efficiently without sacrificing quality. Unfortunately finding the time to try out these apps and assess whether or not they are worth the time and cost is difficult. I'm guessing most people don't change the applications they use unless they encounter a catastrophe and are forced to change. To help cut through the clutter I look to fellow web designs, and people in the industry, for reviews and recommendations. The following is a list of a few potentially useful web design related applications I've come across over that past few weeks. All come recommended although not by me until I do my own due diligence. If you've used any of them or prefer something else I'd love to hear about it.

Mockingbird
An online tool that makes it easy for you to create, link together, preview, and share mockups of your website or application.
(via multiple twitter sources)

User Testing
The fastest way to watch and hear real people using your website
(via bokardo)

ABtests
Learn. Share. Improve your conversions today.
(via bokardo)

skEdit
Simple, Flexible, Powerful Text Editor for the Web
(via jessebc)

Billings3
Time billing + invoicing
(via Noah Stokes)

The Movie Type

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:19:31 -0500

ScreenFonts - A monthly review of movie poster typography from FontFeed by FontShop. Check out the recent edition covering District 9 which uses "All kinds of Helvetica from Condensed to Extended."

CSS @font-face Is Gaining Momentum

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:28:19 -0500

Four recent write-ups on how to use CSS @font-face.

@font-face in Depth by Zoltan Du Lac

Starting with @font-face from Dave Shea

Bulletproof @font-face syntax by Paul Irish

Screencast: Converting OTF or TTF to EOT by Jonathan Snook

Designing Mood Boards - How-to and Why

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:16:46 -0500

Mood boards are a great way to address visual direction (look and feel) at an early stage in the design process. View Mood Boards for Designers - a presentation by Amy Lamp from Inside Forty.

Web Design Workshops - Filling a Void

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:06:53 -0500

Web Design conferences such as SXSW and An Event Apart, to name two of the many, have always been a source of current trends and best practices from experts. These multiple day events average around $1,000 (plus hotel and travel). With the slow economy budgets are tight and attendance to conferences has most likely dropped. This opens the door for workshops offered at half the price with one or two experts covering a single topic. The following are examples (past and present) of workshops that have filled a void.

Designing for the Web workshops (£325 - full day)
Practical, applicable design theory
Presented by Mark Boulton

Handcrafted CSS ($450 - full day)
A Day of Markup & Style
Presented by Dan Cederholm and Ethan Marcotte

For a Beautiful Web - Master classes (£373.75 - full day)
Advanced CSS styling
Presented by Andy Clarke

Adaptive Path Virtual Seminars ($129 - 60 minutes)
The Basics of Information Architecture
Presented by Chiara Fox Ogan.

Forty Training Sessions (Free?)
Mood board development, creation, and interpretation
Presented by Amy Lamp

Looking Back on the Week

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:51:15 -0500

A few things that caught me eye and made me think.

Browsers

Google Chrome Frame - A browser plug-in that enables HTML5 on Internet Explorer.

Why Corporations Don’t Upgrade IE6 and How Chrome Frame Could Help

Google Has A Solution For Internet Explorer: Turn It Into Chrome

Also some talk of accessibility issues with Google Chrome Frame.

]]>HTML

Jeremy Keith talks about HTML5 on Boagword podcast 184. A thorough explanation of HTML5 and related issues.

Is it premature to think that in a few years Google Chrome will become a major browser and developers will use HTML5 for features over Javascript frameworks like jQuery as well as Flash?

Type

Quality, free open-source fonts that can be used with @font-face from The Leagueof Moveable Type.

(via Hicksdesign, Simplebits)

Tungsten from Hoefler & Frere-Jones - "compact and sporty sans serif that’s disarming instead of pushy — not just loud, but persuasive." Similar to Compacta. (via ilovetypography)

Lettercase - "The first social font manager." Not sure what this means or when it will be released.

Typedia - "A Shared Encyclopedia of Typefaces." Looks like this has been a huge hit.

Self Promotion

Adaptive Path video - see "Watch our video: Adaptive Path in 2 ½ Minutes". This raises the bar for self promotion. Very well done.

SEO

Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. This clears up any confusion.

Quotes

"When it comes to getting things done, we need fewer architects and more bricklayers." -Colleen C. Barrett. (via the99percent)

Strategy

Can You Twitter Your Brand Promise? Making your brand twitterable.

Font Embedding Using CSS3 @font-face

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:28:01 -0500

I put together a quick example of CSS3 @font-face with open-source type from The League of Moveable Type - Junction, Chunk and Sorts Mill Goudy. If your audience uses current browsers this font embedding option has great potential. View the example

Screenshots of how things look in a Firefox 3.5 which supports @font-face and in IE7 which does not.

Cross Browser Testing - Browser Capture Services

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:14:50 -0500

You've designed and coded a website and now you want to see how it looks across multiple browsers and platforms. What's the fastest, easiest and best way to test? If you have the resources you could install all of the browsers on all of the platforms you are developing for. Another option would be to use a web based service that does most of the hard work for you in a few clicks. The following is a review of four major web based browser capture services.

]]>1. Browsercam

Services: browser capture, email capture, device capture, remote access
Cost: $59.95 per month for one user (other plans available)
Number of browsers: 10 - Windows, Mac and Linux
Speed of capture: a few minutes depending on the number of browsers selected
Pros: number of browser scenarios, granular options (screen size, Flash on/off), download
Cons: cost, the interface design and usability could be improved

What makes this option different from the rest?
Over 400+ combinations of browser, operating system and other scenarios. Multiple services including the only one offering device capture and remote access (at an additional cost).

2. Browserlab

Services: browser capture
Cost: free
Number of browsers: 7 (Windows, Mac)
Speed of capture: a few minutes depending on the number of browsers selected
Pros: 2-up view (need at least a 17" monitor), onion skin view superimposes two screen shots
Cons: a limited number of browsers, no download, the test screen shots seem to be embedded in Flash

What makes this option different from the rest?
The ability to do some visual analysis within the BrowserLab application such as 2-up view and onion skin view. It also integrates with Dreamweaver.

3. Browsershots

Services: browser capture
Cost: free, they may also offer a higher level (faster) service for $29.95 a month
Number of browsers: 94 browsers - Linux (30), Windows (54), MacOS (2), BSD (4)
Speed of capture: unpredictable, depends on site traffic, may be "unavailable"
Pros: free, largest number of browser scenarios, granular options (screen size, color depth, Javascript on/off, Java on/off, Flash on/off), download
Cons: it's not clear if your screen shots are private or public, the interface design and usability could be improved, checking and unchecking browsers is time consuming, unpredictable response time

What makes this option different from the rest?
Not knowing when the service will be available which is a major concern although when it is available it is robust - the most combinations of browser and operating system.

4. Litmus

Services: browser capture, email capture, spam analysis
Cost: $49 per month for one user (other plans available)
Number of browsers: 24 - Windows, Mac
Speed of capture: a few minutes depending on the number of browsers selected
Pros: useable interface, publishing of tests, validation (css, html), test versions, download
Cons: cost, only popular browsers - for example no Opera 10/OSX

What makes this option different from the rest?
It has the most useable interface with the most useful features as well as multiple services (all included in cost). Litmus also offers a Mac based browser capture application - Alkaline (17 Windows browsers on your Mac).

Conclusion

At a basic level all of the options reviewed provide acceptable browser capture. The differences between options is in the features and related cost. Make a choice based on your needs - the specific browsers and operating systems you need to test for and how you prefer to work.

Between my Mac and PC I have access to the majority of the most popular browsers which I test on while developing a website. Dealing with multiple IE versions on one PC is difficult. For my needs Litmus is the most versitile and if I must test on more obscure or edge case browsers I can use Browsershots. Litmus also include email capture which is a nice bonus. Browsercam was more than I needed for the cost. BrowserLab does not have enough browsers and I like to download the screen shot to analyze in Photoshop.