From the category archives:

Web Development

Stop Complaining About IE 6

February 2, 2010

Image from bioxid
Note: This is off-the-cuff. If know many will disagree with me. If you’re one, sound off in the comments. Of course, if you agree with me, I’d love to hear that too.
Internet Explorer 6 is a pain. Every Web professional knows this. Every one of us has cursed its name countless times. It [...]

16 comments Read the full article →

Replacing the Save Icon

January 20, 2010

The Save icon – that little ol’ floppy disk that exists in nearly every application sitting on your computer and on the Web. A representation of a piece of technology so utterly out of date that it’s meaning has shifted away from its physical existence into a concept of safety and permanence.
As a means of [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Type on the Web – An Evolutionary Shift

November 17, 2009

For designers and anyone interested in typography on the Web, I highly recommend you check out Web Font Specimen and the A List Apart article “Real Web Type in Real Web Context” that explains it. As we near a point where real typographic controls and options are available to us, its pivotal time for [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Missing the Point: Twitter for SEO

January 15, 2009

In my morning feed-scanning I came across Mihaela Lica’s SitePoint article touting how Twitter can impact SEO. Part of me wishes I had skipped it, but I read it and feel the need to review and correct what I believe is a faulty premise.
To make a long story short: although Twitter is a social media [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Drop the Lorem Ipsum – Have fun with Placeholder Text

December 2, 2008

“Lorem ipsum dolor…”
If you’re a design, build wireframes or prototypes, odds are good that you are all too familiar with the de facto standard for placeholder text. It works, especially if you want to ensure that people don’t focus their attention on the text itself. But it quickly gets old.
Sometimes you just need to [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Define then Solve

October 17, 2008

If I had 20 days to solve a problem , I would take 19 days to define it.
Albert Einstein
Solving a problem is easy.
Solving a problem well requires time to understand it.
Solving a problem after defining it leads to a downright sexy solution.

1 comment Read the full article →

The Business Model and User Experience

September 24, 2008

When the business model doesn’t match the user experience or… when nobody seems to understand what the business model is, the designer can’t know if they are helping or hurting the company by creating a better experience for the user.
Jared Spool, Why Understanding Business Models is Important to Ix Designers

0 comments Read the full article →

Burning Chrome

September 2, 2008

Google plans to release a new browser soon, based on Webkit, but with a new JavaScript engine, which is expected to be significantly faster than most browsers and will be sandboxed to ensure that a crash in one tab doesn’t take out the rest of the browser.
In addition to the blog post, they’ve created [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

In Search of Useful Prototypes

July 29, 2008

Normally a post describing a site launch doesn’t grab my attention, as they cover the same ground (base level descriptions of the design process, technologies used, how great the client is etc.). But the write-up the launch of Dangerbird Records by Athletics, a design firm out of Brooklyn includes a discussion of their home-grown prototyping [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

This Ain’t Right: Fight the Orphan Works Act

July 23, 2008

Jeffrey Zeldman pointed out the dangerous Orphan Works Acts making their way through Congress. This act has far-reaching implications for everyone, but the impact is even larger for those who work or publish on the ‘Net. Ultimately Congress is attempting to reduce your rights as a creator (whether you write, draw, design Web sites or [...]

5 comments Read the full article →