web design Archives - Page 2 of 2

November 11, 2012

Onstage at FOWD NYC- A Presentation About Culture and Web Design

I had the opportunity last month to give a presentation at Future Of Web Design NYC, a large international design conference. The focus of my talk was on how to use culture when designing responsive sites, and what factors are important to consider.

As designers, we are exploring more of responsive design, but I argue that we are not creating sites that are responsive to cultural differences. My session went through factors that can affect how sites are perceived in places with different cultural norms, like Africa and Japan. I talked about how to build visual and cultural diversity into websites, and how responsive design can address these quirks of culture, language, and tradition.

You can view the slide deck here, and I will be posting a video of the presentation as soon as it becomes available.

June 16, 2012

Failure to launch: 5 tips on working with deadlines as an in-house designer

Working as an in-house designer means you encounter a particular set of issues every day. I have attempted to summarize the five things that keep me on schedule. While I know I often fail to keep these principles sacred, it is important to spell them out.

The Code Behind Pixel Fable

When I set out to design Pixel Fable, I imagined a site overflowing with content and fun stories. Then reality happened. I needed to deliver a site that told a story, not just held content. A one page site was the simplest way to do this. I wanted the user to move steadily down, discovering new illustrations and sections of the story as they scrolled.

This post describes the markup, CSS, and javascript I used to create pixel-fable.com, as well as some of the pitfalls I ran into. I will not get into the augmented reality portions of the site, as that requires a longer and more technical post.

Your Website Is a Product

University publishers sell facts. They sell information. They sell opinions and theories. Until recently, that was all packaged in a bound book, but we all know that model is changing. Now, content is consumed on tablets and screens, as well as books. While a lot of the old publishing houses are sitting on mountains of information, they struggle to change the model for delivering it.

A thread running through all of that is their online presence, or lack of it. Without a robust digital home, the struggle to sell their information gets even harder. The big retailers have poured huge amounts of money into their websites, and most have the revenue to show for it.

Websites need to be viewed as a product, not simply as a place to sell other products. The information for sale is a part of that product.

January 24, 2012

Confessions of a Designer, from Anneke Short

Posters by Anneke Short, a London-based designer, listing what people say to designers. I'd add "Make it pop."

January 21, 2012

WebVisions NYC Conference 2012

I just got done with the WebVisions NYC Conference. On Wednesday, the morning session was on Adaptive Web Design, and run by Aaron Gustafson. While some of the points about mobile first are things I already am working on, I was really intrigued by the ARIA roles section of the talk. One attendee asked who, if anyone, was in charge of defining and guiding the ARIA spec, which I thought was a great question. I think we are all a bit wary of the browser prefixes and deprecated HTML bits. Aaron quickly described how a steering committee determined the roles, how they were to be used, etc. That seemed to satisfy people, although it makes me realize I need to do more research on them.

The second day was filled with speakers. While the morning sessions seemed to be mostly focused on the technology and nuts and bolts of web design, the afternoon was much more about the philosophy and mental processes behind what we do. Russ Unger's session on Core UX principles from Jim Henson, was especially fun. I guess with a show that has been so popular for so long, you can apply its success to a variety of different fields, but the analogy did work.

The last day was lots of speakers again, with lots of topics. Crystal Beasley's talk, 13 Signs your Site Needs a UX Exorcism, really hit home. I'm not sure if it is funny or sad that the very things I was going to start doing at work, were the very things she recommended people NOT do when it came to their UX. The whole day was a lot to process, but I came away with more energy and excitement for what I do, and lots of ideas on how to do it.