#26439
Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign
Apparently the Incessant Redesign is far from extinction. Like a kid in a candy store, we creatives redesign like it's the new black. Why do we possess such an insatiable desire to refresh and remake? Why do we thrive on renewal? What tempts us to be seduced by the sway of renaissance?
Moll, Cameron. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design
#30184
Most e-mail obfuscation techniques I've tried tend to be bothersome and time-consuming to implement because they have to be applied to each and every e-mail address that you want to protect. Most require you to use lengthy inline script elements and inline event handlers. They may also invalidate your markup.
Van Gils, Roel. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>Privacy>Email
#30185
Greatest Copy Shot Ever Written
Anyone can be a copywriter, but the best copywriters actually think about what they're writing.
Padmore, Nick. List Apart, A (2007). Articles>Writing>Business Communication
#30100
Calm tension, communicate more easily, and run your projects more efficiently by applying the right relationship management techniques.
LaFerriere, Keith. List Apart, A (2007). Articles>Management>Collaboration
#25523
Helping Your Visitors: a State of Mind
Even the simplest website is harder to figure out than a catalog or magazine. We all know how to 'use' a catalog: start at the front cover and keep turning the pages. But with every new site we visit, we have to 'learn' how it works, how its 'pages' turn, how to find what we’re looking for. Text that takes visitors' needs into account can help guide them through the maze.
Usborne, Nick. List Apart, A (2004). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design
#26471
High Accessibility Is Effective Search Engine Optimization
It’s no coincidence that search engines love highly accessible websites; in fact, by designing for accessibility, you’re already using effective search-engine optimization techniques. Andy Hagans explains yet another reason to pay attention to accessibility.
Hagans, Andy. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Search
#26286
High-Resolution Image Printing
You probably already know how to use media-specific CSS to provide a suitable layout for the printed page. But how great would it be to be able to go further and provide a better print alternative through the use of specific high-resolution images specifically for print? Awesome? Here’s how.
Howard, Ross. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design>CSS>Printing
#26757
The home page is your first impression. And like the old saying goes, you only get one chance. So home pages themselves have a unique set of design goals.
Powazek, Derek. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Rhetoric
#31826
How Do You Walk the Line Between Work and Home? Share Your Best Practices With ALA
At $4.14 a gallon in the United States, $5.29 a gallon in Canada, and $8.70 a gallon in the U.K., the price of gas is just one reason many web workers now commute from the bed to the basement as part of a conscious choice to work from home.
#28236
Online communities can take time to get off the ground. Like small businesses, most fail to thrive due to poor planning and support. John Gladding explains how anyone who can host a great party can start a successful forum.
Gladding, John. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Community Building
#25548
Become a famous web designer. Or ... just look like one.
Lang, W.K. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Web Design
#28712
Many web designers, myself included, come to the web with a background in the graphic arts. We think in pictures, not in code. When we first begin designing for the web, we'll use HTML and CSS crudely, as a means to an end--a method of arranging pretty boxes in space--without grasping the true nature of the box itself or what it contains. Altering that strictly visual mentality is the highest hurdle to overcome when a graphic designer first dives into semantics and web standards. For the visual designer, really understanding web standards means you'll have to change the way you think about design.
Cook, Craig. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>Standards>CSS
#27856
How to Plan Manpower on a Web Team
Just how many people does it take to properly manage a website? It depends on the website. Shane Diffily explains how to figure it out.
Diffily, Shane. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Project Management>Collaboration
#20234
Although they appear maddeningly incomprehensible at first, W3C specifications are actually great sources of information, once you understand their secrets. Learn how to read the specs.
Eisenberg, J. David. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Web Design>Standards>Specifications
#25505
How to Save Web Accessibility from Itself
If you choose to make standards-compliant websites, inevitably you will have to follow the guidelines. It's foreseeable that you could be legally required to follow WCAG 2.0. You could opt into following the guidelines or they could be foisted upon you. You thus have an enlightened self-interest in ensuring the new guidelines actually make sense. Moreover, we simply need more contributors.
Clark, Joe. List Apart, A (2003). Design>Web Design>Accessibility
#20233
Dynamic websites are great. Dynamically-generated URLs stink. In Part One of a new series, Till Quack shows how to use PHP to convert machine-generated URLs into human-friendly ones.
Quack, Till. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability
#20223
Great writing can’t be taught, but bad writing can be avoided. Mahoney shares tips that may enhance the writing on your personal site.
Mahoney, Dennis A. List Apart, A (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging
#25451
Hybrid CSS dropdowns allow access to all pages, keep the user aware of where she is within the site, and are clean and light to boot.
Shepherd, Eric. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Web Design>DHTML>CSS
#27971
I Wonder What This Button Does
We've all lost work to file overwrites and other minor disasters. There are remedies--and as Mike West explains, you don't have to have awe-inspiring technical skills to take advantage of them.
West, Mike. List Apart, A (2006). Articles>Project Management>Technology
#30099
If I Told You You Had a Beautiful Figure...
Lay out images consistently across your site using a liitle clever JavaScript.
Gustafson, Aaron. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design>JavaScript
#26325
Improving Link Display for Print
It seemed my zeal for linkage had come into conflict with my desire to improve print usability.
Gustafson, Aaron. List Apart, A (2005). Design>Document Design>CSS>Printing
#28288
In Defense of Difficult Clients
Challenging clients: avoidable pain or necessary stepping stone to enlightenment? Rob Swan considers the benefits of un-perfect clients.
Swan, Rob. List Apart, A (2006). Articles>Web Design>Consulting
#13763
Web developers are a tough lot, willing to brave constantly changing technologies, competing “standards,” and tools that are often clumsy and dull. Yet brave as we are, two little words strike fear in the hearts of even the boldest of us, making us consider a change to a less stressful job-air traffic control, perhaps. Scope creep threatens to undermine all our hard work, causing rewrite after rewrite of carefully crafted markup and code. In short, scope creep is evil. That’s the prevailing wisdom. But consider the results of four studies done over the last five years that show that as little as 20% of corporate software projects are successful. Prevailing, it may be, but is it wisdom?
Helms, Hal. List Apart, A (2002). Design>Project Management>Web Design
#26758
Many articles have been written on the grail, and several good templates exist. However, all the existing solutions involve sacrifices: proper source order, full-width footers, and lean markup are the usual compromises made in pursuit of this elusive layout.
Levine, Matthew. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>CSS
#20252
Indie Exposure: It's All About You
Reports of the death of online content have been greatly exaggerated. Julia Hayden finds that independent content production is alive and well.
Hayden, Julia. List Apart, A (2000). Design>Web Design
