http://tc.eserver.org/publisher/digital_web_magazine A listing of works published by digital web magazine in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/digital_web_magazine http://tc.eserver.org/34658.html http://tc.eserver.org/34658.html While putting together a good tutorial movie for your blog or for an article you’re writing requires some thought and preparation, and would benefit from extra time spent on post-processing, the good news is that capturing screen shots and screen movies can be done inexpensively on a Mac. Although I take a glance at the wider context of preparing an entire tutorial and give you some tips along the way, my focus here is on the low-cost software you can use. http://tc.eserver.org/33662.html http://tc.eserver.org/33662.html The landscape of web writing has changed. The value of well-edited and reviewed content is giving way to faster, less-refined posts on blogs, comments and services like Twitter. It is clear from the dwindling number of article pitches that many prefer to draw traffic to their own sites. http://tc.eserver.org/33663.html http://tc.eserver.org/33663.html In this article I will propose a new method for organizing CSS that better maps to how popular web application frameworks are built; and I’ll also provide some helpful code to make this easy to accomplish. The examples I use are based on Ruby on Rails, but the concepts should be easily transferrable to other MVC frameworks. http://tc.eserver.org/33664.html http://tc.eserver.org/33664.html An accessibility statement provides website visitors with information on how to utilize any accessibility features implemented, together with known barriers and how to overcome them. This information is usually presented on a dedicated page within the website. This article will look at the benefits of providing an accessibility statement together with common problems, before evaluating whether accessibility statements are useful. http://tc.eserver.org/33665.html http://tc.eserver.org/33665.html A good starting point for planning the future of your website is to analyze what you already have. To some extent we are doing this all the time. That is how new projects happen. However, a more formal approach helps to better inform your decision-making throughout the web project. There are two ways to better understand your current website: qualitative and quantitative. http://tc.eserver.org/33436.html http://tc.eserver.org/33436.html Persuasive navigation is navigation that persuades a user to do something. That something can be anything that you want the user to do—buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, or download a game. By understanding user needs and matching them up with business goals, you can persuade users to go where you want them to go, making them happy at the same time. http://tc.eserver.org/33449.html http://tc.eserver.org/33449.html The distinction between information architecture and usability may seem like semantics, but there are significant differences between the two disciplines. Though they are often discussed interchangeably, and practitioners are often well-versed in both, information architecture and usability differ in their scope and areas of focus. http://tc.eserver.org/33354.html http://tc.eserver.org/33354.html Usability and design are two fields that collide more often than not. But why is that? Why can’t we all just get along and center our efforts around delivering a better product, a top-notch Web site or a user-friendly interface. Everybody would benefit from an open-minded, reciprocal understanding. Right? http://tc.eserver.org/33361.html http://tc.eserver.org/33361.html All the books tell me to set goals for my site. OK. They say that those goals need to be measurable and definite. Fine. But asking my client, “What are the site’s goals?” never seemed to get me what I wanted. It occurred to me that a better approach might be to get some background info from the client and then set the goals and present them to the client for approval. http://tc.eserver.org/33223.html http://tc.eserver.org/33223.html One of the most overlooked aspects of designing a Web site is how users get to it. Separate factions are often devoted to promoting, designing, and maintaining a Web site, and the lack of communication and involvement can lead to apathy or confusion. Too frequently is it assumed that visitors are knowledgeable about the company and Web site, and that they enter through the home page. False assumptions about visitor entry can plague even a well-planned, well-designed site. http://tc.eserver.org/33197.html http://tc.eserver.org/33197.html On a Web site or intranet each of the alphabetically arranged entries or subentries is hyperlinked to the page or to an anchor within a page to where the topic is discussed. Since an alphabetical index can be quite long, it is often divided into pages for each letter of the alphabet. Typically, each letter is linked at the top of the page allow a jump to the start of that letter’s section of the index. http://tc.eserver.org/33103.html http://tc.eserver.org/33103.html Every intranet is different, and every section of a company’s Intranet can be used differently. There are a number of different methods to how an Intranet can be used to benefit a company. However, the three most popular and most valuable are knowledge management, collaboration and communication, and task management. http://tc.eserver.org/33048.html http://tc.eserver.org/33048.html Despite best intentions, intranets often fail to deliver on the value they promise. Why? Companies take an 'if we build it they will come' approach. Too often, intended users don't come. And if people don't use the intranet, it will never deliver value. http://tc.eserver.org/32964.html http://tc.eserver.org/32964.html We can group all of the basic tenets of design into two categories: principles and elements. For this article, the principles of design are the overarching truths of the profession. They represent the basic assumptions of the world that guide the design practice, and affect the arrangement of objects within a composition. http://tc.eserver.org/33002.html http://tc.eserver.org/33002.html What is the difference between user centered design and usability? Until writing this column I didn't have the faintest idea. http://tc.eserver.org/32837.html http://tc.eserver.org/32837.html Working as an accessibility consultant in an IT company is a very frustrating job right now. Highly publicized lawsuits and deep-rooted accessibility myths leave us with a lot to explain when the final product does not really help visitors. Our clients simply don’t care about accessibility as much as we’d like them to, and there are several reasons for that. http://tc.eserver.org/32842.html http://tc.eserver.org/32842.html The demand for accessible sites is growing, but web workers, like you, are often unclear how to make sites more accessible. Designing an accessible site isn't necessarily harder, but it involves unique limitations that make you approach design from a different perspective. http://tc.eserver.org/32855.html http://tc.eserver.org/32855.html To design innovative Web applications that create opportunities rather than barriers, study the variety of characteristics of people, situations, and devices in your audience--it will give you new perspective from which to approach your design. http://tc.eserver.org/32863.html http://tc.eserver.org/32863.html There are several reasons inaccessible Web products get published. One we discussed in my last article is that some clients just don’t care about accessibility. Their reasons make a lot of sense if you put yourself in their shoes. Another reason is developer mistakes. Making mistakes is natural, and suffering the consequences and learning from them is what makes us better developers and better people. http://tc.eserver.org/32864.html http://tc.eserver.org/32864.html This two part-article discusses reasons why some projects fail to result in properly accessible products. http://tc.eserver.org/32710.html http://tc.eserver.org/32710.html Digital Web running a provocative article on CSS techniques? Shurely shome mishtake! In this extract from the forthcoming Sitepoint book of the same name, this article explains how you can use tables for layout in modern web design with a clean conscience. http://tc.eserver.org/32634.html http://tc.eserver.org/32634.html Designers of digital products and services like ourselves can dramatically improve our work by generating more concepts early in our projects. In this article, I’ll try to make concept design easier to learn by illustrating three simple tools for generating concepts. http://tc.eserver.org/32635.html http://tc.eserver.org/32635.html This article will explain some simple techniques which, if incorporated into the design of a website, will enhance its accessibility and usability for people who have a vision, hearing, physical, cognitive, or learning disability. http://tc.eserver.org/32636.html http://tc.eserver.org/32636.html It’s not a secret. We all use stock imagery in our day-to-day design work. So why doesn’t anybody ever talk about it? Just like the inventory of a grocery store, not everything you see on a stock photo site is an ingredient for a gourmet production. By far the worst mistake you can make when choosing stock is selecting stereotypical or clichéd images to convey a concept.My guess is that we’re all just a little ashamed. We want people to see our work as just that: ours. When you have to tell someone that you didn’t create that grungy texture, or you didn’t take that beautiful photo, it feels a lot like admitting that you’ve cheated on a test. But this is nonsense—as designers, it’s our job to put things together and deliver a composition that looks good. http://tc.eserver.org/32637.html http://tc.eserver.org/32637.html Designers are, as a rule, a fussy bunch, and when it comes to their own business communications they’re even more so. Designing a website for an award-winning design firm verges on the impossible. A design firm’s web presence primarily serves as a tool to attract new business from a global community—and, secondarily, as a means to show off. Designers are by far their own worst critics, and their websites have to tread a fine line between being cutting-edge so as to attract young new business, and more traditional so as to appeal to established or more conservative businesses. http://tc.eserver.org/32638.html http://tc.eserver.org/32638.html Think of the library system as something akin to the open-source movement before software. Subsidized institutions buy books, subscribe to journals and proprietary databases, and pay people to help you find “stuff”, all essentially at no cost to you. http://tc.eserver.org/32639.html http://tc.eserver.org/32639.html A person’s home and the way he presents it are physical manifestations of his personality just as the design and content of a corporate website are virtual manifestations of a brand. Environments, both real and virtual, affect human perception and behavior. http://tc.eserver.org/32640.html http://tc.eserver.org/32640.html Virtual marketplaces bear little resemblance to brick-and-mortar enterprises. This is precisely why electronic Customer Relationship Management (eCRM) is so crucial to online success. http://tc.eserver.org/32641.html http://tc.eserver.org/32641.html Photoshop. Fireworks. If you’re a serious web designer (and not using the GIMP) you’re going to be using one or the other. But which is best? http://tc.eserver.org/32642.html http://tc.eserver.org/32642.html In the endless struggle to truly separate presentation from structure, have we lost our way? Are the old-school advocates for CSS still pushing radical and unnecessary thinking to try and justify the mass-adoption of a technology that has already been massively adopted? Smart CSS isn’t always sexy CSS… and lets face it, when working with real world applications, smart is where you want to be. http://tc.eserver.org/32643.html http://tc.eserver.org/32643.html Social networks as we know them—MySpace, Facebook, Twitter—each keep identity and personal relationships separate from one another. Every time you join a network, that information has to be duplicated, by hand, by you. It’s a familiar process, but in 2008 we have the tools to break that trend. http://tc.eserver.org/32644.html http://tc.eserver.org/32644.html Outside of the tech industry, skepticism and fear are the norm when it comes to social media. But it is simply about finding the best way to communicate with an audience. Social media consists of the same content already in use: text, audio, images, and video. The difference lies in its ability to open up new channels of communication. http://tc.eserver.org/32645.html http://tc.eserver.org/32645.html if Post Secondary Educators don’t change their attitude towards you—and soon—you are going to find it really hard to find trained staff for your businesses. http://tc.eserver.org/32646.html http://tc.eserver.org/32646.html Internet startups are generally as successful as a nerd in a singles bar. Ventures that get off the ground rarely get knee-high. Why? You don’t need a deckful of scatter charts to do this, but you do need the willingness to make some difficult decisions now—and stick to them later.The biggest problem I’ve seen isn’t lack of talent, enthusiasm or even funding. It lies in skipping a critical early stage of development I call the “alpha-alpha” stage, or “alphalpha” for short. http://tc.eserver.org/32647.html http://tc.eserver.org/32647.html Arguing for web standards and semantically clean and rich websites is an uphill battle. For years we had to deal with browsers that needed us to mess around with HTML just to display a document in several columns and the visual outcome was much more important than the structure. http://tc.eserver.org/32648.html http://tc.eserver.org/32648.html Deep down below the layers of interface, CSS, HTML, and XML—down where only the geekiest among us roam—everything comes down to this: it’s all zeroes and ones. On or off. The digital switch Though interaction and conversion becomes a bit more complicated at the point the interface meets the visitor, though there are a few more shades of gray, in the end it comes down to the same thing: yes or no. http://tc.eserver.org/32649.html http://tc.eserver.org/32649.html They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this day and age of digital media, video on your web site can be priceless. Whether you have a corporate, social networking, or video streaming site, video instantly captures your visitor’s attention and describes your product and services quickly and effectively. Due to its large install base, Flash video is now the de-facto standard in internet video delivery. With recent updates to Flash 9, Flash Player adds the capability of playing H264 encoded video in full screen mode, making the delivery of Flash videos on the internet not only practical, but efficient as well. In this article, I will examine a few different techniques for delivering Flash videos over the internet and compare the advantages and disadvantages of each. http://tc.eserver.org/32650.html http://tc.eserver.org/32650.html The important things to address are page weight and load time. Both of these factors have a negative impact on the user, and we should be working towards minimizing it. http://tc.eserver.org/32651.html http://tc.eserver.org/32651.html Just as it is important to choose the proper knife when slicing-n-dicing vegetables, it is critical to prescribe a suitable user interface to support faceted filtering. Faceted filtering allows you to narrow down a large list of objects to a manageable size by applying flexible combinations of attribute filters in any order. Rather than forcing you down fixed paths within a website’s information architecture, faceted filtering allows you to multi-dimensionally slice-n-dice the information in a manner that best accommodates your specific needs. A user interface that optimally supports faceted filtering must expose its robust functionality in a way that expresses affordances, controls complexity, and follows existing standards that have been pre-established across the web. http://tc.eserver.org/32652.html http://tc.eserver.org/32652.html Django is an open-source Web framework, written in Python, that allows you to easily and rapidly develop interactive, data-centric web applications. It came into being when two Web developers—Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison—in Kansas, after moving their newspaper’s website from PHP to Python, found themselves repeatedly solving similar problems. They decided to extract the common functionality and released the resulting framework in 2005. http://tc.eserver.org/32653.html http://tc.eserver.org/32653.html Photoshop promises great power, but can be more than a little challenging when it comes to clarity and patience. New users can easily get frustrated at how daunting some of the challenges can be when it comes to getting the job done, and even those who are a bit more familiar with it still find points of frustration that impede both production and creativity. So for those who barely know Photoshop, but would like to become more familiar with it—find out what sort of things to look for when it comes to the palette system, layers, styles, effects, various tools, and saving or exporting their work—let’s look at the basics. http://tc.eserver.org/32654.html http://tc.eserver.org/32654.html Never dive into creating your presentation without knowing the constraints within which you are working, as they can really alter how you present. When I started to prepare for my presentation, I had to ruthlessly narrow down what my goals for speaking were before I tackled the nitty gritty. http://tc.eserver.org/32655.html http://tc.eserver.org/32655.html For the viewer, time shifting has been a dramatic improvement over the traditional experience of watching TV. The web is about to experience as dramatic a shift in place for the user of a website, which will inevitably affect the way we design and develop web sites and applications in the future. http://tc.eserver.org/32656.html http://tc.eserver.org/32656.html I’ve seen too many web designers dive into their first email marketing project before doing the proper planning. There are some basic things you need to square away before you send your first email newsletter. http://tc.eserver.org/32657.html http://tc.eserver.org/32657.html Applications, particularly business applications, can often require a lot of date manipulation, but that code could be simplified if JavaScript’s core Date object had some additional methods. In this article, I will show you how to add custom methods to the Date object that are inherited by each date instance. http://tc.eserver.org/32658.html http://tc.eserver.org/32658.html At its core, building an online portfolio is much the same as any other design brief—the only difference is that you are your own client. So as with any design brief, it’s best to begin by asking yourself, “who is my target audience?” Let’s look at two types of portfolios. http://tc.eserver.org/32659.html http://tc.eserver.org/32659.html As any web developer worth his salt will know, browsers can differ in their interpretation of CSS rules and properties. One way of coping with this headache is to use various hacks; they might (in some cases) be invalid CSS, but they force browsers to read only certain parts of your CSS and render your page or web site as close to how you intended as possible. CSS hacks are one of the common ways to send specific instructions to different browsers, be it to solve min-width issues or box model interpretations. http://tc.eserver.org/32620.html http://tc.eserver.org/32620.html Nobody really expected the stranglehold that Apple, Microsoft and Real had on the web streaming market in 2003 to be broken. Yet by Spring 2005, just 18 months after that presentation, that is exactly what had happened. Those three web video delivery technologies practically vanished, replaced almost entirely by Flash Video. This is not to say QuickTime and Windows Media are dead technologies. They aren’t by a long shot, but when it comes to putting video on the web, the Flash Player has rapidly become the only game in town. http://tc.eserver.org/32623.html http://tc.eserver.org/32623.html In this article, we’re going to look at a method of captioning a Flash video file: embedding the XML directly into the FLV file. In very simple terms, the XML document will contain the cue points for the captions. When one of those cue points is reached, the caption appears over the video. http://tc.eserver.org/32624.html http://tc.eserver.org/32624.html In the exercise that follows, and in the second part of this series, we are going to add captions, using both methods, to the same video. For those passionate about web standards, the first method involves the use of Timed Text captions. If you go this route, you need to follow the standard laid out by the W3C. There is a lot to it but, in a nutshell, it requires you to create a specific type of XML document using the required tags. http://tc.eserver.org/30469.html http://tc.eserver.org/30469.html As developers, we have more and more JavaScript libraries to choose from and, of course, the option not to use any at all. Over time, we each tend to favor one method of coding over another. For those who'd like to learn more about jQuery, one of the more popular libraries, here's a crash course written with code-savvy web designers in mind. http://tc.eserver.org/30406.html http://tc.eserver.org/30406.html Even the smallest adjustments to a page's design, layout, and content can make a major improvement in the overall quality of the page. Taking a fresh look at sections of a site that have been ignored for a while can give you an entirely new perspective. By making small incremental changes and testing them against real world scenarios, we can more easily focus on continuous improvement without going back to square one every time. http://tc.eserver.org/30410.html http://tc.eserver.org/30410.html The humble contact form: It's the cornerstone of nearly every website, from the humble personal blog right up to the corporate megasite--and a billion small business sites in-between. In the early years of operating a website, we were happy to put our shiny new email address out there for anyone to mailto, but the rise of the spammer has made us justifiably wary of publicizing our contact details--enter the contact form. http://tc.eserver.org/30411.html http://tc.eserver.org/30411.html Load balancing increases the reliability of a web site by routing requests to other servers in the cluster when one of the servers is too busy or fails. There are many techniques for achieving load balancing. There is an approach to load balancing modern web applications that does not require any load-balancing hardware, and handles failure of servers more gracefully than round-robin DNS. http://tc.eserver.org/30405.html http://tc.eserver.org/30405.html The habit of collecting, analyzing, designing, and innovating in this fashion is making me a more systematic and disciplined web designer. Through analyzing the best design patterns and techniques used by today's web design community, I'm able to more critically assess my own designs, and create new solutions to common interface challenges. http://tc.eserver.org/30409.html http://tc.eserver.org/30409.html Moving from High Definition (HD) to FLV means a loss of quality. It is similar to moving a Photoshop high-resolution TIFF image to the JPG format--the loss in quality can't be avoided. http://tc.eserver.org/30408.html http://tc.eserver.org/30408.html Implement these techniques and your sites will be faster. They won't be just a little zippier--we're talking orders of magnitude here. http://tc.eserver.org/30407.html http://tc.eserver.org/30407.html If you find yourself in the position of sending or receiving a Digital Millenium Copyright Act take-down notice, this informal checklist will help you get it right the first time. http://tc.eserver.org/25097.html http://tc.eserver.org/25097.html This accessibility thing sure is catching on. And it’s ready for prime time. Yes, Web accessibility is growing up. http://tc.eserver.org/23892.html http://tc.eserver.org/23892.html An interview with Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld covering the topic of what the information architecture is, how information architecture relates to usability, and the challenges faced when constructing a successful information architecture. http://tc.eserver.org/23808.html http://tc.eserver.org/23808.html The easiest way to increase your added value is to do small things that have a large positive return for the company. If you’re looking to find something easy to do that has a large positive impact on your value, look no further than thinking about search engines and how your portion of a Web site can be optimized for them. http://tc.eserver.org/23807.html http://tc.eserver.org/23807.html Think about all the PDF, sound and other rich media files out there. Can this content be indexed by search engines? The answer is yes and no. http://tc.eserver.org/23201.html http://tc.eserver.org/23201.html Discusses the monetary cost of taking a short cut and skipping development of a sound information architecture with proper documentation for later reference. http://tc.eserver.org/23215.html http://tc.eserver.org/23215.html Explores the psychology behind how users make navigational choices as they navigate through 'information spaces' and how information architects can use this information when crafting the navigational experience. http://tc.eserver.org/23178.html http://tc.eserver.org/23178.html Reveals a major flaw in Internet Explorer when dealing with floats. If you are serious about moving from a table layout to a CSS layout, you must read this article first. http://tc.eserver.org/22949.html http://tc.eserver.org/22949.html Focus on your users, all of them. Learn from mistakes currently made on the Web. If a user can't fill out a form, they can't buy anything from your site. People turned away by unusable sites will probably try a competitor's site. Don't be the site that turned people away. Make your Web site as usable and accessible as possible. It's the business savvy thing to do. It's the right thing to do. If you don't, someone just might force you legally to do it or threaten to sue. http://tc.eserver.org/21755.html http://tc.eserver.org/21755.html Many of the principles that the print typographer has learned and holds sacred, are no longer true when the medium is a neon sign, a television title sequence or a Web page. Text that is not printed on paper takes them into alien territory. http://tc.eserver.org/18919.html http://tc.eserver.org/18919.html Web page optimization is about optimizing everything that goes into a Web page, including the text. In fact, text optimization is one of the most overlooked ways of speeding up Web sites. I see many a site with optimized graphics, but with HTML that is unoptimized, filled with comments, unused code, and whitespace. Compression can also be used to shrink the text (HTML, JavaScript, etc.) that you deliver to your impatient users. http://tc.eserver.org/18452.html http://tc.eserver.org/18452.html One of the most popular topics for discussion among those practicing Information Architecture is “selling IA.” There is a constant struggle to show the value and benefits of including information architecture techniques on a project. The most common approach to selling IA involves introducing the basic concepts, along with explanations and examples of what deliverables are produced, and some discussion of the benefits. At that point, usually the client will comment, or ask about how these procedures can fit in to a specific project. This is antithetical to the mantra of user-centered design, which says that the needs of the user should be understood before the design begins. How can one design a sales approach before understanding the needs of the client? The proper approach should be to figure out what the goals and needs of the client are before ever starting to try and sell Information Architecture as a possible solution. http://tc.eserver.org/13658.html http://tc.eserver.org/13658.html For the most part, information architects are communicators and strategists. While others merely tolerated the mishmash of responsibilities, they relished it. Designers often put up with having to write HTML but jumped at the chance to 'just do design.' Programmers were forced to meet with clients and work on strategy, but all along probably wanted to just write code. When these two ends of the spectrum split off, the empty middle was a perfect place to be. At the same time, there was an increased (but still hidden) need for information architecture. As the average web project process matured, more problems arose. Formal documentation was needed, business objectives were taking on increased importance, and, as the size increased exponentially, information organization became a much more important role. (The fact that this evolution took place during the 'dot.com fallout' is not insignificant, as this led to the placement of web projects under the same microscope as other business endeavors.) Some of these positions could be filled by existing disciplines; project managers, business analysts, and usability specialists transitioned from 'traditional' work and were added to web teams. Still, there was something missing. The connection between 'the big picture' (business strategy, high-level user tasks, basic structural architecture) and the nitty-gritty (categorization, labeling, bottom-up information hierarchies) often wasn't being made. This is where information architects fit in. http://tc.eserver.org/13657.html http://tc.eserver.org/13657.html We can compare web design and development to the process of building a house or a structure. The development of every web site has a process that these craftsmen must follow in order to achieve the finished structure. These phases are generalized and somewhat vague at times, while some may even be grouped or varied in name, but they are all essential steps in each web construction. http://tc.eserver.org/13670.html http://tc.eserver.org/13670.html Great search engine placement doesn't require you to sacrifice appealing design. While 'content is king' for high search engine rankings as well as overall site popularity, your imagination and creativity with designs can still reach for the stars. This tutorial provides a broad overview of ideal approaches, what can still work, and what you ought to avoid if search engine rankings are important. There are times when we forego the ideal for various reasons, so I'll try to steer you around the roadblocks on the way regarding graphics, Flash, frames, splash pages, and other potential perils. At the end of the tutorial are some resources for further exploration, too. http://tc.eserver.org/13668.html http://tc.eserver.org/13668.html Those succeeding with Flash usually apply it as an element and mix it with other technologies or images such as streaming audio and video, GIF, JPG, DHTML, and CGI to name a few. Determine what elements you need on your site and study the strengths and weaknesses of each technology to determine which option would work best for each element. You're in good shape if you can use Flash without sacrificing accessibility, readability, navigability, usability, searchability, and ability to update. http://tc.eserver.org/13662.html http://tc.eserver.org/13662.html Jared Spool loves to slander search. He says 'searching stinks.' He proclaims it's 'worse than nothing.' He exhorts web designers to 'keep users from using search.' And he backs up these defamatory accusations with $3,000,000 worth of user research data. Is Jared right? Do his research results tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Is browsing better than searching? No, no, and no! http://tc.eserver.org/13672.html http://tc.eserver.org/13672.html It can be said that the first year you publish an independent web zine you are in the process of learning the concept of the independent web. There is no one definition that could incapsulate what is and what isn't the indepenedent web other than the independent web is free. Free from commercialization. Free from censorship. Free from politics. Free from the boxes that we can find ourselves working our day jobs. The independent web movement is about everything we can't do elsewhere. What we can't do at our day jobs, we do on the web. What we can't do in our country, we do on the web. What we can't express elsewhere, we express on the web. We do it by ourselves for ourselves. It's our sandbox and it is our right to express ourselves not just as citizens of a country but as human beings as individuals. http://tc.eserver.org/13661.html http://tc.eserver.org/13661.html I'm not here to trivialize or ridicule the use of search capability on a site. The retrieval of informaiton from a web site is a fundamentally different task than finding fresh bread at the supermarket, and should be treated differently. However, search has become the default technique for getting around online, while its offline equivalents are usually downplayed by organizations and avoided by individuals. How many of us like asking questions at the store? http://tc.eserver.org/13669.html http://tc.eserver.org/13669.html Remember that a successful project has a measurable and positive impact on the client's business objectives. Set a time period to measure the progress toward achieving those objectives, and plan to measure progress on a regular basis. If you find that there are adjustments that should be made, or additions that can improve the project's functionality, do them. http://tc.eserver.org/13659.html http://tc.eserver.org/13659.html Many moons ago I waited tables. One day our manager came down to tell us that from now on we were to refer to our customers as 'guests.' We also were to refer to courses as 'first course' and 'second course.' Our chef was French, and found the American use of 'entrée' for the main course annoying--in French 'entree' means appetizer. This was my first experience with a controlled vocabulary. A controlled vocabulary is simply what it sounds like: a way to control the meaning of the vocabulary used as well as keeping track of the related terms. http://tc.eserver.org/13667.html http://tc.eserver.org/13667.html In my forays into digital photography in the last four years, I've encountered a number of issues and learned a lot about making pictures sans film. With any new technology, one is forced to deal with both the same old issues and arguments, and also, brand new ones that have never before been considered. Rather than make any attempt at cohesiveness, below are some various points and lessons I've learned. http://tc.eserver.org/13665.html http://tc.eserver.org/13665.html People have things to say. Maybe you're one of them, struggling to get a voice through the bottleneck that is big publishing. Maybe you're a talented individual who would write more if you had a forum. Maybe you're an expert in certain areas but all that insightful content stays trapped within you because you don't have an outlet. Oh, but you do. Today's Web is fertile soil for independent publishing. Not only is it easy to get your voice out there, but your voice is also heard, acknowledged, and in many cases responded to by interested, intelligent readers who have discovered your work because they sought it out and are happy to have found it. This low barrier to publishing gets you writing, and that's important. http://tc.eserver.org/13660.html http://tc.eserver.org/13660.html The web is not print. The need to create hypertext within pages requires more control over documents. Another is that web pages can also be applications, so access to the 'guts' of the page is needed to insert programming code. And ideally, we would like to separate presentation from content, enabling us to format the content in different ways for different purposes. How can we achieve all this with the efficiency and usability we've come to expect of other publishing tools? http://tc.eserver.org/13666.html http://tc.eserver.org/13666.html Macromedia has been the dominant force behind vector-based graphics and animation on the web for nearly the past 10 years. Times change, and new methods are always on the horizon. The upcoming contender for vector graphics is Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an XML-based language under development by the W3C. http://tc.eserver.org/13663.html http://tc.eserver.org/13663.html In web log analysis, two things are often missed. First, how the link to your site is presented in the results is critical. Next, what are visitors experiencing once they select that link? Many sites spend significant resources ensuring high placement in search engines, but usually little effort is spent on designing how those results are displayed and whether the pages they point to will help the visitor achieve their goal. With on-site search engines, it is easy to control the way results are presented to visitors, provide similar search suggestions, and ensure that the results are relevant and helpful. This is more difficult with external search engines, but not impossible. Here are some thoughts as to how to evaluate the usability of results on search engines and improve their effectiveness and relevance. http://tc.eserver.org/13671.html http://tc.eserver.org/13671.html The problem with XHTML 1.0 isn't a matter of strength, or of importance. XHTML is both strong and important--and not just for markup snobs and hardcore developers. It's not that XHTML 1.0 has a particularly high learning curve. It doesn't--in fact, it's quite easy to learn. And, it's not that XHTML 1.0 doesn't display in browsers both current and past. When written with awareness of cross-browser considerations--just as with HTML, it does. The problem lies in the fact that XHTML is, quite simply, misunderstood. http://tc.eserver.org/13664.html http://tc.eserver.org/13664.html J. David Eisenberg tried to re-do a Yahoo! weather page in his article titled Converting a Page to CSS. While his attempt was not a complete success, he totally transformed the page's structure and style using contemporary CSS methods. As David says, 'anything worth doing is worth doing again.' The goal of transferring the page to a CSS layout is to get rid of any HTML that's used for presentational purposes in order to achieve the layout. As it is now, the Digital Web layout uses HTML tables for layout purposes and spacer GIFs for spacing and positioning of elements on the Web page. We will be using CSS to replace the JavaScript in the JavaScript rollovers on this page. http://tc.eserver.org/10550.html http://tc.eserver.org/10550.html What is the world (wide web) coming to when even us blue-haired English teachers have something to say about the Net? After all, we're supposed to be consumed with the past--a time long before the binary code when writers still used quills, and men, unfortunately, wore tights. (Sorry for the visual.) Well, in defense of red-pen-wielders everywhere, I have to say that just ain't so. Technology, particularly that which furthers education, is our concern. And the Internet (yes, I just started a sentence with the world 'and') is a source of great conflict. On the one hand, it is a storehouse from which vast amounts of knowledge may be retrieved--it provides information that may otherwise be inaccessible. On the other hand, because of its nature as an abyss, it's an illimitable source for the plagiarist. So, ironically, something that should catalyze learning is actually, in a way, simply making it easier for students not to learn. http://tc.eserver.org/10553.html http://tc.eserver.org/10553.html Since the advent of the Web, we've seen a myriad of design schemas evolve--from the simple navigation/content style of site to the cluttered portal. And as this evolution has progressed, so did the war between UI designers and usability experts. On one side, there are usability experts who want to make every website look exactly like Yahoo because users know Yahoo and so they will automatically know how to use the site. On the other side, there are UI designers who want to design entire sites in Flash and Shockwave just because it's cool. Overly dramatic? Well, yes, maybe a little--but it's not entirely a false analysis. Many UI designers that work with usability folk complain that their creativity is hampered, whereas many usability gurus complain that designers are confusing a site's user with their visual semantics. But are the goals of UI designers and the usability folk that far apart? http://tc.eserver.org/10558.html http://tc.eserver.org/10558.html Since I tend to hang around on various web-related mailing lists, I often see numerous requests for design critiques. Increasingly, this leads me to wonder about the process of critiquing other people's design. It's quite one thing to criticize someone's code; one can argue the merits or not of being a stickler about standards compliancy, or using CSS, or whatever. But design is more personal than writing code. (Writing on its own is also very personal, but that's not the topic here.) How do you constructively critique someone's work without being taken the wrong way? How do you accept criticism without feeling hurt or angry? Here are just a few ideas, gathered from observations and comments from others. http://tc.eserver.org/10552.html http://tc.eserver.org/10552.html On my flight from Los Angeles to Hamburg I read in the Zeit, a well established German newspaper, that a major TV channel now from time to time displays a small BMW Z3 racing over the screen regardless of the underlying program or commercial. Despite the toy-like character of this idea, being part of a national advertising campaign, it can easily be identified as a 'TV-banner.' Very alien in the first place, not only because of the potential random competitive conflicts, it illustrates to what extent the perception of television has changed, and not only in the US. Taking a closer look at broadcast design one can see the influence of the web aesthetics in many places and can already assume the layer that will be used for graphics on the surface of the screen. Convergence happens not only on a technological level but also in terms of appearance. The idea that the mass-medium broadcast fuses with the web-connected personal computer is commonly referred to as convergence, and is becoming widespread. http://tc.eserver.org/10555.html http://tc.eserver.org/10555.html Design is the visual expression of thoughts and feelings, and combines rational and emotional conditions. In digital media the focus is shifted to functionality, primarily because the development is rapid and it takes a lot just to understand the options. This is as truer for users as it is true for designers. Once this phase is over and the standards are set, there will be a growing demand for more refined design solutions: projects that communicate and not just deliver information. Rationality rules at the surface, anything that turns the focus of the users awareness to something specific happens earlier and the motivation comes from the deeper levels of the soul. The whole fuzzy composition is very influential before the content is clearly rendered, if it ever gets clear at all; Sites are in the same situation as billboards, they have to grab the attention of the visitor in the first moment without having him to think about something specific. In a more and more competitive environment there is always an http://tc.eserver.org/10554.html http://tc.eserver.org/10554.html I am personally calling this the year of the e-Tailer. I have seen more hype in e-commerce this year than in any other holiday season in the past including the year the almighty Amazon.com launched its e-commerce site. I consider myself an avid web user and I know what it takes to develop a full-fledged e-commerce site because I have been there in the trenches developing some of those sites in time for the holiday season. I have seen battles won and lost in as few as a week's time. Nothing turns me off more than a poorly constructed e-commerce site and this year, the numbers seem to be taking a turn for the worse. http://tc.eserver.org/10549.html http://tc.eserver.org/10549.html I tend to sit in my own corner and do what I enjoy doing without too much concern with the latest fad, style or trend. Yet, every so often I do look around the web to see what others are doing, and what, if any, benefit this might have for me. So it was that I came to pick up a copy of 'Flash Web Design, the art of motion graphics' by Hillman Curtis. On page 01:08, Mr. Curtis talks briefly about Multitasking Attention Deficit (M.A.D.), and that web motion designers need to be aware of it. The bottom line was, because of M.A.D. you need to communicate your message in 10 seconds or less. http://tc.eserver.org/10556.html http://tc.eserver.org/10556.html In 1896, architect Louis Henri Sullivan said, 'Form ever follows function.' His quote implies not so much the importance of function over form, but rather that the two are intricately intertwined and inseparable. The same idea can be applied to any type of design, be it industrial, web, print or product. The problem is that most designers fail to draw from Sullivan's words. We have all seen them: sites that either lack any evidence of form or fail miserably when it comes to function. I'm not just talking about those cute personal sites found on many free web-hosting sites--extravagant corporate sites are often just as guilty as any of them. While both types of sites have their place on the web, it is important to understand where each of them have failed and why. http://tc.eserver.org/10559.html http://tc.eserver.org/10559.html With every passing day, increasing numbers of people are becoming web designers. One of the main forums for communication among web designers, both beginners and experts alike, is the mailing list. Most mailing lists generate a substantial stream of useful, information-laden email, and the good ones enjoy a healthy gift economy. I'm subscribed to a small handful of web-related discussion lists, and the busier ones average 20-40 messages per day. My favorite list contains more useful information in a month's worth of postings than any best selling web design book. Even when I'm not asking or answering a question, I can follow fascinating threads, picking up useful tidbits, and build rich archives of searchable information. When I ask a question, no less than two or three expert answers will appear within a few hours. The people that read lists are often successful designers and busy experts in our field. Yet even the best lists have their share of problems. I could pontificate all day on the nature of interpe http://tc.eserver.org/10551.html http://tc.eserver.org/10551.html There has been a lot of talk about technology and human experience. Many people believe that technology is bad in the sense that it is making us more and more detached from humanity. The web has much to do with technology. Take cinema for example: films were once genuinely hand crafted and dealt with humanity. Today many films are all technology and deal almost entirely with technology. http://tc.eserver.org/10557.html http://tc.eserver.org/10557.html Inspiration does not come easy for most, and that includes some of the world's top designers and creative directors. Everyone has experienced what we call 'designer's cramp' (a designer's version of 'writer's block') at some time or another. There have been numerous articles about the problem and a ton of suggestions. Some of them work, but many fail miserably. Lance Arthur recently wrote an article in A List Apart called 'Creative Notions,' which is one of the best I've seen in a long time about the sketchy subject. Coincidentally, Lance is perhaps one of the most widely known designers on the web today, and therefore suffers from a great deal of plagiarism. When asked about this, he says, 'A dubious distinction, surely. I think having a somewhat higher profile than other personal sites contributes to my reign under this title.'1 Why is that? I believe because he is a creative person whose designs are original and inspirational. However, as long as web browsers come with the 'view source' button, plagiarism http://tc.eserver.org/10560.html http://tc.eserver.org/10560.html Glenn Davis once said, 'Webpage building is a lot like bar tending. Build it right and it will work no matter what the container.' I think he was either very drunk when he said that or really on to something. Some people consider the web to be an information resource while others swear up and down that it's a form of entertainment. Web interface design has taken a giant leap in the past few years from the all-too-haunting gray backgrounds and bulleted lists to colorful interactive interfaces and eye-candy. A good web designer knows how to blend just the right amount of interface with information, so that it appears seamless and the navigation almost transparent to the end user. This is where Davis's idea of liquid design comes into play. Through his years of web development, he has come to a conclusion that there are three elements of interface on the web today: those that are Liquid, Jell-O, and Ice. http://tc.eserver.org/10547.html http://tc.eserver.org/10547.html The search for compelling color is a struggle. As in fashion, success at one time and place is no help at any other. http://tc.eserver.org/10546.html http://tc.eserver.org/10546.html When I think of web designers and developers, I think of them as craftsmen. These are people that are specifically skilled for their jobs, and know their way around almost any unforeseen obstacle that may appear in their path. A true craftsman is an artist, who pays close attention to detail and produces work of the highest standard. These are the architects of solid information structure. They are not merely turning out product, but building from the foundation to the finishes. http://tc.eserver.org/10548.html http://tc.eserver.org/10548.html You know the old saying: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The same holds true in dealing with clients. Oh sure, Atilla the Hun is out there, but he or she is an infinitesimal minority. (If you're at that point, see Firing Atilla the Hun.) In actual fact, most of those downright ugly client situations stem from a host of reasons other than the client themselves: lack of planning and communication, poor listening skills, over-promises and unmet expectations, over-confidence and lack of self-confidence, and lack of motivation--on either side. Another reason why some clients can seem so difficult to deal with is because they're people. Sound silly? Believe it or not, it's often overlooked when our main focus is 'the project,' the work at hand.