This week
How Environments, Real And Virtual, Influence Us
In: Articles
What sort of state is your desk in right now? Clutter on your website, just as in your environment, can have a negative effect on your visitors’ state of mind. Kyle Mueller takes a look at some of the common pitfalls and how to avoid them. Read more
Published on August 5, 2008
In someone’s home a quick escape is not always easy, but on a home page, the back button is just a click away. If a web site is like a house, and its pages are like rooms, how do we make visitors feel comfortable enough to stay? And come back again? How do we as designers create environments to attract, comfort and retain visitors? These are the things both interior and web designers stew over.
— Kyle Mueller. Read more
Review: Web Form Design by Luke Wroblewski
In: Reviews > Book Reviews
2008 has been a quiet year for good web design and development books. The standout thus far is Luke Wroblewski’s “Web Form Design”, published by Rosenfeld Media, both in terms of content and design. Digital Web’s own Matthew Pennell reviews “Web Form Design” and finds LukeW’s design thinking far outshines focusing on the humble web form. Read more
Published on August 5, 2008
The primary goal of any web form, says Wroblewski, is “getting people through them quickly and easily”. Forms are barriers between user needs and business goals, and naturally both sides of the equation want to see these hurdles removed. “It’s no wonder,” he continues, “that form design matters.”
— Matthew Pennell. Read more
Previous weeks
eCRM: A Virtual Reality Check For Your Business
In: Articles
This week we take a step back from the web development rock-face to look at a more business-oriented topic. User-centered design is all very well, but how do you join the dots when it comes to managing your customer relationships long term? Entrepreneur Tej Kohli discusses the benefits to your business of investing in some Customer Relationship Mojo. Read more
Published on July 29, 2008
Photoshop vs Fireworks
In: Interviews
Web designers use Photoshop, right? Always have, always will. At least that’s what I thought—but speak to enough designers, and you start to notice that a little program called Fireworks has just as many adherents as Adobe’s flagship graphics app. So which is best? We gathered a handful of great designers, fans of both Photoshop and Fireworks, to slug it out in search of the definitive answer. Your referee tonight is Nathan Smith. Fight! Read more
Published on July 22, 2008
Smart CSS Ain’t Always Sexy CSS
In: Articles
The web industry has never been short of zealots. Since the age of the spacer-gif, there have always been designers ready to fight for their preferred technique—and none more so than CSS nerds. If you’ve ever agonized over finding the perfect semantic class name, this is the article for you. Martin Ringlein tells us why being sexy is overrated. Read more
Published on July 15, 2008
Portable Social Networks, The Building Blocks Of A Social Web
In: Articles
Are you a member of all the latest and greatest social networking sites? Tired of re-entering your personal details? Need to keep your information up-to-date across a myriad of accounts, and enable your user base to do the same? You need the foundations of the social web, brought to you by Ben Ward. Read more
Published on July 1, 2008
Integrating Social Media into a Web Content Strategy
In: Articles
You might know your Facebook from your Odeo, but most companies couldn’t give a Flickr about social media. How do we let them know the opportunities that a Web 2.0 world can hold for them? Britt Parrott explains how to develop a coherent and buzzword-free web content strategy. Read more
Published on June 24, 2008
The Education of Geeks and Freaks
In: Articles
Between choosing the most semantic markup, wrangling IE6 CSS bugs, and arguing which JavaScript library would win in a fight, it is easy to forget that the future of web design rests in the hands of a small group of people—those with responsibility for educating the next generation. Columnist Tom Green reports on the sad state of post-secondary education, and what it might mean for the future of effective web development. Read more
Published on June 17, 2008
