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OK/Cancel is a website about design and usability. Each post comes with a relative comic. Surely the comic is excellent but the story underneath it is equally useful. Especially for the people in the design industry. Worths a visit.
Have you watched the TV ads made by Apple? They are witty and to the point.
In all spots there are two guys. The cool (MAC) and the chubby one (PC). Each time they compare certain characteristics such as easiness to do things, entertainment etc. By the end of each spot the MAC guy surpass his poor opponent.
Apparently all the spots (there are actually more than 20) are funny. But they are also sarcastic and Apple dares to name and shoot the antagonist. In other words, people in Apple do provoke the comparison.
Some details I noticed:
During the design phase of a website you bump into a number of limitations affording it. Usually, most of the limitations have to do with the specific project you are involved. However there are certain constraints which apply to all Web projects. Having them at the back of your mind helps both the design and the production by limiting the relevant times and above all it keeps you focused.
It is a known issue. Everybody knows that designing for a specific resolution is bad. Covering the commonest resolutions is better and covering all is impossible. This assumption is followed by the layout issue.
The controversy among designers keeps on. To select a layout style depends on your skills (which shouldn’t) and each work’s requirements. Elastic layouts are hot. They are difficult to be build in the first place, but they are flexible and they give a visitor freedom to play with it. Take a look at Simplebits.
Nevertheless, it would have been almost impossible to apply an elastic design to the new Mezzoblue. So we do have a constraint here, since a design often imposes the relevant markup. On the other hand, if one designer is dedicated to a specific style e.g. elastic, he is imposed to turn many of his works down.
Despite its latest improvements Internet Explorer is still a problem. The old versions of all browsers provoke difficulties. Even when you decide to leave one version out of the game, you still have to think of the rest. Writing code (like conditional comments) in order to protect your design from wrong rendering is a problem for the reason that it can be distracting. Preventing such obstacles cannot be achieved.
Like it or not we don’t have many choices here. There are actually three to six at most font families available for all users.
Text is more than what is written. It is actually a part of the design and it should be treated so. Having to deal with so few types narrows your options and in the end your creativity as well.
Well, Flash is not a problem, but people who vote for it no matter what they are. A persisting client who doesn’t listen to you and imposes a jumping chimpanzee in Flash can leave you high and dry. Or you can leave him.
The old itchy companion is always here. You can’t design for all people. Not everyone is going to like it. On the contrary, most of them have absolutely no idea of what this thing is about. The silliest thing you can do is to ask everyone’s opinion during or after the work. It will dissolve you. One or two people you trust, is an adequate number for me.
Designing according to Web standards is not a constraint. Many people argue that if a designer is restricted to follow specific guidelines, he finally ends up with a bad result. This is not truth because Web Standards do prevent instabilities and open the borders of the possible audience.
Remember that websites should promote communication and use between a human and a machine. Web standards enhance users’ experience, clarify information and augment the logical structure of content. They don’t affect the design process before or during the markup in any way but when are used a designer can achieve the maximum quality of his work.
OK, this is another meme. Apostolos passed me the ball and I must shoot.
Up there a mountain rises
Down here an ocean dives
A stranger with a head full of lead
Photographs me
Steel bars and a doctor’s note
Don’t give up
They can plead and beg
but don’t let them fix your head
Outside a path to knowledge
Inside a waste of cells
A serpent with a mobile phone
Sweet talks me
Cure for optimism - Porcupine Tree
Image by devilicious
Graphic design and web design are based on similar rules. A graphic designer works by using a given space but he is often free to treat design elements at his disposal while a web designer has to take into account several parameters such as accessibility. On the other hand he can use animation or special effects while in printed media this cannot be achieved.
When it comes to text both designers’ work follows the same guidelines. Just as Cameron Moll says:
On reason I like WIRED Magazine is that it combines excellent artwork and awesome typography. The following image is a scanned page from the February ‘07 issue and it depicts what I am talking about. On this page I have noted five points of interest.
Since the page covers two different main issues the designer had to make them clear. This way he selects a right alignment for the text of the first instance. The result is a properly defined area totally dedicated to the question: “Why do some diseases turn into pandemics?”
The text “breathes”. The space between the first and the second issue is enough to leave the reader concentrated to each one he selects to read while the gap is not huge to make the page look empty.
Have a look at the color of the horizontal bar, the face of the man at the photo and the type. It is the same. Actually the base color is the one at the man’s face. The designer extracted the color by using probably the color picker tool and he used it to generate a color scheme for his page.
See also that the rest of the page is black and white (OK apart from the box up and left) but the overall impression is that it is colored.
People in WIRED Magazine always pay attention to typography. As you can see there have been selected two serif fonts which are totally different. The headings seem sans-serif but they are not. The main text uses a more classic face. The final result is appealing.
The illustration is fantastic! The piece of paper acts as a focal point and delivers the message of the second story. The image is so alive that makes you want touch the paper. Enough said already.
All this meditation of a single page could act as a fountain of inspiration for a web project too. At least this way works for me.
Today is a great day. Today was formally announced by WASP the International Liaison Group (ILG).
This group is is an international collective of web professionals promoting the global use of standards to ensure an equitable Web.
ILG’s mission is to:
And of course it is a great honor for me to represent my country, Greece, in this group. Cheers!