March 26th, 2008 | Published in Internet, Links, Art and Design
For all you web developers, Luke Wroblewski’s “Sign Up Forms Must Die” is an excellent primer on getting people to use your service without a sign-in form hitting them first.
March 3rd, 2008 | Published in Internet, Links, Education, Technology
How in the world did wikipedia — a seemingly anarchic encyclopedia — become one of the top ten visited websites? “The Charms of Wikipedia” explains.
January 23rd, 2008 | Published in Thoughts, Internet
We’ve had HTML and websites for over a decade now, isn’t it about time we can start using tabs? There’s still no easy way to do this with HTML, which is why most websites have a space between each paragraph instead of a tab. There’s something backwards here. Let’s get a &tab;!
December 5th, 2007 | Published in Internet, Quotes, Art and Design
The less sophisticated [print designers] lament on our behalf that we are stuck with ugly fonts. They wonder aloud how we can enjoy working in a medium that offers us less than absolute control over every atom of the visual experience. What they are secretly asking is whether or not we are real designers. (They suspect that we are not.) But these are the juniors, the design students and future critics. Their opinions are chiefly of interest to their professors, and one prays they have good ones.
–Jeffrey Zeldman, “Understanding Web Design“
November 29th, 2007 | Published in Internet, Quotes, Art and Design
Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.
–Jeffrey Zeldman, “Understanding Web Design“
November 19th, 2007 | Published in Internet, Books & Reading, Quotes, Technology
Internet Explorer is not a browser—it’s a reader. People spend about 20 percent of the time browsing for information and 80 percent reading or consuming it. The transition has already happened. And we haven’t noticed.
–Ben Hill, as quoted in Newsweek, “The Future of Reading” (Nov 17, 2007)
August 30th, 2007 | Published in Internet, Art and Design
Buy.com’s shopping cart is one of the worst I’ve seen. It is cluttered with ads, making it difficult to find the products in the cart or how to proceed. The main content the user wants is on the right sidebar — a place usually reserved for non-essential information:
Compare this with Desiring God’s shopping cart:
When we redesigned the Desiring God website last year, we took the opposite approach. We tried to make it as easy as possible for the user to see what they are ordering and how to proceed to the next step. (Genius, huh?)
I know which one I’d rather use when purchasing something online.
August 17th, 2007 | Published in Internet, Links, Art and Design
This website has an interesting design. Making changes would be pretty difficult, though.
(HT: Abraham P.)