-
The Great Discontent: Dan Cederholm
Great interview with one of the people I respect most in this industry. Beautiful site, too.
Visit -
How To Choose The Right Face For A Beautiful Body
Nice piece from Smashing Magazine on typography in general, and specifically on choosing great text faces.
Visit -
10 QUESTIONS: Jeffrey Zeldman
Some good stuff in this interview with The Man, especially where it relates to Internet Explorer.
Visit -
Why We Shouldn’t Make Separate Mobile Websites
Why does everyone assume a “seperate mobile website” means something stripped down, and something that doesnt give access to all the content?
Visit -
Responsive Design, Responsively Illustrated
Pretty cool (if not particularly useful).
Visit -
An Ajax-Include Pattern for Modular Content
Clever and useful pattern for brining in non-essential content to a page after its iniital load. i do a good bit of this on Lendle (although not with this particular technique). The intesting thing to me when this is discussed in regard to mobile, as it is here, is that the “loading…” aspect of web sites and apps is one of the thing that make people like native apps so much better. They always feel so much faster because once a view appears on screen, it’s all the—theres nothing more to load. Tradeoffs…
Visit -
Content Folding
Chris Coyier has some tips on using the new CSS Regions functionality with responsive layouts.
Visit -
CSS preprocessors and “view source”: is output readability important?
Earlier today, I stumbled across a podcast interview with one of my early web design heroes, Dan Cederholm. You may know Dan as the founder of Dribbble, but it’s worth noting that he’s been on the cutting edge of CSS and web design since the early 2000s — Dribbble is just the latest in a long line of manifestations of his talents.
Anyway, the entire interview is worth listening to, but I was particularly interested in their conversation about Sass (starts around 56:20). I hadn’t realized Dan was using Sass, but I was excited to hear his thoughts on it, as it seems to me a lot of the old guard of CSS gurus have not taken to CSS preprocessors the way the younger up-and-comers have. As I was listening, I was surprised to hear my name was mentioned in reference to a recent post I wrote called How I’m Implementing Responsive Web Design. Turns out, they’d discussed my techniques for RWD with Sass in a previous episode with Chris Coyier (starts around 13:30), so I ended up listening to that, as well (The Industry seems like a great show…definitely check it out).
More -
Responsive Web Design: Missing the Point
Nice piece by Brad Frost on adaptive design. Although it hits on several topics as well, it addresses my key issue with the trend that is “Responsive Web Design:” the dogmatism that Ethan Marcotte has put around it by insisting that a layout only qualifies as “Responsive Web Design” if it consists of fluid grids, fluid images, and media queries. The result of him shunning other techniques (multiple fixed grids, using JavaScript instead of media queries, etc.) is a community that now cares more about fitting into some arbitrary ideal (mostly to impress Ethan and each other), rather than the user experience. Adaptive layout and device-agnostic design is an incredibly important issue for users, and will continue to be, going forward. But “Responsive Web Design” in the sense of Ethan’s dogmatic prescription is overblown. There are many ways to achieve great multi-device user experiences. RWD is one of them, but by shunning all the others, we are doing our users a disservice.
Visit -
Most Web Design Agencies Suck
If there were ever a blog post that suffered terribly by not being written by a journalist who knows a thing or two about proper sourcing, this is it. If everything Andy has to say is true, its a shame. But the constant stream of unnamed sources really makes you wonder — especially when you add in the fact that Andy runs an agency himself and has plenty to gain by saying all the others suck.
Visit -
Scaling with EM units
Great concept that willwork neatly with some designs (and not others).
Visit -
Some Generalizing about Specializing
Khoi Vinh thinks the industry is swinging back towards generalists, after having moved to be more interested in specialzation in recent years.
Visit -
Behind the scenes: Reinventing our Default Profile Pictures
The smart guys at 37signals have redesigned the ddefault avatar for Basecamp in a clever, fun, and unexpected way.
Visit -
* { box-sizing: border-box } FTW
I’ve recently started using border-box a lot, and Paul’s right: FTMFW.
Visit -
A simple responsive grid system with fluid columns and fixed gutters
Tonight, I took a stab at creating a quick-and-dirty responsive grid system with fluid columns and fixed gutters. Here’s what I came up with:
More -
How to Approach a Responsive Design
Nice post detailing some of the design decisions that went into the recent Boston Globe redesign. More and more, my biggest concern with responsive techniques is maintainence. I’d personally really, really avoid choosing too many breakpoints. Seems like setting yourself up for nightmares down the road.
Visit -
This ain’t your Mama’s Internets
Sometimes I feel like our community (that of standards-oriented web professionals) prefers to talk about what we do in the most simplistic way possible — the way we built websites many years ago. In fact, most of us don’t actually build websites like this at all, and those on the cutting edge of modern web development have a process that looks almost nothing like what we talk about.
I took the time to outline the workflows at play:
More -
Ben Ward on browsers today
“If I mark up a column heading in my code, why won’t the browser allow me to sort the table? To this day, I’m still not sure that there’s a good answer to that.” Some damn good thoughts about browsers from Ben Ward.
Visit -
Designing The Well-Tempered Web
I get a little bit hard for any article that compares web design to music theory, and this one from Rob Flaherty certainly fits the bill.
Visit -
Forest, trees, and acko.net
Few people can take the fun out of something quicker than an over-zealous user experience nerd.
Over the weekend, I came across Steven Wittens’ blog acko.net. If you read Steven’s About Page, you’ll discover that he’s a programmer who likes to “build and design cool pieces of technology.” And that’s exactly what he’s done with the latest version of his personal site. The entire UI is done in 3D, using Javascript, CSS, and not a single image. In order to build it, he had to first build his own 3D scene editor for Three.js. The end result is a mind-bending UI that not only animates perspective changes on each individual page as you scroll, but also neatly uses the HTML5 pushState API to animate changes from page to page. The whole thing is responsive, and gracefully degrades for smaller screens and browsers without support for the 3D goodness.
More -
Aaron Mentele Mobile Safari & Media Queries asset download tests
Aaron did some terrific tests with regard to how Mobile Safari downloads assets (images, backgrounds, etc.) on elements which are hidden via media queries. Also, don’t miss his follow up piece.
Visit -
On Smashing Magazine’s super-responsive design
This week, Smashing Magazine, a truly great resource for web designers and front-end developers, launched a comprehensive redesign of their site, headed up by the ultra-talented Elliot Jay Stocks. Predictably, the site is beautiful, thoughtfully laid out, well-executed, and responsive. Like, really responsive.
In fact, the site has six — count ‘em, six — unique layouts, split by five breakpoints. It’s quite an impressive feat to have built a design that adapts in so many ways based on the size of the viewport it’s displayed in. But I can’t help but wonder if we’ve gone over the top, here.
More -
In 2012, let’s stop talking web design and start talking product design
On Christmas Eve, I said on Twitter:
“My hope for 2012 is that some of the old guard of well-respected web gurus stop talking HTML and CSS and start talking serious development. I love the way many of the old guard write and evangelize, but I’m tired of discussing basically the same stuff we were in 2006.”
I wasn’t specifically referring to Jeffrey Zeldman, but he (somewhat arrogantly) assumed I was, and responded with a sarcastic, “And a merry Christmas to you, sir.”
More -
A serious exercise, like an SAT question.
Just bear with me here, I want to put you through a little exercise.
Imagine there are two web sites that show happy hours in your city. They provide the same data, but their user interface is a bit different. On the first site, you enter the city you’re in and tell the app what time you’re planning to go out, submit a form, and it shows a list of bars and restaurants that have Happy Hours. Fine.
In the second app, as soon as you open it, it shows you a list of bars and restaurants that have happy hours going on near you, right now. You can still enter a city and time if you’re looking for something else, but the default behavior is to present a list of what the app suspects you’re most interested in, based on its best guess at your location and the current time.
More -
Go ’head, Mr. Lendle
About a month ago, I got a call from Brian Ford, who happens to be my cousin. Brian’s wife, Carolyn, had come up with an idea and Brian wanted my thoughts. Amazon had recently rolled out a new feature that allows users to lend Kindle books to others using their e-mail address. This, in effect, means you can really only lend books to people you know (because you probably don’t know many stranger’s e-mail addresses). Carolyn’s idea was simple: what if there were a site that could hook you up with a stranger that has the book you want, so they can lend it to you?
Although I owned exactly zero Kindle books and in the past five years have literally written more books than I’ve read, it sounded like a pretty great idea, and I was interested in building it. The first thing I did was call up my homeboy Nathan Borror, whom I trust implicitly on all things, but especially all things web and all things books. Nathan runs social book site Readernaut, and I figured he’d be able to help me understand the ins and outs of how a service like this might work, and he’d probably also know if something similar was already out. Nathan dug the idea and said wasn’t aware of anyone else already doing it. I was sold. That same night, I dug into Amazon’s Product Advertising API to see if I could make this thing happen.
More -
URL Design
Good piece. Also, if your development platform doesnt let you have full control over the design of your URLs, get a new one.
Visit -
Behind the scenes: 37signals.com Redesign
Great post by Jamie at 37signals about the process of redesigning their main site. 37 has always had a terrific grasp of interaction design, usability, and messaging, but recently they’re really stepped up their game on the visual end, as well. Gotta think Jamie has had something to do with that. Really nice to see the design iterations for what is, ultimately, a really nicely-done site.
Visit -
Sites that landed jobs at 37signals
An interesting look at some sites that caught the attention of the folks at 37.
Visit -
On admin interfaces
A few minutes ago, I tweeted the following: “Starting to feel like any site which requires a separate admin interface is not fully baked. Am I crazy?” A couple people responded asking for more details on what I meant, so I logged into the admin interface (or backend, or CMS interface, or whatever you want to call it) of my personal site, and started this here blog post.
Which is ironic, because the point of my tweet was to say that, more and more, I’m wondering if these kinds of interfaces are necessary, or even helpful.
More -
Why I’m a hybrid. (Like a Liger. Or a Tigon. Or a Prius.)
One of the most popular blog posts I’ve ever written was titled Django for non-programmers. In it, I explained that I was not a programmer, and had no desire to become one. The article, written over four years ago, was all about how people with very little programming experience can use Django to build cool stuff. And while I still think it’s true that Django lets non-programmers do some pretty neat things, a funny thing happened over the years: I learned to love being a programmer.
Well…sort of.
More -
HTML5 Readiness
Very cool CSS-powered infographic by Paul Irish and Divya Manian.
Visit -
Veerle’s blog 3.0
A fresh design from Veerle, who is always one worth watching!
Visit -
When can I use…
Handy chart detailing “when you can use” various advanced web development techniques.
Visit -
Building BarStar
Over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of my free time working on a personal project centered around a social activity I’ve become pretty passionate about: karaoke. Karaoke? Yes, karaoke. Why? Because it’s fun, dammit. I could write a whole separate post on why I love karaoke and what makes a great karaoke performance, but my boy Jon Culver already did, so just read that, instead. But I did think I’d take a few minutes to write about the process of building BarStar, and how it came to be.
Back when I was at Blue Flavor, Keith Robinson had this idea for a simple iPhone app. We were calling it “karaoke finder.” All it was really supposed to do was use your physical location to tell you where some karaoke is going down tonight near you. Simple, but very useful, especially for those of us who travel and want to find karaoke in a city we’re not familiar with. The idea kind of died as Blue Flavor fell apart last summer.
Separately, way back in May, my good friend and fellow KC-to-Seattle transplant Scott Phelps and I had the idea to somehow make a karaoke game. Both of us were (and are) very interested in real-world social games like Foursquare and Gowalla, and wondered if such an idea could work for a niche hobby, like karaoke.
More -
Please Scroll
+1
Visit -
CSS Transform Creator
This’ll be handy until I’ve used the CSS transform syntax enough to remember what all the options do.
Visit -
Authentic Jobs realigned
If you’ve been visiting this site for a while, you know that I’m a member of the Advisory Board for Cameron Moll’s Authentic Jobs — almost certainly the best place for web professionals to find and post job opportunities. In the name of transparency, this means, roughly, that I help Cameron out with advice and other little things in exchange for a small cut of the profits from the site.
Recently Cameron has been hard at work on the next version of Authentic Jobs, and it launched late last night. As you’d expect from Cameron, it’s a gorgeous site, with beautiful textures and type. But what’s more significant, from a job seeker’s perspective, is the entirely-rewritten backend. The listings’ metadata is now much more structured, which allows for more configurable searching and filtering. You’re also able to subscribe (via Twitter, RSS, or e-mail) to any search result.
For employers, the site now allows for more customized listings, including company logos, formatted text, and anonymous e-mail address. What’s more, full-time listings now stay posted for 60 days, instead of 30. Jobs still cost the same amount to post: $250 for a 60-day full-time job, and $75 for a 30-day freelance gig.
I did a very small amount of HTML/CSS development for the site, and it was definitely a fun one to work on. I think the end result is spectacular and a really big step forward for Authentic Jobs. If you’re a web designer, you’ll want to check it out — for the gorgeous design, even if you’re not currently in the job market.
More -
Create a Realistic Hover Effect With jQuery
Nice example of how to create useful animations with jQuery.
Visit -
31Three
Lovely redesign by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain. I also like the way he markets himself as a designer for developers.
Visit -
QuirksBlog: There is no WebKit on Mobile
PPK details the myth that is the idea that “WebKit on mobile is taking over.” His point, which is totally valid, is that while WebKit is indeed becoming the dominant rendering engine on mobile platforms, each of those platforms has distinctly different versions of WebKit, so the idea that if you build for WebKit, all of these devices will render your site the exact same way is a misconception. His point is well taken, if a bit dramatic. It’s true that there are subtle differences between each version, and it’s also true that most people don’t realize this. But, in the real-world, they’re “close enough” that targeting WebKit will generally get you a very similar experience on all these platforms.
Visit
Jeff Croft
I’m a digital product designer and developer in Seattle, WA. I currently work with nGen Works, and recently co-founded Lendle, a Kindle book sharing service.
Some of my clients include Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Copious, The New York Review of Books, The Lawrence Journal-World, and the University of Washington.
I’ve authored two books on web and interactive design and spoken at dozens of conferences around the world.
Filter content
FeedItems tagged webdesign
By content type
FeedOther tags in these items
- sxsw 1430 (100%)
- jeffcroft 1048 (73%)
- family 909 (64%)
- design 858 (60%)
- conference 567 (40%)
- webprogramming 531 (37%)
- sxsw2006 464 (32%)
- apple 444 (31%)
- django 437 (31%)
- humor 405 (28%)
- sxsw2007 402 (28%)
- blueflavor 374 (26%)
- music 363 (25%)
- worldonline 337 (24%)
- python 321 (22%)
- css 309 (22%)
- mac 300 (21%)
- dkeithrobinson 289 (20%)
- event 282 (20%)
- technology 278 (19%)
- sanfrancisco 269 (19%)
- sxsw2008 249 (17%)
- sports 238 (17%)
- business 225 (16%)
- webdirections 216 (15%)