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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.
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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.
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* { box-sizing: border-box } FTW
I’ve recently started using border-box a lot, and Paul’s right: FTMFW.
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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:
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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.
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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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Sites that landed jobs at 37signals
An interesting look at some sites that caught the attention of the folks at 37.
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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.
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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.
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HTML5 Readiness
Very cool CSS-powered infographic by Paul Irish and Divya Manian.
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Veerle’s blog 3.0
A fresh design from Veerle, who is always one worth watching!
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When can I use…
Handy chart detailing “when you can use” various advanced web development techniques.
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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.
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Please Scroll
+1
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CSS Transform Creator
This’ll be handy until I’ve used the CSS transform syntax enough to remember what all the options do.
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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.
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Create a Realistic Hover Effect With jQuery
Nice example of how to create useful animations with jQuery.
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31Three
Lovely redesign by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain. I also like the way he markets himself as a designer for developers.
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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.
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Uploadiify JQuery File Upload Plugin
What it says it is.
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Designers’Couch: Interview with Jeff Croft
Honored to have been interviewed by Designer’s Couch. Note that a few of the screenshots in the page are not actually my work at all. The version of the New York Review of Books is not the redesign I did for them, but rather the old version, and the Explore Steamboat design shown is a newer incarnation than the one I did.
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CSS Prism, a CSS color inspector, by Ryan Berg
Ryan’s little CSS toy is pretty awesome. Check it out.
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Elliot Jay Stocks: How to Design a Portfolio Site
I plan to redo the portfolio portion of this site, with my new focus on freelance and contract work, so I’m anxious to watch this. I trust EJS implicitly!
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John Daggett’s proposel to the W3 on advanced typography features in CSS
Yes, please!
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Paul Robert Lloyd: Social Media Icons
Apparently it’s icon day at jeffcroft.com. These are potentially very useful. Hope the trademark police stay at bay.
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Helveticons
Must. Have. Now.
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34 Web Rockstars, 1 Question: What do you listen to?
Gavin asked me to participate, and I was happy to do so. I’ve never heard any other web designer (besides myself) say they don’t listen to music while working, and I’ve certainly never heard anyone else cite their musical background as a reason why they’re unable to listen passively, but that’s exactly what Zeldman said. Interesting that he and I share an answer here, when I think our personalities are drastically different (that’s not an insult at all — I love the guy, we’re just very different, is all!).
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Jeremy Keith: Misunderstanding markup
Easily the best overview I’ve seen of XHTML, XHTML2, HTML5, and the related concerns for your typical standards-oriented front-end web developer. Bottom line: the death of XHTML2 and the move to HTML5 does not mean you lose all the things you love about XHTML 1 and 1.1. Relax, folks. It’ll be okay. :)
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Danny Blackman
Beautiful portfolio site for Danny Blackman.
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Introducing Typekit
Jeff Veen, who I have mad, mad respect and admiration for, announces his company’s new project: TypeKit. It’s basically a hosted solution for web fonts, wherein Jeff and team negotiate a license with font foundries, and then you (the average web developer) pay Jeff and team a fee in order to use the fonts. It will use standards CSS @font-face embedding, and automatically switch out Opentype for EOT based on a user’s browser. This all sounds great, but the post is a bit short on details, and I definitely have questions: will it scale? How much will it cost? What will the license look like? All concerns people have over a subscription-based music service versus the iTunes model apply, here. What happens when you unsubscribe? Are the plans per-site or per-designer? And so forth. So, bottom line: sounds like there’s a lot of potential, here, but I’ll save my fanboyish excitement for when I have more information.
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