If you're a designer, developer, information architect, project manager, writer, editor, marketer, or someone else who makes websites then this survey is for you. A List Apart is conducting another survey to determine the working conditions of people who make websites. Last year nearly 33,000 people took the survey. It only takes 5 minutes and the results will be an interesting read when ready later in the year.
I spent a few days last week creating a website for the Junee Rhythm 'n Rail Festival and was so proud of the site I couldn't wait to give the organisers a demonstration.
First, the ' entity showed the code and not the apostrophe! Talk about frustrating. The site viewed beautifully when I made it using Firefox, and worked fine when I showed it off at work using Internet Explorer 7. When viewed in older versions of IE, however, the page wouldn't scroll.
The website relies heavily on CSS techniques, and is based on Stu Nicholl's Holy Grill frame emulation model, modified to include even more fixed elements. After searching for some hacks to fix the problem, and downloading an installer for multiple versions of IE, I think I've fixed the site so it plays as it was meant to.
Let me know if it doesn't look right in your browser.
We all have our pet hates and annoyances when we visit certain sites. These tips are courtesy of Charles Lamm, a retired attorney who can be reached via email at focus@clixforbrix.com. His articles are posted on his blog at www.virtualjoefriday.com. Charles has pretty well covered the list as far as I'm concerned, and I agree 100 per cent with him.
Here are the top 10 according to many surveys:
I'm sorry. I read this on the Site-Reference forum recently and thought it was wonderful, and so I had to.
The following 4 Commandments are said to be in The Ark of The Covenant, along with the original Ten:
xi. Thou Shalt Honor thy "Right Click Disabled" command, and not take it as a personal challenge to steal the code anyway.
xii. Thou Shalt not steal my legally protected, copyrighted content, neither shalt thou "borrow", neither shall ye change 5 words and then call it thine own.
xiii. Thou Shalt Not Heist Mine Images, or split them into layers, or remove my watermarks.
xiv. Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Cyber-Neighbors' Pixels. Come up with thine own design ideas as much as possible.
I was wondering if maybe those of us who spend so much time on the web have a distorted view of what people in general think makes a good website. Myspace offers plenty of examples of how what we consider to be 'annoying' and basic mistakes may actually be what people are looking for.
SiteReference
Is a poorly designed site actually appealing to the non-tech crowd?
There's an interesting discussion going on over at the Site Reference forum on how poorly designed sites produce results. Google and EBay are examples of poorly designed websites, yet are is the most frequented websites on the net. A makeover has never been done and elements have been added over time without any major redesign. Andy Rutledge has a good article on this, and shows his example of a Google redesign.
An article by Molly E. Holzschlag called Thinking Outside the Grid is a brilliant read on new ways to think about web design and layout.
I changed my theme today for this weblog from Ruby Slippers to Emerald City. Both themes were designed by Jesse Gardner and are entries in The Style Contest. Because Jesse is one of the organisers for the event, his entries are not eligible for a prize. A shame, because they're very well done, and the stylesheets in particular are an excellent resource for anyone who wants to try their hand at designing a new theme. His description of the new theme is a classic:
A subtle cross between Oz and O'Reilly. This particular flavor tastes like fruit punch and watermelon.
The Emerald City theme is exactly the same but with colour changes.
A subtle cross between Oz and O'Reilly. This particular flavor tastes like limesicles and green grass.
I've had to slightly change the style-sheets to include a couple of additions of my own, mainly the styling for the subscription block and the SCode block at the end of the comments. I've also added image floats to the stylesheet.
The little date block doesn't display the same in Firefox and Internet Explorer. Of course, IE stuffs this up and I'm still thinking of a hack that will make it look right.
I received an email recently from Experts Exchange that included a rather lengthy discussion on CSS and Internet Standards by MHenry, the Page Editor for all things Macromedia. Since I haven't been able to discover a link to an online version of this email, I've included the entire post in the extended entry (continue reading link).
This is one of the best articles I've read on the problems experienced trying to use CSS. I went on to read all the links that the writer referred to. I'm a newbie to CSS too but I manage to produce decent-looking web sites without actually knowing how it all works. I've spent many a night pouring over the stylesheets to see where to fix something that doesn't look good, and studying the stylesheets has added to my limited knowledge of CSS design.
As to his assertion that CSS layouts are borning, I have to disagree. There are some wonderfully dynamic sites that rely on CSS layouts. Gecko's Realm is one that comes to mind.
Did you know that the colour you choose for your website conveys an emotion and says something to the user about you. For instance, green often times is associated with freshness or money, which is fairly obvious if you think about it. But every color does this, and some of the emotions and concepts are more subtle. For example, white means pure, easy, or goodness and purple can be associated with royalty or sophistication. What's more, each color carries with it both positive and negative ideas. The emotions and concepts that you associate with specific colors may differ from other people's associations, but there are themes that run throughout each color.
