Web Directions North » Blog Archive » Design and Coding at the Cutting Edge: Part 1

Design and Coding at the Cutting Edge: Part 1

Douglas Bowman was supposed to be in on this presentation but wasn’t able to make it. Tantek Çelik will be pitching in with some microformat discussion. And of course, Cameron Moll will continue to present his portion of this session.

D. Keith Robinson is delivering an introduction.

“The Disciplined Designer”

• a jack of all trades
• has four boys, into sports and design. son tried to cut the hair of another and it’s not quite there. doesn’t have the skill.
• graphic design, human computing and communication = UI design
• means, involvement, meaning, = An experience
• “the most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and to be understood.” ~ Dr Ralph G Nichols.
• designing, be understood.
• “Each time a new technology comes along, new designers make the same horrible mistakes as their predecessors. …” Norman
• Don’t fix the UI if it isn’t broken.
• Natural Mapping
• Using physical, biological, or cultural standards to make something work.
• Firefox Web Developer Extension (early version)
• new version requires multiple menu drops to do what was much simpler before
• browser cam - just a giant menu before
• Facilitate Visual Scanning
• people don’t read web pages, they scan them
• used sprint web site as an example

Minimize Error

• “If an error is possible, someone will make it. The designer must assume that all possible errors will occur and design…”
• picture of floppy drive. Designed in such a way that you can only insert the diskette into it one way.
• Flickr example saying “lots” instead of having an enormous dot.

Prevent

• asked where to add armor; took planes and mapped out where the bullet holes were.
• blinksale as an example; using ajax to check if the domain is taken. prevent the error from occurring

Typography begets knowledge

• “Typography is not an esoteric art form.” ~ Jan V White.
• Client wanted to revive the National Gazette.
• take away the graphics, does the typography do its job?

Write the Interface

• Copywriting is interface design. Great interfaces are written.
• “door with handle says push”
• “other’s clog, our’s doesn’t” with holes filled in, the message is more meaningful.

Draw Inspiration from all things

• hierarchy and contrast. blurring allows us to see where the important stuff is.
• using a chiasmus in design - goes in and then comes back out (like a mirror)

Begin to Embrace Mobile

• mobile still isn’t quite here yet.
• by 2010, 4 billion users worldwide
• 6.8 billion people by then.
• 15% of those with phones actively browsing the web in the US.

Context is King

• Kayak example shows how they take advantage of the context and present information differently.
• Forget WML, Think XHTML
• WAP: protocol for enabling
• WML
• WAP 2.0 Protocol standard supported
• HTML Basic
• XHTML-MP - the preferred markup language of WAP 2.0 (most clinging to)
• Translation - subset of XHTML

Give back as much as you can

Posted by Jonathan on 8/02/07 at 12:36 pm