Our “pre-Gnomedex” session was led (entertainingly) by photographer Kris Krug, who provided practical tips for budding (or not so budding) photographers. Why listen to Kris? He’s a creative photographer and just came back from Beijing … and had photos from that assignment in the LA Times. Slideshare tip.
22 August 2008
19 August 2008
Designing For Mobile Devices
Designing for the small screen is as much of a challenge as that faced by designers during the height of the browser wars (and the subsequent flouting of HTML and XHTML “standards” by the browser with the greatest market share).
At Seattle MindCamp last year (the day after the iPhone was introduced), I asked a group of developers why this design space felt like the Wild Wild West. Their answers varied but centered around the lack of hardware and software standards. There was the additional problem that many handheld devices sent info to the webserver saying that they were something that they were not.
Enter the Newspaper Association of America Guide for Mobile Newspaper Sites. Although the guide is focused on newspaper websites, there are tips for anyone thinking about their mobile visitors. The guide, Moving to Mobile, includes sections on content creation and revenue models as well as information about podcasts. There are four case studies: The Cincinnati Enquirer, The New York Times, Reuters and TBO.com (Tampa Bay Tribune). And the authors understand that not all “mobile” is a cellphone. (tip)
14 July 2008
13 June 2008
Interface Hall of Shame
I think that this is what I’ll call all of these examples … it just makes life simple. The example this week comes from Ziff Davis Media publication PC Week:
3 June 2008
Interface Ugliness
Forget, for a moment, that the design of the above-the-fold portion of this website is ugly as sin, crowded with ads and “junk” (hat tip, Edward Tufte). Look at the ad, sitting front and center!
It’s blocking the copy — the only reason we’ve come to this page. Yes, I know that lots of publishers are doing this these days. That doesn’t make it right — it makes it intrusive, in the same manner as television ads. And people like these just as little as they like TV ads (in general, Super Bowl excepted!).
