Like last week, I’m continuing my weekly design round up with quotes, 9rules design community round up and thoughts that came up this week. This week has been odd for me with the over riding muttering that not being able to get to any web conferences this year is making me each time one comes around. Like the past 2 years I’m vowing to get to one next year, you never know it may happen one year… Actually, the coverage that you get online is great and whilst it’s not like being there I don’t have to get jet lag. So, without more muttering here is my weekly round up.
Quotes of the week
The point is, face-to-face still matters. And in fact all our globally-connecting-social-networking tools are making face-to-face more, not less desirable.
- Kathy Sierra @ Creating passionate users
Let’s be honest, the hypertext link isn’t very sexy. Familiarity breeds contempt the saying goes and this is certainly true for the ‘a’ tag. Every day we code it many times over without giving it a second thought.
9rules designs community this week
Another week, another round up over at the 9rules notes about in the design community this week.
Design thoughts this week
Again these are not full thoughts, these are just things I’ve been pondering over this week and may or may not become posts or expanded thoughts. I’m just throwing these out there.
- Stages in design.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my design process and this carries on from last week as to how I can refine and better this. I always think there is a ‘better way’ or at least something you can improve (bit of a perfectionist in me I guess). I’ve been thinking more and more about prototyping and testing of these on users to come up with the final design
- Browsers are a reality check.
I’ve this week run across a bug in IE that I never have before and it has been a sobering issue. It’s like getting to seeing the winning post then bamn it decides to move out of sight again, depressing and angst inducing. Sometimes working with browsers is 2 steps forward, 3 back. Whilst I’d love for there to be a utopia where all worked the same way, is this ever possible? Do we are web designers need to get a central resource for browser problems or is there one out there I just am not aware of - talking a comprehensive one here like a list of known issues or something.
- The role of non digital design as inspiration.
I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at newspapers and print layouts of information this week. Despite us being apparently a digital age, why do these forms of communication still top the charts? What is there about a newspaper that makes it a better way of getting information?
- Why is blue the most used colour online?
It’s a fact that blue is sort of the ‘traditional’ colour of the web. Links default to it but why? When most forms offline require black ink why is blue the default colour of the web?
- Contrast is so important so why do so many designs ignore it?
Contrast checking is something I’ve been playing with lately and it seems odd that so many of the ‘popular’ designs are blatantly not bothering to test their contrast. I’m trying more and more to bare in mind grids, contrast and the users choice in what they see. So, why in this age of web standards and awareness is the case still the same when the most basic building blocks are ignored?
- Do I like the fact that web design isn’t easy?
Would I be bored if things were easy to do in web design?
- Is it possible for all browsers to ever place nicely together?
If it is would I (see point above) even like it?