David John Mead

Another good NEOUPA talk…

This months speaker was Chris Braunsdorf and his topic was Meet your users: Learning from the iPad, iPhone, and Facebook & thinking about the future of user interfaces. Starting with the story of people searching for ”Facebook login’ in Google and being confused when the top result was not Facebook, but an article on Read Write Web.

Opening the conversation to the room, a lot of discussion was about the responsibility of the UX/UI professional to help fix these issues. Bolstered by points such as the increase in age of users to Facebook and the web in general, Chris mentioned a quote from an article by Gillian Andrews about web literacy and our expectation that everyone knows what a URL is.  Google’s video showing that people are not really aware of what a browser is pushed the conversation forward.

Moving to the iPad and iPhone, Chris then steered the conversation towards the simplicity of devices and asked, will that solve some of the problem?  I think the initial problem (about logging in to Facebook) will remain until the iPad does away with Safari completely and becomes the browser itself.  Though it wasn’t brought up I was reminded about ‘The Social Agent‘ by Chris Messina and the direction that is taking.

All-in-all I thought it was good discussion (barring some early technical difficulties) and I’m looking forward to the next meeting.

The iPad…It’s not about the hardware

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you I’m no MAC fan boy.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPod (I won it as a door prize) and even contemplated getting an iPhone once ’cause I think they’re cool.  But the announcement of the iPad left me nonplussed.

As Chris wrote I cannot deny that it’s pretty. It’s very pretty. Shiny, too. but there was enough missing (no built-in camera for starters!) that I’m sure we’ll see the next version by Xmas, especially with the JooJoo launching soon.  More than that though, I think there’s more to Apple going down this path than just producing a big iTouch.

It’s got to be all about content.  With the iPad you can run virtually all the apps currently available through the App Store as well as any on your iPhone/iTouch, a lot of which are glorified ways of consuming content from 3rd parties.  They have a new book store for downloading books.  And of course you have the iTunes Store with all that music, TV shows, and movies.  Soon you’ll be able to subscribe to magazines and newspapers (which featured heavily in the video) through the store too. And as with the iPhone its all locked down.

There was also talk of it being the best web surfing experience from Rob Schiller. I assume that’s the best without Flash, seeing as that is missing from the iPad.  And why include it?  Apple has conditioned all of its iPhone & iTouch users to do without for the past few years and Safari is the first browser to support the new HTML5 audio & video tags, so why bother with it now.

Don’t get me wrong. If Messrs Jobs & co. sent me a free one to try I’m sure I’d love it. But for $500 it’s got to do a lot more than be a easy way to consume content from the iTunes Store.

Technorati tags: apple, ipad, mac

So Ricky Gervais gave up on Twitter…

…and more power to him.  You could tell from his first tweet that this wasn’t his idea, and his last one put paid to the idea that he’d be using twitter anytime soon. Floated as a way to promote his hosting of the upcoming Golden Globes he just didn’t seem to see the point and said so on his blog (you may have to scroll to week 100 as I can’t link to individual posts).

If I want to tell a friend, famous or otherwise what I had to eat this morning, I’ll text them.

And that’s why I say more power to him. He gets online media. He’s been podcasting, blogging, and vlogging for sometime.  All with a specific project or purpose in mind. He’s found the methods that work for him and work very well too. Why distill the message for the sake of using the “fad-du-jour”?

Technorati tags: goldenglobes, tweet, rickygervais, twitter

Looking back…

Its the end of the year and I’ve been thinking a bit about the things that shaped me to get where I am today.  By no means is this an exhaustive list of people, books, or events that have influenced or helped me, but more the 5 main points that spring to mind time and time again.

Web sites!

David Siegel’s Creating Killer Web Sites was the first real book I got about building web sites. Thoroughly outdated now, but back in ‘96 this was a true eye-opener for me and just made me hungry to learn more.

Floats? What the heck are those for?

I’d been trying to figure out CSS for a while with little to no success.  That was until I plowed through Eric Meyer’s Eric Meyer on CSS.  It give me a real glimpse of the web we have now. Added bonus: I ended up moving to Cleveland and meeting a very cool guy at a web design meet-up, turned out to be Eric.

Staying in touch

Keeping up with the ever changing landscape of the web is a daunting task but  Nick Fink and Digital Web Magazine made it easier. I devoured every article published in it’s 10 year run. It was my “go-to” site and I used to print off many articles to read on the bus ride home. I got to see Nick speak at SXSW as well as share a beer with him. When I think “web professional”, I think Nick Fink.

STANDARDS!

After reading Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards (now in its 3rd edition) I  made the next big leap in how I saw the web as a whole.  It was that orange book that shaped my coding and approach to building sites.

South by…

Attending SXSW for the first time kicked me up to 11!  I came back from there completely energized and re-engaged.  Its more than spotting & rubbing shoulders with the “stars” of the web. Its actually talking with them as colleagues and finding out you all share similar problems and goals. Returning the next year with Paul and representing the agency we worked for as a finalist in the Web Awards was a fantastic feeling.  If you ever get to choose a web conference to attend I recommend SXSW.

Here’s to 2010 and all that it will bring.

Technorati tags: digitalwebmagazine, web, ericmeyer, orangebook, sxsw, davidsiegel, zeldman, fink

One navigation list to rule them all?

I’ve been using unordered lists for navigation for some time now, and I remember my excitement when the I first read about the suckerfish method. But one thing that keeps popping into my head recently is using one list for the main and secondary navigation on a page. I can’t recall if I’ve ever seen anyone talk about this or try it for that matter.

The lists

Say we have a site with four main sections and within each section is four pages.  Normally I would code up the following:

Somewhere further down the page, within a section, I’d have:

Another approach

Which normally would be displayed like image 1. Now what was tickling my mind was writing the code out like this:

</li>
<li><a href="#" title="">section 3</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="">section 4</a></li>
</ul>

Usual position for secondary navigation

Where the correct sections navigation is inserted as the page is called. It could then be positioned absolutely on the page using CSS.  If you’re using skip links for screen readers, then “skip navigation” would only have to skip the one list, and if read out, then it’ll be read in context.

I know I’m not taking into consideration:

• drop down navigation (not a big fan now)
• footer navigation
• problems with certain layout designs and absolute positioning

but I think these could be overcome fairly easily.

I’m not suggesting that this is a be-all-end-all thing to use, more that I haven’t seen it implemented like this and wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the subject. I would love to hear any feedback.

Technorati tags: secondarynavigation, css, lists, html, coding

Strangers in my Twitter feed

Twitter has been going into overdrive recently, updating their online experience to (I assume) catch up with the plethora of apps that make use of the service.

Since the site has become my only way to interact with the service I’ve liked a lot of the subtle improvements. Having the site update with new tweets has been meant I don’t have to continually hit F5. Lists offer a way to organize and share, similar to Facebook’s feeds.

The latest is re-tweeting on the site, something apps like twirl and tweetdeck have offered for sometime.  Even on those apps I prefer to pass the tweet along with a little tinkering instead of just hitting the re-tweet button – that’s just me.  But the way Twitter is implementing it on the site doesn’t sit great with me (see screenshot). It feels like strangers are popping up in my feed. Names and faces that I don’t know and my initial reaction is “I’m getting SPAM” until I’ve looked a little closer.

I applaud the efforts that developers are doing, and maybe I’ll get used to it, but for now I’d like a way to turn it off.

Nokia, T-mobile, Google, and a password security problem

So I’ve been happily been using my Nokia XpressMusic 5310 for some time now.  Though I didn’t take a data plan with T-mobile I can still check my Gmail using the phone. That was until I changed my Google password.

I blogged that my Gmail account was comprised recently so I’ve been changing passwords a little and decided on one that I could remember easily.  When I updated it on my phone though it couldn’t sign-in.  I gave it a day but still nothing.  Now here was the confusing thing.  If I changed one or two characters of the password on the phone it gave the standard ‘wrong password’ message.  Type the right password in and it just said “sign-in failed, try again”.

Saturday morning I spent over 40 minutes on the phone with T-mobile support.  They had had a problem with some G1 customers (pure coincidence) so they thought it might have been fallout from that, but no.  As I was on hold for the third time I tried changing one character in my password in Google and then tried logging in on the phone – BINGO!

Seems that whatever Nokia/T-mobile uses to pass your password to Google it doesn’t like ampersands.  Chatting with the support tech he said he’d never come across that before and would log it in the Nokia database (they can’t access Google).  It was odd that somewhere, something was recognizing that it had the right password, but just wouldn’t let it through.

So if you want to bolster your secure password add non-alphanumeric characters, as long as you don’t want to access them from a Nokia phone using T-mobile.

Technorati tags: nokia, xpressmusic, 5310, gmail, password, problem, fail

Slick future visions from Microsoft

Tonight I headed over to Office Labs from Microsoft. There you’ll get a glimpse into some of the “What If?” things being considered by going to the Envisioning section.

I particulary like the Productivity Future Vision video, which builds on the surface technology currently being played with-taking it the next step with ’smart paper’ (near the end of the video).

One thing I can’t get into is the whole false ‘perspective’ thing. I’m not sure why folders have to stack in 3D when the rest of the display shown work so well ‘flat’.

Technorati tags: future, vision, microsoft

Brad Colbow on how “not making the logo bigger”…

Lean Dog opened the doors to their office (which is really a boat) to the CWSA tonight, letting us hear Brad Colbow’s presentation titled “Don’t make the logo bigger! Happiness for you and your clients”.

Giving us a whirlwind tour through his early steps in web design, which included some of his first concepts, Brad then stepped us through some of the pointers he’s picked up along the way.

“Design should never say ‘Look at me’. It should always say ‘Look at this’”.
David Craib

Sharing stories that we’ve all had to stumble through from time to time, like the ever changing background color and lack of content or client direction, Brad then laid out some tips that he’s gained by confronting the problems head-on.  These have now helped his freelance career, securing work for Starbucks, NationBuilder, and working with Jeremy Keith on an upcoming project.

It was a great presentation, and gave me a chance to meet up with some familiar faces in a cool space, exactly the kind of thing that the CWSA excels at. Brad also writes and draws an online comic strip called ‘The Brads‘.

Technorati tags: bradcolbow, presentation, cwsa, web, design, freelance, cleveland, ohio, july

How do you solve a problem like IE6?

A recent article on Ajaxian.com looked at Digg’s survey about IE6 use.  I think it really just validates what we already know, which is…

• Most IE6 users are at work and cannot upgrade
• Some user just don’t care to upgrade

So how should you address this?  The one solution that I personally feel most comfortable with is Andy Clarke’s Universal IE6 stylesheet.  This lets the visitor access all the content as well as releasing the designer/developer from a spiraling descent into madness, trying to make pages look the same. I’ve recently added it to my freelance site.

One IE6 solution I cannot get behind is proposed at http://ie6update.com/.  This displays a bar designed to mimic IE’s own information bar.  When the user clicks on it they get directed to the IE download page.  This is so open to misuse and, even with the best intentions, still smacks of trickery.

As to that old chestnut of ’supporting IE6′, well I’m not Microsoft, so I don’t have to “support” anything they make. Same goes for supporting Apple, Mozilla, or Opera products.  What I do have to do however, is make sure that any visitor, using any method, can access information and perform transactions on a site I’ve built.

Should it look graphically the same for a seven year old browser as it does for the latest & greatest? No. Should it prevent the seven year old browser from entrance? Certainly not.

So here’s to IE6 slowly going away but, in the meantime, lets not make the visitors who have no choice in using it feel alienated.

Technorati tags: ie6, css, solution, support, web, design