Category Archives: Web

Responsive Design is Everywhere

Posted on by
Reply

I recently read an article called The New Rules of the Responsive Web by Matthew Carver on the Webdesigner Depot website. The article started by telling me what I already know – Responsive Design is now a near ubiquitous buzzword on the web. To me that means a lot of people think it’s great (including me) and a lot of people don’t know what it is – but know they need to have it.

The Responsive Design approach is been around for a long time. But it has now gathered enough momentum to be a part of most every web design project. This article lays out four ground rules for how to work on the design of a responsive web design project. The first rule is don’t stop at just a graceful rescaling of the design. Build a site optimized for anything from the desktop to a “tiny cellphone running IE7 on an EDGE network”. Second, there is no easy way out. Responsive design is complicated it calls for a new iterative approach to design and development. Evan Gerber VP of Mobile at Fidelity in a presentation I attended described it as a “Lean UX” approach. By prototyping your wireframes and presenting them to the client you can focus on the site’s layout before the design. Third is to embrace change. You have to change your tools and approach to design fro a responsive design project. You need to go beyond Photoshop and full page mock-ups. The last rule is my favorite – “Remember your roots”. It starts with a quote from Tim Berners-Lee. “[The web] should be accessible from any kind of hardware that can connect to the Internet: stationary or mobile, small screen or large.” This has always been the case. We need to think of how the target audience is consuming our information and make sure is easy for them to do so.

Read the full article for the full details of the rules. There are links to some nice resources and as always the comments on the article provide for some interesting perspectives.

No Lists for Navigation?

Posted on by
Reply

Using lists for navigation makes it difficult for blind visitors to navigate your site. This came as news to me. I had always thought that lists and nested lists were the most accessible way to code website navigation. The article Navigation in Lists: To Be or Not To Be by Chris Coyier on the CSS-Tricks website has convinced me otherwise.

The author reports that at a January 2011 Refresh event Reinhard Stebner, who is blind, suggested not using lists for navigation but instead use divs and spans. He uses JAWS as a screen reader and said navigation in lists makes it harder for him. Other attendees add that the list structure is not conductive to the screen reader’s logic and that divs and spans are the way to go as they’re invisible to screen readers.

Read the full article to find out what other attendees at the event had to say. Be sure to read the comments at the bottom. There is a great discussion amongst developers about the topic.

Write Off Google Plus?

Posted on by
Reply

Google Plus will not only prevail but have a staggering number of active users by the end of 2013. This is according to Dave Llorens in his article for Fast Company Plus-One This: Proof the Google Plus Will Prevail. The author states that expectations for Google Plus to be a Facebook killer were off. He even goes on to say that Google never intended to complete directly with Facebook. It’s an interesting premise and to back it up the author points to Google pulling the plug pretty quickly on failed concepts like Buzz and Wave. The real goal is for Google Plus to be the glue that connects all their products into a “big ball of awesome user experience”. Think of all the Google products you use on a regular basis: Search, YouTube, Gmail, Calendar, Maps, Drive, Play, Picasa and more. That means a lot of people are already participating in the Google Plus product. I for one agree – Google Plus is here to stay. Read the article and judge for yourself.

It’s all about the content

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve worked on a lot of web projects over the years and content, or lack there of, always comes up as a project speed-bump. Everyone thinks they know what they want to say and that it won’t take much time at all to write. Or they believe the existing content just needs some minor tweaking. What they always find out is that creating content takes much longer than they expected. Another content issue that occurs is keeping it up to date. A good friend of mine called it “feeding the beast”. Once you have that fantastic new site you need to keep it fresh.

This article that appeared in Forbes, Your Content is Giving You A People Problem, discusses the importance of content strategy. The example is for a large organization but the theories applies to an organization of any size. The article states that determining content owners and having a content czar are important to maintaining high quality content across multiple channels. It stresses the importance of a nimble digital content team that is no only responsible for overseeing production but also actively tweaking content strategy base on analytics.

The only disagreement I have with this article is the timing of the planning of content responsibilities. The author says the time to create roles and assign responsibilities is after the designs are set is I believe that needs to be addressed in the Information Architecture phase before designs are set. Content owners should be involved in the organization of information as should any czar that will be coordinating content post launch.

Is Your Mobile Site Hurting Your Search Rankings?

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s another case for using Responsive Design. Your separate mobile site may be hurting your search rankings. This article SEO for the mobile web on Web Designer Depot states that duplicate content between the desktop and mobile sites may draw penalties from search engines and separate domains may split the page’s link equity and decrease page rankings. Using responsive design is the best solution to avoid duplicate content. The same content can be formatted to fit the view-port of any device that browses it be it a mobile phone, tablet or desktop computer.