Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Trends and Such
Here are some links mentioned in an article about recent trends in the web world in this month's Practical Web Design magazine...

Simple Huge Designs
1. www.twitag.com - "it's so simple that the temptation to jump in and get going is irresistable"
2. www.hungryman.com
3. www.dollarshort.org - two column site without the fat.
4. www.caxtonstreetfestival.com - "... sponsors become a part of the flow"
5. www.feedt.com

Muted Colors = Seriousness
1. www.wordpress.org
2. www.tripkick.com

Organic Style = Inviting
1. www.namethis.com
2. www.thejtsite.com

Old School with Solid Colors
1. www.futureofonlineadvertising.com
2. www.tastyplanner.com (jennie, did you know about this one?)

And some other inspirational sites...
1. designmeltdown.com
2. spammeltdown.com
3. logopond.com
4. colourlovers.com
5. adverblog.com

Oh, and in this issue (iss. 179), there's an article on effective newsletters. I'll look into it the next time I encounter the mag.

posted by Gene at 10:31 PM 0 Comments

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Direct Magazine Mockups
Here are the current mockups for Direct Magazine.

posted by Tiffany Guidice at 11:17 AM 0 Comments

Friday, August 22, 2008

Site Maps & Breadcrumbs, Oh My!
Here are some interesting articles about specific past design practices put out by Jared Spool of User Interface Engineering (uie.com).

The Site Map: An Information Architecture Cop-Out

and

Design Cop-Out #2: Breadcrumbs

Oh, and one more link... an article on gallery pages aka category pages

Galleries: The Hardest Working Pages on Your Site

Take a gander and let me know what you guys all think.

posted by Gene at 11:36 AM 2 Comments

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Catfish Banner
Hey gang,

Anyone ever thought of using a catfish banner as part of a design concept? Check out DevelopmentSeed. Scroll down the page, and you'll notice that the bottom banner remains persistent. It was a really creative way to make their brand stand out.

posted by Prescott at 12:19 PM 2 Comments

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The Big Thought-Provoking Idea #0001
The potential for failure is proportional to the thickness of the Strat Doc

posted by Gene at 11:49 AM 0 Comments

Monday, August 18, 2008

Yearbook Pictures, Penton Style













posted by Gene at 2:55 PM 4 Comments

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Drupal Admin Theme Usability
Two things to take a look at:

RootCandy: This is a UI for Drupal's admin interface. There's a lot of usability emphasis, which I think we could leverage IF we end up using Drupal 6. If not, it's something that we might want to consider trying to port to Drupal 5. OR maybe you guys might have an interest in doing a Drupal admin theme.

Dropdown Menu: This module saves me time EVERY day. It makes simple tasks so much quicker (less clicks).

What do you guys think?

posted by Prescott at 10:50 PM 0 Comments

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Windows IT Pro Post-Its
After a somewhat heavy lunch at Viceroy earlier this afternoon, Terry and I avoided food coma by running thru the post-its session for Windows IT Pro. We also had an informative conversation with Prescott about designing with other network sites in mind. Some sites mentioned were: http://www.fiercewireless.com/, http://www.bananarepublic.com, and there were a few other ones that I can't remember at the moment.

What we got out of the conversation was to really think about the design when considering the breadth (other sites in the network) vs the depth (the one-stops that drill down to the target content users are looking for).

In the sites listed above, you'll notice that the network sites usually run across the top of the page, which helps to reinforce the brand of the site whereas the main navigation is either on the left side or or placed close to the top in a horizontal format.

Prescott also suggested some new ideas in approaching the design of the sub- and sub-sub-navigation on the article pages of Windows IT Pro, which I guess you will get to see later on.

Anyways, here's the post-it board...

posted by Gene at 10:55 PM 1 Comments

Monday, August 4, 2008

SLIP-ing with Windows IT PRO
SLIP stands for Sort, Label, Integrate, and Prioritize.

It's a process created by John Maeda, currently president of RISD. He's developed an online application that follows this process and it's basically a more evolved version of the Post-It notes thing we've been doing for recent redesigns.

So Terry and I are working on SLIP-ing the "Jump To" menu contents as suggested in the latest strat doc for Windows IT PRO. It's basically what www.computerworld.com has right now in the upper left. I'll be starting the process where Terry and I will follow up with suggested reorganizations in the comments section. If the URL is too long, you can shorten it with www.tinyurl.com.

Here's the suggested "Jump To" menu submitted by Windows IT Pro.


Here's a quick attempt - Terry

posted by Gene at 5:31 PM 14 Comments

Mobile Dev & Design Mockup
Hey Everyone,

Here's the mockup for Mobile Dev & Design's homepage.

The idea behind this design is that for the article pages, the top container containing the 'top story' and 'latest top stories' will disappear allowing the 'Categories' bump up to the top of the site. This allows users a better opportunity to cross browse across all sections of MDD after reaching the target page (the article page).

For all other pages (one-stops and homepage), the top container is viewable allowing category-specific content to be featured.

posted by Gene at 10:08 AM 4 Comments

Friday, August 1, 2008

This Is How We Should Roll
A great article here on improving our process and generating better designs. I really dig the example questions and will be using them in the next kickoff. Additionally, a lot of times our OPDMs miss the mark completely on what a strat doc should accomplish; I think this sums it up nicely.

posted by Jenneeeeee at 12:18 PM 3 Comments

Floating Vertical Toolbars

Check out this floating left toolbar. Scroll down the page in order to see it in full effect. Could this be interesting for a utility nav?

Subscribe | Advertise | Contact Us

One of the things that ticks me off most is how hard it is to find a media kit or advertiser information on a Web site. The subscribe link is also often buried. Could this be a way to punch up the volume on the prominence of those links?

posted by Prescott at 10:15 AM 2 Comments

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