DDP weblog
Welcome!
Hi Everyone! Welcome to my Document Design and Publication Weblog. My name's Solomon. My other aliases would include Sol, Solo, Solz. As you can tell the people who gave me my nicknames have no imagination. Haha. I'm 23 this year and am juggling both studies and work. I've been known to have a wicked sense of humour but my level of sarcasm usually depends on whether I like that person or not. I used to read a lot but lately time has become scarce, which is most unfortunate. I used to bartend quite a fair bit but that was just a phase in my life. Right now, I'm exploring and testing the waters in a few new careers. Looking forward to more fulfilling and exciting things makes life worth living, don't you agree? I've become much more angsty and sarcastic than usual due to certain relationship woes, fortunately I'm still funny! (That's how i keep my friends you see) Although some might say I'm anti-social nowadays, I would just argue that I know what I want, to the point of being fussy sometimes, and I find its just a waste of time when I already know exactly what I want. I hope all you readers will learn something from my weblog and perhaps even find out new things!
Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html
Author Jakob Nielsen has compiled a top ten list of the biggest mistakes in web design and provides an example for each of the mistakes.
A summarised list is as follows:-
1. Bad Search
2. PDF Files for Online Reading
3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
4. Non-Scannable Text
5. Fixed Font Size
6. Page Titles With Low Search Engine Visibility
7. Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement
8. Violating Design Conventions
9. Opening New Browser Windows
10. Not Answering Users' Questions
The main focus of this article is to highlight ten of the biggest common mistakes a web author could make. It gives a description of each mistake in detail and gives a 'good' example of each bad mistake. By using these examples as a guideline, web authors can learn how to publish a seamless and 'problem-free' website.
First Principles of Interaction Design
http://www.asktog.com/basics/firstPrinciples.html
The website First Principles of Interaction Design introduces principles that are fundamental to the design and implementation of effective interfaces, whether for traditional GUI environments or the web. The author believes that many web applications have reflected a lack of understanding of many of these principles of interaction design. Because an application or service appears on the web, the principles do not change. If anything, applying these principles become even more important. Web author, Bruce Tognazzini, then goes on to explain all the principles in an alphabetical order.
Here is a summarised alphabetical list of those principles.
Anticipation
Autonomy
Color Blindness
Consistency
Defaults
Efficiency of the user
Explorable Interfaces
Fitts' Law
Human Interface Objects
Latency Reduction
Learnability
Use of Metaphors
Protect Users' Work
Readability
Track State
Visible Navigation
These principles basically introduces both amateurs and professionals to its values and their various applications on websites. While many of the principles are pure common sense, there is still much to learn as some of them are refreshing.
WEB STYLE GUIDE, 2nd edition
http://www.webstyleguide.com/index.html?/contents.html
Through its content, authors Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton put the essence of the Yale University Center for Advanced Instructional Media's wonderful online site design guide into a simple to navigate website.
The website begins the presentation of its helpful and forward-looking advice with a discussion of the overall process of defining the objectives and users of your Web site, as well as the goals you will use to measure your progress. The authors then use time-tested, traditional print concepts to clearly illustrate how to make your site interface welcoming and efficient. High-quality illustrations show how to design for overall style and professional appeal. The sections on typography and editorial style set this manual apart from many Web style guides with attention to the fine details that separate the good sites from the great.
Multimedia elements and cascading style sheets (CSS) are covered, but within the overall context of building a fine site. Media compression and delivery are addressed at a high level with concrete suggestions on formats, frame rates, and image sizes for a well-balanced approach to multimedia.
Highly recommended website!
A Dao of Web Design
http://alistapart.com/articles/dao
John Allsopp uses the Tao Te Ching teachings as a backdrop to show his understanding of web design. He finds that people often apply old print ideas onto web design, which will not work that effectively in the end for obvious reasons. Daoism is a philosophy, like Buddhism, a way of living, of being in the world, which stems from a text of great antiquity, the Tao Te Ching, whose 81 “chapters” enigmatically sweep across human experience, but with a strong common theme, that of harmony.
The Tao draws heavily from human experience and is strongly associated with harmony. Each section starts off with a small excerpt from the Tao teachings and eventually incorporates these teachings to explain his views on how it can be applied to web design. He constantly re-iterates that great web sites are usually those which tame the wildness of the web, constraining pages as if they were made of paper. And that the authors of bad web sites just want control over everything and as such they forsake the accessibility and design of the website.
This article also explains what should or should not be done, ranging from fonts to colours and layout. The author goes of of his to show everyone the 'Dao'-like qualities of the web and how everything can exist in harmony. I found his views to be very refreshing and unique, and is sure to offer everyone a fresh new perspective on web design.
Web Design from scratch
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
Web Design from Scratch is for everyone involved or interested in creating web sites - whether novice or expert. It will help you understand what makes web sites succeed or fail, and what can be done to increase the chance of success.
You don't have to be a web designer to benefit from this site. You may have a current web site design project, you may be updating an existing site, or just interested in learning new skills.
Web design and development is a huge area that grows and changes every day. While it's impossible to document everything there is to know, this site aims to help you understand the principles of creating great sites and to teach you some of the most important skills needed to do it successfully and repeatedly.
Author Ben Hunt's articles can teach anyone how to do things simply and still make it look professional. He talks about how he doesn't subscribe to the whole design vs usability argument and instead the purpose of a website should be just, simply put, communication. I agree with him 100%!
Play to the Brain's Strengths
posted by Solomon. Solly. @ 11:57 PM
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