Just imported a bunch of posts I wrote for my SCAD student pages blog this last quarter.  They were all in response to specific questions posed to my web design class so if they seem to be directed at a specific unnamed topic, that’s why.

Just some quick thoughts I typed out on my iPhone while thinking about this quarter and web design.

Web design is still evolving, we may not be in on the ground floor but there is still a lot to do.

Web standards will be important to making sure we as designers can create data accessible to as many people as possible.

There is a serious trend in mobile being the primary access point to the web in people’s everyday lives.

I also see an open opportunity for web connected digital in the public sphere. “digital out of home ” is really yet to be defined as a medium and there is a lot of opportunity for someone who can demonstrate a solid return on investment when it applies to large scale digital out of home installations.

Combining mobile as an access point to data held in the public sphere of the web is being looked at majorly by places like moxie interactive and I think we as designers would be remiss to ignore that.

I don’t think big LCD screens all over the place are the answer. They’re expensive, power grubbing, and what about localized data sent to mobile devices? Kinda like the radio station near the airport where you can get information on flights, wayfinding, and tips on getting through security quickly.

The fact that I can writes all of this on my iPhone while on Marta heading to a meeting, then email it to my entire project team while listening to one of my favorite songs and downloading a web design podcast from SitePoint is pretty amazing and I think just scratches the surface.

“Basic” website design is far from solved. Just a few days ago ALA came out with a two articles on all the new possibilities with web typography. We as designers still have a lot to figure out and it leaves a lot of room open for innovation.

I hope everyone has a good, productive, restful “break”. I’ll hopefully see everyone in January.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

I really don’t think we need studies and research to tell us that we as people respond to visual stimuli based on how we perceive it, positive, negative or otherwise.  You see car that looks fast, you think its a hot sports car even if you don’t know what kind of engine it has or how well it corners.  The same holds true for websites.  If your site looks like it came out of the early 90s, it doesn’t matter how good your content is or how useable the site is.  People’s first reactions will be to assume your content and usability are that of a site from the early 90s.  That may not mean they leave your site (though some will) but it will color all of their interactions until they are proven wrong.  Looking further on the topic I’d encourage people to read the A List Apart article “In Defense of Eye Candy” by Stephen P. Anderson (see his site PoetPainter.com or follow him on twitter).  I’d also encourage any SCAD Atlanta Student who is interested in interaction OR game design to take Prof. Spencer’s ITGM 230: Information Design for Dynamic Media.  If you apply yourself there, you will learn an incredible amount about how to mix usability and aesthetics to create solid user experience.

Ok so I’ve been asked to write on my thoughts about copyright and things such as Creative Commons.  The truth is I’m in way over my head on a subject like this.   But my main problem with all of it, copyright, creative commons, collaboration, etc, is that if there is a breach, of copyright law, especially if it happens to someone like me, is that the resources that I’d need to have to deal with it are far out of my hands.

But on the idea of mashups and collaboration I do really like the idea of creative commons and open source.  Keeping resources out on the web and giving others the resources to move on with their own work is a great thing.  I’ve been using a lot of creative commons and open source resources as learning tools.  Open source has let me learn an incredible amount on my own and things like the wiiMote Whiteboard project have helped me experiment with technologies that I’d have to pay out a lot for otherwise.

<For Purposes of Full Disclosure>

While I write this I’m streaming the latest episode of Fringe on Hulu.com

</Disclosure Statement>

So I’ve been asked my thoughts on Video and TV on the web.

I don’t think I have to say much more than this as far as web and TV.

I have a TV with cable in my living room.  It hasn’t been turned on in 2 months but I’m up to date on the latest TV series and I’m watching through a few I’ve missed over the last year or two.  Its all powered by Adobe Flash and I can watch from anywhere while I work.  As far of the future, I’m most excited about more shows being made with the intent of going straight to the web.  Shows like Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.

We’re artists and designers.  We’re always going to argue about different styles, trends, and techniques.  I think we see a lot more of this about portfolio sites as our options are so wide open.  Its one of the few times we get to work for ourselves.  But as with everything, the key to our portfolio page’s design needs to be the user.  Who is going to be seeing your portfolio page.  On the subject of Flash or no Flash, look at what you do and who will be viewing your site.  If your into motion graphics and the people you want hiring you are high end motion graphics studios then by all means use Flash.  On the other hand if your a freelance web designer primarily catering to small and medium business then you may want to avoid Flash.  At least in your primary information and functionality.  Also, an important thing to keep in mind these days are mobile users.  If you think there is a serious chance of people wanted to see your site from their phone you need to have a mobile friendly version of the site.  By the way, if you want a man like Jon Jones to look at your page, probably want to avoid flash.  He and his hair are a little opposed.

So you’ve looked at your users, you know your medium, you know your own style, now you need to look to your content.  What is your user’s goal when they come to your site.  Hopefully they are interested in hiring you so they’ve come to look at your work and maybe contact you.  Your portfolio site needs to make this exceedingly easy for them to do.

The first thing a visitor to your site should see is your work.  Don’t hide it in a gallery 2-3 clicks deep.  Put it out there on the front page.

Secondly, you want your users to contact you right?  So don’t make it hard for them.  Put easy links to email you on every page.  If you feel comfortable putting your phone number on your site, put it out there.  Let people know how they can hire you, and make it as easy as you can.

Visually I’m not a huge fan of ashweb media’s site, but their site does a good job of getting their work and their contact info out to the user really quick.

Now I like emotionslive.co.uk a lot more from a visual and artistic point of view but I have a bone or two to pick with them.  They make me click before I see their work.  Their work does tend to be bold and bright like what I see on the front page, but if I don’t like what I see right there, I’m liable to just move on to the next designer’s page.  Also their “Mail Me” link seems like an afterthought.  It needs to be more prominent and much more legible.

Ah Flash.  I have a very quick response to the question of Flash.  Flash is a very specific tool that can do a lot but it comes at the expense of alienating a lot of users.

Flash is great for:

• Advertising
• Online Video
• Rich Animation
• Sound Integration
• Games
• Among other things

Flash is not good for:

• Corporate pages
• Mobile accessibility
• accessibility in general
• Pages with a wide user base at different tech levels [CNN.com]
• E-Commerce

Flash, JavaScript, CSS…these are all tools in our arsenal as developers.  Look at your goal, look at your users, look at your time-frame and pick your tools wisely.

Yes…my title uses bad ASCII “art”.

But more on point, experience flow is one of those abstract ideas that I think is terribly hard to teach in that it is hard to condense it down into a quick set of do’s, don’ts.   But in my time spent running around the internet, I think I’ve started to get a better idea of what makes good flow.  Volvo’s got this cool little site.  The concept has been done time and time again, but I think this version is pretty well done.  Not a fan of the opening “launch the site” screen but its not a big issue.

I just don’t get it.  A lot of the 2008 Webby Award winning sites just aren’t that good.  Sure, a lot of them do some fancy stuff but most of them seem to completely ignore the user or what said user may want to accomplish.  In very few can I actually find a good overall experience.

I have to say one of my favorites I’ve run into was the “Smart forTwo” site.  I think they killed the experience flow with the end of section menus [should have gone pure linear or non-linear the option just doesn't work here.  Or at least made the option obvious but not jolt you out of the experience].  But it actually was one of the more enjoyable sites I’ve visited in a while.  Good use of Flash, along with some solid writing and content.  Also I was quite presently surprised when I left the site up for about 8min after being done with it, the narrator started making small quips and comments every few minutes just as if I were standing around off set.  Nothing that gets in the way but a nice way to bring you back into the site if you left it and forgot about it.  Keeps you thinking about the product.  I’m not one for Smart Cars myself but this little mini site was quite nice.  Not perfect, but a nice diversion in the mediocrity that is the web.

On the other hand, take a look at Webby Award winner Keith Tyson’s site.  The opening screen is generally useless and gives you no useful information.  Once I’m in the real meat of the site, the random circles give little information about what is going on behind them.  When it comes down to it I don’t know what I’m looking at and that ambiguity is not telling me anything about the art or the artist.  So far into the experience I’ve learned nothing except that Keith here likes star fields and ambient sound effects.  Once I click on a work, I’m presented with some circles that respond to the mouse in a way that reminds me of the end of “2001 a Space Odyssey” and like Dave at at that point in the film, I’m left wondering WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!  So out of curiosity I decide to click again.  Yay, now I’ve got some images, I click on one to enlarge it and maybe get some information and wait for it…

(dramatic pause)

Keith,

Your site breaks on a large monitor….you need to look to that.

Sincerely,

Daniel

How did this site win the Webby in Art?  I’ve spent about 15min on it and still don’t quite understand what this guy does.

Ok, so designing for mobile devices seems to be the topic of choice in my classes this week.  There’s a whole lot going on the the mobile world these days, one thing that has me really excited is the announcement about Flash CS5 having a direct to iPhone app publishing system [thanks for the twitter link @adstuder]. But with all that new functionality for those of us who are flash devs, comes a new set of hurdles that web devs have known and dealt with for a while now [ya if there weren't already enough right?].

Looking back a few posts, I wrote about the question of screen resolution and design resolution for web.  The first, and I think most obvious issue encountered with mobile design is the plethora of screen sizes, and display types and viewing contexts that designers now have to take into account.  In web design for “standard” sized computers, a designer may have to design between a few browsers, and 4-5 common screen resolutions.  In mobile development a designer has tens if not hundreds of different proprietary browsers and limitations and easily hundreds of different screen resolutions and aspect ratios to worry about.

The second major consideration is one that most of us associate with an earlier time in web design, and that is bandwidth limitations.  Today’s web design environment is amazingly flexible and forgiving of non-optimized designs and prodigious use of large images and video on the page.  Mobile web surfing is sadly not yet afforded that sort of slack as of yet.  Whether a user is browsing on a 3G iPhone or their MobileInternet brick phone, bandwidth is still a major issue.  Designers have to go back to the old tricks of image optimization and getting more out of less.

The good folks as SCAD and Transloc have provided us students with a very nice real time GPS tracking of our bus services in both Atlanta and Savannah.  The standard web version of the site provides a nice google maps interface with some cool real time updating and some pretty nice visuals.  But I think the system really starts to show off in its mobile version.  It’s not some slick, sexy design but if your interested in good user experience and accessibility the mobile transloc site has it in spades.  Most of the data from the full page is there, and as it’s mostly text based, the site is quick to load on even the slower networks out there.  Under the same hat, this means very little data is transferred which is nice for those of us without unlimited data plans.  But to me the real kicker is that the site has been made to be compatible with everything from the super fancy iPhone 3GS, to the LG Brick currently sitting in my jerry rigged charging station that I had to assemble with pliers and a soldering iron.

Mobile design has got a long way to go and there are a lot of hurdles in making good mobile design as it sits today.  But the designer who really has it down will be in high demand as the future of mobile web experiences on gets brighter.