Author: Steve Teare- Low-fidelity Branding

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio#Aesthetics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headroom_%28photographic_framing%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_room http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spiral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_angle

I preach 7 to 9 links is the best-case requirement on a home page. So I choke on “link clutter”. That is frequently beyond a designers control since it’s probably edict from a committee. I have low-expectations of dropdown and flyout navigation. I am prejudiced about dropdowns for various reasons. It is mostly a matter…

h1{color: #333333; font-size:280%; line-height:100%;font-family:Impact,Haettenscheweller, “Arial Narrow Bold”, Charcoal,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;letter-spacing:-1px;} I suppose the spacing would be better specified as an “em” space instead of pixels –per responsive design specs for mobile. And, of course, the size needs to be adjusted to the whitespace. If the line height is NOT specified the fat words wrap on top of…

Is it possible to do nonlinear gradients in CSS? For example, say I’d like more black at the top in a gradated banner. Can I define a starting point for the gradient to begin? What I’ve seen so far has a start and finish point at the edges of the div. Can one tweak this…

“Web credibility is based directly on the overall visual design of a site, specifically noting layout, typography, font size, and color schemes.” –Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab Think of a web page as a person. If a person is not congruent, contradicts himself, and does not seem to be consistent, that person is typically not…

Cross-device development The novel development of mobile applications with technologies that let you write code once and run it on several devices of different phone vendors. Baked-in “UI continuity” has the widest audience reach — and thus the most value to the user. Overall continuous UI tapestry = ecosystem Media queries are part of the…

http://24ways.org/2010/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-gradients This link above was written by the same book author of “Responsive Websites”. It’s good stuff. I have a philosophy that “basic” elements of speed. Gradients is one of the elements that can give “light and depth” cues. As the author, Ethan Marcotte, says though –gradients can be abused and overused. Nonetheless, he has…

http://quirktools.com/screenfly/ Very handy site for screen testing.

Cleantech is a term used to describe products or services that improve operational performance, productivity, or efficiency while reducing costs, inputs, energy consumption, waste, or environmental pollution. I’m pro cleantech for websites using UX tools. The goal of UX is to reduce website frustration and struggle (aka toxic graphic pollution and bandwidth waste). Authors have…

http://goodexperience.com/2011/08/a-master-course-in-ho.php http://goodexperience.com/2009/04/on-hospitality-in-a-t.php I’ve been on this mindset for about 2 months. Hospitality is UX.