Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 112
February 16, 2010
FontShop 51
In Behance Gallery: Find the latest FontFont Releases at the FontShop (50 and 51) or download the 64-page FIFTY|1 Release Magazine.
February 14, 2010
February 11, 2010
Wish I'd invented it
Arc90 Lab's Readability is a simple and essential tool that "makes reading on the web more enjoyable by removing the clutter around what you're reading."
Just choose your settings, install the bookmarklet in your browser's toolbar, and enjoy content on even the busiest, most poorly-designed sites.
In the past, I've cited Readability as a signpost for designers struggling with IE6.
It's also an invaluable aid to readers who use smart phones.
For instance, here is Roger Ebert's review of...
February 9, 2010
A List Apart 300
Issue 300 of A List Apart for people who make websites solves password-related usability problems with a dash of JavaScript, and employs content strategy to help your site do the right thing at the right time:
by LYLE MULLICAN
Abandoning password masking as Jakob Nielsen suggests could present serious problems, undermining a user's trust by failing to meet a basic expectation. But with design patterns gleaned from offline applications, plus a dash of JavaScript, we...
February 5, 2010
Free advice: show up early
Delay happens. The train is late, the flight is cancelled, the traffic is murder. Travel is the leading edge of entropy, and entropy is the universe's final comment on the meaning of it all. If the universe is expanding and there are snow delays on Route 1, it's not your fault that you're 15 minutes late to the meeting, right?
Don't be so quick to excuse yourself. If 80% of success is just showing up, 90% is showing up early.
It's hard for the client to sympathize with your lateness when she...
February 3, 2010
Ahem
The first part of my post of 1 February was not an attack on Flash. It described a way of working with Flash that also supports users who don't have access to Flash. I've followed and advocated that approach for 10 years. It has nothing to do with Apple's recent decisions and everything to do with making content available to people and search engines.
It's how our agency and others use Flash; we've published articles on the subject in our magazine, notably Semantic Flash: Slippery When Wet by ...
February 2, 2010
Free advice: buy a dongle
There is still no Wi-Fi on the northeast corridor Amtrak trains that carry hundreds of thousands of business travelers each day. So quit whining and get a USB 3G modem. It's free with monthly service, which is tax-deductible. For the $60/month I pay Verizon, I can connect my laptop to the internet from any train, bus, boat, lounge, lobby, conference room, coffee shop, or just about any other environment to which modern business takes me.
Laying Pipe
Dan Benjamin and yours truly discuss the secret history of blogging, transitioning from freelance to agency, the story behind the web standards movement, the launch of A Book Apart and its first title, HTML5 For Web Designers by Jeremy Keith, the trajectory of content management systems, managing the growth of a design business, and more in the inaugural episode of the Pipeline.
February 1, 2010
Flash, iPad, Standards
Lack of Flash in the iPad (and before that, in the iPhone) is a win for accessible, standards-based design. Not because Flash is bad, but because the increasing popularity of devices that don't support Flash is going to force recalcitrant web developers to build the semantic HTML layer first. Additional layers of Flash UX can then be optionally added in, just as, in proper, accessible, standards-based development, JavaScript UX enhancements are added only after we verify that the site works w...
