Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 59
January 11, 2012
Selling Design – an online reading list
TOMORROW, WHICH IS also my birthday, I begin teaching "Selling Design" to second-year students in the MFA Interaction Design program at School of Visual Arts, New York. Liz Danzico and Steve Heller created and direct the MFA program, and this is my second year teaching this class, whose curriculum I pull out of my little blue beanie.
In this class we explore collaboration and persuasion for interaction designers. Whether you work in a startup, studio, or traditional company; whether you design print, products, purely digital experiences, or any combination thereof; whether you're the sole proprietor, part of a tightly focused team, or a link in a long chain of connected professionals, it is only by collaborating skillfully with others—and persuading them tactfully and convincingly when points of view differ and yours is right—that you can hope to create designs that make a dent in the universe.
During this spring semester, we'll explore collaboration and persuasion from many points of view, and hear from (and interact with) many accomplished designers who will serve as special guest speakers. For our opening get-acquainted session, we'll focus on texts that explore the some of the most basic, traditional (and rarely taught) aspects of design professionalism from the worlds of web, interaction, and print design:
Demystifying Design
by Jeff Gothelf – A List Apart
Draw together
Show raw work (frequently)
Teach the discipline
Be transparent
Take credit for your wins
Design Criticism and the Creative Process
by Cassie McDaniel – A List Apart
Critique as collaborative tool
Presenting designs
What is good feedback?
Negotiate criticism
The designer as collaborator
Personality in Design
by Aarron Walter – A List Apart
Personality is the platform for emotion
A history of personality in design
Personas
Creating a design persona for your website [or other project]
Tapbots: Robot love
Caronmade: octopi, unicorns, and mustachios
Housing Works: a name with a face
The power of personality
Design Professionalism
by Andy Rutledge
You should read this entire brief book, but for now, sample these bits:
Distractions: Contests and Awards
Distractions: Pitches and Spec Work
Conclusion: A Gestalt
Do You Suck at Selling Your Ideas?
by Sam Harrison – HOW Magazine
Dyson is used as an example of a product that currently dominates the market, even though nobody initially believed in the inventor's idea. Lessons:
Tell a personal story
Create emotional experiences for decision makers
See what's behind rejections
How to sell your design effectively to the client
by Arfa Mirza, Smashing Magazine
Understand the nature of your client
Have a rationale for every part of your design
Show the best design options only
Defend your design, but don't become defensive
Solicit good feedback and benefit from it
Money: How to sell the value of design – an email conversation
by Jacob Cass – Just Creative
Narrative of standing up to new-client pressure to do something against the designer's self-interest, or which devalues design. Story told here is about money but it could be about any designer/client conflict in which the designer needs to gently educate the client. (Some designer/client conflicts require the client to educate the designer, but that's another matter.)
How to choose a logo designer
by Jacob Cass – Just Creative
Basic article outlines ten background materials any designer (not just logo designers) should prepare to encourage confidence on the client's part:
Experience
Positive testimonials
A thorough design process
Awards won/published work
A strong portfolio
Price
Design affiliations
Great customer service
Business Professionalism
Appropriate questions
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December 31, 2011
December 30, 2011
The maker makes: on design, community, and personal empowerment
THE FIRST THING I got about the web was its ability to empower the maker. The year was 1995, and I was tinkering at my first website. The medium was raw and ugly, like a forceps baby; yet even in its blind, howling state, it made me a writer, a designer, and a publisher — ambitions which had eluded me during more than a decade of underachieving desert wanderings.
I say "it made me" but I made it, too. You get the power by using it. Nobody confers it on you.
I also got that the power was not for me alone: it was conferred in equal measure on everyone with whom I worked, although not everyone would have the time or desire to use the power fully.
The luckiest makers
Empowerment and desire. It takes extraordinary commitment, luck, and talent to become a maker in, say, music or film, because the production and distribution costs and risks in these fields almost always demand rich outside investors and tightly controlling corporate structures. (Film has held up better than music under these conditions.)
Music and film fill my life, and, from afar, I love many artists involved in these enterprises. But they are mostly closed to you and me, where the web is wide open, and always has been. We all know gifted, hard working musicians who deserve wide acclaim but do not receive it, even after decades of toil. The web is far kinder to makers.
To care is to share
Not only does the web make publishers of those willing to put in the work, it also makes most of us free sharers of our hard-won trade, craft, and business secrets. The minute we grab hold of a new angle on design, interaction, code, or content, we share it with a friend — or with friends we haven't met yet. This sharing started in news groups and message boards, and flowered on what came to be called blogs, but it can also slip the bounds of its containing medium, empowering makers to create books, meet-ups, magazines, conferences, products, you name it. It is tough to break into traditional book publishing the normal way but comparatively easy to do it from the web, provided you have put in the early work of community building.
The beauty is that the community building doesn't feel like work; it feels like goofing off with your friends (because, mostly, it is). You don't have to turn your readers into customers. Indeed, if you feel like you're turning your readers into customers, you're doing it wrong.
If you see a chance, take it
The corollary to all this empowerment is that it's up to each of us to do something positive with it. I sometimes become impatient when members of our community spend their energy publicly lamenting that a website about cats isn't about dogs. Their energy would be so much better spent starting bow-wow.com. The feeling that something is missing from a beloved online resource (or conference, or product) can be a wonderful motivator to start your own. I created A List Apart because I felt that webmonkey.com wasn't enough about design and highfive.com was too much about it. If this porridge is too hot and that porridge is too cold, I better make some fresh, eh?
I apologize if I sometimes seem snippy with whiners. My goal is never to make anyone feel bad, especially not anyone in this community. My message to my peers since the days of "Ask Dr Web" has always been: "you can do this! Go do it." That is still what I say to you all.
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December 29, 2011
State of the web: of apps, devices, and breakpoints
IN The 'trouble' with Android, Stephanie Rieger points out the ludicrous number of Android screen sizes on a typical UK client's website and comes to this conclusion:
If … you have built your mobile site using fixed widths (believing that you've designed to suit the most 'popular' screen size), or are planning to serve specific sites to specific devices based on detection of screen size, Android's settings should serve to reconfirm how counterproductive a practice this can be. Designing to fixed screen sizes is in fact never a good idea…there is just too much variation, even amongst 'popular' devices. Alternatively, attempting to track, calculate, and adjust layout dimensions dynamically to suit user-configured settings or serendipitous conditions is just asking for trouble.
I urge you to read the entire article—it's brief yet filled with rich chocolatey goodness.
Responding to it, Marc Drummond concludes that responsive web design default breakpoints are dead and urges designers to "use awkwardness as your guideline, not ephemeral default device widths" and return to fluid design. (I believe he may actually be thinking of liquid layout—the kind we practiced back in the early mid-1990s when cross-platform and multi-manufacturer desktop screen sizes and pixel-per-inch ratios—not to mention strong user font, size, and color preference options—made fixed-width layout design challenging if not impossible. As I understand fluid design, it is merely another word for responsive design, in that it relies on CSS3 media queries set to breakpoints.)
We've lost our compass
Rieger and Drummond are hardly alone in feeling that "our existing standards, workflows, and infrastructure" cannot support "today's incredibly exciting yet overwhelming world of connected digital devices" (futurefriend.ly) and that something new must be done to move the web forward. And of course ppk has been warning us about the multiplicity of platforms and viewports on mobile since 2009.
Agreed: that is an exciting and challenging time; that fixed width layouts do not address, and adaptive layouts (multiple fixed-width layouts set to common breakpoints) do not go far enough in addressing, the challenges posed by our current plethora of mobile screen sizes, zoom settings, embedded views (i.e. "browser" windows inside app windows, often with additional chrome) and what Rieger calls "the unintended consequences" that occur as these various settings clash in ways their creators could not have anticipated.
As consumers, we've all had the experience of seeing the wrong layout at the wrong time. (Think of a site with both mobile and desktop versions—whether these versions are triggered by CSS3 media queries or JavaScript and back-end magic is beside the point because technology is beside the point—good user experience is all this is supposed to be about. On a Twitter app on a mobile device, the user follows a link; the link opens in the browser built into the Twitter app. Which version of the site does the user see? The mobile one or the desktop? Often it is the desktop, and that can be a problem if the app's version of the browser does not permit zoom. Even if it is a mobile version, it may be the wrong mobile version, or it may not fit comfortably inside the app's browser window.) Considering our own experiences and reviewing Rieger's chart, it is easy to share Drummond's conclusion that breakpoints are dead and that all sites should be designed as minimally as possible.
If breakpoints are dead, responsive design is dead
Of course, if breakpoints are dead, responsive design is dead, because responsive design relies on breakpoints both in creative workflow and as a key to establishing user-need-and-context-based master layouts, i.e. a minimal layout for the user with a tiny screen and not much bandwidth, a more fleshed-out one for the netbook user, and so on.
But responsive design is not dead; it has only begun. It is not a panacea but was never intended to be. It is simply the beginnings of an approach.
I respect those colleagues who say breakpoints are dead, understand how they reached this conclusion, and am eager to see where it takes them in the coming months as they experiment with new methods, perhaps developing wonderful and unforeseen best practices. I hope design will be a brilliant part of these new methods, not something that gets abandoned to create a bland but workable lightweight experience for all.
But I also believe it is possible to draw a different conclusion from the same data. It is even possible, I believe, to say the present data doesn't matter—at least not in the long run.
Tale of the chart
There was a time in the late 1990s when industrious web designers showed how atrocious CSS support was in browsers. Eric Meyer's Master Compatability Chart for Web Review, formerly at http://www.webreview.com/pub/wr/style..., was one of the best, but is no longer available for your historical viewing pleasure—not even at the mighty Wayback Machine. That's too bad, as it would have perfectly illustrated my point. The chart used a variety of colors to show how each detail of the entire CSS specification was or was not supported (and if supported, whether it was supported correctly and completely, partially and correctly, partially and somewhat incorrectly, or completely incorrectly) in every browser which was available at the time, including, if memory serves, close to a dozen versions of Netscape, Explorer, and Opera.
Looking at that chart induced nausea and vertigo. It was easy to draw the conclusion that CSS wasn't ready for primetime. (That was the correct conclusion at the time.) It was also easy to look at the table and decide that table layouts and font tags were the way to go.
That's what most designers who even bothered looking at Eric's chart decided, but a few (Eric and me included) drew a completely other inference. Instead of trying to memorize all the things that could go wrong in each browser, we created general rules for what worked across all browsers (e.g. font-size in px, floats for layout) and advocated design based on the things that work. This, I believe, is exactly what the futurefriend.ly and Move the Web Forward folks are doing now: trying to figure out commonalities instead of bogging down in details. (This is why some in our community have labeled futurefriend.ly and Move the Web Forward "WaSP II.")
The other inference Eric, I, and others in the 1990s drew from Eric's chart was that browser makers must be petitioned to support CSS accurately and correctly. We and many of you reading this engaged in said petitioning, and thanks largely to help from with the browser engineering community (from people like Tantek Çelik and Chris Wilson and organizations like Mozilla) it came to pass.
Of mice and markets
We cannot, of course, petition all the makers of, say, Android devices to agree to a set of standard breakpoints, because there are over 500 different Android devices out there, many of which will fail in the coming months—or if not outright fail, simply be replaced in the course of planned obsolescence AKA upgrading that drives the hardware segment. And each new product will in turn introduce new incompatibilities (AKA "features").
In the short run it's going to be hell, just as the browser wars and their lack of support for common standards were hell. But it is the short run.
500 standards is no standard. Give a consumer 500 choices and the price-driven consumer picks what comes with her plan, while the selective consumer begins gravitating toward a handful of emerging market leaders. Eventually this nutty market will stabilize around a few winning Android platforms (e.g. Kindle Fire) and common breakpoints will emerge. What The Web Standards Project achieved with browser makers, the market will achieve with phones.
Until that time, designers certain can abandon breakpoints if they can find a way to do good design under purely fluid conditions—design that pleases the user, satisfies the client, and moves the industry forward aesthetically. But designers who persist in responsive or even adaptive design based on iPhone, iPad, and leading Android breakpoints will help accelerate the settling out of the market and its resolution toward a semi-standard set of viewports. This I believe.
When I see fragmentation, I remind myself that it is unsustainable by its very nature, and that standards always emerge, whether through community action, market struggle, or some combination of the two. This is a frustrating time to be a web designer, but it's also the most exciting time in ten years. We are on the edge of something very new. Some of us will get there via all new thinking, and others through a combination of new and classic approaches. Happy New Year, web designers!
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December 23, 2011
December 22, 2011
Migrate if you like, but Touristeye is not a Gowalla partner.
RECENTLY A COMPANY CALLED Touristeye has been emailing Gowalla users, encouraging them to migrate their data to Touristeye now that the Gowalla service is closing down. The emails tell you how a Gowalla friend (who is named) has just migrated her/his data to Touristeye and invite you to join her or him. Although Touristeye does not claim to be a Gowalla partner, there is a strong implication that the migration is seamless and that it was authorized by Gowalla. Not so.
Gowalla has not created a migration tool for Touristeye or released any migration tool as yet; the Austin-based check-in tool has no affiliation with Touristeye, and did not authorize Touristeye to reach out to Gowalla customers.
I can't fault Touristeye for trying to increase its customer base by reaching out to the abandoned Gowalla community, and I have no opinion on Touristeye's service, as I haven't tried it. If Touristeye appeals to you, by all means check it out. Personally, I have replaced my Gowalla fix with (yes, four) four apps: Foursquare (for social check-ins and tips about places), Instagram (for photos and seamless Foursquare integration), Path (for the aesthetic rush I miss), and Facebook (because my people who don't know from Foursquare, Instagram, and Path are there; and Facebook's new Timeline even makes it fun).
An official Gowalla migration tool is coming is coming soon.
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December 21, 2011
The Big Web Show No. 61: Khoi Vinh of Mixel and NYTimes.com
NOW ONLINE for your pleasure! In Episode No. 61 of The Big Web Show ("everything web that matters"), I interview Khoi Vinh, co-creator of Mixel, former NYTimes.com Design Director, co-founder of NYC design studio Behavior, and more.
In this episode we discuss Khoi's career, including his fine-art background, art school, and design classes, his time at AIGA, how he came to love the grid, why he joined the NYTimes.com and why he left, and more. We also explore the inspiration that led Khoi to combine social with collage, and talk about the choice every design studio faces as it begins to succeed: get bigger, or get more selective? Don't miss this free-ranging exchange of ideas with one of webdom's nicest and most influential designers.
5by5 | The Big Web Show No. 61: Khoi Vinh
Audio RSS feed
iTunes Audio
The Big Web Show features special guests and topics like web publishing, art direction, content strategy, typography, web technology, and more. This episode is sponsored by Happy Cog Hosting, TinyLetter, and Uncle Slam.
Other recent Big Web Show episodes:
Episode 60: Josh Williams of Gowalla
Episode 59: Mike Monteiro of Mule Design
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December 20, 2011
My glamorous life: some holiday!
THIS WEEK I will finally sign my divorce papers. It's like that old Woody Allen joke, "The food here is terrible – and such small portions." I didn't want to get divorced, and I've been waiting two years to do it. It's a friendly little divorce that started out as a simple mediated settlement, but we made the mistake of hiring lawyers. The legal bloodletting around the Beatles' breakup took less time and surely cost less. But here we finally are, about to sign papers that enshrine our daughters' rights and our rights as parents and put into stark English the courtesies my ex and I would naturally extend each other anyway.
That's Wednesday, unless it's Tuesday (my lawyer can't seem to keep track of which day we're meeting), and Wednesday also there is a school field trip I chaperone to I don't remember where, and somehow between the field trip and the review and signing of the divorce papers I hire a team to gut and rewire our new A Space Apart office on Madison Avenue, arrange for two internet services to wire our 19th century building, and order the furniture.
Today I take the kid to school, meet about wireframes for the A List Apart redesign, interview Khoi Vinh The Big Web Show, meet about a Happy Cog redesign, and run back to school for the kid. Somewhere in there I get a meal. Thursday, blessed relief, I'm in Philadelphia for a holiday party (yay!), and Friday my Dad and his bride arrive.
In short, it is a week like any other.
Since I started my first business with two nickels and a Power Computing Mac clone, I have not had a week that would pass for normal, if normal means manageable. The last predictable week I had was my first week in AA in May of 1993, although that certainly wasn't usual in that sweating and shivering and coming to God (in other words, quitting drinking) isn't a normal or even expected event in an alcoholic's life. But that week did find me in the same room in the same city doing the same thing for five days straight — surely the last time that happened, if you don't count those four days in Disney World.
I'm a boring guy, but my life has conspired to be interesting. Members of my inner circle who have access to my calendar get ulcers just from looking. And for all that constant change and growth, although somewhat stressed, I am most grateful.
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December 16, 2011
Mobile App Usage: the data will surprise you
AS THE NUMBER of native mobile applications keeps growing, it's worth looking at how they get used. To that end, here's a few stats about people downloading apps and what what they do with them afterward.
via LukeW | Data Monday: Mobile App Usage.
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December 15, 2011
MSIE auto-updates: a holiday gift to web developers everywhere.
THE STATE OF THE WEB is about to get a whole lot better, as the living dead release their stranglehold on the Windows desktop and a new generation of beautifully standards-compliant IE browsers rolls out automatically to tens of millions of computer users:
Today we are sharing our plan to automatically upgrade Windows customers to the latest version of Internet Explorer available for their PC. This is an important step in helping to move the Web forward. We will start in January for customers in Australia and Brazil who have turned on automatic updating via Windows Update. Similar to our release of IE9 earlier this year, we will take a measured approach, scaling up over time.
via IE to Start Automatic Upgrades across Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.
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