Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 69
June 27, 2011
A Design Apart: Q&A with Jeffrey Zeldman | On Redesigns and the Inseparable Link Between Design and Content
"REDESIGNS REQUIRE STRATEGY, otherwise they are merely reskinning. We don't do reskinning. We do strategic redesigns that help the people who use your website achieve their goals. Strategic redesign starts with research. The notion that a design is 'dull' and needs to be 'freshened up' by a 'burst of creative inspiration' reveals a lack of understanding of, and disrespect for, design.
via A Design Apart: Q&A with Jeffrey Zeldman | Sparksheet.
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June 24, 2011
This media life – and death
IN A GORGEOUSLY PACED ESSAY at n+1, "the magazine that believes history isn't over just yet," an amazing young (22?) writer named Alice Gregory reviews a novel by Gary Shteyngart while simultaneously describing her exhausted and shattered mental life as a Twitter- and Tumblr-following, iPhone-carrying, socializing-while-isolated Internet addict, i.e. modern young person:
This anxiety is about more than failing to keep up with a serialized source, though. It's also about the primitive pleasure of constant and arbitrary stimulation. That's why the Facebook newsfeed is no longer shown chronologically. Refresh Facebook ten times and the status updates rearrange themselves in nonsensical, anachronistic patterns. You don't refresh Facebook to follow a narrative, you refresh to register a change—not to read but to see.
And it's losing track of this distinction—between reading and seeing—that's so shameful. It's like being demoted from the category of thinking, caring human to a sort of rat that doesn't know why he needs to tap that button, just that he does.
Sometimes I can almost visualize parts of myself, the ones I'm most proud of, atrophying. I wish I had an app to monitor it! I notice that my thoughts are homeopathic, that they mirror content I wish I weren't reading. I catch myself performing hideous, futuristic gestures, like that "hilarious" moment three seconds into an intimate embrace in which I realize I'm literally rubbing my iPhone screen across his spine.
I urge you to read every word of n+1: Sad as Hell. Hat tip: New York designer Darren Hoyt.
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June 23, 2011
June 22, 2011
Dueling messages (or, content strategy matters)
"UPDATED SERVICE ADVISORY – EAST RIVER FERRY CAPACITY LIMITS – PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ," the top banner on the East River Ferry's website nervously advises. Immediately below this warning comes the gentle and slightly vacuous headline, "Relax. We'll Get You There." The two headlines tell contrasting stories that completely contradict each other. No print art director would place these two messages on the same page, let alone in such close proximity or with treatments that compete for the reader's attention. Yet this is how we treat content on the web.
Elsewhere on the page, care has been taken. An interactive map! With rollovers! Be still, my heart.
But when it came time to determine a content strategy, no one was in charge (or the wrong people were). Instead of the kind of headline that actually works on the web, a committee approved a soft print advertising headline—the kind that might appear in a quarter-page ad in the back of the playbill for a regional theater company's production of Guys and Dolls. No thought was given to how that headline would play if the ferry developed service problems. Apparently no substitute, contingency headline was created. And not much thought (if any) was given to how the design might change if a problem arose.
Thus at the last minute a slightly hysterical "over capacity" headline that makes the "Relax" headline look ridiculous was jammed on top of the primary headline, using design techniques that give the warning primacy of place, and add shrillness by using all caps, only to defeat their own urgency with a low-contrast teal-on-blue color scheme that is difficult for people with normal vision to read and may be invisible to people with certain kinds of color-blindness.
This is what we do. We have meetings, we reach consensus, we make templates, we approve inoffensive headlines and copy, and we fumble contingencies. Avoiding these problems is what content strategy and user experience design are all about.
Dueling messages | Flickr – Photo Sharing!.
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Many Black New Yorkers Are Moving to the South – NYTimes.com
THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN has propelled a striking demographic shift: black New Yorkers, including many who are young and college educated, are heading south.
About 17 percent of the African-Americans who moved to the South from other states in the past decade came from New York, far more than from any other state, according to census data.
Many Black New Yorkers Are Moving to the South – NYTimes.com
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June 17, 2011
Apple accepts Javascript in EPUB ebooks in iBookstore
Last night my photography ebook, "Barcelona Beyond Gaudí" was accepted into the iBookstore. While I'm personally very excited, I'm also professionally excited (!), since this means that Apple accepts Javascript in EPUB files for iBooks.
There is so much that Javascript will let us do in ebooks.Walrus Studio in Paris has an intriguing demo video showing text that can be revealed and blurred, and game points being added, erased, and tallied.
Continue reading Apple accepts Javascript in EPUB ebooks in iBookstore on Liz Castro's site.
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June 15, 2011
A Content Strategy Roadmap – An Event Apart
IN HER PRESENTATION at An Event Apart in Atlanta, GA 2011 Kristina Halvorson talked about how to integrate content strategy into a typical Web design worksflow. Here's my notes from her talk: LukeW | An Event Apart: A Content Strategy Roadmap.
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June 14, 2011
Crafting the User Experience
"IN HER PRESENTATION at An Event Apart in Atlanta, GA 2011 Sarah Parmenter discussed how principles from human psychology can reframe how we think about Web Design. Here's my notes from her talk:" An Event Apart: Crafting the User Experience.
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An Event Apart: The Responsive Designer's Workflow
"IN HIS PRESENTATION at An Event Apart in Atlanta, GA 2011 Ethan Marcotte talked about applying responsive web design principles and workflows to the redesign of a major newspaper Web site. Here's my notes from his talk on The Responsive Designer's Workflow:" LukeW | An Event Apart: The Responsive Designer's Workflow.
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