Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 72
May 19, 2011
eMusic.com Facebook is doing it wrong.
eMUSIC.COM IS TRYING to insert a Facebook "Like" button bearing my picture on artist profile pages I view when signed in to my account. Unfortunately, their iframes and CSS work together like fish and bicycles. The result is an ugly, unusable fragment of a Like button, with useless browser chrome and other bits of nonsense.
eMusic.com is doing it wrong. | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
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eMusic.com is doing it wrong.
eMUSIC.COM IS TRYING to insert a Facebook "Like" button bearing my picture on artist profile pages I view when signed in to my account. Unfortunately, their iframes and CSS work together like fish and bicycles. The result is an ugly, unusable fragment of a Like button, with useless browser chrome and other bits of nonsense.
eMusic.com is doing it wrong. | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
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May 16, 2011
Carolyn Wood moves on
CAROLYN WOOD IS LEAVING A List Apart. Over three brilliant years, Carolyn created the position of acquisitions editor and made it shine, bringing the magazine and its readers such articles as Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte, More Meaningful Typography by Tim Brown, Orbital Content by Cameron Koczon, CSS Floats 101 by Noah Stokes, Designing Web Registration Processes for Kids by Debra Levin Gelman, Design Criticism and the Creative Process by Cassie McDaniel, A Simpler Page by Craig Mod, and over 100 others—each of them vital, and at least a dozen of them essential reading for all people who make websites.
Acquisitions editor was not the job Carolyn wanted, but she made it her own, worked on it night and day, and managed the damned difficult feat of running it independently (to keep it agile) while simultaneously informing editor Krista Stevens and me of every move she made. Carolyn also took on the tricky task of conveying initial editorial and technical feedback to writers as they worked to fine-tune submissions. She excelled at this. Writers loved her.
She leaves us to focus on her print magazine work, freelance clients through her content, editorial and design agency Pixelingo, and creative projects. Among those new projects, Carolyn is editor-in-chief of Codex: the journal of Typography, a quarterly print magazine from I Love Typography, and of The Manual, "a new, beautifully crafted journal that takes a fresh look, in print, at design on the web."
I write this goodbye here because we don't yet have a place for me to write it on A List Apart. But that will soon change. Change is all, and even difficult change can be good. We will miss you, Carolyn. Good luck!
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May 13, 2011
May 11, 2011
And what of art direction? | Readability Blog
"AS READABILITY'S POPULARITY continues to grow on the web, we often catch the occasional grimace from designers, art directors and the like noting that Readability's 'slash and burn' approach is unfortunate for design on the web.
"We have to admit, when you click that button, Readability moves in aggressively and thoroughly, flattening everything in its way. It's partly why readers love it so much. Readability hands control back to the reader at the expense of the original design of any given web page. One could easily argue that designers and art directors have every right to wince at the presence of Readability. It takes their work and puts a lit match to it.
"Then again, save for a few thoughtfully laid-out sites, it's hard to deny that things have gotten a bit out of hand on the web. … "
And what of art direction? | Readability Blog.
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May 9, 2011
Twitter and Facebook Kill RSS
It seems Twitter has completely removed the ability to consume their feeds via the open standard of RSS in favor of their more proprietary API formats. At the same time, Facebook seems to have done the same.
via Stay N Alive: Twitter and Facebook Both Quietly Kill RSS, Completely.
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May 5, 2011
HTML5, CSS3, UX, Design: Links from An Event Apart Boston 2011
Meeting of the Minds: Ethan Marcotte and AEA attendee discuss the wonders of CSS3. Photo by the incomparable Jim Heid.
THE SHOW IS OVER, but the memories, write-ups, demos, and links remain. Enjoy!
An Event Apart Boston 2011 group photo pool
Speakers, attendees, parties, and the wonders of Boston, captured by those who were there.
What Every Designer Should Know
Jeremy Keith quite effectively live-blogs my opening keynote on the particular opportunities of Now in the field of web design, and the skills every designer needs to capitalize on the moment and make great things.
The Password Anti-Pattern
Related to my talk: Jeremy Keith's original write-up on a notorious but all-too-common practice. If your boss or client tells you to design this pattern, just say no. Design that does not serve users does not serve business.
What Every Designer Should Know
"In his opening keynote at An Event Apart in Boston, MA 2011 Jeffrey Zeldman talked about the skills and opportunities that should be top of mind for everyone designing on the Web today." Luke Wroblewski's write-up.
Whitney Hess: Design Principles — The Philosophy of UX
"As a consultant, [Whitney] spends a lot of time talking about UX and inevitably, the talk turns to deliverables and process but really we should be establishing a philosophy about how to treat people, in the same way that visual design is about establishing a philosophy about how make an impact. Visual design has principles to achieve that: contrast, emphasis, balance, proportion, rhythm, movement, texture, harmony and unity." In this talk, Whitney proposed a set of 10 principles for UX design.
Veerle Pieters: The Experimental Zone
Live blogging by Jeremy Keith. Veerle, a noted graphic and interaction designer from Belgium, shared her process for discovering design through iteration and experimentation.
Luke Wroblewski: Mobile Web Design Moves
Luke's live awesomeness cannot be captured in dead written words, but Mr Keith does a splendid job of quickly sketching many of the leading ideas in this key AEA 2011 talk.
See also: funky dance moves with Luke Wroblewski, a very short video I captured as Luke led the crowd in the opening moves of Michael Jackson's "Thriller."
Ethan Marcotte: The Responsive Designer's Workflow
"The next talk here at An Event Apart in Boston is one I've really, really, really been looking forward to: it's a presentation by my hero Ethan Marcotte."
Ethan Marcotte: The Responsive Designer's Workflow (b)
Ethan's amazing talk as captured by the great Luke Wroblewski.
An Event Apart: The Secret Lives of Links—Jared Spool
"In his presentation at An Event Apart in Boston, MA 2011 Jared Spool detailed the importance and role of links on Web pages." No writer can capture Jared Spool's engaging personality or the quips that produce raucous laughter throughout his sessions, but Luke does an outstanding job of noting the primary ideas Jared shares in this riveting and highly useful UX session.
An Event Apart: All Our Yesterdays—Jeremy Keith
Luke W: "In his All Our Yesterdays presentation at An Event Apart in Boston, MA 2011 Jeremy Keith outlined the problem of digital preservation on the Web and provided some strategies for taking a long term view of our Web pages."
Although it is hard to pick highlights among such great speakers and topics, this talk was a highlight for me. As in, it blew my mind. Several people said it should be a TED talk.
An Event Apart: From Idea to Interface—Aarron Walter
Luke: "In his Idea to Interface presentation at An Event Apart in Boston, MA 2011 Aarron Walter encouraged Web designers and developers to tackle their personal projects by walking through examples and ways to jump in. Here are my notes from his talk."
Links and Resources from "From Idea to Interface"
Compiled by the speaker, links include Design Personas Template and Example, the story behind the illustrations in the presentation created by Mike Rhode, Dribble, Huffduffer, Sketchboards, Mustache for inserting data into your prototypes, Keynote Kung Fu, Mocking Bird, Yahoo Design Patterns, MailChimp Design Pattern Library, Object Oriented CSS by Nicole Sullivan and more!
An Event Apart: CSS3 Animations—Andy Clarke
"In his Smoke Gets In Your Eyes presentation at An Event Apart in Boston, MA 2011 Andy Clarke showcased what is possible with CSS3 animations using transitions and transforms in the WebKit browser." Write-up by the legendary Luke Wroblewski.
Madmanimation
The "Mad Men" opening titles re-created entirely in CSS3 animation. (Currently requires Webkit browser, e.g. Safari, Chrome.)
CSS3 Animation List
Anthony Calzadilla, a key collaborator on the Mad Men CSS3 animation, showcases his works.
Box Shadow Curl
Pure CSS3 box-shadow page curl effect. Mentioned during Ethan Marcotte's Day 3 session on exploring CSS3.
Multiple CSS Transition Durations
Fascinating article by Anton Peck (who attended the show). Proposed: a solution to a key problem with CSS transitions. ("Even now, my main issue with transitions is that they use the same time-length value for the inbound effect as they do the outbound. For example, when you create a transition on an image with a 1-second duration, you get that length of time for both mousing over, and mousing away from the object. This type of behavior should be avoided, for the sake of the end-user!")
Everything You Wanted to Know About CSS3 Gradients
Ethan Marcotte: "Hello. I am here to discuss CSS3 gradients. Because, let's face it, what the web really needed was more gradients."
Ultimate CSS3 Gradient Generator
Like it says.
Linear Gradients Generator
By the incomparable John Allsopp.
These sessions were not captured
Some of our best talks were not captured by note-takers, at least not to my knowledge. They include:
Eric Meyer: CSS Anarchist's Cookbook
Mark Boulton: Outing the Mind: Designing Layouts That Think for You
Jeff Veen: Disaster, DNA, and the Fathomless Depth of the Web
It's possible that the special nature of these presentations made them impossible to capture in session notes. (You had to be there.)
There are also no notes on the two half-day workshop sessions, "Understand HTML5 With Jeremy Keith," and "Explore CSS3 With Ethan Marcotte."
What have I missed?
Attendees and followers, below please add the URLs of related educational links, write-ups, and tools I've missed here. Thanks!
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