Awesome retro iOS icons by Anton Repponen http://bit.ly/xq0RJj
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Design
20
Feb 12
Can you convince me in 5 seconds?
Value proposition is the #1 thing that determines whether people will bother reading more about your product or hit the back button. It’s also the main thing you need to test – if you get it right, it will be a huge boost. If I could give you only one piece of conversion advice , “test your value proposition” would be it.
The full article: Useful Value Proposition Examples (and How to Create a Good One) at ConversionXL http://bit.ly/zoS2HF
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7
Feb 12
How to Design User Flow
Getting visitors to your site is one thing. But once they are there, you need to provide an exciting/useful/engaging/you-name-it experience if you are going to have results.
The good folks at conversionXL.com have a very thorough post on how to guide your visitors to the desired action (whatever that may be: sale, quote form, support information, etc). The article include actual examples on getting started with the described concepts.
Check the full thing at http://bit.ly/A5BbnO
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30
Jan 12
Testing your responsive design
So you're following the latest trends in #web development and have decided to develop your new site with a #responsive design. You quickly realize that's kind of hard testing the site on multiple resolutions every time you make a change.
+matt kersley has a nice solution: http://bit.ly/ycYno9
A simple setup with iframes will show the same URL is four different resolutions.
Of course this doesn't fully replace testing on actual machines (and their specific browsers) but it will certainly speed up the initial development time.
If you want to host it locally, you can grab the html/js on GitHub http://bit.ly/xu39c5
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24
Jan 12
Amazing Cisco
What kind of mind decides that a "contact support" form should have a 128-characters limit? That said, when there is an issue with an account and it gets disabled, what kind of mind decides "let's not send an e-mail to the customer about it, he'll figure it out next time he tries to use our service!"?
#CustomerSupportFail #UIFail 
[Update] So 24 hours later, #Cisco support has contacted me once, to tell me that my request was bumped from one department (technical support) to another (client manager)… Awesome…
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20
Jan 12
Building a website in 2012?
If you are planning on developing a new website, here as some concepts (some old, some new) on how to go at it:
- Think responsively – Even if you’re not implementing a full responsive design, simply thinking in responsive terms goes a long way to achieving usable universal design.
- Think touch-first – A button sized for a fingertip will always work for a mouse cursor. But a button sized for a mouse cursor will often be too small for a fingertip. Designing for touch first ensures that your website or application translates well to other contexts.
- Think universally – "Test early, test often” the saying goes. In your design process, think early and often about how your design will function on various devices.
- Think mobile-first – Starting your design with mobile focuses you on what really matters to your users. By maintaining focus on the essential features, achieving a consistent experience across devices will be much easier.
- Be careful with interaction behavior that is not supported universally across interfaces. Hover states don’t function the same on touch devices. Touch gestures can’t be performed with a mouse. It doesn’t mean we can’t use these things, but we have to be aware of their limitations.
Full article: Designing The Well-Tempered Web by Rob Flaherty at Smashing Magazine http://bit.ly/y4w9M5
See also mediqueri.es http://bit.ly/xHP8oe an excellent directory of responsive-designed sites.
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14
Jan 12
Advancing the HTML experience
www.mycookingdiary.com by +Mike Matas is great example of what you can do (and how to do it properly) with #HTML and #CSS today:
- A continuous user experience using AJAX to keep the user engaged. However, each "slide" has it's own URL. This means you can bookmark it, share it, etc.
- Animation – but on user action: Yes, animations can liven up a site. But it should be controllable by the user otherwise they end up being irritating. The user needs to feel he is in control of his experience of your site
- Flexible layout: the site looks great at 800px as well as 1200px
- CSS effects to enhance the visual result: #CSS3 blur is here used to bring the attention to the main content area not as a gimmick
- Keyboard navigation: a small issue for some but shows attention to detail and professionalism
Do you have any more example sites along these lines?
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8
Jan 12
Searching for a font, Part II
After my first attempt, I thought it was time for a small visual update on the site.
The previous choice: Ubuntu
The alternative: Adelle Bold by TypeTogether (you can get the font via Font Squirrel)
Current choice: Franchise Bold by Derek Weathersbee (free download, donations accepted)
The last choice also lead to some minor layout changes to fit the sharing buttons better and give more space to the main content area. Runner-ups (also free downloads, considered but not tried): Luxi Sans and Hattori Hanzo.
Your thoughts?
30
Dec 11
LEGO 404 page
Very nice #404 image by LEGO
(via +Sebastian Schmidt)
I think I'll start a collection! What's your favorite 404 page?
Reshared post from +Daniel Waisberg
Greatest 404 page I have ever seen!
Had to be from LEGO…
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