I’m pretty ticked. The Amazon Kindle is out for only a few weeks and Jakob Nielsen of useit.com weighed in on the usability issues pretty quickly. His points were all well-made and valid, and because the Kindle is a popular topic even amongst regular consumers, mainstream media picked up his scathing criticism. What’s got my goat were the comments I saw on the articles.

Why am I so ticked?… Read more »

I am writing in frustration. I consider my client lucky to have me involved in their project after we had launched, because I undoubtedly saved them from a painful slide in organic ranking.

After the project launched, the client got an "expert" marketing company who "specialized" in their industry to help push things along. After about a week of launching, their website had already climbed to the first page of results for relevant keywords due to my holistic strategy - this is not horn-tooting; it is fact. They were nowhere to be found before my redesign.

I know what I'm doing in the web because I do it every day. I'm a designer with a programmer's-tech savvy, a business man's strategy, and I make it my duty to know what works on the web.… Read more »

I've seen some very interesting experimentation with illustrating with CSS3 which reminds me of the good old days of ASCII art. It's fun and interesting and takes an incredible amount of time and attention to detail. It's not practical, but it's fun. I've seen it on some production sites, even. To me, this is as bad as designing with Tables. Don't do it!

Illustrating with CSS3 is certainly creative, and a fun way to push the limits of what CSS3 can accomplish. It starts with creating sometimes dozens and dozens of divs and spans, creating any number of rounded corners, rotating the divs/spans, adding drop shadows, and presto! Scalable image that can't be seen on Internet Explorer. Here are some interesting examples: http://ping.fm/5coll http://ping.fm/ouEPW http://ping.fm/UGMwn… Read more »

I first heard about Cornify just today. Apparently, they won SXSW 2010 People’s Choice Award. I had no idea what I was in for when I decided to take a look-see. My eyeballs started to bleed from all the Comic Sans and pink everywhere, but I decided I need to have a look, before I passed judgment.

So, I went through the cornify wizard and cornified my young hapless son (the one who's too young to complain about it). Here's what I got:… Read more »

Drupal is awesome. I've been a big fan for a couple years, now, and I'm convinced that there's nothing it can't do. It's biggest problem, however, has been the learning curve. With the latest version of Drupal 7 out on the horizon, I think we finally have a WordPress-killer, since getting a website design up and running is now just as easy as the famed blogging platform. Don't get me wrong, WordPress is great, but it has a very narrow use-case. I think with Drupal 7, we'll see many more web designers venturing into what was once Programmerland to create stunning, beautiful and versatile websites.… Read more »

User testing is often seen by business owners as an extra luxury to craft the perfect website, and unfortunately not seen as necessary to create a good website. It can be expensive, and add a lot of time to a project. User testing, though, is an invaluable tool which is often vital to the success of the web site or application. Without it, you never really know if your website was designed properly - you never know if it accomplishes what it needs to.

There's no reason basic testing can't be done for cheap. With Amazon Mechanical Turk, any website design can at least go through some form or user testing for less than $10! Spending as much $50 or $100 will enable you to go through a few iterations, and get results from dozens of testers.… Read more »

I see a lot of big names in the web business saying the future of the web is, "Content."  There has been a popular conversation about Lorem Ipsum Killing Web Design. These two thoughts are connected in that they all say, "Content is King." That the purpose of the web is to support the content and the web will grow and grow with new types of content. The whole web will be a big, huge content fest! I think they're valid observations, but I disagree completely.… Read more »

Tell me if this sounds familiar: "Hi! Can you tell me how much a website costs? [red flag #1] I'm looking for something really basic." [red flag #2] From there, it will only get worse. The client then starts to spout features and functionality that are anything but basic. Clearly, they have a different definition. As a designer, you get a queasy feeling in your stomach, because you know the project will balloon, there will be constant veering off track, the time line will go out the window, you'll be underpaid, and the client will be upset every time you try to say that the new "basic" feature they request half way through the project will cost them a little bit more.… Read more »

I understand. Really, I do. You're afraid I'll take advantage of you. You're afraid if you tell me your budget for your web venture, I will give you a quote which is really worth less than the number you gave me. You're afraid I'll cheat you. Or, you want to compare my quote with other designers' and want to see who will give the best price. I understand your reluctance to tell me sensitive business information. But, please; tell me your budget! I need to know! Let me tell you why.… Read more »

There are so many web design blogs with content geared towards designers. They contain website design tutorials about CSS, Photoshop, PHP, and the like. (I have tutorials on my own website, too.) But if web designers are using their website to look for new work, shouldn't their site content - blog included - be focused on their prospective clients? Shouldn't their articles be about topics businesses would want to read?… Read more »