Author Archives: Paul

Questions about Responsive Design – The Responsive Summit

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On 23rd February the first ever Responsive Summit takes place in London. Thinkers and do-ers in the field of responsive web design get around a table to discuss how to make this easier for all of us.

http://responsivesummit.com/

This I can guarantee will enhance how we build sites in the coming years. Some of the questions I have are:

How we can serve up the right images for the right device?

Because of the responsive nature, images usually have to be created larger to compensate. I am wary of this because there have been discussions about increased page bloat and serving up multiple versions.

Further reading:

Is there still a place for ‘mobile’ versions of websites?

With the emergence of responsive and adaptive designs, do ‘mobile’ versions still have a place on the web?

How do we ‘sell’ responsive design to clients?

This is of course, down to the agencies and salespeople themselves. High profile responsive sites, such as http://bostonglobe.com/ have helped, but clients still need to be educated. That is our job.

There is, naturally a slightly higher cost to designing responsive sites, but this is minimal and when compared to separate desktop and mobile versions is usually a lot more cost effective.

How do we present responsive designs to the client?

Designs are typically served up in visual format, most proabably created in Photoshop or Illustrator first. Is there a good way of presenting these to the client whilst conveying the concept? Which leads on to…

Are we going to abandon Photoshop?

Is Photoshop even the right tool to design nowadays. With frameworks and tools available to create demos relatively quickly will this be the standard in the coming years?

Should we still be designing in pixels?

With the emergence of the retina display iPad and multiple resolution devices, have pixels had their day? Has the concept of pixel-perfect designs gone in favour of percentage and em-based designs?

Any other questions?

You can submit your own questions before the discussion takes place on the 23rd Feb by going to the website http://responsivesummit.com/.

7 Song Shuffle

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With a concept shamelessly copied from a piece on the radio today, here are the rules:

  1. Get MP3 player
  2. Shuffle songs
  3. Leave a comment with your 7 song shuffle

So, here it goes.

7 Song Shuffle

  1. P.Diddy & The Bad Boy Family – Bad Boy For Life
  2. Nas – No Idea’s Original
  3. Lupe Fiasco – The Map
  4. Queens of the Stone Age – Gonna Leave You
  5. Kelly Clarkson – Because of You
  6. Prodigy – Shoot Down
  7. The Jam – That’s Entertainment

If you want to play the game as well, leave a comment.

Every agency wants a happy client

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“Every agency wants a happy client.
There are two ways to do this.
One: do the best job possible.
Two: do what the client wants.
They are the short-term view, and the long-term view.
In the short term the client will be happy if you do what he wants.
If it doesn’t work, he won’t be happy.
The alternative is you insist on doing what you believe to be right.
In the short term the client may be unhappy.
But if it works, he’ll be happy.”

A quote by Dave Trott in the book Creative Mischief. It’s a fantastic book; it reminds me of the books Paul Arden wrote.

Getting into Reading Mode

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I have always found it hard to read a lot of content online. There are numerous reasons for this: poor layout design, bad typography and a lack on concentration on my behalf.

It is clear that this is a problem not unique to me. There have been many attempts made to make the experience a better one. From Safari’s built in Reader mode to Readability, designed to ‘zap online clutter and save web articles in a comfortable reading view’.

Focus Mode

The purpose of these systems is to remove the other distractions of adverts, additional links or related stories. At a much deeper level, Information Architects understood this whilst building their iA Writer they created what they called Focus Mode:

Thought goes into writing, not using: Focus mode allows you to think, spell and write one sentence at a time. This lowers the temptation to cross edit and keeps you in the flow.

I like the idea of keeping people ‘in the flow’ and so created a very quick mockup of a ‘focus mode’ for reading posts, not just writing them.

http://prandall.com/experimental/focus-mode/

This could be made into a JS snippet, or as an idea for someone to use on their own site.

Because the script uses :hover this wouldn’t currently work on a phone, but I’m open to suggestions.

Getting the most out of Twitter

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Recently, a lot of clients have felt that they need to be on Twitter, and so have signed up, tweeted a bit and followed a few people. The question that seems to follow is: “Whats next?”

There seems to be the feeling that, especially at the start, without many followers you are talking to no one, and have no one listening. In discussing this, I hope some of these points help you get the most out of Twitter.

Create, Curate, Comment

Create content

You’ve probably heard that content is king. Well it’s true. Good content will always find readers. So spend time to generate great content. Now Twitter can be tricky to get your point across in just 140 characters, so if you don’t already have one, setting up a blog should be the next thing to do. It allows you to go into a bit more detail and elaborate on your points.

Then, by tweeting out the link, your followers may want to retweet (publish your tweet to their followers) or promote it themselves.

Curate content

Now, generating posts like that takes time, so not every tweet will like that, so follow your peers, and follow industry leaders and link to their posts.

You may be initially sceptical about this, but becoming a curator, and reposting other peoples good content makes you a valuable person to follow. If you constantly talk and link to interesting stuff, people will want to listen.

Comment, join in on the conversation

One of the fantastic things about Twitter is its instant, real-time feedback so if people are asking questions, or looking for an opinion on something, converse with them. Firstly, they’ll notice who you are (if they don’t currently follow you) and if your opinion is a good one, you’ll be known as someone with a decent opinion.

Conclusion

  • Have a voice, have an opinion and people will want to listen to you
  • Create, curate and comment
  • Tweet predictably and with rhythm. Try not to be quiet for a few days and then tweet 10 times a minute

Tips and Tricks

Book Review: Just My Type

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This book seems to have gained more column inches for a type book than any other I can recall in recent times; probably because it can appeal to people who are just casually interested in type.

Part history book, part modern day news stories, the editing makes the book feel awkward; like a cobbled-together school project made up of historic articles and personal opinions by the Author, Simon Garfield. Continue reading →

Do we over-consume web content?

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I’ve been looking back on the amount of online content I read recently and I think I am probably like many who over-consume on a regular basis.

Technology today means we can gorge on content from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep, constantly throughout the day without hesitation; But how much of it can we actually take in? Does it reach a saturation point where we keep consuming even though our minds are full?

Continue reading →