Category Archives: design

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.

Context in Design

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I recently bought 79 Short Essays on Design (which is awesome by the way). One of the articles that really talked to me was this one called The Mysterious Power of Context.

“We decided to recommend a straightforward sans serif font. Predictably, this recommendation was greeted by complaints. It was too generic, too mechanical, too unstylish, too unrefined. I had trouble responding until I added two more elements to the presentation.”

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Responsive Web Design

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I am a real fan of responsive web design, however there are many more sites (and books) that can explain the topic far better than I can (I’ll list a few at the end of the post).

In short, if you don’t know what it means, it is the idea of a site design that changes its layout depending on the device screen size that is viewing it.

With smartphones and tablets being so popular in the last few years, many more people are browsing the web on these devices, and providing an optimum design for these devices makes sites more engaging, easier to read and better suited to the device.

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Don’t just consume, create!

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It’s a believe I have had for a while now, which it seems is widely shared. I read this post today by Jim Mitchem called “Consumption vs Creation” which echoes my belief:

In the end, you are what you consume. And if you’re not doing your share of creating, you’re like a vegetable soaking up the sun in preparation of one day being harvested. By advertisers.

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Don’t think, Feel!

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Fellow designer at HigherSites and Creative Director, Tom Wittlin recently launched his online personal site Take the Flight and the copy really struck a cord with me, as it is always something I have believed in to:

It’s about what feels right… design was always something I felt I wanted to do.
To this day I tend to go with what feels right, as opposed to going with current trends, especially within design.

There is a lot to be said for going with your gut instinct, although having reasons to back up your decisions always help when you are showing a client, because when they say ‘it doesn’t feel right’ it usually means back to the drawing board for you!

Centre Aligned List Items

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This post has come from a quick bit of experimentation, trying to centre align list items.

The design called for centerally aligned list item links, and there could be 3, 4, 5 or more links. Initially I was stumped as to how to create this effect. I had considered a left margin to create the illusion of centre aligning for each possible number, but I knew there was a better way. I’m always aiming for a solution that works in the older browsers too, and this includes IE6. I don’t know why I do it to myself, especially as it apparently only has less than a 5% market share nowadays.

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On ‘Magpie Designers’

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In an ever-changing web world, new technologies are constantly evolving. With the emergence of alternative font display systems, new CSS effects and the increased uptake on modern browsers, designers are using these new techniques more and more. Add this to a sprinkling of current design ‘trends’ such as the noise filter, and pixel perfect line details and it makes for some very similar looking websites.

It is inevitable then that these new and shiny capabilities will catch a web designer’s eye (especially after years of browser constraints) but are we turning our eagerness to use the latest styling techniques into a world of monotonous and similar designs?

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