May 11, 2004
Yesterday saw the relaunch of Blogger. All the “Web Standards” blogs out there were thick with praise for this redesign (I guess most of them don’t actually see beyond Doug’s great design and the Standards implementation). Doug has documented the process which has some great insights into this new launch.
I think the real success here is the Usability work done (and Dougs interpretation of the required “Ease-of-use"). The work Adaptive Path have done is fantastically elegant.
Good design shouldn’t be noticed. A very well design book, or newspaper, just works. The design doesn;t get in the way of the message. The new Blogger site is a wonderful example of this. Ease of use was of upmost importance, Jeff Veen points out that the Blogger wanted to be able to set up a blog, in three steps, in less than five minutes. Quite an undertaking.
The registration process is superb, one of the best i’ve used. Ever. It’s so simple even my mother could use it (and that’s saying something). Here’s some grabs of the process. What’s nice to see is contextual help links next to items that you may want help with.
The new Blogger logo is a good step on from the previous version and it ties in very well to the overall “curved” look of the site. I’m not over familiar with the original version of the logo, but I do know it was square, orange and blue. It’s a great logotype though. It carries a lot of the brand values - ease of use, approachable etc.
There are plenty of new templates available with the new Blogger, and all of them configurable from within the Blogger web-based interface.
The templates can be seen in full here. Some great designs from Zeldman, Bowman and Dan Cederhome (although there are a couple of lemons in there too, but maybe that’s just me).All of the templates are XHTML, with CSS driven presentation (as you’d expect from authors like this).
May 11, 2004
I’ve just bought Ecto and i’ve just had a good look at the new Blogger design. I’m testing Ecto at the moment but once it’s working ok, i’ll review it here. Also i’m going to be going into the new Blogger design in some detail.
April 29, 2004
It’s been on my mind for a while. It was always part of the plan to include my portfolio and have a more generic section for CV stuff etc. I’m getting pretty familiar with MT now, my CSS knowledge has also increased. So, i’m starting to think about what i’m goign to do with Phase 2.
The site as it stands is a bit to “Bloggy” which I don’t like. It doesn’t show my design skill off very well, and i’m not the most interesting or technically adept author so it falls down there also. I think in terms of the direction of the site, it’s lost it’s way a touch. So, i’m bringing it back to what it should be. A portfolio (true with a journal, articles and resources too, but mostly these will be my benefit)
I’ve made the decision to do this properly again. So, i’ll be starting with mapping the content and structure. Defining Categories and Access Structure as well as cross-site navigation issues. From there i’ll begin wireframing the templates and begin prototyping, once the “white site” is working how I want it to in MT (hopefully version 3 will be up and running by then) I’ll apply the visual design. I’m goign to do my best to get it right with the CSS, or as right as I can in terms of ease of updating, validation etc. I’ll also be making the move over to XHTML Strict to get a handle on that (I think this site is almost there anyway).
So, that’s the plan. But first i’m getting married. I’m hoping to phase the launch over a period of a couple of months, but we’ll cross that particular bridge when I come to it.
April 29, 2004
Some good stuff on these sites:
www.informationdesign.org
This sites got a LOT of resources. From Accessibility to Personas, Metadata to Writing. It’s got it all.
www.cssvault.com
Some really nice examples of CSS driven sites. Some good archive stuff, as well as some examples of what not to do!
April 27, 2004
Got these links from my new “Recent Links” sidebar (which has been good, I check it most mornings)
ColorMatch
EditCSS extension for Firefox
This thing is great for on the fly changes. It loads the current stylesheet for the page you’re viewing and you can make changes. Then you can save it. Very useful.
April 22, 2004
Fascinating article from “Design by Fire” outlining interface design. Particularly interesting points on the Amazon e-commerce interface and how things could be improved by removing the interface from the browser. A good read if you have 15 minutes.
April 22, 2004
Gush. Nice looking app (IM and News aggregator), even nicer looking site.
I’m beginning to really warm to typography like this. I don’t know if we’ll end up getting sick of it though, in the same way I was sick of Verdana a couple of years ago, and Helvetica light a good few years before that. A fad, but a nice one at that.
I'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for