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Getting The Most Out Of Your LibraryPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - August 12, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Whether you’re embarking on the research phase of a new project, in need of some more design inspiration, or just looking for a quiet place to work, it is all too easy to overlook one enormous free resource. William Hicks wants you to know how to be a better designer by taking it offline—at your local library.
How Environments, Real And Virtual, Influence UsPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - August 5, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments What sort of state is your desk in right now? Clutter on your website, just as in your environment, can have a negative effect on your visitors’ state of mind. Kyle Mueller takes a look at some of the common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Review: Web Form Design by Luke WroblewskiPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - August 5, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments 2008 has been a quiet year for good web design and development books. The standout thus far is Luke Wroblewski’s “Web Form Design”, published by Rosenfeld Media, both in terms of content and design. Digital Web’s own Matthew Pennell reviews “Web Form Design” and finds LukeW’s design thinking far outshines focusing on the humble web form.
eCRM: A Virtual Reality Check For Your BusinessPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - July 29, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments This week we take a step back from the web development rock-face to look at a more business-oriented topic. User-centered design is all very well, but how do you join the dots when it comes to managing your customer relationships long term? Entrepreneur Tej Kohli discusses the benefits to your business of investing in some Customer Relationship Mojo.
Photoshop vs FireworksPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - July 22, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Web designers use Photoshop, right? Always have, always will. At least that’s what I thought—but speak to enough designers, and you start to notice that a little program called Fireworks has just as many adherents as Adobe’s flagship graphics app. So which is best? We gathered a handful of great designers, fans of both Photoshop and Fireworks, to slug it out in search of the definitive answer. Your referee tonight is Nathan Smith. Fight!
Smart CSS Ain’t Always Sexy CSSPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - July 15, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments The web industry has never been short of zealots. Since the age of the spacer-gif, there have always been designers ready to fight for their preferred technique—and none more so than CSS nerds. If you’ve ever agonized over finding the perfect semantic class name, this is the article for you. Martin Ringlein tells us why being sexy is overrated.
Portable Social Networks, The Building Blocks Of A Social WebPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - July 1, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Are you a member of all the latest and greatest social networking sites? Tired of re-entering your personal details? Need to keep your information up-to-date across a myriad of accounts, and enable your user base to do the same? You need the foundations of the social web, brought to you by Ben Ward.
Integrating Social Media into a Web Content StrategyPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - June 24, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments You might know your Facebook from your Odeo, but most companies couldn’t give a Flickr about social media. How do we let them know the opportunities that a Web 2.0 world can hold for them? Britt Parrott explains how to develop a coherent and buzzword-free web content strategy.
The Education of Geeks and FreaksPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - June 17, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Between choosing the most semantic markup, wrangling IE6 CSS bugs, and arguing which JavaScript library would win in a fight, it is easy to forget that the future of web design rests in the hands of a small group of people—those with responsibility for educating the next generation. Columnist Tom Green reports on the sad state of post-secondary education, and what it might mean for the future of effective web development.
Review: Building Findable WebsitesPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - June 10, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments All the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript tricks in the world won’t help you if nobody can find your website in the first place. We take a look at the book that aims to make sure your site has that most important of features: Findability.
Why Do Web Startups Die? Lack of AlphalphaPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - June 10, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Every week heralds the announcement of yet another handful of web startups, filling a new niche or competing with established services—but all too often they are never heard from again. Marketing expert Dave Goldenberg is here to tell us what the problem is… and it has nothing to do with sprouts.
Free Your Embedded Data With SearchMonkeyPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - June 3, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments The web is evolving ever faster, and it feels like almost every day there is a new tool to explore and learn. But which ones will be worth your time and effort? Well, how about the ones that stand to improve your company's bottom line? Yahoo!'s Christian Heilmann walks us through the creation of their new search modification tool, SearchMonkey.
Review: ScreenFlowPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - June 3, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments The Web is a “show not tell” medium, but putting together effective screencasts takes time and editing. Ben Chestnut tells us he how was able to use Screenflow to produce a professional product at minimal cost.
Design Decisions vs. Audience ConsiderationsPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - May 20, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments This week, we take a look at how to handle the conflict between what your users want, and what you want them to want. Robin Ragle-Davis considers how upfront audience profiling can reap customer relationship benefits down the line.
Efficient Video Delivery Over The InternetPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - May 13, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments While the days of low-quality stop animation may be a thing of the past, there is no denying that high quality video streaming is alive and well on the web today. Major media outlets stream significant amounts of their programming, amateurs are in on the game, and many users will simply expect video from certain content providers. This week, Lei Zhu brings us up to speed on the different methods that can be employed to get Flash video on to a site.
Improve Your Page Performance With Lazy LoadingPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - May 6, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Today’s web applications can necessitate a huge weight of both JavaScript and CSS —but in many application designs huge sections can be delayed, speeding up the total page response time to the user. Jakob Heuser shows us how to create a lazy loading utility, and start cutting down on your load times.
User Interface Implementations of Faceted BrowsingPosted by Digital Web Recent Articles Feed - April 29, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Faceted browsing is a powerful navigation tool for content dense sites—but not all browsing is alike. Mike Padilla explains the importance of remembering the users’ needs when creating this alternative to search to avoid pushing your audience down a path you didn’t intend.
Introduction to Django: Helping Perfectionists With DeadlinesPosted by public@digital-web.com - April 22, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments It seems like only yesterday that Rails was being trumpeted as the Next Big Thing™. But, no sooner had you wrapped your head around that framework, along comes another one. Django is gathering substantial support within the web development world, but can appear quite intimidating to beginners. Dan Ellis presents an introduction to the flexible framework for web perfectionists.
Web Design 101: PhotoshopPosted by public@digital-web.com - April 15, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments While it may be second nature to some, there is no denying that Photoshop has a fierce learning curve. If you’re a coder taking your first tentative steps into the world of design, or you’re a designer looking to switch to a more professional application, Anton Peck has some words of wisdom on getting started with the perennial web design favorite.
Presenting: Preparation, Process, and PizzazzPosted by public@digital-web.com - April 9, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments It might seem like a good idea when you’re sat in the audience, but once you land your first speaking gig at a web conference it can seem a daunting concept. Why would anyone want to listen to what you have to say—and do you actually have anything worth saying in the first place! Branding expert Lea Alcantara shares what she has learned about putting together the perfect presentation.
The Web Beyond the DesktopPosted by public@digital-web.com - April 1, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments When you think of the people who use your website, where do they use it? At work or a home office? What about a mobile phone? What about even more diverse devices like Amazon's Kindle or the Nintendo Wii? Dave Shea asks us to reconsider how and where people use our websites, and how best to tackle the demands of building sites for a wide array of devices.
10 Tips For Your First Email CampaignPosted by public@digital-web.com - March 25, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments While it may seem like the natural partner to web development, the art of email marketing comes with a whole new set of important steps to take if you want that newsletter to pay dividends. Ben Chestnut lays down ten top tips for anyone wondering how best to approach that tricky first campaign.
South By South West SketchnotesPosted by public@digital-web.com - March 18, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Had enough of the South By South West coverage yet? Yes? Tough luck—we’ve got one more SXSW goodie for you (but we promise this is the last one). Designer Mike Rohde took time out to talk to Digital Web about the motivation and process behind his popular “sketchnotes” technique, and we’re pleased to present some of the highlights from his Austin trip here.
Extending The JavaScript Date Object with User Defined MethodsPosted by public@digital-web.com - March 4, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Once you get into the nitty-gritty of building a web app, sooner or later you’re bound to run into the thorny question of date manipulation. JavaScript, lovely as it is, doesn’t offer much in the way of functionality—but, through the magic of prototypical inheritance, it doesn’t have to be that way. Lawrence O’Sullivan unveils a cornucopia of helpful functions to make managing those Date objects a breeze.
Your Social Graph: Exploring the Google APIPosted by public@digital-web.com - February 26, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments We know social is good, but how do we tap into that goodness? There are many benefits to harnessing user information and sharing it across sites - relationships are the key, and Brian Suda explains which doors the new Google API can help us to open.
How to Build a Green BusinessPosted by public@digital-web.com - February 19, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Does your business take responsibility for its impact on the environment or the local community? And does it do enough for your employees? John Reeve, co-founder of Santa Barbara design and development shop Pelago, shares the tips and advice that can help make your business whiter than white when it comes to being green.
Greasemonkey: Code Injection is BlissPosted by public@digital-web.com - February 12, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Who doesn’t wish they could tweak the internet to their liking? Greasemonkey is a powerful tool for customizing your browsing experience, and Jeffrey Rudesyle brings that idea home with a nifty Digital Web menu trick. He tells us how it’s done and lays the framework for future forays into the Greasemonkey playground.
Review: CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application DevelopmentPosted by public@digital-web.com - February 12, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments Web development frameworks are a brave new world for some developers coming to them after years of procedural coding—and while the golden boy of frameworks, Ruby on Rails, now has several books to learn from, the relatively new PHP framework industry is lagging behind in that respect. Columnist Nathan Smith takes a look at a new book aiming to plug that gap for one of the hottest frameworks around: CodeIgniter.
Better Living Through TaxonomiesPosted by public@digital-web.com - February 5, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments As a change from our usual front-end development focused articles, this week we’re taking a step back to think about the content—and, more specifically, how to improve both the navigation and search on our sites through a better understanding of our content taxonomy. Join Heather Hedden as she investigates the history, management, and practical application of taxonomies on the web.
Creating The Perfect PortfolioPosted by public@digital-web.com - January 29, 2008 on 3:00 am | In Digital Web Design | No Comments If you’re anything like me, your hard drive is probably littered with unfinished redesigns of your personal portfolio site. As professional designers, we can often be our own worst client—which is why I’m very pleased to welcome FreelanceSwitch’s Collis Ta’eed to set out some sensible ground rules to consider when approaching that portfolio project.
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