Marty September 15th, 2006
Last night, GSI Commerce hosted a seminar for AIGA Philadelphia and Phi Chi (the Philadelphia branch of the ACM SigCHI) members, along with Avenue A/Razorfish. The topic was The Visual vs. The Usable, and we were presenting two cases of how we managed to mesh top-notch creative with functional, usable design. Avenue A/Razorfish did the same, talking about how the two groups - often at odds - collaborated on projects to create a better end result. Continue Reading »
Marty July 14th, 2006
Jazz Coding jăz • cod’-ing(v) -
1. Interpretive and often highly improvisational code development that doesn’t match spec or supplied codebase, and usually doesn’t work.
2. Rewriting functional or base code with non-standard and/or irregular code that is better understood, regardless of its validity.
While highly entertaining if viewed correctly, unappreciated by most. Doesn’t follow standard conventions, often putting completely disparate elements into the expected structure, causing unexpected results.
WIKI addendum: Jazz Coding is often performed by less-informed developers who are unable to understand or modified newer and more compliant code structures. Rather than adhere to the level of code requested/supplied, they rewrite code to include more basic constructs that are better understood, such as <font> tags, incorrect/unmatched tags or structurally invalid code.
See Also jazz code (n); jazz coded (v, adj.), What the hell is this crap? (phrase)
Marty June 28th, 2006
While working on a website we are redesigning, I was seeing some minor usability/accessibility issues that I was concerned about. I brought up those issues, mentioning that the site would be significantly less functional in some cases to those with disabilities, such as the vision-impaired and physically handicapped persons for whom using a mouse is difficult. That was when someone asked, “Do blind people actually buy sporting goods?”.
In their defense, the speaker asked the question in good faith, and they were thinking of snowboards, golf clubs and footballs when they said it. It took me only a second to respond perhaps not, and to ask if they had considered sweatpants, baseball caps, knee braces and more. Suddenly, it was more pertinent, and I decided to look into the question - do the disabled really buy sporting goods, or more specifically, do they buy them online? Continue Reading »
Marty June 16th, 2006
We were doing a usability test recently on a site that I’ve been working on for a major sports retailer. In the tests, we were testing a hover functionality which would prompt the user to click for more information about that product. Continue Reading »
Marty April 8th, 2006
I started a new job this week, and it’s been a LOT of work - but good work. I’m working more on the Information Architecture side of things which I haven’t had much of a chance to do lately when I was working with my old contract company. Better yet, this position could hopefully lead to full-time employment, something that I could get into since this seems like a pretty cool company. I’ll miss the flexibility of my other position, and driving up the Schuykill daily is a bit of a drag, but I like what I’m working on, the people are good and the whole “…into full-time employment” portion is something that I could get into.
Unfortunately, it also means that I don’t have as much time to tool around as I once did. Big difference between getting home at 4:30 and 7:30 each night - but there’s always a trade-off for good work, and the potential benefits it brings. Even if I can’t play hooky as often.
Other links - some relevent, others … well, not so much »
Marty February 22nd, 2006
I have to ask, who the heck still uses HTML 3.2? For those of you who left it all behind years ago (with good reason), here’s a short list of things you can’t use in 3.2:
- Stylesheets - none. zero. Ditto for inline styles - HTML 3.2 hates ‘em.
font face - Technically, there is no way to dictate what font you want to use - it’s just that browsers of that time period started accepting them, even if they were out of standard. You can, however, use that damned font tag until your hearts content.font-size - only in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 … or in +1/-1, +2/-2, etc.background - none of the variables work, but you can use the old bgcolor, but only in certain elements (body, div). Not much help if you have to design using tables (because what would HTML 3.2 be without tables, right?).target - although, since this was an email, that’s not that big a deal. Plus, it’s deprecated for HTML 4.01 STRICT anyway.BR and HR - I don’t know how many times I had to go back and switch my < br /> tags.cellmargin, cellpadding, cellspacing, height (of a table or div) and margin - Oh, and IDs? They’re not around yet (hence, no stylesheets).
Creating this email would have been great and even easy had it not been for the HTML 3.2 portion of it. As it was, I was faced with creating yet another drab experience based on the old, boring template or trying to jerry-rig my design into HTML 3.2. In the end, what worked was a wholly image-based email or a sure-to-break-if-they-increase-the-font-size-too-much design.
God, I hope they upgrade to a new system soon.
Marty February 16th, 2006
Okay, after a few days of using Microsoft’s new IE7 Beta, I’ve gotten a handle on the changes, as well as what I like and don’t like about it. Continue Reading »
Marty February 6th, 2006
MY TOP FIVE
- Fed-Ex
- Bud Light: Revolving Fridge
- Budweiser: Stadium Cards
- Toyota Tacoma
- Motorola Pebl
MY BOTTOM FIVE
- Outback
- Diet Pepsi (both of ‘em)
- Blockbuster
- Emerald Nuts
- Pizza Hut Cheesy Bites
Read on for the rest of my semi-not-really-expert opinion… Continue Reading »
Marty February 4th, 2006
Back in year’s past, Microsoft enjoyed a nearly complete monopoly on the web browser, and nobody really knew what standards were. Those who did were portrayed as geeks, crazies or perfectionists. And the folks from Redmond said “Enjoy what you have - we won’t be giving you anything else until Longhorn in 2005 2006 2007.
Then came a spate of new browsers that did know what standards were, and actually began following them. For MAC users, that meant Safari and Camino; for Windows users, Opera started pushing but it was Firefox that really caught Microsoft’s attention. Suddenly, their domination of browsers plateaued and actually started to drop. At first, it was just those silly designers trying to force their ’standards’ mantra. Then the numbers started to grow - companies started adopting Firefox, as did the government. In fact, millions of people were downloading it and the press started to make a big deal. Suddenly, IE’s ‘quirks’ were seen as fallibility, as bugs, as negatives that other browsers didn’t have. IE became the evil browser, and designers took the lead to shout the praises of these lesser-known but more compliant browsers. And IE’s market continued to wane.
So, Microsoft realized that something had to be done. And IE7 was announced (no, not that IE7), as Microsoft scrambled to hold off the upstarts who were threatening its dominance. Now, they’ve finally released it in beta form so that the world can see that they really do care. Continue Reading »
