Webdesign has to deal with balancing the demands of usability with the aesthetics of good design. It is not an easy task and go too far
into the usability side of things and look horrible. Or it can go into the design side - ie flash website - and
be unusable but look very cool. One usability aspect which should now be universal is having street addresses as text, not images, as
La Grande Orange has on their website.
Google maps has become universal and I cut and paste every address into it in order to have a quick look at where an address is. The other usability aspect from this is that an address should be on one line. While websites such as Mapquest take the old relational database approach where an address is split up into its components with each having a new textfield, google maps puts the address on one line.
Minimalsites.com collects minimalist website design. Their philosophy revolves around less is more and doing more with less is the goal. Webdesign is a bit different than just design, especially design aesthetics, because people's browsing habits are better described as informed glances. So usability is exceptionally important. However, minimalism is consistent with high usability so there is a natural union there. This site was designed along minimalist lines.
John Gruber, "Figure out the absolute least you need to do to implement the idea, do just that, and then polish the hell out of the experience"
A graphic description of the same principle
via stuff that happens:
I was confronted by this screen when uploading an image
for Gary's site. My eyes took a while to work out where to look. There is edge after edge after edge. It is like the photobucket designers ran out of vertical and horizontal space, so just added another layer over the top.
The purpose of white space is to relax the eye and guide it across the areas the designer sees as important. When a website (or a news/magazine page) is easy to look at it normally is because it makes it relaxing for the eye to follow the main pieces of information or what the designer wishes
to emphasize. This is made harder on the web as there is about five seconds before someone clicks away after glancing at the top left of a page.
By Design: "We've all heard that much text on the web isn't read, that
users will look at the headings and the navigation and (maybe) the pictures, but they'll skip right over that block of text in the middle of the page. And we're right - they probably will - because the text has been designed to be skipped over."
I chose the space between lines and the number of words in a row on this site to aid in readability (using
e2r as a starting point) since a blog is intended to be read.
Fantastic article on the difference between mechanical interfaces and contextual ones; and how the latter is superior. The main issue raised i how existing widgets are designed for producing context-less mechanical tools that do little except stress the user.
A second reason why modern software is dominated by mechanical metaphors is that, for the people who create software, the computer is a machine. The programmer lives in manipulation mode; she drives her computer as if it were a car. Thus, she inadvertently produces software that must be operated like a machine, even if it is used as a newspaper or book.
Worse, the people who design platforms and GUI toolkits are even more prone to this perspective, since they work at a lower level. The application software designer is then almost forced into a mechanical model by the design environment.
Software developers are the last person who should be desgning user interfaces in my opinion.
Airport Express has been popping up in my face on the Macbook periodically for about a month or so, claiming that the Express has a problem and I should click continue to see what the problem is. I ignore it and treat it as a nuisance. The Airport Express is still working so I don't think there is a problem. Today I finally clicked through on continue. This was the problem.
So it wasn't a problem at all, it was a request for an update. The Macbook has a universal system for receiving and installing updates, so this dialog should never appear at all, it should be bundled into the normal update process. Additionally it should not advertise itself as a 'problem' since it is not. Bad design all around.
Quality usability
on this site from Neilly Davies; using firefox, try hitting any of the links numbered 01 to 05. Links that defy clicking. They literally jump away from the mouse.
Count me amongst those
who have dropped sidebars in blog design. Blogs often have a tiny enough audience. Such that all the sidebar information can be for the primary, and often only, user - the blog owner.
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
