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in Business, Design, News, Usability, browsers on February 15th, 2010
In another blog post, I brought up the topic of how the web is being “abstracted” into new mediums and devices such as Rich Internet Applications, netbooks and tablets (e.g. the iPad). After pondering this topic a little more, it hit me that that this concept might be a lot bigger than I initially thought, and deserving of an individual posting.
As I already mentioned, there are new mediums and devices coming out that are abstracting the web and displaying the content in other more unique forms. Instead of the typical user sitting down at his/her work station and loading up…
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in Findings, Reviews, Software, Usability on February 9th, 2010
Last night I attended a presentation for web professionals in the Chicago area. It was organized through meetup.com. The presenter was Matt Moog, Founder & CEO at Viewpoints. You can see his slide deck here.
Among his many relevant points was the notion he referred to as ‘the dominance of search.’ Matt’s focus for the evening was specifically on sites that serve up social commerce, but I think the search issue is something any site needs to consider seriously. What Matt was referring to was his claim was that 50-80% of traffic across the web comes from search. This was a…
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in Tutorials, Usability on January 30th, 2010
In his book, Communicating Design, Dan Brown defines wireframes as:
“A simplified view of what content will appear on each screen of the final product, usually devoid of color, typographical styles, and images…”
Wireframes can technically be generated by just about anybody. However it is painfully apparent when someone with little or no experience takes it upon themselves to do so. The classic example is when a client has some ideas they think are great and feels the need to express them. More often than not those ideas could be communicated through words via email or on the phone and it would…
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Posted by
steve
in Code, Tutorials, Usability on May 1st, 2009
Recently at Billups Design we built a fully functional HTML replica of a client’s flash site and were puzzled as to the latest and best practices for integrating that HTML site with the existing Flash site to ensure the greatest usability and SEO results. We had a few options that came to mind first.
- A splash page to allow the user to choose the HTML Site or the Flash Site.
- A separate directory for the HTML Site to live that only Google would see.
- A flash detection that would redirect the user to the HTML site if it didn’t have Flash, Google included.
None…
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Posted by
steve
in Software, Usability, browsers on April 6th, 2009
In the world of web development there has been a recent push from all around the world to finally drop support for IE6. It’s understandable since IE8 is now released and IE6 is about 8 years old, an antique in computer years. However, there are still a measurable amount of users still launching IE6 as their primary browser, 17.4% of all users according to w3schools. So should we abandon the traditional model of graceful degradation and cross browser compatibility and stop supporting IE6? Some very substantial web developers have said yes.
37signals.
37signals started phasing out support for ie6 starting in October 1, 2008.…
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Ryan Nasipak
in Code, Inspiration, Tutorials, Usability on March 20th, 2009
When I first started developing in flash, there were inevitably things that just made me want to pull my hair out. Basic physics, Actionscript vs. timeline animation and embedding assets vs. creating them at run-time were just a few of the areas I really wrestled with early on. Part of the problem stemmed from a desire to go from 0-60 in 2 seconds (and that might be on the high side). I was like Nike, just do it. *** As a side, that reaches my corny joke quota for this blog….so please, read on.
When I jump in to a project…
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Posted by
ted
in Business, Uncategorized, Usability on February 19th, 2009
Steve Krug discusses doing usability testing with 4-6 people about once a month can lead to solving problems typically yield big efficiencies and return on investment. We wholeheartedly agree, Steve!
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Posted by
charles
in Uncategorized, Usability on January 30th, 2009
iPhone apps are proliferating like so many bunnies in a vast green meadow. To this point, the overwhelming majority of these new apps are for entertainment, utility or novelty. However, commercial applications are only around the corner. Here at Billups Design, we’re working on commercial applications for the iPhone that our clients and prospects can procure to advance their online communications. Until that time when private enterprise awakens to the uses of iPhone apps, we’ll just have to have fun using our phones for things like this: The Rubik Cube Solver.
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Posted by
steve
in Uncategorized, Usability on November 6th, 2008
Typography on the web has always left something to be desired. With so few options it can be frustrating to many web designers. However, recently there have been many developments on the web typography frontier and now with a little extra work there are ways to get any typeface you want to display on your web pages.
1. 
sIFR is perhaps the best known dynamic text replacement technique. It was first conceived by Shaun Inman as a way to dynamically replace HTML text with flash text. It’s a great solution from a user standpoint because the text not only looks great, but it…
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