Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design

Fr.oz.en en.tre.es

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 2 March 2006

Ma.gnolia’s linkroll feature rules, but, like a list of “last 10 blog posts,” it is forever sending interesting content into the offscreen past. So here, frozen in time, and in some cases with expanded blurbage, are some of the latest bookmarks to appear in—and soon disappear from—the zeldman.com sidebar:

Microsoft iPod: A parody that says a lot about how design processes go wrong.
Google Code: Web Authoring Statistics: Which HTML ids and classes are most common? How many sites validate?
Eyebrow Antics: Illustrator Brian Tapley uses Flickr as a portfolio delivery system.
Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business: What do Boeing, General Motors, and a small bag-clip company have in common? They are all blogging about their business. It’s time for a practical book about business blogging: a book that offers concrete advice, no-nonsense research, warnings about common pitfalls, and real-world examples of business-blog successes and failures. A conversation with your market is stronger and more meaningful with a blog. When you’re ready to bridge the gap between blogging theory and business reality, this book will get you talking, easily and professionally.; So runs the pitch for Peachpit’s upcoming Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business, by DL Byron and Steve Broback (ISBN: 0321395387), now in presale mode. To save 35% and get free shipping, enter this code when you checkout: PP-234P-LKMS. (Journalists and teachers may request free evaluation copies.)
Netdiver’s Best: Long-running, always great design ’zine Netdiver.net publishes its Best Site Designs of 2005.
S5 1.2a2: Eric Meyer’s CSS-based slideshow hits 1.2 alpha 2 version.
Open Letter to AOL: The Open Letter to America Online is a vehicle for the entire internet community to express its “serious concern [about] AOL’s adoption of Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail, which is a threat to the free and open Internet.” The group explains:; In February 2006, AOL announced that it would accept payment for incoming emails. For these certified emails, it would skip its usual anti-spam filters and guarantee delivery for cash. Our coalition believes that the free passage of email between Internet users is a vital part of what makes the Internet work. When ISPs demand a cut of “pay-to-send” email, they’re raising tollbooths on the open Net, interfering with the passage of data by demanding protection money at the gates of their customers’ computers.
ourcommon.com: The design portfolio of Peter Reid.
Fl.ower: Greg Storey blogs the creative process behind Ma.gnolia’s user interface design.
Beggr 2.0 beta: A one-way ticket to easy street.
Images, Tables, & Mysterious Gaps: It lives! Eric Meyer’s classic on CSS layout as intepreted by Gecko—core of Firefox, Mozilla, Camino, and Netscape—finds a new (and hopefully permanent) home at developer.mozilla.org. Rumor has it all the old Meyer writings are or will be available here.
Linkology: How the Most-Linked Blogs Relate: New York Magazine discovers blogs. I usually ignore this kind of coverage by this kind of source, but I’m linking because this is actually a good article of its kind—and of course because it includes A List Apart in its coverage (albeit with blurbage that suggests that the author doesn’t really know what he thinks he knows).

P.S. Mark in Ma.gnolia or del.icio.us or digg this page.

events

Panelicious

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 1 March 2006

It’s time to pimp my panel at SXSW Interactive ’06:

ROLL YOUR OWN WEB CONFERENCE

Sunday 12 March, 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm, Ballroom F

The Pitch

Should you start a conference? How would you do it? What are the risks and rewards? Successful conference creators will share tips on booking speakers and space, getting the word out, spending and making money, and above all delivering value.

The Poop

I picked people from Canada, Australia, and the U.S. who’ve started their own conferences and asked them to be ready for a no-holds-barred session telling why and how they do it.

The Panelists

Jason Fried is the president of 37signals, a Chicago-based purveyor of fine web-based collaboration tools for the small business and freelancer market.
Molly Golightly has been an organizer of the volunteer-run Webzine conference series since its founding in 1998. Her commitment to Webzine is to bring topics and people you won’t find elsewhere to the stage.
After years of music, graphic design, and web development projects, Bruce Livingstone started iStockphoto, “the world’s best royalty-free photo agency.”
Maxine Sherrin is a co-convenor of Web Essentials. She believes in bringing people together at events not just so they can learn, but so they can build an industry, resist isolation, and make real connections that will survive the tyranny of geography.
Eric Meyer is a globally recognized authority on CSS and web standards. After years of speaking at other people’s events, he co-founded An Event Apart with Jeffrey Zeldman, giving him an eye-opening look at the other side of the conference business.

In other news…

Elsewhere in Conferenceville, An Event Apart Atlanta has sold out.

development industry Standards

Selling AJAX by the pound

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 23 February 2006
No Comments on Selling AJAX by the pound

On Valentine’s Day the U.S. Government granted a patent on AJAX to an obscure web shop that promptly announced plans to “license” the technology thousands of sites and products are using. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but I suspect it will involve lawyers.

A List Apart industry Publishing work

Six minutes of pleasure

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 20 February 2006

Here are six minutes of A List Apart during an ordinary hour of an ordinary weekday:

Fig A Six minutes of A List Apart traffic on an ordinary weekday. (Enlarge.)

Fig B Six minutes of A List Apart traffic on an ordinary weekday. (Enlarge.)

Design development Happy Cog™ industry Tools

Fresh outta beta

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 17 February 2006

When I was younger, I considered myself too “creative” to work on anything that wasn’t cool or exciting. Eventually I buckled down and became a genuine client services professional. For over two decades, I brought my best to every job, no matter how dull.

So much for that. Today I can choose what I want to work on. And I choose projects that are cool, fun, and personally meaningful. In that context, I link to Ma.gnolia.

Designed by Happy Cog and taken out of private beta 15 February, Ma.gnolia is a new social bookmarking tool with well-thought-out features like Saved Copies (so you never lose a web page, even if it moves or goes offline), Bookmark Ratings, Bookmark Privacy, and Groups. Not to mention a Linkroll I like so much I use it here at zeldman.com.

Gnolia Systems envisioned the product and made it run. (The heavy programming? That’s all them.) Happy Cog developed the user pathways, brand identity, and creamy site design. The best part? Leading a dream team of Tanya Rabourn (information architect), Greg Storey (user interface design), Jason Santa Maria (brand identity design), Erin Kissane (brand director), and Mr Eric Meyer (semantician and technologist).

glamorous industry work

My friends all drive Porsches

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 15 February 2006

To the tune of Mercedes Benz

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me
A Mercedes Benz
My friends all drive Porsches
I must make amends
Worked hard all my lifetime
No help from my friends
So, oh Lord, won’t you buy me
A Mercedes Benz

[tags]flickr, measuremap, istockphoto, weblogsinc, dotcom, dot com, web2.0, web 2.0, boom, bust[/tags]

A List Apart industry work

A List Apart 212: Love and Hate

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 14 February 2006

For the Valentine’s issue of A List Apart, we asked you, our gentle readers, what you love and hate about the web.

You sent us your hearts: Valentines to the Web.
You sent us your hisses: Valentine’s Day Massacre.

If you love this issue of A List Apart, give yourself a warm hand. If you hate this issue, slap yourself.

Miss the deadline for submitting your hugs and hates? Not to worry! Join the discussions.

Accessibility Design industry Standards

Beneath the law, beyond the validator

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 13 February 2006

O say, can you see? If not, can you sue?

Designing With Web Standards made the point that an inaccessible site could get its owner in trouble. Now a blind student is suing Target, claiming that its inaccessible site violates the Americans With Disabilities Act and various U.S. state laws:

The Web Standards Project 9 February
The Web Standards Project 10 February
Philly Standards Writeup
News.com
San Francisco Chronicle

Unitless and Somewhat Slightly Dazed

Although the W3C validator claims that A List Apart’s CSS is flawed, our CSS is actually fine; the validator has a known bug that causes it to incorrectly flag unitless line-heights as errors. So why write unitless line-heights? Eric Meyer, who created A List Apart’s CSS, explains. His post is not only the best primer I’ve ever seen on the subject, it is the only primer I’ve ever seen on the subject—and the only one you need.

Design industry Standards Tools

Don’t be a beta hater

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 10 February 2006

Yes, Happy Cog has a layout problem in Internet Explorer 7 beta. Not to worry: According to Molly Holzschlag of The Web Standards Project, Microsoft has fixed the problem, as we’ll see in a future IE7 release. The current beta chokes on this rule:

div#headwrap h1	{
	background: transparent url(/i/happycog.gif)
		top left no-repeat;
	margin: 0;
	border: 0;
	padding: 0;
	padding-top: 100px;
	overflow: hidden;
	height: 0px !important; /* for most browsers */
	height /**/:100px; /* for pre 6.0 IE Win */
	}

It’s an image replacement technique that uses an alternate box model hack.

Designers use box model hacks to compensate for inaccuracies in the way some browsers (mostly Microsoft’s) calculate element widths with respect to padding and borders. I wrote this rule to insert my agency’s logo at the top of the page in visual browsers while presenting a text equivalent for screen readers and nongraphical browsers. The hacks force older Microsoft browsers to display these elements correctly.

When Microsoft released IE5, it was great for its day, but not always accurate. When they released IE6, it was better but not perfect. The company then declared victory and announced that the browser was dead and there would be no more IE browsers forever.

So designers got busy compensating for the standards deficiencies of IE5, IE5.5, and IE6 (and other companies’ browsers), using hacks like those seen here. The idea is to take the hackery out of markup, where it never belonged, and hide it in style sheets.

IE7 beta’s standards accuracy is already very good and getting better, and, despite what you might have heard to the contrary, Microsoft’s engineers are working with the community (and in particular with The Web Standards Project) to identify and fix CSS bugs and errors and to compensate for hacks like the one seen here. Using IE7? Finding bugs? Microsoft and The Web Standards Project want to hear from you.

Design industry links

Read these now

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 8 February 2006

Hungry? Want another bullshit sandwich?: Andy Rutledge in UX Magazine: “Bad design harms business, it does not help it. Websites like Boingboing, Google and eBay are successful in spite of their poorly designed sites, not because of them.”
Blogs versus the NY Times in Google: Jason Kottke at kottke.org: “In 2002, Dave Winer of Scripting News and Martin Nisenholtz of the New York Times made a Long Bet about the authority of weblogs versus that of [The] NY Times in Google…. I decided to see how well each side is doing by checking the results for the top news stories of 2005.”
Metamorphosis: Dan Benjamin in The Hivelogic Narrative: “[W]riting in second person had a negative impact on something critical to the ‘success’ of Hivelogic: it significantly diminished the frequency of posting.”
Airbag: Cheap: Greg Storey in Airbag: “I am loving Google’s new search service based in China. It’s faster and brings up only the most relevant results without having to be some kind of search engine algorithm enthusiast.”

An Event Apart Design development events people

Dominey, Santa Maria, join Event Apart roster

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 6 February 2006

It is pure pleasure to announce that famed web designer, developer, author, blogger, and entrepreneur Todd Dominey and fast-rising art director/designer/blogger Jason Santa Maria will join Eric Meyer and me on the speaker’s platform at An Event Apart Atlanta.

Todd Dominey is a living preview of tomorrow’s web designer: busy with client services, but also creating his own products; delivering powerful graphic design but always in the context of what the user needs to see; adept at web standards and Flash.

As for Jason Santa Maria, I hired him at Happy Cog and entrusted him with the redesign of A List Apart, so I think he’s pretty good.

Actually, I think Todd Dominey and Jason Santa Maria rock harder than Metallica and am thrilled that we will have them both on our stage. I hope some of you can join us at An Event Apart Atlanta.

A List Apart Design Standards

A List Apart 211

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 31 January 2006

In the 211th edition of A List Apart, for people who make webites:

In Search of the Holy Grail — Matthew Levine’s three-column CSS layout avoids the usual semantic sacrifices. Is it the ultimate of its kind?
Home Page Goals — Indie web powerhouse Derek Powazek articulates the unique set of design goals a home page requires to create a smart and welcoming impression.

Plus, listen up, ALA readers! A List Apart wants to know what you love—and hate—about the web right now…whatever makes you swoon or drives you nuts. We’ll feature a selection of responses in our next issue.

An Event Apart

Event Apart registration begins

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 30 January 2006

Pardon the intrusion, but registration is now available for An Event Apart Atlanta. Seating is limited, first come, first served. Sign up before 3 March 2006 to reserve your seat and lock in the early bird rate of $499. Additional savings are available for groups.

Accessibility An Event Apart Design development events Standards

An Event Apart Atlanta

Post author By L. Jeffrey Zeldman
Post date 26 January 2006

Messieurs Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman are pleased to announce An Event Apart Atlanta:

On 3 April 2006, America’s favorite pastime (designing with web standards) will come to the 755 Club at Turner Field, as the famed ballpark’s spectacularly furnished club hosts An Event Apart Atlanta.

An Event Apart is a concentrated, one-day learning session on modern web design. Check the Event Apart Philadelphia page to get a sense of how the first event, held in the Franklin Institute, went down. Transpose from Philly to Atlanta, think ballpark instead of museum, and you get an inkling of what to expect.

Online registration starts soon; seating will be limited. Subscribe to An Event Apart’s RSS feed to stay ahead of the curve. Can’t make Atlanta? Event Apart seminars in Seattle, Chicago, and Los Angeles are up next.