In Issue No. 284 of A List Apart, for people who make websites:

Creating Intrinsic Ratios for Video

by THIERRY KOBLENTZ

Have you ever wanted to resize a video on the fly, scaling it as you would an image? Using intrinsic ratios for video and some padding property magic, you can. Thierry Koblentz shows us how.

Burnout

by SCOTT BOMS

Does every day feel like a bad day? Blurry boundaries between work and home, and the “always on” demands of the web can lead to depression and burnout. Learn the signs of burnout and how to maintain your bliss.

And don’t miss this issue’s Editor’s Choice:

The ALA Primer: A Guide for New Readers

by ERIN LYNCH

New to A List Apart? Welcome! ALA’s own Erin Lynch suggests a few good places to start reading. (Originally ran: September 12, 2006.)

Comments off.

Filed under: A List Apart, Career, Design, HTML, Layout, User Experience, business, industry

In “Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS,” Andy Clarke proposes a novel approach to the problem that has vexed standards-based designers since time immemorial (or at least since we could quit worrying about Netscape 4).

The problem is IE6. Outdated but still widely used, especially in the developing world, its inaccurate and incomplete CSS support forces web designers and developers to spend expensive hours on workarounds ranging from hacks, to IE6-only styles served via conditional comments, to JavaScript. Some refuse to serve CSS to IE6 at all; others stop IE6 users at the gate. In some situations (personal site, web app used by first-world hipsters), ignoring IE6 may work; but mostly it doesn’t.

After a brief but thorough tour of current IE6 solutions and their limitations, Andy unveils his zinger. He proposes to serve IE6 users a set of universal styles completely unrelated to the design of the site in question. Not unlike Arc90’s awesome Readability plug-in, the styles Andy has designed concern themselves with typographic hierarchy and whitespace. Here’s the theory: make the page easy to read, make it obvious that somebody designed it, and the IE6 user will have a good experience.

(By contrast, block styles from IE6, as some developers suggest, and that user will have a bad experience. Most likely, in the absence of styles, the user will think the page is broken.)

No hammer fits all nails, and no solution, however elegant, will work for every situation. But if we’re open minded, Andy’s proposal may work in more situations than we at first suspect. Where it works, it’s what business folk call a “win, win:” the visitor has a good reading experience, and client and developer are spared tedium and expense.

Check it out.

Tags: IE6, workarounds, design, development, webdesign, hacks, legibility, styles, CSS, andyclarke

Filed under: Accessibility, Browsers, CSS, DWWS, Design, Layout, Standards, business, development

Among developers, 37signals has achieved a cult following for giving us web applications like Basecamp, Highrise, and Campfire, and the Ruby on Rails platform. But the real secret of their success is as old fashioned as your great grandfather’s Victrola. It’s customer service.

We opened a HighRise account to manage our A List Apart author contacts and then didn’t use the account for whatever reason.

This morning I cancelled my account with two clicks of a button.

The messaging clearly explained that canceling the account would mean losing the contacts, and provided an opportunity to rethink the decision.

When I chose to go ahead with the cancellation, it happened instantly, and I was taken to this page, which reassured me that the account was closed and that I would stop receiving product-related emails. Smart. I was instantly satisfied and had no more questions. How often does that happen when closing, say, a phone or cable or internet account?

The page also offered me the opportunity to try another 37signals product or to provide customer feedback in a survey. If I had quit using the product because of dissatisfaction with it, I would have been able to use the survey to tell 37signals everything I disliked about my experience. If I liked the product but found it wasn’t right for me for whatever reason, I could tell them that (which could help them focus on their core audience’s needs).

All smart, businesslike, and yet inoffensive and un-pushy.

37signals not only constantly fine-tunes their products, they also think about the customer experience even when the customer is leaving.

I find that instructive, educational, and inspiring.

Disclaimer: Jason Fried is my friend, and I do business with 37signals through The Deck advertising network, so I’m not impartial. Just impressed.

Filed under: 37signals, Advocacy, business

In Issue No. 282 of A List Apart, For People Who Make Websites:

• Can we finally get real type on the web?
• Does beauty in design have a benefit besides aesthetic pleasure?

Real Fonts on the Web: An Interview with The Font Bureau’s David Berlow

by DAVID BERLOW, JEFFREY ZELDMAN

Is there life after Georgia? We ask David Berlow, co-founder of The Font Bureau, Inc, and the first TrueType type designer, how type designers and web designers can work together to resolve licensing and technology issues that stand between us and real fonts on the web.

In Defense of Eye Candy

by STEPHEN P. ANDERSON

Research proves attractive things work better. How we think cannot be separated from how we feel. The next time a boss, client, or co-worker scoffs at the notion that beauty is an important aspect of interface design, point their peepers here.

A List Apart explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.

Tags: alistapart, type, typography, realtype, truetype, CSS, beauty, design, aesthetics

Filed under: A List Apart, Advocacy, CSS, Design, Fonts, HTML, Happy Cog™, Ideas, Interviews, Layout, Publications, Publishing, Standards, State of the Web, Typography, UX, Usability, User Experience, Web Design, Web Standards, Working, XHTML, art direction, business, development, industry

Joshua Schachter explains how URL shorteners like TinyURL, bit.ly, etc., originally created to prevent long URLs from breaking in 1990s e-mail clients, and now used primarily as a means of monetizing someone else’s content, are bad:

• They “add another layer of indirection to an already creaky system, [making what] used to be transparent … opaque,” slowing down web use by adding needless lookups, and potentially disguising spam.
• Shorteners “steal search juice” from the original publishers. (For example, with the Digg bar and Digg short URL, your content makes Digg more valuable and your site less valuable; the more content you create, the richer you make Digg.)
• “A new and potentially unreliable middleman now sits between the link and its destination. And the long-term archivability of the hyperlink now depends on the health of a third party.”

And more. Via Merlin Mann.

Anyone who creates web content should read Joshua’s post. I’m sold and will dial way back on my use of the zeldman.com short URL. The question remains, what to do when you need to paste a long, cumbersome link into a 140-character service like Twitter. (If you do nothing, Twitter itself will shorten the link via TinyURL.)

Tags: URL, URLshortener, JoshuaSchachter, redirect, abstraction, Digg, findability, searchjuice, SEO

Filed under: Blogs and Blogging, Design, HTML, Ideas, Information architecture, Publications, Publishing, Respect, Standards, State of the Web, UX, Usability, User Experience, Web Design, Web Standards, Websites, architecture, business, findability, industry, links, twitter

DanielByrne [warning! Flash site with JavaScript auto-expand full-screen window] came to Happy Cog’s New York office to shoot me for an upcoming feature story in .Net Magazine, “the UK’s leading magazine for web designers and developers.”

What can I say? I’m a sucker for the gentle touch of a make-up pad. Or of anything, really. I love this photo (shot by Byrne with my iPhone) because it captures the fact that I’m still really a four-year-old. It also shows what a genuine photographer can do with even the humblest of tools.

Tags: photos, photography, shoot, danielbyrne, photographer, zeldman, jeffreyzeldman, profile, bio, interview, .net, .netmag, .netmagazine, .netmagazineUK, myglamorouslife, iphone, candid, shoots, shots, Apple

Filed under: Apple, Career, Design, Happy Cog™, Images, Interviews, NYC, New York City, Press, Publications, Publishing, The Profession, Zeldman, art direction, better-know-a-speaker, business, fashion, glamorous, industry, iphone, links, style

The annual A List Apart survey for people who make websites is the only public source of data on the shifting salaries, titles, job skills, and work satisfactions of full- and part-time, staff and freelance web professionals.

This year’s survey findings, culled from answers provided by over 30,000 ALA readers, are now up for your pleasure on a specially designed website. We’ve sliced and diced the data, making sense of complex interrelationships, and displaying the results in miniature CSS masterworks by Mr Eric Meyer. (More about the CSS.)

This year’s findings paint a clearer picture of the distinctions between full-time and freelance web professionals: how you work, what you earn, and what you love about the job. Interestingly, too, despite the brutality of a global recession that was already in full swing when we offered the survey, most respondents revealed a surprisingly high level of job security, satisfaction, and confidence in the future.

See for yourself. Read the findings.

Comments off. Please comment on ALA.

Tags: alistapart, aneventapart, webdesignsurvey, survey, forpeoplewhomakewebsites, surveyfindings, findings, meyerweb, css, jobskills, titles, webdesign, webdesigners, webdevelopment, webdevelopers, IA, UX, editors, writers, webmasters

Comments off.

Filed under: A List Apart, Advocacy, An Event Apart, Design, Survey, Working, business, jobs, work

Now with significantly enhanced audio quality, courtesy of Zoomy.net’s Peter Richardson…

Here, for your consideration and pleasure, is the new! improved! audio recording of “From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small.” Listen and enjoy.

Tags: design, webdesign, podcast, recording, SXSW, SXSWi, SXSWi09, panels, panel, freelance, agency, smallagency, transition, survival, economy

Tags: design, webdesign, podcast, recording, SXSW, SXSWi, SXSWi09, panels, panel, freelance, agency, smallagency, transition, survival, economy

Filed under: Community, Design, Working, business, development, work

Presenting the full audio recording of “From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small”, a panel at SXSW Interactive 2009 featuring Roger Black (founder of agencies huge and small), Kristina Halvorson (freelancer turned agency head), and Whitney Hess (agency pro turned freelance), and moderated by yours truly.

The panel was about quitting your job (or coping with a layoff), working as a freelancer, collaborating with others, and what to do if your collaboration starts morphing into an agency. We sought to answer questions like these:

1. What business and personal skills are required to start a freelance business or a small agency? Is freelancing or starting a small agency a good fit for my talents and abilities?
2. Is freelancing or starting a small agency the right work solution for me in a scary and rapidly shrinking economy? Can the downsides of this economy work to my advantage as a freelancer or small agency head?
3. I’ve been downsized/laid off/I’m stuck in a dead-end job working longer hours for less money. Should I look for a new job or take the plunge and go freelance?
4. What can I expect in terms of income and financial security if I switch from a staff job to freelancing? What techniques can I use as a freelancer to protect myself from the inevitable ups and downs?
5. How do I attract clients? How much in-advance work do I need to line up before I can quit my job?
6. How do I manage clients? What client expectations that are normal for in-house or big agency work must I deliver on as a freelancer or the head of a small or virtual agency? Which expectations can I discard? How do I tell my client what to expect?
7. Do I need an office? What are the absolute minimum tools I need to start out as a one-person shop?
8. How big can my freelance business grow before I need to recast it as a small agency?
9. What models are out there for starting an agency besides the conventional Inc. model with all its overhead? Which model would work best for me?
10. Who do I know with whom I could start a small or virtual agency? What should I look for in my partners? What should I beware of?
11. If I’m lucky enough to be growing, how do I protect my creative product and my professional reputation while adding new people and taking on more assignments?
12. How big can my agency grow before it sucks? How I can grow a business that’s dedicated to staying small?

Whitney Hess has written a fine wrap-up of the panel, including a collection of tweets raving about it, some of Mike Rohde’s visual coverage, and links to other people’s posts about the panel.

LISTEN to “From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small”.

Tags: design, webdesign, podcast, recording, SXSW, SXSWi, SXSWi09, panels, panel, freelance, agency, smallagency, transition, survival, economy

Filed under: Community, Design, Freelance, Self-Employment, Small Business, Surviving, Web Design, Working, business, development, work

New at WebProfessional.org: in Careers in the Web Profession, WOW’s Bill Culver interviews your humble narrator and Scott Fegette, Technical Product Manager for Dreamweaver at Adobe about the joys, sorrows, challenges, and opportunities of a professional web career.

WebProfessional.org aims to promote the web professional by:

• defining and promoting the title
• providing resources that will assist Web professional to succeed
• serving as a bridge between practitioners and those that teach, governments and industry

Have a listen!

Tags: webdesign, webprofession, interviews, zeldman, webprofessional.org

Filed under: Respect, The Profession, Web Design, business