Category: Web Design

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

Tiny URL, Big Trouble

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[/tags]

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Design industry Interviews Press Web Design Web Standards Websites work Zeldman

What are web standards?

What are web standards? And why should I care? A fun new clip from the BigThink marathon Zeldman interview. See also this and that. Or just click the “CHANNELS” button in the video above.

[tags]zeldman, webstandards, bigthink, interview[/tags]

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Design Ideas industry Interviews nytimes speaking Standards State of the Web tv Typography Usability User Experience Web Design Web Standards Zeldman zeldman.com

More Zeldman Fun From BigThink

Bigthink.com/jeffreyzeldman is your BigThink channel for all your BigThink Jeffrey Zeldman needs. Now playing at that URL are three Zeldman interview clips for your pleasure:

  1. “Jeff” Zeldman dissects online journalism
  2. “Jeff” Zeldman outlines the history of blogging
  3. “Jeff” Zeldman discusses the future of open source

View early and view often. Happy watching and blogging.

[tags]bigthink, zeldman, jeffreyzeldman, interviews, internet, web, design, history, journalism, online, onlinejournalism, webpublishing, opensource, webstandards[/tags]

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Design development Interviews Web Design Web Standards Zeldman

“Jeffrey Zeldman on Open Source Design”

I discuss “open source design” in an excerpt from a long interview at Big Think. The full interview, with a complete transcript, will soon be available there as well.

BigThink’s Merrell Hambleton did a great deal of research prior to conducting the hour-long interview, and was thereby able, not only to probe typical Zeldman topics in greater depth, but also to ask interesting questions outside my comfort zone.

The interview was carried out via Interrotron, a fascinating device invented by Errol Morris.

[tags]bigthink, zeldman, design, webdesign, opensource, standards, webstandards, libraries, jeffreyzeldman, interview[/tags]

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Appearances Interviews Web Design Web Standards Zeldman

Taking Your Calls, Live at 6

Fred Gates interviews me and we take your calls, live, on Blog Talk Radio tonight.

Visit blogtalkradio.com/IGMRinFOCUS between 6:00 and 7:00 PM ET and phone in with your questions. Design. Writing. Client and career management. Web standards. DWWS 3e. Nothing’s off the table. Sound off and share. See you on (virtual) radio.

Update – download the interview

New! Listen to the archived audio interview.

[tags]fredgates, IGMRinFOCUS, BTR, BlogTalkRadio, live, interviews, podcasts, zeldman, jeffreyzeldman, microstardom[/tags]

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A List Apart Accessibility Advocacy An Event Apart Appearances art direction creativity CSS Design development events experience Web Design Web Standards Zeldman

Your Guide to An Event Apart Boston

The complete schedule for An Event Apart Boston is now online for your reading pleasure.

Join Eric Meyer and your humble host with truly special guest speakers Jason Santa Maria, Jeremy Keith, Joshua Porter, Whitney Hess, Dan Cederholm, Daniel Mall, Derek Featherstone, Aarron Walter, Scott Thomas, Heather Champ, Andy Clarke, and GoodBarry’s Brett Welch for two days of design, code, and content.

An intensely educational two-day conference for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design, An Event Apart brings together thirteen of the leading minds in web design for two days of non-stop inspiration and enlightenment. If you care about code as well as content, usability as well as design, this is the one you’ve been waiting for.

Educational discounts and group rates are available, and everyone saves $100 during the early bird registration period.

Comments off.

[tags]aneventapart, AEA, webdesign, conference, webstandards[/tags]

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business Community Design development Freelance Self-Employment Small Business Surviving Web Design work Working

“Freelance to Agency” Podcast

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:

  • 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?
  • 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?
  • 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?
  • 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?
  • How do I attract clients? How much in-advance work do I need to line up before I can quit my job?
  • 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?
  • Do I need an office? What are the absolute minimum tools I need to start out as a one-person shop?
  • How big can my freelance business grow before I need to recast it as a small agency?
  • 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?
  • 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?
  • 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?
  • 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[/tags]

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business Respect The Profession Web Design

Eat fine meals, ride fast trains, be a web professional

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[/tags]

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Browsers bugs chrome Code Compatibility CSS Design development DOM Web Design Web Standards

Browser compatibility updates

DOM whiz and loyal-opposition/web standards advocate Peter-Paul Koch has been working overtime preparing detailed findings on CSS and DOM compatibility in modern browsers, including:

A Compatibility Master Table provides a snapshot of the status and results of all testing; Mobile Compatibility Tests are also in development.

It’s a great resource from an expert who really cares, and who has the time and expertise to find things out for the rest of us. Thanks, PPK!

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Design industry Interviews Web Design Web Standards Zeldman zeldman.com

Zeldman on your dial

Join me on Blog Talk Radio at 6:00 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday 1 April 2009.

We will interview best-selling author, designer, and web standards evangelist Jeffrey Zeldman will about his career, his books, and the future of the internet and social media.

Join us live. Bring your questions about web design, web standards, client services, independent publishing, blogging, book authoring, DWWS 3e, or anything else you’d like to talk about.

Comments off.

[tags]design, webdesign, zeldman, radio, interview[/tags]

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Design development links Web Design Web Standards Websites

Superhot standards-based redesign

Seed Magazine has received a killer redesign courtesy of Mike Pick and Tim Murtaugh.

And, except for the custom Flash-based video players, it’s all web-standards-based. CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript were never so hawt. Click on STUDIO in the nav bar, then explore SALON or SAVED BY SCIENCE to experience the new hotness.

[tags]tim murtaugh, mike pick, seed, seedmagazine[/tags]

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Design development HTML Web Design Web Standards Websites XHTML

Web Standards Test: Top 100 Sites

While working on the third edition of Designing With Web Standards, I decided to visit Alexa’s Top 100 US Sites to see how many of the top 100 use valid markup, how many nearly validate (i.e. would validate if not for an error or two), and which DOCTYPEs predominate. Even with a fistful of porn sites in the mix, it was dull work: click a link, load the home page, run a validation bookmarklet, record the result.

I had no expectations. I made no assumptions. I just clicked and tested.

Such tests tell us little

I make no claims about what I found. If all the home pages of the top 100 sites were valid, it would not mean that the pages beneath the home page level were valid, nor would it prove that the sites were authored semantically. (An HTML 4.0 table layout with no semantics can validate; so can a site composed entirely of non-semantic divs with presentational labels.)

Validation is not the be-all of standards-based design; it merely indicates that the markup, whatever its semantic quality may be, complies with the requirements of a particular standard. Conversely, lack of validation does not prove lack of interest in web standards: ads and other third-party content can wreck a once-valid template, as can later third-party development work.

Moreover, nothing causal or predictive can be determined from these results. If 25% of the top 100 sites validated in my test, it would not mean that 25% of all sites on the web validate.

And I got nothing like 25%.

Enough disclaimers. On with the test.

Seven percent validate

On this day, in this test, seven out of 100 “top US” sites validated:

  1. MSN (#7 in Alexa’s list) validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict. Who’d a thunk it? (Validation link)
  2. Craigslist (#10) validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional. I’ll buy that! (Validation link)
  3. WordPress (#22) validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. The power of the press, baby! (Validation link)
  4. Time Warner RoadRunner (#39) validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. Meep-Meep! (Validation link)
  5. BBC Newsline Ticker (#50) validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict. Cheers, mates! (Validation link)
  6. The US Internal Revenue Service (#58) validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional. Our tax dollars at work! (Validation link)
  7. TinyPic (#73) (“Free Image Hosting”), coded by ZURB, validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. (Validation link)

Also-rans (one or two errors)

  1. Wikipedia (#8) almost validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict (two errors).
  2. Apple (#29) almost validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional (two errors).
  3. Linkedin.com (#45) almost validates as HTML 4.01 Transitional (one error).
  4. AWeber Communications (#83) almost validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional (one error: an onClick element)

Suis generis

The Pirate Bay (#68), “the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker,” goes in and out of validation. When it validates, it’s a beautiful thing, and it belongs on the list. But when it goes out of validation, it can quickly stack up ten errors or more. (Validation Link)

No-shows

Google (#1) does not validate or declare a DOCTYPE.

Yahoo (#2) does not validate or declare a DOCTYPE.

YouTube (#3) does not validate but at least declares that it is HTML 4.01 Transitional. Progress!

A surprising number of sites that do not come close to validating declare a DOCTYPE of XHTML 1.0 Strict. For instance, Twitter (#93) is authored in XHTML 1.0 Strict, although it contains seven errors.

This preference for Strict among non-validating sites suggests that at one point these sites were made over by standards-aware developers; but that any standards improvements made to these sites were lost by subsequent developers. (It doesn’t prove this; it merely suggests.) Another possibility is that some developers use tools that are more standards-aware than they are. (For instance, a developer with little to no knowledge of web standards might use a tool that defaults to the XHTML 1.0 Strict DOCTYPE.)

Some sites that used to validate (such as Blogger.com, previously designed by Douglas Bowman, and Reference.com, previously designed by Happy Cog) no longer do so; maintaining standards or design compliance may not have been important to new owners or new directors.

[tags]validation, webstandards, alexa, test[/tags]

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Design DWWS Standards Web Design Web Standards work writing

DWWS 3e

Sorry I haven’t written much here, lately, but I’ve been working on the third edition of a book you may know.

Questions?

[tags]dwws, designingwithwebstandards, 3rdedition, 3e, DWWS3e, newriders, peachpit, zeldman[/tags]

Categories
A List Apart business Design Publications Publishing Web Design

ALA 278: design for readers; stay alive

In Issue No. 278 of A List Apart, For People Who Make Websites:

In Defense of Readers

by MANDY BROWN

As web designers, we concern ourselves with how users move from page to page, but forget the needs of those whose purpose is to be still. Learn the design techniques that create a mental space for reading. Use typographic signals to help users shift from looking to reading, from skimming along to concentrating. Limit distractions; pay attention to the details that make text readable; and consider chronology by providing transitions for each of the three phases of the online reading experience.

Filling Your Dance Card in Hard Economic Times

by PEPI RONALDS

In space no one can hear you scream, and in a global economic meltdown, no industry—not even web design—is safe. But as a web designer, your skills and products are suited to ride out hard times, as long as you stay busy. Learn the seven steps to (relative) security in good times or bad: 1. Keep clients happy. 2. Know your goals. 3. Use your initiative wisely. 4. Communicate. 5. Put in a full day’s work. 6. Do it right. 7. Find the love.

[tags]mandibrown, pepironalds, design, readers, designforreaders, business, webbusiness, stayinbusiness, recession, tips[/tags]

Comments off.

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Design development Survey User Experience UX Web Design Web Standards

State of the web

Web designers and developers power the global economy, but almost nothing is known about who we are, where we live, how we work, what tools we use.

The A List Apart survey (2007 survey, 2007 detailed findings, 2008 survey) of over 32,000 full-time, part-time, and freelance web designers, developers, and related user experience professionals began answering questions about who works in this field, where we are located, which kinds of businesses and organizations employ us, under which titles we work, what we earn, how satisfied and secure we are, and so on.

Complementing this information, in 2008 Web Directions North conducted a State of the Web 2008 survey of designers, developers, and other web professionals to find out more about our philosophies, technologies, and best practices. The findings include details and analysis of all responses to over 50 questions. You can read all the questions, download the complete (anonymized) set of responses, read detailed analysis, and more.

What percentage of your peers who took the survey use JavaScript for Ajax communication with the server? What percentage don’t use JavaScript at all? How many still test their sites in IE 5.0? The answers to dozens of questions like these await you.

[tags]webdirections, survey, webdesign, webdevelopment[/tags]