Tag archive for ‘design’
Simulate Color Blindness with Color Oracle
I just noticed an interesting article on color blindness over at Pixelgraphix. Color Oracle helps webdesigners to view in real time, what a website would look like for people suffering from one of the various color blindnesses. The filter is applied to the whole screen so it's completely independent from the browser and even works with images in Photoshop.
Color Oracle is free and available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.
Tagged as accessibility, color, colorblindness, colororacle, design, review, software, tools, usability, webdesign+ Categorized as Uncategorized
Preorder Optimus Maximus: The $1500 Keyboard
We often see massively hyped products which then fail to emerge as their release date is postponed time and time again. The correct term for these products is Vaporware.
The Optimus Maximus Keyboard of Art. Lebedev Studio could fit this description. First announced in 2005, the release was postponed twice. To be more cost-effective, the technical specification of the keyboard changed and after another postponed release were changed back to the original.
Especially at an estimated price tag of $1500 for a keyboard, noone would be interested in the product anymore. But the much-hyped and long-awaited Optimus Maximus keyboard is different. Behind each of its 113 keys, a small 48x48 pixel OLED display works its magic, allowing the user to change the picture on each key. Custom keyboard layouts or shortcuts can be switched easily on a per-application basis.
Today, Art. Lebedev Studio announced via a countdown on their website that they will apparently start taking pre-orders from computer owners with more money than sense in roughly 3 days. Only 800 keyboards will be shipped until end of January 2008, ensuring that the price is kept high.
Tagged as design, keyboard, maximus, optimus, russia+ Categorized as Uncategorized
Designed: Kickmap, The New NYC Subway Map
About three years ago a new NYC subway map design by Eddie Jabbour, graphic designer for Kick Design, started to find its way to the internet. It had issues but it was much better than the current MTA design in that it tried to focus on stations instead of trains. People using the subway want to get from point A to point B in the shortest possible time so they look for stations close to those points, not for specific trains.
Encouraged by the positive feedback, Eddie contacted the MTA but was quickly put off:
... when he showed up at the agency’s Midtown offices with copies of his work, they were quick to find fault with it. According to Christopher Boylan, the transportation authority’s executive director of corporate and community affairs, who recalled the meeting, the main criticism was that Mr. Jabbour’s map, like Mr. Vignelli’s, was artistic but geographically inaccurate. "He’s a good designer and it’s an interesting map," Mr. Boylan said. "The design is important, but the thing we’re concerned with is the best directional guidance. We design a map for use, not solely to look good, and we think it looks good."
Original map on the left, the Kickmap on the right.
But Eddie Jabbour is not a man easily deterred. He works on his maps on weekends and nights with the feedback of his 17-year old daughter.
Criticism that Eddie's map is geographically inaccurate is inappropriate as most people use road maps or street signs for that type of information. As previously mentioned, the usability should focus on the key features of subway lines - something the Kickmap gets right.
Tagged as cities, design, eddiejabbour, kickmap, map, newyork, service, subway, usability+ Categorized as Uncategorized
Apple’s Unobscured Touchscreen
Rain Noe wrote an article on Apple's new Touchscreen patent:
Touchscreens have one single but, as of yet, unadressed design flaw: your finger on the screen is obscuring the very elements you're interacting with. This has several implications for the user interface, for example buttons need to be quite large so you can still see them.
Never fear though, the clever designers from Cupertino have come up with a solution for this particular dilemma. It's still only a patent and I would be very surprised if this ever made it into a real product but it's nevertheless a cool and unique idea.
Basically it's an iPod or (i)Phone with a screen covering the whole front of the device. A transparent control layout on the screen allows interaction. The difference is, you're not touching the screen, you touch the back, the opposite side of the controls. A cursor is shown to give you visual feedback on the position of your fingers and if you press harder, the device registers it as a click.
Since your fingers end up on the back of the iPod anyway, simply by virtue of holding the thing, it sounds like a pretty good idea. The whole thing, especially the cursor and "press harder to click" function might take a bit of getting used to but I'm sure Apple's designers and engineers could come up with something.
Tagged as apple, design, feedback, patent, touchscreen, userinterface+ Categorized as Uncategorized
Panic’s 10th Anniversary: Coda
The stars finally seem to be in a good constellation for web designers this month. Adobe shipped Creative Suite 3, CSS Edit was upgraded to 2.5 and we are seeing the first Alphas of Firefox 3. Iwas even more excited, when Steven F. commented on Panic's 10 Year Anniversary:
"It is by a more or less random coincidence that on the day after our company's tenth birthday, we will be conducting by far our biggest, most ambitious new software launch of all time. I hope you'll come by to check it out, especially if you make web sites."
What Panic released a few days later reminded me once again why a Mac is the best platform for developing websites: Coda is just the application I've been waiting for all my life. I'm not merely enthused, I'm seriously stunned.
Coda is a single, tiny application which handles all your webdesign needs. Editing (X)HTML and CSS, previewing, FTP (of course), Terminal access and a great reference book, all in one. The Panic team introduces Coda with the words:
"So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web workflow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. 'This could be easier,' we realized. 'And much cooler.'"
You can read more by Panic co-founders Steven Frank and Cabel Sasser. And John Gruber also has a nice review of Coda on his web site.
Tagged as allinone, coda, css, design, html, online, panic, review, software, webdesign, xhtml+ Categorized as Uncategorized
CSS Edit
Web 2.0 in style? Now it's Web 2.5 in style! Macrabbit has released version 2.5 of their great CSS editor. And best of all, it's a free upgrade for owners of the previous version.
Tagged as css, cssedit, design, free, macrabbit, software, tools, update, web2.0, webdesign+ Categorized as Uncategorized
No One Belongs Here More Than You
Miranda July has a new collection of short stories coming out in May, called No One Belongs Here More Than You. But not only July's Book is a gem of unconventional storytelling: The book has a a stunning web site that is more creative than I've ever seen. The site has no navigation, except for forward / back buttons and consists of a series of images. No real text, just the images scaling to the size of your browser.
Of course, no serious webdesigner would ever consider making such a website for their client. The website is not accessible, doesn't fall back if you can't see images and is basically empty for search engines. It breaks every rule that contemporary web designers follow.
The intrguing thing is, it works. No, not just technically. The site works as a narrative that pulls the visitor along, a narrative that is also used in July's book. I loved the website so much, I couldn't stop clicking until I was through. And isn't this the point of a website like this?
Tagged as books, design, mirandajuly, noonebelongsheremorethanyou, review, webdesign, website+ Categorized as Uncategorized
I Took the 2007 Web Design Survey
"People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Take the survey and change all that."
Since Eric Meyer asked nicely, I just took the 2007 Web Design Survey. It only takes 10 minutes and you get a nice badge and can even win a ticket to An Event Apart, an iPod or other nice stuff.
Tagged as aneventapart, conference, design, events, statistics, survey, webdesign+ Categorized as Uncategorized
Google Reader Theme by Jon Hicks
If you use Google Reader to read your news feeds, you can spice it up now with Jon Hicks' pretty theme.
Pity I use the excellent News Fire for my syndication needs, the new theme really makes me want to switch.
Tagged as browser, css, design, feed, google, hicksdesign, jonhicks+ Categorized as Uncategorized
Changing your Brand Name: “Googe”?
Google's homepage was today displaying a Valentine's Day themed logo, unfortunately missing the "L" in Google. "Googe"? Now that sounds nasty...
People on reddit, digg and various blogs have discussed it. It was posted to flickr. Yet noone seemed to get the hint.
Well, at least some should have heard of Barnabe Googe, an English poet of the 16th century. He is famous especially for his line "I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die".
Others might know the Irish-British rock band "My Bloody Valentine", which might be a more direct reference since their lineup also included bassist Debbie Googe in their early days.
So no, Google did not drop the "L".
Tagged as brandname, design, googe, google, online, valentine+ Categorized as Uncategorized