Neurotic Design.

Sunday 15 June, 2008

I was recently given a tough challenge. Design a layout — something I am still quite unskilled at — for my partners brand new blog. I was given a rough sketch, a moderately simple brief (two column layout) and a degree of flexibility in how I interpreted it.

First hurdle? Typography. My partner is a budding author and as such I wanted the design to focus attention on the content. San-serifs were out, which meant finding a good serif that was easy on the eye. It eventually came down to a choice between Palatino and Georgia, neither of which are particularly stunning when viewed at 9, 10 or even 12 pixels.

Solution? Make it bigger. Much bigger. Typically that isn’t the first (or best) answer to a styling issue and yet, somehow, it just works. Sizes are defined in EMs, but body text is equivalent to ~14px and post headings a whopping 19px. Both give the body text a clear, carefree feel with a moderate amount of typeface styling actually being visible, making it a bit of a joy to build.

The design is comment free, yet there is easy access to the feedback form — encouraging more thoughtful responses — and, overall, I am pretty happy with the result. It’s also pleasing in that the final result matches the original sketch quite closely. Perhaps I have indeed remained true to my partners simple, yet elegant request. The comments so far is that I have.

Amusingly, my partner is as nervous about her re-invigorated launch into the blogosphere as I am in how well the design will be received in return. Design really isn’t my forte, but I am pleased on how it all turned out (it validated on first pass, no less) and how much I learned in the process.

Twitter Redux.

Tuesday 03 June, 2008

I’ve found it increasingly interesting that commentators believe that somehow, twitter is still — like a bad recurring LSD trip — just moments away from a mass exodus.

Indeed, Twitter has been declared “dead” more often than Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis combined.

“By building up a huge mass of users, Twitter benefits from our existing social connections and their inertia. But as the problems continue, it’s possible that someone else could grab the mindshare – and traffic – that currently belongs to Twitter.” #

It’s more than just the social connection equation. And premonitions of competition swooping in — claiming massive numbers of twitter evacuees — has one rather large flaw. It never actually happens. Why? It’s not for want of trying, surely? Almost everyone seems to believe they have the “winning formula” for a service that will dispatch-and-bury Twitter in a flurry of Web 2.0 candy-coloured craziness.

Yet, despite various attempts, the competition just doesn’t gain traction. And it is because they fundamentally miss-understand quite what Twitter has achieved (and indeed continue to achieve). By seeking to replace Twitter, any competitor will have already sealed it’s fate.

Twitter has captured the hearts — and loyalty — of so many because it has endured still, despite the growth pains, despite the outages and in spite of the competition. There is no doubt that some are frustrated with the continued reliability concerns, colourful tweets about outages are not uncommon — that it encourages communication is clear — even those remarks are made via Twitter.

There is no doubting Twitter was smart from the outset by opening the API and continuing to make steady progress on attempting to bullet-proof the systems in use. That API has unleashed dozens of clients that provide all manner of capabilities. And it allows for increasingly open communication between other social networks, such as Friend Feed and Facebook, not to mention the various and highly creative projects using Twitter to communicate, trend or graph, stalk, punch time or simply just inform.

The increase in communication over very real issues — that any real-time messaging platform will suffer at some point — shows a sense of maturity that is fresh and appealing. That it plays well with others and encourages highly creative use ensures long-term loyalty and helps build tool sets that can become indispensable. Twitter continues to grow and continues to survive, because it thoroughly embraces the culture and spirit that has grown around it.

As we can see, the relatively open Twitter API allows for remarkably creative solutions. By jettisoning Twitter one risks losing so much more than just the simple one-hundred-and-forty character short message service. Far from being at risk of becoming a has-been care of the NextBigThing ^tm I can only see twitter continuing to grow and move forward with ever more creativity.

The smart money is on working with Twitter, and gaining the massive community built around it — ignoring the platform and community it has built, is to invite failure.

Embiggen.

Thursday 08 May, 2008

Ever have the feeling that something isn’t quite right? Like when Uncle Jim invites you to sit on his lap as he has a “surprise” for you — you know innately that there is just something wrong with that picture.

In that “something is strangely wrong” vein, here are two closely cropped example images taken from this website, a few moments apart.

fig.1 — before.

fig.2 — after.

The same site, two different text sizes. The image in fig.1 represents what IE6, IE7, FF2 and Safari 3 (tested so far) all decide is “the” size, in this case paragraph text is set to 62.5% to make EM calculations far less taxing.

It’s not just here either, in spite of my sometimes suspect code¹. Half of the Internet appears to have been up-sized. And the aberration appears to be strongest, if not a little random in EM based designs — which as any good designer will tell you is “the” sizing methodology to use for bullet-proof layouts.

So here we have yet another divergence in web “standards”. Only it doesn’t always strike. Not exactly the easiest issue to resolve.

Right now Firefox 3 users must feel like they’re viewing the internet through the bottom of a beer glass. Depending on CSS markup used, it may be larger than life. Not that that is a bad thing, given page zooming finally works. It’s just yet another different thing that has to be considered.

So, hold on to your hats ladies and gentlemen. Firefox 3 is set to up the bling and bring us a fresher, bigger Internet — but perhaps just like Uncle Jim, not quite the way we might have expected.

¹ The Lab actually validates, a rare occurrence in these parts.

Feed-a-mator.

Monday 05 May, 2008

One of the less-than-strong selling points for Textpattern is syndication control, or rather, the distinct lack there of.

It appears to be a failing across a great many CMS platforms, in that syndication always plays second fiddle to content management. Granted, I use syndication as a means to prioritise which sites I visit, but that can be problematic if I can’t quickly discern which is worth a quick skim and that which deserves additional reading time.

Do not get me started on the sites that belch content into single paragraph mush via syndication, with nary a thought as to how their readers are supposed to, well, read it. You will neither be the first thing I read each day, or the first place I visit. Continue down that path and I may simply stop visiting entirely.

Being able to present content in a number of useful ways improves the odds of your voice being heard and successfully carrying your message. Which translates to increased visitation. Not an easy task when the default TXP syndication options leave one with little to work with.

However, with some patience and a quick header fix, it’s quite possible to tame the TXP syndication beast. After the application of spanners and hammers to the issue at hand, the following feed options are now presented for your enjoyment.

• The undiluted flavour complete with kitchen-sink feed has had a slight makeover, improving link list handling.

• An all new links feed provides the freshest serve² of light-weight shorts.

Where a link list item occurs, the title directs you to the content referenced. If it was worth quoting, it is worth reading directly. A footnote link back to The Lab is provided for completeness.

If you have subscribed previously, your feed should sport the new features on next update. The changes should be comfortably transparent.

Should something break with either the existing feed, or new feeds, please let me know. I value your time and your feedback.

¹ I tend to visit sites to read content, rather than purely via XML feeds.

² All New! With 70% less fat!