links for 2009-12-24

• Make Your Mockup in Markup
  Die Photoshop, die! A great multi-step program for getting rid of that Photoshop death spiral of mockups from your process. Very nice.
  (tags: process photoshop deathspiral tips mockup)

Top Webdesign/development Stories – 2009

Ahh… that time of the year again. Time for everyone’s top ten end of the year lists. I used to write ones for record albums or movies, videos games etc. Here I am taking a slightly different slant. I haven’t ever put one together focused on the industry that I work in, the web/rich internet app design space. This is my attempt at that. These aren’t really in an order or “awesomeness” or anything… I welcome comments and your additions. Please feel free to shoot down my suppositions or add more!

• Google Releases Galore – The list was staggering. I couldn’t possibly get them all here, but some notables were Voice, Chrome, Chrome OS, new Android devices, Wave, and major revisions to the Maps and Earth APIs. A really strong list of stuff, and virtually all of it is highly useful and usable. They are definitely on a roll now. Are they making good on their promise to “not be evil”? It can’t be easy with that many outlets.
• Twitter Goes Main-Mainstream! – When Twitter’s publicized race between CNN and AK to reach a million followers hit the mainstream press, that was a wake up to virtually every media outlet out there. Twitter was for real. Now, you can’t even watch your local affiliate, pick up a small town paper or even talk to your aunt without them telling you to follow them on Twitter. Numerous high profile magazine covers on Fortune and other “old media” stalwarts have signaled a changing of the guard, if you will.
• People Finally Notice Facebook Privacy Settings – Facebook has taken some heat in the past for Beacon and various other advertising techniques they have employed to provide users with targeted content. With later 2009’s changes to the privacy settings page and a note from Zuckerberg to all users about the changes coming soon, it obvious that Facebook’s privacy policy is on a lot of people’s minds. I know I’m not too keen on my wall posts showing up in Google searches or things like that, and I have had a lot of novice FB user friends and relatives ask me how to restrict their content so that only close friends can see things. Now, will this help people finally realize the difference between a private message and a wall post!
• Oracle Buyout of Sun – “The database giant swallows the beleagured server system maker”, lots of headlines like that spun out after news of the buyout. Most, if not all missed the simple fact that Sun controls the MySQL Open Source Database. Even the Oracle press release neglects that fact. Since a large majority of notable Open Source projects use MySQL as their database, this has a large number of people in the community apprehensive and readying thei exit strategies. Will it result in a fork of the DB? Stay tuned for this one.
• Piratebay Rollercoaster – Is it up? Is it down? Are they in jail? Ever since the fateful day when their offices were stormed, the future of the tracker had been in question. They went to trial and all were found guilty, sentenced to jail for a year and a hefty fine was leveed. These convictions are all in appeals now. Then in the summer, Global Gaming Factory X AB announced they were intending to purchase the largest BitTorrent tracker in the world. The deal fell through. In November, they announced they would be shutting down the tracker portion of TPB, stating that it was unnecessary in today’s technological world of torrent distribution. While not technically a “web design topic”, it is important due to the huge amount of content trafficked via Torrents (estimated to account for up to 25% of all bits travelling the tubes.)
• Flash and Silverlight Play Feature Tag – No question about it, I’ve been tough on Silverlight. It’s too be expected, I’m a long time Mac user and a Flash developer. You couldn’t hardly expect me to jump on the bandwagon of a plug-in that directly competes with my favorite one and doesn’t offer proper development tools on the platform I spend all of my time on. This year at PDC, however, the newest version of Silverlight was unveiled, and man, does it look sweet! It finally is reaching a new feature parity of Flash. It still has no Mac dev tools, though. One thing is certain with all of this, it is really pushing Adobe to make Flash better. The 10.1 player update is bringing massive memory and performance updates and the AIR 2.0 update is bringing a ton of great improvements that will allow it to get a lot more powerful as an app development platform. I’m really happy to see the 2 way competition here, it’s good for everyone on the web.
• IE9 Announces Hardware Acceleration For The Browser – I have really mixed feelings on this. No actually, I really don’t like it much after further review. The features it will bring to websites are going to be amazing, no doubt, but with it being a Direct X implementation, there is little question that it is going to lead to a further forking of the web. Will anything programmed to take advantage of these IE9 features work on Firefox? Safari, Chrome? Older version of IE? In all likelihood, no. It’s probably not possible.
• OGG Theora Not Chosen for HTML5’s Media Format – This really put a crimp in HTML5’s ever shining hope. A single, dependable unified system agnostic video codec would be a huge thing for the W3 to get pushed through. Alas, it doesn’t seem to be. At least not right yet. Too many vendors, PC makers, software developers and everyone else are still squabbling for turf. They seem to have hit an impasse at this point, but Mozilla says they have no intention on giving in.
• Firefox Surpasses Any Single IE Version As The Most Popular Browser - Granted, Firefox has taken a beating lately by Webkit in many performance tests, but the venerable open source browser has recently overtaken IE as the world’s most widely used browser. Most impressive. From the linked article: “As of last week, Firefox 3.5 claimed 21.93% of the market, edging past IE7’s 21.2% share. That said, Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 still collectively hold over 55% of the pie.”
• With Smartphone Success, Comes a Mobile Version of Everything! – Smartphone market share keeps growing, and with it, mobile data usage. As this market continues to develop, content developers are caught in a very interesting pickle. Create a mobile version of their site for use in the handheld’s browser or build custom tailored apps that accomplish the user’s goals. Seems as though most major providers that can swing it are hedging their bets and building both. ESPN, New York Times, LinkedIn, Twitter, the list goes on and on. Will this continue? It doesn’t seem like a sustainable model to me, with development costs skyrocketing with each new device or platform coming to the markets. Luckily with a great SOA back end, building the new discreet UI for a device is only a marginal cost, relatively speaking, but there is only so far this can go.

So, there you have it. My list, what do you have on yours? I thought I did a pretty job scouring back through my feedreader and various other sources, so I feel pretty good about the list, but I really am looking for insights from others on this topic, too!

links for 2009-12-23

• Design View / Andy Rutledge – Dog and Pony Show Design
  FTA: "…on a mutually agreed upon date, AGENCY will present one or more (AT DESIGNER DISCRETION) 2-page visual design mockup(s) for review with CLIENT…" – Damn, that's some sexy contractual text. Makes me all weak in the knees. If you need some help finding your designer backbone and end the idea that you need to provide the magic number of 3 mockups for client reviews, this article is perfect for you!
  (tags: process productivity mockups)
• Design View / Andy Rutledge – Where Wireframes Are Concerned
  Hmmm… Seems sacriligeous, I know, but sometimes wireframes may not be the best deliverable for every project or client. Read on for an insightful explanation on this.
  (tags: wireframe process prototyping)

This year I taught Introduction to Interactive Media at Bradley University. As each year progresses, I always have some driven students who exceed expectations on all of the projects. I have a few examples from some of my exemplary students below:

One of the project’s criteria was to create a composition using Adobe Photoshop to design a CD cover (just the front cover). The cover could be for an existing recording, or make one up. The design had to include text effects created in Adobe Photoshop, scanned objects and artwork.

Another project’s criteria was to create a self-portrait using Adobe Illustrator. Starting with a photograph, the students had to use vector-based graphic and text elements to recreate the image, giving the viewer a little more insight into the person they are and who they portray themselves to be.

The final project of the semester was for students to create their own personal website. Many of the students used a combination of web techniques. The students had to use Dreamweaver and CSS. Here are some examples of the websites that the student’s created:

http://justinrestaino.com/
http://www.silvernewedge.com/

In addition, Bradley University recently launched a new Curriculum program. The program specializes in three different program areas. These three areas will be available as different concentration for Interactive Media majors.

Animation and Visual Effects – the production of digital character animation and visual effects for film, television, animation and game cinematics.

Game Design – the design and media elements of console, computer and mobile games and the production of games.

Web and Application Design – the creation of rich Internet rich Internet and mobile applications, experience design and web development.

http://slane.bradley.edu/interactive-media

I look forward to the next semester, knowing that the students will continue to exceed my expectations.

links for 2009-12-16

• Albert Exergian – Portfolio
  If you look at this stuff and you aren't awed or inspired, I'm sorry friend… but you are dead inside.
  (tags: inspiration design art)

links for 2009-12-14

• Scalable Design :: UXmatters
  Creating UI components that can scale as content depth and word length grows is a challenge for many UI designers. Something to consider as you design widgets for use in a web design are covered here.
  (tags: UI design scale)

Kevin Stein Read’s “On Being a Nielsen Family”

Kevin Stein – On Being a Nielsen Family

A video of Kevin Stein giving background information on his poem, “On Being a Nielsen Family”. Recorded at the show opening at the Hartmann Center for the Arts, Bradley University.

What a great night. Lots of people came out to show their support and my piece didn’t even crash. Win win!

This year, as our company Christmas gift, we thought we would continue our charitable history but bring it a little closer to home.  The economic challenges are great this year and each of us are aware of many families who are struggling to provide for their basic needs.  In keeping with the importance of both family and community, Iona decided to Adopt-a-Family this Christmas.

Realizing that the need is great, employees contributed personal funds to the company allowance knowing that joining together, we would make this Christmas a little brighter for a local family.  Working with Peoria Friendship House, employees divided into teams that had the responsibility to shop for one family member.  This program targets families with children in 8^th grade and younger to provide a new outfit and one of the toys on the child’s wish list.

It was a great effort as everyone pitched in – from shopping for their person, to donating additional monies to go to the family shopping, to helping wrap the gifts.  Our front hallway was lined with 11 very large, very filled bags.  They contained toys, electronics, clothing, coats, boots, hats, scarves, gloves, cleaning supplies, games and hot cocoa.  They are filled with our Iona family helping out another family that needs help.

We are all blessed in so many ways.  What a great way to share those blessings with others and a nice way to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.

BJ Aberle, Jeremy LeBeau, Mark Tovey, Matt Forcum and Jeff Idleman wrapping gifts

The last weekend was quite a rush of activity as we worked to complete our installation of Audimeter-001 in the show. Brock, Katy and I worked to complete a piece that addressed the themes of surveillance and a fictional piece of Nielsen company technology. The following is the text from a didactic panel that accompanied our work.

“Interactive Media 413 class is a project-oriented course that allows students to participate in the creation of interactive performances and exhibits. The class has worked on four distinct projects over the course of the semester. This exhibit titled, Paged, Staged, Engaged was curated by class members Brock Norman and Katy Otto in conjunction with Professors Jim Ferolo (Interactive Media Program) and Kevin Stein (English Department), the students also created a piece, Audimeter-001 with Jim Ferolo for the exhibition The concept for this project grew from Jim talking with Kevin, who is the Poet Laureate for the State of Illinois. They became very interested in exploring the intersection of poetry and new media and came up with the idea of producing an exhibition. They decided to center on the production of a series of new media and traditional media works that explore a single poem. The piece they decided to use is titled “On Being a Nielsen Family.” The two students involved in this project, Brock Norman and Katy Otto, were given the task of not only creating the media and physical aspects needed for this piece with Professor Ferolo, but also were in charge of coordinating the show with the other artists involved as well as Liz Kaufmann, the gallery director. Focusing on the concept of surveillance, the idea started out simple enough, but quickly changed and grew as equipment changed and ideas for media evolved. Brock took on the task of building the physical aspects of the project, while Katy worked to organize the gallery so that all of the artists could set up their pieces. The students worked together with Jim to shoot the video content on a green screen along with support from the Iona Group and technical consulting by Dave Lennie. The Audimeter Model-001 installation is the result of this semester’s hard work. Thank you to everyone who supported this installation effort: Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts, George Brown, Dean Jeff Huberman, Elizabeth Kauffman, Paul Krainik, Carrie Kroenke, Dave Lennie, Mark Lohman, Cory Rabe, Trudy Ruch, and Joan Wilhelm.



links for 2009-12-03

• Flash: Passing Variables to Flash from HTML via FlashVars
  A very thorough set of examples on using FlashVars with your AS3 movies.
  (tags: as3 flashvars tutorial)