Archive for User Interface
Responsive Design reading
Posted by: | CommentsNew topics around Responsive Design such as Responsive Content and Responsive Content Thinking are emerging, and this ClickZ article handles these in a Feb. 1 post titled Responsive Design, Nimble Architecture. The bottom line is that a lot of upfront preparation and thought go into achieving a responsive site and good information architecture is essential. Web analytics can play an essential part of migrating an existing site into a new information architecture and responsive design. On the other hand, implementing a new design/architecture is a great time for a web analytics implementation checkup.
Mobile User Experience (UX) topics
Posted by: | CommentsThis well laid-out writeup of mobile web experience delivery came through a LinkedIn discussion today. I enjoyed reading it, because it mentioned the Responsive Web Design concept, which I can’t seem to get enough of. The following methods are detailed, and pros and cons for each delivery method are listed:
- Standard Website
- Responsive Web Design
- Mobile Website
- Mobile Application (mobile apps)
Enjoy!
Lightbox for Cforms II plugin on WordPress
Posted by: | CommentsSo when exactly did the lightbox craze hit? I’m not sure exactly, but everyone seems to love lightboxes! They are indeed a visually attractive way to create a modal window within a browser which has a nice ‘set off’ from the background page without opening a new browser window or popup window.
Recently I needed to use the powerful Cforms II plugin to create some interactive forms on a WordPress site and I needed to make some of the forms appear in a lightbox. Much to my surprise, it seems no one has combined Cforms II and a lightbox for some reason. Or if they have, they didn’t write about it.
So I tried to write my own shortcodes to get Cforms to work with a certain lightbox plugin. Only had marginal success, in that the lightbox popped, but the form would not render on the screen. Plus the shortcode processing caused WordPress to try to render the lightbox in Admin. Not cool. I quickly abandoned this effort when I found the Form Lightbox plugin. Form Lightbox was flexible enough to work with the special Cforms II tags as follows:
Perhaps others will find this info useful. WordPress is a fantastic CMS platform and it has spawned many excellent plugins. I’m very grateful for WordPress and the vibrant WordPress developer community.
Real-time analytics application
Posted by: | CommentsWow – how time flies. I’ve gone too long without posting!
New Relic appears to be an interesting performance and app monitoring package with a modern interface and great tools. I came across it the other day looking for some other web analytics information. A free trial is available, so I may give it a run and write about it here.
Until next time…!
Taxonomy and Information Architecture
Posted by: | CommentsI’m still keeping lists of useful sites as I learn about information architecture (IA) concepts, taxonomy, user experience (UX) and knowledge management. The Taxonomy Guide at the University of Toronto in Canada contains many useful links and resources on these topics.
The University of Minnesota, Duluth is not to be outdone by UToronto – there are dozens of links to IA materials at their site. This site digs deep into IA methods such as card sorting, content inventory methods, prototyping and wireframing.
Here’s another site chock full of IA links.
Something for everyone…
There is definitely a site out there for everyone. This site is all about site indexes and there is even a special index group (SIG) dedicated to building a site index for any site.
Picking up again on the taxonomy topic, I found that Heather Hedden has written and spoken extensively about taxonomies, indexing and search. Her site contains links to numerous whitepapers, articles and presentations.
There’s even a Taxonomy Bootcamp (gasp!) in D.C. this November. It is co-located with some other related events such as the Knowledge Management World conference, the SharePoint Symposium and the Enterprise Search Summit.
Before getting too deep into a new information architecture, it may be time to chill out and take a content inventory.
Information Architecture and IA prototyping tools
Posted by: | CommentsWhile looking for Information Architecture (IA) tools recently, I just came across a new Firefox plugin which will be useful for User Interface (UI) prototyping and design called FluidIA. I’ve been using the Pencil plugin for Firefox off and on for a year now, so it will be nice to work with a new tool. FluidIA promises Fluid Information Architecture in the category of agile UI prototyping, which sets a high bar for usability and end results.
Along the same theme of this post…. have a look at the Midwest User Experience 2011 conference slides from last week. Something here for everyone, and a neat little web analytics presentation as well. Enjoy!
Good Riddance IE6
Posted by: | Comments
In a merciful move to encourage (or shame) users into upgrading browsers, Microsoft has launched a campaign including a website to begin a countdown to a world free of its infamous Internet Explorer version 6 browser. Ask any developer about IE6 and you’ll get an earful of complaints about how it breaks sites coded with the best intentions and legal html and css. Enjoy the site, and tell a friend who might still run IE6 that the time is right to upgrade. (Unfortunately web developers still may need to keep a version around for testing purposes.)