Blog Topic #6: Usability

 Ten Principles of Effective Web Design

Even though the following 10 principles seem like no brainers, there are plenty of websites out there that don't follow these guidelines making them hard to follow.

1. Don't Make User's Think  - The web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory. When you’re creating a site, your job is to get rid of the question marks

2. Don't Squander User's Patience - Let users explore the site and discover your services without forcing them into sharing private data.
   

3. Manage to Focus User's Attention -Focusing users’ attention to specific areas of the site with a moderate use of visual elements can help your visitors to get from point A to point B without thinking of how it actually is supposed to be done.

4. Strive for Feature Exposure - Let the user see clearly what functions are available

5. Make Use of Effective Writing -Avoid cute or clever names, marketing-induced names, company-specific names, and unfamiliar technical names.

6. Strive for Simplicity - The “keep it simple”-principle (KIS) should be the primary goal of site design.

7. Don't Be Afraid of the White Space - It’s really hard to overestimate the importance of white space. Not only does it help to reduce the cognitive load for the visitors, but it makes it possible to perceive the information presented on the screen.

8. Communicate Effectively with a "Visible Language" - Organize: provide the user with a clear and consistent conceptual structure. Economize: do the most with the least amount of cues and visual elements. Communicate: match the presentation to the capabilities of the user.

9. Conventions are our Friends - Conventional design of site elements doesn’t result in a boring web site.

10. Test Early, Test Often - According to Steve Krug, testing one user is 100% better than testing none and testing one user early in the project is better than testing 50 near the end.

    
    
    I found that these serve as a good guide for website development, hope you find them helpful as well.

Blog Topic #1 - Dude, This Site is the Coolest!

I just found this site and I love it. It is: http://www.patterncooler.com/index.php
If you would like a patterned background for a website you can create your own....for free!
The mastermind behind this site is Harvey Rayner and all he asks for is a donation and that is up to you!
The beauty of this site is the vast number of creations that can be made from all the color variations, that you create yourself!
Once you get in, there is a whole page of patterns, if you don't like any of those just go to the arrow at the upper left corner and click. There you will find a l-o-n-g list of patterns. triangles, leaves, grass, circles, etc. pick what you want and that will launch the editor. One in the editor you can adjust the colors. You can basically change the total look of one pattern who knows how many times. It's  up to you! You can also show color variations as thumbs. You can preview/ re-size/ and download.

Here is one example:

Here is another:

This is the same pattern. The variations seem endless. This is definitely a cool site.

Blog Topic #5: Web Typography

When you look at the resources listed in Class Blog's, the first link is called: Is "Good Web Typography" no longer an oxymoron? 

In 1988, CSS@ introduced @font-face. The @font-face declaration is a rule that can include a link pointing to a font on any server, which guarantees that font. The browser will support the font if it is placed on top of the stack. For example: Segoe Script, Verdana, sans-serif, with Segoe Script being on top of the stack.

Things have gotten a lot better for web designers as far as font linking or font embedding, which is good for us!

 To turn a font format in one’s browser cache into a working desktop font, two font formats emerged as the adopted standard: Microsoft’s Embedded OpenType (EOT), and Web Open Font Format (WOFF). WOFF seems to be in the lead as the adopted standard for font formatting.

 Another link I really liked was Type Tester. It has a standard paragraph "The quick brown fox....". You can chose the typeface, size, leading, tracking, etc. and it shows you what it will look like in regular, bold and italic! Very cool.

Blog #3: Can I get a resource?

I have created a blog on this site, Blogger and one on Wordpress to see what the differences are.
From what I can tell right now is that I can change more typographically on Blogger than on Wordpress without having to pay extra money. I changed the width, color, font and of course chose a template for the background on Blogger.

On Wordpress I was able to have a bit more creative license by making an image in Photoshop, downloading it onto my blog site and using it as a sidebar. When I tried to change the fonts, font sizes and colors it seemed that I had to pay for that.

Here is the link for my Wordpress blog : www.beckygahman.wordpress.com. 
On that blog I talk a bit about how I manipulated the image in Photoshop and some sources for free photo's online and the importance of using free images (or paying for them!)

That basically is Blog #3: Can I get a resource?

I will continue to figure out video's and widgets but for now this is what I have.

Here is a video on Youtube that talks about putting a video in your Blog!