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Another blogger gets it.
I’m all for communication between author and reader, but comments are the lowest possible denominator. More often than not, they bring out the absolute worst in people. via.
There are far better ways to converse, rather than a comment field that is just plain designed to invite commentary from everyone except those who actually have something real and wise and vibrant to add.
On a side note, Steven’s new minimalist design helps get the message across, without cruft.
Andy Rutledge has posted an in depth take on hyperlink style and construction.
Differentiating text links by color and/or decoration is just a fundamental approach. Your decisions for what color or what sort of decoration to use hinges on some important issues that reach beyond considerations of contrast and distinction. So these decisions cannot often be made arbitrarily.
Textual navigation’s entire function is to simplify access to content and to guide the reader to where they need to be. It should invite further participation and fit within the bounds of the design, getting from A to B and back again, without losing the reader in the process.
If your reader cannot cannot distinguish between content and interface, between link or highlight, or simply just how to proceed forward, they likely will not. A failure in anyone’s language, surely.
As previously mentioned I’ve got something cooking, so to speak. Andy has provided a timely reminder for this author of just how important placement and ease of navigation — something that is all-to-often sidelined — plays in overall site design.
I’ve been working on something. It’ll be live soon and it’s a whole new direction. More soon.
On a side-note — filed under the special-things-that-turn-one-homicidal category — something was slightly h0rked after a recent hosting upgrade. I think I’ve nailed it now. Mostly.
“Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh… everything’s perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?”
Worth mentioning at this point, is my natural hatred when it comes to moving Wordpress — the database is very fragile and entirely prone to crash. It’s worse when months of backups all share the same flaw that was exposed during the move and db server upgrade. Upshot?
Always have a plan D, for when A and B and C all crash and burn.
Speaking of busy people, Michael Heilemann has been sneakily building what looks to be a fantastic user interface for Habari.
… a few weeks back, I went AWOL and started crunching away on a complete design for the administration interface for Habari, in an effort to create a set of blueprints, from which this thing can be built in proper.
He provides a good run-down of the where and whys via a screen-cast showcase of the design and there is also a snazzy flickr set — which is in stark contrast to the totally abortive drive-by-design wordpress 2.5 is still currently sporting.
Lovely work by a sharp-as-tacks pixel pusher — and it’s great to see community involvement habari being taken in the spirit it is given.
Mr Hunt has re-launched cameron i/o.
“I’ve run this website on Tumblr since May 2007. But starting today I’m switching to Chyrp, a new lightweight blogging engine. If you don’t follow me on Twitter, or browse my photos on Flickr, you probably have no idea I’ve been planning this.”
Grey hues never looked so good — the refresh brings subtle improvements to imagery and typography alike — resulting in a more polished presentation.
It’s also great to see that chyrp is still quietly achieving very cool things in the self-hosted tumble log space, boasting features and functionality similar to that of tumblr and like services.
Looks great Cameron - props on the change and design!
Richard has updated his typographic tumblr theme to version 2.
“I’ve made all the changes outlined in the previous post now. I’ve also moved a few things around — I’ve applied the theme here, if you want to see the changes.”
A typographically focused tumblr theme, made finer still, with exceptional font choices — it’s great seeing bold use of larger font sizes.
Joen, a smart chap whom I read quite diligently perhaps passes the comment of the week:
Usability is not a Jackson Pollock painting.
Whilst Joen argues that Wordpress is the single best blogging platform out there, and to be fair his comments are true to an extent, it does suffer mix of legacy design elements with an assortment of new css-slicing techniques that result in a UI challenged (at best) product.
The interface is, quite frankly, shocking. Traversing the UI isn’t a fun process — and the less spoken of the template engine and it’s propensity to mix structure and presentation, the better. It’s not uncommon to hear the phrase “it should not be this hard” within the community.
The demo Joen points to is a classic example of why the Wordpress developers just don’t seem to “get” the idea of smart UI design — repeated vertical scrolling just to post and or edit an entry isn’t the bastion of great design.
The community has attempted to help out in the past and received little more than passing interest — amusingly whilst there is now some hint of ’shuttle’ in the 2.3.x releases, it’s at best a passing shadow of what could have been. Without a solid commitment to get it right, Wordpress will always be an ungainly and navigationally challenged beast.
Whilst
Habari may have been a haven for ex-Wordpress developers, it’s yet to really gain any traction. One wonders what would have been if the same creative and design flair had been welcomed by the Wordpress project team instead of the litany of excuses reasons why it’s always just too hard.
Mr Dunlop-Walters has recently redesigned:
“I have redesigned this ‘ere tumblelog.. Personally, I think it’s rather nice (though the header is a little boring).”
I’m an absolute sucker for a minimalist design.
Soft browns and large clear font choices for navigation and informational elements makes reading a joy — numblr is yet another fine example showcasing tumblr, and that it isn’t yet another haven of re-re-regurgitated scum and villainy.
Joen writes that he has released Fauna 1.0:
“Several years of development by a committed team. All wrapped up and final. Compatible with all the best plugins, and the newest Wordpress.”
Fauna is a well engineered and smart theme by an amazing graphic artist.
Mr Hunt writes that he has refreshed his design:
“I’ve been publishing on cameron i/o for 8 months. I’ve gotten 18,000 unique visitors since I installed Mint in August. Cameron i/o has gone through five major designs, and today is the sixth. It’s going back to it’s roots; cameron i/o was originally light on dark.”
Simple meets dark. Web 2.0 be damned, this is 1.0 simplicity at it’s best.
Stuart Brown rolls us through his take on 2007 - More Web Design Trends & Cliches:
“It’s been well over a year since I compiled the original list of web clichés, so I figured it was time to revisit some of the trends currently prevalent in web design now.”
Some interesting punters have turned up in the parade along with some gorgeous descriptive illustrations. Succinct and devoid of the typical fluff and space fillers many such “reviews” tend to collect.
