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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.
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.
I note there seems to be yet another reason for part of the Apple community to complain first and ask questions later. This time, rather than consumer cries of unfair practices, it’s Java developers that are raging against the machine.
It does appear some cooler heads have surfaced with a little voice of reason regarding the decision by Apple to not roll Sun Java 1.6 into the first release of Leopard. Ben Galbraith, co-founder of Ajaxian, has stepped up and writes:
"So, what, there are some bugs in OS X 10.5.0? They didn't have 1.6 ready out-of-the-chutes? Big deal. Give it time, just like we have with every release of Java since OS X first shipped with 10.3."
Ben also points out a working solution for anyone looking to develop that has made noises about shifting platforms:
".. now, thanks to Parallels/Fusion, we actually have a great alternative for the impatient."
It's not exactly breaking new ground using a virtual environment for development, indeed some might suggest it's the ideal approach. So as Gruber has pointed out, this is little more than a storm in a teacup.
He's not alone in that view either as Eric Burke points out:
"Panic! Panic! No, wait. Let’s learn from history. I spent some time this afternoon putting together [a] timeline comparing Sun’s Java releases with Apple’s Java release.."
The timeline clearly shows that Java updates have universally occurred within short order of a major milestone release. Certainly for both Panther and Tiger. This isn't a new thing. It's also not just an Apple thing. Unlike our solar system's celestial bodies, most Operating Systems do not revolve around Sun.
From my point-of-view, Java may well be one of 'the' platforms of choice for the mobile space, but it's place is far less cemented on the desktop. Where Leopard is in use. I seldom see Java outside of the web browser, be it in Windows, OS X or even Linux; indeed aside from a small handful of applications, few actually will.
The GIMP has hit another milestone, along with a smashing site re-design.
"It’s not the number that counts, it’s the balance." — Jason Fried.
From .net to XSS and everything in between.
Allows for browser testing, in a timely manner, without having to have Microsoft’s abomination installed locally. Very nice.. High five.
There is something about
Tumblr that has me deeply involved in a love-hate tryst. Absolute hate and love with the strongest of passions.
It’s utter and total simplicity makes virtually every other blog platform I’ve ever looked at, or tried1 feel like trying to work out the mathematics to form a wormhole in space-and-time by comparison.
Take […]
".. recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the work I’ve been doing at Urban Outfitters and what ‘label’ it falls under. It’s also a question I get quite often (what do you do there if it’s not just web design?)" — concise, yet wonderfully descriptive
Ladies and Gents I’m currently testing the (built-in) Wordpress cache to see if it will behave in a predictable manner.
As such, I’d appreciate any visits people could make, to help flesh out some logs, statistics and give me some solid metrics to work with. I have a baseline on pre-cache performance and a bit of […]
"Text editor + Transmit + CSS editor + Terminal + Books + More = Whoah." Coda releases a new version of their all-in-one web development stuido.. and elegently proves why Microsoft lost the battle years ago. And why Linux has so much further to go.
