Adobe MAX 2010 – Tips and Tools and a Max Event Overview: Interview with Jim Babbage, Creative Director NewMedia Services
In this four minute interview, I asked Jim to share his take on the Adobe MAX event, his thoughts on the benefits of the Adobe Fireworks product, his favorite new feature in Fireworks CS5 and what he thinks aspiring Web professionals should know about Fireworks.
Jim Babbage’s two passions, teaching and photography, led him to a career in commercial photography. With the release of Photoshop 2.5, Jim became involved in the world of digital imaging, and he soon began designing for the web in addition to taking photographs. Jim is a regular contributor to Community MX (communitymx.com), where he’s written articles and tutorials on Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and general web and photography topics. He teaches imaging, web design, and photography at Centennial College, and web design at Humber College. He is a partner at Newmedia Services (newmediaservices.ca), and has been a guest speaker at TODCon and a presenter at Adobe MAX.
Web Design Redefined, with Web Fonts – Interview with Allan Haley, Director of Words & Letters (Monotype Imaging)
In this three minute audio podcast WOW’s roving reporter Jeri Hastava asks Allan Haley about the latest in Web Fonts and Typogaphy.
Typography has often been a thorn in the side of Web designers who have traditionally been confined to a limited number of system fonts or forced to embed type within graphics. New technologies promise to bring Web designers the same level of typographic choice and freedom that print designers enjoy. Discover more about the emerging world of Web typography how it will impact you.
The Power of Platforms – A Web Professional Perspective and Overview of the Web 2.0 2010 Event San Francisco, CA
The Web 2.0 Conference took place earlier in the month in San Francisco, CA and WOW’s roving reporter Jeri Hastava, principle of Leap of Faith Web Design was on hand to conduct a number of in depth interviews on the going’s on with in depth coverage of the more meaningful sessions for the practicing Web professional.
Today’s podcast is an overview of that event featuring the conference theme, “Power of the Platform” followed by an overview by Jerri of the following sessions that she sat in on and what you can expect of her in depth interviews of the speakers that we will be featuring in future podcast later this week and next.
Thank you Jeri!
Power of the Platform: A Web Professional Overview of the Web 2.0 Event San FranciscoPlay Now | Play in Popup | Download
Overview
* Being Optimally Social – How Not Talking about Your Product Can Bring Huge Rewards
Social Media Marketing with Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder (SEOmoz), Stephan Spencer, VP of SEO Strategies (Covario)
These two co-authors of O’Reilly’s “The Art of SEO” will go beyond friending, following, digging and tweeting to discuss clever and novel ways to leverage social media, communities, and user-generated content that your organization is likely not doing.
* Web Design Redefined, with Web Fonts with Allan Haley, Director of Words & Letters (Monotype Imaging)
Typography has often been a thorn in the side of Web designers who have traditionally been confined to a limited number of system fonts or forced to embed type within graphics. New technologies promise to bring Web designers the same level of typographic choice and freedom that print designers enjoy. Discover more about the emerging world of Web typography how it will impact you.
* Social Media: A Cautionary Tale: Focus on Enterprise with Mike Gotta. Principal Analyst (Burton Group), Alice Wang, Director (Burton Group)
As social media solutions become more complex, IT organizations are becoming more involved to work with business strategists on ways to mitigate risks. Security, compliance, confidentiality, data loss prevention, brand reputation, and human resource concerns (i.e., ethics/conduct) are issues that organizations cannot ignore.
* Upgrade Your Mandate – From User Experience to Customer Experience Strategy & Business Models with Peter Merholz, Founder & President (Adaptive Path)
Your customers lead multi-channel lives. So why are you focused on just one? In this talk, Peter Merholz will lay out a strategy for “Web + 1″, connecting the web to other service touchpoints, and how to address the organizational challenges in doing so.
Today’s Web Pro Minute is sponsored by the Microsoft WebsiteSpark Program.
Web Developers and Designers: we wanted to let you know about Microsoft WebsiteSpark, a great new program just for you.
Join WebsiteSpark today and get three Visual Studio(R) Professional licenses at no cost*.
WebsiteSpark is for web development and design firms with fewer than 10 employees. Sign up to receive:
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- Three Visual Studio(R) 2008 licenses,
- Two Expression(R) Web 3 licenses plus an Expression Studio 3 license,
- One Windows Web Server(R) 2008 R2 license.
- One SQL Server(R) 2008 Web Edition license.
Business Benefits
- Get new business leads through the Build a Better Website campaign.
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- Take advantage of a year’s hosting for Windows Web Server.
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- Access technical support from the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN).
- Receive training on how to make the most of WebsiteSpark.
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
—George Bernard Shaw
Parade Magazine Cartoon – It’s a great-looking web site, but you need to focus on content.
“It’s a great-looking web site, but you need to focus on content.”
—Parade Magazine, April 22, 2007
Content Strategy
The Heart of the Matter
If you Google, “Content is King,” you’ll get over 741,000 results stressing the relationship between clear, concise and compelling content and successful websites.
Okay – What is Website Content Anyway?
Most people think of text or copy when they think of content, but content is also images, video, forms, links, document files, tabular data, buttons, and calls to action; the “stuff” on your website. We help you provide clear concise and compelling content. Content that is useful and meaningful, that tells your story, engages your audience, solves their problems, and inspires them to take action.
Then What’s a Website Content Strategy?
A content strategy is a plan for giving your audience what they want; useful, meaningful content, a plan to help you meet the goals you set for your website:
* a plan for collecting, analyzing, organizing and optimizing existing content,
* a plan for creating meaningful, compelling new content, and understanding why it’s needed,
* a plan for publishing and maintaining content, and
* a plan for archiving content and managing the future growth of your website content.
But Wait, There’s More! What About Social Media?
Online communities are having a dramatic effect on how people making purchasing decisions online. They encourage “conversations” that you can be a part of. And what about search engine optimization? Where does that fit into the picture. It’s all a part of your content strategy.
Do you begin to see how the process flows? First we identify your goals and your audience, we then determine what resources you have available to help you meet your goals, and then we develop a content strategy that fits your budget to help you achieve them.
Alright – So What Makes Content Clear, Concise & Compelling?
We’re passionate about meaningful content and information design. Your content should never be an afterthought. Content is what attracts people to your website.
* Clear content answers their questions and solves their problems; it’s what they are searching for.
* Concise content makes it easy for people to do what they came to your website to do.
* Compelling content gives them a reason to do it.
The controversy for the “hearts and minds” of Web professionals heats up as press reports reflect that Steve Jobs goes public with a statement that Adobe’s Flash software has fallen short as a mobile technology. At issue is the public debate between the companies over the program used to create online video. Clearly, the case for HTML5 vs. Adobe Flash is sure to intensify in the weeks and months to come.
The Story Line
Apple has “few joint interests” with Adobe, Mr. Jobs said in a post on Apple’s Web page Thursday, citing six reasons he doesn’t want Flash for mobile devices. He called the program closed and proprietary, saying the decision to bar it from Apple’s devices is based on technology, not business.
Apple’s efforts to convince programmers to adopt other ways to get video to work on Web sites threatens Flash’s dominance. San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe is fighting for the hearts and minds of Web-site developers, many of whom view Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and newly released iPad tablet as platforms they can’t ignore.
HTML5, a standard Apple uses instead of Flash, is a “completely open” technology, said Mr. Jobs. HTML5 lets Web developers create graphics and animations without relying on third-party browser plug-ins, such as Flash, he said.
“Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind,” Mr. Jobs said according to press reports.
Adobe highlighted the risks of exclusion from Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices for the first time in a regulatory filing this month, signalling the snub could hurt sales according t the report.
More than 75% of online videos run on Flash, and the software is installed on about 98% of personal computers connected to the Internet, according to Adobe. Flash also runs on more than 800 million mobile phones, manufactured by 19 of the top 20 handset makers — all except Apple.
Who will design the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Logo? It Could Be You.
Last week, the N.E.A. and Mr. Landesman, its chairman, announced that proposals are being sought for a new logo to represent the phrase “Art Works,” which Mr. Landesman has previously described as the agency’s “guiding mission.” In a statement Mr. Landesman said the logo, which will be used in print and online promotions, should represent the three meanings of the phrase: the creations of artists, the effect of art on audiences and the contribution of artists to the economy. Proposals for the design must be submitted by e-mail to the endowment by 5 p.m. Eastern time on Feb. 26. The author of the proposal selected will receive a government grant of about $25,000. Instructions and requirements for submissions are at arts.gov.
Web Design Trends for 2010 – A Web Designer and Blogger Perspective
Today’s podcast is an interview with Sneh Roy, Web designer and content developer regarding Web Design Trends for 2010.
Sneh writes for the Little Box Of Ideas, a design and inspiration blog with a strong focus on branding, illustrations, web design, social media and typography. In this seven minute interview for the Web Professional Minute, Sneh summarizes her perspectives and a dialogue that she had with a number of designers and followers of her blog.
Everything You Know about Web Design is Wrong Says Dan Willis User Experience Consultant
While researching Web design best practices over the holiday, I came across an interesting piece entitled “Everything You Know about Web Design is Wrong” by Dan Willis.
Dan Willis’ design career began in newspapers more than 20 years ago. After working as a print designer and magazine art director for Tribune Co., he designed his first Web site in 1995. He was washingtonpost.com’s first Director of User Experience and had the same title at PBS.org. Now a consultant for Sapient, his clients have included the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the FBI.I’m on the phone with Dan Willis, User Experience consultant to Sapient. Has clients include American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the FBI. After working as a print designer and magazine art director for Tribune Co., he designed his first Web site in 1995. He was washingtonpost.com’s first Director of User Experience and had the same title at PBS.org.
Netscape’s introduction of a commercial Web browser in 1994 sparked evolutionary change at a phenomenal pace. Despite a couple of international economic collapses, that blistering rate of change has continued into this century, but tenets borrowed out of desperation from the rigid traditions of print design still prevent the Web’s presentation from keeping up with its development.
We still treat pages, grids, color usage, and the placement of elements as the primary tools of Web design. These print design traditions hinder our ability to appropriately present the 21st century Web as much as the conventions of live theater hobbled filmmakers a hundred years ago. Louis Augustin Le Prince invented a single lens motion picture camera in 1888, but it took almost 30 years for artists to master the emerging technologies of film and transcend the boundaries established by stage plays. Early masterpieces like Georges Melies’ Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) introduced stunning special effects and showed remarkable creativity, but also reflected an adherence to live theater’s static point of view and restrictive stage design. Because it was little more than 30 independent scenes of moving images strung together, the film failed to move the form forward in any meaningful way.
It wasn’t until 1915 when, despite its overt racism and its aggrandizement of the Ku Klux Klan, D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation elevated film from a five-cent curiosity into what would eventually become the most influential art form of the 20th century. Griffith’s movie popularized expressive close-ups, dramatic lighting, flashbacks, and other techniques that are now part of the common language of film. Also, the financial success of Birth of a Nation helped convince the industry to take Griffith’s film “grammar” seriously. There’s beautiful work online today that reflects the best efforts of wildly talented designers.
The introduction and mastery of Flash as well as the industry’s embracing of standards-based design have resulted in elegant visual solutions, but like Melies’ film, these solutions haven’t elevated the form. Designers are churning out evermore- sophisticated work, but the work is more print-design-in-disguise than transcendent Web design. There are plenty of examples of the former, but recognizing the latter is going to be more difficult. It’s useful, therefore, to identify the key concepts that could help design finally transcend the boundaries of print.
Concept 1: In transcendent Web design, form will follow function Of course we’d like to say the same about print design, but if we’re really being honest about it, the tenet for Print-design-in-disguise: This Harry Potter site won the Web Marketing Association’s 2007 Web Awards Best of Show. It relies heavily on blocks of dense, beautiful, unreadable type and slow-loading Flash animation. It treats its three Web-native features like sections of a glossy print magazine, rather than as primary features of the site.print is more accurately “form follows function … as long as it’s really pretty.” And unfortunately that more forgiving interpretation has dominated the last decade of Web design.
In the 21st century, it’s essential that form follow function in order to cater to the utilitarian nature of the Web. Print communication blasts generic messages to clumsily defined masses of readers, but online experiences come down to a single user, the context they create, and the satisfaction of their individual goals. With older forms, user goals tend to be more general (“to be informed,” for example) and user expectations tend to be lower (“that TV show was kind of funny.”) Because of the blunt force nature of print and television products, measuring success comes down to raw numbers of readers or viewers and that has unfortunately carried over online where a similar approach to metrics is more distracting than meaningful.
Someone will always pay for ad banner impressions and online versions of print advertising, but eventually Web profits will depend primarily on satisfying enough of the most important goals of enough of a product’s most important users. How Web design looks doesn’t determine how well it works. Aesthetics are important, but they are a means to an end, just a tool one masters in order to design successful Web solutions. Transcendent business model: All Netflix.com screens seem to lead back to the movie queue and support the user’s primary goals while encouraging continued membership. Its application tailors interactions to the individual, here by sorting lists of other members’ favorite movies based
on past choices.
“Don’t Hire Your Nephew to Build Your Small Business Website” says the makers of Intuit
Intuit, the maker of Quicken is hitting the traditional airwaves and social media channels with ads depicting disgruntled small business owners regarding the build out of their websites. The YouTube ad featured below for example entitled, “Don’t Hire Your Nephew to Build Your Small Business Website” hits the point home.
At first glance, I thought to myself that I should cancel my subscription to Quicken in protest for picking on the Web design tribe that we here at the WOW represent. Then again, I’m not a customer of Quicken or any Intuit products that I know of so that won’t work out very well.
After giving this some thought, I think the ad does an effective job at communicating the reasons that small businesses should “hire a Web professional” in the first place. As a result, the ad campaign is kind of growing on me. That’s not to say that all nephews that create websites are bad mind you. I know a few personally and they do very nice work!
As the executive director for the Webprofessionals.org organization, I’ve been getting hundreds of calls over the years from disgruntled small business owners asking if WOW could intervene on their behalf to settle contract disputes. I suppose ads of this nature are inevitable. Ugh, so thanks I guess for that Intuit!?!
The walk away from this ad for Web professionals I suppose is to take it in stride. It comes with the territory. General contractors and those in the construction trade face similar issues every day and have for years. Makes a great case for ethical behavior, a Web professional code of conduct and best practices I’d say. Changing the public’s perception however is a whole another discussion.
Design for Learning: Interview with Steve Barth, Principle Consultant Reflected KnowledgePlay Now | Play in Popup | Download
Design for Learning: Interview with Steve Barth, Principle Consultant Reflected KnowledgePlay Now | Play in Popup | Download
Today’s Web Professional Minute podcast topic is Design for Learning. To better understand this topic from an industry professional’s point of view, I interviewed Steve Barth, Principle Consultant Reflected Knowledge. I asked Steve to summarize what Design for learning all about and how can Web professionals benefit.
A full transcript will follow in twenty for hours.
Today’s Web Professional Minute is brought to you by Nolo Press and their Legal Guide to Web & Software Development book with CD-rom.
More Details:
Protect your rights, and your hard work!
The laws covering website and software development are complex and confusing, but if you don’t untangle them, it could cost you thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees and lawsuits.
Fortunately, Legal Guide to Web & Software Development decodes this complex area of the law, thoroughly and in reader-friendly English. It also provides contracts, agreements and legal forms on CD-ROM, with step-by-step instructions for filling them out, so you can protect your software and website without paying a lawyer’s ransom.
Use Legal Guide to Web & Software Development to learn:
what kind of legal protection you need
the strengths and limitations of each type of protection
how to avoid infringement
which provisions you need when drafting an agreement
how to obtain permission to use other people’s materials
You’ll find complete, step-by-step instructions to draft:
employment agreements
contractor and consultant agreements
development agreements
license agreements
The 5th edition of Legal Guide to Web & Software Development is completely updated to provide the latest case law and statutory revisions.
Protect your rights, and your hard work!
The laws covering website and software development are complex and confusing, but if you don’t untangle them, it could cost you thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees and lawsuits.
Fortunately, Legal Guide to Web & Software Development decodes this complex area of the law, thoroughly and in reader-friendly English. It also provides contracts, agreements and legal forms on CD-ROM, with step-by-step instructions for filling them out, so you can protect your software and website without paying a lawyer’s ransom.
Use Legal Guide to Web & Software Development to learn:
what kind of legal protection you need
the strengths and limitations of each type of protection
how to avoid infringement
which provisions you need when drafting an agreement
how to obtain permission to use other people’s materials
You’ll find complete, step-by-step instructions to draft:
employment agreements
contractor and consultant agreements
development agreements
license agreements
The 5th edition of Legal Guide to Web & Software Development is completely updated to provide the latest case law and statutory revisions.
Protect your rights, and your hard work!
The laws covering website and software development are complex and confusing, but if you don’t untangle them, it could cost you thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees and lawsuits.
Fortunately, Legal Guide to Web & Software Development decodes this complex area of the law, thoroughly and in reader-friendly English. It also provides contracts, agreements and legal forms on CD-ROM, with step-by-step instructions for filling them out, so you can protect your software and website without paying a lawyer’s ransom.
Use Legal Guide to Web & Software Development to learn:
what kind of legal protection you need
the strengths and limitations of each type of protection
how to avoid infringement
which provisions you need when drafting an agreement
how to obtain permission to use other people’s materials
You’ll find complete, step-by-step instructions to draft:
employment agreements
contractor and consultant agreements
development agreements
license agreements
The 5th edition of Legal Guide to Web & Software Development is completely updated to provide the latest case law and statutory revisions.
Protect your rights, and your hard work!
The laws covering website and software development are complex and confusing, but if you don’t untangle them, it could cost you thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees and lawsuits.
Fortunately, Legal Guide to Web & Software Development decodes this complex area of the law, thoroughly and in reader-friendly English. It also provides contracts, agreements and legal forms on CD-ROM, with step-by-step instructions for filling them out, so you can protect your software and website without paying a lawyer’s ransom.
Use Legal Guide to Web & Software Development to learn:
what kind of legal protection you need
the strengths and limitations of each type of protection
how to avoid infringement
which provisions you need when drafting an agreement
how to obtain permission to use other people’s materials
You’ll find complete, step-by-step instructions to draft:
employment agreements
contractor and consultant agreements
development agreements
license agreements
The 5th edition of Legal Guide to Web & Software Development is completely updated to provide the latest case law and statutory revisions. On sale now check it out!
