Web Teacher » InterfaceDesign

Mapping with Flickr

vdebolt — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:24:22 +0000

Have you played with the map function on Flickr? I’ve been ignoring it, choosing not to give my location on my photos because I put up a lot of family photos and I didn’t want them identified by location.

I administer a group on Flickr for Women in Tech. Maybe you’ve noticed the tiny slideshow of the images from that group pool in the blog sidebar. I clicked on the Map view in Flickr while looking at the Women in Tech photos in the Flickr group and was delighted to see the results.

Thanks to the folks who do have mapping enabled on their photos you see this map. You see a thumbnail of the particular photo and a marker on the world map showing where the photo was taken. If you use the left or right arrows in the thumbnail window to move to different photos, the location markers on the map change. If you click on a location marker, images associated with that location pop up. If you click on a thumbnail, the location marker is highlighted. You can sort by interesting or recent.

Playing with this made me rethink the value of using location markers (or geotagging) photos. I was wondering if I could do it on a photo by photo basis, so I looked in the Flickr Help. I found this:

Can anybody see where my geotagged photos were taken? Is the location private?

You can keep where you took your photos private, if you want, or assign permission to any level you’re comfortable with. You can set a default privacy level for any photos you add to the map, and you can change the location privacy per photo as well. To change the settings on a photo, double-click it in Organizr. Click the Location tab. That’s where the privacy setting is, as well as the latitude and longitude of your photo’s location. (You can edit that too, if you have that information.)

That means I’m going to start geotagging photos from conferences and public events. Yes, indeed.

Now Available! InterACT with Web Standards: A Holistic Approach to Web Design

vdebolt — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:05:56 +0000

InterACT with Web Standards: a Holistic Approach to Web Design is available today.

This announcement is a BIG DEAL.

This book puts everything you need to teach a class in web design or development with web standards into your hands. The book is easy to use in connection with InterACT’s 17 courses in 6 learning tracks making it the perfect tool and resource for teaching or learning contemporary web design best practices.

If you are a student who wants to learn about building a web site with web standards, this book will lead you there.

For educators, your semester will be a snap to plan with this book. It’s all right there for you.

The book is published by New Riders (2010). There are 10 authors. The major contributor being Chris Mills, with additional expertise from Erin Anderson, Virginia DeBolt, Derek Featherstone, Lars Gunther, Denise Jacobs, Leslie-Jensen-Inman, Christopher Schmitt, Glenda Sims and Aarron Walter. I’m really proud to have been a small part of making the book a reality, because I think the book is going to be very important to students and teachers who are looking for the a reliable resource for web design best practices.

In addition to the writers, a number of other people worked to bring this book to life. They include Aarron Walter as project manager, Patrick Lauke as technical editor, Jeff Riley as development editor, Leslie Jensen-Inman as creative director and Jessi Taylor as book and site designer.

Many kudos go to Leslie Jensen-Inman and Jessi Taylor. When you see this book and hold it in your hands you will realize what a work of art it is from a design and typography point of view. It’s a beautiful book.

Take a look at the table of contents:

InterACT
Tools
Learning on the Web
Internet Fundamentals
Writing for the Web
Information Architecture Intro
Site Planning
Content Analysis
Content Strategy
HTML Intro
CSS Intro
Headings and Paragraphs
Whitespace
Links
Images
Lists
Tables
Forms
Floats
Positioning
Accessibility Intro
Accessibility Helps
Accessibility Testing
Bringing it All Together
Index

The InterACT with Web Standards book site has everything you need to know. There, you’ll find links to purchase the book, links to code examples from the book, links to bonus content, and links to the sample project. The site has links to information about InterACT, OWEA, and the Web Standards Project. You can take a peek inside the book, read some reviews, grab links to all the resources cited in the book, and MUCH MORE.

Buy now and take advantage of this limited time offer tweeted by @waspinteract.

InterACT With Web Standards, the first book from The Web Standards Project, is out. Save 35% on it with code INTERACT. http://cot.ag/9RS4rEMon May 17 16:00:20 via CoTweetWaSP InterAct
waspinteract

IA Teachers: Take the survey

vdebolt — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:04:25 +0000

The Information Architecture Institute is currently doing some research which will inform the work they will soon begin creating an IA curriculum.

The Research & Education Group in IA is conducting a survey aimed at understanding the current status of Information Architecture (IA) in Higher Education. If you are a teacher and/or researcher in Higher Education Institutions and Universities, please take 15 minutes to fill out our survey. The survey is online at:

http://is.gd/hERj

The results will be made public through the Information Architecture Institute website [www.iainstitute.org] and the REG-iA website [www.reg.ia.org] and will constitute a founding part of a proposal for an IA curriculum framework in Higher Education.

Useful Links: Books, WCAG 2

vdebolt — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:26:13 +0000

I Hate Books at KnowIT. Miraz explains why books are obsolete and should be replaced with something better.

I provided several links in my post yesterday about WCAG 2. However, the information on this topic is vast. Here are two more.

WCAG 2 and mobileOK Basic Tests specs are proposed recommendations report at WaSP.

It’s possible that WCAG 2 could be the new accessibility standard by Christmas. What does that mean for you? The answer: it depends. If your approach to accessibility has been one of guidelines and ticking against checkpoints, you’ll need some reworking your test plans as the priorities, checkpoints and surrounding structures have changed from WCAG 1. But if your site was developed with an eye to real accessibility for real people rather than as a compliance issue, you should find that there is little difference.

Migrating from WCAG 1 to WCAG 2 at WIPA.

What’s your position on pixels, ems and percentages?

vdebolt — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:10:21 +0000

What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of the various measures—pixels, ems, percentage—used on the web? Do you have a favorite that you fall back on using most of the time? If so, why?

A Senior PC?

vdebolt — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:27:57 +0000

Who is a senior? Someone over 65? Boomers are between 44 and 62. Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By defines elders as anyone over age 50. Does being of a certain age mean that you require special accomodations in the form of a “Senior PC” or an extra simple cell phone or an adapted elderbrowser?

Microsoft Corporation just announced a project in the UK that will start development of what they are called a Senior PC.

Read the full post at BlogHer.

Research report on best practices

Virginia — Sun, 02 Dec 2001 17:53:00 +0000

User Interface Engineering — UIE Reports: Getting Them to What They Want. “In its report, “Getting Them to What They Want,” UIE says it drew on six years of research and hundreds of hours of user observations to discern the eight best practices for getting users to the content they seek,” according to PCWorld’s article on the report.