Pixie Dust and the Mountain of Mediocrity is a guest post by Kathy Sierra at Gaping Void. Thanks to Hugh MacLeod at Gaping Void for snagging Kathy Sierra to write this post. Her voice is missed and needed. Here’s the opening paragraph:
We’re always searching for that secret formula, that magic pixie dust to sprinkle over our products, services, books, causes, brands, blogs to bring them to life and make them Super Successful. Most marketing-related buzzwords gain traction by promising pixie dust results if applied to whatever it is we make, do, sell. “Add more Social!”. “Just need a Viral Video!” “It’s about the Storytelling!”. “Be Authentic!”
Business Insider just published an article with the misleading headline Marissa Mayer Just Gave Every Yahoo Employee an iPhone 5. Every Yahoo employee worldwide is getting a new smart phone. The choices do include the Apple product mentioned in the headline, but are actually these:
iPhone 5
Samsung Galaxy S3
HTC One X
HTC EVO 4G LTE
Nokia Lumia 920
Mayer stated the reason for these company issued phones – which are replacing Blackberries – by saying,
Ideally, we’d like our employees to have devices similar to our users, so we can think and work as the majority of our users do.
My headline for this article was a bit of an overstatement as well. (Sorry.) I don’t really think every web dev needs to work for Marissa Mayer. But I do think she’s on to an essential principle of creating for the modern web: mobile rules the experience for many people.
Her move is fairly dramatic and will emphasize to all her employees that the mobile experience should be considered in everything they do. The mobile first, responsive design notion is gaining ground in the web design world, to be sure, but a dramatic move such as Marissa’s on the part of web educators to emphasize the concept is called for as well.
In computer labs all over the world, teachers could show budding developers how to put a shiny new web site on a server. Show them how to find it in a browser. And, as a standard practice in the classroom, have them look at it in their smart phone too. Students and front end developers need to look at their web sites with devices similar to their users just like Yahoo employees.
Are any web educators out there already making like Marissa Mayer and doing this in their classrooms?
Although in the past, most web designers were happy to rely on patterns, nowadays it appears that textures are just about everywhere. This is because they are capable of adding a level of depth and realism rarely found in patterns. Should you be interested in utilizing the latest textures in your sites however, it’s important to be aware that they do come complete with a few potential pitfalls. Here are a few tips for avoiding such pitfalls and generally getting the most out of using textures on your sites.
Legibility Cannot be Sacrificed
If you’ve experimented with textures at all in the past, you are likely to be aware of just how easy it is to go overboard. And one of the clearest signs that you have gone overboard with your use of texture is if it has become significantly more difficult for text to be read. It does not matter how crisp a particular piece of texture is, if it is leading to users having to strain their eyes just to read what is written on the site, you have gone too far. Like it or not, when people arrive at a site, they are more interested in reading what is written there than admiring your web design skills.
Textures Should Not Be Distracting
Another sign that you have gone seriously overboard is if the textures that you’ve used are distracting. Although you might consider it reasonable for users eyes to be drawn to the background when they first arrive on a site, it’s not reasonable if their eyes are continually drawn back there as they read through a page. The purpose of texture is to compliment a website, it is not supposed to define it. Therefore regardless of how much you like a particular texture, if it’s overly distracting it’s got to go.
Choose Logical Textures
If you spend enough time adding textures to websites, you are eventually going to end up having a few personal favorites. Many web designers become obsessed with wooden patterns whereas others find that the random nature of pebbles can help add a touch of class to just about any design. Unfortunately however, you must not confuse the visitors. If you are designing a website that sells cars, wooden patterns are a poor choice, and pebbles are downright illogical.
Don’t Sacrifice the Overall Look
By the time you start looking for textures, you should have already decided how your site is going to look overall. You should use that intended look to guide you when you are choosing the textures to use. You should never change the overall look of a site just so that you can use a particular texture.
Each Texture Should be Justified
Most web designers are well aware of the trouble that can be caused when you start adding elements for no logical reason. The same logic applies to textures. If you do not have a specific purpose for adding a certain texture, if it does not fulfill a particular role, your site is likely to be better off without it.
Experiment
If you’re not that experienced with using textures in your sites, your best bet is to simply experiment. Although there is certainly a lot of advice online, like most aspects of web design, it’s practice and experimentation that really leads to expertise. Try out new textures regularly and add them to elements that you have never used texture on before.
Save Time With a Personal Collection
When trying to choose the texture for a specific element, it’s very easy to get into the trap of spending hours looking through the millions of options available online. Unfortunately, doing so is not only rather monotonous, it’s also unlikely to be the most productive part of your day. You should therefore cut down your options by building up a collection of great textures on your computer, that you can then pick and choose from at will. When you come across something you love online, simply save it to your computer together with an informative label.
Loading….
Finally, one of the most frustrating aspects of textures is the effect that many of them can have on loading times. It leads to a constant balancing act between designing professional looking sites and designing those that don’t take forever to load. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting about loading times when choosing textures. It’s also important to be aware of the different tricks that can help you to get around the problem such as repeat textures and carefully considered compression rates.
Guest Author Patrick runs a fast growing Melbourne based web company YarraWeb. Patrick is a web designer (who would have guessed 😉 ) and enjoys sharing his knowledge in blog posts like this.
Think about cultural icons. You know, things like The Statue of Liberty or movie lines like “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.” Think about Apple products. Think about Facebook.
That’s right. I said Facebook.
How can I think Facebook is iconic? Because it’s now become a symbol. I don’t mean a symbol on the stock exchange. I’m talking about a symbol of a way of life, of a generation, of a movement. And here’s proof in the form of Katy Perry’s latest video.
Facebook is no longer just a social media site. It’s now a way of communicating something about life and art that transcends social media. In other words, a cultural icon. If Andy Warhol were here, he would paint Facebook.
So what does it take to become iconic? Here are Virginia’s rules on becoming iconic.
1. Everybody has to Know about Whatever IT Is
Everybody knows about Facebook. Even if they don’t use it. In the U.S.A. about 59% of the online population uses it. The rest of the people just listen to endless news reports about it.
What is something everyone know about that you consider iconic?
2. Everybody has to Value Whatever IT Stands For
Everybody knows about The Statue of Liberty, too. But it’s more that just knowing about it. It stands for something important.
The Statue of Liberty = freedom. The Land of the Free. That’s what we are and we have Lady Liberty to remind you. You love freedom, right? Me, too. I scream, you scream, we all scream for freedom. We all feel a thrill when we see Lady Liberty standing in New York Harbor. We all recognize her image as she lifts her light. Why? Because we all value freedom.
Freedom is so important we are willing to die for it. The things that symbolize freedom – be they statues, flags, slogans or images – stand for those things we cherish and value. They are iconic.
What iconic symbol stands for something you value?
3. You Have to Love IT Every Single Time
Every time you watch “Casablanca” you love it, right? You can throw out lines like, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” in appropriate spots and everybody knows what you are referring to because they all loved “Casablanca” too.
It bears rewatching. You never get tired of it. You’ll go out at midnight to see it on the big screen. It’s a cultural touchstone. It’s iconic.
What iconic bit of culture do you love every single time?
4. IT Can Excite and Thrill
Just looking at it, touching it, using it, has to be exciting. Has to thrill you and make you feel cool and powerful and fabulous. I’m thinking of Apple’s product line here: everything from the first aqua iMac to the minimalist interface of the iPod to the sleek and brilliant iPad. This rule applies to anything extraordinarily beautiful as well as to anything that works effortlessly and beautifully.
It’s so cool to carry or wear or be around that you are cool too. We all agree on this. We bestow coolness on you because you are smart enough to have this iconic thing beside you.
What beautifully designed and thrilling thing do you consider iconic?
5. Stories Are the Road to Iconic
We love stories. We tell stories to each other, we read stories, we follow stories on TV, we watch stories in the theater. We get personally attached and involved with the stories we love. We’re passionate about our stories, our characters. I think having a great story helps make the ordinary iconic. So many of our icons came from stories. The emotional connection comes from the story, from the idea, not from the thing.
If you set out to create something that everyone would know about and love and enjoy time and again, how would you do it? How would you create something iconic that would endure through generations and across cultures? Would you start with a good story?
I think you’d have to have a good story. That’s my step one.
Since hearing Ray Kurzweil talk about Moore’s Law at SXSW Interactive this year, I keep thinking about how it applies to web education and web design best practices. Yesterday, Jeremy Keith was talking about breakpoints at Adactio.
Jeremy’s point (with lots of excellent references) is that there is no longer a set pixel value that we can consider “common breakpoints” for responsive design. Device size is changing too rapidly to have a handful of numbers that can become exact values for breakpoints in @media queries. One of Jeremy’s comments:
I think our collective obsession with trying to nail down “common” breakpoints has led to a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of responsive design: it’s not about what happens at the breakpoints—it’s about what happens betweenthe breakpoints.
You’ve probably seen the news about Google Glasses. If Moore’s Law tells us anything, it tells us that Google Glasses are not an oddity, but an inevitable application of technological progress.
In terms of responsive design, what’s the breakpoint for Google Glasses? Or what’s the breakpoint for a web browser embedded in your eye or your brain? A technology like that is probably on the way.
I’m really excited about responsive design. I think it’s brilliant and necessary in the current state of web education and web design. But it isn’t the last thing that designers need to learn or think about when looking to the future size of web accessible devices.
Google+ made some changes and upgrades last week and I thought it was time to take a second at this site, both to see what’s new and to discuss helpful features. Google announced the changes on the Google blog in Toward a Simpler, More Beautiful Google.
If you are familiar with Google+, you can see from the image the look has changed to something sleek and minamalist. Google describes it as “more functional and flexible.” Google touts the new navigation, saying,
You can drag apps up or down to create the order you want
You can hover over certain apps to reveal a set of quick actions
You can show or hide apps by moving them in and out of “More”
A few of the other changes (you can get the full list in this video) are easier ways to join conversations, ways to track activity around conversations you’re following, and a page just for Hangouts. Some of the menu items pop out for more precise options, such as the Photo menu.
The Profile page changed to include something that bears a whole lot of similarities to the Facebook Timeline, with a large image. Take a look at how She Geeks describes the Profile changes in Google Receives a Fresh Redesign that You Might Like.
After several months using Google+ it remains way down on the list of social networks I check regularly. Perhaps I’m not following enough people to get the value I was hoping for from it, but I don’t find it especially important – yet. I think the Hangouts feature is terrific, but people I’d like to share a Hangout with (for example, my book discussion group) are not all on Google+.
Even so, I’ve learned some tricks that help me get the most from Google+. They seem almost secret, because they are a bit hidden. If you take a second look at the site now to check out the new look, perhaps these tips will help you get more out of Google+.
The first almost-secret is circle volume control. It’s a bit tricky to find.
Start in your stream with the Home button. Then pull down the More menu and select a circle. I picked my circle called BlogHers. That will bring posts from BlogHers to the top of my stream. And, it brings up a volume control slider to the right of the page.
Use the slider to determine the amount of volume as a percentage of your total stream you want to see from the chosen Circle. I find this really helpful. I recently added a circle called Women Who Work in STEM, and, wow, those women are talkative! I can turn the volume down on those posts, while getting more volume from my BlogHer circle.
The second almost-secret is Sparks. A Spark is basically a saved search. I searched on the keywords “web design.” You see the results immediately, of course, but when the results appear, a button to “Save This Search” also appears. Click it and your search is saved.
I saved another search, too. This one was for “social media.” Now, when I’m on the Home page looking at my stream, I can find both those searches in the More menu and check for new search results anytime.
Your Reaction?
As with any change, reactions to new design are mixed. It’s interesting to use Google+ to search for “Google+ redesign” and see the mixed reactions. My personal reaction is, “Oh, Google+ changed.” What’s your response?
Honestly, I’m more excited about using features that were there all the time like the Volume Control and Saved Search. The new design is just “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
Editor’s Note: All screen captures from Google+ by Virginia DeBolt. Cross-posted at BlogHer.
If you’re interested in joining in with a week of action against CISPA, Mashable has the info.
Nice explanation of the rule of thirds, which applies to web design as well as to photography. Here’s a source of the same info, related specifically to web design:
