Brussels web design blog

UI Patterns and Techniques: Introduction

A good read. Whenever i get the chances…UI Patterns and Techniques: Introduction

Design for Form or Function? The bauhaus lessons

Interesting reading here, a 2001 article by Kurt Thumlert confronting the form / function aspect in web design, in the line of the Bauhaus inheritage.

He opposes two extremes : “las vegas” (form) vs. Guttenberg (function)

– Las Vegas Style :

In banners, we have all the kinetic neon of the Vegas Strip; in animated graphics, we have the shimmering of a rhinestone cape. From garish pop-up windows, disabled back-buttons, bloated pyrotechnics and indulgent flash to navigation that drives customers through color-crazed mazes, e-commerce web design often appears to mirror Vegas frenzy and immoderation. Even on the same corporate webpage, marketing messages compete violently for our attention, content seethes non-sequentially, and the pure density of text and links do little more than overwhelm. It’s casino e-commerce – or as Venturi calls it, ‘the kitsch of high capitalism.’ He ends with a nice quote: when form distorts function, then the medium does not become the message – it obscures it.

– Websites that mimic the printed media

The problem with copying print strategy is that while the layout might be reassuringly ‘retro’, the medium itself is all Internet, with it’s own implicit hypertextual conventions and practices. Though the Web is still primarily a text-driven medium, its rules are not the same as print, at once combining expanded ‘interactivity’ (endless possibility) with a shortened attention span imported from video-culture (want it all now). Both ‘print’ and ‘casino’ styled e-commerce sites risk choking interactivity and disrupting task-based goals like retrieving desired information or making a purchase.

For my own (selfish) use, i’ll just copy/paste here the conclusion i get from this article, so that i can read it back l8ter.

Understanding the User

Here, what’s essential is understanding the reflex level of user interactivity and then designing a task- analysis blueprint. Predicting reactions, reflexes, and how users respond to and interact with various web environments and stimuli is key. This means anticipating visitors needs, prioritizing your messages and tasks, predicting what user questions will be asked (in what order), and quickly providing the answers in a navigable, ’scaffolded’ format that keeps your visitor oriented and engaged.

Scaffolding refers to an educational concept concerning how much information a user can assimilate in one stage – or on one webpage – and requires the designer to build sites that conform to learning mechanics. Hence, content, directions, and visuals should be ‘chunked’ or structured to guide the user through gradually more complex content towards an end-goal (while simultaneously providing clear navigation options so users can control the gradient of a learning/informating curve).

NASA’s Apollo on steroids

The king of show off, Mister Georges Bush, on his relentless search for posterity is sending the boys back to the Moon by 2018.
Will somebody tell him this has already been done ? This guy should really have listened a bit more at school, instead of sniffing all that cocaïne…
Weirdly enough, nobody seems to ask Georges what is the relevance to go back to the moon (besides television primetime of course). Hell knows Georges loves science so much he cut off (Feb. 7, 2005) the foundings for the Hubble telescope which costed 100 times less than this new venture to the Moon, and was an oustanding and unique scientific tool.
Fortunately, it now seems Hubble will continue it’s deep space peeping mission.

Web Developer Extension for Internet Explorer and Firefox

absolute must : webdeveloper extension for firefox : chrispederick.com’s web dev extension for firefox for internet explorer : web developer’s extension

L’Atomium a fini sa mue – [ in french ]

Hey, today one outstanding monument of the “glorious fifties” the Atomium, has its renovation almost completed ! Read more about it (in French, sorry) from a Belgian newspaper :L’Atomium a fini sa mue – La Libre

I don’t know what the renovation will turn out to be. In the article they talk about stripes of blue white led lights around the bawls and everything. They ‘ve already replaced aluminium plates with inox ones… Which makes it all so shiny… brr.. weird, i told myself, as i passed by the Atomium today. But hey, at least it means it will stay another 50 years About those leds : I doubt it will make any needed after effect _ the monument in itself is so astonishing i fear that kind of cheap tricks may just as well make it look like another christmas tree…

We’ll see…