    
|
|
|
I spent last week at one of my favorite conferences, Greenville Grok. One of the unique aspects of this conference is the focus on attendee participation. Everyone has an opportunity to share, discuss and get feedback on ideas. One of the ideas that came up in discussion is the idea of luck. Specifically, how much of our success as individuals is based on pure luck.
I think the word “luck” carries some unintended baggage. We generally agreed that by “luck” we often meant “opportunity.” Those we all look up to as “successful” often were able to capitalize on very specific opportunities that came their way.
But, “How do I get opportunities?” was a question that inevitably followed. I firmly believe that we are responsible for creating or own opportunities. People who have achieved great success are very skilled at doing this.
I don’t consider myself to be someone who has a lot of skills. But if there’s one thing I have been able to do over and over again in life, it’s create my own opportunities. Here’s an example:
When I was in college, I dreamed of being a writer. Not a starving artist, but someone who earned an income from writing. This seemed unachievable. I had no experience. I had no portfolio. I had only taken one English course at that point. My background was in IT and I didn’t even know any writers. How would I ever be able to convince someone to pay me to write for them?
The first thing I did was go to where the writers were. At the time I lived in a suburb of Los Angeles and we had a local newspaper called The Signal. I drove to the main office and asked for a tour. (This was long before Twitter, Facebook or any sort of online networking). I met the Managing Editor and the staff writers. I asked a lot of questions and learned about what they did. Most importantly, I made friends.
The next thing I did may sound crazy. I asked the Managing Editor if I could work for free. I told her I wanted to be a writer and I wanted to work for this newspaper, but I had no experience, so I was willing to come in for a couple afternoons a week and do whatever they wanted me to do (even if it wasn’t writing). Here’s a secret: Companies don’t turn down free labor.
You’ve heard the cliche “Out of sight, out of mind.” It’s a cliché because it’s true. I knew that my chances of being hired were astronomically higher if I was already in the door.
Within a week they gave me the opportunity to write something. And by write something, I mean, attend a ribbon-cutting for a local business and write a one-paragraph summary that would be buried in the back of the B section of the paper.
But I didn’t complain. I tackled this job as if I had just been asked by The New York Times to be a war correspondent. I poured a lot of enthusiasm into that one-paragraph assignment. The next day, to my surprise, they sent me to another event that was a little more significant.
I’m sure you can see where this story is going. Within two weeks, I had covered two significant stories and the newspaper offered me a full-time job.
The first few months at the paper were anything but glamourous. I covered a lot of grand-opening and ribbon-cuttings. It certainly wasn’t what I wanted to do when I thought of being a writer. But I treated each of those stories as if they were the most important thing I’d ever done.
Within a few months of my employment at the newspaper, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. I was asked to cover that story and wrote a number of in-depth, front-page stories. I remember thinking that it felt like a dream. I was a paid writer, covering major news stories, when only months before I didn’t even know where to start. Those stories eventually led to me being promoted to an editor and opportunities to write for magazines.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve employed this exact process many times in my life in completely unrelated fields. Much of it comes down to taking initiative. If I had sat around, waiting for someone to “notice” me and hire me, I firmly believe I would never have been hired. I would have missed out on what eventually became five great years of writing for multiple newspapers and magazines.
If luck comes from capitalizing on opportunities, then opportunities come from taking action.
The day you decide to do, it is your lucky day. ~ Japanese Proverb
The post Make Your Own Luck appeared first on Treehouse Blog.
]]>|
|
|
|
|
|
As web designers, we know that our work speaks to our users.
It’s that reason why we go about our work so deliberately; we choose colors, fonts, the type of web layout we’re going to use, and even the way we write CSS, all in a very purposeful manner.
As we craft our designs, we also realize that the result will say something about us, the designer. And these things that our designs are saying are not always good.
So whenever you’re building a website design, ask yourself this: What is it saying about me?
So many sites have opted for modal window/lightbox ads, which seems to be the modern form of pop-up window ads.
And — just like their predecessor, the pop-up window ads — modal window ads are very annoying.
Modal window advertisement is a very intrusive strategy that unpleasantly interrupts and affects the user experience.
If your users have to work hard to get to the content they’ve come to your site to read, you’re doing it wrong.
Your design should say to the user that the primary priority is her experience, and also that your content is the most important aspect of your site.
By interrupting, delaying, and otherwise making your users jump through hoops to get to your content, you’re telling them that they rank below the greater priority of monetizing your site.
In the same vein, anything that forces users to sign up, log in, put in their email, etc. just so they can access your content, should be reconsidered.
Imagine that you’re in this scenario: You’re desperately looking for a new web host for your startup because your current web host isn’t scaling to your needs. It just keeps crashing-and-burning, which tells you that you’ve outgrown your current solution (congratulations on your startup’s growth, by the way).
Like most tech entrepreneurs, your initial problem-solving action is to Google search for the new web host for your startup.
You happen to come across a timely thread on Quora, a site you know is frequented by smart tech entrepreneurs like yourself.
You get very excited because, within seconds, you’re off to a good start! You ask yourself, "No way, it can’t be this easy, can it?"
You decide to check the Quora thread out.
Yep, it turns out that it’s really not that easy (even though it should be).
Sadly, you realize that the web page requires you to connect your Facebook account or else you won’t be able to see all the content that you’ve gone to the site for.
If you choose not to sign in with your Facebook or Google account, only the first answer thread is shown.
The rest of the thread is frustratingly blurred out. What a slap in the face.
If that was your first time on the site — and the first thing they do to you is purposefully obscure the content you came for — wouldn’t that leave a terrible impression on you?
Getting our users the content they ask for as quickly as possible should be our first priority as web designers. Anything that works against that goal should be cut out from our designs.
There are plenty of other less obtrusive ways to display ads. There are design strategies, for example, that give users a choice of whether they want to interact with an ad or not — or at least a choice of quickly skipping/ignoring them — such as banner ads on the sidebar.
Web accessibility needs to be more widely embraced by the web design industry.
We need to focus our scope of web design innovation on all users, not just the users with expensive touch-screen smartphones.
Web accessibility goes beyond just those with disabilities. People on older mobile devices or those with poor internet connectivity — the average global internet speed is only 2.9Mbps, less than half of U.S. average speed — also need to be included.
Unless you want your website’s design to give off the impression that certain users matter to you more than others, then you want to have it crafted with good web accessibility features. Most web accessibility site features are relatively easy to implement and are already a part of good web design best practices.
While there are many of us who would exclude users of a certain browser (like deliberately choosing not to support Internet Explorer 6 anymore) it’s not fair to punish users for something they aren’t able to control (such as color blindness).
One thing that I see a lot of around the Internet (outside of web design galleries, of course) is the lack of sufficient white space around content and images.
White space is a powerful design tool. White space can spell the difference between making your content presentation pleasurable and easier to read or cramped and visually uncomfortable.
With content being king, we should take the (often very little) time to ensure that it gets the best form of delivery possible.
For the purpose of illustration, look at how hard it is to read the block of text below:
It’s hard to read because of poor letter-spacing, line-height, padding/gutters, and margin property values. These are very easy issues to fix, if your CSS typography knowledge is up to speed.
Within seconds, and with just a tad bit of padding, margin, and line-height property value adjustments, the same block of text becomes better in terms of legibility. The text is more pleasurable to read:
Your content is worth reading. Ensure that your message isn’t lost because of poor white spacing.
Here’s a list of articles and guides to read. They all discuss the strategic use of white space in web design:
Mistakes in entering the correct URL are made often.
Some inbound links to your content may no longer exist, or may have been moved.
Sometimes, certain web pages on your site just stop working because of technical issues.
For events like these, we need to create and design a useful 404 error page — a page that doesn’t just restate what the user already knows (which is that they’ve lost their way).
Some basic tips for designing useful error pages:
This is GitHub’s 404 error page (a good example of a useful 404 error page):
What makes GitHub’s error page useful?
If you don’t take steps to help users find the content they seek, then you’re just telling them that they should just go to another website to find it.
Not providing enough color contrast between the background and the foreground is bad news for many users with low vision. What it says to your site visitors is that you have fallen prey to form over function mentality — that you care more about how the site and design looks over the actual content of the site itself.
Here’s an example of what poor color contrast does to legibility:
With just a few minor CSS tweaks — in this case, just changing the color property values of the <h1> and <p> elements — you can make the reading experience a bit better:
While there are tools like Readability that will help your users take care of these issues for you, it’s your responsibility as a web designer to provide that easy reading experience to begin with.
Take as much care as you can in creating a comfortable, visually pleasing content presentation. This encourages site visitors to consume whatever content you’re offering.
If you’re concerned that your website’s design lacks enough color contrast, these articles are worth a read:
Providing methods for your users to be able to contact you says that you care deeply about their experience on your site.
You’re saying that you value their feedback, whether it’s negative or positive.
Be it a commenting system, contact form, email, social networks, your help and support forums, a live chat widget — having these user engagement tools will show that you want to hear from them.
If you’re not providing them with opportunities of contacting you, then you’re effectively telling people that you don’t care about what they have to say.
User feedback is critical for fine-tuning and developing the UI and UX of your website, so keep your lines of communication open.
It’s your turn. What do you have to say about this article? Share it with us in the comments section below!
Artem Minayev is a brand manager for Web Hosting Hub, which is a web hosting service for personal and small-business websites. Follow the company on Twitter @webhostinghub and Google+.
The post What Your Website’s Design Says About You appeared first on Six Revisions.
]]>
Web design is a subtle science that is lost to most who are not in the field. The amount of choices that go into building the perfect presentation for the content the client has to offer are so vast, that often the best way to demonstrate the full scope of this spectrum is to showcase a particular type of focused site. Through the multitude of examples one can begin to see how thematically similar yet still so different and complex these designs are.
Today, we intend to do just that. By showcasing a handful of portfolio websites, we can see how the depth of design choices and techniques can really separate these examples all built to showcase the work of an artist or designer. Even with their common mission, and even at times structural parallels, they still stand apart and each in their own unique ways encapsulate what a portfolio should be.
Oven Bits is the home and portfolio of the creative web and mobile design agency of the same name. The portfolio adheres brilliantly to the first rule of any portfolio design. To compliment and highlight the work being showcased without in any way stealing focus from it.
Robbie Leonardi‘s portfolio is a bright and bold example of how an illustrator and front end web developer can showcase their skills more potently through the colorful and over-sized presentation of the work they have done for their clients, than strictly with the examples of the work itself. However, there are some issues with the site not fitting completely in my laptop browser window which cut off the info for each piece.
Bec Winnel‘s portfolio is breathtakingly subtle in its presentation. It perfectly incorporates the artist’s work into the design, furthering how well the design compliments the tone and technique of the artist herself. The soft, delicate nature of the paintings translates flawlessly through the design.
Kris Kuksi has a portfolio which is classically styled and textured to accentuate the diverse and intricate nature of the artist’s own creative voice. It does so with such lightness, that the design, while so complimentary and well done, really does fade from the radar as the works stand out. Quite literally in some instances, as the portfolio pieces open in full screen giving total focus to each piece being highlighted.
The portfolio of graphic designer Jeremi Chenier puts a minimalistic approach to work, with fantastic execution showcasing his bold and colorful gallery of designs. This stark contrast between the simplistic nature of the site and the depth and richness of his work creates a powerful presentation.
Dimitris Theocharis‘ photography portfolio is the epitome of minimalism in web design from the lightweight navigation down to the images that don’t resize, but instead scroll along a single plane. All the focus is strictly and tightly placed squarely on the work of the artist. The unassuming, pale color scheme allows the deep colors of the images to really pop.
Alex Rodriguez‘s digital home for the painter’s traditional art is crafted with the same attitude and muted tones that fill the artist’s work. The textures even manage to help feed and carry the melancholy that exudes from the painter’s vivid and daring gallery.
Charlotte Tang has the portfolio one would expect a self-proclaimed interactive design ninja extraordinaire to have. This clean, and oh so sharp design doesn’t rely on JavaScript loaded delivery of the individual portfolio pieces. Instead, each piece is given its own page with closeups and info to really allow the user to interact and engage with various elements from each piece.
The portfolio of photographer Nicolas Tarier is large and bold, removing almost all instances of whitespace from the design to give the work and user complete and unfettered access to one another. The large single loaded image displays work brilliantly to place focus onto the work itself.
My Poor Brain is the digital home and portfolio of London based Graphic Designer and Illustrator, Tim. The design, much like the work and man behind it, relies on no bells and whistles to highlight the work. It speaks for itself, and the design simply steps aside and allows that to happen. It is straightforward and places the onus of the presentation on the work, just as it should.
The portfolio for the Illustration Agency Malet & Co. pours whitespace all throughout the design to let the work pop right up off of the background. The pages that deliver each of the pieces keeps the minimalism firmly in place so that at no time does the user’s focus break from the illustrations presented.
Mark Ryden‘s portfolio is as bells-bare and frills-free as they come, but when one has an established name and reputation backing it, the work speaks volumes on its own. Any elements beyond the navigation would simply get in the way. The emotive and often solemn work has a much greater impact against the sparse surroundings.
Stefan Glerum‘s porfolio is another fine example of the site design stepping aside and allowing the illustrative works being featured to boldly shine free of its grip. The audacious pieces each reside on their own individual pages where they can be further explored and examined in detail.
Jesse Willmon‘s design and illustration portfolio is one of the more unique design presentations that we have seen throughout the showcase. Unique enough to earn a place in the post, even if the project navigation extends far below most of the project images featured in the portfolio. The playful nature of the site wonderfully compliments the designer’s own style and voice.
The portfolio of French illustrator and artist Lapin is as clean and sharply designed and organized as the artist’s intricate illustrations. A perfect companion to the style and spirited tone of the artist’s work, as the design subtly serves up its offerings to the user.
Which of these portfolios did you find most inspiring? Does yours belong here? Let us know in the comments.
| OTAMA Font Family (with 20+ Font Styles) – from $37! |
 |
Web design is a subtle science that is lost to most who are not in the field. The amount of choices that go into building the perfect presentation for the content the client has to offer are so vast, that often the best way to demonstrate the full scope of this spectrum is to showcase a particular type of focused site. Through the multitude of examples one can begin to see how thematically similar yet still so different and complex these designs are.
Today, we intend to do just that. By showcasing a handful of portfolio websites, we can see how the depth of design choices and techniques can really separate these examples all built to showcase the work of an artist or designer. Even with their common mission, and even at times structural parallels, they still stand apart and each in their own unique ways encapsulate what a portfolio should be.
Oven Bits is the home and portfolio of the creative web and mobile design agency of the same name. The portfolio adheres brilliantly to the first rule of any portfolio design. To compliment and highlight the work being showcased without in any way stealing focus from it.
Robbie Leonardi‘s portfolio is a bright and bold example of how an illustrator and front end web developer can showcase their skills more potently through the colorful and over-sized presentation of the work they have done for their clients, than strictly with the examples of the work itself. However, there are some issues with the site not fitting completely in my laptop browser window which cut off the info for each piece.
Bec Winnel‘s portfolio is breathtakingly subtle in its presentation. It perfectly incorporates the artist’s work into the design, furthering how well the design compliments the tone and technique of the artist herself. The soft, delicate nature of the paintings translates flawlessly through the design.
Kris Kuksi has a portfolio which is classically styled and textured to accentuate the diverse and intricate nature of the artist’s own creative voice. It does so with such lightness, that the design, while so complimentary and well done, really does fade from the radar as the works stand out. Quite literally in some instances, as the portfolio pieces open in full screen giving total focus to each piece being highlighted.
The portfolio of graphic designer Jeremi Chenier puts a minimalistic approach to work, with fantastic execution showcasing his bold and colorful gallery of designs. This stark contrast between the simplistic nature of the site and the depth and richness of his work creates a powerful presentation.
Dimitris Theocharis‘ photography portfolio is the epitome of minimalism in web design from the lightweight navigation down to the images that don’t resize, but instead scroll along a single plane. All the focus is strictly and tightly placed squarely on the work of the artist. The unassuming, pale color scheme allows the deep colors of the images to really pop.
Alex Rodriguez‘s digital home for the painter’s traditional art is crafted with the same attitude and muted tones that fill the artist’s work. The textures even manage to help feed and carry the melancholy that exudes from the painter’s vivid and daring gallery.
Charlotte Tang has the portfolio one would expect a self-proclaimed interactive design ninja extraordinaire to have. This clean, and oh so sharp design doesn’t rely on JavaScript loaded delivery of the individual portfolio pieces. Instead, each piece is given its own page with closeups and info to really allow the user to interact and engage with various elements from each piece.
The portfolio of photographer Nicolas Tarier is large and bold, removing almost all instances of whitespace from the design to give the work and user complete and unfettered access to one another. The large single loaded image displays work brilliantly to place focus onto the work itself.
My Poor Brain is the digital home and portfolio of London based Graphic Designer and Illustrator, Tim. The design, much like the work and man behind it, relies on no bells and whistles to highlight the work. It speaks for itself, and the design simply steps aside and allows that to happen. It is straightforward and places the onus of the presentation on the work, just as it should.
The portfolio for the Illustration Agency Malet & Co. pours whitespace all throughout the design to let the work pop right up off of the background. The pages that deliver each of the pieces keeps the minimalism firmly in place so that at no time does the user’s focus break from the illustrations presented.
Mark Ryden‘s portfolio is as bells-bare and frills-free as they come, but when one has an established name and reputation backing it, the work speaks volumes on its own. Any elements beyond the navigation would simply get in the way. The emotive and often solemn work has a much greater impact against the sparse surroundings.
Stefan Glerum‘s porfolio is another fine example of the site design stepping aside and allowing the illustrative works being featured to boldly shine free of its grip. The audacious pieces each reside on their own individual pages where they can be further explored and examined in detail.
Jesse Willmon‘s design and illustration portfolio is one of the more unique design presentations that we have seen throughout the showcase. Unique enough to earn a place in the post, even if the project navigation extends far below most of the project images featured in the portfolio. The playful nature of the site wonderfully compliments the designer’s own style and voice.
The portfolio of French illustrator and artist Lapin is as clean and sharply designed and organized as the artist’s intricate illustrations. A perfect companion to the style and spirited tone of the artist’s work, as the design subtly serves up its offerings to the user.
Which of these portfolios did you find most inspiring? Does yours belong here? Let us know in the comments.
| OTAMA Font Family (with 20+ Font Styles) – from $37! | |
 |
This week at Smashing Magazine, we’ve decided to reflect on and analyze performance, navigation, code base, style guides, content, customer support, our tools and our internal processes — basically everything. That’s why Smashing Magazine will be unusually quiet for the rest of this week.
Smashing Magazine is getting all polished up just for you!
We’ll be using this week to reflect each and every crack in Smashing Magazine that has been nagging at us. No distractions, (almost) no emails, tweets or Facebook updates, no Skype calls — just 60 hours of focused, uninterrupted work.
While we’re (kind of) away this week, we’d be more than happy to leave you with a 15% discount on all of our lovely Smashing products — whether it’s a Smashing Book, an eBook, the entire Smashing Library, or even a Smashing Workshop. If you’ve ever thought about picking one of these up, now is the time to do it. We’d like to express a sincere thank you for all of your support, and for following us throughout the years!
The total value of all of the eBooks in the Smashing Library is around $270. While you would already save more than $170 with the regular price, the special discount this week will save you another $15 — but only from the 3rd until the 9th of June! Of course, more excellent eBooks are in the pipeline, including our long-awaited Smashing Book 4, which will be released in a few months. Now is the best time to take advantage of this offer because the Smashing Book 4 will also be discounted by 15%, and you will get it with free worldwide shipping, too! This special offer is valid for a very limited time and won’t come again.
We’re offering 15% off all Smashing products from 03. – 09. June 2013.
Our eBooks cover a wide range of Web design-related topics:
The Smashing Library is not the usual sort of library where you borrow a book and have to bring it back after four weeks. Our eBooks are lent DRM-free, available in MOBI, EPUB and PDF formats. They do not expire and may be downloaded repeatedly. All of the books released while you are a subscriber are yours. You don’t need to return anything — everything is just yours!
Corporate and educational customers can take advantage of special licenses, too! Get in touch with our chief marketing guy, Stephan. Please don’t forget to state the type of company or institution you represent (e.g. educational, corporate, etc.) and its size (i.e. number of students or employees), and include a link to your website.
We’ll be back next week with fresh new content — keep calm and stay tuned!
Best Regards,
The Smashing Team
© The Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2013.
]]>