Web tableaus — photographed scenes of work environments — are a popular web design trend right now.

I came across the term from Frank Chimero’s blog post about the subject, and it was the first time I’ve seen the web tableau trend analyzed.

I thought I’d put together a showcase of websites that use web tableaus for you.

Examples of Web Tableaus

Here are a few sites that use web tableaus:

Grovemade

Squarespace Stories

Littlelines

The Prince Ink Company

The Brand Bat

Eva Black Design

Sickdesigner.com

Doris Research

BJÖRN MEIER

Little

Olly Sorsby Design Co.

Munchery

Why Use Web Tableaus?

Every single thing a web designer does should be meaningful. Design decisions must meet an objective besides achieving great aesthetics.

Here are a couple of reasons for using web tableaus in your designs:

To Show How Your Product Works

When we initially stumble upon a new digital product (like a mobile app) that we’ve never seen before, it’s hard to envision how it could possibly work for us and how it could fit into our lives.

And for developers of digital products, it’s extremely challenging to explain how useful their product is when people can’t touch it or immediately experience its benefits.

Web tableaus are practical visuals for demonstrating a product’s utility.

For example, let’s look at Wallmob’s web tableau.

Wallmob is a networked point-of-sale application. That’s not very sexy, is it? And how does it work?

The scene of a person holding a mobile tablet with the Wallmob app up on the device’s screen is a very informative visual.

It gives potential users of the software an idea of what Wallmob can provide them: A portable point-of-sale system that has a user-friendly interface that runs on existing touchscreen mobile devices. No more dedicated and extremely expensive POS systems.

The picture is truly worth a thousand words. With just one photo, Wallmob is able to communicate the pain point the company is trying to solve.

To Keep It Real

By giving people a sneak peek of the place in which we craft our work, we’re able to humanize and add value to our products.

A good discussion point for this is Wootten — a company that creates handmade shoes and other leather products.

If you’re not familiar with the brand, just by looking at their merchandise, you wouldn’t be able to know or appreciate that real people painstakingly make all Wootten products.

But handcrafted, customized apparel is what makes Wootten different from the big, incumbent fashion brands that get their products mass-manufactured in some undisclosed factory.

How can Wootten articulate their uniqueness to their buyers?

Through a web tableau.

In the tableau, we see a craftsman with manual tools laboring on a workbench and the beginnings of a Wootten item.

This one scene was able to tell the brand’s entire story, and viewers end up having a better appreciation of the company’s products.

On his web tableaus post, Frank Chimero shares his thoughts on what web tableaus bring to the table — you should definitely read his post for more insights into this trend.

What do you think of web tableaus? What are other reasons for using them in web designs?

Related Content

• Excellent Examples of Using Photos in Web Design
• What Your Website’s Design Says About You
• Advanced Image Optimization Tricks
• Related categories: Showcase/Inspiration and Web Design

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the founder and editor-in-chief of Six Revisions. He’s a front-end web developer by profession. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page or follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

The post 14 Examples of Websites That Use Web Tableaus appeared first on Six Revisions.

One of the biggest problems designers have on the Web is combatting the sterility of the screen; as human beings we love organic, natural, even slightly random elements, but our computers give us precision.

If you can tap into that starved need for a real natural feel then you’ll make an emotional connection your customers won’t be able to resist. So we’re delighted that our sister-site, MightyDeals.com, has arranged a massive discount on Yellow Design studio’s Anodyne typeface.

Anodyne is a set of six fonts, all uppercase, with varying levels of distress, creating a sense of hand-printing, and that natural connection that’s so valued.

Imagine Anodyne burnt into the oak of a whiskey barrel, printed on a vintage style t-shirt, or gracing a hipster logo.

Anodyne is a masculine, outdoorsy kind of typeface, with the warmth to be comfortable in more domestic environs.

Included in the deal are six different styles; Anodyne, Anodyne Italic, Anodyne Combined, Anodyne Combined Italic, Anodyne Shadow and Anodyne Shadow Italic. Each alphabetic character comes with 4 distress variations, with the rest of the fonts’ glyphs having at least 2 variations each. Using opentype contextual alternatives is a great way to ensure that your design doesn’t look contrived.

Both desktop and webfont variations support a huge number of languages, including most European and several Asian languages.

Anodyne normally retails at $39, but for a limited timeyou can get all 6 fonts for just $9, that’s a 75% discount. Or, if you prefer you can get both desktop and webfont versions for just $15. What’s more, if you’re building an app, you can purchase the desktop and web versions along with a mobile app license for just $90. Head over to MightyDeals now to take advantage of this offer.

Learn from Usability Masters with Everyday UX – only $9!

Honor Roll

Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards recognize exceptional service to UMBC.

On Wednesday, April 2, 2014, UMBC will celebrate the exceptional performance, leadership and service of seven members of our campus community at the Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards Ceremony.

�The Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards Ceremony is an important annual tradition for the UMBC community,� says President Freeman Hrabowski. �Our faculty and staff are dedicated to fulfilling the university�s mission and vision, and this event gives us the opportunity to honor their professional achievements and commitment to our campus.�

The 2014�2017 Presidential Teaching Professor is Marie desJardins, professor of computer science and electrical engineering. desJardins, who joined the UMBC faculty in 2001, was named one of UMBC�s ten �Professors Not to Miss� in 2011. She is known on campus and throughout her professional community for her research in artificial intelligence and her dedication to innovative classroom teaching and student mentoring.

Robert L. Rubinstein, professor of sociology and anthropology, is the 2014�2017 Presidential Research Professor. Rubinstein, who came to UMBC in 1997, is a cultural anthropologist and one of the top researchers in his field, both nationally and internationally. His work is providing significant insight into the lives and experiences of older Americans, particularly in the areas of environment and aging, childlessness in later life, and long-term care.

Kevin D. Joseph �87, assistant director in the Division of Information Technology�s Business Systems Group, will receive the 2014�2015 Presidential Distinguished Staff Award, Professional Staff. Joseph began his tenure in the Division of Information Technology over 27 years ago, when he first served as a student worker and then full-time developer. He is known for his leadership, congeniality and caring nature, while his initiatives help make UMBC the model of a technology campus for enterprise solutions.

Susan Augsburger Velli �88, business services specialist in the Department of Music, will be honored with the 2014�2015 Presidential Distinguished Staff Award, Non-Exempt Staff. Velli joined the UMBC Department of Music staff in 2000, and has served the University System of Maryland since 1991. Her colleagues see her as the hub of a fast-paced department, and her professionalism and management and organizational skills are an asset to the department and its people.

Jeff Leips, associate professor, biological sciences, will be recognized as recipient of the 2014 University System of Maryland Board of Regents� Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching. Leips, who joined the faculty in 2001, is making groundbreaking contributions to interdisciplinary undergraduate education in the life sciences. His work has generated new research opportunities, new courses and new minors, all of which will have a significant and far reaching positive influence not only on UMBC�s students, but also on the faculty and institution itself.

The 2013�2014 Jakubik Family Endowment Award will go to Justine Marie Johnson, associate director of the Meyerhoff Graduate Fellows Program. She began her UMBC career in 1999, and her efforts have helped establish UMBC as a national model for doctoral STEM diversity. Under Johnson�s leadership and mentoring, the Meyerhoff Graduate Fellows Program has undergone tremendous growth.

This year, the awards ceremony also will include the presentation of the first Karen L. Wensch Endowment Award for Outstanding Non-Exempt Staff. President Hrabowski endowed the award in honor of Karen Wensch, who retired in 2010 as executive administrative assistant to the president, after 40 years of outstanding service to the campus. The award recognizes a non-exempt staff member who demonstrates exceptional dedication to the UMBC community and a commitment to extraordinary work performance.

The first recipient of the Wensch award is Jane Gethmann, assistant to the chair in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, who came to UMBC in 1971. Gethmann is known as the glue that holds the department together, going above and beyond her responsibilities. In addition to assisting the chair and handling administrative and financial duties, Gethmann also takes the lead when additional resources are needed or when she sees a way to increase efficiency in the department.

The Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards Ceremony begins at noon, on Wednesday, April 2, 2014, in the University Center Ballroom. All UMBC faculty and staff are encouraged to attend.

For more information about the ceremony and the award winners, please visit the event website.

(03/27/2014)

On August 28, 1963 the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington D.C.  This is when Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech, a seminal event of the Civil Rights Era.

30 years later, on October 16, 1995 the Million Man March took place in Washington D.C. It’s purpose was to highlight the social and economic woes of the African-American community and to proclaim unequivocally that racism was still alive in America.

Now less than ten years later, a new series of race related marches are getting attention. These events are calling themselves “White Man Marches”.

These marches claim to be advocating for “White Rights” by groups that tout themselves as “protectors of the White race”. However, it is not hard to detect strong racist underpinnings to this whole exercise. 

These marches may be a reflection of the increasing number of hate groups popping up around America.

While it is easy to label groups like the Klu Klux Klan as racist organizations, increasingly there are other groups who are trying to tip toe around that label. Towson’s White Student Union is one such group who claim not to be discriminatory but instead are simply expressing their “White pride”.

These groups suggest their presence is no different than Black Student Unions, Hispanic Heritage Month, Gay Pride Rallies, etc.

We don’t quite see it that way.

It’s one thing to be a member of a minority group that has been historically marginalized and abused… it makes sense these people would want to rally together to build support and gain equal rights.

It is a whole other thing if you are a member of the privileged majority.

If members of a majority group are rallying together it is likely because they feel their privilege is under threat. Their “White Rights” and “White Pride” mantra seems likely to be nothing more than a white wash over more disturbing intentions.

Though many of us find these groups philosophies reprehensible, these organizations are allowed to exist thanks to our Constitution’s guarantees of freedom of expression.

So, it is important as citizens that we exercise our rights and push back against such objectionable expression. We at USDemocrazy will try to do our part by blogging about these types of events. You can help by expressing your views below.

A new tool roots out ads that are too easy for users to accidentally click.

Ads on mobile apps generate more than $8 billion in annual revenue for app developers. With so much money at stake, various ways to game the system have arisen. One fraudulent method is to write malicious code to generate false clicks (see “A Web Scam That Makes $500,000 a Month”). A more insidious approach is to simply make it easy for users to hit ads through “placement fraud.” Developers can make ads too small to stand out, too close to a game button, or even invisible.

Featuring Rich Multi-Tier and Distributed Computing Apps on Any Private or Public Cloud, CliQr App Store Provides Enterprise Users With Self-Service Access, Deployment and Management of More Than 100 Applications Portable Across Multiple Clouds.

Three students in UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) have been selected for major scholarships to pursue studies in cybersecurity-related fields under UMBC’s participation in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Scholarship for Service (SFS) Federal CyberCorps program. As SFS Scholars, students receive full tuition, fees, annual reimbursement of professional development expenses ($3,000), a nine-month stipend ($20,000 for undergraduates, $25,000 for MS/MPS students, and $30,000 for PhD students) for up to two years (three years for PhD or BS/MS), and assistance with federal cybersecurity internships and career placement. To be eligible for SFS funding, applicants must be full-time students at UMBC committed to cybersecurity-related research and education activities, have an excellent academic record, and not have any significant outside employment obligations.

The first-round awardees for AY14-15 are:

• Anastasia Raffucci, BS (CMPE)
• Jackson Schmandt, Ph.D. (CMPE)
• Brooke Young, BS (CMSC)

These new awardees will join existing UMBC SFS Scholars Oliver Kubik (BS, CMSC), Mary Mathews (PhD, CMSC), Nathan Price, MS (CMPE). Punlada Muangrat BS (IS), Alex Cooke BS (IS), and Denis Danilin MS (IS).

ADDITIONAL SLOTS AVAILABLE! Applications for SFS support for AY14-15 will be accepted through 12PM (noon) on Friday, May 2, 2014 with notice of awards made by May 23, 2014. All levels of study are welcome to apply — however, students must be admitted to (or already enrolled at) UMBC first before applying for SFS. For information about SFS (including application information and instructions) and other US government-related cybersecurity scholarships available, please visit the CISA website.

The CyberCorps program produces highly-qualified professionals to meet the United States government’s increasing need to protect American’s cyber infrastructure. While in the program at UMBC, SFS CyberCorps Scholars participate in special SFS program activities, have opportunities to engage in mentored research opportunities both at UMBC and its partners from industry and government, and must complete a paid summer internship for the federal government. Upon graduation, each student must work for the government (for pay) for one year for each year of scholarship received. CSEE Drs. Alan Sherman and Richard Forno direct the program under a five-year $2.5 million NSF grant received in 2012.