Responsive web design and mobile devices
Dec2011
Nowadays, people access the Internet from an ever-growing range of devices with very different screen sizes and controls (mouse vs fingers). This poses some very real design and usability issues because most websites are only designed to be viewed on big screens and navigated by mouse. This is clearly the old way of doing things – [...]
Design tips for your QR code
Dec2011
The QR code: A thing of beauty or an eyesore? The magical barcodes that can be scanned by a smartphone to launch an offline-to-online experience are often criticized for their black and white checkerbox appearance. Those who doubt that QR codes will go mainstream are quick to point out that the look of QR codes will [...]
Redesigning the country selector
Dec2011
During our recent checkout study we found several usability issues when using a drop-down for your country selector: a lack of overview, unclear sorting, scrolling issues, inconsistent UIs, a lack of context on mobile devices, and finally, they break the user’s tab-flow. So we took it upon ourselves to redesign the country selector. Using principles of progressive [...]
The invisible side of design
Oct2011
As designers, we tend to get distracted by aesthetics of our designs, and often do not pay enough attention to the other, invisible side of our creations. This talk discusses the value of functionality, storytelling and thorough editorial work in Web. It argues about the significance of purpose, context and quality in our decisions. It [...]
Robots.txt and 404 pages: sometimes funny, always important
Oct2011
I’ve seen a spate of “Easter Egg” links doing the rounds on Twitter recently, some of which have been pretty inspired. They’re generally either the 404 page or the robots.txt page. The 404 page is the page you are shown if the page you are looking for, via your browser, doesn’t exist. Generally, if a user [...]
16 pixels for body copy. Anything less is a costly mistake
Oct2011
I know what you’re thinking “did he just say 16 pixels? For body copy? Obnoxiously big! 12 pixels is ideal for most websites.” I’d like to persuade you otherwise. As usability expert Oliver Reichenstein says in “The 100% Easy-2-Read Standard”: [16 pixels] is not big. It’s the text size browsers display by default. It’s the text [...]