Great A List Apart article from a person who has struggled with CSS since 1998 about the challenges of adopting CSS in development.

There are plenty of excellent books and articles out there, including many written by the contributors to this publication. While most of those works gracefully walk the inexperienced developer through challenging layouts and teach by literal example, few of them acknowledge that using CSS to create standards-friendly sites requires a mindset that is alien to many experienced developers.

For those who don't have the time or the inclination to go read the article, here are all the lessons:

• Lesson No. 1: Everything you know is wrong… sort of
• Lesson No. 2: It’s not going to look exactly the same everywhere unless you’re willing to face some grief… and possibly not even then
• Lesson No. 3: You will be forced to choose between the ideal and the practicable
• Lesson No. 4 (with thanks to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry): Perfection is not when there’s nothing to add, but when there’s nothing to take away
• Lesson No. 5: Some sites are steaming heaps of edge cases
• Lesson No. 6: Longer lead times are inevitable
• Lesson No. 7: Coherent and sensible source order is the best of Good Things
• Lesson No. 8: Descendant selectors are the beginning and end of genuinely powerful CSS rules
• Lesson No. 9: In the real world, stylesheet hacks will get your project across the finish line
• Lesson No. 10: Working around rendering bugs is like playing Whack-a-Mole
• Lesson No. 11: When you’re drowning in CSS layout problems, make sure of the width and height of the water, float without putting up a struggle, and get clear of the problems
• Lesson No. 12: Background images will make the difference between the plain and the tastefully embellished

(thx OM)

Interesting article which asks: "why don't graphic designers participate more in the Open Source software movement to make it look more polished?" Why not indeed.

Infoworld: Graphic eye for the open source guy

I suspect that the reason more graphic designers don't contribute their own talents to open source projects is much more mundane. Simply put, graphic designers aren't aware of the shortage of talent because graphic designers don't use open source software.

(thx DW)

Courtney and I were trying to guess what Pantone color the red in the Forum One logo was from our cap today.

It's amusing that I came across this: someone's Flickr set dedicated to doing exactly that.

For the past week I have been playing around with CrazyEgg which is a site that visualizes user traffic to your site. I've been testing it out on my dilapidated personal blog site, only to remind me how unvisited it is. In the past 3 days I have had 26 visitors who made 11 clicks from my homepage.

Here are the CrazyEgg dashboard visuals:

Dashboard:



Overlay view: shows how which links have been visited, and pops up stats when you mouse over the + icons.



List view: straight list of the links and click stats.



Heatmap view: nice visualization of the frequency of visits with heated areas.



Hopefully I can update these screenshots once I get more results in. I won't be holding my breath though.

Setup is pretty easy - you sign up and then add a snipet of javascript to the page you want to track.

I think this is a great tool more for its visuals than anything else. It just shows in a very usable way how a page is being used. It doesn't capture how long a user stays on a page, or the path they took through the site, or even eyetracking info - but who needs that when you have pretty visuals.

But seriously speaking, I think it's a nice addition to the set of tools that have emerged recently to complement the straightup (and boring) log file analysis provided by Webtrends, Analog or Webalizer and/or Google Analytics.

Pricing seems reasonable also: Free account tracks up to 5000 visits; $19/mo gets you 25K; $49/mo - 100K; and $99/mo - 250K.

Researching for their upcoming 3rd Edition of the Polar Bear book (AKA Information Architecture for the World Wide Web) the authors conducted a series of surveys on how Information Architecture is practiced. You can view the highlights of each of the survey results below:

• Survey 1: IA Trends
• Survey 2: Suggestions for the Third Edition
• Survey 3: Software for IA
• Survey 4: Input from IA Educators
• Survey 5: IA Education (for Practitioners)

My favorite result is:

Do you have any formal (e.g., college, university) education in Information Architecture, Human-Computer Interaction, Usability, Library Science or a related field?

48.6%: Yes
48.6%: No
2.8%: Not Sure

(thx KV)

I have come across a couple of podcasts that focus on IA/UXD issues. I'm still undecided as to whether listening is good way to absorb IA/UXD or not. Good for listening on in the car while commuting I guess. (for those of us who have longer commutes).


Here's my list so far:

• UIE Brain Sparks Audio Library
• Information Architecture (I.A.) Podcast Show Notes
• UXpod - User Experience Podcast

History of the Button is a blog dedicated to the way we interact through buttons. In it's own words: "Tracing the history of interaction design through the history of the button, from flashlights to websites and beyond."

A well-illustrated, detailed article about the effects of visual layout on readability and usability of forms.


Here are some highlights:

• Use vertical alignment of labels and input field for forms users are familiar with
• Left justify labels for forms users are unfamiliar with, so that users can quickly scan the labels
• Use background colors in forms cautiously
• For buttons, visually distinguish primary and secondary actions

Huh? That's why you need to read the article.

(thx KV)

In a nice twist on the ColorWheel/Color palette applications you see on the web, ColorJack provides a social dimension to its solid tool set, by allow users to "spy" on color palettes that other have created on the site. (thx KV)