Arranged Delirium

As classes start back up, I am reminded of some of the particular content organization challenges that college web sites face; and I’m reminded of this comic from xkcd:

There seems to be some consensus regarding the disconnect between the messages being sent and the information requested. I wonder if there is some kind of data - perhaps we could call them “analytics” - that could tell us which pages are accessed, and with what frequency, and for how long? It might do wonders for helping us generate web content that serves identifiable and actual needs.

And I’m not talking about the W&J web designer here either - who actually does have analytical data. It still comes down to the folks who make decisions about content and whether those decisions are based on data or other inexplicable intuitions. Intuition can actually be valuable in terms of design - but content creation should be based upon data.

A few weeks ago, I presented on web development at the AIIP conference. I had presented there before, and I’ve always found it to be a really friendly group, and this year was no exception. After the conference I received several emails (and I apologize for my slow reply - it’s the end of the academic year!) with some really thoughtful comments and very considerate commentary. The event was very useful, because it has solidified my intent to write a text for web development courses. Currently, I need to employ several different texts in my intro course, and I’m convinced now that that can be done comprehensively in one title (sans technical reference).

As students in Web Design and Development start wrapping up their group project work, now would be a good time to reflect on all the little details that need to be worked out before the project is actually finished. Smashing Magazine to the rescue!

Here’s a link to an article that covers a nice lists of checks to complete before you can really consider your site to be “finished.” Four our class, the sites are a bit more basic - and no-one is using a CMS to build pages - but many of the 15 suggestions still apply. Folks working on more advanced projects int he capstone course might also find this to me information of value.

PS: Make sure to take the time to peruse the contents listed on the Smashing Magazine homepage. There are some great articles up there right now addressing issues of usability, an interesting Jquery list, and some nice detail on IE and the challenges for writing CSS3 code

I’m frequently talking in class about what a designer can count on, and what’s out of our control. In web development, fonts are a good example. Even as you specify fonts, you cannot necessarily assume that the viewer’s machine has those font installed. Or, that they will render similarly - particularly given the differences of platform and browser. I think the image below from a post at The Small Wave makes the differences clear. Both of these render form the same code, but obviously appear different:

Now I know that some will argue that I’m just trying to applaud the Mac here - but I’m really not trying to do that. This is all about being able to see the fact that fonts render differently on different machines and/or browsers.

Understanding CSS for layout means understanding the Box Model. Students in ITL 370 are struggling a bit with this, so I’m providing here a link to some additional information. I covered the basics in class, but this article regarding CSS positioning is really useful if you are trying to wrap your brain around it.