allaboutduncan

Design By Committee

// July 30th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Web

Nope, I don’t like design by committee. Sometimes, it just doesn’t make any sense.

Which do you like better? On the second one, the large image at the top flips/dissolves between several different images.

Bold Font Vader

// May 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // Web

Incredibly cool rendition of Darth Vader using only various sized fonts. This is even better than the CSS Homer Simpson the Michael posted.

I especially like the chest-plate detailing. Very creative.

Visit Ironic Sans for the full story and a Font Leia as well.

Smashing Magazine’s 10 Usability Nightmares

// September 27th, 2007 // No Comments » // Code, Web

Smashing Magazine has posted 10 Usability Nightmares You Should Be Aware of and it’s a great read. Several things in there that all developers have probably been guilty of at one time or another. Read it and then try to remove as much of them from your sites as you can.

Smashing Magazine also provided a list of 8 Usability Checkpoints as well. Just read the article for more info on each one listed below.

1. You don’t use pop-ups.
2. You don’t change users’ window size.
3. You don’t use too small font sizes.
4. You don’t have unclear link text.
5. You don’t have dead links.
6. You have at most one animation per page.
7. You make it easy to contact you.
8. Your links open in the same window.

CSS Wild Card Selector

// May 11th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Code

Playing around with DotNetNuke again today for work and the CSS implementation leaves a lot to be desired. For some reason (open source? – multiple contributors?) the CSS has hundreds of redundant definitions and the code base itself adds unnecessary or at least unwanted IDs or CLASS tags to everything.

Rather than have a single FONT-FAMILY declaration, it was declared on almost every style. Instead of BORDER, BORDER-RIGHT, BORDER-LEFT, BORDER-TOP, and BORDER-BOTTOM are used. It’s really insane. Almost every element of content gets assigned with CLASS=”Normal” and put inside a DIV with a uniqe ID ending with ModuleContent.

All of this rambling led to a cool way to assign CSS properties to certain elements based on Wild Card characters. This only works with Firefox, but if you’re trying get Firefox to display something differently than IE, it can be a big help.

/* all DIV tags with an ID ending in ModuleContent */
div[id$='ModuleContent'] {
border:2px #000 solid;
}

/* all A tags whose HREF attribute ends in .pdf */
a[href$='.pdf'] {
border:2px #000 solid;
}

Works great for debugging browser differences as well. Anyway, back to cleaning up the DotNetNuke default.css file. I’ve already got it pared down to 14k (from the original 18k).

Project Rooftop (revisited)

// March 15th, 2007 // No Comments » // Comics, Web

I’ve blogged about Project Rooftop before in previous incarnations of this site, but it deserves another mention. They’re currently running a spotlight on Supergirl, who could definitely use a redesign right now. A few of the images I recognize from the Draw Supergirl Meme that was making the rounds in early February, but it’s nice to get the info that Project Rooftop provides with each entry.

Plus, you also get a lot of other cool redesigns and re-imaginings at Project Rooftop.

Don’t Click It

// January 24th, 2007 // No Comments » // Code, Web

Don't Click It is a great, innovative site that everyone should check out. Is it the wave of the future for computer/mouse navigation? I can't say, but there are some interesting and fun experiments that make you think.

The basic idea of the entire website is to navigate the entire site without once clicking your mouse button. It work's really well and the only time I wanted (or felt a click would work better) is on the wave left/right button select. Definitely a site to check out.

Hero Machine

// January 15th, 2007 // No Comments » // Web

Here’s a cool Flash app. that lets you generate a superhero/superheroine by selecting a number of options. You can select a genre (hero, fantasy, sports) and then male or female. From there, you can select any number of options as well as coloring. Very cool little site and definitely worth spending a few minutes there if you have the chance.