Filed under: Technology | Tags: 37signals, accessibility, Apple, Browser, browser support, developers, Facebook, IE6, InfoQ, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, MobileMe, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, upgrade, web standards
In August of 2008, Internet Explorer celebrated its 7th birthday. In browser years that is pretty old. I was still a teenager waiting to go to university. It was a long time ago! The problem that most developers have with IE6 (other than wasting countless hours of our lives trying to support it) is that we now live in a world where everyone talks about ‘accessibility’ and ‘web standards’, and IE6 simply does not comply. It is out of date, insecure and terrible at rendering pages to modern standards. Yet nearly 30% of internet users still use it as their main browser (W3counter).
Everyone wants their websites to use the latest cutting edge technology, but a significant proportion of people still continue to use a product that is incapable of supplying that to them.
So why have people been so slow to upgrade? one theory is that companies still have it installed as their default browser and it would be too expensive and time consuming to roll it out across hundreds or thousands of machines. While this may be true there has to come a point when everyone catches up with the modern world.
The last few years, particularly since the introduction of Firefox as a viable alternative to Microsoft’s web browsers, there has been a steady rise in the number of anti IE websites on the internet including:
“IE Death March,” “STOP IE6” and “Save the developers“
They all encourage web users to upgrade their web browser to a newer version, be it Microsoft’s more standards compliant IE7 or an alternative browser such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or Apple’s Safari.
The relative success of browsers such as Firefox and Safari wrestling some market share away from Microsoft means the worm may be starting to turn. InfoQ point out that “Since attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003, Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) has been rapidly losing market share. As the end of 2008 approaches, significant online services, vendors and web frameworks are dropping support for IE6.”
Some of the big names that are dropping their support for the browser include Apple’s MobileMe (the rebranding of the .Mac service), 37signals (a prominent online software supplier), and Facebook, which now recommends upgrading to a newer browser.
It is this last one that could sound the death knell for IE6. If the world’s foremost social networking site ends up ending all support for the browser, then it can’t be long before the rest of the computing world follows suit. I for one hope that this day comes sooner rather than later.
Filed under: Design | Tags: Flash, graphic design, Group 94, HTML, MOMA, Multi Adaptor, navigation, Panasonic, thumbnails, type, Type Tester, Typography, usability, web design
My colleague pointed out some interesting websites to me that she wanted a designers’ perspective on. No point just keeping this to ourselves so here’s what I thought about the most relevant ones. There’s so many sites these days that are trying too hard and failing and so many that ignore aesthetic design all together – it’s always a discussion point in the office. Most of the following is subjective but it’s a more than educated opinion and if you disagree go ahead and tell me why…
This promotional Panasonic website is based on their philosophy that “everything matters.” It uses a very creative approach to a potentially boring subject matter. There’s loads of experiencial user involvement – very slick and well designed. The amount of exploration needed to find information may put some people off, but then that’s not the point – its all about interacting with the site as a whole rather than clicking through to read a load of boring blurb about the latest camera. Every detail seems very considered, and every link brings you to a slightly different experience.
This site from Belgian web designers is essentially a flash-heavy portfolio site. The design creates a clear brand identity using lovely typography. Full screen imagery is also a nice touch. I personally like how minimal and easily usable it is. The direct links to their work online gives them a very open feel – there’s no dicking about with thumbnails and pretty pictures, its real balls on the table. Call me boring and old fashioned though, but it would be nice to see some sort of snap shot of their work in one place rather than going to the effort of clicking around endlessly.
The next site is for the Museum Of Modern Art’s Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit. It’s very different to what I expected – modern art connotes minimalism in my book. That isn’t to say its ugly – it seems very unique and different. However like so much modern art it’s a case of form over function. Does it please the eye? Yes. But practically how am I supposed to find the information I’m looking for? The lack of navigation means I need to scroll across and down the page – which is unnecessarily long and wide – squinting at semi-transparent fonts that seem a couple of point sizes to small for screen legibility. It’s a very print based approach. I’m sure it would make an amazing poster, but its an impractical website.
Type Tester does what it says on the tin. It’s a useful tool, for designers, by designers. It lets you see how text appears on screen with a lot of control over the settings – something you don’t see on other font sites. The addition of a ’safe list’ of web fonts is a nice touch. What else to say really? Looks pretty and does the job.
I like this website, it’s the most straightforward one of the bunch, and from a user perspective possibly the most ‘expected.’ Everything’s in the normal place you’d expect to find it, it’s all quite conventional and usable which means I can get the gist of the company in a hurry with no messing around. And it looks pretty. The only thing I’d say is that it seems like an overuse of Flash for a simple site that could have easily been built in html to a greater effect. There’s an awful lot of type on here that’s getting them zero SEO.
Filed under: Cool & Online, Design, Events | Tags: Art, De-construct, Fred Flade, Mercedes, News, seasons, text, The Typographic Circle, twistori, Twitter, Typocircle, Typography, web design
At the end of November the Typographic Circle hosted an event with Fred Flade of de-construct. The evening was a great chance for me to get to know one of Neoco’s clients better. I was impressed by the welcome and warmth of the event. This was a group of people with a very specific passion that somehow managed to not be at all cliquey. Fred’s talk was an informal walk through sites that had impressed him in terms of their typography. A few cautionary examples but mainly an homage to what can be produced when the power of type design is approached respectfully and playfully. It certainly opened my eyes to a lot of work that deserves more attention. With that in mind I’d like to give you five examples of websites that Fred discussed that really grabbed my interest:
This Mercedes interactive site makes 19 points by playing with relevant typography. Each letter, A-S, says something about the Mercedes S-class in a captivating way so that what should be boring car facts or sales slogans comes to life and resonates a lot deeper.
Mathieu Badimon’s experimental 3D lab in flash begs to be played with. Control perspective and other dimensions, position and distort. I am always left feeling that there’s so much more potential to this site than it actually realises but I never thought that what basically amounts to just dragging shapes around could be this addictive.
For all seasons is a personal project exploring seasonal memories through simple and interactive typographic art. It is beautiful for it’s inspiration, it’s simplicity and the way it associates written memories with the physical. The harsh appearance of black and white text is striking but it fails to capture any of the seasons in depth. Still worth a look.
“Cut up / Code in” is still a bit of a mystery to me. It to pulls text from news sites for you to play with by changing words. The control that the user actually has is minimal and that adds to power of the changing text and meaning. And then you notice that you can type in your own text to play with but what continues to fascinate is the question; ‘what are the rules of the game?’ This is cleverer than it appears and I’d love to know what other people think of it…
Finally Twistori.com is a website that plays with text within the blogosphere. It pulls statements from twitter that feature a word chosen by the user. What I love about this site is the human element – what is being showcased is the ability of the internet in terms of personal communication, its sheer power to let voices be heard but the irony that this freedom also detaches the voice from it’s physical owner. This site is social voyeurism taken one step further and yet it is somehow a comforting place that makes you feel connected.
This is only a very few of the sites that Fred Flade spoke about so I have asked a graphic designer here at Neoco to take a look as some others from a design perspective. In the meantime let me know what you think of the sites I’ve discussed…
Filed under: Cool & Online | Tags: adverts, Barclaycard, Barclays, Google, pointless, tv, Waterslide, wiki.answers.com, Wikipedia
The TV ads that get us talking?
I set out to write a blog post singing the virtues of a recent TV ad; the Barclaycard “Waterslide” advert. The problem with writing about this sort of things is always finding an angle; do I actually have anything interesting to say on this? It’s harder than it sounds. I started off this post with the thought “what makes a great TV advert?” A quick search on Google rapidly changed the direction into “what makes a rubbish website?”
The truth is, I’m not 100% sure what makes a good TV advert. So, what do other people think? Typing “what makes a good tv advert” into Google brings up wiki.answers.com as the first entry. Its suggestion is (in its entirety; I haven’t cut anything):
“It has to be eye-catching and snappy. It could use slogans, logos, music and motos.”
So much for an answer. I particularly like the use of the word “could”. I could write a worse answer than this, but it’s hard work:
“It has to be good. It may involve moving pictures and sound.”
And suddenly I forget why I’m even looking for an answer to the question, so incensed am I by the utter pointlessness of this “wiki” answer site. The problem with the Internet at the moment is the sheer volume of rubbish generated by people, seemingly for the point of saying “something” (I think you can unfortunately take this blog post as a second example!) Rubbish websites, it seems, are more prevalent, and easier to spot, than excellent TV ads!
So getting back to the original point; the Barclaycard advert is good. Possibly because it’s eye-catching and snappy, and uses slogans, logos, music and motos! See for yourself.
