28th February, 2010 in Usability
Yesterday when being dragged around shops by out shopping with my girlfriend Suzanna, we were walking down a shampoo/haircare isle when I asked ‘Is it shampoo or conditioner where the lid is on the bottom of the bottle, as opposed to the top?’
Suze answered my question with ‘Conditioner has the lid on the bottom, shampoo on the top, but I don’t know why’.
I knew why…
The shampoo lid
Imagine the scenario, you’re a girl with long hair and you’re washing it in the shower. Your hair is in your eyes, and covered in shampoo. Opening your eyes would lead to some serious stinging! You reach down and below you, by your feet, you have two identical bottles—except they’re not identical… One has its lid on the top and the the other has its lid on the bottom. As long as you’ve learnt which one’s which, as my girlfriend clearly has, you know without having to open your eyes which bottle you have hold of. This is a really ingenious piece of usability, yet so so simple.
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By Harry Roberts in Usability. | 5 Comments »
24th February, 2010 in Projects, Typography
Yesterday I released Type Tips, a collection of short and simple tips to take your web typography to the next level. The project has been some time in the making, with me first mentioning it back in early January. For one reason or another I only got started on the project last night, but I ploughed through and released a first version within a few hours.
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By Harry Roberts in Projects, Typography. Tags: Design, Tips, Tricks | 2 Comments »
19th February, 2010 in Typography, Web Development, Writing
A while ago I had the idea to express some old sayings in a silly, geeky way, using code and logic to express logically, the meaning behind some well known phrases. I got Illustrator fired up last night and decided to finally got a few made. They’re kind of obvious really, even a non-developer brain can make sense of them, and deciphering the saying is pretty simple, but I think they’re cool nonetheless.
Many hands make light work
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By Harry Roberts in Typography, Web Development, Writing. Tags: Design, Development, Writing | 9 Comments »
17th February, 2010 in Business, Web Development
…then Harold Shipman would look like a reasonably nice chap… The attitudes of many web developers and designers are frankly quite scary. The web design game’s quality and value is constantly undermined from people outside the industry, but the disregard from within the industry is—although admittedly less frequent—a lot more unforgivable.
Here is a little tongue-in-cheek post taking some of the things an offending designer/developer might say, but from the lips of a surgeon. After all, I do love a good analogy.
| Web designer |
Surgeon |
Lesson |
| Web designer |
Surgeon |
Lesson |
| I validate all my code. |
I make sure my instruments are clean. |
Some things are just a given. Proper code isn’t anything to show off about, it’s just a standard part of a decent service. You’d be worried if a surgeon made a point that his tools were sterile, it’s just something you’d expect. |
| I’ve not done this before, but I’ll give it a go. |
I’m usually a rectal surgeon, but I’ll give neurosurgery a shot. |
If you can’t do something, don’t! You wouldn’t want a surgeon trying unfamiliar practices on you, especially if you’re paying. Why would you charge a client to experiment new things on their site? |
| The code’s not the best it could be as I was pressed for time. |
I was in a rush, so I bodged the operation. |
Lack of time is no excuse for poor code. I commented on this one before. |
| This won’t work in IE6, it’s too old to support. |
Madam, you’re quite old, I don’t think I’m going to do this operation. |
You may not like IE6, but it’s unavoidable. You need to learn how to work with, and then do so. |
| I’ve just got a copy of Dreamweaver and I want to start web design. |
I found some old scalpels—got any ailments I can tend to? |
Being a developer is more than owning the right tools—it’s about years of hard work and education (formal or otherwise). |
If you can think of any more, please feel free to add them in the comments. And this is just a light-hearted, jokey post. I’m not comparing the importance and responsibility of surgery with that of web design… honest.
By Harry Roberts in Business, Web Development. | 7 Comments »
11th February, 2010 in Web Development
This is a quick, simple tutorial on how to create multiple column lists by only using one ul. Often is the case when you’d want multiple lists side-by-side, but you end up using markup like <ul class="col"> in order to get several lists sat next to each other. However, by simply floating lis left and setting their width to the correct percentage (two columns = li{width:50%;} and so on), you can attain a multiple column list pretty easily.
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By Harry Roberts in Web Development. Tags: CSS, HTML, Lists | 5 Comments »