Pemaquid Communications

Striped backgrounds are a bit like last year’s music now, but this is a handy tool for creating them:
Stripe Generator.

I saw a real “whopper” the other day (pun intended). I called up a Web page, and after a momentary lag as a Flash file loaded, a giant bass jumped onto my screen.

Boy, talk about a “splash page”.

An audio soundtrack of a babbling brook lingered in the background as I browsed the page.

I guess to some Web designer, somewhere, it must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

The owner of the Web site, however, was not amused. The fish had leaped into his eyeballs dozens of times and what started out as a nifty little dash of motion and sound had turned into an annoying intrusion onto the user experience.

Remember the last time you heard a good joke? It was a real belly-shaker when you first heard it, right? Now imagine hearing the same joke, at the same time, every day for an entire month. On the 31st telling, would it still be as fun to hear as it was the first time?

When designing a Web site, creativity is always a good thing, but designers need to make sure that the visual design and the interactivity don’t get in the way of what the site visitor is looking to do. Otherwise, no one will come to swim in your pond.

Web designers are often tempted to try the latest flashy technique. After all, that’s what makes Web design fun. Before you upload that snazzy whizbang, however, think of the impact your flying fish will have on potential visitors… potential customers… and especially your brand.

And as for the proud owner of the Web site w/t/giant jumping bass? He’ll be throwing that one back.

In the last couple of days a great new bookmarklet has hit the streets for Web designers far and wide. It’s called the XRAY.

Like it’s namesake, it gives you an easy way to view the “bones” of a Web site. Turn on the XRAY, click on a page element, and instantly see the CSS associated w/that element. A great time-saver!

Better yet, I’m told it even works in Safari, though I haven’t yet tried that. Firefox is a breeze. Sorry, no IE version at this time.