Pemaquid Communications

It’s getting easier and easier for designers to make use of a wide variety of fonts in their Web projects. This is due to advances in CSS3, including the @font-face declaration, which in turn has led to the development of Typekit, a font “broker” of sorts.

I’m giving short presentation on the subject tonight to the New Hampshire Usability Professionals Association. Here are some recent, relevant links on the topic:

• Jeffrey Zeldman on the latest advances in Web typography
• W3C – CSS Fonts Module Documentation
• CSS3.info – article on @font-face
• A List Apart – CSS at 10
• Issues with IE8 and Web font rendering
• Typekit

It’s easy to fall back on the word “user’ to describe who visits your Web site. But that makes it sounds like they’re junkies, or zombies, and it’s so… impersonal.

It’s hard to avoid the term “user”, I’ll admit. In the Web world we bandy about phrases like “user experience”, “user interface” and of course “username”. And I’ll also admit I user those terms.

Still, I think designers should employ the term only sparingly in their discussions about an interface, because I believe it puts you in the wrong frame of mind if your goal is to design easy-to-use Web sites. The folks who come to your site aren’t “users”, automatons or widgets – they’re human beings.

They’re people, people! They are Jane, Jen, Sarah and Jeff, Brynn, Jamie, Ben and Wendy. If we think a little bit more clearly about who is using a Web site, we’ll be able think more clearly about what they need to do on that site, and that will help us in turn think more clearly about how to create a great online experience for them.

Just read an article today on how people go about finding the best deals on travel sites. One self-proclaimed road warrior says he starts with Orbitz.com, because he “likes the layout”. He’ll move on to Expedia or Travelocity if he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, but its interesting to note that he starts on a particular site because of how it looks and how the information is presented.

All things being equal, good design is a key differentiator that will help your site stand out from the crowd. It shouldn’t be given short shrift.

One important rule we try to follow @ Pemaquid is to always have 3-4 Sharpies and tall stacks of blank paper when meeting w/a Client to review design comps.

It’s the easiest way to sketch out your design thoughts visually. It’s faster than using a whiteboard, and it’s much easier to sketch out ajax or design interactions with Clients – especially those who aren’t particularly Web-savvy – than it is to try to explain it to them verbally.

Scanning through Cameron Moll’s book Mobile Web Design, and he points out the difference between Art and Design:

…what separates design from art is that design ‘is meant to be functional’.

I couldn’t agree more. The graphical, visual look of a Web site, in order to succeed, must serve to make the site useful.