jQuery: Novice to Ninja from Sitepoint

Posted in Books JavaScript on 11 March 2010 | Comments [1]

I am reading a new jQuery book from Sitepoint at the moment. It’s called jQuery: Novice to Ninja and it promises to take you from beginner to expert. If you have copied and pasted jQuery code up to now without thinking or knowing how it works, this book could be for you! The book covers a whole range of examples so it’s also very good for intermediates. I have used some of the code from the first chapters already!

The book weighs in at just over 400 pages and is divided into nine chapters that start with the basics of jQuery, and its use for selecting, decorating and enhancing your HTML, and moving on to chapters about, for example, animations, images and slideshows, menus, tabs, and tooltips, and Ajax. The book also includes a final chapter on creating a jQuery plugin and advanced methods for extending jQuery.

I’ll post a more in depth review when I have read through the whole book.

Downloads: Get sample chapters from JQuery Novice to Ninja with this free download • The code archive from the book is also available.

Websites with left and right arrow keyboard navigation

Posted in JavaScript Web design on 5 March 2010 | Comments [2]

Over the last week or so I have come across several websites that allow users to navigate using the left and right arrow keys. I think this is an interesting approach and I really like this method of navigating a website. Perhaps it’s just me but I like using keyboard shortcuts (because they seem to allow me to do things faster) …. so it’s interesting to see websites using the left and right keys in this way. Here are the website examples I have spotted that use this method.

• Crush + Lovely. This is a fantastic design and the left and right keys enable you to scroll between the various content sections. Try it and see!
• Pictory is a photo story website and it uses left and right keyboard navigation in a similar way.
• Thinking for a Living uses left and right keys for horizontal scrolling between sections/pages.
• OnSugar uses a left-right arrow key method to navigate between images in a gallery.

There is an adding keyboard navigation tutorial at jQuery for Designers which explains how a similar effect is achieved with an image slider. The jQuery Tools website has Scrollable which enables a content slider to be navigated with left-right keys.

There may be disadvantages to this method but I’m keen to find out more about it so if you know of other websites that use this approach, let me know.

The La La Card Company website

Posted in Portfolio Ecommerce on 2 March 2010 | Comments

Here’s a little plug for an ecommerce website that we launched recently. The La La Card Company sells decoupage card kits, single card kits and other card-making items for download.

The design was created from Photoshop images provided by the client and we used SugarSync to share a folder between us. SugarSync is a back-up and synchonisation tool but you can also use it to share folders with someone else. It worked really well.

For this project, we built a demo product listing page on a testing server so that the client could see how the product might be displayed. This work was paid for by the client but it served to highlight a number of issues that were addressed in the website itself. I will probably do this with other clients if there are questions that cannot be answered before an ecommerce project starts.

Now that the The La La Card Company has been launched, we may not be doing as much work with it but I think it’s important to say that an ecommerce website (or any website for that matter) is never actually finished. There are always items that can be added or pages to be tweaked and the shop software can be updated. In fact, most websites would benefit from a continual programme of improvements but often this is not done. If you are a small business with a website that has been static (ahem) for a while, I would urge you to consider allocating someone from your company to update the website or get someone on board to carry out a maintenance programme even if it’s only for an hour or two every month. After all, you wouldn’t ignore other parts of your business would you?

Should I use web templates and themes?

Posted in Web design on 23 February 2010 | Comments [1]

One thing that I have been pondering recently is whether to use web templates or (WordPress) themes more regularly in web design projects. Yes, you might view this as a cop-out or some indication of lack of creativity. On the other hand, if you want to jump-start a website design and get straight into the front-end build CSS and HTML, perhaps a theme/template is a good starting point?

Whilst I was thinking on this, imagine my surprise (perhaps surprise is too strong a word but you get the idea) when Sabrina Dent, a designer whose work I have often admired, wrote this blog post called Confessions of a Template Whore where she outlines some of the advantages of using templates. One of the main reasons cited is for clients who don’t have a large budget. Hey, I get that all the time!

In my experience, a client is rarely satisfied with a template off-the-shelf and customisation will always be required. However, when a template or theme ticks most of the boxes, customisation becomes easier than starting from scratch. In addition, you can always learn from the way that another designer does things. Just because you always float a specific element does not mean that is the only way of doing it!

Now, I’m not saying you just choose any old template here. The client’s objectives, budget, and type of business will all influence your choice of theme. You might decide to spend quite some time at the start of the website design process choosing one or more themes or templates. Although a template can be a quick start for your web design process, don’t rush the template selection process. I like to look at a variety of themes and assess which might be best.

So, what’s your take on this? Are templates bad for web design or are they a smart way of getting the basic structure and design established quickly, with client customisation to follow?

Related: ThemeForest has some high quality templates and themes.

How to work with an old logo

Posted in Web design on 17 February 2010 | Comments [2]

Here’s the story: Not so long ago, I was asked to redesign a client’s website that, to be frank, was long past its sell-by date. Great! An exciting new project and I was looking forward to it! Unfortunately, there was some ‘baggage’ with the job, namely the client’s logo. Without going into detail, it needed a redesign as well but this was not within the project scope. So, how should I work with the logo? Here are some options that I explored:

• Use high quality images in combination with the logo. Professional stock photography, as long as it is not too clichéd, can enhance an older logo. A montage effect, although not very original, can confer an attractive surrounding or background for the logo.
• Modify part of the logo to minimise its effect. Perhaps there is an element of the logo that can be removed to improve the overall look without detracting from the company’s identity?
• Make the logo a smaller part of the overall design.
• Add an attractive background colour or image to the element that contains the logo.

In an ideal world, none of these options would need to be considered because a logo redesign would be part of the website work… but small company web design isn’t always like that.

What have you done when faced with this situation? There may be better options than mine. Let me know if you have other suggestions.