OMG, this Cuteoverload post is incredibly cute – video of two otters floating around while napping and holding hands! The end of the video is the best!

Or, some of what I learned at An Event Apart Boston

(some of this I already knew, unfortunately)

General

• Words are important, content is the meat of most web sites
• Text should be concise and to the point, scannable, not bulky
• Should reflect the brand or flavor of your site, speak to YOUR audience
• Consice, meaningful tagline
• Instruction should be simple and clear
• Get the point across in fewer words

Inspiration

• Look at some of the many CSS galleries
• Keep morgue files (a collection of photos or objects that inspire you, you may also want a collection for a specific client or project)

Usability

• Make things clear, the user should get it right away
• Test with about 3 people and test often
• Your test users don’t have to be targeted, they can essentially be anyone
• Recruit friends or friends of friends, buy them lunch or give them a gift certificate
• Fix the biggest problems first, tackle the rest if you have time

Accessibility

• Label items with straight forward meaningful text (especially important for javascript items where titles aren’t likely to show up)
  • What’s this object called?
  • What does it do?
  • What are it’s settings?
• Think about how a screenreader might see the site, get a program if you can (Camtasia, Morae, CamStudio)
  • Particularly tabs and other links that change things on the page without reloading
  • It may help to put a title before a section and give it a margin-left: -999em; so that screen readers will pick it up but other users won’t
• Test your site for color blindness – Colorblind Web Page Filter

Testing

• When you have a layout complete, remove the images and see if the text stands on its own
• Grayscale the design and blur it to see where the focus lies
• Create a style sheet just for testing. To make sure your images and anchor tags are accessible:
  • Put borders on images, and not on images with alt tags
    img {
    border: 5px solid red;}
    img[alt] {
    border-style: none !important;}
  • Put borders on anchor tags, and not on anchor tags with titles (same as above)
• Run HTML and CSS validators
• Turn off images, css, js (one at a time) and make sure your site is still usable
• Increase and decrease the browser’s font size
• Look at your site using another language (with a web translator)
• Firefox has a great add-on for achieving some of these things – the Developer’s Toolbar

Web Standards

• By using standards and semantic markup we’re preparing our sites for future developers and future changes
• Standards are easy, you just need to start using them
• Use Microformats, it’s easy and forward-thinking

CSS

• Many IE6 bugs have been fixed with IE7, but there will always be some more
• Use Dean Edwards script to bring IE6 up to par with the rest of the web – insert conditionally based on browser
• Create a separate CSS file for your browser specific hacks – insert conditionally
  <!–[if ie6]>
  <link rel=”stylesheet” type= “text/css” href=”ie6fixes.css” media= “all” />
  <![endif]–>

Clientelle

• Choose good clients, don’t accept a crap job just because you need the money – it will be hell and you’ll hate yourself for it
• Build trust, your the professional, show them that you know what you’re talking about
• Put the plans and process in writing, constantly reiterate the plans, follow up meetings with an email summarizing the discussion
• Sell ideas, not pixels – your designs should have meaning and convey a certain message/brand
• Criticism can be harsh or nonexistent, ask questions to derive what the client really wants and repeat what they’re saying back to them in your own words

I recently came across this butterfly in some other context and then did a search on flickr where I found tons of wonderful photos. It’s called a Glasswing and it is gorgeous. Who’d of thought!?

My dad and half-brother, Keith, came to visit this past weekend. My first guests since I moved to the Bay Area (two years ago this month!). They flew up from Houston, Texas and stayed a couple of days, from Friday to Tuesday.

Friday we just hung out in San Mateo. I showed them how close we are to the bay (about three blocks) and how awesome the view is. That night we ate the best sushi ever at Yuzu (dad and Keith agreed).

On Saturday we attempted to go to the beach (south of Half Moon Bay), but it was foggy and freezing. The beaches here aren’t sunny and warm like most people imagine. Sometimes it’s nice, but that’s rare in my experience. That night we hung out in North Beach and ate some yummy Italian food at Caffe Sport. Keith said it was the best he’d ever had outside of his grandmother’s cooking. That neighborhood was packed with people celebrating St. Patrick’s day so we headed over to the Thirsty Bear for drinks after dinner.

Sunday we spent the day touring three wineries in Napa. We started off with an awesome small winery called Goosecross. The pourers were sassy and gave us lots of shit, which is just what we wanted. And the wine was wonderful – I think we took home 3 different bottles. We went up in scale from there, going to Miner and then Trinchero (which is located where Folie à Deux used to be). We finished up the trip with dinner at the Rutherford Grill where I had a delicious Hawaiian Rib Eye – it was so good, I wouldn’t mind eating that every night from now on!

Then on Monday we sent dad and Keith off for a tour of Alcatraz (Steve and I had already been twice, and that’s more than enough). While they were exploring prison life Steve and I hung out in North Beach with Joe and ate lunch at Caffe Delucchi (very good stuff). After that we all indulged in some cheese and wine at the Ferry Building, then headed home where Steve cooked yummy etouffe.

Tuesday they headed home on a flight that was late. Seems like every flight I’ve encountered recently is late. I think we all had a good time, at least they said so anyway. One of the nice things about having visitors is that it’s like a mini-vacation. I get to see friends or family and explore the goodies that San Francisco has to offer. Can’t beat that!

I recently worked on a couple of illustrations for an Aquafina Alive ad. The subject matter in each piece is a fountain with active people around and there are three colors or flavors. The concept was to add water to the ad and the colors would reveal the painting. You can see it in full effect on the Aquafina site, just click on the ad on their front page. My portfolio also has screen shots of the ad.

This photo was chosen for flickrcombat.com – woo hoo!

And stop asking for it. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen contests or Craigslist postings asking for an art submission. What I think most artists don’t realize is that submitting work to these types of things is giving your work away for FREE. It degrades the worth of your work and leads people to believe that they can get the free work by setting up a project in this way.

Here’s an article that goes into depth about this, and why an artist shouldn’t give away the goods.

I realize that I did some free work for the Vormator project, but in my defense I was really intrigued by the concept. And I won’t be doing any free work in the future. Stand up for your rights as an artist and raise the graphic design/illustration profession to a higher level. Pass the article on to your artistic friends.

We just launched some funny t-shirts on the Alexa web site using the Zazzle API. They’re customizable with your Alexa site rank or daily reach percentage. I’m definitely going to get one of the “My site rocks!” t-shirts. Check out the tees here.

I’m pretty sure I may have mentioned my commute before, and how much it sucks. I would take 101 to 380 to 280 up 19th Ave into the Presidio. It would take at least 45 to 65 minutes. Half of it was highway and half surface streets. 101 was always packed and slow, much worse on the way home than in the morning. And 19th was all stop and go, three lanes with no left turns, 25 – 35 mph. Needless to say, this was a very stressful commute. On the motorcycle it would take 35 minutes tops, but I can’t ride everyday, especially if it’s raining.

So I decided to look at the map and see if (on the way home anyway) I could just stay on 280 and exit at some point parallel to my house. I found such an exit, and boy is it a doozy. There is a reason people don’t take that route. The roads are twisty and turny and the signs are very confusing. I had to turn around twice the first time I did it. And the speed limit is 25 or 30 most of the way. But, it’s not heavy, nasty 101 traffic, so I love it. The winding roads will be nice on the bike too.

Then this past weekend we were chatting with our cab driver while crossing the city and he recommended an alternative path for the last half of my commute. Instead of going from 280 to crappy 19th, he suggested this beautiful route beside the ocean that takes me up into the Presidio. I tried it on Monday and it was FABULOUS. There is light traffic and the speed limit is 30, but it moves and that’s what’s important.

I cannot even express how wonderful this new route is. I see waves on my way to and from work now! Between this and the new exit I discovered, I have a completely stress free commute (set aside the slow person I get stuck behind now and then). And I haven’t added any time to it. On average I think it takes 45 to 50 minutes! Thank you so much Mr. Cab Driver, you made my year!

The photo above leads to a photo set with a few snap shots of my new and wonderful route.

I was surprised and happy to see that my site has been saved on Delicious by 5 people – that’s not a lot, but I am still very proud of it