{"rowid": 230, "title": "The Articulate Web Designer of Tomorrow", "contents": "You could say that we design to communicate, and that we seek emotive responses. It sounds straightforward, and it can be, but leaving it to chance isn\u2019t wise. Many wander into web design without formal training, and whilst that certainly isn\u2019t essential, we owe it to ourselves to draw on wider influences, learn from the past, and think smarter.\n\nWhat knowledge can we ourselves explore in order to become better designers? In addition, how can we take this knowledge, investigate it through our unique discipline, and in turn speak more eloquently about what we do on the web? Below, I outline a number of things that I personally believe all designers should be using and exploring collectively.\n\nTaking stock\n\nWhere we\u2019re at is good. Finding clarity through web standards, we\u2019ve ended up quite modernist in our approach, pursuing function, elegance and reduction. However, we\u2019re not great at articulating our own design processes and principles to outsiders. Equally, we rely heavily on our instincts when deciding if something is or isn\u2019t good. That\u2019s fine, but we can better understand why things are the way they are by looking a little deeper, thereby helping us articulate what goes on in our design brains to our peers, our clients and to normal humans.\n\nAs designers we use ideas, concepts, text and images. We apply our ideas and experience, imposing order and structure to content, hoping to ease the communication of an idea to the largest possible audience or to a specific audience. We consciously manipulate most of what is available to us, but not all. There is something else we can use. I often think that brilliant work demands a keen understanding of the magical visual language that informs design.\n\nEmbracing an established visual language\n\nThis is a language whose alphabet is shapes, structures, colours, lines and rhythms. When effective, it is somewhat invisible, subliminally enforcing messages and evoking meaning, using methods solidly rooted in a grammar perceptible in virtually all extraordinary creative work. The syntax for art, architecture, film, and furniture, industrial and graphic design (think Bauhaus and the Swiss style perhaps), this language urges us to become fluent if we aim for a more powerful dialogue with our audience.\n\n Figure 1: Structures (clockwise from top-left): Informal; Formal; Active; Visible.\n\nThe greatest creative minds our world has produced could understand some or all of this language. Line and point, form and shape. Abstract objects. Formal and informal structures. Visual distribution. Balance, composition and the multitudinous approaches to symmetry. Patterns and texture. Movement and paths. Repetition, rhythm and frequency. Colour theory. Whitespace and the pause. The list goes on.\n\nThe genius we perceive in our creative heroes is often a composite of experience, trial and error, conviction, intuition \u2013 even accident \u2013 but rarely does great work arise without an initial understanding of the nuts and bolts that help communicate an idea or emotion.\n\nOur world of interactivity\n\nAs web designers, our connection with this language is most evident in graphic design. With more technological ease and power comes the responsibility to understand, wisely use, and be able to justify many of our decisions. We have moved beyond the scope of print into a world of interactivity, but we shouldn\u2019t let go of any established principles without good reason.\n\n Figure 2: Understanding movement of objects in any direction along a defined path.\n\nFor example, immersion in this visual language can improve our implementation of CSS3 and JavaScript behaviour. With CSS3, we\u2019ve seen a resurgence in CSS experimentation, some of which has been wonderful, but much of it has appeared clumsy. In the race to make something spin, twist, flip or fly from one corner to another, the designer sometimes fails to think about the true movement they seek to emulate. What forces are supposedly affecting this movement? What is the expected path of this transition and is it being respected?\n\nStopping to think about what is really supposed to be happening on the page compels us to use complex animations, diagrams and rotations more carefully. It helps us to better understand paths and movement.\n\n Figure 3: Repetition can occur through variations in colour, shape, direction, and so on.\n\nIt can only be of greater benefit to be mindful of symmetries, depth, affordance, juxtaposition, balance, economy and reduction. A deeper understanding of basic structures can help us to say more with sketches, wireframes, layouts and composition. We\u2019ve all experimented with grids and rhythm but, to truly benefit from these long-established principles, we are duty-bound to understand their possibilities more than we will by simply leveraging a free framework or borrowing some CSS.\n\nDesign is not a science, but\u2026\n\nThreading through all of this is what we have learned from science, and what it teaches us of the human brain. This visual language matters because technology changes but, for the most part, people don\u2019t. For centuries, we humans have received and interpreted information in much the same way. Understanding more of how we perceive meaning can help designers make smarter decisions, and call on visual language to underpin these decisions. It is our responsibility as designers to be aware of mental models, mapping, semiotics, sensory experience and human emotion.\n\nDesign itself is not a science, but the appropriate use of visual language and scientific understanding exposes the line between effective and awkward, between communicative and mute. By strengthening our mental and analytical approach to what is often done arbitrarily or \u201cbecause it feels right\u201d, we simply become better designers.\n\nA visual language for the web\n\nSo, I\u2019ve outlined numerous starting points and areas worthy of deeper investigation, and hopefully you\u2019re eager to do some research. However, I\u2019ve mostly discussed established ideas and principles that we as web designers can learn from. It\u2019s my belief that our community has a shared responsibility to expand this visual language as it applies to the ebb and flow of the web. Indulge me as I conclude with a related tangent.\n\nIn defining a visual language specifically for the web, we must continue to mature. The old powerfully influences the new, but we must intelligently expand the visual language of masterful work and articulate what is uniquely ours.\n\nFor example, phrases like Ethan Marcotte\u2019s Responsive Web Design aren\u2019t merely elegant, they describe a new way of thinking and working, of communicating about designs and interaction patterns. These phrases broaden our vocabulary and are immediately adopted by designers worldwide, in both conversation and execution.\n\nOur legacy\n\nOur new definitions should flex and not be tied to specific devices or methods which fade away or morph with time. Our legacy is perhaps more about robust and flexible patterns and systems than it is about specific devices or programming languages.\n\n Figure 4: As web designers, we should think about systems, not pages.\n\nThe established principles we adopt and whatever new ways of thinking we define should slip neatly into a wider philosophy about our approach to web design. We\u2019re called, as a community, to define what is distinctive about the visual language of the web, create this vocabulary, this dialect that resonates with us and moves us forward as we tackle each day\u2019s work. Let\u2019s give it some thought.\n\nFurther reading\n\nThis is my immediate \u201cgo-to\u201d list of books that I bullishly believe all web designers should own, but there is so much more out there to read. Sadly, many great texts relating to this stuff are often out of print. Feel free to share your recommendations.\n\n\n\tDon Norman, The Design of Everyday Things\n\tChristian Leborg, Visual Grammar\n\tScott McCloud, Understanding Comics\n\tDavid Crow, Visible Signs\n\tWilliam Lidwell and Katrina Holden, Universal Principles of Design", "year": "2010", "author": "Simon Collison", "author_slug": "simoncollison", "published": "2010-12-16T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2010/the-articulate-web-designer-of-tomorrow/", "topic": "process"}
{"rowid": 267, "title": "Taming Complexity", "contents": "I\u2019m going to step into my UX trousers for this one. I wouldn\u2019t usually wear them in public, but it\u2019s Christmas, so there\u2019s nothing wrong with looking silly.\n\nAnyway, to business. Wherever I roam, I hear the familiar call for simplicity and the denouncement of complexity. I read often that the simpler something is, the more usable it will be. We understand that simple is hard to achieve, but we push for it nonetheless, convinced it will make what we build easier to use. Simple is better, right?\n\nWell, I\u2019ll try to explore that. Much of what follows will not be revelatory to some but, like all good lessons, I think this serves as a welcome reminder that as we live in a complex world it\u2019s OK to sometimes reflect that complexity in the products we build.\n\nMyths and legends\n\nLess is more, we\u2019ve been told, ever since master of poetic verse Robert Browning used the phrase in 1855. Well, I\u2019ve conducted some research, and it appears he knew nothing of web design. Neither did modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a later pedlar of this worthy yet contradictory notion. Broad is narrow. Tall is short. Eggs are chips. See: anyone can come up with this stuff.\n\nTo paraphrase Einstein, simple doesn\u2019t have to be simpler. In other words, simple doesn\u2019t dictate that we remove the complexity. Complex doesn\u2019t have to be confusing; it can be beautiful and elegant. On the web, complex can be necessary and powerful. A website that simplifies the lives of its users by offering them everything they need in one site or screen is powerful. For some, the greater the density of information, the more useful the site.\n\nIn our decision-making process, principles such as Occam\u2019s razor\u2019s_razor (in a nutshell: simple is better than complex) are useful, but simple is for the user to determine through their initial impression and subsequent engagement. What appears simple to me or you might appear very complex to someone else, based on their own mental model or needs. We can aim to deliver simple, but they\u2019ll be the judge.\n\nAs a designer, developer, content alchemist, user experience discombobulator, or whatever you call yourself, you\u2019re often wrestling with a wealth of material, a huge number of features, and numerous objectives. In many cases, much of that stuff is extraneous, and goes in the dustbin. However, it can be just as likely that there\u2019s a truckload of suggested features and content because it all needs to be there. Don\u2019t be afraid of that weight.\n\nIn the right hands, less can indeed mean more, but it\u2019s just as likely that less can very often lead to, well\u2026 less.\n\nComplexity is powerful\n\nSimple is the ability to offer a powerful experience without overwhelming the audience or inducing information anxiety. Giving them everything they need, without having them ferret off all over a site to get things done, is important.\n\nIt\u2019s useful to ask throughout a site\u2019s lifespan, \u201cdoes the user have everything they need?\u201d It\u2019s so easy to let our designer egos get in the way and chop stuff out, reduce down to only the things we want to see. That benefits us in the short term, but compromises the audience long-term.\n\nThe trick is not to be afraid of complexity in itself, but to avoid creating the perception of complexity. Give a user a flight simulator and they\u2019ll crash the plane or jump out. Give them everything they need and more, but make it feel simple, and you\u2019re building a relationship, empowering people.\n\nThis can be achieved carefully with what some call gradual engagement, and often the sensible thing might be to unleash complexity in carefully orchestrated phases, initially setting manageable levels of engagement and interaction, gradually increasing the inherent power of the product and fostering an empowered community.\n\nThe design aesthetic\n\nHere\u2019s a familiar scenario: the client or project lead gets overexcited and skips most of the important decision-making, instead barrelling straight into a bout of creative direction Tourette\u2019s. Visually, the design needs to be minimal, white, crisp, full of white space, have big buttons, and quite likely be \u201cclean\u201d. Of course, we all like our websites to be clean as that\u2019s more hygienic.\n\nBut what do these words even mean, really? Early in a project they\u2019re abstract distractions, unnecessary constraints. This premature narrowing forces us to think much more about throwing stuff out rather than acknowledging that what we\u2019re building is complex, and many of the components perhaps necessary.\n\nSimple is not a formula. It cannot be achieved just by using a white background, by throwing things away, or by breathing a bellowsful of air in between every element and having it all float around in space. Simple is not a design treatment. Simple is hard. Simple requires deep investigation, a thorough understanding of every aspect of a project, in line with the needs and expectations of the audience.\n\nRecognizing this helps us empathize a little more with those most vocal of UX practitioners. They usually appreciate that our successes depend on a thorough understanding of the user\u2019s mental models and expected outcomes. I personally still consider UX people to be web designers like the rest of us (mainly to wind them up), but they\u2019re web designers that design every decision, and by putting the user experience at the heart of their process, they have a greater chance of finding simplicity in complexity. The visual design aesthetic \u2014 the fa\u00e7ade \u2014 is only a part of that.\n\nDivide and conquer\n\nI\u2019m currently working on an app that\u2019s complex in architecture, and complex in ambition. We\u2019ll be releasing in carefully orchestrated private phases, gradually introducing more complexity in line with the unavoidably complex nature of the objective, but my job is to design the whole, the complete system as it will be when it\u2019s out of beta and beyond.\n\nI\u2019ve noticed that I\u2019m not throwing much out; most of it needs to be there. Therefore, my responsibility is to consider interesting and appropriate methods of navigation and bring everything together logically.\n\nI\u2019m using things like smart defaults, graphical timelines and colour keys to make sense of the complexity, techniques that are sympathetic to the content. They act as familiar points of navigation and reference, yet are malleable enough to change subtly to remain relevant to the information they connect. It\u2019s really OK to have a lot of stuff, so long as we make each component work smartly.\n\nIt\u2019s a divide and conquer approach. By finding simplicity and logic in each content bucket, I\u2019ve made more sense of the whole, allowing me to create key layouts where most of the simplified buckets are collated and sometimes combined, providing everything the user needs and expects in the appropriate places.\n\nI\u2019m also making sure I don\u2019t reduce the app\u2019s power. I need to reflect the scale of opportunity, and provide access to or knowledge of the more advanced tools and features for everyone: a window into what they can do and how they can help. I know it\u2019s the minority who will be actively building the content, but the power is in providing those opportunities for all.\n\nMuch of this will be familiar to the responsible practitioners who build websites for government, local authorities, utility companies, newspapers, magazines, banking, and we-sell-everything-ever-made online shops. Across the web, there are sites and tools that thrive on complexity.\n\nAlas, the majority of such sites have done little to make navigation intuitive, or empower audiences. Where we can make a difference is by striving to make our UIs feel simple, look wonderful, not intimidating \u2014 even if they\u2019re mind-meltingly complex behind that fa\u00e7ade.\n\nEmbrace, empathize and tame\n\nSo, there are loads of ways to exploit complexity, and make it seem simple. I\u2019ve hinted at some methods above, and we\u2019ve already looked at gradual engagement as a way to make sense of complexity, so that\u2019s a big thumbs-up for a release cycle that increases audience power.\n\nPrior to each and every release, it\u2019s also useful to rest on the finished thing for a while and use it yourself, even if you\u2019re itching to release. \u2018Ready\u2019 often isn\u2019t, and \u2018finished\u2019 never is, and the more time you spend browsing around the sites you build, the more you learn what to question, where to add, or subtract. It\u2019s definitely worth building in some contingency time for sitting on your work, so to speak.\n\nOne thing I always do is squint at my layouts. By squinting, I get a sort of abstract idea of the overall composition, and general feel for the thing. It makes my face look stupid, but helps me see how various buckets fit together, and how simple or complex the site feels overall.\n\nI mentioned the need to put our design egos to one side and not throw out anything useful, and I think that\u2019s vital. I\u2019m a big believer in economy, reduction, and removing the extraneous, but I\u2019m usually referring to decoration, bells and whistles, and fluff. I wouldn\u2019t ever advocate the complete removal of powerful content from a project roadmap.\n\nAbove all, don\u2019t fear complexity. Embrace and tame it. Work hard to empathize with audience needs, and you can create elegant, playful, risky, surprising, emotive, delightful, and ultimately simple things.", "year": "2011", "author": "Simon Collison", "author_slug": "simoncollison", "published": "2011-12-21T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2011/taming-complexity/", "topic": "ux"}
{"rowid": 328, "title": "Swooshy Curly Quotes Without Images", "contents": "The problem\n\nTake a quote and render it within blockquote tags, applying big, funky and stylish curly quotes both at the beginning and the end without using any images \u2013 at all.\n\nThe traditional way\n\nFeint background images under the text, or an image in the markup housed in a little float. Often designers only use the opening curly quote as it\u2019s just too difficult to float a closing one.\n\nWhy is the traditional way bad?\n\nWell, for a start there are no actual curly quotes in the text (unless you\u2019re doing some nifty image replacement). Thus with CSS disabled you\u2019ll only have default blockquote styling to fall back on. Secondly, images don\u2019t resize, so scaling text will have no affect on your graphic curlies.\n\nThe solution\n\nUse really big text. Then it can be resized by the browser, resized using CSS, and even be restyled with a new font style if you fancy it. It\u2019ll also make sense when CSS is unavailable.\n\nThe problem\n\nCreating \u201cDrop Caps\u201d with CSS has been around for a while (Big Dan Cederholm discusses a neat solution in that first book of his), but drop caps are normal characters \u2013 the A to Z or 1 to 10 \u2013 and these can all be pulled into a set space and do not serve up a ton of whitespace, unlike punctuation characters.\n\nCurly quotes aren\u2019t like traditional characters. Like full stops, commas and hashes they float within the character space and leave lots of dead white space, making it bloody difficult to manipulate them with CSS. Styles generally fit around text, so cutting into that character is tricky indeed. Also, all that extra white space is going to push into the quote text and make it look pretty uneven. This grab highlights the actual character space:\n\n\n\nSee how this is emphasized when we add a normal alphabetical character within the span. This is what we\u2019re dealing with here:\n\n\n\nThen, there\u2019s size. Call in a curly quote at less than 300% font-size and it ain\u2019t gonna look very big. The white space it creates will be big enough, but the curlies will be way too small. We need more like 700% (as in this example) to make an impression, but that sure makes for a big character space.\n\nPrepare the curlies\n\nFirstly, remove the opening \u201c from the quote. Replace it with the opening curly quote character entity \u201c. Then replace the closing \u201c with the entity reference for that, which is \u201d. Now at least the curlies will look nice and swooshy.\n\nAdd the hooks\n\nTwo reasons why we aren\u2019t using :first-letter pseudo class to manipulate the curlies. Firstly, only CSS2-friendly browsers would get what we\u2019re doing, and secondly we need to affect the last \u201cletter\u201d of our text also \u2013 the closing curly quote.\n\nSo, add a span around the opening curly, and a second span around the closing curly, giving complete control of the characters:\n\n<blockquote><span class=\"bqstart\">\u201c</span>Speech marks. Curly quotes. That annoying thing cool people do with their fingers to emphasize a buzzword, shortly before you hit them.<span class=\"bqend\">\u201d</span></blockquote>\n\nSo far nothing will look any different, aside form the curlies looking a bit nicer. I know we\u2019ve just added extra markup, but the benefits as far as accessibility are concerned are good enough for me, and of course there are no images to download.\n\nThe CSS\n\nOK, easy stuff first. Our first rule .bqstart floats the span left, changes the color, and whacks the font-size up to an exuberant 700%. Our second rule .bqend does the same tricks aside from floating the curly to the right.\n\n.bqstart {\n     float: left;\n     font-size: 700%;\n     color: #FF0000;\n }\n\n .bqend {\n     float: right;\n     font-size: 700%;\n     color: #FF0000;\n }\n\nThat gives us this, which is rubbish. I\u2019ve highlighted the actual span area with outlines:\n\n\n\nNote that the curlies don\u2019t even fit inside the span! At this stage on IE 6 PC you won\u2019t even see the quotes, as it only places focus on what it thinks is in the div. Also, the quote text is getting all spangled.\n\nFiddle with margin and padding\n\nThink of that span outline box as a window, and that you need to position the curlies within that window in order to see them. By adding some small adjustments to the margin and padding it\u2019s possible to position the curlies exactly where you want them, and remove the excess white space by defining a height:\n\n.bqstart {\n     float: left;\n     height: 45px;\n     margin-top: -20px;\n     padding-top: 45px;\n     margin-bottom: -50px;\n     font-size: 700%;\n     color: #FF0000;\n }\n\n .bqend {\n     float: right;\n     height: 25px;\n     margin-top: 0px;\n     padding-top: 45px;\n     font-size: 700%;\n     color: #FF0000;\n }\n\nI wanted the blocks of my curlies to align with the quote text, whereas you may want them to dig in or stick out more. Be aware however that my positioning works for IE PC and Mac, Firefox and Safari. Too much tweaking seems to break the magic in various browsers at various times. Now things are fitting beautifully:\n\nI must admit that the heights, margins and spacing don\u2019t make a lot of sense if you analyze them. This was a real trial and error job. Get it working on Safari, and IE would fail. Sort IE, and Firefox would go weird.\n\nFinished\n\nThe final thing looks ace, can be resized, looks cool without styles, and can be edited with CSS at any time. Here\u2019s a real example (note that I\u2019m specifying Lucida Grande and then Verdana for my curlies):\n\n \u201cSpeech marks. Curly quotes. That annoying thing cool people do with their fingers to emphasize a buzzword, shortly before you hit them.\u201d\n\nBrowsers happy\n\nAs I said, too much tweaking of margins and padding can break the effect in some browsers. Even now, Firefox insists on dropping the closing curly by approximately 6 or 7 pixels, and if I adjust the padding for that, it\u2019ll crush it into the text on Safari or IE. Weird. Still, as I close now it seems solid through resizing tests on Safari, Firefox, Camino, Opera and IE PC and Mac. Lovely.\n\nIt\u2019s probably not perfect, but together we can beat the evil typographic limitations of the web and walk together towards a brighter, more aligned world. Merry Christmas.", "year": "2005", "author": "Simon Collison", "author_slug": "simoncollison", "published": "2005-12-21T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2005/swooshy-curly-quotes-without-images/", "topic": "business"}