Leaving Pixels Behind – a very useful presentation by Todd Parker explaining how to use SVG graphics on the web
Category: web design
I’m not really a fan of CAPTCHAs as all too often they’re inaccessible to disabled users, but I must admit to being impressed by the ingenuity of reCAPTCHA. They provide plugins for most popular web software for you to use as you would normally, but the twist is that each correctly supplied word helps to digitise books by using human input to convert the scanned type; a task that people are good at but computers find difficult. Clever!
best uses of Flash, covering the search considerations designers should think about when building a Flash-heavy site.
Josiah Cole has an excellent rant over what NOT to do when building a website. He’s bang-on for the most part, though I’ll contest no. 6 in that, rather than print designers specifically, he should really be having a go at people who blatantly don’t know what they’re doing but think that they do. While everyone has to start somewhere, and “winging it” a little is part of life, were the individuals he describes to show some humility and admit to not knowing it all, they’d go a long way to convincing people that they’re not assholes.
I’ll add a couple (of tongue-in-cheek digs) to his list:
- Don’t require users to log in to post comments. If they’re first time visitors and have something to say, any barriers to them saying it will mean they stay silent. And if you do insist on logins, implementing OpenID is as good a compromise as any.
- Following up on the “you’re vs. your” common misspellings point, don’t mix up “here and hear”. (See the copy in point 6.)