Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Usability Expert Gerry McGovern on the importance of good names for links

Usability expert Gerry McGovern about some of the most persistent usability issues on the web, including confusing content, link names, and labels. Here he talks about some work he is doing to research and enhance the online experience for partners and resellers who use Cisco.com.


Wednesday, November 18, 2009

54 Cool Examples of Custom Error 404 Pages

If you have a broken link on your site or the pages, which don’t exist any longer, have moved to a new server or have never existed at all, visitors will get an internal error message from the server. However, by default these messages aren’t that helpful. By Yugu

Cool Examples of Custom Error 404 Pages

18 Impressive Web Form Validation Scripts to Enhance User Experience

Forms are such a common element on the Internet we tend to blunder through them without too much thought. By Dzineblog

jQuery for Designers - Ajax Form Validation Example

The Best Photoshop Tutorials of 2009

Here are some very good Photoshop tutorials of 2009. By Henry Jones

<Photo Manipulation

Call to Action Buttons: Examples and Best Practices

Call to action in web design — and in user experience (UX) in particular — is a term used for elements in a web page that solicit an action from the user. The most popular manifestation of call to action in web interfaces comes in the form of clickable buttons that when clicked, perform an action (e.g. "Buy this now!") or lead to a web page with additional information (e.g. "Learn more…") that asks the user to take action. By Jacob Gube

Picsengine Placement Centered in Call to Action Buttons: Examples and Best Practices

Designing CSS Buttons: Techniques and Resources

Buttons, whatever their purpose, are important design elements. They could be the end point of a Web form or a call to action. Designers have many reasons to style buttons, including to make them more attractive and to enhance usability. By Janko Jovanovic

Screenshot

Retro Colors

Design Log of Ayaka ito

Retro colors are a great way to give your website an older/vintage feel; it can give your design a little something different from the regular fully saturated colors that you see often in modern-themed designs. By Tyler Denis

Useful Tips Every Web Designer Should Know About SEO

In the process of developing a web site, there are many professional profiles that work on it, one of these is the SEO profile (Search Engine Optimization). If you are working in a web agency, usually there’s a professional profile that works only on search engine optimization, giving you the freedom to work with image editing, (x)html and css. But if you are a freelance, then you should spare money and do this your self. By Antonio Fullone

The Unwritten Rules of Web Design

In the relative short time that websites have been around, compared to other media, much has been learnt about web design. There aren’t any ‘rules’ beyond web standards and even then, they’re only guidelines. By Tom Kenny

print

10 Definitive Tips for Writing Captivating Emails

A can of Spam

Emails are a great way to reach people, to keep reminding them that your site still exists and that they really should keep checking you out. By Six Revisions.

50 Impressive Magazine and Newspaper Styled Web Designs

It is wrong to define the magazine style in web design as magazine style (does that make sense?). It should have, perhaps, been called newspaper or tabloid styled, it does have that look and feel.
By Speckyboy

Magazine Web Design Styles

Web Typography

There are many books and articles on typography, but considerably few explore typeface selection and pairing. By Jason Santa Maria

60 Trendy Web Design Interfaces

Some very interesting web design interfaces. By Dainis Graveris

Top 5 Ranking Factors

Here are some ranking factors to take into consideration when thinking of SEO strategies.

Mockingbird

Mockingbird is an online tool that makes it easy for you to create, link together, preview, and share mockups of your website or application.

Mockingbird screenshot

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Minimal and Modern Layout: PSD to XHTML/CSS Conversion

In this web design tutorial, you’ll see a process for converting a Photoshop mockup to working HTML/CSS template. By Richard Carpenter

Minimal and Modern Layout: PSD to XHTML/CSS Conversion

How do Web Design and Development Companies find their Clients?

Toni Anicic shares with use some simple steps to help find more clients for you or your company.

The Best Free Fonts of 2009

As this year comes to a close, we can look back and see that 2009 was a big year for typography. By Henry Jones

Web Design Trends for 2010

With a new year on the horizon, it’s time to pack away the old, worn web designs and prepare for the brave, new face of tomorrow. By Jacqueline Thomas

You Can Get There From Here: Websites for Learners

"Content-rich" is not enough. Most websites are not learner-friendly. As an industry, we haven’t done our best to make our content-rich websites suitable for learning and exploration. Learners require more from us than keywords and killer headlines. They need an environment that is narrative, interactive, and discoverable. By Amber Simmons

Can You Say That in English? Explaining UX Research to Clients

The new business meeting was going swimmingly—that is, until the client started asking questions about our design process. Then we unleashed our lexicon of specialized user experience (UX) research terminology. By David Sherwin

Can You Say That in English? Explaining UX Research to Clients

CNN’s New Website Design Deconstructed

On Monday, October 26, CNN.com introduced a new website design, making a number of major changes to their information-heavy layout. By Webdesigner Depot

CNN.com new home page

* 25 Jun 10 Tools to Improve Your Site’s Usability on a Low Budget

Testing the usability of your site is one of the smartest things you can do. Usability involves making a website’s interface easier to use and simpler to understand, so that the user’s experience is as enjoyable as possible. By Webdesigner Depot

userfly_site

Best Practices for 6 Common User Interface Elements

The appearance and usability of certain interface elements and functionality are crucial to the success any websites in today’s market. By Webdesigner Depot

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

WebSort

WebSort lets you to conduct remote card sorting online. Create a study, send a link to participants, and analyze the results – all through a simple web-based interface.

create a card sort

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Generating web traffic on a small budget

Search gurus' tips for landing big traffic on a small budget; how Web designers can retain their edge over simple publishing tools. By Ask Business 2.0

Monday, November 02, 2009

The Ails Of Typographic Anti-Aliasing

As printed typography enjoys the fruits of high-DPI glory, proudly displaying its beautiful curves and subtleties, its on-screen counterpart remains stifled by bulky pixels, living in a world of jagged edges, distorted letterforms and trimmed serifs. By Thomas Giannattasio

Experience Themes

How a storytelling method can help unify teams and create better products. By Cindy Chastain

experience strategy

How to Get Your Ideas Across to Clients

We know all too well the common and frustrating design scenarios clients present us with, such as wanting us to stretch images disproportionally, cramming as much information as possible in a small space so that you need a magnifying glass to read the text, or brushing off design best practices. By Fatima Mekkaoui

80 Examples of Add to Cart Buttons for Design Inspiration

The primary task of an online shop is to get the user to purchase something. By Sergej Muller

William Turner

Android Icons

Android Icons is a set of 30 free vector icons that are originally developed to be used for Android applications but all are also great for websites.

They come in transparent PNG + EPS formats and can be freely used in personal/commercial projects. By WebResources Depot

Android Icons

The Myth of Usability Testing

In 1998, usability expert Rolf Molich (co-inventor with Jakob Nielsen of the heuristic evaluation method) gave nine teams three weeks to evaluate the webmail application www.hotmail.com. By Robert Hoekman Jr.