Presenting the ALA Summer time Studying Subject—our favourite articles from 355 problems with A Checklist Aside.
Article Continues Under
Philosophy of Internet Design#section2
A Dao of Internet Design by John Allsopp#section3
ALA 58: April seventh, 2000
Over 11 years after publication John Allsopp’s piece on internet philosophy nonetheless resonates. Internet designers usually bemoan the malleable nature of the net, which appears to defy our efforts at strict management over format and typography. However possibly the issue will not be the net. Perhaps the issue is us. John Allsopp appears at internet design by way of the prism of the Tao Te Ching, and decides that designers ought to let the net be the net. An article twelve years forward of its time, whose knowledge continues to light up the trail ahead. —Ed.
Understanding Internet Design by Jeffrey Zeldman#section4
ALA 249: November twentieth, 2007
We’ll have higher internet design once we cease asking it to be one thing it’s not, and begin appreciating it for what it’s. It’s not print, not video, not a poster—and that’s not an issue. Discover out why cultural and enterprise leaders misunderstand internet design, and study which different varieties it most usefully resembles.
Good Designers Redesign, Nice Designers Realign by Cameron Moll#section5
ALA 206: October twenty fourth, 2005
The distinction between redesigns that make you look busy and provides your stakeholders one thing else to argue about, and strategic overhauls that reposition your model and provide help to set and attain enterprise targets. Nonetheless quoted in board conferences, and, extra importantly, nonetheless practiced, this name to arms modified how many people method tasks and perceive our job. —Ed.
Internet Requirements (Historic)#section6
To Hell with Dangerous Browsers by Jeffrey Zeldman#section7
ALA 99: February sixteenth, 2001
In a 12 months or two, all websites might be designed with requirements that separate construction from presentation (or they are going to be constructed with Flash 7). We are able to watch our abilities develop out of date, or begin studying standards-based methods. The truth is, for the reason that newest variations of IE, Navigator, and Opera already help many internet requirements, if we’re prepared to let go of the notion that backward compatibility is a advantage, we are able to cease making excuses and begin utilizing these requirements now. At ALA, starting with Subject No. 99, we’ve finished simply that. Be a part of us. The battle cry that led to trendy internet design. —Ed.
They Shoot Browsers, Don’t They? by Jeremy Keith#section8
ALA 253: February nineteenth, 2008
Model concentrating on will enable Microsoft to achieve new heights of requirements compliance the place CSS and (particularly) scripting are involved. However to learn from it, builders should explicitly choose in. That’s simply not proper, says Jeremy Keith. And it’s doomed to fail, as a result of standardistas, by their very nature, will refuse to choose in.
The place Our Requirements Went Flawed by Ethan Marcotte#section9
ALA 233: February twenty sixth, 2007
To validate or to not validate; that’s the query. Ethan Marcotte helps us to re-examine our method to requirements advocacy and the way we are able to higher educate our purchasers on the advantages of internet requirements.
Prefix or Posthack by Eric Meyer#section10
ALA 309: July sixth, 2010
Vendor prefixes: risk or menace? As browser help (together with in IE9) encourages extra of us to dive into CSS3, vendor prefixes reminiscent of -moz-border-radius and -webkit-animation could problem our consciences, together with our persistence. However whereas no one significantly enjoys writing the identical factor 4 or 5 instances in a row, prefixes may very well speed up the development and refinement of CSS. King of CSS Eric Meyer explains why.
Internet Requirements for E-books by Joe Clark#section11
ALA 302: March 9, 2010
E-books aren’t going to interchange books. E-books are books, merely with a unique type. Increasingly usually, that type is ePub, a format powered by commonplace XHTML. As such, ePub can profit from our almost ten years’ expertise constructing standards-compliant web sites. That’s nice information for publishers and standards-aware internet designers. Nice information for readers, too. Joe Clark explains the easy why and the way.
Responsive and Cell#section12
Fluid Grids by Ethan Marcotte#section13
ALA 279: March third, 2009
How superior would it not be in case you may mix the aesthetic rigor and readability of fixed-width, grid-based layouts with the device- and display measurement independence and user-focused flexibility of fluid layouts? Utterly superior, that’s how superior. And with just a little crafty and a tad of straightforward math, Ethan Marcotte will get it finished. We scent a pattern within the offing.
Responsive Internet Design by Ethan Marcotte#section14
ALA 306: Could twenty fifth, 2010
Designers have coveted print for its precision layouts, lamenting the various consumer contexts on the net that compromise their designs. Ethan Marcotte advocates we shift our design considering to applicable these constraints: utilizing fluid grids, versatile pictures, and media queries, he exhibits us easy methods to embrace the “ebb and move of issues” with responsive internet design. This little one of Allsop’s “Dao of Internet Design” has modified and continues to be altering our trade. —Ed.
Put Your Content material in My Pocket by Craig Hockenberry#section15
ALA 244: August twenty eighth, 2007
Craig Hockenberry affords detailed steering on tuning your web site for the nóng new cellphone, and making adjustments that may improve even non-iPhone-users’ expertise. The primary article on adjusting internet content material for a brand new class of smartphone, revealed one week after the iPhone debuted. —Ed.
Apps vs. The Internet by Craig Hockenberry#section16
ALA 312: August seventeenth, 2010
There’s an app for that, and also you’re the parents who’re creating it. However must you design a web-based software, or an iPhone app? Every method has pluses and minuses—to not point out legions of religiously rabid supporters. Apple promotes each approaches (they even gave the net a year-long head begin earlier than starting to promote apps within the retailer), and the iPhone’s Safari browser helps HTML5 and CSS3 and brags a quick JavaScript engine. But many corporations and people with deep internet experience select to create iPhone apps as a substitute of internet apps that may do the identical factor. Discover each approaches and study nearly all the pieces you’ll must know in case you select to create an iPhone app—from the lingo, to the event course of, to the tips that may clean the trail of doing enterprise with Apple.
Design and Structure (Historic)#section17
CSS Sprites: Picture Slicing’s Kiss of Loss of life by Dave Shea#section18
ALA 173: March fifth, 2004
Say goodbye to old-school slicing and dicing when creating picture maps, buttons, and navigation menus. As an alternative, say hey to a deceptively easy but highly effective sprite-based CSS answer. Nonetheless extensively practiced (and nonetheless superior), this highly effective answer changed quite a lot of useless JavaScript and Flash and helped pave the way in which for wider acceptance of standards-based design. —Ed.
Sliding Doorways of CSS by Doug Bowman#section19
ALA 160: October twentieth, 2003
Picture-driven, visually compelling consumer interfaces. Textual content-based, semantic markup. Now you possibly can have each! Douglas Bowman’s sliding doorways technique of CSS design affords refined graphics that squash and stretch whereas delivering significant XHTML textual content. Have your cake and eat it, too! Till CSS3 made it superfluous, this was the considering designer’s favourite approach to create these coveted rounded nook results. —Ed.
CSS at Ten by H¥kon Wium Lie#section21
ALA 244: August twenty eighth, 2007
Ten years in the past, H¥kon Wium Lie and Bert Bos gave us typographic management over internet pages by way of CSS. However Verdana and Georgia take us solely to date. Now H¥kon exhibits us easy methods to take internet design out of the typographic ghetto, by harnessing the ability of actual TrueType fonts. The A Checklist Aside article that birthed trendy internet fonts and internet font companies, e.g., Typekit. —Ed.
Actual Internet Sort in Actual Internet Context by Tim Brown#section22
ALA 296: November seventeenth, 2009
Internet fonts are right here. Now that browsers help actual fonts in internet pages and we are able to license full typefaces for such use, it’s time to assume pragmatically about easy methods to use actual fonts in our internet tasks. Above all, we have to understand how our kind renders in screens, in internet browsers. To that finish, Tim Brown has created Internet Font Specimen, a useful, free useful resource internet designers and sort designers can use to see how typefaces will look on the net.
On Internet Typography by Jason Santa Maria#section23
ALA 296: November seventeenth, 2009
Till now, chances are high that if we dropped textual content onto an online web page in a system font at an affordable measurement, it was legible. However with many typefaces about to be freed to be used on web sites, choosing the proper ones to enrich a web site’s design might be far more difficult. Many faces to which we’ll quickly have entry have been by no means meant for display use, both as a result of they’re aesthetically unsuitable or as a result of they’re simply plain illegible. Jason Santa Maria presents qualities and strategies to remember as we enterprise into the widening world of internet kind.
Extra Significant Typography by Tim Brown#section24
ALA 327: Could third, 2011
Designing with modular scales is one approach to make extra aware, significant decisions about measurement on the net. Modular scales work with—not in opposition to—responsive design and grids, present a smart different to basing our compositions on viewport limitations du jour, and assist us obtain a visible concord not present in compositions that use arbitrary, typical, or simply divisible numbers.
Orbital Content material by Cameron Koczon#section26
ALA 326: April nineteenth, 2011
Bookmarklet apps like Instapaper and Readability level to a future the place content material is not caught in web sites, however floats in orbit round customers. And we’re midway there. Content material shifting lets a consumer take content material from one context (e.g., your web site) to a different (e.g., Instapaper). Earlier than content material could be shifted, it have to be accurately recognized, uprooted from its supply, and tied to a consumer. However content material shifting, as highly effective as it’s, is just the start. Uncover what’s attainable when content material is liberated.
The Self-discipline of Content material Technique by Kristina Halvorson#section27
ALA 274: December sixteenth, 2008
It’s time to cease pretending content material is anyone else’s drawback. If content material technique is all that stands between us and the following fix-it-later copy draft or fantastically polished however meaningless web site launch, it’s time to take up the torch—time to make content material matter. Halvorson tells easy methods to perceive, study, follow, and plan for content material technique.
Studying Design by Dean Allen#section29
ALA 128: November twenty third, 2001
With so many specialists working so arduous at their craft, why are so many pages so arduous to learn? Unabashed textual content fanatic Dean Allen thinks designers would profit from approaching their work as being written reasonably than assembled.
In Protection of Readers by Mandy Brown#section30
ALA 278: February seventeenth, 2009
As internet designers, we concern ourselves with how customers transfer from web page to web page, however neglect the wants of these whose function is to be nonetheless. Be taught the design methods that create a psychological house for studying. Use typographic indicators to assist customers shift from trying to studying, from skimming alongside to concentrating. Restrict distractions; take note of the small print that make textual content readable; and contemplate chronology by offering transitions for every of the three phases of the net studying expertise.
Behavior Fields by Jack Cheng#section32
ALA 305: Could 4th, 2010
We’ve the ability to bestow our talents onto the issues round us. By being aware of our instruments, habits, and areas, and actively conditioning them to assist us behave the way in which we need to behave, possibly we are able to extra effectively faucet into the 1000’s of hours of artistic genius embedded in our on a regular basis objects. Perhaps we’ll have the ability to maximize the capabilities that new applied sciences afford us with out being overwhelmed by the distractions. And, simply possibly, we’ll bear in mind what it feels prefer to be totally engrossed in our each day work.
The Knowledge of Neighborhood by Derek Powazek#section34
ALA 283: Could fifth, 2009
The Knowledge of Crowds (WOC) concept doesn’t imply that individuals are good in teams—they’re not. Anybody who’s seen an indignant mob is aware of it. However crowds, offered with the best problem and the best interface, could be sensible. When it really works, the group is wiser, in actual fact, than any single participant.
Teaching a Neighborhood by Laura Brunow Miner#section35
ALA 280: March twenty fourth, 2009
A key to operating profitable “social networking websites” is to keep in mind that they’re simply communities. All communities, on-line or off, have one factor in widespread: members need to belong—to really feel like a part of one thing bigger than themselves. Speaking successfully, setting clear and particular expectations, mentoring contributors, taking part in with developments, providing rewards, and praising liberally (however not excessively) can harness your members’ innate wishes—and nurture nice content material within the course of.
From Little Issues by George Oates#section36
ALA 258: Could sixth, 2008
Q. What know-how do you must construct the following Flickr? A. Trick query. What you must construct the following Flickr is individuals. George Oates, a key member of the core staff that formed the Flickr neighborhood, shares classes that may provide help to develop yours.
Take pleasure in this studying record as an epub#section37
Huzzah! The ALA 2012 Summer time Studying Subject is obtainable as a Readlist, appropriate for studying on Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Readmill, or different e-book reader.