Mark Boulton’s Five Simple Steps: A practical guide to designing for the web has to be my favourite web design book of the year. One of the many things I really love about it is the personalised anecdotal style applied throughout. It’s the kind of book that will age gracefully as it doesn’t dwell too much on current trends or techniques, supplementing them with solid age-old design theory from someone who has had formal training in typography, layout and colour theory.

Mark illustrates each of his points with a case study from his own vast portfolio and other examples from the web and print. Be it the enormous task of redesigning the Drupal community or the De Standard newspaper websites to the time he spent designing endless tables of printed data in his early career. The book has bags of personality and really does fill a void in my bookcase that has been begging to be filled for some years.

Mark self-published his book and the attention to detail cross the entire process shines through. The enclosed postcards show us that this is the first in a series of five simple steps books and the handwritten compliment slip really added to the whole experience. Even the box it was delivered in showed that ever ounce of the design had been poured over for unending hours. I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

Buy Five Simple Steps, A practical guide to designing for the web direct from Mark Boulton Design LTD for £29 or get the PDF for £12.

If you live in Bletchley, Milton Keynes or anywhere nearby and you’re looking for a good, honest, family-run garage to get your car serviced then I suggest look look no further than Milton Keynes Tyre and Brake (MKT&B).

Every single time I’ve used the garage to get work done they’ve ended up charging me less than I was quoted! They’re friendly, welcoming and always happy to help.

It’s not often that I’m compelled to endorse a company but I bought a new car recently and had a bit of work done under warranty by the main dealer. The way that particular franchise treated my car really underlined why I’ve been using MKT&B for so many years now. Despite the timely phone calls for servicing from the main dealer I shall be sticking with Milton Keynes Tyre and Brake for the foreseeable. So often we moan about poor service that I thought I’d readdress the balance here.

View Larger Map

The edweb09 workshop was held over two days, 14-15th May 2009 and was facilitated by Headscape, a web development company based in Hampshire, UK. The workshop was aimed at those web managers working in the UK higher education sector and covered four distinct topics: usability, accessibility, content management systems and writing for the web. I was lucky enough to be invited to attend.

The workshop was a first for Headscape who are better known for the Boagworld web design podcast. Paul Boag is a well known speaker in the user-centred web design field. As well as hosting Boagworld he also regularly presents at conferences world-wide. I had last seen him speak at @media 2008 and was pretty familiar with his style of delivery. Chris Scott , Headscape’s MD also presented a session at the start of the second day bringing a little bit of variety to proceedings. All the while 80s pop-star and Paul’s podcast sidekick, Marcus Lillingtonwas taking copious notes.

This was not the type of workshop where attendees are encouraged to partake in group activities involving flipchart paper, marker pens and stickies. Paul and his colleague Chris to delivered four presentations whereby delegates were invited to comment from our own perspective along the way.

Day one began with lunch and then two workshop sessions. Then we went back to the hotel, had a few drinks, a very tasty meal and ample opportunity for networking. The second day started early with the concluding two workshop sessions before ending with lunch and then home. So, effectively just one day of workshop spread over two days. I’d not encountered this format before but I think it really worked quite well.

I found it really useful to get a perspective on how traditional universities were dealing with the same issues that offer daily challenges to the distance learning institution, The Open University, where I work. Other delegates were from Bath, Keele, Strathclyde, Oxford, Exeter, Aberdeen, Edge Hill and City university. Some of these people were Headscape clients and others, including myself, were not.

Most useful to me was the first session on becoming a user-centred institution. Although we undertake usability testing and focus groups as a matter of course, there is still a lot more we could be doing at the Open University to ensure a consistent and meaningful user experience. Paul offered a few techniques that I’d not really considered before such as opposing traits and flash tests. He also offered some useful advice on constructing a good usability report.

The other sessions were also very interesting. I discovered that many academic institutions are opting for the Terminal Four content management system. I’d never even heard of it! I liked the web writing session, especially the idea that an institution should have it’s own personality and it should be possible to create a ‘persona’ for the university. We have brand guidelines but nothing as specific as doing that. I wonder if it would even be achievable across the plethora of sites and services across the Open University. I think the Headscape team were quite taken aback when they discovered the breadth and depth or web-based services within our institution. Particularly poignant was the issue of disability. The Open University has upward of 10,000 students who admit to a disability. We simply cant pay lip-service to accessibility. Because a great deal of our offering is online and our large number of students it cant be a case of fixing things to be accessible as and when students complain about them!

It was great to have the opportunity to discuss common problems and issues during lunch and other breaks. Headscape scheduled the workshop to break over two days with an overnight stay at a rather swanky hotel in Romsey. Headscape HQ is located in a tasteful barn conversion deep in rural Hampshire, a nice change from the bustle of a big city.

I do think that they went over and above the call of duty by providing a taxi service from Southampton airport to the venue. Also the hotel wasn’t the usual Travelodge fair either. People working in Universities are not accustomed to staying in what amounted to a rather swish boutique hotel with a nouveau cuisine three course meal. Workshop, meals, hotel and taxi for an inclusive cost of less that £300. All of which gave the impression that Headscape, despite this being their first workshop, were something special. Paul, Marcus and Chris are three very likeable chaps who I’m hoping we’ll get the opportunity to collaborate with in the near future.

For those who attended the workshop, I mentioned that the Open University was involved in a range of interesting social networking activity at the moment. Here are the links to the things I mentioned:

• Platform
• Open University on Facebook, YouTube, iTunes and Twitter
• Open University staff on Twitter
• SocialLearn — just hype right now but I’m promised that it will do something later in the year. They also have a SocialLearn blog.
• A few notable and relevant OU bloggers: Tony Hirst, Stuart Brown, Liam Green-Hughes, Laura Dewis, Martin Weller
• Knowledge Network
• Cloudworks (about to get a design overhaul)

I paid a visit to SecondLife a couple of years ago to find out what all the buzz was about. It was a bit like the Sims meets Grand Theft Auto but with no missions to do. After a while I felt it was a bit of a glorified chat room albeit one where you could actually laugh-out-load or roll around on the floor laughing rather than write the instant message equivalent. It didn’t really grip me at the time. Then I found out the the Open University was getting seriously involved in the “game?” and I decided to pay it another visit.

I met up with a couple of Second Life residents — Magus Burton (MB) and Zandra Fraisse (ZF) to find out more.

How did you discover Second Life?

MB: Some years ago I stumbled across an intriguing article in a Sunday supplement about an online gaming phenomenom by the name of Second Life. Although in (voluntary) incarceration at the time, I vowed to remember the name and investigate it further upon my release.

ZF: My son was looking in Popular Science Magazine and decided to get me a gift certificate for SL. He thought it would amuse me .

How long have you been using Second Life?

MB: Almost as soon as I returned home I logged on to SL to see what it was all about, so I have been ‘playing’ for maybe three years now.

ZF: Approx. 2 1/2 years

How many hours a week on average do you spend in Second Life?

MB: To be honest it really varies upon what projects I am involved with, the status of my friends, aqquaintances and business partners. I do a lot of artistic support for people and make textures, skins, eyes, clothing, furniture and buildings, so some weeks I will spend upwards of 30 hours and others I will spend maybe 2 or 3.

ZF: Approx. 25 hrs. a week, some less some more…depends on how much I have to do there or in real life.

What attracted you to it?

MB: have been fascinated by virtual reality and synthetic realities ever since I first saw Disneys Tron (1983) and the possibilities within SL seemed a perfect outlet for my creativity and thirst for knowledge.

ZF: Everything- the creativity, the people, the opportunity to meet people from all areas of the globe….

How does Second Life compare to things like text forums and instant message systems?

MB: I personally prefer the perceived ‘interactivity’ granted by SL, with a traditional messenger such as MSN you can be limited by text only and emoticons, therefore a lot of feeling can be lost in the substandard communication (over 95% of human communication is non-verbal). In SL we can more easily use poses and animations to express ourselves, for instance, if a friend is feeling down I can ‘physically’ give that person a hug etc. It does make a good deal of difference all though it is only 1 step up from an emoticon.

ZF: In some ways its the same but with avi’s to act out what ur trying to xpress in chat.

What or who helped you understand how to operate in Second Life?

MB: I taught myself most of what I know, but by its very communal nature the residents tend to be willing to help each other if asked politely and granted patience. I have a solid core group of close friends, people who I met ‘inworld’ who I now communicate with by phone, text, email etc. We all look out for each other although we exist in different timezones, countries and states. We all look after each other and provide for one another, even offer emotional support in times of difficulty.

ZF: In the very beginning it was trial and error until I met Magus Burton and Tanya Matahari, they both had a great deal of patience and kindness…without them I probably wouldn’t have stayed in SL as long as I have.

Is there any special jargon or terminology that newbies to Second Life could do with understanding?

MB: There are many differnt ‘inworld’ terms, and of course abbreviations just like with any other messenger. SL however as a far more comprehensive lexicon than most. This is due to the nature of the ‘game’. With any new idea, new terminology is necessary in order to describe it efficiently and effectively.

ZF: The terms SL for Second Life, RL for Real life , Ruthed meaning ur avi is all screwed up at its beginning appearance stage- the rest…I guess they will have to come and find out.

What do you most enjoy doing whilst in Second Life?

MB: I generally enjoy chatting with my friends and creating new things, I like to challenge myself and see how the world around me evolves.

ZF: Besides talking and sharing with my friends, I would have to say creating various things out of mere prims (primitives- basic shapes)

Have you spent any money in Second Life? How much?

MB: I have spent countless linden dollars (SLs currency) but that is not affected by my real life investment. The most I have ever paid in real life cash is only around £5, everything else is money I made ‘inworld’.

Have you made any money in Second Life? How much?

MB: Again I couldn’t quantify the ammount I have made in SL. But to give you an Idea, at the peak of my productivity, myself and my business partner had 8 shops, a club, a mall various houses and building estates. I ceased involvement in in our company last year and gave away my designs. I found SL had stopped being enjoyable and had become a labour so I went back to the nature of exploring and having fun.

ZF: I’ve spent alot of money,I have no idea, BUT I have made money as well….so to me, it all evens out for the pleasure that SL and my friends there have given me.

What have you created in Second Life?

MB: I have created numerous lines of fashion (somewhere in the region of 2000 odd garments), many vehicles, artworks, sculptures, furnishings,eyes, jewelery, skins scripts (to run animations etc.) and buildings.

ZF: Too many things to list but in general, clothes , furniture, music boxes, snow globes, motorcycles, cars, seasonal displays…so many things I can’t remember.

What’s involved in making a really great avatar?

MB: The key to a great avi, in my opinion is to customize and create as much as possible. I start with a decent shape, modify the features and the height and weight etc, next I use photoshop to make some nice eyes and upload them when satisfied. I then make a new skin, again using photoshop and upload that. Then either make or buy some clothes and finally buy some appropriate hair (if the avi is to have hair). Until recently I had never worn any clothing that I hadn’t made for myself.

ZF: Aside from the usual avi parts, skin, shape, hair, so on and so forth..I believe Heart….No matter what, ur RL personality shows up in ur avi eventually, so my advice is, follow ur heart when making ur avi, u can’t go wrong then.

Where are some good places to visit to get a feel for things? Why?

MB: There are plenty of good places to visit, I like a lot of the clubs but it really depends on your agenda. My advice to people is to get chatting and meeting people, they will often tell you about or teleport you to places that you never would have thought to search for.

ZF: There is something to be learned anywhere u go in SL…something learned about urself, about people, about SL in general, and all are willing to help a newbie…We were all newbies at one time or another, so we understand and know what newbies are going thru.

Are there any gaming elements to Second Life?

MB: There are many, there are of course the role play sims for people who like that-they range from fantasy to war games and everything inbetween. There are also a wide variety of contests and competitions to take part in and of course little interactive games like Pool, skating and even motor racing. I have even been fishing and skydiving.

ZF: I suppose if ur into roleplay there are so called gaming elements…but for me, I’m very competitive, in a nice way, so when one of my fashion designer friends asked for something for their treasure hunt or fashion show, I like to push my creativity to the limits and make them something fabulous, or at least I try for fabulosity.

What’s been your best experience in Second Life?

MB: Sounds sentimental but my best experience has been meeting the people who I am now so very close to. The kindness, openess and generosity of like-minded individuals is a real pleasure to experience.

ZF: Besides meeting ALL my SL friends….I would have to say meeting my soulmate here….and finding out there really is someone perfect for everyone somewhere

..and your worst experience?

MB: Probably losing my job as club host at Sphynx after a griefing attack (when people enter sims and wreak havoc upon any residents there) that was beyond my control and most certainly not my fault. Also the people who fail to differentiate between SL and real life can really make life miserable for others.

ZF: *Laughs* Finding out my soulmate was married but its all good, at least, we can be friends.

What do you think are the biggest opportunities for Second Life in the future?

MB: The opportunities really are endless, SL has a huge community (enough to make its currency have value within the real world), has made millionaires of people, has married people andcontinues to support users who need the help or support of those who think and act alike. It can progress in any way it chooses so long as Linden Labs listens to the views of residents.

ZF: In the future as well as now….I feel SL offers the opportunity for people who are handicapped to be able to dance, or to do things they just aren’t able to do in RL….Endorphins have no idea these people are doing these things in a virtual world…they just make the person feel good, so the depression is alleviated….it still amazes me..

What advice would you give to a Second Life newbie?

MB: Be polite, be humble, be whatever you want to be. If it’s not for you then that’s fine. Nothing ventured-nothing gained.

ZF: First I would tell them to NEVER forget there is a RL person behind that avi….so be respectful and kind….but to also take advantage of all the things SL has to offer that RL doesn’t, like dancing on a star, or the moon. Enjoy it, be yourself, and just have fun…..

I recently received an email from a photographer who was a little perturbed about her Flickr photos appearing on one of the website my team maintains. She was adamant that, since she had set the licensing to All Rights Reserved, her photos should not appear on any other website without explicit written permission. This reminded me of something that Jeremy Keith had highlighted a few years back.  He created a PHP $stroppy_users array to deal with that particular problem!

The interesting thing about this is that Flickr doesn’t prevent All Rights Reserved photos from appearing on third party websites as standard. People who use the Flickr API have to build the feature into their widget. Surely it would make more sense for the API to block these kind of photos by default, enabling the widget developer to override this setting?

It turns out that Flickr users can prevent their photos from appearing in public areas by activating a setting in their Flickr preferences. This means that their photos will no longer appear in the public time-line or under the various ways of browsing people’s photos (by tag, by date, by location). However, plenty of photographers are looking to make money from their photos and as such would not get the desired exposure if their photos were hidden from public view. It seems that such photographers are keen that their photos are available on the Flickr public areas but not via third-party websites. There is no setting within Flickr to accommodate this requirement.

I put a lot of photos on Flickr myself. But I’m not a professional photographer. I have no intention of selling my pics and can’t imagine anybody would actually want to buy them anyway. I’ve had a few requests here and there from various organisations who want to use my photos (Southampton Football Club and Buckingham Floods being two recent examples). I happily let them use the pictures with the usual “as long as you give me credit” caveat. But I don’t make a living from photography. I’ve come to the conclusion that perhaps Flickr isn’t the right place for pros to set up shop. But what are the alternatives?

Picture the scene. I’m sat in the open plan office and I get a text message. My message alert sounds. Everybody laughs as the 70s Open University motif from the BBC trills through the tiny but impressively loud speaker of my Nokia e51.

As the day progresses I receive a number of other messages at fairly regular intervals. I reply, prompting the message originator to reply back. Message tennis ensues.

My colleagues grow weary of the once-amusing tune. I start to get a bit embarrassed. What to do? I could silence the phone but wouldn’t it be cool if the phone could select a message tone at random for each incoming message? Me and my colleagues would be treated to a selection of incredibly slick and retro themes to bring a smile and lighten up the day.

I realise I can assign different tones to different contacts in my address book but what I’d really like is a random tone per incoming message regardless of sender.

I’ve found a product called Best RandomRingtone which appears to do what I want but I’m not sure it will extend to message alerts too. I’ve not yet managed to shell out the $6.95 to find out. The lack of customer reviews or the fact that my phone isn’t listed may be putting me off.

Am I alone in thinking such a feature would be rather nice? Is there are product out there that will do what I’d like on a Symbian s60 phone? Do let me know.

Dan Wellman’s book jQuery UI 1.6 (ISBN 978-1-847195-12-8) from Packt Publishing is the kind of book I wish I had when I first started tinkering with jQuery.

Firstly, I’m a web designer, not a developer. Scripting scares me. I’m really out of my comfort zone when I need to bring a web page to life with things like Flash Action Scripting or, in this case, Javascript.

Secondly, I’m a fairly practical kind of bloke who would rather just get something done as a proof of concept and work out how to improve it later. I don’t want to learn a language like PHP or Javascript from the ground-up before I can do something like tab interfaces, resizable boxes and drag and drop widgets. So I never have.

The jQuery User Interface (UI) Library is preceisely the kind of thing that I need in order to rapidly prototype web interfaces. It’s a set of well tested widgets, compatible with all modern browsers (and some old ones).

This book explains in great detail, with full code examples, how to quickly get cracking with every part of the library. This includes tabs, accordions, pop-ups, sliders, date pickers, auto-complete, drag and drop, resizing, selecting, sorting and various animations.

What I most enjoyed about this book was the rapid pace that Wellman moved me through each of the widgets. First he explains the purpose of the widget followed by the default implementation, how to style of ’skin’ the widget to your own requirements and then onto the more intricate details of chaning how it behaves. This kind of approach is very accessible to me.

As a designer I’m quite interested in making the widgets fit the look and feel of my design. It’s rare that I ever want to use the default style and if it’s not easy to change the chances are I’ll look elsewhere. Each and every jQuery UI widget can be styled to exacting requirments and Wellman is keen to highlight this fact.

I get the feeling I’ll be frequently referring to the chapters on tabs, dialogues, resizing, selecting and sorting the in my day to day work. This is the kind of book you can confidently dip into when you have a specific problem to solve and one that will be a valuable addition to and web design bookshelf.

jQuery UI 1.6 by Dan Wellman is published by Packt Publishing and is £27.99

Read a sample chapter or buy the book direct from Packt Publishing.

A lot of web designers, myself included, are mostly concerned with the way things look when people visit the web sites we create. We’re all about the design — layout, typography, colour, graphics and how they enhance the user experience. We start with some sketches, do some wire-frames and rapidly move into software like Photoshop or Fireworks in order to get a pleasing aesthetic result that we’ll eventually piece together on the web using HTML and CSS. Whilst most designers find markup and stylesheets relatively easy to master, javascript sits firmly in the programming camp. It’s all about integers, boleans, strings and other scary sounding bits and bobs that often require a logical and mathematically able brain to understand.

Yet javascript opens up a world of exciting behavioural options to us. It enables us to bring our pages to life with all the wizzy and cool stuff that clients love. Things swishing in and out of view, dropping down, sliding, expanding and contracting. Javascript brings our flat designs to life. But it’s difficult. That’s one reason why jQuery was invented — to make life easier for web designers. If you’ve already mastered HTML and CSS then you’ll find jQuery a logical next step. It uses a similar code style to CSS rather than the all out alien language of raw javascript. Learning jQuery 1.3 from Packt Publishing (ISBN 978-1-847196-70-5) is the only book you’ll need to get started with the library if like me you’re a web design who wants to add a little extra umph to your designs.

You’ll realise that this is definitive tome when you see that it contains a glowing foreword by John Resig, the creator of jQuery. He praises the authors, who he knows personally and gives Karl Sedberg a particular thumbs-up for his excellent knack for the English language. Indeed the themes in this book are relayed to the reader in accessible chunks of to-the-point tutorial that will immediately have you eager to boot up your PC and get cracking with showing and hiding, fading, bringing content into the page by the power of AJAX, sorting tables and all manner of glittering delights that were hitherto beyond your mortal reach.

I was in the process of building a new website using the usual solid webstandards that have kept me in work with my current employer for the last seven years when this book landed in my in-tray. One chapter in and I was hooked. My original pretty and functional site was soon awash with plenty of little jQuery effects and goodies. Probably overkill for what was actually needed but once you start playing it becomes pretty difficult to leave alone. Remember when you discovered all those photoshop layer effects? Remember how you used them in earnest way back when? You’re going to do the same again here. But as time goes on you learn to use where appropriate and go throwing everything including the kitchen sink into a design. JQuery is another set of tools to add to your ever expanding web design toolbox and this is the manual.

Learning jQuery 1.3 by Jonathan Chaffer and Karl Swedberg is published by Packt Publishing (ISBN 978-1-847196-70-5) and has a recommended retail price of £24.99.

Read a sample chapter or buy it direct from Packt Publishing.

• Mobile Web 2009 = Desktop Web 1998 (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
  Mobile phone users struggle mightily to use websites, even on high-end devices. To solve the problems, websites should provide special mobile versions.
  (tags: webdesign mobileweb)

• Clean CSS
  A Resource for Web Designers - Optmize and Format your CSS. Very useful for people like me who start messy and wanna clean up later.
  (tags: webdesign css tools)