Brit Mansell :: Life's Influence on Design » Design

BarCamp Birmingham is Coming!

brit — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:55:13 +0000

For those of you interested in anything Internet-tech related and local to Birmingham, you should check out BarCamp Birmingham. May 2, is the date. Signup is open now.

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Wireframing with Fisher Price

brit — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:57:00 +0000

It was Christmas Day, 2008. My wife, 2 year old daughter and I were all around the Christmas tree opening gifts. It was my daughter’s turn to open hers and she picked up one of her presents. As soon as she opened it, I knew this one particular toy could play a major role wireframing. Huh? Wireframing with a child’s toy??? I’ll explain.

First of all, it’s no longer a “toy” since it has been requisitioned as a “tool”. Henceforth known as the “tooly”.

Enter the Fisher Price Doodle Pro

There are a few points about this toy that make it perfect for wireframing:

It’s a toy – Wireframing is one of the last parts of web design where I feel creative. This creativity is spurred by the bright colors and the thought that I’m back in preschool playing with toys again. Design should be fun and this tooly helps with that.
It’s a toy – Wait. I just covered that.
No detail – It’s very hard or nearly impossible to put any type of detail into these drawings. In some parts of design, detail is very important, but in wireframing, detail can be the downfall of the process.
Easy to erase – Iterations are the key with wireframing. It will, most likely, take many attempts to get your layout just right. Using this tooly, you can quickly jot out a layout. If it’s worthy, snap a photo of it with your phone or camera for later analysis. Then, wipe it clean and start over taking into account the good parts and the bad parts of previous iterations. Hopefully, soon, you will have the perfect layout on you new tooly.
Inexpensive – $18.00
“Eco-Friendly” – Since everything else is getting bonus points for being green, why not this tooly? No wasted paper. No discarded, dried up markers. Heck, it doesn’t even need refills.
Dimensions – The width and height (when turned 90 degrees) are about perfect for a “normal” size web page. This helps keep things in proportion while still allowing for content to be below the infamous “fold”.

Example:

I have yet to take this tooly into a client wireframing meeting, but you better believe I will when the need presents itself. After the client(s) get over the initial shock of me plopping this down onto their big conference room table I think it will be well received and the benefits will become apparent.

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WordPress Love

brit — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:30:02 +0000

Andre Pene who runs the Faith Racers ministry contacted me yesterday evening about freshening up his website. After a brief discussion of what needs he has for the site, we settled on the WordPress platform. It’s amazing what you can do with WordPress in just a few hours.

Take a look at the new site.

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Finally, A New Laptop On The Way

brit — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:18:58 +0000

It’s been a long time coming, but I finally ordered a new laptop today. I know I have previously raved over the original Mac Book Pros, but I decided to skip the current Mac Book Pro model in favor of a PC laptop. Begin, the ultimate laptop search.I’ve scoured the Web for months looking for the perfect laptop for my situation. I’m traveling a lot more lately and working out of the office a lot more, so I wanted something more portable than the 15.4 laptops but I wasn’t ready to give up any performance. In comes the new Sony Z-Series. This thing has it all, even at 3.4 lbs. Highlights: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P9500 (2.53 GHz, 6MB L2 Cache), Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate, Model Features: 4GB RAM, 128GB solid state drive, Hybrid Graphics System (1600 x 900 resolution), NVIDIA® graphics, HDMI out. The reviews on this model have also been great.

The key for me ordering one now is the drastic discounts that are currently available. I even found a $300 off coupon (coupon code Z590SAVE300) that combines with the discount already applied to the VGN-Z590UAB model.

If you’re in the market for an ultraportable with some great performance numbers, the Z-Series is worth checking out.

Oh yeah, and it has real carbon fiber, lots of it.

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Experience is the Product

brit — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:53:49 +0000

Watch Video on Vimeo

Presented by Bill Abel on September 4, 2008, at the IPSA meeting for September.
For more information on the Internet Professional Society of Alabama, please visit ipsaonline.org.

Filmed with a Canon XH-A1.

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Additional Displays on Mac Book Pro

brit — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:04:30 +0000

I have finally found a Mac driver for the UV Plus+ by EVGA. Now I’m not constrained to only two displays on my McBook. So, now for $99 (or less online) you can hook up an additional display to your laptop, or desktop for that matter.

More information: http://www.mostlygeek.com/2008/06/22/multiscreen-macbook-pro/

Download drivers here: http://www.displaylink.com/mac_beta_drivers.html

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Octane Media Branding

brit — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:35:49 +0000

I’ve been under a huge time crunch to get a brand identity done for Octane Media. It’s finally here.

Logo:

First Event T-Shirt Design:

Business Cards:

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Screen Readers and the Real World

brit — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:09:04 +0000

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for making websites 100% accessible and W3C compliant, but I see this used as a crutch a lot of times in the web design world. Often times designers rely on the “it doesn’t work with screen readers” comment to sell their less than stellar designs; designs that are diluted to obtain W3C compliance or “accepted markup patterns”.

This post is out of frustration more than anything. I just read a great post from Smashing Magazing about vivid imagery in web design. To me, it is an inspirational post that sparked a deeper analytical look into this type of design approach. But, low and behold, the first comment posted (probably by a 12 year old who knows nothing about design) says, “some nice images… means nothing to screen readers.” If this was the first time I had seen this type of attitude I would have dismissed it as an ignorant comment from someone uneducated about the web design/business world, but sadly I see this being repeated by even some of the most notable designers in the industry today. This attitude is what I’m complaining about, not the comment on the post.

At the end of the day, we, as web creators, are here to serve our clients. It is our magically ordained duty to do the best job we can in helping meet their objectives on the work for which we are being commissioned. It is not our job to always cater to the lowest common denominator (visually impaired, color blind, etc.).

In the perfect world, all sites would degrade nicely into an unordered list of perfectly marked up content. But, alas, this is not a perfect world. WAKE UP PEOPLE! Why is it seen as such a travesty to cater to the majority of users versus the minority? Please don’t read this as me being insensitive to the needs of certain users, but please read this as me being proportionately sensitive to them along with those who are not impaired in any way.

For example, I race motocross, or did until this season. Last year I had a wreck at a race and dislocated my elbow (because I left it laying on the track for someone to run over). I had surgery on it a few months ago, but for whatever reason it hasn’t healed properly. I am unable to ride now, or at least for any longer than a few minutes. Should I go to the race promoter and other participants and demand that the race only last five minutes just to cater to me? That seems unreasonable, right? Why is this web design topic any different? My elbow injury is preventing me from doing something that I love and has been a big part of my life for the last 20 years, but it is my burden to bare, not theirs. They should not suffer because of my impairment.

If a client commissions my company to build a website, we will do our best to help them achieve their conversion goals. If one of the conversion goals is related to being 100% degradable and W3C compliant, then so be it, but we will not sacrifice performance, design, or functionality just for the sake of saying we’re a W3C compliant shop. In the end, we work for the client.

Please let me know your thoughts.

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New Hutter Performance Website

brit — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:11:13 +0000

Lately I’ve been working with Chardon, OH, based Hutter Performance to improve their web presence. The site is nearing completion, so I wanted to put a plug out there for the staging site. Please let me know what you guys think.

Current website: http://www.hutterperformance.com

New site (in staging): http://d8214472.u122.isoaxishosting.com/

There is also a fancy Flex app located at http://d8214472.u122.isoaxishosting.com/Corvette-Builder.aspx.

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Silverback Parallels Demo

brit — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:51:23 +0000

Silverback Parallels Demo from Isoaxis on Vimeo.

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