Category: Web development
Rolf Kleef Creating wire frames and mockups
Communicating web concepts for user experience and site structure is a challenge. Wire frames and interactive prototypes are great for this, and over the years, I have been using those with many designers and developers in a variety of web projects. But creating and sharing such mockups still is a laborious task, so I went around the web again to look for a tool that truly makes that task easier. Pidoco seems to offer the best way forward for me.
How “web 2.0” can you become in six months?
Adaptive Path’s DNA of web 2.0
A while ago I was asked to help answer an interesting question. Imagine: you want your website (and organisatuon) to become "truly web 2.0", and a donor is considering a sizeable grant to help you do that, under the condition that you define yourself how you will measure your "web 2.0"-ness, set your own targets for the next half year, and have reached those targets by then. What would you measure and what targets would you set?
- Indicators: Web 1.0 metrics like number of visitors or registered users are not really a measure for "web 2.0-ness". Amount of user-generated content maybe more. Per registered user? Number of mashups? Position in Technorati? Having an API, connecting to the APIs of other sites? Number of feeds into your site?
- Targets: A 6-month timeframe to do the technical work and show measurable results would lead me to focus more on the infrastructure and organisational side of things. What’s a realistic target… needs to be compelling enough to get the grant, but also a pretty certain win…
Firefox essential extensions
After using Firefox for a while, it’s hard to imagine still how "normal people" surf the web. By now, I tweaked my Firefox behaviour with several extensions.
Webdeveloper toolbar
Essential for developing web pages! The toolbar offers too many options to list all, but to name a few that I would not live without anymore:
- CSS tools: edit the style sheet of a page on the spot, great for testing and debugging. Mark links as visited or unvisited to test styles here too.
Browser compatibility testing
While trying to find good resources for browser compatibility, I came across some interesting services to check the output of a web page on different platforms and browsers.
- Browser Photo delivers pictures of a page in different screen sizes on WebTV, iMac, and PC (Windows 2000), for IE and NS mainly (no Mozilla…). $150 for a year unlimited checking.