How many times have you heard this: “Well the site / design / label / content has been done like this on this site, so it must be right, we’ll just copy that!”
We have all encountered it right? The premise that because someone has done it before us that is must be the correct path to take. This assumes a number of predetermine aspects:
- The site in question has the exact same budget, market and audience.
- There has been an extensive use of industry best practice and the application of user centred design principles on the site.
Well this week the web in a small way moved a little closer to the full semantic web as Yahoo announced it’s now indexing for the semantic web and microformats (which is really good to see).
So what is the big deal. Isn’t this semantic thing something the web standardsi have been touting for a while now. Does Yahoo finally joining in make any difference.
Well yes in a way it does, it means that Yahoo are taking the step in the correct use of semantically formated and organised information as a tool to understanding the context of the information that is being indexed.
The colours present in a user interface can be critical for the success or failure of a web site. When told this people will say “what’s the best colour then.” Well there is no clean cut answer to this one. And from a design view point one has to fall back on “it depends”.
You see colour has a profound effect on our emotions, our well being and psychological response. This is supplemented by the tonal nature of the colours as well and the current environment and lighting you are viewing the site in.
Tagged: color, colours, cool, culture, psychology, theory, ui, userinterface, using+colour, ux, warm, webdesign
Microsoft told us via a very careful explanation from the standards representatives working with them (Eric Meyer et al) that Internet Explorer 8 would have a switch (meta tag) that would have to be in place to render the new features (including JavaScript improvements), otherwise the rendering engine would be fixed at Internet Explorer 7 levels. In other words to render IE8 as IE8 you have to have the metatag switch.
This was primarily in response to the IE6 to IE7 compatibility backlash by the corporate sector; as IE7 broke a lot of Intranet applications. We all bitched and grumbled, Jeremy Keith got up on his soapbox. But basically we all go on with it, understanding (but not liking) Microsoft’s positioning. That was in the past.
