6 April 2009, 15:11
With download speeds getting faster all the time it is easy to get complacent with graphics and Javascript. Though I'm a fan of minimalistic web design - which inherently means fast display times - I am happy to see new websites with attractive, highly illustrative layouts or large photographic backgrounds that can be delivered quickly. However, over the last few days it has been plaguing me that some web designers are becoming careless. I looked at one new creative website that took nearly 8 seconds to load, cramming just under 2MB of style (no visual content) down my creaking copper phone line.
When I build sites I pass them through the usual test of XHTML validation but I'm also a fanatic of optimisation and for that I use Pingdom Tools. It's a free, online service that shows without any fluff the load times for each element on a web page.
I tested this website using the service and my result can be seen below. Pingdom Tools is easy to understand and hopefully encourages the Internet to be an attractive and streamlined wonder.
29 March 2009, 00:18
As everyone knows, an important part of studying is learning to reference books. They should have been published after a considerable amount of lengthy checks and drafts to make sure the information inside is without error. They are therefore useful to students for backing up articles published online from websites such as A List Apart or Opera Development or Wikipedia.
Academic books can be extremely dull. I found this statement was very true when forcing my way through a copy of Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielson and Hoa Loranger (2006). The book felt so out of touch, and somewhat awkward to read. The pages are very useful when needing vital statistics to PEE all over an essay (Point, Example, Explain) but otherwise left me completely cold. All web professionals should know usability is important and how to test websites but this book cooked it down into a grey, lifeless paste that totally contradicts the vibrant and exciting Internet.
Designing Web Interfaces (2009) is intelligent and bright. The book by Bill Scott and Theresa Neil was straightforward, tackled usability issues and questioned web trends thoughtfully. It was a book that made me feel inspired and it will stay on my shelf - not listed on Ebay the moment the photocopier spits out the last soulless statistic.
It may be slightly unfair featuring two books separated by 3 years in which web design and download speeds have advanced hugely, but it is comforting to know that there are books out there that are up-to-date, useful and promote the internet positively.