Archive for the ‘Web design’ Category
Content out: a new adventure in web design
There was one clear theme that ran through many of the talks at last week’s New Adventures in Web Design conference in Nottingham – that the future of web design lies in ‘Content out’: the idea that everything starts with the content, and it dictates how you approach every aspect of the design, rather than creating a design into which the content gets poured later. Amen, I say. But there’s just one problem. Most of us only get the damned stuff at the last minute. Continue reading ‘Content out: a new adventure in web design’ »
Redesigned site: Relish Restaurant
After revamping the Chequers Playgroup site several months back, another of the very first websites I built through LessFuss Design got a facelift at the weekend. Relish Restaurant & Bar, in Newton Flotman, Norwich, has had a redesign and rebuild so the owners Jeremy & Rachael Parke can manage all the content themselves – using WordPress, and a handfull of plugins to make their life even easier. Continue reading ‘Redesigned site: Relish Restaurant’ »
Spring clean for Chequers Playgroup
Chequers Playgroup ![[external link]](/images/exLink.gif){kind=small}
was one of the first sites I did when I started freelancing in 2007. At the time I was one of the Committee members, so I took care of the site content and kept everything up to date. Recently the Committee members asked me to update the site so they could look after it themselves now I’m no longer a member. And because I can’t help myself sometimes, I also tinkered with the design… Continue reading ‘Spring clean for Chequers Playgroup’ »
Green light for new charity website
I’m pleased to say that after many hours of effort – mainly from Tom Haczewski , but with a bit from myself and other colleagues at Virgin Money – the new brand identity and website for the Green Light Trust has been launched. Continue reading ‘Green light for new charity website’ »
Review of freelancing year #3
On the freelancing side of things, 2009 will be filed under ‘Frustrating’. It’s been a year of interest but not commitment from potential clients, and the work I have taken on has been, at times, painfully slow to progress. Continue reading ‘Review of freelancing year #3’ »
PHP mail() & Fasthosts
After three days, 14 WordPress contact form plugins and a lengthy support email dialogue, here’s a post on what you can do – other than repeatedly punching a wall – if you want to use WordPress with a simple contact form on a Fasthosts server (or any other provider with strict mail server settings). Continue reading ‘PHP mail() & Fasthosts’ »
HTML housework: get proper closure
This might seem obvious to anyone who regularly writes HTML, but it’s really helpful if you comment your source code to explain which elements you’re closing. If you’re debugging someone else’s source code (or your own code you wrote some time ago), there’s nothing worse than coming across this:
<p>What follows will really make you scratch your head:</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>By commenting which element you’re closing as you write it, it’ll be far easier to work out later on exactly what’s being closed off – and therefore easier to work out which is the offending element for any problem you’ve got. By closing and commenting everything as you write it, there’s also less chance you’ll miss closing something off, and the world of pain that brings with it.
So, commented, the above would look like this:
<p>What follows may make you scratch your head less:</p>
</div> <!-- end: div.article -->
</div> <!-- end: div#content -->
</div> <!-- end: div#main -->
</div> <!-- end: div#wrapper2 -->
</div> <!-- end: div#wrapper1 -->
</body>
</html>There you have it. Next time you’re in the zone and dropping divs in like there’s no tomorrow, spare a second to comment them as you close them off. Quick and simple, and you could save some poor dude a lot of hassle when he/she comes to look at your code in a few years.
Of course, the tag soup above is to illustrate a point. I’d never write such bloated HTML. *Cough*.
Typeface JS & font weight
Rather than exporting individual images or using PHP image replacement as I normally would, I recently tried out Typeface JS – a method that uses javascript to embed fonts – to make use of a non-standard typeface in the headings of a web design. Typeface JS is pretty easy to use, but there’s one thing to be wary of: how you use the font-weight property in your CSS. Continue reading ‘Typeface JS & font weight’ »
Web form help text & accessibility
In the last piece I did on accessible web forms, I mentioned that in Forms Mode the JAWS screen reader won’t announce any content in a form that isn’t marked up in a form HTML tag. 90% of the time you can make forms more accessible by using labels for each field, but sometimes you want to provide more information than can fit nicely into the label (e.g. some extra help text) without making a meal of the layout and styling. Here’s a way of styling content in an HTML label tag so it looks like it’s separate from the label, but will still get read out by screen readers. Continue reading ‘Web form help text & accessibility’ »
Accessible Twitter: how it should have been done to start with
One day the next big thing on the web that has everyone all worked up will be accessible and built to web standards from day one. Until that day, we have people like Dennis Lembree (the man behind Web Axe ) to thank for making what many take for granted freely available to an even wider audience. With the help of some friends , and the Twitter API, Dennis has created an accessible version of Twitter called, unsurprisingly, Accessible Twitter . Continue reading ‘Accessible Twitter: how it should have been done to start with’ »
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