JasonGlaspey.com

I recently did a small consulting “Web Design 101″ for a very good design shop in town. Their office is filled with senior designers who have worked on some of Portland’s best design. However, they knew that there were some things they still could learn about designing for the web, so I helped out with a small session. Below is the rough outline of my talk, if you’re curious.

Flash vs HTML

• Not good or evil, but very different.
• Should be used appropriately
• Pros / Cons of each
  • HTML
  • Flash

Designing for the Web

• The Book Metaphor
• User expectations. They’re important
  • It may be boring, but they lead to successful sites
  • Choosing “design” over the user’s experience is bad design (even when it’s on brand)
• Never make a user guess what’s behind a link
• Never make a user guess what is and isn’t a link
• When it’s ok to break norms
• Don’t forget the audience

Where to start

• Budget
  • Building a house
  • Discovery phases
  • Learning their budget and goals and finding solutions
  • “Sacrificing Cool”

User Experience

• Who is the Primary audience for this site? The second? This must be identified very early.
• What is the number one thing this site should accomplish/promote? The second?
• What are the limits (budget, technology, existing platforms, etc.)
• How often should it be updated? How will this be updated? Who will update it?

Build your site to those specs ONLY!

Pages

• Leading the story/experience with the homepage
• Crafting an experience for visitors who come from search engines and don’t enter via the homepage

Working with “Developers” or, anyone who’s not a designer

• Many designers dismiss programmers as difficult
• Not all non+designers are programmers
• Producers, Information Architects, Strategy, etc.
• Take their feedback. They spend all day using bad sites, their instincts are good.
• Find out what the core of their feedback is, and find solutions.

I recently created and launched a new company/website. It’s called Paleo Plan and is a subscription membership site for people following the Paleo Diet. We offer a complete meal plan, recipes, and a cohesive shopping list to our members each week to make following the diet easier and require less planning. So far, we’ve been launched for one month and have received a lot of positive feedback and great response from our members. Keep an eye on it. And even if you don’t eat Paleo, there are some great recipes that you’ll love, like the Curry Chicken with cauliflower rice. It’s amazing.

So, I’ve been watching this for several days now. Maybe over 200 times total. I just start it, let it play in the background, and then go and start it again. I just love this song. You should too.

“Hi, It’s Vince from Slap Chop. You’re going to be in a great mood all day.”

“Watch this, you’re gonna love my nuts.”

Damn this is good stuff.

When I first stumbled into the Drunken History series, I immediately knew I had found something special and beautiful. Take a bunch of very smart, yet youngish folk, and have them recount specific tales of yore, while under the influence. It’s brilliant.

And I also immediately thought of trying to get my good friend, we’ll call him ’standes,’ to do this, as he’s also the smartest guy I know, and a “I’m getting my PhD in history” kind of guy.

Alas, that hasn’t happened yet, but I just love the hiccups in this so much I had to post it for you all.

I love me some bike riding, and I like laws that make sense. The newly proposed Idaho Rolling Stop law makes a lot of sense to me, but I can imagine that there would be a lot of misunderstanding about the law if people weren’t properly educated. Spencer Boomhower created an amazing little video that explains very simply exactly what the law would *and would not* allow. It was worth watching and now I feel I know enough that I can support it. Long Live the Rolling Stop Law.

Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo.