Posted: June 9th, 2007 | Author:dotblack | Filed under:UAE, Web-Design | Comments Off
I was about to complain about not having an Arabic “Lorem Ipsum” kind of dummy text. Last week marked a heavy Arabic text need at work where we needed to stuff a number of paragraphs while designing interfaces. We managed to get some text from News portals or even write it ourselves. Just when I thought it was time to rant about not having Lorem Ipsum in Arabic, well, guess what, there is.
And here is the Arabic Lorem Ipsum, and to my surprise it is made for non-Arabic speakers.
Following the latest trend in the Mobile Web Browsers market Opera will release a full browser for Mobiles incorporating the intellegent zoom and overviews of pages along with Widgets and advanced client-side capabilities. Joining the Mobile Safari and DeepFish, taking the small screen web browsing experience to the next level matching desktop experiences.
Better hardware, so why not?
It’s a confusing debate if you think about it, having the main challenge which is punching keypads and scrolling pitches to navigate. Getting back to the fact that loading Desktop optimized websites are bandwidth hungry despite the fact that they could be built with standards and clean structural markup, there’s always rich media and imagery that no matter how optimized they get or cached they still make up a good figure in KB downloads, considering the newness of the whole 3G/GPRS service packages and pricing models they’re so not welcoming.
Yes, better hardware, better interfaces and experiences are positive but the limitations haven’t been taken off the way yet, is this going to make it tougher to think of Mobile Optimized websites?
Or as Steve Jobs mentioned in the latest D5 interview that the Mobile Web as the tiny screens and tiny pages mean poor experience and not even close to a proper experience?
If these browsers take of, and get adopted, then we’re likely to spend more on Data plans and less on paying for Mobile Optimized web projects, that is the death of the Mobile Markup and even the dotMobi model.
Yes, Experience is king, but economic accessibility is a must, not forgetting that size really matters and differentiates the whole experience, I’m still so not convinced that this is the way the Mobile Web should’ve been directed.
At the end of the day, it’s a new industry all over again, and believe it or not, Jobs was right when he said iPhone would revlutionize the mobility world, yes it applies to the Mobile Web too, thin about how DeepFish and Opera 9 are coming out soon the whole Mobile Web design and use will change.
Another stage, another transition, another form to adopt and get adjusted to, for us Designers and Developers.
At the end of every working day and for the matter, every night before we blink the last time before we wake up the next day, all that it ends up with is how our works are standing up, and how fairly measured and appreciated. The sense of being ranked and recognized, that is. Whenever I think about it, who’s the judge anyways?
The worst experience is when you participate in a contest and get no feedback what so ever, add to that, yo don’t even get an invitation to the ceremony you participated in given that every entry gets two seats!
Even though you are a participant who did not win, who wasn’t invited to the show too, you still anticipate the winners and wanna’ know who was actually better than you in deserving to win. So you see the list and come to an interesting find out: Only Big Brands’ websites won!(we were new back then, had projects only for small businesses)
Is it all about the lights, cameras and actions? Just a ballroom story? So frustrating!
I’m so keen to know the judges, the score book, and real feedbacks on the awards given. Not keen, burning to find out the details. A little transparency? Well Hello?!
One of the best Microsites ever made for the Middle East region. Elegant, Clean, and Bright. Smart flat IA, plenty of white space, big type, neat type setting, and cool content placement. All that in a non-flash microsite. It’s the AurionV6 microsite for the Middle East.
Since this Toyota class is made and assembled in Australia, here’s the Australian AurionV6 microsite. The Australian version is highly interactive, compared to the ME version, ME version is less informative but “better” informing.
Posted: May 14th, 2007 | Author:dotblack | Filed under:UAE, Web-Design | Comments Off
I liked the previous version of 7days. As a matter of fact, I adored it. Lots of white space, great typography and neat layout. The new design, well, it’s too crowded to my taste, white spaces and white backgrounds have been slashed out with more content and imagery.
Lots of dark areas, filled up with not so good imagery, specially the icons, not the best job.
Vertical tabs are confusing on the homepage, weired. Why should it be vertical?
Low res imagery? Why?
In short w/o going into details of information layout and graphics, forgetting the markup that is all inline Javascript, it’s not as good as the previous version, man what a waste, a great design traded with this average new design. Just, what was wrong with the previous version?
CSS 3 promises the ultimate almighty background transparency in Background attributes–opaque. Until then, and until all the major browser adopt those new properties seen in CSS3 we’re locked up with Transparent PNGs and Opacity properties.
I could use JS effects, or simply have a background that looks transparent(a non-transparent jpeg or gif). Or I could use the technique discussed at ALA on Transparent PNGs and what not. I strongly recommend having normal markup not touched with JS for visual effects. Specially if it ain’t a web-application. I’m also against having to work out many different things to achieve a simple effect.
If all that I wished was right then nobody would’ve gone and found a work around the transparency issues.
Issues Explained
In CSS2 there’s a property that could be used on most of the block type selectors which is “Opacity” ,IE6 & IE7 come with the same property but as a member of “Filter” group. Firefox older than 2.0 misses Opacity and uses -moz-opacity instead. This is the definition.
The problem is here, upon making an element see-through(opacity:0.5; or filter:alpha(opacity=50) in IE) all the children of that element become see-through! And no, setting the children to have different opacity values won’t work. So where’s the problem? It shouldn’t be a problem thinking from the base and why the Opacity property was made, but looking at no way to have only transparent backgrounds makes it a problem since it’s the only markup based solution. Until “background: #000 opaque %50″ works.
Looking at the footer of this website you’ll find the see-through brown rectangle making all the other elements in it see-through, the only part that was not intended to be transparent was the copyright line, the rest were all intended to be that way, but since it worked, I didn’t have to worry about it.
The header of this site uses the same effect but with one difference, the logo is not see-through so Opacity did not work for me there, a see-through PNG came to rescue but then it doesn’t work on IE6! Well, the IE6 users would see the logo w/o the transparent brown box. Same goes with the boxes in homepage. What a mess. No I won’t apply a solution that makes me include a zillion JS files and add 30 lines to my stylesheet. I can live with having IE6 users not seeing the transparent bits.
Car microsites are usually the best microsites but when it comes to Jeep, it’s always been the opposite. Jeep Compass, once again gets it wrong with their online strategy. First on MSN ads, and now on their microsite. In short, poor creative that is completely based on TVCs and has no online interactivity.
Here’s the TVC, It’s neat, new and fresh.
I still don’t understand why they keep on getting it wrong online!
It’s in Flash but yet has nothing to do with Flash’s capabilities
As if they didn’t employ Flash at all. Zero level of interactivity and engagement. Poor typography, really poor! And the mascot, it’s displayed as if it was an executive’s request to be there or just a pure poor creative decision.
The shortest version of the story is this: Jeep Compass’s microsite is an after after thought work, “hey we need a microsite, here are some pics and the print creative CD is here, get it online by midnight”, that’d be a matching story board.
Microsoft’s Live labs announced their new Mobile web browser for Windows Mobile enabled Smartphones and Pocket PCs, named Deepfish. While this comes after iPhone’s webkit integration in the upcoming iPhone, MS has taken another step in competing with iPhone with this step supporting their upcoming ZenZui.
Deepfish bring the desktop experience to the Mobile, exactly how Steve Jobs demonstrated the integration of the Webkit on iPhone, nothin’ more, nothin’ less. Which I’m completely against. Why?
Why do we need the same exact layout that works on desktop high resolutions on mobile? We ain’t got space! Nor should we be downloading all those big images nor we gotta’ wait for a server-side application to do the optimization and then bring us a version that we can zoom in and out, why not just have optimized websites?
These steps by Apple and MS will slow down the development of the Mobile Web standards, allowing for the current websites to work while they are expensive to browse and use.
Bringing desktop experience to Mobiles is just like bringing luxurious BMW’s interiors inside a Formula 1 racing car, you ain’t got enough space to control the vehicle nor have enough time to enjoy it or better yet use it!
All zoom and all the bells and whistles while you have keypads and need to click a number of shortcuts and menu items, why the hassle? Just gimme’ the damn information and what I need, not the desktop feel while on the move!
While having the pages in interactive manner is nice, I believe Mobile Web is more about getting info when you need it, the entertaining/impressing bits are cosmetics if you will!
Why these browsers will succeed?
The amount of Mobile-Optimized websites are way too narrow, although it’s looking up, these browsers will make a huge space for fighting for the real Mobile Web development and guiding developers and site owners. The quick answer would be, well, Deepfish and iPhone’s browser support our websites, so?
Another old way of putting websites together, having a Flash version of a site and another HTML version of the same site. Usually these kind of websites have a homepage that gives you the “two” choices to choose from–HTML site and Flash site. Again, just like the Intro ideas, a misleading and to be exact it’s the designers perception that everyone should know what are the differences between Flash and HTML!
Why should you have two versions of a website at all?
Now I’m not against having multiple of versions of a website, but really if a website is not an interactive website that comes into different bandwidth sized for Media downloads then why bother making more that one version and to be exact once again why should you make a Flashy website just when you can do your flashy magic in synergy with HTML?
Why assuming that everyone knows what Flash or HTML is?
Not every person who browses the web is a web designer or developer! Such titles are jargons for most, once again, the first rule in communication: do not use jargons related to your own industry in public, unless they are universal and well known.
People are looking for the info, if they’re visiting a business’s website they are after a service or a product or plain info, it ain’t the right time to show off how good you are in designing websites by offering two different versions and showing off on the homepage with two buttons!
As you know long ago we had the Intro concepts and every business would ask you to animate an intro for their website first hand and then think about their website, that was long ago. Occasionally I find Intros here and there, some on Microsites and some on business websites. I’d understand a cool animation before launching microsites, but before opening a business website?
An extra click, obviously!
You dial a web address and get presented an animation with a “Skip Intro” button. Two scenarios, one: you have to wait for the movie to load and wait till it ends so that you can go to the website, two: you click on “Skip Intro”.
What is a business website? Isn’t it to introduce itself and its products/services? Now, with an intro you actually are trying to Intro Intro the site, no that wasn’t a typo! Introducing a business with a website that by itself is introduced by an intro at first. What a waste!
Intros in Microsites
Since microsites are actually interactive and mostly animated, there’s no need for intros, it’s a norm that you’re going to introduce a product/service or something so a Microsite is all about introducing and interacting, so is there a need to call for an intro or a skip intro button? IMHO, no!
