We often hear companies, including Web agencies, boast about how they provide exceptional client service. But how do they define exceptional? Consider this scenario. You are hired to design and develop a new website for a retail client. The client loves the design, and the pages you develop use the latest in HTML5, CSS3 and responsive design, resulting in a website that works wonderfully across browsers and devices.
The e-commerce features of the new website help the client significantly increase their online sales, and the entire project is delivered on time and on budget. Now, is this “exceptional” client service? I don’t think it is. When the client hired you, they expected that you would design and develop a great website. They also expected it would be done according to the timeline and budget set during the planning stages of the project. As successful as this project may have been for both you and the client, in the end, you did exactly what you were hired to do. You did your job.
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Web design is a craft that is constantly evolving and yet also sometimes sabotaged. The moment a design is released, a new version is born. In the beginning, like a baby, it seems vulnerable and weak, but in time it grows up and becomes self-sufficient. Redesigning a website for its own sake doesn’t prove anything; quite the contrary, it reveals a lack of effectiveness on the part of the designer.
Product design is a craft in which new versions come to life with increasing difficulty. We can learn a thing or two from it when designing for the Web. Forget marketing, technical specs and hardware. Products such as the iPhone, the Mini Cooper and the Zippo lighter have become wildly successful because of their outstanding design. Such massive success springs from three sources: the designer, sticking to the scope and iteration. These aspects can help us in Web design, too. In this article, we’ll look at what we can learn from successful product design.
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At the heart of every modern Mac and Linux computer is the “terminal.” The terminal evolved from the text-based computer terminals of the 1960s and ’70s, which themselves replaced punch cards as the main way to interact with a computer. It’s also known as the command shell, or simply “shell.” Windows has one, too, but it’s called the “command prompt” and is descended from the MS-DOS of the 1980s.
Mac, Linux and Windows computers today are mainly controlled through user-friendly feature-rich graphical user interfaces (GUIs), with menus, scroll bars and drag-and-drop interfaces. But all of the basic stuff can still be accomplished by typing text commands into the terminal or command prompt. Using Finder or Explorer to open a folder is akin to the cd command (for “change directory”). Viewing the contents of a folder is like ls (short for “list,” or dir in Microsoft’s command prompt). And there are hundreds more for moving files, editing files, launching applications, manipulating images, backing up and restoring stuff, and much more.
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At Smashing Magazine, we are big proponents of diversity and sharing. We encourage designers and developers worldwide to step up and use Smashing Magazine as a platform to share their opinions, ideas or techniques. Our editorial process is quite evolved, yet we are very open to users' suggestions. In fact, if an author has something to say, we try to help them collect their thoughts, strengthen their points and sharpen their language.
As it is, Smashing Magazine is in English; we communicate in English in our articles, through our comments, in social channels — everywhere. We have a quite good overview of what's happening in the Web design scene among creative professionals where English is prevalent. When it comes to non-English Web design communities, we have almost no idea what's going on there… it's as if they never existed.
Last year, I was lucky to have attended quite a few conferences across Europe. I wanted to get a better understanding of what's going on in those countries, how evolved their industry is and, more importantly, what techniques and tools they have developed and use in their work.
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In all the years that I’ve been using Adobe Fireworks, I have always had to perform one task in every project: remove the background from a logo. Most of the time, it’s because the client doesn’t have the original raw file that their previous designer used to create their company’s logo, or because I need to work with a bunch of affiliate logos that I downloaded from the Web and not all of them have transparency information.
With a rectangular or elliptical logo, I just trace over it with a shape and turn it into a mask. But when tracing a mask is impractical (as with complex shapes or text-based logos), I used to follow a method that I devised for extracting logos in Adobe Fireworks that doesn’t rely on the dreaded Magic Wand tool. This method took advantage of a few Live Effects to remove the background and retain the logo form. It was simple, but also primitive: it worked perfectly only when the contrast between the logo and background was already ideal and the logo form had only one color. Otherwise, I ended up with jagged edges.
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Integrating social media services in your website design is vital if you want to make it easy for readers to share your content. While some users are happy with the social media buttons that come built into their design template, the majority of WordPress users install a plugin to automatically embed sharing links on their pages. Many of you will find that a plugin does exactly what you need; others not so much.
Some are poorly coded, and most include services that you just don’t need. And while some great social media plugins are out there, they don’t integrate with every WordPress design. If you aren’t comfortable editing your WordPress templates, a plugin is probably the best solution. If you are comfortable making a few edits to your theme, then consider manually integrating social media so that you have more control over what services appear on your website.
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As technology evolves, so does the art and craft of Web design. New technology creates new challenges, which require new solutions. Often we’re working in uncharted territory, where the solutions demanded really are new. Other times, we’re faced with problems of a more universal nature, problems that have a history.
Given the limited history of Web design, we have to look beyond our immediate domain for answers to the more challenging questions. We do this all the time when we draw on the rich history of graphic design and visual arts. But we’re not limited to sibling disciplines. If we can identify the abstractions and patterns that constitute our challenges, we can look to any source for guidance. We can look to a seemingly unrelated field, such as psychology or music. We can even look to an episode from the early 18th century about Johann Sebastian Bach.
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In this article, we’ll look at Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), one of the most underused technologies in website development today. Before diving into an example, let’s consider the state of the Web at present and where it is going. Website design has found new vigor in recent years, with the evolving technique of responsive design.
And for good reason: essentially, responsive website design moves us away from the fixed-width pages we’ve grown accustomed to, replacing them with shape-shifting layouts and intelligent reflowing of content. Add to that a thoughtful content strategy and mobile-first approach, and we’re starting to offer an experience that adapts across devices and browsers to suit the user’s context.
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