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Exploring Design: Outstanding Start Pages

Designers have only a fraction of a second to attract users’ eye and win over their loyalty. Clear visual structure, thought-out typography and moderate use of images are extremely important - as they can drastically improve the scanning process for the users. Consequently, to achieve a lasting positive impression, it’s common to make use of basic rules of usability.

However, classical solutions can be boring; creative solutions can be appealing. Therefore to impress visitors, designers risk unusual and innovative approaches. After all, between standards and creativity there is a lot of room for design experiments. We observe these experiments. We explore new approaches. And we collect them, so you don’t have to.

And since no page is equally important as the start page, it’s interesting to know, which approaches designers come up with, developing an innovative design for start pages. Let’s take a look. Unusual, remarkable and outstanding start pages - in a brief overview.

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Time-Savers: Code Beautifier And Formatter

Well-documented and readable source code is essential for every collaborative project. Logically structured, well organized and nicely formatted, the code can speed up the bug hunting and help to keep the code clean, minimal and still functional. These facts are particularly important if the code is being developed by a group of developers: in this context a common scheme for source code presentation is necessary. You don’t have to do everything by hand; in fact, there are many tools which can save a lot of time - for you and your co-workers.

The tools and services we’ve collected below aren’t validators. They format and beautify the code; some of them can remove redundant elements. Using them, you have to make sure you have a backup, so your data can always be restored.

Let’s take a look at code beautifier and formatter which can save you a lot of time and help to maintain a clean and readable source code.

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Best of May/June 2007

Every month we take a look around and select some of the most interesting web-development-related web-sites. We read articles, check out tools, analyze the advantages of new resources. Below you’ll find useful references, tutorials, services, tools, techniques and articles we’ve found over the last 60 days - an overview of web-sites you shouldn’t have missed in May/June 2007.

You can find the German version of the article in our Dr. Weblog.

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Copyright Explained: I May Copy It, Right?

With blogging comes great responsibilty. You define the content of your weblog and you carry the full responsibility for every word you’ve published online. More than that, you are responsible for comments in your posts. To make sure you fulfill your legal obligations, it’s important to know, what you, as blogger, may or should do; and you have to know, how to achieve this. After all, the ignorance of the law does not make one exempt from compliance thereof.

From the legal point of view, Copyright in Web is often considered as the grey area; as such it’s often misunderstood and violated - mostly simply because bloggers don’t know, what laws they have to abide and what issues they have to consider. In fact, copyright myths are common, as well as numerous copyright debates in the Web.

That’s time to put facts straight. In this post we’ve collected the most important facts, articles and resources related to copyright issues, law and blogging. We’ve also put together most useful tools and references you can use dealing with plagiarism.

You don’t have to read the whole article, you can read a brief overview of the key-points in the beginning of the post. Let’s take a look.

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Inspiration Package: 60+ Usable & Elegant Designs

We all love beautiful, usable and impressive web designs. To achieve them, web developers need to focus on many aspects, but basically it all boils down to the question, how well the content is presented and how easily the information can be perceived. Harmonic color schemes are as important as solid and consistent typography. Precise visual structure and intuitive navigation are essential for both usability and accessibility. In fact, mostly it’s a keen attention to small details which gives web-sites a profound and enduring nature.

We’ve selected some more of them. Over 60 elegant, usable and impressive designs with a well thought-out color scheme, typography and visual structure. Their beauty lies in the way the information is presented. Their usability lies in the way they communicate presented data. That’s what makes them different.

Next week we’ll present the .pdf-version of this showcase. You might be willing to check out further showcasese we’ve presented before.

• Subscribe to our RSS-feed to keep updated about our new posts.
• 60 Elegant and Visually Appealing Designs
• Keep It Simple, Stupid! - the showcase of simple designs.
• 45 Fresh, Clean and Impressive Designs
• 30 Beautiful Dark Designs
• 50 Beautiful CSS-Based Designs in 2006

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Wordpress Plugins & Tutorials: Your Pick

Depending on your needs and professional skills, the choice of an optimal weblog engine can be quite time-consuming. There are many options, and selecting the optimal engine, you should know exactly what you’d like to have and which level of flexibility you’d like to achieve.

Among dozens of options, Wordpress remains the most popular weblog engine out there. It is simple, powerful, extensible and flexible. There are literally thousands of plugins, themes, tutorials and related articles describing the ways to optimize Wordpress for publisher’s needs and achieve the best possible performance of the blog.

You know them, because you use them and because you’ve searched for them once you needed them. In this post we’d like to give you an opportunity to share your knowledge and help us to create the essential list of Wordpress life-savers - plug-ins, ideas, tips and useful tutorials you need to have ready to hand developing web-sites upon Wordpress.

Begin: Date: 29.06.2007. Time: 08:00:00 EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) / 14:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time).

End: Date: 30.06.2007. Time: 08:00:00 EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) / 14:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time).

Folks, it’s your turn now. You have 24 hours.

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