{"rowid": 53, "title": "Get Expressive with Your Typography", "contents": "In 1955 Beatrice Warde, an American communicator on typography, published a series of essays entitled The Crystal Goblet in which she wrote, \u201cPeople who love ideas must have a love of words. They will take a vivid interest in the clothes that words wear.\u201d And with that proposition Warde introduced the idea that just as we judge someone based on the clothes they are wearing, so we make judgements about text based on the typefaces in which it is set.\nBeatrice Warde. \u00a91970 Monotype Imaging Inc.\nChoosing the same typeface as everyone else, especially if you\u2019re trying to make a statement, is like turning up to a party in the same dress; to a meeting in the same suit, shirt and tie; or to a craft ale dispensary in the same plaid shirt and turned-up skinny jeans.\nBut there\u2019s more to your choice of typeface than simply making an impression. In 2012 Jon Tan wrote on 24 ways about a scientific study called \u201cThe Aesthetics of Reading\u201d which concluded that \u201cgood quality typography is responsible for greater engagement during reading and thus induces a good mood.\u201d\nFurthermore, at this year\u2019s Ampersand conference Sarah Hyndman, an expert in multisensory typography, discussed how typefaces can communicate with our subconscious. Sarah showed that different fonts could have an effect on how food tasted. A rounded font placed near a bowl of jellybeans would make them taste sweeter, and a jagged angular font would make them taste more sour. \nThe quality of your typography can therefore affect the mood of your reader, and your font choice directly affect the senses. This means you can manipulate the way people feel. You can change their emotional state through type alone. Now that\u2019s a real superpower!\nThe effects of your body text design choices are measurable but subtle. If you really want to have an impact you need to think big. Literally. Display text and headings are your attention grabbers. They are your chance to interrupt, introduce and seduce.\nDisplay text and headings set the scene and draw people in. Text set large creates an image that visitors see before they read, and that\u2019s your chance to choose a typeface that immediately expresses what the text, and indeed the entire website, stands for. What expectations of the text do you want to set up? Youthful enthusiasm? Businesslike? Cutting-edge? Hipster? Sensible and secure? Fun and informal? Authoritarian?\nTypography conveys much more than just information. It imparts feeling, emotion and sentiment, and arouses preconceived ideas of trust, tone and content. Think about taking advantage of this by introducing impactful, expressive typography to your designs on the web. You can alter the way your reader feels, so what emotion do you want to provoke?\nMaybe you want them to feel inspired like this stop smoking campaign:\nhelsenorge.no\nPerhaps they should be moved and intrigued, as with Makeshift magazine:\nmkshft.org\nOr calmly reassured:\nwww.cleopatra-marina.gr\nFonts also tap into the complex library of associations that we\u2019ve been accumulating in our brains all of our lives. You build up these associations every time you see a font from the context that you see it in. All of us associate certain letterforms with topics, times and places.\nRetiro is obviously Spanish:\nRetiro by Typofonderie\nBodoni and Eurostile used in this menu couldn\u2019t be much more Italian:\nBodoni and Eurostile, both designed in Italy\nTo me, Clarendon gives a sense of the 1960s and 1970s. I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s what Costa was going for, but that\u2019s what it means to me:\nCosta coffee flier\nAnd Knockout and Gotham really couldn\u2019t be much more American:\nKnockout and Gotham by Hoefler & Co\nWhen it comes to choosing your display typeface, the type designer Christian Schwartz says there are two kinds. First are the workhorse typefaces that will do whatever you want them to do. Helvetica, Proxima Nova and Futura are good examples. These fonts can be shaped in many different ways, but this also means they are found everywhere and take great skill and practice to work with in a unique and striking manner.\nThe second kind of typeface is one that does most of the work for you. Like finely tailored clothing, it\u2019s the detail in the design that adds interest.\nSetting headings in Bree rather than Helvetica makes a big difference to the tone of the article\nSuch typefaces carry much more inherent character, but are also less malleable and harder to adapt to different contexts. Good examples are Marr Sans, FS Clerkenwell, Strangelove and Bree.\nPush the boat out\nRemember, all type can have an effect on the reader. Take advantage of that and allow your type to have its own vernacular and impact. Be expressive with your type. Don\u2019t be too reverential, dogmatic \u2013 or ordinary. Be brave and push a few boundaries.\nAdapted from Web Typography a book in progress by Richard Rutter.", "year": "2015", "author": "Richard Rutter", "author_slug": "richardrutter", "published": "2015-12-04T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2015/get-expressive-with-your-typography/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 217, "title": "Beyond Web Mechanics \u2013 Creating Meaningful Web Design", "contents": "It was just over three years ago when I embarked on becoming a web designer, and the first opinion piece about the state of web design I came across was a conference talk by Elliot Jay Stocks called \u2018Destroy the Web 2.0 Look\u2019. Elliot\u2019s presentation was a call to arms, a plea to web designers the world over to stop the endless reproductions of the so called \u2018Web 2.0 look\u2019.\n\nThree and a half years on from Elliot\u2019s talk, what has changed? Well, from an aesthetic standpoint, not a whole lot. The Web 2.0 look has evolved, but it\u2019s still with us and much of the web remains filled with cookie cutter websites that bear a striking resemblance to one another. This wouldn\u2019t matter so much if these websites were selling comparable services or products, but they\u2019re not. They look similar, they follow the same web design trends; their aesthetic style sends out a very similar message, yet they\u2019re selling completely different services or products. How can you be communicating effectively with your users when your online book store is visually indistinguishable from an online cosmetic store? This just doesn\u2019t make sense. \n\nI don\u2019t want to belittle the current version of the Web 2.0 look for the sake of it. I want to talk about the opportunity we have as web designers to create more meaningful experiences for the people using our websites. Using design wisely gives us the ability to communicate messages, ideas and attitudes that our users will understand and connect with.\n\nBeing human\n\nAs human beings we respond emotionally to everything around us \u2013 people, objects, posters, packaging or websites. We also respond in different ways to different kinds of aesthetic design and style. We care about style and aesthetics deeply, whether we realise it or not. Aesthetic design has the power to attract or repel. We often make decisions based purely on aesthetics and style \u2013 and don\u2019t retailers the world over know it! We connect attitudes and strongly held beliefs to style. Individuals will proudly associate themselves with a certain style or aesthetic because it\u2019s an expression of who they are. You know that old phrase, \u2018Don\u2019t judge a book by its cover\u2019?  Well, the problem is that people do, so it\u2019s important we get the cover right.\n\nMuch is made of how to structure web pages, how to create a logical information hierarchy, how to use layout and typography to clearly communicate with your users. It\u2019s important, however, not to mistake clarity of information or legibility with getting your message across. Few users actually read websites word by word: it\u2019s far more likely they\u2019ll just scan the page. If the page is copy-heavy and nothing grabs their attention, they may well just move on. This is why it\u2019s so important to create a visual experience that actually means something to the user. \n\nMeaningful design\n\nWhen we view a poster or website, we make split-second assessments and judgements of what is in front of us. Our first impressions of what a website does or who it is aimed at are provoked by the style and aesthetic of the website. For example, with clever use of colour, typography, graphic design and imagery we can communicate to users that an organisation is friendly, edgy, compassionate, fun or environmentally conscious.\n\nUsing a certain aesthetic we can convey the personality of that organisation, target age ranges, different sexes or cultural groups, communicate brand attributes, and more. We can make our users feel like they\u2019re part of something and, perhaps even more importantly, we can make new users want to be a part of something. And we can achieve all this before the user has read a single word. \n\nBy establishing a website\u2019s aesthetic and creating a meaningful visual language, a design is no longer just a random collection of pretty gradients that have been plucked out of thin air. There can be a logic behind the design decisions we make. So, before you slap another generic piece of ribbon or an ultra shiny icon into the top-left corner of your website, think about why you are doing it. If you can\u2019t come up with a reason better than \u201cI saw it on another website\u201d, it\u2019s probably a poor application of style.\n\nDesign and style\n\nThere are a number of reasons why the web suffers from a lack meaningful design. Firstly, there are too many preconceptions of what a website should look like. It\u2019s too easy for designers to borrow styles from other websites, thereby limiting the range of website designs we see on the web. Secondly, many web designers think of aesthetic design as of secondary importance, which shouldn\u2019t be the case. Designing websites that are accessible and easy to use is, of course, very important but this is the very least a web designer should be delivering. Easy to use websites should come as standard \u2013 it\u2019s equally important to create meaningful, compelling and beautiful experiences for everyone who uses our websites. The aesthetics of your site are part of the design, and to ignore this and play down the role of aesthetic design is just a wasted opportunity. \n\nNo compromise necessary\n\nEasy to use, accessible websites and beautiful, meaningful aesthetics are not mutually exclusive. The key is to apply style and aesthetic design appropriately. We need to think about who and what we\u2019re designing for and ask ourselves why we\u2019re applying a certain kind of aesthetic style to our design. If you do this, there\u2019s no reason why effective, functional design should come at the expense of jaw-dropping, meaningful aesthetics.\n\nWeb designers need to understand the differences between functional design and aesthetic design but, even more importantly, they need to know how to make them work together.  It\u2019s combining these elements of design successfully that makes for the best web design in the world.", "year": "2010", "author": "Mike Kus", "author_slug": "mikekus", "published": "2010-12-05T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2010/beyond-web-mechanics-creating-meaningful-web-design/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 26, "title": "Integrating Contrast Checks in Your Web Workflow", "contents": "It\u2019s nearly Christmas, which means you\u2019ll be sure to find an overload of festive red and green decorating everything in sight\u2014often in the ugliest ways possible. \n\nWhile I\u2019m not here to battle holiday tackiness in today\u2019s 24 ways, it might just be the perfect reminder to step back and consider how we can implement colour schemes in our websites and apps that are not only attractive, but also legible and accessible for folks with various types of visual disabilities.\n\n This simulated photo demonstrates how red and green Christmas baubles could appear to a person affected by protanopia-type colour blindness\u2014not as festive as you might think. Source: Derek Bruff\n\nI\u2019ve been fortunate to work with Simply Accessible to redesign not just their website, but their entire brand. Although the new site won\u2019t be launching until the new year, we\u2019re excited to let you peek under the tree and share a few treats as a case study into how we tackled colour accessibility in our project workflow. Don\u2019t worry\u2014we won\u2019t tell Santa!\n\nCreate a colour game plan\n\nA common misconception about accessibility is that meeting compliance requirements hinders creativity and beautiful design\u2014but we beg to differ. Unfortunately, like many company websites and internal projects, Simply Accessible has spent so much time helping others that they had not spent enough time helping themselves to show the world who they really are. This was the perfect opportunity for them to practise what they preached.\n\nAfter plenty of research and brainstorming, we decided to evolve the existing Simply Accessible brand. Or, rather, salvage what we could. There was no established logo to carry into the new design (it was a stretch to even call it a wordmark), and the Helvetica typography across the site lacked any character. The only recognizable feature left to work with was colour. It was a challenge, for sure: the oranges looked murky and brown, and the blues looked way too corporate for a company like Simply Accessible. We knew we needed to inject a lot of personality.\n\nThe old Simply Accessible website and colour palette.\n\nAfter an audit to round up every colour used throughout the site, we dug in deep and played around with some ideas to bring some new life to this palette. \n\nChoose effective colours\n\nWhether you\u2019re starting from scratch or evolving an existing brand, the first step to having an effective and legible palette begins with your colour choices. While we aren\u2019t going to cover colour message and meaning in this article, it\u2019s important to understand how to choose colours that can be used to create strong contrast\u2014one of the most important ways to create hierarchy, focus, and legibility in your design.\n\nThere are a few methods of creating effective contrast.\n\nLight and dark colours\n\nThe contrast that exists between light and dark colours is the most important attribute when creating effective contrast.\n\nTry not to use colours that have a similar lightness next to each other in a design.\n\n\n\nThe red and green colours on the left share a similar lightness and don\u2019t provide enough contrast on their own without making some adjustments. Removing colour and showing the relationship in greyscale reveals that the version on the right is much more effective. \n\nIt\u2019s important to remember that red and green colour pairs cause difficulty for the majority of colour-blind people, so they should be avoided wherever possible, especially when placed next to each other. \n\nComplementary contrast\n\n\n\nEffective contrast can also be achieved by choosing complementary colours (other than red and green), that are opposite each other on a colour wheel.\n\nThese colour pairs generally work better than choosing adjacent hues on the wheel.\n\nCool and warm contrast\n\nContrast also exists between cool and warm colours on the colour wheel.\n\nImagine a colour wheel divided into cool colours like blues, purples, and greens, and compare them to warm colours like reds, oranges and yellows.\n\n\n\nChoosing a dark shade of a cool colour, paired with a light tint of a warm colour will provide better contrast than two warm colours or two cool colours. \n\nDevelop colour concepts\n\nAfter much experimentation, we settled on a simple, two-colour palette of blue and orange, a cool-warm contrast colour scheme. We added swatches for call-to-action messaging in green, error messaging in red, and body copy and form fields in black and grey. Shades and tints of blue and orange were added to illustrations and other design elements for extra detail and interest.\n\nFirst stab at a new palette.\n\nWe introduced the new palette for the first time on an internal project to test the waters before going full steam ahead with the website. It gave us plenty of time to get a feel for the new design before sharing it with the public.\n\nPutting the test palette into practice with an internal report\n\nIt\u2019s important to be open to changes in your palette as it might need to evolve throughout the design process. Don\u2019t tell your client up front that this palette is set in stone. If you need to tweak the colour of a button later because of legibility issues, the last thing you want is your client pushing back because it\u2019s different from what you promised.\n\nAs it happened, we did tweak the colours after the test run, and we even adjusted the logo\u2014what looked great printed on paper looked a little too light on screens.\n\nConsider how colours might be used\n\nDon\u2019t worry if you haven\u2019t had the opportunity to test your palette in advance. As long as you have some well-considered options, you\u2019ll be ready to think about how the colour might be used on the site or app. \n\nObviously, in such early stages it\u2019s unlikely that you\u2019re going to know every element or feature that will appear on the site at launch time, or even which design elements could be introduced to the site later down the road. There are, of course, plenty of safe places to start.\n\nFor Simply Accessible, I quickly mocked up these examples in Illustrator to get a handle on the elements of a website where contrast and legibility matter the most: text colours and background colours. While it\u2019s less important to consider the contrast of decorative elements that don\u2019t convey essential information, it\u2019s important for a reader to be able to discern elements like button shapes and empty form fields.\n\nA basic list of possible colour combinations that I had in mind for the Simply Accessible website\n\nRun initial tests\n\nOnce these elements were laid out, I manually plugged in the HTML colour code of each foreground colour and background colour on Lea Verou\u2019s Contrast Checker. I added the results from each colour pair test to my document so we could see at a glance which colours needed adjustment or which colours wouldn\u2019t work at all.\n\nNote: Read more about colour accessibility and contrast requirements\n\n\n\n\n\nAs you can see, a few problems were revealed in this test. To meet the minimum AA compliance, we needed to slightly darken the green, blue, and orange background colours for text\u2014an easy fix. A more complicated problem was apparent with the button colours. I had envisioned some buttons appearing over a blue background, but the contrast ratios were well under 3:1. Although there isn\u2019t a guide in WCAG for contrast requirements of two non-text elements, the ISO and ANSI standard for visible contrast is 3:1, which is what we decided to aim for.\n\nWe also checked our colour combinations in Color Oracle, an app that simulates the most extreme forms of colour blindness. It confirmed that coloured buttons over blue backgrounds was simply not going to work. The contrast was much too low, especially for the more common deuteranopia and protanopia-type deficiencies.\n\nHow our proposed colour pairs could look to people with three types of colour blindness\n\nMake adjustments if necessary\n\n\n\nAs a solution, we opted to change all buttons to white when used over dark coloured backgrounds. In addition to increasing contrast, it also gave more consistency to the button design across the site instead of introducing a lot of unnecessary colour variants.\n\nPutting more work into getting compliant contrast ratios at this stage will make the rest of implementation and testing a breeze. When you\u2019ve got those ratios looking good, it\u2019s time to move on to implementation.\n\nImplement colours in style guide and prototype\n\nOnce I was happy with my contrast checks, I created a basic style guide and added all the colour values from my colour exploration files, introduced more tints and shades, and added patterned backgrounds. I created examples of every panel style we were planning to use on the site, with sample text, links, and buttons\u2014all with working hover states. Not only does this make it easier for the developer, it allows you to check in the browser for any further contrast issues.\n\n\n\n\n\nRun a final contrast check\n\nDuring the final stages of testing and before launch, it\u2019s a good idea to do one more check for colour accessibility to ensure nothing\u2019s been lost in translation from design to code. Unless you\u2019ve introduced massive changes to the design in the prototype, it should be fairly easy to fix any issues that arise, particularly if you\u2019ve stayed on top of updating any revisions in the style guide.\n\nOne of the more well-known evaluation tools, WAVE, is web-based and will work in any browser, but I love using Chrome\u2019s Accessibility Tools. Not only are they built right in to the Inspector, but they\u2019ll work if your site is password-protected or private, too.\n\nChrome\u2019s Accessibility Tools audit feature shows that there are no immediate issues with colour contrast in our prototype \n\nThe human touch\n\nFinally, nothing beats a good round of user testing. Even evaluation tools have their flaws. Although they\u2019re great at catching contrast errors for text and backgrounds, they aren\u2019t going to be able to find errors in non-text elements, infographics, or objects placed next to each other where discernible contrast is important. \n\n\n\nOur final palette, compared with our initial ideas, was quite different, but we\u2019re proud to say it\u2019s not just compliant, but shows Simply Accessible\u2019s true personality. Who knows, it may not be final at all\u2014there are so many opportunities down the road to explore and expand it further.\n\n\n\nAccessibility should never be an afterthought in a project. It\u2019s not as simple as adding alt text to images, or running your site through a compliance checker at the last minute and assuming that a pass means everything is okay. Considering how colour will be used during every stage of your project will help avoid massive problems before launch, or worse, launching with serious issues. \n\nIf you find yourself working on a personal project over the Christmas break, try integrating these checks into your workflow and make colour accessibility a part of your New Year\u2019s resolutions.", "year": "2014", "author": "Geri Coady", "author_slug": "gericoady", "published": "2014-12-22T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2014/integrating-contrast-checks-in-your-web-workflow/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 28, "title": "Why You Should Design for Open Source", "contents": "Let\u2019s be honest. Most designers don\u2019t like working for nothing. We rally against spec work and make a stand for contracts and getting paid. That\u2019s totally what you should do as a professional designer in the industry. It\u2019s your job. It\u2019s your hard-working skill. It\u2019s your bread and butter. Get paid.\n\nHowever, I\u2019m going to make a case for why you could also consider designing for open source. First, I should mention that not all open source work is free work. Some companies hire open source contributors to work on their projects full-time, usually because that project is used by said company. There are other companies that encourage open source contribution and even offer 20%-time for these projects (where you can spend one day a week contributing to open source). These are super rad situations to be in. However, whether you\u2019re able to land a gig doing this type of work, or you\u2019ve decided to volunteer your time and energy, designing for open source can be rewarding in many other ways.\n\nPortfolio building\n\nNew designers often find themselves in a catch-22 situation: they don\u2019t have enough work experience showcased in their portfolio, which leads to them not getting much work because their portfolio is bare. These new designers often turn to unsolicited redesigns to fill their portfolio. An unsolicited redesign is a proof of concept in which a designer attempts to redesign a popular website. You can see many of these concepts on sites like Dribbble and Behance and there are even websites dedicated to showcasing these designs, such as Uninvited Designs. There\u2019s even a subreddit for them.\n\nThere are quite a few negative opinions on unsolicited redesigns, though some people see things from both sides. If you feel like doing one or two of these to fill your portfolio, that\u2019s of course up to you. But here\u2019s a better suggestion. Why not contribute design for an open source project instead?\n\nYou can easily find many projects in great need of design work, from branding to information design, documentation, and website or application design. The benefits to doing this are far better than an unsolicited redesign. You get a great portfolio piece that actually has greater potential to get used (especially if the core team is on board with it). It\u2019s a win-win situation.\n\nNot all designers are in need of portfolio filler, but there are other benefits to contributing design.\n\nGiving back to the community\n\nMy first experience with voluntary work was when I collaborated with my friend, Vineet Thapar, on a pro bono project for the W3C\u2019s Web Accessibility Initiative redesign project back in 2004. I was very excited to contribute CSS to a website that would get used by the W3C! Unfortunately, it decided to go a different direction and my work did not get used. However, it was still pretty exciting to have the opportunity, and I don\u2019t regret a moment of that work. I learned a lot about accessibility from this experience and it helped me land some of the jobs I\u2019ve had since.\n\nAlmost a decade later, I got super into Sass. One of the core maintainers, Chris Eppstein, lamented on Twitter one day that the Sass website and brand was in dire need of design help. That led to the creation of an open source task force, Team Sass Design, and we revived the brand and the website, which launched at SassConf in 2013.\n\nIt helped me in my current job. I showed it during my portfolio review when I interviewed for the role. Then I was able to use inspiration from a technique I\u2019d tried on the Sass website to help create the more feature-rich design system that my team at work is building. But most importantly, I soon learned that it is exhilarating to be a part of the Sass community. This is the biggest benefit of all. It feels really good to give back to the technology I love and use for getting my work done.\n\nBen Werdmuller writes about the need for design in open source. It\u2019s great to see designers contributing to open source in awesome ways. When A List Apart\u2019s website went open source, Anna Debenham contributed by helping build its pattern library. Bevan Stephens worked with FontForge on the design of its website. There are also designers who have created their own open source projects. There\u2019s Dan Cederholm\u2019s Pears, which shares common patterns in markup and style. There\u2019s also Brad Frost\u2019s Pattern Lab, which shares his famous method of atomic design and applies it to a design system. These systems and patterns have been used in real-world projects, such as RetailMeNot, so designers have contributed to the web in an even larger way simply by putting their work out there for others to use. That\u2019s kind of fun to think about.\n\nHow to get started\n\nSo are you stoked about getting into the open source community? That\u2019s great!\n\nInitially, you might get worried or uncomfortable in getting involved. That\u2019s okay. But first consider that the project is open source for a reason. Your contribution (no matter how large or small) can help in a big way.\n\nIf you find a project you\u2019re interested in helping, make sure you do your research. Sometimes project team members will be attached to their current design. Is there already a designer on the core team? Reach out to that designer first. Don\u2019t be too aggressive with why you think your design is better than theirs. Rather, offer some constructive feedback and a proposal of what would make the design better. Chances are, if the designer cares about the project, and you make a strong case, they\u2019ll be up for it.\n\nAre there contribution guidelines? It\u2019s proper etiquette to read these and follow the community\u2019s rules. You\u2019ll have a better chance of getting your work accepted, and it shows that you take the time to care and add to the overall quality of the project. Does the project lack guidelines? Consider starting a draft for that before getting started in the design.\n\nWhen contributing to open source, use your initiative to solve problems in a manageable way. Huge pull requests are hard to review and will often either get neglected or rejected. Work in small, modular, and iterative contributions.\n\nSo this is my personal take on what I\u2019ve learned from my experience and why I love open source. I\u2019d love to hear from you if you have your own experience in doing this and what you\u2019ve learned along the way as well. Please share in the comments!\n\nThanks Drew McLellan, Eric Suzanne, Kyle Neath for sharing their thoughts with me on this!", "year": "2014", "author": "Jina Anne", "author_slug": "jina", "published": "2014-12-19T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2014/why-you-should-design-for-open-source/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 59, "title": "Animating Your Brand", "contents": "Let\u2019s talk about how we add animation to our designs, in a way that\u2019s consistent with other aspects of our brand, such as fonts, colours, layouts and everything else.\nAnimating is fun. Adding animation to our designs can bring them to life and make our designs stand out. Animations can show how the pieces of our designs fit together. They provide context and help people use our products.\nAll too often animation is something we tack on at the end. We put a transition on a modal window or sliding menu and we often don\u2019t think about whether that animation is consistent with our overall design.\nStyle guides to the rescue\nA style guide is a document that establishes and enforces style to improve communication. It can cover anything from typography and writing style to ethics and other, broader goals. It might be a static visual document showing every kind of UI, like in the Codecademy.com redesign shown below.\nUI toolkit from \u201cReimagining Codecademy.com\u201d by @mslima\nIt might be a technical reference with code examples. CodePen\u2019s new design patterns and style guide is a great example of this, showing all the components used throughout the website as live code.\nCodePen\u2019s design patterns and style guide\nA style guide gives a wide view of your project, it maintains consistency when adding new content, and we can use our style guide to present animations.\nLiving documents\nStyle guides don\u2019t need to be static. We can use them to show movement. We can share CSS keyframe animations or transitions that can then go into production. We can also explain why animation is there in the first place.\nJust as a style guide might explain why we chose a certain font or layout, we can use style guides to explain the intent behind animation. This means that if someone else wants to create a new component, they will know why animation applies.\nIf you haven\u2019t yet set up a style guide, you might want to take a look at Pattern Lab. It\u2019s a great tool for setting up your own style guide and includes loads of design patterns to get started.\nThere are many style guide articles linked from the excellent, open sourced, Website Style Guide Resources. Anna Debenham also has an excellent pocket book on the subject.\nAdding animation\nBefore you begin throwing animation at all the things, establish the character you want to convey.\nAndrex Puppy (British TV ad from 1994)\nList some words that describe the character you\u2019re aiming for. If it was the Andrex brand, they might have gone for: fun, playful, soft, comforting.\nPerhaps you\u2019re aiming for something more serious, credible and authoritative. Or maybe exciting and intense, or relaxing and meditative. For each scenario, the animations that best represent these words will be different.\nIn the example below, two animations both take the same length of time, but use different timing functions. One eases, and the other bounces around. Either might be good, depending on your needs.\nTiming functions (CodePen)\nExample: Kitman Labs\nWorking with Kitman Labs, we spent a little time working out what words best reflected the brand and came up with the following:\n\nScientific\nPrecise\nFast\nSolid\nDependable\nHelpful\nConsistent\nClear\n\nWith such a list of words in hand, we design animation that fits. We might prefer a tween that moves quickly to its destination over one that drifts slowly or bounces.\nWe can use the list when justifying our use of animation, such as when it helps our customers understand the context of data on the page. Or we may even choose not to animate, when that might make the message inconsistent.\nCreate guidelines\nIf you already have a style guide, adding animation could begin with creating an overview section.\nOne approach is to create a local website and share it within your organisation. We recently set up a local site for this purpose. \nA recent project\u2019s introduction to the topic of animation\nThis document becomes a reference when adding animation to components. Include links to related resources or examples of animation to help demonstrate the animation style you want.\nPrototyping\nYou can explain the intent of your animation style guide with live animations. This doesn\u2019t just mean waving our hands around. We can show animation through prototypes.\nThere are so many prototype tools right now. You could use Invision, Principle, Floid, or even HTML and CSS as embedded CodePens.\nA login flow prototype created in Principle\nThese tools help when trying out ideas and working through several approaches. Create videos, animated GIFs or online demos to share with others. Experiment. Find what works for you and work with whatever lets you get the most ideas out of your head fastest. Iterate and refine an animation before it gets anywhere near production.\nBuild up a collection\nBuild up your guide, one animation at a time.\nSome people prefer to loosely structure a guide with places to put things as they are discovered or invented; others might build it one page at a time \u2013 it doesn\u2019t matter. The main thing is that you collect animations like you would trading cards. Or Pokemon. Keep them ready to play and deliver that explosive result.\nYou could include animated GIFs, or link to videos or even live webpages as examples of animation. The use of animation to help user experience is also covered nicely in Val Head\u2019s UI animation and UX article on A List Apart.\nWhat matters is that you create an organised place for them to be found. Here are some ideas to get started.\nLogos and brandmarks\nMany sites include some subtle form of animation in their logos. This can draw the eye, add some character, or bring a little liveliness to an otherwise static page. Yahoo and Google have been experimenting with animation on their logos. Even a simple bouncing animation, such as the logo on Hop.ie, can add character.\nThe CSS-animated bouncer from Hop.ie\nContent transitions\nAdding content, removing content, showing and hiding messages are all opportunities to use animation. Careful and deliberate use of animation helps convey what\u2019s changing on screen.\nAnimating list items with CSS (CSSAnimation.rocks)\nFor more detail on this, I also recommend \u201cTransitional Interfaces\u201d by Pasquale D\u2019Silva.\nPage transitions\nOn a larger scale than the changes to content, full-page transitions can smooth the flow between sections of a site. Medium\u2019s article transitions are a good example of this.\nMedium-style page transition (Tympanus.net)\nPreparing a layout before the content arrives\nWe can use animation to draw a page before the content is ready, such as when a page calls a server for data before showing it.\nOptimistic loading grid (CodePen)\nSometimes it\u2019s good to show something to let the user know that everything\u2019s going well. A short animation could cover just enough time to load the initial content and make the loading transition feel seamless.\nInteractions\nHover effects, dropdown menus, slide-in menus and active states on buttons and forms are all opportunities. Look for ways you can remove the sudden changes and help make the experience of using your UI feel smoother.\nForm placeholder animation (Studio MDS)\nKeep animation visible\nIt takes continuous effort to maintain a style guide and keep it up to date, but it\u2019s worth it. Make it easy to include animation and related design decisions in your documentation and you\u2019ll be more likely to do so. If you can make it fun, and be proud of the result, better still.\nWhen updating your style guide, be sure to show the animations at the same time. This might mean animated GIFs, videos or live embedded examples of your components.\nBy doing this you can make animation integral to your design process and make sure it stays relevant.\nInspiration and resources\nThere are loads of great resources online to help you get started. One of my favourites is IBM\u2019s design language site.\nIBM\u2019s design language:\u200aanimation design guidelines\nIBM describes how animation principles apply to its UI work and components. They break down the animations into five categories of animations and explain how they apply to each example.\nThe site also includes an animation library with example videos of animations and links to source code.\nExample component from IBM\u2019s component library\nThe way IBM sets out its aims and methods is helpful not only for their existing designers and developers, but also helps new hires. Furthermore, it\u2019s a good way to show the world that IBM cares about these details.\nAnother popular animation resource is Google\u2019s material design.\nGoogle\u2019s material design documentation\nGoogle\u2019s guidelines cover everything from understanding easing through to creating engaging and useful mobile UI.\nThis approach is visible across many of Google\u2019s apps and software, and has influenced design across much of the web. The site is helpful both for learning about animation and as an showcase of how to illustrate examples.\nFrameworks\nIf you don\u2019t want to create everything from scratch, there are resources you can use to start using animation in your UI. One such resource is Salesforce\u2019s Lightning design system.\nThe system goes further than most guides. It includes a downloadable framework for adding animation to your projects. It has some interesting concepts, such as elevation settings to handle positioning on the z-axis.\nExample of elevation from Salesforce\u2019s Lightning design system\nYou should also check out Animate.css.\n\u201cJust add water\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aAnimate.css\nAnimate.css gives you a set of predesigned animations you can apply to page elements using classes. If you use JavaScript to add or remove classes, you can then trigger complex animations. It also plays well with scroll-triggering, and tools such as WOW.js.\nLearn, evolve and make it your own\nThere\u2019s a wealth online of information and guides we can use to better understand animation. They can inspire and kick-start our own visual and animation styles. So let\u2019s think of the design of animations just as we do fonts, colours and layouts. Let\u2019s choose animation deliberately, making it part of our style guides.\nMany thanks to Val Head for taking the time to proofread and offer great suggestions for this article.", "year": "2015", "author": "Donovan Hutchinson", "author_slug": "donovanhutchinson", "published": "2015-12-01T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2015/animating-your-brand/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 58, "title": "Beyond the Style Guide", "contents": "Much like baking a Christmas cake, designing for the web involves creating an experience in layers. Starting with a solid base that provides the core experience (the fruit cake), we can add further layers, each adding refinement (the marzipan) and delight (the icing).\nDon\u2019t worry, this isn\u2019t a misplaced cake recipe, but an evaluation of modular design and the role style guides can play in acknowledging these different concerns, be they presentational or programmatic.\nThe auteur\u2019s style guide\nAlthough trained as a graphic designer, it was only when I encountered the immediacy of the web that I felt truly empowered as a designer. Given a desire to control every aspect of the resulting experience, I slowly adopted the role of an auteur, exploring every part of the web stack: front-end to back-end, and everything in between. A few years ago, I dreaded using the command line. Today, the terminal is a permanent feature in my Dock.\nIn straddling the realms of graphic design and programming, it\u2019s the point at which they meet that I find most fascinating, with each dicipline valuing the creation of effective systems, be they for communication or code efficiency. Front-end style guides live at this intersection, demonstrating both the modularity of code and the application of visual design.\nPainting by numbers\nIn our rush to build modular systems, design frameworks have grown in popularity. While enabling quick assembly, these come at the cost of originality and creative expression \u2013 perhaps one reason why we\u2019re seeing the homogenisation of web design.\nIn editorial design, layouts should accentuate content and present it in an engaging manner. Yet on the web we see a practice that seeks templated predictability. In \u2018Design Machines\u2019 Travis Gertz argued that (emphasis added):\n\nDesign systems still feel like a novelty in screen-based design. We nerd out over grid systems and modular scales and obsess over style guides and pattern libraries. We\u2019re pretty good at using them to build repeatable components and site-wide standards, but that\u2019s sort of where it ends. [\u2026] But to stop there is to ignore the true purpose and potential of a design system.\n\nUnless we consider how interface patterns fully embrace the design systems they should be built upon, style guides may exacerbate this paint-by-numbers approach, encouraging conformance and suppressing creativity.\nAnatomy of a button\nLet\u2019s take a look at that most canonical of components, the button, and consider what we might wish to document and demonstrate in a style guide.\nThe different layers of our button component.\nContent\nThe most variable aspect of any component. Content guidelines will exert the most influence here, dictating things like tone of voice (whether we should we use stiff, formal language like \u2018Submit form\u2019, or adopt a more friendly tone, perhaps \u2018Send us your message\u2019) and appropriate language. For an internationalised interface, this may also impact word length and text direction or orientation.\nStructure\nHTML provides a limited vocabulary which we can use to structure content and add meaning. For interactive elements, the choice of element can also affect its behaviour, such as whether a button submits form data or links to another page:\n<button type=\"submit\">Button text</button>\n<a href=\"/index.html\">Button text</a>\nNote: One of the reasons I prefer to use <button> instead of <input type=\u201cbutton\u201d>, besides allowing the inclusion of content other than text, is that it has a markup structure similar to links, therefore keeping implementation differences to a minimum.\nWe should also think about each component within the broader scope of our particular product. For this we can employ a further vocabulary, which can be expressed by adding values to the class attribute. For a newspaper, we might use names like lede, standfirst and headline, while a social media application might see us reach for words like stream, action or avatar.\nPresentation\nThe appearance of a component can never be considered in isolation. Informed by its relationship to other elements, style guides may document different stylistic variations of a component, even if the underlying function remains unchanged: primary and secondary button styles, for example.\nBehaviour\nA component can exhibit various states: blank, loading, partial, error and ideal, and a style guide should reflect that. Our button component is relatively simple, yet even here we need to consider hover, focused, active and disabled states.\nTranscending layers\nThis overview reinforces Ethan\u2019s note from earlier in this series:\n\nI\u2019ve found that thinking about my design as existing in broad experience tiers \u2013 in layers \u2013 is one of the best ways of designing for the modern web.\n\nWhile it\u2019s tempting to describe a component as series of layers, certain aspects will transcend several of these. The accessibility of a component, for example, may influence the choice of language, the legibility of text, colour contrast and which affordances are provided in different states.\nVisual design language: documenting the missing piece\nEven given this small, self-contained component, we can see several concerns at play, and in reviewing our button it seems we have most things covered. However, a few questions remain unanswered. Why does it have a blue background? Why are the borders 2px thick, with a radius of 4px? Why are we using that font, at that size and with that weight?\nThese questions can be answered by our visual design language. More than a set of type choices and colour palettes, a design language can dicate common measures, ratios and the resulting grid(s) these influence. Ideally governed by a set of broader design principles, it can also inform an illustration style, the type of photography sourced or commissioned, and the behaviour of any animations.\nWhereas a style guide ensures conformity, having it underpinned by an effective design language will allow for flexibility; only by knowing the rules can you know how to break them!\nType pairings in the US Web Design Standards guide.\nFor a style guide to thoroughly articulate a visual design system, the spectrum of choices it allows for should be acknowledged. A fantastic example of this can be found in the US Web Design Standards. By virtue of being a set of standards designed to apply to a number of different sites, this guide offers a range of type pairings (that take into account performance considerations) and provides primary, secondary and tertiary palette relationships, with shades and tones thereof:\nColour palettes in the US Web Design Standards guide.\nA visual language in code form\nProperly documenting our design language in a style guide is a good start, yet even better if it can be expressed in code. This is where CSS preprocessors become a powerful ally.\nIn Sass, methods like mixins and maps can help us represent relationships between values. Variables (and CSS variables) extend the vocabulary provided natively by CSS, meaning we can describe patterns in terms of our own visual language. These tools effectively become an interface to our design system. Furthermore, they help maintain a separation of concerns, with visual presentation remaining where it should be: in our style sheets.\nTake this simple example, an article summary on a website counting down the best Christmas movies:\nThe design for our simple component example.\nOur markup is as follows, using appropriate semantic HTML elements and incorporating the vocabulary from our collection of design patterns (expressed using the BEM methodology):\n<article class=\"summary\">\n    <h1 class=\"summary__title\">\n        <a href=\"scrooged.html\">\n            <span class=\"summary__position\">12</span>\n            Scrooged (1988)\n        </a>\n    </h1>\n\n    <div class=\"summary__body\">\n        <p>It\u2019s unlikely that Bill Murray could ever have got through his career without playing a version of Scrooge\u2026</p>\n    </div>\n\n    <footer class=\"summary__meta\">\n        <strong>Director:</strong> Richard Donner<br/>\n        <strong>Stars:</strong> Bill Murray, Buddy Hackett, Karen Allen\n    </footer>\n</article>\nWe can then describe the presentation of this HTML by using Sass maps to define our palettes, mixins to include predefined font metrics, and variables to recall common measurements:\n.summary {\n    margin-bottom: ($baseline * 4)\n}\n\n.summary__title {\n    @include font-family(display-serif);\n    @include font-size(title);\n    color: palette(neutral, dark);\n    margin-bottom: ($baseline * 4);\n    border-top: $rule-height solid palette(primary, purple);\n    padding-top: ($baseline * 2);\n}\n\n.summary__position {\n    @include font-family(display-sans, 300);\n    color: palette(neutral, mid);\n}\n\n.summary__body {\n    @include font-family(text-serif);\n    @include font-size(body);\n    margin-bottom: ($baseline * 2);\n}\n\n.summary__meta {\n    @include font-family(text-sans);\n    @include font-size(caption);\n}\nOf course, this is a simplistic example for the purposes of demonstration. However, such thinking was employed at a much larger scale at the Guardian. Using a set of Sass components, complex patterns could be described using a language familar to everyone on the product team, be they a designer, developer or product owner:\nThe design of a component on the Guardian website, described in terms of its Sass-powered design system.\nUnlocking possibility\nAlongside tools like preprocessors, newer CSS layout modules like flexbox and grid layout mean the friction we\u2019ve long been accustomed to when creating layouts on the web is no longer present, and the full separation of presentation from markup is now possible. Now is the perfect time for graphic designers to advocate design systems that these developments empower, and ensure they\u2019re fully represented in both documentation and code. That way, together, we can build systems that allow for greater visual expression. After all, there\u2019s more than one way to bake a Christmas cake.", "year": "2015", "author": "Paul Lloyd", "author_slug": "paulrobertlloyd", "published": "2015-12-16T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2015/beyond-the-style-guide/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 173, "title": "Real Fonts and Rendering: The New Elephant in the Room", "contents": "My friend, the content strategist Kristina Halvorson, likes to call content \u201cthe elephant in the room\u201d of web design. She means it\u2019s the huge problem that no one on the web development team or client side is willing to acknowledge, face squarely, and plan for. \n\nA typical web project will pass through many helpful phases of research, and numerous beneficial user experience design iterations, while the content\u2014which in most cases is supposed to be the site\u2019s primary focus\u2014gets handled haphazardly at the end. Hence, elephant in the room, and hence also artist Kevin Cornell\u2019s recent use of elephantine imagery to illustrate A List Apart articles on the subject. But I digress.\n\nWithout discounting the primacy of the content problem, we web design folk have now birthed ourselves a second lumbering mammoth, thanks to our interest in \u201creal fonts on the web\u201c (the unfortunate name we\u2019ve chosen for the recent practice of serving web-licensed fonts via CSS\u2019s decade-old @font-face declaration\u2014as if Georgia, Verdana, and Times were somehow unreal). \n\nFor the fact is, even bulletproof and mo\u2019 bulletproofer @font-face CSS syntax aren\u2019t really bulletproof if we care about looks and legibility across browsers and platforms.\n\nHyenas in the Breakfast Nook\n\nThe problem isn\u2019t just that foundries have yet to agree on a standard font format that protects their intellectual property. And that, even when they do, it will be a while before all browsers support that standard\u2014leaving aside the inevitable politics that impede all standardization efforts. Those are problems, but they\u2019re not the elephant. Call them the coyotes in the room, and they\u2019re slowly  being tamed.\n\nNor is the problem that workable, scalable business models (of which Typekit\u2018s is the most visible and, so far, the most successful) are still being shaken out and tested. The quality and ease of use of such services, their stability on heavily visited sites (via massively backed-up server clusters), and the fairness and sustainability of their pricing will determine how licensing and serving \u201creal fonts\u201d works in the short and long term for the majority of designer/developers.\n\nNor is our primary problem that developers with no design background may serve ugly or illegible fonts that take forever to load, or fonts that take a long time to download and then display as ordinary system fonts (as happens on, say, about.validator.nu). Ugliness and poor optimization on the web are nothing new. That support for @font-face in Webkit and Mozilla browsers (and for TrueType fonts converted to Embedded OpenType in Internet Explorer) adds deadly weapons to the non-designer\u2019s toolkit is not the technology\u2019s fault. JavaScript and other essential web technologies are equally susceptible to abuse. \n\nBeauty is in the Eye of the Rendering Engine\n\nNo, the real elephant in the room\u2014the thing few web developers and no \u201cweb font\u201d enthusiasts are talking about\u2014has to do with legibility (or lack thereof) and aesthetics (or lack thereof) across browsers and platforms. Put simply, even fonts optimized for web use (which is a whole thing: ask a type designer) will not look good in every browser and OS. That\u2019s because every browser treats hinting differently, as does every OS, and every OS version. \n\nFirefox does its own thing in both Windows and Mac OS, and Microsoft is all over the place because of its need to support multiple generations of Windows and Cleartype and all kinds of hardware simultaneously. Thus \u201creal type\u201d on a single web page can look markedly different, and sometimes very bad, on different computers at the same company. If that web page is your company\u2019s, your opinion of \u201cweb fonts\u201d may suffer, and rightfully. (The advantage of Apple\u2019s closed model, which not everyone likes, is that it allows the company to guarantee the quality and consistency of user experience.)  \n\nAs near as my font designer friends and I can make out, Apple\u2019s Webkit in Safari and iPhone ignores hinting and creates its own, which Apple thinks is better, and which many web designers think of as \u201cwhat real type looks like.\u201d The forked version of Webkit in Chrome, Android, and Palm Pre also creates its own hinting, which is close to iPhone\u2019s\u2014close enough that Apple, Palm, and Google could propose it as a standard for use in all browsers and platforms. Whether Firefox would embrace a theoretical Apple and Google standard is open to conjecture, and I somehow have difficulty imagining Microsoft buying in\u2014even though they know the web is more and more mobile, and that means more and more of their customers are viewing web content in some version of Webkit.\n\nThe End of Simple\n\nThere are ways around this ugly type ugliness, but they involve complicated scripting and sniffing\u2014the very nightmares from which web standards and the simplicity of @font-face were supposed to save us. I don\u2019t know that even mighty Typekit has figured out every needed variation yet (although, working with foundries, they probably will). \n\nFor type foundries, the complexity and expense of rethinking classic typefaces to survive in these hostile environments may further delay widespread adoption of web fonts and the resolution of licensing and formatting issues. The complexity may also force designers (even those who prefer to own) to rely on a hosted rental model simply to outsource and stay current with the detection and programming required.\n\nForgive my tears. I stand in a potter\u2019s field of ideas like \u201cKeep it simple,\u201d by a grave whose headstone reads \u201cWrite once, publish everywhere.\u201d", "year": "2009", "author": "Jeffrey Zeldman", "author_slug": "jeffreyzeldman", "published": "2009-12-22T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2009/real-fonts-and-rendering/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 84, "title": "Responsive Responsive Design", "contents": "Now more than ever, we\u2019re designing work meant to be viewed along a gradient of different experiences. Responsive web design offers us a way forward, finally allowing us to \u201cdesign for the ebb and flow of things.\u201d\n\n\nWith those two sentences, Ethan closed the article that introduced the web to responsive design. Since then, responsive design has taken the web by storm. Seemingly every day, some company is touting their new responsive redesign. Large brands such as Microsoft, Time and Disney are getting in on the action, blowing away the once common criticism that responsive design was a technique only fit for small blogs.\n\nCertainly, this is a good thing. As Ethan and John Allsopp before him, were right to point out, the inherent flexibility of the web is a feature, not a bug. The web\u2019s unique ability to be consumed and interacted with on any number of devices, with any number of input methods is something to be embraced.\n\nBut there\u2019s one part of the web\u2019s inherent flexibility that seems to be increasingly overlooked: the ability for the web to be interacted with on any number of networks, with a gradient of  bandwidth constraints and latency costs, on devices with varying degrees of hardware power.\n\nA few months back, Stephanie Rieger tweeted\n\n\n\t\u201cShoot me now\u2026responsive design has seemingly become confused with an opportunity to reduce performance rather than improve it.\u201d\n\n\nI would love to disagree, but unfortunately the evidence is damning. Consider the size and number of requests for four highly touted responsive sites that were launched this year:\n\n\n\t74 requests, 1,511kb\n\t114 requests, 1,200kb\n\t99 requests, 1,298kb\n\t105 requests, 5,942kb\n\n\nAnd those numbers were for the small screen versions of each site!\n\nThese sites were praised for their visual design and responsive nature, and rightfully so. They\u2019re very easy on the eyes and a lot of thought went into their appearance. But the numbers above tell an inconvenient truth: for all the time spent ensuring the visual design was airtight, seemingly very little (if any) attention was given to their performance.\n\nIt would be one thing if these were the exceptions, but unfortunately they\u2019re not. Guy Podjarny, who has done a lot of research around responsive performance, discovered that 86% of the responsive sites he tested were either the same size or larger on the small screen as they were on the desktop.\n\nThe reality is that high performance should be a requirement on any web project, not an afterthought. Poor performance has been tied to a decrease in revenue, traffic, conversions, and overall user satisfaction. Case study after case study shows that improving performance, even marginally, will impact the bottom line. The situation is no different on mobile where 71% of people say they expect sites to load as quickly or faster on their phone when compared to the desktop.\n\nThe bottom line: performance is a fundamental component of the user experience.\n\nSo, given it\u2019s extreme importance in the success of any web project, why is it that we\u2019re seeing so many bloated responsive sites?\n\nFirst, I adamantly disagree with the belief that poor performance is inherent to responsive design. That\u2019s not a rule \u2013 it\u2019s a cop-out. It\u2019s an example of blaming the technique when we should be blaming the implementation. This argument also falls flat because it ignores the fact that the trend of fat sites is increasing on the web in general. While some responsive sites are the worst offenders, it\u2019s hardly an issue resigned to one technique.\n\nTo fix the issue, we need to stop making excuses and start making improvements instead. Here, then, are some things we can do to start improving the state of responsive performance, and performance in general, right now.\n\nCreate a culture of performance\n\nIf you understand just how important performance is to the success of a project, the natural next step is to start creating a culture where high performance is a key consideration. \n\nOne of the things you can do is set a baseline. Determine the maximum size and number of requests you are going to allow, and don\u2019t let a page go live if either of those numbers is exceeded. The BBC does this with its responsive mobile site.\n\nA variation of that, which Steve Souders discussed in a recent podcast is to create a performance budget based on those numbers. Once you have that baseline set, if someone comes along and wants to add a something to the page, they have to make sure the page remains under budget. If it exceeds the budget, you have three options:\n\n\n\tOptimize an existing feature or asset on the page\n\tRemove an existing feature or asset from the page\n\tDon\u2019t add the new feature or asset\n\n\nThe idea here is that you make performance part of the process instead of something that may or may not get tacked on at the end.\n\nEmbrace the pain\n\nThis troubling trend of web bloat can be blamed in part on the lack of pain associated with poor performance. Most of us work on high-speed connections with low latency. When we fire up a 4Mb site, it doesn\u2019t feel so bad. \n\nWhen I tested the previously mentioned 5,942kb site on a 3G network, it took over 93 seconds to load. A minute and a half just staring at a white screen. Had anyone working on that project experienced that, you can bet the site wouldn\u2019t have launched in that state.\n\nDon\u2019t just crunch numbers. Fire up your site on a slower network and see what it feels like to wait. If you don\u2019t have access to a slow network, simulate one using a tool like Slowy, Throttle or the Network Conditioner found in Mac OS X 10.7.\n\nWatch for low-hanging fruit\n\nThere are a bunch of general performance improvements that apply to any site (responsive or not) but often aren\u2019t made. A great starting point is to refer to Yahoo!\u2018s list of rules.\n\nSome of this might sound complicated or intimidating, but it doesn\u2019t have to be. You can grab an .htaccess file from HTML 5 Boilerplate or use Sergey Chernyshev\u2019s drop-in .htaccess file. You can use tools like SpriteMe to simplify the creation of sprites, and ImageOptim to compress images.\n\nJust by implementing these simple optimizations you will achieve a noticeable improvement in terms of weight and page load time.\n\nBe careful with images\n\nThe most common offender for poor responsive performance is downloading unnecessarily large images, or worse yet, multiple sizes of the same image. \n\nFor background images, simply being careful with where and how you include the image can ensure you don\u2019t get caught in the trap of multiple background images being downloaded without being used. Don\u2019t count on display:none to help. While it may hide elements from displaying on screen, those images will still be requested and downloaded.\n\nContent images can be a little trickier. Whatever you do, don\u2019t serve a large image that works on a large screen display to small screens. It\u2019s wasteful, not only in terms of adding weight to the page, but also in wasting precious memory. Instead, use a tool like Adaptive Images or src.sencha.io to make sure only appropriately sized images are being downloaded. \n\nThe new <picture> element that has been so often discussed is another excellent solution if you\u2019re feeling particularly future-oriented. A picture polyfill exists so that you can start using the element now without any worries about support.\n\nConditional loading\n\nDon\u2019t load any more than you absolutely need to. If a script isn\u2019t needed at certain sizes, use the matchMedia polyfill to ensure it only loads when needed. Use eCSSential to do the same for unnecessary CSS files.\n\nLast year on 24 ways, Jeremy Keith wrote an article about conditional loading of content in a responsive design based on the screen width. The technique was later refined by the Filament Group into what they dubbed the Ajax-Include Pattern. It\u2019s a powerful and simple way to lighten the load on small screens as well as reduce clutter.\n\nGo vanilla?\n\nIf you take a look at the HTTP Archive you\u2019ll see that other than image size, JavaScript is the heaviest asset on a page weighing in at 215kb on average. It also boasts the fifth highest correlation to load time as well as the second highest correlation to render time. \n\nMuch of the weight can be attributed to our industry\u2019s increasing reliance on frameworks. This is especially a concern on mobile devices. PPK recently exclaimed that current JavaScript libraries are just \u201ctoo heavy for mobile\u201d. \u201cResearch from Stoyan Stefanov on parse times supports this. On some Android and iOS devices, it can take as long as 200-300ms just to parse jQuery.\n\nThere\u2019s nothing wrong about using a framework, but the problem is that they\u2019ve become the default. Before dropping another framework or plugin into a page, we should stop to consider the value it adds and whether we could accomplish what we need to do using a combination of vanilla JavaScript and CSS instead. (This is a great example of a scenario where a performance budget could help.)\n\nStart thinking beyond visual aesthetics\n\nWe love to tout the web\u2019s universality when discussing the need for responsive design. But that universality is not limited simply to screen size. Networks and hardware capabilities must factor in as well.\n\nThe web is an incredibly dynamic and interactive medium, and designing for it demands that we consider more than just visual aesthetics. Let\u2019s not forget to give those other qualities the attention they deserve.", "year": "2012", "author": "Tim Kadlec", "author_slug": "timkadlec", "published": "2012-12-05T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2012/responsive-responsive-design/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 285, "title": "Composing the New Canon: Music, Harmony, Proportion", "contents": "Ohne Musik w\u00e4re das Leben ein Irrtum\n\u2014Friedrich NIETZSCHE, G\u00f6tzen-D\u00e4mmerung, Spr\u00fcche und Pfeile 33, 1889\n\n\nSomehow, music is hardcoded in human beings. It is something we understand and respond to without prior knowledge. Music exercises the emotions and our imaginative reflex, not just our hearing. It behaves so much like our emotions that music can seem to symbolize them, to bear them from one person to another. Not surprisingly, it conjures memories: the word music derives from Greek \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae (mousike), art of the Muses, whose mythological mother was Mnemosyne, memory. But it can also summon up the blood, console the bereaved, inspire fanaticism, bolster governments and dissenters alike, help us learn, and make web designers dance. And what would Christmas be without music?\n\nMusic moves us, often in ways we can\u2019t explain. By some kind of alchemy, music frees us from the elaborate nuisance and inadequacy of words. Across the world and throughout recorded history \u2013 and no doubt well before that \u2013 people have listened and made (and made out to) music.\n\n\n\t[I]t appears probable that the progenitors of man, either the males or females or both sexes, before acquiring the power of expressing their mutual love in articulate language, endeavoured to charm each other with musical notes and rhythm.\n\u2014Charles DARWIN, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871\n\n\nIt\u2019s so integral to humankind, we\u2019ve sent it into space as a totem for who we are. (Who knows? It might be important.) Music is essential, a universal compulsion; as Nietzsche wrote, without music life would be a mistake.\n\nMusic, design and web design\n\nThere are some obvious and notable similarities between music and visual design. Both can convey mood and evoke emotion but, even under close scrutiny, how they do that remains to a great extent mysterious. Each has formal qualities or parts that can be abstracted, analysed and discussed, often using the same terminology: composition, harmony, rhythm, repetition, form, theme; even colour, texture and tone.\n\nA possible reason for these shared aspects is that both visual design and music are means to connect with people in deep and lasting ways. Furthermore, I believe the connections to be made can complement direct emotional appeal. Certain aesthetic qualities in music work on an unconscious and, it could be argued, universal level. Using musical principles in our designs, then, can help provide the connectedness between content, device and user that we now seek as web designers.\n\nYet, when we talk about music and web design, the conversation is almost always about the music designers listen to while working, a theme finding its apotheosis in Designers.MX. Sometimes, articles in that dreary list format seek inspiration from music industry websites. There\u2019s even a service offering pre-templated web designs for bands, and at least one book surveyed the landscape back in 2006. Occasionally, discussions broaden somewhat into whether and how different kinds of music can inspire and influence the design work we produce.\n\nSuch enquiries, it seems to me, are beside the point. Do I really design differently when I listen to Bach rather than Bacharach? Will the barely restrained energy of Count Basie\u2019s The Kid from Red Bank mean I choose a lively colour palette, and rural, autumnal shades when inspired by Fleet Foxes? Mahler means a thirteen-column layout? Gillian Welch leads to distressed black and white photography? While reflecting the importance we place in music and how it seems to help us in our work, surveys on musical taste and lists of favourite artists fail to recognize that some of the fundamental aesthetic characteristics of music can be adapted and incorporated into modern web design.\n\nAntiphonal geometry\n\nOver recent years, web designers have embraced grid systems as powerful tools to help create good-looking and intuitive user experiences. With the advent of responsive design, these grids and their contents must adapt to the different screen sizes and properties of all kinds of user devices. Finding and using grid values that can scale well and retain or enhance their proportions and relationships while making the user experience meaningful in several different contexts is more important than ever.\n\nIn print, this challenge has always started with the dimensions and proportions of the page. Content can thereby be made to belong inside the page and be bound to it. And music has been used for centuries to further this aim. As Robert Bringhurst says in The Elements of Typographical Style:\n\n\n\tIndeed, one of the simplest of all systems of page proportions is based on the familiar intervals of the diatonic scale. Pages that embody these basic musical proportions have been in common use in Europe for more than a thousand years.\n\n\nVery well. But while he goes on to list (from the full chromatic scale, rather than just diatonic) the proportions and the musical intervals they\u2019re based on, Bringhurst fails to mention what they\u2019re ratios of or their potential effects. Shame. In his favour, however, he later touches on how proportions in print might be considered to work:\n\n\n\tThe page is a piece of paper. It is also a visible and tangible proportion, silently sounding the thoroughbass of the book. On it lies the textblock, which must answer to the page. The two together \u2013 page and textblock \u2013 produce an antiphonal geometry. That geometry alone can bond the reader to the book. Or conversely, it can put the reader to sleep, or put the reader\u2019s nerves on edge, or drive the reader away.\n\n\nSo what does Bringhurst mean by antiphonal geometry, a phrase that marries the musical to the spatial? By stating that the textblock \u201cmust answer to the page\u201d, the implication is that the relationship between the proportions of the page and the shape of the textblock printed on it embodies a spatial (geometrical) call-and-response (antiphony) that can be appealing or not.\n\nBoulton\u2019s new canon\n\nBut, as Mark Boulton has pointed out, on the web \u201cthere are no edges. There are no \u2018pages\u2019. We\u2019ve made them up.\u201d So, what is to be done? In January 2011 at the New Adventures in Web Design conference, Boulton presented his vision of a new canon of web design, a set of principles to guide us as we design the web. There are three overlapping tenets:\n\n\n\tdesign from the content out\n\tcreate connectedness between the different content elements\n\tbind the content to the web device\n\n\nRather than design from the edges in, we need to design layout systems from the content out. To this end, Boulton asserts that grid system design should begin with a constraint, and he suggests we use the size of a fixed content element, such as an advertising unit or image, as a starting point for online grid calculations. Khoi Vinh advocates the same approach in his book, Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design.\n\nBoulton\u2019s second and third tenets, however, are more complex and overlap significantly with each other. Connecting the different parts of the content and binding the content to the device share many characteristics and solutions:\n\n\n\tadopting ems and percentages as units of size for layout elements\n\taltering text size, line length and line height for different viewport dimensions\n\tproviding higher resolution images for devices with greater pixel densities\n\tfluid layout grids, flexible images and responsive design\n\n\nAll can help relate the presentation of the content to its delivery in a certain context.\n\nBut how do we determine the relationship between one element of a layout and another? How can we avoid making arbitrary decisions about the relative sizes of parts of our designs? What can we use to connect the parts of our design to one another, and how can we bind the presentation of the content to the user\u2019s device?\n\nTim Brown\u2019s application of modular typographic scales hints at an answer. In the very useful tool he created for calculating such scales, Brown includes two musical ratios: the perfect fifth (2:3); and the perfect fourth (3:4). Why? Where do they come from? And what do they mean?\n\nHarmonies musical and visual\n\nFundamental to music are rhythm and harmony.\n\nAs any drummer will tell you, without rhythm there is no music. Even when there\u2019s no regular beat, any tune follows a rhythm, however irregular, simply because a change of note is a point of change in the music. Although rhythm, timing and pacing are all relevant to interaction design, right now it\u2019s harmony we\u2019re interested in.\n\nSometimes harmony is called the vertical aspect of music, and melody the horizontal. But this conceit overlooks the fact that harmony is both vertical and horizontal. A single melodic line, as it is played, implies various sets of harmonies on which it is grounded, whether or not those harmonies are played. So, harmony doesn\u2019t just sit vertically beneath the horizontal melody, but moves horizontally as well, through harmonic progression.\n\nTo stretch this arrangement pixel-thin, we could argue that in onscreen design melody is the content, and the layout and arrangement of the content is the harmony. We sometimes say a design is harmonious when the interplay of different elements of a design is pleasing or balanced or in proportion, and the content (the melody) is set off or conveyed well by or appropriate to the design.\n\nWe seem to know instinctively whether a layout is harmonious\u2026\n\nIn the design of The Great Discontent, the relationships between different elements combine to form a balanced whole.\n\n\u2026or not.\n\nThere\u2019s no harmony in the Department for Education\u2019s website because the different parts of the content don\u2019t feel related to one another.\n\nWhat is it that makes one design harmonious and another dissonant? It\u2019s not just whether things line up, though that\u2019s a start. I believe there are much deeper aesthetic forces at work, forces we can tap into in our onscreen designs. Now, I\u2019m not going start a difficult discussion about aesthetics. For our purposes, we just need to know that it\u2019s the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, and the creation and perception of beauty. And among the key components in the perception of beauty are harmony and proportion. These have been part of traditional western aesthetics since Plato (about 2,500 years).\n\nOne of the ways we appreciate the beauty of music is through the harmonic intervals we hear. A musical interval is a combination of two notes and it describes the distance between the two pitches. For example, the distance between C and the G above it (if we take C as the tonic or root) is called a perfect fifth.\n\nLeft: C to G, a perfect fifth. Right: C and G, not a perfect fifth.\n\n \n\nAnd, to get superficially scientific for a moment, each musical interval can be expressed as a ratio of the wavelength frequencies of the notes; for our perfect fifth, with every two wavelengths of C, there are three of G. And what is a ratio, if not a proportion of one thing to another?\n\nSo, simple musical harmony (using what\u2019s known as just intonation1) affords us a set of proportions, expressed as ratios. Where better to apply these ideas of harmony and proportion from music in web design, than grid systems?\n\nA digression: whither \u03c6?\n\nQuite often in our discussions of pure design and aesthetics, we mention the golden ratio and regurgitate the same justifications for its use: roots in antiquity; embodied in classical and Renaissance architecture and art; occurrence in nature; the New Twitter, and so forth (oh, really?).\n\nYet the ratios of musical intervals from just intonation are equally venerable and much more widespread: described by Pythagorus; employed in Palladian architecture, and printing, books and art from the Renaissance onwards; in modern times, film and television dimensions; standard international paper sizes (ISO 216, the A and B series); and, again and again, screen dimensions \u2013 chances are that screen you\u2019re probably looking at right now has the proportions 2:3 (iPhone and iPod Touch), 3:4 (iPad and Kindle), 3:5 (many smartphones), 5:8 or 16:9 (many widescreen monitors), all ratios of musical intervals.\n\nBack to our theme\u2026\n\nMusical interval ratios\n\nLet\u2019s take a look at most of the ratios within a couple of octaves and crunch some numbers to generate some percentages and other values that we can use in our designs. First, the intervals and their ratios in just intonation and expressed as ratios of one:\n\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\tName \n\t\t\tInterval in C \n\t\t\tRatio \n\t\t\tRatio (1:x) \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t unison \n\t\t\t C\u2192C \n\t\t\t 1:1 \n\t\t\t 1:1 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor second \n\t\t\t C\u2192D\u266d \n\t\t\t 15:16 \n\t\t\t 1:1.067 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major second \n\t\t\t C\u2192D \n\t\t\t 8:9 \n\t\t\t 1:1.125 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor third \n\t\t\t C\u2192E\u266d \n\t\t\t 5:6 \n\t\t\t 1:1.2 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major third \n\t\t\t C\u2192E \n\t\t\t 4:5 \n\t\t\t 1:1.25 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t perfect fourth \n\t\t\t C\u2192F \n\t\t\t 3:4 \n\t\t\t 1:1.333 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t augmented fourth \nor diminished fifth \n\t\t\t C\u2192F\u266f/G\u266d \n\t\t\t 1:\u221a2 \n\t\t\t 1:1.414 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t perfect fifth \n\t\t\t C\u2192G \n\t\t\t 2:3 \n\t\t\t 1:1.5 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor sixth \n\t\t\t C\u2192A\u266d \n\t\t\t 5:8 \n\t\t\t 1:1.6 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major sixth \n\t\t\t C\u2192A \n\t\t\t 3:5 \n\t\t\t 1:1.667 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor seventh \n\t\t\t C\u2192B\u266d \n\t\t\t 9:16 \n\t\t\t 1:1.778 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major seventh \n\t\t\t C\u2192B \n\t\t\t 8:15 \n\t\t\t 1:1.875 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t octave \n\t\t\t C\u2192C\u2191 \n\t\t\t 1:2 \n\t\t\t 1:2 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major tenth \n\t\t\t C\u2192E\u2191 \n\t\t\t 2:5 \n\t\t\t 1:2.5 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major eleventh \n\t\t\t C\u2192F\u2191 \n\t\t\t 3:8 \n\t\t\t 1:2.667 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major twelfth \n\t\t\t C\u2192G\u2191 \n\t\t\t 1:3 \n\t\t\t 1:3 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t double octave \n\t\t\t C\u2192C\u2191 \n\t\t\t 1:4 \n\t\t\t 1:4 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tName \n\t\t\tInterval in C \n\t\t\tRatio \n\t\t\tRatio (1:x) \n\t\t\n\n\nAnd now as percentages, of both the larger and smaller values in the ratios:\n\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\tName \n\t\t\tRatio \n\t\t\t% of larger value \n\t\t\t% of smaller value \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t unison \n\t\t\t 1:1 \n\t\t\t 100% \n\t\t\t 100% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor second \n\t\t\t 15:16 \n\t\t\t 93.75% \n\t\t\t 106.667% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major second \n\t\t\t 8:9 \n\t\t\t 88.889% \n\t\t\t 112.5% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor third \n\t\t\t 5:6 \n\t\t\t 83.333% \n\t\t\t 120% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major third \n\t\t\t 4:5 \n\t\t\t 80% \n\t\t\t 125% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t perfect fourth \n\t\t\t 3:4 \n\t\t\t 75% \n\t\t\t 133.333% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t augmented fourth \nor diminished fifth \n\t\t\t 1:\u221a2 \n\t\t\t 70.711% \n\t\t\t 141.421% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t perfect fifth \n\t\t\t 2:3 \n\t\t\t 66.667% \n\t\t\t 150% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor sixth \n\t\t\t 5:8 \n\t\t\t 62.5% \n\t\t\t 160% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major sixth \n\t\t\t 3:5 \n\t\t\t 60% \n\t\t\t 166.667% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor seventh \n\t\t\t 9:16 \n\t\t\t 56.25% \n\t\t\t 177.778% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major seventh \n\t\t\t 8:15 \n\t\t\t 53.333% \n\t\t\t 187.5% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t octave \n\t\t\t 1:2 \n\t\t\t 50% \n\t\t\t 200% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major tenth \n\t\t\t 2:5 \n\t\t\t 40% \n\t\t\t 250% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major eleventh \n\t\t\t 3:8 \n\t\t\t 37.5% \n\t\t\t 266.667% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major twelfth \n\t\t\t 1:3 \n\t\t\t 33.333% \n\t\t\t 300% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t double octave \n\t\t\t 1:4 \n\t\t\t 25% \n\t\t\t 400% \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tName \n\t\t\tRatio \n\t\t\t% of larger value \n\t\t\t% of smaller value \n\t\t\n\n\nAs you can see, the simple musical intervals are expressed as ratios of small whole numbers (integers). We can then normalize them as ratios of one, as well as derive percentage values, both in terms of the smaller value to the larger, and vice versa. These are the numbers we can incorporate into our designs. If you\u2019ve ever written something like body { font: 100%/1.5 \"Museo Sans\", Helvetica, sans-serif; } in your CSS, you\u2019re already using a musical ratio: the perfect fifth.\n\nModular scales allow us to generate a set of numbers based on a musical interval that can be used for all kinds of typographic and layout decisions to create harmony in a visual design for the web. As Tim Brown said at the 2010 Build conference:\n\n\n\tI think that from that most atomic unit \u2013 type \u2013 whole experiences can resonate, whole experiences can be harmonious. And whole experiences can have a purpose suited to our design intentions.\n\n\nOnce more, with feeling: connectedness\n\nAs well as modular scales, there are other methods of incorporating musical interval ratios into our work. Setting the ratio of font size to line height in CSS is one such example. We could also create a typographic hierarchy using the same principle and combining several ratios that we know harmonize well musically in a chord:\n\nbody { font-size: 75%; } /* =12px = base size or tonic */\n\nh1 { font-size: 32px; font-size: 2.667rem; }\n   /* =32px = 3:8 = major eleventh (C\u2192F\u2191) */\n\nh2 { font-size: 24px; font-size: 2rem; }\n   /* =24px = 1:2 = octave (C\u2192C\u2191) */\n\nh3 { font-size: 20px; font-size: 1.667rem; }\n   /* =20px = 3:5 = major sixth (C\u2192A) */\n\nfigcaption, small { font-size: 9px; font-size : 0.75rem }\n   /* =9px = 3:4 = perfect fourth (C\u2192F) */\n\nWhoa! Hold your reindeer, Santa! How can we know what interval combinations work well together to form chords? Well, I\u2019m a classically trained musician, so perhaps I have an advantage. To avoid a long, technically complex digression into musical harmony, here are a few basic combinations of intervals that are harmonious in one way or another:\n\n\n\tunison; major third; perfect fifth; octave\n\tunison; perfect fourth; major sixth; octave\n\tunison; minor third; minor sixth; octave\n\tunison; minor third; diminished fifth; major sixth; octave\n\n\nThis isn\u2019t to say that other combinations can\u2019t be used to interesting effect and particular purpose \u2013 they surely can \u2013 but I have to make sure there\u2019s something left for you to experiment with in the wee small hours over the holiday. Bear in mind, though, were I to play you two notes from the same scale to form a minor second, for example, you\u2019d probably say it was dissonant and maybe that quality of the 15:16 ratio would be translated to the design.\n\n \n\nIn the typographic hierarchy above, you\u2019ll notice I used an interval in the higher octave, which affords a broader range of ratios while retaining the harmony. Thus, a perfect fifth (2:3) becomes a major twelfth (1:3), or a major sixth (3:5) becomes a major thirteenth (3:10).\n\nThe harmonic ratios can obviously be used as proportions for layout as well, in several different ways:\n\n\n\timage width and height (for example, 450\u00d7800px = 9:16 = minor seventh)\n\tmain content to page width (67%:100% = 2:3 = perfect fifth)\n\tpage width to viewport width (80%:100% = 4:5 = major third)\n\n\nOne great benefit of using such ratios in web design work is that they can be applied in responsive web design. Proportional values, based on percentages or equivalent em units, will scale with changing viewports, so your layout and image proportions can be maintained or deliberately changed, as we\u2019re about to find out, across devices.\n\nSmall speakers, tall speakers: binding to the device\n\nThe musical interval ratios also provide an opportunity, not only to create connectedness between the parts of a layout, but to bind the content to a device \u2013 that elusive antiphonal geometry. Just as a textblock and page resonate together, so too can web content and the screen. Earlier, I mentioned that several common screen aspect ratios match musical interval ratios. It would seem, then, that we have a set of proportions that we can use in different ways to establish and retain a sense of harmony that can be based on and change with those contexts. Using musical interval ratios, we can bind the display of our content to the device it\u2019s displayed on.\n\nIf you haven\u2019t met already, let me introduce you to the device-aspect-ratio property of CSS media queries.\n\n@media only screen and (device-aspect-ratio: 3/4) { }\n@media only screen and (device-aspect-ratio: 480/640) { }\n@media only screen and (device-aspect-ratio: 600/800) { }\n@media only screen and (device-aspect-ratio: 768/1024) { }\n\nRegardless of the precise pixel values, each of these media queries would apply to devices whose display area has an aspect ratio of 3:4. It works by comparing the device-width with the device-height. (It\u2019s not to be confused with aspect-ratio, which is defined by the width and height of the browser within the device.) The values in the media query are always presented as width/height, with portrait being the default orientation for smartphones and tablets; that is, to match an iPhone screen, you\u2019d use device-aspect-ratio: 2/3, not 3/2, which won\u2019t work.\n\nHere\u2019s a table of the musical intervals with their corresponding screens.\n\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\tName \n\t\t\tdevice-aspect-ratio \n\t\t\tScreens \n\t\t\tCommon resolutions (pixels) \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major third \n\t\t\t 5/4 \n\t\t\t TFT LCD computer screens \n\t\t\t 1,280\u00d71,024 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t perfect fourth \n\t\t\t 3/4 or 4/3 \n\t\t\t iPad, Kindle and other tablets, PDAs \n\t\t\t 320\u00d7240, 768\u00d71,024 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t perfect fifth \n\t\t\t 2/3 \n\t\t\t iPhone, iPod Touch \n\t\t\t 320\u00d7480, 640\u00d7960 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor sixth \n\t\t\t 8/5 (16/10) \n\t\t\t Many widescreens \n\t\t\t 1,152\u00d7720, 1,440\u00d7900, 1,920\u00d71,200 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t major sixth \n\t\t\t 3/5 \n\t\t\t Many smartphones \n\t\t\t 240\u00d7400, 480\u00d7800 \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t minor seventh \n\t\t\t 16/9 or 9/16 \n\t\t\t Many widescreens and some smartphones \n\t\t\t 720\u00d71,280, 1,366\u00d7768, 1,920\u00d71,080, 2,560\u00d71,440 \n\t\t\n\n\n[You might argue that I\u2019m playing fast and loose with the ratios. I suppose, mathematically speaking, 9:16 is not the same as 16:9: I\u2019m no expert. But let\u2019s not throw the baby out with the bath water, particularly at Christmas.]\n\nWith this in mind, we can begin to write media queries that will influence various typographic and layout values in line with the aspect ratios of specific screens and in combination with em-based min-width queries that work from smaller, mobile screens to larger, desktop screens.\n\nHere\u2019s a very simple demo page with only some text, an image with a caption and a little basic layout: no seasonal overindulgence here.\n\nDemo: Sample page using device-aspect-ratio media queries based on musical interval ratios\n\nOur initial styles for all devices are based on the perfect fifth, with the major third and octave rounding things out into a harmonious whole, whether or not media queries are supported. For example:\n\nhtml { font-size: 100%; line-height: 1.5; }\n   /* font-size:line-height = 16:24 = 2:3 = perfect fifth */\n\nh1 { font-size: 32px; font-size: 2rem; line-height: 1.25; }\n   /* font-size:line-height = 32:40 = 4:5 = major third\n      body:h1 = 16:32 = 1:2 = octave */\n\nWhile we should really consider methods of delivering images appropriate to the screen size, let\u2019s just stick to a single image for all devices. But why don\u2019t we change its aspect ratio from 4:3 to 3:2, to fit with our harmonic scheme? It\u2019s easy enough to do with overflow:hidden on the <figure> element to hide a part of the image, and a negative margin fudge:\n\nfigure img { margin: -8.5% 0 0 0; width: 100%; max-width: 100%; }\n\nOur first break point targets devices 320 pixels wide with an aspect ratio of 2:3, namely the iPhone and iPod Touch:\n\n/* 320px = 20\u00d716 */\n@media only screen and (min-width: 20em) and (device-aspect-ratio: 2/3) { }\n\nWe\u2019re actually already there, of course, as the intervals we\u2019ve chosen resonate with this aspect ratio \u2013 the content is already bound to the device.\n\nOur next media query, then, will make some changes to match a different ratio, the major sixth (3:5), which is same as that of many smartphones:\n\n/* 480px = 30\u00d716 */\n@media only screen and (min-width: 30em) and (device-aspect-ratio: 3/5) { }\n\nA different aspect ratio might require a change in harmony. For devices with these proportions, we\u2019ll now use the perfect fourth (3:4) and the major sixth (3:5) along with the octave we already have to create a new resonating harmony. For instance, a slightly wider screen means we can increase the  line-height to aid the legibility of longer lines:\n\nhtml { line-height: 1.667; }\n   /* font-size:line-height = 16:26.672 = 3:5 = major sixth */\n\nh1 { font-size: 32px; font-size: 2rem; line-height: 1.667; }\n   /* font-size:line-height = 32:53.333 = 3:5 = major sixth\n      body:h1 = 16:32 = 1:2 = octave */\n\nand we can remove the negative margin to display our 4:3 image in its entirety.\n\nEach screen displays content styled using relationships related to its own proportions. On the left, an iPhone 4 (2:3); on the right, a Samsung Nexus S (3:5). Your mileage may vary.\n\nAnother device, another media query. At 768 pixels, screens are wide enough to add columns. The ratios we\u2019ve used for the 3:5 screens include the perfect fourth (3:4) so we don\u2019t need to change any of the font measurements, but we can base the proportions of the columns on the major sixth interval:\n\narticle { float: left; width: 56%; }\n   /* width of main column 3:5 (60% of 100%, major sixth)\n      incorporating gutter width */\n\naside { float : right; width : 36%; }\n\nOn devices with a 3:4 aspect ratio, this works even better in landscape orientation.\n\nWhile not every screen over 768 pixels wide will have 3:4 proportions, the range of intervals informing the design ensure harmonious relationships between the different parts of the layout.\n\nFor wide screens proper (break point at 1,280 pixels) we can employ a new set of harmonious intervals. Many laptop and desktop screens have a 16:10 aspect ratio, which boils down to 8:5, equivalent to the minor sixth (5:8). Combined with a minor third (5:6) and the octave (1:2), this creates a new harmony appropriate to these devices. Let\u2019s increase the font size and change the image\u2019s aspect ratio to match:\n\nhtml { font-size: 120%; line-height: 1.6; }\n   /* font-size increased for wider screens from 16px to 19.2px\n      (5:6 = minor third)\n      font-size:line-height = 19.2:30.72 = 5:8 = minor sixth */\n\nfigure img { margin: -12.5% 0 0 ; }\t\n   /* using -ve margin combined with overflow:hidden\n      on the figure element\n      to crop the image from 4:3 to 8:5 = minor sixth */\n\nA wide screen with a 8:5 (16:10) aspect ratio and an image to match.\n\nWith more pixels at our disposal, we can also now use the musical interval ratios to determine the width of the layout, and change the column proportions as well:\n\nsection { margin: 0 auto; width: 83.333%; }\n   /* content width:screen width = 5:6 = minor third */\n\narticle { width: 60%; }\n   /* width of main column 5:8 (62.5% of 100%, minor sixth)\n      incorporating gutter width */\n\naside { width: 35%; }\n\nWith some carefully targeted media queries, we can begin to reach towards fulfilling the second and third tenets of Boulton\u2019s new canon for web design: connecting the parts of content through relationships embodied in the layout design; and binding the content to the devices people use to access it.\n\nCoda\n\nMusical interval ratios and screen aspect ratios reveal more than convenient correspondence. These proportions work on a deep aesthetic level. Much is claimed for the golden ratio \u03c6, but none of the screens pervading our lives use it. Perhaps that\u2019s an accident of technology, but can making screens to \u03c6\u2019s proportions be more difficult or expensive than 2:3 or 3:4 or 16:10? Here, then, is not just one but a set of proportions with a uniquely human focus, originating in nature, recognized in antiquity, fundamental still.\n\nWe find music to be an art steeped with meaning, yet, unlike literary and representational arts, purely instrumental music has no obvious semantic content. It boasts an ability to express emotions while remaining an abstract art in some sense, which makes it very like design. These days, we\u2019re rightly encouraged to design for emotion, to make our users\u2019 experience meaningful, seductive, delightful. Using musical ideas and principles in our designs can help achieve those ends.\n\nLet\u2019s not be na\u00efve, of course; designing web pages is even less like composing music than it\u2019s like designing for print. In visual design, the eye will always be sovereign to the ear; following these principles will only get us so far. We cannot truly claim that a carefully composed web page layout will have the same qualities and effect as any musical patterns that inform it. In music, a set of intervals is always harmonious in relation to other sets of intervals: music rarely stands still. What aspect ratios will future screens take? Already today there is great variation in devices and support for media queries (and within that, support for device-aspect-ratio). And what of non-western musical traditions? Or rhythm, form, tempo and dynamics? What I\u2019ve demonstrated above is only a suggestion, a tentative exploration of one possible way forward.\n\nBut as our discipline matures and we become more articulate about what we do, we must look longer and deeper into areas of human endeavour already rich with value. Music is a fertile ground to explore and has the potential to yield up new approaches for web design.\n\nFootnotes\n\n \n Just intonation is a system of tuning that uses small integers to describe the musical intervals, based initially on the perfect fifth, that most consonant of intervals. Simple instruments such as vibrating strings and natural horns, as well as unaccompanied voices, tend to fall into just intonation naturally.", "year": "2011", "author": "Owen Gregory", "author_slug": "owengregory", "published": "2011-12-09T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2011/composing-the-new-canon/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 277, "title": "Raising the Bar on Mobile", "contents": "One of the primary challenges of designing for mobile devices is that screen real estate is often in limited supply. Through the advocacy of Luke W and others, we\u2019ve drawn comfort from the idea that this constraint ends up benefiting users and designers alike, from obvious advantages like portability and reach, to influencing our content strategy decisions through focus and restraint. But that doesn\u2019t mean we shouldn\u2019t take advantage of every last pixel of that screen we can snag!\n\nAs anyone who has designed a website for use on a smartphone can attest, there\u2019s an awful lot of space on mobile screens dedicated to browser functions that would be better off toggled out of view. Unfortunately, the visibility of some of these elements is beyond our control, such as the buttons fixed to the bottom of the viewport in iOS\u2019s Safari and the WebOS browser. However, in many devices, the address bar at the top can be manually hidden, and its absence frees up enough pixel room for a large, impactful heading, a critical piece of navigation, or even just a little more white space to air things out.\n\nSo, as my humble contribution to this most festive of web publications, today I\u2019ll dig into the approach I used to hide the address bar in a browser-agnostic fashion for sites like BostonGlobe.com, and the jQuery Mobile framework.\n\nSurveying the land\n\nFirst, let\u2019s assess the chromes of some popular, current mobile browsers. For example purposes, the following screen-captures feature the homepage of the Boston Globe site, without any address-bar-hiding logic in place.\n\nNote: these captures are just mockups \u2013 actual experience on these platforms may vary.\n\n On the left is iOS5\u2019s Safari (running on iPhone), and on the right is Windows Phone 7 (pre-Mango).\n\n BlackBerry 7 (left), and Android 2.3 (right).\n\n WebOS (left), Opera Mini (middle), and Opera Mobile (right).\n\nSome browsers, such the default browsers on WebOS and BlackBerry 5, hide the bar automatically without any developer intervention, but many of them don\u2019t. Of these, we can only manually hide the address bar on iOS Safari and Android (according to Opera Web Opener, Mike Taylor, some discussion is underway for support in Opera Mini and Mobile as well, which would be great!). This is unfortunate, but iOS and Android are incredibly popular, so let\u2019s direct our focus there.\n\nGreat API, or greatest API?\n\nAs it turns out, iOS and Android not only allow you to hide the address bar, they use the same JavaScript method to do so, too (this shouldn\u2019t be surprising, given that they are both WebKit browsers, but nothing expected happens in mobile). However, the method they use is not exactly intuitive. You might set out looking for a JavaScript API dedicated to this purpose, like, say, window.toolbar.hide(), but alas, to hide the address bar you need to use the window.scrollTo method!\n\nwindow.scrollTo(0, 0);\n\nThe scrollTo method is not new, it\u2019s just this particular use of it that is. For the uninitiated, scrollTo is designed to scroll a document to a particular set of coordinates, assuming the document is large enough to scroll to that spot. The method accepts two arguments: a left coordinate; and a top coordinate. It\u2019s both simple and supported well pretty much everywhere. In iOS and Android, these coordinates are calculated from the top of the browser\u2019s viewport, just below the address bar (interestingly, it seems that some platforms like BlackBerry 6 treat the top of the browser chrome as 0 instead, meaning the page content is closer to 20px from the top).\n\nAnyway, by passing the coordinates 0, 0 to the scrollTo method, the browser will jump to the top of the page and pull the address bar out of view! Of course, if a quick call to scrollTo was all we need to do to hide the address bar in iOS and Android, this article would be pretty short, and nothing new. Unfortunately, the first issue we need to deal with is that this method alone will not usually do the trick: it must be called after the page has finished loading.\n\nThe browser gives us a load event for just that purpose, so we\u2019ll wrap our scrollTo method in it and continue on our merry way! We\u2019ll use the standard, addEventListener method to bind the the load event, passing arguments for event name load, and a callback function to execute when the event is triggered.\n\nwindow.addEventListener(\"load\",function() {\n    window.scrollTo(0, 0);\n});\n\nFor the sake of preventing errors in those using browsers that don\u2019t support addEventListener, such as Internet Explorer 8 and under, let\u2019s make sure that method exists before we use it:\n\nif( window.addEventListener ){\n    window.addEventListener(\"load\",function() {\n        window.scrollTo(0, 0);\n    });\n}\n\nNow we\u2019re getting somewhere, but we must also call the method after the load event\u2019s default behavior has been applied. For this, we can use the setTimeout method, delaying its execution to after the load event has run its course.\n\nif( window.addEventListener ){\n    window.addEventListener(\"load\",function() {\n        setTimeout(function(){\n            window.scrollTo(0, 0);\n        }, 0);\n    });\n}\n\nSweet sugar of Christmas! Hit this demo in iOS and watch that address bar drift up and away!\n\nNot so fast\u2026\n\nWe\u2019ve got a little problem: the approach above does work in iOS but, in some cases, it works a little too well. In the process of applying this behavior, we\u2019ve broken one of the primary tenets of responsible web development: don\u2019t break the browser\u2019s default behaviour. This usability rule of thumb is often violated by developers with even the best of intentions, from breaking the browser\u2019s back button through unrecorded Ajax page refreshes, to fancy momentum touch scrolling scripts that can wreak havoc in all but the most sophisticated of devices. In this case, we\u2019ve prevented the browser\u2019s native support of deep-linking to sections of a page (a hash identifier in the URL matching a page element\u2019s id attribute, for example, http://example.com#contact) from working properly, because our script always scrolls to the top.\n\nTo avoid this collision, we\u2019ll need to detect whether a deep link, or hash, is present in the URL before applying our logic. We can do this by ensuring that the location.hash property is falsey:\n\nif( !window.location.hash && window.addEventListener ){\n    window.addEventListener( \"load\",function() {\n        setTimeout(function(){\n            window.scrollTo(0, 0);\n        }, 0);\n    });\n}\n\nStill works great! And a quick test using a hash-based URL confirms that our script will not execute when a deep anchor is in play. Now iOS is looking sharp, and we\u2019ve added our feature defensively to avoid conflicts.\n\n\n\nNow, on to Android\u2026\n\nWait. You didn\u2019t expect that we could write code for one browser and be finished, right? Of course you didn\u2019t. I mentioned earlier that Android uses the same method for getting rid of the scrollbar, but I left out the fact that the arguments it prefers vary slightly, but significantly, from iOS. Bah!\n\nDifferering from the earlier logic from iOS, to remove the address bar on Android\u2019s default browser, you need to pass a Y coordinate of 1 instead of 0. Aside from being just plain odd, this is particularly unfortunate because to any other browser on the planet, 1px is a very real, however small, distance from the top of the page!\n\nwindow.scrollTo( 0, 1 );\n\nLooks like we\u2019re going to need a fork\u2026\n\nR UA Android?\n\nAt this point, some developers might decide to simply not support this feature in Android, and more determined devs might decide that a quick check of the User Agent string would be a reliable way to determine the browser and tweak the scroll value accordingly. Neither of those decisions would be tragic, but in the spirit of cross-browser and future-friendly development, I\u2019ll propose an alternative.\n\nBy this point, it should be clear that neither of the implementations above offer a particularly intuitive way to hide an address bar. As such, one might be skeptical that these approaches will stick around very long in their present state in either browser. Perhaps at some point, Android will decide to use 0 like iOS, making our lives a little easier, or maybe some new browser will decide to model their address bar hiding method after one of these implementations. In any case, detecting the User Agent only allows us to apply logic based on the known present, and in the world of mobile, let\u2019s face it, the present is already the past.\n\nWriting a check\n\nIn this next step of today\u2019s technique, we\u2019ll apply some logic to quickly determine the behavior model of the browser we\u2019re using, then capitalize on that model \u2013 without caring which browser it happens to come from \u2013 by applying the appropriate scroll distance.\n\nTo do this, we\u2019ll rely on a fortunate side effect of Android\u2019s implementation, which is when you programatically scroll the page to 1 using scrollTo, Android will report that it\u2019s still at 0 because oddly enough, it is! Of course, any other browser in this situation will report a scroll distance of 1. Thus, by scrolling the page to 1, then asking the browser its scroll distance, we can use this artifact of their wacky implementation to our advantage and scroll to the location that makes sense for the browser in play.\n\nGetting the scroll distance\n\nTo pull off our test, we\u2019ll need to ask the browser for its current scroll distance. The methods for getting scroll distance are not entirely standardized across popular browsers, so we\u2019ll need to use some cross-browser logic. The following scroll distance function is similar to what you\u2019d find in a library like jQuery. It checks the few common ways of getting scroll distance before eventually falling back to 0 for safety\u2019s sake (that said, I\u2019m unaware of any browsers that won\u2019t return a numeric value from one of the first three properties).\n\n// scrollTop getter\nfunction getScrollTop(){\n    return scrollTop  = window.pageYOffset ||\ndocument.compatMode === \"CSS1Compat\" && document.documentElement.scrollTop ||\ndocument.body.scrollTop || 0;\n}\n\nIn order to execute that code above, the body object (referenced here as document.body) will need to be defined already, or we\u2019ll risk an error. To determine that it\u2019s defined, we can run a quick timer to execute code as soon as that object is defined and ready for use.\n\nvar bodycheck = setInterval(function(){\n    if( document.body ){\n        clearInterval( bodycheck );\n        //more logic can go here!!\n    }   \n}, 15 );\n\nAbove, we\u2019ve defined a 15 millisecond interval called bodycheck that checks if document.body is defined and, if so, clears itself of running again. Within that if statement, we can extend our logic further to run other code, such as our check for the scroll distance, defined via the variable scrollTop below:\n\nvar scrollTop,\n    bodycheck = setInterval(function(){\n    if( document.body ){\n        clearInterval( bodycheck );\n        scrollTop = getScrollTop();\n    }   \n}, 15 );\n\nWith this working, we can immediately scroll to 1, then check the scroll distance when the body is defined. If the distance reports 1, we\u2019re likely in a non-Android browser, so we\u2019ll scroll back to 0 and clean up our mess.\n\nwindow.scrollTo( 0, 1 );\n\nvar scrollTop,\n    bodycheck = setInterval(function(){\n    if( document.body ){\n        clearInterval( bodycheck );\n        scrollTop = getScrollTop();\n        window.scrollTo( 0, scrollTop === 1 ? 0 : 1 );\n    }   \n}, 15 );\n\nCashing in\n\nAll of the pieces are written now, so all we need to do is combine them with our previous logic for scrolling when the window is loaded, and we\u2019ll have a cross-browser solution of which John Resig would be proud. Here\u2019s our combined code snippet, with some formatting updates rolled in as well:\n\n(function( win ){\n\tvar doc = win.document;\n\n\t// If there\u2019s a hash, or addEventListener is undefined, stop here\n\tif( !location.hash && win.addEventListener ){\n\t\t//scroll to 1\n\t\twindow.scrollTo( 0, 1 );\n\t\tvar scrollTop = 1,\n\t\t\tgetScrollTop = function(){\n\t\t\t\treturn win.pageYOffset || doc.compatMode = \"CSS1Compat\" && doc.documentElement.scrollTop || doc.body.scrollTop || 0;\n\t\t\t},\n\t\t\t//reset to 0 on bodyready, if needed\n\t\t\tbodycheck = setInterval(function(){\n\t\t\t\tif( doc.body ){\n\t\t\t\t\tclearInterval( bodycheck );\n\t\t\t\t\tscrollTop = getScrollTop();\n\t\t\t\t\twin.scrollTo( 0, scrollTop = 1 ? 0 : 1 );\n\t\t\t\t}\t\n\t\t\t}, 15 );\n\t\twin.addEventListener( \u201cload\u201d, function(){\n\t\t\tsetTimeout(function(){\n\t\t\t\t\t//reset to hide addr bar at onload\n\t\t\t\t\twin.scrollTo( 0, scrollTop === 1 ? 0 : 1 );\n\t\t\t}, 0);\n\t\t} );\n\t}\n})( this );\nView code example\n\nAnd with that, we\u2019ve got a bunch more room to play with on both iOS and Android.\n\n\n\nBreak out the eggnog\n\n\u2026because we\u2019re not done yet! In the spirit of making our script act more defensively, there\u2019s still another use case to consider. It was essential that we used the window\u2019s load event to trigger our scripting, but on pages with a lot of content, its use can come at a cost. Often, a user will begin interacting with a page, scrolling down as they read, before the load event has fired. In those situations, our script will jump the user back to the top of the page, resulting in a jarring experience.\n\nTo prevent this problem from occurring, we\u2019ll need to ensure that the page has not been scrolled beyond a certain amount. We can add a simple check using our getScrollTop function again, this time ensuring that its value is not greater than 20 pixels or so, accounting for a small tolerance.\n\nif( getScrollTop() < 20 ){\n    //reset to hide addr bar at onload\n    window.scrollTo( 0, scrollTop === 1 ? 0 : 1 );\n}\n\nAnd with that, we\u2019re pretty well protected! Here\u2019s a final demo.\n\nThe completed script can be found on Github (full source: https://gist.github.com/1183357 ). It\u2019s MIT licensed. Feel free to use it anywhere or any way you\u2019d like!\n\nYour thoughts?\n\nI hope this article provides you with a browser-agnostic approach to hiding the address bar that you can use in your own projects today. Perhaps alternatively, the complications involved in this approach convinced you that doing this well is more trouble than it\u2019s worth and, depending on the use case, that could be a fair decision. But at the very least, I hope this demonstrates that there\u2019s a lot of work involved in pulling off this small task in only two major platforms, and that there\u2019s a real need for standardization in this area.\n\nFeel free to leave a comment or criticism and I\u2019ll do my best to answer in a timely fashion.\n\nThanks, everyone!\n\nSome parting notes\n\nI scream, you scream\u2026\n\nAt the time of writing, I was not able to test this method on the latest Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) build. According to Sencha Touch\u2019s browser scorecard, the browser in 4.0 may have a different way of managing the address bar, so I\u2019ll post in the comments once I get a chance to dig into it further.\n\nShort pages get no love\n\nToday\u2019s technique only works when the page is as tall, or taller than, the device\u2019s available screen height, so that the address bar may be scrolled out of view. On a short page, you might work around this issue by applying a minimum height to the body element ( body { min-height: 460px; } ), but given the variety of screen sizes out there, not to mention changes in orientation, it\u2019s tough to find a value that makes much sense (unless you manipulate it with JavaScript).", "year": "2011", "author": "Scott Jehl", "author_slug": "scottjehl", "published": "2011-12-20T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2011/raising-the-bar-on-mobile/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 174, "title": "Type-Inspired Interfaces", "contents": "One of the things that terrifies me most about a new project is the starting point. How is the content laid out? What colors do I pick? Once things like that are decided, it becomes significantly easier to continue design, but it\u2019s the blank page where I spend the most time.\n\nTo that end, I often start by choosing type. I don\u2019t need to worry about colors or layout or anything else\u2026 just the right typefaces that support the art direction. (This article won\u2019t focus on how to choose a typeface, but there are some really great resources if you interested in that sort of thing.)\n\nAnd just like that, all your work is done. \u201cHold it just a second,\u201d you might say. \u201cAll I\u2019ve done is pick type. I still have to do the rest!\u201d\n\nTo which I would reply, \u201cSilly rabbit. You already have!\u201d You see, picking the right typeface gets you farther than you might think. Here are a few tips on taking cues from type to design interfaces and interface elements.\n\nPerfecting Web 2.0\n\nIf you\u2019re going for that beloved rounded corner look, you might class it up a bit by choosing the wonderful Omnes Pro by Joshua Darden. As the typeface already has a rounded aesthetic, making buttons that fit the style should be pretty easy.\n\nI\u2019ve found that using multiples helps to keep your interfaces looking balanced and proportional. Noticing that the top left edge of the letter \u201cP\u201d has about an 12px corner radius, let\u2019s choose a 24px radius for our button (a multiple of 2), so that we get proper rounded corners. By taking mathematical measurements from the typeface, our button looks more thought out than just \u201cplace arbitrary text on arbitrarily-sized button.\u201d Pretty easy, eh?\n\n\n\nWhat\u2019s in a name(plate)?\n\nRounded buttons are pretty popular buttons nowadays, so let\u2019s try something a bit more stylized.\n\nHave a gander at Brothers, a sturdy face from Emigre. The chiseled edges give us a perfect cue for a stylized button. Using the same slope, you can make plated-looking buttons that fit a different kind of style.\n\n\n\nHeadlining\n\nYou might even take some cues from the style of the typeface itself. Didone serifs are known for their lack of brackets\u30fcthat is, a gradual transition from the stem to the serif. Instead, they typically connect at a right angle. Another common characteristic is the high contrast in the strokes: very thick stems, very thin serifs.\n\nSo, when using a high contrast typeface, you can use it to your advantage to enhance hierarchy. Following our \u201cmultiples\u201d guideline, a 12px measurement from the stems helps us create a top rule with a height of 24px (a multiple of 2). We can take the exact 1px measurement from the serif\u2014a multiple of 1\u2014to create the bottom rule. Voil\u00e0! I use this technique a lot.\n\n\n\nSwashbucklers\n\nAnd don\u2019t forget the importance of visual \u201cspeed bumps\u201d to break up long passages of text. A beautiful face like Alejandro Paul\u2019s Ministry Script has over a thousand characters that can be manipulated or even combined to create elegant interface elements. Altering the partial differential character (\u2202) creates a delightful ornament that can help to guide the eye through content.\n\n\n\nStagger & Swagger\n\nWhat about layout? How can we use typography to inform how our content is displayed?\n\nLet\u2019s take a typeface like Assembler. We might use this for a design that needs to feel uneasy or uncomfortable. In design terms, that might translate into using irregular shapes and asymmetry. Using the proportional distances and degrees from the perpendiculars, we could easily create a multi-column layout that jives with the general tone. And for all you skeptics that don\u2019t think a layout like this is doable on the web, stranger things have happened.\n\n Background texture generously offered by Bittbox.\n\nOverall Design Direction\n\nFinally, your typography could impact the entire look of the site, from the navigation to the interaction and everything in between. Check out how the (now-defunct) Nike Free site\u2019s typography echoes the product itself, and in turn influences the navigation.\n\n\n\nFind Your Type\n\nWith thousands of fonts to choose from, the possibilities are ridiculously open. From angles to radii to color to weight, you\u2019ve got endless fodder before you. Great type designers spent countless hours slaving over these detailed letterforms; take advantage of it! Don\u2019t feel like you have to limit yourself to the same old Helvetica and wet floors\u2026 unless your design calls for it. \n\nHappy hunting!", "year": "2009", "author": "Dan Mall", "author_slug": "danmall", "published": "2009-12-07T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2009/type-inspired-interfaces/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 210, "title": "Stop Leaving Animation to the Last Minute", "contents": "Our design process relies heavily on static mockups as deliverables and this makes it harder than it needs to be to incorporate UI animation in our designs. Talking through animation ideas and dancing out the details of those ideas can be fun; but it\u2019s not always enough to really evaluate or invest in animated design solutions. \nBy including deliverables that encourage discussing animation throughout your design process, you can set yourself (and your team) up for creating meaningful UI animations that feel just as much a part of the design as your colour palette and typeface. You can get out of that \u201crunning out of time to add in the animation\u201d trap by deliberately including animation in the early phases of your design process. This will give you both the space to treat animation as a design tool, and the room to iterate on UI animation ideas to come up with higher quality solutions. Two deliverables that can be especially useful for this are motion comps and animated interactive prototypes. \nMotion comps - an animation deliverable\nMotion comps (also called animatics or motion mock-ups) are usually video representation of UI animations. They are used to explore the details of how a particular animation might play out. And they\u2019re most often made with timeline-based tools like Adobe After Effects, Adobe Animate, or Tumult Hype. \nThe most useful things about motion comps is how they allow designers and developers to share the work of creating animations. (Instead of pushing all the responsibility of animation on one group or the other.) For example, imagine you\u2019re working on a design that has a content panel that can either be open or closed. You might create a mockup like the one below including the two different views: the closed state and the open state. If you\u2019re working with only static deliverables, these two artboards might be exactly what you handoff to developers along with the instruction to animate between the two. \n\nOn the surface that seems pretty straight forward, but even with this relatively simple transition there\u2019s a lot that those two artboards don\u2019t address. There are seven things that change between the closed state and the open state. That\u2019s seven things the developer building this out has to figure out how to move in and out of view, when, and in what order. And all of that is even before starting to write the code to make it work. \nBy providing only static comps, all the logic of the animation falls on the developer. This might go ok if she has the bandwidth and animation knowledge, but that\u2019s making an awful lot of assumptions.\nInstead, if you included a motion mock up like this with your static mock ups, you could share the work of figuring out the logic of the animation between design and development. Designers could work out the logic of the animation in the motion comp, exploring which items move at which times and in which order to create the opening and closing transitions. \n\nThe motion comp can also be used to iterate on different possible animation approaches before any production code has to be committed too. Sharing the work and giving yourself time to explore animation ideas before you\u2019re backed up again the deadline will lead to happier teammates and better design solutions. \nWhen to use motion comps\nI\u2019m not a fan of making more deliverables just for the sake of having more things to make, so I find it helps to narrow down what question I\u2019m trying answer before choosing which sort of deliverable to make to investigate. \nMotion comps can be most helpful for answering questions like: \n\nExactly how should this animation look? \nWhich items should move? Where? And when? \nDo the animation qualities reflect our brand or our voice and tone?\nOne of the added bonuses of creating motion comps to answer these questions is that you\u2019ll have a concrete thing to bring to design critiques or reviews to get others\u2019 input on them as well.\n\nUsing motion comps as handoff\nMotion comps are often used to handoff animation ideas from design to development. They can be super useful for this, but they\u2019re even more useful when you include the details of the motion specs with them. (It\u2019s difficult, if not impossible, to glean these details from playing back a video.)\nMore specifically, you\u2019ll want to include:\n\nDurations and the properties animated for each animation\nEasing curve values or spring values used\nDelay values and repeat counts\n\nIn many cases you\u2019ll have to collect these details up manually. But this isn\u2019t necessarily something that that will take a lot of time. If you take note of them as you\u2019re creating the motion comp, chances are most of these details will already be top of  mind. (Also, if you use After Effects for your motion comps, the Inspector Spacetime plugin might be helpful for this task.)\nAnimated prototypes - an interactive deliverable\nMaking prototypes isn\u2019t a new idea for web work by any stretch, but creating prototypes that include animation \u2013 or even creating prototypes specifically to investigate potential animation solutions \u2013 can go a long way towards having higher quality animations in your final product.\nInteractive prototypes are web or app-based, or displayed in a particular tool\u2019s preview window to create a useable version of interactions that might end up in the end product. They\u2019re often made with prototyping apps like Principle, Framer, or coded up in HTML, CSS and JS directly like the example below.\nSee the Pen Prototype example by Val Head (@valhead) on CodePen.\n\nThe biggest different between motion comps and animated prototypes is the interactivity. Prototypes can reposed to taps, drags or gestures, while motion comps can only play back in a linear fashion. Generally speaking, this makes prototypes a bit more of an effort to create, but they can also help you solve different problems. The interactive nature of prototypes can also make them useful for user testing to further evaluate potential solutions. \nWhen to use prototypes\nWhen it comes to testing out animation ideas, animated prototypes can be especially helpful in answering questions like these: \n\nHow will this interaction feel to use? (Interactive animations often have different timing needs than animations that are passively viewed.)\nWhat will the animation be like with real data or real content? \nDoes this animation fit the context of the task at hand? \n\nPrototypes can be used to investigate the same questions that motion comps do if you\u2019re comfortable working in code or your prototyping tool of choice has capabilities to address high fidelity animation details. There are so many different prototyping tools out there at the moment, you\u2019re sure to be able to find one that fits your needs. \nAs a quick side note: If you\u2019re worried that your coding skills might not be up to par to prototype in code, know that prototype code doesn\u2019t have to be production quality code. Animated prototypes\u2019 main concern is working out the animation details. Once you\u2019ve arrived at a combination of animations that works, the animation specifics can be extracted or the prototype can be refactored for production.\nMotion comp or prototype?\nBoth motion comps and prototypes can be extremely useful in the design process and you can use whichever one (or ones) that best fits your team\u2019s style. The key thing that both offer is a way to make animation ideas visible and sharable. When you and your teammate are both looking at the same deliverable, you can be confident you\u2019re talking about the same thing and discuss its pros and cons more easily than just describing the idea verbally. \nMotion comps tend to be more useful earlier in the design process when you want to focus on the motion without worrying about the underlying structure or code yet. Motion comps also be great when you want to try something completely new. Some folks prefer motion comps because the tools for making them feel more familiar to them which means they can work faster. \nPrototypes are most useful for animations that rely heavily on interaction. (Getting the timing right for interactions can be tough without the interaction part sometimes.) Prototypes can also be helpful to investigate and optimize performance if that\u2019s a specific concern.\nGive them a try\nWhichever deliverables you choose to highlight your animation decisions, including them in your design reviews, critiques, or other design discussions will help you make better UI animation choices. More discussion around UI animation ideas during the design phase means greater buy-in, more room for iteration, and higher quality UI animations in your designs. Why not give them a try for your next project?", "year": "2017", "author": "Val Head", "author_slug": "valhead", "published": "2017-12-08T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2017/stop-leaving-animation-to-the-last-minute/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 151, "title": "Get In Shape", "contents": "Pop quiz: what\u2019s wrong with the following navigation?\n\n\n\nMaybe nothing. But then again, maybe there\u2019s something bugging you about the way it comes together, something you can\u2019t quite put your finger on. It seems well-designed, but it also seems a little\u2026 off.\n\nThe design decisions that led to this eventual form were no doubt well-considered:\n\n\n\tClient: The top level needs to have a \u201ccurrent page\u201d status indicator of some sort.\n\tDesigner: How about a white tab?\n\tClient: Great! The second level needs to show up underneath the first level though\u2026\n\tDesigner: Okay, but that white tab I just added makes it hard to visually connect the bottom nav to the top.\n\tClient: Too late, we\u2019ve seen the white tab and we love it. Try and make it work.\n\tDesigner: Right. So I placed the second level in its own box.\n\tClient: Hmm. They seem too separated. I can\u2019t tell that the yellow nav is the second level of the first.\n\tDesigner: How about an indicator arrow?\n\tClient: Brilliant!\n\n\nThe problem is that the end result feels awkward and forced. During the design process, little decisions were made that ultimately affect the overall shape of the navigation. What started out as a neatly contained rounded rectangle ended up as an ambiguous double shape that looks funny, though it\u2019s often hard to pinpoint precisely why.\n\nThe Shape of Things\n\nWell the why in this case is because seemingly unrelated elements in a design still end up visually interacting. Adding a new item to a page impacts everything surrounding it. In this navigation example, we\u2019re looking at two individual objects that are close enough to each other that they form a relationship; if we reduce them to strictly their outlines, it\u2019s a little easier to see that this particular combination registers oddly.\n\n\n\nThe two shapes float with nothing really grounding them. If they were connected, perhaps it would be a different story. The white tab divides the top shape in half, leaving a gap in the middle of it. There\u2019s very little balance in this pairing because the overall shape of the navigation wasn\u2019t considered during the design process.\n\nHere\u2019s another example: Gmail. Great email client, but did you ever closely look at what\u2019s going on in that left hand navigation? The continuous blue bar around the message area spills out into the navigation. If we remove all text, we\u2019re left with this odd configuration:\n\n\n\nThough the reasoning for anchoring the navigation highlight against the message area might be sound, the result is an irregular shape that doesn\u2019t correspond with anything in reality. You may never consciously notice it, but once you do it\u2019s hard to miss. One other example courtesy of last.fm:\n\n\n\nThe two header areas are the same shade of pink so they appear to be closely connected. When reduced to their outlines it\u2019s easy to see that this combination is off-balance: the edges don\u2019t align, the sharp corners of the top shape aren\u2019t consistent with the rounded corners of the bottom, and the part jutting out on the right of the bottom one seems fairly random. The result is a duo of oddly mis-matched shapes.\n\nDesign Strategies\n\nOur minds tend to pick out familiar patterns. A clever designer can exploit this by creating references in his or her work to shapes and combinations with which viewers are already familiar. There are a few simple ideas that can be employed to help you achieve this: consistency, balance, and completion.\n\nConsistency\n\nA fairly simple way to unify the various disparate shapes on a page is by designing them with a certain amount of internal consistency. You don\u2019t need to apply an identical size, colour, border, or corner treatment to every single shape; devolving a design into boring repetition isn\u2019t what we\u2019re after here. But it certainly doesn\u2019t hurt to apply a set of common rules to most shapes within your work.\n\n\n\nConsider purevolume and its multiple rounded-corner panels. From the bottom of the site\u2019s main navigation to the grey \u201cExtras\u201d panels halfway down the page (shown above), multiple shapes use a common border radius for unity. Different colours, different sizes, different content, but the consistent outlines create a strong sense of similarity. Not that every shape on the site follows this rule; they break the pattern right at the top with a darker sharp-cornered header, and again with the thumbnails below. But the design remains unified, nonetheless.\n\nBalance\n\nArguably the biggest problem with the last.fm example earlier is one of balance. The area poking out of the bottom shape created a fairly obvious imbalance for no apparent reason. The right hand side is visually emphasized due to the greater area of pink coverage, but with the white gap left beside it, the emphasis seems unwarranted. It\u2019s possible to create tension in your design by mismatching shapes and throwing off the balance, but when that happens unintentionally it can look like a mistake.\n\n\n\nAbove are a few examples of design elements in balanced and unbalanced configurations. The examples in the top row are undeniably more pleasing to the eye than those in the bottom row. If these were fleshed out into full designs, those derived from the templates in the top row would naturally result in stronger work.\n\nTake a look at the header on 9Rules for a study in well-considered balance. On the left you\u2019ll see a couple of paragraphs of text, on the right you have floating navigational items, and both flank the site\u2019s logo. This unusual layout combines multiple design elements that look nothing alike, and places them together in a way that anchors each so that no one weighs down the header.\n\nCompletion\n\nAnd finally we come to the idea of completion. Shapes don\u2019t necessarily need hard outlines to be read visually as shapes, which can be exploited for various purposes. Notice how Zend\u2019s mid-page \u201cBusiness Topics\u201d and \u201cNews\u201d items (below) fade out to the right and bottom, but the placement of two of these side-by-side creates an impression of two panels rather than three disparate floating columns. By allowing the viewer\u2019s eye to complete the shapes, they\u2019ve lightened up the design of the page and removed inessential lines. In a busy design this technique could prove quite handy.\n\n\n\nAlong the same lines, the individual shapes within your design may also be combined visually to form outlines of larger shapes. The differently-coloured header and main content/sidebar shapes on Veerle\u2019s blog come together to form a single central panel, further emphasized by the slight drop shadow to the right.\n\nImplementation\n\nStudying how shape can be used effectively in design is simply a starting point. As with all things design-related, there are no hard and fast rules here; ultimately you may choose to bring these principles into your work more often, or break them for effect. But understanding how shapes interact within a page, and how that effect is ultimately perceived by viewers, is a key design principle you can use to impress your friends.", "year": "2007", "author": "Dave Shea", "author_slug": "daveshea", "published": "2007-12-16T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2007/get-in-shape/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 73, "title": "How to Make Your Site Look Half-Decent in Half an Hour", "contents": "Programmers like me are often intimidated by design \u2013 but a little effort can give a huge return on investment. Here are one coder\u2019s tips for making any site quickly look more professional. \n\nI am a programmer. I am not a designer. I have a degree in computer science, and I don\u2019t mind Comic Sans. (It looks cheerful. Move on.)\n\nBut although I am a programmer, I want to make my sites look attractive. This is partly out of vanity, and partly realism. Vanity because I want people to think my work is good, and realism because the research shows that people won\u2019t think a site is credible unless it also looks attractive.\n\nFor a very long time after I became a programmer, I was scared of design. Design seemed to consist of complicated rules that weren\u2019t written down anywhere, plus an unlearnable sense of taste, possessed only by a black-clad elite. \n\nBut a little while ago, I decided to do my best to hack what it took to make my own projects look vaguely attractive. And although this doesn\u2019t come close to the effect a professional designer could achieve, gathering these resources for improving a site\u2019s look and feel has been really helpful. \n\nIf I hadn\u2019t figured out some basic design shortcuts, it\u2019s unlikely that a weekend hack of mine would have ended up on page three of the Daily Mail. And too often now, I see excellent programming projects that don\u2019t reach the audience they deserve, simply because their design doesn\u2019t match their execution. \n\nSo, if you are a developer, my Christmas present to you is this: my own collection of hacks that, used rightly, can make your personal programming projects look professional, quickly. None are hard to learn, most are free, and they let you focus on writing code.\n\nOne thing to note about these tips, though. They are a personal, pragmatic compilation. They are suggestions, not a definitive guide. You will definitely get better results by working with a professional designer, and by studying design more deeply. \n\nIf you are a designer, I would love to hear your suggestions for the best tools that I\u2019ve missed, and I\u2019d love to know how we programmers can do things better.\n\nWith that, on to the tools\u2026\n\n1. Use Bootstrap\n\nIf you\u2019re not already using Bootstrap, start now. I really think that Bootstrap is one of the most significant technical achievements of the last few years: it democratizes the whole process of web design. \n\nEssentially, Bootstrap is a a grid system, with a bunch of common elements. So you can lay your site out how you want, drop in simple elements like forms and tables, and get a good-looking, consistent result, without spending hours fiddling with CSS. You just need HTML. \n\nAnother massive upside is that it makes it easy to make any site responsive, so you don\u2019t have to worry about writing media queries. Go, get Bootstrap and check out the examples. To keep your site lightweight, you can customize your download to include only the elements you want.  \n\nIf you have more time, then Mark Otto\u2019s article on why and how Bootstrap was created at Twitter is well worth a read. \n\n2. Pimp Bootstrap\n\nUsing Bootstrap is already a significant advance on not using Bootstrap, and massively reduces the tedium of front-end development. But you also run the risk of creating Yet Another Bootstrap Site, or Hack Day Design, as it\u2019s known. \n\nIf you\u2019re really pressed for time, you could buy a theme from Wrap Bootstrap. These are usually created by professional designers, and will give a polish that we can\u2019t achieve ourselves. Your site won\u2019t be unique, but it will look good quickly. \n\nLuckily, it\u2019s pretty easy to make Bootstrap not look too much like Bootstrap \u2013 using fonts, CSS effects, background images, colour schemes and so on. Most of the rest of this article covers different ways to achieve this. \n\nWe are going to customize this Bootstrap example page.\n\nThis already has some custom CSS in the <head>. We\u2019ll pull it all out, and create a new CSS file, custom.css. Then we add a reference to it in the header. Now we\u2019re ready to start customizing things.\n\n\n\n3. Fonts\n\nWeb fonts are one of the quickest ways to make your site look distinctive, modern, and less Bootstrappy, so we\u2019ll start there. \n\nFirst, we can add some sweet fonts, from Google Web Fonts. The intimidating bit is choosing fonts that look nice together. Luckily, there are plenty of suggestions around the web: we\u2019re going to use one of DesignShack\u2019s suggested free Google Fonts pairings. Our fonts are Corben (for headings) and Nobile (for body copy). \n\nThen we add these files to our <head>. \n\n<link href=\"http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Corben:bold\" rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\">\n <link href=\"http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Nobile\" rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\">\n\n\u2026and this to custom.css: \n\nh1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {\n    font-family: 'Corben', Georgia, Times, serif;\n}\np, div {\n    font-family: 'Nobile', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;\n}\n\nNow our example looks like this. It\u2019s not going to win any design awards, but it\u2019s immediately better:\n\n\n\nI also recommend the web font services Fontdeck, or Typekit \u2013 these have a wider selection of fonts, and are worth the investment if you regularly need to make sites look good. For more font combinations, Just My Type suggests appealing pairings from Typekit. Finally, you can experiment with type pairing ideas at Type Connection. For the design background on pairing fonts, Typekit\u2019s post is worth a read. \n\n4. Textures\n\nAn instant way to make a site look classy is to use textures. You know the grey, stripy, indefinably elegant background on 24ways.org? That.\n\nIf only there was a superb resource listing attractive, free, ready-to-use textures\u2026 Oh wait, there\u2019s Atle Mo\u2019s Subtle Patterns. \n\nWe\u2019re going to use Cream Dust, for an effect that can only be described as subtle. We download the file to a new /img/ directory, then add this to the CSS file:\n\nbody { \n    background: url(/img/cream_dust.png) repeat 0 0;\n}\n\nBang:\n\n\n\nFor some design background on patterns, I recommend reading through Smashing Magazine\u2019s guidelines on textures. (TL;DR version: use textures to enhance beauty, and clarify the information architecture of your site; but don\u2019t overdo it, or inadvertently obscure your text.)\n\nStill more to do, though. Onwards. \n\n5. Icons\n\nLast year\u2019s 24 ways taught us to use icon fonts for our site icons. \n\nThis is great for the time-pressed coder, because icon fonts don\u2019t just cut down on HTTP requests \u2013 they\u2019re a lot quicker to set up than image-based icons, too. \n\nBootstrap ships with an extensive, free for commercial use icon set in the shape of Font Awesome. Its icons are safe for screen readers, and can even be made to work in IE7 if needed (we\u2019re not going to bother here). \n\nTo start using these icons, just download Font Awesome, and add the /fonts/ directory to your site and the font-awesome.css file into your /css/ directory. Then add a reference to the CSS file in your header:\n\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"/css/font-awesome.css\">\n\nFinally, we\u2019ll add a truck icon to the main action button, as follows. Why a truck? Why not?\n\n<a class=\"btn btn-large btn-success\" href=\"#\"><i class=\"icon-truck\"></i> Sign up today</a>\n\nWe\u2019ll also tweak our CSS file to stop the icon nudging up against the button text:\n\n.jumbotron .btn i { \n    margin-right: 8px;  \n}\n\nAnd this is how it looks:\n\n\n\nNot the most exciting change ever, but it livens up the page a bit. The licence is CC-BY-3.0, so we also include a mention of Font Awesome and its URL in the source code. \n\nIf you\u2019d like something a little more distinctive, Shifticons lets you pay a few cents for individual icons, with the bonus that you only have to serve the icons you actually use, which is more efficient. Its icons are also friendly to screen readers, but won\u2019t work in IE7. \n\n6. CSS3\n\nThe next thing you could do is add some CSS3 goodness. It can really help the key elements of the site stand out. \n\nIf you are pressed for time, just adding box-shadow and text-shadow to emphasize headings and standouts can be useful: \n\nh1 { \n    text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #ccc;\n}\n.div-that-you want-to-stand-out { \n    box-shadow: 0 0 1em 1em #ccc;\n}\n\nWe have a little more time though, so we\u2019re going to do something more subtle. We\u2019ll add a radial gradient behind the main heading, using an online gradient editor. \n\nThe output is hefty, but you can see it in the CSS. Note that we also need to add the following to our HTML, for IE9 support: \n\n<!--[if gte IE 9]>\n  <style type=\"text/css\">\n    .gradient {\n       filter: none;\n    }\n  </style>\n<![endif]-->\n\nAnd the effect \u2013 I don\u2019t know what a designer would think, but I like the way it makes the heading pop.\n\n\n\nFor a crash course in useful modern CSS effects, I highly recommend CodeSchool\u2019s online course in Functional HTM5 and CSS3. It costs money ($25 a month to subscribe), but it\u2019s worth it for the time you\u2019ll save. As a bonus, you also get access to some excellent JavaScript, Ruby and GitHub courses. \n\n(Incidentally, if you find yourself fighting with basic float and display attributes in CSS \u2013 and there\u2019s no shame in it, CSS layout is not intuitive \u2013 I recommend the CSS Cross-Country course at CodeSchool.)\n\n7. Add a twist\n\nWe could leave it there, but we\u2019re going to add a background image, and give the site some personality. \n\nThis is the area of design that I think many programmers find most intimidating. How do we create the graphics and photographs that a designer would use? The answer is iStockPhoto and its competitors \u2013 online image libraries where you can find and pay for images. They won\u2019t be unique, but for our purposes, that\u2019s fine. \n\nWe\u2019re going to use a Christmassy image. For a twist, we\u2019re going to use Backstretch to make it responsive. \n\nWe must pay for the image, then download it to our /img/ directory. Then, we set it as our <body>\u2019s background-image, by including a JavaScript file with just the following line: \n\n$.backstretch(\"/img/winter.jpg\");\n\nWe also reset the subtle pattern to become the background for our container image. It would look much better transparent, so we can use this technique in GIMP to make it see-through:\n\n.container-narrow {\n    background: url(/img/cream_dust_transparent.png) repeat 0 0;\n}\n\nWe also fiddle with the padding on body and .container-narrow a bit, and this is the result: \n\n\n\n(Aside: If this were a real site, I\u2019d want to buy images in multiple sizes and ensure that Backstretch chose the most appropriately sized image for our screen, perhaps using responsive images.)\n\nHow to find the effects that make a site interesting? I keep a set of bookmarks for interesting JavaScript and CSS effects I might want to use someday, from realistic shadows to animating grids. The JavaScript Weekly newsletter is a great source of ideas. \n\n8. Colour schemes\n\nWe\u2019re just about getting there \u2013 though we\u2019re probably past half an hour now \u2013 but that button and that menu still both look awfully Bootstrappy. \n\nReal sites, with real designers, have a colour palette, carefully chosen to harmonize and match the brand profile. For our purposes, we\u2019re just going to borrow some colours from the image. We use Gimp\u2019s colour picker tool to identify the hex values of the blue of the snow. Then we can use Color Scheme Designer to find contrasting, but complementary, colours. \n\nFinally, we use those colours for our central button. There are lots of tools to help us do this, such as Bootstrap Buttons. The new HTML is quite long, so I won\u2019t paste it all here, but you can find it in the CSS file. \n\nWe also reset the colour of the pills in the navigation menu, which is a bit easier: \n\n.nav-pills > .active > a, .nav-pills > .active > a:hover {\n    background-color: #FF9473;\n}\n\nI\u2019m not sure if the result is great to be honest, but at least we\u2019ve lost those Bootstrap-blue buttons:\n\n\n\nAnother way to do it, if you didn\u2019t have an image to match, would be to borrow an attractive colour scheme. Colourlovers is a community where people create and share ready-made colour palettes. \n\nThe key thing is to find a palette with an open licence, so you can legitimately use it. Unfortunately, you can\u2019t search for palettes by licence type, but many do have open licences. Here\u2019s a popular palette with a CC-BY-SA licence that allows reuse with attribution.  \n\nAs above, you can use the hex values from the palette in your custom CSS, and bask in the newly colourful results.\n\n9. Read on\n\nWith the above techniques, you can make a site that is starting to look slightly more professional, pretty quickly. \n\nIf you have the time to invest, it\u2019s well worth learning some design principles, if only so that design seems less intimidating and more like fun. As part of my design learning, I read a few introductory design books aimed at coders. The best I found was David Kadavy\u2019s Design for Hackers: Reverse-Engineering Beauty, which explains the basic principles behind choosing colours, fonts, typefaces and layout.\n\nIn the introduction to his book, David writes: \n\n\n\tNo group stands to gain more from design literacy than hackers do\u2026 The one subject that is exceedingly frustrating for hackers to try to learn is design. Hackers know that in order to compete against corporate behemoths with just a few lines of code, they need to have good, clear design, but the resources with which to learn design are simply hard to find.\n\n\nWell said. If you have half a day to invest, rather than half an hour, I recommend getting hold of David\u2019s book.\n\nAnd the journey is over. Perhaps that took slightly more than half an hour, but with practice, using the above techniques can become second nature. What useful tools have I missed? Designers, how would you improve on the above? I would love to know, so please give me your views in the comments.", "year": "2012", "author": "Anna Powell-Smith", "author_slug": "annapowellsmith", "published": "2012-12-16T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2012/how-to-make-your-site-look-half-decent/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 81, "title": "Science!", "contents": "Sometimes we want to capture people\u2019s attention at a glance to communicate something fast. At other times we want to have the interface fade away into the background, letting people paint pictures in their minds with our words (if you\u2019ll forgive a little flowery festive flourish).\n\nI tend to distinguish between these two broad objectives as designing for impact on the one hand, and designing for immersion on the other. What defines them is interruption. Impact needs an attention-grabbing interruption. Immersion requires us to remove interruption from the interface. Careful design deliberately interrupts but doesn\u2019t accidentally disrupt. If that seems to make sense to you, then you\u2019ll find the following snippets of science as useful as I did.\n\nSaccades and fixations\n\nAs you\u2019re reading this your eyes are skipping along the lines in tiny jumps. During each jump everything is blurred. Each jump ends in a small pause so your brain can take a snapshot of the letters. It arranges them into words, and then parses out the meaning \u2014 fast \u2014 in around a quarter of a second.\n\nThe jumps are called saccades. The pauses are called fixations. Sometimes we take regressive saccades, skipping back to reread. There\u2019s a simple example in the excellent little book, Detail in Typography, by Jost Hochuli.\n\n\n\nIf you want to explore the science of reading in much more depth, I recommend the excellent paper, \u201cThe Science of Word Recognition\u201d, by Dr Kevin Larson of Microsoft.\n\nTo design for legibility and readability is to design for saccades and fixations. It\u2019s the craft of making it easy for people\u2019s brains to extract meaning, using techniques like good contrast, font size, spacing and structure, and only interrupting the reading experience deliberately.\n\nScan paths\n\nAt some point when visiting 24 ways you probably scanned the screen to get orientated. The journey your eyes took is known as a scan path. Scan paths are made up of saccades and fixations. Right now you\u2019re following a scan path as you read, along one line, and down to the next. This is a map of the scan paths found by Olivier Le Meur from observing people looking at Rembrandt\u2019s Le\u00e7on d\u2019anatomie:\n\n\n\nFor websites, the scan path is a little different. This is an aggregate scan path of Google from LC Technologies:\n\n\n\nThe average shape of a website scan path becomes clearer in this average scan path taken by forty-six people during research by the Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, and Eyetools:\n\n\n\nJust like when we read text arranged left to right in a vertical column, scan paths follow a roughly Z-shaped pattern from the top left to bottom right. Sometimes we skip back to reread a word or sentence, or glance again at a specific element, but the Z-shaped scan path persists.\n\nDesigning for scan paths is to organise content to help people move through an interface to get orientated, and to read.\n\nThe elements that are important enough to need impact must interrupt the scan path and clearly call attention to themselves. However, they don\u2019t always need to clip people round the ear from multiple directions at once to get attention. It helps to list elements by importance. That gives us an interruption hierarchy to work with. Elements can then interrupt the design with degrees of contrast to the rest of the content using either positioning, treatment, or both. Ta-da! Impact achieved, but gently. No clips round the ear required.\n\nSwinging mood\n\nHuman beings are resilient. Among the immersion and occasional interruptions, we even like a little disruption, especially if it\u2019s absurd and funny. The Ling\u2019s Cars website proves it. In fact, we\u2019re so resilient that we can work around all kinds of mayhem to get a seemingly simple task done.\n\nIn one study, \u201cThe Aesthetics of Reading\u201d (PDF, 480Kb), Dr Kevin Larson of Microsoft and Dr Rosalind Picard of MIT explored the effect of good typography on mood. Two versions of the New Yorker ePeriodical were created. One was typeset well and the other poorly.\n\n\n\nThey engaged twenty volunteers \u2014 half male, half female \u2014 and showed the good version to half of the participants. The other half saw the poor version.\n\nThe good doctors found that, \u201cthere are important differences between good and poor typography that appear to have little effect on common performance measures such as reading speed and comprehension.\u201d In short, good typography didn\u2019t help people read faster or comprehend better.\n\nOh. On the face of it that seems to invalidate what we designers do. Hold your horses, though! They also found that \u201cthe participants who received the good typography performed better on relative subjective duration and on certain cognitive tasks\u201d, and that \u201cgood typography induces a good mood.\u201d\n\nThis means that even though there were no actual differences in reading speed and comprehension, the people who read the version with good typography thought that it took less time to read, and were induced into a good mood by doing so. Not only that, but by being in a good mood, people were more capable of completing creative tasks faster.\n\nThat was a revelation to me. It means that the study showed there is a positive, measurable, emotional and perceptual benefit to good typography and design. To paraphrase: time and tasks fly when you\u2019re having fun!\n\n\n\nSource: Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands: Cheering man after the first goal, Netherlands vs. Belgium, Amsterdam, 1931.\n\nSo, among all my talk of saccades, fixations, scan paths and typesetting, there is science, and the science helps us qualify our design decisions when we need to, and do our jobs better. The science helps us understand how people will interact with our work, and what the actual benefits are for them, and the products or organisations we serve. Good design equals a subjectively quicker experience, a good mood, objectively faster completion of tasks, and happiness for everyone. Thank you, science!", "year": "2012", "author": "Jon Tan", "author_slug": "jontan", "published": "2012-12-24T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2012/science/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 148, "title": "Typesetting Tables", "contents": "Tables have suffered in recent years on the web. They were used for laying out web pages. Then, following the Web Standards movement, they\u2019ve been renamed by the populous as `data tables\u2019 to ensure that we all know what they\u2019re for. There have been some great tutorials for the designing tables using CSS for presentation and focussing on the semantics in the displaying of data in the correct way. However, typesetting tables is a subtle craft that has hardly had a mention.\n\nTable design can often end up being a technical exercise. What data do we need to display? Where is the data coming from and what form will it take? When was the last time your heard someone talk about lining numerals? Or designing to the reading direction?\n\nTables are not read like sentences\n\nWhen a reader looks at, and tries to understand, tabular data, they\u2019re doing a bunch of things at the same time.\n\n\n\tGenerally, they\u2019re task based; they\u2019re looking for something.\n\tThey are reading horizontally AND vertically\n\n\nReading a table is not like reading a paragraph in a novel, and therefore shouldn\u2019t be typeset in the same way. Designing tables is information design, it\u2019s functional typography\u2014it\u2019s not a time for eye candy.\n\nTypesetting tables\n\nTypesetting great looking tables is largely an exercise in restraint. Minimal interference with the legibility of the table should be in the forefront of any designers mind.\n\nWhen I\u2019m designing tables I apply some simple rules:\n\n\n\tPlenty of negative space\n\tUse the right typeface\n\tGo easy on the background tones, unless you\u2019re giving reading direction visual emphasis\n\tDesign to the reading direction\n\n\nBy way of explanation, here are those rules as applied to the following badly typeset table.\n\nYour default table\n\nThis table is a mess. There is no consideration for the person trying to read it. Everything is too tight. The typeface is wrong. It\u2019s flat. A grim table indeed.\n\n\n\nLet\u2019s see what we can do about that.\n\nPlenty of negative space\n\nThe badly typeset table has been set with default padding. There has been little consideration for the ascenders and descenders in the type interfering with the many horizontal rules.\n\nThe first thing we do is remove most of the lines, or rules. You don\u2019t need them \u2013 the data in the rows forms its own visual rules. Now, with most of the rules removed, the ones that remain mean something; they are indicating some kind of hierarchy to the help the reader understand what the different table elements mean \u2013 in this case the column headings.\n\n\n\nNow we need to give the columns and rows more negative space. Note the framing of the column headings. I\u2019m giving them more room at the bottom. This negative space is active\u2014it\u2019s empty for a reason. The extra air in here also gives more hierarchy to the column headings.\n\n\n\nUse the right typeface\n\nThe default table is set in a serif typeface. This isn\u2019t ideal for a couple of reasons. This serif typeface has a standard set of text numerals. These dip below the baseline and are designed for using figures within text, not on their own. What you need to use is a typeface with lining numerals. These align to the baseline and are more legible when used for tables.\n\n\n\nSans serif typefaces generally have lining numerals. They are also arguably more legible when used in tables.\n\nGo easy on the background tones, unless you\u2019re giving reading direction visual emphasis \n\nWe\u2019ve all seen background tones on tables. They have their use, but my feeling is that use should be functional and not decorative.\n\nIf you have a table that is long, but only a few columns wide, then alternate row shading isn\u2019t that useful for showing the different lines of data. It\u2019s a common misconception that alternate row shading is to increase legibility on long tables. That\u2019s not the case. Shaded rows are to aid horizontal reading across multiple table columns. On wide tables they are incredibly useful for helping the reader find what they want.\n\n\n\nBackground tone can also be used to give emphasis to the reading direction. If we want to emphasis a column, that can be given a background tone.\n\n\n\nHierarchy\n\nAs I said earlier, people may be reading a table vertically, and horizontally in order to find what they want. Sometimes, especially if the table is complex, we need to give them a helping hand.\n\nVisually emphasising the hierarchy in tables can help the reader scan the data. Column headings are particularly important. Column headings are often what a reader will go to first, so we need to help them understand that the column headings are different to the stuff beneath them, and we also need to give them more visual importance. We can do this by making them bold, giving them ample negative space, or by including a thick rule above them. We can also give the row titles the same level of emphasis.\n\n\n\nIn addition to background tones, you can give emphasis to reading direction by typesetting those elements in bold. You shouldn\u2019t use italics\u2014with sans serif typefaces the difference is too subtle.\n\nSo, there you have it. A couple of simple guidelines to make your tables cleaner and more readable.", "year": "2007", "author": "Mark Boulton", "author_slug": "markboulton", "published": "2007-12-07T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2007/typesetting-tables/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 93, "title": "Design Systems", "contents": "The most important part of responsive web design is that, no matter what the viewport width, the content is accessible in an optimum display. The best responsive designs are those that allow you to go from one optimised display to another, but with the feeling that these experiences are part of a greater product whole.\n\nResponsive design: where we\u2019ve been going wrong\n\nResponsive web design was a shock to my web designer system. Those of us who had already been designing sites for mobile probably had the biggest leap to make. We might have been detecting user agents in order to deliver a mobile-specific site, or using the slightly more familiar Bushido technique to deliver sites optimised for device type and viewport size, but either way our focus was on devices. A site was optimised for either a mobile phone or a desktop.\n\nResponsive web design brought us back to pre-table layout fluid sites that expanded or contracted to fit the viewport. This was a big difference to get our heads around when we were so used to designing for fixed-width layouts. Suddenly, an element could be any width or, at least, we needed to consider its maximum and minimum widths. Pixel perfection, while pretty, became wholly unrealistic, and a whole load of designers who prided themselves in detailed and precise designs got a bit scared.\n\nHanging on to our previous processes and typical deliverables led us to continue to optimise our sites for particular devices and provide pixel-perfect mockups for those device widths.\n\nWith all this we were concentrating on devices, not content, deliverables and not process, and making assumptions about users and their devices based on nothing but the width of the viewport.\n\nI don\u2019t think this is a crime, I think it was inevitable.\n\nWe can be up to date with our principles and ideals, but it\u2019s never as easy in practice. That\u2019s why it\u2019s more important than ever to share our successful techniques and processes. Let\u2019s drag each other into modern web design.\n\nDesign systems: the principles\n\nWhat are design systems?\n\nA visual design system is built out of the core components of typography, layout, shape or form, and colour. When considering the design of a whole product, a design system should also include patterns in user flow, content strategy, copy, and tone of voice. These concepts, design decisions or rules, created around the core components are used consistently across your product to create a cohesive feel, whether it\u2019s from one element to another, page to page, or viewport width to viewport width.\n\nResponsive design is one of the most important considerations in the components of a design system. For each component, you must decide what will unite the design across the viewports to maintain that consistent feel, and what parts of the design will differentiate in order to provide a flexible and optimal experience for different viewport sizes.\n\nComponents you might keep the same across viewports\n\n\n\ttypeface\n\tbase unit\n\tcolour\n\tshape/form\n\n\nComponents you might differentiate across viewports\n\n\n\tgrids\n\tlayout\n\tfont size\n\tmeasure (line length)\n\tleading (line height)\n\n\nContent: it must always be the same\n\nThe focus of a design system is the optimum display of content. As Mark Boulton put it, designing \u201ccontent out, not canvas in.\u201d Chris Armstrong puts the emphasis on not designing for viewports but for content \u2013 \u201cwe need to build on what we do know: content.\u201d In order to do this, we must share the same content across all devices and focus on how best to display and represent content through design system components.\n\nThe practical: core visual components\n\nTypography first\n\nWhen you work with a lot of text content, typography is the easiest way to set the visual tone of the design across all viewport widths. It\u2019s likely that you\u2019ll choose one or two typefaces to use across the whole system, but you might change the most legible font size, balanced with the most comfortable measure, as the viewport width changes.\n\nWhere typography meets layout\n\nThe unit on which you choose to base the grid and layout design, font sizes and leading could be based on the typeface, an optimal reading size, or something more arbitrary. Sometimes I\u2019ll choose a unit based on multiples of ten because it makes the maths in the CSS easier. Tim Brown suggests trying a modular scale. Chris Armstrong suggests basing it on your ideal measure, or the width of a fixed item of content such as an ad unit.\n\nGrids and layouts\n\nSensible grid design can be a flexible yet solid foundation for your design system layout component. But you must be wary in responsive design that a grid might not work across all widths: even four columns could make for very cramped content and one-word measures on smaller screens.\n\nMaybe the grid columns are something you differentiate across widths, but you can keep the concept of the grid consistent. If the content has blocks in groups of three, you might decide on a three-column grid which folds down to one column for narrow viewports. If the grid focuses on the idea of symmetry and has a four-column grid on larger viewports, it might fold down to two columns for narrower viewports. These consistencies may seem subtle, not at all obvious to many except the designer, but it\u2019s all these little constants and patterns across the whole of the design system that makes design decisions easier to make (as they adhere to the guiding concepts of your system), and give the product a uniform feel no matter what the device.\n\nShape or form\n\nThe shape or form components are concepts you already use in fixed-width web design for a strong, consistent look and feel. \n\nSince CSS border-radius became widely supported by browsers, a lot of designs feature circle themes. These are very distinctive and can be used across viewport widths giving them the same united feel, even if they\u2019re not used in the same way. This could also apply to border styles, consistent shadows and any number of decorative details and textures. These are the elements that make up the shape or form of a design system.\n\nColour\n\nColour is the most basic way to reinforce a brand and unite experiences across viewports. The same hex colour used system-wide is instantly recognisable, no matter what the viewport width.\n\nThe process\n\nWhile using a design system isn\u2019t necessarily attached to any particular process, it does lend itself to some process ideals.\n\nDetaching design considerations from viewport widths\n\nA design system allows you to focus separately on the components that make up the system, disconnecting the look and feel from the layout. This helps prevent us getting stuck in the rut of the Apple breakpoints (brilliantly coined by Simon Foster) of mobile, tablet and desktop. It also forces us to design for variation in viewport experiences side by side, not one after the other.\n\nDesign in the browser\n\nI can\u2019t start off designing in the browser \u2013 it just doesn\u2019t seem to bring out my creative side (and I\u2019m incredibly envious of you if you can; I just have to start on paper) \u2013 but static mock-ups aren\u2019t the only alternative. Style guides and style tiles are perfect for expressing the concepts of your design system. Pattern libraries could also work well.\n\nMock-ups and breakpoints\n\nAt some point, whether it\u2019s to test your system ideas, or because a client needs help visualising how your system might work, you may end up producing some static mock-ups. It\u2019s not the end of the world, but you must ensure that these consider all the viewports, not just those of the iDevices, or even the devices currently on the market. You need to decide the breakpoints where the states of your design change. The blocks within your content will always have optimum points for their display (based on their hierarchy, density, width, or type of interaction) and so your breakpoints should be based around these points.\n\nThese are probably the ideal points at which to produce static mockups; treat them as snapshots. They\u2019re not necessarily mock-ups, so much as a way of capturing how your design system would be interpreted when frozen at that particular viewport width.\n\nThe future\n\nCreating design systems will give us the flexibility we need for working with the unknown devices of the future. It may be a change in process, but it shouldn\u2019t be too much of a difference in thinking. The pioneers in responsive design have a hard job. Some of these problems may have already been solved in other technologies or industries, but it\u2019s up to the pioneers to find those connections and help us formulate solutions and standards that will make responsive design the best it can possibly be. We need to keep experimenting and communicating, particularly in the area of design, as good user experiences are the true sign of whether our products are a success.", "year": "2012", "author": "Laura Kalbag", "author_slug": "laurakalbag", "published": "2012-12-12T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2012/design-systems/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 27, "title": "Putting Design on the Map", "contents": "The web can leave us feeling quite detached from the real world. Every site we make is really just a set of abstract concepts manifested as tools for communication and expression. At any minute, websites can disappear, overwritten by a newfangled version or simply gone. I think this is why so many of us have desires to create a product, write a book, or play with the internet of things. We need to keep in touch with the physical world and to prove (if only to ourselves) that we do make real things.\n\nI could go on and on about preserving the web, the challenges of writing a book, or thoughts about how we can deal with the need to make real things. Instead, I\u2019m going to explore something that gives us a direct relationship between a website and the physical world \u2013 maps.\n\n\n\tA map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we did not know were previously connected.\nReif Larsen, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet\n\n\nThe simplest form of map on a website tends to be used for showing where a place is and often directions on how to get to it. That\u2019s an incredibly powerful tool. So why is it, then, that so many sites just plonk in a default Google Map and leave it as that? You wouldn\u2019t just use dark grey Helvetica on every site, would you? Where\u2019s the personality? Where\u2019s the tailored experience? Where is the design?\n\nJumping into design\n\nLet\u2019s keep this simple \u2013 we all want to be better web folk, not cartographers. We don\u2019t need to go into the history, mathematics or technology of map making (although all of those areas are really interesting to research). For the sake of our sanity, I\u2019m going to gloss over some of the technical areas and focus on the practical concepts.\n\nTiles\n\nIf you\u2019ve ever noticed a map loading in sections, it\u2019s because it uses tiles that are downloaded individually instead of requiring the user to download everything that they might need. These tiles come in many styles and can be used for anything that covers large areas, such as base maps and data. You\u2019ve seen examples of alternative base maps when you use Google Maps as Google provides both satellite imagery and road maps, both of which are forms of base maps. They are used to provide context for the real world, or any other world for that matter. A marker on a blank page is useless.\n\nThe tiles are representations of the physical; they do not have to be photographic imagery to provide context. This means you can design the map itself. The easiest way to conceive this is by comparing Google\u2019s road maps with Ordnance Survey road maps. Everything about the two maps is different: the colours, the label fonts and the symbols used. Yet they still provide the exact same context (other maps may provide different context such as terrain contours).\n\n Comparison of Google Maps (top) and the Ordnance Survey (bottom).\n\nCarefully designing the base map tiles is as important as any other part of the website. The most obvious, yet often overlooked, aspect are aesthetics and branding. Maps could fit in with the rest of the site; for example, by matching the colours and line weights, they can enhance the full design rather than inhibiting it. You\u2019re also able to define the exact purpose of the map, so instead of showing everything you could specify which symbols or labels to show and hide.\n\nI\u2019ve not done any real research on the accessibility of base maps but, having looked at some of the available options, I think a focus on the typography of labels and the colour of the various elements is crucial. While you can choose to hide labels, quite often they provide the data required to make sense of the map. Therefore, make sure each zoom level is not too cluttered and shows enough to give context. Also be as careful when choosing the typeface as you are in any other design work. As for colour, you need to pay closer attention to issues like colour-blindness when using colour to convey information. Quite often a spectrum of colour will be used to show data, or to show the topography, so you need to be aware that some people struggle to see colour differences within a spectrum.\n\nA nice example of a customised base map can be found on Michael K Owens\u2019 check-in pages:\n\n One of Michael K Owens\u2019 check-in pages.\n\nAs I\u2019ve already mentioned, tiles are not just for base maps: they are also for data. In the screenshot below you can see how Plymouth Marine Laboratory uses tiles to show data with a spectrum of colour.\n\n A map from the Marine Operational Ecology data portal, showing data of adult cod in the North Sea.\n\nTechnical\n\nYou\u2019re probably wondering how to design the base layers. I will briefly explain the concepts here and give you tools to use at the end of the article. If you\u2019re worried about the time it takes to design the maps, don\u2019t be \u2013 you can automate most of it. You don\u2019t need to manually draw each tile for the entire world!\n\nWe\u2019ve learned the importance of web standards the hard way, so you\u2019ll be glad (and I won\u2019t have to explain the advantages) of the standard for web mapping from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) called the Web Map Service (WMS). You can use conventional file formats for the imagery but you need a way to query for the particular tiles to show for the area and zoom level, that is what WMS does.\n\nFeatures\n\nTiles are great for covering large areas but sometimes you need specific smaller areas. We call these features and they usually consist of polygons, lines or points. Examples include postcode boundaries and routes between places, or even something more dynamic such as borders of nations changing over time.\n\nShowing features on a map presents interesting design challenges. If the colour or shape conveys some kind of data beyond geographical boundaries then it needs to be made obvious. This is actually really hard, without building complicated user interfaces. For example, in the image below, is it obvious that there is a relationship between the colours? Does it need a way of showing what the colours represent?\n\n Choropleth map showing ranked postcode areas, using ViziCities.\n\n\n\tFeatures are represented by means of lines or colors; and the effective use of lines or colors requires more than knowledge of the subject \u2013 it requires artistic judgement.\nErwin Josephus Raisz, cartographer (1893\u20131968)\n\n\nWhere lots of boundaries are small and close together (such as a high street or shopping centre) will it be obvious where the boundaries are and what they represent? When designing maps, the hardest challenge is dealing with how the data is represented and how it is understood by the user.\n\nTechnical\n\nAs you probably gathered, we use WMS for tiles and another standard called the web feature service (WFS) for specific features. I need to stress that the difference between the two is that WMS is for tiling, whereas WFS is for specific features. Both can use similar file formats but should be used for their particular use cases. You may be wondering why you can\u2019t just use a vector format such as KML, GeoJSON (or even SVG) \u2013 and you can \u2013 but the issue is the same as for WMS: you need a way to query the data to get the correct area and zoom level.\n\nUser interface\n\nThere is of course never a correct way to design an interface as there are so many different factors to take into consideration for each individual project. Maps can be used in a variety of ways, to provide simple information about directions or for complex visualisations to explain large amounts of data. I would like to just touch on matters that need to be taken into account when working with maps.\n\nAs I mentioned at the beginning, there are so many Google Maps on the web that people seem to think that its UI is the only way you can use a map. To some degree we don\u2019t want to change that, as people know how to use them; but does every map require a zoom slider or base map toggle? In fact, does the user need to zoom at all? The answer to that one is generally yes, zooming does provide more context to where the map is zoomed in on.\n\nIn some cases you will need to let users choose what goes on the map (such as data layers or directions), so how do they show and hide the data? Does a simple drop-down box work, or do you need search? Google\u2019s base map toggle is quite nice since it doesn\u2019t offer many options yet provides very different contexts and styling.\n\nIt isn\u2019t until we get to this point that we realise just plonking a quick Google map is really quite ridiculous, especially when compared to the amount of effort we make in other areas such as colour, typography or how the CSS is written. Each of these is important but we need to make sure the whole site is designed, and that includes the maps as much as any other content.\n\nPutting it into practice\n\nI could ramble on for ages about what we can do to customise maps to fit a site\u2019s personality and correctly represent the data. I wanted to focus on concepts and standards because tools constantly change and it is never good to just rely on a tool to do the work. That said, there are a large variety of tools that will help you turn these concepts into reality. This is not a comparison; I just want to show you a few of the many options you have for maps on the web.\n\nGoogle\n\nOK, I\u2019ve been quite critical so far about Google Maps but that is only because there is such a large amount of the default maps across the web. You can style them almost as much as anything else. They may not allow you to use custom WMS layers but Google Maps does have its own version, called styled maps. Using an array of map features (in the sense of roads and lakes and landmarks rather than the kind WFS is used for), you can style the base map with JavaScript. It even lets you toggle visibility, which helps to avoid the issue of too much clutter on the map. As well as lacking WMS, it doesn\u2019t support WFS, but it does support GeoJSON and KML so you can still show the features on the map. You should also check out Google Maps Engine (the new version of My Maps), which provides an interface for creating more advanced maps with a selection of different base maps. A premium version is available, essentially for creating map-based visualisations, and it provides a step up from the main Google Maps offering. A useful feature in some cases is that it gives you access to many datasets.\n\nLeaflet\n\nYou have probably seen Leaflet before. It isn\u2019t quite as popular as Google Maps but it is definitely used often and for good reason. Leaflet is a lightweight open source JavaScript library. It is not a service so you don\u2019t have to worry about API throttling and longevity. It gives you two options for tiling, the ability to use WMS, or to directly get the file using variables in the filename such as /{z}/{x}/{y}.png. I would recommend using WMS over dynamic file names because it is a standard, but the ability to use variables in a file name could be useful in some situations. Leaflet has a strong community and a well-documented API.\n\nMapbox\n\nAs a freemium service, Mapbox may not be perfect for every use case but it\u2019s definitely worth looking into. The service offers incredible customisation tools as well as lots of data sources and hosting for the maps. It also provides plenty of libraries for the various platforms, so you don\u2019t have to only use the maps on the web.\n\nMapbox is a service, though its map design tool is open source. Mapbox Studio is a vector-only version of their previous tool called Tilemill. Earlier I wrote about how typography and colour are as important to maps as they are to the rest of a website; if you thought, \u201cYes, but how on earth can I design those parts of a map?\u201d then this is the tool for you. It is incredibly easy to use. Essentially each map has a stylesheet.\n\nIf you do not want to open a paid-for Mapbox account, then you can export the tiles (as PNG, SVG etc.) to use with other map tools.\n\nOpenLayers\n\nAfter a long wait, OpenLayers 3 has been released. It is similar to Leaflet in that it is a library not a service, but it has a much broader scope. During the last year I worked on the GIS portal at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (which I used to show the data tiles earlier), it essentially used OpenLayers 2 to create a web-based geographic information system, taking a large amount of data and permitting analysis (such as graphs) without downloading entire datasets and complicated software. OpenLayers 3 has improved greatly on the previous version in both performance and accessibility. It is the ideal tool for complex map-based web apps, though it can be used for the simple use cases too.\n\nOpenStreetMap\n\nI couldn\u2019t write an article about maps on the web without at least mentioning OpenStreetMap. It is the place to go for crowd-sourced data about any location, with complete road maps and a strong API.\n\nViziCities\n\nThe newest project on this list is ViziCities by Robin Hawkes and Peter Smart. It is a open source 3-D visualisation tool, currently in the very early stages of development. The basic example shows 3-D buildings around the world using OpenStreetMap data. Robin has used it to create some incredible demos such as real-time London underground trains, and planes landing at an airport. Edward Greer and I are currently working on using ViziCities to show ideal housing areas based on particular personas. We chose it because the 3-D aspect gives us interesting possibilities for the data we are able to visualise (such as bar charts on the actual map instead of in the UI). Despite not being a completely stable, fully featured system, ViziCities is worth taking a look at for some use cases and is definitely going to go from strength to strength.\n\n\n\nSo there you have it \u2013 a whistle-stop tour of how maps can be customised. Now please stop plonking in maps without thinking about it and design them as you design the rest of your content.", "year": "2014", "author": "Shane Hudson", "author_slug": "shanehudson", "published": "2014-12-11T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2014/putting-design-on-the-map/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 140, "title": "Styling hCards with CSS", "contents": "There are plenty of places online where you can learn about using the hCard microformat to mark up contact details at your site (there are some resources at the end of the article). But there\u2019s not yet been a lot of focus on using microformats with CSS. So in this installment of 24 ways, we\u2019re going to look at just that \u2013 how microformats help make CSS based styling simpler and more logical.\n\nBeing rich, quite complex structures, hCards provide designers with a sophisticated scaffolding for styling them. A recent example of styling hCards I saw, playing on the business card metaphor, was by Andy Hume, at http://thedredge.org/2005/06/using-hcards-in-your-blog/. While his approach uses fixed width cards, let\u2019s take a look at how we might style a variable width business card style for our hCards.\n\nLet\u2019s take a common hCard, which includes address, telephone and email details\n\n<div class=\"vcard\">\n\t<p class=\"fn org\">Web Directions North\n\t\t<a href=\"http://suda.co.uk/projects/X2V/get-vcard.php?uri=http://north.webdirections.org/contact/\">\n\t\t\t<img src=\"images/vcard-add.png\" alt=\"download vcard icon\"></a>\n\t</p>\n\n\t\n\t\t 1485 Laperri\u00e8re Avenue \n\t\t Ottawa  ON  K1Z 7S8 \n\t\tCanada\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\tPhone/Fax: Work: 61 2 9365 5007\n\t\tEmail: info@webdirections.org\n\t\n\n\nWe\u2019ll be using a variation on the now well established \u201csliding doors\u201d technique (if you create a CSS technique, remember it\u2019s very important to give it a memorable name or acronym, and bonus points if you get your name in there!) by Douglas Bowman, enhanced by Scott Schiller (see http://www.schillmania.com/projects/dialog/,) which will give us a design which looks like this\n\n\n\nThe technique, in a nutshell, uses background images on four elements, two at the top, and two at the bottom, to add each rounded corner.\n\nWe are going to make this design \u201cfluid\u201d in the sense that it grows and shrinks in proportion with the size of the font that the text of the element is displayed with. This is sometimes referred to as an \u201cem driven design\u201d (we\u2019ll see why in a moment).\n\nTo see how this works in practice, here\u2019s the same design with the text \u201czoomed\u201d up in size\n\n\n\nand the same design again, when we zoom the text size down\n\n\n\nBy the way, the hCard image comes from Chris Messina, and you can download it and other microformat icons from the microformats wiki.\n\nNow, with CSS3, this whole task would be considerably easier, because we can add multiple background images to an element, and border images for each edge of an element. Safari, version 1.3 up, actually supports multiple background images, but sadly, it\u2019s not supported in Firefox 1.5, or even Firefox 2.0 (let\u2019s not mention IE7 eh?). So it\u2019s probably too little supported to use now. So instead we\u2019ll use a technique that only involves CSS2, and works in pretty much any browser.\n\nVery often, developers add div or span elements as containers for these background images, and in fact, if you visit Scott Shiller\u2019s site, that\u2019s what he has done there. But if at all possible we shouldn\u2019t be adding any HTML simply for presentational purposes, even if the presentation is done via CSS. What we can do is to use the HTML we have already, as much as is possible, to add the style we want. This can take some creative thinking, but once you get the hang of this approach it becomes a more natural way of using HTML compared with simply adding divs and spans at will as hooks for style. Of course, this technique isn\u2019t always simple, and in fact sometimes simply not possible, requiring us to add just a little HTML to provide the \u201chooks\u201d for CSS.\n\nLet\u2019s go to work\n\nThe first step is to add a background image to the whole vCard element.\n\n\n\nWe make this wide enough (for example 1000 or more pixels) and tall enough that no matter how large the content of the vCard grows, it will never overflow this area. We can\u2019t simply repeat the image, because the top left corner will show when the image repeats.\n\nWe add this as the background image of the vCard element using CSS.\n\nWhile we are at it, let\u2019s give the text a sans-serif font, some color so that it will be visible, and stop the image repeating.\n\n.vcard {\n\tbackground-image: url(images/vcardfill.png);\n\tbackground-repeat: no-repeat;\n\tcolor: #666;\n\tfont-family: \"Lucida Grande\", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;\n}\n\nWhich in a browser, will look something like this.\n\n\n\nNext step we need to add the top right hand corner of the hCard. In keeping with our aim of not adding HTML simply for styling purposes, we want to use the existing structure of the page where possible. Here, we\u2019ll use the paragraph of class fn and org, which is the first child element of the vcard element.\n\n<p class=\"fn org\">Web Directions Conference Pty Ltd <img src=\"images/vcard-add.png\" alt=\"download vcard icon\"></p>\n\nHere\u2019s our CSS for this element\n\n.fn {\n\tbackground-image: url(images/topright.png);\n\tbackground-repeat: no-repeat;\n\tbackground-position: top right;\n\tpadding-top: 2em;\n\tfont-weight: bold;\n\tfont-size: 1.1em;\n}\n\nAgain, we don\u2019t want it to repeat, but this time, we\u2019ve specified a background position for the image. This will make the background image start from the top, but its right edge will be located at the right edge of the element. I also made the font size a little bigger, and the weight bold, to differentiate it from the rest of the text in the hCard.\n\nHere\u2019s the image we are adding as the background to this element.\n\n\n\nSo, putting these two CSS statements together we get\n\n\n\nWe specified a padding-top of 2em to give some space between the content of the fn element and the edge of the fn element. Otherwise the top of the hCard image would be hard against the border. To see this in action, just remove the padding-top: 2em; declaration and preview in a browser.\n\nSo, with just two statements, we are well under way. We\u2019ve not even had to add any HTML so far. Let\u2019s turn to the bottom of the element, and add the bottom border (well, the background image which will serve as that border).\n\nNow, which element are we going to use to add this background image to?\n\nOK, here I have to admit to a little, teensie bit of cheating. If you look at the HTML of the hCard, I\u2019ve grouped the email and telephone properties into a div, with a class of telecommunications. This grouping is not strictly requred for our hCard.\n\n<div class=\"telecommunications\">\n\t<p class=\"tel\">Phone/Fax: <span class=\"tel\"><span class=\"type\">Work</span>:\n\t\t<span class=\"value\">61 2 9365 5007</span></p>\n\t<p class=\"email\">Email: <a class=\"value\" href=\"mailto:info@webdirections.org\">info@webdirections.org</a></p>\n</div>\n\nNow, I chose that class name because that is what the vCard specification calls this group of properties. And typically, I do tend to group together related elements using divs when I  mark up content. I find it makes the page structure more logical and readable. But strictly speaking, this isn\u2019t necessary, so you may consider it cheating. But my lesson in this would be, if you are going to add markup, try to make it as meaningful as possible.\n\nAs you have probably guessed by now, we are going to add one part of the bottom border image to this element. We\u2019re going to add this image as the background-image.\n\n\n\nAgain, it will be a very wide image, like the top left one, so that no matter how wide the element might get, the background image will still be wide enough. Now, we\u2019ll need to make this image sit in the bottom left of the element we attach it to, so we use a backgound position of left bottom (we put the horizontal position before the vertical). Here\u2019s our CSS statement for this\n\n.telecommunications {\n\tbackground-image: url(images/bottom-left.png);\n\tbackground-repeat: no-repeat;\n\tbackground-position: left bottom;\n\tmargin-bottom: 2em;\n}\n\nAnd that will look like this\n\n\n\nNot quite there, but well on the way. Time for the final piece in the puzzle.\n\nOK, I admit, I might have cheated just a little bit more in this step. But like the previous step, all valid, and (hopefully) quite justifiable markup. If we look at the HTML again, you\u2019ll find that our email address is marked up like this\n\n<p class=\"email\">Email: <a class=\"value\" href=\"mailto:info@webdirections.org\">info@webdirections.org</a></p>\n\nTypically, in hCard, the value part of this property isn\u2019t required, and we could get away with\n\n<a class=\"email\" href=\"mailto:info@webdirections.org\">info@webdirections.org</a>\n\nThe form I\u2019ve used, with the span of class value is however, perfectly valid hCard markup (hard allows for multiple email addresses of different types, which is where this typically comes in handy). Why have I gone to all this trouble? Well, when it came to styling the hCard, I realized I needed a block element to attach the background image for the bottom right hand corner to. Typically the last block element in the containing element is the ideal choice (and sometimes it\u2019s possible to take an inline element, for example the link here, and use CSS to make it a block element, and attach it to that, but that really doesn\u2019t work with this design).\n\nSo, if we are going to use the paragraph which contains the email link, we need a way to select it exclusively, which means that with CSS2 at least, we need a class or id as a hook for our CSS selector (in CSS3 we could use the last-child selector, which selects the last child element of a specified element, but again, as last child is not widely supported, we won\u2019t rely on it here.)\n\nSo, the least worst thing we could do is take an existing element, and add some reasonably meaningful markup to it. That\u2019s why we gave the paragraph a class of email, and the email address a class of value. Which reminds me a little of a moment in Hamlet\n\n\n\tThe lady doth protest too much, methinks\n\n\nOK, let\u2019s get back to the CSS.\n\nWe add the bottom right corner image, positioning it in the bottom right of the element, and making sure it doesn\u2019t repeat. We also add some padding to the bottom, to balance out the padding we added to the top of the hCard.\n\np.email {\n\tbackground-image: url(images/bottom-right.png);\n\tbackground-position: right bottom;\n\tbackground-repeat: no-repeat;\n\tpadding-bottom: 2em;\n}\n\nWhich all goes to make our hCard look like this\n\n\n\nIt just remains for us to clean up a little.\n\nLet\u2019s start from the top. We\u2019ll float the download image to the right like this\n\n.vcard img {\n\tfloat: right;\n\tpadding-right: 1em;\n\tmargin-top: -1em\n}\n\nSee how we didn\u2019t have to add a class to style the image, we used the  fact that the image is a descendent of the vcard element, and a descendent selector. In my experience, the very widely supported, powerful descendent selector is one of the most underused aspects of CSS. So if you don\u2019t use it frequently, look into it in more detail.\n\nWe added some space to the right of the image, and pulled it up a bit closer to the top of the hCard, like this\n\n\n\nWe also want to add some whitespace between the edge of the hCard and the text. We would typically add padding to the left of the containing element, (in this case the vcard element) but this would break our bottom left hand corner, like this\n\n\n\nThat\u2019s because the div element we added this bottom left background image to would be moved in by the padding on its containing element.\n\nSo instead, we add left margin to all the paragraphs in the hCard\n\n.vcard p {\n\tmargin-left: 1em;\n}\n\n(there is the descendent selector again \u2013 it is the swiss army knife of CSS)\n\nNow, we\u2019ve not yet made the width of the hCard a function of the size of the text inside it (or \u201cem driven\u201d as we described it earlier). We do this by giving the hCard a width that is specified in em units. Here we\u2019ll set a width of say 28em, which makes the hCard always roughly as wide as 28 characters (strictly speaking 28 times the width of the letter capital M). \n\nSo the statement for our containing vcard element becomes\n\n.vcard {\n\tbackground-image: url(images/vcardfill.png);\n\tbackground-repeat: no-repeat;\n\tcolor: #666;\n\tfont-family: \"Lucida Grande\", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;\n\twidth: 28em;\n}\n\nand now our element will look like this\n\n\n\nWe\u2019ve used almost entirely the existing HTML from our original hCard (adding just a little, and trying as much as possible to keep that additional markup meaningful), and just 6 CSS statements.\n\nHoliday Bonus \u2013 a downloadable vCard\n\nDid you notice this part of the HTML\n\n<a href=\"http://suda.co.uk/projects/X2V/get-vcard.php?uri=http://north.webdirections.org/contact/\">\n        <img src=\"images/vcard-add.png\" alt=\"download vcard icon\"></a>\n\nWhat\u2019s with the odd looking url\n\n<a href=\"http://suda.co.uk/projects/X2V/get-vcard.php?uri=http://north.webdirections.org/contact/\"\n\nIf you click the link, X2V, a nifty web service from Brian Suda, grabs the page at the URL, and if it finds a hCard, converts it to a vCard, and depending on how your system is setup, automatically downloads it and adds it to your address book (Mac OS X) or prompts you whether you\u2019d like to save the vCard and add it to whatever application is the default vCard handler on your system. \n\nWhat X2V does is take the actual HTML of your hCard, and with the magic of XSLT, converts it to a vCard. So, by simply marking up contact details using hCard, and adding a link like this, you automatically get downloadable vCard \u2013 and if you change your contact details, and update the hCard, there\u2019s no vCard file to update as well.\n\nTechnorati also have a similar service at http://technorati.com/contact so you might want to use that if you expect any kind of load, as they can probably afford the bandwidth more than Brian!\n\nIf you want to play with the HTML and CSS for this design, the code and images can be downloaded.\n\nHope you enjoyed this, and found it useful. If so, you might like to check out my microformats focussed blog, or get along to Web Directions North, where I\u2019ll be speaking along with Dan Cederholmn and Tantek \u00c7elik in a 2 hour session focussed solely on microformats. And keep an eye out for my microformats book, from which this article has been adapted, coming in the spring of 2007.\n\nA happy festive season, and all the best for 2007\n\nJohn\n\nSome hCard links\n\n\n\tThe hCard entry at microformats.org\n\tThe hCard Creator\n\tThe hCard cheatsheet\n\tThe hCard FAQ\n\tIdeas for authoring hCards\n\n\n\n\tMicrofomatique \u2013 a blog about microformats\n\tWeb Directions North \u2013 featuring a full 2 hour focussed microformats session", "year": "2006", "author": "John Allsopp", "author_slug": "johnallsopp", "published": "2006-12-14T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/styling-hcards-with-css/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 13, "title": "Data-driven Design with an Annual Survey", "contents": "Too often, we base designs on assumptions that don\u2019t match customer perspectives. Why? Because the data we need to make informed decisions isn\u2019t available.\n\nImagine starting off the year with a treasure trove of user data that can be filtered, sliced, and diced to inform new UI designs, help you discover where users struggle the most, and expose emerging trends in your customers\u2019 needs that could lead to new features. Why, that would be useful indeed. And it\u2019s easy to obtain by conducting an annual survey.\n\nAnnual surveys may seem as exciting as receiving socks and undies for Christmas, but they\u2019re the gift that keeps on giving all year long (just like fresh socks and undies). I\u2019m not ashamed to admit it: I love surveys! Each time my design research team runs a survey, we learn so much about customer motivations, interests, and behaviors. \n\nSurveys provide an aggregate snapshot of your users that can\u2019t easily be obtained by other research methods, and they can be conducted quickly too. You can build a survey in a few hours, run a pilot test in a day, and have real results streaming in the following day. Speed is essential if design research is going to keep pace with a busy product release schedule. \n\nSurveys are also an invaluable springboard for customer interviews, which provide deep perspectives on user behavior. If you play your cards right as you construct your survey, you can capture a user ID and an email address for each respondent, making it easy to get in touch with customers whose feedback is particularly intriguing. No more recruiting customers for your research via Twitter or through a recruiting company charging a small fortune. You can filter survey responses and isolate the exact customers to talk with in moments, not months.\n\nI love this connected process of sending targeted surveys, filtering the results, and then \u2014 with surgical precision \u2014 selecting just the right customers to interview. Not only is it fast and cheap, but it lets design researchers do quantitative and qualitative research in a coordinated way. Aggregate survey responses help you quantify the perspectives of different user segments, and interviews help you get into the heads of your customers.\n\nAn annual survey can give your team the data needed to make more informed designs in the new year. It all starts with a plan.\n\nPlanning your survey\n\nBefore you start jotting down questions to ask users, spend some time thinking about the work your team will be doing in the coming year. Are you planning new mobile apps or a responsive redesign? Then questions about devices used and behaviors around mobile devices might be in order. Rethinking your content strategy? Then you might want to ask a few questions about how your customers consume content.\n\nYou can\u2019t predict all of the projects you\u2019ll be working on in the coming year, but tuck a couple of sections in your survey about the projects you\u2019re certain about. This will give you the research you need to start new projects with solid foundational data.\n\nGoogle Drive is a great place to start collaboratively building survey questions with colleagues. Questions that seem crystal clear in your head get challenged, refined, or even expanded quickly when the entire team can chime in. \n\nAs you craft your survey, try to consider how you\u2019ll filter it once all of the data is compiled. Do you need to see responses by industry, by age of an account, by devices used, or by size of company? Adding the right filter questions can help you discover fascinating patterns in user segments. Filtering on responses to a few questions can surface insights like: customers in non-profit companies with more than 100 employees are 17% more likely to use an Android phone and are most attracted to features A, D, and F. A designer working on the landing page for a non-profit would love to have concrete information like this. Filter questions are key, so consider them carefully. But don\u2019t go overboard \u2014 too many of them and you\u2019ll start to hurt your survey response rate.\n\nMultiple choice questions are the heart of most surveys because respondents can complete them quickly, which increases response rate, and researchers can analyze them without a lot of manual categorization. Open text field questions are valuable too, but be careful not to add too many to your survey. You\u2019ll hate yourself after the survey\u2019s done and you have to sort through and tag thousands of open responses so patterns become visible. Oy vey!\n\nAn open-ended question works well towards the end of the survey. At this point respondents have a lot of topics swirling around in their head and tend to say weird things that will pique your interest. This is where you\u2019ll find the outliers who are using your product. They\u2019ll be fascinating to interview, and on occasion will help you see your work in a brand new way.\n\nConclude your survey with a question asking permission to get in touch for a followup interview so you don\u2019t pester people who want to be left alone. \n\nWith your questions nailed down, it\u2019s time to build out that survey and get it ready for sending!\n\nBuilding your survey\n\nThere are dozens of apps you could use to build your survey, but SurveyMonkey is the one that I prefer. It lets you pass in variables for each respondent such as user ID and email address. Metadata about respondents is essential if you\u2019re going to do any follow-up interviews with your customers in the coming year. SurveyMonkey also makes it easy to set up question logic, showing questions to customers only if they responded in a certain way to a prior question. This helps you avoid asking irrelevant questions to some respondents.\n\nDetermining survey recipients\n\nOnce you\u2019ve chosen a survey tool and entered all of your questions, you need to gather a list of recipients. Your first instinct will be to send it to everyone. You might say, \u201cI need maximum response and metric shit tons of data!\u201d But this is rarely the best approach \u2014 broad distribution almost always leads to lower response rates, increased noise, and decreased signal in your data. Are there subsets of customers you could send to, like only those who are active, those who are paying, or have been with you for a certain length of time? Talk to the keepers of your customer database and see how they can segment it so you can be certain you\u2019re talking to just the people who will have the most relevant responses for your needs. \n\nIf you want to get super nerdy when finding the right customer sample to survey, use a [sample size calculator]. Sampling is a deep subject best explored in other articles. \n\nCrafting your survey email\n\nAfter focusing your energies on writing and building your survey, the email asking your customers to respond seems almost trivial, but it will greatly influence your response rate. Take great care when writing your subject line and the body of the email. If you can pull it off, A/B testing subject lines can greatly improve the open rate of your email and click-through to your survey. My design research team has seen a ~10% increase in open and click rates when we A/B tested. We\u2019ve found that personalizing subject lines and greetings with the recipients name (ie. \u201cHey, Aarron. How can we make our app work better for you?\u201d) gave us the best response rates. Your mileage may vary.\n\nThe tone of your email is important \u2014 be friendly, honest, and to the point. Those that are passionate about your product will be happy to share their perspective. Writing a survey email that people will actually respond to ain\u2019t easy \u2014 in fact, they\u2019re almost always annoying. But Ben Chestnut found a non-annoying way to send a survey email and improve response rates.\n\nThe email sent for the 2013 MailChimp survey let customers know what we\u2019d been up to in the previous year, and invited feedback on what we should work on in the coming year.\n\nThe link to your survey should be a clear call to action. A big button with a label like \u201cAnswer a few questions\u201d generally does the trick. The URL linking to the survey will need to include some variables like user ID and email. It might look something like this if you\u2019re using SurveyMonkey:\n\nhttp://surveymonkey.com/s/somesurveyid/?uid=*|UID|*&email=*|email|*\n\nAs each email is sent, the proper data will be populated in the variables, passing it on to the survey app for inclusion in each response. This is the magic that will help you pinpoint customers to interview down the road, so take special care to test that all is working before sending to all recipients. How you construct the survey link will vary depending on what survey tool and email service provider you use, so don\u2019t take my example as gospel. You\u2019ll need to read the documentation for your survey and email apps to set things up properly.\n\nPilot before sending\n\nBy now, you\u2019ve whipped yourself into a fever pitch over your brilliant survey and the data you hope to collect. Your finger is on the send button, poised for action, but there\u2019s one very important thing to do before you send to the entire list of customers: send a pilot email. How do you know if your questions are clear, your form logic is sound, and you\u2019re passing variables from the email to the survey properly? You won\u2019t, unless you send to a small segment of your recipients first. \n\nThe data collected in your pilot will make plain where your survey needs refinement. This data won\u2019t be used in your final analysis, as you\u2019re probably going to make a few changes to your questions.\n\nSend the pilot survey to enough people that you can really stress test the clarity of the questions and data you\u2019re gathering, while considering how much data can you comfortably throw out. If you\u2019re sending your final survey to a few thousand people, you might find a couple of hundred recipients for your pilot will give you enough insight into what to improve while leaving the vast majority of the recipients for your final survey.\n\nAfter you\u2019ve sent your pilot, made your survey adjustments, and ensured the variables are being passed from your email into the survey app, you\u2019re ready to send to the remainder of your customers. This is your moment of glory!\n\nAnalyzing your results\n\nAfter a couple of weeks you can probably safely close the survey so no other responses come in as you transition from data gathering to data analysis. Any survey app worth its salt will chart responses to your multiple choice questions. Reviewing these charts is a great place to start your analysis. Is there anything particularly interesting that stands out? Jot down some of your observations. I like to print screenshots of the charts for each question, highlighting areas of interest. These prints become a particularly handy reference point for the next step in your analysis. \n\nPrinting results from a survey makes comparing different customers easy.\n\nViewing aggregate data about all responses is interesting, but the deltas between different types of customers are where the real revelations happen. Remember those filter questions you added to your survey? They\u2019re the tool that\u2019ll help you compare customer segments.\n\nMost survey apps will let you filter the data based on response to a question. If the one you\u2019re using doesn\u2019t, you can always export your data and create pivot tables in Excel. Try filtering your data based on one of your filter questions, such as industry, company size, or devices used. Now compare those printed screenshots of baseline responses to the filtered data. Chances are you\u2019ll see some significant differences in how each group responded to your questions, giving you clues about the variance in interests and motivations in customer segments and a leg up as you work on future design projects. \n\nOpen-ended responses are equally interesting, but much more time-consuming to analyze. Yes, you need to read through thousands of responses, some of which are constructive and some of which are not. Taking the time to tag each open response will help you see trends and filter out the responses that are unhelpful.\n\nUnlike questions with predefined answers, open-ended responses let users express unique ideas and use cases you may not be looking for. The tedium of reading thousands of response is always cut by eureka moments when users tell you something fascinating that changes your perspective on your app. These are the folks you want to pull out for follow-up interviews. Because you\u2019ve already captured their email addresses when you set up your survey and your email, getting in touch will be a piece of cake.\n\nFilter, compare, interview, and summarize; then share your findings with your colleagues. Reports are great for head honchos, but if you want to really inform and inspire, create a video, a poster series, or even a comic to communicate what you\u2019ve learned. Want to get really fancy? Store your survey results in a centrally accessible location so anyone in your company can research and discover the insights they need to make more informed designs. \n\nGood design researchers discover valuable insights. Great design researchers turn those insights into stories.\n\nConclusion\n\nAs we enter the new year, it\u2019s a great time to reflect on the work we\u2019ve done in the past and how we can do better in the future. Without a doubt, designers working with a foundation of insights about customers can make more effective UIs. But designers aren\u2019t the only ones who stand to gain from the data collected in an annual survey\u2014anyone who makes things for or communicates with customers will find themselves empowered to do better work when they know more about the people they serve. The data you collect with your survey is a fantastic holiday gift to your colleagues, one that they\u2019ll appreciate throughout the year.", "year": "2013", "author": "Aarron Walter", "author_slug": "aarronwalter", "published": "2013-12-13T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2013/data-driven-design-with-an-annual-survey/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 102, "title": "Art Directing with Looking Room", "contents": "Using photographic composition techniques to start to art direct on the template-driven web.\n\nThink back to last night. There you are, settled down in front of the TV, watching your favourite soap opera, with nice hot cup of tea in hand. Did you notice \u2013 whilst engrossed in the latest love-triangle \u2013 that the cameraman has worked very hard to support your eye\u2019s natural movement on-screen? He\u2019s carefully framed individual shots to create balance.\n\nThink back to last week. There you were, sat with your mates watching the big match. Did you notice that the cameraman frames the shot to go with the direction of play? A player moving right will always be framed so that he is on the far left, with plenty of \u2018room\u2019 to run into.\n\nBoth of these cameramen use a technique called Looking Room, sometimes called Lead Room. Looking Room is the space between the subject (be it a football, or a face), and the edge of the screen. Specifically, Looking Room is the negative space on the side the subject is looking or moving. The great thing is, it\u2019s not just limited to photography, film or television; we can use it in web design too.\n\nBasic Framing\n\nBefore we get into Looking Room, and how it applies to web, we need to have a look at some basics of photographic composition.\n\nMany web sites use imagery, or photographs, to enhance the content. But even with professionally shot photographs, without a basic understanding of framing or composition, you can damage how the image is perceived. \n\nA simple, easy way to make photographs more interesting is to fill the frame. \n\nTake this rather mundane photograph of a horse:\n\n\n\nA typical point and click affair. But, we can work with this.\n\nBy closely cropping, and filling the frame, we can instantly change the mood of the shot.\n\n\n\nI\u2019ve also added Looking Room on the right of the horse. This is space that the horse would be walking into. It gives the photograph movement.\n\nSubject, Space, and Movement\n\nGenerally speaking, a portrait photograph will have a subject and space around them. Visual interest in portrait photography can come from movement; how the eye moves around the shot. To get the eye moving, the photographer modifies the space around the subject.\n\nLook at this portrait:\n\n\n\nThe photography has framed the subject on the right, allowing for whitespace, or Looking Room, in the direction the subject is looking. The framing of the subject (1), with the space to the left (2) \u2013 the Looking Room \u2013 creates movement, shown by the arrow (3).\n\n\n\nNote the subject is not framed centrally (shown by the lighter dotted line).\n\nIf the photographer had framed the subject with equal space either side, the resulting composition is static, like our horse.\n\n\n\nIf the photographer framed the subject way over on the left, as she is looking that way, the resulting whitespace on the right leads a very uncomfortable composition.\n\n\n\nThe root of this discomfort is what the framing is telling our eye to do. The subject, looking to the left, suggests to us that we should do the same. However, the Looking Room on the right is telling our eye to occupy this space. The result is a confusing back and forth.\n\nHow Looking Room applies to the web\n\nWe can apply the same theory to laying out a web page or application. Taking the three same elements \u2013 Subject, Space, and resulting Movement \u2013 we can guide a user\u2019s eye to the elements we need to. As designers, or content editors, framing photographs correctly can have a subtle but important effect on how a page is visually scanned. Take this example:\n\n\n\nThe BBC homepage uses great photography as a way of promoting content. Here, they have cropped the main photograph to guide the user\u2019s eye into the content. \n\nBy applying the same theory, the designer or content editor has applied considerable Looking Room (2) to the photograph to create balance with the overall page design, but also to create movement of the user\u2019s eye toward the content (1)\n\n\n\nIf the image was flipped horizontally. The Looking Room is now on the right. The subject of the photograph is looking off the page, drawing the user\u2019s eye away from the content. Once again, this results in a confusing back and forth as your eye fights its way over to the left of the page.\n\n\n\nA little bit of Art Direction\n\nArt Direction can be described as the act or process of managing the visual presentation of content. Art Direction is difficult to do on the web, because content and presentation are, more often than not, separated. But where there are images, and when we know the templates that those images will populate, we can go a little way to bridging the gap between content and presentation.\n\nBy understanding the value of framing and Looking Room, and the fact that it extends beyond just a good looking photograph, we can start to see photography playing more of an integral role in the communication of content. \n\nWe won\u2019t just be populating templates. We\u2019ll be art directing.\n\nPhoto credits: \n\n\n\tPortrait by Carsten Tolkmit\n\tHorse by Mike Pedroncelli", "year": "2008", "author": "Mark Boulton", "author_slug": "markboulton", "published": "2008-12-05T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2008/art-directing-with-looking-room/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 1, "title": "Why Bother with Accessibility?", "contents": "Web accessibility (known in other fields as inclusive design or universal design) is the degree to which a website is available to as many people as possible. Accessibility is most often used to describe how people with disabilities can access the web.\n\nHow we approach accessibility\n\nIn the web community, there\u2019s a surprisingly inconsistent approach to accessibility. There are some who are endlessly dedicated to accessible web design, and there are some who believe it so intrinsic to the web that it shouldn\u2019t be considered a separate topic. Still, of those who are familiar with accessibility, there\u2019s an overwhelming number of designers, developers, clients and bosses who just aren\u2019t that bothered.\n\nOver the last few months I\u2019ve spoken to a lot of people about accessibility, and I\u2019ve heard the same reasons to ignore it over and over again. Let\u2019s take a look at the most common excuses.\n\nExcuse 1: \u201cPeople with disabilities don\u2019t really use the web\u201d\n\nAccessibility will make your site available to more people \u2014 the inclusion case\n\nIn the same way that the accessibility of a building isn\u2019t just about access for wheelchair users, web accessibility isn\u2019t just about blind users and screen readers. We can affect positively the lives of many people by making their access to the web easier.\n\nThere are four main types of disability that affect use of the web:\n\n\n\tVisual\n\tBlindness, low vision and colour-blindness\n\tAuditory\n\tProfoundly deaf and hard of hearing\n\tMotor\n\tThe inability to use a mouse, slow response time, limited fine motor control\n\tCognitive\n\tLearning difficulties, distractibility, the inability to focus on large amounts of information\n\n\nNone of these disabilities are completely black and white\n\nExamining deafness, it\u2019s clear from the medical scale that there are many grey areas between full hearing and total deafness:\n\n\n\tmild\n\tmoderate\n\tmoderately severe\n\tsevere\n\tprofound\n\ttotally deaf\n\n\nFor eyesight, and brain conditions that affect what users see, there is a huge range of conditions and challenges:\n\n\n\tastigmatism\n\tcolour blindness\n\takinetopsia (motion blindness)\n\tscotopic visual sensitivity (visual stress related to light)\n\tvisual agnosia (impaired recognition or identification of objects)\n\n\nWhile we might have medical and government-recognised definitions that tell us what makes a disability, day-to-day life is not so straightforward. People experience varying degrees of different conditions, and often one or more conditions at a time, creating a false divide when you view disability in terms of us and them.\n\nImpairments aren\u2019t always permanent\n\nAs we age, we\u2019re more likely to experience different levels of visual, auditory, motor and cognitive impairments. We might have an accident or illness that affects us temporarily. We might struggle more earlier or later in the day. There are so many little physiological factors that affect the way people interact with the web that we can\u2019t afford to make any assumptions based on our own limited experiences.\n\nImpairments might be somewhere between the user and the website\n\nThere are also impairments that aren\u2019t directly related to the user. Environmental factors have a huge effect on the way people interact with the web. These could be:\n\n\n\tLow bandwidth, or intermittent internet connection\n\tBright light, rain, or other weather-based conditions\n\tNoisy environments, or a location where the user doesn\u2019t want to disturb their neighbours with sound\n\tBrowsing with mobile devices, games consoles and other non-desktop devices\n\tBrowsing with legacy browsers or operating systems\n\n\nSuch environmental factors show that it\u2019s not just those with physical impairments who benefit from more accessible websites. We started designing responsive websites so we could be more future-friendly, and with a shared goal of better optimised experiences, accessibility should be at the core of responsive web design.\n\nExcuse 2: \u201cWe don\u2019t want to affect the experience for the majority of our users\u201d\n\nAccessibility will improve your site for all your users \u2014 the usability case\n\nOn a basic level, the different disability groups, as shown in the inclusion case, equate to simple usability goals:\n\n\n\tVisual \u2013 make it easy to read\n\tAuditory \u2013 make it easy to hear\n\tMotor \u2013 make it easy to interact\n\tCognitive \u2013 make it easy to understand and focus\n\n\nTaking care to ensure good usability in these areas will also have an impact on accessibility. Unless your site is catering specifically to a particular disability, where extreme optimisation is most beneficial, taking care to design with accessibility in mind will rarely negatively affect the experience of your wider audience.\n\nExcuse 3: \u201cWe don\u2019t have the budget for accessibility\u201d\n\nAccessibility will make you money \u2014 the business case\n\nBy reducing your audience through ignoring accessibility, you\u2019re potentially excluding the income from those users. Designing with accessibility in mind from the beginning of a project makes it easier to make small inexpensive optimisations as part of the design and development process, rather than bolting on costly updates to increase your potential audience later on.\n\nThe following are excerpts from a white paper about companies that increased the accessibility of their websites to comply with government regulation.\n\n\n\tImprovements in accessibility doubled Legal and General\u2019s life insurance sales online.\n\n\n\n\tImprovements in accessibility increased Tesco\u2019s grocery home delivery sales by \u00a313 million in 2005\u2026 To their surprise they found that many normal visitors preferred the ease of navigation and improved simplicity of the [parallel] accessible site and switched to use it. Tesco have replaced their \u2018normal\u2019 site with their accessible version and expect a further increase in revenues.\n\n\n\n\tImprovements in accessibility increased Virgin.net sales by 68%.\n\n\nStatistics all from WSI white paper: Improve your website\u2019s usability and accessibility to increase sales (PDF).\n\nExcuse 4: \u201cAccessible websites are ugly\u201d\n\nAccessibility won\u2019t stop your site from being beautiful \u2014 the beauty case\n\nMany people use ugly accessible websites as proof that all accessible websites are ugly. This just isn\u2019t the case. I\u2019ve compiled some examples of beautiful and accessible websites with screenshots of how they look through the Color Oracle simulator and how they perform when run through Webaim\u2019s Wave accessibility checker tool.\n\nWhile automated tools are no substitute for real users, they can help you learn more about good practices, and give you guidance on where your site needs improvements to make it more accessible.\n\nAmazon.co.uk\n\nIt may not be a decorated beauty, but Amazon is often first in functional design. It\u2019s a huge website with a lot of interactive content, but it generates just five errors on the Wave test, and is easy to read under a Color Oracle filter.\n\n Screenshot of Amazon website\n Screenshot of Amazon\u2019s Wave results \u2013 five errors\n Screenshot of Amazon through a Color Oracle filter\n\n24 ways\n\nWhen Tim Van Damme redesigned 24 ways back in 2007, it was a striking and unusual design that showed what could be achieved with CSS and some imagination. Despite the complexity of the design, it gets an outstanding zero errors on the Wave test, and is still readable under a Color Oracle filter.\n\n Screenshot of pre-2013 24 ways website design\n Screenshot of 24 ways Wave results \u2013 zero errors\n Screenshot of 24ways through a Color Oracle filter\n\nOpera\u2019s Shiny Demos\n\nDemos and prototypes are notorious for ignoring accessibility, but Opera\u2019s Shiny Demos site shows how exploring new technologies doesn\u2019t have to exclude anyone. It only gets one error on the Wave test, and looks fine under a Color Oracle filter.\n\n Screenshot of Opera\u2019s Shiny Demos website\n Screenshot of Opera\u2019s Shiny Demos Wave results \u2013 1 error\n Screenshot of Opera\u2019s Shiny Demos through a Color Oracle filter\n\nSoundCloud\n\nWhen a site is more app-like, relying on more interaction from the user, accessibility can be more challenging. However, SoundCloud only gets one error on the Wave test, and the colour contrast holds up well under a Color Oracle filter.\n\n Screenshot of SoundCloud website\n Screenshot of SoundCloud\u2019s Wave results \u2013 one error\n Screenshot of SoundCloud through a Color Oracle filter\n\nEducation and balance\n\nAs with most web design, doing accessibility well is about combining your knowledge of accessibility with your project\u2019s context to create a balance that serves your users\u2019 needs. Your types of content and interactions will dictate one set of constraints. Your users\u2019 needs and goals will dictate another. In broad terms, web design as a practice is finding the equilibrium between these constraints.\n\nAnd then there\u2019s just caring. The web as a platform is open, affordable and available to many. Accessibility is our way to ensure that nobody gets shut out.", "year": "2013", "author": "Laura Kalbag", "author_slug": "laurakalbag", "published": "2013-12-10T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2013/why-bother-with-accessibility/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 146, "title": "Increase Your Font Stacks With Font Matrix", "contents": "Web pages built in plain old HTML and CSS are displayed using only the fonts installed on users\u2019 computers (@font-face implementations excepted). To enable this, CSS provides the font-family property for specifying fonts in order of preference (often known as a font stack). For example:\n\nh1 {font-family: 'Egyptienne F', Cambria, Georgia, serif}\n\nSo in the above rule, headings will be displayed in Egyptienne F. If Egyptienne F is not available then Cambria will be used, failing that Georgia or the final fallback default serif font. This everyday bit of CSS will be common knowledge among all 24 ways readers.\n\nIt is also a commonly held belief that the only fonts we can rely on being installed on users\u2019 computers are the core web fonts of Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, Georgia and friends. But is that really true?\n\nIf you look in the fonts folder of your computer, or even your Mum\u2019s computer, then you are likely to find a whole load of fonts besides the core ones. This is because many software packages automatically install extra typefaces. For example, Office 2003 installs over 100 additional fonts. Admittedly not all of these fonts are particularly refined, and not all are suitable for the Web. However they still do increase your options. \n\nThe Matrix\n\nI have put together a matrix of (western) fonts showing which are installed with Mac and Windows operating systems, which are installed with various versions of Microsoft Office, and which are installed with Adobe Creative Suite.\n\n\n\nThe matrix is available for download as an Excel file and as a CSV.  There are no readily available statistics regarding the penetration of Office or Creative Suite, but you can probably take an educated guess based on your knowledge of your readers.\n\nThe idea of the matrix is that use can use it to help construct your font stack. First of all pick the font you\u2019d really like for your text \u2013 this doesn\u2019t have to be in the matrix. Then pick the generic family (serif, sans-serif, cursive, fantasy or monospace) and a font from each of the operating systems. Then pick any suitable fonts from the Office and Creative Suite lists.\n\nFor example, you may decide your headings should be in the increasingly ubiquitous Clarendon. This is a serif type face. At OS-level the most similar is arguably Georgia. Adobe CS2 comes with Century Old Style which has a similar feel. Century Schoolbook is similar too, and is installed with all versions of Office. Based on this your font stack becomes:\n\nfont-family: 'Clarendon Std', 'Century Old Style Std', 'Century Schoolbook', Georgia, serif\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNote the \u2018Std\u2019 suffix indicating a \u2018standard\u2019 OpenType file, which will normally be your best bet for more esoteric fonts.\n\nI\u2019m not suggesting the process of choosing suitable fonts is an easy one. Firstly there are nearly two hundred fonts in the matrix, so learning what each font looks like is tricky and potentially time consuming (if you haven\u2019t got all the fonts installed on a machine to hand you\u2019ll be doing a lot of Googling for previews). And it\u2019s not just as simple as choosing fonts that look similar or have related typographic backgrounds, they need to have similar metrics as well, This is especially true in terms of x-height which gives an indication of how big or small a font looks.\n\nOver to You\n\nThe main point of all this is that there are potentially more fonts to consider than is generally accepted, so branch out a little (carefully and tastefully) and bring a little variety to sites out there. If you come up with any novel font stacks based on this approach, please do blog them (tagged as per the footer) and at some point they could all be combined in one place for everyone to consider.\n\nAppendix\n\nWhat about Linux?\n\nThe only operating systems in the matrix are those from Microsoft and Apple. For completeness, Linux operating systems should be included too, although these are many and varied and very much in a minority, so I omitted them for time being. For the record, some Linux distributions come packaged with Microsoft\u2019s core fonts. Others use the Vera family, and others use the Liberation family which comprises fonts metrically identical to Times New Roman and Arial.\n\nSources\n\nThe sources of font information for the matrix are as follows:\n\n\n\tWindows XP SP2\n\tWindows Vista\n\tOffice 2003\n\tOffice 2007\n\tMac OSX Tiger\n\tMac OSX Leopard (scroll down two thirds)\n\tOffice 2004 (Mac) by inspecting my Microsoft Office 2004/Office/Fonts folder\n\tOffice 2008 (Mac) is expected to be as Office 2004 with the addition of the Vista ClearType fonts\n\tCreative Suite 2 (see pdf link in first comment)\n\tCreative Suite 3", "year": "2007", "author": "Richard Rutter", "author_slug": "richardrutter", "published": "2007-12-17T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2007/increase-your-font-stacks-with-font-matrix/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 12, "title": "Untangling Web Typography", "contents": "When I was a carpenter, I noticed how homeowners often had this deer-in-the-headlights look when the contractor I worked for would ask them to make tons of decisions, seemingly all at once.\n\nSquare or subway tile? Glass or ceramic? Traditional or modern trim details? Flat face or picture frame cabinets? Real wood or laminate flooring? Every day the decisions piled up and were usually made in the context of that room, or that part of that room. Rarely did the homeowner have the benefit of taking that particular decision in full view of the larger context of the project. And architectural plans? Sure, they lay out the broad strokes, but there is still so much to decide.\n\nTypography is similar. Designers try to make sites that are easy to use and understand visually. They labour over the details of line height, font size, line length, and font weights. They consider the relative merits of different typographical scales for applications versus content-driven sites. Frequently, designers consider all of this in the context of one page, feature, or view of an application. They are asked to make a million tiny decisions.\n\nSometimes designers just bump up the font size until it looks right.\n\nI don\u2019t see anything wrong with that. Instincts are important. Designing in context is easier. It\u2019s OK to leave the big picture until later. Design a bunch of things, and then look for the patterns. You can\u2019t always know everything up front. How does the current feature relate to all the other features on the site? For a large site, just like for a substantial remodel, the number of decisions you would need to internalize to make that knowable would be prohibitively large.\n\nWhen typography goes awry\n\nI should be honest. I know very little about typography. I struggle to understand vertical rhythm and the math in Tim Ahrens\u2019s talks about the interaction between type design and rendering technology kind of melted my brain. I have an unusual perspective because I\u2019m not the one making the design decisions, but I am the one implementing them and often cleaning up when a project goes off the rails.\n\nI\u2019ve seen projects with thousands of font-size declarations and headings. One project even had over ten thousand margin declarations. So while I appreciate creative exploration, I\u2019m also eager to establish patterns in typography and make sure we aren\u2019t choosing not to choose. Or, choosing all the things.\n\nAnalyzing a site\u2019s typography\n\nMost of my projects start out with an evaluation of the client\u2019s existing CSS. I look for duplication in the CSS by using Grep, though functionality is landing soon in CSS Lint to do the same thing automatically. The goal is to find the underlying missing abstractions that, once in place, would allow developers to create new functionality without needing to write additional CSS. In addition to that, my team and I would comb through each site (generally, around ten pages is enough to get the big picture), and take screenshots of each of the components we found.\n\nIn this way, we could look for subtle visual differences that were unlikely to add value to the user. By correcting these differences, we could help make the design more consistent, and at the same time the code leaner and more performant. Typography is much like a homeowner who chooses to incorporate too many disparate design elements, pairing a mid-century modern sofa with flowered country cottage curtains. Often the typography of a site ends up collecting an endless array of new typefaces as the site\u2019s overall styles evolve. Designers come and go on a project, and eventually no one can remember how the 16px Verdana got into the codebase.\n\nAutomation\n\nWe used to do this work by hand. It was incredibly tedious. We\u2019d go through the site, taking screenshots and meticulously documenting the style information we found. We didn\u2019t have to do that many times before it became incredibly clear that the task needed to be automated. So we built a little tool called the Type-o-matic that could do it for us.\n\nTo try it on your site:\n\n\n\tDownload and install the Firebug extension to Firefox\n\tDownload and install the Type-o-matic extension to Firebug (I know, I fully intend to port it to Chrome)\n\tNow, visit the site you\u2019d like to test\n\tRight click and choose Inspect element with Firebug\n\tNow click on the Typography tab\n\tClick Persist\n\tClick Generate Report\n\tChoose which pages to analyze (we\u2019ve found that ten is a good number to get the big picture, but you can analyze as many as you\u2019d like\u200a\u2014\u200ait will even work on just one page!)\n\tNow navigate to other pages, and on each subsequent page, click Generate Report\n\tThe table of results can be a bit difficult to interact with, so you can always click Copy to clipboard, and copy the results (JSON).\n\n\n \n \nA screenshot of Type-o-matic in action\n\n\nWhat does this data mean?\n\nWhen you\u2019ve analyzed as many pages or different views as you\u2019d like, you\u2019ll start to see some interesting patterns emerge in the data. In the right-hand column, you\u2019ll see examples of how each kind of typography we found has been used in a real context on your site. It is organized by color and then by size so you can easily see how you are using typography.\n\nThe next thing you\u2019ll want to take a look at is in the first column, called \u201cCount\u201d. We\u2019ve counted how many times you\u2019ve used each combination of typographical styles. This can be incredibly helpful when deciding which styles were intentional, versus one-off color pick errors or experiments that never got removed from the code base. If you\u2019ve used one color blue 1,400 times, and another just 23, it\u2019s pretty obvious which is more in line with broader site-wide styles.\n\nConsistency before perfection\n\nIt can be really tempting to try to make everything perfect\u200a\u2014\u200ato try to make every decision final. When you use the data you can collect from this tool, I\u2019d recommend trying to get to consistent before you try to make things perfect. Stop using fifteen different shades of blue type first, and then if you want to change to a new blue, go for it! You\u2019ll be able to make design changes much more easily once you\u2019ve reduced the total number of typographical styles you rely on.\n\nLower the importance of the decisions you are making. Our sites, like ourselves, are always a work in progress. Or, as a carpenter I used to work with said, \u201cYou\u2019re not building a fucking piano.\u201d We\u2019re not building houses. We can choose one typeface today and a different one tomorrow. It is OK to experiment. Be brave.", "year": "2013", "author": "Nicole Sullivan", "author_slug": "nicolesullivan", "published": "2013-12-20T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2013/untangling-web-typography/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 72, "title": "Designing with Contrast", "contents": "When an appetite for aesthetics over usability becomes the bellwether of user interface design, it\u2019s time to reconsider who we\u2019re designing for.\nOver the last few years, we have questioned the signifiers that gave obvious meaning to the function of interface elements. Strong textures, deep shadows, gradients \u2014 imitations of physical objects \u2014 were discarded. And many, rightfully so. Our audiences are now more comfortable with an experience that feels native to the technology, so we should respond in kind.\nYet not all of the changes have benefitted users. Our efforts to simplify brought with them a trend of ultra-minimalism where aesthetics have taken priority over legibility, accessibility and discoverability. The trend shows no sign of losing popularity \u2014 and it is harming our experience of digital content.\n\nA thin veneer\nWe are in a race to create the most subdued, understated interface. Visual contrast is out. In its place: the thinnest weights of a typeface and white text on bright color backgrounds. Headlines, text, borders, backgrounds, icons, form controls and inputs: all grey.\nWhile we can look back over the last decade and see minimalist trends emerging on the web, I think we can place a fair share of the responsibility for the recent shift in priorities on Apple. The release of iOS 7 ushered in a radical change to its user interface. It paired mobile interaction design to the simplicity and eloquence of Apple\u2019s marketing and product design. It was a catalyst. We took what we saw, copied and consumed the aesthetics like pick-and-mix.\nNew technology compounds this trend. Computer monitors and mobile devices are available with screens of unprecedented resolutions. Ultra-light type and subtle hues, difficult to view on older screens, are more legible on these devices. It would be disingenuous to say that designers have always worked on machines representative of their audience\u2019s circumstances, but the gap has never been as large as it is now. We are running the risk of designing VIP lounges where the cost of entry is a Mac with a Retina display.\nMinimalist expectations\nLike progressive enhancement in an age of JavaScript, many good and sensible accessibility practices are being overlooked or ignored. We\u2019re driving unilateral design decisions that threaten accessibility. We\u2019ve approached every problem with the same solution, grasping on to the integrity of beauty, focusing on expression over users\u2019 needs and content. \nSomeone once suggested to me that a client\u2019s website should include two states. The first state would be the ideal experience, with low color contrast, light font weights and no differentiation between links and text. It would be the default. The second state would be presented in whatever way was necessary to meet accessibility standards. Users would have to opt out of the default state via a toggle if it wasn\u2019t meeting their needs. A sort of first-class, upper deck cabin equivalent of graceful degradation. That this would divide the user base was irrelevant, as the aesthetics of the brand were absolute. \nIt may seem like an unusual anecdote, but it isn\u2019t uncommon to see this thinking in our industry. Again and again, we place the burden of responsibility to participate in a usable experience on others. We view accessibility and good design as mutually exclusive. Taking for granted what users will tolerate is usually the forte of monopolistic services, but increasingly we apply the same arrogance to our new products and services.\n\nImitation without representation\nAll of us are influenced in one way or another by one another\u2019s work. We are consciously and unconsciously affected by the visual and audible activity around us. This is important and unavoidable. We do not produce work in a vacuum. We respond to technology and culture. We channel language and geography. We absorb the sights and sounds of film, television, news. To mimic and copy is part and parcel of creating something an audience of many can comprehend and respond to. Our clients often look first to their competitors\u2019 products to understand their success.\nHowever, problems arise when we focus on style without context; form without function; mimicry as method. Copied and reused without any of the ethos of the original, stripped of deliberate and informed decision-making, the so-called look and feel becomes nothing more than paint on an empty facade.\nThe typographic and color choices so in vogue today with our popular digital products and services have little in common with the brands they are meant to represent.\n\nFor want of good design, the message was lost\nThe question to ask is: does the interface truly reflect the product? Is it an accurate characterization of the brand and organizational values? Does the delivery of the content match the tone of voice?\nThe answer is: probably not. Because every organization, every app or service, is unique. Each with its own personality, its own values and wonderful quirks. Design is communication. We should do everything in our role as professionals to use design to give voice to the message. Our job is to clearly communicate the benefits of a service and unreservedly allow access to information and content. To do otherwise, by obscuring with fashionable styles and elusive information architecture, does a great disservice to the people who chose to engage with and trust our products.\nWe can achieve hierarchy and visual rhythm without resorting to extreme reduction. We can craft a beautiful experience with fine detail and curiosity while meeting fundamental standards of accessibility (and strive to meet many more).\nStandards of excellence\nIt isn\u2019t always comfortable to step back and objectively question our design choices. We get lost in the flow of our work, using patterns and preferences we\u2019ve tried and tested before. That our decisions often seem like second nature is a gift of experience, but sometimes it prevents us from finding our blind spots.\nI was first caught out by my own biases a few years ago, when designing an interface for the Bank of England. After deciding on the colors for the typography and interactive elements, I learned that the site had to meet AAA accessibility standards. My choices quickly fell apart. It was eye-opening. I had to start again with restrictions and use size, weight and placement instead to construct the visual hierarchy.\nEven now, I make mistakes. On a recent project, I used large photographs on an organization\u2019s website to promote their products. Knowing that our team had control over the art direction, I felt confident that we could compose the photographs to work with text overlays. Despite our best effort, the cropped images weren\u2019t always consistent, undermining the text\u2019s legibility. If I had the chance to do it again, I would separate the text and image.\nSo, what practical things can we consider to give our users the experience they deserve?\nPut guidelines in place\n\nThink about your brand values. Write down keywords and use them as a framework when choosing a typeface. Explore colors that convey the organization\u2019s personality and emotional appeal.\nDefine a color palette that is web-ready and meets minimum accessibility standards. Note which colors are suitable for use with text. Only very dark hues of grey are consistently legible so keep them for non-essential text (for example, as placeholders in form inputs).\nFind which background colors you can safely use with white text, and consider integrating contrast checks into your workflow.\nUse roman and medium weights for body copy. Reserve lighter weights of a typeface for very large text. Thin fonts are usually the first to break down because of aliasing differences across platforms and screens.\nCheck that the size, leading and length of your type is always legible and readable. Define lower and upper limits. Small text is best left for captions and words in uppercase.\nAvoid overlaying text on images unless it\u2019s guaranteed to be legible. If it\u2019s necessary to optimize space in the layout, give the text a container. Scrims aren\u2019t always reliable: the text will inevitably overlap a part of the photograph without a contrasting ground.\n\nTest your work\n\nReview legibility and contrast on different devices. It\u2019s just as important as testing the layout of a responsive website. If you have a local device lab, pay it a visit.\nFind a computer monitor near a window when the sun is shining. Step outside the studio and try to read your content on a mobile device with different brightness levels. \nAsk your friends and family what they use at home and at work. It\u2019s one way of making sure your feedback isn\u2019t always coming from a closed loop.\n\nPush your limits\n\nYou define what the user sees. If you\u2019ve inherited brand guidelines, question them. If you don\u2019t agree with the choices, make the case for why they should change.\nExperiment with size, weight and color to find contrast. Objects with low contrast appear similar to one another and undermine the visual hierarchy. Weak relationships between figure and ground diminish visual interest. A balanced level of contrast removes ambiguity and creates focal points. It captures and holds our attention.\nIf you\u2019re lost for inspiration, look to graphic design in print. We have a wealth of history, full of examples that excel in using contrast to establish visual hierarchy.\nEmbrace limitations. Use boundaries as an opportunity to explore possibilities.\n\nMore than just a facade\nDesigning with standards encourages legibility and helps to define a strong visual hierarchy. Design without exclusion (through neither negligence or intent) gets around discussions of demographics, speaks to a larger audience and makes good business sense. Following the latest trends not only weakens usability but also hinders a cohesive and distinctive brand.\nUsers will make means when they need to, by increasing browser font sizes or enabling system features for accessibility. But we can do our part to take as much of that burden off of the user and ask less of those who need it most.\nIn architecture, it isn\u2019t buildings that mimic what is fashionable that stand the test of time. Nor do we admire buildings that tack on separate, poorly constructed extensions to meet a bare minimum of safety regulations. We admire architecture that offers well-considered, remarkable, usable spaces with universal access.\nPerhaps we can take inspiration from these spaces. Let\u2019s give our buildings a bold voice and make sure the doors are open to everyone.", "year": "2015", "author": "Mark Mitchell", "author_slug": "markmitchell", "published": "2015-12-13T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2015/designing-with-contrast/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 111, "title": "Geometric Background Patterns", "contents": "When the design is finished and you\u2019re about to start the coding process, you have to prepare your graphics. If you\u2019re working with a pattern background you need to export only the repeating fragment. It can be a bit tricky to isolate a fragment to achieve a seamless pattern background. For geometric patterns there is a method I always follow and that I want to share with you. Take for example a perfect 45\u00b0 diagonal line pattern. \n\n\n\nHow do you define this pattern fragment so it will be rendered seamlessly?\n\n\n\nHere is the method I usually follow to avoid a mismatch. First, zoom in so you see enough detail and you can distinguish the pixels. Select the Rectangular Marquee Selection tool and start your selection at the intersection of 2 different colors of a diagonal line. Hold down the Shift key while dragging so you drag a perfect square.\n\n\n\nRelease the mouse when you reach the exact same intesection (as your starting) point at the top right. \n\n\n\nCopy this fragment (using Copy Merged: Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + C) and paste the fragment in a new layer. Give this layer the name \u2018pattern\u2019. Now hold down the Command Key (Control Key on Windows) and click on the \u2018pattern\u2019 layer in the Layers Palette  to select the fragment. Now go to Edit > Define Pattern, enter a name for your pattern and click OK. Test your pattern in a new document. Create a new document of 600 px by 400px, hit Cmd/Ctrl + A and go to Edit > Fill\u2026 and choose your pattern. If the result is OK, you have created a perfect pattern fragment.\n\n\n\nBelow you see this pattern enlarged. The guides show the boundaries of the pattern fragment and the red pixels are the reference points. The red pixels at the top right, bottom right and bottom left should match the red pixel at the top left.\n\n\n\nThis technique should work for every geometric pattern. Some patterns are easier than others, but this, and the Photoshop pattern fill test, has always been my guideline.\n\nOther geometric pattern examples\n\nExample 1\n\nNot all geometric pattern fragments are squares. Some patterns look easy at first sight, because they look very repetitive, but they can be a bit tricky.\n\n\n\nZoomed in pattern fragment with point of reference shown:\n\n\n\nExample 2\n\nSome patterns have a clear repeating point that can guide you, such as the blue small circle of this pattern as you can see from this zoomed in screenshot:\n\n\n\nZoomed in pattern fragment with point of reference shown:\n\n\n\nExample 3\n\nThe different diagonal colors makes a bit more tricky to extract the correct pattern fragment. \n\n\n\nThe orange dot, which is the starting point of the selection is captured a few times inside the fragment selection:", "year": "2008", "author": "Veerle Pieters", "author_slug": "veerlepieters", "published": "2008-12-02T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2008/geometric-background-patterns/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 325, "title": "\"Z's not dead baby, Z's not dead\"", "contents": "While Mr. Moll and Mr. Budd have pipped me to the post with their predictions for 2006, I\u2019m sure they won\u2019t mind if I sneak in another. The use of positioning together with z-index will be one of next year\u2019s hot techniques \n\nBoth has been a little out of favour recently. For many, positioned layouts made way for the flexibility of floats. Developers I speak to often associate z-index with Dreamweaver\u2019s layers feature. But in combination with alpha transparency support for PNG images in IE7 and full implementation of position property values, the stacking of elements with z-index is going to be big. I\u2019m going to cover the basics of z-index and how it can be used to create designs which \u2018break out of the box\u2019.\n\nNo positioning? No Z!\n\nRemember geometry? The x axis represents the horizontal, the y axis represents the vertical. The z axis, which is where we get the z-index, represents /depth/. Elements which are stacked using z-index are stacked from front to back and z-index is only applied to elements which have their position property set to relative or absolute. No positioning, no z-index. Z-index values can be either negative or positive and it is the element with the highest z-index value appears closest to the viewer, regardless of its order in the source. Furthermore, if more than one element are given the same z-index, the element which comes last in source order comes out top of the pile. \n\nLet\u2019s take three <div>s.\n\n<div id=\"one\"></div>\n <div id=\"two\"></div>\n <div id=\"three\"></div>\n\n #one { \n     position: relative; \n     z-index: 3;\n }\n\n #two { \n     position: relative; \n     z-index: 1;\n }\n\n #three {\n     position: relative; \n     z-index: 2;\n }\n\n\n\nAs you can see, the <div> with the z-index of 3 will appear closest, even though it comes before its siblings in the source order. As these three <div>s have no defined positioning context in the form of a positioned parent such as a <div>, their stacking order is defined from the root element <html>. Simple stuff, but these building blocks are the basis on which we can create interesting interfaces (particularly when used in combination with image replacement and transparent PNGs).\n\nBrand building\n\nNow let\u2019s take three more basic elements, an <h1>, <blockquote> and <p>, all inside a branding <div> which acts a new positioning context. By enclosing them inside a positioned parent, we establish a new stacking order which is independent of either the root element or other positioning contexts on the page.\n\n<div id=\"branding\">\n     <h1>Worrysome.com</h1>\n     <blockquote><p>Don' worry 'bout a thing...</p></blockquote>\n     <p>Take the weight of the world off your shoulders.</p>\n </div>\n\nApplying a little positioning and z-index magic we can both set the position of these elements inside their positioning context and their stacking order. As we are going to use background images made from transparent PNGs, each element will allow another further down the stacking order to show through. This makes for some novel effects, particularly in liquid layouts.\n\n(Ed: We\u2019re using n below to represent whatever values you require for your specific design.) \n\n#branding {\n    position: relative;\n    width: n;\n    height: n;\n    background-image: url(n);\n }\n\n #branding>h1 {\n    position: absolute;\n    left: n;\n    top: n;\n    width: n;\n    height: n;\n    background-image: url(h1.png);\n    text-indent: n;\n }\n\n #branding>blockquote {\n    position: absolute;\n    left: n;\n    top: n;\n    width: n;\n    height: n;\n    background-image: url(bq.png);\n    text-indent: n;\n\n }\n\n #branding>p {\n    position: absolute;\n    right: n;\n    top: n;\n    width: n;\n    height: n;\n    background-image: url(p.png);\n    text-indent: n;\n }\n\nNext we can begin to see how the three elements build upon each other.\n\n\n1. Elements outlined\n\n\n2. Positioned elements overlayed to show context\n\n\n3. Our final result\n\nMultiple stacking orders\n\nNot only can elements within a positioning context be given a z-index, but those positioning contexts themselves can also be stacked.\n\n\nTwo positioning contexts, each with their own stacking order\n\nInterestingly each stacking order is independent of that of either the root element or its siblings and we can exploit this to make complex layouts from just a few semantic elements. This technique was used heavily on my recent redesign of Karova.com.\n\nDissecting part of Karova.com\n\nFirst the XHTML. The default template markup used for the site places <div id=\"nav_main\"> and <div id=\"content\"> as siblings inside their container.\n\n<div id=\"container\">\n     <div id=\"content\">\n          <h2></h2>\n          <p></p>\n     </div>\n     <div id=\"nav_main\"></div>\n </div>\n\nBy giving the navigation <div> a lower z-index than the content <div> we can ensure that the positioned content elements will always appear closest to the viewer, despite the fact that the navigation comes after the content in the source.\n\n#content { \n     position: relative; \n     z-index: 2; \n }\n\n #nav_main { \n     position: absolute; \n     z-index: 1; \n }\n\nNow applying absolute positioning with a negative top value to the <h2> and a higher z-index value than the following <p> ensures that the header sits not only on top of the navigation but also the styled paragraph which follows it.\n\nh2 {\n     position: absolute;\n     z-index: 200;\n     top: -n;\n }\n\n h2+p {\n     position: absolute;\n     z-index: 100;\n     margin-top: -n;\n     padding-top: n;\n }\n\n\nDissecting part of Karova.com\n\nYou can see the full effect in the wild on the Karova.com site.\n\nHave a great holiday season!", "year": "2005", "author": "Andy Clarke", "author_slug": "andyclarke", "published": "2005-12-16T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2005/zs-not-dead-baby-zs-not-dead/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 133, "title": "Gravity-Defying Page Corners", "contents": "While working on Stikkit, a \u201cpage curl\u201d came to be.\nNot being as crafty as Veerle, you see.\nI fired up Photoshop to see what could be.\n\u201cAnother copy is running on the network\u201c \u2026 oopsie.\n\nWith license issues sorted out and a concept in mind\nI set out to create something flexible and refined.\nOne background image and code that is sure to be lean.\nA simple solution for lazy people like me.\n\nThe curl I\u2019ll be showing isn\u2019t a curl at all.\nIt\u2019s simply a gradient that\u2019s 18 pixels tall.\nWith a fade to the left that\u2019s diagonally aligned\nand a small fade on the right that keeps the illusion defined.\n\n\n\nCreate a selection with the marquee tool (keeping in mind a reasonable minimum width) and drag a gradient (black to transparent) from top to bottom.\n\n\n\nNow drag a gradient (the background color of the page to transparent) from the bottom left corner to the top right corner.\n\n\n\nFinally, drag another gradient from the right edge towards the center, about 20 pixels or so.\n\nBut the top is flat and can be positioned precisely\njust under the bottom right edge very nicely.\nAnd there it will sit, never ever to be busted\nby varying sizes of text when adjusted.\n\n<div id=\"page\">\n\t<div id=\"page-contents\">\n\t\t<h2>Gravity-Defying!</h2>\n\t\t<p>Lorem ipsum dolor ...</p>\n\t</div>\n</div>\n\nLet\u2019s dive into code and in the markup you\u2019ll see\n\u201cis that an extra div?\u201d \u2026 please don\u2019t kill me?\nThe #page div sets the width and bottom padding\nwhose height is equal to the shadow we\u2019re adding.\n\n\n\nThe #page-contents div will set padding in ems\nto scale with the text size the user intends.\nThe background color will be added here too\nbut not overlapping the shadow where #page\u2019s padding makes room.\n\nA simple technique that you may find amusing\nis to substitute a PNG for the GIF I was using.\nFor that would be crafty and future-proof, too.\nThe page curl could sit on any background hue.\n\nI hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this easy little trick.\nIt\u2019s hardly earth-shattering, and arguably slick.\nBut it could come in handy, you just never know.\nHappy Holidays! And pleasant dreams of web three point oh.", "year": "2006", "author": "Dan Cederholm", "author_slug": "dancederholm", "published": "2006-12-24T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/gravity-defying-page-corners/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 149, "title": "Underpants Over My Trousers", "contents": "With Christmas approaching faster than a speeding bullet, this is the perfect time for you to think about that last minute present to buy for the web geek in your life. If you\u2019re stuck for ideas for that special someone, forget about that svelte iPhone case carved from solid mahogany and head instead to your nearest comic-book shop and pick up a selection of comics or graphic novels. (I\u2019ll be using some of my personal favourite comic books as examples throughout). \n\nTrust me, whether your nearest and dearest has been reading comics for a while or has never peered inside this four-colour world, they\u2019ll thank-you for it.\n\nAside from indulging their superhero fantasies, comic books can provide web designers with a rich vein of inspiring ideas and material to help them create shirt button popping, trouser bursting work for the web. I know from my own personal experience, that looking at aspects of comic book design, layout and conventions and thinking about the ways that they can inform web design has taken my design work in often-unexpected directions. \n\nThere are far too many fascinating facets of comic book design that provide web designers with inspiration to cover in the time that it takes to pull your underpants over your trousers. So I\u2019m going to concentrate on one muscle bound aspect of comic design, one that will make you think differently about how you lay out the content of your pages in panels. \n\nA suitcase full of Kryptonite\n\nNow, to the uninitiated onlooker, the panels of a comic book may appear to perform a similar function to still frames from a movie. But inside the pages of a comic, panels must work harder to help the reader understand the timing of a story. It is this method for conveying narrative timing to a reader that I believe can be highly useful to designers who work on the web as timing, drama and suspense are as important in the web world as they are in worlds occupied by costumed crime fighters and superheroes.\n\nI\u2019d like you to start by closing your eyes and thinking about your own process for laying out panels of content on a page. OK, you\u2019ll actually be better off with your eyes open if you\u2019re going to carry on reading.\n\nI\u2019ll bet you a suitcase full of Kryptonite that you often, if not always, structure your page layouts, and decide on the dimensions of those panels according to either:\n\n\n\tThe base grid that you are working to\n\tThe Golden Ratio or another mathematical schema\n\n\nMore likely, I bet that you decide on the size and the number of your panels based on the amount of content that will be going into them. From today, I\u2019d like you to think about taking a different approach. This approach not only addresses horizontal and vertical space, but also adds the dimension of time to your designs.\n\nSlowing down the action\n\nA comic book panel not only acts as a container for its content but also indicates to a reader how much time passes within the panel and as a result, how much time the reader should focus their attention on that one panel. \n\nSmaller panels create swift eye movement and shorter bursts of attention. Larger panels give the perception of more time elapsing in the story and subconsciously demands that a reader devotes more time to focus on it. \n\nConcrete by Paul Chadwick (Dark Horse Comics)\n\nThis use of panel dimensions to control timing can also be useful for web designers in designing the reading/user experience. Imagine a page full of information about a product or service. You\u2019ll naturally want the reader to focus for longer on the key benefits of your offering rather than perhaps its technical specifications.\n\nNow take a look at this spread of pages from Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.\n\nWatchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (Diamond Comic Distributors 2004)\n\nThroughout this series of (originally) twelve editions, artist Dave Gibbons stuck rigidly to his 3\u00d73 panels per page design and deviated from it only for dramatic moments within the narrative. \n\nIn particular during the last few pages of chapter eleven, Gibbons adds weight to the impending doom by slowing down the action by using larger panels and forces the reader to think longer about what was coming next. The action then speeds up through twelve smaller panels until the final panel: nothing more than white space and yet one of the most iconic and thought provoking in the entire twelve book series.\n\nWatchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (Diamond Comic Distributors 2004)\n\nOn the web it is common for clients to ask designers to fill every pixel of screen space with content, perhaps not understanding the drama that can be added by nothing more than white space.\n\nIn the final chapter, Gibbons emphasises the carnage that has taken place (unseen between chapters eleven and twelve) by presenting the reader with six full pages containing only single, large panels. \n\nWatchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (Diamond Comic Distributors 2004)\n\nThis drama, created by the artist\u2019s use of panel dimensions to control timing, is a technique that web designers can also usefully employ when emphasising important areas of content.\n\nThink back for a moment to the home page of Apple Inc., during the launch of their iconic iPhone, where the page contained nothing more than a large image and the phrase \u201cSay hello to iPhone\u201d. Rather than fill the page with sales messages, Apple\u2019s designers allowed the space itself to tell the story and created a real sense of suspense and expectation among their readers.\n\nBorders\n\nWhereas on the web, panel borders are commonly used to add emphasis to particular areas of content, in comic books they take on a different and sometimes opposite role. \n\nIn the examples so far, borders have contained all of the action. Removing a border can have the opposite effect to what you might at first think. Rather than taking emphasis away from their content, in comics, borderless panels allow the reader\u2019s eyes to linger for longer on the content adding even stronger emphasis.\n\nConcrete by Paul Chadwick (Dark Horse Comics)\n\nThis effect is amplified when the borderless content is allowed to bleed to the edges of a page. Because the content is no longer confined, except by the edges of the page (both comic and web) the reader\u2019s eye is left to wander out into open space. \n\nConcrete by Paul Chadwick (Dark Horse Comics)\n\nThis type of open, borderless content panel can be highly useful in placing emphasis on the most important content on a page in exactly the very opposite way that we commonly employ on the web today. \n\nSo why is time an important dimension to think about when designing your web pages? On one level, we are often already concerned with the short attention spans of visitors to our pages and should work hard to allow them to quickly and easily find and read the content that both they and we think is important. Learning lessons from comic book timing can only help us improve that experience.\n\nOn another: timing, suspense and drama are already everyday parts of the web browsing experience. Will a reader see what they expect when they click from one page to the next? Or are they in for a surprise? \n\nMost importantly, I believe that the web, like comics, is about story telling: often the story of the experiences that a customer will have when they use our product or service or interact with our organisation. It is this element of story telling than can be greatly improved by learning from comics.\n\nIt is exactly this kind of learning and adapting from older, more established and at first glance unrelated media that you will find can make a real distinctive difference to the design work that you create.\n\nFill your stockings\n\nIf you\u2019re a visual designer or developer and are not a regular reader of comics, from the moment that you pick up your first title, I know that you will find them inspiring. \n\nI will be writing more, and speaking about comic design applied to the web at several (to be announced) events this coming year. I hope you\u2019ll be slipping your underpants over your trousers and joining me then. In the meantime, here is some further reading to pick up on your next visit to a comic book or regular bookshop and slip into your stockings:\n\n\n\tComics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner (Northern Light Books 2001)\n\tUnderstanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud (Harper Collins 1994)\n\n\nHave a happy superhero season.\n\n(I would like to thank all of the talented artists, writers and publishers whose work I have used as examples in this article and the hundreds more who inspire me every day with their tall tales and talent.)", "year": "2007", "author": "Andy Clarke", "author_slug": "andyclarke", "published": "2007-12-14T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2007/underpants-over-my-trousers/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 6, "title": "Run Ragged", "contents": "You care about typography, right? Do you care about words and how they look, read, and are understood? If you pick up a book or magazine, you notice the moment something is out of place: an orphan, rivers within paragraphs of justified prose, or caps masquerading as small caps. So why, I ask you, is your stance any different on the web?\n\nWe\u2019re told time and time again that as a person who makes websites we have to get comfortable with our lack of control. On the web, this is a feature, not a bug. But that doesn\u2019t mean we have to lower our standards, or not strive for the same amount of typographic craft of our print-based cousins. We shouldn\u2019t leave good typesetting at the door because we can\u2019t control the line length.\n\nWhen I typeset books, I\u2019d spend hours manipulating the text to create a pleasurable flow from line to line. A key aspect of this is manicuring the right rag \u2014 the vertical line of words on ranged-left text. Maximising the space available, but ensuring there are no line breaks or orphaned words that disrupt the flow of reading. Setting a right rag relies on a bunch of guidelines \u2014 or as I was first taught to call them, violations! \n\nViolation 1. Never break a line immediately following a preposition\n\nPrepositions are important, frequently used words in English. They link nouns, pronouns and other words together in a sentence. And links should not be broken if you can help it. Ending a line on a preposition breaks the join from one word to another and forces the reader to work harder joining two words over two lines.\n\nFor example: \n\n\n\tThe container is for the butter\n\n\nThe preposition here is for and shows the relationship between the butter and the container. If this were typeset on a line and the line break was after the word for, then the reader would have to carry that through to the next line. The sentence would not flow.\n\nThere are lots of prepositions in English \u2013 about 150 \u2013 but only 70 or so in use.\n\nViolation 2. Never break a line immediately following a dash\n\nA dash \u2014 either an em-dash or en-dash \u2014 can be used as a pause in the reading, or as used here, a point at which you introduce something that is not within the flow of the sentence. Like an aside. Ending with a pause on the end of the line would have the same effect as ending on a preposition. It disrupts the flow of reading.\n\nViolation 3. No small words at the end of a line\n\nDon\u2019t end a line with small words. Most of these will actually be covered by violation \u21161. But there will be exceptions. My general rule of thumb here is not to leave words of two or three letters at the end of a line.\n\nViolation 4. Hyphenation\n\nIn print, hyphens are used at the end of lines to join words broken over a line break. Mostly, this is used in justified body text, and no doubt you will be used to seeing it in newspapers or novels. A good rule of thumb is to not allow more than two consecutive lines to end with a hyphen.\n\nOn the web, of course, we can use the CSS hyphens property. It\u2019s reasonably supported with the exception of Chrome. Of course, it works best when combined with justified text to retain the neat right margin.\n\nViolation 5. Don\u2019t break emphasised phrases of three or fewer words\n\nIf you have a few words emphasised, for example:\n\n\n\tHe calls this problem definition escalation\n\n\n\u2026then try not to break the line among them. It\u2019s important the reader reads through all the words as a group.\n\nHow do we do all of that on the web?\n\nAll of those guidelines are relatively easy to implement in print. But what about the web? Where content is poured into a template from a CMS? Well, there are things we can do. Meet your new friend, the non-breaking space, or as you may know them: \u00a0.\n\nThe guidelines above are all based on one decision for the typesetter: when should the line break? \n\nWe can simply run through a body of text and add the \u00a0 based on these sets of questions:\n\n\n\tAre there any prepositions in the text? If so, add a \u00a0 after them.\n\tAre there any dashes? If so, add a \u00a0 after them.\n\tAre there any words of fewer than three characters that you haven\u2019t already added spaces to? If so, add a \u00a0 after them.\n\tAre there any emphasised groups of words either two or three words long? If so, add a \u00a0 in between them.\n\n\nFor a short piece of text, this isn\u2019t a big problem. But for longer bodies of text, this is a bit arduous. Also, as I said, lots of websites use a CMS and just dump the text into a template. What then? We can\u2019t expect our content creators to manually manicure a right rag based on these guidelines. In this instance, we really need things to be automatic.\n\nThere isn\u2019t any reason why we can\u2019t just pass the question of when to break the line straight to the browser by way of a script which compares the text against a set of rules. In plain English, this script could be to scan the text for:\n\n\n\tPrepositions. If found, add \u00a0 after them.\n\tDashes. If found, add \u00a0 after them.\n\tWords fewer than three characters long that aren\u2019t prepositions. If found, add \u00a0 after them.\n\tEmphasised phrases of up to three words in length. If found, add \u00a0 between all of the words.\n\n\nAnd there we have it.\n\nA note on fluidity\n\nAn important consideration of this script is that it doesn\u2019t scan the text to see what is at the end of a line. It just looks for prepositions, dashes, words fewer than three characters long, and emphasised words within paragraphs and applies the \u00a0 accordingly regardless of where the thing lives. This is because in a fluid layout a word might appear in the beginning, middle or the end of a line depending on the width of the browser. And we want it to behave in the right way when it does find itself at the end.\n\nSee it in action!\n\nMy friend and colleague, Nathan Ford, has written a small JavaScript called Ragadjust that does all of this automatically. The script loops through a webpage, compares the text against the conditions, and then inserts \u00a0 in the places that violate the conditions above.\n\nYou can get the script from GitHub and see it in action on my own website.\n\nSome caveats\n\nAs my friend Jon Tan says, \u201cThere are no rules in typography, just good or bad decisions\u201d, and typesetting the right rag is no different. \n\n\n\tThe guidelines for the violations above are useful for justified text, too. But we need to be careful here. Too stringent adherence to these violations could lead to ugly gaps in our words \u2014 called rivers \u2014 as the browser forces justification.\n\tThe violation regarding short words at the end of sentences is useful for longer line lengths, or measures, of text. When the measure gets shorter, maybe five or six words, then we need to be more forgiving as to what wraps to the next line and what doesn\u2019t. In fact, you can see this happening on my site where I\u2019ve not included a check on the size of the browser window (purposefully, for this demo, of course. Ahem).\n\tThis article is about applying these guidelines to English. Some of them will, no doubt, cross over to other languages quite well. But for those languages, like German for instance, where longer words tend to be in more frequent use, then some of the rules may result in a poor right rag.\n\n\nMarginal gains\n\nIn 2007, I spoke with Richard Rutter at SXSW on web typography. In that talk, Richard and I made a point that good typographic design \u2014 on the web, in print; anywhere, in fact \u2014 relies on small, measurable improvements across an entire body of work. From heading hierarchy to your grid system, every little bit helps. In and of themselves, these little things don\u2019t really mean that much. You may well have read this article, shrugged your shoulders and thought, \u201cHuh. So what?\u201d But these little things, when added up, make a difference. A difference between good typographic design and great typographic design.\n\n \n\nAppendix\n\nPreposition whitelist\n\naboard\nabout\nabove\nacross\nafter\nagainst\nalong\namid\namong\nanti\naround\nas\nat\nbefore\nbehind\nbelow\nbeneath\nbeside\nbesides\nbetween\nbeyond\nbut\nby\nconcerning\nconsidering\ndespite\ndown\nduring\nexcept\nexcepting\nexcluding\nfollowing\nfor\nfrom\nin\ninside\ninto\nlike\nminus\nnear\nof\noff\non\nonto\nopposite\noutside\nover\npast\nper\nplus\nregarding\nround\nsave\nsince\nthan\nthrough\nto\ntoward\ntowards\nunder\nunderneath\nunlike\nuntil\nup\nupon\nversus\nvia\nwith\nwithin\nwithout", "year": "2013", "author": "Mark Boulton", "author_slug": "markboulton", "published": "2013-12-24T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2013/run-ragged/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 108, "title": "A Festive Type Folly", "contents": "\u2018Tis the season to be jolly, so the carol singers tell us. At 24 ways, we\u2019re keeping alive another British tradition that includes the odd faux-Greco-Roman building dotted around the British countryside, Tower Bridge built in 1894, and your Dad\u2019s Christmas jumper with the dancing reindeer motif. \u2018Tis the season of the folly!\n\n \n 24 Ways to impress your   friends\n \n\nThe example is not an image, just text. You may wish to see a screenshot in Safari to compare with your own operating system and browser rendering.\n\nLike all follies this is an embellishment\u200a\u2014\u200aa bit of web typography fun. It\u2019s similar to the masthead text at my place, but it\u2019s also a hyperlink. Unlike the architectural follies of the past, no child labour was used to fund or build it, just some HTML flavoured with CSS, and a heavy dose of Times New Roman. Why Times New Roman, you ask? Well, after a few wasted hours experimenting with heaps of typefaces, seeking an elusive consistency of positioning and rendering across platforms, it proved to be the most consistent. Who\u2019d\u2018a thought? To make things more interesting, I wanted to use a traditional scale and make the whole thing elastic by using relative lengths that would react to a person\u2019s font size. So, to the meat of this festive frippery:\n\nThere are three things we rely on to create this indulgence:\n\n\n\tDescendant selectors\n\tAbsolute positioning\n\tInheritance\n\n\nHTML & Descendant Selectors\n\nThe markup for the folly might seem complex at first glance. To semantics pedants and purists it may seem outrageous. If that\u2019s you, read on at your peril! Here it is with lots of whitespace:\n\n<div id=\"type\">\n<h1>\n\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"/\">\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<em>2\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>4 \n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>w\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>a\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>y\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>s</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</em> \n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<strong>to \n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>i\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>m\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>pre\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>s\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>s \n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>your \n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<span>friends</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</span>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0</strong>\t\n\u00a0\u00a0</a>\n</h1>\n</div>\n\nWhy so much markup? Well, we want to individually style many of the glyphs. By nesting the elements, we can pick out the bits we need as descendant selectors.\n\nTo retain a smidgen of semantics, the text is wrapped in <h1> and <a> elements. The two phrases, \u201c24 ways\u201d and \u201cto impress your friends\u201d are wrapped in <em> and <strong> tags, respectively. Within those loving arms, their descendant <span>s cascade invisibly, making a right mess of our source, but ready to be picked out in our CSS rules.\n\nSo, to select the \u201c2\u201d from the example we can simply write, #type h1 em{ }. Of course, that selects everything within the <em> tags, but as we drill down the document tree, selecting other glyphs, any property / value styles can be reset or changed as required.\n\nPixels Versus Ems\n\nBefore we get stuck into the CSS, I should say that the goal here is to have everything expressed in relative \u201cem\u201d lengths. However, when I\u2019m starting out, I use pixels for all values, and only convert them to ems after I\u2019ve finished. It saves re-calculating the em length for every change I make as the folly evolves, but still makes the final result elastic, without relying on browser zoom.\n\nTo skip ahead, see the complete CSS.\n\nAbsolutely Positioned Glyphs\n\nIf a parent element has position: relative, or position: absolute applied to it, all children of that parent can be positioned absolutely relative to it. (See Dave Shea\u2019s excellent introduction to this.) That\u2019s exactly how the folly is achieved. As the parent, #type also has a font-size of 16px set, a width and height, and some basic style with a background and border:\n\n#type{\n\tfont-size: 16px;\n\ttext-align: left;\n\tbackground: #e8e9de;\n\tborder: 0.375em solid #fff;\n\twidth: 22.5em;\n\theight: 13.125em;\n\tposition: relative;\n}\n\nThe h1 is also given a default style with a font-size of 132px in ems relative to the parent font-size of 16px:\n\n#type h1{\n\tfont-family: \"Times New Roman\", serif;\n\tfont-size: 8.25em; /* 132px */\n\tline-height: 1em;\n\tfont-weight: 400;\n\tmargin: 0;\n\tpadding: 0;\n}\n\nTo get the em value, we divide the required size in pixels by the actual parent font-size in pixels\n\n132 \u00f7 16 = 8.25\n\nWe also give the descendants of the h1 some default properties. The line height, style and weight are normalised, they are positioned absolutely relative to #type, and a border and padding is applied:\n\n#type h1 em,\n#type h1 strong,\n#type h1 span{\n\tline-height: 1em;\n\tfont-style: normal;\n\tfont-weight: 400;\n\tposition: absolute;\n\tpadding: 0.1em;\n\tborder: 1px solid transparent;\n}\n\nThe padding ensures that some browsers don\u2019t forget about parts of a glyph that are drawn outside of their invisible container. When this happens, IE will trim the glyph, cutting off parts of descenders, for example. The border is there to make sure the glyphs have layout. Without this, positioning can be problematic. IE6 will not respect the transparent border colour\u200a\u2014\u200ait uses the actual text colour\u200a\u2014\u200abut in all other respects renders the example. You can hack around it, but it seemed unnecessary for this example.\n\nOnce these defaults are established, the rest is trial and error. As a quick example, the numeral \u201c2\u201d is first to be positioned:\n\n#type h1 a em{\n\tfont-size: 0.727em; /* (2) 96px */\n\tleft: 0.667em;\n\ttop: 0;\n}\n\nEvery element of the folly is positioned in exactly the same way as you can see in the complete CSS. When converting pixels to ems, the font-size is set first. Then, because we know what that is, we calculate the equivalent x- and y-position accordingly.\n\nInheritance\n\nCSS inheritance gave me a headache a long time ago when I first encountered it. After the penny dropped I came to experience something disturbingly close to affection for this characteristic. What it basically means is that children inherit the characteristics of their parents. For example:\n\n\n\tWe gave #type a font-size of 16px.\n\tFor #type h1 we changed it by setting font-size: 8.25em;. Than means that #type h1 now has a computed font-size of 8.25 \u00d7 16px = 132px.\n\tNow, all children of #type h1 in the document tree will inherit a font-size of 132px unless we explicitly change it as we did for #type h1 a em.\n\n\nThe \u201c2\u201d in the example\u200a\u2014\u200aselected with #type h1 a em\u200a\u2014\u200ais set at 96px with left and top positioning calculated relatively to that. So, the left position of 0.667em is 0.667 \u00d7 96 = 64px, approximately (three decimal points in em lengths don\u2019t always give exact pixel equivalents).\n\nOne way to look at inheritance is as a cascade of dependancy: In our example, the computed font size of any given element depends on that of the parent, and the absolute x- and y-position depends on the computed font size of the element itself.\n\nLink Colours\n\nThe same descendant selectors we use to set and position the type are also used to apply the colour by combining them with pseudo-selectors like :focus and :hover. Because the descendant selectors are available to us, we can pretty much pick out any glyph we like. First, we need to disable the underline:\n\n#type h1 a:link,\n#type h1 a:visited{\n\ttext-decoration: none;\n}\n\nIn our example, the \u201c24\u201d has a unique default state (colour):\n\n#type h1 a:link em,\n#type h1 a:visited em{\n\tcolor: #624;\n}\n\nThe rest of the \u201cWays\u201d text has a different colour, which it shares with the large \u201cs\u201d in \u201cimpress\u201d:\n\n#type h1 a:link em span span,\n#type h1 a:visited em span span,\n#type h1 a:link strong span span span span,\n#type h1 a:visited strong span span span span{\n\tcolor: #b32720;\n}\n\n\u201c24\u201d changes on :focus, :hover and :active. Critically though, the whole of the \u201c24 Ways\u201d text, and the large \u201cs\u201d in \u201cimpress\u201d all have the same style in this instance:\n\n#type h1 a:focus em,\n#type h1 a:hover em,\n#type h1 a:active em,\n#type h1 a:focus em span span,\n#type h1 a:hover em span span,\n#type h1 a:active em span span,\n#type h1 a:focus strong span span span span,\n#type h1 a:hover strong span span span span,\n#type h1 a:active strong span span span span{\n\tcolor: #804;\n}\n\nIf a descendant selector has a :link and :visited state set as a pseudo element, it needs to also have the corresponding :focus, :hover and :active states set.\n\nA Final Note About Web Typography\n\nFrom grids to basic leading to web fonts, and even absolute positioning, there\u2019s a wealth of things we can do to treat type on the Web with love and respect. However, experiments like this can highlight the vagaries of rasterisation and rendering that limit our ability to achieve truly subtle and refined results. At the operating system level, the differences in type rendering are extreme, and even between sequential iterations in Windows\u200a\u2014\u200afrom Standard to ClearType\u200a\u2014\u200athey can be daunting. Add to that huge variations in screen quality, and even the paper we print our type onto has many potential variations. Compare our example in Safari 3.2.1 / OS X 10.5.5 (left) and IE7 / Win XP (right). Both rendered on a 23\u201d Apple Cinema HD (LCD):\n\n\n\nBrowser developers continue to make great strides. However, those of us who set type on the Web need more consistency and quality if we want to avoid technologies like Flash and evolve web typography. Although web typography is inevitably\u200a\u2014\u200aand mistakenly\u200a\u2014\u200acompared unfavourably to print, it has the potential to achieve the same refinement in a different way. Perhaps one day, the glyphs of our favourite faces, so carefully crafted, kerned and hinted for the screen, will be rendered with the same precision with which they were drawn by type designers and styled by web designers. That would be my wish for the new year. Happy holidays!", "year": "2008", "author": "Jon Tan", "author_slug": "jontan", "published": "2008-12-17T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2008/a-festive-type-folly/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 141, "title": "Compose to a Vertical Rhythm", "contents": "\u201cSpace in typography is like time in music. It is infinitely divisible, but a few proportional intervals can be much more useful than a limitless choice of arbitrary quantities.\u201d So says the typographer Robert Bringhurst, and just as regular use of time provides rhythm in music, so regular use of space provides rhythm in typography, and without rhythm the listener, or the reader, becomes disorientated and lost.\n\nOn the Web, vertical rhythm \u2013 the spacing and arrangement of text as the reader descends the page \u2013 is contributed to by three factors: font size, line height and margin or padding. All of these factors must calculated with care in order that the rhythm is maintained. \n\nThe basic unit of vertical space is line height. Establishing a suitable line height that can be applied to all text on the page, be it heading, body copy or sidenote, is the key to a solid dependable vertical rhythm, which will engage and guide the reader down the page. To see this in action, I\u2019ve created an example with headings, footnotes and sidenotes. \n\nEstablishing a suitable line height\n\nThe easiest place to begin determining a basic line height unit is with the font size of the body copy. For the example I\u2019ve chosen 12px. To ensure readability the body text will almost certainly need some leading, that is to say spacing between the lines. A line-height of 1.5em would give 6px spacing between the lines of body copy. This will create a total line height of 18px, which becomes our basic unit. Here\u2019s the CSS to get us to this point:\n\nbody {\n\tfont-size: 75%; \n}\nhtml>body {\n\tfont-size: 12px; \n}\np {\n\tline-height 1.5em; \n}\n\nThere are many ways to size text in CSS and the above approach provides and accessible method of achieving the pixel-precision solid typography requires. By way of explanation, the first font-size reduces the body text from the 16px default (common to most browsers and OS set-ups) down to the 12px we require. This rule is primarily there for Internet Explorer 6 and below on Windows: the percentage value means that the text will scale predictably should a user bump the text size up or down. The second font-size sets the text size specifically and is ignored by IE6, but used by Firefox, Safari, IE7, Opera and other modern browsers which allow users to resize text sized in pixels.\n\nSpacing between paragraphs\n\nWith our rhythmic unit set at 18px we need to ensure that it is maintained throughout the body copy. A common place to lose the rhythm is the gaps set between margins. The default treatment by web browsers of paragraphs is to insert a top- and bottom-margin of 1em. In our case this would give a spacing between the paragraphs of 12px and hence throw the text out of rhythm. If the rhythm of the page is to be maintained, the spacing of paragraphs should be related to the basic line height unit. This is achieved simply by setting top- and bottom-margins equal to the line height.\n\nIn order that typographic integrity is maintained when text is resized by the user we must use ems for all our vertical measurements, including line-height, padding and margins.\n\np {\n\tfont-size:1em;\n\tmargin-top: 1.5em;\n\tmargin-bottom: 1.5em; \n}\n\nBrowsers set margins on all block-level elements (such as headings, lists and blockquotes) so a way of ensuring that typographic attention is paid to all such elements is to reset the margins at the beginning of your style sheet. You could use a rule such as:\n\nbody,div,dl,dt,dd,ul,ol,li,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,pre,form,fieldset,p,blockquote,th,td {  \n\tmargin:0; \n\tpadding:0; \n}\n\nAlternatively you could look into using the Yahoo! UI Reset style sheet which removes most default styling, so providing a solid foundation upon which you can explicitly declare your design intentions.\n\nVariations in text size\n\nWhen there is a change in text size, perhaps with a heading or sidenotes, the differing text should also take up a multiple of the basic leading. This means that, in our example, every diversion from the basic text size should take up multiples of 18px. This can be accomplished by adjusting the line-height and margin accordingly, as described following.\n\nHeadings\n\nSubheadings in the example page are set to 14px. In order that the height of each line is 18px, the line-height should be set to 18\u00a0\u00f7\u00a014 =\u00a01.286. Similarly the margins above and below the heading must be adjusted to fit. The temptation is to set heading margins to a simple 1em, but in order to maintain the rhythm, the top and bottom margins should be set at 1.286em so that the spacing is equal to the full 18px unit.\n\nh2 {\n\tfont-size:1.1667em;\n\tline-height: 1.286em;\n\tmargin-top: 1.286em;\n\tmargin-bottom: 1.286em; \n}\n\nOne can also set asymmetrical margins for headings, provided the margins combine to be multiples of the basic line height. In our example, a top margin of 1\u00bd lines is combined with a bottom margin of half a line as follows:\n\nh2 {\n\tfont-size:1.1667em;\n\tline-height: 1.286em;\n\tmargin-top: 1.929em;\n\tmargin-bottom: 0.643em; \n}\n\nAlso in our example, the main heading is given a text size of 18px, therefore the line-height has been set to 1em, as has the margin:\n\nh1 {\n\tfont-size:1.5em;\n\tline-height: 1em;\n\tmargin-top: 0;\n\tmargin-bottom: 1em; \n}\n\nSidenotes\n\nSidenotes (and other supplementary material) are often set at a smaller size to the basic text. To keep the rhythm, this smaller text should still line up with body copy, so a calculation similar to that for headings is required. In our example, the sidenotes are set at 10px and so their line-height must be increased to 18\u00a0\u00f7\u00a010 =\u00a01.8.\n\n.sidenote {\n\tfont-size:0.8333em;\n\tline-height:1.8em; \n}\n\nBorders\n\nOne additional point where vertical rhythm is often lost is with the introduction of horizontal borders. These effectively act as shims pushing the subsequent text downwards, so a two pixel horizontal border will throw out the vertical rhythm by two pixels. A way around this is to specify horizontal lines using background images or, as in our example, specify the width of the border in ems and adjust the padding to take up the slack. \n\nThe design of the footnote in our example requires a 1px horizontal border. The footnote contains 12px text, so 1px in ems is 1\u00a0\u00f7\u00a012 =\u00a00.0833. I have added a margin of 1\u00bd lines above the border (1.5\u00a0\u00d7\u00a018\u00a0\u00f7\u00a012 =\u00a02.5ems), so to maintain the rhythm the border + padding must equal a \u00bd (9px). We know the border is set to 1px, so the padding must be set to 8px. To specify this in ems we use the familiar calculation: 8\u00a0\u00f7\u00a012 =\u00a00.667.\n\nHit me with your rhythm stick\n\nComposing to a vertical rhythm helps engage and guide the reader down the page, but it takes typographic discipline to do so. It may seem like a lot of fiddly maths is involved (a few divisions and multiplications never hurt anyone) but good type setting is all about numbers, and it is this attention to detail which is the key to success.", "year": "2006", "author": "Richard Rutter", "author_slug": "richardrutter", "published": "2006-12-12T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/compose-to-a-vertical-rhythm/", "topic": "design"}