Archive for the ‘Design’ Category

Jacob Gube at Mashable posts about 10 Tools for Getting Web Design Feedback. If you’re designing a new website, or redesigning an old one and want to gather users’ reactions, these are great resources. Each of the tools listed includes a feature review and screenshot.

Vitaly Friedman writes for Smashing Magazine about 50 Useful Tools and Resources For Web Designers. This comprehensive guide is a fantastic resource for all things Web design. It’s broken up into the following categories:

• Typography
• Bookmarklets
• CSS, HTML and JavaScript Tools
• Useful Online Tools and Services
• Useful References and Guides
• Usability and User Experience

And if that’s not enough, head over to the Web Design Ledger for a list of 10 Free Online Books for Web Designers.

Grace Smith at Mashable rounds up 10 Free Wireframing Tools. If you’re designing, or redesigning a website and you don’t have something like Microsoft Visio available, you might try one of these free tools to make your wireframes. I’ve tried Mockingbird and found it easy to use, I can’t wait to test out the others. I’d add one other app to this list and that’s Mocksup which will let you upload website mockups and add links to create a prototype of your website for user testing, etc.

Alexander Dawson writes a mega-list of 250 Quick Web Design Tips for Six Revisions. This first post in a two-part series presents 150 recommendations about planning, content creation, and design elements. If you’re redesigning your website or just considering doing so, you’ll want to check out these suggestions. Here are just a few:

• Embedding Windows Media Player or Apple QuickTime into a page may have problems if people don’t have the players installed. Flash has a higher market penetration than both.
• When linking to another website, ensure you notify the visitor of how the target site relates to the content or element of the website so they don’t end up at an undesired location.
• Websafe typography is a big deal unless you embed a font (which has legal implications). You can’t guarantee the end-user will have any font installed, even common ones like Arial.
• Automatically playing music is a sin — it’s annoying, so don’t do it.
• Remember that most people read content in a left-to-right manner. Therefore, it makes sense to have important details as high and as far to the left as possible in your design.

Cindy King at the Social Media Examiner provides a quick tutorial for How to Create a Custom Twitter Background Design. If you’re still using the default Twitter background, you’ll want to check out this useful guide.

Vikas at Resources has put together a list of 25 Excellent Free Twitter Backgrounds. This is a great list with plenty of free designs to chose from.

Jason Fitzpatrick at Lifehacker has put together a list of the Five Best Personal Landing Pages. These are all free applications that will let you set up a simple personal Webpage linking to all of your other social profiles and content on the Web.

Mike Smith at Spyre Studios has published an interesting post on the 18 Dos and Don’ts Of Usability On The Web. If you’re considering a website redesign you’ll want to check out these helpful tips. Here are his top five recommendations:

1. Do utilize a grid for your website structure
2. Do Not forget your search form
3. Do make your navigation easy to find & readable
4. Do Not make your “contact” link in your navigation bar a mailto: link
5. Do utilize UX Apps as much as possible for web tests

Web Directions has issued a report on The State of Web Development 2010. The study is based on responses to 50+ questions about technologies, techniques, philosophies, and practices that today’s web professionals employ. I found the information on cloud computing usage particularly interesting and useful.

The team W3Avenue has posted a compilation of 40 Really Useful Tutorials You Should Have Read in January 2010. These quality tuts are culled from such well-known publications as A List Apart, Webdesigner Depot, Nettuts+, and more. Here are just a few of the featured articles:

• 55+ Most Wanted WordPress Tips, Tricks, and Hacks
• The Easiest Way to Build your First iPhone App
• How To Add a Flickr Gallery to Your WordPress Theme Without a Plugin
• How to Make all Browsers Render HTML5 Mark-up Correctly – Even IE6
• 10 Tips for Better Print Style Sheets
• CSS Transitions 101

The folks at Webdigi have posted a tutorial for Creating a Custom Facebook Fan Page on their PHP, Web and IT stuff blog. This detailed guide provides step-by-step instructions and code snippets for creating custom tabs, a carousel, and web forms on your Facebook fan page.

Matt Silverman at Mashable has some suggestions for How To: Build a More Beautiful Blog. If you’re looking to take your blog to the next level, you’ll want to check out this post which makes the following recommendations:

• Learn Some HTML
• Find the Right Template
• Be a Layout Sleuth
• Make It Your Own
• For the Non-Designer: Go Minimalist
• Need More Inspiration?

I’ve recently been looking for sets of icons for all of the social websites that I belong to for my website, blog, and also print handouts. In the course of my research I’ve come across some excellent icon sets that designers are giving away for free. If you have a need for social media icons for your library website, personal website, or blog, here are a few resources that I found helpful.

30 Amazingly Creative Social Bookmarks Icon Sets
This list by Speckyboy Design Magazine has screenshots of all thirty amazing 2.0 icon sets with links back to download pages.

27 Excellent Free Social Media Icons Sets
Jon Bishop rounds up 27 different icon sets, each with snapshot previews of the graphics.

The Best Social Media Icons All In One Place
Henry Jones of Web Design Ledger compiles a list of 20+ social icon sets. There is a lot of overlap between this post and the Speckybog Mag article, however there are a few unique sets listed here.

100+ Remarkably Beautiful Twitter Icons And Buttons
Hongkiat.com pulls together 20+ icon sets and individual twitter graphics available for free.

IconsPedia
This website offers a quick search of free icons, many of which are social.

FreeSocialCons.com
This resource is a collection of free social media icons. They also offer several icon sets.

I’m sure there are many more collections of quality free icon sets out there, please list your faves in the comments!

Matt Silverman at Mashable has published an excellent tutorial detailing How-To Create Custom Backgrounds for Twitter, YouTube, & MySpace. This quick article provides a walk-through for how to create your own branded backgrounds on these popular networks, including exact column dimensions, file sizes, and layout information.

If you’re considering a website redesign in 2010 you may want to check out these 35+ Usability Resources for Web Designers. Steven Snell at DesignMag compiles a handy list of both premium and free usability resources to test out your new site. He also lists related websites and blogs, checklists, and articles.