The Happy Blog

  • Google Docs Launches a Drawing App

    For the last 5 years I have been using Omnigraffle for all of my web wire framing and site mapping. Overall it isn’t a bad application; although, I do find it to be a touch cumbersome. The great part about Omnigraffle is it has a ton of stencils for most common applications.

    Google has recently launched their a new drawing app to their Google Docs suite. The best thing about Google is everything is saved to the cloud, so you don’t have to worry about a crashed hard drive or anything of the sort.

    I am planning to give Google Drawing a shot for my next project, so I decided to hunt around for some stencils. Luckily I found http://www.mortenjust.com because the author has created a very nice stencil template. I will post a follow up when I find the time to give it a shot.

  • User Experience Podcast

    For those of you that find User Experience Design interesting, I highly recommend the User Experience Podcast. It primarily consists of interviews with user experience professionals. One specific interview that I found interesting is #48, which is an interview with Jerry McGovern titled “Every piece of content matters” (MP3 – 15MB).

    Speaking of Jerry McGovern, I highly recommend his article on The Long Neck. To quote his website, “5% of your website delivers at least 25% of its value”. This is very interesting and really ties back to the Podcast. I hope you find it as useful as I do.

  • To Redesign or to Rework

    I have been having quite a few conversation with my coworkers about redesigning our corporate website. It is long overdue for a touch up but I have been trying to convince the team that we need to complete the project iteratively – instead of a long drawn out redesign. Take a look at the Apple Powerbook or the Volkswagen Jetta; instead of redesigning from scratch they slowly evolve the design over time.

    Obviously Apple and VW have well designed products from the get go and that is very important. If a strong foundation isn’t in place it is pointless, but even with all it’s problems, the MTS website actually has a decent structure in place. Since I started a year ago, we have implemented a css based layout and increased the site width to 960px (among a ton of other things).

    There are a number of navigational items that need to be updated, which actually excites me quite a bit. I really enjoy doing Information Architecture work and improving the overall usability of a web site. Besides, if the site were perfect to begin with, I would be out of a job!

  • New Promo Section on Dufresne.ca

    Last week I launched the new promo section on the Dufresne web site. It was actually a very simple update (as always), but I am quite happy with the end result.

    The goal for this project was to find a way to display a number of promotional materials on a single page while reducing page clutter. Once again modal windows saved the day. It was a bit of a challenge to build a semi content management system for the section using the PHP Zend Framework because I am still new to it but I am learning quickly.

  • Cindy Klassen MTS Allstream Site Launched

    As the title suggests, I just launched a site promoting Cindy Klassen and MTS Allstream’s support for her in the upcoming 2010 Olympics. It was a great honor to work on this project because Cindy Klassen is Canada’s most decorated Olympian and is an astonishing role model.

    My goal for this project was a create a design that was clean, professional and representative of MTS Allstream’s brand. Overall I am happy with the way the project went. My upcoming project is the re-design of Cindy’s personal site.

  • Dufresne Furniture – SEO & Accessibility

    Throughout the past couple of months I have been doing quite a bit of work for Dufresne Furniture & Appliances. In fact, it has been taking up all of my freelance time.

    The majority of the work that I have been doing with Dufresne has been search engine optimization, email marketing, and promotion material but I have been spending some time lately working to prepare the site for the launch of their two new stores in Ottawa.

    I know that I have been promising to post my accessibility tool kit but unfortunately it is going to have to be put on hold. The framework is developed but is setup specifically for my clients web site and I need to create a more generic template that I can freely distribute. This is important to me because I want to give back to the development community and help to make the web a more accessible place. If only the W3’s accessibility guide lines were more effective

    One of the best parts about working on accessibility and search engine optimization projects concurrently is their relevance. If done correctly, SEO and accessibility can (and should) be knocked off in tandem. The key is to convince management to undergo a change in mindset and project management methodology selection.

    Generally speaking, because of funding and project management logistics, organizations have a one-track mind. Development efforts are a lot more efficient when you take a step back and look at what you are doing. When it comes to SEO and accessibility, you are making the content accessible to both assistive technologies and search engines. The same code and the same files are going to be worked so it is only logical to tackle both problems at the same time.

  • The Advantages of Web Standards

    Through out the last few years, I have worked on a number of projects that have involved improving web accessibility, search engine optimization and user experience design. Time and time again the first and foremost suggestion that I offer is an adoption of web standards. I cannot understand why developers don’t have valid code hard wired in to their brains.

    I am working on a rather large accessibility initiative and am continually telling people to “drop the tables and use a css based layout”. 90% of the discussions shouldn’t be about accessibility but should include seo, code maintainability, optimized work flows and user experience design. The fact of the matter is, if implemented correctly, web standards development brings such a large array of advantages to any web site that there is NO reason to develop without them.

    It is very important to mention that a lot of developers say that they develop “standards based” web sites but really don’t. I truly believe that most people think that they are complying with web standards because they have validated their code but in reality, require a lot of corrections with issues such as poor alt attributes, incorrect mark-up structure, redundant id and class attributes and so much more.

    There are a ton of resources on the subject and I honestly am suprised to see myself posting a web standards entry in 2009. It is a reality that people are continuing to develop table based layouts and I feel obligated to offer the best resource that I have come across. Designing with web standards was written by Jeffrey Zeldman and is an absolute gem that must be read by all developers.

  • The Happy Pixel completes Miltstegall.com

    I am happy to say that the last couple of months have been extremely busy. My new job at MTS has helped to fire up my creative energy and I must say, it feels good.

    Last month I created a new design for CFL superstar Milt Stegall. This was the first project that I took on out side of my regular job in quite some time and I had a great deal on fun working on it. The time line for this project was really tight (a week and a half).

    The other project that I have been working on is for a curriculum mapping application and I am looking forward to sharing the results when it is complete. The interesting thing about this site is that I was asked to develop it using a Css framework (CSS Blueprint) and I am really happy with the results because it has cut my development time significantly and forced my design to follow a grid.

    My next project is to obtain the CaPM credential. I have been mentally preparing myself to write the test for quite some time but I am finally ready to get down to business and get it done. It is going to be a lot of studying but will be a great way to boost my project management knowledge.

    Stay tuned for my coming post where I upload a code tool kit. It is still a work in progress and I expect it to be a while until it is ready but it is going to be a great reference for web accessibility development.

  • Finally – The Happy Pixel 3.0 is Almost Complete

    I am happy to say that the newest version of this web site is nearly complete. All of the code including the php and mysql that is driving the site has been hand written by yours truly. My goal has been to have a launchable version before the end of January and I am confident that I will meet that dead line.

    You will probably notice that the design follows an extreme minimalist approach. I am hoping to make a few additions over the next couple of weeks but for the most part the design is going to stay very simple.

    On another note, I began a new job today as a web designer for Mts Allstream. It is really nice to get back in to the design aspect of web projects. I am feeling very confident that I am going to enjoy myself and will finally be able to scratch that creative itch that has been hanging over me for some time.

    Please stay tuned for some more posts that will be coming in the near future. I am working on developing an html snippet tool kit that will be available for download. See you soon!

  • Internet Advertising Ideas

    Two weeks ago I created a presentation that I gave to our sales team. My goal was to create a “Coles Notes” version of Online Advertising to a group of people that traditionally sell print. I found a large assortment of web content and advertisements to use as a resource in quite a few locations on the Internet. Wikipedia does a really nice job for definitions and I found a ton of really creative ads on the DART Motif web site.

    One thing that that is really important to understand about selling online is that it isn’t as confusing as everyone thinks it is. The concepts are the same as in print, its just the medium that has changed. Sales reps have a tendency to get caught up in all of the terminology and loose focus of their skills as a sales person.

    In the end, online has a lot more to offer. It provides real time stats, geo targeting, immediate publishing and a variety of really intersting creative.

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