The Eyetrack III team has published a new, outstanding summary of their research about how people view web-pages. I found several key things interesting in this article, namely:
1) The Zig-Zag pattern in which people scan the page is not new; what I found interesting is that they view the right hand side of the page second, and significantly, in comparison to the right hand page. We often use this space for “latest news” or other trend highlights, so it’s great to see that is a general eye-searching pattern.
2) Smaller type causes people to spend more time reviewing the articles – perhaps this is the web version of “Those who cannot hear an angry shout may strain to hear a whisper.”
3) Top Navigation performed best – this is a key thing to note as there is often an important design consideration on where navigation should be placed. Generally we use the left hand side for secondary or tertiary navigation just from an aesthetics standpoint; this is an additional consideration when deciding on layout.
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David
As rtraction's fearless leader, David spends most of his time finding new work to keep the rtraction engine busy. As the face of the company, he also works with clients to identify and find solutions to their communication and technical challenges. He has been in the web industry for over 14 years and brings that perspective to rtraction's clients, our community and his writing.
Despite the fact that there are many excellent WYSIWYG HTML editors on the market, when designing the layout of a website to show a client a pixel perfect comp designed in Adobe Photoshop is still one of the best ways to go. One limitation of Photoshop as a layout tool has always been the fact that scaling an image in a layout is a “destructive” editing process – once you scale it down you lose image data and scaling it back up again leaves you with a low quality image. Not anymore – enter the Smart Object.
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Shawn Adamsson
One of the original three founders of rtraction, Shawn describes his role as being a "cat herder". He ensures all of the work is done on time, on budget and spends a lot of his time facilitating the dialogue between clients, coders and the creatives. Shawn’s approach to life is based on the belief that it doesn't matter what you're doing if you enjoy the company of the people you are doing it with.
If you are a fan of the excellent Open Source 3D modelling and animation package Blender and work somewhere that has a lot of computers sitting idle (overnight for instance), then FarmerJoe is an excellent, free renderfarm solution that’s easy to set up, is reliable, and has a web-based GUI to monitor and schedule jobs.
Based on a set of PERL scripts, binaries are available from the FarmerJoe Website for Windows, Linux and OSX : http://blender.formworks.co.nz/. While you’re there, check out some of the other excellent scripts written for Blender.
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Shawn Adamsson
One of the original three founders of rtraction, Shawn describes his role as being a "cat herder". He ensures all of the work is done on time, on budget and spends a lot of his time facilitating the dialogue between clients, coders and the creatives. Shawn’s approach to life is based on the belief that it doesn't matter what you're doing if you enjoy the company of the people you are doing it with.
As designers there are a couple of questions that constantly pop up? “Hey, what font is that in?” and “What will it look like with a different font?” Sometimes the answer is easy, but not always. Here are two excellent type tools online that can help answer these questions in a pinch.
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Shawn Adamsson
One of the original three founders of rtraction, Shawn describes his role as being a "cat herder". He ensures all of the work is done on time, on budget and spends a lot of his time facilitating the dialogue between clients, coders and the creatives. Shawn’s approach to life is based on the belief that it doesn't matter what you're doing if you enjoy the company of the people you are doing it with.
A List Apart has created a web-survey to try to get a handle on how workers are distributed through the web design and development community. I think this is a valuable asset to our industry and would encourage all those who work in the industry to respond. Plus, you could win an iPod.
Link to the survey: http://alistapart.com/articles/webdesignsurvey
David
As rtraction's fearless leader, David spends most of his time finding new work to keep the rtraction engine busy. As the face of the company, he also works with clients to identify and find solutions to their communication and technical challenges. He has been in the web industry for over 14 years and brings that perspective to rtraction's clients, our community and his writing.
Microsoft has launched their re-branded rich internet application (RIA), Microsoft Silverlight, in direct competition with Adobe Flash. Considering Adobe’s current domination of the marketplace it will be interesting to see what type of an impact Silverlight is able to make; while it’s a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in, Linux and Apple users will be more apt to take a pass on installing the plug-in then the already ubiquitous Flash. Competition in this market is always welcome and we look forward to seeing how the market for RIA will continue to evolve. More information is available on Read/Write Web.
David
As rtraction's fearless leader, David spends most of his time finding new work to keep the rtraction engine busy. As the face of the company, he also works with clients to identify and find solutions to their communication and technical challenges. He has been in the web industry for over 14 years and brings that perspective to rtraction's clients, our community and his writing.
Occasionally you run into a free utility that makes complex tasks so easy that you ever wonder how you did without it. Virtualdub is a linear video processor that has been highly optimized for speed. The authour Avery Lee is, in his own words, “very impatient†which means that a lot of effort has been expended to make this application one of the fastest available for the tasks it performs.
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Shawn Adamsson
One of the original three founders of rtraction, Shawn describes his role as being a "cat herder". He ensures all of the work is done on time, on budget and spends a lot of his time facilitating the dialogue between clients, coders and the creatives. Shawn’s approach to life is based on the belief that it doesn't matter what you're doing if you enjoy the company of the people you are doing it with.
Favicons are the tiny 16×16 icons that sit next to you website in the address bar or favourites/bookmarks of your browser. They must be saved in the Windows icon format, one that is not directly supported by Photoshop out of the box. Get the plugin to save .ico files from Telegraphics and create your own favicons. The plugin is a free download for both Mac and PC.
Shawn Adamsson
One of the original three founders of rtraction, Shawn describes his role as being a "cat herder". He ensures all of the work is done on time, on budget and spends a lot of his time facilitating the dialogue between clients, coders and the creatives. Shawn’s approach to life is based on the belief that it doesn't matter what you're doing if you enjoy the company of the people you are doing it with.
When dealing with 3D computer graphics a small handful of names have dominated the landscape. Alias Maya (now owned by Autodesk, what a pity…), 3D Studio MAX and Softimage. Over the years that have a been a handful of small open-source projects that have come and gone but never gained any real credibility in the professional world.
Blender has changed that by offering a number of high level features in an open-source package. With an advanced modeler, rigging capability, animation, rendering and shading, as well as advanced dynamics, particles, fur, fluid simulation and scripting support with the Python language.
Shawn Adamsson
One of the original three founders of rtraction, Shawn describes his role as being a "cat herder". He ensures all of the work is done on time, on budget and spends a lot of his time facilitating the dialogue between clients, coders and the creatives. Shawn’s approach to life is based on the belief that it doesn't matter what you're doing if you enjoy the company of the people you are doing it with.
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