Fit and Finish: Insight from the Ironworks User Experience Group

What the Design of Cities Teaches Us About the Design of Sites

2010-07-27T16:12:35-04:00

Or how not to become the digital equivalent of Tysons Corner, VA You can now check out the new master plan for Tysons Corner VA, home to Ironworks’ DC office and one of the most populated areas in Northern VA. As those who work here can tell you, driving half a mile down the road can be an hour long commitment, and crossing the street a near-death experience. As Tysons attempts to restyle itself as a "livable, walkable community" we might ask what connections we can draw to the sites we work on whose uncontrolled growth has left users frustrated...

8 Things You Need to Know About HTML5

2010-07-14T11:42:25-04:00

Numerous articles have been written about HTML 5 over the last year, so I won’t spend a ton of time delving into the gritty details. If a client is asking, or thinking about suggesting this technology, these 8 things might play a vital role in the conversation. Simply put, here are some of the big things you need to know about HTML5 as it stands today.

Why Your Website Should Be Ready for Mobile Now

2010-07-09T15:05:19-04:00

Did you know that mobile web usage is growing at a rate eight times faster than the original desktop web? In the first 2 years after its introduction in 1994, AOL v2.0 had reached 7 million customers. In the first 2 years after their introduction in 2007, iPhone + iTouch reached 57 million users. In the last three years, Apple has sold more than 51 million iPhones alone. It has been predicted that mobile browsing will outpace desk-top based browsing within three to five years.

What's New in Internet Explorer 9

2010-07-07T15:01:59-04:00

Like many web developers who started working in the mid 90’s I grew up on IE. I hated it with 3, loved it at 4, and even thought IE6 was pretty good in 2001. But I dumped the regular use of IE in 2003 with the release of Firefox. Back then it was a trust / CSS thing, and as time went on there were just fewer and fewer reasons for me to return to IE. In the past few years, it’s been brutal for IE, and as the saying goes “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” Here’s a...

Flash or HTML5 / DHTML?

2010-06-30T08:41:13-04:00

Recently discourse on these technologies (HTML5 and Flash) has been frequent and heated. Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash” and the myriad of responses for and against flash have only muddied the waters for clients seeking the right choice to solve their problems. This article is not about whether flash is better, or whether the use of DHTML and/or HTML5 has a more prominent future 5-10 years from now. It’s about understanding these technologies as they exist today and in the near future.

eGovernment Challenges and Information Architecture

2010-05-13T09:28:33-04:00

Government work provides profound, often deeply frustrating, and generally amazing wide-reaching opportunities to apply our IA/UX powers in the service of millions. But this year’s Information Architecture Summit had no sessions specifically about IA in government settings. And so I asked... “Shall we lunch?” A group of Washington, DC government IAs and representatives from Canada and Sweden formed a topic table to start the discussion. During our hour we had time for lots of questions, a few answers, and some very interesting lines of inquiry. Going Beyond SilosThere are political and developmental challenges to delivering access to applications and data...

When You've Just Gotta Know

2010-05-10T09:00:00-04:00

One of the biggest challenges of HTML developers, probably the biggest challenge is browser compatibility. At Ironworks, we’re often asked to produce pixel perfect representations of the original designs, in multiple browsers - especially IE6. In my experience using something like IE tester, or for IE7 and IE8 using the developer toolbar simulated versions aren’t always accurate. Some people go the route of using Adobe’s Browser Lab . If you need to be sure however, the best bet is to use the real thing. Microsoft makes it easy for you to do just that by offering many flavors of their...

Light, Portable and Fast Apache Distribution

2010-05-06T14:20:43-04:00

Have you ever wanted to keep a functioning mobile copy of your website, or sites you’ve been building? Since returning to the windows world, I’ve had to find an easy way to check sites locally, let other people take a quick look, and hand off the work. I do it all from my thumb drive, and I keep it with me at all times. XAMPP Built with Apache web server, MySQL, PHP and Perl, XAMPP makes serving up your pages a cinch! You just download, extract, and start. It also contains a number of packages that generate MySQL administration, uploading...

Service Design and the Customer’s Journey

2010-04-24T19:26:19-04:00

Call it by other names – multi-channel service design, customer relationship management, cross-channel experience design, customer experience. We’re talking about how people interact with a whole system, over time. To get your head around it, think about the customer’s journey. We have no control over the path our customers use. They approach us from all angles... from our website, some else’s website, phone, kiosk, bricks-and-mortar location, help desk, walking billboard, social media locale. They go where ever they will to get further information or complete a transaction. From the customer’s point of view, they’re just interacting with our brand. And...

My Alarm Clock Keeps Getting Smarter

2010-04-22T23:54:00-04:00

Sometimes it's good to take a step back and admire the small things in life. We all know the details matter, but we take so much for granted. Case in point: your alarm clock. What a boring gadget. It's sole purpose is to pull you from the depths of a cozy slumber, to absorb its weight in unfiltered hatred and well-aimed smacks to the sleep button. That poor little plastic guy doesn't get a lot of love. And I got no defense for that. Even now, an online glance shows me that these 'lil machines are still nothing but pure...