Designbit

Design A Shopify App in 8 Minutes

Anthony — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:27:02 +0000

Wordpress Blog 2.8.1 Released

Anthony — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:20:39 +0000

WordPress 2.8.1 fixes many bugs and tightens security for plugin administration pages. There’s no noticeable changes or any added features, this is the bug patching release that usually follows large updates like the Wordpress 2.8 Release. Go to the Wordpress Development Blog for full release details.

Timothy Ferriss On Wordpress: Blogging Without Killing Yourself

Anthony — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:56:15 +0000

Shopify Apps Released

Anthony — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:44:53 +0000

Shopify has released Shopify Apps, along with an API for developers. This means shop owners will be able to easily add useful features to their shops and that Shopify developers will be able to create some outstanding apps and better still theres a billing system in place for receipt of payment for the developers.

Google Chrome Web Based OS

Anthony — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:22:41 +0000

The launch of the Google Chrome Web OS is great news across the the whole tech industry, for web designers the expansion of this web based OS should mean better support for CSS 3 and HTML 5 and all the goodness that brings. I’m already dreaming of border radius, multiple backgrounds, opacity and web fonts.

I Hate Captchas

Anthony — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:39:40 +0000

I truly hate captcha’s, they are so annoying and wildy over used, we spend so much time working on the web usability of a design and ensuring accessibility to the widest audience and then we add a captcha that wrecks the flow of the web page and adds a big ole extra step in the way of the user completing a task.

Captchas Are Bad Usability?

Getting customers to make a conversion on a website is a tough call, whether its to make contact, buy a product or enquire about a service, a HTML form is often the call to action we are trying to get the user to complete, why oh why do we put obstacles in the users way.

Good Captcha, Bad Captcha

Good catpchas are an extra step the user has to fill in on the HTML form, any marketeer worth their weight would tell you not too; extra steps equals less conversion. Good captchas tell you to enter capital letters and are in a straight line making them almost readable.

Bad catpchas are impossible to read and make you squint at the screen trying to guess the lettering for the 3rd time and giving up the ghost on the 4th attempt. Bad captchas have wavey text and even a line through the text making it even harder to read.

I am aware a lot of captchas now have an audio button so they can play the sound of the code to you, but I dont care about making them accessible, enough’s enough, Web Usabability 101 states dont piss off your users, I’m sure thats the exact wording on Nielsons Alertbox. I even hate the word C-A-T-P-C-H-A. Lets revolt.

Design Critique Of The Week 04

Anthony — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 06:30:25 +0000

This weeks design critique is a mock up to Wordpress theme service called Theme Slice that I run along with Mike Jolley, jointly designed our mission was to do the brand justice; the design should moniker different layers of a cake, choclate and cream. 2 column with a curvy sidebar, Lets Discuss.

Get W3C School Certified

Anthony — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:01:08 +0000

W3Schools’ Online Certification Program is a great way of getting some credibility without a lenthly college or uni course, and some practice of the finer points of web design or development. This great resource is offering an Online Certification Program. Certificates include PHP, ASP, XML, Javascript and HTML which costs 75usd.

Visit W3C Cert Program

Typekit: Real Web Fonts

Anthony — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:12:08 +0000

As a Typekit user, you’ll have access to our library of high-quality fonts. Just add a line of JavaScript to your markup, tell us what fonts you want to use, and then craft your pages the way you always have. Except now you’ll be able to use real fonts. This really is going to change web design.

Introducing Typekit

Ask The Audience: Three Column Layout

Anthony — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:33:38 +0000

I have a question for my good audience; Is it ok for 3 column layouts to allow the 3rd (right most) column to be chopped off ? Does it matter that the 3rd column may not be viewable by everyone as long as you just have extras on the 3rd column and not website crucial elements such as navigation, is it wrong to just accept that some users resolutions will just chop the 3rd column off?