providing graphic design, branding, photography and marketing expertise to denver and the world

Quote of the Week:

One more reason to stop using Internet Explorer 6 and upgrade already

Google announced that it's discontinuing support of Internet Explorer 6. This is welcome news, as it's one of the largest resource sinkholes any web developer has to face when working on site design and development. And there are some much better, more compliant browsers out there for people to use, in any case. Now, some organizations' audiences still skew heavily toward IE6, and I (and others) will assuredly continue to develop sites that are IE6 compliant when necessary; but I think it's safe to say that it's no longer a standard that most developers will hew to automatically.

Google is the latest, not the first, large web-based concern to move away from IE6 compliance. IE6 accounts for just over ten percent of total browser usage as of January 2010. That's down nearly 50% from January 2009. At this rate, IE 6 will account for something just north of 6% total user share by January 2011.

IE6 denial message image courtesy of RobotJohnny

Labels: usability, UX, W3C, web design

posted at 2:27 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

---

7.23.2009

XHTML 2 dumped, HTML 5 ascendant. Does it matter?

Here's the short version: XHTML was based on XML, back in the '90s when people thought XML was the future.

As mentioned in Techworld.com a while back:

XHTML 2 will not become a W3C standard, [W3C spokesperson Ian] Jacobs said. "We're investing in HTML 5 for the future," he said. Work stops on the XHTML language, but W3C still plans an XML formulation of HTML 5, to be done by the HTML working group.

A prominent AJAX and web development proponent applauded the W3C decision.

Firefox and Safari also include HTML 5 support, as well as Google's Chrome and Android.

So, what's the practical difference for us web designers and developers; people who need to know the code underneath the user experience, but aren't necessarily considered "coders"?

XHTML info from Mike:

XHTML 2.0 is based solely on XML, forgoing the SGML heritage and syntax peculiarities present in current web markup. XHTML 2.0 is supposed to be a “general-purpose language,” with a minimal default feature set that is easy to extend using CSS and other technologies (XForms, XML Events, etc). It’s a modular approach that allows the XHTML2 group to focus on generic document markup, while others develop mechanisms for presentation, interactivity, document construction, etc.

...and HTML 5:

While XHTML 2.0 aims to be revolutionary, the HTML working group has taken a more pragmatic approach and designed HTML 5 as an evolutionary technology. That is to say, HTML 5 is an incremental step forward that remains mostly compatible with the current HTML 4/XHTML 1 standards. However, HTML 5 offers a host of changes and extensions to HTML 4/XHTML 1 that address many of the faults in these earlier specifications.

Read his post for more.

Another post explaining the difference had a nice example of the structural, easy-to-understand nature of XML:

<farm>

 <barn>

    <horses>10</horses>

    <tools>

      <hammers>1</hammer>

      <shovel>2</shovel>

   </tools>

  </barn>

  <field>

   <cows>8</cows>

   <pigs>30</cows>

 </field>

</farm>

The structure shows the hierarchy of elements, and makes no effort to style of make them act a certain way. XHTML is simply a version of HTML that is valid XML code.

HTML 5 will contain more support for web applications, APIs, and other stuff that wasn't as built-into earlier versions of HTML. And as mentioned above, it will be (mostly) backward-compatible with BOTH HTML and XHTML.

So why, or should, we care? Probably not a lot, at the moment. But be prepared to make adjustments in the nearish future, and bone up on the new specification with the Definitive Guide of your choice. O'Reilly, here I come, once again!

Labels: advice, coding, W3C, web design, XHTML

posted at 9:51 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

---

1.22.2009

Notchcode Creative and the Native American Community Development Corporation announce the launch of the new NACDC.ORG website

The Native American Community Development Corporation launched their new website today, allowing stakeholder communities, funders, and the general public to easily access information about this important organization and their work. Notchcode helped them make it happen.

About the NACDC, and what they needed in a website

The NACDC works with Native communities to address underlying factors that inhibit economic development and the productive use of available financial capital. NACDC focuses its efforts in key areas to include financial education, housing, the re-acquisition of indian lands, agricultural lending, small business development and finance, and school-based mini-banks for students.


The NACDC's new website needed to be functional for its audience, and inform prospective funders and current stakeholders about the programs and initiatives that advance the mission of the organization. The website offers an inexpensive outreach option for a group that is dedicated to smart allocation of resources, and focuses primarily on its programs. Current Tribal partners, as well as prospective partners, can use the site to find out more about the initiatives the corporation has that would benefit them. Prospective funders and granting organizations can get supplemental information on the NACDC, facilitating funding decisions and further discussion of their goals.

Notchcode worked with NACDC staff to identify the best information architecture to meet the outreach and marketing needs of the organization, as well as presenting the organization as best in class for Tribal community financial outreach and education.

About the web site's new design and interface

The new web site was designed by Notchcode Creative, working closely with the NACDC, to showcase the vitality that their organization brings to Native American communities nationwide. An analysis of audience needs, demographics, and usage patterns resulted in an improved information architecture and W3C-compliant user interface. An existing financial education minisite is also integrated into the site.

The website also incorporates a new brand identity, developed by Nakota Designs, a Native American branding and design firm. They collaborated with Notchcode to deliver source files which Notchcode staff adapted for use on the site. Notchcode also utilized the brand's typographic and color themes to integrate the site into the organization's other anticipated marketing efforts.

Online donations integrated and trackable

Notchcode also integrated an online donation component throughout NACDC.org, utilizing Groundspring and Network For Good's Donate Now! suite of online tools. Donors can make singular or recurring donations from any page on the NACDC site. Each page has a unique tracking code for donations, enabling the NACDC staff to analyze what page content generates the highest value donations.

Labels: b2b, b2c, clients, interface, nonprofits, W3C, web design

posted at 5:04 PM Leave your comments here: 1 comments

---

5.13.2008

Repost from the desert: Hand-crafted HTML

Now, all serious beer drinkers I know prefer homebrewed beer to Duff. A more hands-on experience in creating the product results in a product that has more character, more personality, and a betterness that is hard to describe; but you know it when you see it (or taste it, in this case). In our second repost from the desert, I talk about how and why hand-coded HTML is better than what you get from a machine, like an HTML layout program (Dreamweaver, and especially FrontPage, I'm looking at you!). This post originally appeared in March 2005. Enjoy. Meantime, I am going to go out to the pool.

Here it is:

I spent the better part of this afternoon doing web production on a medium-sized site due to go live in a few weeks, so I thought I'd talk a little bit about how I like to work.

Now, there are many decent, hard-working web page composition programs out there, most notably Dreamweaver; and I have used them extensively...in the past. But I've come to the conculsion that for 90 percent of all HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, PHP, and other acronymed web development work, I prefer to code by hand.

Old School!

Why? Well, once you learn the syntax, it's quicker. Trust me! And it allows you to create fast, clean code, without many of the pitfalls and extraneous bits that GUI-based programs like Dreamweaver can place into your pages without your knowledge. Anyone who has ever waded through Microsoft FrontPage-created webpage code will know what I am talking about.

Pretty much any text editor will do--even Microsoft Word, in a pinch--but I prefer BareBones Software's BBEdit. It's long been the de-facto standard in programming text editors, especially for web code writers. Why? Well, it's no-frills, function-specific approach to its interface is a big selling point.

And it is very user-friendly.

Case-in-point: it color-codes your code so you know if you are looking at an image source element, or a formatting element, or actual content, for example. Their motto: "It doesn't suck", says it all.

Yes, yes, Dreamweaver has a "code view" mode, so you can see the code as you mess about in GUI mode, but BBEdit also has a Preview mode, which allows you to see things as the browser will display them, so that arguement is a wash.

It comes down to this:

1. did you grow up in the age of learning BASIC in school?


2. Were you amazed when you found out that you could upgrade from a VIC-20 to a Commodore 64 and get all that extra processing power?


3. Did you make ASCII art with your dot-matrix printer?

If so, you will prefer to code by hand. If not, you will probably prefer something like Dreamweaver.

Not that I'm judging you.

So if you really want to understand what this web thing is all about, look at some of your favorite webpages using "View Source", borrow a copy of O'Reilly's HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, and learn something new! Trust me, you'll love it!

Labels: coding, productivity, W3C, XHTML

posted at 9:00 AM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

---

1.03.2008

It's funny because it's true

This, from The Net is Dead, via Heather G-M:
The sad thing is this is (mostly) true. You can, actually, do anything a table can do in CSS, but there is a lot of tweaking to make things look lovely in all the browsers your client might require. The bit about Internet Explorer is completely true, and probably under-reports the amount of time we spend making any site work as expected in IE. The folks in Redmond follow their own laws. It's like they are vigilantes in an old-west movie, strutting into town while the marshall is out catching cattle rustlers, occupying his office and saying, "law? Law? Ma'am, we are the law, now."

Labels: css, humor, IE, visual information, W3C, web design

posted at 10:35 PM Leave your comments here: 0 comments

---

---