On Digital Davids and Goliaths
Here's a familiar story: Back in 1996, when the web was about the size of a postage stamp, five different search engines struck a very expensive deal with Netscape, the most popular browser at the time. For $5 million per year, Yahoo!, Magellan, Lycos, Infoseek, and Excite would each have a turn as the browser’s featured search tool. Meanwhile, two unknown students were putting the finishing touches on a completely novel approach to search, one that would render the others obsolete. Just one year later, they registered their whimsical domain name and invited web users to start searching with their tech. The following year, their company was incorporated. I think you know the rest...
Future Daydream
So where are the designers who dream as Bradbury does? We seem to be content to let corporations do the dreaming for us. On the internet, we can be routinely entertained by their visions—videos depicting possible futures that are far more controlled, sterile, and expensive than is likely...
Smarter, Better Cyborgs
In the future, you will design the unseen.You will design with sounds, textures, vibrations, smells, and temperature, along with the media you already know so well—text, color, and light. You will design environments and interactions that are immersive. You will once again create things that do more than match eyeballs with ads. I promise...
How Should We Contain the Cloud?
What is a book, really? For that matter, what is an article, a record, or a movie? For each of these, I have a very clear picture in my mind that says more about when I came of age than about the content itself. When I think of books, my mind retrieves an image of my grandparents' bookshelves, which I used to browse after school as a child. Records? I see the CD stacks of my teenage years, collected from local music shops and trading with friends. And somehow, thinking about movies still produces images of VHS tapes and memories of frustratedly fixing the tracking on my VCR. No doubt, future generations will have very different associations...
Why You Should Optimize Your Site for Retina Displays
You may have heard of Apple's Retina display, featured in several of their most recent products such as the iPhone 5 (and 4s), 3rd generation iPad and the latest MacBook Pro laptops. And you may be thinking, "Yeah, that's great. But I don't even use a Mac so what does this have to do with me?" Glad you asked. Retina, Apple's branded term for high density displays, will become the norm within a few years and those of us who develop for the web would be wise to address this change now rather than play catch-up later.
The Folly of the Flock
Sometimes I'll just stare at a website for minutes on end, trying to figure out why it's so confusing. You know websites like this; you probably look at them every day and identify plenty of ways that they could have been better designed than they are. So, why weren't they?
Finding Things, and Making Things Findable
SEO is the first step to making things easy to find on your site. Organize your information architecture well, and your site's navigation can be as useful as the content.
The Mobile Book
Our friends at Smashing Magazine have a new book coming your way! I got my hands on an advanced copy, which I devoured this week. Here's my review...
Learning From Dinosaurs: Content Lessons from the World of Print
Content and the Buying Cycle
Here at Newfangled, we've been talking about the importance of web personas to the success of conversion-driven marketing websites for a long time. But it's no secret that many businesses lack the time or expertise needed to craft solidly researched and tested personas. At the same time, even the most detailed personas are lacking until they're placed in the context of the buying cycle. The good news? The buying cycle itself can be a source of meaningful personas. This month, Chris Butler looks at the four stages of the buying cycle and explains how they correspond with personas that everyone doing marketing on the web can benefit from...