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Revamping Blog Information Design And Layout August 20, 2006

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Chris Pearson has recently talked about how the information architecture of blogs is lacking because of the reverse chronological view of posts. This tends to limit the experience of visitors, especially if they have come to your site from its web feed subscription. He suggests that bloggers should consider other blog architectures, to present posts in some other manner than just reverse chronological.

One particular suggestion of Chris’ stuck with me, because it reflects what I, as a former print magazine publisher, would like to do with some of my blogs: highlight my best work, not necessarily my most recent …

Abazab - Video Comments Shoutbox July 31, 2006

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Communicating with your friends and your blog visitors appears to be a hot activity. First there were regular text comments. Then there were text shoutboxes, followed by audio mailboxes and video clips. Combine them altogether and you have video-commenting shoutboxes.

Video shoutboxes let you post your own video clips on your blog. Your visitors can sign in to their own (usually free) account and then post their own video clips. In this post, I’ve used the Abazab video comments shoutbox from FestoonInc.

You can see a sample below. There’s a default video and a couple of short ones …

Applying The Principle Of Kaizen To Weblog + Website Design July 24, 2006

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One of the most overwhelming aspects of publishing multiple blogs is coming up with suitable page themes. Sure, there are loads of free theme templates available, but you probably want to customize it to give it your own “brand”. If you have limited time, resources, or skills for improving your current design, consider applying the principle of Kaizen.

Kaizen is a Japanese word for a Chinese concept. Essentially, it translates to “improvement by slow, steady degrees.” Application of this concept is the main reason I don’t worry when friends tell my blog designs are ugly. Yeah, I know the stats …

Branding Your Site With Favicons July 23, 2006

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Looking for a way to brand your website/ weblog without some honking big logo? Try a favicon. Depending on the browser you’re using, if you look up where the URL of this page is displayed, you might see a light green triangular icon with a black spiral. That’s my “favicon” version of my Chameleon Integration Systems‘ logo (seen somewhere on this page.)

The original logo was sketched out by me, then reworked by Bill Dubs, my brother’s biz partner for their award-winning “green” ad agency, Dubs & Dash. The spiral represents the tail of a chameleon, the green simply …

How To Do A Print-Style Callout June 21, 2006

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Callouts are done with a combination with CSS and various elements.

Pick up pretty much any print magazine (remember what those are?) and you’ll probably see two graphic elements in use that are created with text. One is a blockquote, which quotes someone else. The other is a callout, which quotes the article you are reading.

Both elements are used for the same two reasons:

(1) Fill up space to avoid large blank areas on a page.
(2) Break up visual monotony in a long article by adding a touch of graphic element.

Callouts are done with CSS. The first reason isn’t as relevant …

Another Tag Graph Example June 15, 2006

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This is a really short post. I came across another variation on a tag graph at Ohmpage., but it’s called a Content Taxonomy there. Just scroll down to the bottom right of any page on the site. Tag graphs, as you’ll recall, are a variation on tag clouds.

If you view the source code, you’ll see that it’s built up using CSS styles and variable percent widths instead of hard pixel widths. Pretty ingenious. There are a number of ways you could pull it off using CSS and Javascript, but pure CSS makes it simple. Here is an example …

Too Much Information - Busy Blogs June 2, 2006

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Nick over at Performancing made the comment that he’d recently visited a site that had way too much information obscuring what he was really trying to find: a contact email for the author. He explained the features he found that really didn’t interest him.

It made think for a second and I realized that this blog you are reading is a prime example of busy-ness. I’ve used it as a showcase for so many blog features that it’s ended up as a dog’s breakfsat. In fact, while it is a showcase for various features, it’s a prime example of what …

Tag Graphs - An Alternative To Tag Clouds May 26, 2006

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45 Royale, a web design firm,  has a feature in their “notebook” that makes me ask why didn’t I think of that? Instead of a tag cloud, they use something called a tag graph. A little bit of thought, and I realized they’re not hard to create in PHP and a bit of CSS. [This post is a general discussion. I’ll come up with exact code for WordPress in another post.]

The tag graph is near the bottom right of their notebook page. If you do a “view source” on the pag, you can see that two …

Creating Slideshows On Your Website May 24, 2006

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There are numerous ways you can share photos with friends, including the free Flickr service and a variety of toys, any number of open source packages that allow you to post photo galleries on your website or weblog, and so on. One option is a neat little service from Slide.com (found via Emily Khoo).

You upload several photos to create a slide show, save it, and voila, you can share the show. Customizations include special effect transitions, including fading, pushing, sliding, spinning, and a couple of others. You can choose the slideshow size (small, medium, large) and the …

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