Springbox, a local web marketing agency with a downtown office on Congress avenue, recently hosted a meeting of the Austin Flash meetup group. Tom Hudson, a member of the meetup group and the Rich Media Manager at Springbox, helped arrange this get-together which turned out to be one of the most attended meetings of this group. The combination of getting to come inside and look around the office of this successful small company, the promise of topical and insightful presentations, and of course free pizza was likely the motivation for the 60-odd people to pack the smallish meeting room facing the historical Paramount theater. The first lecture was presented by Tom Hudson and focused on the misconceptions surrounding HTML5 and how it relates to Flash. The second presentation was given by Steve Shipman, exploring his work in face recognition software written in Action Script 3.
Here are my notes on Tom Hudson's presentation:
There are many misconceptions about what exactly HTML5 is. HTML5 is not a replacement for Flash, and should not be seen as being in direct competition. HTML5 will remain a markup language and will not be able to do animation by itself. That will still require JavaScript.
HTML5 video still has a long way to go. There is a demonstration of HTML5 video on the site for Jilion. The W3C has restricted HTML5 video so that there can be no visible button that will cause the video to go truly full-screen. The largest a video can be made by button is the size of the browser. Also, there has not been a decision finalized on which codec will be adopted for the video files.
This blog entry by YouTube explains why Flash video still has a long life.
FindmebyIP - a comparison of adoption of CSS3 and HTML5 features.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Paddington Notes
I was just about to start posting the nitty-gritty details of meetings I've had at Paddington Media. But it occurred to me that this would probably be a gross violation of the NDA I signed with them. They are an excellent source of austin web design.
Meeting with Dave Correa
The meeting was to discuss the portfolio challenge. It's been several weeks now since this meeting, but I only just recently decided to start recording notes from my notebook onto this blog.
- example site: Jerry Orta's Portfolio
- Jerry was apparently an instructor or faculty in the ACC Viscom department.
- Dave emailed the class syllabus to all of us. This should include judgment criteria.
- He will also send links to more example websites.
- He suggested we meet as a group to support each other and stay on track.
- The look needs to be more neutral - remove the visual theme/analogy
- The thumbnails are somewhat confusing - need to be more straightforward
- All of the website pieces need to be linked to a posted HTML version
- Each page should have a small form asking for feedback directly from that page
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Portfolio Challenge
With the goal of finishing my AAS this semester, I enrolled in a class on portfolio building.
Completing this class is, of course, required in order to finish this degree. What no one told me was that this class is typically only offered in the spring semester. I've gone for advising every time I was about to sign up for classes, and not once did someone say, "oh hey, your plan for trying to graduate in the fall has one tiny flaw: you can't." No, it didn't really come up until I was trying to sign up for classes for the fall.
I wasn't alone in this however; several other students were aiming to do the same thing. I guess enough of us spoke to our advisers that administration decided to list the class in the course schedule. Of course, the class actually becoming reality was contingent on enough students signing up for the class. It seems silly to me that a capstone class (one of the classes you take your very last semester) should require a minimum number of students to save it from being canceled. How many students graduate from these programs each semester anyway? It couldn't be very many. The department is small, the program is a subset of that, and then the number of students who actually make it through is an even smaller subset. It doesn't come as a surprise to me that there were only five of us that wanted this class.
Unfortunately, 5 wasn't a large enough group to warrant a class. I heard that the class had been canceled from a classmate in the summer who was one of the 5 that needed to finish by December. She told me the news, but she said that right after she found out she had a conversation with Dave Correa, the instructor who had been slated to oversee the portfolio building. The instructor had told her that she might attempt to "test out" of the class.
Testing out of the portfolio class is a bizarre idea considering there couldn't be any sort of test administered for the subject matter. It's also very unusual because this is one of the courses you take to prepare you for entering the workforce. But once I heard the idea, it made perfect sense. I've already got a portfolio made. I imagine many of the students in this field do to, since subject matter we are learning about is, primarily, how to present information on the world wide web. Why wouldn't we all already have websites that present the work we've done? All we have to do is show that we know what we're doing, get credit for it, and then we can be on our merry way.
So my classmate said this was definitely what she was planning on doing and that I should contact the Dave Correa and make the indication that I wanted to challenge the course as well. The story from here on out is a bit bland and heavily involves the mechanics of academic administration. In short, I've met with the dave and I am now currently working, independently, on revising my portfolio to meet the challenge deadline in early December. Wish me luck!
Completing this class is, of course, required in order to finish this degree. What no one told me was that this class is typically only offered in the spring semester. I've gone for advising every time I was about to sign up for classes, and not once did someone say, "oh hey, your plan for trying to graduate in the fall has one tiny flaw: you can't." No, it didn't really come up until I was trying to sign up for classes for the fall.
I wasn't alone in this however; several other students were aiming to do the same thing. I guess enough of us spoke to our advisers that administration decided to list the class in the course schedule. Of course, the class actually becoming reality was contingent on enough students signing up for the class. It seems silly to me that a capstone class (one of the classes you take your very last semester) should require a minimum number of students to save it from being canceled. How many students graduate from these programs each semester anyway? It couldn't be very many. The department is small, the program is a subset of that, and then the number of students who actually make it through is an even smaller subset. It doesn't come as a surprise to me that there were only five of us that wanted this class.
Unfortunately, 5 wasn't a large enough group to warrant a class. I heard that the class had been canceled from a classmate in the summer who was one of the 5 that needed to finish by December. She told me the news, but she said that right after she found out she had a conversation with Dave Correa, the instructor who had been slated to oversee the portfolio building. The instructor had told her that she might attempt to "test out" of the class.
Testing out of the portfolio class is a bizarre idea considering there couldn't be any sort of test administered for the subject matter. It's also very unusual because this is one of the courses you take to prepare you for entering the workforce. But once I heard the idea, it made perfect sense. I've already got a portfolio made. I imagine many of the students in this field do to, since subject matter we are learning about is, primarily, how to present information on the world wide web. Why wouldn't we all already have websites that present the work we've done? All we have to do is show that we know what we're doing, get credit for it, and then we can be on our merry way.
So my classmate said this was definitely what she was planning on doing and that I should contact the Dave Correa and make the indication that I wanted to challenge the course as well. The story from here on out is a bit bland and heavily involves the mechanics of academic administration. In short, I've met with the dave and I am now currently working, independently, on revising my portfolio to meet the challenge deadline in early December. Wish me luck!
Notebook Digest - Part 1
So for this blog entry I will digest some of the things I have jotted down in my notebook. I hardly ever review the notes I take, which renders the notebook pretty much useless. But if I take the time to not only review my notes, but to rephrase them and type them out, then I get much more out of them.
The homepage should answer the question, "what's going on here?" to someone who has no knowledge about your organization or what you do. It should be clear who made the site and why it was made. And most importantly, it should be crystal clear how the website can benefit the user: it should answer the question, "how can I use this site for myself?"
One simple way to answer these questions in a personal, easily digestible fashion is to explain all of this in an introductory video. People like the simplicity of having things explained to them in a video.
If you specialize, then you can gain a higher position in that area. If you do not master any one specific skill, then you are destined to perform low level tasks, which results in a lower wage.
Obviously there is more to it than this, but this is what I have down in my notes.
The client has come to you because they cannot perform the job themselves that they want you to do. Because of this they do not have a clear understanding of what they actually need in the way of a final product or service. They know what their wants are; increased sales, higher profile, etc. But they are not in a position to understand exactly what needs to be built in order to accomplish their goals. They may, in fact, have some wrong-headed ideas about what kind of product or service you should create in order for them to meet their wants. They may, for instance, want a flaming logo because their more successful competitor has a flaming logo. They may be missing the point that it is actually their competitor's amazing customer service that is actually the missing ingredient.
Also, because the client is unskilled in your profession and they have come to you for help, it is in everyone's best interest that you make all the executive decisions on which direction the project should go yourself. For example, do not present the client with more than one comp and ask them to decide which one is best. The client is not prepared to make decisions on design; they have come to you for that very reason. Also, as per Murphy's Law, the client will always pick the weakest solution. Instead, present single facets of the project and get the client to sign off on those smaller bite-sized portions. As the project moves forward and the client then wants to alter something, you will have a signed agreement to fall back on. Make sure though, that you get decisions signed-off on by the individual who has the final say. It is a sticky situation when you believe you are heading down the right path only to have the later stages rejected by the person who is actually in charge.
Some thoughts I had about Homepage design:
The homepage should answer the question, "what's going on here?" to someone who has no knowledge about your organization or what you do. It should be clear who made the site and why it was made. And most importantly, it should be crystal clear how the website can benefit the user: it should answer the question, "how can I use this site for myself?"
One simple way to answer these questions in a personal, easily digestible fashion is to explain all of this in an introductory video. People like the simplicity of having things explained to them in a video.
Class notes - Project Analysis and Design - first meeting:
If you specialize, then you can gain a higher position in that area. If you do not master any one specific skill, then you are destined to perform low level tasks, which results in a lower wage.
For further reading:
- Seth Godin "The Purple Cow"
- Chris Anderson "Free"
- Chris Anderson "The Long Tail"
- Wired article "The Web is Dead"
Steps in the project life-cycle:
- Discovery - finding out what the client wants
- Requirements - ironing out what the client needs
- Flow charting - diagramming how the product will work
- Wireframes - illustrating the layout of each page
- Comps - creating the graphic design elements
Obviously there is more to it than this, but this is what I have down in my notes.
Meeting with the client:
The client has come to you because they cannot perform the job themselves that they want you to do. Because of this they do not have a clear understanding of what they actually need in the way of a final product or service. They know what their wants are; increased sales, higher profile, etc. But they are not in a position to understand exactly what needs to be built in order to accomplish their goals. They may, in fact, have some wrong-headed ideas about what kind of product or service you should create in order for them to meet their wants. They may, for instance, want a flaming logo because their more successful competitor has a flaming logo. They may be missing the point that it is actually their competitor's amazing customer service that is actually the missing ingredient.
Also, because the client is unskilled in your profession and they have come to you for help, it is in everyone's best interest that you make all the executive decisions on which direction the project should go yourself. For example, do not present the client with more than one comp and ask them to decide which one is best. The client is not prepared to make decisions on design; they have come to you for that very reason. Also, as per Murphy's Law, the client will always pick the weakest solution. Instead, present single facets of the project and get the client to sign off on those smaller bite-sized portions. As the project moves forward and the client then wants to alter something, you will have a signed agreement to fall back on. Make sure though, that you get decisions signed-off on by the individual who has the final say. It is a sticky situation when you believe you are heading down the right path only to have the later stages rejected by the person who is actually in charge.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Blogging about blogging (AKA meta-blogging)
I'm horrible at blogging.
I have no ambition to become a writer. I don't really feel like my ideas are worth publishing. I've never had any interest in becoming a journalist. My list of reasons for not blogging goes on for quite a while and often results in orphaned blogs.
But the time has come to overcome whatever obstacles are keeping me from blogging. For one thing, I am being asked to contribute to the company blogs where I am interning doing web design. Which is not surprising since it has become an integral part of the web design industry. Offering new and interesting content on a regular basis is one of the main ways to improve page rank because your users then have useful information to link to and new content causes the search engines to index your site regularly. Being a burgeoning web professional, it behooves me to blog for these very reasons. My portfolio wont bring in much traffic on its own just on name recognition. I need to have content that is going to appeal to a wider audience, and it also serves to give the impression that I know what the hell I'm talking about.
Along with it just being good business, I also have a few interesting concepts for blogs that I want to act on. Being a sci-fi geek and also interested in user experience, I had this idea for a blog that reviews interface design from science fiction films, games, anime, etc. This is a concept that I think will do fairly well; I can't be the only one geeking out on this stuff. Another idea I have is to do a 'classic' blog where I just list the sites that I've been to recently. This is how blogging got its start, and serves the fairly useful function of updating readers in new web trends and also is very beneficial for increasing back-links for the sites featured. My most 'journalistic' concept for a blog came to me at a recent networking event for Flash developers here in Austin. The meeting was hosted by a local web design agency. I've been to a few of these mixers recently and have started to see the same people. It occurred to me that someone should start a journal about the web design industry here in Austin outlining who the main players are, what events are happening, new developments in the industry, etc. Not only that, it should be me! It would not only give me the motivation to attend more of these networking events, it would make many connections, online and off.
So I need to figure out how to blog.
One of the things I've discovered pretty quickly is that each blog entry needs to have a message. This seems obvious, but often when I want to blog, it is motivated more by the urge to sit down and write instead of the urge to communicate a particular message. I realize that I need to write something to keep the blog going, but when I open the browser, crack my knuckles and stare at the white space I find that I have nothing new or noteworthy to share. So I close my browser and move on to something else. On Boagworld there are several posts on blogging (more blogging tips), which are all wonderful. I just haven't implemented them yet. My wife, Kim, works for a promotional products website doing the web marketing. She says that she gets ideas mostly just by picking a particular product from the site and writing all she can about it. She also keeps an eye on the upcoming holidays because often times purchasing of promotional products is motivated by holidays.
I'm guessing the only real solution to my problem is practice.
Friday, September 3, 2010
A bunch of rambling
So I want to blog, lord knows I need to do it more, but I just don't know what to write, or where to put it. I was thinking, okay, I'll blog on my Iconkraft site, but, I want to keep that just news in web technologies and design. Then I was thinking, "okay I could write in Fooey..." That's my blog where I analyze the interfaces used in science fiction movies and animation. Or at least it would be if I ever posted to it. I hit the button for new post and then stared at the blank space for awhile realizing that I don't have a movie that I want to write about. That's it! I just don't have any news that I want to let the world know about. I mean everything I have to say, everything that I've been concerned with lately. has been personal issues. So I decided eventually that I should just go back to this blog and write a personal entry. Why is it that we like to talk about ourselves? It seems to be a natural tendency. I remember reading an article in Layers magazine about twitter and social media. The author repeatedly made the point that no one wants to hear about what you had for lunch. So naturally, I try to fight the urge to blog about my personal BS and just blog about news items that everyone would be interested in. Unfortunately that leads to the inevitability of me abandoning the blog. the problem is that when I hear about things that are news worthy, I never remember to blog about them.
So! I'm going to stop blogging about blogging!
Here's what's going on in my world: I started an internship at Paddington Media recently, I interviewed today with T-3, my car is almost repaired, I started Fall semester (which should be my last), I tracked down where my check is for the WIC class last semester, I'm challenging Portfolio class, etc.
Bleh, so, okay. I wrote an post. Hopefully with practice and tenacity I might get better at this (I hope so since my supervisor at Paddington wants me to blog for them.)
So! I'm going to stop blogging about blogging!
Here's what's going on in my world: I started an internship at Paddington Media recently, I interviewed today with T-3, my car is almost repaired, I started Fall semester (which should be my last), I tracked down where my check is for the WIC class last semester, I'm challenging Portfolio class, etc.
Bleh, so, okay. I wrote an post. Hopefully with practice and tenacity I might get better at this (I hope so since my supervisor at Paddington wants me to blog for them.)
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