#webmonkey

If you’d like to see the very first webpage Tim Berners-Lee and the WWW team ever put online, point your browser to http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.

The first Firefox OS-powered mobile devices, manufactured by the Spanish company Geeksphone, went on sale today. Unfortunately for anyone hoping to get their hands on some hardware explicitly designed for Firefox OS, the phones have apparently already sold out.

Scott Gilbertson offers helpful instructions in a recent article for Webmonkey, on new services browsers to configure browsing through mobile-optimizing proxies. A gem: 

Google and Opera are doing what web developers ought to be doing but aren’t. Just like developers should have been making reader-friendly pages, but weren’t, so “reader” modes were born.

It's a problem that we tend to bloat our software along with the advancing capabilities of the hardware on which it's used. It's an interesting aspect of our physiology and psychology.

We "see" through a composite picture built of series of quick eye movements, because most of our color vision capability is located in a small, central part of the retina. Further biology of the eye makes us really good at seeing changes in contrast, much more than differences in color. This leads our model for perception to be based around identifying and noticing changes in shapes within our mental map of the world. 

I'll take the leap, then, and suggest that the process of constantly adjusting our perception of edges and contrast in that mental image, translates to a broader approach to higher-order mental constructs. We normalize our expectations of an object so that we might notice small changes with more acuity.

4-wheel drive was a major safety feature when drivers treat 4WD cars like 2WD cars. When they normalize their perception, however, and drive 4WD cars to the limit of their capabilities (as happens often in 2WD), the driver negates the safety afforded to them. There are many further examples; take it as homework to find one or two in your daily life. 

Anyways... if I continue down this obviously infallible road, by treating the world with such a constant re-normalizing process, we end up building toward a moving target. It allows us to make significant strides, definitely. But it also leads to bloat, in our languages, designs and expectations of the abilities of the end host. Especially with the trend toward running websites like applications in the browser, sending 10's of megabytes to sit on local storage and eat up memory. 

If I may suggest, let's please take a step back now and again, and determine if we really need to send the kitchen sink to the client, too. 

I'll leave you with something to chew on:

Let’s talk interior design features FOR YOUR BLOG!!  Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have type-shouted that, but I’m really excited about this particular ‘episode’ of Blog Builders!  I’m excited because (I’m hyper) this is probably the one area that I’m the most passionate (hyper) about when it comes to putting a blog together (no, seriously, I’m hyper).

Earlier in the series, I referred to a blog as a “home”.  Your blog truly is your home.  It’s the one place on the entire web where you can be completely yourself in almost any type of media imaginable.  Isn't technology great (when it’s not thinking for itself)?!

Before we jump in and discuss this, I want to take a moment and say (for any new bloggers) that it is OKAY to go ahead and make posts while you’re building your blog.  If you feel a little uncomfortable about it at first, let your readers know your place is under construction.  I’m sure they’ll understand.

Now… your interior design, your ID.  It needs to:

Have an air of “you-ness”.  Matter of fact, just take your name and add ‘-ness’ to the end of it, and that’s what you need.  What makes you who you are?

The colors need to go together to some extent.  I personally believe that the louder a page’s colors are, the less interest readers show in the actual subject matter.  I love you, but no one wants the “MY EYES!!!” effect.

Don’t shy away from color just because of the last bullet.  I promise.  Color is your friend and crayons are not food.

Don’t make things too busy.  Sometimes it can be easy to become overwhelmed in all of the wonderful things that make up whoever you are.  Imagine your readers are taking you on a date.  You don’t want to “take it all off”.  Leave something of a mystery for them to discover.

HAVE FUN!

Okay, after all of those bulleted tips, I’m sure you’re eyes are spinning and you’re praying for more guidance than this, right?  Okay. 

Don’t panic!!  

When deciding on color and design choices, I go through a series of steps (I apparently LOVE LISTS):

Imagine that you've moved into a studio apartment and are ready to decorate.  Take a moment and visualize how you want the blog to look – don’t get too attached, though.  Just keep this visualization as a place to return to for more inspiration later on.

Now, when you visualized, was there a place or a “scene” you can picture which may have inspired the colors in your blog?  Perhaps the beach, or maybe the mountains.  Maybe yours is an indoor scene – a café, or Parisian jewelry shop – ooh, maybe even an Italian bakery (I’M HUNGRY)!  Pick a scene; any scene.  Focus on it.

Pull colors from your scene.  Maybe your favorite color is in there somewhere.  Pick 4-6 colors to put into your blog.  If you need to get more 'hands-on' with this, visit your local paint store and look through a few color swatches.  Another way is to do a search for HTML color codes.  I like using Webmonkey for these codes.  Not only does this make using the codes simpler in the design process, but it insures you get the exact color chosen as opposed to something slightly off.

Now it's time to put it all together!

Pick what colors will be what.  You have background, text, title, navigation, links, link hovers...

Dark colors - Be very careful.  Too much dark can look "loud".  "MY EYES!!"

Light colors - Use freely, but don't let it conflict too harshly with other parts.  You wouldn't want forest green background with electric blue text or vice-versa.

Problematic colorations - When you have colors you really LOVE but they're not working, consider finding a shade or two lighter / darker to make it work.

Embellishment - don't be afraid to use color in any embellishments you may have, but don't be too liberal with them.  I particularly encourage people to create their own headers and logos.