Mobile first with a twist

Frankly between the two of us, while I do see the merits in designing a mobile website first — in terms of a website’s information architecture as well as the aesthetic appeal, especially for the sake of its usability and appearance on a small screen — I’m not sold yet on whether a mobile site has to be designed first. That said, it does need to be designed at the same time. Semantics, eh? I’m hilarious, I know. But thanks for thinking it.

So what’s this “mobile first with a twist” schtick? Basically it’s a bunch of borrowed idea’s from Ethan Marcotte’s amazing little book, Responsive Web Design, Luke Wroblewski’s “equally” little book, Mobile First, (by the way, me calling each author’s book “little” isn’t a slight in the least, both book’s strength lie in their size, and that’s the point) and something I’m sure Harry Roberts wrote a little while ago but I can’t relocate now. About designing for less capable browsers first then adding on top of that base for more capable browsers — or specifically how such an approach plays with Internet Explorer 8 and below.

Anyway the “mobile first with a twist” approach is quite simply a matter of designing a website for mobile, meaning for small screens (not just visually but functionally too), then tweak it larger, with the least amount of effort and the most basic — yet responsive — CSS possible. This as your starting point. A base from which to build. The thinking is this is what a visitor will see and use who is using a less capable web browser. Read “Mobile first with a twist” in its entirety

Sometimes it serves “us” to be selfish

It’s been a somewhat surreal year! Both for me and the planet, more broadly. Whether it was my getting involved with the IDRC or the global reawakening concerning exclusion/ inequality and the subsequent Occupation Movements. 2011 was a rager! Exciting, indeed. But for the sake of this post and it’s home on this blog I’ll concentrate on the former.

I was recently involved in a conversation with a colleague about my computer accessibility. The conversation didn’t start that way, focused on me I mean, but it ended on me. I don’t recall exactly how the conversation started, or more specifically how I was able to shift the focus on to me, but immediately following said discussion I found myself writing that colleague an email clarifying what I’d said. That email serves as the basis for this post. Read “Sometimes it serves “us” to be selfish” in its entirety

Links: fixing what ain’t broken

I started my initial “webucation” simply by learning virtually the only consistent (meaning “sure-footed”) language on the web, at the time. Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML). As I wrote here previously, just over a month ago in fact (where is the time going?), CSS resets and the manner for which I have and do rely on them have undergone quite the shake up. And as sort of an addendum to said post, not for any other reason than consistency, I’ve reinstated the FSS reset, well half of it anyway, back into FSSFive. But another approach of mine that has experienced quite a realignment is what had to be my very first lesson on HTML. Links. But more specifically how links look in a webpage.

It was 1997. Arguably during the early days of the web. At least with respect nearly everything web related was in flux. Everything still needed to be figured out and settled upon (well as much as anything on the web can be or actually is “settled”). And when I started to learn HTML it was in the dying days of version 3, just prior to the “ratification” of the new specification — version 4 — that saw use for a good 12 years. Version 4 came out in very early ’98, if I remember correctly, and 5 still hasn’t, and won’t for years, reached final draft status. But portions of the web are currently, and have been for a bit, moving to the next “iteration” of HTML, version 5.

As an aside, there is plenty of “in between” stuff I’m failing to mention in the years from 1998 to 2010, XHTML 1 & 2 being the most significant occurrences. That is on purpose. Honestly by the time I graduated College, in the winter of 2001, I had Photoshop on the brain. Bad. It wasn’t until 2005 when I got back onto web design. Previous too ’05 I was “listening” to what was happening but not with enough interest to accurately recall most of it. And not too much before ’08 I was entirely consumed with re-learning how to do develop on the web, again. Read “Links: fixing what ain’t broken” in its entirety

CSS resets rediscovered

It was back in January of this year that the idea for FSSFive — a WordPress theme built on/with Fluid Skinning System (FSS) as a foundation to allow components of Fluid’s Infusion to make the most popular blogging platform on the internet (more) accessible — was born. Or that was the goal. The jury is still out on my effort, which isn’t by any means complete. It was then attitudes concerning deeply engrained personal habits started to be scrutinized. Namely the use of Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) browser resets in my design process.

Essentially all CSS browser resets are, is a bunch of lines of computer code usually inserted at the beginning of the file that handles a webpage’s (or more commonly a website’s) presentation information. And it’s these rules, if you will, that serve to put different web browsers at an equalled point where a designer can start designing from. Because every web browser handles their default inheritance, sizing and spacing issues a bit differently. And it’s this useful technique that puts everything “back” in it’s place. In a consistent manner. Across web browsers.

But as I started to develop FSSFive my thinking began to change. For years I become quite comfortable, meaning I no longer thought at any length about this issue, and used the popular Meyer Reset. Which isn’t a bad thing (this isn’t a criticism of Eric’s “tool,” in fact it is praise, it served me remarkably well for over 5 years!). I just threw it in at the start of any project, as a first step, and “designed” from there without a second thought. Read “CSS resets rediscovered” in its entirety

Not that long ago…

… In a hospital room not all that far away, a young man laying excruciatingly still in a bed, awaited his shot at communicating with anyone outside the confines of his battered skull (being All Hallows Eve I couldn’t resist)…

But unlike most nightmarish Hallowe’en tales, I’m delighted to tell you (especially since that kid in that hospital bed was me), this one ended much better than it started out. Actually by January 1997, the time this story began, I was able to move my head slightly to the right by that point. And I could communicate. Again, through the blinking of my eyes. Once signifying yes. Twice for no.

Given this, in addition to my primary means of communication, being my blinking eyes, I was also using a translucent, textured plastic cutting board with black hand scribed letters (and numbers) on it as secondary communication aid. It was these characters, arranged vertically, in I’m guessing 5 or 6 columns — the letters were in order, from A to Z, A to E in the first column, F to J in the adjacent column, and so on, and the numbers from 0 to 9, if I’m not mistaken, resided in a single column on the far right of the board. So armed with that set up any person wishing to converse with me, and that conversation required more than a quick “yes” or “no” response from the likes of me, said individual would hold this “communication board” by it’s handle with one hand, and with the other hand, while pointing, skimmed (from right to left left to right) along the top of the board, and pausing on each of the columns for a brief moment. Read “Not that long ago…” in its entirety

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