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AUG

Yes, another in the long list of sites to redesign this year (I can't really complain, as I'm re-doing mine too), number10.gov.uk, the website of the prime minister's office has taken on the whole web 2.0 thing.

It's got Flickr, YouTube and Twitter all in the sidebar, plus links to submit stories to Facebook, Digg, etc andof course, RSS feeds.. just in case you want to keep up to date on everything Downing Street it twittering.

Seems like it's built on top of WordPress (based on the code), despite the fact there's no mention of it anywhere. They've already got some rather interesting code cock-ups. Nested anonymous <div>'s for absolutely no reason, links pointing to local IP addresses (e.g. the "Home" link, which points to http://10.10.0.215/), not to mention the fact they're not clearing floats on the "Communicate" page, so the images are pushed off to the left.

There's a grand total of 72 errors if you try and validate the XHTML. Nice :) Although to be fair, most of those are because of using & instead of &. At least the CSS is valid, although they didn't write it, it's a pre-made WordPress theme called NetWorker.

Also, no print stylesheet. C'mon people!!! All websites should have a print stylesheet. Trying to print their website is painful, and is going to waste a hell of a lot of paper, along with lots of ink. Is that really the environmental message they want to give out?

It's even in "Beta", a true web 2.0 site! Which would explain the above issues, can't expect everything to be perfect first time.

It does look very good though, and is definitely an improvement on the old site. Nice to see they're actually making an effort!

Tags : design, web

JUL

Last.fm Redesign

@12:46 Leave a comment

Read the last.fm blog post.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the new look. Maybe it'll grow on me, but for now it just gives off a MySpace kind of vibe (and I *hate* MySpace with a passion). While I don't mind change, as I think it's nice to change things around once in a while to not make it stale and boring, they've changed a *lot* of things, and I'm having trouble finding where everything is. But obviously, that'll change the more I use it, so it'll probably grow on me after a while...

My main gripe at the moment is the width. The old style was variable width, which looked really good on my widescreen monitor. Now I just have loads of whitespace, which seems like a waste.

I do like the new design for the recommendations area though.

What's with the microfont for the login box? I don't understand this fascination websites currently have with using really small fonts. I have a big screen and pretty good eye sight, so it doesn't really matter for me, but I'm sure it's a pain in the arse for others. I've always thought it was good design practice to not make fonts really small? Maybe that's just me.

Also, the banner image looks like it was made in MS Paint. Just sayin'.

This appears to be the replacement to the "Dashboard" that was on the old version. Recommendations are a tab click away, which is irritating because they were just on the page on the old version. They've added an extra click into my life! *shakes fist*. The recommendations page itself though has quite a bit of an overhaul and is much easier to navigate. It's also got a lot more recommendations on display, I shall certainly be using this page the most.

Why is everyone making "ID Card" style profile pages all of a sudden? The "bio" information is now way over on the right, away from my profile pic and info, it's just separating information that should be together. A very odd decision in my opinion. I also now need to scroll right to the bottom to see the "shouts", Facebook wall style. They've changed the focus of the page to be the big userpic and info about me at the top, but it's a music site, so I'd expect the focus to be my recent tracks and music tastes, which are now under it all. Still though, the recent tracks are above the fold, so I guess I shouldn't moan.

Tags : design, web, music

NOV

CSS Animation

@13:21 Leave a comment

Safari have announced a new CSS feature, animation specified in CSS. Giving the designer the ability to code transitions such as fading out, and rotating elements on the page. All gracefully degrading for browsers which don't support it (which I imagine will be most).

While it's interesting, I'm rather worried that we'll be going back to the days of the "blink" and "marquee" HTML tags (*shudder*), where it'll just pop up on every site and we'll be overloaded with fading panels and ads which spin into view.

According to the article, they're planning on proposing these changes to be included in the CSS spec. As yet, I am undecided if this is a good thing or not. On the one hand, it's nice to see some expansion on CSS, but on the other hand... rotation effects?!..

I guess I'll just wait and see how this one turns out.

Tags : CSS, Design

JUN

12 Lessons for Those Afraid of CSS and Standards

@6:26 Leave a comment

There's a great article over at A List Apart called "12 Lessons for Those Afraid of CSS and Standards".

If you've been designing sites for years but haven't gotten around to taking a look at CSS, then this is the article for you. It's pretty interesting to read even if you have been using CSS for a while though too.

Notes > design

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Number 10 goes Web 2.0

@4:02 Leave a comment