An Information Architecture, Web Design and Games Blog
In April, Pingdom released information on their web monitoring survey of 10.000 well-known websites to discover who was using Google Analytics. The results – about half of the websites tested used Google Analytics, and 40% of those were still using the legacy tracking code urchin.js.
Just over a year ago, Google stopped supporting urchin in favour of their own ga.js tracking code, recommending everyone to switch over to the new tracking code…
Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox has reached beta. Mozilla’s answer to the browser wars on mobile devices is here to provide its standards-based open-source browser engine, optimized for mobile, that can be embedded by device manufacturers and others, and is going to be a full-featured mobile browser including support for XUL-based add-ons, delivering on Firefox’s key principles of ease-of-use, security and accessibility, and help developers debug and deploy web applications for the mobile market.
Read on after the break what has changed in beta 1, screenshots and how you can get hold of it…
The never-sleeping minds from Mozilla Labs (who just gave us Bespin a few months back) have recently announced the the introduction of Mozilla Personas, light-weight skins allowing users to “dress up” the look of their favourite browser via an addon.
After installing Personas and restarting FireFox you are able to install skins via a new icon through the new Personas menu, enabling you to browse through the most popular skins, latest skins or simply just through all existing categories, and with the click of a button you can preview what your browser will be looking like before applying it with a single click.
Feeling creative and want to know more on creating your own skin? Then read on…
When working freelance, some of the time when you are working on a client’s website or print material you are being given some sort of branding guidelines to adhere to. Some of the time these branding guidelines exist somewhere in a drawer in someone’s desk, but no one knows where. This is even worse when you have to do some maintenance on a client’s website and have to use an existing font, but do not have access to it or the client doesn’t know who supplied the original.
As a designer, it is your job however to make sure you are using the right font, or the closest font possible if that fails. Here are three great websites to help you on your search…
Adobe announced in February this year that its latest version of Flash Lite 3.1 Distributable Player has been released for beta testing.
This new player will enable developers and integrators to create rich, expressive applications targeted to the latest version of Adobe’s Flash technology, with the ability to distribute their apps including the runtime installer to millions of open OS mobile devices with a streamlined workflow and reduced time to market.
For now, the distributable player is only available on Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile devices, but more devices are to follow very soon…
In the beginning of January, Mozilla Labs, the developers behind the beloved web browser FireFox, have announced the release of Bespin, its first initiative for open web development.
Bespin is an open, extensible web-based framework for code-editing with the aim to increase productivity, promote open web standards and egage users and developers on a high level of user experience.
With more and more consumers spending time on the web looking for online bargains (let’s be honest, if I see a game for £27.99 online but £34.99 in shops then I wouldn’t be thinking twice either) instead of shops, companies must ask themselves if their website is not only showing the right prices, but is also usable enough to order items from.
In 2005 there was a huge wave of online shops reworking their ordering processes to make them more usable and accessible to people, which was a sounding success for many companies. These days however more offline stores are trying to expand to the web and are asking for advice. Here are ten ways to improve the usability of your e-commerce site to maximise your conversion rate and help convert ‘browsing your wares’ into ‘placing an order’:
Usability is a serious concern for many websites – what does the customer want when he arrives on your website? Does the user know where to go, what to do and how to ask questions or enquire / purchase?
Knowing the usability heuristics is already a very good start, but how can you make sure your website can be enjoyed by as many people as possible without causing headaches or frustration?