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This episode discusses 4 things you must do well in order to get more clients, better clients, and better projects.

QuickRibbon is an online tool that allows users to plug in a few choices and get a nifty ribbon banner that can be displayed on websites to announce something special. No fiddling with code and images, this online tool does almost all the work for you. All you have to do is type in what text you want to appear on your ribbon, and its color. Next, choose a ribbon style and colors and enter a link to the ribbon for when it's clicked. QuickRibbon then spits out a JavaScript code that can be easily placed in the body of html docs.

Há uns dois anos publiquei uma coluna no site AcontecendoAqui sobre designers e micreiros. É uma das que eu mais gosto e está no meu próximo livro "O design do designer" (nas livrarias em dezembro). Veja se você concorda comigo (ou não, como diria Caetano).

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Telaio di una mountain bike e motore da 85 CC

Two friends of mine have a lovely shop in Dorchester called 'On the Table' which sells the most gorgeous, contemporary kitchenware, tableware and furnishings and a range of yummy foods too. It is always my first port of call when I need to buy a gift. Today, I bought some beautiful glasses for a 30th wedding anniversary gift (I'm off to a party on the 8th) and as usual, I couldn't resist buying myself a little something too and I also saw this wrapping paper. It's by Emma Bridgewater who makes really funky, fun kitchen and tableware. It has the spots on one side and the stripes on the other. I couldn't decide which pattern to use on the outside of the book and so I made two :-)

So if you were to buy these books, you could also have the matching mug, teapot, bowls, plates, cake tin, biscuit barrel, oven gloves etc etc.....

You could also buy this tea towel while you are at it...

The other news of the day is that my ex has turned into a rock star! His album, called 'Songs for Sale' by GTA, is now available for download on iTunes, which is very exciting!

My bit of glory came a couple of days ago when I was 'Blog of the Day' over at 'Fuel my Blog' You will have noticed that I now have a little widget-ty thing in my sidebar and every time someone clicks it, it is recorded as a vote over on the Fuel My Blog website. Well, I was for a day or so, top Art/Design blog and then I was 'Blog of the Day' and was sent this little badge to display...

Well, that's my 15 minutes of fame :-)

three illustrations for the new issue of bon, two for the beauty pages, the women's perfume trend is the one i like most. another for men's beauty, plant based products and for the fashion page an illustration for article about retro inspired design.

...mais en avant-première pour vous, rien que pour vous, juste avant de partir en prise de vues.

c'est petit, mais ça en dit beaucoup !

Part 1 - People have their own understanding of navigational structures

I ran an informal usability test on a client's website about a month ago and although I can't show you the exact findings, I can share with you some insights that I gained from the test.*

I'm not sure how other local ad agencies approach website revamps, but since we're a web-based agency, I decided to do things properly. By-the-book. I wanted to present a solid case for an interface redesign that was based on actual research, on user-centered design, instead of just submitting a flashy new Home page design and a sitemap.

So, I decided to conduct a usability test because it would present the facts in the best possible way; with real results and real feedback from real people.

Concerning navigation, I found that people have their own understanding of navigational structures.

The website that I tested had two horizontal navigation bars on its Home page, with the masthead sort of sandwiched in-between. When you visited an inside page, let's say a product page, a third vertical navigation bar was added to the right side of the page, representing a sub-menu that you could click on to explore more content within that product category.

Sounds a little confusing, right?

Well, most of the participants thought so, too.

3 out of 5 people found the site's split navigation to be confusing.

One participant cited that it had “2 columns for me to click. That confuses me on the things that I want to find, whether it is on column 1 or 2”. Another participant was unsure of what the labels on the navigation bars meant; he only understood after he clicked and reviewed the each link. Yet another said that there were "too many links" and that it looked like "a bank's website”.

I think that each website that you visit has its own learning curve and I observed that people dealt with this based on their own level of experience. Some were quick to grasp the site's navigation; they understood the navigational deficiencies and searched for content based on where they felt it should be.

This reminded me of how important it is to have an iterative approach to building navigation; the more you let people test your navigation structures, the closer you'll get to creating sites that people can browse through intuitively.

Otherwise, everyone just needs to learn the Internet.

Next Post - People notice your mistakes!

*Direct quotes from test participants are shown in italics.

My friend Terry and I went to an exhibition celebrating ten decades of Edinburgh Art College at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh on Wednesday. The show features works from some of the colleges best known alumni including Bellany, Byrne, Inness, Blackadder and Peploe to name but a few.

But it this piece of haunting animation (actually it's really puppetry) by a young American/Italian, Josef Feltus and his brother that stole the show for me.

The Simpsons it aint but stick with it. It is beautiful and won the Jim Poole award, amongst many others, last year.

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