I am a ….. Front-End Architect

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I read Garrett Dimons posts The Time is Now for Front-End Architects, The Latest on Front-End Architecture, Front-End Architecture at Web Visions 2006, Front-End Architecture: Markup is the Technical Foundation, Front-End Architecture: Browsers, Front-End Architecture: AJAX & DOM Scripting and realised that Front-End Architect fills the gap for all of the different titles I have had the last 5 years.

If you tell someone that you work with front-end related issues on the web, people tend to say that they also know HTML and you can see in their eyes that they wonder how it comes you suck so hard not getting a better job after almost 10 years in the business. The front-end is a huge and ever growing area of potential problems and a variety of solutions to these problems.

After the vacations and paternity leave I will step into the big boss room and discuss a smaller title change. Maybe I find this one more suitable to whatever I actually do for a living.

Iterative redesign of major websites

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An interesting article by Jared M. Spool at www.uie.com about how to manage design and structure whenever the web is outdated and needs larger changes in function, architecture, structure and design.

This is an interesting approach when the technical platform do not have to change. It is difficult to take the iterative approach when moving to a new technical environment and maybe even restructured data.

But the big problem with a re-design (iterative or all-in-one) is, and will always be: How do we please the customers we already got, make it more effective for new customers AND make the site easier to work with for people who earns their salaries by working with the site each day. Read the full article at www.uie.com : The Quiet Death of the Major Re-Launch

Jakob Nielsen on Screen Resolution and Page Layout

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In Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox he talks about screen resolution and page layout and he summarizes it as follows:

Optimize Web pages for 1024×768, but use a liquid layout that stretches well for any resolution, from 800×600 to 1280×1024.

This is something I have seen lately as a trend in the design community. Apple and CNET are the two biggest players that have moved to a larger screen resolution for their websites.

Liquid full-page designs however I do not believe will become popular due to the difficult issues that arise with that kind of design for Art Directors and Graphic Designers. But I do believe that relative sizing is the way to go, to achieve a “fluid” design.

jQuery plugin for logging links

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I wrapped my outbound logging functionality for jquery into a simple plugin for jquery. See this as an alpha 0.1 version and feel free to add wishes on how I could extend the plugin. Things I plan to add:

  • Mouse movement tracking during page visit
  • Integration with Google Analytics Script
  • More? Please add wishes on what we could log with client side scripting.

Download logger-plugin (pre-alpha) and see example code

Thickbox 2.0 released featuring gallery functionality

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I use the thickbox plugin frequently in my work and for my private solutions for avoiding popups and avoiding the user leaving an important page (galleries, forms a s o) and I am glad to see that Cody Lindley has released a new version of Thickbox for jquery. It now features a gallery functionality that lets you step between images. Amazing work!

I labeled this as Interaction Design as thickbox implements an important interaction pattern for avoiding loosing users due to linking them out of important interaction processes.

Picasa (Web Albums) on Mac

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Google has released a plugin for iPhoto and a standalone application for mac users so they can upload images to their Picasa Web Albums.

I tried the iPhoto-plugin out yesterday and it is smoothly integrated to the File >> Export menu. I think this is one nice step, they still need to work on the web album part though if they want to compete with flickr.com.

Picasa iPhoto Integration

More information about this can be found at the Google Blog:
Official Google Blog: It’s all about the photos…on a Mac