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What’s more, perhaps a redesign is on the cards over at the New York Times? After all it’s a pretty tabley, non CSS affair at the moment; but UsableTypegets a dozen or so referrerals a month from the New York Times secure development server, on their ‘HTML + CSS Links’ page.

That’s pretty cool I reckon?

So if a beautiful standards compliant site pops up in the next few months, you’ll know who to thank, right? ;-)

There has been a whole lot of chat regarding the redesign of the Six Apartsite recently.

The work has been noted mainly for two reasons. Firstly because it is a really nice design—well thought out architecture, clean and crisp visuals, and validating mark-up. The second reason is to do with the use of sIFRfor a number of the headers and section titles.

As you may know, I am a great fan of sIFR, and I know we are going to see a sharp rise in its use over the next few months. However, I’m not so sure that it is being shown in its greatest light on the Six Apart site.

As I’ve said before, something about using sIFR for links really irks me.

At Six Apart a lot of the Flash headlines are also main navigation links to different parts of the site. By using sIFR to render these they have provided a very flexible and extensible basis to the architecture. New parts can be added or headlines changed very easily, which is an important consideration for any large website.

However, by using Flash replacement instead of a CSS based image replacement, they are forfeiting what is in my opinion, a vital part of the user experience. The contextual right mouse click.

The question has to be: is the flexibility that the sIFR headlines provide for site updates and additions, more important than a key facet of the users browsing experience?

I do not know the workings of the Six Apart site architecture, or the process of site updates. It may be that there is a very significant reason why the decision to use Flash replaced links—in light of the user experience problem—was taken. If there is, I imagine it must be a very good one.

sIFR is at its best when it is enhancing the user experience. Its (arguably too extensive) use on my site does not detract in anyway from the accessiblity or usablity of the site, but does significantly enhances its visual appeal.

The key is to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of sIFR and to decide how best to use it on your own site. Would it really be that hard for Six Apart to create a few more headlines in photoshop, particularly considering the time spent on all the other graphics and headlines which aren’t Flash replacements?

However disappointed we may be when we actually get to see this thing, you have to admit that it is a step forward. I mean what’s the worst that can happen? Standards support can’t go backwards (can it?), and surely we’ll get full CSS 2 and PNG support.

So I welcome the announcement; at least for the time being.

This kind of thing probably happens all the time, but today was my first real experience of it. Let me put you in the picture.

I recently spent a good few hours of my timedoing a little work for quite a well known weblog in the US. The result of this was a fairly detailed typographical report, and some new style sheets for the look of the text, headlines, footer, etc. These were received with great delight by the client, who said he would immediately apply the recommendations to the live site. Everything was good.

However, on a quick visit today, I notice that one small thing has been changed in the styles. It’s a really small thing, but in my opinion (which is what I was paid to give) my version was a hell of a lot better.

Why do people do this? Spend all that money getting the expert (ahem…) to fix things, and then at the last minute decide that they know better. Frustrating to say the least.

As I said, this kind of thing probably happens all the time, and maybe I’ll get used to it. But it does raise an interesting question.

Can having a credit and link to a designer—or design company—on a popular site have potential disadvantages as well as benefits?

The benefits are obvious as the link is essentially a referral from that client and could bring more work your way. But what happens when in a year’s time, the site has had so many bits added, and bits taken away, and other ‘little changes’, that the whole design just doesn’t work anymore? It probably won’t be such a good advertisement for you then.

Any thoughts on this?

To any designers reading this: do you normally ask for credit on a site? If so, do you monitor the site now and again and ask for the credit to be removed if the design has slipped, or been corrupted in some way?

Comment away people!

I’ve used Skypeas an IM client a few times now and have been impressed. Haven’t had much of a chance to give it a real work out on that front yet, but this evening I did make my first PC to phone call, and to say I’m impressed is quite an understatement.

As it says when you load up the client side app… “It just works”.

Having got my 10 Euro of credit from my credit card, I then took the following steps to make the phone call.

1. Typed the number into the little box
2. Clicked the green button

In less than 2 seconds the phone was ringing, and within another 5 the missus had picked up and that was that.

I didn’t make any mention to the fact I was not using my phone for the call, and she didn’t pick up on any funny caller ID. Actually, she tends to dismiss anything I get remotely excited about ‘computer wise’ so I decided to keep stum.

Anyway, after a pleasant three minute call I hung up with a true sense of satisfaction. I will definitely be using this a lot, especially when international calls to the US are concerned. The cost is still 1.1p per minute, which is superb, and beats BT rates by… well, a lot.

Only two downpoints to tonights call though. Firstly, the call was to her mobile phone, so was slightly more expensive than the 1p per minute to a landline, and secondly I now have to go and pick her up from the station.

Is it me or is it more important that there’s a damn good fight at Highbury tonight, rather than a good game of football. I want us to stuff United as much as the next man, but anyone listening to BBC Radio 5 commentary would think it’s some kind of fantasy wrestling match about to take place.

Keane vs. Viera, Rooney vs. Campbell, Henry vs. Ferdinand. The BBC’s already reported an ‘incident’ in the tunnel before kick off. Gimme a break.

There were more chat about the referee and how he should handle the match, rather than any kind of tactical talk. No wonder I don’t want to watch Sky anymore these days. I bet it’s far worse.

Anyway, on the upside we appear to be all over them in the opening 5 minutes.