sugarenia.com

Pattern repositories are a nice and useful - for once - trend. What are they? In their basic form, they are just galleries with screenshots coming from different sites, showcasing the different approaches in, let’s say, search boxes or contact forms.

I’ve followed almost all pattern repositories that emerged during the last few months - most of those though had trouble updating with the latest site releases and became stale after a while.

Since then, I’ve relied mostly to Flickr for finding inspiration for specific web design modules, until I thought oh what the eff, I’ll post my tids’n'bits from here and there too. Be sure to check them out, I’ll try and update it as much as I can.

Partners to the crime: Paparazzi! for the full screen site screenshots, Skitch for the insta-uploading to Flickr.

P.S. For something more substantial than my mediocre attempts, try out Pattern Tap, the latest and greatest in patterns sharing.

pattern tap, pattern, repositories, ux

I think I am.

I’ll prove it to you. Bring me forth any weirdly operating door, a shiny elevator or even a mere fancy faucet. I won’t be able to use the object at first. I’ll have to stop, study it for a while and then - maybe - I’ll make it work.

I remember not being able to wash my hands, to operate revolving doors, to flush the toilet (sorry for the eww moment), all more than once.

I always was like that - I suck at recognizing new usage patterns in objects. Sometimes, this proves useful, since I can relate to naive users more easily. But at all times, this quirk has made me an object of mockery and laughs.

Am I to blame that I cannot use faucets? I don’t know. Should I stop and examine a faucet before using it? I don’t think.

Lay off with the innovative designs people. Innovation is good, but we surely don’t need a hundred new ways of operating a revolving door. Or a faucet. I really hate faucets.

For this one time, my dear designers, don’t break the rules.

All yours,
t3h st00pid g1rl

P.S. At least it seems I’m not alone. Read this book.

design, usability, design of everyday things, donald norman

We’re living in a web era that constraints seem to be the latest trend: nowadays, it seems everything must lack something to succeed. Usually, it’s features.

I’m not complaining - I like constraints. I’ve found out that my 1200+ updates in Twitter have seriously improved my writing skills, since I have to express everything in 140 characters. Flickr made a bold move, adding a tiny limit (compared to YouTube) to video lengths, consequently turning its newcomer Video service to more like a Long Photograph service.

Internationally, users have learned to embrace lack of features and seek simplicity in web apps, which should focus on finding their niche and not just do everything at once.

Or have they?

I’m puzzled - do users really like all the fancy features we all work so hard to provide them, or are they happy with what they get at the first place?

Discuss.

constraints, flickr, youtube, twitter, users

And by CSS3 I mean a recent project I’ve undertaken, accompanied by some fine guys: Yiannis, Alex, John, Apostolos. CSS3 is a greek online magazine on design, web standards, usability issues and accessibility, which will hopefully reach and be useful to all web creative experts.

Yiannis presented our ways last night in OpenCoffee SLK. It was too bad that the rest of us couldn’t attend the presentation, but we await eagerly for the videos. Yiannis also gave another presentation, more technical this time, which as I hear was terrific (and I wouldn’t settle for nothing less anyway). You can find his slides in the relevant post.

I’m already stressed about it (as I’m always doing when new challenges arise), but it’s creative stress. I like the company of four great guys and I like the atmosphere and the fact that we always get to agree somehow. We’re already working on the design and we hope to have something more… substantial to say later in summer.

Till then, stay tuned.

css3

The people behind the latest Cosmote banner campaign must be so, so proud. They managed to conceive the worst ad banner campaign ever invented. Yeah, even worse than the dancing baby one. Yay for them.

Notice the whiteness while browsing several mainstream greek sites? Think your computer is slow, your connection is slow, or your brain is slow? Look no further, it’s the Cosmote banner.

It hides (?!) the content of the page behind it, to make it look like your Internet is very, very slow. It advertises high-speed Internet cards, so it asks, oh so cleverly: Slow connections? Long loading times? Try Cosmote.

Oh. My. Friggin. God.

I can’t even begin to describe how many usability (not to mention federal and international and transgalaxian) laws it just stomps on. It friggin’ HIDES (forgive my caps) the content of a perfectly running and functional page, forcing you to think that your connection is slow, so hey, you need Cosmote.

We’re talking nonsense here. Whoever is behind it (I don’t know who, I don’t care if I know them) must be truly, madly, deeply ashamed. I can understand the ignorance of the people that approved it, but I cannot possibly see how a web advertiser in his right mind would ever propose something like that.

It’s the worst banner ever invented.

Oh wait…

No.

It’s definitely the worst banner ever invented.

cosmote, banner, sucks