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 really, really like Last.fm new design. It’s so clean and organized for once - using the old interface, I could not really tell what was where and always found myself clicking here and there to get the pages I wanted.

But the current one, ah! So usable, so pretty, so clean, so new.

It has its rough edges (all redesigns have at first) but it’s a nice change for one of my favourite social sites.

And the people who worked on it do not - in any way - deserve the shit they get thrown at since they launched the new design.

Really, people. You, Last.fm users out there. Especially the freebies. What’s wrong with you? What do you think is SO fundamentally wrong with the new design?

Jeez.

See my point now?

last.fm, redesign

Gather round, folks. I have something to confide.

Most of us work as web designers, web developers or copywriters for the web. Something around ‘web’, in general. 

We strive to keep our designs and projects compatible with the latest web standards, we use modern browsers and trendy applications, we design Web 2.0 and 3.0 and n.0, trying to keep up with the latest trends in web design and web technology and web copy. We design for clients of every aspect, clients that are close to the Web or not, clients that know what they want or pretend to know what they want or are clueless whatsoever.

We love the Web and try to keep up with its ever-changing waves every freakin’ day.

I have a question for all of you, webbies: Who do we work for? Or else, who do we kid?

Who appreciates our sweaty forehead, after keeping our HTML error-free and accessible? Who do you think cares about pixel perfect designs and crisp mockups apart from us? Who cares about web standards and basic principles of design anyway, apart from web designers? 

More than once in my short career in Web I’ve answered myself: Noone.

Think, webbies, are we designing just for us? Just for a clique of people that will pat our back and say “hey, great job”? What do our clients see? What do our users see? What do they appreciate? Do you think they like new features? Do you think they ever use them?

Sigh.

P.S. Get-in-the-same-lousy-mood-as-me game: Check your perfectly crafted HTML mockup on client’s IE5, repeatedly alternating windows with Firefox. Bang head on desk as needed.

I’m ashamed to admit, I haven’t discovered Konigi till recently. It’s a great repository of design bits, methods, tools and techniques related to user experience, a recent favourite of mine.

First of all, I digg the design. I digg it so much it hurts. I guess when we teach “content must define the design, never the opposite”, that’s what we have in mind:

Simple, works.

Feel free to browse the archives, but what I liked best was these graph paper templates, because hey, you can never stop using pencil and paper in UI design.

konigi, UX, design

Zennaware’s Cornerstone is a (or yet another a) sexy Subversion client app for Mac OS. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m sure it’ll be pretty enough. But the site, oh, the site:

Awesome use of colours and grids in a page so informative it (kinda) hurts. I love it.

What I’d like to see differently: Screenshots should be moved to the top of the content, right after the introductory text. Screenshots is the first thing a user wants to see while checking out an app, especially a Mac user.

Moreover, I’m a sucker for big headers, but well, this one kinda hurts my 13.3” Macbook. Only thing I can see when full screen is the humongous logo, the download badge and some text.

zennaware, cornerstone, subversion