Honest Insights In User Experience Design

I recently wrote a guest post about 2010 design trends on the influential web design blog, WebDesignerWall. In the post, I introduced the idea of Design Simplicity. Here is a brief introduction to the article. Read the full article here.

HTML5 Video, not HTML5-format Video…

Recently I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about HTML5 Video, and my biggest gripe is that people are referring to it as if it’s a format. Let’s get that straightened out right now. There is no such thing as an HTML5 Video. There is such a thing as an HTML5 compliant browser playing back video using the <video> element instead of Flash, Windows Media Player or QuickTime. Now that the misunderstanding is all cleared up, let’s move on to the considerations you might make as a content distributor or an end user. Continue Reading

“Pop” is a pretty common request in design. While it’s not the most descriptive edit, I typically translate it into adding more contrast to an element. That can be done in lots of different ways, but here are some easy ways to give a more physical feeling to your screenshots or photos.

A Physical Piece of Paper

These shadows have a realistic shape that makes the screenshot look like an actual piece of paper. The realism created with these shadows is what attracts the user’s attention.

http://www.getzcope.com/

http://www.reinvigorate.net/

We are thrilled to be working with Joie de Vivre hotels. Bill, Chuck and I recently flew up to San Francisco to meet with their team and experience a few of their amazing hotels. If you are not familiar with JDV, they are a boutique hotel company founded by Chip Conley. They have hotels throughout California including San Francisco, Orange County, Los Angeles and Sonoma. Each hotel is unique in style and character.

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We are very excited to announce that we are working with Penn State University to strategize and redesign a new site for Penn State World Campus. World Campus is their online education program that offers students the ability to earn a Penn State Degree or certificate from anywhere in the world. Students are taught by the same instructors that teach in the campus environments and can choose form over 50 undergraduate and graduate programs.

Our creative squad recently flew out to Happy Valley in State College, PA to kick off the project and meet with the Penn State team. We worked closely with their core team in multiple strategy sessions and met with a large group of stakeholders that will be involved with the project as well. We returned to San Diego with tons of valuable information, excitement, and bellies full of Penn State’s creamery ice cream (some more than others…Staci).

Face to face time with clients is invaluable to us and we always like to get to know our clients in person as we kick off a project. It lends to a healthier, more engaging relationship throughout the project and helps produce great results. We pride ourselves on having great clients and it is not surprising that many of these relationships become great friendships as well.

We are really excited to be working on the World Campus project. Online education is growing rapidly and we are thrilled to be working with such a respectable university to improve the learning experience with students worldwide.